Apparently, there is another of these freak-show Republican debates tonight. The best part is that CNN is teaming up with the Tea Party Express to co-sponsor the thing. Nothing like legitimizing a scam organization. Way to go CNN.
The Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm Russo Marsh and Rogers founded the Tea Party Express through its political action committee Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) in the summer of 2009. Russo Marsh and Rogers is a campaign consultancy specializing in promoting conservative candidates and causes. Sal Russo of Russo Marsh and Rogers serves as the chief strategist for Tea Party Express. Russo worked on a range of establishment Republican campaigns going back three decades. He was an aide to Ronald Reagan when Reagan was governor of California. Russo has also worked for Orrin Hatch, Jack Kemp, and George Pataki. Tea Party Express co-founder Howard Kaloogian is a former California state lawmaker and onetime congressional candidate whose campaign was marred with controversy when a picture posted on his website of a quiet-looking street scene as “proof” that the situation in Iraq was far safer than the media was reporting was revealed in the media to have actually been taken in Turkey…
…Radio host Mark Williams, the former chairman of the Tea Party Express, was widely denounced in the summer of 2010 for writing a letter in praise of slavery in the voice of “colored people” on his blog. He was forced to resign his Tea Party Express spokesperson position.
A December 28, 2009 article in Talking Points Memo detailed that OCDB directed almost three-quarters of all its funding to the Republican-affiliated political consulting firm that created the PAC in the first place. According to FEC filings, from July through November 2009, OCDB spent around $1.33 million, and of that sum, $857,122 went to the consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Rogers. OCDB was founded by Sal Russo of the Russo, Marsh, and Rogers.
In January 2011, OpenSecrets.org reported that a dead woman had donated thousands of dollars to the Tea Party Express’ political action committee.
All of the Republican debates are unwatchable hatefests, but this one ought to be among the worst of this election cycle. Who will stand up to the Tea Party at a fake Tea Party event? I think I’ll follow it on Twitter. It’s much less infuriating that way.
Can I submit the NYT as future wankers of the day if this gawker story proves to be true?
Is Barack Obama Depressed?
Really? Someone is gonna have to tell me what is the point of a story like this?? Is it just Drudge/Rush/FauxNews bait?
Obama smiles a lot for someone who is depressed.
NYT is on my S list.
Remember all the attacks in the fall of 2008. To the point that Obama in a stump speech made a point of brushing off his shoulders to demonstrate that it did not throw him off stride.
Likely he won’t mention it at all if the NYT actually publishes this sort of hit job. But if he does, expect a good joke.
This is the same NYT whose cutting edge analysis of HRC’s presidential run was a fact-free “investigative” piece speculating on the health of the Clinton marriage. I didn’t even like HRC and I thought it was offensive (and sexist). Methinks they’re jealous of Gawker’s traffic.
given the format.
but the teahadists’ timing is really bad…it’s the opener of monday night football featuring the the bitter rivalry between denver and oakland… so l suspect its gonna be a very small viewing audience.
not like anyone will be missing anything significant.
I don’t what Tea Party Express is, but the Tea Party itself does deserve to be hosting and mediating these debates. If Perry or Bachman get the nomination, I think it may be time to discuss whether the Republican party has become extinct, with the tea party essentially gobbling up the name “Republican” for branding purposes.
I will try to watch it but it’s hard to say how long I’ll be able to take Wolf Blitzer asking Twitter-sourced questions of these Morons and the audience reaction.
It can be maddening and I will skip the post-debate spin, but I like to follow the game of politics. I guess it’s like NASCAR fans – I’m always waiting for someone to crash and burn.
I won’t be watching it.
I’ll be following updates on twitter, but that’s it.
I do have some predictions though. Perry will be just as bad as he was before and Romney will be as wooden as he usually is, but I suspect Bachmann is gonna try to go for the jugular. She needs to because as of the last debate and since Perry’s entry Perry has sucked up all the oxygen on her side of the tea party church. The media is literally calling her the “disappearing candidate”. She’s got to do something to get her mojo back. Hell Newt freakin’ Gingrich is polling better than her in CNN pre-debate poll!
I’ll watch it for you 😛
Lol, you guys are softies. You should go listen to the Republican primaries for local office where I live. If you think these people are bad, you’ve seen nothing. These people are tame.
Newt on the Social Security kerfuffle:
Of course he scares them. Black men are by definition scary. He might mug them or something.
Just waiting for someone to analogize Obama’s economic ideas with a “mugging.” It’s gotta happen sometime soon. Bachmann already accused him of “stealing $500 Billion from seniors” for his socialist Obamacare plan.
Correction: That’s “STEALING” not “stealing.”
Well, they already have the
heroin metaphor floating around out there.
Rick Perry is doing much better this time around.
Agreed. And Romney, so far, is coming off like a dolt.
My god, that Michele Bachmann really turns the level of stupid up to not just 11, but 12 or even 13. And she honestly believes the bullshit coming out of her mouth. More amazing is that no one calls her out on it.
For anyone who may not know the history behind “These go up to 11” well, here you go.
Is Palin at the debate?
No.
“The GOP is now not only cheering executions; they are cheering people dying because thay cannot afford any health insurance. Cheering death by poverty. “Yeah!” came the cry.”
Ok, that kind of surprised me. Ron Paul was asked what we should do if someone has a coma and has no health insurance, “Should we let them die?”
An audience member cheered, “YEAH!” and Ron Paul basically said, “That’s his/her own fault for not assessing risk. Free market.”
That struck me exactly the same way. I was tempted to comment on it myself. The Bachmann completely dodged the question and no one called her out.
On this immigration question “What would you do to get the illegals out of our country,” I’m just waiting to hear someone suggest something along the line of “Death Camps.” They would win the debate with this crowd.
because THAT IS WHO THEY ARE.
how many times do I have to call them SOCIOPATHS before folks will just accept it and proceed accordingly against these assholes
They’ll damn sure understand if they take over the Senate and White House.
And let me say before I go it’s nights like this that I get especially frustrated with Latinos. I understand their impatience and disillusionment with Democrats, but when your choice is between a party that isn’t moving quicky enough to afford you citizenship and a party that wants to build a wall to keep you out and hunt you down with predator drones, the choice should be easy. The Hispanic Caucus should be ashamed for doing or saying anything that would depress Latino turnout.
Does the fact that money donated to the TPEx instead lines Sal Russo(et al)’s pockets actually bother anyone?
I think that’s probably the best place for it, rather than actually working towards anything.
Go CNN!
Newt:
9/11, 9/11, 9/11. Be very afraid. Let’s give all of our money to the Homeland Security Industrial Complex and live in cocoons because we’re all so damn scared.
Ron Paul is being BOOOED big-time for pointing out that not all Muslims are evil and they had a valid point that our interference in their countries pre-9/11 was what made some of their radicals want to attack us.
BTW – Tonight’s Tea Party Debate is being brought to you by the “Clean Coal” industry. Just so you know.
Also, too… Best Coal Commercial EVER!
Let me see. As best as I can make out without having watched it, Thad McCotter had the most fun (cheering the Tigers against the White Sox). Must be some political code in there somewhere.
Rick Perry nailed Romney.
Michele Bachmann found the chink in Perry’s armor — forced vaccination “rejections”. Other than that, usual muttering.
Santorum thought Italians should be forced to speak English.
Ron Paul said the unthinkable. And got the expected.
Newt was channeling Rudy.
Huntsman tried to pander to the Tea Party (unsuccessully).
And no Republican anymore believes in life after birth.
Advantage: Wounded toned-down Perry.
Agreed with this. Good summation. And I watched the whole thing through 😉
Agreed. Totally nailed it!
Good summation but you missed the moment of the night. Crowd cheering for uninsured to be left to die. This is why I have no forgiveness for Democrats who would unleash these barbarians on the most vulnerable.
Just another example of not believing in life after birth.
I don’t think you are going to see Democrats (unless it’s Mark Warner) unleash these barbarians on the most vulnerable.
But you might see some third party and progressives who voted for Obama in 2008 sit this one out or look for a third party candidate.
But events between now and January could turn this around.
I think that Obama has enough general trust in the country, even in the South, that he can push his American Jobs Act hard and put the GOP caucus at a disadvantage — maybe even forcing acceptance of the whole enchilada. But it’s going to take rank-and-file Democrats leaning on the weak members of the Democratic caucus to get it done.
If the US improbably abstains from or votes yes on Palestinian sovereignty, the change in the situation in the Middle East could be a great benefit come next November.
If US troops actually leave Iraq without the dancing about trying to keep a military presence, he will help himself with progressives.
If he decides that the US needs to withdraw from Afghanistan quickly in order to stabilize the Karzai government (there’s a counterintuitive idea for you), he will also help himself.
When the new Libyan government captures Gaddafi, Saif, and Genussi and delivers them to trial or the ICC, there will be grudging acceptance among progressives that he did the right thing by keeping the US military from bigfooting the operation. If these three die, resisting the inevitable to the bitter end, it will not hurt him.
If come January, the deficit/debt plan is passed by Congress and it does not cut Social Security, does not increase the age of eligibility of Medicare, and does not cut Medicaid, he will get a second look even from some dissatisfied progressives. If he succeeds in closing tax loopholes and revamping the tax laws in a progressive direction, he will gain back even more.
There are 14 months before next November– and eternity in political terms. And the barbarians have not even warmed up for their real primary fights.
Ummm I think I’m going to have to retract my prediction that Rubio is a sure bet for the VP slot. He would need Secret Service protection from the Tea Party. These people really hate Latinos.
I think it’ll be McDonnell from Virginia.
I’ve thought that for a while, too.
Nikki Haley is going to be disappointed.
But they love Latinos (and black people) who pretend to agree with them for the money. And Rubio is a good looking guy. And he’s Cuban, not a dirty Messican. And Cuban-Americans are often conservatives and against those damn commies. So there’s a difference, you know.
“And Cuban-Americans are often conservatives and against those damn commies.”
Buncha little Batista wannabes.