As everyone probably knows by now, the great Tea Party Convention is in full swing this weekend in Nashville.

A whopping 600 teabaggers are gathered to hear their leaders, and are especially excited to hear Sarah Palin.

The convention kicked off to a great start with notable speaker Tom Tancredo –

Tancredo told the audience that the country had elected “a committed socialist ideologue in the White House” because “we do not have a civics, literary test before people can vote in this country“:

The opening-night speaker at the first National Tea Party Convention ripped into President Obama, Sen. John McCain and “the cult of multiculturalism,” asserting that Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

The speaker, former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., told about 600 delegates in a Nashville, Tenn., ballroom that in the 2008 election, America “put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House … Barack Hussein Obama.”

Tancredo says Obama won because we lack a ‘literacy test before people can vote in this country.’

Another speaker was Steven Millroy who claimed –

President Obama is not a U.S. socialist. He’s an international socialist. He envisions one world government. That’s what his whole plan is.

How Dare You Say We Believe This Stuff!

And there were these words of wisdom from Joseph Farah –

My dream is that IF Barack Obama even seeks re-election as president in 2012, he won’t be able to go to any city, any town, any hamlet in America without seeing signs that ask, “Where’s the birth certificate?”

What I’ll say today at 1st Tea Party Convention

The Tea Party Movement is claiming victory for Scott Brown winning Senator Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts and Brown’s win has bolstered the movement.

The Tea Party Express PAC spent $285,000 for Brown’s campaign, and there are reportedly several other smaller Tea Party PACs from Tennessee to California, which are working on campaigns for Tea Party candidates.

The Tea Party is looking to corporations, since the SCOTUS ruling –

Tea party looking for corporate donations

The US Supreme Court’s recent decision to scale back part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms could also come to play a role. Tea party organizers gathered in Nashville, Tenn., say corporations are welcome to donate.

The establishment of various tea-party-related campaign funds is part of a rush by genuine organizers, K Street lobbyists, established party operatives, and even hucksters to cash in on the tea party moniker – a criticism that has been leveled from both outside and inside the movement against Tea Party Nation, the for-profit group that’s bringing former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to Nashville for a speech Saturday night.

New Tea Party PAC: Can it raise $10 million for midterm revolt?

But there are problems within the Tea Party Movement itself, with protests from within.
A splinter group has emerged due to the price of the convention and the feeling of being scammed by the Tea Party leaders.

Meanwhile, a splinter group plans to stage a guerilla press conference on the grounds of the Opryland Resort to denounce the convention for its cost and failure to represent the tea party spirit.

Harnessing ‘tea party’ spirit won’t be easy. Convention is proof.

Can Sarah Palin unite her loyal teabaggers or will her appearance divide the movement further?

Stay tuned.

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javaz
I am a retired aerospace engineer, happily married for over twenty-four years. My hobbies include blogging on PPOV, reading mystery/romance novels, playing guitar, learning the piano and writing. My husband and I love to travel in our camper/trailer, and have visited 45 states, besides having lived in France for 2 years and seeing most of Europe. "Today is the first day of the rest of your life? Well, that's true of every day but one - the day you die." American Beauty "All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure." Mark Twain "A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar." Mark Twain

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Chernynkaya
Member

According to the Southern Poverty Law center, Tom Tancredo — already known for his nativist anti-immigrant fervor–associates with white supemacists:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2006/winter/neo-confederates

darleneslee
Member
darleneslee

I agree with Sue. Sarah is a threat that should never be over-looked or underestimated. She is positioning herself to be the voice of the Republican party and the power broker.She doesn’t have the intellect to run a dog house, but she is shrewd enough use her conservative talking points to start a movement during our economic unrest. Add to that the SCOTUS decision and we could be in big trouble. It may be a stretch but look at Hitler.She is using the dissatisfaction from the right and left. We as liberals and progressives are divided as to what direction is best for us and the country. At the present time all we have is Obama and his agenda and although it may not be all that we want he is not pushing us off a cliff. WE are going to have to get rid of blue dogs and somehow get more dems elected.

Khirad
Member

Joan Walsh on the speech:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2010/02/06/palin_speaks

Sorry, but a part of me remains gruesomely fascinated by her, and as a glutton for pain, I sit through her speeches yelling back (with words not even appropriate for the Planet). Like, I’m still trying to figure out what the eff is wrong with people to not see what a fake she is. I sense an actual reality show coming up in her future. That, however; I won’t watch.

None of us are perfect, and yes, I do realize the media’s culpability and symbiotic relationship with this know nothing lightweight.

Hopeington
Member
Hopeington

The remark made by Tancredo, is probably the most telling and vile.
I was only 11 when the literacy tests were abolihed and had to do some reading up on it to remember the year was 1964…only 46 years ago.
I think the TPartiers fuel the type of person that still wants this.
They certainly seemed to enjoy his comments.

choicelady
Member

Upon reflection over Tancredo and Palin, et al., the really burning issue is that we have no civics or literacy test before people RUN for public office. That I might well get behind!

Hopeington
Member
Hopeington

http://www.crmvet.org/info/lithome.htm
Here is a choice little article about literacy tests in Alabama before the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
How anyone got registered I’ll never know.
And yes, literacy tests for politicians..okay by me.

Hopeington
Member
Hopeington

By the way choice, I went to the site you mentioned, yesterday I think, and signed the petition.
All your posts are a pleasure to read and you and Cher have made me take a look at religion from a refreshing viewpoint. I feel like you are a genuine caring human being and I’m so glad I “bumped” into you and all the other wonderful people here. I appreciate the positive vibes!

Khirad
Member

Tancredo:

jan4insight
Guest

I feel like I got to the party just as everyone was leaving. Sigh.
🙁

Hopeington
Member
Hopeington

Hey Jan, I just checked back in…That woman sure said a whole lot of nothing tonight. It truly was difficult to listen to, but I wanted to have my own opinion..boy oh boy, however, 600 people does not a revolution make!

jan4insight
Guest

You what really breaks my heart about all of this? The Baggers convention is, what, 600 people and a quitter for a guest speaker – and the msm is all over it like flies on shit (pardon my French),

But how many have us have marched with thousands or even hundreds of thousands of others, for peace, for equality, for social and economic justice, for years and years, and what does the msm say about these protests?

{crickets}

jan4insight
Guest

They’ve got Sarah’s face plastered all over the front page of that Other Site right now ,,, and quotes from her that make me want to photoshop AH’s face on Sarah’s. Except I don’t have or know how to use photoshop ,,, but anyone who does, be my guest 😉

Pepe Lepew
Member

Sarah, Inane and Banal…

Kalima
Admin

Sarah, hypocrite, narcissist and opportunist.

KQµårk 死神
Member

It’s a huge misnomer that that teabaggers are populist they are much more like modern Libertarians that just don’t want to pay taxes and want government to do nothing. Teabaggers don’t want more bank regulations and don’t mind corporations dominating our lives instead of government. Populists want government to interfere on our behave to save us from being dominated by big business and the elitists. Populists believe in civil liberties and the separation of church and state. Something these teabaggers don’t give a crap about. Our differences go far beyond just the racial aspect of what these teabaggers want for the country. The only thing both groups have in common is hating the bailouts but duh everyone hates them. Teabaggers like Brown don’t even want to tax the bailouts. Of course Aryanna and Hamster are pushing we can work with these groups out of mutual hated but that just shows they only care about being spiteful. They are just suckers who can’t see that the America teabaggers want is diametrically opposed to what progressive populists want.

jan4insight
Guest

“Libertarians that just don

KQµårk 死神
Member

They are not a coherent or consistent group at all that’s true. They complain about the deficit too but they still want there Medicare. I think allot of these inconsistencies come from quite a few factors like they are elderly in many cases and their primary motivation is to lash out at Obama for racist reasons. The principles they choose are just secondary to their real motivations. Who knew 20 years after Public Enemy released “Fear of a Black Planet” that a group would form just from that fear.

choicelady
Member

Hi KQ – missed you earlier in this. Well said here. Populists began in the Gilded Age as reformers standing against the powerful corporate interests of their day, namely the railroads. So yes indeed – tea bag folks who insist they never met a corporation they did not LIKE, are not populists at all. Thanks for the really concise assessment of what a fraud this movement is.

SueInCa
Member

Hey Kalima and Hope
I will be out there kicking ass to make sure people vote. We have our own mess here in CA to fix and Whitman is not the ticket. Good night you two, see you all tomorrow.

Kalima
Admin

You go girl, give em hell! 🙂

Good night Sue, hope you rest well and forget about this BS until the morning.

Hopeington
Member
Hopeington

Sue..Sorry i missed saying good night, but I am behind you here in CA, or next to you or in front of you… or wherever I’m needed. Boxer can not lose!
Let’s get em out there and voting!

SueInCa
Member

The only thing I would worry about is if she actually got in to office and stranger things have happened. She is backed by the religious right, Pat Dobson, Tony Perkins, Rick Warren, Chuck Colson, Huckabee(if he does not get the nomination) and many others. These people have proven over and over they will stop at nothing and poor ole Huckabee has his own Willie Horton to confront if he runs. I read this article last year right before the election late on a Saturday night. It made me so sick to my stomach and worried, I called a friend and made her read it too at 11 at night. This is what you will see if she gets in to office………………

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/the-battle-plan-ii-sarah_b_128393.html

Kalima
Admin

With her track record, leaving halfway through her term in Alaska, who would take the risk of ensuring her entry into office anywhere, it would be madness or political suicide.

SueInCa
Member

The religious right is the epitome of “madness”

Kalima
Admin

Oh I agree Sue, but do they really have the last word?

SueInCa
Member

If they generate their voting base, maybe so. I am not saying she will win, I am just saying not to discount her or not keep our eyes on the twit. The people who follow her are just as brainless as she is. In fact Tancredo was talking about 3/4 of the people in the movement and the republican party about voters with no idea what they are voting for…………..

Kalima
Admin

Yes, keep an eye on her but I don’t think it’s healthy for Liberals, Progressives and Dems to obsess about her enough to give her and her dumb cultists more importance than they deserve, it takes the mind off more important issues you are all facing right now and gives her an emotional “win.”

There are more important issues to be fighting for like HCR, I hope no one takes their eyes off the ball for a second. Palin and her ilk are just a distraction and should be laughed at because of it and in spite of it. Everyone needs to take a few steps back to see the whole picture I think.

SueInCa
Member

I agree and I for one do not obsess on her, I just want to make sure people do not forget. Of course as soon as she opens her mouth, the brainless thoughts come out so not to worry too much unless dems stay home…………

Kalima
Admin

Yes, Dems staying home, Dems sending a message, for the life of me I just don’t get the message of letting the Repubs win seats in the Senate. Goes right over my non American head.

Hopeington
Member
Hopeington

I have to agree with you Sue, although I think she never had any intention of running for any office. She has only $$ signs in her eyes. But she loves the attention and mystery it entails when everyone is speculating about it.
$400.000. a year is peanuts to what she could make and she knows the job is too hard. Just look at how white President Obama’s hair has gotten this year. She can’t risk her “pretty” appearance.

Khirad
Member

Someone posted something they read in WaPo comments about the meme that Palintologists say we’re afraid of her. Normally, I brush it off as we’re laughing at her. But this bears reposting here:

“Yeah, some of the left are afraid and worried about Sarah Palin – in the same way that people in Weimar Germany and Italy & Russia in the 1930s were afraid that a charlatan, rebuked pseudo-artist/pseudo-Christian-cultist and a paranoid peasant’s son would figure out a way to mass-market themselves as saviours to a population desperate for easy/false answers and solutions to their national and economic malaise. People like Palin have reached powerful positions before in this world, and the results have been millions of lives lost in bloodshed and massive oppression. Learn from history or be doomed to repeat it.”

Kalima
Admin

People who are afraid of someone like Palin are losing their bearings on reality. She’s the msm’s pet and they tend to push her down the throats of the viewing public and people fall for the sound bites, that’s how most tv networks work.

As I told a dear friend in NC the other day, you know what you stand for, you know what your values and principles are, when you see the Palin interviews, laugh at her ignorance or even better, turn off your tv and listen to some soothing music. This woman will never be elected as POTUS.

Khirad
Member

Was that hyperbole, sure. Am I afraid of her? no. It is her followers that do frighten me though.

Remember, Bush got elected twice.

Kalima
Admin

Yes he was, but others pulled the strings, I doubt that after her display of “going rogue” during the McGrumps campaign, Sister Sarah likes being told what to do, then again if it makes her rich, but you can’t make a silk purse a sow’s ear.

Khirad
Member

Oh, I don’t fear her so much, as much as the general atmosphere described. Not so much that she’s the next coming of Hitler (she’s certainly not), but that the know-nothing type of nativism she whips up frightens me. That’s the whole point I was trying to get across. She has no political future.

Kalima
Admin

Yes, ignorance frightens me too. I’ve seen it up close in the guise of xenophobia as a kid and experienced it for myself because I was out with an Asian man in London. These people exist everywhere, I doubt that they will ever change.

Khirad
Member

Was the “P” word uttered, by chance?

Kalima
Admin

No I think they said, “What are you doing with a yellow, slit eyes?”

It was night, in the London Underground, I was ready to charge but hubby held me back, they were looking for someone to beat up, we turned our backs and walked away.

Khirad
Member

Oh, I confused “Asian”

With Brits I’m never sure. 😉

Kalima
Admin

I’ve heard the “P” word often enough over there.

choicelady
Member

I keep looking at our history of nativism and seeing that while it has been a force without doubt, NO candidate that ran as a nativist ever won. Millard Fillmore came the closest and that’s because he was already president, but he got defeated on his Know Nothing platform. Nativism has a huge impact in terms of its ability to create uproar and even violence, but it has little staying power as a political force for the White House. I don’t see it even half so powerful today – too regional an issue and too uncomfortable for most Americans.

Khirad
Member

Indeed.

choicelady
Member

Remember Bush did NOT get elected twice, perhaps not at all. And herein lies the difference. To do what Bush did requires ties to the mightiest of powers which he had. Palin does NOT and in fact has pissed off the powers that be.

She is the equivalent of George Wallace, not G.W. Bush. Certainly not Adolph Schiklegruber! She has a small and vigorous following, but she has not got the money and support that it takes to get elected. And she is too erratic to get and keep it. She annoys the power brokers – the corporate money where the real work of elections gets done. Her followers are equally peripheral – they are the same sorts of high visibility, low elite support rightwingers that she is.

It worries me a LOT more that Scotty might rise. Though I frankly think his pro-choice record CAN be stopped by the party leaders. I think he’s not yet the ‘new wave Reep’ – too soon for that. As long as the litmus test of abortion, god, guns, gays, and no taxes is all the party is about, Scotty won’t work either. All the real potential candidates have some sort of fatal flaw. She’s the worst of the lot, so I don’t think she’s likely. She, like Goerge Wallace, is simply hot stuff for the media, not for the party, not for voters.

I’m not saying don’t worry, but I think she’s not the likely one. Kalima is right – OUR work is to get good programs and policies passed so we have solid ground for later this year and 2012.

nellie
Member

Absolutely spot on, choicelady. GW had an elite, well-heeled, powerful sponsorship behind his theft of the presidency. Palin has nothing like that. She can’t do what she’s told and she’s not a real believer. Bush was as corporatist as his sponsors. And he could follow directions. Let’s hope we never have to deal with another like him.

whatsthatsound
Member

After “Chicago” by CSN

Though your brother’s munching nachos
And he can’t rise from his chair
Won’t you please come down to Nashville
Just to whine
In a land that’s known as “freedom”
there is socialism in the air
Won’t you please come down to Nashville
join your kind
We can change the world –
Re-arrange the world
It’s dying – to get better
Democrats and liberals sit yourself down,
There’s nothing for you here
Won’t you please come down to Nashville
For a ride
Don’t ask Barack to help you
Cause he’ll turn the other ear
Won’t you please come down to Nashville
Or else join the other side
We can change the world –
Re-arrange the world

choicelady
Member

WTS – THAT deserves a “WOW”!!! VEry cool!

whatsthatsound
Member

600? What’s the opposite of “wow”?
Anyway, this might give them some hope:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

– Margaret Mead

Too bad about that “thoughtful” part.

bito
Member

Had to chukle when Ole Tom from Colorado saying “can’t even say the word vote.” Either could my Great-Grandfather from Sweden! Wote? 😆

Khirad
Member

“Voto”

Yes, I’m sure they have trouble. Eek! It’s the same in Italian as Spanish!!!

Kalima
Admin

The opposite of “wow” would be, “OMG, how embarrassing.” Don’t worry, the “Grifter” got her $100,000 so everything is okey dokey, she can put that towards more legal bills coming her way soon.

Seems to me that this bunch of “bright sparks,” have no idea that they are chewing off their own feet, they think with 600 people, that they are birthing a new political party. I think that someone should inform them that with 600 members, they have started a cult. Good luck with the hate and nonsensical rhetoric, the msm is your only friend. Sister Sarah will drop you like hot coals when she has milked you dry of your last dollars. One born every minute.

whatsthatsound
Member

brilliant!

Kalima
Admin

Palin is no more a teabagger than I am, she’s an opportunist chameleon, why do you think she quit halfway through her Alaska term, she used her success? as McGrumps’s VP choice to make money for herself. I don’t think that her book of lies sold that many copies, I saw somewhere that they are offering it for free now. Maybe after the 2012 elections, she can write another one titled “How to Fool some People all of the Time.”

bito
Member

Hello, Kalima! “cult” is the word that has been in my mind today.

Kalima
Admin

There is no other way to describe these people, they seem to worship her, it was the same with our “Aum Shinrikyo” cult over here, they even murdered people who spoke out against them and released the sarin gas in Tokyo and Nagano before that hoping to kill a judge but killing 7 innocent people and a few dogs instead.

Madness, utter blind hate and pure madness.