Keith D. Milby :: blog

Three days after he decried the lack of civility in American politics, President Obama is quoted in a new book about his presidency referring to the Tea Party movement using a derogatory term with sexual connotations.

In Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” President Obama is quoted in an November 30, 2009, interview saying that the unanimous vote of House Republicans vote against the stimulus bills “set the tenor for the whole year … That helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.”

via President Obama: GOP Opposition to Stimulus ‘Helped to Create the Tea-Baggers’ – Political Punch.

The Utah Tea Party movement was started after sports car builder David Kirkham saw blog reports of the very first protest marches against President Obama's bailouts, back in February of 2009. Kirkham figured he could do the same, quickly organized a rally at the Utah State Capitol, and helped build an organization that has held many similar events since. But what to do beyond rallies?

In deep-red Utah, electing Republicans wasn't a challenge. But, Kirkham concluded, electing small-government Republicans wasn't to be taken for granted. His group decided to target the nominating process for Bennett's seat, which in Utah involves a convention process.

via Glenn Harlan Reynolds: Tea Party movement likely to have unglamorous but effective future | Washington Examiner.

Last week, Matt Kibbe posted the voicemail from voiceover actor Lance Baxter (A.K.A D.C. Douglas). The voicemail was very calm, very steady, asking how many FreedomWorks employees were “mentally retarded”, and then goes on to ask what our spin will be when one of our members finally kills someone. And then he left his name and phone number.

Let’s state the obvious: This is sheer stupidity. If you’re even remotely recognizable and you are representing a company, you don’t alienate customers. It’s as simple as that. GEICO obviously saw the damage, and fired him.

via GEICO vs. FreedomWorks? | RedState.

They’ve been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values. Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement—and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation’s first black president.

“I’ve been told I hate myself. I’ve been called an Uncle Tom. I’ve been told I’m a spook at the door,” said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a group of black conservatives who support free market principles and limited government.

via Black conservative tea party backers take heat.

On major issues, 48% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than President Barack Obama. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% hold the opposite view and believe the president’s views are closer to their own.

Not surprisingly, Republicans overwhelmingly feel closer to the Tea Party and most Democrats say that their views are more like Obama’s. Among voters not affiliated with either major political party, 50% say they’re closer to the Tea Party while 38% side with the President.

via Tea Party 48% Obama 44% – Rasmussen Reports™.

After 14 months of committing 100% to health care reform, the day after the signing of the Health Care bill was to mark the Democratic Party’s new primary concern: destroy the uprising, annihilate by all means necessary, the Tea Party movement.

The first sign that a plan was in place was the ham-fisted, high-camp posturing of the most controversial members of the Democratic caucus walking through the peaceful but animated “Tea Party” demonstrators on Capitol Hill. There is no reason for these elected officials to walk above ground through the media circus amid their ideological foes. The natural route is the tunnels between the House office buildings and the Capitol. By crafting a highly symbolic walk of the Congressional Black Caucus through the majority white crowd, the Democratic Party was looking to provoke a negative reaction. They didn’t get it. So they made it up.

via » Barack Obama’s Helter-Skelter, Insane Clown Posse, Alinsky Plans to ‘Deconstruct’ America – Big Journalism.

Their faces sometimes twisted in anger, ‘tea party’ followers have been called neo-Klansmen and knuckle-dragging hillbillies.

To be sure, angry town halls, the N-word thrown at black congressmen, and signs comparing President Obama to Adolph Hitler play into the hands of the movement’s critics. And demonizing tea party activists tends to energize the Democrats’ left-of-center base.

But political experts say that many such criticisms are near-sighted, if not outright inappropriate – and ultimately may miss the point. Indeed, polls suggest that tea party activists are not only more mainstream than many critics suggest, but that a majority of them are women (primarily mothers), not angry white men.

via Amid harsh criticisms, ‘tea party’ slips into the mainstream / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com.

They are not typical Tea Party activists: A woman who voted for President Obama and believes he’s a “phenomenal speaker.” Another who said she was a “knee-jerk, bleeding heart liberal.”

These two women are not alone.

Some Americans who say they have been sympathetic to Democratic causes in the past — some even voted for Democratic candidates — are angry with President Obama and his party. They say they are now supporting the Tea Party — a movement that champions less government, lower taxes and the defeat of Democrats even though it’s not formally aligned with the Republican Party.

via Disgruntled Democrats join the Tea Party – CNN.com.

Buses en route to a mega Tea Party event in Nevada — centered around protesting against Democratic Sen. Harry Reid — were egged by the senator’s supporters Saturday, the Tea Party Express claimed.

via Tea Party Express: buses egged by Reid supporters | The Daily Caller – Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment.

Sarah Palin told thousands of tea party activists assembled in the dusty Nevada desert Saturday that Sen. Harry Reid will have to explain his votes when he comes back to his hometown to campaign.

The wind whipped U.S. flags behind the former Alaska governor as she stood on a makeshift stage, holding a microphone and her notes as she spoke to the cheering crowd. She told them Reid, fighting for re-election, is “gambling away our future.”

“Someone needs to tell him, this is not a crapshoot,” Palin said.

About 7,000 people streamed into tiny Searchlight, a former mining town 60 miles south of Las Vegas, bringing American flags, “Don’t Tread on Me” signs and outspoken anger toward Reid, President Barack Obama and the health care overhaul.

via My Way News – Palin to tea party rally: Don’t sit down, shut up.

A national Tea Party group is calling for voters in Nevada to reject the candidacy of Scott Ashjian, whose challenge of Democratic Sen. Harry Reid on the Tea Party ticket has been called a “fraud.”

“We at the Tea Party Express have a message for Scott Ashjian, whose been trying to pretend he’s in the Tea Party Movement: Get lost,” Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams says in the ad that’s set to be released Thursday by the group and its Our Country Deserves Better PAC.

via Tea Party group tells Harry Reid challenger running on Tea Party ticket to ‘get lost’ | The Daily Caller – Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment.

President Obama’s winning passage of national health care is both exhilarating and sobering. Covering so many uninsured Americans is a historic achievement. But the president had to postpone trips, buy off companies and cut every conceivable side deal to just barely make it happen, without a single Republican vote. If the Democrats now lose seats in the midterm elections, we’re headed for even worse gridlock, even though we still have so much more nation-building for America to do — from education to energy to environment to innovation to tax policy. That is why I want my own Tea Party. I want a Tea Party of the radical center.

You poor bastard…

via Op-Ed Columnist – A Tea Party Without Nuts – NYTimes.com.