Tag: Tea Baggers

South Florida Tea Baggers Try Re-Branding

Jon Ponder

The South Florida Tea Party has apparently done some soul searching in the two and a half months since the 2012 elections and, upon reflection, has chosen a course correction that it hopes will put it back in good stead with voters. It has opted to try re-branding:

Jolted by the re-election of President Barack Obama, the defeat of congressional tea party icon Allen West and the cracking of Republican anti-tax orthodoxy during the recent federal budget showdown, the tea party movement is trying to rebrand and repackage itself in South Florida.

The South Florida Tea Party — the group that helped Marco Rubio launch his Senate bid and that hosted Donald Trump during his last flirtation with a presidential run — is shedding the words “tea party” as it undergoes a name change.

“We felt for branding reasons that we wanted to differentiate ourselves from certain organizations that have the name ‘tea party’ and we can’t control,” said Everett Wilkinson, leader of the organization that will now be called the National Liberty Federation.

The National Liberty Foundation? Oh, yeah. Much better.

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Please Remember This Figure When Tea Baggers Start Complaining About the First Lady’s Dress

Trish

$62,692.54

What Nancy Reagan’s inaugural ball gown would cost in today’s dollars. According to CNN, the dress, a “hand-beaded gown by American couturier James Galanos, cost $22,500 and oozed the Hollywood glamour that she and her actor-turned-politician husband brought to the White House.”

With California GOP Bankrupt and Bleeding Voters, Incoming Chairman Signals No Significant Changes or Course Corrections

Jon Ponder

Brulte
Driven by what were perceived to be extreme anti-Latino policies in the 1990s, the California Republican Party began to lose new voter registrations in the 2000s. Financial backing fell off soon afterwards, and by 2008, the party found itself facing perpetual insolvency.

In November, voters put a Democratic super-majority in charge of legislature. Now, with its share of registered voters at around 30 percent and dropping, the California GOP appears to be circling the drain.

Even so, someone has to lead it, and now a former longtime Sacramento pol, Jim Brulte, has announced he is running for chairman of the state party. Since no one in his or her right mind would want the job, that makes him the state party’s new de facto leader.

Brulte is not talking to the press, but CalBuzz has the scoop — and what they have learned appears to be good news for everyone who wants California to continue to recover and prosper. To wit, Brulte ain’t gonna change a thing. His chairmanship of the state GOP promises more of the same old unpopular teabaggery and retrograde religiosity that has been slowly poisoning the party for nearly 20 years:

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#TeaPartyComebackMovies: Is Hollywood Listening?

Trish

We love a great hashtag on Twitter and #TeaPartyComebackMovies is pure gold, especially following the pathetic re-election of John “Never a Dry Eye White Guy” Boehner as Speaker of the House.

Here are some of the best titles for movies we’d all like to miss:

  • @jerrywey: Coultergiest
  • @markm1962: 12 Angry White Men
  • @markm1962: Uninformed Basterds
  • @anglescott: Bachmann to the Future
  • @kzone8: Birther A Nation
  • @Heknowsmynam: Forgetting Sarah Palin
  • @linc0lnpark: Men Who Stare At Chairs
  • @lovroflaughs: Room With A View Of Russia
  • @71LesPaul: Annie Get Your Assault Rifle with a Scope and Grenade Launcher
  • @ianyourhead: The Nightmare Before the War on Christmas
  • @RobbieSherwood: Gone With the Windbags
  • @timmthelen: Heaven Can Wait & So Can the Sandy Hurricane Victims
  • @timmthelen: The Muppets Take Congress & Do A Much Better Job
  • @StrongChestwell: Harry Potter and the Invasive Trans Vaginal Ultrasound
  • @benjowns: Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels for Every Teacher
  • @linc0lnpark: Kill Another Bill
  • @richardhine: The Five-Year Enragement

Grover’s Story, and He’s Sticking to It

Trish

The Bush tax cuts lapsed at midnight last night. Every R voting for Senate bill is cutting taxes and keeping his/her pledge.

— Grover Norquist, tweeting the line he and every other Republican will be quoting in the coming days. Obama strategist David Axelrod responds: “Halfway through a vote he was going to lose, @GroverNorquist sprints out in front to keep from being trampled by the parade.”

Republicans Still Can’t Figure Out How to Say Yes

Trish

We harmed ourselves by undercutting our leader on Plan B

— Lame duck U.S. Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), ruing the action by House Republicans that defeated Majority Leader John Boehner’s offer to accept tax increases on income of more than $1 million. The bill passed recently by the Senate would increase taxes on household income of $450,000 or more.

Marco Rubio Votes No on Senate Fiscal Cliff Bill

Trish
Looking presidential? Rubio with buddies Lindsey Graham and John McCain in Libya

It’s hard to explain why Florida’s junior senator would vote against the economic bill extending the Bush tax cuts on household income under $450,000. Or maybe it’s painfully easy to explain: Rubio is indeed planning to run for president in 2016.

Rubio stood with the handful of his peers who voted against the package, including Rand Paul (R/Tea-Ken.), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Michael Bennett (D-Colo.), and Thomas Carper (D-Del.).

Those looking for a less cynical explanation of Rubio’s vote won’t find any help from the senator’s office, which issued this statement.

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Could Rick Scott Be the Best Thing to Happen to Florida Democrats in the Next Election?

Trish
Whoa! Don't let this governor sneak up on you at Halloween.

The path to power for Florida Democrats might run through Gov. Rick Scott’s office, if recent polls accurately reflect opinion.

The “let’s run government like a business” Medicare cheat won Florida’s highest office in the 2010 tea party wave that crested that year and ebbed a bit in 2012, sweeping some of those, like Rep. Allan West, back out as swiftly as they rolled in.

Scott, despite spending $75 million of his own money on his campaign, won by only 1 percent over Democrat Alex Sink. After taking office, his approval ratings plunged lower than anyone thought an elected official could go and not simply announce an early retirement, ala former Sen. Mel Martinez (R). Even the infamous former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (R) didn’t poll this badly.

71% of Floridians hate Scott’s idea of setting different education goals based on race and ethnicity

The new numbers show that not only might Scott lose in 2014, he could take lots of other Republicans down with him.

A stunning 43 percent of Florida voters view Scott unfavorably in new polling and just 31 percent viewed him favorably. Scott is in a rare position political operatives call “upside down” because his unfavorable percentage is much greater than his favorable — an ominous state for any political candidate.

Maybe more damaging for Scott is that a majority of his own party — 53 percent of Republicans — said they want someone else to run in 2014 instead of Scott…

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