Coming out of the closet and admitting who he really is has made Gov. Charlie Crist more popular. According to a new Rasmussen Reports survey, the formerly Republican Crist, who recently outed himself as a moderate independent, is polling well.
Crist [is] earning 38% support to Republican Marco Rubio’s 34% and Democrat Kendrick Meek’s 17%. Eleven percent (11%) are undecided.
Two weeks ago, before Crist announced his decision to run as an independent candidate, Rubio held a seven point advantage in the race.
Since then, Crist has gained eight (8) percentage points in the poll while Rubio and Meek have each dropped three (3) points. It remains to be seen if this is a temporary bounce or a lasting change in the race.
The poll has a sloppy +/-4.5 percent margin of error, which is more than it shows Crist’s opponents sliding, but still.
In the CBS/New York Times poll that came out this week, one response in particular provides definitive insight into the tea bagger mindset: 57 percent of self-described tea party supporters have a favorable opinion of George W. Bush.
This is the same George Bush who left office with 21 percent approval — in fact, his approval level had been below 50 percent since Jan.16, 2005 — by far the longest period of disapproval for any president since polling presidential approval began in the 1930s. Today, while only 4 percent of those polled said they had attended a rally or donated money to tea party organizers, about 18 percent said they agreed with tea party anti-establishment ideals. This 18 percent of Americans who support the tea parties and the 21 percent who supported Bush when he left the White House are similar to the 20 percent or so of Americans also supported Richard Nixon when he resigned in disgrace. In other words, tea baggers are, at least statistically, nothing new. They represent the rock-hard right-wing base that has been a factor in United States politics for generations.
The other 80 percent of Americans remember — nor will likely ever forget — that George Bush had not a single accomplishment of historical significance during the eight long years he was president. Quite the opposite, in fact. Bush, Cheney et al lied about the pretexts for invading Iraq, a fact that makes the wasted blood of thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi families even more tragic — not to mention the billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars needlessly drained for the treasury at the very moment that the economic collapse was looming. But it was Bush’s ineptitude — and baldfaced lying about it — in addressing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that finally forced normal Americans to recognize George W. Bush for what he was: Worst. President. Ever. His approval ratings never recovered after that debacle.
And since it was health care reform that agitated the tea baggers into spittle-spewing rage, let’s not forget that, under Bush, American taxpayers provided free universal health care to 30 million or so Iraqis while 45 million Americans had none.
It speaks volumes that it’s this barely articulate, incurious aristocratic bully that tea baggers voted for — twice — and still support to this day. How can they be so blind to this reality? Here’s how: In the poll 63 percent of tea partiers said they restrict their news consumption to Fox News. Only in Fox’s alternate reality can you be outraged over the Obama administration’s efforts to pull the nation back from the brink of economic collapse while ignoring the fact that the person most responsible for the Bush Recession is, well, George W. Bush.
Another prime example of the influence of Fox propaganda: A whopping 64 percent of tea baggers believe Pres. Obama has raised taxes on most Americans. As CBS noted in their coverage of this poll result: “[The] vast majority of Americans [95 percent] got a tax cut under the Obama administration.”
One unsurprising result from the poll is that tea baggers love Fox News’ most popular propagandists. They approve of Sarah Palin by 66 percent and Glenn Beck by 59 percent. This adoration of Beck, in particular, helps explain another aspect of the poll: Like Beck, tea baggers loathe the U.S. president:
Eighty-eight percent disapprove of President Obama’s performance on the job, compared to 40 percent of Americans overall. While half of Americans approve of Mr. Obama’s job performance, just seven percent of Tea Party supporters say he is doing a good job.
Asked to volunteer what they don’t like about Mr. Obama, the top answer, offered by 19 percent of Tea Party supporters, was that they just don’t like him. Eleven percent said he is turning the country more toward socialism, ten percent cited his health care reform efforts, and nine percent said he is dishonest.
Seventy-seven percent describe Mr. Obama as “very liberal,” compared to 31 percent of Americans overall. Fifty-six percent say the president’s policies favor the poor, compared to 27 percent of Americans overall.
The fact that 56 percent of tea baggers say Pres. Obama’s policies favor the poor is telling. While only about 13 percent of Americans are black, a great many white people labor under the misperception that most poor people are black. More about tea baggers’ views on race below.
Ninety-two percent of Tea Party supporters believe President Obama’s policies are moving the country toward socialism. Fifty-two percent of Americans overall share that belief.
Asked what socialism means, roughly half of Tea Party supporters volunteered government ownership or control, far more than any other answer. Eleven percent cited taking away rights or limiting freedom, and eight percent said it means the redistribution of wealth.
Thirty percent of Tea Party supporters believe Mr. Obama was born in another country, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Another 29 percent say they don’t know. Twenty percent of Americans overall, one in five, believe the president was not born in the United States.
Not surprisingly, the poll found that tea baggers hold deep-seated racist views:
Fifty-two percent believe too much has been made of the problems facing black people. Far fewer Americans overall — 28 percent — believe as much. Among non-Tea Party whites, the percentage who say too much attention has been paid to the problems of black people is 23 percent.
A majority of Tea Party suppers believe the Obama administration treats both blacks and whites the same way. But one in four believe the administration favors blacks over whites, an opinion shared by just 11 percent of Americans overall and seven percent of non-Tea Party whites.
As to demographics, no surprise here. The poll that most tea baggers are middle-aged, white and Southern:
Eighteen percent of Americans identify as Tea Party supporters. The vast majority of them — 89 percent — are white. Just one percent is black.
They tend to skew older: Three in four are 45 years old or older, including 29 percent who are 65 plus. They are also more likely to be men (59 percent) than women (41 percent).
More than one in three (36 percent) hails from the South, far more than any other region. Twenty-five percent come from the West, 22 percent from the Midwest, and 18 percent from the northeast.
A lot of the coverage of this poll focuses on the surprising result that self-identified tea baggers claim to be wealthier and more educated than would otherwise be expected from people who are so easily manipulated and duped into believing facts that are easily disproved. The best plausible explanation for this apparent outlier is, as Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, a tea bagger hero, might say:
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the incidents “reprehensible” but said on NBC’s Meet the Press “let’s not let a few isolated incidents get in the way of the fact that millions of Americans are scared to death, and millions of Americans want no part of this growing size of government.”
Yes, let’s not let “isolated incidents” (is there any other kind?) keep us from directing our disgust where it belongs: on elected representatives who are trying to help American companies compete with companies from nations that do not tie one arm behind them by expecting them to provide health insurance; or who want to keep people from being vulnerable to the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country, medical bills; or who simply recognize that the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Commission on Taxation are right when their studies predict our government will go broke if the health care and insurance systems are not reformed. Because, you know, Democratic (and the few decent Republican) legislators are real the problem.
Or not.
Unfortunately, Boehner isn’t the only one minimizing the tea bagger belligerence Republicans have stirred up.
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R – Virginia on ABC’s “This Week” [said] “There were 30,000 people here in Washington yesterday. And, yes, there were some very awful things said.”
Cantor appeared with House Democratic Caucus chairman John Larson, D-Connecticut, who said the incidents show “everybody ought to ratchet back just a little bit.”
But Cantor disagreed.
Cantor said “you know what it is time for? It’s time to listen to the American people, and that is the stunning thing about this.”
No the stunning thing is that Republicans have been yelling and screaming about socialism, tyranny, totalitarianism, illegitimate power, etc. and now they express surprise that the true concerns of their intellectually challenged followers appear to be racism and homophobia. Who’da thunk?
But don’t let that inconvenient fact cause you to dismiss tea bagger views. At least, not if you’re a Republican who needs to keep these folks mobilized for your own cynical ends. Rep. David Nunes (R-Calif.), I’m looking at you.
When was asked about the slurs hurled at Reps. Lewis and Frank, Nunes said, “Yeah, well I think that when you use totalitarian tactics, people, you know, begin to act crazy. I think, you know, there’s people that have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone, they can do it. It’s not appropriate. And I think I would stop short of characterizing the 20,000 people protesting, that all of them were doing that –Of course. I think the left loves to play a couple of incidents here or there.”
To recap the Republican response to supporters spitting at and yelling the n-word and the f-word at elected officials: “It’s not that bad, it’s only a few of the 20,000/30,000/1.6 million members of the mob gathered, and it’s all Obama’s fault anyway.”
More evidence that Sarah Palin’s hand isn’t going away. A new Valentine’s Day card design is available from my favorite free ecard resource, someecards.
Palin’s cynical hypocrisy has been highlighted repeatedly during her short but riveting time in the national eye. In her speech to the Republican convention after being named John McCain’s running mate, she boasted that she refused funding for a proposed public works project that came to be known as the Bridge to Nowhere. In fact, Palin lobbied for the money. Her expensive, donor-funded wardrobe, make-up, and personal stylist during the presidential campaign flew directly in the face of her claims of humble hockey momdom, as did the tanning bed she had installed at taxpayer expense in the Alaska governor’s mansion. Then there was her book tour, which utilized a Lear Jet between stops, with Palin climbing into a bus only to pull up to her adoring fans. And most recently, there was the matter of the $100,000 speaking fee for the Tea Party convention itself, which Palin claims she will spend not on herself but on other candidates and causes (she just hasn’t named any). I could go on, but it would take too long.
At the same time, Palin’s fierce defense of sheer dumbness over what she terms “elitism” has been shown to be personally motivated. Her claims to CBS’s Katie Couric that she read tons of newspapers and objected to scads of Supreme Court rulings, yet couldn’t name a single example of either, is the stuff of legend. The staged pardoning of a turkey during her aborted tenure as Alaska governor took place as another bird was slaughtered on camera in the background. She showed how easily she could be pwned when she took a call from a prankster claiming to be the president of France, and failed to catch on to the rouse. Again, I could go on almost without end.
As quickly as each of those news cycles ended, it looks like there is something enduring about the scribbled notes in Palin’s hand as she snarked away at Obama with sour teleprompter shots. Like the “changey-hopey” line Pain stole from the Tea Baggers themselves, the teleprompter meme is so ten minutes ago. Obama himself dispelled it forever* when he appeared at the recent House GOP retreat and answered hostile questions extemporaneously – and nimbly – for 90 minutes. Not once during the exchange did he duck his head to peak into his left palm.
Like her claim of foreign policy experience based on Alaska’s proximity to Russia’s Chukchi Peninsula, Palin’s ink-stained hand provides ample and abiding evidence that she is not so bright. For those who share that trait, Palin is a rock star. For all others, we don’t need to visit Madame Ruby to see Palin’s future: it holds more of the same tired, faux opposition to any progressive thought, and more successful manipulation of those who were telling the truth when they said in 2008 that they “weren’t ready” for a black man to be president.
*”Forever” in the sense of appealing to rational minds, so this would exclude Birthers and Tea Baggers
One thing tea baggers object to is “government schools,” or as normal people call them, public schools. You see, at the government schools, kids are forced to learn science, to associate with others not exactly like them, and every now and then, be subjected to an address from their president asking them to do their homework and become successful. And you know where all this leads. That’s right, buddy, the big “S.” Socialism with a capital…Well anyway. So following Trish’s Law of Coincidences, which states that there are no coincidences, a recent increase in home schooling must be correlated to rising numbers of tea baggers. In fact, one unscientific (how fitting!) online poll shows just that.
The people at the whyhomeschool blog came up with a poll that asks first if you support the Tea Party movement. Of the 99 people who responded in the affirmative, 88 percent selected this answer: “Yes, and I currently homeschool, have homeschooled in the past, or plan to homeschool my child(ren).” Slightly more than 5 percent (five votes) went with, “Yes, and I send, have sent, and plan to send my child(ren) exclusively to public school.” Another 4 percent checked, “Yes, and I send, have sent, or plan to send my child(ren) to private school.” And finally, 3 percent said that although they support tea bagging, they have no children.
On the other hand, only 36 readers said they do not support the Tea Party movement, but most of them also home school, and what with this being a blog for home schoolers, that’s not a huge surprise. Of those who felt negatively toward tea bagging, 89 percent still home school, and 3 percent each use private and public schools. A final 6 percent (two people) who don’t have kids also don’t like tea parties.
The Orlando Sentinel recently published a story about the new-found popularity of home schooling, and linked it to the rock star popularity of home schooling’s most famous alumnus, University of Florida football quarterback Tim Tebow. Tebow, who sports a New Testament bible verse citation in his eye-black, was home schooled by his missionary parents until he showed promise in football. At that point, they enrolled him in a public high school, followed by a big fat football scholarship and four years at a public university.
This kind of self-reliance (yes, I’m being facetious) inspires both religious zealots and tea baggers alike, according to another poll published with the story. It asked, “If you home-school your children (or plan to), what is the primary reason you chose to do so?” While 18 percent answered that they would never consider such an option, the numbers were almost equal (16 percent each) for these three responses: “I want my child to receive an education that addresses spiritual issues that are important to my family,” “Traditional schools stifle creativity and frown upon nonconformists,” and most worrisome, “I don’t want the government involved in my child’s education.”
Anyone who has seen the movie Idiocracy knows where this is going. Over time, with even less exposure to challenging ideas, tea baggers will become stupider and stupider, until finally they will drown in a sea of dumb. The question is whether we will all get pulled under with them.
Sarah Palin in full Tea Bagger regalia (uncredited photo)
With the mid-term elections looming, it is clear that the Tea Baggers’ populist, anti-Obama energy is being channeled into the the formation of a new national political party. With funding from wealthy right-wing extremists, including the Koch brothers and others, political operatives like former House Majority Leader-turned lobbyist Dick Armey have masterfully astroturfed the Tea Baggers into a new power base comprised of the most easily duped and manipulated segment of American society: poorly educated, white Southerners and their counterparts in other regions.
The objective of the astroturfing is to organize working-class opposition to government regulation of the sources of corporate wealth — energy, health care, the media, etc. — and roll back and eventually kill government policies and programs such as Medicare, Social Security and Civil Rights protections that help, yes, working class Americans. It could be said that the corporate oligarchs are attempting to create a 21st century version of the Dixiecrat Party, which, in 1948, had a platform that is nearly identical to Tea Bagger positions today: local control, shrinking the federal government and — although this goes unstated, it’s there in the optics at the rallies — racial segregation.
The connections between the corporate oligarchs and their rent-boys like Armey are relatively easy to research. But Tea Baggers themselves are oblivious to their roles as the pawns in this new power grab. They have been kept in the dark because, over the past decade and more, conservatives have trained their base to trust only right-wing media outlets like hate radio and Fox News, and these outlets scrupulously avoid reporting on who is pulling the strings and why.
For regular Americans, however, the connections are hard to miss. In the weeks leading up to the Koch-funded Freedomwork’s Tea Bagger rallies last summer, for example, right-wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News gave the rallies hundreds of hours of free promotion. On the day of the rallies, Fox covered the live events wall-to-wall, frequently displaying racist anti-Obama signs on its air without comment. Just last month, Bill O’Reilly, the senior propagandist at Fox, did a segment cheerleading the formation of the Tea Bag Party (TBP), citing a poll that found that 41 percent of Americans favor the TBP over Democrats (35 percent) and Republicans (28 percent).
“Well, look,” O’Reilly told his panel of TBP supporters — no representative of the other parties were included to make the discussion, you know, “fair and balanced” — “if you want a viable third party, you got to break it down. I mean, you just got to kick the door in like [1992 third-party candidate Ross] Perot did and other people did.”
There’s even a Tea Bagger social-network group on Murdoch’s Wall St. Journal website promoting the formation of a national political party because — speaking of easily duped — the GOP and Dems are too cozy with corporate interests:
This is good news for the nation. Both the Republican and the Democrat party have been serving the private corporations for a long time. Everyone sees what has happened to this country are [sic] both their watches; they have failed. Leaving, or not running again is best for the USA. The ststaes [sic] need to fill out the proper forms and certify the TEA polictical [sic] party in their state. Do it, stop talking and blogging about it, actually do it and register a few TEA candidates for 2010. The time to act is now, not later. Returning to the American Constitution is correct, turning away from corporation bylaws is correct, watching these unAmerican kickbackers leave in [sic] good for the country. Jorge Lovenguth TEA Florida
At least one state group has made it official. Last November, right-wingers in Florida filled out the paperwork to register the TBP as an official political party in the state.
Around the same time, organizers announced that Tea Baggers would be holding a convention, Feb. 4 – 6, in Nashville. As it stands now, Sarah Palin has agreed to address the mob as the keynote speaker for the closing-night banquet. (There will be bibs.)
Palin is, of course, most famous for quitting and/or not showing up, and one pro-Tea Bag insider (he says he believes that “Palin and the grassroots Tea Party efforts are forces for good”) reports that Palin will be paid as much as $100,000 for the gig.
This calls into question the legitimacy of the Tea Baggers’ meeting in Nashville. Is it a step toward the birth of a national racist political party, or is it just a for-profit mass meeting to shake down America’s most hapless half-wits — a political version of an Amway convention?
If it is the former, it represents the first time a putative front-runner presidential candidate required payment to address her party. If so, it also shines a light on the astroturfing of this movement. If the Tea Baggers were a legitimate grass roots movement, they could have easily invited Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., a whackjob easily as looney-tunes as Palin, who would have spoken for free.
Writing back in November, even the Tea Bagger sympathizer is suspicious about the real purpose of the convention:
The schedule mentions break-out and discussion sessions with no topics, no list of moderators, etc. It’s unclear what anyone will be doing in Nashville for three days other than waiting for Sarah Palin. On top of that, the planning looks to be very poorly done.
The conference sessions, whatever they may be, end at 12:30 PM Saturday afternoon. There’s nothing happening again until the banquet at 6 PM that night. In most cases, all that will achieve is driving up participation costs due to the need for another night in a hotel. Attendees traveling any distance to the event would be all but forced to travel home on a Sunday. That may be fine if one is looking to maximize revenue for the area and some hotels. But it doesn’t seem to take Tea Party goers interests in mind at all.
But if the past is prologue with Palin, the controversy over whether she’s being paid to speak to her followers will soon be shoved aside for the eternal question about her: Will she show up, or will she quit the event before Feb. 6?
Score one for the opposition in the War on Christmas. This phone call to C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” was the first thing I heard after I turned on the teevee this morning. The Senate had just passed its version health-care reform when Bunny, a right-wing drama queen from Parson, Kansas, phoned in:
BUNNY: Good morning. Yes, I am… very much. I’m so disappointed. I have taken my Christmas tree down. I’ve taken my Christmas wreath off my house. I’ve taken all the lights down. This is supposed to be a nation under God, and it isn’t. They have absolutely ruined Christmas for all the senators and representatives that are supposed to be under God. This is God’s holiday for the birth of his son…
C-SPAN’s Peter Slen: So you took down your Christmas tree because of the Senate health-care bill?
BUNNY: I certainly did, and I would like to see every light in the nation go out — especially in the White House. This is just ridiculous.
C-SPAN: Why are you so opposed to it, Bunny?
BUNNY: Because it is so divisive between my son — who is younger — and myself. And in many families it’s that way. Either it’s genocide on the seniors with this hospice — that’s never supposed to be supported by federal or state money. They are not-for-profit organization [sic] that Germany has even kicked out.
Get ready. The mouth-foamers are preparing to take the tea party to the Capitol. When debate begins Thursday in Congress on the health care reform bill, Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) want their odious, easily duped, irrational and not so bright supporters there to disrupt the proceedings.
In case you missed it, Bachmann revealed late last week that the right — with the help of the anti-reform group Americans for Prosperity — is calling for a big rally in D.C. this coming Thursday to protest the reform proposals.
“This is it for freedom,” Bachmann said. “If you believe in liberty, and if you’re rejecting tyranny, this is it.”
What’s up with this “tyranny” crap anyway? Do they even know what the word means? American Heritage Dictionary:
1. A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power
2. The office, authority, or jurisdiction of an absolute ruler
3. Absolute power, especially when exercised unjustly or cruelly
4. a. Use of absolute power
4. b. A tyrannical act
5. Extreme harshness or severity
Collins English Dictionary:
1. a. Government by a tyrant or tyrants; despotism
1. b. Similarly oppressive and unjust government by more than one person
2. Arbitrary, unreasonable, or despotic behaviour or use of authority
3. Any harsh discipline or oppression
4. A political unit ruled by a tyrant
5. (Historical Terms) (esp in ancient Greece) Government by a usurper
6. A tyrannical act
These same ninnies were fine with George Bush knowing which library books you checked out, and secret searches of your house by Dick Cheney but they think that providing access to health care is…TYRANNY?
Expect the usual shouting, pushing, waving of misspelled signs, and reddened white faces we came to know this summer whenever anyone tried to get worthwhile input on the kind of health care reform we would all like to have.
To hear Trump talk, he’s the only one
Who’s ever stood trial for crimes he’s done.
But instead of courtroom drama,
We get Trump in his pajamas,
That’s how he earned his new nickname: Don Snoreleone.
“Some of the 49 migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by the state of Florida are now able to legally work in the United States and have temporary protections from deportation — because they are considered victims of a potential crime. … The migrants are eligible for these protections because they applied for a special kind of visa meant for crime victims who are helping law enforcement, after they said they were tricked into taking charter flights from San Antonio to Massachusetts with false promises of jobs and other aid.”
“We care more about the safety of our staff than a name attached to an article.”
In its panning of Taylor Swift’s new album (3.6/10 rating), Paste Magazine chose to put “Paste Staff” as the piece’s author instead of the individual who wrote it. That’s because following Paste’s negative review of Swift’s Lover album in 2019, the reviewer received threats of violence from fans who disagreed. As for its critique of The Tortured Poets Department, Paste Staff said its “mid-ness” was the result of “when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.”
“The House is a rough and rowdy place, but Mike Johnson is gonna be just fine. I served 20 years in the military, it’s my absolute honor to be in Congress. But I serve with some real scumbags. Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.”
“This week has been a howling vortex of suck for the MAGA movement and Donald Trump. Imagine a black hole in the profound interstellar vacuum in the cold emptiness of space, drawing all matter and energy into its brutal singularity, an ineluctable and final journey into nothingness. … That’s the GOP this week. It’s been bad and will get worse.”
“I am not resigning. And it is, in my view, an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs. It is not helpful to the cause, it is not helpful to the country, it does not help the House Republicans advance our agenda, which is in the best interest of the American people here — a secure border, sound governance – and it’s not helpful to the unity that we have in the body.”
— Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) on the “resign or be fired” ultimatum from the GOP’s Freedom Caucus just 174 days into his tenure as sp[eaker, reported by Punchbowl News.
A new Siena poll finds that by a 54% to 30% margin, New Yorkers say Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial is “legitimate” — the view of 77% of Democrats and 44% of independents — rather than a “witch hunt,” the view of 66% of Republicans.
A new Marist poll finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump nationally among registered voters, 51% to 48%. In a multi-candidate field, Biden is up by five percentage points against Trump, 43% to 38% among registered voters, followed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 14%, Cornel West at 2%, and Jill Stein at 2%.Among those who definitely plan to vote, Biden leads Trump 46% to 39% in this same multi-candidate field.
NBC News poll: “‘Protecting democracy’ is a salient issue for voters. There’s a difference between what voters identify as the ‘most important issue facing the country’ (on that, “inflation and the cost of living’ registers 23%, followed by immigration/the border, at 22%) and what they identify as the issue most important in determining their own vote (on that, ‘protecting democracy or constitutional rights’ was on top with 28%, followed by immigration/the border at 20% and abortion at 19%).”
NBC poll: “RFK Jr.’s support draws more from Trump than Biden. Though the CW is that Kennedy is a bigger threat to Biden than to Trump, the numbers here tell a different story: 15% of Trump supporters and 7% of Biden supporters in the head-to-head matchup break for RFK Jr. when the field expands to include third-party candidates.”
Coming out of the closet and admitting who he really is has made Gov. Charlie Crist more popular. According to a new Rasmussen Reports survey, the formerly Republican Crist, who recently outed himself as a moderate independent, is polling well.
In the CBS/New York Times 
More evidence that Sarah Palin’s hand isn’t going away. A new 
One thing tea baggers object to is “government schools,” or as normal people call them, public schools. You see, at the government schools, kids are forced to learn science, to associate with others not exactly like them, and every now and then, be subjected to an address from their president asking them to do their homework and become successful. And you know where all this leads. That’s right, buddy, the big “S.” Socialism with a capital…Well anyway. So following Trish’s Law of Coincidences, which states that there are no coincidences, a recent increase in home schooling must be correlated to rising numbers of tea baggers. In fact, one unscientific (how fitting!) online poll shows just that.
The 
Get ready. The mouth-foamers are preparing to take the tea party to the Capitol. When debate begins Thursday in Congress on the health care reform bill, 
