Daily Archives: May 20, 2011

May 20, 2011 · 10:38 PM

Tough week for Tea Party ends with fizzling rally

I wonder if the Tea Party caucus in Congress have read this?  Is this the beginning of a trend?

The State

The Columbia [South Carolina] Tea Party went from Donald Trump to jilted chump after the celebrity businessman canceled his appearance at Thursday’s State House rally, and state legislators approved tax breaks and spending that the group opposed. 

Trump’s decision to not enter the GOP presidential race left local Tea Party leaders stewing about the way they had been treated. But about 30 people were on hand Thursday to thank Gov. Nikki Haley, lawmakers and activists for their work to require more on-the-record Legislative votes.

It was all part of a tough week for the state’s Tea Party movement.

On Wednesday, the S.C. House reversed course and approved a controversial sales tax break for online retailer Amazon. Thursday, the S.C. Senate voted down a proposal that would have rebated any better-than-expected state tax collections to income tax filers. 

Columbia Tea Party chairman Allen Olson expected as many as 2,000 would have attended Thursday’s rally had Trump been there. But The Donald, a favorite of many who attended the group’s Tax Day rally with U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., elected to not run and dropped the rally from his schedule.

Continue reading…

 

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· 9:11 AM

New DNC ad against Paul Ryan’s Medicare Killing Plan

This ad appears to be an effective illustration of what the GOP wants to do with seniors on Medicare.  

Apparently the GOP are not listening to the American people when it comes to furthering their ideology. 

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· 8:56 AM

Greta Van Susteren Challenges Sarah Palin’s Thin Skin: ‘Don’t Take The Bait’

Is Sarah Palin ready for “prime time” politics? (NOT!)

Mediaite

Sarah Palin is inching ever closer to announcing a presidential run. The former governor visited Greta Van Susteren tonight and teased she had “the fire in the belly” to do it, but that much of the criticism from the media was teetering close to too much for her and her family to bear. Van Susteren took the comment defensively as Palin challenged her to “lead” her colleagues away from the harsher reporting, to which Van Susteren replied, “don’t take the bait.”

While not a tempestuous debate by cable news standards, Van Susteren struck at a core of Palin’s anti-media philosophy that caught her flat-footed. The specific types of stories at issue were, as Palin described them, “hoarded emails by a disgruntled former employee,” family gossip, and other “petty stupid things” Palin tried to command Van Susteren to not “come after us with.” After initially asking Palin why it seemed she was so sensitive after years in the spotlight (“that kind of stuff sticks at the beginning, but after a while it’s like, ‘really?’”), Van Susteren then simply told her not to take the bait when prompted. Palin replied that it was “impossible” to not nab the bait when emailed about “something or another about the kids” and “the story is going to go to print anyway.”

Palin did cede that she believed the personal lives of politicians are fair game, so long as they illuminate how that person would govern. But she had a problem with this, too: “It’s only conservatives,” she noted, who are subjected to the private scrutiny (apparently Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Jim McGreevey, and the entire Kennedy family don’t count). “Some of the stuff stings and hurts, but that’s part of the process,” Van Susteren retorted, adding that she saw it as more of a gender issue than an ideological one and noting that some of the most vicious criticism she had seen had been against Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.

Via Fox News:

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· 8:17 AM

VIDEO: Town Hall Constituents To Rep. Allen West: ‘Hands Off Medicare!’

UPDATE:  Allen West has recorded a robocall message in support of GOP NY-26 candidate, Jane Corwin.  See text of the message here. 

So we want to know which is it?  In his robocall for Corwin, Allen states that:

Jane will be a fighter on Capitol Hill to preserve Medicare for our future generations… or this:

I will take my hands off Medicare and when there is no Medicare, then I will come see you sir.

Think Progress

Ever since House Republicans proposed and passed their budget plan to effectively end Medicare and extend tax breaks for the wealthy, constituents have been voicing their displeasure at town halls across the country. That trend continued this week at a Pompano Beach, FL town hall held by Tea Party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-FL).

The Florida congressman was asked by a constituent why he, along with nearly all of his Republican colleagues, voted for the Medicare-ending House GOP budget. West sidestepped the question, insisting instead that he doesn’t “think it destroys Medicare.” This earned West a chorus of groans, followed by chants of “hands off Medicare! Hands off Medicare!”:

WEST: I don’t think it destroys Medicare.

[Audience groans]

CONSTITUENTS: Hands off Medicare! Hands off Medicare! Hands off Medicare!

WEST: I will take my hands off Medicare and when there is no Medicare, then I will come see you sir. Next slide.

CONSTITUENTS: Hands off Medicare!

Watch it:

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