Comments on: Clash of the Tea Party Travel Agents

Clash of the Tea Party Travel Agents

reenum — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:42:25 -0800

There is a bitter feud between the two women who are trying to gain supremacy in the battle to make all of the Tea Party's travel arrangements.

By: joe lisboa

joe lisboa — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:46:19 -0800

This just in: proponents of competition and free markets are big, fat hypocrites.

By: adipocere

adipocere — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:48:36 -0800

The decisive blow to Griffing will come when Drawdy lists, under "payment methods," gold bullion.

By: edgeways

edgeways — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:49:14 -0800

Which Tea Party are they talking about, I think there is 3 or 4 of them by now, if not more... it's really crossing over into Monty Python territory

By: Big_B

Big_B — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:51:40 -0800

Man this Tea Party thing has turned into big business! Gotta get me a piece of the action!

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:53:41 -0800

"Follow the money." -Tea Throat

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:54:56 -0800

Meanwhile, in Maine.

By: Ella Fynoe

Ella Fynoe — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:57:18 -0800

If it helps DC hotels charge the Tea Partiers exorbitant rates, I'm all for it.

By: HP LaserJet P10006

HP LaserJet P10006 — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:58:11 -0800

all of the Tea Party's travel arrangements. You mean they're helping them book a one-way ticket to irrelevance?

By: codacorolla

codacorolla — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:58:51 -0800

I mean... you assemble a group of paranoids in the same room, what do you expect? When you get to a certain level the most crazy and charismatic rise to the top. I think this also happens a lot in left fringe organizations as well.

By: hippybear

hippybear — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:00:31 -0800

So, who is organizing the travel for Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" Rally held on the anniversary of MLK's speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial?

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:00:59 -0800

So who gets the reimbursements from FOX?

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:01:28 -0800

Teabaggers should just come out of the closet and admit that they are basically anarchists.

By: jabberjaw

jabberjaw — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:01:59 -0800

This is like watching two of the most unpopular girls in school fighting over who gets to help the school bully do his homework.

By: PlusDistance

PlusDistance — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:02:05 -0800

Clash of the Tea Party Travel Agents <liam neeson> RE-LEASE THE CRACKPOT! </liam neeson>

By: HP LaserJet P10006

HP LaserJet P10006 — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:06:36 -0800

I think this also happens a lot in left fringe organizations as well. Except those organizations don't get any attention from the media. But the Tea Party is all press; indeed, as I've said before, there's nothing organic about how it arose: it's a PR front for Fox News masquerading as a grass roots organization.

By: HuronBob

HuronBob — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:07:09 -0800

It has come to the point that when I merely hear or read the term "Tea Party" I experience a distinct physical reaction similar to being served a plate of rancid revulsion served with a side dish of anger.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:09:52 -0800

So who gets the reimbursements from FOX? Just send the falafel bill to, uh, Bill. He's in charge of petty cash.

By: quin

quin — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:10:20 -0800

Gosh, it's almost like people catering to irrationally angry people with short fuses who engage in petty and vindictive games with a minimum of factual information don't behave in a civil... wait, I forgot if I was talking about the travel agents in particular or the Tea Partiers in general.... Also: ...when Rhode Island travel agent Joanne Griffing lost her job in the recession. At risk of losing her house, she grew desperate. She signed up to take in foster children Maybe I'm being really unfair here, I but this feels more than a little sleazy. Her finances are in ruin and she puts more lives at risk to cover herself? I don't know, bringing kids already in need of help into an environment on the brink of failure as a solution just seems like recipe for disaster.

By: ericb

ericb — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:10:41 -0800

In related news: The tea party's growing money problem.

By: ericb

ericb — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:14:47 -0800

Has the Tea Party 'Collapsed'?

By: bearwife

bearwife — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:16:06 -0800

I must admit I enjoyed reading every word of this. Stirs a memory (must dig up my LOTR books to find it) of a great comment by Sam when two orcs battle each other to death, about hoping more of this lovely behavior spreads in Mordor.

By: R. Mutt

R. Mutt — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:16:54 -0800

"La révolution dévore ses enfants" !

By: hippybear

hippybear — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:20:24 -0800

Also: ...when Rhode Island travel agent Joanne Griffing lost her job in the recession. At risk of losing her house, she grew desperate. She signed up to take in foster children Maybe I'm being really unfair here, I but this feels more than a little sleazy. You betcha. If you're really against big government, you'd be against foster care subsidies entirely and just let those children starve to death or send them to work in the ink factories. The blatant hypocrisy of people who haven't really thought through what they are saying versus what their actions say about them gets more wearying every day.

By: joe lisboa

joe lisboa — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:21:57 -0800

Just send the falafel bill to, uh, Bill. He's in charge of petty cash. And, whoo boy, is it ever petty.

By: ericb

ericb — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:24:13 -0800

So, who is organizing the travel for Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" Rally held on the anniversary of MLK's speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial? From the FPP article:

"With rooms booked and mall permits applied for, Drawdy and some others affiliated with Beck's 9/12 Project started planning for a big march on September 11, the day before the FreedomWorks event. Initially, the permit Drawdy applied for was in the name of Yvonne Donnelly and the National 9/12 Project. Donnelly is Glenn Beck's ex-sister-in-law and administrator of his 9/12 Project website. But a few months later, Beck decided to hold his own rally on the Mall on August 28, so Donnelly asked Drawdy to take her name off the permit application. Rather than simply cancel the march and throw in with the Beck or FreedomWorks events, Drawdy told activists that Beck's emissaries simply wanted to hand it over to "the people." In early December, Drawdy assured activists that the march would proceed—and that there would be plenty of hotel rooms."

And ... Travel News & Deals for 8/28 In Washington, DC:

"If you have not made plans for the 8/28 event in DC, you better hurry! Hotel and Airfare details are below. (Special thanks to Christine D. of One Step Promotions and Incentives, you rock)."

So, it appears that Christine Dawdry is also booking for the 8/28 event on the National Mall.

By: MCMikeNamara

MCMikeNamara — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:25:28 -0800

Thorzdad: Meanwhile, in Maine. So an atmosphere of paranoia is bringing internal strife that would be comical if it wasn't endangering a group's whose own power wasn't somewhat scary. If schadenfreude wasn't already a thing, I'm sure I'd be able to make up one even more accurate to this situation. But it will do.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:26:19 -0800

Blazecock Pileon: ""Follow the money." -Tea Throat" uh i think you mean "steep throat" come on

By: KokuRyu

KokuRyu — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:35:35 -0800

Teabaggers should just come out of the closet and admit that they are basically anarchists. More like revolutionaries (in the truest sense of the word) in the vein of Hitler's Brownshirts and Mussolini's Blackshirts.

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:41:30 -0800

I feel bad for both of them, as the main issue in the article is that they both appear to be upcoming victims of bankruptcy based on the huckstering evangelism of "Tea Party" bigwigs like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin who are raking in the millions.

Unlike in 2009, the rooms aren't filling up quite so fast, possibly due to march fatigue among the tea partiers. Griffing says that by this time last year, all of the rooms she had blocked in DC were sold out. She has protested to FreedomWorks about what she sees as the event promoter's attempt to cut in on her business, and Drawdy's posts no longer appear on the advocacy group's web forum. For Griffing, the stakes are high. Agents who reserve blocks of rooms at big hotels usually have to sign contracts promising to fill them or pay for the entire package, not just the unsold rooms. So while the commissions are fairly small—$10 a room or 10 percent of the cost—the liability can be huge. Griffing says she is on the hook for about $2 million. If she fills them all, she stands to earn about $62,000. If she doesn't, she could end up in bankruptcy. Drawdy is apparently in similar straits.

Sorry, lady. Hope you can find a copy of "Going Rogue" in the bargain bin to save a few bucks. Teabaggers are dipshits but I don't think dipshits deserve to lose their homes because they were suckered by even bigger dipshits.

By: Secret Life of Gravy

Secret Life of Gravy — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:45:52 -0800

From Thorzdad's link:

Cucci wrote. "Amy Hale has been alienating people by prideful statements, pirating ideas, controlling statements and actions, manipulative actions, shunning advice and giving untruthful advice, which in some cases has resulted in no participation or refrained participation in the Tea Party Movement by those affected." Cucci says Hale's rallies "are nothing more than a GOP promotional with little or no understanding gained for participants as to what the Tea Party Movement is about." The worst sin, according to Cucci? The tea party rally Hale hosted in Dover, Maine, "was boring, not motivational as claimed by several participants."

Prideful statements? Wait, is this the Tea Party we're talking about or the Amish? And on top of that she hosted a boring Tea Party Rally. Bad, Amy. Bad. No Biscuit.

By: emilyd22222

emilyd22222 — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:47:43 -0800

Which Tea Party are they talking about My favorite kind of tea party was the kind had underwater whilst playing hooky during swimming lessons. Thinking about that kind makes me less grumpy.

By: wierdo

wierdo — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:49:00 -0800

Tea Party related, in a Palin kind of way.

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:49:52 -0800

Adding, I want to emphasize I'm not being sarcastic here. I really do feel sorry for these people. I had friends who worked in DC on various Democratic election campaigns. They mostly found work, no matter who they worked for. Hillary people were offered jobs. Edwards people were offered jobs. It's because they had contacts within DC and the campaign circle, and proven records of work for their organizations. These people who think they're the foot soldiers in a growing army are as deluded as the Sneetches and are going to end up just as broke, only instead of learning a valuable lesson about tolerance they're just going to be angrier at minorities and gays and anything not white and evangelical. Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin do not give a shit about them, their finances, or their futures in any "movement" beyond selling their books. The GOP does not give a shit about them past November. Jesus, the entire GOP platform is based on these people not improving their lives so they stay angry about it. Have none of them figured this out? Or is the light from the podium just that powerful? To co-opt an analogy made by Tycho of Penny Arcade, these people think they found Moses and are following him to a parking lot.

By: monju_bosatsu

monju_bosatsu — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:49:59 -0800

For Griffing, the stakes are high. Agents who reserve blocks of rooms at big hotels usually have to sign contracts promising to fill them or pay for the entire package, not just the unsold rooms. So while the commissions are fairly small—$10 a room or 10 percent of the cost—the liability can be huge. Griffing says she is on the hook for about $2 million. If she fills them all, she stands to earn about $62,000. Hold on, this business model is BRILLIANT!

By: Jimmy Havok

Jimmy Havok — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:53:00 -0800

The Tea Party phenom makes a good case for the Great Man theory of history. If there was a Hitler-caliber leader available to them, they wouldn't be imploding like this. On the other hand, the moderates of Weimar Germany thought the Nazis were a joke.

By: The Potate

The Potate — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:57:40 -0800

I'm glad I read this. I will now use neither of these ladies to get me to the 9/12 rally.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:00:12 -0800

So the Tea Party got together just long enough to screw up the Republicans chances to take control of the Senate and now they are disintegrating. Republicans were so smart to embrace these guys.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:02:27 -0800

Well... they've successfully scared the shit out of a few idiot Democrats as well.

By: eriko

eriko — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:03:17 -0800

Griffing says she is on the hook for about $2 million. If she fills them all, she stands to earn about $62,000. If she doesn't, she could end up in bankruptcy. Interesting. The implication is that *she's* on the hook, but if she has any clue at all, her personal finances are safe, and the corporation she's running to do this is on the hook for $2 million. Then again, she's a member of the Tea Party. It's perfectly possible that she would back a $2M note to gain $62K. Not that it *ever* snows in DC in January. Never.

By: mcarlson85

mcarlson85 — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:08:45 -0800

I can just see the brochures now. "Just attend a short, no obligation presentation, and you will receive a free trip to sunny (next teabagger rally location)!!!** **By "attend," we mean participate in. By "short" we mean in reference to the human lifespan. By "presentation" we mean protest. If any terms of this agreement are left unfulfilled, Glenn Beck will personally berate you, your children, and further generations of children you are letting down by your non-belief in his ideas, on FOX News Network.

By: joe lisboa

joe lisboa — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:12:22 -0800

I'm glad I read this. I will now use neither of these ladies to get me to the 9/12 rally. If you are being sincere, then as a good and consistent Tea Partier should you not avoid the socialist federal highways and federally regulated airline industry in getting there? Good luck with that.

By: Gary

Gary — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:13:06 -0800

Drawdy went to the US Park Service and applied for a permit to hold rallies and marches on large swaths of the National Mall for the entire weekend of September 12, 2010 This comes back to the Ron Paul stickers at the public library from the other day, but shouldn't these rallies be held at corporate stadiums instead of public parks? I hope they only admire the lower portion of the Washington Monument paid for by donations, and not the hideous top two thirds paid for with taxpayer money.

By: Kirk Grim

Kirk Grim — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:23:07 -0800

the rooms aren't filling up quite so fast, possibly due to march fatigue among the tea partiers As if it wasn't hard enough to take the Tea Party seriously when they at least bothered to show up with their misspelled signs and stupid slogans. "March fatigue"? Does the Tea Party even do anything other than march? That's what you get for picking the lazy and ignorant demographic to be the core of your phony grassroots movement.

By: rkent

rkent — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:24:12 -0800

but if she has any clue at all, her personal finances are safe, and the corporation she's running to do this is on the hook for $2 million. You'd think so, but small business loans frequently require a personal guarantee signed by the business owner. Turns out, banks have heard of limited liability, too, and they are not so keen on letting folks off the hook when their business goes south. Of course I have no idea precisely how this woman financed her business, whether there were any loans or personal guarantees involved, just that small business owners are frequently unable to benefit from the corporate form in these kinds of matters.

By: Halloween Jack

Halloween Jack — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:41:25 -0800

*steeples fingers* Excellent.

By: The Potate

The Potate — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:48:53 -0800

If you are being sincere, then as a good and consistent Tea Partier should you not avoid the socialist federal highways and federally regulated airline industry in getting there? Good luck with that. Joe Lisboa--I was being sincere only in the sense that what I said was completely truthy. The implication that I would attend the rally in the first place was intentionally (humorously?) misleading. I don't truck with them cats. You might agree that the very pinnacle of irony is that TeaPartyPlanner.com offers tickets on Amtrak, which Michelle Bachman just tried to eliminate.

By: graventy

graventy — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:53:38 -0800

monju_bosatsu: "For Griffing, the stakes are high. Agents who reserve blocks of rooms at big hotels usually have to sign contracts promising to fill them or pay for the entire package, not just the unsold rooms. So while the commissions are fairly small—$10 a room or 10 percent of the cost—the liability can be huge. Griffing says she is on the hook for about $2 million. If she fills them all, she stands to earn about $62,000. Hold on, this business model is BRILLIANT!" No shit! I gotta get me a big hotel!

By: clockzero

clockzero — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:55:42 -0800

It is pretty annoying that the tea party has received so much coverage despite being the political equivalent of a terrible-twos-style temper tantrum. I wish the Working Families Party would get some press once in a while, as they are a bona fide social movement and political party with positive, sane, progressive* goals that most people would probably support, like improving access to affordable health care and housing and to proper education, and greater investment in social services in general. * Bearing in mind that one of their main goals, working to preserve America's middle class and resisting the efforts of the ultra-wealthy to push everyone else under the poverty line, is perhaps more accurately described as a conservative position.

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:03:11 -0800

Tea Party related, in a Palin kind of way. I watched this earlier today, and it made me absolutely viscerally furious. How dare that woman roll her eyes at the words "I'm a teacher"? I try hard not to hate people, but that was fucking offensive. That plus a bunch of hateful anti- Muslim comments immediately following Fareed Zakaria's Newsweek column (in which he writes he'll return his award and 10,000 doallars to the ADL) completely ruined my day. A pox on the pro-ignorant, xenophobic, environmentally a-conservative, socially regressive, fiscally cretinous right.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:12:06 -0800

Remember: 67,000 people. That's all the Tea Party is. Which is good, because if they really were a huge groundswell movement the nation would already be well on its way to imploding.

By: Vectorcon Systems

Vectorcon Systems — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:51:41 -0800

Meanwhile, in Maine. I wrote the article linked to by TPM. Here's a follow-up. Things are getting pretty weird up here, Tea-Party wise. The strangest thing, however, has to be the efficiency with which this band of apparent incompetents has taken over the Republican Party. The Maine GOP was long known for their moderate New-England Republicanism, but in the space of a few months the Tea Party has staged a dramatic takeover, including the complete rewriting of the party constitution and the landslide election nominating their favorite candidate for governor. There's energy there, and anger. It'll be interesting to see whether it burns out or blows up.

By: R. Mutt

R. Mutt — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:58:11 -0800

So where do the New England moderates go? Just go along? Stay home?

By: R. Mutt

R. Mutt — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:03:39 -0800

Or perhaps, move to West Athens and live off the land?

By: cazoo

cazoo — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:08:27 -0800

They should settle it the old fashioned way, pistols at dawn. Or maybe a duel to the death with giant pick-axes in the middle of the desert.

By: Vectorcon Systems

Vectorcon Systems — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:20:33 -0800

So where do the New England moderates go? Just go along? Stay home? During the convention I think they did stay home. Those who care enough to become delegates are usually a bit more partisan anyway, but the Tea Party phenomenon amplified that trend and added some organization. During the election, the moderates likely voted for one of the other six candidates.

By: louche mustachio

louche mustachio — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:24:16 -0800

So have we stopped paying for this, then? *head asplode*

By: darkstar

darkstar — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:52:58 -0800

Weren't all those teabaggers supposed to Go Galt last year, anyway? C'mon guys, where's your follow-through?

By: dogrose

dogrose — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:33:17 -0800

quin: Also: ...when Rhode Island travel agent Joanne Griffing lost her job in the recession. At risk of losing her house, she grew desperate. She signed up to take in foster children Maybe I'm being really unfair here, I but this feels more than a little sleazy. Her finances are in ruin and she puts more lives at risk to cover herself? I don't know, bringing kids already in need of help into an environment on the brink of failure as a solution just seems like recipe for disaster. Welcome to the foster-care system. Each foster child comes with a stipend to cover the child's care but no one ever checks on where that money actually goes. As long as you don't totally lose your shit and beat the child to death and end up on the front page of the NYPost—you've got a sinecure. Ms. Griffing is certainly not the first to make this calculation; I know of several similar situations in my neighborhood because some of those kids come to our community garden to play. And some don't, because they can't even reach out that far. RE-RAILING: Let the invisible hand do its work! A free market is a fair market! You're pissed off because someone is maybe doing something unfair to outsell you? In the immortal words of Tom "Mustache of Understanding" Friedman: SUCK. ON. THIS.

By: etaoin

etaoin — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:49:45 -0800

I've done some hotel contracts for an organization's annual conference and the penalty for not booking all rooms is indeed severe. But this figure seems way out of whack, unless she signed up for thousands of rooms. And taking it on in her name instead of an organization is absolutely insane. And ditto on taking in foster kids, both on the matter of taking government money while decrying socialism, and on thinking that taking them in is a solution to one's one financial problems. Someone's going to suffer in this process. If she was in this much financial trouble, the state shouldn't have allowed her to take kids in.

By: contessa

contessa — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:53:07 -0800

They should settle it the old fashioned way, pistols at dawn. Or maybe a duel to the death with giant pick-axes in the middle of the desert. See...that would be a great fundraiser! I'd pay money to watch that. Any more feuding teabaggers want to get in on that action, I bet we could fill their coffers in no time at all. Double bonus: by the time they're in the black, there would be a significant reduction in their number.

By: darkstar

darkstar — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:15:24 -0800

I bet we could fill their coffers in no time at all. coffers/coffins for teh lulz

By: darkstar

darkstar — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:16:10 -0800

/HAMBURGER, in case anyone thinks I'm advocating teh violence

By: sebastienbailard

sebastienbailard — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:04:21 -0800

On the other hand, the moderates of Weimar Germany thought the Nazis were a joke. Jimmy Havok, do you know who also thought the Nazis were a joke?

By: warbaby

warbaby — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:11:19 -0800

it's funny how often the extremist right blows up their movements with greedhead deathbattles. There's a scene in Black Legion (Humphrey Bogart joins the Klan) that absolutely nails the con-game aspect of it. It would play perfectly in any wingnut endeavor from the Klan II in the 1920s (though they also had a little jail-bait statutory rape to help them on their way out) to the militia madness of the last epidemic of right-wing cranio-rectal inversion. I look forward to more of this. The reason being that these folks are moral absolutists - hypocrisy is meaningless to them and sincerity is for the chumps. It's only the morally relativistic libruls who care about walking the talk and being pure-hearted. It's a jungle out there, their Nature's God is red in tooth and claw. If the big ones eat the little ones, that's the way God wanted it.

By: deanc

deanc — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:40:07 -0800

Beck decided to hold his own rally on the Mall on August 28, Well, now I know which weekend to pick to leave DC to visit my cousins in New England. These people who think they're the foot soldiers in a growing army are as deluded as the Sneetches and are going to end up just as broke, only instead of learning a valuable lesson about tolerance they're just going to be angrier at minorities and gays and anything not white and evangelical. So true. The comparison to your friends who worked on Democratic campaigns is apt. Looking back several years ago, a lot of Dems in late 2002 because really disillusioned with the party, mostly over the fact that they rolled over for Bush with the Iraq war. The reaction of a lot of Dems was to sign up for the Howard Dean campaign or end up joining one of those independent-campaign organizations like America Coming Together. What it didn't involve was spending lots of money on upscale hotel rooms. Instead it was a lot of pavement-pounding and voter-organizing, creating a bunch of seasoned campaign volunteers who were experienced and went out to work for other local campaigns across the country. The problem here lies with Glen Beck and Dick Armey, both of whom are exploiting the movements to funnel money and attention to themselves: it's not about organizing conferences and making travel arrangements; it's about getting bodies into voting booths. How many of these guys, at the end of the rally at 8/28, are going to be able to serve as a precinct captain or understand how to fill out a canvassing form, or have any idea how to talk to voters? Though I'm sure if they want to learn and get some experience, Glen Beck would be happy to tell you about it at an upcoming convention: just book your flight and hotel room before Sept. 1st!

By: ctmf

ctmf — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:52:29 -0800

If the big ones eat the little ones, that's the way God wanted it. Only as long as someone can mislead them into thinking they are, or are just about to be, or one day will be a "big one." When it happens to them, OMG let the whining begin. The tea party implodes the day people realize that the GOP elite doesn't give a fuck about them, they're just being used. Sure would be awesome for a wikilieaks-style expose of the people behind this garbage. The sheer cynical condescending contempt they have for the sheep who are doing their bidding seems obvious to me, but I have family members who for some reason will not believe it. Sad.

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:15:58 -0800

tl;dr but rofl

By: MuffinMan

MuffinMan — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:35:28 -0800

So let me get this straight: an out of work travel agent prays to God and lands a fat contract to move a bunch of politically illiterate semi-religious nutbags from Peoria to Washington, leading to a catfight between her and someone equally odious for a share of the next year's spoils? God does indeed move in mysterious ways.* And for the record he pointed out that he only uses Joanne Griffing Travel Inc. Any suggestions to the contrary will be dealt with by her lawyers.

By: Jimmy Havok

Jimmy Havok — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 02:04:52 -0800

The sheer cynical condescending contempt they have for the sheep who are doing their bidding seems obvious to me, but I have family members who for some reason will not believe it. Sad. The contempt rightwing demagogues feel for their audiences is entirely justified.

By: bearwife

bearwife — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:57:06 -0800

OK, here, from Return of the King, is the Lord of the Rings quote I was thinking about and mentioned above. I do think it is apropos. Setting: Sam and Frodo are in Mordor, hidden behind a bush. As they listen and watch from concealment, two orcs argue, and one unexpectedly kills the other. For a while the hobbits sat in silence. At length Sam stirred. "Well, I call that neat as neat," he said. "If this nice friendliness would spread about in Mordor, half our trouble would be over."