Make the tattoo permanent…
As I was scanning Pravda on the Potomac, I came across an article about the Teabaggers and the overt racism and proto-fascist behavior they exhibited over the weekend (behavior that has been a consistent Teabagger trait ever since the astro-turf group was first unleashed if you were paying attention). Of note was a quote from a spokesman for Teabagger patron and self-appointed leader, Dick Armey. This made me laugh (emphasis added):
Regardless of who yelled what, the reports themselves could be problematic for the tea party movement, said Adam Brandon, a spokesman for FreedomWorks, the small government group that helped organize tea partiers congressional office visits last week.“Tattoos last forever,” said Brandon, quoting his boss, FreedomWorks chairman and former House Republican Leader Dick Armey. “If the movement gets tattooed as at all sympathetic to those (racist and homophobic) views, I won’t want to be involved in it anymore. It’s very distracting not only to our side but also to the debate and the country.”
Like Dr. Frankenstein, little Dick Armey is beginning to fear his monster. It is time to make the TeaBagger Tattoo permanent and call out this racist movement for what it is. A Congressional Resolution to condemn the actions of these Teabaggers would be a fun way to drive the point home and a great recorded vote for the GOP.
OTHO, I’m sure this is all good news for John McCain and the Conservative movement. Just as I’m sure that the coming discussion on real Immigration reform will bring out the best of GOP’s astro-turf monster.
Cheers
dengre
They’ll claim it’s “liberal plants” trying to make teabaggers look bad.
They’ll simultaneously claim Obamunism made them do it.
And blame the media for only reporting their racism/fascism, when everyone knows the lefties did it too when they were protesting Bush.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Not only are they all racist and homophobic, but I hear they’re into Satan worship and are actually paid to demonstrate by Goldman Sachs.
Oh wait, that last one is true.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:21 pm
remember, Janet Napolitano was totally wrong to warn of right-wing violence.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:22 pm
To anyone familiar the Southern Strategy, winger bigotry is not a tattoo – it’s a birthmark.
.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:23 pm
I for one can’t wait to see The Immigration Mimes v. The Screaming Teabaggers. We’re going to need a bigger popcorn bowl.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:23 pm
They can’t even say ACORN did it, since they’re disbanding.
Sorry, boys, you can’t disavow the racist elements within your movement. They ARE your movement.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:25 pm
I’ve been told a) that the folks who said “nigger” were all liberal plants; or alternatively b) that it isn’t racist to say “nigger” because blacks and “liebruls” say that word in songs and liberals have wrecked the black family anyway, so…shuddup, that’s what.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:28 pm
@Cat Lady:
I was just watching that. WTF.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:29 pm
@Svensker:
I’ve been told both a) and, calling them teabaggers is exactly like dropping the n-bomb on a black man.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Yeah, c’mon. The wingersphere has already been all over this, claiming that they’re all jus’ good folks, and anyhow the racists are just liberal plants anyhow. Plus, the Democrats did the same thing to Bush
!
Pre-emptive denials are everywhere.
Hmmm. Which probably means they know they’re vulnerable.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Also, Janeane Garofalo is shrill, and a liberal hippie. BOO!
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:32 pm
@Dennis G.: Mimes are the fifth column of Obamunism, you know.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:33 pm
How long before the teabaggers start whining about having piñatas shoved down their throats?
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Don’t be fooled. They’re just laying off the bellows for a few months to save some money, but they’ll be back pumping the crazy in a few months. They know they can’t make it look “grass roots” if they are out there in force when there is no legislation in play. They’ll fire up the teabaggers in time for immigration, finance reform, or the elections.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:34 pm
@r€nato:
Oooh, yes, yes, I forgot that one. You hanging out at the same places I am?
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:35 pm
@Dennis G.:
Um, yeah. Mimes + balloons > giant puppets?
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:36 pm
I don’t see how this is any different than the generation of Repup sleeping with the christ wing of wingnuttia. This is simply the racist subset that they’ve always counted on.
I don’t believe for one minute that Armey and the rest of asshats such as him on the right will “abandon” or “distance” themselves from these bigoted No Nothings. If they did, they would ensure their electoral irrelevance beyond what health care reform will already to do them in that matter.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Appearing on today’s Dylan Ratigan show, Hanoi Jane Hamsher said it was wrong to indict the teabaggers just because of a couple of isolated incidents.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:37 pm
@Svensker:
Yes, one arm puller Bill Bennett went on the radio today to claim that spitting on a Congressman and calling a Civil Rights hero the N-word was proof that ‘Racism in America is Dead‘.
This reminds me that I have a Bill Bennett problem. It seems that wingnut in-laws sent my daughter a copy of one of his ‘children’s books’ last year. Now, I could no more give it to her that I could give her an early reader copy of Mein Kampf and I really can’t give away the book because it is pollution. And yet, I don’t want to destroy it. Lately, I’ve been thinking that I should turn the book over to an artist for conversion, or maybe cut out the center and give it to friends to sell at Bonnaroo as a stash book. Oh, how Bill Bennett vexes me.
Cheers
dengre
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Teabagger tattoos – the taint never goes away!
I think Teabagger Tattoos should be a new category. Most Hamsher-related posts would fit nicely there.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:40 pm
Some commenters at Greg Sargent’s blog were saying just now that the senate parliamentarian has ruled against Republicans on their first challenge to the reconciliation bill—the social security thing.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:41 pm
John Cole:
I remember Niewert quoting one of the academics who make a study of fascism as stating that the lack of organized thugs to enforce the party will on an unwilling populace was one of the traits that still separated the GOP from fascists.
I guess, with the Teabaggers, the Fox Party has finally crossed that rubicon.
.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:41 pm
@Mike Kay: She’s really gone ‘round the bend, hasn’t she?
Not that it surprises me. The woman has serious anger management issues.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:42 pm
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Armey will not step away from his monster, but he will shed a tear for the damage he promotes. How easily he uses these fools…
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Tattooed racists? We’ve moved on to Michelle McGee now?
Seriously, it boggles my mind that the teabaggers have been able to go this long without acquiring the knuckle-dragging bigot tramp stamp considering the thinly-veiled racism that’s been evident at their protests.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Dick Armey?
Barney Fag Dick Armey?
Yeah, I’m sure he’s totally shocked by homophobic speech.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:45 pm
@John Cole:
I doubt that they’ll lay off the bellows for more than a news cycle or two. While Dick may issue a statement of regret he will never walk away from his monster. These folks are not going away and more than a few of them are dangerous.
It may be time to plug into the work of the Southern Poverty Law Center and their excellent tracking of hate groups in America.
Cheers
dengre
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:49 pm
@Dennis G.:
You sound copiously vexed.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:52 pm
With Ben Nelson doing his best to be a pain in the ass for student loan reform, what does it mean for the progress we thought we made last night, for health care or for student loan reform? Anything at all, or just another example of Ben Nelson deserving a punch in his Adam’s Apple?
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Just in case some pearl-clutcher shows up, here’s a gallery of racist and offensive signs from the original 2009 tea parties. Even a cursory Google search turns up many more examples.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:59 pm
@Brian J: I think what it means is that we get a test case for the idea that we can use reconciliation to get around Ben Nelson being a pain
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:02 pm
@Brian J:
Just a face-saving exercise, and an attempt to steal the spotlight back from that goddam whore Stupak!! (just guessing that’s how Nellie refers to him in private.)
Reid says he has 52 votes, and I’m sure he wasn’t counting Nelson.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:03 pm
@tripletee:
So, really, nothing changes? Because as someone else said here today, the student loan reform might be the biggest corporate welfare bust that we ended in years, if not ever. It would be a shame if Nelson ruined that.
By the way, sorry to seem so ignorant, but I am really bad at congressional procedures.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:09 pm
I hope the teabaggers come out full force to protest financial reform. I don’t think anything would more perfectly capture what useful idiots they are.
As for Nerdlinger and Bennett, yes, when I hear the n-word, it too makes me ponder how far we’ve come as a country concerning racism. I just come to an opposite conclusion.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:09 pm
What a moran—trying to derail the reconciliation package leaves him wide open to a charge that he’s just trying to keep the “Cornhusker kickback” intact.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:12 pm
@JGabriel:
What lack? The Republicans’ “Brooks Brothers” rioters in Florida in 2000 would seem to qualify as “organized thugs [who] enforce the party will on an unwilling populace”.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:14 pm
@John Cole:
OhpleaseohpleaseohPLEASE let it be immigration reform. PLEASE let them piss off the nation’s fastest-growing voting bloc right before the midterm elections. C’mon, Baby Jesus, I promise I’ll be a good boy forever and ever if you let me have just this one thing. Please.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:16 pm
My goodness, didn’t Dick Armey remember his lessons from Demagoguery 101? The one about never losing control of your minions?
Soon to be an epic fail.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:16 pm
So last I checked there was more than one “tea party” group around and freedomworks was just one of them. How might this kind of talk impact their relationship with the other “tea party”era? Weren’t some of the groups accusing Freedomworks of being sellouts already somehow? I mean, I really don’t remember, I have trouble following their bizarre internal politics.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:27 pm
davidj:
By “thugs”, I think he means low-level reactionaries without any real political power outside of their roles of intimidation and as physical enforcers.
The Brooks Brothers riot, on the other hand, was largely made up of Republican staffers and consultants.
.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:37 pm
@mcc: Fuck the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:37 pm
It’s not Armey’s monster, it’s Beck’s. Beck is the one who went off on the census leading to white slavery. That line of reasoning is pretty much straight out of the Klan and there’s a straight line between most of the teabagger rhetoric and Beck.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:37 pm
@Martin:
I think you’re right. I’d bet a fair percentage of teabaggers don’t know who the hell Armey is, but they all watch Beck.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:53 pm
If they can find the time to condemn MoveOn for a schoolyard taunt of a sitting general, you’d think they could find time to condemn a battery on one of their own.
Just talking about the Democratic party here. Obviously, the Republicans don’t consider Cleaver a peer because he’s a Democrat and for other reasons.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Martin @42: THIS.
March 22nd, 2010 at 11:07 pm
When did Dick Armey become so sensitive to slurs?
This is the guy who, when he was House Majority Leader, uttered one of the most infamous personal insults in recent political history.
Mr. Armey said later that he had simply mispronounced Mr. Frank’s name. First privately and then in addressing the House, he apologized to Mr. Frank for the remark, which he had made in an interview with a group of radio broadcasters.
In his statement on the House floor, Mr. Armey also attacked the news media for reporting the remark, whose disclosure he had tried to squelch. He said news organizations were casting it as an “intentional personal attack” on Mr. Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who has emerged as an effective floor leader for his party in the House.
Yep, not only did refer to an openly gay House colleague as “Barney Fag,” but responded to the resulting controversy by blaming the news media for reporting the fact that he said it.
This guy has the nerve to say he would distance himself from the Teabaggers if they become known as racists and bigots?
I got news for you, Dick. Not only are they racists and bigots, they are nothing more or less than the fruit of your poisonous tree. Go sell your faux disappointment somewhere else.
March 22nd, 2010 at 11:19 pm
@Brian J:
I’m no expert either, but the reconciliation bill can be passed with a simple majority, so they don’t really need Nelson and his symbiotic helmet-hair. AFAICT it’s just meaningless posturing on his part – he’s in bed with NelNet (a large student loan firm headquartered in Nebraska), and after his earlier vote to advance HCR blew up in his face and seriously damaged his re-election chances, he’s desperate to walk it back somehow. Sadly for Ben, I don’t think he’s going to be able to unfuck that chicken.
March 22nd, 2010 at 11:52 pm
@UncommonSense: I’m sure Barney Frank had a nice riposte.
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:58 am
I always get her confused with Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde, Pretty & Twisted, Vowel Movement).
Joeeey…. Baby…. don’t gooooo … tea-bagging…
Wait, that’s not right.
March 23rd, 2010 at 1:43 am
[...] The Tea Party base has been described as a new phenomenon — a surprising turn of events that no one could have ever, ever predicted. Most recently, a spokesman for Astroturf Inc. FreedomWorks, quoted his boss, Dick Armey: [...]
March 23rd, 2010 at 2:55 am
@jcricket: LOVE Johnette Napolitano. I’m just sayin’.
I read the title and was excited because I like tattoos, but then I realized we were talking about that stupid asshat Dickie Armey, and now I haz a sad.
March 23rd, 2010 at 3:06 am
Maybe the funders of his nice little operation don’t like smelly piles on their astroturf?
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:16 am
It’s very distracting
Says it all. It’s not evil, it’s not mean spirited, it’s not unAmerican, it’s not even wrong…to these assholes, it is what it is…
It’s very distracting
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:20 am
It’s just another brick through the door
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:24 am
@Martian Buddy:
And the perception that he’s angling to preserve his little slice of pork would be inaccurate why, exactly? Yes, he’s tied into a major school loan broker as well, but I’m convinced he dearly wants to preserve the Cornhusker Kickback so he can trot it out as an accomplishment on his reelection campaign, if nothing else.
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:27 am
@Mark S.:
I don’t have a single doubt in hell about that.
No matter what all the king makers and machiavellis in the GOP might think, they’ve handed the party over to Beck lock, stock and barrel.
Problem being, they have far less control over this dry drunk rodeo clown than they think they do. He’s worse than a loose cannon- he’s an ignorant, un-reflective bundle of contradictory contrarianism that has no understanding of the normal bounds of reason or consistency.
And because of that, he’ll have his fall, eventually. The question is, how much damage does he do on his personal trajectory into infamy.
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:53 am
[...] Look at the Teabaggers now. If they’re not overt racists, they definitely view everything through a racialist lens. They’re not exercised by the perennial gays/guns/God stuff. Every time I hear someone moaning about something abstract and nerdy like the deficit, I wonder what they’re really bent out of shape about. We are not besieged by ten million alienated, working class policy wonks. [...]
March 24th, 2010 at 3:56 pm