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The “Tea Party Express” is a conservative PAC-organized cross-country bus tour tapping into the grassroots movement to line-dance to Frank Sinatra. Or something like that. Think American Idol meets A Chorus Line. See it for yourself.
We’ll have more on the folks behind this PAC soon …
Remember back in 2006 when things in Iraq were at rock bottom and a would-be GOP congressman from California went to Iraq and came back with pictures showing how everything was peaceful and great in Baghdad?
Only the picture was of downtown Istanbul … So close, but yet so far, and all that.
Yeah, those were great days for Howard Kaloogian, along with the fact-finding trip of talk radio hosts he went to Iraq with who turned out to be funded by a bunch of Iraqi and Kurdish foreign lobbying money. But now Kaloogian has resurfaced as … drum roll, please … the guy funding the Tea Party Express!
Who’s on the invite list for the White House Ramadan Dinner?
Let’s get out ahead of this. Republicans are saying that if Democrats go the ‘reconciliation’ — i.e., 51 votes rules — route there will be a “minor revolution.” That’s fine. Hyperbole is a bipartisan indulgence.
But I’m seeing more and more reporters referring to reconciliation as the “nuclear option.” The reference is to the 2005 cycle in which Republicans threatened to abolish the filibuster to push through their Supreme Court appointments. As an aside, the Republican leadership didn’t just threaten. They used the threat, in essence, to force the Dems to give away and accept President Bush’s nominations.
In any case, the comparison is baseless. Read More
Ridge on Maddow last night: Don’t believe everything you read — especially on my book jacket.
Is Justice Stevens’ retirement imminent? That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
It may not be a tell-all book. But it does look like a tell-all Vanity Fair article with estranged Palin would-be son-in-law Levi Johnston. Among young Levi’s claims — a secret plan to cover up Bristol pregnancy by having Palins adopt the son and Palin’s plan to resign after the 2008 election to “triple the money.” More details here.
Sort of reminds me of the richly symbolic laying on of hands moment with McCain and Levi on the Tarmac in St. Paul last year. Good times …
