Alas, no.

Our Megan Carpentier went in with high hopes, but it turns out the story just doesn’t hold up.

This weekend was the annual Mermaid Parade out at Coney Island. And the mermaids were very upset at BP.

You’ll remember that at the beginning of this year we told you about a controversy about the Florida Tea Party, an actual registered political party in Florida which Tea Party activists claimed was trying to control the use of the phrase and thus the movement itself in the state of Florida. Now the party has fielded a bunch of fairly inexperienced and seemingly apolitical candidates in a bunch of races and state Republicans claim its actually a Democratic plot to confuse voters and pull votes away from Republican candidates.

Our Christina Bellantoni breaks it down.

In an interview with TPM, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA), who represents coastal Louisiana and is challenging Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), grades President Obama’s response to the BP blowout as only a C.

Get ready for former Rep. JD Hayworth’s greatest informercial pitchman moments: free government money, you never have to pay it back! It’s real!

Greatest moments video after the jump … Read More

In response to our initial inquiries this morning about the scam infomercial J.D. Hayworth was pitchman for, his Senate campaign completely defended his involvement. But you see a shift of emphasis now, with the campaign telling us and other outlets that Hayworth didn’t really know anything about the company he was pitching for. Which is some defense.

Also, interestingly, the campaign keeps pawning the whole gig off on former Rep. J.C. Watts, who was apparently also a pitchman for the “Free Money” guys. More on that later …

Walt Minnick’s got a challenging balance to manage being a Democratic congressman from Idaho these days. He’s already the only incumbent Democrat with Tea Party support. And now he’s flirting — whether in earnest of for the benefit of right-leaning independents — with not voting for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker next year.

Thanks to TPM Reader AH for flagging the piece for us.

Earlier today our Christina Bellantoni wrote a post about the controversy surrounding the ‘Florida Tea Party’. Now, I use the single quotes because I’m not just referring to generic Tea Partiers in Florida. As Zack Roth explained back in January, it’s an officially registered party in the state of Florida. And the folks who put it together actually claim and have asserted the exclusive use of the phrase in Florida, which has driven various Tea Partiers in the state completely nuts.

Now, as Christina explained today, Republicans are claiming that the whole Florida Tea Party (FTP) operation is actually a plot by Democrats to field a lot of potemkin candidates who show up on the ballot with the “Tea Party” label so that right-wing Republicans split their votes (between the GOP candidate and the ‘Tea Party’ candidate) and thus make it possible for a lot of vulnerable Democrats to slip through. Read More

White House budget director Peter Orszag to leave in July.

We’re very eager to find out more about this ‘Florida Tea Party’ mystery and any possible connection with Rep. Alan Grayson. So if you’ve got any inside knowledge of what’s going on, please drop us a line. As always, your anonymity is guaranteed.