Bubble, Bubble, Toil & Bullshit

From THE MINNESOTA INDEPENDENT:

Rep. Michele Bachmann was on a tear: In one of her most fiery stump speeches to date, the tea party leader told a South Carolina audience that the tax code was a “weapon of mass destruction,” that President Obama is “babying” terrorists, that the rich pay too much in taxes, that social issues like marriage and abortion cannot be put on the “back burner,” and that Fox News’ Glenn Beck can solve America’s budget deficit.

…snip…

“We are looking at a time of bubbles,” Bachmann said, referring to the housing and tech bubbles. She said that Americans are witnessing a “government bubble.”

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CPAniC

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, the last of the possible Republican presidential candidates to address CPAC on Friday, strode to the podium at tonight’s Ronald Reagan Banquet and turned back the clock to the 1980s: the thing we have to fear, he said, is the growing Red Threat.

“In our nation, in our time, the friends of freedom have an assignment, as great as those of the 1860s, or the 1940s, or the long twilight of the Cold War,” he said. “As in those days, the American project is menaced by a survival-level threat.”

“I refer, of course, to the debts our nation has amassed for itself over decades of indulgence,” he added. “It is the new Red Menace, this time consisting of ink.”

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CPAChydermititis

Washington (CNN) — Potential Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Sen. John Thune, Tim Pawlenty and Rep. Ron Paul all get their chance Friday to address the annual Conservative Political Action Conference — a gathering of more than 10,000 GOP activists from across the country.

The list of speakers for the three-day meeting is a virtual “Who’s Who” of GOP presidential politics.

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The United Hates of America

From the Southern Poverty Law Center:

The radical right caught fire last year, as broad-based populist anger at political, demographic and economic changes in America ignited an explosion of new extremist groups and activism across the nation.

Hate groups stayed at record levels — almost 1,000 — despite the total collapse of the second largest neo-Nazi group in America. Furious anti-immigrant vigilante groups soared by nearly 80%, adding some 136 new groups during 2009. And, most remarkably of all, so-called “Patriot” groups — militias and other organizations that see the federal government as part of a plot to impose “one-world government” on liberty-loving Americans — came roaring back after years out of the limelight.

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Such a Small Tent, But So Many Circus Acts

From POLITICS DAILY:

Glenn Beck, the Fox News personality and chalkboard scrawling libertarian hero, gave the marquee speech Saturday night at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

Swapping out a teleprompter for his famous chalkboard, Beck wowed the faithful with an hour-long presentation that defended conservatism, praised the Founding Fathers and lampooned Washington, D.C. as an addict in need of immediate treatment. He looked to history to predict that without an immediate course correction and reduction of the federal budget deficit, America is headed for “an economic holocaust.”

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(left to right: Glenn Blechhh, Batshit Michele Bachmann, Newt xGangrenex Gingrich, Mike I-Shop-In-Iraq! Pence)

The Gang’s All There!

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — For 30 minutes on Thursday, Mitt Romney, a likely Republican candidate for president in 2012, offered a systematic indictment of what he described as the failed presidency of Barack Obama. A little earlier, a crowd of conservatives whooped in delight as a speaker made coy allusions to Mr. Obama’s youthful experimentation with cocaine.

Republican leaders took the stage at a conservative conference here to pay tribute to the Tea Party movement and soberly pledge to defeat Republicans who did not adhere to conservative views. Speaker after speaker drew hoots as they mocked Mr. Obama for his use of a teleprompter, seemingly oblivious to the teleprompter that rose from the floor before them.

The setting was the Conservative Political Action Conference, and it produced a sometimes incongruous meshing of mainstream Republicans — presidential candidates, leaders of Congress, political thinkers — with the often rowdy crowd of activists who have typically lent a slight air of the carnival to this long-time Washington political gathering.

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(From top, clockwise:  Naked Scotty Brown, Michael Not-Steele Williams, Tim Timmeh Pawlenty, Snarling Liz Cheney, Willard Mittsie Romney, Dick Dick Armey)

Hey, Hey, Hey!!!

From the New York Daily News:

If Rush Limbaugh is the new face of the Republican Party, it’s a face with lots of scars.

Not so much the literal ones, but scars in the character that is El Rushbo[…]

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Clockwise: Boohoo Boehner, Fat Bastard Limpdick, Michael Phat Head Steele, Mitch Yertle the Turtle McConnell, Mark Miss South Carolina Sanford, and Phil Georgia Peach Gingrey (and David Frum on the wanted poster).

Who’s the Boss?

From The Washington Post:

For a man who expresses no desire to lead the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh has a knack for creating problems for those who do.

…snip…

The ongoing controversy over Limbaugh’s statement in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday that he wants “Barack Obama to fail” and the aggressive Democratic pushback it drew has emerged as the latest challenge for a party struggling to find its voice and lacking an obvious national leader.

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