more than half of the voting-age public used the Internet last year to find out about, write about and comment on the presidential election

???

"Internet"? Do you mean interstate or interview? Or does this have something to do with basketball?

For anyone interested, here's the report on my Teabagging drive-by here in Austin:
D-Bags with Teabags: Austin Edition

I was just thinking about all the cool stuff and good paying jobs that could be moved to other states when TX secedes; like NASA; all the military installations that would have to be relocated to the United States, and all the companies that would want to relocate since if they stated would end up paying the lion's share of taxes to support the infrastructure of a sovereign nation. It must be frightfully expensive to maintain a Secret Service cadre to protect the President of Texas in a country where every effin person owns at least one gun.

Limbaugh supporting Perry's seccessionist talk....

You know this is just more evidence in my (snarky) belief that the only thing worse than loosing to the Republicans is beating them.

It's a clear cut case of herd mentality with the playing of "God Bless America" at Sunday ballgames. It is not the National Anthem, you are in no way obligated to stand or take off your hat or even acknowledge it. The same reason you don't actually have to stretch in the middle of the 7th inning. Yet, so many stand and take off their hat and sing as if obligated. Fine, you are more than welcome, but it is not obligatory.

Looking through the pictures of the Tea Bagging whiners, the thing that struck me is that I only saw ONE non-white adult. Not just one non-white person as the main subject of a photo, but only one in total. I'd want confirmation from those who actually went to them, but from the pictures I'm seeing, it looks like the overwhelming majority of these people were white. Why do I get the feeling, that if it were 30 years ago, these same people would be wearing white hoods and burning crosses at this protest instead of doing who-knows-what with tea bags?

* By Nate Silver's count, as many as 262,000 people attended "Tea Party" events yesterday.

Actually, he said that he has documented 262,000 (as best as such things can be documented), but estimates that the total is higher.

* General Growth Properties, one of the largest mall operators in the nation, filed for bankruptcy today.

How can that be? Michael Steele was just laughing about how the "malls are just packed" only five days ago?

First Texas, now Georgia:

http://www.americablog.com/2009/04/georgia-senate-threatens-to-secede.html

Certain people really hate President Obama.

It is not the National Anthem, you are in no way obligated to stand or take off your hat or even acknowledge it.

You're not obligated to stand, take off your hat or acknowledge the national anthem, either. And before y'all get all in my face, I always stand up and sing along with the NA. Many a ballpark neighbor has felt a sudden need to vamoose for a hot dog after hearing my version of TSSB, so I do try to keep my volume low.

It's kind of cute how the left has altered the term for the anti-spending rallies to "tea bagging" instead of what everyone who attends them calls them, "tea parties." Not being well acquainted with Anderson Cooper, I had not realized the sexual innuendo in "tea bagging." Cute. Only those of you in the know, so to speak, understands this, of course.

Actually, Mike K, teabagging isn't only a man-on-man thing. It doesn't really surprise us to learn that you're as bereft of sexual knowledge as you are of other information. Might (partly) explain why you can't keep a wife around, though.

You're wrong (shocker!) about who used the word "teabagging" first -- it was the "grassroots movement" people themselves. We simply accepted the opportunity to use the right's own comical ignorance against it, as we do with you each time you post. You never learn, do you?

Mike K,

I'm surprised you on the 'right' are not more familiar with "tea bagging". You have been tea bagging George W Bush for 8 years. See, after the right's crusading for a trillion dollar war in which nary an "anti-spending" protest was raised, we on the "left" find it "cute" that the 'right' has misinterpreted the historical context of the Boston Tea Party.

* By Nate Silver's count, as many as 262,000 people attended "Tea Party" events yesterday. -- Steve Benen

260 000. According to the HuffPo story (your bullet point about the signs, just below this one), 2K of them were HuffPo's "citizen journalists", taking pot shots. Erm. Photo shots.

Mike K, @18:18

To a *tea party*, one wears one's best afternoon attire, including an Ascot-type hat. To attend a *teabagging party*, such finery is not necessary; nobody will notice that you look like a frump, because looking at you is not the point of the exercise. Y'all should have thought about that, when you first started peddling your "teabagging parties" (not, as you claim, "tea parties")

And what shortstop said. It's a sad sack you are, out of the sack and in.

One of the reasons I like watching professional golf is the nearly total absence of flag-waving, except for those on the greens. Amazing how normal it seems compared to the amp'd up patriotism accompanying so many other sporting events.

Re - Limbaugh, Perry - this kind of street theater is actually very shrewd because it takes peoples' minds off of who is really responsible for the economic and social cock-up we are in now. This is really worrisome and invites a riposte that can only make the good guys look bad. I have to hand it to the Rethugs - they have both sides covered with the American people bending over in the middle

i found the signs from the tea-testers inflammatory and ridiculous. Strange, off beat and perhaps mentally ill?
I blame the right wing talk radio inflamers.
I regret the retirement of John Madden, whom I love.

Hey Mike K!

Let's just call it what it really was: a Klan rally.

That should clear things up.

(and who in here is NOT surprised you don't know what tea-bagging is?)

There's a great letter in local newspaper The Daily Press about the hypocrisy of the teabaggers:

http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-ed_thultrs_04162apr16,0,2665294.story

April 16, 2009

The recent tax protest events organized by the tea baggers offer insight into the souls of modern conservatives. I don't recall a single such event nor a voice raised by those who label themselves fiscal conservatives when President George W. Bush asked their grandchildren to pay for his tax cuts. Where were their protests when we went from record federal surpluses to record deficits? The Republican infrastructure was in enthusiastic lock step, from the president, to the Congress, to the subservient commentators, to the ditto heads.

Now that President Barack Obama wants to move the country in a different direction, suddenly the so-called fiscal conservatives are in an uproar. The obvious hypocrisy reveals that it's not about fiscal discipline, it's about politics. Conservatives were happy to ask our grandchildren to pay when they liked the policies offered by the government; now they pretend that thrift is a grand moral cause because they don't like the new direction. They only reveal the moral bankruptcy of today's conservatism.

Chris B., Newport News VA

"including an Ascot-type hat."

I had to look that up. Turns out, there really is such a thing as an Ascot hat, and I didn't know about it. Kind of strange from someone who actually knows how to tie an ascot and has worn them. And by ascot, I mean the neckware. And trust me, there's nothing weirder than a long haired hippie wearing a tuxedo with an ascot and cumberbund.

Please, oh please, Rick Perry -- SECEDE NOW!

The Dems will have a filibuster-proof majority in Congress so we can finally get some health care. We can save tons of money fighting the drug gangs by focusing on New Mexico, Arizona and California. We'll save bundles ending your crop price supports, you can fund all your own abstinence only sex education and watch your girls get pregnant, hold all your own teachers accountable as your schools test near the bottom and oh, has anyone told you your water's runnnig out in 10 years? Lockheed and NASA will move to Alabama rather than risk being based in an unstable business environment.

I hear Mexico would like you back. Toodle-oo! Vaya con Dios!

you first started peddling your "teabagging parties" (not, as you claim, "tea parties")

And what shortstop said. It's a sad sack you are, out of the sack and in.

Posted by: exlibra

You still don't get it. Some of us talk less about sex and do more. Everyone to their own taste, of course.

Some of us talk less about sex and do more.

Perhaps we should have been clearer. We weren't referring to late evenings alone in the study with the hand lotion and kleenex. Did you ever get that environmental scan done to see why severe headaches strike people with XX chromosomes in your household nightly?

Turns out, there really is such a thing as an Ascot hat, and I didn't know about it. -- fostert, @21:20

Well... You're not a female, nor -- from what I gather about you -- are you likely to be shelling out for such a confection, so you're excused :) I, OTOH, am a female and, although language (as a concept, not necessarily any particular one) is my love and my training, textiles of all kinds have been in my blood for 3 generations. So, I do know the difference between "an ascot" and "an Ascot hat". Glad to hear I've been instrumental in enlarging your sartorial vocabulary; consider it a small payback for all the informative insights you've given *me*, on "things Indonesian"...

Mike K, @22:55

I *do* "get it", dahlink; I probably "get" more of "it" than you do, for all I've had the same -- my first and only -- spouse for the past 35+ yrs. And, no, I didn't know the slang for "teabagging", either (had to ask here, as a matter of fact), nor did my husband. Not until your -- clueless as usual -- cohorts started to swing it around making everyone giggle.

You're still a sad sack... even your mustache looks sad (and limp).

Sully:
If you think the right is sincerely concerned about civil liberties for all in this country, this is not encouraging.

Is there anyone who thought that conservatives have ever been concerned with anyone's civil liberties but their own?