Monday, July 05, 2010

Independence Day 2010: Tea and Fireworks

The Tea Party Movement was probably too young in 2009 to have much visibility just 2 and a half months after the mid-April rallies, so Independence Day 2009 seems to have been pretty much the same as always.

Not so this year.

This year, with more than a year – and the Angst of August (2009) - behind us, as well as the success of Tea Party-backed primary candidates this spring the Tea Party Movement was loaded for bear this past weekend.

Traditional July 4th festivities had something new in the mix: Teabaggers and teabagger wares.

In Lexington, Kentucky, a Teabagger hub courtesy of the successful candidacy of Libertarian Rand Paul’s bid to become the Republican senatorial candidate we had paranoid Teabaggers being interviewed in this You Tube video selling their Teabagger wares at a 4th of July festival in that city.

Their featured T-shirt was one sporting the slogan “Yup, I’m a Racist.”

The vendors spewed an incredible tirade against all sorts of things, both real and imagined. Business looked brisk.

The website Teapartypatriots displayed over 20 generic Independence Day events all over where Teabaggers would either have a presence, a booth, or a place in the parade.

Closer to home, in Williamson County, a 4th of July Teabagger Rally was held in an airplane hanger at the Georgetown Municipal Airport where speakers ranged from Congressman John Carter (R-Round Rock) to GOP candidate Melissa Gordon running for justice on the 3rd Court of Appeals, to HD 52 Republican candidate Larry Gonzales.

Also present was SBOE District 10 candidate Marsha Farney who I have mentioned before when she was running in a primary runoff against an ostensibly more conservative opponent. I mentioned in passing back then that her traveling caravan was seen parked outside the establishment (at which I no longer eat barbecue) where a Teabagger fundraiser was being held – a patently illegal one in that they are raising money for political expenditures without being registered with the Texas Ethics Commission.

Farney, then, is no stranger to the Teabagger Movement and had this to say to the Williamson County crowd:
“I'd rather be here than with those America-bashing Democrats."
Leading me to pose the obvious question: given all that we have seen and heard about in the events of yesterday, precisely who are the ones doing the “America Bashing?”

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