News Roundup for 9/20/10

Crowd shot from National Tea Party Convention

-Headline of the Day-
"Vegas Hotel: The Tea Party Convention Is Canceled."

There was going to be a big teabagger convention in Las Vegas, but now it appears there won't be. In fact, if it weren't for the hotel telling reporters the event had been canceled, there would be no evidence there was ever going to be a convention at all. The group holding the event, Tea Party Nation, makes no mention of the convention on its website.

Of course, other teabaggers say the Tea Party Nation is fake, but in a movement that supposedly has no central leadership, how does anyone get to say who's real and who's not?

"If the convention really is off, the loss of the event will stand as the third high-profile tea party organizing fail in a month," reports TPM. "With the election rapidly approaching, the failure of the LibertyXPO in DC this month, the second DC 9/12 rally and now the second convention suggest those that hope to leverage the movement for big, nationally-covered productions may have tapped out the tea party grassroots."

Is the Tea Party pooped? Are they Tea Partied out? Here's hoping... (Talking Points Memo)


-Losing another constituency-
By now, you're probably familiar with rightwing Delaware loon Christine O'Donnell's 1999 claim that she "dabbled in witchcraft" but "never joined a coven." My take on this has been that Christine is so far into religious nut territory that she probably means she read a horoscope once. This weekend, she tried to laugh off her old comments by saying it was back in high school and she hung out with "questionable folks," just like everyone else. Hahahahahaha!

The problem: bona fide witches aren't happy being called "questionable folks."

"Yes, this was 11 years ago she said that," said Reverend Selena Fox, a nice Wiccan lady from my neck of the woods. "But the kinds of things she is saying now, saying 'well in high school you are with despicable characters' or some such thing, she is actually defaming Wiccans. Whether she intends to do that or not as a way to try and get herself out of this political problem she has created for herself, the fact is America really needs to be a place where you can celebrate diversity and practice your religion without getting ridiculed or defamed."

Yeah, tell that to Muslims, Selena. If you aren't Christian and, further, not exactly their kind Christian, you're questionable folks. That's the law in these people's world. Christine's comments were in the context of being anti-Halloween -- even some Christian holidays aren't Christian enough for these people. Not helping any was that she confused witchcraft with Satanism, which kind of makes me wonder if she wasn't just slinging bullshit in the first place. Or if she really did mean she read a horoscope once.

And, while we're on the subject, here's a fun game: let's say a big time Democrat -- say, Barack Obama -- says exactly the same thing. How do you think people like Christine would react to that? It'd get added to the already contradictory bio they've written for the guy and we'd never stop hearing about how he's a black liberation theology Christian who's a secret Muslim and a Satanist.

Still, keep it up Christine. If you really try with all your little heart, I'm sure you can manage to alienate everyone. (Huffington Post)


-Bonus HotD-
"So a Comedian Sits Next to Former GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman on a Plane..."

You sort of get the idea of where this is going. Add that it's former Air America Morning Sedition host Marc Maron, throw in twitter and a camera phone, and you know. (Gawker)