It’s one thing when the American people show how much they don’t like you – as we did on Nov. 6. But when even Dick Armey tells the Tea Party (aka Freedomworks) to get lost, you know there’s trouble in paradise!
In a move not publicly announced, former Rep. Dick Armey, the folksy conservative leader, has resigned as chairman of FreedomWorks, one of the main political outfits of the conservative movement and an instrumental force within the tea party.
Armey, the former House majority leader who helped develop and promote the GOP’s Contract with America in the 1990s, tendered his resignation in an memo sent to Matt Kibbe, president and CEO of FreedomWorks, on November 30. Mother Jones obtained the email on Monday, and Armey has confirmed he sent it. The tone of the memo suggests that this was not an amicable separation. (See Armey’s email below.) Armey demanded that he be paid until his contract ended on December 31; that FreedomWorks remove his name, image, or signature “from all its letters, print media, postings, web sites, videos, testimonials, endorsements, fund raising materials, and social media, including but not limited to Facebook and Twitter”; and that FreedomWorks deliver the copy of his official congressional portrait to his home in Texas.
Ouch! To quote the fabulous Ben Folds Five, “give me my money back, you bitch!”
As you probably know, my show originates from the ground zero of political dysfunction known as Florida. In the moments following the defeat of Mitt Romney in the presidential election, two figures emerged from the swamps as possible GOP frontrunners in 2016: Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. I called on my friend Stephen Goldstein, columnist for the South Florida Sun Sentinel and author of Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned, to explain to the rest of the country why either of these guys would be a disaster!
Activist David Swanson checked in to urge you to sign two important petitions. The first, put forth by Roots Action, demanding that Susan Rice divest herself of all foreign investments, most notably in the Canadian tarsands Keystone XL pipeline
“Susan Rice, the candidate believed to be favored by President Obama to become the next Secretary of State, holds significant investments in more than a dozen Canadian oil companies and banks that would stand to benefit from expansion of the North American tar sands industry and construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline,” OnEarth Magazine reports. “If confirmed by the Senate, one of Rice’s first duties likely would be consideration, and potentially approval, of the controversial mega-project.”
The second one comes from a coalition of 56 organizations in the form of Jobs Not Wars– a time-limited petition campaign to urge the president and congress to abandon austerity solutions to the deficit and instead to end the war, cut military spending, tax the super-rich, and redirect resources to restore and protect the social safety net, create jobs, deal with climate change and meet other urgent social needs.
And finally, if it’s Tuesday, we spend the second hour shooting the shit with GottaLaff of The Political Carnival. We continued the discussion about the vilification of Bob Costas by the right over his asserting his first amendment right to talk about guns in the wake of the murder-suicide of Kansas City Chiefs’ Jovan Belcher, and the insanity (and inanity) of NRA EVP/CEO Wayne LaPierre, demonstrated by his comments yesterday which you have to see/hear to believe.
As my friend Will Bunch wrote at his Attytood blog at the Philadelphia Daily News, “Bob Costas learns the right time to talk about guns in America … never“.
We also discussed these stories and more:
That sucking sound you hear is the GOP leadership vacuum created by RomneyFail
“Demoralized” Republicans go to Obama School: “We weren’t even running in the same race.”
VIDEO: Oops! Climate change denier Gov. Jan Brewer’s caught-on-camera Moment of Cranky
Karl Rove to GOP: Just don’t *sound* intolerant.
For whom the shills troll
GOP waaahmbulance alert: President Obama’s bully pulpit is no fair!
The poor favor Democrats, minorities do better under Dem administrations than Republican ones
Economist Intelligence Unit : U.S. not among the best places to be born in 2013
