I encourage readers to purchase two copies of The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism – one for themselves and one as a Christmas present for their right wing uncle. That uncle might well stay with Skocpol and Williamson’s highly readable and well-crafted study to the end without throwing it down in anger – something I can’t say with much confidence about my book with DiMaggio.

The very well funded puppeteers of the American Legislative Exchange Council don’t much like it when the general public notices their existence, much less ALEC’s influence over Republican state legislators. So much like a squid squirts ink to cloud up the waters whilst trying to escape from view, ALEC’s squirting some obscuring muck out its hindquarters, the Minnesota version of said muck its Republican minions like Kurt Zellers and Steve Drazkowski call “Reform 2.0″ (h/t Bluestem Prairie).

Is Vets for Freedom preparing to support David Petraeus as a candidate for President? Shouldn’t the Wall Street Journal have mentioned that Vets for Freedom supports candidates for office who are veterans and support “victory” in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Ignoring the anger and demonizing the angry does not service liberty or security, and it doesn’t do much for the causes of progressives or the Democratic Party, either.

The people who benefit from the status quo will fight tooth and nail against movements to reform it. Any grassroots movement that tries to put the power back in the hands of regular people will inevitably be attacked by those who profit from having the power. As we have seen with the Nonpartisan League, its enemies smeared it, tried to subvert its message and stole its techniques.

Heard about the alleged grassroots “I Need A Freakin’ Job” billboard? The one that two brothers, Scott and Jeff Baker, put up? They’ve got a really slick website, too. Guess what — Jeff Baker works for known right-wing propaganda machine Andrew Breitbart.

And here we all thought the Humane Society was a place to pick up Spot and Fluffy. Nope. Rick Berman’s “Center For Consumer Freedom” tells us the Humane Society’s kitten-huggers are really terorrists.

Over at Green Is The New Red, Will Porter tells how CCF bought a full page ad in the NYT and blew the ad on a risible “six degrees of separation” link between the Humane Society and some supposedly scary terruhists