PerryforPresidentFML.com

Must share this news of Progress Texas' hard work. (If you're the sort that's had trouble understanding what Twitter is all about, this will help you get it: geek fighting for a new generation.)

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When it became clear months ago that Rick Perry was headed for a presidential run, Matt Glazer and Mark Corcoran at Progress Texas — no fans of Texas’ longest-serving governor — reacted to the news the way you might if, say, you found out you needed 10 fillings. Or your boss threw a can of SpaghettiOs at your head. Or your kids pulled your pants down at the circus.

“FML.”

At PerryForPresidentFML.com, the liberal activist group is gathering all the factoids they can find about the troubled state of Texas after a decade under Perry’s watch, and spitting them out on Twitter with the #PerryFML hashtag.

Since the weekend, as Rick Perry’s rising star carried @RickPerryFacts and TwitPics of the governor eating a corn dog along with it, #PerryFML has been swept up too.

The Perry facts in rotation include:

Peter Wagner endorsed Perry’s “Response.” He advocates putting the gov’t under christian rule & burning statues of catholic saints #PerryFML

Rick Perry’s 2011 budget cut funding for the Texas Armed Services Scholarship Program #PerryFML http://ht.ly/5ZaqW

“We just did a shallow hit on what his record is — we wanted to make it something that’s easy to share,” said Glazer, the group’s executive director.

“We sort of expected it to be a very slow build,” Glazer said, but within days of Perry’s announcement that he’d launch a campaign, he said, they saw the hashtag take off. “What we expected to be a couple month-long process and really not be used till 2012, it started in 48 hours.”

Each day this week, Glazer said, they’ve maxed out the 1,500-tweet limit on the free Hashtracking account that let them follow the #PerryFML wave. Just based on those hits, though, Corcoran said they’re getting 1.8 million impressions.

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Head on over and spread the wealth.

TP less popular than atheists, Muslims

Everybody weirded out of the crazy eyed, spinning pictures? Yeah, me too.

Turns out the rest of the country is just as sick of these TeaBagging assholes as you and I are.

Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent.

Of course, politicians of all stripes are not faring well among the public these days. But in data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

Well, nobody could have predicted that, now could they?

Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today.

Another 'duh' moment.

So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.

More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 — opposing abortion, for example — and still are today. Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.

Hellloooo. That's why we have all of these Wars going on -- the War on Women, the War on Poor People. Ah, but here comes the coup de gras ...

On everything but the size of government, Tea Party supporters are increasingly out of step with most Americans, even many Republicans. Indeed, at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, today’s Tea Party parallels the anti-Vietnam War movement which rallied behind George S. McGovern in 1972. The McGovernite activists brought energy, but also stridency, to the Democratic Party — repelling moderate voters and damaging the Democratic brand for a generation. By embracing the Tea Party, Republicans risk repeating history.

Look at that: the Tea Party is nothing more than a bunch of dirty fucking hippies who found religion -- and ultra-conservatism and bigotry and hate -- in their dotage.

To quote some of their miserable ilk: 'time for this bad experiment in government to come to an end'.