Rove Takes on the Tea Party, Maher Rips ‘Con Men’ Limbaugh and Beck, and More

Rove vs. the Tea Party:

Karl Rove wants the GOP establishment to take back the Republican Party from the tea party, and he’s launching an initiative to do so. Rove and other organizers behind his super PAC American Crossroads are supporting a new super PAC called the Conservative Victory Project. The group’s goal is to defeat unelectable tea party candidates—such as Christine O’Donnell, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock–in GOP primaries and have more electable Republicans as the party’s candidates against Democrats. “There is a broad concern about having blown a significant number of races because the wrong candidates were selected,” American Crossroads President Steven Law, who will run the new super PAC, said. “We don’t view ourselves as being in the incumbent protection business, but we want to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.” (Read more)

Krugman vs. the NRA: New York Times columnist Paul Krugman excoriated the National Rifle Association during a discussion on ABC’s “This Week,” calling the powerful gun lobby group “an insane organization.” The Nobel Prize-winning economist argued that the NRA’s “bizarre” approach to gun control is ultimately working against it. “Now the craziness of the extreme pro-gun lobby has been revealed, and that has got to move the debate and got to move the legislation at least to some degree,” Krugman said. (Read more)

Perry vs. the Boy Scouts: Unpopular Texas Gov. Rick Perry says he is not OK with the news that the Boy Scouts of America may be getting ready to end its bigoted and discriminatory policy of banning gays from joining the organization. Perry, an Eagle Scout, spoke at the Texas Scouts’ 64th annual Report to State, where he stated that the organization should not soften its policy of barring members because of their sexuality. “Hopefully the board will follow their historic position of keeping the Scouts strongly supportive of the values that make scouting this very important and impactful organization,” Perry said. (Read more)

McDonnell vs. Hybrid Owners: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell evidently doesn’t understand that the point of owning a hybrid or electric vehicle is to save money on gas. To wit: The GOP governor has proposed a $100 fee for alternative fuel vehicles to make up for losses on the federal gas tax. As one person protesting the plan noted, “We should be rewarding people for trying to do their part to stop the climate crisis and to lower pollution. We shouldn’t be punishing them with taxes.” (Read more)

Texas vs. Obama: Given that Texans already launched an effort on the White House’s We the People site to succeed from the U.S., the results of a new Public Policy Polling survey should come as no surprise—the number of people who support secession efforts has increased since President Obama’s re-election in November. According to the poll, 20 percent of Texas voters said they’d like the Lone Star State to leave the union, up from 14 percent in September 2011. Unfortunately for the secession supporters, most Texans don’t share those beliefs. Two-thirds of voters in the state support Texas staying in the U.S., according to the poll. (Read more)

Video of the Day: On the latest edition of “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said the left shouldn’t be gloating about Sarah Palin’s getting dropped by Fox News. Why? Because it frees her to go the way of influential conservative pundits and “con men” like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. “Con men, like Rush and Beck, are one reason the Republicans are in such dire straits today because they don’t care about winning elections; they care about separating rubes from their money,” Maher explained. “They’ve discovered there is a fortune to be made by keeping a small portion of America under the illusion that they are always under attack from Mexicans, ACORN, or Planned Parenthood, or gays, or takers, global warming hoaxers. It doesn’t matter. They don’t want a majority; they want a mailing list.”