SAME AS THE OLD BOSS

Balloon Juice flags this story:

The Tea Party ... hates Net Neutrality. Why does the Tea Party hate Net Neutrality? "I think the clearest thing is it's an affront to free speech and free markets." Thus spoke Jaime Radtke, chairwoman of the Virginia Tea Party Patriot Federation. Net Neutrality is an affront to free speech? Did I wake up in Bizarro World?

The Virginia Tea Party Patriot Federation ... was one of 35 Tea Party groups that sent a letter to the FCC urging it to rubbish Net Neutrality....

Well, yeah -- the signers of the letter (PDF) include officers of various tea party groups. They also include folks from Americans for Prosperity, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Traditional Values Coalition, Young Americans for Freedom, the National Taxpayers Union, the Reason Foundation, the Business Coalition for Fair Competition, and Eagle Forum (yup, Phyllis Schlafly herself signed).

In other words, a whole of old, well-financed parts of the institutionalized right that's been with us forever. A lot of Astroturf groups. A lot of lobbyists. Oh, and the letter is hosted on the site of Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform (he signed it, too).

Of course, the quoted teabagger Jamie Radtke, is a proud member of the National Tea Party Federation, which has "established alliances with like-minded advocacy and support groups including Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, Family Research Council and Citizens Against Government Waste."

There's your "new," "independent," "grassroots" right-wing movement, folks.

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Just for the record, the National Tea Party Federation was the group that expelled Mark Williams after he posted his racist "letter" to Abraham Lincoln. So this is a group that wants to continue being politically viable.