It pays to throw a Tea Party

[Yahoo! News] The movement's popular appeal (according to the mainstream media) stems from grass-roots outrage over the bailout of America's financial system, the expanded role of government, and the growing deficits. But the Tea Party has also been aggressively promoted by conservative media, political leaders and advocacy groups — and its broad appeal has  blurred the distinctions among the three.

A year into this fledgling political movement's life, reports are emerging of the huge money being made by Tea Party leaders.

Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck lead the pack of personalities capitalizing on ignorance to earn very easy money, but a few new faces and a few old faces are also getting into the game.

Sarah Palin


Who: Former governor of Alaska, Fox News contributor, author, speaker

1 year Tea Party-generated income: $12 million

Glenn Beck

Who: Fox News host, radio host, author, speaker 

1 year Tea Party-generated income: $32 million

Dick Armey

Who: Former House majority leader, former lobbyist, chairman of FreedomWorks

1 year Tea Party-generated income: $550,000

Andrew Breitbart
Who: Web publisher, author, pundit, speaker 

1 year Tea Party-generated income: $500,000-plus

Fox News 

Who: cable news and opinion network

1 year Tea Party-generated income: unknown

The "movement" most of us see is a small faction of supposedly well-to-do ignoramuses who are furiously angry about nearly everything and display a unique tendency to reduce complicated issues down to moronically simplistic catch-phrases that are often misspelled but easy to shout. The key point to articulate is that these "real Americans" don't realize they are being played for fools by their so-called "leaders".

What effect will Tea Party "conservatism" have on the country? Hopefully, none at all. But, as long as these people are willing to support the millionaire lifestyles of a few opportunistic social warriors, we should all be vigilant about educating ourselves on the issues.