Over at the ironically-named American Thinker, Jack Cashill offers "How Quickly Spread the Tea Party Smear" (americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/how_quickly_spread_the_tea_par.html, linked of course by Glenn Reynolds, pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/96898). This is in line with Cashill's more famous effort: wasting peoples' time by trying to prove the unprovable, and it like that is a minor example of...
McClatchy reports that People for the American Way and perhaps other groups are "quietly" beginning a "politics of personal destruction"/"Joe the Plumber"-style campaign against Frank Ricci, the firefighter who'll be testifying at the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation (link). In 1995 he sued New Haven over him being rejected from their fire department due to his dyslexia; in the settlement he received...
Margaret Talev of McClatchy offers "Poll: GOP risks loss of respect if it goes after Sotomayor" (link). Both the absurd headline and, to a slightly lesser extent the article, try to spin the poll in the most Democratic Party-favorable fashion possible. However, that fails:
Fully 55 percent of Americans said they hadn't yet heard enough about Sonia Sotomayor to have an opinion of her, according to...
David Lightman of McClatchy Newspapers offers "GOP 'trackers' stalk Dems in hunt for 'macaca' moment" (link). The "trackers" (from the National Republican Congressional Committee) have been prowling the streets of Washington DC and trying to ask Democratic politicians questions on video. There are some videos linked from the end of the article; you can also find them here: youtube.com/user/...
... American conspiracy talk" from McClatchy comes close (link), as does "Texas kills 50-year road building plan after outcry" from Jim Forsyth of Reuters (link).
See also this, this. There's a little information on bills involving the TTC here.
And, see the 2001 version of keeptexasmoving.com for a flashback to the dishonest way in which the TTC was sold: link.
... "joke"]
12/09/07 UPDATE: Matt Stearns of McClatchy Newspapers offers his own "debunking".
12/11/07 UPDATE: The SPLC has also tried to cast doubts on these schemes.
... guest-worker plan" by Dave Montgomery of McClatchy Newspapers. He refers to those Republicans - whether just leaders or constituents - who oppose Bush's "guest" worker program as "jerks". Of course, Montgomery concentrates on the name-calling and doesn't ask Armey whether or not he's simply a paid cheap labor shill.