tea parties

The "tea party" movement

Starting in February 2009, a very small group of people held "tea parties" across the U.S. in a supposed attempt to protest the policies of Barack Obama. I strongly oppose these "parties" for all the many reasons listed below.

Note: please bear in mind that I'm not an Obama supporter, I just want others to oppose him and the far-left in a more intelligent way. I have to add that note because teapartiers falsely triy to pretend that anyone who opposes them must be an Obama supporter. To be a teapartier is to lie; none that I've encountered have any interest in the truth and in being intellectually honest. All of the teapartiers that I've encountered engage in what I call the "Jump, Smear, and Lie" technique.

Obama has been mentioned in around 500 posts here and almost all were critical of him, his policies, or his associates. My first mention of him was in 2004, and in early 2007 before most people had heard of him I went to one of his appearances to ask him an adversarial question about an illegal immigration march he attended in 2006. See the Barack Obama, Obama immigration, and other pages for extensive coverage of him.

See also my coverage of groups that the teapartiers should oppose such as National Council of La Raza, American Civil Liberties Union, League of United Latin American Citizens, MALDEF, and many other groups discussed here. Only a few people in the teaparties movement are capable of creating even one of the minor posts at any of those links, and none are capable of creating even a small set of those posts. It would be in the teapartiers interests to link to those pages instead of smearing me, but teapartiers lack the smarts and the sanity to help themselves.

My issues with the tea parties fall into several main areas:

1. Their ideology is wrong.
2. They make little political sense.
3. Their methods are wrong.
4. Those behind the movement do not support good public policies.
5. Their priorities are wrong.
6. The teaparties and immigration.
7. The teaparties and race.
8. The teaparties and George W. Bush.

Those are to a certain degree independent; someone can agree with me regarding one or more and disagree with me on the others.

In addition to those:

9. How the subset of smart, non-Randroid tea partiers can achieve their goals.
10. What the Democrats could do about them.
11. Should the Democrats support the tea parties?

1. Ideology

While not all tea partiers support "objectivism" - the Ayn Rand philosophy - many do, including leaders of the movement such as Glenn Reynolds. Objectivism is even fringe within the libertarian movement, with the ultimate stage being to "go Galt", i.e., to take their marbles and go home by completely withdrawing from U.S. society. Here's an example of just how fringe objectivists are. Other leaders of the movement are simply libertarians, which in itself is a fringe movement. The parties can be seen as an attempt to mainstream libertarianism or at least extreme fiscal conservatism.

tea party stupidityThis is a real sign from a real Tea Party protest. It's not an "infiltrator": I took the picture from the Flickr feed of ardent Bush fan Matt Margolis ( peekURL.com/z865xsf ). Note that I obscured his face.

Whatever the underlying ideology, the events are not coming from peoples' better nature. Rather, they're coming from peoples' "lizard brains": the low-level functions involving territorial claims and the like. Instead of promoting good public policy, most of those attending are simply selfish people who want to pay as little tax as possible not due to any intellectual reason - such as limiting government intrusion - but simply because they're cheap. Their fringe ideology isn't even the defensible fringe but is instead focused only on completely self-centered and completely selfish financial matters. They have no interest in what's good for the U.S. as a whole but instead are only concentrating on their own self interest.

2. Politics

The tea party turnout on April 15th, 2009 represented about 0.1% to 0.2% of the U.S. population, despite wall-to-wall promotion on Fox News. That number is nearly insignificant and won't worry any national politician unless they're already very vulnerable. On the local level, their parties in deep blue districts have drawn similar amounts, and all those small rallies do is reassure the Democratic representative from that district just how weak their opposition is. Examples of that here, here, and here.

Actual tea partiers mock and throw dollar bills at a victim of Parkinson's disease. They aren't infiltrators, and they aren't just a few bad apples. This is a raw display of the anti-American, un-American, borderline-sociopathic ideology that the tea parties share with libertarians.

Further, their ideology is fringe enough that they will never attract a significant number of followers. While most Americans oppose profligate spending, the tea parties go well beyond that. Given that the great majority of Republicans support Social Security and similar programs, those who oppose or want to reduce such programs are never going to find widespread support. Rather than concentrating on a salient issue that - handled correctly - could find widespread support (such as opposition to illegal immigration), the tea partiers stand in opposition to the wishes of most Americans.

It's also useful to look at what the opposition has done. As of the end of March 2009, the mainstream media had largely ignored their movement and, most notably, had not done any hit pieces on them. That strongly indicated that those in a position of power weren't worried about their movement. Then, shortly after Fox News began promoting their April 15, 2009 events, some hit pieces did appear. However, as of July 3, 2009 - just one day before their next round of events on July 4th - they're once again off the mainstream media's radar. As of July 3rd, 2009, Google Trends showed a spike of interest in mid-April, but interest remaining at a low level since then. Obama baited the partiers at the end of April, 2009, but he hasn't said a thing about them since.

There were very few Tea Party events on or about July 4, 2010 and nothing even came close to the preceding year's events.

An earlier version of this page stated that "In political terms, they aren't a concern to any politician because they just don't have the numbers or the innate power." Obviously, the first part of that has proved to be in error. Towards the latter half of 2010, the teapartiers did become a national force and were able to complete a "hostile takeover" of the GOP (link), at least in part. Republican politicians now must take them into account, with many pandering or paying lip service to their concerns even if those concerns have nothing to do with good governance.

Note that as of September 2011, even half of Republicans aren't Teaparty supporters (link). That poll matches several other polls which show that support for the Tea Party has held steady for several months, even as their unfavorables have risen. After holding the U.S. hostage over the debt limit in August 2011, a Rasmussen poll had just 55% saying that the Tea Party were not economic terrorists. Needless to say, it's not a good sign at all to have just 55% of Americans saying you aren't economic terrorists.

In any case, it's bad politics for relatively rich people to be complaining about taxation when millions of Americans are out of work. Some of the rallies have featured signs saying, "Don't spread my wealth..spread my work ethic", in effect calling millions of job seekers lazy welfare cheats. That's not just incredibly bad politics, it's not the American way.

3. Methods

Their methods - standing on street corners waving loopy signs, swarming politicians, shouting down their opponents, throwing tantrums, and on and on - are like something the Kindergarten version of ACORN would do. In several cases, they've engaged in intimidating politicians. While the shooter of Gabrielle Giffords doesn't appear to have had a specific political ideology, tea party tactics might have influenced Jared Loughner. Other teaparty tactics have included bringing guns to political meetings, waving "We came unarmed [this time]" signs, and threatening "Second Amendment remedies" if they don't get their way.

Like Ron Paul supporters, the teapartiers think that cheap stunts, playing dress-up games, and the like will carry the day. Their members are unable and unwilling to engage their opponents in any form of debate, preferring instead to shout demands and slogans. And, they aren't able to figure out that the best way to defeat their opponents is to try to show how they think that their opponents' arguments are faulty. They also can't figure out the difference between their ideology and their methods; they've closely linked their ideology to street protests and the like; they refuse to attempt to promote their ideology using civil, pro-American, and more effective methods.

They also had no plan to deal with mainstream media bias, and some of them have a persecution complex causing them to whine about events that were canceled due more to their own incompetence than to actions by their opponents.

In some cases, the partiers and I share a common opponent, from low-level hacks like Dave Weigel to organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center. The partiers are absolutely worthless when it comes to opposing people such as those; most will probably have never even heard of most of their opponents much less have a plan to counter-act them. It would help them to help me discredit groups like the SPLC, but the teapartiers are incapable of that.

4. Those behind the movement

The movement wouldn't be anywhere today without support from inside the Beltway, specifically from groups like FreedomWorks, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, and groups linked to the Koch family (the "Kochtopus"). All of those support massive immigration. Not only does massive immigration lead to more spending, it also gives more power to the far-left. In other words, what those behind the movement support leads to the opposite of that which their followers want.

5. Priorities

Spending a trillion here and a trillion here is definitely going to have a delitirious impact on the U.S. However, that impact won't be permanent and is reversible. Meanwhile, the leaders of the tea parties and the vast majority of their followers are ignoring issues that aren't reversible or that will have serious long-term impacts. For instance, if Sonia Sotomayor is approved she'll have an impact on U.S. policies for decades to come. The tea partiers have no plan to block her; none that I've seen have even raised that issue. Likewise with massive immigration. By largely ignoring those issues, they're helping Obama.

In fact, considering all of the many factors outlined above, the Obama administration themselves might have had to create the tea party movement if others hadn't done it for them. The tea parties give Obama what every leader wants: a small and incompetent opposition.

6. Teaparty and immigration

The teapartiers have largely ignored the immigration issue. For instance, the Teaparty Patriots admit immigration "isn't an issue for us". That's despite the following:

* Immigration is more vital and more fundamental than spending. Higher spending might to a slight degree lead to more immigration, but higher immigration inevitably leads to more spending. Higher immigration - especially of the illegal kind - leads to more spending on schools, roads, prisons, social welfare programs, and on and on.

* Higher immigration increases the political power of the Democratic Party and the free-spending far-left. At the same time, it reduces the political power of the teapartiers. There's a reason why the Democratic Party supports massive/illegal immigration, and it isn't because they're "compassionate".

* Massive immigration has a negative impact on low-wage American workers, many of whom aren't being adequately served by either the GOP or the Democrats. Many of them might appreciate an alternative to the GOP and the Democrats, but the teapartiers have little to offer them. (Those few lower-wage American workers who are in the teaparties are, to be frank, being duped.)

* Immigration is the area where the Beltway is most vulnerable. Democrats, Republicans, pundits, reporters, religious leaders, business leaders, practically the entire political establishment consistently lie and mislead about immigration (see the immigration talking points page). Those establishment leaders are allowed to make false or misleading statements without being challenged by reporters. The same is not true of economic issues. Many Beltway leaders could be discredited in varying degrees if enough people exposed their lies about immigration and challenged them on their misleading statements.

* Illegal immigration is only slightly less popular than the teapartiers' fringe economic policies. Most Americans oppose illegal immigration and at the same time most Americans oppose cuts to entitlement programs (the ones the teapartiers call "socialist").

To summarize: the teapartiers have abandoned a popular issue (opposing illegal immigration) to concentrate on pushing unpopular issues (such as cutting entitlement programs). Immigration is more vital and more fundamental than spending, immigration reduces the teapartiers' power while increasing spending, and immigration is where the supposed opponents of the teaparty are weakest.

So, why haven't the teapartiers stressed immigration? Why instead did they choose to stress unpopular, fringe economic ideas while largely ignoring an issue that increases spending and reducing their power?

The answer to that question has been obvious to me since late February 2009: because they're a bogus group that's following leaders who are very bad on immigration.

Dick Armey of Freedomworks supports illegal immigration. The Koch family supports various libertarian outlets that support at the least massive immigration and at the most literally open borders (Reason Magazine). Teaparty leader Grover Norquist even promoted comprehensive immigration reform (aka amnesty) sitting right next to leaders of the ACLU, NCLR, and other far-left groups.

The other leaders of the teaparties are "free market"/"Profits at any Price" types, the ones who at the least support massive immigration and in some cases illegal immigration.

Now, that doesn't mean that the teaparty base is bad on this issue; polls show otherwise. Instead, they're allowing themselves to be led around by those who would actually increase spending at the same time as reducing the political power of the teaparties. And, some lower-level leaders might not want to touch the immigration issue because they can't figure out the best way to handle it. There's no excuse for that, but at least it's not as bad as those like Armey. Some teaparty groups might be OK on this issue, but they're very quiet about it.

None of the above speaks highly of the teapartiers' intelligence. Why would anyone who opposes high spending support a movement whose leaders' policies would increase spending at the same time as reducing their power?

7. Teaparty and race

Since they started, the teapartiers have been smeared by their opponents as a racist group. That indicates a flaw in the thinking (such as it is) of their opponents: the teapartiers are not at all like racial power groups. Instead, the teapartiers are all about the money and the long green: the teaparty base are useful idiots for those whose goal isn't to help the U.S. but simply to help themselves.

Certainly, race might have something to do with some people who are members of the teaparties, but that is not in any way their defining characteristic. Those Democratic and far-left representatives who've played the race card have shown just how anti-American and intellectually bereft they are, substituting ad hominem claims that, while somewhat effective, are false and are highly corrosive to the U.S.

At the same time, the teapartiers' response has been just what you'd expect: completely devoid of any intellectual ability whatsoever.

Instead of repelling race-based attacks, the teapartiers have simply made them worse such as by repeating the smears. The teapartiers and their leaders simply do not have the intellectual capability to do things like discredit their opponents; they're incapable of intellectually engaging those opponents and showing how they're wrong.

And, instead of presenting a non-Gramscian alternative to the far-left, the teapartiers have engaged in far-left activities in response, such as stressing how "diverse" they are and engaging in tokenism. Both of those are far-left concepts, yet the teapartiers have engaged in them. The reason is clear: they're all about the money; they have no real basis in opposing the far-left and they have no real non-financial principles.

Who could expect otherwise? The teapartiers have no interest in opposing the far-left on the "divisive social issues" that they've explicitly avoided since they started. Should it surprise anyone that the teapartiers would be completely inept when faced with attacks on issues that they've explicitly decided to ignore?

If you oppose the far-left on cultural issues, the teapartiers are not on your side. Their only interest is financial; if they could make money off something who knows what they'd support.

8. The teaparties and George W. Bush

I've posted thousands upon thousands of entries and comments about politics since 2002, and on the rightwing side of things opposing George W Bush was very rare until about 2007. Yes, many of the numerically-small libertarians opposed him, and the Democrats, liberals, and far-left definitely opposed him. Yet, on the non-libertarian right it was very rare to find general opposition to Bush and fairly rare to find localized opposition to him.

So, the question becomes, where were the teapartiers during that time? Were they in suspended animation, in space, held in FEMA camps?

No, the teapartiers were around then. They were certainly able to conduct protests against GWB just as they do now against Obama. They were able to go to GWB's events and throw tantrums just as they do against Democrats now. They weren't shut off from the internet; they could have set up anti-GWB websites just as they do now about Obama.

Yet, instead of opposing GWB, they either supported or ignored him. Certainly, some of them might have opposed some specific Bush proposals such as amnesty (and, future teapartiers or not, that opposition was successful). And, even some of their leaders warned about Bush's free-spending habits. But, at the end of the day, they fell into line.

The teapartiers ignored or supported Bush as he allowed five million new illegal aliens to remain in the U.S.

The teapartiers ignored or supported Bush as he promoted one of the most anti-American and un-American plans I've ever heard a U.S. leader propose, a plan that would have driven U.S. wages down towards world levels.

The teapartiers ignored or supported Bush as he and the Democrats pushed an anti- and un-American plan to move U.S. citizens out of New Orleans and move in illegal aliens to take the jobs they could and should have done.

The teapartiers ignored or supported Bush as he made a pledge to support amnesty to the Mexican government.

And, the teapartiers ignored or supported Bush as he lied us into a war that's cost thousands of lives and somewhere between one and three trillion dollars.

Now, those same self-styled patriots have suddenly found their voices and are throwing tantrums at public meetings. Where were they before?

The above isn't just a gotcha moment or an attempt to call them hypocrites. It's to point out that the supposed patriots in the tea party movement have little or no credibility. They had eight long years to oppose a sleazy globalist who increased our debt, allowed even more illegal immigration, and who tried to stab Americans in the back every chance he got.

Yet, the self-styled "patriots" who now make up the teaparty said little or nothing.

9. How the subset of smart, non-Randroid tea partiers can achieve their goals

The much smarter, much more effective technique that the partiers could use would be to ask tough questions of politicians at their public appearances, get it on video, and upload it to video sharing sites. Please note that my idea of what is a tough question probably differs from many; rants, tantrums, and open-ended questions aren't "tough". I'm talking about the types of questions that a lawyer would ask of someone they were trying to show to be untrustworthy, the types of questions that could have an impact on a politician's career by showing that they're a liar or they can't think through the impacts of their policies. See the question authority page for a detailed description and a basic action plan.

Discrediting one national politician on video will have more of an impact than a thousand "tea parties". My repeated attempts to make that point to them have mostly fallen on deaf ears; like Obama cultists they reflexively dismiss anyone who opposes what they're doing in any way. For an unknown reason, the tea partiers glommed onto worthless street protests rather than trying to come up with better, smarter tactics.

10. What the Democrats could do about them

The response from liberals/Democrats has been predictable and boils down to just calling names, whether "teabagger" (Rachel Maddow example: peekURL.com/v22exsh ) or "racists" (see Janeane Garofalo). I have yet to see a liberal/Democrat actually try to present even a mostly valid argument against their fringe ideology. If the Democrats weren't what they are, they could point out that even as we have two wars going on and millions of Americans are unemployed and suffering through a recession, the tea partiers are whining about the relatively small amount of taxes they pay. They could mostly correctly portray the partiers as anti-American, selfish, small-minded people who have little interest in the welfare of their fellow citizens and in good government. Instead of trying to catch partiers in gaffes, they could challenge them for actual solutions (which could then be shown to be faulty). Of course, that would require the Democrats to be something quite different from what they currently are.

11. Should the Democrats support the tea parties?

Yes. The partiers are to a small extent splitting the GOP and demanding purity rather than trying to expand the GOP base. Their ideas just aren't that popular and never will be. It makes political sense for the Democrats to ignore or covertly support the tea parties because they're in effect serving the interests of the Democrats. That doesn't, of course, mean that would be the right thing to do.

Last modified Sep 17, 2011
Discussed in (click each link for the full post):

Daniel Hannan says "free movement of labour" will continue, despite Brexit. See who hyped him. - 06/26/16

From the Daily Mail [1]: A leading Tory Brexiteer has insisted quitting the EU does not mean the numbers of people coming to Britain will be slashed - and claimed Vote Leave never said it would. After a bitter referendum battle dominated by immigration, senior MEP Daniel Hannan insisted the Vote Leave campaign had only ever demanded control and not a specific number.

Questions you can use for the Teaparty Patriots Yellow Card project - 05/12/15

The Teaparty Patriots are launching a project called the Yellow Card campaign [1]. They're asking volunteers to visit appearances by GOP candidates and ask those candidates questions about their policies. Their campaign is similar to the Question Authority plan that I've been promoting for around a decade, but better late than never even if it takes ten years, right? There are however significant differences between the two plans:

Dave Brat runs against amnesty, beats Eric Cantor (Virginia, immigration) - 06/10/14

In a momentous loss for both the GOP establishment and the elites in general, Teaparty candidate Dave Brat has defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia in the Republican primary. One of Cantor's weaknesses was his support for some form of comprehensive immigration reform (aka amnesty) and - unlike some other candidates - Brat made opposing amnesty a major part of the race (link):

Larry Kudlow is still not in touch with reality on immigration - 05/23/14

Larry Kudlow offers "Immigration reform is pro-growth and pro-GOP" (cnbc . com/id/101685285). I'll briefly describe how it's wrong and what he's intentionally or not ignoring. He writes:

Cowardly fake patriot Bill Whittle "jokes" that Texans should shoot Californians - 01/13/14

On the video below rightwing commentator Bill Whittle - occasionally affiliated with Pajamas Media - "jokes" that Texans should shoot Californians who move to that state. He spoke at an event featuring Ted Cruz, who's seated in front row center.

Tim Donnelly for California governor? How he'll waste everyone's time - 11/06/13

California Assemblyman Tim Donnelly is running to replace Jerry Brown as California governor in 2014. In its current form, his campaign is not at all a good fit for the state and thus he'll be yet another Republican who ends up wasting time and money in a pointless campaign.

Anti-Christian Alan Grayson compares Tea Party to KKK; he helps Teaparty - 10/22/13

The latest example of a supposed opponent of the Tea Party helping them comes from Florida Rep. Alan Grayson. In a fundraising email [1] he sent out the image you see below, of a burning cross at a Ku Klux Klan meeting with the cross used to form the first letter in "Tea Party" and captioned with "Now You Know What the ‘T’ Stands For".

Teaparty "Patriots", Tea Party Express were funded by loose borders Koch brothers (Freedom Partners) - 09/13/13

Freedom Partners is a 501(c)6 trade organization led by the loose borders Koch family that disbursed $236 million in 2012. Details at the link.

How Tea Party *helps* the media, Part 3838022B - 08/25/13

If you're reading this post after October 2013, you'll probably still be hearing about Trayvon Martin but you might have to struggle to recall who Chris Lane is. If you need a refresher, see this. Why will that be the case? The Lane case seems worse in most respects than the Martin case. Why won't you hear about the Lane case anywhere near what you've heard about the Martin case?

Tea Party Patriots, ForAmerica mostly ignore immigration for futile anti-Obamacare effort ("Exempt America" tour) - 08/22/13

The Congressional townhall events of August were a perfect time to block comprehensive immigration reform (aka amnesty), yet few have showed up so far. The reaction to amnesty in 2013 is much more muted than it was in 2007.

Amnesty fans cheer GOP, Teaparty mostly ignoring immigration to oppose Obamacare (NumbersUSA, Tea Party "Patriots") - 08/20/13

Jim Avila and Serena Marshall of ABC News enthusiastically offer "Obamacare Backlash Leaves Room for Immigration Reform to Breathe" ( peekURL.com/zbj9LXn ). It covers how those who should be opposing amnesty are either AWOL yet again, or aren't doing things correctly.

NumbersUSA, Steve King, Teaparty Patriots assist amnesty with weak immigration rally - 08/13/13

Yesterday, Numbers USA, Steve King, and the Tea Parties "Patriots" held an immigration rally in Richmond, Virginia that ended up helping those who favor an amnesty for illegal aliens.

TheTeaParty.net *does* support immigration reform and mass legalization; how their plan would fail (secureamericanow . us) - 06/17/13

According to previous reports, the TheTeaParty dot net organization supported some form of mass legalization for illegal aliens. See this and this for the backstory.

TheTeaParty.net supports immigration reform, secretly met with Jeb Bush (Herman Cain, Home Depot, Teaparty Express, TPNN) - 05/17/13

Over three years ago I asked if the Teaparty movement will stumble us into amnesty, and before then I pointed out that supporters of amnesty include those in the Teaparty sphere.

Tea Party fake patriots to help Marco Rubio push amnesty (immigration, Tea Party Express, TheTeaParty.Net, Norquist) - 05/07/13

From this: Several conservative activists and tea party group leaders are meeting with Sen. Marco Rubio Tuesday afternoon to discuss immigration reform, including a list of what they support – and don’t. In a draft of their seven principles, obtained by POLITICO, the groups make no calls for a ban on “amnesty” – a longtime rallying cry of conservatives grassroots groups.

Why the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund PAC is bogus - 03/29/13

Here are excerpts of an email from the Tea Party "Patriots". Why their group and their new PAC is bogus will be discussed below: Dear Patriot, My name is Jenny Beth Martin. I helped found Tea Party Patriots... ...Please become a charter supporter of the new Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund PAC... ...Through the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund we are going to beat big-government Republicans in primaries and Obama-loving Democrats in the general election.

Tea Party leaders stand with Rand Paul on amnesty for illegal aliens (Jenny Beth Martin, Sal Russo, Matt Kibbe, Freedomworks) - 03/21/13

Three Tea Party leaders have now indicated that they support or won't oppose Rand Paul's plan to legalize almost all illegal aliens in the U.S. That plan would fail miserably and it isn't in any way conservative. The three leaders are:

Is Andrew O'Reilly of Fox News Latino in touch with reality? (Tea Party and immigration) - 02/20/13

Andrew OReilly of Fox News is not in touch with reality, at least when it comes to immigration and the Teaparties. Consider his post "With Tea Party Decline, Immigration Battle Shifts Focus" (link): The times are certainly changing for hard-line anti-immigration activists.

Proof Tea Party is astroturf: Koch group tried to start Teaparties in 2002 - 02/12/13

If you trust their defenders, the Tea Parties were a spontaneously formed grassroots group initiated by Rick Santelli's 2009 rant or a slightly earlier anti-tax rally organized by Keli Carender. Those same defenders will deny that the Koch family has anything to do with the Teaparties.

Rand Paul's Tea Party SOTU response to promote massive immigration - 02/12/13

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) will deliver the Tea Party response to the State of the Union speech. According to CNN, Paul will say the following:

"Citadel": celebrate America by walling yourself off from it - 01/13/13

Nothing says "patriotism" - or at least a frenzied cry of "Wolverines!" - like this: A group of like-minded patriots, bound together by pride in American exceptionalism, plan on building an armed community to protect their liberty.

"Turning Your Back on People Who Are Starving and Freezing is not a Republican Value" (Pete King, Sandy aid bill) - 01/02/13

The video below shows Rep. Pete King fuming about the GOP voting down a relief bill for victims of Hurricane Sandy, saying among other things (link): "Turning your back on people who are starving and freezing is not a Republican value"

A Tea Party Christmas Carol - 12/23/12

Every Christmas, the lamestream media plays movies that only appear to have a heartwarming message. Instead, the messages of those movies is pure, socialist evil. The worst offender is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. That movie isn't a heartwarming tale of redemption: it's just redistributionist propaganda. Instead of celebrating the business acumen of a Job Creator, the movie celebrates him redistributing his money away to undeserving moochers. Takers like Tiny Tim never gave anyone a job, only Job Creators like Scrooge can do that.

Dana Loesch sues to leave Breitbart.com contract, claims "indentured servitude" - 12/22/12

Dana Loesch is suing the Breitbart empire in order to get out of her employment contract, claiming that her agreement is "what amounts to an indentured servitude in limbo". Story here, complaint here.

Dick Armey angrily quits FreedomWorks over "principles"; gets $8 million golden parachute (Matt Kibbe) (SEE UPDATES) - 12/04/12

Former House majority leader Dick Armey has resigned as Chairman of FreedomWorks, one of the main organizations pulling the strings on the Tea Parties movement. Armey's resignation letter is at [1] and, as you can see, it wasn't an amicable split. Don't worry about Armey however: he'll be getting an $8 million golden parachute [2].

On pollution, Tea Party are socialists (Lamar Alexander, EPA, coal, TP Nation, Judson Phillips) - 11/24/12

"Teaparty socialists"? Isn't that an oxymoron? Not exactly: if the Teaparty movement has their way, the U.S. will not only have more pollution, but the polluters will get to "socialize the costs and privatize the profits." In other words, the Teapartiers are supporting what they would call socialism. For an example, turn to "Tea Party Seeks to Regroup" (link):

Sen. Rand Paul now supports immigration amnesty (Kentucky, illegal aliens) - 11/13/12

Kentucky senator Rand Paul is just the latest Tea Party leader to capitulate on an immigration amnesty for illegal aliens. From this:

Tea Party "Patriots'" priorities don't include immigration (fake patriots) - 11/12/12

There are endless reasons to oppose the Tea Parties; see the link. One of the main reasons is because they largely ignore immigration in favor of issues that are much less important, much less fundamental, and much less vital. Seriously: what sort of patriots and conservatives mostly ignore immigration? Why, Tea Party "Patriots" of course, the kind of "patriots" with scare quotes.

Hot Air readers still turning their backs on millions of Americans in California - 11/11/12

Alternate title: "Yet Another Example of How the "Patriots" in the Tea Parties as Represented by the HotAir Readership Aren't Really Patriots at All". See this for a previous example.

GOP loses the Senate, thanks in part to Tea Party - 11/06/12

If not for the Tea Parties, the GOP had an outside possibility of winning the Senate. Instead - due in part to the Teapartiers - the Democratic Party remains in charge of the U.S. Senate.

Joe Scarborough is very wrong about the Tea Party - 10/22/12

For an unknown reason, Joe Scarborough of MSNBC offers "The truth about the tea party" (link). Scarborough's version of the truth needs a lot of work. For my extensive coverage of their movement and why they should be vigorously opposed, see Tea Parties.

Elizabeth Price Foley confused by terms "liberal" and "conservative" - 10/15/12

Elizabeth Price Foley is a constitutional law professor and author of the book The Tea Party: Three Principles. Over at the site of Glenn Reynolds, she offers a guest post [1] that even someone like Sean Hannity would realize is clueless:

Americans for Prosperity suppresses Teaparty discussing immigration, Agenda 21 - 10/14/12

For years, I've been discussing how the supposed-patriots in the Tea Parties have largely ignored immigration in favor of much less important issues. A major part of that is because they're led by those who support loose immigration, such as Grover Norquist, Dick Armey, and the Koch brothers.

Are whining Job Creators just big moochers? Are they patriotic? - 10/09/12

To help you answer those questions, take a look at the let's-defenestrate-noblesse-oblige letter (link) that a major Job Creator - the very rich timeshare magnate David Siegel of Westgate Resorts - sent to his employees, excerpts at [1]. He created the letter by editing an even more explicit similar letter from 2008 [2].

A question about Tea Party cleaning up trash left by Obama supporters (San Francisco, Sally Zelikovsky) - 10/09/12

A recurring theme of the Tea Parties movement is that they clean up after themselves. Literally: by picking up their own trash after their events. They contrast that with the dirty, filthy librul hippies who support Obama or who are in the Occupy Wall Street movement. This theme is largely true, but it's also incredibly ironic as I'll discuss below.

Wall Street Journal's Colonial America revisionism (Frank Fleming, Independence Day, "What America Was Really Like In 1776") - 07/04/12

To celebrate the Fourth of July, the Wall Street Journal offers a bit of historical revisionism from Frank Fleming [1] designed to portray Colonial America as a libertarian-leaning wonderland (link):

Only small, local Tea Party events this July 4, 2012 - 07/03/12

Remember the Tea Parties? Think back: on July 4th 2009, maybe 150,000 or so (0.05% of the U.S. population) turned out for a series of rallies held throughout the U.S. The one in Dallas even included such notables as Mickey Dolenz (the Monkees) and Stephen Crowder (famous on the internet).

Tea Party incompetence: an example from PJMedia (Helen Smith v. John Scalzi) - 05/20/12

Here's yet another example of a Tea Party leader showing how incompetent they are (note: see Tea Parties for our extensive coverage). There is, however, one difference between the current and most past instances. In the past, Teapartiers seemed to have being the prime example of the "Dunning-Kruger effect" [1] as their goal. In this case, at least the Teaparty leader has admitted they're incompetent.

Tea Party Congress isn't extreme enough for Club for Growth (Allen West, David McKinley, Lou Barletta) - 05/17/12

The Club for Growth has released their "Freshman Vote Study" of how the new GOP congressmembers have been living up to Tea Parties ideals (clubforgrowth . org/freshmanvotestudy). As it turns out, dragging the U.S. where most people really don't want to go is very difficult: 36 out of 87 Republicans who were elected in 2010's landslide sided with the Club 2/3 of the time or less.

Fiscal conservatives side with America-denouncing billionaire (Cato, Dan Mitchell, Heritage, Brownfield, Sean Medlock, Daily Caller, HotAir) - 05/11/12

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin recently denounced his U.S. citizenship to avoid paying U.S. taxes he'd owe when that company goes public. Hopefully to most people the idea of turning your back on your country [1] to save money would be abhorrent. Of course, many in the fiscal conservative and libertarians spheres think different: patriotism only goes so far.

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