tea parties
The "tea party" movement: Page 5
Discussed in (click each link for the full post):
The "war" against amnesty has two fronts: its supporters, and its incompetent or corrupt opponents - 03/18/10
If you oppose comprehensive immigration reform - aka amnesty - you aren't just fighting against its overt, "usual suspect" supporters. Another group you need to deal with are those who might at first seem to be on your side but to some degree aren't:
Tea parties not smart enough to oppose Sen. Robert Menendez in right way, choose pointless recall effort instead - 03/16/10
The latest cheap, ineffective stunt from the tea parties is a recall effort against New Jersey senator Bob Menendez. A state appeals court has ruled that the recall effort can proceed, but it will probably go to a higher court (link).
"People's Surge Against Obamacare 2.0": another ineffective Freedomworks scheme (Brendan Steinhauser) - 03/12/10
On Tuesday, March 16 FreedomWorks plans a "People's Surge Against Obamacare 2.0" in Washington DC at which they expect "1,000 if not more people" to be "bused in from various parts of the country" in order to protest Obama healthcare. They'll then be sent out on a fool's errand (link):
[FreedomWorks' director of federal and state campaigns, Brendan Steinhauser says:] "We're telling people to go right into the three House office buildings: Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn. Find your congressmen, whether they are in the cafeteria, their offices, in the halls or hiding under their desks, and tell...
Teaparty apparently denied access to location of Obama visit (Arcadia University) - 03/07/10
Barack Obama will be speaking at Arcadia University (Philadelphia) on Monday, March 8. And, it looks like he and his supporters are doing to the tea parties what George W Bush and Dick Cheney did to some of those supporters. From a press release from the "Independence Hall Tea Party Association" (independencehalltpa.com, in full here):
A least a few hundred Tea Partiers are expected to descend on the sidewalks surrounding Arcadia University, tomorrow, to voice their opposition to Obamacare after having been denied a request to hold a Press Conference/Rally on Campus.
An Arcadia University...
Three-quarters in Tea Party think immigration "very important"; their leaders think otherwise - 03/03/10
The Sam Adams Alliance conducted a survey of some in the tea parties, and the results are at samadamsalliance.org/learn/activist-insights.aspx
The study suffers from a very small sample size, and whatever their methodology that means that the study is just for entertainment purposes only. However, it does show that fully 3/4 of respondents think immigration is "very important".
Gerald Seib of WSJ misleads about Tea Partiers and immigration - 03/02/10
Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal offers the misleading "Tea Party Holds Risks for GOP" (link) in which he refers to the "close-the-borders rhetoric common within the Tea Party movement" [1].
In fact, the opposite of what Gerald Seib says is true: the tea parties have almost completely ignored immigration, and some of their leaders strongly support massive or illegal immigration. For instance, their leaders such as Dick Armey from FreedomWorks, Grover Norquist, and groups linked to the Koch family are about as far from "close-the-borders" types as you can get. The "Tea Party Declaration...
Daniel Hannan starts English Tea Party; will they be as gullible as some Americans? - 02/25/10
Libertarian-leaning Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan will be kicking off an English version of the tea parties (see that link) on Saturday, February 27, 2010 ([1], promoted of course by Glenn Reynolds, [2]).
Tea Party "Declaration of Independence" ignores immigration (FreedomWorks) - 02/24/10
From this:
A network of Tea Party activists are circulating what they call the "Tea Party Declaration of Independence," a document meant to define the movement and establish its independence from Republicans.
“We reject the idea that the electoral goals of the Republican party are identical to the goals of the Tea Party Movement,” the document, released Tuesday, reads.
Activist Bob MacGuffie, involved in the drafting process and also known for authoring a memo last year on how to disrupt health-care town hall meetings, said activists, “got tired of being defined from the outside and decided...
Mike Stopa's fantastical immigration plan (Massachusetts tea party candidate) - 02/24/10
The latest tea parties genious on the block is Mike Stopa, who's running as a Republican for the third district in Massachusetts. He has a plan to stop illegal immigration (stopaforusrep.com/Illegal_immigrants/Illegal_immigrants.html) that's unworkable, most likely leading to the opposite of what he claims to want in the unlikely event that it could ever be enacted. If others proposed this plan I'd suspect that they were just trying to put on a show of doing something, but in his case I somewhat suspect he might be for real. He also has no real plan as to how to push his idea forward despite...
Snow for brains: Teaparty shows again why they aren't fit to govern - 02/23/10
The attached photo shows the latest example of tea parties intellectualism: anti-tax snowmen that one of their groups created on the lawn of the Michigan state Capitol (link; promoted of course by Glenn Reynolds, instapundit.com/94447).
"I Am The Tea Party Leader" videos: the latest bogus grassroots effort - 02/20/10
The latest bogus grassroots effort from the tea parties is the site iamtheteapartyleader.com (NOTE: see update 2 below before visiting it now) at which the Tea Party "Patriots" encourage their followers to upload videos of them saying "I am the Tea Party Leader". This is a take-off on the "I am Spartacus" line from that movie and a reference to a Democratic Party attempt to do opposition research on their (real) leaders.
Dick Armey + PJTV + Glenn Reynolds + Dana Loesch + CPAC = just how dumb are tea partiers? - 02/19/10
Earlier today, Glenn Reynolds posted what might be the shortest summary of just how incredibly dumb and gullible those involved with the tea parties are (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/94212). Savor it:
THE CONTRACT FROM AMERICA: Dana Loesch Interviews Dick Armey at CPAC.
That links to a video at Pajamas Media. So, we've got:
* Reynolds, someone who among other things has encouraged his followers to swarm politicians, hold up bunny ears behind their heads, and throw tantrums like little children...
* PJTV, which converted Joe the Plumber into a war correspondent then an echo chamber talk show...
Teaparty fooled again: "Contract from America" has nothing about immigration - 02/18/10
Earlier this month I discussed the ineffective, immigration suggestions that had been submitted for the Contract from America. Now, those behind the effort have narrowed down the list of suggestions to 21 and want their visitors to choose their top ten. And, there's not a single choice about immigration: thecontractfromamerica.org/default.aspx
Sarah Palin, Dick Armey, Grover Norquist, Scott Brown support John McCain; what J.D. Hayworth supporters can do - 02/15/10
Sarah Palin, Dick Armey of Freedomworks (see the update), Grover Norquist, and newly-elected senator Scott Brown are all supporting John McCain in his Senate re-election bid. Meanwhile, Chris Simcox dropped out of the GOP nomination earlier today, and has endorsed McCain's strongest rival, JD Hayworth. The last is running as the True Conservative against the RINO McCain.
1. This is yet another example of how the tea parties types are useful idiots; all four of those first listed above are associated with that movement: Armey helped organize the major Washington DC protest, Norquist has helped...
Offensive Tea Party logo implies only they believe in the Constitution - 02/14/10
Glenn Reynolds promotes (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/93823) a new logo for the tea parties at classicalvalues.com/archives/2010/02/post_979.html, pictured. It says "The Tea Party Difference... The Constitution!" That implies that those not in the tea party don't support the Constitution, something that's not only patently false but highly offensive.
The Coffee Party Movement: anti-Tea Party group with 9500 Liberty - 02/13/10
[ADDED: the real anti-Tea Party movement is at that link]
Glenn Reynolds' opinions aren't trustworthy, especially of the Tea Parties - 02/13/10
Glenn Reynolds' opinion of most things isn't trustworthy, with the latest example provided by his Wall Street Journal guest editorial "What I Saw at the Tea Party Convention" (link):
1. He says that Obama's actions have "brought millions of Americans to [take to] the streets over the past year". That number is at the least open to debate; Eric Boehlert questions that number and challenges Reynolds to provide an estimate here.
2. He says:
There were promises of transparency and of a new kind of collaborative politics where establishment figures listened to ordinary Americans. We were going to...
Tea party "Contract with America" considers highly impractical immigration ideas - 02/04/10
[UPDATE: They've narrowed down the choices to 21, from which tea partiers have to choose 10. None of them have anything to do with immigration.]
The group "Tea Party Patriots" is crowd-sourcing an agenda for their movement called the "Contract From America" (contractfromamerica.com): users can submit proposed planks and others can vote them up or down. In other words, this is a perfect storm of the issues that the tea parties have, combined with the issues inherent in popular voting systems. Please see both links for a discussion of those issues.
The current top five proposals in the...
Feingold constituents falsely think they're holding him accountable, when they're helping him - 01/12/10
The video at peekURL.com/vle9byx (note: loud profanity) is entitled "Feingold Called Out" and features a recent townhall appearance by Sen. Russ Feingold. In fact, it's yet another example of failure by those in the tea parties sphere:
Tea Party Nation cheap publicity stunt? Say they banned Rachel Maddow, but she never joined - 01/07/10
[UPDATE: I changed the title of this post from "Tea Party Nation bans Rachel Maddow seven minutes after she joined; no dissent will be tolerated!" to the present because Maddow says the person who they banned wasn't her: link. I assumed that Teaparty Nation had verified it was her either by doing a reverse DNS or through direct communication. Either they didn't do that, or - as Maddow says - this is just an attempt to get publicity. In either case they don't look too good and me either for not confirming it.]
Tea Party Nation sent out the following email today. They're the group that will be...
David Brooks: this is the Tea Party Decade (the Idiocracy is nigh) - 01/05/10
David Brooks has an extremely fantastic view of the tea party movement (link):
The tea party movement is a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against. They are against the concentrated power of the educated class. They believe big government, big business, big media and the affluent professionals are merging to form self-serving oligarchy - with bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes and intrusive regulation...
Over the course of this year, the tea party movement will probably be transformed. Right now, it is an amateurish movement...
Tea party National Strike Day in January 20, 2010; plan to be complete "nonentities" that day - 01/04/10
The latest sad and hilarious plan from the tea parties is to hold a national strike on January 20, 2010. On that day, several of their groups plan to go Galt, if only for a day (link):
"What's proposed is a nationwide strike by all Tea Party members, no matter where they are," said Lloyd Rekstad, an organizer of the Yucaipa Tea Party. "The idea is to strike where we are, in our communities, at our employment, to make an impact that will be diverse and spread out."
That would mean, Rekstad said, not going to work, not buying groceries, not going to restaurants or movie theaters.
"You just stay...
Tea party intellectual Dana Loesch: if you disagree with the tea parties, you're a socialist - 01/02/10
Over at Big Government, tea parties organizer Dana Loesch offers "Its a Wrap: The Most Underreported Stories of 2009" [sic; URL at 1] which, among others, contains this jaw-droppingly stupid paragraph:
The most misreported and misunderstood thing about the tea party is its political leanings. The tea party has no political leaning. It stands straight for limited government, low taxes, and liberty for all. Disagreement with those tenets is an accidental admission of socialism on the part of the antagonist. The beauty of the tea party movement is that it is independent and thus a true check and...
Dave Weigel not fully honest about tea party, Kochtopus link ("Top Ten Conservatives of 2009") - 12/31/09
Dave Weigel of the Washington Independent offers "The Best and the Rightest/ The Top Ten Conservatives of 2009" (link).
Westwood Tea Party no longer recognizes U.S. government as legitimate, others call for revolution - 12/24/09
The Westwood Tea Party (out of the upscale Los Angeles neighborhood that's home to UCLA) has a protest planned for January 20, 2010 in Washington DC. Their event listing titled "It's Time For a Second Declaration of Independence!" (facebook.com/event.php?eid=218493179090) includes the following at the end (full text below):
It’s time for us to tell these Marxist bastards that we don’t consent to what they’re doing, and we therefore no longer recognize them as the legitimate government of We the People!
From their main page, we see that they've at least appeared at the same protest as GOP...
Tea party intellectual argument against Claire McCaskill: lumps of coal, Joker image, carolling... - 12/24/09
The tea parties braintrust (Missouri division) turned out in full force yesterday in front of a Claire McCaskill office and - despite their best efforts - she still supports Obama healthcare.
"American Thinker" edits comment on sad and delusional tea party screed (Thomas Lifson, Ed Lasky) (UPDATE: bans me too) - 12/23/09
Glenn Reynolds linked (pajamasmedia. com/instapundit/90431) to "Why the 'Angry Mob' Is Angry" from the website "American Thinker" (americanthinker. com/2009/12/why_the_angry_mob_is_angry.html) so I went there to find out. It's a cri de coeur (from "Wendi Lynn G", rightmakesmight4all.blogspot.com) that's as hilarious as it as sad, and I left the following comment:
Airborne stupidity: tea party plane flies anti-Obama banner; not smart enough to challenge politicians - 12/17/09
Supporters of Ron Paul had their blimp, and now their successors in the tea parties have their own anti-intellectual airborne effort (link). This from the Danville Tea Party "Patriots" - the same group that wanted to burn a Rep. in effigy -
The group’s project coordinator, Susan Lee, raised funds during the last two months to fly a plane over Washington, D.C. morning traffic today with a nearly 100-foot-long banner reading “OBAMA STOP DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY” in five-foot-tall letters.
..."It was just something that I had this inspiration for and I started looking into it,” Lee said. “It was...
Take Back America PAC from stimulus lobbyist, illegal immigration supporter Dick Armey - 12/15/09
The Take Back America PAC is a new organization from Dick Armey's FreedomWorks; if you're considering sending them any money please read the following links first:
* Dick Armey did stimulus bill-related lobbying for a couple companies around the same time as Freedomworks was incompetently opposing the bill. It's unknown what his lobbying consisted of, but there's a more than fair chance that his actions didn't result in the stimulus being less than it was.
* See this 2007 video of Dick Armey supporting those who come here illegally. He's been a supporter of massive immigration for several...
Dana Loesch, Glenn Reynolds: Great Moments in Tea Party, Army of Davids "Reporting" - 12/14/09
Glenn Reynolds and his Army of Davids are at it again, and I don't mean that in a good way. He says (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/90008) "IT’S USUALLY A BAD IDEA to threaten the blogosphere".
Example: how to make a question for a politician better (Obama healthcare) - 12/10/09
The page mentioned in the previous post (toptenhealthcarequestions.com) contains this question for Barack Obama:
The Administration has repeatedly claimed that its health care reform plan will not cover illegal aliens. The Congressional Research Service recently issued a report contradicting the Administration's position, stating "H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on non-citizens whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently participating in the Exchange." Is the Congressional Research Service in error? If so, where is the error?
The...
Tea party "patriots" to storm U.S. Senate, engage in sit-in just like far-left SDS used to do - 12/10/09
From "Tea Party Patriots to Storm Senate Offices" (taxdayteaparty.com/2009/12/tea-party-patriots-to-storm-senate-offices):
It is time, once again, to flex our muscle and exert that influence to hold the line in our fight against the government takeover of healthcare... On Tuesday, December 15 at 8:45 AM thousands of us will meet in Washington, DC at the fountain in Upper Senate Park. From there we will march to the Senate offices, go inside, and demonstrate our opposition to the government takeover of health care. We call this plan "Government Waiting Rooms". The intention is to go inside the...
Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman to appear at Tea Party Nation convention (Nashville, February 2010) - 11/25/09
In February 2010, Sarah Palin will be the keynote speaker for the "First National Tea Party Convention" to be held in Nashville, Tennessee (CNN writeup here; t
Liberals cheer racism, repudiation of U.S. sovereignty at tea party protest by Nick Espinosa (Daniel Tencer) - 11/16/09
Daniel Tencer of RawStory offers "Tea partiers punk’d into supporting removal of white people from US" (rawstory.com/2009/11/tea-partiers-punked-white-people video at peekURL.com/v5h3vrp). Both the underlying story and his treatment of it are explicitly anti-American:
Ironic: Dick Armey's support for massive immigration leads to more spending, bigger government - 11/12/09
Back in 1995, Tea Parties leader Dick Armey of FreedomWorks spoke at the Cato Institute about various topics including immigration (cato.org/pubs/policy_report/pr-ja-da.html), and his remarks are incredibly ironic: his immigration policies lead to the opposite of the other policies he claims to support.
How to make Michelle Bachmann's plan to block Obamacare work - 11/05/09
Earlier today, Rep. Michelle Bachmann and a group of hundreds or thousands from the tea parties and related groups "stormed" Capitol Hill in an attempt to block Obama healthcare. That follows a conference call yesterday (link). If they had listened to me, they would have already blocked the plan or at least have eliminated any possible debate over the immigration-related provisions.
Since February 2007 I've been promoting the question authority plan, and in this case I wanted people to go to townhalls and ask tough questions on video about the immigration-related issues of Obamacare. That...
Lindsey Graham: GOP isn't going to be "party of angry white guys" (+more ineffective townhall ranting) - 10/13/09
From this:
An often clamorous crowd blasted, grilled and occasionally cheered Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in a town hall meeting Monday that centered on health care reform but returned repeatedly to his positions on climate change, judicial appointees and immigration.
Graham returned the fire with a grin, at times shouting over his most boisterous critics and telling some who questioned his Christianity and party loyalty that their minority conservative views wouldn't succeed without the political coalitions he said are necessary to serve the majority of Americans and attract...
Tucson's Last Stand: tea party October 10 2009 (sadly, not at Galt's Gulch) - 10/09/09
On Saturday, October 10 2009, the Tucson Tea Party group will be holding "Tucson's Last Stand" at Electric Park where they will be offering nationally renowned speakers, local talk radio hosts, and political candidates who will engage the audience in order to galvanize them to political action and donate to win elections.
Jim Geraghty, Glenn Reynolds promote anti-intellectualism (10/7/09 edition; Steve Israel townhall) - 10/07/09
Last night, Rep. Steve Israel of New York held a townhall meeting that per this consisted mainly of shouting and other anti-intellectual behavior. One question that was asked of him is provided at the link, and it isn't a good question.
More people probably saw anti-Tea Party video than attended 9/12 DC march - 09/30/09
The number of people who attended the 9/12/09 tea parties march in Washington DC is still open to debate. Was it as high as 738,915? I ask because that's the current view count on this anti-Tea Party video.