tea parties
The "tea party" movement: Page 7
Discussed in (click each link for the full post):
Instapundit chats with tea party "facilitator" from Koch-linked group - 04/08/09
Over to Glenn Reynolds (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/75986) for the latest on the "grassroots" tea parties:
PJTV: I talk with PubliusPundit - and Tucson Tea Party organizer - Robert Mayer, and with Tea Party facilitators Matt Kibbe of Freedomworks and Chris Bond of Americans for Prosperity about tea parties and where they should go next.
Click their name's link for more on the AFP; at least as of November of last year the chairman of their foundation's board was David Koch of the Koch family and they'd received money from that foundation; do a search for Kochtopus if you aren't familiar with...
ACORN denies knowledge of "tea parties". Ergo, they must be planning to sabotage them - 04/08/09
As previously discussed, someone claimed without providing any evidence whatsoever that ACORN was planning on infiltrating and sabotaging the tea parties. This rumor has now spread to Neil Cavuto on Fox News; they might have actual sources, or they might have just been relying on the original unsubstantiated claim.
Over to Adam Serwer at TAPPED (link):
I called up ACORN Executive Director Steve Kest and asked him about it. "I saw some mention of this on a blog, I have no idea even what the tea parties are," Kest said. He then asked me to explain to him what the tea parties were having only...
ACORN doesn't need to sabotage the tea parties, they're doing a bang-up job on their own - 04/06/09
The latest news from deep inside Galt's Gulch - home to the last 300 organizers of the tea parties - is that ACORN is trying to sabotage the "parties" [1]. There's certainly the possibility that they might be doing that, but they don't need to for at least a couple reasons:
Winner! Tea party in deep blue district draws 300 where Dem Rep. got 103,033 votes; 0.2% of all those who voted - 04/04/09
If there's one thing the tea parties have taught us, it's that Glenn Reynolds is not a math professor. The "parties" are using a technique - street protests - that rely on sheer numbers. Yet, the numbers just aren't there: there are only so many "kulaks" [1] in the general population.
Is Erick Erickson of RedState promoting revolution, violence against politicians? - 04/01/09
I'll let you decide. Washington state recently passed a law forbidding diswashing liquid sold in that state from containing phosphates. That was the straw that caused Erick Erickson of RedState to snap (redstate.com/erick/2009/03/31/at-what-point-do-people-revolt):
At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot? ...Were I in Washington State, I’d be cleaning my gun right about now waiting to protect my property from the...
The stupidity of the tea parties rolls on, at much reduced rate - 03/30/09
1. Over the weekend, there were apparently just three "parties": Buffalo; Stamford, Connecticut; and Essex County, Massachusetts.
2. The aftermath of the one in Essex County is promoted by Glenn Reynolds at pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/75093 and pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/75109. About a hundred people showed up. The Congressman for that area appears to be John Tierney, a Democrat. In 2004, he got 213,000 votes and his GOP opponent got 91,000. That means that the 100 people represent 0.05% of the votes he got, and 0.1% of the votes his opponent got. I'm sure he's scared out of his wits.
3....
Pictures from today's massive tea party protest - 03/28/09
(Note: That's actually from Cedar Breaks, a very attractive national monument in Utah.)
Three more signs the "tea parties" are a poorly-planned and pointless waste of time - 03/22/09
In case you needed them:
Instapundit now *promoting* loony protests but still refusing to just go Galt - 03/21/09
Way back in December 2002, I went to the first of several "peace" protests in order to take pictures of the wacky signs and such. I ended up getting a few "Instalanches" (links from Instapundit) out of it, and Andrew Sullivan even linked to one of them.
Sen. Mitch McConnell now promoting Randroid "tea parties"? - 03/18/09
The attached somewhat slickly-edited video of news reports about the tea parties is from the Youtube user SRCC07, someone who doesn't give any indication to who they might be on their profile (youtube.com/user/SRCC07).
However, oddly enough, most of their videos appear to be things like statements from U.S. Senators, mostly Mitch McConnell. And, there's a Senate Republican Communications Center (SRCC).
Constituent threatened over tea bag sent through mail? (Congressman John Adler) - 03/13/09
The video [1] has a recording of a message left on the answering machine of someone who sent a tea bag through the mail to their Congressman. The voice says:
"...envelope from you with a teabag in it. Before we bring it to the police for examination, we thought you'd like to give us an explanation why you sent it to us."
That's followed by a phone number belonging to Rep. John Adler of New Jersey. Per this, the unnamed constituent called and:
"I told her no malice intended and asked if it was illegal to mail a teabag. I told her it was a in protest in response to the votes of the...
Is any politician worried about the "tea parties"? (Rep. Sam Farr, Carmel/Monterey) - 03/08/09
Another worthless "tea party" protest was held today, this in the Carmel/Monterey area of California. A few pictures are here.
Why is this worthless? For an example, let's take a look at this handy chart showing the winning election percentages from Rep. Sam Farr, the Democrat who represents that area (friendsoffarr.org/achievements):
2008: 73.4%
2006: 75.9%
2004: 67%
2002: 68%
2000: 69%
1998: 65%
1996: 59%
1994: 52%
1993: 52%
Even Hugo Chavez must be envious. Yet, the only thing that Glenn Reynolds (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/72448), Pajamas Media, and their shadowy friends have...
"Fullerton Tea Party" was not a "tea party", don't be fooled - 03/08/09
Yesterday, radio hosts John and Ken from KFI in Los Angeles held a "tea party" in Fullerton (Orange County) that was attended by somewhere between 8,000 and 15,000 people. Despite what you'll hear from the usual suspects, this wasn't one of the classic tea parties in the Ayn Rand/"taxation is theft"/"greed is good" sense. Instead, it was based on something that John and Ken had been pushing before the "tea parties" started and it was mostly a protest of local California issues relating to Arnold Schwarzenegger. They glommed on to the "tea party" idea and did feature some discussion about the...
"Tea Parties": an astroturfed Koch family movement (FreedomWorks, Instapundit, Rick Santelli) - 02/28/09
[SEE UPDATE 2 BELOW]
Now I know why Rick Santelli disgusts me: the "Tea Party" stimulus protests may be an astroturfed project of the wealthy Koch Family (called "the Kochtopus", see this).