Here is a super article by Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, which reveals how the Republicans are pulling the strings of the supposedly "grassroots" Tea Party movement. Reporting like this makes it worth buying the paper!
Republican Lawmakers Stir Up the 'Tea Party' Crowd
Published on Monday, March 22, 2010 by the Washington Post
by Dana Milbank Source
The journey to health-care reform has been long and gruesome, so it's only fitting that on the day when it would finally pass, Republican members of Congress stood on the balcony of the people's House and stirred an unruly crowd. As lawmakers debated their way to a vote on the legislation, dozens of GOP members walked from the chamber, across the Speaker's Lobby and out onto the balcony to whip up thousands of "tea party" protesters massed on the south side of the Capitol, within about 50 feet of the building.
Some lawmakers waved handwritten signs and led the crowd in chants of "Kill the Bill." A few waved the yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flag of the tea party movement. Still others fired up the demonstrators with campaign-style signs mocking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and offering messages such as "Let's Meet 'em at the State Line." Some Democrats worried aloud about the risk of violence, while anxious Capitol Police struggled to keep the crowd away from the building.
It was a hideous display, capping one of the ugliest and strangest periods of the American legislative process: the town hall meetings, the death panels, the granny-killing, the images of Nazi concentration camps, the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, the "You lie!" moment, the Christmas Eve vote, the Massachusetts election, the Stupak Amendment, the Slaughter Plan, the filibusters, the supermajorities, the deeming and passing.
Fifteen months of episodic battles over health-care reform had often ended, as the finale did, with epithets and shouts.
Inside the House chamber, Republicans placed on the Democrats' chairs photos of the Democratic lawmakers who lost their seats in 1994. In the public gallery, two men, one smelling strongly of alcohol, interrupted the House debate with shouts of "Kill the bill!" and "The people said no!" As police led the demonstrators from the chamber, Republicans cheered -- for the hecklers.
Democrats, to show they wouldn't be intimidated, staged a march to the House from their office buildings, covering the ground where on Saturday African American Democrats were called racial epithets and spat on by demonstrators. Pelosi, carrying the speaker's gavel, linked arms with Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who was harassed on Saturday and is no stranger to abuse from his years in the civil rights movement.
Police ringed Lewis, Pelosi and the other Democrats while the conservative activists formed a gantlet and shouted insults: "You communists! You socialists! You hate America!"
The tone of Sunday's debate was set within moments of the opening prayer for "hope and promise." Republicans opposed the approval of the journal -- a routine procedure at the start of each day -- and demanded a roll-call vote. Further parliamentary objections delayed the proceedings for hours.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) went to the well to say that "freedom dies a little bit today." Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.), sitting in the front row in a way that displayed the Lone Star flag on his cowboy boots, said Democrats were on "the path of government tyranny." Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) warned of a "fiscal Frankenstein."
The legislators were making such a ruckus on the floor that they couldn't hear the ruckus just outside their walls. The tea party demonstrators, who had been rallying on the west lawn of the Capitol, migrated to the south to be just outside the House chamber. They chanted "Nancy! Nancy!" and held signs saying such things as "Red Queen Nancy -- Joseph Stalin Was Not a Saint."
That would have been the end of it, had Republican lawmakers not riled things up. First Rep. Buck McKeon (Calif.) came out onto the balcony, pumping his fist in the air and holding a sign that said "KILL." After him came Rep. Rob Bishop (Utah) with a "THE" sign and Rep. Mike Turner (Ohio) with "BILL." The crowd went wild.
Next came Reps. Mary Fallin (Okla.), Geoff Davis (Ky.) and Bill Posey (Fla.) holding the "Don't Tread on Me" flag. Rep. Pete Sessions (Tex.), head of the House Republicans' 2010 campaign committee, came out with hand-lettered signs spelling K-I-L-L T-H-E B-I-L-L. Sessions, holding two L's himself, was joined on the balcony by Reps. Steve King (Iowa), Greg Walden (Ore.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Jeanne Schmidt (Ohio), Dan Lungren (Calif.) and many more. Rep. Jeff Miller (Fla.) dangled an American flag from the balcony and waved it back and forth.
"That's kind of fun," Fallin said cheerfully after a turn at riling the crowd with signs saying "No" in red letters.
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), working at a table in the Speaker's Lobby, looked up at his colleagues returning from the balcony. "Are you inciting a riot?" he asked.
It did have that feel. Outside, the police shouted at demonstrators to keep off the wall separating them from the House chamber. One cop complained to another: "They were back further until the members came out."
A curious Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), taunted by demonstrators with a homophobic slur on Saturday, went out on the balcony. He was greeted by cascading boos. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) went out and gave a mischievous wave. "I feel like Mussolini now!" he said as the crowd booed him.
But Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), also heckled when he stepped onto the balcony, wasn't as amused. "They should be embarrassed," he said of his Republican colleagues. "They're going to be responsible for anything that happens out there."
Mercifully, there was no attempt to storm the House. Things began to quiet down as word filtered out to the crowd that Rep. Bart Stupak (Mich.), an antiabortion Democrat, had announced his support for the bill, essentially clinching its passage.
Budding political movements - like the Tea Party - need to be careful when it comes to choosing venues. After all, a certain Austrian demagogue's early prediliction for Munich beer halls got him and his followers a (richly deserved) reputation as boozy troublemakers. In other words, choosing the wrong setting gets things off to a bad start and can turn party followers into a laughing stock. What was going through the minds of the organisers when they chose The Gaylord Hotel in Nashville for The Tea Party's first national convention? Maybe they just forgot their followers are red-blooded homophobes almost to a man. One slip-up might be considered an accident, two reveals carelessness bordering on stupidity (as Lady Bracknell might have said). Here is an extract from The Guardian, the campus newspaper of Wright State University.
Extract from The Guardian - source Tea Party Movement: What is it?
Posted on 04 May 2010 by Logan Hess
Students of Wright State University add to the list of people getting involved in a political movement that is growing in popularity every day.
Early last month, 8,000 of the 12,000 seats in the Nutter Center were filled with supporters of the Tea Party Movement that references back to the Boston Tea Party of 1773.
According to supporters of this movement, the Tea Party is based in love and follows values and principles centered on good morals, family, freedom and God.
The movement is about love for this country and the reasons America was founded in the first place, which some supporters believe has been portrayed poorly by the media.
The sham of a "grassroots" Tea Party movement is becoming more obvious with every passing day. Mike Meckler, string-pulling lawyer and lobbyist for the (strongly Republican) Lincoln Club Orange County is now muzzling his followers. Here is the latest diktat handed down from on high and revealed by Mark's flunkey (alter ego?) "Tio Tom" (why "Uncle Tom" and why half in Spanish?). Anyway, without further ado, here it Meckler's latest "Commandment".
Dateline August 3, 2010. Internal Tea Party instruction (signed by "Tio Sam", TPP censor)
The Hosts made a decision. I am instructed to enforce it. So any discussion past or present that revolves around religion is no longer allowed on this board. As stated in Words from Mark. There are plenty of other forums to discuss issues that relate to religion. That includes the Radical Muslim threat. If you do not agree with this policy then you have every right to petition the Hosts. I am doing what I was instructed to do. If you wish confirmation on this, PLEASE contact either Debbie or Mark.
Admin has instructed me to report anyone that feels they have a right to violate this rule. I will begin following that instruction from this point forward.
From now on, the drivel on The Tea Party site will be a great deal less entertaining. It could signal the party is over.
The following article from Lansing Online so perfectly captures my own experience of Tea Party types that I have pasted it in below. The ignorance and bigotry of many TP members is laughable but then again, people used to giggle at the rag-bag followers of an Austrian demagogue with a Chaplin moustache.
NOTE: This post is from August when the Town Hall meetings were raging but it seems appropriate after the protests on Wednesday during the State of the State. If nothing else, check out the pug video at the bottom.
The Town Hall meetings that our senators and representatives often hold during the August recess have produced a bumper crop of crazies this summer. Fertilized by the manure spread around so freely by Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Bill O’Reilly, the conservative crazies have blossomed into the equivalent of political crabgrass, threatening to crowd out what little is left of civility and reasoned debate in our culture.
Most of our East Coast pundits don’t get out here to the hinterlands enough to recognize the more common varieties of crazies we grow out here, so I humbly offer my personal field guide:
The Race Haters – The angriest of the mob, these are the folks who, in a previous era, would have showed up for a lynching with a picnic lunch. They are the descendants of the folks belonged to the KKK in the Twenties, which claimed 20% of the white male vote back then. Now that a black president has succeeded in installing a new Hispanic Supreme Court justice, they are the first in line at the gun stores expecting Obama will take their guns away (I wish).
The Fundies – These folks are the authoritarian fundamentalists, desperate to find easy answers to tough questions. Whether it’s the Constitution or the Bible (or both), they cling to the belief that following the revealed word will provide them a black and white path through a gray and frightening world. They are relatively easy to identify because they reek of self-righteousness.
Militiamen Redux - The Southern Poverty Law Center sees a rise in militias. As someone who lives in Michigan where camouflaged crazies in the woods are not a new phenomenon, all I can say is that, like leftover salmon, they will smell even worse the second time around.
The Throwbacks – Trapped in a hazy Happy Days time warp of America in the Fifties, when men were (white) men and women were kept subservient by being denied access to any of the good jobs, these guys want us to return to an era that never really existed.
The Losers – These are the folks who look at the educated and successful members of our society and seethe with resentment. What isn’t that me? Unwilling or unable to read anything other than the latest Ann Coulter screed, they spend much of their time writing emails IN ALL CAPITALS (the electronic equivalent of crayon).
The Dummies – Rivaling the losers as the largest category of crazies in the crowd, the dummies are continuing proof that the American educational system ran itself off a cliff years ago. If you doubt their ignorance, consider that Investors Daily yesterday ran an editorial saying that Stephen Hawking would be dead if the socialized medicine in England had been in charge of his care. Dr. Hawking does, of course, live in England, whose National Health Service has done an excellent job of keeping him alive for decades after he was stricken. As Keith Olbermann said last night, apparently the conservative editorial writer didn’t realize Hawking didn’t live in England because his voice synthesizer doesn’t have a British accent. (Investors Daily as since pulled the Hawking reference.) If you need further proof, remember that many of the folks railing against allowing government a role in health care are also on Medicare.
True conservatives – If you look hard enough, you might find one or two thoughtful, civil and educated conservatives at the Town Hall meetings. But, then again, maybe not. Chances are, they stayed home knowing the crazies would outshout them.
More details are emerging of Mark Meckler (the self-proclaimed spokesman for The Tea Party) and his unwholesome links with the Republicans and corporate lobbyists:
Tea Party Leader Was Involved With GOP-Tied Political Firm
Zachary Roth | March 2, 2010, 11:13AM
Mark Meckler, a top Tea Party leader, has worked hard to position the movement as a grassroots uprising, independent of both political parties. But just a few years ago, Meckler was involved in an online political consulting firm with ties to the GOP -- a fact that could intensify the fears of some Tea Party activists that their movement is being hijacked by Republican political operatives.
Since last year, Meckler, a northern California lawyer, has emerged as one of two national leaders and spokespeople for the Tea Party Patriots, giving frequent interviews to national news outlets. Working closely with the Atlanta-based Jenny Beth Martin, Meckler has helped build TPP into perhaps the largest and most prominent of the various Tea Party factions. If the notoriously decentralized Tea Party movement can be said to have a spokesman, Meckler has as good a claim to the title as just about anyone.
Meckler has presented himself as an ordinary country lawyer, motivated to get involved, like so many other Americans, by Rick Santelli's famous rant. The Wall Street Journal recently described him as one of the "political novices" running the movement. Even one of Meckler's many email addresses seems designed to make a point -- it begins: "mark.grassroots."
Meckler has also been careful to disavow any connection between TPP and the Republican Party, and eager to tout the group's independence. Meckler didn't respond to an interview request for this story, but he told TPMmuckraker in January that "the major parties in this nation haven't represented the American people." Last month he told NewsMax: "Anybody who expects tea party members to vote based on party lines fundamentally misunderstands the movement ... The tea party movement is made up of people who value principle above party." And CNN reported last that Meckler and Martin say they are "frustrated that other Tea Party groups are being run by Republican political consultants forking over lots of cash for recruitment" -- a reference to the Tea Party Express, which is run by a GOP consulting firm.
None of this is untrue, exactly. But it leaves out the fact that Meckler appears to have aspired relatively recently to be a Republican political consultant himself. A few years ago, Meckler was listed as the general counsel for Unique Leads and Unique Lists, two related online marketing firms that specialize in building email lists on behalf of clients. In that capacity, Meckler also wrote online columns on the subject of internet privacy -- a subject in which many online marketers, anxious to avoid running afoul of anti-spam and other laws, have a keen interest.
At some point, it appears, Meckler spun off his involvement with Unique Leads to help develop a new firm, Opt-In Movement, that aimed to build email lists on behalf of political clients. Opt-In's website -- which according to internet records was registered in 2007 -- suggests that the firm aspired to work on behalf of Republican candidates and causes. One page shows examples of its work, which includes mock web pages for Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential bid, Rep. Jeff Flake, Freedom's Watch, and the College Republican National Committee. The site notes that some of these examples were "designed as demonstration pieces to show the broad variety of our in-house abilities."
There's no indication on the site itself that Meckler is involved with Opt-In. A contact page lists only the email address info@optinmovement.com. But what appears to be an earlier contact page -- no longer accessible from the main site, but still online -- lists Meckler as the firm's contact, and provides a phone number that goes to Unique Leads.
Meckler also appears to have forged ties with other GOP consultants. A November 2007 blog post on the website TechRepublican.com -- which was created by the D.C.-based GOP consultant David All -- declares: "Mark Meckler told us about Opt-In Movement which offers a no risk-way for conservative political candidates and organizations to quickly and effectively build their email lists." The post also notes that All's firm, the David All Group, -- which describes itself as "the nation's first Republican Web 2.0 agency" -- is "a partner with Opt-In Movement."
It's not clear how much success Opt-In has had. Its website appears not to have been updated for several years, and Meckler reportedly sent out an email to friends and family recently asking for financial assistance, after devoting much of his time over the last year to Tea Party activism.
It stands to reason that Meckler hasn't been eager to trumpet this part of his background. Grassroots Tea Partiers have lately raised the alarm about what many of them see as the hijacking of their movement by the Republican party and its consultants. In addition to Tea Party Express, they cite last month's National Tea Party Convention -- which had Sarah Palin as its keynote speaker and had also invited two GOP members of Congress to speak -- and the recent meeting that some Tea Partiers held with RNC chair Michael Steele.
Through this turmoil, Meckler and the Tea Party Patriots have emerged as a kind of enforcer of the Tea Party movement's political independence, denouncing Tea Party Express and pointedly keeping their distance from the convention and the Steele confab. "Some people call for unity because they want to be the leader," Meckler said in a recent interview. "You see that with the GOP; they're trying to co-opt the movement as hard as they can."
Late Update: Meckler also is being paid by a California Republican business group to gather petition signatures for a ballot initiative that's long been a key goal of the state GOP, TPMmuckraker reports.
As an erstwhile blogger on the Tea Party Patriots site, I can attest to the almost endless ignorance and bigotry shown by TPP members on a wide range of subjects. The popular stereotype of The Tea Party as a heady brew of gun-toting rednecks bent on overthrowing the government, and powerful Republican business pulling the strings is an accurate one - one which, more anon. In the meantime, here is a report from The Guardian revealing the reactionary nature of the Tea Party movement.
Prejudice and principle brew at tea party meet
The Guardian, Saturday 6 February 2010
Ed Pilkington in Nashville
600 delegates from all over the US descended on the cavernous Gaylord hotel to plot strategy as opening speech harks back to America's segregationist past
Attendees speak to each other during cocktail hour at the national tea party convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Photograph: The Washington Post/Washington Post/Getty Images
America's disparate army of angry conservatives assembled under one roof yesterday at the first national tea party convention in Nashville, amid controversy over an opening speech which preached bigotry bordering on racism.
Up to 600 delegates from all over the US descended on the cavernous Gaylord hotel to plot a strategy on how to take back the country from the perceived threat of the Obama administration. Sporting a shirt made from the Stars and Stripes, Tim Peak from Arizona said he had travelled so far because it was "time for the silent majority to stand up and start speaking".
Tea party movement: 'It's time for the silent majority to speak' But amid talk about fiscal conservatism and the "subversive threat" of the green movement, there was also a strong undercurrent of a cultural bigotry which previously had been kept to the margins of the tea party phenomenon.
Tom Tancredo, a former Republican congressman from Denver in Colorado who ran for president in 2008, devoted most of his opening speech on Thursday night to illegal immigration. He said the fabric of US society had been eroded by the "cult of multiculturalism", "Islamification", and large numbers of immigrants who did not want to be Americans.
In his most incendiary comment, he invoked the segregationist methods of the southern states, saying that Obama had been elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country". Southern segregationist states used to prevent black people having the vote by setting them restrictively difficult qualification tests, a historical allusion lost on few of the delegates present.
Tancredo went on to call on delegates to launch a "counter-revolution" that would "pass on our culture based on Judeo-Christian principles. Whether people like it or not, that's who we are."
That remark received a standing ovation from the audience.
The convention, called the Tea Party Nation by its organisers in a reference to the Boston Tea Party of Anglo-Saxon colonists opposed to British taxation, seeks to build on the organic, internet-fuelled groundswell of popular anger against mounting government spending that erupted a year ago, prompting alarm and consternation to both Republican and Democratic establishments.
The movement has been keen to avoid accusations it is motivated by racism towards the country's first black president. Mark Skoda, one of the convention organisers, said of Tancredo's speech – "I would have preferred he didn't use that form of words."
The convention has been dogged by controversy even before it opened with some denouncing its $549 (£350) ticket price and criticising it as an attempt to hijack a bottom-up phenomenon for commercial gain. There was evidence of money-making activities. For $89.99, delegates could buy pendants of tea bags made from semi-precious stones and silver, and there were plenty of T-shirts on sale with slogans such as "I'll keep my freedom, my guns and my money" and "Annoy a liberal – use facts and logic".
The spirit of the Birthers, people who believe that Obama is an alien imposter, was also represented. Jack Smith, from Ellijay in Georgia, said he feared "that perhaps we have elected somebody to office that may not be a legal American citizen".
Steve Milloy, who runs a global warming denier website, junkscience.com, delivered a speech denouncing environmentalism as the "greatest threat to America now and in the future".
Amid such a ragbag of phobias, paranoia and principles, one unifying force was support for the former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who will speak to the convention at its close tonight.
The "Tea Party" has been getting a lot of political traction and media reporting recently so now is a good time to look at its founder, Mark Meckler. The following article by Matt Coker of The Orange County News reveals what is behind Meckler's insane political agenda. If you guessed corporate dollars, you are right:
Mark Meckler, the Face of Tea Party Hypocrisy
By Matt Coker published: Thu., Mar. 4 2010 @ 8:55AM
teapartypatriots.ning.com
"I felt like the Republican Party didn't represent my values," Mark Meckler, one of two national spokesmen for the Tea Party Patriots, told Southern Nevada's TheUnion.com this past Saturday. "The political parties represent entrenched interests . . . and they never do what they say."
Meckler knows mucho about never doing what he says. A new report shows he was recently paid to help a campaign launched by one of the GOP's largest lobbying groups, the Lincoln Club of Orange County. Talking Points Memo's Muckraker reported Tuesday that the NorCal lawyer also helped run a political consulting firm with ties to Republicans in Washington, D.C.
That was curious, because Meckler told Muckraker in January, "The major parties in this nation haven't represented the American people."
Meckler's involvement with the Lincoln Club campaign was first reported last month by Red County. He was paid $7,500 for "petition circulation management" by the "Citizen Power Campaign Supported by the Lincoln Club of Orange County," state disclosure records show.
The exclusive, Newport Beach-based Lincoln Club of Orange County, whose website takes credit for helping pass Prop. 13 and recalling Governor Gray Davis, is composed of some of the region's most powerful businesspeople. That would seem to put its interests at odds with "the Tea Party's more populist, anti-corporate ethos," Muckraker notes
But give the well-heeled, not-so-honest Abe lovers credit: they can spot easy marks like you can spot stop signs. And the Lincoln Clubbers really, really, really want to see the Citizen Power Campaign succeed. Muckraker:
It aims to gather enough signatures from voters to place a measure on the ballot this November which would make it illegal to use taxpayer money, deducted from the paychecks of public employees, for political activity. That would take away a key source of funding for the state's public employees union, and make it more difficult for pro-labor candidates to get elected.
Passing the initiative, often known as "paycheck protection," has long been a goal of the state GOP, and the effort was endorsed earlier this year by Senate candidateCarly Fiorinaand gubernatorial hopeful Steve Poizner, among other California Republicans.
But what about the people? You know, us rubes who the teabaggers claim to represent. We voters have already rejected paycheck protection initiatives in 1998 and 2005, both times by 53-47 margins.
The rank-and-file 'baggers would probably be more disturbed by Meckler's GOP entanglements feeding fears that their movement is being hijacked by Republican operatives.
It's small wonder, then, that Meckler just sent Muckraker a detailed response where he admits to getting paid by the Lincoln Club of Orange County. As for the GOP in D.C., he says of tea baggers, "Wealign with folks who share our values on particular projects and initiatives."
Gee, perhaps you all should start a political party. Oops, already did. In 1854.
