The Left Tries Tinkering with the Tea Party

During the course of the last year we have seen a definite change in the perception that Progressives have towards the Tea Party. New Tea Party groups began springing up all over the country as soon as the country recognized that despite his centrist campaign, the newly elected Barack Obama had steered his administration hard to the left. Established Tea Party groups saw an exponential increase in membership as soon as the eight-hundred plus billion dollar stimulus bill passed and the focus in Congress turned to healthcare. At first, the organized opposition to the Tea Party was basically to ignore them and the main stream media did their level best; burying stories about Tea Party activists where no one but hard core, cover-to-cover readers would find them. The thought was that without coverage or recognition that they would fizzle out and disappear.

Well, they didn’t fizzle out and they certainly haven’t disappeared. They showed up at town hall meetings during the August recess and while those that got in aired their opinions, the ones that didn’t stood outside with signs and slogans. After the Tea Party launched a massive protest at the nation’s Capitol, the press could no longer ignore the intensity and passion of the people that, until then, were showing up at Congressional offices and town halls all over the nation. Another means of dealing with this threat to the Progressive agenda had to be found. Nancy Pelosi led the charge with accusations that the Tea Parties were nothing more than an annoyance campaign organized by the Republican Party, health insurance corporations and special interest groups. Pelosi claimed they were not an actual grass roots movement; calling them “Astroturf” and manufactured anger. Ironically, while Nancy labeled the Tea Party manufactured anger, MoveOn.org, Americans for Democratic Action, SEIU, AFL-CIO, Organizing for America and more, were orchestrating counter protests and were in some cases, actually paying people to attend; a move which would prove disastrous later.

When Tea Party members began appearing on news programs, mostly on Fox, the main stream media went on an information search to discredit the people that were speaking for the movement. If Nancy Pelosi said they were paid for by the Republicans, surely they should be able to find those links and bring this manufactured hoax to a grinding halt. Looking in every dark corner and alley; under each rock and behind every tree the media found nothing but retirees, small business owners and private citizens that had never even been part of a political protest in their lives. Rather than change her tune when confronted with the total absence of Republican influence in the Tea Party movement, Nancy Pelosi shifted gears and began speaking about the rage that had permeated the town hall meetings and protests. If we can’t prove they are Astroturf, then maybe we can prove they are nothing but an ugly, racist and irrational mob. Pelosi spoke tearfully about how much this hateful discourse reminded her of the anger that had been part of the political scene in San Francisco during the 1970’s and how that anger had quickly descended into violence.

What Ms. Pelosi failed to mention was that the San Francisco mobs inciting violence in the 1970’s were overwhelmingly people on the left; Progressives like herself that did not have a legitimate voice in politics and had taken the radical activist route to force their issues on an unwilling public. The left had always taken to the streets and those marches nearly always became a violent clash between radical mobs and the authorities. Despite the inaccuracies, the main stream media had their new marching orders and began to dig through the Tea Party protests looking for signs that could be interpreted as hateful or racist and started reporting about people shouting out vile comments or wearing Swastikas. Curiously, the photographs that were taken showed plenty of American flags and signs reading “Hands off my healthcare” but none of the pictures were hateful, racist or even vulgar. There were no images of people wearing Swastikas or raising their arms in Nazi salutes. There were miles of footage showing people chanting “Kill the Bill” or speaking about the outrage they felt because Congress had been ignoring them but I still haven’t heard any racial slurs or provocative language. One would think that if any of those things were evident at Tea Party rallies, that the media would have led their national coverage with that. They did not.

Then in August it happened. The Democratic headquarters in Denver Colorado was vandalized. The media storm was immediate and centered on the anger that the Tea Party was fomenting against the supporters of healthcare reform. Every window that had been shattered contained a poster supporting the President’s healthcare initiative illustrating how dangerous these protests were becoming. Within days, the police apprehended 24 year old Maurice Schwenkler for the attack. In a curious twist of fate, Schwenkler was neither a right wing zealot nor was he a member of the Tea Party. Schwenkler was in fact, a Democrat activist and a supporter of the Healthcare Bill. He had previously been arrested for misdemeanor unlawful assembly at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN and had actually worked for the Democratic Party in the past. Schwenkler had also been paid five-hundred dollars by the Colorado Citizens Coalition, a non profit group that supports Democratic candidates, for his work in a door to door campaign to drum up last minute support for Barack Obama in the 2008 election.

There was very little coverage of Schwenkler’s arrest and no retractions of the damning rhetoric the press used as they attempted to link the attack with Tea Party activists. No indications were ever made as to Schwenkler’s motive for the vandalism leaving us to wonder “why?” It could simply be that he had an argument with people at the office and had an axe to grind with them but it may very well be that Schwenkler assumed that an attack of vandalism launched against Democratic offices would automatically be attributed to the Tea Party providing Nancy Pelosi with new speaking points about Tea Party violence.

Similarly, the charges of Tea Party hate and bigotry hoisted on the news networks after the House healthcare vote have failed to be substantiated with a single video clip or sound bite. Stenny Hoyer is now saying that anyone that doesn’t believe that racial slurs were lobbed at black Congressmen or that they weren’t spat upon are no different than the kooks that believe the Holocaust never happened during World War II. Sadly, there are miles of records and films to substantiate the brutal slaughter of more than six million Jews during World War II. Those films were taken in a nation that was ruled by a totalitarian military regime that had complete control over the media and yet, these films survived and exist to this day. However, here in the United States none of the hundreds of news cameras and microphones that accompanied those Congressmen as they walked through the Tea Party crowds to take their historic vote captured one scrap of evidence…..not one! If I were a member of the Jewish leadership I would be furious at Stenny Hoyer for even suggesting this charade could possibly be compared to the Holocaust.

The main stream news still hasn’t covered the brutal beating of Kenneth Gladney, a black Tea Party activist that was assaulted by counter protesters wearing SEIU shirts and jackets. The Missouri man was knocked to the ground and kicked for handing out literature during a Tea Party rally. A video taken of the incident clearly shows racial epithets were used as the assailants pummeled this man yet, the gang of thugs were basically charged with a misdemeanor when a civil rights violation and hate crime, had obviously taken place. A similar incident happened in Thousand Oaks, California where a 65 year old bystander that stopped to see what was happening at a Tea Party gathering was attacked and had part of his finger bitten off by a paid counter-protester bused in by MoveOn.org, a civilian activist group organized by the Democratic Party. Local police pursued that crime as vigorously as they did the incident in Missouri, with the charges against the attacker being little more than the equivalent of a ticket of littering. If the press really wants to see protest violence, they are obviously following the wrong groups because there is tons of video they can air if they follow the President’s supporters.

Now we have a new name and face to add to the list of Democrats manufacturing anger at Tea Party protests. Obviously the press can’t find the violence that Nancy Pelosi has accused the Tea Party of so he is going to help her by organizing people to infiltrate the Tea Party protests to create the disturbances the press couldn’t legitimately find. Jason Levin, a media lab school teacher at Beaverton, Oregon’s Conestoga Middle School says they want to “exaggerate the group's least appealing qualities, further distance the tea party from mainstream America and damage the public's opinion of them”.

He adds “We’re going to attend their rally, but plan to have a bunch of truly ludicrous signs. Things that say “Obama drinks Christian Baby Blood” or “Jesus wrote the constitution”. The more misspelled words the better…You could also dress in overalls with no shirt, or a stained “wifebeater” t-shirt, But you get the general idea. Some other thoughts are to ask people at the rally to sign a petition renouncing socialism. See just how much info you can get from these folks. The more data we can mine from the Tea Partiers, the more mayhem we can cause with it!!!!”

All Levin has done was to provide the smoking gun the Tea Party needed all along. The main stream media has yet to uncover these crazy signs and acts of violence in previous Tea Party protests so the assumption will now be that any violent or rude behavior at future Tea Party events must be the work of one of “Levin’s Losers”. Like that name? I made it up myself! Levin may have created more problems for himself than simply undermining the effectiveness of his own cause. He has apparently been working on his blog and website while he was supposed to be teaching his Oregon students and has drawn some unexpected and unpleasant attention from the school district. Hopefully his lack of involvement with the students actually spared them from the usual radical indoctrination routinely perpetrated by Socialist teachers and they are now better prepared for the realities of life than Mr. Levin is.

Paul

Political Violence? Conservatives Don't Throw Bricks.

I find it mildly amusing after decades of violence from the left over everything from war to the environment that they are so fearful of flag waving patriots at Tea Party Protests. There has been a concerted effort to liken Tea Party protests to the actions of an angry mob but those that have attended those rallies know who and what the Tea Party is. Most Tea Party groups know that the main stream media has been scouring these events so they can hand pick a few pictures of the more extreme protestors to impugn the movement as a whole and it would do well to treat those reporters with suspicion whenever they are present.

The power of the media comes into its own once they have an audio conversation of more than a few words. The less scrupulous of these media organs have absolutely no problem dissecting a five minute conversation and using snippets of your comments to craft a controversial answer to a question you were never asked. Those in the public eye know this and most are savvy enough to skirt these traps by crafting their answers to avoid particular statements that could be inflammatory when taken out of context. Still, a few slip through the cracks such as Sarah Palin’s comment on reloading or that she was putting a “sight” on Democrats she was “targeting” in the 2010 elections.

Sarah Palin was the subject of numerous jokes during the 2008 campaign because she is an avid hunter in her home State of Alaska. He references to weapons and hunting terminology was meant to be an “in your face” swipe at those who tried to use her love of hunting against her and rather than submit to the criticisms, she decided to wear it as a badge of courage. The left however, seized the opportunity to claim her statements were meant to incite violence against Democrats and attempted to link the post-healthcare bill brick throwing incidents at her feet and at the feet of her Tea Party followers.

I really do have to wonder about all these claims of violence anyway. During the heated healthcare debates in August of 2009, multiple windows at the Democratic offices in Denver Colorado were smashed adding up to more than eleven thousand dollars in damages. Since the windows that were targeted held posters praising Obama’s efforts to reform healthcare, Democrats were quick to accuse right wing zealots and Tea Partiers claiming they were trying to invoke fear and foment hatred against supporters of the President’s healthcare initiative.

Days later, Denver Police arrested 24 year-old Maurice Schwenkler for the attack but Schwenkler was neither a right wing zealot nor was he a member of the Tea Party. Schwenkler was in fact, a Democrat activist and a supporter of the Healthcare Bill. He had previously been arrested for misdemeanor unlawful assembly at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN and had worked for the Democratic Party in the past. Schwenkler had also been paid five-hundred dollars by the Colorado Citizens Coalition, a non profit group that supports Democratic candidates, for his work in a door to door campaign to drum up last minute support for Barack Obama in the 2008 election.

While the motives for Maurice Schwenkler’s acts of vandalism were never disclosed, it is clear that this was not someone that had been angered over the Democrat’s push to pass Healthcare Reform. Could it be that this was an idea he and his other radical friends came up with to discredit Tea Party opposition to his beloved President? Could this have been a contrived act perpetrated with the hope that the Republicans and Tea Parties would be blamed?

One can never be certain but since their list of heroes include Marxists, Socialists and some very radical thinkers, it is a credible possibility. This is curiously reminiscent to the 1933 blaze that gutted the German Reichstag building. The fire was deemed arson and there was an outcry from Hitler’s loyal party that Dutch Communists were responsible. Several Dutch Communists were arrested but just one, Marinus van der Lubbe, would be tried and executed for the act. The fire was then used by Adolf Hitler to suspend many of the German Republic’s civil rights and to disperse the various Communist opposition Parties present in Germany at the time. It was not until years later that Gestapo Archives seized by Russian forces during World War II were rediscovered in Moscow. These archives show that the fire was actually the work of Hitler’s loyal SA or Sturmabteilung (Storm Troopers), the paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party. The work of several modern day researchers claim that the fire was intentionally set by SA commandos so that the Nazis, under Hitler’s command, could create a crisis that would radically broaden his powers.

The reality of the situation is there is an understanding among Democrats that most Tea Party activists are law abiding members of society that abhor violence and ignorance. I believe their hope is that if they can connect the Tea Party or Republican supporters with random acts of violence that it will fracture the Tea Party and render it impotent; that independents and conservatives will flee if they believe the Party has been taken over by dangerous factions.

We saw this strategy employed during the Tea Party protest that gathered in Washington before the final House vote on the Healthcare bill. Instead of entering the Capitol Building through their usual underground passageway, House Democrats lead by Nancy Pelosi challenged the crowd as they walked to the Capitol Building. There were reports that racial slurs were lobbed at black Congressmen and that some were even spat upon. Really? Well, despite hundreds of news cameras, microphones and security agents, not one of them actually witnessed these alleged events; there were no arrests made and none of the so-called victims of these horrendous acts would agree to appear on a single news show to tell America what happened to them.

Is that even possible? Do you doubt for one moment that if a Congressman were assaulted, threatened or spat on that the perpetrators wouldn’t have been arrested on the spot? The films I saw of the Congressional Democrats walking to the Capitol Building showed that their security people had cleared the path for them and maintained a comfortable distance between the crowd and the Congressmen. I clearly heard security personnel tell people to move back but I didn’t hear one racial remark. The cameras didn’t capture a single image of anyone spitting and neither did any of the other news networks that were present.

House Democrats equated their walk through the Tea Party protest with the historic civil rights marches of the 1960’s when in reality; it was far more similar to the marches staged by American Nazis, Skinheads and the Ku Klux Klan. Like those marches, this little walk was designed to challenge the protestors. They were hoping that someone, anyone, would do something that would bring shame and scrutiny upon the Tea Party movement. When they couldn’t incite the response they wanted, I believe they made it up as they went along. That is why none of them would appear on the news programs. It is one thing to have Nancy Pelosi tell us that she heard that this had happened, its quite another to convince someone to stand before news cameras and lie to the American people that you were the victim of an assault that never happened; an assault that not one of the hundreds of cameras that were present had filmed.

Now we have windows being broken again; a few Democrats here and a few Republicans there. Even though the perpetrators have not been apprehended, we are being told that it is the acts of right wing zealots and angry Tea Partiers again. Has anyone even asked where Maurice Schwenkler has been lately? No I don’t actually believe he is responsible this time but considering what did happen this past August and the unsubstantiated nature of the alleged assault on House Democrats earlier this month, I am more inclined to believe in Elvis sightings than I am in their claims that Tea Partiers are suddenly throwing bricks again. Let’s face facts. Acts of violence and vandalism are the calling card of the left; not the Tea Party. Conservatives don’t throw bricks and we don’t make pipe bombs. We don’t incite violence and we don’t get arrested at protests. In fact, we even pick up our trash when we leave, something that the left never does; ironically, not even at a protest for the environment.

Paul

Obama's Beverage of Choice is Coffee Not Tea - The Coffee Party Scam

I heard about the Coffee Party in much the same way as everyone else has and now that the group has begun its media campaign, I felt it was time to take closer look. The group’s founder, Annabel Park, appeared on Fox Sunday morning and was explaining the group’s origins and aims. According to Park, their aim is to improve dialogue with Washington so that they are not deadlocked in partisan battles instead of focusing on work necessary for the good of the country.

That sounds great on the surface, but a few things she said bothered me. I get this gut feeling when something is wrong and the first impression that I got from Annabel about her Coffee Party was that their core belief is that Washington was the driving force behind providing for the public good. Anyone that understands the Constitution knows that nothing is further from the truth; that our modern Federal government has usually been quite damaging to the public good. Oh sure, they have thrown crumbs to the poor, usually in an attempt to buy votes, but overall, ninety percent of the power the Federal government now holds has been stolen from the States in violation of the Tenth Amendment and they have fought a devious battle to retain that power by any means necessary.

My gut twitched as I heard more about the Coffee Party and while Ms. Park claimed that she is not trying to undermine the Tea Party movement, she did say they have a different view of politics and the Coffee Party was formed to offer another approach to those who feel a need to become active at the grass roots level. There was no mention of fiscal responsibility or the need to reduce government spending. The overwhelming majority of Americans are angry about deficit spending and fearful of our mountainous debt but curiously, Ms. Park failed to touch on the debt and deficit at all which only deepened my suspicions of her group and her motives. In fact, Annabel Park’s comments seemed far too favorable to an administration that was deeply entangled in an agenda to “fundamentally transform” America in total opposition to the public’s wishes.

I decided to take a closer look at Annabel Park and what do you know! Both Annabel Park and Coffee Party co-founder Eric Byler worked on Virginia Democrat Jim Webb’s 2006 Senate campaign and Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign. Annabel Park studied philosophy at Boston University on a Melville Scholarship and political theory at Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. Not exactly the background you would expect to find in a “grass roots” organization. Eric Byler was born in Los Angeles California and studied as a film major at the Liberal bastion of Wesleyan University in Connecticut. If you recall, Wesleyan University is the alma mater of our Progressive Secretary of State and former First Lady, Hillary Clinton while her husband, former President Bill Clinton studied at Oxford University just like Annabel.

According to the news story, the Coffee Party began as a simple idea on Facebook and that idea spontaneously erupted into a firestorm of interest in Ms. Park’s idea. Growing in leaps and bounds, the Coffee Party has according to CNN, purportedly swollen to over 110,000 Facebook fans. A quick count of their membership through their own web page (http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/) shows far fewer members; about 3800 in all but that isn’t all the Coffee Party website shows us.

For a grass roots organization that supposedly sprang into existence from nothing in February of 2010, they have made incredible leaps in just one month’s time; a little too incredible if you ask me. They have pages of press coverage from CNN, CBS, ABC, NPR, NBC and from a host of other traditional and web based news outlets; the same media and press organizations that ignored the Tea Party until they launched a protest of more than 200,000 people at the nation’s Capital; signaling that they could no longer be dismissed as meaningless. The one that really caught my eye is the glowing endorsement they received from the Queen of Liberal rag sheets, the Huffington Post. That alone should be an indictment of the Coffee Party’s true origin and mission; especially for anyone that has had their senses assaulted by Arianna Huffington over the past few years.

This new “grass roots” movement has not only managed to organize a National “Coffee Summit” in just one month but has also miraculously generated a website with a curiously professional look and feel to it; something the local Tea Party chapters are still struggling with even though their momentum and membership far outweighs that of the Coffee Party. Their main page shows their mission statement which is: “The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government. We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots volunteers, we will support leaders who work toward positive solutions, and hold accountable those who obstruct them.”

Really? To support leaders who work for positive solutions, and hold accountable those who obstruct them? Why does that sound so damned familiar? Truthfully, that sounds an awful lot like the orchestrated assault launched against the Tea Party by the President and the Congressional Progressives during the healthcare debates. After all, according to them, it was the President and his friends that were working towards positive solutions while those angry Tea Party activists were just trying to obstruct the President’s progress. As much as Annabel claims she is not starting a battle with the Tea Party that mission statement sounds like the first shot in the war. In fact, I got a real laugh when I went to the bottom of their web page and looked for the standard “terms of service” disclaimer. The Coffee Party even calls that their “Rules of Engagement” which says even more about their intent than their mission statement does.

The Coffee Party “rules of engagement” state: “We reserve the right to moderate this blog according to our values, which include respecting and embracing diverse opinions and diverse backgrounds. There are plenty of blogs and websites where partisanship, unfounded conspiracy theories, and intentional insults poison the environment. We'd like for our blog to be an alternative to that approach. We ask that participants not to hide behind anonymity, and be as polite and as responsible as they would be if they were speaking in a public forum and their mother might see them on the news. Those who come to this blog to deface it with ugliness and rancor will have their profiles put into moderation as a warning, and then deleted for a second offense.”

I ask you, what grass roots movement begins life with a direct attack on the First Amendment by promising to silence those that disagree with them? The preemptive attack against the accusations of conspiracy they have invited upon themselves told me that the conspiratorial link between the Coffee Party and Obama is more than just a theory. This is in fact, a shadow movement created and funded by a pro-Obama / Progressive think tank. They ask that the participants that post to their blog site not hide behind anonymity but if you look at the list of active Coffee Party groups across the country, the managers of each one of those groups in listed as “anonymous”. Now that is funny isn’t it? I guess that leaves it up to us to figure out if they are that fearful of reprisal or if the names of those “managers” would provide too much of a link to people that are already active within other groups like Obama’s own “Color of Change”.

In addition to promoting counter protests to planned Tea Party activities, the web site includes suspicious links to something called “The Organizer’s Toolkit”. The toolkit contains volumes of information on the structure and organization needed to develop the Coffee Party. The tools are far too detailed for a grass roots movement that is only one month old and cover community involvement, leadership development, media control, etc, etc, etc. The interesting part about the toolbox is that it is run by Democracy in Action (democracyinaction.org) which is directly linked to none other than the George Soros funded MoveOn.org. MoveOn is also inextricably linked to the Progressive movement, to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and through those organizations, to Barack Obama as well.

We knew that eventually there would be an attack on the Tea Party in advance of the November elections. The initial attempts to discredit the Tea Party failed miserably as did the recent push to link the Tea Party to allegations of violence after the signing of the healthcare bill. Tea Party groups have resisted any attempts made to absorb the movement into any organized political Party and because they have maintained their autonomy, recent moves to infiltrate the groups are quickly frustrated. The only option left to the Obamanistas was to form their own nationally controlled, Soros funded, Socialist influenced “grass roots” movement. Talk about “Astroturf! I’m actually surprised they called it the Coffee Party without adding the subtext that they are decaffeinated and sugar free in keeping with their Lord and Master’s Healthcare Plans.

Tea Parties are local groups of concerned citizens that are trying to preserve the American way of life. The main Tea Party website (http://teapartypatriots.ning.com/)
reflects the populist nature of the movement and it simply reports on events of national significance and can direct interested people on how to find a local Tea Party in their area. I highly recommend that everyone get involved if for no other reason than to counter this obvious attempt by Obama and his gang of thugs to silence the voice of true American patriots with their tainted idea of what a Tea Party is supposed to be.

Paul