The CPAC has come to town. It arrived on Thursday. For those who aren’t card carrying conservatives, CPAC stands for the Conservative Political Action Conference and it has come to town full throttle. The list of key note speakers is enough to make moderates and liberals break out in a sweat:
Hon. Dick Armey
Hon. John Ashcroft
Rep. Michele Bachmann
Glenn Beck
Amb. John Bolton
Andrew Breitbart
Herman Cain
Tucker Carlson
Liz Cheney
Ann Coulter
Sen. Jim DeMint
I think only a fool would underestimate this movement. There are lots and lots of people out there who are angry and mad. Angry, mad people won’t just go away. However, if the people I see in this video represent this movement, I fear for our country.
Are these people imposters? Do they not represent the Tea Party Movement? Why should I not believe these are the people of the grass roots movement. Convince me I am wrong.
There are people who are tired of this topic. There certainly are topics I am tired of, yet I keep hearing them. I cannot turn on my TV without hearing about them and many ideas I feel are repugnant. I am tired of hearing the President being called a socialist. I feel it is disrespectful. I am tired of hearing he isn’t an American. That too is disrespectful. I dislike hearing people call for revolution. I feel this call threatens my country. Convince me I have misunderstood.
That darling of the nativist crew, Tom Tancredo, opened the Tea Party Convention in Nashville last weekend with a litany of insults towards President Obama, John McCain, and the culture of multiculturalism (whatever that means).
The opening-night speaker at first ever National Tea Party Convention ripped into President Obama, Sen. John McCain and “the cult of multiculturalism,” asserting that Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”
The speaker, former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., told about 600 delegates in a Nashville, Tenn., ballroom that in the 2008 election, America “put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House … Barack Hussein Obama.”
Tancredo did not stop at the Democratic president — ripping McCain, R-Ariz., the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, for shaping up to be a repeat of “Bush 1 and Bush 2.”
“Thank God John McCain lost the election,” he said, voicing his belief that McCain would have presided over big budgets and lacked a tough stand against immigration.
Tancredo served 10 years in the House of Representatives and made a name for himself with his ardent opposition to immigration. He believes the 2008 election served to galvanize the right.
“This is our country,” he told the crowd. “Let’s take it back.”
Is anyone else uncomfortable with Tancredo’s words? Calling the president of the United States a “committed socialist ideologue” is disturbing. One wonders who he means when he says ‘our.’
Tancredo further described the American electorate as “people who cannot even spell the word vote, or say it in English.” Additionally, he called for a culture war in the name of preserving “Judeo-Christian principles whether people like it or they don’t.”
His rhetoric is unacceptable to many Americans. Hopefully the Tea Party people or whatever they want to be called will reject this kind of political mentality. It certainly doesn’t represent MY America. It is still unclear exactly who these folks are or what they want. To the best of our knowledge, and looking at who seems to identify with them, the Tea Party folks seem to be to the right of Republicans. Tancredo, Bachmann, Beck and Palin would fit this description. However, Scott Brown does not. It is expected that they will kick him to the curb now he is no longer needed to prove a point. Brown seems far too moderate and more like John McCain or William Weld.
Many of our contributors defend the Tea Party with their last breath. How do you see the Tea Party? What is their cause? Are they simply a grass organization? If so, why are there so many groups? Are they a populist group similar to the Perot people? Is there one definition of this group or does each splinter group have its own persona?
This political movement needs a new name. What group of adults says they belong to the Tea Party. What does it stand for? Does anyone remember? From all reports, the Tea Party Convention this week in Nashville isn’t going too well. Various people have stomped out and there is plenty of bickering.
Why? The average person can’t afford to go. There are a bunch of Tea Party grassroots organizations. Many of them are squabbling already over the overly priced accommodations and set up in general. The Washington Post describes the following problems:
… [T]he first gathering of a sprawling movement, made up of hundreds of disparate Tea Party groups, has been marred by controversy. Some high-profile speakers and activist groups have canceled their appearances in protest of alleged profiteering by the convention organizers.
Attendees have been charged $549 a ticket (plus hotel and transportation) to gather for three days at the luxurious Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center — an expense that critics say is out of reach for the average grass-roots activist. Some of the proceeds will go to cover former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s reported $100,000 fee to deliver Saturday’s keynote address.
There was also some mention of a $600 per person lobster dinner that one person who sat home described as a typical Republican fundraiser dinner. That sure doesn’t sound like an ‘average Joe’s’ kind of meal. Sarah Palin is a keynote speaker who has said she will not profit from her honorarium but has yet to say who will receive her speaking fee.
What has happened to the grassroots, ‘tired of high taxes’, just your every day average person who showed up at town hall meetings to shout his or her outrage at the ’system?’ The Post article indicates that those in attendance at the initial Tea Party Convention in Nashville are not your ordinary people being taxed to death. The people attending the Convention are staying in opulent accommodations, eating fancy meals, and living high on the hog. The little man probably can’t afford the plane ticket much less the accouterments that go with that plane ticket.
The internet seems filled with stories about Virginia Congressman Gerald Connolly and his staff bullying some tea party woman. Much is being made of the woman being small and not likely to inflict harm.
Protesters targeted Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), a first-term congressman whose Fairfax County district voted for Republican Robert F. McDonnell in this week’s gubernatorial election. Connolly, up for reelection next year, said that he has not decided whether to vote for health-care reform but that the tea-party activists will not influence his vote.
“You try to hear them out respectfully,” Connolly said. “The problem is they’re not here on a mission of dialogue. They’re here on a mission to persuade and discourage.”
We discovered that there were many Lindsey Graham fans on Antibvbl. Unfortunately, he has his share of nutwings to deal with as is witnessed in this video. The crowd was angry because Senator Graham is working with Senator John Kerry on climate change and clean energy legislation. Isn’t that supposed to be how it works? Collaborative efforts?
I am curious why people think this is acceptable public behavior. I know on the frontier 150 years ago people shot each other over politics. I thought we had gotten better. Perhaps not. What is WRONG with people?
Eric Odom, founder of the American Liberty Alliance, the group that organized and implemented the Tea Party Movement has announced that they soon will launch a Huffington Post of their own. According to the Huffington Post:
Odom announced Friday what he calls a movement-minded news portal and his answer to the the Huffington Post. While the domain and branding are secret for now, Odom has given his news portal a temporary name, Project 73.
Odom aims to create an online news portal that he hopes will become the “gathering spot for all the news” for their “side” — a “movement minded news portal.”
“I mean, I despise a lot of what is written at Huffington Post. But the reality is… they’re good at it. They cover very wide ranges of topics and they cover them well. On our side you need to visit a good ten sites in the morning to get the full web digest. On their side you just go to Huffington Post and you know about everything that’s happening.”
At the bottom of the Project 73 announcement, Odom says, “Not a single person involved with our organization, or any tea party movement related organization for that matter, is profiting off of the movement.” However, it looks like Odom’s site will be a for-profit model.
It sounds like a good idea. One stop shopping for people writing blog post. People won’t even have to sully their TVs with watching Glenn Beck. Plus, Project 73 sounds a lot like Area 51. The name gives the project an air of mystic. I just hope it includes a glossary.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dawn-teo/tea-party-founder-announc_b_300347.html
Back in the spring, lots of folks got a laugh out of Texas Governor Rick Perry for suggesting that Texas secede during a tea party protest. It looks like he might not have been kidding. Perry has formed an organization called the Texas Nationalist Movement which advocates secession. They held a rally on the steps of the state capitol recently. One speaker really needs to check his history facts out before clutching the mic.
Matthews also takes a look at McDonnell’s thesis and dancer Tom Delay.
Are these people in Texas serious or are they just trying to illustrate a point? I have heard several people say they are just going to revolt. Several had elaborate plans to do so. What does all of this mean? Would it have happened if McCain were president?
Saturday, July 4 will be another day of Tea Parties held all across the United States. Many of us are still trying to figure out what the Tea Parties are all about. Originally, I thought that they were about taxes. TEA did stand for ‘Taxed Enough Already.” That seems reasonable. Bi-partisan folks coming together to just say NO to new taxes and new debt. I think I am wrong though. Just looking at the agenda for the local tea party, it is unclear what the real theme is.
A Republican friend of mine suggested that it was just a lot of hot air. Now it seems to me that the Tea Parties are anti-Obama rallies. Can we now say the Tea Parties aren’t bi-partisan and that they are Obama-bashing? The local tea party has the much discussed FAIR guy in attendance. So are the Tea Parties now protests about illegal immigration?
The CPAC has come to town. It arrived on Thursday. For those who aren’t card carrying conservatives, CPAC stands for the Conservative Political Action Conference and it has come to town full throttle. The list of key note speakers is enough to make moderates and liberals break out in a sweat:
