
It seems the people affiliated with the Our Country Deserves Better PAC (a.k.a. the Tea Party Express PAC) -- known for sending much of its money to the GOP consulting firm that created it -- wants to get on the "super PAC" bandwagon.
The newly formed Tea Party Express Presidential Campaign super PAC intends to use its funds exclusively to make independent expenditures and raise funds "in unlimited amounts from individuals, corporations, labor organizations and/ or other political committees," treasurer Kelly Lawyer wrote in a letter to the Federal Election Commission this week.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)All is not well in Tea Party country.
The Tea Party Patriots say that a defamation lawsuit filed against them is just part of continued "animosity" from Amy Kremer, now the chair of the Tea Party Express, who was ousted from the Tea Party Patriots in 2009.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)The Tea Party Express says it has refunded several thousand dollars in contributions made in the name of a woman who's been dead for almost four years.
Last week, the Center for Responsive Politics found that the tea party group had taken in $7,500 over the past two years from Joan Snyder Holmes, even though Holmes died in February 2007.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)The Tea Party Express took in $7,500 in donations over the past two years under the name of a woman who died in 2007, the Center for Responsive Politics reports today.
FEC filings show that the Tea Party Express, which funnels most of its contributions straight to the GOP consultants who founded it, reported a total of $2,500 from Joan Snyder Holmes of Guam in 2009, and another $5,000 in September 2010.
Holmes passed away on Feb. 1, 2007.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)For the Tea Party Express, old habits die hard. TPE's PAC, Our Country Deserves Better, continued through the election cycle with its track record of raising money in support of grass-roots tea party candidates and then funneling those donations to the Republican consulting firm that founded it, recent filings show.
In a month-long period surrounding the midterm elections, a whopping 73 percent of funds raised -- totaling $599,377 -- was paid out to Russo Marsh and Associates, the Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm that essentially founded the PAC in 2008, for miscellaneous costs including travel, consulting fees and media buys.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Former Tea Party Express chairman and "accidental" racist Mark Williams is really happy about the recently announced CNN-Tea Party Express Republican debate: "That a respected international, serious news organization like CNN, CNN Political Director Sam Feist and even the potential presidential candidates recognize that the Tea Party is anything but racist and were willing to fight to join simply thrills me."
"I feel completely vindicated, this is an absolute vindication of both the Tea Party and Mark Williams," Mark Williams said.
[TPM SLIDESHOW: Tea Party Express Hosts 'National Black Conservatives Rally']
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Months after the Tea Party Express -- perhaps the most well-recognized branch of the tea party movement -- claimed to have parted ways with controversial former chairman Mark Williams, records show it doled out nearly $5,000 to the conservative radio host and blogger.
Williams resigned from the Tea Party Express this summer after causing a minor civil war in the movement over a blog post aimed at the NAACP that many saw as racist. Williams had been an integral part of the Tea Party Express from the start, serving first as its chairman (he quit that job to turn his attention to shutting down Park51) and later as its national spokesperson and a fixture at stops along the group's trademark bus tours.
When Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) announced on Friday that she was running as a write in candidate against Tea Party backed GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller, she noted the role that outside groups played in her narrow defeat.
"Alaska is not fair game for outside extremists," Murkowski said, taking a shot at the Tea Party Express and its efforts on behalf of her opponent.
A review of the Tea Party Express' expenditures by Talking Points Memo shows just how influential a role the group played. The Tea Party Express (TPE) -- or as it is known, the Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) PAC -- spent $592,174.97 to support Miller as of Sept. 17
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Well, that didn't take long. Less than three weeks after resigning from the Tea Party Express "to free the tea party movement from any more distraction based on my personal comments or blogs," Mark Williams is back at the helm of a tea party group.
As former TPMer Zachary Roth reports, Williams is a leader of the newly-founded "Citizens for Constitutional Liberty," a PAC "that plans to support conservative candidates and promote grassroots activism among Tea Partiers."
Williams, of course, is one of the few tea party leaders to come under direct criticism from other tea partiers. His blog posts and public statements, which tea partiers have endeavored to separate themselves from of late, led to his public grilling for a week following the "satirical" blog post about the NAACP that led to his resignation.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)In a new statement, NAACP president Ben Jealous has backed off his original criticism of Shirley Sherrod after watching the full tape of her remarks.
Jealous, who originally called Sherrod's actions "shameful," now says the whole thing a "teachable moment."
Jealous said that, after reviewing the full tape (which we still haven't seen) and speaking to Sherrod and the white farmers in question, the NAACP has realized it was "snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams' 'accidental' racism continues to have big consequences -- the tea party group that he's long been the public face of is now pretty much disavowing him.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Is the Tea Party Express' Mark Williams a racist? He certainly says he's not. But Williams -- the spokesman for one of the tea party movement's most Republican establishment-connected groups -- has shown himself to be a virtuoso when it comes to, I guess accidentally, writing and saying racist things. (Two quick examples: There was that time he called Muslims "animals of Allah" in an email and that other time he called President Obama an "Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug" on camera.)
This week, Williams' accidentally racist chickens have come home to roost. After posting one of his most overtly racist (accidentally, I guess) statements ever to his personal website after the NAACP passed a resolution calling on national tea party leaders like Williams to condemn racist rhetoric seen at tea party rallies in the past, Williams has found himself ostracized by a growing number of tea party groups across the country.
Not even his friends are standing up for him now. It's a surprising end for the man who helped to transform the tea party into a Republican political force.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)In an apparent bid to stoke further controversy, the Tea Party leader who last week referred to Allah as a "Monkey God" has apologized -- but to Hindus, not Muslims. And in an earlier blog post, now removed, he refers to Islam as a "7th Century Death Cult coughed up by a psychotic pedophile."
Mark Williams, the conservative radio talker and chair of the Tea Party Express yesterday posted an "apology" for the "Monkey God" post he wrote last week:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (7)A top Tea Party leader, enraged by a plan to build a mosque near Ground Zero, has referred to the Islamic deity as a "monkey-god" and to Muslims as "the animals of allah." His Tea Party group, meanwhile, tells TPMmuckraker it's not concerned about the rhetoric.
Mark Williams, the conservative talk radio host who is listed as chairman of the Tea Party Express and acts as a frequent spokesman for the group, wrote on his blog Friday:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (8)The defeat of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was from the outset perhaps the top priority of the Tea Party Express, according to an internal memo obtained by Politico. The group's focus on unseating the Democratic Senate leader appears to bolster the charge that its priorities dovetail more closely with those of the Republican party than with the more independent Tea Party movement.
The memo (pdf) was written in April 2009 by Joe Wierzbicki of Russo, Marsh -- the California Republican consulting firm, run by veteran consultant Sal Russo, that created the PAC that runs Tea Party Express. As Politico reported, Wierzbicki proposed launching the Tea Party Express as a bus tour across the country, arguing that it would "give a boost to our PAC and position us as a growing force/leading force as the 2010 elections come into focus."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)An organizer of February's National Tea Party Convention has launched a new effort to unite the fractious Tea Party movement. But one major Tea Party faction isn't on board.
A coalition of Tea Party groups yesterday announced the formation of the National Tea Party Federation (NTFP), saying it will aim to act as a "clearinghouse" for Tea Party groups, and promote the goals of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)At first it seems absurd even to ask the question in the title. After all, the emergence of the Tea Partiers has been among the hottest political stories of the past year, and the group just came within inches of stymieing President Obama's major agenda item.
But lately, it's begun to appear that the Tea Partiers -- at least as defined by the media -- aren't so much a new force of previously apolitical regular folks, stirred from their apathy by an expansion of government and Rick Santelli's famous rant. Rather, they're essentially conservative Republican base voters, who were demoralized by the failures of the Bush years and have been re-energized by Democratic control of Washington. And they're part of a strain of the conservative movement that has long been driven by cultural resentment and racial paranoia.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (10)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.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)RNC chair Michael Steele may be touting his big sitdown today with Tea Party leaders, but a significant swathe of the grassroots movement is not on board with the meeting.
Jenny Beth Martin, a leader of the Tea Party Patriots, which helped organize well-attended rallies in Washington last September, told TPMmuckraker in an email that her group is not involved with the Steele pow-wow, and disavowed other efforts to work closely with the GOP. "One hundred percent of our local coordinators are committed to our core values of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets over any particular political party," said Martin.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)CNN has a lengthy (for TV) report on the infighting that, as we've detailed, is besetting the Tea Party movement.
The high-note comes when CNN gets on camera the GOP consultants who run the Tea Party Express to answer charges that their "grassroots" Tea Party group is little more than a front for the Republican Party.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)In an aggressive damage control effort launched in the wake of a barrage of negative publicity, a leading Tea Party group created by a Republican consulting firm is pushing back against what it calls "false and malicious attacks."
The Tea Party Express (TPE) yesterday sent an email to supporters slamming "attack hit pieces" by TPMmuckraker and other outlets. The recent stories, writes TPE's Lloyd Marcus under the TPE banner, amount to "a range of rumors, accusations, allegations, smears and mischaracterizations of what we at the Tea Party Express are supposedly about." Marcus, the African-American country singer who has become a prominent TPE spokesman, promises another email soon that will "debunk" the "smears."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Tea Party Nation organizers today issued a long defense of their unraveling convention, lambasting former members they say are trying to harm the movement and outlining for the first time in great detail their event's sponsorships and problems.
We've been following the travails of the upcoming Tea Party Nation convention for weeks, with key speakers withdrawing and the Tea Party Express group backing out as well thanks to feuds over the cost and expected profits of the convention.
Sherry Phillips wrote a long email to members of the Tea Party Nation mailing list titled "Setting The Record Straight."
Phillips said organizers were encouraged to speak out against the "intense media scrutiny and attacks by former members" but she stayed silent so as not to further divisions "that are already hurting this movement."
"We will stay silent no longer," she wrote.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)It looks like Sarah Palin may be left holding the bag at a Tea Party event that almost no one else in the movement wants anything to do with.
The former Alaska governor still plans to speak at the much-maligned National Tea Party Convention next month in Nashville. "You betcha I'm going to be there," she told Fox News last night.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Another sponsor of the upcoming National Tea Party Convention has pulled out, citing fears over possible "profiteering and exploitation of the grassroots movement" by the organizing group, Tea Party Nation (TPN).
Philip Glass of the National Precinct Alliance, a conservative activist group, said in a statement, according to the New York Times:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Like thousands of other Americans, Jim Knapp got involved with the Tea Party movement in the spring of 2009. Knapp, who lives in Sacramento, California, helped form a local group that organized a well-attended event on Tax Day last April.
But around May, something unexpected happened: Locally-based Republican party strategists started coming to the group's meetings. That alarmed Knapp and many of his fellow activists, who were motivated in large part by a deep suspicion of both major parties. "I said, 'what the fuck are you doing here?'" the blunt-spoken Knapp told TPMmuckraker.
Tea Party turmoil continues in the Sunshine State...
A group of Florida Tea Partiers has filed suit against the team of conservative activists that registered the Tea Party of Florida (TPOF) as an official state party, alleging that their rivals "fully intend to 'hijack' the phrase 'Tea Party' for their political will and objectives."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)As the Tea Party movement approaches its one-year anniversary, grassroots activists increasingly are finding themselves fighting off what they see as cynical bids by unscrupulous sophisticates to co-opt the movement for their own ends.
These new players on the Tea Party scene are lawyers, political consultants, business-people, and even Republican politicians. They're not working together for the most part, and the details of their efforts differ. But all have taken steps lately that have been denounced -- often by Tea Party activists -- as efforts to benefit personally from a movement that prides itself on its independence and incorruptability.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)The two-man team of Florida political activists who are claiming the rights to the "Tea Party" name have been accused in the past of engaging in political trickery for profit, including allegedly pressing opposing candidates to pay for the endorsement of their candidate.
In August, Orlando lawyer Fred O'Neal registered the "Tea Party of Florida" (TPOF) as an official political party. Since then, as we reported yesterday, he and his close ally, GOP political consultant Doug Guetzloe, have asserted rights to the Tea Party name, and tried to strong-arm some local groups to drop the well-known moniker.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)A Florida lawyer who registered the "Tea Party" as an official political party doesn't want to share the name that's become synonymous with the fledgling grassroots conservative movement. Fred O'Neal is pressuring activists in the state to rechristen their local Tea Party groups -- and in doing so, he's become the latest figure to be charged with co-opting the movement for personal gain.
In August, O'Neal, an Orlando attorney and anti-tax activist who until then had had little involvement with the Tea Party movement, registered the "Tea Party" as a new political party with the Florida Division of Elections. O'Neal has told the press he intends to recruit conservative candidates under the Tea Party banner -- an idea that hasn't sat well with many Tea Party activists, who view any organized political party with distrust.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)We told you last month that the political action committee behind the Tea Party Express (TPE) directed almost two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period back to the Republican consulting firm - or entities associated with it -- that created the group in the first place.
But it's actually worse than that. It now appears the figure is over three quarters.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)In the latest sign of rancor in Tea Party circles, a convention billed as an effort to bring together conservative activists from across the country is being attacked by some leading Tea Partiers as inauthentic, too tied to the GOP, and -- at $549 per head -- too expensive for the working Americans the movement aspires to represent.
The National Tea Party Convention, scheduled for early February in Nashville, grabbed headlines after announcing that Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann would appear as speakers, Palin as the keynote. According to a message on the convention's website, the event "is aimed at bringing the Tea Party Movement leaders together from around the nation." But organizers are a long way from unifying the notoriously fractious movement.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (8)MSNBC's Rachel Maddow last night picked up our report on how most of the Tea Party Express's recent spending went to the GOP consulting firm that created it.
The political action committee behind the Tea Party Express (TPE) -- which already has been slammed as inauthentic and corporate-controlled by rival factions in the Tea Party movement -- directed almost two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period back to the Republican consulting firm that created the PAC in the first place.
Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) spent around $1.33 million from July through November, according to FEC filings examined by TPMmuckraker. Of that sum, a total of $857,122 went to Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates, or people associated with it.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (16)The Tea Party movement is being ripped apart by bitter internal rancor, highlighted by a lawsuit against a former leader, vituperative name-calling, and charges of financial mismanagement and corruption.
As we told you this morning, board members for the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) this week filed suit against Amy Kremer, a former TPP leader who fell out with the group over her involvement with a rival Tea Party faction, the Tea Party Express. And on Tuesday, a judge granted a preliminary injunction, ordering Kremer to return control of the TPP websites to the board, and to stop representing herself as a TPP spokeswoman.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (12)The Tea Party movement is in danger of being ripped apart by internal rancor.
For months, the Tea Party Patriots have been embroiled in a dispute with a former leader, Amy Kremer, over her involvement with the Tea Party Express, a rival faction of Tea Partiers which the Patriots see as inauthentic and overly tied to the GOP.
And now Kremer has revealed that TPP is suing her.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)In a bitter internecine feud that is creating serious divisions in the Tea Party movement, David McKalip -- the Florida doctor and health-care reform foe who got in hot water this summer after forwarding a racist picture showing President Obama as a witch doctor -- appears to have sided with a group run by GOP consultants, rather than with his former grassroots allies.
In an email to fellow members of the Tea Party Patriots, sent yesterday and obtained by TPMmuckraker, Texas-based activist Gerald Merits wrote that he has been "approached by a neurosurgeon very active in the movement in Florida asking for me to get involved with the Tea Party Express because the Tea Party Patriots just don't seem to get it."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)
