Tea Party Patriots

Defamation Suit Against Tea Party Group Part Of Ongoing 'Family' Feud

Jillian Rayfield | October 20, 2011, 6:05AM

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.

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Jenny Beth Martin

Two Tea Partiers Sue Tea Party Patriot Founders For Facebook Defamation

Jillian Rayfield | October 18, 2011, 2:14PM

Two tea partiers have sued the founders of the Tea Party Patriots for defamation, alleging that they posted false information about one being a child molester and the other being a victim of rape and child molestation, under the Facebook alias "Dale Buttersworth."

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Tea Party Patriots

Tea Party Pressuring Schools To Teach Constitution Using Controversial Right-Wing Group's Materials

Jon Terbush | May 25, 2011, 1:42PM

America's kids don't know jack about the Constitution, and according to a national Tea Party group, the only way to save them is to have school's teach the nation's founding document with materials provided by a controversial conservative group whose founder is one of Glenn Beck's favorite historians.

Tea Party Patriots, the Georgia-based organization that counts around 1,000 chapters nationwide, is asking its members to pressure schools to teach the Constitution during Constitution Week in September, as they are required to do by a 2004 law. And when schools do teach the founding document, the group is suggesting that they use materials provided by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, a group that claims the country and Constitution were, "established by the hand of God."

NCCS's founder, W. Cleon Skousen, became a tea party favorite in recent years when Glenn Beck touted him on his program as an exemplary constitutional scholar. But Skousen's past is marred by accusations that his work is far from accurate, and at times rife with racism.

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Donald Trump

Tea Partiers Rallying In DC Praise Donald Trump's Birther Stance (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly and Jillian Rayfield | March 31, 2011, 5:26PM

Donald Trump

In the span of just a few weeks, real estate mogul turned reality television star turned Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump went from dipping his toe in the birther pool to diving right into the deep end and claiming that he's "starting to wonder" whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

So we figured it'd be good to ask the Tea Partiers in attendance for the "Continuing Revolution" rally on Capitol Hill on Thursday if speaking out on the issue boosted Trump's presidential campaign.

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James O'Keefe

Tea Party Patriots Rally Against NPR After O'Keefe Video

Benjy Sarlin | March 8, 2011, 1:33PM

James O'Keefe

The Tea Party Patriots, an umbrella group for state and local Tea Party groups around the country, is rallying its supporters against NPR in response to hidden camera footage of an NPR executive, Ron Schiller, describing the movement's members as "seriously, seriously racist people."

The video was filmed by James O'Keefe's group, Project Veritas, and featured the group's members having lunch with Schiller while posing as a phony Muslim advocacy group interested in donating $5 million to NPR. In addition to his comments on the Tea Party, Schiller is shown in the video saying that NPR does not need federal funding, which the Patriots argue demonstrates that House Republican efforts to cut the news organization's funds are on the mark.

"Mr. Schiller himself candidly admits in the video that NPR doesn't need federal funding, and welcomes the opportunity to slant their reporting without the oversight of the taxpayer," Mark Meckler, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots wrote in an e-mail to supporters today. "At a time when the country is upside down by more than a trillion dollars, can we really afford to provide huge subsidies to entities that openly state that they don't need the money? Let's take his advice and pass legislation that would defund the clearly biased news organization that is out of touch with Americans across the country."

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voter fraud

Tea Party Groups Pick Up The Mantle of GOP's Bogus Voter Fraud Claims

Ryan J. Reilly | September 9, 2010, 10:50AM

Across the country, Tea Party groups are raising concerns ahead of the midterm elections about potential voter fraud -- a problem that most voting experts say has been exaggerated by the GOP in order to push for policies that suppress Democratic turnout. But to combat what they say is a major threat to the integrity of elections, many local sections of conservative organizations are setting up educational events, creating videos and preparing their members to serve as poll watchers and workers on election day.

Their concerns about illegitimate voters stealing the election have been ginned up by movement leaders like Dick Armey, who recently stated at a GOP event in California that he believes about three percent of the Democratic vote was not legitimate.

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Immigration

Tea Partiers Riding To Arizona's Rescue

Zachary Roth | May 14, 2010, 1:17PM

At a tea party in Washington, D.C. in 2009

Tea Party activists are riding to Arizona's rescue in the state's time of need.

Conservative activists recently launched a "Buycott", urging people to support and do business with several Arizona-based companies, including US Airways, Best Western, and U-Haul.* And others are planning a rally to "Stand With Arizona."

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Jenny Beth Martin

Tea Party Patriots Leader Named To Time's Top 100

Zachary Roth | April 30, 2010, 10:21AM

Jenny Beth Martin

Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck have gotten more coverage for it, but another conservative member of Time's 100 most influential people is a more interesting inclusion...

That's Jenny Beth Martin, the Georgia-based co-leader of the Tea Party Patriots -- perhaps the Tea Party faction with the strongest claim to grassroots authenticity.

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Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots

Tea Party Movement Spreads To Military

Zachary Roth | April 12, 2010, 6:01PM

The Tea Party movement has gained a foothold in the armed forces.

A new Tea Party group, Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots, has grown quickly since being launched last month by an active duty Marine Corps sergeant. The group, which vows to "stand up on the very soil we defended to preserve common sense conservatism and defend our Constitution that is threatened by a tyrannical government," currently has over 400 members, who have signed up through its Facebook page, though many are not active duty military. And it has close ties to the broader Tea Party movement.

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Tea Party Natoinal Federation

New Tea Party Federation Aims To Unite Movement -- But One Key Group Stays Away

Zachary Roth | April 9, 2010, 1:11PM

A crowd gathers at a tea party

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."

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Tea Parties

Feeling The Heat, Tea Partiers Denounce Violence

Zachary Roth | March 26, 2010, 1:12PM

Tea party in Hartford, Connecticut in 2009

Tea Partiers and others on the right are starting to distance themselves from the recent spate of violence and racism that has characterized the opposition to health-care reform.

In a letter to President Obama and Congress released yesterday, an alliance of Florida Tea Party groups called the Tea Party movement "a peaceful movement" and declared that they "stand in stark opposition to any person using derogatory characterizations, threats of violence, or disparaging terms toward members of Congress or the President."

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Mark Meckler

Top Tea Party Leader Was Paid By GOP Biz Group's Campaign

Zachary Roth | March 3, 2010, 11:35AM

Tea Party Patriots leader Mark Meckler

A top Tea Party leader who has publicly distanced his group from the GOP was recently paid by a campaign run by an influential California Republican business organization, to gather signatures for a ballot initiative that's long been a key goal of the state party.

Mark Meckler, one of two national spokespeople for the Tea Party Patriots, was recently paid $7,500 for "petition circulation management" by the "Citizen Power Campaign Supported by the Lincoln Club of Orange County," according to state disclosure records. Meckler's involvement with the campaign was first reported last month by the website Red County.

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Mark Meckler

Tea Party Leader Was Involved With GOP-Tied Political Firm

Zachary Roth | March 2, 2010, 11:13AM

Tea Party Patriots leader Mark Meckler

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.

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Tea Parties

Tea Partiers Now Forming Circular Firing Squad

Zachary Roth | February 17, 2010, 2:54PM

Tea party in Hartford, Connecticut in 2009

The level of internal tension within the always fractious Tea Party is reaching a boiling point, in the wake of yesterday's meeting with RNC chair Michael Steele and amid early efforts to build a third party out of the grassroots movement.

A major Tea Party group has announced its opposition to the idea of creating a third party -- drawing scorn from at least one activist. And a new anti-Steele website warns of the "'hijacking' of the Tea Party Movement by the GOP." Taken as a whole, the infighting suggests intense and fundamental philosophical differences among Tea Party factions, just as the movement is being hailed as a political force.

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Michael Steele

Tea Party Leader On Steele Meeting: 'We Will Not Allow Our Movement To Be Hijacked'

Zachary Roth | February 16, 2010, 1:14PM

RNC Chairman Michael Steele

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.

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Dale Robertson

'Warning: Tea Party In Danger': Leader Slams Palin As 'Wolf In Sheep's Clothing'

Zachary Roth | February 12, 2010, 9:59AM

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

A prominent Tea Party leader from Texas is warning that the movement "is becoming nothing more than a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party," and slamming Sarah Palin as representing "a growing insider's attack to the heart of the Tea Party."

Dale Robertson, the founder of TeaParty.org, is just the latest Tea Partier to express concern that the movement is being hijacked by the GOP.

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Tea Parties

Return Of the Repressed? Birtherism, Homophobia, Racial Paranoia Rise To Surface At Tea Party Confab

Zachary Roth | February 8, 2010, 11:38AM

Tea party in Hartford, Connecticut in 2009

The National Tea Party Convention, which wrapped up Saturday night with a televised speech by Sarah Palin, offered an outlet for some of the fouler strands of modern conservatism that had long been bubbling beneath the surface of the Tea Party movement.

Tea Party leaders had worked hard to keep the public face of the movement focused tightly on a small government, anti-tax message, largely steering clear of social issues, and appeals based explicitly on race. But this weekend, from the podium at Nashville's Gaylord Opryland Hotel, convention speakers espoused birtherism, anti-immigrant nativism, homophobia, Christian fundamentalism, and an apparent nostalgia for racially discriminatory barriers to voting.

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Landrieu Phone-Tampering Scandal

Out On Bond, Phone-Tamper Defendant Surfaces As Journo At Tea Party Convention

Justin Elliott | February 5, 2010, 2:01PM

Joseph Basel

Landrieu phone-tampering defendant Joseph Basel isn't letting a little thing like felony charges hang over his head and prevent him from achieving professional goals.

With a week until he's due in federal court in New Orleans for a Feb. 12 hearing, Basel has been spotted at the national tea party convention in Nashville by the Washington Independent's Dave Weigel.

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Tea Parties

'We Might As Well Be Able To Vote For Disney': Tea Partiers Slam Citizens United Ruling

Zachary Roth | February 3, 2010, 9:20AM

Tea party in Hartford, Connecticut in 2009

Some Tea Partiers are expressing vocal opposition to the Supreme Court's recent ruling striking down the ban on corporate political spending -- a stance that puts them at odds with the Republican Party and the broader conservative movement.

Just hours after the court ruled last month, RNC chair Michael Steele praised the decision, calling it "an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights" of corporations.

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Tea Party Express

In Damage Control Mode, Tea Party Express Slams 'Smears'

Zachary Roth | February 1, 2010, 9:52AM

Lloyd Marcus

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."

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Tea Parties

Tea Party Dilemma: To GOP Or Not To GOP?

Zachary Roth | January 22, 2010, 9:03AM

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.

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Tea Parties

What's In A Name? Tea Partiers Sue Rivals Over Movement Moniker

Zachary Roth | January 19, 2010, 10:51AM

Tea Party protesters (inset: Doug Guetzloe)

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."

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Tea Parties

Hands Off! The Political Insiders Accused Of Hijacking The Tea Party Movement

Zachary Roth | January 18, 2010, 12:55PM

Tea party in Hartford, Connecticut in 2009

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.

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Tea Parties

Florida Lawyer Claims Rights To Tea Party Name -- Says Activist: He's 'Trying To Hijack Our Movement'

Zachary Roth | January 14, 2010, 12:05PM

At a tea party in Philadelphia in 2009.

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.

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Tea Party Express

'The Tea Party Movement Is About To Be Hijacked': Activists Slam Plan For Convention

Zachary Roth | January 11, 2010, 9:00AM

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.

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Tea Party Express

Majority Of Tea Party Group's Spending Went To GOP Firm That Created It

Zachary Roth | December 28, 2009, 6:15PM

Tea Party Express strategist Sal Russo

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.

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Tea Party Express

Party Foul! Tea Partiers Eat Their Own In Bitter Internal Feud

Zachary Roth | November 12, 2009, 5:08PM

A crowd gathers at a tea party

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.

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Amy Kremer

Former Tea Party Leader Says Ex-Comrades Are Suing Her

Zachary Roth | November 12, 2009, 11:10AM

Amy Kremer

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.

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Tea Parties

Tea Party Leader Launches PAC To Back Small-Government Candidates

Zachary Roth | November 10, 2009, 1:20PM

A leading Tea Party activist is launching a political action committee to back candidates who run on a limited-government platform -- perhaps the most serious effort yet to to channel the Tea Partiers' grassroots energy toward electoral politics.

Eric Odom, a conservative online organizer who played a key role in sparking the original Tea Party movement this spring, is unveiling Liberty First PAC. The goal, said Odom in an interview with TPMmuckraker, is to raise $1 million to defeat incumbents who supported health-care reform -- which he called "very dangerous to the fabric of this country" -- and to elect a new crop of lawmakers committed to small-government principles in 2010.

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Tea Party Patriots

Tea Partiers Get Set For Hectic Final Push Against Health-Care Reform

Zachary Roth | November 2, 2009, 4:07PM

A crowd gathers at a tea party

Declaring that "this is our battle of Trenton," Tea Party activists are gearing up for a last stand against the health-care reform effort they see as putting the country on a glide-path to socialism.

With the House set to vote on reform as early as this week, Tea Party Patriot leaders yesterday sent out a lengthy email to volunteers -- forwarded to TPMmuckraker -- announcing "It's Make or Break Time with Health Care," and laying out a frenetic schedule of direct lobbying activities for the next few days, including phone calls and in-person visits to members of both houses of Congress.

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Right-wing extremism

Tea Partier Uses Army Email Address To Call For "Civil Disobedience"

Zachary Roth | October 23, 2009, 4:31PM

A crowd gathers at a tea party

A Tea Party activist today used a U.S. military email address to call for "civil disobedience" in opposition to the policies of the Obama administration.

In a message sent this morning to fellow members of the Tea Party Patriots, who had been discussing movement strategy, Richard A. Correa Sr., who identifies himself as a retired sergeant, wrote:

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David McKalip

In Tea Party Civil War, McKalip Appears To Ditch Former Comrades In Favor Of GOP Consultants

Zachary Roth | October 21, 2009, 4:13PM

Tea-Partiers, and Dr. David McKalip (inset)

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."

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