Just One Man's Opinion - J.O.M.O. Blog

For Democrats The Time For Health Care Talk Is Over

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:31:00 +0000

Excellent reporting.

I'm coming to respect the Republicans more and more for their truly prescient choice of Michael Steele to chair the RNC. Few men could better represent the GOP at this state in the game: ridiculous, borderline incompetent and completely unable to accomplish anything whatsoever.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Egregious Errors in Tea Party Book

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:05:00 +0000

I won't review John O'Hara's The New American Tea Party. It does not need to be reviewed, it needs to be edited. It needs to be edited and it needs to be reprinted. Immediately.

Forget for a moment the book's abundance of self-aggrandizing references (apparently O'Hara was one of the founders of the Tea Party movement). Move past the partisan comments about liberal and progressive ideology. Instead, simply bask in the glow of all the egregious mistakes, by which I mean not just spelling errors but serious errors of fact, misrepresentations and omissions with which the piece is rife. It's amazing that Wiley published this. Cited references either contradict the author or don't exist; major players in the Tea Party movement are practically ignored; the author's own writing contradicts itself from one chapter to the next.

The error that really caught my eye, the one that would get any reporter's heart all twitter-pated, is on pg. 52. This incandescent, priceless gem reads like an editor's nightmare (or a reviewer's dream). O'Hara quotes Janeane Garofalo as saying of FOX News, "[T]hat's why Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch started this venture, is to disinform [sic] and to coarsen and dumb down a certain segment of the electorate." No, that [sic] should not be there, but it's in the text. At this point O'Hara perpetrates truly heinous crimes against publishing:

"Well, isn't that calling the kettle black, as Garofolo [sic] and Olbermann foster anti-intellectualism and pseudo-science? Of course 'disinform' is not a real word. Ironic that Garofalo would make such a blunder while ranting about conservatives' lack of intellectual prowess. We'll give her a bye this time."

First of all, he spells Garofalo's name two different ways within three sentences. Then we have "disinform", which is in fact a word, despite any claims to the contrary. To claim that "disinform" is not a word is to spread disinformation, which is itself the very definition of "disinform." Finally, O'Hara does all this in the same breath as criticizing Garofalo's intellectual prowess. How ironic.

On page 188, O'Hara incorrectly suggests that at White House press conferences in August, "friendly press were given precedence to ask prearranged questions." His citation for this is a Wall Street Journal blog post, "Obama's Press List: Membership Shall Have Its Privileges." The piece does say, "The President was running down a list of reporters preselected to ask questions. The White House had decided in advance who would be allowed to question the President and who was left out." The piece certainly does not say anything about friendly press getting precedence, nor does it make any reference whatsoever to any questions being prearranged. If anyone is guilty of press confidence prejudice it would be the Bush administration. As Dana Perino recently admitted on FOX News, towards the end of the Bush administration they "didn’t do a lot with MSNBC."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123431418276770899.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/19/perino-msnbc/

O'Hara makes an almost identical, just-as-false claim on pg. 64, that "Barack Obama gave an address at a town hall meeting where the audience provided preassigned, preapproved questions." The citation for this reference is to a March 27 Washington Post blog post, "Obama Town Hall Questioners Were Campaign Backers." Unfortunately for Mr. O'Hara, while the article in question says the questions were "soft", it explicitly states that they were "far from planted." The audience members were indeed Obama supporters, but who is most likely people to show up to see the President? You probably couldn't throw a teabag in that place without hitting an Obama campaign volunteer. Thus there is no basis for the claim that the questions were preassigned. Moving swiftly on...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/27/obama_town_hall_questioners_we.html

In response to an April 9 report from the Maryland National Guard citing the potential of the Guard becoming a "target of opportunity" during the April 15 Tax Day protests in Washington, O'Hara writes, "[T]he Maryland National Guard specifically named tea party attendees as potential threats ... Just why are peaceful protesters and their philosophical nature important to the National Guard?" Perhaps it is because of "protesters" like Richard Poplawski, who shot 3 police offers on April 4, 2007. A friend said Poplawski feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon." O'Hara mentions the shooting on pg. 56. On pg. 84, he writes of someone on the internet called 'waxwing' who, in reference to the Chicago Tax Day Tea Party, posted the following on the white supremacist website Stormfront.org: "If you live in Chicago, please help me by infiltrating the event and holding an interesting sign." Another post on the same thread, one conveniently ignored by O'Hara, reads, "Go where our people are starting to stand up around symptoms of the problem, and INTERVENE to guide them. Just because these started as an anti-tax protest doesn't mean that they must be limited and can't be developed upward toward an explicitly racial mass struggle." Anti-government protests are important to the National Guard when people start getting shot and when extremists start expressing an intent to infiltrate such events. O'Hara even acknowledges that "racists" are attracted to tea parties as "mass, high-profile gatherings where they could possibly hold up a sign and get attention." If we're talking about what's possible, then extremists and/or domestic terrorists could possibly use the opportunity for their own violent purposes. It might sound ridiculous, but so does a man trying to crash an airplane with his underwear.

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/19096134/detail.html

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=588834

One blindingly glaring omission, most obvious on pg. 237, is the complete and total absence of any reference to Glenn Beck in connection with the 9/12 March on Washington. This is only odd in that Beck masterminded what he calls "The 9/12 Project", comprising nine principles and twelve values, the adherence to which will lead us to become the people we were on September 12, 2001. By which he means wounded, terrified, angry and looking for something to kill. "Choking with impotent rage," as Jon Stewart said on The Daily Show. Actually, Beck has some sort of positive connotation for it all. On March 17 Beck told his radio listeners, "You can say, look, we're going to do this project, we're going to do a march on Washington and it's going to be on this day, and you can try to put it all together as long as it's all framed with those principles and values, then I'd be with you. I'd be for you." And yet according to O'Hara, Beck wasn't involved in the planning of the event.

When asked why he neglected to mention any connection between Glenn Beck and the 9/12 March on Washington, O'Hara replied, "I don't recall not specifically doing that." According to his understanding, "FreedomWorks got a coalition together in line with those groups and those dates." Brendan Steinhauser, who in March pulled the permit for the 9/12 March on Washington, responded via email to say than in March he pulled the permit for the 9/12 March on Washington. The way he tells it, "FreedomWorks raised 99% of the money to pay for the stage, sound and equipment, and we also did most of the planning and organizing. The other two groups that were really helpful in putting on the event were Tea Party Patriots and National Taxpayers Union. Beck's involvement was very little, other than some promotion." Here is Steinhauser's pre-history of the 9/12 March:

"Once the February protests began, I saw that we could indeed organize a March on Washington, and began talking to my boss, Matt Kibbe about it. Once we decided to roll the dice and do it, Tax Day tea parties were being organized and gaining momentum. We saw this and saw that April 15th would be big, so we figured a March on Washington was possible. Thus began the journey of raising the funds, trying to get media attention, building the coalition of groups and setting up the logistics. Beck's role came at the very end of this process, when he first mentioned our event on his radio and tv shows."

It's interesting he should mention February protests. On February 9 Steinhauser contacted Mary Rakovich of Florida, who had attended a FreedomWorks training session, and suggested she organize a protest in response to President Obama's upcoming visit to Ft. Myers. That would be the start of these protests of which he speaks, the ones which galvanized FreedomWorks into action, the ones FreedomWorks helped plan. Also, Beck first spoke to his listeners about a September 12 march on Washington on March 17. According to Steinhauser's timeline, this would mean his group's fundraising, attention-getting, coalition-building "journey" took all of a month. How arduous.

In the lead-up to the 9/12 March on Washington, Beck told his viewers he would see them in Washington on September 12. He encouraged his viewers to bring their families, their children. The day of the event, Beck stood proudly in front of his cameras with screens behind him showing waving flags that read, "The 9/12 Project." Beck's 9/12 Project website has a section entitled "Scenes from 9/12" comprised of video and photos from the march. Nowhere does it state that the event, the site or the project are separate entities. Was the 9/12 March part of Beck's 9/12 project? Or was it all FreedomWorks? O'Hara doesn't know - the best he could offer was that "the origins of the march are not 100% clear."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/15/jon-stewart-returns-slams_n_286906.html

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/22802/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=192xpMWareQ

http://www.the912project.com

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-brantzawadzki/anatomy-of-the-tea-party_b_380575.html

Beck isn't the only one who might feel left out after reading this book. On pg. 38 O'Hara writes, "A major part of the 2008 campaign, and one that I'd be remiss not to dismiss, was the rise of libertarian sensation Ron Paul." This makes sense, as Ron Paul supporters organized what could be called the first modern-day Tea Party in 2007 on December 16 - the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Any book on the rise of the Tea Party movement would surely mention this seminal event, right? Wrong. Though O'Hara tells of Paul's "highly motivated network of grassroots supporters who held rallies and held fundraising events across the country," he makes no reference whatsoever to Paul's nationwide Tea Party. The event was far from insignificant - it netted Paul over $6 Million in one day, breaking the single-day fundraising record set by John Kerry in 2004. The media called it the Ron Paul Money Bomb or the Tea Dump, and according to the Daily Paul there were over 60,000 participants nationwide.While making sure to point out that "[i]t wasn't that Paul had originated new ideas," O'Hara goes on to almost completely ignore Paul for the rest of the book - he is only referenced twice, both times in throwaway lines reflecting admirable qualities of Paul's campaign tactics. Except, of course, for throwing tea parties.

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/14775

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/488021/tea_party_2007_ron_paul_sets_a_new.html

On pg. 142 O'Hara writes, "[W]hat the nanny-state proponents want is to legislate ... whether you can smoke in your own home, allegedly due to safety concerns, and much more." The citation given for this claim reads, "Berman and Company, '60 Minutes Video,"www.bermanco.com/60min.htm but don't even bother because the link doesn't work. There is, however, a 60 Minutes interview with Berman on the main page of bermanco.com. I would assume it's the video referenced, except that it makes no reference to smoking in or outside of the home. The videodoes begin by pointing out that Berman is known as Dr. Evil. When Morley Safer suggests Berman is a hired gun, Dr. Evil replies, "I go out to people and I say, 'You believe in what I believe. Will you help fund it?' I don't know if that's a hired gun or not, but yes, I get paid to educate people." Berman gets paid to educate like the Mafia gets paid to protect.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/05/60minutes/main2653020.shtml

O'Hara uses pg. 123 to suggest that global warming is in fact a myth. He claims that "global temperatures have been decreasing over the last decade." Which is why the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA all report that eight of the ten warmest years since they began recording global temperature, in 1880, have all occurred since 2001, with the warmest being 2005. Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, recently told reporters, "The decade 2000-2009 is very likely to be the warmest on record, warmer than the 1990s, which were in turn warmer than the 1980s."

The one article O'Hara cites as evidence for his claims, Falling Temperatures Confound Alarmists, was published in September 2009 by the Heartland Institute, the same group which employs O'Hara. The article is all of 546 words, and seems to have been cited in ... tens of ... blogs. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil gave $115,000 to the Heartland Institute in 2006, and the group also receives funding from the Claude R. Lambe Foundation and the Charles G. Koch Foundation, both of which are Koch Family Foundations. Koch Industries, with extensive oil, gas, coal and lumber interests, is the second largest privately-held company in America. One division, Flint Hills Resources, has a combined crude oil processing capacity of more than 800,000 barrels per day.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc.html

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090113_ncdcstats.html

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/energy/2009/12/08/un-2000-2009-likely-warmest-decade-on-record.html

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/21/private-companies-09_Koch-Industries_VMZQ.html

http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/08/global-temperature-trend-updat

http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/25/news/companies/pluggedin_gunther_exxon.fortune/

On pg. 133 O'Hara theorizes that the stimulus package is unconstitutional because it allows for a state legislature to accept stimulus money "if funds provided to any State in and division of this Act are not accepted for use by the Governor." O'Hara believes this would render the stimulus "unconstitutional in states where all resolutions must be presented before the governor." He would be correct if it weren't for the Constitution. Under Article IV's Supremacy Clause, any state law that conflicts with a federal law is preempted by that federal law. According to the Supreme Court's decision in Crosby v. Nat'l Foreign Trade Council, "a conflict exists if the state law is an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress." The stimulus bill is a case of an implied conflict preemption, as the federal law does not explicitly express a desire to conflict with the state law and yet the legislature cannot accept stimulus money without, according to O'Hara, violating their respective state constitutions. Ergo conflict, ergo supremacy clause, ergo not unconstitutional. We're done here.

http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lrb/pubs/consthi/03consthiIII051.htm

O'Hara can't seem to make up his mind about just how many people showed up to the April 15 Tax Day Tea Parties nationwide. On pg. 76 he confidently states that "half a million Americans" showed up to protest. But by the time he gets to pg. 93 that number has changed to "a net turnout of a quarter to half a million people." That's quite a spread there. Again, on pg. 211, O'Hara writes, "By most estimates, there were a quarter to half a million people in the streets on April 15, 2009." That's like saying, "Last night I had 10 to 20 beers," or, "I have three to six children." He only cites the third guesstimate, and his citation is a single blog post from Americans For Tax Reform, one of the event's primary sponsors according to O'Hara's website NewAmericanTeaParty.com - which doesn't seem to have been updated since April.

O'Hara references the book SocialNomics (also published by Wiley) on page 241 while discussing how tea party activists can use social networks, using author Erik Qualman's well-researched examples of just how powerful, effective, and pervasive social networks are and will be. He even dutifully cites all the references that Qualman already cited in his book (without citing the book itself) There's only a small problem - O'Hara spells Qualman first name with a C. But we already know O'Hara's not really a 'name' guy.

O'Hara decides to criticize old media on pg. 48 of his freshly published, 308-page, ink-on-paper hardcover book. He writes, "As if the bailouts weren't enough, liberal politicians decided to target another noncrucial sector of the economy that they owed alms to: newspapers." He suggests that liberal politicians rely on newspapers for free publicity,claiming today's newspapers are "struggling to survive under the auspices of delivering unbiased news." Thus one may infer that in this context, "newspapers" refers to the media outlets themselves rather than one particular medium. That newspapers are not crucial to American democracy would surely be a surprise to, among others, the founding fathers of our great nation. They only mention it in Article I of the Constitution. Ben Franklin ran a newspaper. On pg. 73, as an epigraph to Chapter 5 (The Media Strikes Back), O'Hara quotes Thomas Jefferson - "I read ... chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper." In fact Jefferson's praise for newspapers far outweighed his criticism. O'Hara might have considered this Jeffersonian gem - "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

On pg. 81 O'Hara parrots the false conservative talking point that the group ACORN was the President's first employer. This is thoroughly false. Not only did ACORN never employ Obama, but in fact his first job in any organizational context was as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization made up of eight Chicago Catholic parishes, where he worked from 1985 until 1988. His first job in the legal field was as a summer associate with the law firm of Sidley Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990. Obama did not work with Project VOTE, a group affiliated with (but not run by) ACORN, until 1992 - a good seven years after starting his DCP job. However, if you want to get really literal, none of these qualify as Obama's first employer. The President's first-ever employer was the Honolulu Baskin-Robbins.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/moberg

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/12/the-scoop-on-baskinrobbins-obamas-former-employee-in-honolulu-.html

Disability Advocates Accept Rahm Emanuel's Apology For 'Retarded' Comment

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:28:00 +0000

It's an Attributive Verb

"In grammar, an attributive verb is a verb which modifies (gives the attributes of) a noun, rather than expressing an independent idea as a predicate.

In English, verbs may only be attributive as participles: the walking man; a walked dog; uneaten food."

The retarded Liberal Democrats.
About Rahm Emanuel
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Reality Lends Credit To Abdulmutallab Interrogation

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:14:00 +0000

Can't we at least torture him psychologically? Call him names, pick him last for every team, and exclude him from our reindeer games?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Neo-Nazis, Militants Eye Tea Party for Recruitment (VIDEO)

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:35:00 +0000

There was a Ron Paul Tea Party in 2007. That didn't start anything. It was a singular event. The modern Tea Party movement was initially conceived by the Illinois Libertarian Party at the end of 2008. It was then co-opted by Rick Santelli as well as a group of online activists.
About Tax Day Tea Parties
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

How Massachusetts Can Turn Out to Be a Blessing for Democrats

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:57:00 +0000

It's not a blessing so much as it is the long game.

Think about it. This only strengthens the conservative fallacy that America is a center-right nation and that the majority of Americans are in their camp. Believing their numbers to be stronger than they actually are, communities across the nation will field Ultra-Conservative or Tea Party candidates, and the field will be absolutely swamped. They'd have to pick some elections to focus money on and leave others out to dry. Not to mention that Michael Steele hasn't done much for the GOP's coffers (less than nothing actually).

And the kicker will be when they lose those elections, not because they didn't campaign well enough or spend enough money but because Scott Brown's election has twisted their perception of reality yet further.
About Joe Lieberman
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

How Massachusetts Can Turn Out to Be a Blessing for Democrats

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:49:00 +0000

The Administration really needed a swift kick in the ass with a steel-toed boot.

They needed someone to knock some sense into them.

Much better for this to happen now than twelve months from now.

Slap me once, shame on you. Slap me twice...
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Operation Steele/Armey: GOP, Tea Party Movement Co-Opt Each Other

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:05:00 +0000

Originally published in the Huffington Post

Today Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and Dick Armey, head of tea party support groupFreedomWorks, held a joint conference call expressing their willingness to work together.
The call was held at 11am and included various members of the right-wing media. According to Politico:
The call is the first joint effort between Steele and the tea party movement -- which Republican candidates have been trying to court since the widespread anti-tax rallies in April that launched the populist uprising. "The two have connected on the matters of this health care bill," said an RNC source.
According to live-Tweeting from Dana Mozie of RockStarPolitics, the two spoke of how Congress had "flipped the bird" at the American people. Michael Steele also mentioned that"the fix is in" as far as health care is concerned. There was also talk about this morning's 1 am 60-40 vote for cloture on the bill being a cowardly move by Democrats. Armey ultimately said that no one can claim to be the leader of the Tea Party movement.
The implicit connection between the two groups is a new and distinctive development that stands in stark contrast to the Tea Party movement's prior aversion to the GOP. Eric Odom is a self-proclaimed founder of the modern Tea Party movement and an organizer of the Chicago Tax Day Tea Party, at which Michael Steele attempted to speak on tax day.
When Steele requested to address the event, however, Odom rebuffed him publicly, going so far as to post his response online. In regards to Steele, Odom wrote:
[I]t appears that he has only just decided to reach out after realizing how big the movement has gotten and how much media is now involved.
During the October ruckus surrounding the special election in NY-23, the GOP endorsed moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava while the Tea Party movement ran its own candidate, Doug Hoffman. Odom flew out to help coordinate the offensive, and even accused the GOP ofopen war against the Tea Party movement:
Not only is the NRCC going to waste donor dollars on a failed candidate with no hope of winning the race,they're also going to attack the actual conservative in the race! At this point, the only logical conclusion is that the NRCC (a huge hub of establishment consultants who leech off of donor money) and the rest of the old guard will arm itself for battle and wage war against the grassroots base rather than give it control.
Dick Armey himself stepped into the race, throwing the support of FreedomWorks behind Hoffman to such a degree that when Hoffman was interviewed by a local newspaper editorial board, Armey was seated right next to him. In fact Armey did Hoffman harm when, after Hoffman was asked about local issues, Armey dismissed the question, referring to such issues as "parochial" claiming this was an election about a national movement.
Scozzafava ended up dropping out of the race and supporting the Democrat, who was able to take a seat held by Republicans since Reconstruction thanks to the GOP and the Tea Party splitting the conservative vote.
Within two weeks of his movement's embarrassing loss, Odom's aggression was tempered. In a November 10 blog post entitled "It's Time to Take Over the GOP" Odom switched his strategy from something out of Rambo to something out of Aliens, seeing the GOP as a host to invade.
I know many of my fellow Tea Party activists are going to hate me for this, but it's time to face reality. The Republican Party must be our vessel in 2010...As a libertarian who voted for Bob Barr in 2008, I find it very difficult to state this in a public manner, but I will now be joining the Republican Party... I'm in no way advocating that we as a movement stand behind the existing Republican establishment. I am, rather, suggesting that we become the establishment... I know many of us in the movement have different goals. Some are to weaken the two party stronghold. This is understandable and a good long term goal... Love or hate the Republican Party... it's our only vessel in the short term. We either unify through it and make a stand strong enough to stop this madness in government, or we fracture over third party efforts and meet uncertain political demise.
Through his organization, American Liberty Alliance, Odom has worked with Armey and FreedomWorks since the spring, and has known Armey since at least 2007, when Odom organized a Conservative Leadership Conference at which Armey spoke. Both groups worked hand-in-glove to support Tax Day Tea Party rallies as well as town hall protests and marches on Washington. Now both organizations are working together to help plan the Tax Day 2010 protests, as well as a conference called the Patriot Caucus to follow immediately after tax day.
Eight months ago, Odom was chiding the GOP as johnny-come-lately tea-party crashers, calling out Steele specifically. Then Odom and Armey worked together against the GOP and Steele in trying to elect Doug Hoffman. Now Odom has capitulated and rejoined the GOP, while Armey and Steele are holding joint conference calls. As one snake bites into the tail of the other and vice-versa, it remains to be seen who will consume who.

Tea Party Movement Plans 2010 Caucus

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:02:00 +0000

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE HUFFINGTON POST

This story was produced by HuffPost'sEyes&Ears Citizen Journalism Unit.

The Tea Party movement hopes to calm dissension in its ranks in time for an April meeting of what is being called the Patriot Caucus. The conference will take place the weekend of April 16 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania -- a site chosen to invoke the essence of George Washington, whose army held Valley Forge through the desolate winter of 1777-1778. Over that winter Washington lost over 2,000 men to such maladies as typhoid, jaundice, dysentery, pneumonia, and simple malnutrition. The Tea Party movement hopes for a more successful winter.

This is very possible. The Tea Party movement will use the next few months to develop and strengthen the bonds between its sometimes-warring factions, and, in fact, they have already begun. Four major groups have joined forces and pooled their resources, as evidenced by the top of the TaxDayTeaParty.com website. The result is the Patriot Caucus, a joint effort ofAmerican Liberty Alliance, FreedomWorks, the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition and Tea Party Patriots, the same groups working to plan a 2010 Tax Day Tea Party on April 15 -- one day before the Caucus. All four groups worked together this summer to support the Tax Day Tea Parties and the town hall protests but not in such a tight-knit coalition.

The Caucus identifies itself as not just another Tea Party organization but an "unbiased infrastructure" which will exist only to identify and facilitate communications between like-minded Tea Party groups. The Patriot Caucus Facebook group already boasts over 2,000 members. The group's oldest wall entry was posted December 4, but the Caucus itself did not "go live" for another four days, when their planning wiki went online. The founding conference will include "intense training, debate panels and general session special guests" as well as the first election of "the 155 delegation of the national Patriot Caucus." There's a [sic] in there somewhere.

Why start a non-organization to organize other organizations? Messaging, apparently. According to the overview published on the Caucus wiki,

"We believe a part of the problem is the fact that those who advocate in favor of one idea over another, or one effort over another, do so because of partisanship or bias for the group he/she is involved in. This, of course, is natural and expected. But it does us little good in the end.
As an example, there are constant emails floating around within the movement that say, "why is your group doing that when our group is doing the same thing?" These are perfectly legitimate emails and great questions. But the more important question is, why did the two groups not conference with each other before the plans were made? We can't fault a group for making plans. We can, however, fault the movement for not properly communicating about potential plans as they're brewing."

Another way to put this is that the Caucus is designed to keep all the various Tea Party groups marching to the beat of just one drum, with Eric Odom as the little drummer boy.
Odom is Executive Director of American Liberty Alliance, the logo of which sits atop ThePatriotCaucus.net, a website registered to Odom. As well as being a member of theTemporary Patriot Caucus Development Committee, Odom is a self-proclaimed founder of the Tea Party movement (though the Libertarian Party of Illinois and Ron Paul devotees would beg to differ). American Liberty Alliance worked hand-in-hand with FreedomWorks this summer to utilize the Tea Party Movement as a weapon against health care reform.

FreedomWorks is run by Dick Armey, former Republican House Majority Leader and the very epitome of partisanship. Armey was recently forced to resign his lobbying position at the firm DLA Piper when journalists pointed out that FreedomWorks tended to support causes which happened to intersect with the interests of certain DLA clients. On December 15, Armey was among the few who addressed the crowd at a woefully under-attended "Die In" organized by the Tea Party Patriots, in which protesters were supposed to flood Congressional offices in Washington en masse, then pretend to die as a result of government-run health care. Did it work out? Not so much. Dave Weigel of the Washington Independentcalled the die-in "very gentle" and estimated the crowd at upwards of "a few dozen." No dying-in is reported to have occurred. The event was organized by Caucus coalition partner Tea Party Patriots.

The Patriot Caucus wiki offers visitors a series of campaign resources, including a link to asample press release that happens to be on dtv.gov - a project of the Federal Communications Commission. This, despite the Tea Party movement's antipathy towards the government. The campaign page also encourages potential candidates to start a blog at "blogovists.com", a twice-misspelled link which takes you to Blogivists, another Eric Odom operation which functions as a hub for conservative bloggers.

The event is advertised as taking place at the Valley Forge Convention Center. However, despite the event's heavy promotion on through Tax Day Tea Party, 73Wire.com and American Liberty Alliance, it appears that the Convention Center has no such event on their books. Megan Tomlinson, National Sales Manager, told the Huffington Post, "there was a group with a name similar to [Patriot Caucus] who called, and the matter was discussed, but nothing has been planned as of yet." Despite Odom hyping up the Caucus on 73Wire.com and TaxDayTeaParty.com and AmericanLibertyAlliance.com, and despite the support of Tea Party Patriots, Nationwide Tea Party Coalition and FreedomWorks, no one person or organization has yet to make reservations.

According to a post on 73Wire.com -- yet another Odom project, which purports to be the right wing's answer to the Huffington Post -- planners wanted the conference to be free. However, they felt required to impose a five dollar fee "because we had to expand the size of the venue and we wanted to try and minimize the risk of registrations that do not actually attend."

In a December 13 email to ALA's listserv, Odom wrote that "anyone can run for delegate of the Patriot Caucus." On December 4 Odom posted on TaxDayTeaParty.com that "There will be no charge for attending the three day event, but there will be a credentialing process." However, the Caucus registration page itself advises you to "not even bother" registering if you are "considering attending, but you're not quite sure yet." Other disqualifiers:

You believe government has the ability to solve our economic problems

You believe bailouts, either by Bush or Obama, are justifiable under certain circumstances

You believe an incumbent who voted for the stimulus, healthcare and cap-and-trade legislation should be given a pass

You're considering attending, but you're not quite sure yet (You need to be certain and we may ask for travel plans in February to ensure it)

You believe the Twin Towers fell as a result of government involvement on 9/11 (ok this one is not real, but come on... let's not go there. Deal?)

You are not willing to campaign like your life depends on it in 2010 and 2012

You believe that taxes in place to support government expansion are ok

You think we're all nutty

Tea Party Express Planned Donation-Funded Pleasure Cruise

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:18:00 +0000

But really, who wouldn't want to pay $1000 so that Sal Russo could kick it in the Caribbean?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

SAVE KENNEDY'S SENATE SEAT - CALL MA

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 06:26:00 +0000

If you haven't heard, there is a CRUCIAL election taking place in Massachusetts on Tuesday. Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown are racing for Ted Kennedy's vacant senate seat. In a blue state like Massachusetts this would seem like a slam-dunk, but that's far from the case. In fact, recent polling has shown that while Coakley enjoys a lead of 8 to ten points, if you poll likely voters that number drops to 2. Or zero.

A REPUBLICAN MIGHT WIN THE RACE FOR KENNEDY'S SENATE SEAT.

This would have staggering implications far beyond any election victory; this will mean that the Democrats will lose the 60-vote majority they need in order to pass healthcare reform over Republican obstructionism.

That's right, this election could KILL HEALTHCARE REFORM. It is IMPERATIVE that we contact as many Massachusetts voters as we can to let them know just how close this race is and just how much we need them to get out there. Special elections are determined by who can get out the vote, and Scott Brown has received the support of not just the GOP, but the Tea Party movement as well.

WE NEED YOU TO KEEP CALLING VOTERS IN MASSACHUSSETTS -- or start today if you haven't yet.

Click here to log-in and start making calls.

FOUR WAYS YOU CAN HELP:

1. Host a phonebank THIS WEEKEND: You can download a list of calls

using the links below. Contact norcal@ofaca.com or kwheeler@ofaca.com for more information

about hosting a phonebank and post your event here at:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/create?source=sidenav

2. Attend a phonebank: Find a phonebank near you:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/search_simple?source=mybobar

3. Make Calls from home: http://my.barackobama.com/CoakleyVol/R1
4. Share these links: Put this link to make calls up on your facebook
page, and send it out to your other networks to recruit more callers.

GET A VOLUNTEER RECRUITMENT CALL LIST:

http://my.barackobama.com/CAcallMA

Please distribute this link and these instructions on how to make these
neighbor-to-neighbor volunteer recruitment calls to your volunteers and
teams.

THIS SUNDAY THERE IS A NATIONAL CONFERENCE CALL where supporters like you will discuss plans, find out the situation on the ground in Massachusetts set goals for the next three days and find out who Saturday's top callers were.

Can you join us for a conference call at 11 a.m. or 1 p.m. on Sunday, January 17th, followed by a round of calls to Massachusetts?

The call-in Number is (712) 432-0075, and the participant code is 404-284.

Please sign up for your call, and submit any questions you like:
http://ma.barackobama.com/MAn2nCall

Neighbor-to-Neighbor Quick Reference

1. LOG IN TO MYBO www.my.barackobama.com

If users do not have an account, they will need to create one in order to
use the Neighbor-to-Neighbor calling tool.
(New MyBO accounts need to click the N2N link, fill out their full address,
and may have to wait up to 10 minutes for Neighbor-to-Neighbor to grant
access)

2. GET A VOLUNTEER RECRUITMENT CALL LIST

Use the following link to get a call list:

http://my.barackobama.com/CAcallMA

3. MAKE CALLS

If you need more calls: click "GET MORE NEIGHBORS"
To print, select “PRINT CALL LIST” (you can print up to 500 calls)

4. ENTER YOUR CALL DATA AND REPORT YOUR TALLIES

All Data must be entered into the MYBO account that generated the call list.
All virtual phone banks (calling from home) should be inputted at:
http://tiny.cc/YOyrq

WE CANNOT OVERSTATE how important that those who make calls enter their data into Neighbor 2 Neighbor so that our MA team is aware of the voters that have been contacted. Also, please send reports of your activity to the Regional Field Director with whom you worked during the Health Insurance Reform campaign (or if you haven't work with OFA staff before, email norcal@ofaca.com) so we have an accurate count of just how many calls you made.

5. IF YOU NEED HELP

Check out the N2N user guide:
http://www.ofacalifornia.org/ofa/documents/N2NUserGuide12409.pdf

Help line: 1-866-495-2004

Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (The Media)

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:55:00 +0000

Originally Published in the Huffington Post

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

Some conservative American media personalities have developed a symbiotic relationship with the Tea Party movement. Right-leaning political commentators promote the Tea Parties, generating more anger and passion among their listeners, which in turn generates more fans and listeners, boosting ratings.

The Tea Party concept first gained widespread notice on February 19 after Rick Santelli's infamous rant live on CNBC. Within a few hours,Eric Odom had rolled out a professional website to coordinate Tea Party protests -- with a week's notice -- on February 27 in cities across the country.

Just days later, with the help of major conservative media figures and well-funded "activist" organizations, Odom posted specific logistical information for dozens of Tea Party rallies to take place the following week. The day after the initial February Tea Parties, Odom was ready with TaxDayTeaParty.com to coordinate the nationwide protests on April 15. He and other like-minded Tea Partiers launched full swing into a mass media campaign to promote the Tax Day Tea Parties. Odom appeared on a FOX News panel on April 14.

Long after the rallies died down, the Tea Party phenomenon surfaced in the headlines again during the NY-23 fiasco in which moderate Republican Congressional candidate Dede Scozzafava was forced to drop out of the race after far-right Tea Party activists descended on the sleepy upstate New York district. The Tea Partiers demanded that Scozzafava (deemed a RINO, Republican In Name Only) be scuttled in favor of more conservative candidate Doug Hoffman, a Tea Party favorite. Hoffman was even dubbed the "Tea Party Candidate,"especially by FOX Nation, a website launched in March "where all Americans are encouraged to share, discuss, and debate" what they watch on FOX News. The story has earned so much media coverage that "Scozzafava" has become a verb (as in, will other candidates be Scozzafava'd in 2010?), and NY23 has gone from a little-noticed congressional district to become one of the most-recognizable political arenas in the country.

Prominent bloggers Michelle Malkin, RedState and SmartGirlPolitics have been forthright about their involvement with the Tea Party movement, openly promoting and participating in Tea Party events. SmartGirlPolitics was an original sponsor of the Tax Day Tea Parties. Michelle Malkin was openly promoting Tea Party protests before they were named Tea Parties. Erick Erickson of RedState has been an advocate for and speaker at Tea Party events.

Eric Odom, the political strategist who set up websites to organize anti-bailout Tax Day Tea Parties in February, again in April, and throughout the summer, is a self-described political web strategist who runs at least a half-dozen conservative blog sites. In September, Odomlaunched what he calls a "movement-minded news portal" and "a Huffington Post of our own." In his own words, Odom aims to turn 73wire.com into "the gathering spot for all the news" for their "side" of the issues. Odom was also a key organizer of RootsHQ2009, the conservative political new media conference (the right-side version of NetRootsNation).

Of the three major cable news networks, FOX provided some of the heaviest coverage of Tea Party events. From the early events on, FOX News lionized Tea Party organizers and protesters as "patriots" and "real Americans" who were "standing up" to "big brother."

Coverage of the Tea Party Express bus tour was especially intense. Griff Jenkins, who was embedded by FOX on the Tea Party Express bus tour, literally acted as a cheerleader at Tea Party events. His involvement in and enthusiasm for the Tea Parties was such that Greta Van Susteren felt the need to clarify his role for viewers:

Let me get this straight, Griff, so that the viewers understand. You aren't on this bus; you're following and reporting on what's going on, right? Am I right on that? You're not on this bus?

Jenkins responded that he was not on the bus -- yet. Sean Hannity probably put it best:

Griff Jenkins is having way too much fun.

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Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (RecessRally.com)

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:53:00 +0000

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

Tea Partiers are famous for their raucous protests during the August Congressional recess. They screamed, yelled, stomped and railed against health care reform via town hall meetings and protests across the country.

Most of the August Tea Party activity was coordinated on RecessRally.com, a website started by Eric Odom in July. Odom previously administeredOfficialChicagoTeaParty.com (February 27 protests) and TaxDayTeaParty.com (April 15 protests). In 2008, long before Odom's tea parties, while he was still a Sam Adams Alliance employee, he founded the #DontGomovement, in support of offshore drilling. In March Odom rebranded #DontGo into theAmerican Liberty Alliance.

One of the hallmarks of astroturfing is the coordinated creation of many small, interdependent groups who publicly support each other. RecessRally.com, which was the driving force behind the organization of the August anti-health care reform rallies, used to tout the grassroots nature of the protests, listing its 15 sponsors: American Liberty Alliance; American Liberty Tour; American Majority; Americans for Limited Government; Americans for Prosperity; Let Freedom Ring; Michelle Malkin; Nationwide Tea Party Coalition; NetRightNation; Patients First; RedState blog, Sam Adams Alliance, Smart Girl Politics, andTea Party Patriots. In reality, the groups were tightly coordinated and fewer than half of those 15 'sponsors' are independent from one another.

Each individual group appears to be an offshoot, partner or affiliate of at least one other project under the RecessRally.com umbrella. American Majority and American Liberty Alliance (Odom's organization) are both derivatives of Sam Adams Alliance. The American Liberty Tour advertised itself as "a collaborative project of the American Liberty Alliance, Americans for Limited Government, and the Sam Adams Alliance." NetRightNation is also a project of Americans for Limited Government. The national Tea Party Coalition site is registered to Michael Patrick Leahy of #TCOT, part of the "original organizing crew" of TaxDayTeaParty.com along with Tea Party Patriots co-founder Amy Kremer. Patients First is a project of Americans for Prosperity.

Patients First, which shares the same street address as Americans for Prosperity, was responsible for the summer's "Hands Off My Health Care" bus tours featuring buses with a giant bloody hand on the side. Its tour events have played host to some of the infamous rallies where official speakers compared Obama to Hitler. At an August tour rally in Pueblo, Colorado, speaker Mark Harrison addressed the crowd:

"Part of end-of-life counseling can be an end-of-life order... What does that mean? End of life. Another word for that is 'death'. Order. What's another word for that? A sentence. Now, you folks review with me a little bit; as I recall, Stalin in the 1920s issued about 20 million end-of-life orders for his fellow Russians. Pol Pot did it during the Vietnam War - he issued about two million end-of-life orders. It's being done in Africa today; Mugabe is doing it every day. Adolf Hitler issued six million end-of-life orders. He called his program the Final Solution. I kind of wonder what we're going to call ours."

Various members of the RecessRally.com coalition also belong to the upper echelons of politics and industry.

FreedomWorks is helmed by Dick Armey, former Republican House Majority Leader, and traces its routes back to Citizens for a Sound Economy, a group founded by David Koch of Koch Industries. Koch is the 9th-richest man in America and Koch Industries is the largest privately-held oil company in America. Americans for Prosperity, once part of Citizens for a Sound Economy, was also founded by David Koch who also serves as chairman of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. Together the two groups (FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have been the most active supporters of the Tea Party movement.

Howard Rich, a New York real estate mogul who has funneled millions of dollars into anti-big-government efforts (and now also anti-ACORN), is chairman of Americans for Limited Government. He also sits on the boards of the Cato Institute (along with Koch) and the Club for Growth.

Rich has been one of the primary financial backers of libertarian efforts such as Proposition 90 in California, which would have severely limited the ability of the state government to collect new taxes. One of Rich's associates, former executive director of the National Libertarian Party Eric O'Keefe, has served on the boards of Americans for Limited Government, the Club for Growth, and the Institute for Humane Studies. He also worked for Citizens for Congressional Reform, (pdf) a project of Koch's Citizens for a Sound Economy. He also happens to be chairman and CEO of the Sam Adams Alliance.

John Tillman serves on Sam Adams Alliance's board of directors along with O'Keefe. Tillman also served as president and COO of Sam Adams Alliance during its "start-up phase". Before working at Sam Adams Alliance, Tillman served as president and director of Americans for Limited Government, also during its start-up phase.

Some of the organizations affiliated with RecessRally.com also have a history of media-driven campaigns for conservative causes.

Let Freedom Ring, for instance, is helmed by Colin Hanna, a Philadelphia-based former commissioner. According to its website:

Let Freedom Ring was formed to counter the attacks of anti-conservative groups on patriotic candidates as well as attacks on the important issues of our day - those that affect the core of our society: the family, marriage, the economy, energy, abortion, health care and foreign policy, to name just a few. We also work to keep our constituents and the media informed about what our founding fathers' intentions were and how history shapes laws and our culture today.

Hanna is the man behind a grisly ad featuring planes hitting the World Trade Center in order to drum up support for the Iraq War. The group also worked on a documentary about the faith of George W. Bush, Sen. Rick Santorum and Sen. Zell Miller. Let Freedom Ring is supported by, among others, John Templeton Jr., the wealthy son of a famous investor. Templeton co-chaired the Faith and Values Steering Committee for Republican candidate Mitt Romney's failed presidential campaign and supported Proposition 8 in California, banning gay marriage.

The backers of these groups have known and worked with each other for years. Including many political elites from right-wing American politics, the connections behind RecessRally.com seem to demonstrate less a spontaneous groundswell of government opposition than a synchronization of populist outrage with old-school conservative campaign strategy.

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Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (American Future Fund))

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:51:00 +0000

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

The American Future Fund describes itself as a "multi-state issues advocacy group designed to effectively communicate conservative and free market ideals." It appears to be a coalition of high-powered conservative political operatives who were among the first supporters of the Tea Party phenomenon and is already one of the first Tea Party groups to begin taking concrete steps toward the 2010 elections by working to ease robo-calling restrictions.

Founded in 2007, the Fund's address of incorporation matches an address for the law firm of Holzmann Vogel PLLC. The firm's managing partner, Jill Holtzman-Vogel, is former chief counsel to the Republican National Committee and acted as counsel to the 2000 Bush/Cheney campaign in the Florida recount. Currently she serves as a Virginia State Senator. The firm has so far refused to comment on its associations with the Fund.

On February 19, the same day that Rick Santelli's infamous MSNBC ignited the Tea Party movement, the Fund put up a petition on its website for those interested in attending the Chicago Tea Party. The site asks, "Would YOU join us in Chicago for a new, "Boston Tea Party?" IF WE GET ENOUGH SIGNATURES, IT WILL HAPPEN!" The Fund's other known involvement in the Tea Party movement was to help FreedomWorks distribute preparatory materials for the summer's town hall protests. The Fund also emailed its "tens of thousands" of members to help direct them to the town hall meetings.

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Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (Sam Adams Alliance)

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:48:00 +0000

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

Samuel Adams was the brewer and patriot who, in 1773, ginned up a mob of Bostonians dressed as Native Americans which conductedhistory's original Tea Party. The president of Sam Adams Alliance is John Tsarpalas, former executive director of the Illinois State Republican party. Eric O'Keefe, SAA'schairman and CEO, is a former executive director of the National Libertarian Party. He once worked for Citizens for Congressional Reform (pdf), a project of David Koch's Citizens for a Sound Economy. Along with noted Libertarian financier Howard Rich, O'Keefe sits on the board of directors of Americans for Limited Government.

Shortly before online activist Eric Odom helped kick-start the Tea Party movement, he was new media director for Sam Adams Alliance. This put him in charge of (among other things) setting up websites, coordinating Facebook groups, managing Twitter accounts and other social networking tasks. Odom's first known acts as a Tea Partier were to set up theOfficialChicagoTeaParty.com site and Facebook pages within hours of Rick Santelli's February rant, then spreading word through Twitter, initially utilizing #TCOT, a Twitter list and hashtag for Top Conservatives on Twitter.

Both Odom and another former Sam Adams Alliance staffer, Ken Marrero, are now leaders of American Liberty Alliance. Odom is executive director and Marrero is director of grassroots outreach and coalitions. Marrero was a regional new media specialist with Sam Adams Alliance. In July 2008 he described Sam Adams Alliance as "an outgrowth of, I think, visions and dreams from some people who started at Americans for Limited Government."

John Tillman served as president and director of Americans for Limited Government during its start-up phase as well. According to the Illinois Policy Institute, Tillman grew Americans for Limited Government "from a single, part-time employee in May of 2004 to a staff of approximately 25 that had a significant impact on political activity in 13 states in 2006."

Tillman is also president and CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute. Within hours of Rick Santelli's rant, Kristina Rasmussen, who had just been hired as the Executive Vice President by the Illinois Policy Institute that morning, helped kick start the Chicago Tea Party by participating in a February 19 conference call to plan the event. Rasmussen, who was then the Director of Government Affairs at National Taxpayers Union, was the second speaker on the call. Tillman also serves on Sam Adams Alliance's board of directors and was president and COO of Sam Adams Alliance during its start up phase.

Odom formed American Liberty Alliance in March of this year through a combination of the gift of Sam Adams Alliance's blogivists.com, a conservative blog hosting hub, and the #DontGo movement, founded by Odom in 2008 to support offshore drilling.

American Liberty Alliance is not the only Sam Adams Alliance affiliate in this fight, however. American Majority, a self-described "political training institute", is a "concept" of Sam Adams Alliance, which in turn describes itself as AM's "sponsor". American Majority staff includes former George W Bush speechwriter Ned Ryun, regional field director for Bush/Cheney '04Lonny Leitner, former Republican state legislator Shari Weber, and former director of operations at the Oklahoma Republican Party, Matt Pinnell.

American Majority also got involved this summer on Sam Adams Alliance's American Liberty Tour, offering organizer trainings prior to each tour event. The Tour itself was billed as a project of American Liberty Alliance, Sam Adams Alliance and Americans for Limited Government.

Long before Sam Adams Alliance's recent website redesign, they altered an internship recruitment page that connected Sam Adams Alliance to Koch Industries: "Interested parties can apply for a Sam Adams Alliance internship through the Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow Program administered by the Institute for Humane Studies and the State Policy Network." The internship is still listed on the IHS website. Charles Koch founded the IHS. The internship page existed up until the site's ongoing redesign, but recently the Koch reference was absent from the Sam Adams Alliance website. An article in Playboy Magazine, taken down almost as soon as it was posted, claimed the Koch reference was scrubbed on Feb. 16. Three days later, Santelli's supposedly-spontaneous rant kick-started the Tea Party movement, enabled by Odom's on-line assistance.

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Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (American Liberty Alliance)

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:43:00 +0000

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

The American Liberty Alliance grew out ofTaxDayTeaParty.com, a website designed to help direct people to their local tea parties in April.

TaxDayTeaParty.com was registered on Feb 28 and AmericanLibertyAlliance.com was registered on March 23, both in 2009.RecessRally.com relied on the same format as TaxDayTeaParty to help direct volunteers to town hall protests, or "Recess Rallies." American Liberty Alliance's executive director, Eric Odom, is an online activist from Chicago by way of Nevada who has worked with leaders of groups like Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks since at least 2007, when he organized what he called theConservative Leadership Conference.

Odom has been organizing via the Internet for years. Immediately before starting American Liberty Alliance, he was the new media director for the Sam Adams Alliance (SAA), a Chicago-based group that says it is dedicated to economic freedom and individual liberty. Now Odom is tapping the relationships within the alliance to orchestrate a conservative online renaissance including: blogivists.com, a network of conservative bloggers with an email list thousands strong, gifted to Odom from SAA; a retooled TaxDayTeaParty.com in preparation for Tax Day 2010; and 73Wire.com, which Odom calls "a Huffington Post of our own."

This summer, the American Liberty Alliance launched the American Liberty Tour, a coast-to-coast bus tour ferrying Joe the Plumber, among others, around the country to stimulate opposition to health care reform as well as to offer citizens "candidate training, blogger breakfast meetings, activists training and large scale Liberty Rallies." The American Liberty Tour described itself as a "collaborative project of the American Liberty Alliance, Americans for Limited Government and the Sam Adams Alliance." The tour held events in conjunction with Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project. Beck has effectively co-opted much of the energy of the movement and is seen as one of its leading figures, along with former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

In a blog post now absent from TaxDayTeaParty.com, Odom claimed to have been a part of the "original crew" behind TaxDayTeaParty.com and the Tea Party movement in February 2009 with his associates Ken Marrero, Michael Patrick Leahy of #TCOT (Top Conservatives on Twitter), Tea Party Patriots founder Amy Kremer, and Stacey Mott of Smart Girl Politics. Odom's story is disputed by one of his fellow Chicago libertarians, who wrote on April 14th (the eve of Tax Day) that the Libertarian Party of Illinois (LP-IL) started a Tea Party group on Facebook back in 2008 and that Odom was simply a member of that original group. LP-IL Chair Dave Brady said:

This all is kind of frustrating because LP Illinois gets no credit for this project. Eric Odom, a member of LP Illinois, and our original group, created his own website and facebook group and aligned directly with Santelli. We have kept our facebook page active to reflect the initial start date of this whole movement weeks before Santelli.

The first post on the wall of the party's Boston Tea Party Chicago Facebook page (found here) is dated Feb. 11, eight days before CNBC reporter Rick Santelli's rant inspired many of the ensuing tea parties.

Despite Odom's extensive history in online and offline organizing, he described American Liberty Alliance in an October fundraising email as a "newbie grassroots organization". American Liberty Alliance used to list its leadership on its website. Along with Odom, that leadership included: David Yardley, former Michigan Republican congressional staffer; Allen Fuller, Odom's partner in the twin firms Flat Creek Management and Strategic Activism LLC; Corrine Williams, former policy analyst for the House Republican Policy Committee; Amy Hagerstrom, founder of the Michigan chapter of Americans for Prosperity; Ken Marrero, who founded the #DontGo movement with Odom; and Ali Akbar, executive editor of HipHopRepublican.com and president of Republic Modern Media.

Akbar, who has served as the American Liberty Alliance's technology consultant, creates plenty of Republican websites. Samadamsalliance.org and Healthcarehorserace.com(another Odom/ALA venture) were both designed by Republic Modern, a communications firm that creates content for Republican activists. Currently Akbar's LinkedIn profile lists him as the chairman of American Liberty Alliance. Interestingly enough, Republic Modern'sportfolio fails to list both the Sam Adams Alliance and HealthcareHorserace as clients, though it does include other Odom projects such as #DontGo. Republic Modern also designed the old Sam Adams Alliance site.

Despite its frequent pleas for contributions, American Liberty Alliance is not a non-profit organization. According to its website:

The American Liberty Alliance is not a 501c3, 501c4 or a PAC. We are not registered as a non-profit and we do not raise funds as such. Our primary focus is on content. We publish information and sell advertising on our network of sites. We also occasional [sic] seek contributions from our readers. These contributions are seen as "gifts" to our network and are not tax deductible.

American Liberty Alliance has invited its members to contribute on at least 33 separate occasions since Aug. 10 alone. Neither those emails nor the website mention that American Liberty Alliance is a for-profit venture. On Aug. 23, however, Odom wrote,

We're currently in the process of filing for our non-profit, 501c4 status which will allow us to become even more aggressive in the political environment.

As of yet, American Liberty Alliance is not registered as a 501(c) non-profit organization.

Read full coverage detailing the various parts of the Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement:

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Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (Americans for Prosperity))

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:40:00 +0000

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorksare the result of a 2005 split between feuding factions of Citizens for a Sound Economy. Americans for Prosperity is still directly supported by the Koch family. The founder of Americans for Prosperity and chairman of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, David Koch, the co-owner of oil conglomerate Koch Industries, is the 19th richest man in the world. Americans for Prosperity's director, Art Pope, has donated so much money to the North Carolina Republican Party that it named its headquarters after him.

Americans for Prosperity's propensity for fueling negative hysteria over health care reform and the Obama administration prompted MSNBC's Rachel Maddow to call the group "a parasite that gets fat on Americans' fears."

In the fall of 2008, at least two different state directors for Americans for Prosperity published nearly identical anti-EPA op-eds, each one even including the same misspelling. In June, Americans for Prosperity sent Joe the Plumber around the country on the "Save My Ballot" bus tour lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act.

Americans for Prosperity is also behind Patients First, which made a name for itself this summer with its "Hands Off My Health Care"bus tours. Events on the tour featured speakers who compared President Obama to Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe and Adolf Hitler.

At a conference in October hosted by Americans for Prosperity, Koch claimed to haveorchestrated the Tea Party movement:

"Days like to today bring to reality the vision of our board of directors, when we founded this organization five years ago," Koch told the audience. "We envisioned a mass movement, a state-based one, but national in scope, of hundreds of thousands of American citizens from all walks of life standing up and fighting for the economic freedoms that made our nation the most prosperous society in history."

Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, formerly worked at Century Strategies with Ralph Reed. Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff hired Century to support Abramoff's casino interests.

Americans for Prosperity was a strong proponent of ending the ban on offshore drilling during the 2008 presidential campaign while taking large donations from Exxon/Mobil, as revealed by Rachel Maddow. On August 6, Phillips told MSNBC's Maddow that Americans for Prosperity is "happy to take corporate money."

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Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (Tea Party Express)

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:37:00 +0000

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

When people think of the Tea Party movement, what comes to mind are the Tea Party Express rallies that received extensive coverage over the summer from FOX News. Tea Party Express began as a bus tour set up by Our Country Deserves Better PAC, a political action committee formed in 2008 to oppose then-presidential candidate Obama. The tour was intended to drum up opposition to health care reform, and was soon followed by a second tour, dramatically titled "Tea Party Express II: Countdown to Judgement Day". Athird tour is in the works.

TeaPartyExpress.org lists Americans for Prosperity as a sponsor, as well as Grassfire.org and Our Country Deserves Better PAC. Tea Party Express has come under fire for Astroturfing by rival groups such as the Tea Party Patriots who claim it is directed by Republican strategists. Tea Party Express has even been dubbed "The Astroturf Express" by leaders of Tea Party Patriots. This appears to be primarily because of the group's association with Our Country Deserves Better PAC, which is closely affiliated with the Republican-affiliated consulting firmRusso Marsh & Associates. Past clients of the firm include the California Republican Party and disgraced Florida congressman Mark Foley.

Our Country Deserves Better PAC is helmed by former California State Assemblyman and failed Congressional candidate Howard Kaloogian. Lloyd Marcus, another Tea Party Express partner, is listed as a spokesman for the organization. Its chief strategist, Sal Russo, is a famous GOP operative who got his start working for Ronald Reagan's 1966 gubernatorial campaign and is now the principal of Russo Marsh & Associates. Joe Wierzbicki, PAC coordinator, is also a principal of the GOP-affiliated public relations firm Russo Marsh & Rogers (RM+R).

Grassfire.org, another Tea Party Express sponsor, has been promoted in the past by Craig Shirley of Shirley and Banister Public Affairs. The firm's clients include Aetna, Cigna and the Republican National Committee. Shirley is infamous for his work on the Willie Horton ad, a vicious piece of race-baiting that helped sink Democrat Mike Dukakis's 1988 presidential campaign.

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Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (FreedomWorks)

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:33:00 +0000

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

FreedomWorks, formed in 2004 through the union of Citizens for a Sound Economy and Empower America, two conservative think tanks. A year before that merger, an ugly schism within CSE produced another splinter group, Americans for Prosperity. Oil billionaire David Koch founded Citizens for a Sound Economy and went on to start Americans for Prosperity, while FreedomWorks became more of an independent offspring. Koch is the billionaire co-owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately-held oil company in America.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future has been on the scene since 2007. Last year, the organization fought to expand offshore drilling. The campaign was dubbed "Drill Here, Drill Now" but is better known as "Drill, Baby, Drill." American Solutions for Winning the Future and an online movement known as #DontGo both began their pro-drilling campaigns around the same time, in August of last year. Gingrich and American Solutions also lobbied for coal and advocated for tax breaks for coal companies. Such acts directly benefited Peabody, the world's largest private-sector coal company, whichdonated at least $500,000 to ASWF in 2008 and 2009.

FreedomWorks, currently headed by former US House Majority Leader Dick Armey, has advocated for corporate interests since its inception. In December of 2005, Armey appeared on CNBC to lobby for a company known as RX Outreach, which is run by a company called Express Scripts, a mail-order prescription drug program for the poor. A week later FreedomWorks put out a press release praising RX Outreach. It was later revealed thatFreedomWorks worked with Express Scripts's public relations firm and that Express Scripts planned to donate money to FreedomWorks, which critics charge may call into question the group's tax-exempt status.

Recently Armey had to step down from his job at lobbying firm DLA Piper, when it was suggested that his ardent opposition to health insurance reform might be influenced by DLA clients such as Metropolitan Health Networks, a "leading provider of health care services to people with Medicare in Florida", drug manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis and the American Council of Life Insurers.

FreedomWorks and #DontGo are credited with initially taking the reins of the Tea Party movement. #DontGo was founded by Eric Odom and Allen Fuller in Chicago in the summer of 2008. Odom eventually dubbed himself the executive director of American Liberty Alliance, shortly after he began organizing Tea Parties in February. Though FreedomWorks only appears on the Tea Party Patriots website, it supported both the Tea Party Patriots and theTea Party Express this past summer. FreedomWorks's Florida Outreach Director Tom Gaitensmanages the Tea Party Patriots email list.

In April, Paul Krugman attacked FreedomWorks for "manufacturing" protests. Brendan Steinhauser of Freedomworks responded:

If journalists actually did their job, did some journalism and reporting, and talked to local organizers, they'd see that this is a grassroots movement... If Paul Krugman doesn't want to believe me, that's fine. But this came from the ground up.

Yet on February 9, 2009, two months prior to that statement and ten days before Rick Santelli's rant, Steinhauser set up a pre-Tea Party. He contacted Mary Rakovich of Florida, who had attended a FreedomWorks training session, and recommended that she organize a protest in response to President Obama's visit to Ft. Myers. FreedomWorks staffers called local supporters across the country within hours of Rick Santelli's Feb. 19 rant on CNBC, asking if they were willing to organize a Tea Party. FreedomWorks hosted the first event with $20,000, four staff members and a volunteer intern.

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Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (Tea Party Patriots))

noreply@blogger.com (Alex Brant-Zawadzki) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:29:00 +0000

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

The Tea Party Patriots is a nationwide coalition of Tea Party groups, that is the de facto face of the movement.

The local groups it represents may include grassroots activists, but the coalition's backers and organizers are among the nation's most powerful strategists, operatives and financiers. TeaPartyPatriots.org lists two major heavyweights among its partners:FreedomWorks, helmed by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, andAmerican Solutions for Winning the Future, a 527 group created by former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The American Liberty Alliance is another listed partner.

It makes sense that the American Liberty Alliance would support the Tea Party Patriots as well as American Solutions for Winning the Future. After all, the American Liberty Alliance is simply an outgrowth of the #DontGo movement, a right-wing online advocacy group that worked in conjunction with American Solutions for Winning the Future in 2008 to lobby in favor of off-shore oil drilling. Both #DontGo and American Liberty Alliance were founded by Eric Odom, an online activist and a self-proclaimed founder of the Tea Party movement. One of Odom's fellow Tea Party activists, Amy Kremer, is the founder of the Tea Party Patriots. Ironically, after involving herself in the rival Tea Party Express, Kremer was ousted from the Tea Party Patiorts, which considers the Tea Party Express to be an Astroturf group under the direction of Republican strategists.

The Tea Party Patriots' email listserv is managed by FreedomWorks staffer Tom Gaitens. This summer the listserv distributed a memo (pdf) from a group called Right Principles outlining the best practices for protesters to disrupt Congressional representatives' town hall meetings during the August recess. It included such advice as, "You need to rock the boat early in the Rep's presentation. Watch for an opportunity to yell something out and challenge the Rep's statements early," as well as, "The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda."

The Tea Party Patriots listserv also distributed a spreadsheet containing a list of over 100 congressional town halls from late July into September. The list was released by Conservatives for Patients' Rights, a group run by Rick Scott, the ex-CEO of Columbia/HCA, the largest private operator of health care facilities in America. Under Scott's stewardship, Columbia/HCA committed extensive Medicare fraud by overbilling state and federal health plans. When caught, the company pleaded guilty and settled the case for $1.7 billion in fines, the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history.

American Solutions for Winning the Future is a 527 group that's been on the scene since 2007. Last year ASWF fought to expand offshore drilling with a campaign dubbed "Drill, Baby, Drill." The campaign was supported by members of Congress and Eric Odom, a Sam Adams Alliance staffer who publicized the movement on Twitter via the #DontGo hashtag as well as through a now-defunct website. Last year Gingrich and ASWF lobbied on behalf of the coal industry, advocating for tax breaks for coal companies. Such acts directly benefited Peabody Coal, the world's largest private-sector coal company, which has donated at least $500,000 to ASWF in 2008 and 2009.

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