Archive for Tea Party-gate
An Article About Articles
by John Weckerle
It’s been a while since we checked in on the folks at the Sandia Tea Party. In our last article on the subject, we examined two posts on the Sandia Tea Party site: one which we felt was a slap at minorities, and another on global climate change on which we thought it appropriate to clarify the source. Predictably or not, both articles vanished from the Sandia Tea Party site very quickly after our article was published.
Since then, we’ve been busy with other things, but have been keeping an eye on the site from time to time. There have been a few times where we’ve considered taking the author(s) to task on disinformation and other issues. It is rife with “the usual” – branding people with different opinions as “socialists” (even those who advocate sustainable development are now included in this ever-broadening category); suggesting that widely accepted scientific postulates are a) false, b) stupid, c) the result of dishonesty or myopia in the scientific community, or d) all of the above; and peppering all this with vague (or sometimes not-so-vague) scatological references that are certainly more enjoyable to write than they are to read.
We find ourselves currently amused by several posts on the site dealing with issues associated with carbon and anthropogenic climate change. The first of these consists of a doctored (we hope) photograph depicting a child urinating off a pier with the caption “After rising CO2 levels were blamed for increasing ocean acidity, a new theory emerges.” Apparently, this is supposed to suggest that it is foolish to believe that an increase in atmospheric CO2 lowers the pH of water.
More Of The Same
by John Weckerle
With a busy week behind us and this morning’s garden endeavors complete, and having been watching for a while, we decided to take a closer look in on the Sandia Tea Party site (www.sandiateaparty.com) and see what the newest local chapter was up to. We found ourselves neither greatly surprised nor disappointed: both in format and in content, we found exactly what we expected.
From the standpoint of format, the Sandia Tea Party site is a mess, suggesting that something has gone terribly wrong with the group’s WordPress software. This is just a little surprising, since a look through the articles on the site suggests that it is being managed by Edgewood Town Councilor Chuck Ring, who has been blogging for at least a couple of years. The effective formatting characteristic of WordPress is entirely lacking, and the site is all plain text. An anomalous swath of dark background nearly obscures one section of content.
As bad as the formatting is, the content does little to compensate. We examined two articles – one on the famed “Pigford” cases, and one on global warming – and that was enough. Let’s have a quick look at the two.
Oh Good, Another One
by John Weckerle
It was with some amusement that we read about the formation of a new local Tea Party chapter, the Sandia Tea Party, at Gadabout-Blogalot.com. We’re wondering whether there will be turf wars; there’s already an East Mountain Tea Party, and the Sandias are, after all, part of the East Mountains.
We decided to look the new group up, and found their web site. Some parts of the site are still apparently being worked out, but we were interested to see that the Contact Us page listed the president of the chapter: John Doe.
Really?
This is just what we needed – another shadowy organization run by anonymous “patriots” championing their version of “conservative” ideology. At what point did we arrive at the conclusion that there’s something wrong with having our names associated with that in which we believe? Whether we agree with the positions of an organization or not, we assign essentially zero credibility to the opinions and positions of those who speak in combative terms but lack the fortitude to put their names where their mouths are. We’ll be watching, and turning over rocks where we can find them.
Enough With The Gotcha
by John Weckerle
Today we find ourselves a bit behind the news – as we try to be when we think a situation should be given time to develop before commenting on it. We refer, in the current situation, to the most recent video hoax perpetrated by James O’Keefe, this time a purported “sting” against Ron Schiller, a National Public Radio fundraiser, resulting in yet another doctored video that supposedly depicts the target doing something horrible – in this case, harshly criticizing the Tea Party. For information on the situation, we provide the following links from NPR and Glenn Beck’s The Blaze:
- Questions Raised About O’Keefe’s Editing Of NPR Sting Video
- NPR: O’Keefe ‘Inappropriately Edited’ Video; Exec’s Words Still ‘Egregious’
- Elements Of NPR Gotcha Video Taken Out Of Context
- Ends vs. Means: The Ethics of Undercover Journalism
- Does Raw Video of NPR Expose Reveal Questionable Editing & Tactics?
Not surprisingly, neoconservative “news” outlets and blogs both local and national gleefully and immediately pounced on the “story” as either confirmation of longstanding claims of liberal bias or yet another reason to cut all funding to NPR and/or public broadcasting, and perhaps only a little more surprisingly the “mainstream” news media jumped right on the bandwagon. To the latter: the fact that something sells advertising space doesn’t mean it’s news. Nice job on the verification.
East Mountain Tea Party Connections
Editor’s Note: We regret that we do not have time to do an April Fool’s article, as many other publications do on this particular date. Time does not permit at present.
by John Weckerle
Some time back, we came across some interesting information on the East Mountain Tea Party, set it aside for future use, and – embarrassingly – forgot about it. A recent statement on the EMTP web site – that there is no affiliation between the East Mountain Tea Party and the First Baptist Church in Moriarty, at which their recent event was held – jogged our memory, and we decided to take a look. We found no evidence of a direct link between the Church and the EMTP; however, our previous research (including some reported in earlier articles [click on the Tea Party-gate category for a list]) does provide some insight into the East Mountain Tea Party’s relationships, both sectarian and commercial.
In our earlier articles, we demonstrated a certain “commonality of leadership” between the East Mountain Tea Party and a group called The Table of The Remnant, now Operation Jesus Pictures. We located a web page bearing the EMTP logo, references to the web site, and a list of business supporters. Listed are the following:
Tea Party, Or Not Tea Party: That Is The Question
by John Weckerle
The East Mountain Tea Party has a web site and an anonymous internet spokesperson – a shadowy figure known as “teapartynm.” It holds rallies and meetings, and stages protests. It writes letters to elected officials, and conducts candidate forums. It lobbies. It has ties to a local religious organization that repudiates Islam (see our previous article, East Mountain Tea Party Officials and Islam) and believes that the United States should declare war on Russia and China. But does the East Mountain Tea Party actually exist?
Our research tends to suggest that it does not, at least in any official sense. We took some time to search the State of New Mexico corporations database, the database of nonprofit organizations at Guidestar.org, and the IRS database of tax-exempt organizations for the East Mountain Tea Party – and found no reference to the group. We find this puzzling, as the organization seems to fit nicely into the “527” category and actively solicits donations on its web site. This raises some questions as to whether the receipt of the donations is being accomplished in compliance with State and Federal tax laws. This an issue that has haunted several organizations in our area, including the Edgewood and Moriarty Chambers of Commerce, and those providing donations to the East Mountain Tea Party should consider this along with other factors in making decisions regarding donations.
East Mountain Tea Party Officials and Islam
Editor’s note: We consider it important to state at the outset of this article that it is in no way our intent to denigrate or disrespect anyone’s religious beliefs, in this article or elsewhere; in fact, it was the issue of religious intolerance that sent us down the path that led us to this piece. We’ve provided links to full articles where appropriate to provide our readers with the full context of the quotes; we have saved the key references in both PDF and PNG screen grab formats, so if any of the links in this story should become inoperative in the future, please let us know and we’ll do what we can to repair them.
Update 1/4/11: Our original article on the East Mountain Tea Party’s apparent anti-Islamic bias can be found here.
by John Weckerle
East Mountain Tea Party Co-Founder Therese Cooper (image via You Tube)
As many of our readers may remember, we took issue some time back with what we considered to be anti-Islam positions officially expressed on the East Mountain Tea Party (EMTP) web site (our articles on the subject, along with others, are now collected under the category “Tea Party-gate.”). The EMTP post informed readers that key members of the EMTP (Therese Cooper, Char Tierney, Silvana Lupetti, and Felicia Wilson), including at least two of its co-founders, had submitted a letter to Congressman Martin Heinrich’s demanding that he state his position with respect to a Muslim community center proposed for downtown New York. We objected to the anonymously-posted EMTP article, and received a surprisingly vitriolic response indicating a clear anti-Muslim bias. We had a little fun trying to track down the identity of the anonymous poster, who in our view is the EMTP’s official internet spokesperson – and after a while, partially lost interest in that aspect, but we continued to research the issue of religious discrimination, because we were frankly dumbfounded by the strong anti-Islamic sentiment that came across in “teapartynm’s” response.
Message From Wildlife West Founder
by Roger Alink, Executive Director, Wildlife West Nature Park
Wildlife West Nature Park is private 501-c-3 not for profit organization that has numerous restrictions placed upon it by IRS. No involvement in political activity or having the effect of supporting any candidate or groups of candidates is allowed. The park has been perceived to be affiliated with the TEA party primarily because of the large signs around the community advertising the TEA party meetings at Wildlife West Nature Park. Numerous calls concerning this issue were made with great concern that the park was supporting the TEA party. Even though we just rented the facility to the TEA party, sometimes perceptions are a bigger problem than reality. I feel it is unfair for this issue to get misunderstood by many on both sides of the political spectrum and both sides have threatened to withhold support for the park. The park depends on the whole community for support and we are grateful for the outpouring of support we have received throughout the past year. Wildlife West Nature Park is non-partisan and only wants to serve our wildlife and education mission as well as the entire community without any perception of representing political issues. Therefore the decision is to no longer rent our facility to any group representing any political issues and/or candidates or groups of candidates. Let’s put this behind us and work for a peaceful and healthy park in 2011.
Stand Up For Local Charities
by John Weckerle
As our readers might imagine, it is with a great deal of interest that we have observed the developing story of the East Mountain Tea Party’s (EMTP’s) latest brouhaha, this time involving the Moriarty Lions Club and Wildlife West Nature Park. Both organizations recently discontinued the practice of leasing space to the EMTP. As reported by some, reasons given were public perception issues, threatened loss of donations, and potential concerns with respect to the groups’ status as charitable organizations in the context of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) policies. The latter is the official position given by both organizations.
In reality, we can see where there is likely a combination of these three factors at work. Let’s face it: the Tea Party in general, and the EMTP in particular, can be rather pugilistic in their approach to activism, and this has gained them a reputation for divisiveness and combativeness. Some of the positions they have taken have elicited concerns, including some expressed here, regarding bigotry. Both on the national and local front, the movement has indulged in a great deal of name-calling and denigration, excoriating those with whom they do not agree and insinuating that those with opposing viewpoints are somehow less American than those on the “right” side of the fence. Somehow, those affiliated with the Tea Party have taken the position that they are the (self-appointed) heirs to the Founding Fathers, the Sons of Liberty, and so on in terms of patriotism and American values. One need only read through some of the articles on the EMTP’s web site or read last week’s letter from Sylvia Bokor to the Mountain View Telegraph (or the much nastier diatribe on her blog) to get a feel for the tone of the “dialogue.” There are a substantial number of Americans who likely find this kind of invective extremely offensive, and probably a great deal more who are simply tired of hearing it. In short, while the EMTP and other similar organizations are very enthusiastic about their cause, they have expressed that enthusiasm in such a manner as to turn off a large number of people, some of whom are likely donors to the organizations in question.
Creeping Socialist Casserole
by John Weckerle
Okay, we admit it, this is not about creeping socialists; it’s a recipe. Ever since your editor read that phrase on the East Mountain Tea Party web site, though, it keeps popping into his head and cracking him up. We want to be clear: this is is one of the most ridiculously paranoid combinations of words we’ve run across in a while, but it’s so ridiculous that it’s kind of funny, and we can imagine that the ghost of Vladimir Lenin is slapping George Soros’s knee over it, too. I guess you could say that the zucchini and yellow squash represent the ultra-left-wing vegetarian peril lurking beneath the veneer of American “sausage,” pepper and onion patriotism – and then take it a step further and take the that the “sausage” is also some cynical, unauthentic, Socialist-Marxist exploitation of our meat heritage. And don’t get me started on the liberal cheddar cheese conspiracy.
At any rate, Sunday found us not wanting any of the food we had ready to eat, and a bunch of summer squash with which to deal, so your editor decided to go off the map and do something unusual. Here’s how it went:
NM-Central “Outs” Anonymous Tea Party Spokesman?
by John Weckerle
Rats. We had what could have been a great article in mind for this morning on the identity of the mysterious East Mountain Tea Party (EMTP) spokesperson “teapartynm.” Based on writing styles and one particular hint from the web site, we were all ready to provide an exhaustive (and, now that we think of it, probably boring to most people) account of why we thought a particular person was the man behind the “nom de plume,” as it were. Or, as it turns out, as it is. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the Damage Control Subcommittee of the EMTP’s Public Relations Committee (okay, we’re being just a bit facetious there) appears to have gotten ahead of us and made a policy change requiring “teapartynm” to put his name on his articles – and after our most recent article on the subject, we might add.
Hunt For East Mountain Tea Party Spokesperson Continues
by John Weckerle
In recent weeks, we’ve taken issue (here and here) with the anonymity of an official spokesperson for the East Mountain Tea Party (EMTP) who posts articles on the EMTP site and has posted comments here, including some that we consider to be anti-Muslim and equating Islam with al Qaeda. We initially almost-but-not-quite concluded that the person, who goes by the moniker “teapartynm” on the EMTP site and “East Mountain Tea Party” here, was one Emily Cooper. However, Gadabout-blogalot.com editor and EMTP supporter Chuck Ring asserted that Ms. Cooper was not the domain contact any longer, and was in fact no longer participating in Tea Party activities. Mr. Ring declined to clarify: “I don’t see that knowing the name will add anything to the issue at this juncture.” We disagree; as we stated in the original article, we consider equating Islam with al Qaeda to be bigotry, and while we think that while outright, Terry Jones-style bigotry is ugly, we believe that anonymous bigotry is worse, if somewhat less effective.
Now, it is a rule that domain contact information must be kept current, and with that in mind, we filed a complaint with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). This is the organization that administers domains at the highest level, and makes the rules for using them. Registrars (for example, Network Solutions or GoDaddy) then process requests for domain names. Now, the way this process works is that, upon reciept of the complaint, ICANN sends a request for validation or update to the the registrar – in this case, GoDaddy – which then sends a notification to the administrative contact e-mail, and the recipient logs on and confirms the contact information. Yesterday, we got a response that told us:
“Credit” Where It Is Due?
by John Weckerle
Editor’s note/update: Gadabout-blogalot.com editor Chuck Ring has challenged us on our forensics in this article, stating that “you have used resources to mis-identify people who have nothing to do with the email address you are dogging.” We beg to differ, and offer the registration information as support:
East Mountain Tea Party Domain Registration Info from GoDaddy whois; phone number redacted for privacy.
A few days ago, we published an article on the proposed Islamic community center in downtown Manhattan that was a response to an article on the East Mountain Tea Party web site, and had an exchange with someone calling themselves “East Mountain Tea Party.” This person’s comment was also posted on the East Mountain Tea Party site under the name “teapartynm.” We challenged the person to identify himself or herself, and thus far, there has been no such identification. Neither is that person identified on the East Mountain Tea Party site; rather, the pseudonym “teapartynm” is used.
We fully support people’s right to state their opinions. However, it’s important to realize that, while the Constitution may guarantee the right to do so, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee the right to do so anonymously, and given the rather controversial views expressed, we decided to do a little digging and see what we could find out. Actually, we found out quite a bit, but we will for now stick to just trying to identify the person who posted the original article on the East Mountain Tea Party site and commented on ours.
No Mosque At Ground Zero – For Starters, Because Nobody’s Proposing One
Update 1/4/11: Additional discussion of the potential basis for the East Mountain Tea Party’s apparent bias against Islam can be found in our article East Mountain Tea Party Officials and Islam.
by John Weckerle
We had initially thought not to address the construction of a Muslim community center in downtown Manhattan (the Park51 Project, or Cordova House, commonly but mistakenly called the “Ground Zero Mosque), but since the East Mountain Tea Party has apparently decided to make this an election issue, we’ve decided to add some thoughts to the debate.
We’d like to begin, though, with a caution regarding a particular set of practices of discussion that seem to have become popular in certain quarters. The first is the device by which those who disagree with a particular position attempt to turn the argument back on the originator as some sort of personal critique. In spoken conversation, we often refer to this as the “I know you are, but what am I?” method, and have little use for it. The second is to just outright attack the person originating the position or those who agree with it in general. We’re not big on that one, either. We invite our readers to post whatever comments they like, but be aware that we will probably ignore these two literary devices where responding to comments is concerned.
We also have something to say to the nebulous “teapartynm” who posted the article: We don’t think you should have to put your money where your mouth is, but you should certainly put your name there if you truly believe in what you’re saying. To twist a line from the movie “Beetlejuice:” “Never trust the unidentified.”
»» No Mosque At Ground Zero – For Starters, Because Nobody’s Proposing One
Edgewood Chamber On The Lam?
by John Weckerle
The local newspapers are abuzz this week with news and commentary on the recent move on the part of the Edgewood Chamber of Commerce to – well, move.
At the heart of the issue are expressions of concern from a number of sources, including NM-Central.com, that the Edgewood Chamber has been perhaps more involved in politics than some might consider appropriate. Much of the current brouhaha seems to revolve around recent concerns associated with a “meet and greet” function for Republican candidates – Jim Smith and Tom Mullins – running for State Representative and Congress, respectively. Some current and past Town officials have expressed reservations regarding these functions, suggesting that the Edgewood Chamber’s actions in this arena, and actually conducting events supporting those candidates in office space provided by the Town, represent a de facto endorsement of the candidates by an organization that is receiving public funding in the form of free office space. One of the candidates counters that the Chamber announced a “meet and greet” event for his opponent. A local Tea Party activist and Chamber booster alleges violations of the Chamber’s First Amendment rights. A person or persons unknown attach a not-too-recently deceased skunk to the Town office with what appears to be 50 tubes of Krazy Glue. Panic ensues.
Only some of this is true (the skunk part and mass hysteria aren’t), but there’s much more to the story(ies)… »» Edgewood Chamber On The Lam?