Crash course: Your illustrated guide to the Tea Party saboteurs
The one-year anniversary of the nationwide April 15 Tax Day Tea Party counterinsurgency is fast approaching — and publicity-seeking malefactors of all stripes want in on the spotlight.
Over the last week, conservative activists online have thoroughly exposed the loser behind an Internet call to “Crash the Tea Party.” His name is Jason Levin. To follow his trail, check Free Republic here, Canada Free Press here, and Velvet Hammer here. After failing to cover his tracks, Levin is now basking in the glow of attention on his tpartycrasher Twitter page and on his personal Twitter page (where he brags that he has hit the big time and “gone viral:”)
He’s infected alright — with an acute case of Wannabefamousitis.
Conservative blogs and talk radio have spread the word about possible shenanigans promoted by Levin, including this:
“We will act on behalf of the Tea Party in ways which exaggerate their least appealing qualities (misspelled protest signs, wild claims in TV interviews, etc.) to further distance them from mainstream America and damage the public’s opinion of them. We will also use the inside information that we have gained in order to disrupt and derail their plans.”
Levin registered his site under a phony name on April 3, 2010. He’s just the latest in a long line of left-wing leeches and anarchist clowns trying to discredit Tea Party activism and mask their roles as agents provocateur.
Last month, it was nutballs on the rabble-rousing “Infoshop News” site. Like Levin, they tried to cover up by deleting their call to sabotage. But the fingerprints have been preserved through screen-caps and caches:
Before them, it was Craig Varoga — a shady Democrat political operative and overseer of a convoluted, money-shuffling web of 527s. He launched “TheTeaPartyisOver.org” in January to target Republicans who supported the Tea Party movement and to prevent the “radical” and “dangerous” fiscal accountability agenda from “gaining legislative traction.” Here’s a screencap of Varoga’s site:
Free Republic, Ed Morrissey, Lee Doren, the American Thinker, Fox News, and NPR (yes, NPR!) have all reported on Varoga’s funneling schemes designed to obscure the Big Labor/progressive funding of his Astroturf enterprises under the “American Public Policy Center (APPC)” umbrella. Via FNC’s Joseph Abrams:
Here’s how it works: What appears like a local groundswell is in fact the creation of two men — Craig Varoga and George Rakis, Democratic Party strategists who have set up a number of so-called 527 groups, the non-profit election organizations that hammer on contentious issues (think Swift Boats, for example).
Varoga and Rakis keep a central mailing address in Washington, pulling in soft money contributions from unions and other well-padded sources to engage in what amounts to a legal laundering system. The money — tens of millions of dollars — gets circulated around to different states by the 527s, which pay for TV ads, Internet campaigns and lobbyist salaries, all while keeping the hands of the unions clean — for the most part.
The system helps hide the true sources of funding, giving the appearance of locally bred opposition in states from Oklahoma to New Jersey, or in the case of the Tea Party Web site, in Illinois. And this whitewash is entirely legal, say election law experts, who told FoxNews.com that this arrangement more or less the norm in Washington. “It’s not illegal but it is, I think, dishonest on the part of the organizations,” said Paul Ryan, a legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. “And there’s a reason they do it: they know voters don’t like outsiders coming in to sway the vote.”
Calls and e-mails to the Maryland-based consultant firm Independent Strategies, run by Varoga and Rakis, were not returned.
Outside of that firm, the center of their activity appears to be a single office in Southeast D.C. — 300 M Street, Suite 1102 — which plays host to a sprawling political shell game they have established. Public records show at least seven political shops listed in Suite 1102, most of which are essentially clones of one another, but all of which have offered money — from measly thousands to game-changing millions — in state-level elections across the country…
You will not be surprised to learn that Varoga’s Tea Party-bashing site is now password-protected so that the Democrat-run plotting against Tea Party activists can be conducted out of sight:
As those of us who have covered the Tea Party movement before it was even called the “Tea Party” movement have pointed out for more than a year, the saboteurs who have tried to smear these tax revolt protests come in all shapes and sizes. Look at Bob Beckel. On April 6, 2009, Beckel insinuated that Montana Tea Party folks were all gun-toting wackos and he recycled the false and illogical rumors that the grass-roots movement was directed from the GOP, national tax groups, and CNBC.
Yep. Remember that one?
It was one of the first attacks on the fledgling Tea Party movement, started by Playboy.com and disseminated on left-wing blogs. They spread loony conspiracy theories that the Koch Foundation orchestrated the Tea Party movement in cahoots with CNBC’s Rick Santelli. Never mind that the anti-pork revolts that laid the foundation for the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party preceded Santelli’s speech on the Chicago trading floor and had nothing to do with either Koch or Santelli. Never mind that the only news outlet paying any meaningful attention to the movement back then outside of conservative blogs and talk radio was Fox News.
Oh, and never mind that Playboy was forced to quietly abandon the moronic attack and tried to cover it up by deleting the column from its website. You can, however, read the whole fantasy-land screed here to refresh your memories.
For their part, the illogical fools at the Daily Kos who parroted Playboy and blamed CNBC for propping up the Tea Party movement didn’t even bother to erase their tracks.
Who’s keeping score in the MSM anyway, right?
I speak from direct experience about the underhandedness of Tea Party smear merchants. On February 17, 2009 at one of the country’s first tax revolt rallies in Denver, a man approached me amid a throng of bona fide anti-stimulus protesters and thrust a camera in my face. I obliged cheerfully, as I usually do after such speaking events. I later learned from the character assassins at Progress Now, the Soros-backed outfit that just happened to be there and just happened to snap a close-up photo of the interaction, which was immediately disseminated to the local press and to the hitmen of Media Matters, that the man pulled out a sign at the last minute (which I didn’t see until later) sporting Obama’s name with a swastika on it. He held the sign away from me, but in direct view of the Progress Now cameraperson who used to work for CNN.
Never mind the Left’s Bush=Nazi hypocrisy and the uncanny, instantaneous manufactured outrage. The narrative was set: A conservative supporter of the nascent Tea Party movement posed for a photo with a man holding up a swastika at a protest against out-of-control spending! Ergo, the stimulus protesters and the entire Tea Party membership are all racist, fascist menaces to society!
Now, we’ve come full circle from a swastika sign “scandal” fomented by Tea Party saboteurs to distract from the core policy message at the Denver anti-stimulus protest last February… to the creepily similar tactics advocated by “Crash the Party” instigator Jason Levin to “act on behalf of the Tea Party in ways which exaggerate their least appealing qualities…to further distance them from mainstream America and damage the public’s opinion of them.”
I’ll repeat the advice I gave last April 6, 2009 when I warned, “Get ready for the anti-Tea Party sabotage and smear campaign.” It holds true today:
They have no shame. Be prepared. Confront them with their own rank hypocrisy and unhingedness. Don’t get distracted. And don’t let your local media get away with lazily recycling their smears.
Shockingly, a purportedly conservative website, Culture11, is disseminating yet another Tea Party smear — that the movement is racist:
When Are White People Going To Stop Waiting For A Handout?
By Kris BroughtonThey revolt. Secede. Take other people’s property and rename it as their own. Shoot a few folks if they get in the way. Which is how you get British colonies that become the United States of America.
Or, in its most recent incarnation, “We Surround Them”, or these infamous “Tea Parties” that are supposed to be taking place all over the country, a small but determined fragment of America’s white population, along with their favorite token minority self hate monger, Michelle Malkin, have decided that they are tired of their values and their way of life being rejected by the government, and the rest of the public that doesn’t agree with them. They are ready to “take back the country.”
When, oh when are these white people going to stop waiting for somebody to give them something?
Oh well. I guess I’ll be turning on the TV in a few minutes to see yet another privileged group of white men, who insist they they and they alone are entitled to hold the opinions that count on the economy, the government, and the president.
It’s only a matter of time before this bunch starts whining about losing its lack of influence.
Lack of influence? Project much?
I leave you with what Culture11′s Kris Broughton would no doubt call more expressions of “minority self hate mongering” — from Tea Party Anthem singer Lloyd Marcus.
When they smear, sing louder. Get a fellow tax revolter to register to vote. Then sign up 10 more. Don’t get mad. Get active. If you sit on the sidelines, they win.
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Unless Chaps’ name is “Bruce Marks”…
that there is just a little misdirection…
Shame on us if we fall for it…
Sorry, I thought the “he” was referring to the first line of the post by you she quoted, which was referring to me.
You don’t think “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is basically the sum of the entire Demonratic philosophy?
When half the country doesn’t pay taxes, and the top 5% (or is it 10%?) pays over half of all the taxes, who screams that Bush’s tax cuts were “tax breaks for the rich” and who calls capital gains “unearned income”?
OK, the right to have sex without any consequences of any kind is sort of important to the Dems, hence their desire for federal funding of abortion, but that is priority #2 in the modern Demonratic party.
Or are you going to argue Obama and company are more like Mussolini, willing to tolerate some measure of capitalism as long as the state has complete control over the entire population.
Hitler is a terrible comparison. Sure, Obama hates Israel, but he hates the Poles and English as well. I think because they were allies of Bush. OK, Hitler hated them too, but for different reasons.
Do you think it was just coincidence Obama cancelled missile defense for Poland on the anniversary of their invasion? Called their president (now late president) about 4 am local time to tell him?
Like the coincidence of cancelling manned space flight on the anniversary of the Columbia accident.
Anyway…
Rags, you say they are attuned to pressure from their shareholders. Why would you think that would not swing both ways? And if it does, why would they be more attuned to some guy that just bought 3 shares a week ago?
Well, Rags,
Pout is our resident Whine expert.
Few realize just how eponymous his nickname is
And yes, Pout, we know neither you nor your namesake are “rich” — even with access to the famed L’Hermitage, Chapoutier makes a barely middling product, although they are struggling to improve the quality and marketability of their product….
Just like you!
Don’t worry, maybe one day you …and your intellect … can grow up to be a Guigal La Mouline … I hear the 2003 vintage is what’s hot at auction these days.
I tend to think, since these rags have been losing money for a few years now, that someone would have done it already, if it could be done. Perhaps those shareholders are waiting to see if the paper goes belly up before they can do something.
Couple of things…
1. It does swing both ways, but the underlying assumption here is that most dino media are bleeding red ink. A pressure group asserting that it may be MORE PROFITABLE to print real news (as opposed to agendized stuff) would be A BUR UNDER THE BLANKET.
2. They would not pay much attention to JUST the guy with 3 shares. But the trust funds and institutional investors…who ALSO have people to answer to…WOULD.
Is it not so…?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Oh, my…
Sorry. But Wine Spectator, which gave their $14 dollar Cotes du-Rousillon Villages a 90, and two other $13 2008 wines from Belleruche an 87…not to mention Parker, who thinks Chapoutier is one of the finest producers in the Rhone region, would tend to disagree with you.
But hey, what do they know, right?
But nice to know you can quickly google “impressive sounding Rhone Wine” and copy and paste the results here.
Denver Tea Party – Tax Day – Apr 15, Capitol – West – 11 PM. Turn out in force and shout these lefties down. No, we will not shut up and, No, we will not sit down. The hell with these agitators.
But that was not the premise of the question. No institutional investor is going to buy shares in a company for the sake of suing them.
Sorry, meant 11 AM. Please plan to be there!
All this talk has made me thirsty. I have an intriguing Pinoit Noir (from Argentina of all places) that may be calling my name.
Luigi Bosca. For the money, far better than about any pinot you will find in the US.
So, Chaps, did you go to one of the famous law schools and work at one of the big firms, or do run up huge student loan debt and making copies for some ambulance chaser?
Just curious.
Ever hear the one about how the MCAT is to determine IF you go to med school, the LSAT is to determine WHERE you go to law school?
Either you’re just skimming, or you’re intentionally deflecting.
I wrote in direct response to your post.
And I don’t think that the thrust here is just obtaining shares to gain standing to sue, so much as levering some influence via stockholder status.
I reject snobby oinophiles.
A bottle of $3 (with Kroger Card) Mogen David Kosher Blackberry wine works fine straight up as ice cream syrup, or mixed about 1/3rds to 2/3rds Diet 7-Up or Sprite Zero with a couple of ice cubes, as a wonderfully refreshing wine cooler
I went to a famous law school, worked at a big famous firm, hated it, moved away, worked at a smaller firm where I actually got home before 8 pm on a consistent basis, and now have left that to work for myself. It is fun to be able to charge $200/hr and be able to keep all of it and to have people happy to pay that because it so undercuts most law firms. Also, both my wife and I have racked up huge loans.
Hadn’t heard it, but its absolutely true.
The entire discussion between me and Aloha was about someone buying a couple shares and then going to a shareholders meeting to scream bloody murder and follow up with a derivative suit.
It is not adding too much to the conversation to say “Yeah, but if you had a MILLION shares, you could do such and such…”
Sprite Zero is an excellent mixer. I use it for vodka, my homemade limoncello, just about anything.
Gee…
I think I made my point.
Which was?
So, what is the connection between this Levin loser and Sheila and/or Norman Lamanoff ? The tel # associated with CTTP is in PA. Any info on these two characters and/or connections between them?
I notice that my little friend, the Leni Riefenstahl of “9500 Liberty” has disappeared too. Neither she nor Eric Byler can be found loitering around the County complex looking for sound clips to edit and corrupt.
It’s amazing that once their little schemes are outed, there’s just silence.
So sad, so predictable.
1. A pressure group [of even very small shareholders] asserting that it may be MORE PROFITABLE to print real news (as opposed to agendized stuff) would be A BUR UNDER THE BLANKET.
2. They [media execs]
wouldmight not pay much attention to JUST the guy with 3 shares. But the trust funds and institutional investors…who ALSO have people to answer to…WOULD.See, there is this profit motive thingy…
Fiduciaries and institutional investors pay attention to it. So, a small holder with a profitable notion attracts attention. Just sayin’…
Back to the same old, same old. Well, I did enjoy the break while it lasted.
Pout,
an 87 is not even worth my time.
And Wine spectator is for pretentious gits like you who need help sounding impressive at your gay bar show tunes reprisal nights. I was very disappointed both times we dined at CIA in Napa.
Just because a winery is “old”, doesn’t mean it’s “good”. Maybe you’re the one who has “Google” issues. Didn’t we have this go-round once already?
Okay, I’ve gotcha now. But what exactly is your evidence to suggest that institutional investors pay attention to fringe shareholders? Do you think that a company had never had to deal with some guy off the street with a share or two,screaming about some decision he thinks is wrong? Is there any evidence this works to influence the institutional investor to the point corporate behavior changed?
Who was your mentor – Geithner?
Anyone who thinks a $13 87 is not worth their time is either lying or an idiot. In your case I’ll make an exception, though, and say both.
And I am not sure whose post you were reading but I never referred to either the CIA, nor am I sure how the quality of the food reflects the quality of the Mag’s wine ratings. Nor did I ever refer to the age of the Chapoutier winery in claiming it was high quality. Do you often carry on arguments with yourself? Might want to look into that.
“keep all of it” as opposed to having my firm bill me out at one rate and me actually see about 1/3 of that in my salary.
I got no beef with paying the taxes.
Wasn’t that an old Lucille Ball or Ann Sothern movie?
Neither did Geithner. He just didn’t do it.
$200 per hour is CHEAP lawyer time, guys.
Of course, there is a LOT of overhead that has to pay off for most of us.
I charge more, BTW. Some good patent lawyers get about three times that…or more.
Right. It is cheap. Especially in DC, but as you say, my overhead is virtually nonexistent. Basically bar dues and insurance. I do all my reseach at the Gtown law library and go to the client when he wants to meet face to face.
To follow up, it is amazing how little people will care that you do not have a nice conference room or pretty receptionist when you charge them less than half what they would otherwise pay. The recession has exposed a huge hole in the old law firm business model, and I intend to use it to my advantage.
Well, there are a LOT of folks who need lawyers. I follow the “country lawyer” model, trying to serve what some folks call “the little people”, having been one all my life. Not short, just not the kind of folks who would…or could…retain a big downtown firm.
I beat those guys at trial with some regularity, too.
Well, he had to lay low until the whole Breitbart epithet/spittle bounty thing blew over.
Plus, isn’t it obvious by now he had no where else to go? None of the legal blogs will have him.
I guess he’s our very own little shelter rescue Progressive.
Whoa – no conference room, fine, but even in your face-to-face meets you’d better bring a pretty receptionist…or a dental hygienist.
Since the topic of the thread is Tea Party activism ….
Lt Col West is having a moneybomb Tues.
Went over there and threw a few bucks in.
He’s hoping for 1,000 hits in 24 hrs.
West is good people.
“Is it safe?”
Lest anyone think that “birthers” are a “fringe” group,
who are somehow bad for a Constitution-centric Tea Party movement,
have you seen who one of the latest “birthers” is?
Note well how no subsequent speaker questioned or contradicted the assertion that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.
If the Kenyan Parliament scrubs that PDF, it is archived here.
Try the Alexander Valley Tous Ensemble from Copain… a ~$30 bottle, I basically walked into a favorite shoppe of mine and said “I’ve never had a good pinot, to the point I’m doubting such a thing exists… sell me something that will change my mind.” I went back and bought a case.
I am going to make it out to Sacramento Thursday for the tax day tea party .
Now if i can figure out a way to run my video camera while on crutches.
Duct tape around a folded tripod, camera below the arm-pad.
Without regard to the topic on this thread. I just want to say the following:
I never thought I would live to see the day that I would see the President of the United States, the leader of freedom in this world, bowing to a Chinese freakin’ Communist.
What an utter disgrace this occupamt of the White House is.
I just turned Hannity off. Beckel will be on shortly. Will Hannity ever learn? He is most likely losing ratings over his choice of looney guests! He thinks DC is out of touch. Well, he needs to buy a clue himself!
They same could be said for Newt.
People attempting to crash a tea party rally for the purpose of discrediting it may find that drawing attention to themselves in this day and age will likely make it very easy to identify them soon afterwards. It certainly worked to identify the union thugs in Searchlight NV a few weeks ago.
300 M Street in SE DC? Yee gods, the 7-11 convenience store in that area has a full time security guard in it. That’s the Kill Or Be Killed Convenience Store.
So, if there are millions of bucks running through this office in this bad neighborhood, why don’t we just pass some leaflets out to the neighbors letting everyone know and let nature take its course? Maybe some of the locals will take Obama’s plea to heart about spreading the wealth around.
Huh? That address is right by Nationals Park and the Navy Yard. I don’t know when you have been there last, but M Street on that stretch are all office towers and a quickly gentrifying populace. Here, through the miracle of modern technology, you can take a tour of the neighborhood by clicking on the link and then clicking on the “launch 360 view” link. Not all of SE is a s**thole. A good amount of it, yes. But not all.
Why would anybody buy shares of a failing company?
Back to the topic, I hope to see many of you at the Tea Party in Denver.
Happy, the most painless economy measure I ever took was cutting back my cable TV service to the lowest tier — about $12/mo. for local stations plus C-Span and a few odds and ends. No Fox News, no CNN, no MSNBC. I am a heavy patron of Netflix, including videos of TV shows. Anything worth watching will appear on video without commercials and available for watching at my convenience. The Internet (and streaming talk radio) is more than adequate to keep me wired to all the latest dispair. Hannity’s show is definitely one of the big, gaping wholes of wasted time in the Fox schedule. Frankly, they don’t really have all that much that is worth watching, IMO. I am amazed to say that I think Gretta — who I used to dislike — is about the best thing they have going. She might not be a down-the-line conservative but she is smart and substantitive and fair with whatever she does. But I definitely do not need Hannity (although he is a nice boy) in my life or the huffing and puffing gasbag populist Bill O. Sheppard Smith sucks (pun intended). I’m not even that strong on Special Report anymore as I think that the serious side of Fox News is too much in the pocket of the neocons…they think McCain and Graham are the leaders of the GOP. I do have tremendous respect for Bret Baier, though, based on him being just about the only reporter in Washington willing to ask Obama tough and persistent questions. Still, overall, I can do without it.
But back to Hannity…it sometimes gets a little still around here in the latter part of the afternoons and I will switch Hannity on. He is an enless HYPE MACHINE. His content is pathetically thin. It is all about the ~next~ hour or tonight’s show or the next concert. IMO, Hannity has been very helpful on some of the most important issues — like amnesty — and I give him good marks for that. But most of the time it is just Hannity, Inc. selling conservatism for fun and profit, mostly profit, I’m afraid. It is boring. Not that I don’t think he is sincere in his convictions. At least he has that over O’Reilly.
(The Beckel thing is a symptom of the prevalence of money-making/showbiz in his mindset. When people are passionate about their ideology, they can’t stand to be around the leftist creeps. But when it becomes more about showbiz, they see these people as colleagues.)
Oh, yea, the topic of the thread.
Somebody might recognize some of these infiltrator creeps and neutralize them.
That would certainly be sad.
http://shoqvalue.com/rants-and-primers#bestLTE ita fun to play spy.
I see from the front page at Drudge that L’il Bow Wow Barry has found another communist to genuflect before
What a disgrace
But for the time being keep on genuflecting Barry, November is right around the corner
Apparently they want donations? That will do them in right there. Who’d be crazy enough to give these their hard earned cash. Cyber geeks like these seem to think that everyone’s whole life revolves around the computer. What makes the Tea Party work is that it’s members actually go out into the big world. As I see it, that’s the problem with Twitter and Face Book, all typing and no action.
Jen Caltrider’s sparse blog at Progress Now is interesting. She called the people at the 2009 Chicago Tea Party “teabaggers” when promoting CNN reporter Susan Roesgen’s “MUST watch” shenanigans. She goes after the Religious Right as her “enemy.” Jumps on the gay rights bandwagon. Throws in a silly cheap shot at Bush. And she seems to agree with Madeline Albright that people in Muslim countries are less sexist than in Christian countries. Yeah, I think it’s safe to say she is a carded member of the far-left.
There is a children’s lesson about “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Our revenge for the media abuse heaped upon us, for the union thug assaults made on us, for the lies told about us by the media, congressional progressives, and nutroot unionists living in their communist eutopia will come in November.
We teapartiers, or taxpayers as I prefer to think of us, know these (_*_) have robbed our children and grandchildren of a future with unlimited opportunities to build a socialist empire where they are the politburo and we the peasants. If one of these smarter than all of us commies could point us to one place where communism or socialism has not ended in abject failure and poverty for the masses I would listen to the argument. But even modern socialist states in Europe are bankrupt (Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Britain) while Germany, France, and Austria produce damn few products. We are following these marvels of entrepeneurial might right into the land of high permanent unemployment, high taxes, and a necessity to build trade barriers to keep the world from competing with us. But gee we will have crappy health care for most of us, and the rich will go to wherever has the then best healthcare.
How many people remember Donald Segretti? For a refresher course:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Segretti
This guy went to prison for something today’s left just laughs off.