The San Antonio Tea Party holds it's big meetings about every other month, usually on the first Sunday, at Pedrotti's North Wind Ranch, 13715
FM 1560 N, Helotes, 78023 (Click here for a map). Keep an eye HERE or the SATP calendar for updates! Consider also attending a neighborhood group--that's where the action is!
Received another letter, this time from someone who is rational and willing
to sign his name: Mr. Gary Sweeney. Before reading on, please read his letter, or the rest of this post will be a bit difficult. Yes, I redacted my address and cropped the white space; nothing
else is altered.
Let's take these one at a time.
First:
"You're dead to me "
is not a death threat.
No kidding. You're right--these commonly used symbols and phrases are not a
call to actual arms. Neither is a target or a surveyor's symbol on a map showing which races matter. My objection
was that our side using such things is called out as a sign of major evil and your side's use is ignored.
Second:
The
Tea Party signs that say "If not Brown, then Browning"
Yep. That crosses the line. When I was chair of the SATP, that sign would not have been allowed. We set a clear
policy of non-violence and no threatening. I wrote and posted "The Rules" at http://www.theythinkyouarestupid.com/rules.shtml. Also see the examples we gave at http://www.theythinkyouarestupid.com/signage.shtml. We enforced these reules here and I took some email heat from nuts for that. Here's the biggest
difference between your side and mine: We're ashamed of the nuts that attach themselves to us, whether we like it or
not. Unlike your side. More on that later.
Third:
"Second Amendment remedies"
Ah,
that was Sharon Angle:
You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good
reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said
it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.
I hope that's not where
we're going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second
Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we
need to do is take Harry Reid out.
Yeah, that final bit was a poor choice of words. I'd never let
someone get by with saying things like that at the SATP meetings. But the point about the purpose of the Second Amendment?
True. You may not like it, but that's its purpose. Only an armed populous can be sure of overthrowing a tyranny. Consider
the Battle of Athens, TN. Don't like that? Don't like Jefferson's quote? Too bad. Them's the facts. I make no apologies
for the wisdom of our founders.
Fourth:
...the blood of tyrants (the one Timothy McVeigh wore when
he was arrested)
Uh, dude? McVeigh was such a nutcase that the Michigan Militia threw him out. Trying
to tie him to the Tea Party is not only very insulting, it's a pretty weak argument! Also, don't bother trying to
call him a Christian next. He was mostly an atheist.
Fifth:
You idea that "both sides
do it" is nonsense. Pure dishonesty.
Now who can't read English? Now who's being dishonest?
My letter addressed the use of terms and symbols that everyone understood to be metaphorical and not calls to arms (like using
a target in the DNC ad.) I gave examples of what both sides doing that. You tried to change the subject on me?
Am I right to call the sentence quoted immediately above "pure dishonesty," or was it a mistake on your part? Feel
free to answer yourself honestly on that.
Sixth:
...most vocal liberal commentator doesn't joke
about poisoning....
Gotta give Olberman some credit for calling out Obama on joking he'd use predator
drones if the Jonas brothers if they came near his daughters (then again, maybe he should get a pass on this, as a dad.
Hell, yeah, the man has daughters; It's his job to scare young men.) But what did Olberman mean with this about Hillary:
"Somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out?" Hmmm. Who can forget Alec Baldwin's Tonight
Show joke (?) about "we would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and kill their wives and their
children." Hilarious. Also gotta love the "Snipers Wanted" graphic the Craig Kilborn show put up on Bush's
picture. It ain't harmless; it ain't right,; but idiots on both sides do it. And as I said, they don't
allow it in SATP.
Seventh:
You launched a campaign based on lies...Barack Obama is foreign-born....
BZZZT! WRONG! What universe are you in? I noted that "I gave Orly
Taitz the brush-off at the 2009 Tax Day Tea Party" almost a year ago (http://www.theythinkyouarestupid.com/2010.02.01_arch.html). She approached me with this nonsense before the rally and left very, very disappointed. There are many witnesses to my
telling one of our 100+ meetings before that rally that Obama was the duly elected president and that as an Air Force officer,
although retired, that I would step in front of a bullet for him. Note that I remained chairman, not having been driven
out, as you seem to imagine would have happened.
Eighth:
Muslim
Technically,
by Islamic law, I believe he's an apostate Muslim. Raised by a Muslim father, as a child he was considered a Muslim.
He converted to Christianity. Thus, an apostate. That can get people stoned or such in some places. Like our great ally,
Afghanistan: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704062604576105682253951862.html.
Ninth:
Bruce and Joshua Turnidge
Uh, 2008. Hardly Tea Partiers from prison.
Tell me: What Tea Party or high level "right wing" commentator or politician stands up to defend these knot-heads?
NONE! Meanwhile, you don't mind that the man who designed bombs for the Weatherman, including the one that was
to be used at a dance but killed his comrades in a "work accident," is a well regarded and recently retired professor
of education who is called a "respected" member of the Chicago community. Nor that he says "I don't regret
setting bombs" and appeared in Chicago Magazine in August 2001 (just before "9/11") trampling the US flag (http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/). Nor is it a problem for you that the President's very first political event, when he first ran for any office, was
at that man's home. That it's not an issue for your side is sick.
Tenth:
...take away
their guns.
Oh, so you support the Supreme Court rulings in Heller vs. District of Combia (http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf) and Mc Donald vs. Chicago (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1521.pdf)? Excellent! But do note that there ARE those who fought against those decisions, and who *DO* want to take away
everybody's guns. Yeah, it's not like any sitting US Senator said "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate
of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . 'Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in,'
I would have done it." Nor that the official rulings of most circuit courts was that the Second Amendment only
allowed the States to have Nationl Guard units and that it did not apply to individuals. Now the Supreme Court has ruled--and
all those "gun nuts" had been correct for all those years. Oh, yeah, 2008 was before those Supreme Court rulings.
Eleventh:
...what his Jew owners tell him to.
So now we're anti-Semites?
That's at least original--haven't been accused of that before! Can't wait to inform Jon Kaplan, the guy
who did so much to save SATP after Matt's ministrations almost killed it, and was its defacto leader at that time. Yeah, we really must hate those Jews in critical Tea Party positions!
Dude, if you're going to paint us with "our" NUTS, then I can paint you with "YOUR" nuts! Oh, and that includes the idiot you guys ran for President -- the one who voted on whether or not to assassinate US
Senators and Representatives, John Kerry! (Well, at least he voted "Nay.")
...credited to
you guys by the criminals themselves
Again with the trying to tie nuts that we deny, that act in a way
we publicly forswear, to us. Again, what about the left-wing nuts that tie themselves with your side? They don't
matter? No--and that takes us right back to the point in my letter: The unfairness of what gets "credited"
and to whom.
Enough. We're not diving into the other letter.
In sum: You tried to tie
the Tea Party with all manner of idiocy and you failed.
U.S. border authorities have arrested a controversial Muslim cleric who was deported from Canada to Tunisia
three years ago and was caught earlier this month trying to sneak into California inside the trunk of a BMW, according to
court documents.
It takes a LOT to get deported from Canada. But he'll make it into the
USA someday soon!
Those were the days, eh? FEEL the LOVE! Well, those days are back!
Someone out there read my
Letter to the Editor in last Sunday's paper. What? You missed it? Here's the text:
Don't blame Sarah
Express-News public editor Bob Richter continuing
the left's exclusive use of Sarah Palin's "website with cross hairs" is most upsetting.
Yes,
let's ignore the Daily Kos' entry, "My Congresswoman Voted Against Pelosi, Now She's Dead To Me" at
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/1/6/933828/-My-CongressWOMAN-voted-against-Nancy-Pelosi!-And-is-now-DEAD-to-me, and Kos's
own little "target list" that included http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/25/1204/74882/511/541568.
And
ignore the Democrat's own target map - with real targets! - put out by the Democratic Leadership Council at http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253055&kaid=127&subid=171.
Both sides do it. Why concentrate the "we need to be more civil" fire on Palin and the right?
You're not quite as balanced as you think!
Robin Juhl,
Past chairman,
San Antonio Tea Party
Some admirer of mine clipped it from the paper and attached it
to a typed, un-signed note. No return address, of course...
Dear Tea bagger, [sic--capitalization
as it was typed]
Do you really tea bag?? [sic--two question marks, to mark his sick little joke] You crack me
up. And [sic] speaking of someone not balanced, you are seriously "un-balanced". [sic--yes, he put the period
outside the quotes] But keep it up. The more you tea baggers talk the more likely my man, Barack, will be President
for a second term. Look at how much his approval ratings have climbed since you guys came on the scene. Yea, [sic]
Tea Baggers!!!! [sic] Dipshit.
Uh-huh. We should all appreciate his honest self description
in signing this assault on the language with the name "Dipshit" and all. (Helpful hint: The signature
goes on its own line.) But Lord, was he born last week, or what? NO sense of recent history is displayed.
According to Rasmussen: on Tax Day, 2009, Obama's numbers were 35% strongly approve, 33% strongly disapprove, 55% total approve, and 44%
total disapprove. On the day my letter appeared, Obama's numbers were 28% strongly approve, 36% strongly disapprove,
50% total approve, and 49% total disapprove.
Yeah, between the blatant grammar errors, not knowing that most tea
partiers had no idea what "tea bagging" is, still not knowing that the tea bags used were a reference to one of
Sarah Palin's supposed gaffe's, and then not being smart enough to actually look at the poll numbers before trying to use them? Yeah, "Dipshit"
really does fit!
What kind of a dick leaves his staff in the dark about the fact his TV show is ending? Who makes them learn of it
by hearing it broadcast at the end of his last show?
Keith Olbermann. As Jonah Goldberg puts it: All Class!
It is not official. It has not been publicly announced. However, Newt Gingrich has been touching base
with the movers and shakers in his home state of Georgia, letting them know that he intends to run for the Republican nomination
for president in 2012.
Don't bother!
When the Tea Party was first gearing up, there were several
possible ways of going. Tea Party Patriots, the re-TEA people...and Newt Gingrich. He had all kind of hand-out,
policy papers, suggestions, etc., all branded "Newt Gingrich, Inc." (or some such). Yep, he got out there
to lead and...nobody followed. Some of the ideas were OK, but that name was toxic. Remember why? I sure do!
Just what else did you do for Nancy on that couch, eh?
8 Jan 11: Wacko Arizona Congresswoman Giffords in Tucson
9 Jan 11 onward: Blame Sarah!
Blame the Tea Party! Blame Right Wing Talk Radio!
10/17 Jan Edition of The Nation: Frances Fox Piven calls for riots in the streets.
Local protests have to accumulate and spread—and
become more disruptive—to create serious pressures on national politicians. An effective movement of the unemployed
will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures
forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed
across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees.
This past week:
Glen Beck (on TV) and The Blaze publicize what Piven actually wrote.
Yep. Up is now down. Left is now right. Calling for riots like those that have resulted in the deaths
of innocents is now good. Pointing out that such a call was made is bad.
Welcome to the Liberal's Paradise
of the People's Republic of The New York Times.
Most people think King would be the last person to own a gun. Yet in the mid-1950s, as the civil rights
movement heated up, King kept firearms for self-protection. In fact, he even applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
A
recipient of constant death threats, King had armed supporters take turns guarding his home and family. He had good reason
to fear that the Klan in Alabama was targeting him for assassination.
William Worthy, a journalist who covered the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, reported that once, during a visit to King's parsonage, he went to sit down on an armchair
in the living room and, to his surprise, almost sat on a loaded gun. Glenn Smiley, an adviser to King, described King's
home as "an arsenal."
At this point, please consider backing Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones.
Why? Because when the Tea Party was just getting started, she wanted in. She had her staff track down the home
phone number of the San Antonio Tea Party's chairman (uh, me, at the time) to asked to be allowed to speak. We'd
already decided on a "no sitting politicians" policy for that first big rally (later, Governor Perry was also told
"no," along with "because Robin Juhl said so," but that was He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named speaking and not
true. We had all decided it was their turn to listen to us. But I digress....)
Many politicians wanted "in"
after we were successful. Elizabeth Ames Jones want to associate herself with us BEFORE we were big news.
Get
on this bandwagon early--Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones for US Senate!
So, after a few days of "Sarah killed her! The Tea Party killed her! Murderers!" the libs call for
civility. Let's all be nice. No more divisiveness...
But at a time when our discourse has
become so sharply polarized - at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet
of those who think differently than we do - it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking
with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.
Yeah, sure. Nice speech. Very well done. Finally. Congrats. And we all
know you didn't believe a single word of it. Not even the punctuation--even the commas, periods and semi-colons
were lies. If you'd meant any of that, you'd have spoken out much earlier. You only threw the NY Times,
Chris Matthews, and co. under the bus when their attacks had already backfired. Where the hell were you for the previous
five days? Praying that the attacks would work.
So, now the Republicans are supposed to put off voting on the
repeal of ObamaCare because it'd be divisive. Yeah, sure. Like they really care about that. The haven't
for the past week.
Again, it's just an attempt to replace "SHUT UP YOU TEA-BAGGING RACISTS CAPITALIST IMPERIALIST
OPPRESSORS OF THE MASSES!" with something that sounds less deranged. Well, a little less deranged.
As Patterico put it:
Now if we can just get them to allow us to discuss health care repeal, and call ObamaCare what it really
is (dangerous), and so forth.
I think if we wait until the time is right, and ask nicely, they may just let us do it.
Or,
we could just say: we’ll call this bill what it is, and we’ll seek to repeal it immediately. Take your calls
for civility and shove them.
Me, I’m kinda sorta done being nice with the people who have spent
the past five days calmly accusing conservatives of responsibility for the murder of a nine year-old.
This debate will
be “divisive”?
Great. Let’s have it NOW.
Indeed. "You lost, we
won" in the last House election (to follow the President lead). Stuff a sock in it yourself for once!
Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of
solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass
services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.
From the well-known to the unknown,
Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively
fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.
. . .
Among those shields
were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands
of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole.
“This is not about us and them,”
said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly. “We are one. This was an attack
on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come
together.”
In the days following the brutal attack on Saints Church in Alexandria, which left 21 dead on New
Year’ eve, solidarity between Muslims and Copts has seen an unprecedented peak. Millions of Egyptians changed their
Facebook profile pictures to the image of a cross within a crescent – the symbol of an “Egypt for All”.
Around the city, banners went up calling for unity, and depicting mosques and churches, crosses and crescents, together
as one.
As negative as I am about Islam, there is hope. Not all Moslems are murderers.
# @lakarune I haven't seen him since '07. Then, he was left wing. 25 minutes ago via Twitter for
iPhone in reply to lakarune ... # @antderosa As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal. & oddly obsessed
with the 2012 prophecy. 33 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone in reply to antderosa # @antderosa he was a pot head &
into rock like Hendrix,The Doors, Anti-Flag. I haven't seen him in person since '07 in a sign language class 35 minutes
ago via Twitter for iPhone in reply to antderosa # @antderosa He was a political radical & met Giffords once before
in '07, asked her a question & he told me she was "stupid & unintelligent" 37 minutes ago via Twitter
for iPhone in reply to antderosa # @antderosa I can. That is him. 39 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone in reply to antderosa # @antderosa I went to high school, college, & was in a band with the gunman. This tragedy has just turned to horrific.
43 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone in reply to antderosa # Official I went to high school & college, & was
in a band w/ the gunman. I can't even fathom this right now. about 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone
Now,
should we use that to paint all "left wing, quite liberal" people as potential murderers that should be carefully
watched or even supressed? No. But that's what the media and the Dems are doing to Sarah and the Tea Party.
Might as well blame the High School band membership--at least he was a member of that group! Watch out for those trombone
players--they're gonna getcha!
Do not let the Dems and the media spin this way. A nut is a nut, and does not
reflect view of those of us with properly-functioning brain. We get very weary of having them "pinned" on
us by soul-less political operatives.
The only thing sicker is . . . nothing I can think of. But this comes close:
The senseless murder of six yesterday was a tragedy, A horrible event. A Congresswoman and many others shot;
a federal judge, a nine-year-old girl, and four others dead. A NUTCASE at work.
So, of course the left and the media (but I repeat myself) both try to immediately pin it on the Tea Party
and Sarah Palin. Evidence, we ask? "I don't have to show you no steenking evidence" they answer.
They keep harping on "The rhetoric," but ignore the hate filled calls to violence from the left. Only
stuff uttered by Sarah & the Tea Partiers matters.
Not that facts matter, mind you. Sarah is GUILTY!!! And it's
not the first time, as Legal Insurrection points out in Two Sicknesses On Display in Arizona:
The left and their media enablers are sick. This should not be tolerated, but instead it
will be successful. They will plant in the minds of the public that Tea Party == racist violence.
“They
need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,”said the Democrat.
That's what they get from a bloody murder? These Bastards are almost as sick as
Jared Lee Loughner.
May God grant healing to Representative Giffords and the other wounded. May He gather
the slain into His arms and give peace to their loved ones. That we should all agree on.
UPDATE: Ed Driscoll has MUCH more on this. Wow. Follow that link and check out the third picture. Shorts & flip flops on
the end of skinny legs. Must make our enemies just quiver in fear!
“Depressing” doesn’t begin to cover it. There really aren’t words for how absolutely
infuriating this is. More and more, the temptation to leave the keyboard one is calmly typing on, and simply pound
the fucking wall in frustration and dream of an armed insurrection . . . becomes something understandable rather
than something we all know we should calmly denounce.
Now, this is really something to see.
Why. Because Patterico is usually the sweet voice of reason. Oh, and he's a deputy prosecutor in real life.
Color me impressed.
What message did I send my new House Representative? The same as we sent to the previous one: "Now: cut spending! Cut Spending! CUT SPENDING! We ARE watching."
I just hope the knot-heads in Congress get the memo.
We'll soon find out if the Republicans in the House are serious about cutting spending. They damned well better! We'll also find out if they're serious about killing ObamaCare. Let us hope! We need more on-the-record, recorded votes on such things.
We'll soon find out
if Harry and Joe will ditch all Senate tradition and kill the tradition of the filibuster. A naked "Power Grab" is a good description.
Then, 2012 is coming...
Who the heck do we get to run against Senator Kay Bailey
Democrat Hutchison? She's already one term past her promise, and she's squishy at the damnedest
times -- like when a vote against cloture is needed.
Who the heck do we get to run against Representative Charlie (Don't call his dad a commie) Gonzalez?
A white guy who's an evangelical and real Tea Party conservative stands not a chance in that district. We need a
squishy RINO. A mildly conservative, Catholic-in-good-standing, Hispanic RINO is our best shot. He'll vote
correctly just twice (once for speaker, once against abortion) but that's still a VAST improvement. Where do we
find him? Or her?
On Saturday’s Fox News Watch, liberal FNC analyst Alan Colmes asserted that the Tea Party was
a "bunch of angry white guys who went around and put up racist signs."
Yeah, I'm
angry, you farking idiot--at lying bastards like you!
Colmes is just another Lilly-Livered, Left-Leaning, Lenin-Loving
Liberal LIAR!
Consider an average-wage, two-earner couple together earning $89,000 a year. Upon retiring
in 2011, they would have paid $114,000 in Medicare payroll taxes during their careers. But they can expect to receive medical
services -- from prescriptions to hospital care -- worth $355,000, or about three times what they put in.
They
also note:
The same hypothetical couple retiring in 2011 will have paid $614,000 in Social Security taxes,
and can expect to collect $555,000 in benefits. They will have paid about 10 percent more into the system than they're
likely to get back.
Now, the fact about Medicare shows why it is going to break the back of the
Federal budget. All those baby boomers now starting to retire...10,000 a day. They're all going on Medicare.
They all paid in. And now they're all going to be expecting to get those benefits. All that money they paid
in? Gone. It's taxes that will pay their bills.
Then there is Social Security. Just a Ponzi scam.
Remember that "lockbox" Al Gore & company promised? Anyone with a brain, even back in 2001, knew there was no lockbox. The money is already long gone. You believed the politicians? Suckers! The
money is in the paychecks that your children and grandchildren will be earning, God Help them.
(source: