Skip to comments.
Tea Partiers Fear Profiteering Takeover
Marketplace ^
| 2/1/10
| Brett Neely
Posted on 02/01/2010 9:28:15 AM PST by steve-b
High prices have driven Tea Party speakers and supporters from attending the group's first convention this week. Many fear the group is losing its grassroots momentum to Republican profit-driving. Brett Neely reports.
Steve Chiotakis: The Tea Party protest movement is set to hold its first political convention Nashville, Tenn. on Thursday. But grassroot's gotten pretty pricey. Tickets are 550 bucks. And if you just want to hear Sarah Palin speak, that's $350. As Brett Neely reports, it has a lot of Tea Partiers choking on their Earl Grey.
Brett Neely: Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann dropped out of the Tea Party Convention late last week. She worried that attending a for-profit event could violate House ethics rules. Other Tea Party supporters also backed out.
Phillip Glass: You know we're concerned about the appearance of profiteering, exploitation of the grassroots movement. Simple as that....
(Excerpt) Read more at marketplace.publicradio.org ...
TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20, 21-39 last
To: The Mayor
Who are they? Anyone know?
Judson and Sherry Phillips out of the Nashville area.
He is a small town lawyer with a bankrupcy and IRS tax lien in the past. He says he has paid off the tax lien.
To: hilaryrhymeswithrich
I find it amusing that people who embrace free market principles would complain about someone making a profit...and these prices are high clearly no one has compared the prices to CPAC which are twice as high.Agreed. Some folks complained last year about the cost of the FR convention in DC, but it DOES cost money to stage an event like this.
I also find it amusing that folks are so willing to accept what they're reading in the MEDIA about this. Why should we take at face value, ANYTHING the MSM has to say regarding the Tea Party movement, or conservatism?
22
posted on
02/01/2010 10:19:13 AM PST
by
SuziQ
To: SuziQ
To: UB355
Why post it? Because it reflects poorly on Palin.
Steve-b is fond of anti-Palin articles. Anything he can find to create a wedge, to create strife or stir the puddn on FR, steve-b is the man.
24
posted on
02/01/2010 10:20:45 AM PST
by
listenhillary
(FU Cass Sunstein - You are the embodiment of evil)
To: hilaryrhymeswithrich
Smoke and mirrors from you?
25
posted on
02/01/2010 10:21:18 AM PST
by
red tie
To: nutmeg
26
posted on
02/01/2010 10:21:52 AM PST
by
nutmeg
(Congratulations Senator-elect Scott Brown!!! Gas up the truck!!!)
To: steve-b
For what's it's worth.......
An article via The Washington Independent purporting to show an email from Sherry Phillips with the Tea Party Nation
By David Weigel 1/30/10 2:50 PM
Members of the Tea Party Nation e-mail list received an astonishing e-mail this afternoon, naming, rebutting, and attacking their critics. Sherry Phillips’s email is posted after the jump.
Judson and I have stayed silent in the face of intense media scrutiny and attacks by former members. As a wife and a mother, I have stood by my husband and family and stayed strong in the face of many baseless accusations and criticism. We have refrained from responding to many of the attacks that have been thrown at us from other “Tea Party” groups, in the belief we did not want to spread the divisions that are already hurting this movement even though that does not seem to be the consideration of some others involved in this movement. Because of the many TPN members’ requests
and encouragement, I have decided to provide comment about Tea Party Nation and the National Tea Party Convention. We will stay silent no longer. I hope my comments and the issues I deal with in this note will provide some clarity.
American Liberty Alliance – Eric Odom’s American Liberty Alliance
is a for profit company that takes donations. We agreed to a sponsorship exchange where ALA would be a gold sponsor of the convention and we would be a gold sponsor of the Tax Day Tea Party. Shortly after agreeing to this exchange, Eric emailed Judson and me privately saying he was supportive of us and this convention and did not want to pull out, because he thinks this convention is going to be a huge success; however, some his “influential supporters” were not happy about ALA’s participation
in the convention and asked Eric to withdraw.
American Majority – After stating in the beginning they wanted
to co-sponsor the convention, they never answered repeated emails sent asking them for confirmation of their attendance. They did not promote the convention and did not put the convention on their calendar. In fact Ned Ryun spent 5 minutes in an interview on Fox News talking about the Tea Party movement and did not mention the convention at all. Meanwhile, another training organization contacted us asking if they could become a sponsor and if they could do a breakout session. We gladly accepted and gave them American Majority’s spots. On January 6, Ned’s assistant sent an email stating she was making travel arrangements for them to come and participate in the convention and asked when did we have their breakouts scheduled. I told her because of their non-response,
we gave American Majority’s slots to this other organization. They
then requested that their logo be removed from the Convention website. We complied with their request.
Tea Party Express – This group has been very supportive of us. They intended to do a small tour, culminating in an event Saturday afternoon prior to the banquet. Because of their efforts in the Scott Brown race and their intent to go after Harry Reid in Nevada, they simply cannot make the trip. We received a very nice email from them explaining their actions and restating their invitation to join them when they kick off their next tour in March. We will be there. We fully support their endeavors as they open their next tour in Nevada this spring.
Campaign for Liberty – We actively sought out Campaign for Liberty
as a sponsor of this convention. We were contacted several weeks ago by the TN Director for CFL who wanted to co-sponsor the convention and I put him in touch with our Sponsorship Chair. We have not heard anything from them since.
Former Tea Party Nation Members – Several former members were
unanimously banned from our site for reasons running the gamut from antagonism to passing on confidential information. These members have been blogging, as well as discussing their association with liberal media outlets and conspiring with each other to, “Take TPN and this convention down”.
In one of their more egregious statements a former member wrote that Judson stated, “I want to make a million dollars from this movement.” Judson has never made this statement. He has stated on numerous occasions that he would like TPN to have a million members all fighting for the cause of conservatism!
Bill Hemrick – Mr. Hemrick made a business loan to Tea Party
Nation at a commercial interest rate. This loan has been paid back in full. That is the full extent of any relationship we have had with Mr. Hemrick.
Congressmen Bachmann and Blackburn – Both Congresswomen have large targets on their backs and are rightfully concerned about backlash they will receive from the left-leaning Democrat controlled House Ethics Committee. Because of the complexity of the Ethics Code regarding House Representatives, we have no doubt the Democrats would have found something in that code to cause them problems once the convention was over. We were also informed by Rep. Bachmann that both were being told two different things by the House Ethics Committee in regard to their participation. This of course sent up red flags to everyone involved. We do not blame either Congressman for their decision to withdraw from the convention and maintain a strong relationship with them both.
Tea Party Nation – Last February after Judson held one of the
first tea parties in the country in downtown Nashville, he came up with the idea for a social networking site for conservatives. Judson and I created Tea Party Nation. We formed the corporation. We financed the corporation. We bought the domain name teapartynation.com, we purchased the servers and we pay for the
monthly expenses. We are a C-Corp and do not accept donations. Tea Party Nation charges nothing to be a member and is run entirely by volunteers. Recently, we have been able to start charging for advertising on the site to help defray the costs of running the site.
As TPN has stated since its formation, we are not a non-profit. We prefer to offer free membership to conservative patriots so they may participate in the political process of restoring this nation to its founding principles without financial burdens, hardships or roadblocks to prevent their participation. Members are then able to choose their own way to spend their money without any involvement from TPN.
PayPal Account – We are using a business PayPal account for the convention. An email address is required to notify a contact when
payment is received and we are using my TPN email account at sherry@teapartynation.com as that notification email address. All money in that account is transferred directly into the TPN business bank account.
We fully expect to break even during this event. We may even make
a few thousand dollars to cover local operating costs of TPN.
We have made the best of a tight budget and scaled back the price of
attending this convention as much as we could without putting TPN into bankruptcy. The convention is sold out and we have a waiting list of over five hundred people. We never did this to make us rich or
famous. Quite the contrary, we are patriots who love our country, our members and the people who are coming to Nashville to attend this great event.
For all of you who will be attending, we look forward to meeting you
this upcoming week and we thank everyone for the support and patriotism in this fight against liberalism. God bless you all and I thank you for your prayers and words of encouragement.
27
posted on
02/01/2010 10:32:33 AM PST
by
deport
(29 DAYS UNTIL THE TEXAS PRIMARY....... MARCH 2, 2010)
To: steve-b
Cool...anything you commies hate, I love!
Especially profit.
28
posted on
02/01/2010 10:36:32 AM PST
by
roses of sharon
(I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13)
To: steve-b
I don’t have a problem with this at all. It costs fairly serious money to stage a convention and I am glad to see that someone may make a profit from it and the profit will allow them to do it again.
The convention is mostly sold out, answering any questions one might have about whether the average Tea Partier can afford to attend. There are some events that still have some seats left.
Other people’s venues are not free, but can be quite expensive.
To: steve-b
Conservative Patriots Group Formed in Alaska as a for-profit organization because it meant we wouldn't be restricted in our activities by a non-profit staus. Cuts down on paperwork and tax/regulation problems.
30
posted on
02/01/2010 10:42:35 AM PST
by
redhead
(Alaska: Step out of the bus and into the food chain...)
To: red tie
what are you even talking about? Smoke and mirrors?
To: hilaryrhymeswithrich
We were discussing why this convention is so expensive and you are making excuses without providing any detail. Yes, some conventions can be very expensive and many aren’t. So
what is included in this cost? Apparently you don’t know that.
32
posted on
02/01/2010 11:30:17 AM PST
by
red tie
To: red tie
Be polite to others on FR. Attempt to make sense when you post something.
33
posted on
02/01/2010 11:31:11 AM PST
by
listenhillary
(FU Cass Sunstein - You are the embodiment of evil)
To: steve-b
Many fear the group is losing its grassroots momentum to Republican profit-driving. Ayn Rand said profits are good.
To: listenhillary
I was being polite and it works both ways!
35
posted on
02/01/2010 11:33:42 AM PST
by
red tie
To: red tie
Do you know what is included and why it is thus too expensive? Where are YOUR details? Throwing out accusations and accusing people of not providing justification and yet you don’t seem to have any real details either. Expensive compared to what? CPAC...not the case...an afternoon at a local townhall for a day of information with only local folks? Perhaps...Depends what you want out of an event.
What is included? From what I can see from a simply look at the agenda is a variety of speakers, breakout sessions and facilities that have to accomodate more than 700 people. I am sure anyone here who has ever held an event or a rally can tell you the costs. Do you think marches on Washington are free? Have you any idea what the costs are just for the permits, security, park cleanup and port-o-potties alone are? And that is before you even get into a stage, sound system, etc.
You seem ready to think of the worst of people, many of whom are presumably from the same side of the activist aisle, with no facts to back up YOUR allegations. Though, you have been posting here for a few weeks and I have been here for 7 years so...
To: deport
I read this yesterday and thought it was very interesting. Kinda puts into perspective some of the sniping we’ve seen.
37
posted on
02/01/2010 3:38:28 PM PST
by
SuziQ
To: hilaryrhymeswithrich
I apologize for using the term “smoke and mirrors”. I was just wondering if the fees quoted in this post were accurate and what they included. You didn't seem to know either, yet you gave me the impression you felt they were still somehow justified with no further info. In any case I'm not going, so if others want to pay whatever they are charging, for whatever they think they are getting, they sure don't need my approval to spend their money to do whatever they think they are going to do at this event.
38
posted on
02/01/2010 4:44:05 PM PST
by
red tie
To: The Mayor
Who are they? Anyone know? Just one of thousands of tea party orgs that have sprung up since February of last year.
Not unlike TEANewYork.com except that they are having a nationwide event.
It's easy to go to their website and find out about them
I notice you got one other reply, a negative one.
I think the Tea Party Convention is a great idea, and will further the cause of the grass roots Tea Party Movement.
There is no need for any other tea party org to be tied to the convention or the national movement if they don't want to.
IMO they are not trying to a "hijack" anything, they are just a local org that is having an event.
More power to them
Oh and that's great you were on the radio representing your TEA Party Movement.
39
posted on
02/02/2010 8:51:58 PM PST
by
Syncro
(TPXIII coming soon! March 27th to April 15th 2010)
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20, 21-39 last
Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson