Pic Of The Moment: Remember When The Tea Party Was All About Ending Wasteful Spending?

[EarlG]

Tea Party Grifters Get Noticed, Finally (WaPo shows some temerity in writing about this)

Cherokee Co. tea party chief on track for a $450,000 year

Follow @demunderground

[The Magistrate]

1. 'Eecingflay the Ongregationcay', Sir

That is what it really is all about, the whole thing.

Right wing politics is at bottom a marketing scam....

[erronis]

13. And nobody from the TP/RW believes this bull except the insane

While I can stand in the hallways of my work (financial services) or talk to a few people that I know that profess to the anti-government mantra, very few are intelligent enough to argue the underlying rationale.

They are perfectly happy to raise their voices and declare you a cretin (related to christian?).
They can tell you that they have heard similar screeds from their friends.
They will say that they saw it on T.V. (what's that?)

However, I think that the vast majority of the rwingers are knowingly spewing bs, not because they believe it, but because they don't want to acknowledge that the reality is far different than their fairy tales.

[Scuba]

2. Grifters scamming their followers, just like the old time religion they espouse.

[GeorgeGist]

3. The rank and file ...

Proud but poor.

[lame54]

4. That guy looks familiar...

[VWolf]

7. Uggh. That last poster was wretched

It said "Your health, your problem"

What a bunch of assholes.

[HangOnKids]

36. The Abort Pelosi and Waterboard Obama

Posters were just as assholey. Who the fuck are these freaks? Oh yes, BILLIONARE ball lickers that's who.

[KT2000]

5. Will this sink in with them?

They are oblivious to facts but money is something else entirely. It has a way of cutting through the smoke. They've been had.

[calimary]

6. Methinks you may be giving them more credit than they deserve.

NOBODY likes to admit they've been had, even though, as you point out, KT2000, they HAVE INDEED! This is EXACTLY what's happened, judging from the evidence. And NOBODY wants to admit it. It's shameful and proves how gullible and stupid one is. And NOBODY wants to admit that. So I frankly expect most of them to deny this, insist it's not true, insist that they're "right" and that they will carry the day. They'll cling to their delusions like they do with their insistence that there is no such thing as climate change and cliven bundy is some sort of hero. And maybe they will carry the day for another election cycle.

But they bought and paid for, and are now living in houses built on sand, and you know what eventually happens to those. Especially when there's climate change involved...

[AAO]

24. DAYAM! Great band!

This is a great link to hear some great music! https://soundcloud.com/acidic-band

[calimary]

30. Why THANK YOU!!!

You should see 'em live! They absolutely kill!

PROUD of them I am!!!

[HooptieWagon]

8. You say it like its a bad thing.

Personally, I applaud Tea-bagging grifters who spend only a fraction of donations on supporting candidates. It sure helps Dems out.

[FailureToCommunicate]

9. That IS a silver lining right there.

[oldandhappy]

10. wow amazing

Thanks

[AleksS]

11. It's pretty much always been a scam to divert MORE money

It's pretty much always been a scam to divert MORE money into the leaders' pockets via "consulting fees" and salaries, etc.

I just read (probably on here) about one teabagger leader who's raking in $450,000 a year on the scam.

Oh yes, here it is:
***********Edit to add: HA! This link is also a link referenced in one of the links in the OP. So if you clicked through up there, no need to click through here too. (It's the WaPo story.)*************

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tea-party-pacs-reap-money-for-midterms-but-spend-little-on-candidates/2014/04/26/0e52919a-cbd6-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html

"Jenny Beth Martin, the super PAC’s chairwoman, oversees all its expenditures, according to organization spokesperson Daniel Broughton, meaning she sets her own $15,000 monthly fee for strategic consulting — payments that have totaled $120,000 since July.

She also draws a salary as president of the Tea Party Patriots’ nonprofit arm — getting more than $272,000 in the 2012 fiscal year, according to the group’s most recent tax filing.

Her twin salaries put her on track to make more than $450,000 this year"

[starroute]

12. The Tea Party Leadership Fund is my particular pet peeve

It's headed by Dan Backer -- the lawyer who brought the McCutcheon case and who has also been one of the chief movers behind the phony IRS scandal. There's an article about its scammy ways at http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/11/15/tea-party-leadership-fund-scam/

In fact, last fall Backer had the chutzpah to petition the FEC for his TheTeaParty.net to be allowed to keep not only its donors but even its vendors secret on the grounds that his had been harassed by the IRS and feared public retaliation. (See http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/11/18/2959081/tea-party-fec-exemption/ -- also the chuckle-worthy actual filing at http://saos.nictusa.com/aodocs/1246367.pdf )

Backer also has a long history of scamming tea partiers and has set up any number of right-wing PACs that promise more than they deliver. The most notorious example is the One Nation PAC, which he set up in 2009 on behalf of Kelly Eustis, a twenty year old former College Republican. Eustis had previously been an employee of the Our Country Deserves Better PAC -- the organization behind the Tea Party Express -- before being fired for his apparently outrageous behavior. Most of the PAC's expenditures went to Eustis, his own consulting firm, and an associate from the Tea Party Express who had been fired along with him.

Backer was both the treasurer and the legal counsel of the PAC, and it seems likely that he was calling the shots. For example, in August 2010 Eustis copyrighted the name "One Nation PAC" and Backer immediately brought a copyright infringement suit against a coalition consisting of the NAACP, Sierra Club, AFL-CIO and La Raza that was planning a march on Washington under the name One Nation Working Together.

The thing about people like Backer is that they're not only crooked but crooked in so many different ways it can make your head spin trying to keep track of them. And as the McCutcheon case shows, some of their activities are far from innocuous.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

17. Can't copyright a name. Perhaps you mean Trademark infringement suit. nt

[starroute]

19. You're right -- thanks for the correction

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-brantzawadzki/sarah-palins-bus-tour-gui_b_872179.html

[1StrongBlackMan]

14. Well ...

at least the Tea Party Patriots are true to their motto "Pursu(ing) ... American Dream" ... wants more representative of their version of the American Dream than getting rich by scamming folks?

[SummerSnow]

15. I remember when they first emerged..

It was reported from Conservative media outlets that the tea party was a group of college educated Americans who was just fighting against wasteful spending.But that lie got exposed really quick.


What tangled webs we weave, we when practice to deceive. Or something like that.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Pursue Their American Dream: get fat off dumb teabag suckers. nt

[TeamPooka]

18. Assholes conning assholes #suckers - Glad to know they got taken for every $$ donated. nt

[lame54]

21. Beats paying taxes...

which go to schools, roads, infrastructure, etc.

better to give it to con men who tell you what you want to hear

[TeamPooka]

22. You are claiming money citizens donate to charity or political parties is stolen tax revenue and

belongs to the state?
WTF are you talking about?
Seriously, wtf are you talking about?

[lame54]

23. they are supporting a party that claims they will eliminate taxes...

that's what i'm talking about

of course it will never happen - but these fools throw money at them thinking it will come true

[TeamPooka]

29. They are buying unicorns from con men.

[lame54]

35. poisonous unicorns...

that like the taste of human flesh

[mountain grammy]

20. Taking money from the stupid..

like taking candy from a baby.

[SoapBox]

25. Pukes and now TeaTerrorists...the WORST at managing money!

I wouldn't trust Pukes with my money ever...they'll just steal it or waste it away.

[liberal N proud]

26. When they pretended to be about concerned about wasteful spending.

The same people who showed no concern until there was a black man in the White. House.

[unblock]

27. no, no, no! it was always about *privatizing* wasteful spending!

[LarryNM]

31. +1 n/t

[randys1]

28. No, I dont actually...they were about "keep govt hands off my Medicare" and hating Obama

and nothing else.

What binds them is their hate for Black Prez

[ThoughtCriminal]

32. Why are they allowed to make ANY campaign contributions?

Maybe this particular teabag group is using a different filing, but isn't the whole IRS outrage about them filing as "Primarily non-political, educational educational" 503(c)(?) entities?

But apparently it is "Political" for the IRS to ask if organizations that file as non-political are - you know - heavily involved in politics.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

33. That's great. I stumbled on this a few days ago...

[font size=5]Tea party PACs reap money for midterms, but spend little on candidates[/font size]

----
Meanwhile, tea party leaders and their family members have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees, while their groups have doled out large sums for airfare, a retirement plan and even interior decorating.

The lavish spending underscores how the protest movement has gone professional, with national groups transforming themselves into multimillion-dollar organizations run by activists collecting six-figure salaries.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tea-party-pacs-reap-money-for-midterms-but-spend-little-on-candidates/2014/04/26/0e52919a-cbd6-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html?wpisrc=nl_hdln

Make no mistake. The Tea Party is a money maker designed to take advantage of white anger over a black president.

[merrily]

34. TP was always about Koch brothers.

Ending their spending on taxes.