Category: Tea Party

So It Turns Out Pope Francis Did NOT Invite Kim Davis Personally, Or, At All

So it turns out that Pope Francis did NOT invite Kim Davis to a personal audience. NOR did a personal audience with Pope Francis between the pontiff and Ms. Davis occur.

Her lawyer is lying.

I’m shocked that lawyers would lie.

I know that you are too.

But Kim Davis’ lawyer is part of a recognized hate group, the Liberty Counsel.

From the New York Times:

Ever since it became public that Pope Francis met in Washington with Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples, the questions have been swirling: Why did he meet with her, and was it meant as a political statement?

As it turns out, the Vatican said on Friday, the pope did not mean to endorse Ms. Davis’s views. It also said he gave her no more than a typical brief greeting, despite what her lawyer described.

Instead, the Vatican said that Francis gave only one “real audience”: to someone later identified as one of his former students, Yayo Grassi, a gay man in Washington who says he brought his partner of 19 years to the Vatican’s embassy in Washington for a reunion. They even shot video.

The disclosure, after the Vatican’s unusual attempt to correct the impressions left by Francis’ meeting with Ms. Davis, added to days of speculation about whether Francis intended to send a message on the place of gays in the church, or conscientious objection, and whether his advisers had fully briefed him on Ms. Davis, or had their own agenda.

The Vatican spokesman emphasized that the meeting with Ms. Davis was arranged by the office of the Vatican’s ambassador in Washington, not by anyone in Rome — including the pope.

Read more here.


Letter to Coffee Party Community from Founder, Annabel Park

A letter from Annabel Park, founder of the Coffee Party, a wonderful organization that is now run by a group full of self-interest.

The original motto of the Coffee Party? Incite Civility! She wrote the following commentary on CNN in 2010. She and Eric Byler gave their hearts and souls to the Coffee Party, a group counter to the Tea Party and their shouting, embodied with the notion that civil discussion could advance great ideas.

The Coffee Party deserves better than the current board, refusing to hold open elections for a few years now, contrary to the organization’s bylaws, contrary to any notion of good faith, contrary to common sense.

Please read the following, read the lawsuit, and sign on.

Dear Members of the Coffee Party Community,

I’m writing on behalf of concerned Members of the organization who have taken an extraordinary step of filing a lawsuit against the Board of Directors for financial self-dealing, misuse of Membership’s personal data, and other abuses of power. Here is a link to the lawsuit filed last December in Washington DC. And, here is a more colloquial explanation of what has taken place behind closed doors.

When I left Coffee Party leadership in 2011, we hired consultants to oversee the creation of a governing board of directors accountable to, and elected by you, the Members. Sadly that is not what happened.

In the fallout from multi-level marketing scheme scandal, this Board of Directors has disqualified all candidates nominated to challenge them, and run themselves unopposed in elections to avoid oversight, transparency, and debate about their conduct.

They prefer to appoint new Directors rather than allowing you to elect them, thus, the Coffee Party’s resources and energy seem to go toward fighting the Membership’s lawsuit and suppressing dissent through censorship, and the purging of dozens of founding and long-time Members, rather than toward campaigns and actions that might impact the real world.

In the interest of moving forward as a community, I would like to invite you to an informal Coffee Party community meeting that you can participate in online and in person.

—————————————————

WHEN:  August 22, 2015, 3pm-5pm ET
WHERE In-Person: 1101 Hamilton Street, Suite 158A, Allentown, PA 18102
WHERE By Phone: Register for the Maestro call here.

—————————————————

You can RSVP here or by replying to this email. Link for the livestream will be posted on Original Coffee Party Facebook group and online discussions and a vote will take place there.

This meeting is at the end of a day-long conference, Awaken We the People, organized by some original Coffee Party founders, including me, about creating a national network of local organizers. Leaders of other networks and organizations including Occupy Wall Street will be participating. The conference is free and open to the public, from 9am to 3pm. I urge you to attend this as well. Please RSVP.

Along with the future of the lawsuit, the agenda for the Coffee Party community meeting (3pm-5pm) will include a number of action ideas about how we can advance the principles of the original vision.

The Members’ lawsuit asks the court to force the Board of Directors to hold legitimate and fair elections, as prescribed by the bylaws, where no candidate can be disqualified arbitrarily.  The Defendants’ and their lawyers say they intend to fight this, and currently the Members are seeking more people to sign on in order to refile the complaint with the requisite number of plaintiffs (about 20 more plaintiffs are needed).

The plaintiffs have recently secured a lawyer in DC who has agreed to take on our case pro bono. This is a big opportunity in terms of seeking a legal remedy.

Unless the plaintiffs see the lawsuit through, it’s very likely that this democracy movement we started in order to fight corruption will continue to thwart democracy and embody corruption. But restoring the integrity and renewing the mission of the Coffee Party will require us all to work for it. At this meeting we’ll decide whether it’s worth it. We would like to make the discussion an open and civil one in the original Coffee Party tradition.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the lawsuit, we will conduct several informational calls prior to the August 22nd meeting with plenty of time for you to ask questions. Or, you can join and participate in the The Original Coffee Party Facebook group where many of us have gathered for the time being.

On a personal note, starting in October, I will be embarking on a year-long road trip across the country, Coffee with Friends Across America. Although inspired by John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America, my dream has a contemporary twist to it. I hope to meet many of my 5000 facebook friends and 3000 followers including all of you.

During the trip, I hope we can share authentic stories from Main St and search for real solutions together. I hope that videos and content that we make together can impact the national conversation leading up to the 2016 election. To get updates on this, please follow me on my facebook page.

Thanks again for your interest in the aims of the original Coffee Party. Don’t hesitate to contact me on Facebook or by replying to this email to discuss any of this.

Sincerely,

Annabel Park

PS – Please sign this “Step Down Now” petition already signed by 590 people.


Rand Paul’s Cliven Bundy Says People Think He’s Racist Because Martin Luther King Jr. Didn’t Finish His Job

Cliven Bundy

Cliven Bundy

Well, now I know who Cliven Bundy is, and I wish I didn’t.

And, for the life of me, I don’t understand why he’s getting so much attention.

Bundy has been allowing his cattle to graze on federally-owned lands. The feds don’t want that to happen any more. Bundy used an “ancestral rights” argument, likening his treatment to the way Native Americans were treated by the United States.

This man is a real tool.

Here is part of a CNN interview where he blames Martin Luther King Jr. that he, Bundy, can’t say anything he wants, like the N-word, calling black men “boy,” etc.

Watch as he moves from offensive to more offensive.

And, until he came out with his racist comments, Senator Rand Paul and other members of the GOP adopted him as their new love child.

Watch the interview and cringe:

H/T: http://www.politicususa.com


Get Rid of Corporate Rule! Direct TV Parody Compilation

Get rid of corporate rule!

The full campaign spoofing the Direct TV commercials, produced by Acronym TV for Move To Amend. All six spots, each about 30 seconds, are included here in this single video. 

Written by Lee Camp and Dennis Trainor, Jr, and Directed by Trainor, these spots aim to hijack a popular meme to shine a seriously unserious light on the issues of corporate personhood and money as free speech. 

Move to Amend is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people, not corporate interests.

We are calling for an amendment to the US Constitution to unequivocally state that inalienable rights belong to human beings only, and that money is not a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment and can be regulated in political campaigns.

Over 300,00 people have signed the Move To Amend statement that states:
We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and other related cases, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights. 

Links to each video as a stand-alone piece are below. We encourage you to share these far and wide.

Move To Amend, Direct TV Parody Campaign:
Don’t Be A Naked Hulk http://bit.ly/1eMqmeQ
Don’t Do Interpretive Street Corner Dance http://bit.ly/IKi65g
Don’t Miss The Supermodel Love Letter http://bit.ly/19fbNwm
Don’t Get Ducked Taped To A Chair In The Yardhttp://bit.ly/1g3IG7b
Don’t Do Cats http://bit.ly/1bdJL8P
Don’t Be A Loser With No One At Your Birthdayhttp://bit.ly/18YCOI2

Move To Amend’s Direct TV Parody Compilation
Written by Lee Camp and Dennis Trainor, Jr
Directed by Dennis Trainor, Jr.
Editing, graphics, keying and color correction by AJ Russo
Associate Producer Christopher Webb
Costumes Lara de Bruijn

Corporate personhood, Supreme court, Super Bowl Ad, Super Bowl parody ad, Super Bowl spoof commercial, Douche waffle, Douche Waffles, Money free speech, corporations are not people, corporate personhood, Lee camp, Dennis Trainor Jr, Acronym TV, parody, satire, comedy, spoof, Direct TV, Move To Amend, Amend the constitution, Legalize Democracy, End Corporate Rule.


Damn the GOP. What They’re Doing Is Unprecedented, Immoral, and Evil

The GOP government shutdown just hit home for a close friend.

His son, a laborer who lives in a so-called "Right To Work" state, was out of work. He had been let go from his previous job because he became injured outside of work. Rather than give him a month to heal, which is all he needed, his employer at the time just let him go. Tried to tell him that he was doing him a favor. That he could collect unemployment, as opposed to making nothing for the 30 days or so he would need to heal.

And his employer knew that this lad had only worked for him for five months, therefore not qualifying for unemployment. And, it turns out, this employer has done this to other workers, letting them go in the fifth month of employment, so the employer has to pay neither benefits nor unemployment.

This is what the GOP refers to as "Right To Work," the myth that, forbidding unions from requiring workers to join a union when they get a job, workers now can be "free" of union dues and work, because, dammit, they have the right to work.

In reality, it means states full of workers, like my friend’s son, who have no union protection, no unions who negotiated fair working conditions. None of that. Not at all.

And employers can be as ruthless as the nasty members of the GOP, some of the meanest pols we’ve seen since just before the Great Depression, when robber barons ruled, and pols danced to their commands.

So my friend’s son applied for another job. Went through the entire interview process. Passed every background check, drug test — paid for by the hiring company — and was given his "new employee" packet.

And, on what was supposed to be his first day of work, was told that the company could not start him, because of the government shutdown.

Because of the government shutdown, the company was not certain that some contracts would be upheld.

That’s not what they told him at first. But, after he pressed them, they admitted this was, in fact, the case. The government shutdown.

The damn GOP government shutdown.

His son says it was evident the company was scrambling. Some news from on high had reached the blue collar workers, and the company, and American company, was being downsized.

These inglorious GOP members of Congress have got to go.

All of them.

They claim that this shutdown is the fault of the Democrats and the Democratic President who "refuse to negotiate.

Bullshit.

And here’s proof.

From BillMoyers.com, proof that this debt ceiling crisis is not politics as usual:

Never before has a minority party linked controversial legislative demands with a threat to shut down the government or imperil the global economy. But House Republicans would have you believe otherwise.

In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this morning, Rep. Paul Ryan writes that president Obama “says he ‘will not negotiate’ on the debt ceiling. He claims that such negotiations would be unprecedented. But many presidents have negotiated on the debt ceiling—including him. ”

Ryan was referring to a speech given in September before the Business Roundtable — an association of CEOs of large US companies — in which the president said, “You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt ceiling being used to extort a president or a governing party, and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and have nothing to do with the debt.”

Ryan continued: “He’s refusing to talk, even though the federal government is about to hit the debt ceiling. That’s a shame — because this doesn’t have to be another crisis. It could be a breakthrough.”

But that’s spin: Negotiating would set a dangerous precedent, because Obama’s right that this time really is different. Here are three reasons why.

Go to the original article here and read, and then act.


Video: Shutstorm 2013: America Sits on Its Balls – Bias on Bulls**t Mountain, Jon Stewart

Could there be a higher octane fuel for the Fox News false outrage exploitation engine than wheelchair-bound World War II veterans?

Jon Stewart at his best. Surgical. Precise.

And with firm proof that the GOP planned and engineered this shutdown.

Proof.

From 80 Congressional members of the GOP.

And don’t forget Smokey the Bear.


Tea Partiers Behave Like Communists: Shut Out Media, Attack Media, Claiming Public State Property Is Private

This was filmed on the public lawn of the Arizona State Capitol on September 7, 2013 where the "We Are America Tour" added Arizona racist, former State Senate President President Russell Pearce. Pearce is famous for SB1070 and his association and endorsement of neo-Nazi JT Ready, who killed an entire family before killing himself in 2012. The local racists have worked closely with FAIR for years. I was there to film the speakers. It’s a safe guess that if Minute Man Founder Chris Simcox wasn’t sitting in jail for multiple counts of child molestation that he would’ve been a speaker at this event also. Is it any wonder why they didn’t want the "liberal Media" filming them? For my own safety, I refused to leave without a police escort. It took over 7 minutes for any law enforcement to arrive.

The video is edited only for length.

For the most accurate info on these groups like BALA or We Are America or tea party, racists and others part of this event, read here: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com