They’ve since backed off, but it’s pretty clear they were hoping their early, pre-reported attempts to intimidate a particular demographic from attending a public event being put on by elected officials was an active decision by the Capitol Hill Police force.
At every level of government — where the power lies, and where the powerful are insulated and protected by their hired guards and their media enablers — the TEA Party, which represents the voice of the people, petitioning our government for redress of grievances (particularly those brought about by an overreaching federal government acting outside its constitutional authority), is looked upon by the establishment and its protection forces as a bigger threat than, say, the Occupy movement, or any of the other leftwing cranks and identity bloc groups who routinely hold rallies that draw virtually no one to the Hill.
In fact, we are looked upon as wacko birds, Hobbits, racist terrorists lying in wait.
Why is that, do you think? He asked. Rhetorically.
Capitol Hill police are trying to block activists attending Wednesday’s “Audit the IRS” rally from also attending a nearly day-long press conference on immigration, hosted by Reps. Steve King and Louie Gohmert. The IRS rally is on the west side of the Capitol, while the immigration event is on the east side. Organizers for the IRS event were told by Hill police that “your people” can only assemble on the west side. Organizers were told to remove the activists from the immigration event.
Capitol Hill police left a voicemail for Kevin Mooneyhan, Deputy Executive Director of Tea Party Patriots, saying that “your people” only are permitted to assemble for the event on the west side of the Capitol. The activists’ presence at the immigration event on the east side, supposedly violates the terms of the Tea Party’s permit. Mooneyhan was instructed to move any activists who planned on attending the Tea Party rally away from the immigration event.
Keep in mind, the immigration event is hosted by sitting members of Congress. The notion that citizens can’t attend an event featuring duly elected Representatives in a public space is absurd.
Remember: only fringe lunatics and hyperbolic talk show hosts believe we’ve entered a phase of soft tyranny and are watching the beginnings of a police state form around coalesced federal authority.
Whereas our more pragmatic, realistic brethren on the right — those who are the good ones, inasmuch as they don’t consider any of this untoward to the point of necessitating histrionic displays of victimhood (and please, won’t you small government types just shut the fuck up and stop ruining our election chances? I mean, we’ve got Jeb and Chris waiting to lead us to the promised land!) and who sniff right along with the progressives they’re hoping to find grudging acceptance among at the True Believers who are so unhelpful — recognize and accept this all to be business as usual, part and parcel of the contact sport of politics.
— Never realizing that by having reduced politics to a game they are themselves a willing participant in the establishment’s view of government and who really gets a say in it.
Purists can’t play the game. So they should just leave the heavy lifting to the nuanced GOP realist crowd, who knows all the angles and has succeeded in, well, driving the country ever more leftward.
Great job, fellas! Who I’m nearly certain will very soberly point out the overreaction by those who were being barred and allow that this was merely a communication error and a misunderstanding, giving the benefit of the doubt to those who would molest you being a hallmark of nuance.
(h/t sdferr)
In Orlando, an anti-Common Core meeting was scheduled in a hotel (Ritz-Carlton) adjoining the Marriott where a Common Core training meeting is being held.
Then ten days before the meeting, the Ritz-Carlton told the anti-CC folks that they were canceling the event, tearing up the contract, and refunding their money.
Nice hotel you got there. Shame if anything were to happen to it.
“your people” ? Sounds racist
Funny how the soft tyranny never stays warm and cuddly. I guess we must be doing it wrong.
If everybody on the west side of the building up and decided to walk around to the east side en masse, what would they do?
Bring in the tanks Tienanmen Square style?
Send in the drones?
Perhaps the organizers of the immigration event should put up a border fence, or demand that newcomers provide some credentials proving they belong there…
OT, but needs to be seen:
Boston bomber a “victim of gun violence”.
Can I call it fascism? I think I will no matter what the verdict is.
…what would they do?
Bring in the tanks Tienanmen Square style?
Send in the drones?
Worse. They’ll take down your name.
What could the Party do to the average Chinese? People who already had nothing, and no significant prospects for a real future? The only option the Chinese state had was tanks and bullets.
People here still think they have something to lose.
We need to get over that hump, fast. The longer we wait the more illusory our ‘valuables’ become.
meanwhile in the town of “liberty”
“Harassment” Prosecution Based on Insulting Language Written by Driver on Traffic Ticket Payment Form
[…] Jeff Goldstein reports that the Capital Hill Police eventually backed-off from their demand. […]
If everybody on the west side of the building up and decided to walk around to the east side en masse, what would they do?
Darth,
The Capital Hill Police were probably just afraid it might tip over like Guam.
we be the new “black,negro,colored”
Eventually for everyone, every group that is not explicitly conservative there will come a time when they must choose, are forced to choose between their issue, their supposed reason for being and what “the cause” calls them to do.
For NOW it was the Bill and Monica affair. For AARP it was Obamacare where they threw seniors under the bus. For MADD the time is now. They have been called, and have answered, “Yes Master, whatever you ask we will do.”
steely dan – the royal scam
uncanny @1976
[Chorus]
I’m a bookkeeper’s son
I don’t want to shoot no one
Well I crossed my old man back in Oregon
Don’t take me alive
Got a case of dynamite
I could hold out here all night
Yes I crossed my old man back in Oregon
Don’t take me alive
Can you hear the evil crowd
The lies and the laughter
I hear my inside
The mechanized hum of another world
Where no sun is shining
No red light flashing
Here in this darkness
I know what I’ve done
I know all at once who I am
“No I’m never gonna do it without the fez on
Oh no
No I’m never gonna do it without the fez on
Oh no
That’s what I am
Please understand
I wanna be your holy man
No I’m never gonna do it without the fez on
Oh no
Ain’t never gonna do it without the fez on
Oh no
That’s what I am
Please understand
I wanna be your holy man “