On the Backs of Tennessee’s Middle Class (The Story Behind Tea Party Nation’s Dishonest Beginnings)

[Emit]

"... It’s become clear to me that Judson and his for-profit Tea Party Nation Corporation are at the forefront of the GOP’s process of hijacking the tea party movement ..." Kevin Smith

On the Backs of Tennessee’s Middle Class (or, The Story Behind Tea Party Nation’s Dishonest Beginnings)
posted by Kevin Smith on 01/12/10 @ 2:00pm

This is the story of the tea party movement in Nashville and the duplicitous behavior, dishonesty, authoritarianism, and downright fraud that this movement is trying to ferret out of our Government. Unfortunately, this particular case comes from the inside. It’s lengthy, but important. What began as a short blog post has become a novella. I left out as many extraneous details as I possibly could and this is the boiled-down result.

~snip~

Something was bothering me. The more Judson talked about Tea Party Nation internally and publicly (I want TPN to be bigger than Facebook!), the more I began to realize that he’d taken a sort of back door approach to accomplishing the big idea he’d asked me about many months before at Fido. With an overwhelming amount of tiny requests, along with the volunteer efforts of a few other gracious people, he’d managed to have me create the conservative version of Facebook that he dreamed about. Then I remembered: Judson wanted income from Tea Party Nation to replace his income from the law practice. Everything clicked, and I was steamed.

~snip~

The Truth Comes Out
The following Monday, Judson went on air for a radio interview with Ralph Bristol, the talk radio host slotted before DelGiorno in the schedule. Bristol asked Judson about the donation box on the website; I assume in order to help boost donations. If people knew how the money was being used, they would be more likely to contribute. The host also asked in a leading manner, This is set up as a non-profit, of course. Judson’s answer was that he’d decided to set it up as a for-profit corporation, and that the majority of the donations would be for “paying our web designer.” I didn’t find out about this train wreck of an interview until the following Wednesday night, but this certainly explained why donations slowed to a trickle on Monday. For-profit, are you kidding me?!

This was not what our group planned, and in talking with other members of the leadership, this is not what we wanted to happen. Sure enough, the filing was effective for the for-profit Tea Party Nation Corporation on April 21, 2009, the day after Judson’s interview with Ralph Bristol, and Judson filed the papers such that he was the sole owner of Tea Party Nation.

By the time I found out, it was a done deal. I pleaded with Judson to change this. He agreed to hear concerns but made clear that he was now the owner of Tea Party Nation. He would be making the decisions. Judson’s asinine reasoning for the for-profit status was that Obama would do away with non-profits in 2009 or 2010. (I’m not sure where he conjured that idea, but even if it were true, it would still have been in our best interest and in the best interest of the movement for our group to have been formed as a non-profit. To my understanding, it was not at all legal to solicit and accept donations as a for-profit corporation.) He wrote, “The founders of facebook not only use their website to support the causes they believe in, they use the wealth they have created to do the same. We need to even the playing field.” However, Tea Party Nation and Facebook are two completely different entities– at least they should be, given that one of the two organizations received its start-up capital from middle-class donors who believed they were contributing to a movement and its labor from volunteers believing they were donating their time to an effort to restore the Republic.

http://imr.toliberty.com/2010/01/12/on-the-backs-of-tennessees-middle-class-or-the-story-behind-tea-party-nations-dishonest-beginnings/

[Emit]

1. More on Phillips: "He became a low-level dictator," Smith says.

As Phillips jockeyed for supremacy in the Tea Party movement in Tennessee, he undermined people he saw as rivals and lashed out at those who challenged his decisions, most notably through the forums of the Tea Party Nation Web site. Phillips deleted posts when people disagreed with him over candidate picks. He banned people when they questioned the direction he was taking the organization. The more outspoken dissenters received bilious e-mails threatening legal action.

"emember what I do for a living," Phillips warned Anthony Shreeve, another volunteer, in a parting e-mail after the two men clashed.

The more potential Phillips saw in Tea Party Nation, the more controlling he became, and the more unwilling to take a back seat to the larger movement. "He became a low-level dictator," Smith says.

At one "Call to Arms" rally at the Cornerstone Church outside Nashville last summer, Phillips was urged to keep a low profile: The mega-church was already bumping up against the law by hosting a rally for groups that along with Tea Party Nation included Focus on the Family and the Eagle Forum. Ostensibly, the event was an attempt to raise money for local charities such as the Nashville Rescue Mission and to sign up attendees (some of whom were carrying side-arms) as volunteers for conservative causes. But Phillips saw another opportunity. He stepped to the front of the church and launched into an ardent speech, urging the crowd to combat the "Obama-Pelosi-Reid axis of evil."

"Tonight's altar call is not for God," he said. "It's for country."

The audience was shocked.

"There was a firestorm of controversy," says Cliff Tredway, the director of public relations for the Nashville Rescue Mission. "There was no getting around the fact that this was a rally for the conservative movement. Politics and church don't too much mix."

The event raised $2,300, according to Kilmarx. " claimed that they sent a third of that money to the Nashville Rescue Mission," she said. But Tredway says the rescue mission never received a penny.

http://www.aolnews.com/politics/article/judson-phillips-threw-a-tea-party-and-trouble-showed-up/19345884

[ddeclue]

2. Tea BAGGERS!

[blogslut]

3. Kicked

and recommended.