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TEA Parties

Liberal Kansas internet groupies flip-flop faster than John Kerry

It’s a set of dance moves that would make John Kerry proud.

Government run healthcare supporters gathered in Wichita Saturday to protest the Healthcare Freedom Amendment (HFA). The Amendment, sponsored by Reps. Brenda Landwehr, Peggy Mast and Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, would try to prevent the federal government from imposing fines, or even jail time, to Kansas citizens who choose not to have health insurance. Opponents of the HFA claim that it would opt Kansas out of any “public option” that passes in Washington. However, no where in the two page document are these provisions found.

The Wichita protest was to target Rep. Landwehr for her support of the HFA and was a follow up to a rally in early November in Shawnee targeting Sen. Pilcher-Cook. At that protest, government healthcare supporters were met by a large group of freedom loving patriots.

The spin from the left was that they were all shipped in by Koch Industries, even though they were unable to produce any evidence of this assertion. One would think big buses with a whole bunch of people would be easy to document. Of course, they are unable to do so because it simply doesn’t exist. Any “busing” by Koch or AFP is pure fiction, a grand lie concocted by liberals to convince themselves only the left can produce an uncoordinated, spontaneous grassroots movement.

The Koch lie seems to be in line with previous attacks by the left, where even they admit they were wrong when challenged to provide evidence.

This morning, I received an e-mail from Melissa “Missy” Cohlmia, the Communications Director for Koch Companies Public Sector. In it, Ms. Cohlmia asked:

“Can you point me to the facts behind this statement? The astroturf movement is paid for by David Koch of Wichita-based Koch Industries to the tune of $20 million of his own treasure.”

Admittedly, I failed in my post yesterday to appropriately link that statement. Mostly, however, that failure was because it’s a commonly known fact that Koch Industries is behind Americans for Prosperity, widely reported by the traditional and non-traditional press.

In fact the truth is AFP now has over 700,000 individual donors. Koch donations now account for less than 5% of AFP’s donations.

But as liberals go, they just couldn’t stop themselves and had to go even further.

One way that’s ever so popular with liberals is parading the children around. We must do it for the children, don’t you know! Thus Kansas’ 58,000 uninsured children becomes the call for more government programs. Of course, never mind there’s already a program out there called Kansas Healthwave. To a common sense Kansan that’d be evidence of a government failure, but to a liberal, it’s a call to more government action.

In fact, it seems the lefties have gotten themselves so worked up, they’ve forgotten what exactly happened in Shawnee less than a month ago.

In a weekend update, the left says things never got out of hand.

Despite the tone of our local Fox affiliate, that morning never got ugly. Passions are high on both sides, but never did the event escalate over some shouting matches.

But just a few weeks later, an organizer with the same liberal blog told a very different story to the Wichita Eagle.

“We had a bunch of (tea party supporters) come out and get pretty much in everybody’s faces,” said Sarah Burris, a spokeswoman for Forward Kansas. “They just want to raise a ruckus.”

Could it be liberals change their story based on what they think will get them the most traction in the press?

It also looks as though it’s okay to come from out of town for the rally, just as long as you make the trek for the right side. Just before the Shawnee rally, liberals had this to say:

…none, I repeat none, of the pro-Reform rally members will be bused in from surrounding areas — like American’s for Prosperity and David Koch did in Washington DC yesterday.

But they boasted of all the out of town folks for yesterday’s gathering:

Many of the demonstrators drove to Wichita from cities all over Kansas. Colin Curtis, of Manhattan made the trip because he wanted to ensure his side was represented in the debate

And I guess when flip-flopping on your version of protest etiquette doesn’t yield the results you want, you can always just start calling names.

From Twitter:

  • @sarahburris: If you use teabagger in a press release do we think they’ll use it? #fwks
  • @sarahburris: @immunis the experts say only if its in a quote just FYI #fwks

From the Wichita Eagle:

“We had a bunch of (tea party supporters) come out and get pretty much in everybody’s faces,” said Sarah Burris, a spokeswoman for Forward Kansas.

Now that’s a term even the Wichita Eagle won’t publish, try as the liberals might.

I’m willing to make a decent bet (tea party supporters) was inserted because the liberal’s spokeswoman decided to use a derogatory term for their opponents rather than show a little class.

Unfortunately, facts don’t get in the way of liberals. Their perception is reality, no matter how skewed it is, no matter how little evidence they have to support their assertions.

It’s the kind of insinuations and lies we should expect from this group in the future.

TEE Party moves to legislator’s offices

A TEE Party activist displays his T-shirt

A TEE Party activist displays his T-shirt

Around 80 citizens attended AFP’s TEE Party in the capital. Activists stood outside the House chambers to greet legislators as they entered and then moved to the viewing balcony to see our government at work. One activist had a campaign flyer from her Senator stating that she had worked to remove the franchise tax, eliminate the estate tax and make Kansas a more tax friendly state. She planned to remind her Senator what she said on the campaign trail.

At noon activist regrouped for a quick lunch. A few legislators joined the group including Sens. Susan Wagle, Dick Kelsey, Mike Petersen and Rep. Steve Brunk. A few organizers quickly addressed the group, including FairTax from Kansas City, Sedgwick County Commissioner Karl Peterjohn and grassroots activist and TEA Party organizer Amanda Grosserode.

FairTax activists have plan in place to bring the FairTax to Kansas. A bill is currently working its way through the Missouri Senate. Advocates noted the devastating effects that could happen here in Kansas if Missouri becomes much more business and tax friendly than Kansas.

Karl Peterjohn gave some tips on effective lobbying. He spoke about the important impact citizens can have on their government.

Amanda Grosserode mention another protest for Congressman Dennis Moore. Details will be announced on their website soon.

Participants were encouraged to visit legislators in the Docking State Office building and in the capital. Some plan to stay and hear the Governor’s address at 4pm if possible. Buses leaving for Johnson County and Wichita will still leave on time at 4pm however.

Reactions from citizens vary. A common theme seems to be the amount of taxpayer funded lobbying that is occuring under the dome. A group from invisiblekansas.com was also under the dome urging no cuts to their taxpayer funded activities. There seems to be every constituency imaginable under the dome lobbying legislators right now except taxpayer citizens.

TEE Party in the capital

AFP member Vonda Wiedmer displays her T-shirt message

AFP member Vonda Wiedmer displays her T-shirt message

There’s a TEE Party in the statehouse today. Americans for Prosperity – Kansas has organized grassroots activists to come and encourage lawmakers to not tax their way out of their spending problem. Citizens met this morning at 10am and are now spread throughout the statehouse speaking with legislators about what needs to be done to fix their budget problem. Here’s what AFP Director Derrick Sontag had to say this morning.

  • “This is not just your regular veto session. We’ve been spending too much money in this building since day one.”
  • Spending has increased by 48% since 2004. “Those are the real numbers folks.”
  • “The budget that they are proposing to finish off this year leaves $39, $40 million in the bank.” That’s significantly less than what is required by statute. But then again, statutes can always be changed to suit the situation.
  • “If they had just spent what they took in, they’d have a billion in the bank.” 22 months ago the state of Kansas had $1 billion in the bank. Now the state is still trying to fix a $1 billion plus problem
  • Legislators knew the problem was coming and yet did ignored their own staff. “They were warned by their own staff two years ago”, that they’d have a negative balance.
  • By law the legislative session must be wrapped up in 90 days. “They have nine more days to go.” A tax increase is certainly not outside the realm of possibility. “They’ll get creative and do whatever they have to do at the end of the day.”
  • K-12 education is being asked to cut less than one percent of their budget. Yet K-12 spending has increased by 53% since 2003. “It’s simply not sustainable.”

Flint Hills Center investiative reporter Paul Soutar spoke briefly about his newest report on how much money K-12 education is sitting on.

Citizens are now spread throughout the capital speaking to legislators, encouraging them to not raise taxes and hurt the Kansas economy even more. More later in the day.

TEA Party Video: Stay Strong

My camera doesn’t take the best video and my editing skills are even more lacking than my photography skills, but I hope you find this video of the Topeka TEA Party inspirational. My apologies to the other speakers that aren’t featured here (and there are many), my memory card only holds so much video and I couldn’t get it onto my laptop fast enough to film everyone.

Thank you to Ed Kearn and Helen Van Etten for the additional photos used in my previous photo essay and in this video.

Here’s some additional video shot by Ed Kearn.

Topeka TEA Party photos

I’ve uploaded photos of the Topeka TEA Party to Flickr. You can go here to view them or enjoy the slideshow below. A few video clips will be posted later.