Want to Have a Tea Party?

1. Create an electronic “To Do” List

2. Secure a Location

The most pressing requirement in your “To Do” list is to secure a physical location where you will hold your event. The reason it is so important, your ability to complete other necessary tasks are affected if you don’t know your location.

Suggested locations: Many state capitol buildings have permit requirements that are easy to fulfill and usually at no or a very low cost. In addition to the ease of reserving, there is often equipment available for rental at low cost. Other suggested venues are city halls, county courthouses, historic landmarks, river fronts, and parks. Be careful in your selection, however, and be sure to understand the permit requirements and local ordinances. For the Feb. 27th event, the group in Houston, TX , had great difficualty in securing a location for reasons that are not readily apparent. In any case, their permit cost was $1,000. Although they were able to raise the money, this situation is obviously something any of us would wish to avoid.

What do you expect to accomplish by having a rally? Some suggested possible reasons:

• Show people they are not alone in their frustrations about the bad policies coming out of Washington, your state government

• Give voice to the people

• Send a message to politicians regarding their votes on legislation and to the majority of media who are not really doing their jobs, but serving as a PR department with an agenda, for others who have the same agenda
  

The primary impetus of all of these rallies has been the many bailouts that have been going on since last fall and “rant” by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli on Feb.19th, which was particularly fueled by the roll out of yet another “mortgage rescue” plan. All of these policies are clearly problematic and taking the country down a ruinous path. In order for your event to be effective, though, it cannot be focused solely on expressing anger, providing vent, or even voice.

In other words, your event should have a purpose, provide information, and develop strategies for helping people take effective action. If you take “the long view”, you will realize that if done well, your efforts could have real impact.

Suggested Mission Statement:
“We (insert group name here) are dedicated to encouraging public policy that supports the principles of personal responsibility, individual liberty, limited government, and free markets.”

Such a mission statement covers the immediate sense of outrage about rewarding failure, punishing success, and crushing taxpayers with debt and burdensome regulation. But, such a statement looks over the horizon, recognizing that there is a lot of work to be done, for some time to come.

Once you have determined a purpose and established a mission statement, you should be able to develop “bullet points” for purposes of discussion and slogans for signs.

Why is the development of “talking points” important?

[There will be additional links and resources provided here for suggestions of themes,  bullet points.]

If you have any idea of conducting any future events, conducting meetings, or otherwise organizing activities in your area, you may want to consider a group name that will live beyond the current event you’re planning.

It may be advisable to develop a policy regarding any donation of funds or any action that might be taken to defray expenses in advance. A prudent policy would be to state exactly how any funds secured would be used, including a promise followed through on, to give a final funding statement, listing expenses incurred, monies received. A few local groups added a PayPal donation button to their Facebook group page and /or blog, but they clearly stated for what purpose the funds were sought.

6. Design a logo for your event

Create one consistent image for your use going forward that captures the “mood / feel” of your event and the mission of your group. There are a number of programs available for free that you can use if you do not already own editing software.

Your logo should at least include the name of the group, but preferably the event and date.

A couple of those free programs recommend by others are:

Paint.net

Picasa 3

A couple of good resources for public domain patriotic graphics are listed here as well:

Images of American Political History

National Archives Galleries

7. Make an “invitation” / flyer

Using your logo, design an invitation to your event that can also be used as a flyer. Include the following information:

• Location
• Time
• Date
• Parking information (This WILL come up)
• Be sure to provide the link to your group’s blog (see next)
• Encourage people to bring digital still and video cameras on the day of the event

Save the document in at least a couple of standard formats. At least one of those formats should be .jpeg image so it can be embedded in an email and printed as a flyer very easily.

You could upload the document to a site like 4shared and make the download link available in addition to the embed.

• Links to or texts from the National Archives of The Constitution and Declaration of Independence

• The definition of Socialism which would ideally come from a source such as the Communist Party, USA

• The definition of Marxism
  

• Contact information for the representatives in local, county, state, and state government [some suggestions for widgets automatically providing this information will be added here later]

• Explanation of how a bill becomes law

• Embedded video from prior Tea Party events throughout the country

       Some examples: here, here, here

• Links to resource sites giving tips for signs and slogans that are consistent with the message you are trying to convey

Considering providing other resources to your blog’s visitors, almost all likely event attendees, such as suggestions for making signs.

For instance, provide the link to the the Postersw site, which includes a list of free poster creation programs like Poster 8. This program can be downloaded and used to make up to 10 signs or banners, free. Large signs can be created with the program that will print out like puzzle pieces that when applied to poster board, fit together to create very nice, lare signs. One tip for creating “weather proof” signs is to buy some lower grade (cheap!) packing tape for the purpose of cover the sign over completely.

Invite visitors to the site to post comments regarding any of the posts and to particularly make suggestions they think of for slogans and signs.

8. Set up a Facebook Group

10. Develop a Press Release

Once you have reached this stage, you will have your full structure in place.

Issue a press release announcing the event. You should seek out all of contact information of local and regional media outlets, including all radio, television, and print. Most of the information can be obtained by perusing websites. However, keep in mind, some media purposefully make it difficult for the general public to obtain the appropriate contact fax number or email to send a press release (you can understand why). Simply emailing the “info@blahblahtv.com” is not likely to produce results. Be prepared to place a call to request the fax number or email address. Look for the Newsroom, News Director, or “desk”. Don’t be fooled by the “submit a news tip” form available on some sites. That’s the fast track to news oblivion. If you ask directly for the appropriate place to direct a press release, you will almost always be given the information.

Develop a schedule for issuing future press releases, when major developments occur. For instance, after your initial announcement, you can / should issue other releases when you have secured a program and or speakers, within a four to five day window of the event itself, perhaps a reminder release twenty-four hours prior, and for certain, a post-event release detailing the event, the number of attendees, action taken, and future events / activities planned.

If there is a media outlet, particularly one of primary importance, such as the only major print newspaper, who has completely ignored your press releases and you are within a day or two of the event, pick up the phone and ask for the Editor in the case of the a newspaper, or the News Director in case of a TV or radio station. Prior to making your call be sure you are familiar with the general “flavor” or “bent” of this outlet. Likely if they have ignored a number of well-written releases and your event is gaining momentum and attention, the “bent” you will have detected should be obvious. When making your call, you can politely but firmly point out that you would like to provide this operation an opportunity to balance their coverage a bit.

11. Develop a Program for Event Day

Settle on who will be the “Master of Ceremonies”. It would be a good idea if this were one of the event organizers if at all possible. People attending the events like to see and meet the people who worked hard to put the event together. Your efforts are appreciated by others.

Consider who will speak at the event. It is not necessary to have “dignitaries” if you have someone within your planning group who is articulate and engaging. The lack of any politicians or notable public figures can actually be turned into an asset.
Perhaps it’s high time to dispel the myth that you must be an elected official, candidate, or celebrity to have anything valid to say.

Speakers should generally be non-partisan. Remember that there may be people who have recently awakened to the fact that they may have made a mistake with their votes or support in the past. The current problems facing America have come from both sides of the aisle.

You do not need to completely dismiss the idea of any politicians or candidates speaking at your event. You should, however, examine their voting record carefully, their general history, and have serious conversation with them regarding the context of their speech and whether or not it will be consistent with the message you are trying to convey.

This kind of “vetting” process should be seriously considered when it comes to any notable figure who may potentially speak at your event.

Consider securing the “services” (ask them to volunteer) of an actor to portray a Founding Father giving a speech. Attendees in Lincoln, NE, were treated to a modernized version of Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech.

Sound System

One of the most important considerations in developing your program is the need for a sound system. Although it may seem like “wishful thinking” do not underestimate the potential for a large number of attendees. In Lansing, MI in under five days, word definitely got out and there were 400 people in attendance on Feb. 27th. In less than a week, organizers in Greenville, SC, were so effective, 2,000 people showed up. No amount of projecting voices is going to be heard over a crowd of that size in absence of some kind of sound system.

As noted, many state capitols have this type of equipment available for rental at a reasonable price. If your capitol or location does not have this option, there are a couple of creative ways of rigging up sound in the event you are unable to find or rent a traditional system.

If you have access to a home karaoke machine with at least audio outputs, you can hook it up to a home stereo system, even a mini unit and then attach a number of peripheral speakers, arranging them as strategically as possible. The quality of this sound would project enough to be heard over a crowd of at least several hundreds. This method was used in Lincoln, NE, and was so loud, the sound had to be turned down among a crowd of 100.

If there are issues about access to power for any reason, there are a couple of potential solutions for this as well. A relatively inexpensive power inverter can be connected to a running vehicle’s battery and will supply adequate power to the system mentioned above.Obviously the concern would be the vehicle would be ok idling for a longer period of time (duration of your event) and it is not too noisy. Just be sure to check into the proper voltage and connections first! Another option is to rent a generator if it can be placed far enough away that your sound system is not competing with the noise.

If you do anticipate a smaller crowd, the potential for the use of cheerleader megaphones is one option, or is a last resort for anyone.

Audio / Video

Burn a CD or create a playlist on an Ipod to play as soon as your sound system is set up and to choreograph your program. Find “peppy”, inspiring, patriotic music to include. This will be welcomed by the crowd as they arrive.

Consider trying to arrange for a video presentation. In today’s world, the younger crowd in particular appreciates these kind of visuals. Your presentation might include some video from prior Tea Party events, clips from news footage or pertinent speeches. Burn a DVD or upload to an iPod. Most versions of Windows come with Movie Maker which is fairly easy to use.

Be sure to have the M.C. or speakers mention any sign-up sheet or handouts available at the event. Emphasis should be placed on explaining the purpose of the sign-up sheets. Provide reassurance to the crowd that their contact information will be kept secured and used only for the purposes of contacting them regarding any available news reports of the event, providing links to videos and pictures, and to announce any further activities you may be conducting. Make a promise that you will not be passing the lists on to anyone. In addition, explain the necessity of documenting the number of people in attendance in the event local media attempt to minimize the number.

If possible, some speaker should point out key items on any handout that will be important in helping people stay connected an involved. Particularly helpful information would be to point out the state NING sites that are administered by truly grassroots folks in their own states. (See “Action Pack” below)

Consider at least one activity during the event which in attendees can participate

Canned Food Collection

In Lincoln, NE, attendees were requested to bring cans of Pork & Beans to donate to a local food pantry. The reason for the selection of canned good should be obvious, and was an excellent visual. The cans were placed along the rail of the “porch” area in front of Sen. Ben Nelson’s office and used as anchors for a 3′ x 5′ flag Culpeper Minuteman flag spontaneously brought by an attendee. Pictures and video from the event showed the speakers behind the flag. When “Patrick Henry” reached the end of his speech, he swept his hand across the cans, angrily knocking them off of the rail for emphasis. It was a rousing moment!

Tea Bags

Many Tea Party events have used tea in some symbolic way. Many people have suggested tea bags be collected nationwide and given to one member of Congress to be taken and dumped on the floor of the House or Senate. (Imagine the C-span video of that!) There are people around the country who are working on obtaining an agreement from some member of Congress to do just this. Meanwhile, organizers are storing collected tea bags. Even if it takes some time to secure a committment to accept the bags, this activity provides symbolism in and of itself. Just be sure to bring the mounting number of tea bags to every event you conduct and take pictures of the growing pile.

Tea Party event organizers in Seattle, WA, were first to develop the concept of creating special labels for collected tea bags. Attendees were able to select a label with a graphic and slogan that struck their fancy and sign their name to them. Slogans have included, “Repeal the Pork or Retire”, “Your Mortgage is Not MY Problem”, and “No More Bailouts!”

Some people have suggested “getting double mileage” out of their tea bags by attempting to present them to one of their local elected officials who would in all likelihood refuse to accept them. An excellent suggestion was made to video tape, even if with a cell phone camera the attempted delivery. After the attempted delivery / likely refusal, the tea bags can still be stored and accrued over time as mentione above.

Web 2.0 is simply a statement for all of the many internet based technologies that exist. Already mentioned are Facebook and WordPress and in that vein, be sure that whenever you post anything on your Facebook, WordPress, or other online venue, make sure you crosspost to all of the others at the same time.

The lack of input by most members of Congress

The speed at which the bill moved through Congress

• Convene a townhall type meeting or two to allow people to discuss issues that concern them and hear their ideas / solutions. Be sure to video tape, record, or have someone taking notes to aggregate all of these ideas

• Conduct a class on how to use different online tools such as Facebook, Twitter, or WordPress

• Create online surveys (see above about Google Docs) to receive input from people on various forms of actions that could be taken. Follow up with them by sending all of the participants and invitees the results and a summary of how you intend to incorporate them into your next plans.

• Seek out your counterparts across the country and network with them. Imagine taking your ideas and theirs, collaborating on actions that could be taken nationwide. Some actions in unison by all event organizers across the country could have tremendous impact. One resource for doing so is Twitter using the #teaparty hashtag. Check out the WordPress blog for the group Constitutional Liberty Coalition which is working to provide a real grassroots alterntative for people around the country to list their events, to provide tips and resources, and to bring people together with others in their own states.

Have ideas of our own to add to the ones seen here? By all means, leave comment. I will update the post, adding helpful comments inline, credit the author.

To begin, science is a thing, not a living being.

Using the pronoun “her” sounds curiously like the same talk we’ve heard for years about that almighty female, “Mother Earth”.

So we have a problem talking about putting “Science” back in ITS rightful place when we’ve started by using the language of Greek Mythology and what is a tree-hugging pseudo-religion.

But, what is this thing, “Science”?

One dictionary properly defines it:

“the observation, identification, description, experimental indentification,  description, and theoretical explanation of phenomenon.”

Notice the word, “theoretical”, the root word of which is theory.

The intellectually honest, well-trained scientist would tell you that most “conclusions” from science, are actually properly called theories.

Actual basic scientific method and principle dictates the reality that science has few absolutes, few laws. Why? Because most theories can never be absolutely proven, beyond all doubt.

So anyone who says “the debate is over” on almost any scientific subject are actually ignorant or deceptive at the most basic level.

Scientists, in particular, those long experienced and properly trained, should and actually do know, if they remove their own agenda, silencing debate on any area of science-based inquiry is totally anti-scientific.

Silencing debate and ending inquiry, is a perversion of science, itself.

So what is the rightful place for Science? Should Science be the primary impetus for many government policy decisions?

I say, “No.”

There are historical examples of leaders who decided to base many critical decisions on “science”. Nazi Germany comes to mind, for one. A climate of opinion existed at the same time based on “science”. This climate paved the way for a tolerance of eugenics. Principles of eugenics were behind the mass sterilization of the “unfit” and helped fuel the push towards legalized abortion.

President Obama’s desire to base many important decisions on “science” is a very dangerous thing. The voices currently being granted credibility from the scientific community are not espousing “science”.

What they espouse is a perversion of it.

Sir Winston Churchill spoke eloquently regarding the dangers of decision-making based on “science” in his own day. His remarks are relevant.

Please visit CatoIV’s log to read an important quote from Churchill which actually inspired this post.

So what is the rightful place of “Science”?

Science should not be front and center in decision-making. It can only be one element taken into account. Whatever “science” uncovers should be compared to basic principles above other considerations. When scientists theories contradict the notions of the protection of life, individual liberty, and limited governmental power on which our nation was founded, then those theories are to be rejected.

Beyond that, history teaches us that all information coming from science should be viewed skeptically. Skepticism is actually a foundational scientific principle.

As reported last Thursday the 19th, CNBC Reporter, Rick Santelli expressed the growing frustration of many Americans and announced he was going to hold a tea party on July 4th in Chicago.

No one is doubting Santelli’s passion, but his ability to carry out the excellent notion of sending a clear signal to Pres. Obama and Congress that it is wrong for Americans who work hard and play by the rules to bail out businesses and citizens who have failed to make good decisions.

Santelli’s ability to move forward with an actual tea party are in doubt for the obvious reason that he is employed by what has become the most liberal set of news networks in the country. While CNBC is arguably the least propaganda-spewing network of the NBC family, it is still NBC. It’s important to remember that NBC is owned by GE, which couldn’t be more in the tank for the Lefist agenda, and has its tentacles into far too many places.

Unfortunately, we cannot wait for the bold Rick Santelli to make a move. A group of organizations have decided to move forward with a tea party, right away, in Santelli’s honor. American Spectator magazine, TCOT, Smart Girl Politics, Heartland Institute, Don’t Go, and Americans for Tax Reform are sponsoring the Nationwide Chicago Tea Party this Friday, February 27, 2009 at Noon central time.

The two primary events are to be held in Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Other cities are getting organized across the country. All events will be held at NOON EST.  A simultaneous Twitter Tweet Chat, connected to all of the events will be conducted for people who are not located near an event or who cannot attend a physical location.

The website, listing more information, continually updated list of locations, and comments section:

Nationwide Chicago Tea Party

Be sure to click on the blue link entitled “Online Form” to see list of cities and to make comments.

You can also join the Twitter Tea Party group.

To quote an Obama supporter last week in Florida, “Good Gracious God!”

There is intelligent life on this planet, in America, intelligent life standing in front of a TV camera, and saints preserve us, on CNBC.

It’s a big, red headline on Drudge:

Drudge Report Front Page as of 11:45AM EST

It’ll be interesting to see how long THAT headline stays just like that on Drudge’s front page. The screenshot of the CNBC video, below, is the video in progress. There’s an :11 commercial that runs prior to the video itself playing. See if you notice the irony in the advertised upcoming special listed to the right of the video box, whatever the commercial, and the video itself. I’ve run it a few times and it’s laughable, the incongruity of what Rick Santelli is saying versus whatever commercial. Just one of them was “American Greed”.

The video below is a screenshot. CNBC disables embedding. Just click on the picture to go watch it….it’s a GREAT time:

Here’s an “inconvenient truth”: the United States Treasury Department has been printing money at an incredibly alarming rate since the end of September 2008.

Glenn Beck put together a little visual aid to illustrate just how much and how fast to help people understand how alarming it is:

Here’s the chart from the Federal Reserve to which he referred:

What do Germany, Hungary, and Zimbabwe have to do with this?

The article entitled, appropriately, “Hyperinflation“, at the Library of Economics and Liberty site provides insight to what the U.S. is risking by dumping huge amounts of currency into the system. The article cites two of the three historical examples I mention, along with others.

A good article on the situation in Zimbabwe can be found here.

Obviously, the amount of money we are printing is barely even being referenced in any news media outlets, let alone exposed detail. The excessive borrowing is not being mentioned either. It’s amazing how infrequently the question is being raised of how the U.S. is supposed to pay for the massive amounts of spending already undertaken and currently under debate.

There are already plenty of reasons for people to write members of Congress. Sorry to give you yet one more.

Are you already on Twitter and want to follow me there, just click on the Twitter button.

Follow Stubborn Facts on Twitter

If you’re asking: What the heck is Twitter? Then you might want to watch this video:

One of the funniest things I have heard in a while is a comment by a caller into the Mike Gallagher show. She assessed Republicans and “so-called” Conservatives who have been going along with all of the bailouts, stimulus packages, and other Leftist measures, as suffering from “Stockholm Syndrome”.

For those not familiar, this “condition” is defined as, ” An extraordinary phenomenon in which a hostage begins to identify with and grow sympathetic to their captor.”(1) The syndrome is so called based on the reaction of hostages taken in a violent 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm Sweden. (More, here.)

Mike Gallagher’s witty caller was certainly funny. Like I said, one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a while. Sometimes it does seem like the Democratic party leadership on Capitol hill must be at least, intermittently, holding some Republican politicians and even some “Conservative” pundits hostage. I’ve often wondered if there’s some bizarre catch and release / re-catch and re-release program going on behind the scenes.

Perhaps the whole bunch has been undergoing a Patty Hearst type of brainwashing in some Congressional closet. The caller might be on to something….

While an amusing explanation, I’m buying this explanation about as much a I bought into the Simpson Dream Team’s explanation of “if they do not fit, you must acquit.”

As attractive as a million amusing and innocuous explanations may be for what appears to be a near total collapse of principles in the Republican party, no amusement, no explanation explains, let alone begins to deal with the truth that must be faced.

Sources:
1) “Definition of Stockholm Syndrome“. Medicine.net

Fox’s Griff Jenkin’s played “chase the politicians” on Capitol Hill Thursday for Bill O’Reilly. As much fun as it was to watch Chuck Schumer speedwalking down a Washington corridor, there was more information available. Why does O’Reilly tell only part of the story? Are we too dense to pay attention long enough?

On Thursday’s O’Reilly Factor, the “No-Spin master” did another half story on an issue. I’m becoming more convinced than ever, that either Bill thinks his viewers have the attention spans of gnats, or he has one of the worst research teams in the media business, who don’t even seem to know how to use the internet.

In any case, the half story this evening regarded the Conservative Speech Suppression (aka “Fairness”) Doctrine. He sent reporter Griff Jenkins, to Capitol Hill to do one of those amusing deer-caught-in-the-headlights segments where a reporter chases politicians or other miscreants with a bright light and tries to stick a microphone in their faces whilst they proceed to look like the speedwalker in the banned Mr. T Snickers commercial.

Griff’s mission was to question lawmakers about their position on the Doctrine. During Mr. Bill’s “Talking Points Memo” the audience was treated to the surgically frozen smile of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The second lawmaker to be questioned, and to his credit, the only one of the three who actually stood still, was New Mexico Senator Ted Bingham.

Sen. Schumer of New York, was the third “contestant” and the one which most reminded me of the speedwalker. It’s just too bad Griff hadn’t brought along the tank, the Snickers, or, Mr. T.

Ok, let’s just pause a second an enjoy the visual on that one. [Pausing....visualizing....] Who among us wouldn’t love to watch Mr. T machine gun Chuckie Schumer with Snickers bars?

I can’t embed the O’Reilly video here, but “Talking Points” is the default listing that comes up on the O’Reilly portion of the Fox site. Click the title for the November 20 “Talking Points Memo” ‘Will Fairness Doctrine be reimposed?’

Of course the “Fairness” Doctrine is an important issue and the comments and reaction to reporters’ questions on the issue are interesting and informative viewing.

But, as has become obvious to me, and perhaps I’m just slow-witted or too willing to give the benefit of the doubt, it seems that Bill O’Reilly only tells part of most important stories.

Towards the end of his “Memo” O’Reilly commented that he spoke with Schumer sometime after Grif attempted to speak with him on Thursday afternoon, and Schumer said he “didn’t care about the issue, nor should he”. O’Reilly labeled this response as “a ruse”.

According to Merriam-Webster online:
ruse (noun): a wily subterfuge

Is anyone else tired of tap-dancing? Mr. Schumer’s statements to Bill were neither a “subterfuge” nor “wily”.

Let us call things what they actually are. When a feathered, beaked creature quacks, we call it a duck. When someone says something that is not true, we call it a lie.

And Chuckie Schumer did lie. On November 4, Election Day, on Foxs News Channel, Schumer equated talk radio with pornography. Perhaps after the imbecility of those comments, the estimable Mr. Schumer decided he’d better stop “caring” about the Fairness Doctrine, really quickly. He is right about one thing (kind of like a broken clock, it is accidentally right twice day) he shouldn’t care.

As if the pornography analogy were not enough, Chuckie has additional reason to continue to distance himself from the issue. Apparently he’s taking heat from people. I mean real people, not just people with pointy heads and huge egos.

On Monday, November 17, Mark Levin received a call to his radio show from a woman named Carla, from Brooklyn, New York.

Here is a transcript of the conversation:

Carla: Hi. I am so glad to talk to you and I’m also kind of nervous because I don’t want to end up like Joe the Plumber. Um, I had, an, let’s just say, an altercation with Charlie Schumer in the airport, at La Guardia, on Saturday night, that was pretty extensive and kind of -

Mark: Well, wait a minute, by “altercation” you mean a discussion.

Carla: Well, yeah, a heated discussion, about the Fairness Doctrine. I was deplaning, he was ahead of me, there was a fawning Democrat chick, who came over to him, and was like all over him and I had heard what he had said on, I think it was Fox News, on Election Day, I had heard his comments, about uh, about talk radio, and about the Fairness Doctrine which really repulsed me. So, I saw him there and he had this big smile on his face.

And I just said to him, “Don’t you dare try to take my talk radio away from me.”

And he said to me, “I’m not trying to take your talk radio away from you, but we can’t allow people to be nasty and rude and, and say things that aren’t true.”

And I said, “Are you kidding me? That’s what our democracy is about. Our democracy is messy.” I said, “Our democracy is about being able to be nasty and rude and sarcastic, and wrong when we want, and say opinions that may be wrong when we want. That’s what makes us different than Europe.”

And he, he just started lashing out at me. He told me how ignorant I was. And that they were not going to permit -

Mark: Wait a minute, wait a minute. So in other words, so in other words, he was shrill, and rude, and vile.

Carla: Well, he was obnoxious and shrill, and it was attacking my intelligence and uh, and my I.Q., [Mark: Gee whiz.] and I was dumb. And I told him that there was a very good country that believed in his philosophy and it was called Red China and it sounded like he was talking right out of, uh, Mao’s Red Book, and that that was not what our country was about and that our democracy was unique in that we allowed our discourse to be messy. And that we allowed our discourse to be wrong when it’s wrong. And that’s the nature of democracy.

Mark: Well, let me tell you something. You’re a patriot, uh, I wish more people would engage like you; politely but firmly, confronting the Left. Uh, and you’re not stupid, he’s a moron. And let me tell you Carla, what, what’s really upsetting Schumer. You know what it is, Carla?

Carla: No. I didn’t notice anything upsetting him, he looked pretty smug.

Mark: It’s me. Because he doesn’t like me, my mocking him. I know it gets under his skin because he thinks he’s greater and better than the rest of us. That’s why I mock all of them, to knock them down two or three notches. But when he says, “shrill” and all of that, he’s talking about me. Because he doesn’t like me ’cause I’m in his face, because I’ve challenged him, because I’ve urged him to come on this show, because I know he’s coward. But he’s a menace, he’s a menace to this country, he’s a menace to this society, he’s a menace to the judiciary. I think he should call a hearing. I think he should invite me and a couple of the others, we’ll come up there, and I’d be more than happy to testify under oath, assuming of course, that he would swear in, too, so he could be punished under penalty of perjury. I’d be more than happy to do that, Schmuckie. I’d be more than happy to educate you about the First Amendment, political speech, and if you don’t like it, it’s none of your damn business. I’d be happy to educate you, Schmuckie. What do you think of that, you dope?

And Carla, you’re I.Q. is twice of his. So you’re I.Q.’s about 140.

Carla: Yeah, well, I told him. I said I will fight to the death, for my, for my talk radio, for anyone else, to be obnoxious, to be as loud and as nasty as they want. Because -

Mark: But is he not the most obnoxious member of the Senate?

Carla: Of course, of course he is. But I said the point of our democracy is that we don’t censor our tones, we don’t control our tones.

Mark: Well, of course, of course, you’re right. And you’re extremely intelligent. But he wants to do by brute government force what the Constitution doesn’t allow him to do. You see, the Founding Fathers had dealt with people like Chuck Schumer; they’d dealt with people who would punish people dared to say things they didn’t believe in. They tried to squelch dissent, they tried to squelch free speech and that’s why, when they, when they passed the Bill of Rights, the very first one included the right to free speech, uh, and they would be appalled by Chuck Schumer. But Chuck Schumer doesn’t give a damn. He’s a power hungry menace. Thank you, Carla, God Bless You, and good job. You take care.

So, Bill O’Reilly devotes a “Talking Points Memo” to the topic, featuring Sen. Schumer, who had very recently (Nov. 4) made an ass out of himself on the issue. O’Reilly who works for the same network on which Schumer made his ridiculous statements, doesn’t play the tape. That’s getting your point across effectively, that’s following up. It’s about as effective coverage of the issue as O’Reilly’s was of Obama.

But there was additional information available regarding New Mexico’s Sen. Bingham. Although he was polite and forthright enough to stand still, to not play duck and cover, he is on record elsewhere, letting everyone know exactly where he stands on the issue of the Fairness Doctrine, with more detail and more in-depth information than the twenty seconds Griff spent with him.

In late October, Bingham was interviewed on New Mexico radio station, KKOB, on this issue. You can read more about this HERE and listen to an audio clip of it.

I’m not part of the highly paid staff of the #1 prime time show, on the #1 cable news network. I could find the information. Why can’t Bill O’Reilly?

I’ve begun to believe that with the telling of half-stories, O’Reilly isn’t only doing a disservice to his own viewers, but because he has the largest audience in cable TV, he is rather dangerous.

The Washington Times‘ story yesterday regarding how the Change.gov website was “scrubbed” sometime over the weekend is a red flag to all those who wish to see truth preserved.

The Times reported that the Obama agenda previously listed there, largely copied over from the Obama campaign site, has been replaced with vague statements.

As many bloggers, and even some reporters know; this is not the first time information has evaporated from the internet regarding Barack Obama. In fact, the scrubbing of unflattering and questionable data intensified in the last months of the campaign. Any question regarding whether this practice would be routine during an Obama Presidency, have now been answered.

Bloggers need to be cognizant of this fact and act accordingly since there are few news outlets who will not plead amnesia in the future should an issue arise referencing documented information that has disappeared.

Further, it’s obvious that President-elect Barack Obama’s penchant for saying, “I’ve consistently said….” or “this has always been my position…” or “I’ve always said….” or “I have said so repeatedly….” would be a lot easier to back up if there is no proof of prior statements or contrary information available.

The Obama campaign, transition team staff, and coming administration have had a great deal of help in “protecting” information. Besides things disappearing off the ‘net, there have been things that have “disappeared”, difficult to access, withheld, or even altered in the “terrestrial” world. There are several incidents of which bloggers are likely aware that include the removal of the “Obama Youth” video from Youtube which was only re-posted because some shrewd blogger had permanently downloaded it and put it back up on the site. Besides that video on Youtube, there have been reports of disappearing Jeremiah Wright videos and NBC’s aggressively monitoring and immediately demanding videos including any NBC footage be pulled, such as Barney Frank’s appearance on CNBC in July of this year when he stated that Fannie Mae was a sound investment. This video was the basis for the Bill O’Reilly ambush of Frank in October.

Besides the video pulls, there are a number of people who were disturbed by a trend on the Real Clear Politics site, wherein negative Obama reader articles would mysteriously disappear and the user accounts deleted. It’s unclear at this date whether that issue was ever resolved. All inquiries to the webmaster, even by prominent blogger Roger Gardner of Radarsite, went unanswered.

There are some scrubbing incidents which I personally discovered in the last six to eight weeks of the campaign, primarily involving ACORN. On October 10, I had a post regarding Barack Obama having been a member of the legal team that sued Citibank in Chicago for allegedly “red-lining“. I assert that this is yet another Obama connection to ACORN. The two plaintiffs were likely referred to Obama’s firm by that group. These kinds of suits, which bullied banks to grant unprofitable and non-viable mortgages to people in areas with historically high rates of default, contributed to the “Sub-prime mortgage meltdown”. Citibank ultimately settled that suit.

In researching ACORN, I found a site called Tax Exempt World, where a large amount of data on tax exempt entities is available to the public. Some of the information is available for free, some for a fee. On October 9 amd 10, when I was doing this research, I pulled up an ACORN detail page on Tax Exempt World, using this link:

Trouble is, the page didn’t look exactly like it does now. There was further detail below the the Google ads, stating where ACORN’s funds were held, which was an account in the British Virgin Islands. Below is an image I prepared showing where the information existed on the page as of October 10, but disappeared within about a week, when I went back to look more carefully:

Certainly it’s easy to make an assertion like I’ve just done without any back up. Besides the fact that I had no real reason for doing so, I referenced the fact in my article, intending to go back and do further research:

“Further, the tax-exempt database I linked for the ACORN address above displays that ACORN keeps its money in an offshore bank account in the Virgin Islands, which I find just plain odd.”

Perhaps the Tax Exempt site had a glitch and was displaying information that was meant for the paid part of their service only. Of course that is a possibility, but considering that it was not the only web page that disappeared, was scrubbed, or was significantly edited that I used when researching for my post, I find it awfully suspicious.

It doesn’t look like I linked to the ACORN home page within the article, but I quoted from it. Several days later, when I went back to do some more research on their site, I kept getting the following result:

This went on for several days, and then mysteriously, the site reappeared and had clearly been scrubbed and edited. The edits included a rabid defense of the organization. In visiting the site today, one can find the full-fledged effort continues the self-defense measures. Today’s front page has a big button featured entitled “Fight Back: The Truth About ACORN”.

Perhaps this disappearance and re-emergence of a site is just another coincidence, but I don’t think so.

More recently, I was researching the issue of Barack Obama’s connection to Sal Alinksy’s theories and the book Rules for Radicals. I discovered the following page:

This was apparently from an online version of the book After Alinksy: Community Organizing in Illinois, which had been published by the University of Illinois at Springfield. Obama had written an essay entitled “Why Organize? Problems and Progress in the Inner City” at an earlier time. This essay was later included as a chapter in After Alinksy. Some enterprising person had the foresight to apparently copy the page source code and loaded the page back up to the web. It’s a good thing, because if one clicks on the link “The Complete book After Alinksy home page” on the above page, this is what comes up:

Since all of the other links on the reloaded page are connected to the University’s site and those work, it is hard to believe that this, too is another coincidence or something created out of whole cloth. One thing is definitely true, the book does exist. The ISBN number is valid. The book is listed for sale on Amazon, although it is obviously in very short supply; the current price is $150+.

Some may ask, “what’s the big deal about the removal of the book from the University site”? In some respects, it’s not that big of a deal. While the article may make my skin crawl because I understand the subtext and it’s implications, it is not particularly radical, per se. But apparently someone was bothered by the notion that the information existed on the University’s site. It would not be flattering to have any clear connections between Alinksy doctrine and Barack Obama. Despite many radical leftist’s denials, Alinksy is nothing but a Marxist radical, his tactics were not “peaceful” as some leftist pinheads on TV have said or many radical “community organizing groups” worshipping at Alinksy’s feet state in their “About Us” pages. His goal was revolution of American society; revolution to a Marxist state.

Despite the obvious implications of Obama granting permission to include his essay in a book about Alinksy, his other connections to the Alinksy philosophy, and what all of it means for an Obama, there is something more bothersome about the information being pulled off the Univeristy site.

It’s the Orwellian aspect of it all, of course. How can history be so easily re-written in what is supposed to be an open society? Who is doing all of this scrubbing, editing, and pulling? One could obviously make suppositions all day long about how the University of Illinois fits into all of this, considering the many tentacles of connections to Barack Obama there. At the very least, there are apparently a lot of people and organizations in our country who are very protective of President-elect Obama and whose ethics are questionable, to say the least.

Regardless of who is “scrubbing”, editing, and pulling, and why, the moral of the story is obvious: bloggers and others doing research need to protect the information they discover and they need to do so NOW. How many among us have had fleeting thoughts of going back over links, etc., discovered throughout the election, and doing something about downloading or taking a screenshot, but have as of yet to do so? I know for a while now, I’ve been intermittently capturing and downloading, but I haven’t done it consistently or gone back over things I’d found in the past.

It seems important going forward that we all adopt these practices as a normal part of the way we do things.

In pondering the best ways to preserve information, I recall the controversy that occurred over the ages of the members of the Chinese Women’s Gymnastics team. I recall a blog post by an author who is also an investigator. He employed the use of a cache search and turned up a Chinese government report that revealed discrepancies about the girls’ ages. The government had pulled the report off the net, leaving its discovery open only to those skilled in cache searches.

Certainly there are many others out there much savvier than myself. I’ve got some learning to do about this; I briefly tried this out on some of the links for pages I mentioned having disappeared, but clearly, I don’t know what I’m doing yet, or they are just gone. For those who might be reading this who are good at cache searching, I would ask you to leave comments to instruct the rest of us how it is best done.

For now, I can share what I’m going to be looking at myself:

Google Guide about Cached Pages
(the Google guide itself, which I’ve not “stumbled upon” before looks like it might have some handy information to generally improve searching techniques)

Search Engine Showdown
Includes a listing of many free services that archive pages from the web. Google is there, of course, but many others that may include information that Google doesn’t have.

One of those listed, “Way Back Machine”, doesn’t carry the archives for at least six months after the fact. However, since none of the others have worked for me so far and may not ever, I will wait patiently and try Way Back Machine for some of these pages.

Very likely many have already thought out how to archive data and have the tools handy to do so. Maybe you’ve done it or are doing it already. Although I’m admittedly new to blogging, I’m not new to the internet. Of course, I’ve experienced some dead links here and there over the years when going back to an old bookmark, but the number of things vanishing lately seems to have a creepy Orwellian bent. I wonder if that’s true for many others. Am I just naive?

In any case, in the event that anyone coming across this post is either also new to blogging or new to preserving the information they’ve found, I’m going to go list the steps I plan to use. If you have suggestions for improving upon my list, I invite any and all suggestions. (Unless, of course, your suggestion is for me to go suck an egg because I’m archiving information on Barack Obama. If so, please don’t bother. It will just be deleted, anyway.)

So, here are the steps I’m personally going to take:
1) Spend some time everyday for the next few days reviewing past posts for web page references and video files that are only linked at this point. If they seem likely candidates for removal, I’m going to archive them using steps I’ll go through below.

Youtube videos:
Download permanently using Youtube Downloader. In addition to handy downloading, this program also converts videos for use on multiple platforms like Ipods, Windows Media Player, etc.

Web pages and graphics:
Take screenshots of sites using MWSnap. This is much more flexible than simply using the “print screen” function in Windows.
Depending upon the perceived importance of the website or page, save the page source by going to the “View” menu at the top of the browser and pasting into notepad, saving as html.

Of course, this data could really rack up in size fairly quickly. So there are storage needs to consider. Maybe it’s time to invest in another external hard drive or a big pack of CDs.

2) I will be noting the importance of information I find going forward and take the above steps on ongoing basis as necessary.

Like I said, others more experienced in these matters than myself are very welcome to leave suggested improvements.

Apparently, the efforts to silence dissent against President-elect Barack Obama have already begun. And it looks like he can count on the youth, if not so much as he would have liked, at the ballot box, in policing their peers.

Lincoln, Nebraska, radio station 1400 KLIN reported this morning that two Omaha high school students have been suspended for making “inappropriate remarks” about Mr. Obama that “had racial and religious ‘undertones’”.

A search for a more in-depth report on the incident finds an Omaha World Herald story which reveals that the incident that occurred Wednesday is not the only one in which action was taken against an area high schooler.

In Bellevue, Nebraska, police and the Secret Service were called by a high school student who had received a text message from a fellow student that the recipient deemed “threatening”. Apparently, the two students were arguing about the outcome of the election. No action was taken, as the threat was not deemed “credible”, although it was labeled as “inappropriate”.

These incidents should disturb us all. Of course, racial epithets and threatening language should not be tolerated in a civilized society. But, in the case of the suspended students, the words “inappropriate” and “undertones” were used. I find that, unfortunately, not surprising, but very outrageous. How many people, for the last eight years, made more than “inappropriate” remarks with actually violent “overtones” against President George W. Bush? How many calls were made to the Secret Service, how many students suspended? Apparently it’s ok to disapparage, ridicule, and slander a white Christian guy, and that’s about it.

What I find most disconcerting is that the first incident, which resulted in the suspensions, was not reported by the classroom teacher, it was reported by students who left the class and contacted the administration. And the administration took it seriously.

Perhaps the reporting students will be the first to sign up for President-elect Obama’s National Civilian “Security” force.

Homeschooling, anyone?