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Home - News
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Boiling Water
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Republican officials talk tea
By Sean McCarthy
The Tea Party is a movement-- not a party, said a man named Jim, who wouldn't give his last name because he said he's involved in upcoming legislative campaigns.
"It's an umbrella," he said.
Some attendees nevertheless felt left out in the rain at Saturday's Independence Day Tea Party rally at Walnut Grove. More than 400 people attended the event at the public park at about 150th and Q. The event was sponsored by conservative organizations including: The Heritage Foundation; National Write Your Congressman; Americans For Prosperity; Oath Keepers; and Sarpy County's wing of Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project.
A man named Ernie, who wore a dark blue hat and shirt that both read "Tyranny Response Team," called the event "a Republican love fest."
"There is no difference between Republican and Democrats ... they're two wings on the same bird of prey," he said.
A handful of the area's Republican hawks spoke at the event, including Nebraska Sen. Mike Johanns, Rep. Lee Terry and Iowa Sen. Steve King.
King was the crowd favorite. He spent the majority of his 10-minute speech criticizing how President Barack Obama's administration handled economic policies, including what he called the takeover of Chrysler, AIG and the student loan industry. King also attacked the administration's support of cap and trade legislation to put a price on carbon, calling it "cap and tax."
"They have some kind of a pseudo-religious belief that somehow or another this Earth can't figure out how to handle a little CO2 in the atmosphere," King said.
Before he spoke to the audience, King talked to The Reader about controversial comments he made last month on Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy's syndicated radio talk. The comments followed the arrest last year of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. by police officer Sgt. James Crowley and its ensuing "Beer Summit." King said in that particular case, Obama had a "default mechanism" that made him favor the African American person. King believed websites like Media Matters deliberately took his comments out of context.
King went on to discuss a case wherein Attorney General Eric Holder dropped a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department attorney, quit in protest.
"It may not be a race-motivational issue, but there is a political benefit for that," said the politician. "[Obama is] driving wedges between people and using race for political reasons."
Terry's speech had two major disruptions. The first came when a protester ran up near where Terry was standing. He carried a sign and yelled out that Lee Terry supported the $700 billion bank bailout in 2008 during the Bush administration. The protester was escorted from the area by security.
Another disruption came when a few Terary supporters wearing blue Lee Terry shirts stood up in the crowd as he was speaking, apparently to block the filming of his speech by journalists.
Patrick Bonnett, a member of the Conservative Coalition of Nebraska, was the event's main organizer. He said he extended invitations to both political parties for the event, but the Democrats didn't accept.
"The Democrats called us a bunch of 'boo birds,' 'wing-nuts' and said we were off track and we should focus our energies elsewhere," Bonnett said.
Doug Kagan, chairman of the Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom, helped organize the event. He estimated about 700 people attended last year's rally. Since then, Kagan said, the economy has worsened nationally and locally.
"More and more people are angry, more and more people are frustrated, so more and more people want to get involved," he said.
Kagan said his organization is fighting a plan Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle is considering to increase occupation, garbage and property taxes to help balance the city's budget. The group circulated a petition that would oppose any tax hikes.
Saturday's event featured plenty of images that have come to be associated with similar rallies. Attendees wore shirts displaying the American flag, and some dressed up in Revolutionary War garb. The only flag that was as popular was the American flag was one reading "Don't Tread On Me."
Kagan said event organizers tried to distance themselves from more extreme members, such as those who routinely compare the Obama administration to the Nazi regime.
"Any time you get a movement coming from the right, you always get what I call the 'kook fringe.' " Kagan said. He said organizers try to screen those people.
"We just tell them we don't want them around," he said.
Anita Howell helped run one of the games at the event that had players tossing a ring onto poles featuring images of Sens. Barney Frank, Barbara Boxer, Tom Harkin and others. She is involved with the Sarpy County chapter of the 9/12 Project, and attended a Tea Party last April. Howell said she is a faithful listener to Fox News personalities Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren.
When asked what led her into political activism, she responded, "I saw our liberties being taken away from us." |
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