Don's column: Local candidates, causes; leftist tactics

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   4/24/2012

Local candidates, causes; leftist tactics

The Tea Party Patriots will host several candidates at tonight’s 6 PM meeting at the Westside Grange. Steve Chamblin, running for Supervisor District 1, the seat being vacated by Greg Avilla, will address the Patriots. State Assemblyman Dan Logue, who’s running in the recently reshaped 3^rd Assembly District against Bob Williams, will also appear. Finally, someone familiar to many for his candidacy over the years for Congress, Colonel Pete Stiglich (ret.), will round out the slate of speakers. They will all entertain questions under the Patriots’ format – questions only, no statements or speeches in the interests of everyone’s time.

The Tea Party Patriots candidates’ forums are not the only venues for the public to meet, hear and question those running for federal, state or local offices; they offer a somewhat more intimate, casual and personal opportunity to rub elbows with folks that have taken that bold step as citizens to step up and let voters judge their worthiness for office. Such forums are hardly the only informative service performed by the Tea Party; members provide updates on Supervisor meetings (not many of us can regularly spare hours of our time on Tuesday mornings), as well as the local and regional activities (some would say malicious designs) of the Forestry, Fish and Game, and Caltrans departments. We have updates on the Antelope Sewer Project, such as it is.

An upcoming June event will be the Support Rural America Sheriffs Event at the Tehama District Fairgrounds. It will be a public informational meeting with free admission, hosted by our Tehama County Sheriff Dave Hencratt, and a panel of Sheriffs addressing Constitutional issues with a Q and A following.

You see, while liberals and Democrats tirelessly lambaste and pillory the character and politics of the Tea Party movement that, through its members, wishes only for fiscal restraint, Constitutional liberty and economic freedom, the real Tea Party Patriots across the country found that it all starts locally. That key to the longevity and impact of the Tea Party is perhaps what is behind the hateful, hysterical histrionics emanating from liberals from Washington to Portland to Chico.

But not everywhere: We’ve seen local Democrats come, take notes and depart with little to reinforce predetermined images. We’ve seen the Coffee Party movement come, fizzle and go. The Occupy crowd made a couple of local articles and photos, after which they, like the Coffee folks, folded into the only local, or nationwide, home for the left – the Democratic Party.

Since so-called “Tax Day” protests have become rallying events for the Tea Party, the Occupy and other left wing rabble have taken to tactics of disruption and intimidation, as happened in Portland and Chico recently. Portland being a nexus for the more whacked-out of the Occupiers, they organized just such a counter protest at the place and time of the Tea Party rally. In the finest Andrew Breitbart tradition, our side took great photos and videos of the outrageous signs, actions and screaming directed our way, and immediately posted it all for everyone to see.

One priceless vignette: an Occupier/union/student type giving a double-middle-finger gesture, complete with twisted, screaming face, in front of a young woman simply singing the national anthem. Classy, no? Disgusting, yes! Based on Internet sites catering to that crowd, it was clear that this attempt to intimidate and silence conservatives’ free speech was well organized and planned. I heard of a similar show of disruption occurred in Chico at their Tea Party rally.

Not so at the Bend Tea Party rally we attended on Sunday, the 15^th, in a downtown Bend, Oregon, park, which drew about 400 Patriots to hear speakers and get state and national updates on various topics. The issue of vote fraud was to be addressed by none other than James O’Keefe, whose exposés of reprehensible and illegal activities at ACORN offices forced them to disband and lose funding. There have been numerous prosecutions and convictions of ACORN employees for vote fraud.

O’Keefe has more recently recorded how easy it is to commit fraudulent voting, first by just walking into a voting precinct back east and using the names of dead people from the obituary page; no ID was requested. He then went into a Washington, DC, voting location and identified himself as one “Eric Holder” (as in the Attorney General), asking if they wanted to see any identification to prove it. They insisted it was not necessary.

Bear in mind that he never voted, never produced any fake ID, but on the advice of his attorneys, he did not appear at the Bend rally because the Justice Department was investigating – not the ease with which an unidentified person could easily, illegally, vote – but rather whistleblower O’Keefe for saying he was Eric Holder. Also, when I asked what they knew about vote fraud in Oregon, the speakers told me they knew of as many as 10,000 phony votes in Portland routinely used to tip elections.

Last but not least, lefty activists from Occupy Philly and Fight For Philly attempted to crash a Philadelphia Tea Party event attended by Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. Organizer Don Adams heroically blocked their entrance; their attempt to use disruptive tactics under the guise of “just asking questions” failed.