Carender, k

<a href="http://politicsunspun.com/?p=215">http://politicsunspun.com/?p=215</a>

The second group was allegedly founded in response to Rick Santelli’s “rant.”

The [more than] speculation is that Santelli’s “rant” may very well have been planned.

Records indicate the <a href="http://www.chicagoteaparty.com/">www.chicagoteaparty.com</a> domain was purchased by Zack Christensen in <a href="http://politicsunspun.com/images/chicagotea.jpg">August 2008</a> well in advance of Santelli’s Feb 19, 2009 outburst.

Zack Christensen was apparently behind the Bill Ayers story that gave Palin her “pallin’ around with terrorists” talking point.

Christensen on his <a href="http://zackchristenson.com/" target="_blank">blog</a>, he states, “I’m Zack Christenson. I produce videos for a think tank.”  So how is it he thought to purchase the ‘Chicago Tea Party” domain 6 months BEFORE Santelli’s rant?  And 4 months BEFORE the Libertarian Party of Illinois claims to have formulated the idea.

Unlike James Scaminaci III, I smell a rat.  This is much too coincidental, although admittedly, Christenson has not uploaded content to this site.

Also, within hours of Santelli’s rant, the <a href="http://www.officialchicagoteaparty.com/">www.officialchicagoteaparty.com</a> domain was <a href="http://politicsunspun.com/images/officialtea.jpg" target="blank">purchased</a>.  The owner of this domain is Eric Odom who has connections with the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080120181121/samadamsalliance.org/about/id.394/default.asp" target="blank">Samuel Adams Alliance</a> (you’ll recall our 1776 Sam Adams was involved in the original “Tea Party”)…that has, according to Scaminaci has been scrubbed from their website.  Within a few short weeks a “network” of “grassroots” tea parties sprung up as if by magic along with professionally prepared signage and a nice motor home and buses all decked out as well.  Clearly the grass roots were not funding these amenities.  Except it wasn’t within “a few short weeks” – it was the NEXT day following Santelli’s rant.   More on that shortly.

From the<a href="http://leadershipteaparty.com/pages/founders/" target="_blank"> Leadership Tea Party</a> site the founding members include Michael Patrick Leahy, author of several books, including Rules for Conservative Radicals, What Does Sarah Palin Believe? and What Does Barack Obama Believe?

Mr. Leahy also has <a href="http://leadershipteaparty.com/pages/speakers/" target="_blank">connections with Eric Odom according to the Leadership Tea Party</a>:

Michael Patrick Leahy was one of the early leaders of the Tea Party Movement. As co-founder of Top Conservatives on Twitter, Mr. Leahy joined with Eric Odom and other grassroots activists to organize tea parties in fifty cities on February 27, 2009, a mere eight days after Ric Santelli’s famous rant on CNBC.

Which brings us to Keli Carender, Seattle’s own Tea Party organizer.  <a href="http://leadershipteaparty.com/pages/founders/">Keli Carender was another of the early “founders</a>,” who [surprise!] “As documented by The Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, which started it all in a conference call on February 20, 2009 “ was a participant of this founding call ONE DAY AFTER SANTELLI’S RANT…now that’s some fine organizational work.  Imagine organizing 100 people in less than 24 hours (people you haven’t even yet identified) to join in on the same conference call.  Having organized getting 5 people into one of these – no way it was done in less than 24 hours…it’d take a week or two alone to ID these people (they, after all couldn’t be found at that time by using “tea party” as your Google search term.)

After identifying her name on the list, I had to do some research on her.

In a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/us/politics/28keli.html">New York Times article about her</a> on February 27, 2010, they report,

“Ms. Carender’s first rally (February 27, 2009) drew only 120 people. A week later, she had 300, and six weeks later, 1,200 people gathered for a Tax Day Tea Party. Last month, she was among about 60 Tea Party leaders flown to Washington to be trained in election activism by <a title="Link to group’s Web site." href="http://www.freedomworks.org/">FreedomWorks</a>, the conservative advocacy organization led by <a title="More articles about Dick Armey." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/dick_armey/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Dick Armey</a>, the former House Republican leader.”

One wonders if her “last month” training at Freedom works, was actually in February 2009, especially since her first rally was on Feb 27 (AFTER she participated in the “founders” call.

(The following has been scrubbed from the FaceBook page) – Note “FreedomWorks 9/12!”

She states to the reporter in the Times article,

“Her fiancé, Conor McNassar, urged her to channel her complaints into a blog, which she called<a title="Link to blog." href="http://redistributingknowledge.blogspot.com/"> Liberty Belle</a>. [aka redistributingknowledge.blogspot.com]

“He didn’t mind hearing it,” she said. “He just couldn’t hear it all the time.”

Since her <a href="http://redistributingknowledge.blogspot.com/2009_01_25_archive.html">first entry on her blog</a> starts on Jan 25, 2009 (one month and two days BEFORE her first rally and just 5 days after the Obama inauguration and the same date of Obama’s first radio address to the nation outlining what he wanted in the stimulus package), one wonders just when did she have this epiphany?  The stimulus bill wasn’t signed into law until February 14, 2009.  In January, they were still haggling.

And:

“And she sent an e-mail message to the conservative writer <a title="Her Web site." href="http://michellemalkin.com/">Michelle Malkin</a>, who agreed to announce the protest on her blog and even sent some pulled pork to feed the crowd.”

Note, Michelle Malkin was a participant of the Feb 20, 2009 call WITH Ms. Carender.

Sorry, but the time line does NOT FIT, Ms. Carender.  I have to believe you were plugged in way before your first blog post.

Recently, Ms. Carender has received the <a href="http://www.samadamsalliance.org/blog/index.php/tag/jamie-radtke/">2010 Sammy Award</a> from the Sam Adams Alliance.

Back to the “FreedomWorks 9/12!” Facebook comment above.  Note the date – February 2, 2009.  Glen Beck did NOT announce the 9/12 Project until:

“The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-12_Project">9-12 Project</a> (or 9/12 Project, 912 Project) is a political group created by <a title="United States" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States">American</a> television and radio personality <a title="Glenn Beck" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck">Glenn Beck</a>. It was officially launched on the Friday the 13th of March 2009 episode of <a title="Glenn Beck (TV program)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck_%28TV_program%29">Glenn Beck</a>,”

Guess that idea wasn’t really hatched up by Glen Beck, but by FreedomWorks, too.

Grass Roots — not so much -  Astro Turf –- without a doubt.  The only grass roots part of this is those who have been pulled into their protests who are being duped by those who have a different motive…unless, of course, those within the tea party would prefer fascism and a Christian theocracy over our democratic republic…