National Tea Party Federation Expels Mark Williams, Tea Party Express

[DES]

Effective Immediately, Tea Party Express Is No Longer a Member

of the National Tea Party Federation


Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2010 at 3:43pm

Last night, the members of the National Tea Party Federation participating in an "All Hands" conference call unanimously decided the following:

The membership of the National Tea Party Federation has this evening suspended and will immediately expel Tea Party Express from any further association with the Federation should they fail to publicly rebuke Mark Williams and remove him from their ranks by 3 pm eastern time Saturday July 17.

The rebuke must take the following form:

1. Mark Williams must be officially removed from the ranks of the Tea Party Express.
2. Notice of Mark Williams' removal must be placed prominently on the official Tea Party Express website.
3. Tea Party Express must issue a press release articulating points 1 and 2 above.




* * *

Last night, a member of the National Tea Party Federation communicated our decision directly to a member of the leadership team of Tea Party Express. That leader's response was clear: they have no intention of taking the action we required for their group to continue as a member of the National Tea Party Federation.

Therefore, effective immediately the National Tea Party Federation is expelling Tea Party Express from the ranks of our membership.


Contact:
Christina Botteri
christina.k.bo@gmail.com
916-315-8989

http://www.thenationalteapartyfederation.com/press_room.html

[DES]

CNN -- The National Tea Party Federation, an organization that represents the Tea Party political movement around the country, has expelled conservative commentator Mark Williams and his Tea Party Express because of an inflammatory blog post he wrote, federation spokesman David Webb said Sunday.

Appearing on the CBS program "Face the Nation," Webb said that Williams and the Tea Party Express -- which has held a series of events across the country to generate support for the movement -- no longer were part of the National Tea Party Federation.
"We, in the last 24 hours, have expelled Tea Party Express and Mark Williams from the National Tea Party Federation because of the letter that he wrote," Webb said of the blog post by Williams that satirized a fictional letter from what he called "Colored People" to President Abraham Lincoln.

Webb called the blog post "clearly offensive."

Williams did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday afternoon.


http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/18/tea.party.imbroglio/index.html?hpt=T1

[db44]

What I "love" about the Tea Party is that they seem to not understand where they get their racist reputation. As the party originated, we saw its members carrying around Curious George dolls and other such physical statements. It seemed fairly obvious to me that there was a racial fear in their original creation. Then only a couple of months ago, they compared the stigmatism they receive to racial epithets? Are these guys serious?