Tea Party set for this Friday (Michigan): 'Joe the Plumber' amongst expected crowd

[meegbear]

Emmet County’s chapter of Taxed Enough Already is hoping to draw up to 1,000 people to its latest demonstration at 6 p.m. Friday, May 1, in Petoskey’s Pennsylvania Park.

Harbor Springs resident Tom VanHaaren last attended a Tax Day Tea Party in Troy, and is hoping to bring together anyone who is “outraged that Washington has spent us into oblivion.” With an emphasis on being an action-group, VanHaaren’s goal is to help others get involved on their own through phone calls, letter writing and even forming their own committees.

“People don’t need to feel helpless,” he said.

Although the group’s criticism is leveled at Congress and the Obama administration’s stimulus package, VanHaaren pointed out the group is non-partisan.

“This is a passionate, patriotic group of people. We want to take a step back and stop the spending,” said VanHaaren. “A large majority of people who voted in the last election didn’t sign up for an $11 trillion deficit. If that number would have been brought up, I think they would have stopped and thought before they cast their vote.”

In that vein, the group invited Samuel Joseph "Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher to attend the Friday evening event. Wurzelbacher has become a staple at the Tea Parties, attending the February one in Washington, D.C., as well as the Tax Day Tea Party in Lansing among others. Despite becoming a key cog in the final month of the GOP presidential campaign last year, Wurzelbacher echoed the sentiment that the Tea Party is not in line with any specific political orientation.

<snip>

:eyes:

http://www.petoskeynews.com/articles/2009/04/30/news/doc49f998f8e1276621739635.txt

[Solly Mack]

1. I believe I've seen that movie

"The Plumber Always Teabags Twice"

[Vinca]

2. Someone ought to go around with documents the teabaggers

can sign so they won't ever have to be bothered with government sponsored Medicare, social security, fire departments, police, etc. Let them "opt out" if they aren't interested in contributing via taxes.

[KharmaTrain]

3. Nice Job Reprinting The Press Release...

Gotta love lazy local papers that just put out what is handed to them. No questions or even a mention this thing probably was written verbatim from some rushpublican PR group.

So, Sammy the non-plumber's 15 minutes roll into it's 4th hour. How much ya wanna bet that half the crowd are paid patronage workers and other hangers on. But then, Western Michigan is still very conservative...astroturf grows nicely there.

[Kalyke]

8. Having worked for a small daily, I can tell you some of that is done

out of necessity.

First, the staff is probably extremely small - maybe four to six reporters, who are paid approximately $25,000 a year to work nights and weekends.

Secondly, because the staff is small, sometimes anything can be used to fill holes in the print paper (I realize this link is to something online, but I'm sure this was in the print version).

Finally, yes, it's not a great practice, but it's sometimes done out of pure necessity - the few reporters are stretched covering several beats, but a human can only report so much in a day. I had to have at least two locally generated stories a day. It may not sound like much, but it is when you're chasing sources and paperwork.

Reporters - who aren't national anchors - are paid worse than teachers and treated far more badly.

[KharmaTrain]

12. Important Points Very Much Taken

I worked in small and medium market broadcast operations. One of my first jobs was to go the county court house and city hall and "do the blotter". I have a lot more admiration for those hoofing the local beats, going to the endless board meetings and having more area to cover than time or energy. And...did we forget to mention paid poorly?

There is a bit of integrity here. This story could have been rewritten to state its source. One excellent news person I worked with would get a lot of these releases...she would always chuckle at how creative the politicians were becoming in trying to dress up their promotions as something newsworthy. Many times if she got pressure to put up one of these stories, she'd tell the person to hang on and connect them to the sale department.

[Blue_Tires]

11. a lot of small papers do that, sadly

i know this having worked for one...

[mwb970]

4. They always go out of their way to say it's "not just republikans". But of course it is.

They also always say the Teabag Parties are not anti-Obama. But of course they are. It's a fake astroturf "movement" promoted by lying liars. Good luck with that, benighted lads.

[BR_Parkway]

7. It's not racist either - even though about 95% of it probably is

[gratuitous]

10. Totally "non-partisan"

They were just, uh, too busy during eight years of Bush's maladministration to notice that the government was spending us into oblivion by prosecuting two elective invasions for the benefit of the wealthiest Americans while cutting taxes for those same Americans.

Do any of them work for a living? Have they seen the bump they got from the Democratic tax cut? Or do they all make more than a quarter mil a year?

[tabasco]

5. I hope Comedy Central is covering it.

This oughta be a laugh riot.

[tanyev]

6. Oh, good. Maybe Joe will be able to sign another book.

[Oilwellian]

9. The last "dead liberals" MI tea party was lovely

Of course it's not just republicans. :eyes:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5483063&mesg_id=5483063