STL Tea Party Insider: A Tragedy is Unfolding

Twitterer @Jimi971, a close friend of Dana Loesch, was arguing over Twitter with Kevin Jackson after Jackson unleashed a series of highly critical comments about St. Louis Tea Party leaders Gina and John Loudon. A central part of Jackson's criticism is that the Loudons were misusing the new Ensuring Liberty PAC. Ensuring Liberty was also at the heart of the criticism directed at the St. Louis Tea Party by 97.1 radio host Jamie Allman and the Hillbilly Logic radio crew.

For the most part, the tea party has tried to keep very quiet about the allegations. Bill Hennessy posted a little information about the PAC (which is inadequate, as I'll explain in a future post), but in general the only discussion has been tea party members urging people not to talk about the issue in public. So it was especially interesting to see this comment from Mr. Jimi:

@Theblacksphere Ashamed? C'mon man? I think it's a tragedy unfolding and the damage it could do to a great cause, a great group. Not needed

So I'm a little confused. Why would this be a tragedy? It seems to me that all the St. Louis Tea Party would need to do is follow Jamie Allman's suggestion and no one would have anything to complain about. Here's what Allman said:

My solution is this and I'll present this to Bill and Gina. Let's see ALL the paperwork from the PAC and let's see ALL who contribute and let's see ALL who receive and let's see ALL receipts. Let's see it now and let's see a pledge to make it available to the public from here on out. That way innocent, hard working people will not be harmed by suspicion or innuendo. And that way good people who have the same expectations of the TP leadership as they do of the U.S government won't be smeared and threatened with lawsuits and otherwise trashed in this little game of high school.

I should just add: this shouldn't apply only to the PAC, but also to the many other ways in which the Tea Party generates income, from the $25,000 dollar Conservatives of America glorified website to the tea shirts and hats they sell to the Ensuring Liberty corporation. That's not too much to ask, right? If they're criticizing the government for a lack of transparency, then surely they can be transparent in their own organization?