Ensuring Liberty Claimed, in May, that Caucus Members Would Be Announced "Soon"

I wrote last week about how the much-hyped Ensuring Liberty Caucus, created by St. Louis tea partiers Bill Hennessy and John Loudon, among others, appears to be a huge failure. Well, I just stumbled across some new information that supports that claim: back when the website was first created, they put up a page for the "caucus" (supposedly members of the House of Representatives) and said that members would be identified "soon!"


Well, guess what? I just checked out the page, and it looks exactly the same now, 2 months later. It looks like Michelle Bachman really did stab the tea party in the back when she created her tea party PAC. I've noticed online that several prominent tea partiers have accused Bachman of "co-opting" the tea party movement with the PAC, but you wouldn't have known that from Dana Loesch's sycophantic interview with Bachman. We already knew that Loesch was happy to personally gain financially from supporting GOP insider candidates, but it's interesting that she couldn't even speak up on behalf of her fellow St. Louis tea partier's project Ensuring Liberty when she spoke with Bachman.

Finally, one other interesting note: after I wrote my last post pointing out that Ensuring Liberty hadn't updated their facebook page since June 19 and their Twitter account since June 16, they finally put up new information on both on July 19, just two days after my post.


Very nice to see that they are so concerned with criticism from my blog! Since you are heeding my advice so carefully, oh facebook page admins for Ensuring Liberty, would you mind also trying a new strategy of posting something that's true? Just a thought.

Did Michelle Bachmann Stab The St. Louis Tea Party in the Back?

A few months ago, the St. Louis tea party was going nuts hyping up their new Ensuring Liberty Caucus, which was purportedly designed to, "address the Federal Government's continual encroachment on our personal liberties by focusing on the ballot box." The "caucus" was even mentioned in a goofy Playboy article that featured an anonymous K street lobbyist trying to make the tea party sound cool. At the time, former Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel remarked:

Follow the progress of Ensuring Liberty PAC -- which was launched four months ago at the first National Tea Party Convention -- and you wonder whether this piece is promotion for a project that hasn't been very influential yet.

It sure seems like Weigel's point was on the mark. As of me writing this, the front page on the Ensuring Liberty website features a video from May 11. The most recent post on the facebook page is from June 16 (or June 29, if you want to count the postings from board member Bill Hennessy). Their Twitter page has 9 people following it, 4 of whom are board members, and hasn't been updated since June 16. This group that is supposed to revolutionize the conservative movement hasn't even had their act together enough to send out a tweet in the last month.

But what's really got to smart is that it appears their trophy congressperson, Michelle Bachman, is jumping ship. The Ensuring Liberty Caucus was designed to be a caucus in the U.S. Congress. Here's what the web site says:

With these principles to guide us, we have assembled a group of leaders currently serving in Congress to hear our voice and keep our First Principles. They are the Ensuring Liberty Caucus.

Michelle Bachman and Steve King of Iowa were apparently supposed to be a couple of the members, as they were the participants in the first (and only) Ensuring Liberty "Virtual Townhall."

But now Bachman released a press release saying she's starting her own tea party caucus in the House of Representatives. Her caucus is called the "Tea Party Caucus," rather than the "Ensuring Liberty Caucus," so it appears that she's avoiding the name already branded by Hennessy and others in the St. Louis and Quincy Tea Parties. If it is a different group, one has to wonder if Bachmann jumped ship after seeing the sad performance of the "Ensuring Liberty Caucus." If it's intended to be the same group, then it certainly speaks against any claim to being grassroots, since Bachmann's press release makes no mention of the Ensuring Liberty group or any actual "citizens" who played a role in the group's creation. Either way, it will be very interesting to see how much money was raised and where it's actually going.

Have Questions About Tea Party PAC? You Must be SATAN!

A few months ago, local talk radio host Jamie Allman hosted members of the Hillbilly Logic Radio show to discuss the St. Louis Tea Party. During the show, they asked some questions about the new Ensuring Liberty PAC created by tea partiers Bill Hennessy and John Loudon. Hennessy responded to these questions by calling Allman "radio's stammering, pausing idiot," saying that the members of the Hillbilly Logic Crew were "Fredo and the Rubes" willing to do "unnatural things to a dog like Allman," and suggesting that they were "liberal plants."

Hennessy's belated response to the actual questions about Ensuring Liberty was as follows:

Ensuring Liberty is a 501(c)4, and its affiliated PAC, the Ensuring Liberty PAC (ELPAC) were formed to address the next step in the growing impact of the conservative movement through issue advocacy, fund raising, candidate recruiting and most importantly, the development of a Congressional Caucus of like-minded representatives that stand for our First Principles.

As we have decided until primary issues have been resolved, the PAC has not yet been established, candidates have not yet been chosen and thus no money has yet been raised or distributed. Transparency for the PAC is required by FEC rules and will be followed to the letter and spirit of the law once established.

However, this claim by Hennessy was blatently false. He wrote the above quote on April 22. But he was documented raising money for Ensuring Liberty as early as March 19 and March 25. So his claim that there was "no money" raised or distributed was clearly either false or misleading. Hennessy has never addressed the discrepency of his statements.

That is...until now! Because Hennessy has a new post up that explains how anyone who criticizes the Tea Party (other than their fans) is actually The Devil! Hennessy, in his post titled Why You Should Ignore Critics, variously describes those people who criticize him as "The Serpent," "The Father of Lies," "The Great Deceiver," and "demons."

Here's an exert from Hennessy's rant:

Then there’s the other kind of critic. Enemies. They want you to fail. These critics are the Serpent. Their message is intriguing, often seductive. They get you all balled up in emotions. They lead you to suspect your allies and doubt your plans. They pose questions that suggest you are failing—and offer useful advice. They warn you of division in your ranks.

It’s a trap.

Remember that the Serpent is the Father of Lies. The Great Deceiver. Arguing with the devil is useless. He talks in circles, and all the while he pulls you further away from your mission.

He goes on to quote The Exorcist :

He is a liar. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, Damien, and powerful. So don’t listen to him. Remember that – do not listen.

Um... yikes. So you see, that's why Hennessy doesn't respond to critics. It's because he knows that they are all secretly demons from Hell trying to stand in the way of him and his saintly goal of "destroying the left."