Kevin Jackson Vs. The St. Louis Tea Party, Part II

Yesterday, despite being scorned by conservatives across the state of Missouri, the St. Louis Tea Party had the hubris to announce that they were going to be creating (and presumably directing) a "tea party caucus" of legislators in Jefferson City. And, they announced, they already had a BAZILLION members! This declaration that they would be purportedly speaking for conservatives across the state had a lot of people scratching their heads.

If you recall, right-wing blogger Kevin Jackson previously blasted John and Gina Loudon as "the two biggest crooks in St. Louis" and unleashed a Twitter barrage in their general direction (this was back when the Loudons were in good standing with the tea party). Jackson, like most Missouri conservatives including Steve Tilley, but unlike the local media, seems to realize that the St. Louis tea party is extremely weak politically (see the results in the County Assessor race for the latest evidence, or ask yourself why they didn't hold either an anniversary rally or a tax day tea party this year), so he let loose in the comments:

Then work with the MCC, who represents a LOT more of MO than the STL TP. I suggest the STL TP actually do something effective IN the city of St. Louis, before expanding. Failing to get Ed Martin elected is not the track record for expansion.

Ben Evans of the tea party responded by suggesting that Jackson was just bitter because the tea party wasn't paying him:

Kevin, if you can stop using STLTPC as a proxy for attacking individuals you disagree with, we would appreciate it. Gary volunteers his time to promote a Tea Party Caucus; sorry STLTPC decided not to pay your lucrative rates to promote such a thing.

And some guy who calls himself MICK, a REAL PATRIOT also goes after Jackson in the comments:

I suggest Kevin Jackson do something for the Tea Party other than his constant self-promotion, backbiting, and threats behind the scenes. He sells a nice conservative image to the public but behind the scenes he acts just like a progressive who discovered capitalism.

It's not wrong that Kevin Jackson's only concern with this movement is how much money he can make from it it's his liberal ideology and apparently expecting people in the grassroots to pay his way and his hostility and outright nastiness towards people when he doesn't get what he wants. It would be a shame to see Kevin turn on this new group they way he has on so many others. He better stop taking stupid potshots at groups that are effective. In case he hasn't noticed, we're in a WAR. In fact, what the hell has Kevin Jackson EVER DONE for grassroots? Organize anything? Spearhead anything? Go door to door? Petition? Phone bank? Lobby? NO. He uses events to sell badly written books and by all the rumors floating around, throws a fit when he doesn't get a check. Who the hell are you Kevin Jackson to call anyone out? What a joke.

They do know how to entertain.

More Kevin Jackson on the Loudons

I wrote previously about how Kevin Jackson called St. Louis Tea Party leaders John and Gina Loudon, "the biggest two crooks in St. Louis." Jackson was a frequent speaker at Tea Party events, and was the emcee at last year's tea party rally on April 15 in Kiener Plaza. I've tracked down some additional comments from Jackson about the Loudons and his thoughts on the Ensuring Liberty Political Action Committee at the heart of the controversy.

First, after the initial Hillbilly Logic radio show where questions were raised about the Ensuring Liberty PAC, Jackson commented to "Hillbilly" Jay Stewart: He later added:

Jackson was also quite actively attacking the Loudons on his Twitter account:












Geez, you think Jackson is mad at his former publicist? One last note about the conflict. Someone named Clive Rangler commented on Kevin Jackson's post that Gina Loudon had been riding Dana Loesch's coattails to success.
Jackson responded by noting that this was happening while Loudon was supposed to be working as his publicist:

Jackson further added that the Loudons started it:

Wow. The tea party is usually pretty good about circling the wagons and trying not to let anything out to the public. But I guess when the cracks appear there's lot of animosity waiting to burst out!

Bill Hennessy Dodges Ensuring Liberty Questions

As has been documented here, several prominent local conservatives, including 97.1 radio host Jamie Allman, author Kevin Jackson, and the Hillbilly Logic radio crew, have raised questions about the transparency of the St. Louis Tea Party's Ensuring Liberty PAC. This is on top of allegations a couple weeks ago from @JanSimpson that the tea party was using their organization to make money from political candidates.

St. Louis Tea Party leader Bill Hennessy wrote a post in the last couple days purporting to explain the operations of the PAC. Here specifically is what he had to say about the monetary aspect:

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.

Here's what's interesting: Hennessy suggests that they haven't started raising any money for the PAC and thus there is nothing to be transparent about. However, this really dodges the issue, because the reality is that Ensuring Liberty has been raising money for their nonprofilt organization, even if they havn't been raising money for the PAC specifically. From their Ensuring Liberty website, you can see that they have a donations page set up already:
You can also see via their facebook page that they've been raising money for the nonprofit since March 19:


So did Hennessy really address the questions? It sure seems to me that the people asking questions were really interested in transparency for the organization in general, not just for one particular facet of it. Any of the problems you might have from raising money for a PAC would surely be at least as prevalent in raising money for a nonprofit corporation. Does Hennessy really not recognize this, or is he being deliberately opaque?

Kevin Jackson: "Gina and John Loudon are the biggest two crooks in St. Louis"

Whoa! The infighting in the St. Louis Tea Party is getting pretty serious! Here's what Kevin Jackson, conservative author and frequent speaker at St. Louis Tea Party rallies, had to say on facebook today:

Gina and John Loudon are the biggest two crooks in St. Louis. Gina is saying that I hit on her (LOL!), spent her political capital (doesn't exist), and wrote part of my book (as if!). She was worthless as a publicist (a FRAUD), and they will do ANYTHING for money, including using their "chirrens!" You want war LOUDON, you GOT it! I can back ALL my words up!

Jackson was previously listed as a client for the Loudons' marketing firm Legacy Group of Missouri:

Jackson had more to say below:

They started a PAC, so they could rob good conservatives of their money. These people will be funding their LIVES with this money. EVERYTHING they do will fall under the "PAC." They will be like rogue salespeople with expense accounts! And they tried to hide the PAC, then made John Loudon the Chairman of the PAC! All associated with the St. Louis Tea Party, which they CLAIM is not political!!

Here are the screen shots:



h/t MOPNS.