Members of the Tea Party Nation e-mail list received an astonishing e-mail this afternoon, naming, rebutting, and attacking their critics. Sherry Phillips’s email is posted after the jump.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n Judson and I have stayed silent in the face of intense media scrutiny and attacks by former members.\u00a0 As a wife and a mother, I have stood by my husband and family and stayed strong in the face of many baseless accusations and criticism.\u00a0 We have refrained from responding to many of the attacks that have been thrown at us from other “Tea Party” groups, in the belief we did not want to spread the divisions that are already hurting this movement even though that does not seem to be the consideration of some others involved in this movement.\u00a0 Because of the many TPN members’ requests American Liberty Alliance – Eric Odom’s American Liberty Alliance American Majority – After stating in the beginning they wanted Tea Party Express – This group has been very supportive of us.\u00a0 They intended to do a small tour, culminating in an event Saturday afternoon prior to the banquet.\u00a0 Because of their efforts in the Scott Brown race and their intent to go after Harry Reid in Nevada, they simply cannot make the trip.\u00a0 We received a very nice email from them explaining their actions and restating their invitation to join them when they kick off their next tour in March.\u00a0 We will be there.\u00a0 We fully support their endeavors as they open their next tour in Nevada this spring.<\/p>\n Campaign for Liberty – We actively sought out Campaign for Liberty Former Tea Party Nation Members – Several former members were In one of their more egregious statements a former member wrote that Judson stated, “I want to make a million dollars from this movement.”\u00a0 Judson has never made this statement.\u00a0 He has stated on numerous occasions that he would like TPN to have a million members all fighting for the cause of conservatism!<\/p>\n Bill Hemrick – Mr. Hemrick made a business loan to Tea Party Congressmen Bachmann and Blackburn – Both Congresswomen have large targets on their backs and are rightfully concerned about backlash they will receive from the left-leaning Democrat controlled House Ethics Committee.\u00a0 Because of the complexity of the Ethics Code regarding House Representatives, we have no doubt the Democrats would have found something in that code to cause them problems once the convention was over.\u00a0 We were also informed by Rep. Bachmann that both were being told two different things by the House Ethics Committee in regard to their participation.\u00a0 This of course sent up red flags to everyone involved.\u00a0 We do not blame either Congressman for their decision to withdraw from the convention and maintain a strong relationship with them both.<\/p>\n Tea Party Nation – Last February after Judson held one of the As TPN has stated since its formation, we are not a non-profit.\u00a0 We prefer to offer free membership to conservative patriots so they may participate in the political process of restoring this nation to its founding principles without financial burdens, hardships or roadblocks to prevent their participation.\u00a0 Members are then able to choose their own way to spend their money without any involvement from TPN.<\/p>\n\n
\nand encouragement, I have decided to provide comment about Tea Party Nation and the National Tea Party Convention. We will stay silent no longer. I hope my comments and the issues I deal with in this note will provide some clarity.<\/p>\n
\nis a for profit company that takes donations.\u00a0 We agreed to a sponsorship exchange where ALA would be a gold sponsor of the convention and we would be a gold sponsor of the Tax Day Tea Party.\u00a0 Shortly after agreeing to this exchange,\u00a0 Eric emailed Judson and me privately saying he was supportive of us and this convention and did not want to pull out, because he thinks this convention is going to be a huge success; however, some his “influential supporters”\u00a0 were not happy about ALA’s participation
\nin the convention and asked Eric to withdraw.<\/p>\n
\nto co-sponsor the convention, they never answered repeated emails sent asking them for confirmation of their attendance. They did not promote the convention and did not put the convention on their calendar.\u00a0 In fact Ned Ryun spent 5 minutes in an interview on Fox News talking about the Tea Party movement and did not mention the convention at all.\u00a0 Meanwhile, another training organization contacted us asking if they could become a sponsor and if they could do a breakout session.\u00a0 We gladly accepted and gave them American Majority’s spots.\u00a0 On January 6, Ned’s assistant sent an email stating she was making travel arrangements for them to come and participate in the convention and asked when did we have their breakouts scheduled.\u00a0 I told her because of their non-response,
\nwe gave American Majority’s slots to this other organization. They
\nthen requested that their logo be removed from the Convention website.\u00a0 We complied with their request.<\/p>\n
\nas a sponsor of this convention.\u00a0 We were contacted several weeks ago by the TN Director for CFL who wanted to co-sponsor the convention and I put him in touch with our Sponsorship Chair.\u00a0 We have not heard anything from them since.<\/p>\n
\nunanimously banned from our site for reasons running the gamut from antagonism to passing on confidential information.\u00a0 These members have been blogging, as well as discussing their association with liberal media outlets and conspiring with each other to, “Take TPN and this convention down”.<\/p>\n
\nNation at a commercial interest rate.\u00a0 This loan has been paid back in full.\u00a0 That is the full extent of any relationship we have had with Mr. Hemrick.<\/p>\n
\nfirst tea parties in the country in downtown Nashville, he came up with the idea for a social networking site for conservatives. Judson and I created Tea Party Nation.\u00a0 We formed the corporation. We financed the corporation. We bought the domain name teapartynation.com<\/a>, we purchased the servers and we pay for the
\nmonthly expenses.\u00a0 We are a C-Corp and do not accept donations.\u00a0 Tea Party Nation charges nothing to be a member and is run entirely by volunteers.\u00a0 Recently, we have been able to start charging for advertising on the site to help defray the costs of running the site.<\/p>\n