Author Archives: KristofPatteson

Tea Partiers Ignore Michele Bachmann’s Call for Rally Against "Amnesty"

by KristofPatteson Posted on December 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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On November 20, minutes after President Barack Obama delivered a speech explaining his executive action on immigration reform that would protect millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) took to Fox News and called on tea partiers everywhere to come to Washington to protest.

Bachmann, the head of the House tea party caucus who is retiring from Congress in weeks, implored the audience to help her fight the “amnesty.” She urged them to “melt the phone lines” to congressional lawmakers. And she declared she would be leading a protest on Capitol Hill. “I’m calling on your viewers to come to DC on Wednesday, December 3, at high noon on the west steps of the Capitol,” she proclaimed. “We need to have a rally, and we need to go visit our senators and visit our congressman, because nothing frightens a congressman like the whites of his constituents’ eyes…We need the viewers to come and help us.”

The next day, the Tea Party Patriots, one of the largest remaining tea party groups, sent out an urgent survey to its members. The email, signed by cofounder Jenny Beth Martin, said the group—which has worked closely with Bachmann in the past to organize other rallies at the Capitol—was trying to determine whether such a rally would be a good use of its resources. The email asked these “patriots” to indicate whether they would respond to Bachmann and come to Washington to protest the president’s actions on immigration. Apparently, the answer was no. The Tea Party Patriots did not sign up for this ride.

With the tea party not heeding Bachmann’s call, her “high noon” rally was downgraded to…a press conference. So on Wednesday, Bachmann appeared on the Capitol steps—joined by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa)—and spoke to a passel of cameras and about 40 protesters. Here’s a picture of the crowd:

Stephanie Mencimer

What happened to her big protest? Bachmann’s office did not respond to a request for comment. A TPP spokesman said in an email that the “gathering in Washington is not a Tea Party Patriots event per se, but we are fully in favor of it and have encouraged our supporters in the area to come out if they can.”

The lackluster response to Bachmann’s high-noon call is a far cry from five years ago, when the congresswoman made a similar appeal on Fox for a protest against Obamacare. She asked for tea partiers to hit Capitol Hill and tell legislators “don’t you dare take away my health care.” And the fledgling tea party movement responded enthusiastically. The Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity dispatched dozens buses full of activists—29 just from New Jersey. FreedomWorks, then headed by former House majority leader Dick Armey, organized more. Glenn Beck promoted the event. Thousands of people showed up, as did the entire GOP House leadership. The momentum generated from that rally helped the GOP in the 2010 midterm elections.

Bachmann, after a failed run for the White House, is spending her last days on the Hill writing listicles for BuzzFeed. And even before her final day as a congresswoman, Bachmann, with this non-rally, seems a has-been.

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Tea Partiers Ignore Michele Bachmann’s Call for Rally Against "Amnesty"

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The Right’s Newest Obama Conspiracy: He Made Up a "New" Terrorist Group to Defeat

by KristofPatteson Posted on September 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Monday night, the US military bombed ISIS, the radical group taking over chunks of Iraq and Syria. As a “last-minute add-on,” as NBC put it, the US also targeted an organization called the Khorasan Group, a shadowy outfit composed of Al Qaeda veterans. After the bombing, the White House and the Pentagon noted that the Khorasan Group was in the “execution phase” of planning attacks on the West.

But some conservatives made sure not to give President Obama any credit for possibly thwarting a terrorist threat. Instead, they hatched yet another anti-Obama conspiracy theory: The president had concocted a supposedly new terrorist organization to destroy. That is, he and his aides were calling this new target the Khorasan Group, and not Al Qaeda, so they would not have to acknowledge that Al Qaeda—which the president in 2012 said was “on the run”—was still a threat.

“From what I understand, the Obama regime has given this group a new name in order for Obama to be able to continue to say he wiped Al Qaeda out,” Rush Limbaugh said on Wednesday. “So you come up with a new name for Al Qaeda, the Kardashians, or Khorasans, or whatever they are, and either way it’s defeating…So this new group is essentially just Al Qaeda renamed.”

Glenn Beck came to a similar conclusion: “What is Khorasan? Director of National Intelligence James Clapper mentioned Khorasan for the first time last week. What is it? It’s an Al Qaeda splinter group. Notice they’re not saying ‘Al Qaeda Khorasan.’ They’re just calling it Khorasan. Why? The Pentagon claimed they have been watching Khorasan for a very long time, but it wasn’t too long ago that this administration said Al Qaeda was decimated and on the run. But now they’re an imminent threat? It doesn’t add up, does it?”

Right-wing bloggers jumped on the bandwagon. Sweetness and Light (the Conservative Political Action Conference’s blog of the year in 2009), claimed, “There are dozens of Al Qaeda subsets, and we have never bothered to call them by their specific tribal names before—but now all of a sudden we have to call Al Qaeda ‘the Khorasan Group’ in order to help save Obama’s ass face.”

Sarah Noble of the Independent Sentinel wrote, “Khorasan IS Al Qaeda…They have been dangerous since 2009 and they have been unremittingly dangerous.”

The Gateway Pundit noted: “The Obama administration can’t say they bombed al-Qaeda because they said they defeated al-Qaeda. So, now they spin lies about core al-Qaeda being defeated and how they bombed the ‘Khorasan Group’ instead of al-Qaeda. It’s just more lies.”

But if the Obama administration wants to hide the Khorasan Group’s connection to Al Qaeda, it has done a poor job. The administration and US officials have been open about Khorasan’s affiliation with Al Qaeda—especially the ties of its leader Muhsin al-Fadhli, a close ally of Osama bin Laden—since disclosing details about the group this week before the strikes. Obama referred to the Khorasan Group as “seasoned Al Qaeda veterans” in a statement on Tuesday morning. US officials told the Associated Press earlier this month that the group of about 50 Al Qaeda veterans, mostly from Afghanistan and Pakistan, set up shop in Syria on the orders of Al Qaeda top dog Ayman al-Zawahari in order to attract recruits.

Because the Obama administration has not revealed any intelligence showing that the Khorasan Group was indeed close to executing plots against the United States and other Western nations, it’s hard for pundits and citizens to evaluate the claim that a direct and imminent threat was addressed by these air strikes. If administration officials can be taken at their word, then Obama has scored a hit in the battle against Islamic jihadists aiming to harm the United States. But that might be too difficult for conservatives to concede.

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The Right’s Newest Obama Conspiracy: He Made Up a "New" Terrorist Group to Defeat

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Obama Planning to Retire to Rancho Mirage?

by KristofPatteson Posted on July 22, 2014

Mother Jones

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Let the speculation begin!

President Obama and his wife, Michelle, could be the owners of a home in Rancho Mirage listed at $4.25 million before the month is out. The First Family is believed to be in escrow on a contemporary home in a gated community where entertainers Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby once maintained estates.

The White House said rumors regarding a home in Rancho Mirage are not true.

….The 8,232-square-foot compound in question sits adjacent to a bighorn sheep preserve on a 3.29-acre hilltop with panoramic views. The custom-built main house, constructed in 1993 and designed for entertaining, includes a gym, four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. A 2,000-square-foot casita has three bedrooms and three bathrooms. Over-the-top exterior features include a pool with a 20-foot waterfall, a rock lagoon, two spas, a misting system and a putting green with a sand trap.

I have to say that the Obamas don’t really strike me as Rancho Mirage kind of people, but who knows? Maybe I’ve misjudged them.

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Obama Planning to Retire to Rancho Mirage?

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