Although the Minnesota State Legislature starts up again on Tuesday, February 25, there's no floor session scheduled for Thursday, February 27 (ordinarily the House meets on Mondays and Thursdays while the legislature is in session).
Two committees meet that Thursday, but Representative Cindy Pugh (R-Chanhassen) isn't on either of them. Good thing, too--since she'll be in Washington DC that day for a party. Found at the end of an email Tea Party Patriots newsletter calling for the resignation of Ohio Congressman John Boehner as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives:
This year also marks an important milestone for Tea Party Patriots. On February 27, 2014, we will gather at the Hyatt Capitol Hill to celebrate our five-year anniversary, and embark on a new plan in our fight against big government and irresponsible leadership. The last five years have brought significant triumphs, but there's more work to do. If we're going to permanently change the way Washington does business, we need to make our voice heard!
Tea Party Patriots Co-Founder Jenny Beth Martin will be there with other liberty-loving Americans including radio host and best-selling author Mark Levin, Sen. Mike Lee (UT), Southwest Metro Tea Party Patriots Co-Founder and Minnesota State Rep. Cindy Pugh, Center for Self-Governance President Mark Herr, Washington Blueprint Organizer Woody Herzog, Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX), Mansfield Tea Party Founder Marianne Gasiecki and Rep. Steve King (IA).
Such company. Pugh, who has compared Muslim women dressed in hijab to garbage, feared illiterate voters and Muslims, and promoted Agenda 21 phobia at SW Metro Tea Party meetings, should feel right at home.
Back in October during a radio interview at the Values Voter Summit, Levin "claimed that President Obama, Congress and the Supreme Court, due to the court’s decisions on gay marriage, are imposing 'tyranny,'" according to Right Wing Watch, adding that he thought Obama needs to “sit down and shut up.”
Senator Lee delivered a Tea Party response to the SOTU last month. The New Republic called him:
. . . perhaps the most important member of the Tea Party, which makes him one of the most important Republicans by default, since the central party leadership is extraordinarily, historically weak. . . .
Lee's prominence is due to three factors: the party's power vacuum, his extreme conservatism, and his earnest affect. The question for him, yet to be answered, is how serious he is about actual policy change—as compared to simply grabbing power and money for himself.
According to the Tea Party Patriots, Mark Herr has:
. . . helped organize the Mid-South Tea Party, of which he is a member, into a productive and effective team-based structure based upon the strengths and passions of members. Working with local, state, and federal teams, the Mid-South Tea Party was critical in defeating an Animal Control Ordinance, lowering the property tax, opposing Agenda 21, and much more. Mark has also been critical in coordinating a state-wide Tea Party alliance, bringing together Tea Party groups in Tennessee on a quarterly basis.
Because ensuring that people provide their pets with food, water and shelter is just so nanny state. Steve King's pro-puppy mill amendment didn't make it into the new Farm Bill, so maybe Herr can offer King some ProTips on anti-animal welfare policy.
Both King and Gohmert gained notoriety in 2013 when they traveled to Egypt with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Politico reported in Bachmann, Gohmert, King's bizarre Egypt statement:
Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Steve King (R-Iowa) were in Egypt this past weekend and took the opportunity to film an unusual 15 minutes long joint statement praising the current government in Egypt. . . .
Gohmert compared the man now running Egypt, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, to George Washington and said the “bloodthirsty Muslim Brothers” want to “destabilize things” and seek “that large caliphate.”
. . . The video is largely being panned by the American media. Fisher calls the video a "doozy," Business Insider's Brett Logiurato calls the video "bizarre, to say the least," and the New York Times quotes a political scientists who "called the lawmakers’ statements 'utterly absurd' and compared the conference to 'a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit — unbelievable, ludicrous, almost comic if it wasn’t so painful.'"
While Bachmann isn't mentioned in the newsletter, she is listed as a confirmed speaker on the Tea Party Patriots anniversary event page, along with such Tea Party heroes as October shutdown kingpin Mark Meadows (R-North Carolina) and Mark Salmon, who would ban adoption by same-sex couples, civil unions and same-sex marriage, despite having a gay son.
Pugh should find no shortage of kindred spirits, although we wonder if she'll stop in to see her congressman while in town. Politics in Minnesota reported in Federal shutdown brings heat on Paulsen:
On Thursday morning a dozen conservative activists, including GOP state Rep. Cindy Pugh, gathered in U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen’s Eden Prairie office seeking an audience with the congressman. The group was upset over recent comments by Paulsen suggesting that he would be willing to break with the GOP House leadership in order to end the federal government shutdown.
Paulsen voted for the budget deal that ended the shutdown, but will probably be spared new wrath since he voted against raising the debt ceiling yesterday. The Tea Party Patriots, including Minnesota's Rochester chapter, are calling for John Boehner (R-OH) to step down as Speaker.
We just hope someone checks to see if Pugh claims per diem for the day off in the Beltway.
Photos: Minnesota state representative Cindy Pugh (R-Chanhassen), above; a screenshot from the Rochester Tea Party Patriots, of the TPP demand that John Boehner resigned as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, below.
Note: Huffington Post published Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement: Tea Party Patriots back in December 2009, which examined the group's origins and early allies:
The Tea Party Patriots is a nationwide coalition of Tea Party groups, that is the de facto face of the movement.
The local groups it represents may include grassroots activists, but the coalition's backers and organizers are among the nation's most powerful strategists, operatives and financiers. TeaPartyPatriots.org lists two major heavyweights among its partners: FreedomWorks, helmed by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, and American Solutions for Winning the Future, a 527 group created by former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The American Liberty Alliance is another listed partner. . . .
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