Bill Hennessy edits www.stlouisteaparty.com and helps lead a small but hygienic and peaceful band of rebels known as the St Louis Tea Party Coalition. After nine years in the U.S. Navy's submarine force (not so hygienic), Bill wrote The Conservative Manifesto (Right Press, 1993) and was a Town Hall columnist from 1993 to 1996. Bill has appeared on Fox News and numerous St. Louis television and radio programs. He lives in St. Louis County with his wife and four of their five children.
Bill Hennessy
Ensuring Liberty PAC: Creating a Tea Party Caucus
by Bill HennessyIf you followed the news out of Nashville, you probably heard that some Tea Party folks are creating a Political Action Committee that will win 15 to 20 key Congressional races in 2010 and, perhaps, in years beyond. What you didn’t hear at the press conference was that several grassroots tea party organizers are so strongly in favor of this move that we have agreed to serve Ensuring Liberty PAC through its organizing parent, the Ensuring Liberty 501.c(4). Our local tea parties will continue unchanged.
Who Comprises the ELPAC
Very simply, ELPAC is led by six people from some of the most effective local Tea Party organizations in America:
- Mark Skoda of The Memphis Tea Party
- Steve McQueen of The Quincy Tea Party
- State Sen. John Loudon (MO-Ret.) of St. Louis Tea Party
- Rose Corona, a California farmer and Patriot
- Brad Ehmen of The Quincy Tea Party
- Bill Hennessy of St. Louis Tea Party
While you might not recognize all of these names, I do. These are the people who have been in the fox holes with us since day one. They are bold and resilient fighters for freedom. They are the men and women we turn to for counsel, support, advice, strength, and help across the Mid-West and across the the nation. We share mutual faith in each other. The men and women on this list have skills to win elections with grassroots activism. They embody what happened in NY-23 and Massachusetts.
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The Tea Party’s Focus: Elections
by Bill HennessyFor the Tea Party movement, 2009 was about coming together, meeting our brothers and sisters in arms, and standing athwart socialism, yelling, “Stop!” It worked. President Obama entered office promising socialized medicine, card check, and cap and trade all before the August recess. He went 0 for 3 thanks a grassroots uprising that came together like spattered quicksilver.
In our desire to fix things, we also launched a lot of legislative initiatives. These initiatives included various sovereignty amendments in the states, petitions for Constitutional Conventions, petitions for redress of grievances, petitions of right, and state laws exempting states from any national healthcare legislation. Each of these was a bold and important step, and such laws, amendments, and petitions should continue. Next year.
Let’s not fool ourselves. While the Tea Party movement has been very effective, it has been effective only when focused on a very narrow set of compelling causes. Our quick responses to card check and cap and trade convinced the White House to suspend those initiatives until we weren’t looking. Our overwhelming attack on ObamaCare took the last bit of energy and time from each Tea Party patriot. We left it all on the field.
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House Conservatives Break With GOP Leaders in Fight Against ObamaCare
by Bill HennessyRepublican leadership, at all levels, should have learned a quick lesson about the mood of America’s conservatives from the Dede Scozzafava debacle in upper New York state. Unfortunately, the GOP House Leadership might need some remedial instruction. And a group of conservative Republican lawmakers met Tuesday to draft that lesson plan.
Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has been one of the more vocal opponents of ObamaCare. Last week on Sean Hannity’s television program, Ms. Bachmann announced the “House Call on Congress.” She urged Americans to come to Washington, DC, to a press conference on the Capitol steps at Noon on Thursday, November 5. After the presser, Ms. Bachmann will lead the citizens through House office buildings to confront Democrats on their own turf. She hopes to draw thousands to DC to tell the Democrats to their faces, “We don’t want a government takeover of our healthcare.” Yesterday, Ms. Bachmann announced that conservative talk radio host Mark Levin would join her.
Leaders, though, tend to be cautious. Before the Hill brass swooped in to “help” organizers by providing speaker lists and talking points, a band of conservatives formed a steering committee to keep the message and the tactics authentically conservative. These rebels don’t want talking points; they want a battle cry.
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New York 23: When a Nation Calls
by Bill HennessyThe Tea Party movement has been quiet since the September 12 massive rallies in Washington, Quincy, Dallas, and elsewhere. Paul Krugman was so bold as to write on October 26, “the tea baggers have come and gone.” On the same day, CBS News blogger Charles Cooper asked rhetorically, “Did the Tea Partiers Party Too Soon?” The message from the White House talking points memo was clear: that annoying fit of folksy patriotic crap is over, and we in the political class can get back to the business of tyranny.
Shifting Forms
While the Washington literati sipped Fair Trade coffee, the Tea Partiers shifted form, as they have many times before. In February, it was the angry mob telling government, “no more bailouts.” Government continued bailing out its favored corporate lackeys, and the angry mob morphed into a massive movement with 1.2 million people protesting government growth on Tax Day.
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