On November 4, 2011, Occupy DC flocked outside of AFP’s Defending the Dream Summit held at the Washington Convention Center and began protesting. During the course of the events, the situation turned violent. One instance involved a mother using her kids to blockade the door in which MRCTV’s Stephen Gutowski caught on tape.

By sheer luck, just days before on October 31, MRCTV’s Dan Joseph asked the lady why she believes the cops haven’t broken up their living headquarters at McPherson Square. She responded by saying it was politically expedient for the cops to let them continue.

On November 8, MRCTV’s Joe Schoffstall caught up with the lady as they were protesting downtown in retaliation to what happened at the AFP summit. She told us that her and her children ‘protest together’ and that she doesn’t regret placing her kids in front of the door and will continue to do so. She also said it was the police who put her children in danger.

Here’s what she had to say:

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The Tea Party movement, which was so heralded in 2009 and 2010 and played a large role in motivating voters and candidates to move to the right, is dead.  It’s chief accomplishment was to elect enough Republicans to the US House of Representatives that John Boehner was elected Speaker. But make no mistake, the movement—as it was known then—is dead. And it is becoming painfully embarrassing to watch groups prop up the corpse and parade around like it was still alive—an electoral version of Weekend at Bernie’s.

The Missouri chapter of Americans for Prosperity, which—when led by Carl Bearden in 2009 and 2010—adroitly harnessed grassroots angst and helped organize voters and give them voice. Alas, Bearden has left AFP, and the organization recently held some non-ironically named “Running on Empty” rallies featuring a large inflatable gasoline pump… and little else. Attendance was anemic in Kansas City and it is not evident what, if anything, was accomplished.

The Freedom Jamboree slated for Kansas City was cancelled due to lack of interest. It was originally presented as the National Tea Party Straw Poll Convention, and guest speakers were to include Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum.  Less than 20% of the organizer’s attendance goal was reached, and so they pulled the plug.

And now we learn from the leader of the St. Louis Tea Party, Bill Hennessy, that the August 4 Tea Party in Kiener Plaza is likewise cancelled. In his post explaining the cancellation, Hennessy allows, “other cities have had a hard time getting people enthused about rallies since last year’s election.”

Not to be outdone, the Left has hopped aboard the Tea Party train just as it is running out of steam.

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Frank Rich’s column in the New York Times opinion section this weekend was at the very least two things: Lies and the rehashed work of another writer. But it was also a third thing and that third thing was cover for his buddy in the Oval office and for the hard-core left-wing agenda he’s trying to force down our throats. Rich lent that cover by desperately trying to discredit “the Tea Party “as a funded-from-the-top, sham of a movement. The truth is, though, that “the Tea Party” is not funded by shadowy, rich right-wingers. It isn’t funded at all in most cases.

First of all most of what Rich wrote was but rehashed words from Jane Mayer’s slam against the Koch Brothers of New York. Three quarters of what Rich penned really came from Mayer’s New Yorker piece on the philanthropists. So, big demerits for Frank Rich for simply appropriating Mayer’s piece.

But the real point of Rich’s piece was to pile onto Mayer’s slanted attack piece with some echoed slams against the Tea Party movement in order to discredit it all. Rich is desperate to make the movement seem like a marionette show with rich “sugar daddies” funding it and controlling it from the top.

“There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising,” Rich says of the Tea Party events, “the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the ‘death panel’ warm-up acts of last summer.”

Rich then rehashes Mayer’s examples of where the Koch brothers put their money in the form of Americans For Prosperity and Freedom Works, two nationwide, very active, and successful conservative advocacy groups.

Now, it is absolutely true that both AFP and Freedom Works have had the cash to put on large events in Washington D.C. and other cities. But it is not true that either of these groups controls and runs “the Tea Party” movement from above.

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In this week’s edition of Coffee and Markets, featuring The New Ledger’s Francis Cianfrocca, we’re talking about the latest Federal Reserve activity, the kerfuffle between Paul Krugman and Paul Ryan, and Barack Obama’s bashing exercise against Americans for Prosperity. We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment.com and Stephen Clouse and Associates.

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TNL: Tea Parties and the Professional Left