The Floyd Tea party now has a Facebook page and a Twitter account.  (As does the Roanoke Tea Party) 

Pease visit our Facebook pages and leave a comment or “like” it so others can see that you support the Floyd Tea Party and Roanoke Tea Parties

The Floyd Tea Party website has had 342 visitors since August 18th. The website was constructed the day after the last Tea Party meeting. The next Floyd County meeting will take place on September 16th at 7:30 pm at the Jessie Peterson memorial Library.
Get there early if you want to be able to sit down. The last few meetings filled the room.

The Freedom For Virginians Act (FFVA) now has it’s own website.  Check it out. Very exciting things are happening around this concept.

Virginia State Tea Party Convention Oct 8,9

The Virginia Tea Party Patriot Federation announces the first-ever Virginia Tea Party Convention which will take place on October 8-9, 2010. This will be an amazing event with dozens of breakout seminars, phenomenal speakers, great music, and much more.

VIRGINIA TEA PARTY CONVENTION
Greater Richmond Convention Center
Friday, October 08 – Saturday, October 09, 2010

MAIN CONVENTION TICKETS

* Two Day Ticket for: Friday, October 08, 2010 & Saturday, October 09, 2010 8:00am – 5:00pm $50.00 (Standard)
* Two Day Group Special: Buy more than one ticket and get an EXTRA $5 off the 2-day early bird special!
* One Day Ticket for: Friday, October 08, 2010 OR Saturday, October 9 8:00am – 5:00pm $40.00 (Standard)

SPECIAL EVENT TICKETS (sold separately)
Freedom Lovers Extravaganza
Friday, October 08, 2010 7:00 PM – 11:00 PM
Location: Downtown Richmond Marriott Hotel
Cost: $20.00

* Mingling/networking with other attendees,
* hors d’oeuvres, cash bar
* live band and dancing
* Reserve early – Tickets are limited!

All info and register at: WWW.VATEAPARTYCONVENTION.COM

For more information on the convention, follow these links:

http://www.roanoketeaparty.com/state-tea-party-convention-2/

http://www.vateapartyconvention.com/index.php

The Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation is a collection of Tea Party and Patriot groups from throughout Virginia who have joined together to host the convention.

Between 3,000 and 5,000 Virginians are expected to attend the convention. During the two-day convention, speakers will address the importance of the Constitution and limited government during a time of unprecedented government expansion. Dozens of breakout seminars will be offered related to the Constitution/U.S. political history, current public policy and grassroots activist training. Congressional candidate and national policy forums will be conducted. The convention will end with a presidential straw poll.

All of Virginia’s congressional incumbents, congressional candidates, state senators and delegates have been invited to attend and participate, regardless of party affiliation.
With the convention being held just weeks before the November elections, this event will provide representatives, candidates and constituents a unique opportunity to mingle and discuss the critical issues facing our nation, fostering a better informed public and a more responsive and responsible government,‖ said Jamie Radtke, president of Richmond Tea Party and chairman of Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation.

It is important that Virginia’s elected leaders understand the concern that so many of us have about the enormous expansion of federal power and the exploding national debt.‖

The meeting will be held at the Fincastle Library (11 Academy Street, Fincastle – (540) 473-8339) on September 17th. The meeting will start at 6:30 PM.

The group that has started this already have a Facebook page. Check it out. We will be running an ad on Valley Vision TV that is seen throughout portions of Botetourt that get Comcast cable. Thanks to Valley Vision for their ongoing AWESOME support!

We think it is critical that the citizens of Botetourt have a Tea Party group that is focused on local issues. As a Botetourt resident, I am eager to get my neighbors into the Tea Party movement, so we can hold local and state officials equally accountable, educate ourselves and our neigbors on the Constitution and restore the values and principles that are so lacking in our public discourse.

See you on the 17th!

We have had some good success in that…

We have the support of the America Patriots Committee PAC. This group will allow us to raise money for State Delegate and Senatorial Candidates who support the FFVA.

We also proud that Sonnie Johnson from the Frederick Douglas Foundation is also a big supporter of the FFVA. She will be a great ally in this effort.

We continue to talk to other folks…but our main thrust now is to get this out to the people. We think this is a direction that people can get excited about. We have a group of “missionaries” to go out and spread the word….let us know if you’d like to join that.

One of the best ways to promote this in the short term is the Virginia Tea Party Convention in Richmond on Oct 8 and 9. There will be 3000-5000 patriots in attendance and big name speakers like Lou Dobbs and Dick Morris. And a lot of folks to get the word out to on FFVA.

We are not selling as many tickets as we need to…as I’d like to flood Richmond’s Convention Center. Sign up here.

We would like to create committees to work on local political issues and to do more community outreach. We have volunteers lined up for that.

And we did here from Morgan Griffith. He said the right things and did come down in favor of the concept of state nullification, something our governor is to scared to do. The previous entry has a link to the Channel 10 News Coverage. But no endorsements for Federal officials…our focus remains on state and local concerns.

We also have board elections coming up and a committee tweaking our bylaws…

We didn’t talk about this in the meeting, but we will be doing some grading of the candidates in the 6th district race. Several hard working volunteers put together a lot of information on this…more to come soon.

Whew…lots going on!

All in all…a great meeting. We just need to keep up the fight for the FFVA and get more folks to Richmond for the Convention. I know we can do it.

Join the Resistance, Join the Roanoke Tea Party.

Chip Tarbutton

Will share more tomorrow but the initial reporting was pretty standard fair.

Not only is it more attractive, comfortable and more conducive to our needs, but is also $100 less expensive for us to rent each month!

We’ll have information and reports about a number of items Thursday evening:
This past weekend’s bus trip to DC
October Tea Party convention in Richmond
Vetting of candidates for the November election
Freedom For Virginians Act – progress and roadblocks
Recent meeting with leaders from several regional Libertarian, Constitution and Republican groups to form a SW VA Patriots confederation

Here are two important pieces of information about our September 2 open meeting which have just now been confirmed.

Delegate Morgan Griffith will join us at Thursday evening’s meeting to speak briefly and take questions from our members and supporters. Griffith is running against Rick Boucher for the 9th District Congressional seat.

We are sure that many of you will have questions for Delegate Griffith as we prepare for the November elections.

Thanks to our friends with the Salem Tea Party for arranging this question-and-answer session with the candidate.

PLUS, we will have a video crew from Estonian Television on hand for Thursday’s meeting! They are preparing a documentary about the Tea Party, and hope to interview members and leaders of the Roanoke Tea Party.

The producer tells us that citizens of Estonia are confused about the Tea Party movement in the US, and he hopes to clarify that for viewers in this former-Soviet republic with his reporting. We are delighted to welcome them to Roanoke.

Thursday’s meeting will be held on September 2 at 6:30 pm at our new meeting location at the River’s Edge Ramada Inn in Roanoke.

The Ramada is located at 1927 Franklin Road, just south of the intersection with Wiley Drive, near the River’s Edge Sports Complex. We will meet in their new conference room; just enter the main lobby, and the conference room is to the back, and then left.

Please plan to join us on Thursday evening at 6:30 if you possibly can. Your presence always adds value to our meetings!

Thanks again to everyone who has supported the Tea Party in 2010.

Oct 8 and Oct 9th in Richmond….we need supporters there. It will be fun. We’ll have great speakers like Lou Dobbs, Dick Morris, Herman Cain and Ken Cuccinelli. We’ll be rolling out legislative ideas to help drive change in our nation. We are offering a trip for Friday and Saturday and a Saturday only trip that are ver reasonable.

More information here http://www.vateapartyconvention.com/index.php

And here….http://www.roanoketeaparty.com/state-tea-party-convention-2/

One of the positive outcomes of the Beck Rally is the focus on honor and honesty.

And nothing symbolizes that more than upholding the oaths we take. How do we honor that commitment going forward?  We need to restore ourselves and to restore the honor of our leaders.

All of our political leaders swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Do they do that? We can’t find many…

Here are some examples. And why we need bold, brave actions. Lots of information below.

Our own Governor is violating this oath with his participation and acceptance of another Federal intrusion; the Council of Governors.

Caleb Coulter, from our board, gave a fabulous history lesson on the events leading up to the Council of Governors directly to the governor at the Governor’s townhall meeting in Roanoke a few weeks back.

 Click here for much of that history. Long story short, the Governor is trying to work through the system to assure he maintains control of the militia in Virgina, which is his Constitutional duty. Our argument is simple: he already has this and the unconstitutional mandates of the Council of Governor should have NO IMPACT on our Governor’s Constitutional duty as commander of our state military forces.

By participating in the Council of Governors, our governor is legitamizing this process. That is unacceptable. Our advise. Pull out of the Council of Governors now and tell the Federal government to stay out of our Sovereign business. If you don’t we must demand that the Governor step down as he is in violation of his Constitutional Oath to uphold the Constitution of Virginia. If oaths mean nothing…why take them?

The Governor has been rightly criticized for accepting stimulus money from the Federal Government The problem is that the Federal mandates on stimulus have a provision that allows the Federal government to spend the stimulus money if the States refuse to spend it…and become dependant on that mandate funding. 

From the Richmond Tea Party…

This is probably the best article I found to answer most of your questions about the education bailout: http://netrightdaily.com/2010/08/inside-that-10-billion-in-education-funding-are-some-mandatory-provisions/. It confirms that the bailout is a one-time shot (for now). It claims that the bill FORCES states to take the money. If a state’s governor doesn’t distribute the funds, the feds will simply distribute them at their own discretion within that state. Because of this, it looks like ALL governors (including Barbour) are going to apply for the funding (more on that here: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/10/house-approves-billion-teacher-bailout/) . It also looks like it mandates how much states must spend on education, and Barbour claims he’ll have to rewrite his budget, spending more, to accommodate this. Here’s the SC governor’s blistering take: http://www.thegovmonitor.com/world_news/united_states/teachers-union-bailout-a-rotten-deal-for-south-carolina-37150.html. It appears that different rules apply to different states (Texas in particular), so I’m not sure how this affects Virginia specifically, but according to McDonnell this provides temporary relief without requires any budgetary changes (http://hamptonroads.com/2010/08/education-jobs-bill-will-mean-250-million-virginia).
 The fact that the Federal government is directly assaulting the very sovereignty of Virginia is a direct violation of the 10th Amendment. And our Governor’s response. He just takes it…

McDonnell has a Constitutional duty to defend this commonwealth’s citizens. He must assert our sovereignty NOW. McDonnell needs to fight this publically instead of meekly submitting to the will of the Federal Regime.

At this critical time in history, we need a Governor who is willing to stand up to a Federal Regime hell bent on destruction of our nation. Nothing symbolizes our Federal Regime’s disdane for the Constitution than this…

On August 20, the United States, for the first time ever, submitted a 29-page “Universal Periodic Review” (UPR) to the UN Human Rights Council, which outlines a laundry list of human rights abuses allegedly committed by the United States.

Contained within that laundry list of so-called abuses is a direct condemnation of S.B. 1070, legislation enacted by the state of Arizona (and supported by an overwhelming majority of the American people), which seeks to do the job that the federal government has refused to do… secure the border.

Specifically, the Obama Administration wrote in the report: “A recent Arizona law, S.B. 1070, has generated significant attention and debate at home and around the world. The issue is being addressed in a court action that argues that the federal government has the authority to set and enforce immigration law. That action is ongoing; parts of the law are currently enjoined.”

     The submission of this UPR is the first step in a United Nations review process which will culminate with the issuance of a plan of action, approximately 90 days from now, from a panel of UN bureaucrats from France, Japan and Cameroon.

     At that point, the United States would be expected to “voluntarily” comply with the panel’s recommendations, but as the UN Human Rights Council states on its website: “The Human Rights Council will decide on the measures it would need to take in case of persistent non-cooperation by a State…”

     In short, Barack Obama has upped the ante. Not content with simply filing a frivolous federal suit against the people of Arizona, Obama has transformed his amnesty feud with the American people into an international human rights cause and effectively placed the people of Arizona (and other states that are considering similar border security bills) under the jurisdiction of a gang of America-hating United Nations bureaucrats.

Yes, you read this right, we are subverting our Constitution to the UN. Sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it is absolutely correct.

The Federal Government has the Constitution and your rights under direct assault. And our Governor refuses to stand up for you and defend your rights. The Virginia Constitution states “whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.”

The Constitution is under assault today All Federal officials swear and oath to uphold the Constitution. Our Governor has sworn an oath to defend the State and Federal Constitution.

They all FAIL.

We need action today. We are working on a variety of action plans but one thing is certain.

It will take bold courageous action to get our leaders to uphold their oaths.

Join The Resistance. Join The Roanoke Tea Party.

Chip Tarbutton

We have a leadership meeting with other groups to talk about strategy this week…

We will have a board meeting.

Check out our Facebook page as we are posting more stuff on their all of the time. Make sure you favorite the site and keep up with our growing group.

And then we have our public meeting on Thursday Sept 2 at the Ramada Inn on Franklin Rd. The meeting starts at 6:30 PM. Agenda to follow soon, but we’ll have our usual jam packed program plus (maybe) a special guest.

If you come to the meeting on Thursday, we’ll have  a special deal on Tea Party Convention tickets. So don’t miss out. We’ll also give an update on the Freedom for Virginians Act.

Plus more…

We had quite a day in DC.

Here is a crowd shot I took…(I stink as a cameraman) but it gives you a sense of the crowd size. Beck said that filling the mall from the Lincoln Memorial and around the reflecting pool was 200K. The crowd was all the way back to the Washington Monument!

Plus there are 2 fields to each side of the reflecting pool with jumbotrons set up that had huge crowds. I am no crowd expert, but based on that there had to have been 500K there at least. It felt (from a chaos standpoint) very similar to 9-12 last year. The Metro system gave up and let everyone ride for free that day….thats how hopeless the situation was from a crowd perpective.

I did get a chance to see the Sharpton rally in passing….there was a VERY small crowd…hundreds maybe. They had CANNED APPLAUSE for their speaker. Pitiful.

Logistically the town was a mess. We got to our Metro Station on time but the wait was 2 hours just to get on the train. We got there after it was started and the crowd was massive. Most of the travelers got a chance to see at least a portion of Beck’s excellent speech.

We did have one of our travelers have heat exhaustion. It was a rough day of walking and waiting in the hot sun.

He is fine after excellent care from the Sibley Memorial Hospital. He and I missed the bus ride home, but we rode back to town in style in a fancy rental car

What are the takeaways from this trip?

We had some great laughs on the bus and what a great group of people to travel with!

Michael Mixon, Greg Honeycut and Hank Benson were awesome in keeping this traveling circus together

A lot of people feel the same as we do.

Glenn Beck is touching a nerve with people.

But most of all:

You need to get involved Now.

CNN called this the “Wingnut Superbowl of 2010.” Marching alone isn’t going to get it. Speeches alone won’t do it. Action at the local level can do it.

What can you do??

Here is one path (there are others…so please do SOMETHING if this doesn’t float your boat)

Join the Roanoke Tea Party. Support the Freedom For Virginians Act.  We will be meeting this Thursday at the Ramada Inn on Franklin Road at 6:30 PM….I pray a lot of the folks that trekked up to DC will take the next step and join us in the fight to secure our Constitutional Freedoms!

Join the Resistance…Join the Roanoke Tea Party

Chip Tarbutton

Roanoke Tea Party

Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation Jamie Radtke was quoted in this story. I was interviewed. Interestingly my portion wasn’t used.

As I am listening to Glenn Beck’s show this AM (I DVR’ed it) I was struck by the similarity in my interview points and what Glenn Beck was saying yesterday.

This rally isn’t about making a political point. It’s about making a point that honor, honesty, and integrity have become an endangered species in our nation. That faith, hope and charity have become a joke. That electing corrupt Republicans to replace even more corrupt Democrats isn’t a strategy.

I let the reporter know that most of the folks going on our trip were not current members.

This completely flummoxed the reporter. She was trying to make an article about the impact of this on the tea party movement. That misses the point of 8-28.

Our current members have already figured this out.  And we are taking proactive steps to address this…through outreach, and taking an active role in our communities and through are focus on the Freedom For Virginians Act.

Our focus is on one major principle…following the Constitution. We were working on vetting Congressional Candidates the other day.  We were talking about their oath to the Constitution, which every elected official takes…you know…To defend the Constitution…??

As we looked at candidates, one thing became clear:

No elected official we looked at was absolutely honoring their oath. NONE. Some are obviously worse than others…but when did the standard for an oath become who violates it LESS?!?

The reporter didn’t get it. She kept trying to direct this to what we would get out of this. I finally admitted that we hoped to get some of these folks to get more involved. That answer finally mollified her…

But that isn’t the point. It’s hopefully a happy outcome of having Glenn Beck place focus on principles; principles that have become a joke; principles that are the key to restoring our nation.

I believe I have been put in this place at this time, by God, for a purpose. Hopefully those that will attend will look to God and follow their hearts to what their purpose is…

We cannot get this nation back unless good men and woman find their purpose and act on it. Yelling at your TV, or voting in an election aren’t going to get it…

It will take a fundamental change…and that means people have to get off the couch and get involved.

And that is what the Restoring Honor Event really is all about. And that is what the Roanoke Tea Party strives to be…

Join the Resistance. Join the Roanoke Tea Party

Chip Tarbutton

Roanoke Tea Party