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POLITICO REPORTS that three former allies of the National Tea Party Convention are planning a guerilla press conference near the convention hall Saturday afternoon to highlight what they contend are the organizers’ efforts to hijack the tea party movement.

The three men, Anthony Shreeve, Robert Kilmarx and Mark Herr, are Tennessee tea party activists who were involved in the early stages of planning the convention and say they resigned in protest after disputes with lead convention organizers Judson and Sherry Phillips, who contend that the ex-allies were banned from the group planning the event for incivility or indiscretion.

The disputes have since gone public and turned ugly. At their press conference – which they plan to hold in the same sprawling hotel convention center that is hosting the convention – the three “intend to challenge [the convention] on all levels,” said Shreeve.

They announced the presser in a Friday night email to local and national reporters covering the convention, though Shreve admits he did not seek permission from the hotel to use the facility. “If they run us out, we will have it in the parking lot,” he said.

Since parting ways with the Phillipses, the three have formed a coalition of 34 tea party groups from around Tennessee, and have blasted the convention for its $550 tickets, lavish trappings (including a steak-and-lobster banquet on Saturday where Sarah Palin will deliver the keynote address), for-profit status, and ties to the Republican Party.

“This movement is not about the Republican Party. It is a grassroots movement about we the people,” said Shreeve, who said he resigned from the convention steering committee in protest over the convention’s unusual finances.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32620.html#ixzz0elmzsBaY

According to an email to supporters last week, Sherry Phillips said that unnamed “former members were unanimously banned from our site for reasons running the gamut from antagonism to passing on confidential information. These members have been blogging, as well as discussing their association with liberal media outlets and conspiring with each other to, ‘Take TPN and this convention down.’”

Wow! Does it not sound like Sherry Phillips is using the same tactics as William Gheen of ALIPAC does on his site when some one disagrees with him or challenges one of his opinions? Instant banishment and ridicule.