Scott Ott
Obama requires tea party protests to use government-funded leaf
By: Scott Ott
Examiner Columnist
April 14, 2009
News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher.
Department of Agriculture officials today announced a previously-unnoticed provision of President Obama's stimulus package that provides billions of dollars to corporations that sold tea for thousands of nationwide 'Tea Parties' this week.
Modeled after the historic Boston Tea Party, the 1773 colonial American rebellion against the King's taxation without representation, the gatherings protest out-of-control federal spending, public-sector control of private enterprise, and what many see as a lurch toward socialism at all levels of government.
President Obama, who swept to power riding a populist wave, "wants to show the American people that he's with them 100 percent," according to an Agriculture Department source.
"So, not only will Barack Obama pay for the actual tea used in the protests," the unnamed source said, "but he'll dispatch armed Ag agents to ensure that only government-funded leaf makes it into the events."
Last week, the president convened a closed-door meeting of the nation's leading tea-producing executives and told them he would pump tens of billions of dollars into each of their firms. Although some CEOs were reluctant to take the stimulus money, the president insisted, noting that the confidence of the American people was dependent upon full participation by industry leaders.
Just a few minutes after the Ag department announcement today, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told a news conference that "Americans are outraged that 'Big Tea Bag' is cashing in on their populist protest movement," noting that he wondered what would happen if Congress started looking into executive compensation at "these leaf-peddling megaliths."
"All the tea party organizers and participants are paying cash for their own tea," said Mr. Gibbs. "As a result, the tea industry is experiencing a boom like we haven't seen since before the collapse of the British Empire. Yet, these corporate hogs still slurp at the public trough, taking your tax money. We're seeing yet another industry steeped in corruption...or perhaps a long-delayed symptom of the chronic disease of capitalism."
Examiner columnist Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the family-friendly news satire site, and anchor of ScrappleFace Network News (SNN), seen on YouTube.
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