Judson Phillips, head of Tea Party Nation, recently released his picks for 2010's "top five liberal hate groups." Among them is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a selection that is unlikely to smooth the rocky relationship that has developed between the two organizations over the past year.
"To the NAACP, anyone to the right of Karl Marx is a racist," Phillips writes in a post on his website.
In July, NAACP President Ben Jealous addressed mounting complaints from his members that the Tea Party promotes racist rhetoric, resolving to confront the issue.
"Expel the bigots and racists in your ranks or take the responsibility for them and their actions," Jealous urged the Tea Party at the time. "We will no longer allow you to hide like cowards and hide behind signs that say 'Lynch Our President' or anyone else."
Later that week on CNN, Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams shot back that the NAACP itself was racist, not the Tea Party.
Williams's subsequent attempt to back up that claim only served to further the perception that he himself harbors racist sentiments, and ultimately resulted in his expulsion from the larger Tea Party Federation. He resigned from his official post within the week.
In October, the NAACP released findings from their study on the alleged ties between hate groups and the Tea Party. "The result of this study contravenes many of the Tea Parties' self-invented myths, particularly their supposedly sole concentration on budget deficits, taxes and the power of the federal government," reads the introduction to "Tea Party Nationalism," a joint project with the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. "Instead, this report found Tea Party ranks to be permeated with concerns about race and national identity and other so-called social issues."
Tea Party Express called the findings "ridiculous and an affront to the millions of Americans who are deeply concerned about the growth and intrusiveness of the federal government with the accompaniment of higher taxes, more onerous government regulations, high annual deficits and a skyrocketing national debt."
Despite the ongoing feud between the Tea Party and the NAACP, Phillips ranks the group last on his list of liberal hate groups. According to Phillips, organizations like the SEIU, the Department of Homeland Security, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, are all more nefarious than the NAACP.
Check out Talking Points Memo's coverage for more on Phillips's "liberal hate group" index.
"To the NAACP, anyone to the right of Karl Marx is a racist," Phillips writes in a post on his website.
In July, NAACP President Ben Jealous addressed mounting complaints from his members that the Tea Party promotes racist rhetoric, resolving to confront the issue.
"Expel the bigots and racists in your ranks or take the responsibility for them and their actions," Jealous urged the Tea Party at the time. "We will no longer allow you to hide like cowards and hide behind signs that say 'Lynch Our President' or anyone else."
Later that week on CNN, Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams shot back that the NAACP itself was racist, not the Tea Party.
Williams's subsequent attempt to back up that claim only served to further the perception that he himself harbors racist sentiments, and ultimately resulted in his expulsion from the larger Tea Party Federation. He resigned from his official post within the week.
In October, the NAACP released findings from their study on the alleged ties between hate groups and the Tea Party. "The result of this study contravenes many of the Tea Parties' self-invented myths, particularly their supposedly sole concentration on budget deficits, taxes and the power of the federal government," reads the introduction to "Tea Party Nationalism," a joint project with the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. "Instead, this report found Tea Party ranks to be permeated with concerns about race and national identity and other so-called social issues."
Tea Party Express called the findings "ridiculous and an affront to the millions of Americans who are deeply concerned about the growth and intrusiveness of the federal government with the accompaniment of higher taxes, more onerous government regulations, high annual deficits and a skyrocketing national debt."
Despite the ongoing feud between the Tea Party and the NAACP, Phillips ranks the group last on his list of liberal hate groups. According to Phillips, organizations like the SEIU, the Department of Homeland Security, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, are all more nefarious than the NAACP.
Check out Talking Points Memo's coverage for more on Phillips's "liberal hate group" index.
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