Tea Party Convention showdown

Three former allies of the National Tea Party Convention are planning a guerrilla 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 news 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,” Shreeve said...read more