Tea Party Group Leaks Call Lists, Guides for Staging Pro-Gun 'Student-Led' High School Protests

Conservatives and the right-wing media mercilessly attacked students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS (Parkland) with claims that they were being handled, reading from scripts, worked for CNN, were the children of 'deep state' operatives, etc — all the way up to accusing some of them of being crisis actors.

Search ATS for threads about David Hogg for instance. You'll find threads like this:

Don't Talk About the Parkland Students, Talk About Who's Behind Them
This David Hogg video is insane! Never saw this before and not on YT
Hoggwatch
YouTube triggered by viral Hogg-Hitler 56sec video - check out their 'warning'
David Hogg wasnt even at the school shooting He says so himself

At the same time, many of the same people also held up students on the "other side" as being genuine, authentic, etc. For example, who remembers Colton Haab and that debacle?

It's a pretty universally applicable narrative that while not exclusive to the Right, is far more prevalent in the right-wing echo chamber (including with Trump and GOP leadership): anyone who agrees is "real" and anyone who doesn't is a shill, a plant, getting paid, reading a script, inauthentic, a crisis actor, a globalist puppet, etc — they're not "real" and everything they do is staged, directed and funded by a shady billionaire puppet master.

Truth be told, at least some of the claims are probably true. As some of us have argued, there's nothing new under the sun and typically, the things that one side accuses the other of are actually common practice on both sides.

And now a cache of internal documents found on a publicly accessible Amazon S3 storage bucket reveals the sort of astroturfing alleged by so many on the Right — only, the organizing, scripting, etc in this case is on the far-right.

Tea Party Group Leaks Call Lists, Guides for Staging Pro-Gun 'Student-Led' High School Protests

Aside from CNN and handful of local reports, the media solely attributed the planning of the pro-gun protests to a New Mexico high school senior: Will Riley, the author of a newspaper op-ed titled, Parkland Students Don’t Speak for Me or My Generation.

The “Stand for the Second” school walkouts were staged specifically as a response to the “March for Our Lives” demonstrations attended on March 24 by more than a million protesters nationwide. Save for the National Review, top conservative outlets mostly credited Riley alone with planning and carrying out the event. The Daily Caller, for example, did not identify the Tea Party Patriots as organizers in its May 2nd coverage, even though the group’s chairman, Jenny Beth Martin, had already penned an op-ed for the website taking credit. The Tea Party outfit, Martin wrote, was “naturally drawn to the effort of helping these students fine-tune their event-organizing skills, and also develop a deeper understanding of why the Second Amendment was so important to our nation’s founders…”

A batch of leaked PDFs reviewed by Gizmodo, however, reveal the Tea Party Patriots went beyond a “fine-tune,” steering the students’ messaging from start to finish. Several times the group directed the would-be protesters to simply parrot pre-written talking points, many drafted by “our friends” at The Heritage Foundation, the Twitter account of which students were also advised to follow. Students were also directed towards YouTube channels of right-wing think tank and non-university Prager U, as well as Arthur voice actor-turned-milquetoast pundit-turned-meme Stephen Crowder. Many of the photos of the event online show students holding signs with simplistic slogans pre-written by the Tea Party group, such as, “Gun control only stops good guys from getting guns,” and “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”—a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin that was written to argue the finer points of a tax dispute.

Other pre-written materials in the group’s “toolkit”—an abridged version of which circulated publicly in May—include a letter to school administrators, an 84-word message students were asked to include with Facebook and Instagram posts, and a dozen tweets with blank spaces such as: “.” A speech was also written by the Tea Party Patriots for students to read aloud during the walkout. It included calls to expand campus surveillance and allow “properly trained” teachers carry to firearms on school property.

Students were advised repeatedly: “REMEMBER TAKE PHOTOS AND VIDEO,” including “Lots of selfies,” and to use the event to gather students’ contact information, which may be used to set up text alerts down the line.

a reply to: theantediluvian

This seems pretty old, but whatever. It seems that what has happened here is that the gun lobby has decided to go ahead and use some of the old DNC medicine against them. And for one I am all for it as long it makes my views more logical to people that do not understand the actual argument.

Also I don't mind as long as it helps my side win. So no apology coming from me. No sir.

OMG!!!!! What will we do??? People actually helping kids understand the importance of the Bill of Rights? Actually teaching kids what the government cannot do? The absolute horror? Geez, give me a break with your "outrage". I hardly ever comment on these kind of posts, and I am socially liberal but man, you guys are forcing moderates to the Republicans more and more.

You should make your ops a little shorter, so it takes less time to scroll past them and get to the posts critical of yet another political turd sandwich.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Make claims about "conservatives and the right-wing media", link to posts on ATS. Yawn.

a reply to: SammyB0476

It's not outrage. It's calling those on the Right out for being hypocrites. Anytime a child expresses a pro-Left viewpoint all we hear is endless screeching from the Right about how those aren't the child's actual words and how the parents should be locked up for child abuse.

Lo and behold here's proof that the Right after coaching their children for protests and what not, and what's the reaction from the Right? It's no big deal.

That is the point I felt ante was trying to drive home with this thread. Not outrage over the fact that those on the Right are doing this.

a reply to: theantediluvian

This just in ......water is wet....
later we cover how the right supports the 2nd amendment.....


you are a bastion of exposure journalism
ATS is lucky to have you!
Keep up the great work!

a reply to: Fools

It seems that what has happened here is that the gun lobby has decided to go ahead and use some of the old DNC medicine against them.

No. This isn't a reaction to "the other guys doing it first," it is just how a lot of activism is and has been done. And it doesn't mean that the students who participated in the "Stand for the 2nd" walkouts weren't sincere in their beliefs any more than their peers on the other side. Whether it's pink hats or tricorns, activism is an industry with professionals who organize, develop messaging, create slogans, train protesters, etc.

Also I don't mind as long as it helps my side win. So no apology coming from me. No sir.

There's a meme for that, currently popular on the Right, used to disparage those on the Left. It's a reference to the group BAMN and their name/motto: by any means necessary.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

Pro left viewpoint usually equals to anti U.S viewpoint.

When will the left call out their own??

a reply to: theantediluvian

Ahh.

Nobody milks an OP like you do, my friend.

a reply to: theantediluvian

So activists from both sides act in a similar manner. We all know that and we all know politicians like to use children. It's another reason why Independents are growing in numbers.

Do you have an actual point beyond that?

Im going try and reserve my political comments to age groups that arent lighting themselves on fire in the fire challenge and funneling vodka up their bung holes. LOL they will be in charge soon enough let Darwinism thin the herd first.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Yep typical activism / electioneering / indoctrination.

One thing missing though: I dont see where the "conservatives" are exploiting dead children to ram their agenda down everyones throats. You know that thing where the "liberals" swoon in ecstacy when childrens dead bodies pile up, the more the better, to go out on the nut nationwide in attempts to whip up all the school children in collectivist demonstratyion fervor. That is as much about indoctrinating them into becoming lifelong Democrat Party voters, AHEM I mean becoming "liberals", as it is about ramrodding gun control legislation through (which it is all that too). And online everyone goes 'the protest arent about gun control', but then you open your email 10 minutes later and you see this:



If you can at least argue how this is as much about turning them out as lifelong Republicans, as scanning over it it looks more like the broader virtues of the Bill of Rights being championed here.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: Fools

It seems that what has happened here is that the gun lobby has decided to go ahead and use some of the old DNC medicine against them.

No. This isn't a reaction to "the other guys doing it first," it is just how a lot of activism is and has been done. And it doesn't mean that the students who participated in the "Stand for the 2nd" walkouts weren't sincere in their beliefs any more than their peers on the other side. Whether it's pink hats or tricorns, activism is an industry with professionals who organize, develop messaging, create slogans, train protesters, etc.

Also I don't mind as long as it helps my side win. So no apology coming from me. No sir.

There's a meme for that, currently popular on the Right, used to disparage those on the Left. It's a reference to the group BAMN and their name/motto: by any means necessary.

Ah well, so sad. Maybe if your team wouldn't have all taken Saul Alinsky and cultural Marxism so seriously none of this nonsense would happen. As before, I admire your loyalty, however you are not getting why your team is losing so much. If more people were like you only trying to express a point of view as logically as possible - more people would listen. But when you have your leadership giving a wink and a nudge to full scale idiot actors then normal people start pulling away.

So, when I see conservatives organizing children, I am sure without a doubt that it is a counter reaction to the left doing the same previously and in a blatantly more obnoxious way. Pussy hats and screaming and clawing and crying and all that. Whoever is running your shows, your protests, they need to know that they suck. Because they do. And you should work hard to get rid of them before you tackle the right. It would do your idealisms good.

originally posted by: Blaine91555
a reply to: theantediluvian

So activists from both sides act in a similar manner. We all know that and we all know politicians like to use children. It's another reason why Independents are growing in numbers.

Do you have an actual point beyond that?

*You* may know that but a whole lot of people certainly act as though they don't. Where were you and this keen observation in those hundreds of threads?

a reply to: theantediluvian

Only got it for the low hanging fruit today eh.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Good for them.. It's wonderful to see groups willing to fight to defend our Constitutional Rights from attack by fascist-minded mobs.

originally posted by: Muninn
a reply to: Xcalibur254
Pro left viewpoint usually equals to anti U.S viewpoint.
When will the left call out their own??

That's insane, but your post certainly explains much.

originally posted by: JohnnyCanuck

originally posted by: Muninn
a reply to: Xcalibur254
Pro left viewpoint usually equals to anti U.S viewpoint.
When will the left call out their own??

That's insane, but your post certainly explains much.

a reply to: MisterSpock

I don't always star your posts but I had to this time.
Since 1 star was not enough,these are for you...