"Thank you for having the guts to have me speak," said Geller, whose comment received a standing ovation and enthusiastic applause from an overflow crowd of about 300 at the Gatlinburg Convention Center meeting room.
"You think you're in a little room in Gatlinburg, but this is a battlefield in the information war," said Geller, who labeled CAIR's attempt to censor her as just another example of the Islamization of America.
"They try to shut up everybody who speaks against them. How dare they attack one human thought while they try and impose shariah law in America? They smear all of us so nobody will hear what we say. I am warning you that freedom of speech is the line in the sand."
For the rest of the story, go to http://www.knoxnews.com
I will have much more tomorrow and Monday on this little piece of heaven -- the great Smokey mountains of Tennessee -- but let me state this most emphatically, we will win this war. I have seen America and is good, it is righteous, it is rugged and it is here.
This was most passionate, engaged and distinctly patriotic crowd I have had the honor to speak to. They will not be ................subdued.
Anthony Shreeve, one of the convention organizers, said the Tennessee Tea Party Coalition has received overwhelming support for its decision to retain Geller as a speaker.
"We've had about 1,000 e-mails pour in, and 800 were positive for Pam," said Shreeve, who lives in Dandridge.
"The other 200 said we were a bunch of racists and slimebags - we've heard it all before."
Geller was just one of many guest speakers at the convention, which wraps up today.
Shreeve said 1,000 advance tickets had been sold by Friday and he expects upwards of 2,000 to attend the convention, which also features workshops, discussions and educational instruction on topics such as Constitutional law.
There are 43 state Tea Party groups, which have 18,000 members. more here
Frankly, I think that un-indicted co-conspirator, Hamas-linked CAIR and their leftist enablers are scared to death that the tea party movement is waking up to Islamic supremacism. They ain't seen nothing yet :)
I will try to get some video up tomorrow. Here is my pal over at the AP, Erik Schelzig
Tenn. tea party members feelings about 'bad guy' vilification? 'Feels good!' ERIK SCHELZIG Associated Press Writer
GATLINBURG, Tenn. (AP) — One of the first speakers at a convention of Tennessee tea party groups in Gatlinburg has asked attendees how they feel about being portrayed as "the bad guy" in the American political spectrum.
The shouted response from several audience members: "It feels good!"
More than 200 people crowded into a meeting room Saturday morning to hear from Pamela Geller, who heads a group called Stop Islamization of America. In her speech she called President Barack Obama "the culmination of the Islamic-leftist alliance."
Jerry Burman, who traveled to the event from Orlando, Fla., acknowledged that the topic of Geller's speech didn't directly address the core tea party goals of lower taxes and smaller government.
But Burman said he agrees that Americans should "recognize that we're at war with Islam."
And this from the subversive, leftist smut mag, Mother Jones: GOP Rep. Defends Anti-Islam Tea Party Speaker
I am not anti-Islam, I am pro-freedom. I am against Islamic supremacism and sharia law.
Rep. Steven King (R-Iowa) has rejected calls by a Muslim rights organization to drop out of a Tennessee Tea Party convention this weekend because of the participation of an activist-blogger who’s railed against Islam. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) pressed Tea Party organizers to disinvite Pamela Geller, head of the group Stop the Islamization of America, and asked King to cancel his participation in the event if she remained on the program.
[...]
In the face of CAIR's protest, King is standing strong with Geller. The Republican believes that Geller "is a credible spokeswoman on these sort of issues," his communications director John Kennedy tells Mother Jones. "She is a nationally recognized authority on the threat of radical Islam. To extent that her comments [in CAIR’s release] reflect her state of mind, we should err on the side of her as being credible alternative to anything that CAIR has to say.”
King, moreover, believes that Tennessee Tea Party should be commended for including Geller in its line-up of speakers this weekend, according to Kennedy. "The beauty of the First Amendment that it protects even controversial political discussion," says the spokesman. "The shame of radical Islam is that it punishes—in some instances with death—dissenting views."
The Tennessee Tea Party organizers have also rejected CAIR’s request to boot Geller from the program, calling the organization a "hate group" and citing the "right to freedom of speech as given to us by the US Constitution." In an email posted on Geller's site, this Tea Party group exclaims, "We are very happy and pleased that she will be attending!"
G-d bless Steven King. And Tennessee.
UPDATE: This is great. lol. Shoe, meet other foot.
