A New Lie

The Tea Party’s Ministry of Lies

The Tea Party’s devotion to dishonesty never ceases to amaze me. Today I spoke with Shirley, the head of our local Tea Party. To her credit, Shirley was polite—but what stunned me was her casual mention of yet another fabrication currently making the rounds.

Let me back up. During the last election season, I stopped by the U-Turn for Christ thrift shop and questioned why a tax-exempt nonprofit had a giant Trump banner draped across its building. Politics and tax-free status aren’t supposed to mix. Not long after, I got a call from Pastor Joe himself. Instead of addressing the issue reasonably, he brushed aside the concern, assured me the banner was “perfectly fine,” and in the same breath told me they would find my body.

That was a first: being threatened with death by a pastor. Given Pastor Joe’s prison background, I suppose intimidation counts as one of his spiritual gifts. He also banned me from setting foot in the thrift store—something I’ve honored.

But apparently, that wasn’t enough. Now Pastor Joe, in his holy role as Christ’s representative on Earth, is telling people there’s a restraining order against me. Of course, no such order exists. It’s just another Tea Party tall tale: an ounce of truth buried under pounds of fabrication. For them, spreading lies has become a full-time ministry.

Shirley added a little extra salt and pepper, as MAGA folks love to do. According to her, Kadizzle was keeping the Republican headquarters from closing simply by “arguing with the staff”—a peculiar story, considering I was there early in the day and no such thing happened.

Exactly what my supposed “sins” were became the subject of our talk. Apparently, one offense was “mumbling under my breath” at a Tea Party meeting about the lies being told. That, according to Shirley, was one of the “chances” I had already used up.

But the biggest whopper involved my encounter with the notorious liar Gary Morris. I once walked up to Morris and asked to speak with him about the falsehoods he was spreading. Later, under oath in court, Morris claimed I had spit on him. I have the video of the exchange, and no such thing happened. Yet, in the Tea Party world, merely asking a man to explain his lies counts as “assault.”

This same game has been played by others in the MAGA crowd. At a town hall meeting, I confronted Steve Otto about his own dishonesty in front of a room full of people. His response? He accused me of assault.

The pattern is clear: if you question their lies, they don’t answer—you become the lie. Intimidation, distortion, and fabrication are the tools of their trade. For the Tea Party, truth isn’t just inconvenient. It’s the enemy.

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