Response from Frank McQuade

In reference to the August 9th LONG BEACH PATCH posting entitled “Long Beach Tea Party Supports Republic Slate,” published under the false and misleading moniker, “Long Beach Republican Tea Party” [a non-existent entity], I offer the following observations, since I was featured prominently in this anonymously posted document:

• The Long Beach Tea Party does not endorse candidates of any political party; it no plans to endorse any candidate for the City Council; nor, has it ever done so in the past.
• In my career of public life and civic service, I have never displayed the lack of political decorum attributed to me by this tasteless writing.
• It appears obvious that the submission does not represent the mindset of the leadership of the Long Beach Tea Party, but is the posting of a rogue political operative to further his own agenda.
• It strikes me as no strange coincidence that this posting and its snarky accompanying comments appeared only days after I critiqued former Democratic consultant Jerry Kramer’s claim that the Republican Party was dead as a consequence of its making common cause with the Tea Party movement.
• As a matter of clarity, I point out that I maintain cordial and civil associations not only with Jim Hennessy, but also with his counterpart on the opposite side of the aisle, Scott Mendel along with many fine Democratic fellow citizens of Long Beach.   In fact, Democrat City Manager Jack Schnirman was invited, cordially received and spoke at the Long Beach Tea Party meeting last June.
• I see no need to address ad hominem attacks cheaply scattered in my direction: my quarter century of charitable work, advocacy for the impoverished and the immigrant, and high center of social consciousness and environmental advocacy stand upon their own merits.
• I do take particular umbrage to the slights directed towards my religious observance.   One would think that President Kennedy settled that canard during his meeting with the Houston Ministers’ Association in the 1960 presidential campaign (contained in a particularly gnarly comment on the blog by a supporter of the posting).
• As a matter of civil propriety and gentlemanly behavior, legitimate disagreements should be addressed in dialogue, not cloaked behind the web of anonymity.
• Taken together, these factors incline a reasonable person to conclude that this August 9th post is the clumsy work of a political gumshoe that grossly distorts the positions of the leadership and rank-and-file membership and presumably of the Long Beach Tea Party and of the Long Beach Republican Party.
• Also, not insignificantly, such a posting may well constitute a prosecutorial offense of the New York Penal Code, under the 2008 “Internet Impersonation Code” [Section 190.25, especially subdivision 4, which makes it a crime to impersonate another by electronic means, including through the use of the internet, with the intent to obtain a benefit or injure or defraud another], along with the NYS “Internet Protection Act of 2012,” which requires “the web administrator upon request [to] remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such a poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms his or her IP address, legal name and home address” as accurate.  In both instances, these laws were enacted to deter the spiraling number of cases in which people unethically and criminally misrepresent themselves over the internet.

I don’t shy away from constructive dialogue or spirited debate.   However, since this post contained a plethora of fraudulent, unsubstantiated and factually incorrect assertions, equal time and space are in order.

When authorship is ultimately disclosed the devoted readers of LONG BEACH PATCH can draw their own conclusions about the agenda and credibility of the poster of the August 9th blog.

-- Frank McQuade