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One Illinois Guy Who Won’t Be At TeaCon 2011

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, there is one local Illinois activist that apparently won’t be at this weekend’s TeaCon 2011, but not for want of trying. Bill Kelly, one-time candidate for Illinois Comptroller — he came in second, by the way — has told me that he’s been barred not only from getting media credentials for the event, but even from buying a ticket.

Kelly has a page on the Washington Times community section blogs and was told by the Times that he could get media creds representing them at TeaCon, but when he went to the event staff with his request TeaCon organizers denied his credentialing.

Kelly feels that people at WIND radio, one of the event co-hosts, put the kybosh on his credentials because of a recent dust up between Kelly and Senator Dick Durbin not to mention another dustup between Kelly and local TV reporter Jay Levine.

If you aren’t aware of the first little dealio, Kelly had attended a Durbin press appearance at Chicago’s City Club and when he tried to ask some questions, he was beset on all sides by pressier-than-thou members of the press that claimed he “had no right” to ask any question of his duly elected Senator.

In the latter incident, Kelly tried to ask Mayor Emanuel and TV newser Levine threatened to “deck” Kelly.

Me, I don’t know who these media dudes think they are to take upon themselves the “right” to ask questions of elected officials and to deny same to everyone else?

Now, Kelly was incredulous at his exclusion from the event. “With one of their panel discussions honoring citizen journalists, I find this ironic, don’t you,” he told me.

It is interesting for WIND to be worried about bad reputations for people bashing others when WIND morning cohost Amy Jacobson was heard bashing another TeaCon guest Andrew Breitbart!

“He’s a lying and deceiving person,” she said of Breitbart. Jacobson went on to shamelessly lie about his actions during several instances, all of which she was horribly wrong about.

Now, I work with Andrew at many of his “Big” sites, so I am not too kindly disposed to faux conservatives like Jacobson bashing my friend, Andrew! Especially when she lied through her teeth about his actions.

Kelly also claimed that he was not allowed to buy a ticket for the event to just be an attendee. I asked some of the folks involved in the event and they told me just to go to the website for the answer to that one. If you go to the TeaCon site there is a banner saying that the event is sold out. That may answer that question, at least.

Of course, I will be there, with bells on. I’ll be reporting on it through the next several days.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.

For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.