Crash The Tea Party

Tea Party Crasher Says He's Innocent, Offers Up Site For Sale

Evan McMorris-Santoro | April 16, 2010, 12:25PM

Crash The Tea Party leader Jason Levin

Jason Levin, the middle school teacher behind the Crash The Tea Party project, is dismissing claims that he misused his position to organize the scheme.

Levin is currently on a paid leave from the Beaverton, Oregon school district where he works while school officials investigate charges that he used school time and equipment to create the website CrashTheTeaParty.org. He told me his attorneys have advised him not to do any interviews while the investigation runs its course. But in a written statement he emailed me this morning, Levin said the charges are without merit.

"Any allegation that I used school district equipment or district time to create or maintain the website is completely and totally false," Levin wrote. "The fact that teachers are held to a higher standard when excercising their right to free speech (in their private lives) is patently unfair."

In a sign that the hullabaloo the project has caused is getting to him, however, Levin has offered the site up for sale -- cleaning his hands of the tea party infiltration plan that drew the ire of conservatives across the country, including Sean Hannity.

Read more »

Crash The Tea Party

School Investigates Teacher Who Created Tea Party Crasher Site

Rachel Slajda | April 15, 2010, 11:26AM

Jason Levin, leader of Crash The Tea Party

On Tuesday we told you about Jason Levin, a teacher from Oregon whose group, Crash the Tea Party, aims to bring down the tea parties from the inside. Now, as The Oregonian reports, his school district is investigating his actions after hundreds of calls and emails poured in calling for his dismissal.

The district is investigating whether he used work time to create his web site, crashtheteaparty.org. A school spokesman said he won't be disciplined for his political beliefs.

"That's a free speech issue," said the spokesman. "That's his thing, but what we want to make sure is that he has been appropriate in terms of his actions during his ... work time."

The Tea Party Patriots may be behind the flood of calls. The group included the school district's phone number and contact form in an email Tuesday to supporters.

Read more »

Tea Party

Outcrazying The Crazy: How A Prankster Plans To Infiltrate And Destroy The Tea Party Movement

Evan McMorris-Santoro | April 13, 2010, 11:16AM

Jason Levin, leader of Crash The Tea Party

Meet Jason Levin, quite possibly the scariest man in the tea party universe. An Oregon technology consultant, Levin is the leader of Crash The Tea Party, a plan to take down the tea party from the inside. Levin says he's got a growing cadre of supporters across the country, and conservatives from the message boards to the set of the Sean Hannity's show are getting nervous.

"Our plan is not to shout them down," Levin told me yesterday, "but to infiltrate them and push them farther from the mainstream."

The scheme reads like a sequel to "Being John Malkovich": Levin's group of protesters plan to get in the heads of tea partiers at the Tax Day Tea Parties nationwide Thursday and manipulate them right out of relevance. They'll dress like tea partiers, talk like tea partiers and carry signs like tea partiers. In fact, according to Levin they'll be completely indistinguishable from tea partiers, except for one thing -- they won't be out-crazied by anyone.

Read more »