Portland Defends Sweetheart Deal for TP-USA

Also, the local media is finally reporting on the traveling chuds coming to Maine.

Yesterday, the City of Portland published a 262-word defense of the Calvary Chapel contract on the City’s comms department website (above), but there are a couple points I’d like to address about the End Times cult bringing their traveling circus, aka Make Heaven Crowded, to the Portland Expo on May 15.

For more context, I recommend either End Times Cult to Stage Revival at Portland Expo or Turning Point USA gets sweetheart deal from City of Portland to learn how a local church played a contractual bait-and-switch to get a drastically reduced rental rate for the Make Heaven Crowded show, put on by a political non-profit whose now-deceased leader insulted our Somali residents specifically and Maine in general.

First of all, until I reached out on Feb. 26, City Hall seemed unaware that the TP-USA freak show was coming to town. According to spokesperson Jessica Grondin, the contract was with “Calvary Church.” Well, actually, it’s with Calvary Chapel-Greater Portland, a Young Earth Creationist church located in a Westbrook industrial park. And after getting a copy of the contract — and Grondin telling me there had not been any ancillary modifications to the contract — I noted the very basic violation of the “non-assignability clause” in Section 15 that states “Lessee may not assign this agreement.”

Well, that’s exactly what is happening here. Calvary Chapel clearly violated the contract by turning the night’s rental for a “Calvary Chapel Worship Night” over to TP-USA to Make Heaven Crowded, without even bothering to mention it to the City.

As for the spokesperson’s claim that “very common for a local entity to serve as a host / promoter for a touring event” that’s not what’s happening here. And that spin doesn’t pass the straight-face test. The OG deal was made by a local church to rent the city’s joint for a 400-seat “Calvary Chapel Worship Night.” That’s a helluva lot different than the multi-million dollar alleged-non-profit TP-USA coming to town to incite the local Christo-Nash-Fash to hate their neighbors and encourage them to view the LGBTQ community and Democrats as demons.

Secondly, the spokes-hack dismissed the use of security concerns as a legit way to cancel the contract with the hate group.

“At this point, we don't believe that public safety is at risk by hosting this event,” according to the press release, “but we are continuing to look at that closely in conjunction with our Events Planning team and the Police Department.”

Uhhhh. Are the folks at City Hall unaware of the network of local activists who would definitely rise to the occasion to protest, disrupt and/or monkey-wrench the arrival of a group espousing xenophobic rhetoric towards vulnerable communities?

Regarding security, this is the City’s explainer: “Any additional City event services required, including security, police presence, and the use of metal detectors, will be paid for by the event organizers/promoters as stipulated in the rental contract.”

Well, at least the city seems to recognize the potential dangers, if they’re thinking about bringing in the metal detectors, extra cops and security. After all, the ex-leader of this group was murdered by a lone gunman. And in conspiratorial circles, the momentarily-loved Erika Kirk is now disliked by all sorts of whackos who don’t trust the deadman’s widow, seen below calling Ice protestors “demonic” during the kickoff speech of the Make Heaven Tour in Los Angeles last month.

Consider yesterday’s announcement by the University of Arkansas’s TP-USA chapter that they were dissolving the org and disavowing TP-USA’s use of Charlie Kirk’s name as a way to influence chuddish collegians and other ne'er-do-wells. According to this story in the Daily Beast, the now defunct-TP-USA at UA is being renamed and rebranded as the Young American Revival, “with a renewed mission of ‘advocating for Christian conservative values and policy’ and supporting right-wing political candidates.”

According to a rant by the former TP-USA chapter president at UA published on his Insta, “We are generally put off by how Charlie Kirk has been used by TP-USA since his assassination. Statements like ‘Charlie would have said….’ and ‘Charlie would have wanted…’ have felt in many instances disingenuous and manipulative. Charlie Kirk cannot speak for himself anymore, and we do not recognize the way others have attempted to speak for him.”

(A quick check-in at a couple Maine college chapters of TP-USA showed very little activity. SMCC’s branch doesn’t have any events scheduled, despite their leaders coming to Maine’s largest city. And as for the UMaine chapter of the hate-group, they haven’t been very active since the Feb. 13 Galentine’s party, featuring “Shirley Temples, Charcuteřie and rom-coms.”)

Local media finally acknowledges Make Heaven Crowded

Shout out to the Maine Newsroom who put together a very concise vid package re: TP-USA’s sweetheart deal that you can view here. And, nicely, the MN gave me plenty of credit for the scoop and my on-going coverage.

And because the mainstream media has been reduced to the equivalent of an online dog pack all following one story, once the Maine Newsroom published (which has lots of followers), both WCSH and WGME tee-vee threw together some coverage (based on The Crash Report, but with zero credit) which included promises by Calvary Chapel that this wasn’t a political event, just good clean Christian-worship.

According to WGME, the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Travis Carey, told them that politics wouldn’t be part of Make Heaven Crowded. “We get the opportunity to dictate who does and does not get to speak,” Carey said, contradicting his previous statement that TP-USA would NOT let Carey preach during the revival. “So, you know, we're not bringing in anyone that's going to make this a partisan issue.”

Well, if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge for sale, to Peaks Island. Real cheap.

Because, as I mentioned here, Carey bragged to his congregation that he feared “someone within the municipality of Portland would try to throw a wrench in the gears if they found out it was a faith event. Maybe they’d find out it was a Turning Point event.” But then the pastor broke out into a wide grin. “And wouldn’t you know it: the manager, the guy in charge in the whole office, is a Born-again believer. Not only a Born-again believer, but this gentlemen actually spent time at Pastor Ken’s church. He knows Ken. He knows Calvary Chapel. A really dear brother. And he testified that there are some in the office that aren’t so happy about this event. But he’s the boss. So God has been really kind to us.”

Not only is TP-USA rabidly political, the group loudly advocates for the End Times Christian world government, coupled with anti-Muslim, anti-LGBTQ and misogynistic sentiments that made the now-deceased Charlie Kirk a celebrity with knuckleheads and assholes.

Secondly, if any of the media would take a couple minutes to research the Calvary Chapel’s modus operandi in Maine, the church’s literal goal is to literally take over the Legislature. As I’ve reported prior, End Times churches taking over government is an oft-repeated sermonic theme for the cult’s gravelly-voiced (and pal of the dead-Kirk) leader Pastor Ken Graves. And, as cult member and state Rep. Reagan Paul (and Baby Bottle With Bullet saleswoman) explained to her fellow cult members, church and state should NOT be separated.

“One of the greatest lies the Enemy has sold the American church is that Christians and the Church should stay out of politics,” Rep. Paul complained to the crowd. “That lie had neutered the Church and silenced many pastors and created a power vacuum that is now filled with wickedness.”

However, in Maine, according to Rep. Paul, more Christians are need to reclaim God’s government. And they have help from her Born-again boyfriend (aka GOP Senate Leader Trey Stewart) and other Christian-Nationalist-God-fearing politicians already in office.

“Civil government is meant to be God’s avenging angel of righteousness. Civil government,” she insisted, “is a minister of God. Running for office or serving in government is no less spiritual than being a pastor or raising a family or building a business.”

Portland, Oregon or Bust

This last point may seem picayune, but words — and accuracy matter — which is why both WGME and TP-USA’s use of “Portland Expo Center” is not only lazy, but wrong.

The "Portland Expo Center," is the name of the 300,000 sf convention center in Portland, Oregon. We can only hope that Erika Kirk's traveling circus enters "Expo Center" into their GPS and her caravan of private planes end up on the Left Coast, so we don't have hear their hate-filled rhetoric in Maine.

The full name of our local venue is the "James A. Banks Sr Portland Exposition Building" but everyone knows it as just "The Expo." And as one of my Facebook pals commented, “James Banks was my uncle. And I can guarantee you that he would not be impressed about any of this.”

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