Q: Is Coffee Party USA affiliated with billionaire George Soros, the founder Soros Fund Management and Open Society Institute?
No. Democracy in Action is a vendor that licenses Internet technology for websites. In the early days of Coffee Party, we used their technology to organize events and receive donations. Democracy in Action has received funding from Mr. Soros, but Coffee Party USA has not received any money from either the Open Society Institute or from Mr. Soros.
Q: What is Coffee Party USA's affiliation with Democracy in Action and Wired for Change?
Democracy in Action and Wired for Change are vendors that offer Internet (CRM) services. When our Facebook fan page began to grow very rapidly, we realized that we needed a website. Democracy in Action, Salsa, Wired for Change, and Spherit technologies were all donated to us by their respective vendors. As a grassroots movement with no initial operating budget, we have relied on services, volunteer hours, tools, and expertise donated by a variety of individuals and organizations.
Q: What is Coffee Party USA's affiliation with Virginia Senator Jim Webb?
The only connection between Senator Webb and Coffee Party USA is a GoDaddy web hosting account for a website that used the Senator's name in its URL. Many of Coffee Party USA's founding members are residents of Virginia, and thus constituents of Senator Webb. Real Virginians for Webb, like Coffee Party USA, was a grassroots/netroots organization that was funded entirely by private, individual donations, and powered strictly by volunteers. We asked GoDaddy to make personal information private out of consideration for the current occupants of a home that has been receiving unwanted attention.
Q: Did Annabel Park work for the 2008 Obama Presidential Campaign?
Annabel Park, who created the Facebook fan page and ignited the Coffee Party movement, volunteered for Obama in 2008 along with millions of her fellow Americans. She and her partner, Eric Byler, created a YouTube channel for filmmakers to contribute videos supporting Obama (www.youtube.com/unitedforobama
Q: Is everyone who calls themselves "Coffee Party" a part of Coffee Party USA?
No. The twitter account "USACoffeeParty" is not affiliated with our organization, and was apparently created as an imposter account. Also, Eric Byler of Coffee Party USA uses only two email accounts. One is @gmail and is for private use and the other is @CoffeePartyUSA.com. If you are getting emails from a questionable source that represents themselves as Eric Byler, please disregard those emails. The same would apply to those posing as Annabel Park.
Q: Does Annabel Park work for the New York Times?
Annabel Park worked briefly for the New York Times as a strategy analyst over ten years ago. She was not in the news department. She recently deleted her LinkedIn account (which contained this public information) because she had been receiving hateful messages there. She doesn't hide the fact that she once worked for the NY Times. It was stated clearly in a recent article in the Washington Post.
To date, neither Annabel nor Eric Byler have ever been hired by a political campaign or by a political organization. They are active citizens who, as volunteers have knocked on doors, made phone calls, and made videos such as these:
www.youtube.com/unitedforobama
Q: Is there a rally in Boston on April 14th hosted by Coffee Party USA?
We are not opposed to citizens demonstrating peaceably no matter their political persuasion, but not affiliated with a person who has announced a "Coffee Party Rally" in Boston on April 14th. We are contacting the person who created a Facebook event page and asking him to clarify that this is NOT an official event for Coffee Party USA.
Q: Is Faya Rose Toure a representative of Coffee Party USA?
Although we admire Faya Rose Toure, founder of the National Voting Rights Museum and the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee, we have not been in contact with her to date. Her interview with Democracy Now is worth a listen, but her policy positions are not necessarily the views of Coffee Party USA.
