Free Republic

The front page of Sunday's Washington Post featured a revealing look at the impact convicted felon Jack Abramoff's downfall is having on his erstwhile colleague, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist. Under the headline "Powerful GOP Activist Sees His Influence Slip Over Abramoff Dealings" the article recounts previously published e-mails concerning arrangements between the two that would appear to involve the laundering of Abramoff clients' funds through Norquist's tax-exempt Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). It goes on to describe how radioactive Norquist has become in the eyes of some legislators and fellow conservatives in the wake of his seeming ties to the...

Conservative activist Grover Norquist says a Senate report connecting him with convicted felon Jack Abramoff is a personal attack from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that could hurt the senator’s recent efforts to woo the right for a presidential bid. Norquist says a Senate Indian Affairs Committee report last month outlining his efforts to funnel money from Abramoff’s tribal clients to former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed is riddled with half-truths and falsely implicates his nonprofit group, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), in wrongdoing. The activist says McCain, chairman of the committee, issued the report in retaliation for Norquist’s efforts to...

WASHINGTON - Wanted: Face time with President Bush or top adviser Karl Rove. Suggested donation: $100,000. The middleman: lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Blunt e-mails that connect money and access in Washington show that prominent Republican activist Grover Norquist facilitated some administration contacts for Abramoff's clients while the lobbyist simultaneously solicited those clients for large donations to Norquist's tax-exempt group. Those who were solicited or landed administration introductions included foreign figures and American Indian tribes, according to e-mails gathered by Senate investigators and federal prosecutors or obtained independently by The Associated Press. "Can the tribes contribute $100,000 for the effort to bring...

WASHINGTON - In Jack Abramoff's world, prominent Washington tax-cut advocate Grover Norquist was a godsend. Moving money from a casino-operating Indian tribe to Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition founder and professed gambling opponent, was a problem. Lobbyist Abramoff turned to his longtime friend Norquist, apparently to provide a buffer for Reed. The result, according to evidence gathered by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, was that Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform became a conduit for more than a million dollars from the Mississippi Choctaw to Reed's operation, while Norquist, a close White House ally, took a cut. Without citing any specific...

A jury found former Bush administration official David Safavian guilty Tuesday of covering up his dealings with Republican influence-peddler Jack Abramoff. Safavian was convicted on four of five felony counts of lying and obstruction. He had resigned from his White House post last year as the federal government's chief procurement officer. The trial consumed eight days of testimony about Safavian's assistance to Abramoff regarding government-owned real estate and a weeklong golfing excursion the lobbyist organized to the famed St. Andrews golf course in Scotland and London. Safavian went on the trans-Atlantic trip while he was chief of staff at the...

SAMI AL-ARIAN ADMITS CONSPIRACY IN PLEA AGREEMENT " There is no conspiracy to support terrorism ."  - Ahmed Bedier, spokesman for Tampa chapter of Council on American Islamic Relations From what I’ve been able to gather, there seems to be enough evidence to prove a web of conspiracy . Let’s have a look and see if that’s true! American Muslim Council (AMC)1. Former Spokesman: Faisal Gill.2. Founder: Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi.3. Former Director: Erik Vickers 1. Faisal Gill Former spokesman for the American Muslim Council (AMC) Former director of government affairs for the Islamic Free Market Institute (Islamic Institute) in Washington, D.C.,...

Provisions: Established measures to control U.S. borders, protect legal workers through worksite enforcement, and remove criminal and other deportable aliens: Increased border personnel, equipment, and technology as well as enforcement personnel at land and air ports of entry; Authorized improvements in barriers along the Southwest border; Increased anti-smuggling authority and penalties for alien smuggling; Increased penalties for illegal entry, passport and visa fraud, and failure to depart; Increased INS investigators for worksite enforcement, alien smuggling, and visa overstayers; Established three voluntary pilot programs to confirm the employment eligibility of workers and reduced the number and types of documents that may...

With less than a week left to suggest names for two new elementary schools in Colorado Springs School District 11, a national group is making a pitch for residents to name one of the schools for the late President Reagan. The goal of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project is to have schools and other facilities named after the 40th president, whom it credits with ending the Cold War and turning the economy around in the 1980s, said Grover Norquist, chairman of the project and president of Americans for Tax Reform. John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., each have...

WASHINGTON: Two Muslim-American doctors involved in fundraising for charities that help Muslims and Palestinians have accused the US government of targeting Muslim charities after September 11. The doctors claim that several Muslim charities have been closed down without any evidence of their involvement in any terrorist activity. Laila al-Marayati and Basil Abdelkarim, who are on the board of a an Ohio-based charity ‘KinderAmerica’, writing in the Washigton Post on Sunday accused the US Treasury Department of “playing target practice” with American Muslim charities. They reported that Treasury agents last month seized the assets and froze operations of the charity ‘KindHearts’,...

WASHINGTON -- Claude A. Allen, President Bush's domestic policy adviser and previously a Cabinet secretary in Virginia, has resigned his White House post. "Although this is a difficult decision, it is the best decision for my family," he wrote Bush on Wednesday in a letter released by the White House. Allen, 45, was tapped in January 2005 for the adviser's post. A staunch social conservative, he previously had served since May 2001 as deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. On Monday, he briefed Washington news media on the president's fiscal 2007 budget. "The message I...

Former White House Adviser Arrested Maryland Man Faces Theft Charges POSTED: 7:10 pm EST March 10, 2006 COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- A former White House adviser and Bush administration nominee to the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has been arrested and charged with theft for receiving phony refunds at department stores. Montgomery County police arrested Claude Alexander Allen, 45, of Gaithersburg, on Thursday for allegedly returning more than $5,000 worth of merchandise he did not buy, according to county law enforcement officials and a federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the charges are state,...

PATRICK BUCHANAN, COMMENTATOR AND former presidential candidate, looked over the issues on the political agenda in 2006 and liked what he saw. It was a paleoconservative's delight. There was the Dubai ports deal, rejected by a congressional uprising part nationalistic, part isolationist. There's immigration, soon to be debated on the Senate floor and always high on the paleocon list of concerns. Excessive government spending, a worry of all conservatives but especially paleocons, is a major topic this year. And the intervention in Iraq and President Bush's crusade for democracy face sharp criticism, with paleocons in the lead among the critics....

WASHINGTON (AP) - Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff says President Bush knew him well enough to joke with him about weightlifting. "What are you benching, buff guy?" Abramoff said Bush asked him. The president has said he doesn't know Abramoff. Abramoff said he finds it hard to believe Bush doesn't remember the 10 or so photos he and members of his family had snapped with the president and first lady. "He (Bush) has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met," Abramoff wrote in an e-mail, according to Vanity Fair's April issue being released this week. "Perhaps...

Last week, I skewered Democrat opportunists who have turned into tough-sounding profiling advocates to exploit the White House ports debacle. Today, I must express bottomless disgust with those on the Right who have turned into mush-mouthed race-card players to shift blame away from President Bush for his miserable mishandling of the situation. It's one thing for feckless grievance-mongers on the Left to accuse Americans genuinely concerned about national security of Islamophobia. It's quite another for the Right to sink to such a level in accusing all good-faith critics of demagoguery. Reasonable people can disagree on the process pitfalls and security...

The I.R.S. said yesterday that it saw a sharp increase in prohibited political activity by charities and churches in the last election cycle, a trend that it aims to reverse as the country heads into the midterm elections. The tax agency found problems at three-quarters of the 82 organizations it examined after having received complaints about their political activities, according to a report the Internal Revenue Service released. The infractions included distributing materials that encouraged people to vote for particular candidates and giving cash to campaigns. The agency said it was seeking to revoke the exemptions of three organizations but...

Some of the nation's leading conservative thinkers and strategists are seeking, through Schwarzenegger's initiatives, to alter the balance of power between the right and left wings of California politics. Their hope is to turn California red in '08 and pioneer a new gospel that can spread across the country. The grandest Republican architect is Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform... Norquist is behind Proposition 75. It's a Trojan horse whose larger purpose is to tilt the balance of power in politics by limiting union support for Democrats without cutting corporate sources of Republican funding. Texas Rep. Tom DeLay...

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is an institution. Now in its 32nd year, CPAC is the largest annual gathering of grassroots activists on the right. But when it comes to co-sponsors, CPAC and its parent group, the American Conservative Union, are keeping strange company. CPAC always has a lustrous lineup of speakers. Ann Coulter, Oliver North, George Will, Sen. Rick Santorum (R.-Pa.) and Vice President Cheney all addressed this year’s conference. For the most part, the panel discussions and workshops were informative. Increasingly, CPAC is becoming a youth conference -- demonstrating the movement’s vitality. Of the 3,500 or so...

GEORGE SOROS’ INFILTRATION OF CPAC STATEMENT FOR THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD CONGRESSMAN MARK E. SOUDER (IN-03) FEBRUARY 8, 2006 Mr. Speaker, George Soros, the radical liberal financier who dedicated himself to defeating President George W. Bush in the last election, has taken a lesson from Jack Abramoff. As much of Abramoff’s pernicious lobbying technique has come to light, we’ve seen how he was adept at manipulating certain conservative organizations to pursue a decidedly anti-conservative agenda, namely the promotion of gambling. By working hand in hand with the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), for example, he was able in 2000 to undermine conservatives’...

The Bush administration's former chief procurement official tipped off lobbyist Jack Abramoff that the government was about to suspend the federal contracts of an Abramoff client, newly filed court papers say. David Safavian provided "sensitive and confidential information" about four subsidiaries of Tyco International to Abramoff regarding internal deliberations at the General Services Administration, say the court papers filed Friday in a criminal case against Safavian. Abramoff has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud in a burgeoning bribery probe centered on Capitol Hill but also involving the Interior Department. The White House is refusing to release photographs...

The roots of the contemporary Al-Qaida terrorist financing network can be directly traced back to lessons learned by Arab-Afghan fighters during the early days of the Soviet-Afghan jihad nearly two decades ago. As the 1980s drew to a close, thousands of idealistic Islamic fundamentalist volunteers arrived in Pakistan, often with no local guide or requisite accommodations. At the time, several wealthy Arabian Gulf charitable organizations, under the guise of aiding Afghan and Pakistani refugees, stepped forward to help channel the jihadi recruits where they were most needed. These wealthy NGOs – sponsored by a number of prominent Gulf businessmen –...

I'd like to do a mathematical analysis ...

He's BAAAAACK! Yup, Prince Alberta, newly relocated to the liberal mecca of San Francisco ensconsed in his new multi-million $$ condo, working in the venture capital field (all bad things when he was running for the WH) will today crawl out from under his rock to deliver himself of a major address about the "evils of executive power"

Leading Conservatives Call for Extensive Hearings on NSA Surveillance; Checks on Invasive Federal Powers Essential 1/17/2006 6:36:00 PM To: National Desk Contact: Laura Brinker, 202-715-1540, for Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, laura.brinker@dittus.com WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances (PRCB) today called upon Congress to hold open, substantive oversight hearings examining the President's authorization of the National Security Agency (NSA) to violate domestic surveillance requirements outlined in the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, chairman of PRCB, was joined by fellow conservatives Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform...

Conservatives planning to attend Grover Norquist's popular Wednesday Group meeting tomorrow will be the target of a MoveOn.org protest outside Norquist's downtown Washington, D.C., office building. Tom Matzzie of MoveOn.org Political Action announced the protest in an e-mail to supporters Tuesday morning. Norquist's meeting is attended by a broad range of Republicans. It starts at 10 a.m. "The group hosting the meeting—Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform—is at the center of the Republican power machine in Washington and has been implicated in the corruption scandals from lobbyist Jack Abramoff," Matzzie wrote in the e-mail. "But they still meet even after...

(CNSNews.com) - Liberal activists plan to protest "Republican corruption" on Wednesday outside the offices of Americans for Tax Reform, where conservative leaders and activists gather weekly -- "to discuss their next moves," protest organizers said. The "Stop Corruption First" protest is intended to draw media attention to the "close connection" between congressional Republicans and the "business lobbyists who are funding their operations," a press release said. "The plan is to show up, peacefully conduct a protest with signs, and disperse after a half hour or so," said MoveOn.org Political Action, which is co-sponsoring the protest with the Campaign for America's...

ALERT: This message is specifically for DC-area activists. Can you take some time out tomorrow morning (Wednesday, Jan. 18) to counter a particularly nasty left-wing protest? The socialist wanna-be's at MoveOn.org, together with some of their far-left friends, are holding a morning "protest" from 9:45-10:15am outside of the offices of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). Most Wednesday mornings, ATR hosts a meeting of conservative and libertarian activists, Capitol Hill staffers and usually at least one representative from the White House. MoveOn.org can't stand the fact that conservatives are able to utilize their First Amendment rights to "peaceably assemble" in this...

Conservatives planning to attend Grover Norquist's popular Wednesday Group meeting tomorrow will be the target of a MoveOn.org protest outside Norquist's downtown Washington, D.C., office building. Tom Matzzie of MoveOn.org Political Action announced the protest in an e-mail to supporters Tuesday morning. Norquist's meeting is attended by a broad range of Republicans. It starts at 10 a.m. "The group hosting the meeting—Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform—is at the center of the Republican power machine in Washington and has been implicated in the corruption scandals from lobbyist Jack Abramoff," Matzzie wrote in the e-mail. "But they still meet even after...

'K Street Project,' now mired in scandal, aimed to ensure GOP control... In 1995, they named it the "K Street Project," a kind of affirmative action for Republican lobbyists, a program to expand GOP influence in the influence business. -snip- DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden said the K Street Project has been valuable on its own terms. -snip- Though little known outside Washington, the project has become an issue, even among Republicans. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, one of the candidates to replace Mr. DeLay as majority leader, has vowed that if elected, "There will be no longer be a K Street...

Republicans are looking for "their" John McCain. The popular Arizona maverick is already a Republican, of course. But the GOP needs a McCain in the "Keating Five" sense. Back in 1990, Senate Democrats roped McCain into the scandal over savings and loan kingpin Charles Keating on tenuous grounds, just so not all the senators involved would be Democrats. The GOP now craves such bipartisan cover in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Republicans trumpet every Democratic connection to Abramoff in the hope that something resonates. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), took more than $60,000 from Abramoff clients! North Dakota Democratic...

Pushing his global warming message, former Vice President and 2000 Democratic Presidential nominee Al Gore met with a group of high powered conservatives and got a warm reception. According to the National Journal’s The Hotline, Gore’s staff asked if he could speak to the attendees of Grover Norquist’s famous Wednesday meetings of top conservative activists, many of whom are from Capitol Hill, the White House and media. Norquist told The Hotline that Gore’s interest in speaking to a group that opposes just about everything the former V.P. stands for was sparked by billionaire leftist George Soros account of the reception...

Excerpted from today's Wall Street Journal: ...Making the bribery case especially striking -- and worrisome for members of Congress -- is that some of its elements include transactions that occur in Washington every day. It is commonplace for lawmakers to solicit campaign donations from lobbyists, who routinely offer them in hopes of gaining advantage. Yet Mr. Abramoff also went far beyond routine practice by furnishing lawmakers with lavish trips, free meals and entertainment as well. It remains unclear which lawmakers prosecutors are looking at, and also how persuasive Mr. Abramoff could be in helping to make potential cases against any...

Today, indicted uber-whore-lobbyist Jack Abramoff pled guilty to several of many counts in two separate federal indictments against him. I knew Abramoff, not well, but met him and immediately thought him to be a huge sleazebag. Those were my instincts, and that was back in the mid-'90s. I warned prominent friends of mine, in Congress and the private sector, not to do business with him. Some listened and recently thanked me for my warnings. Others did not, and--although they had no connection to his unethical, criminal enterprises--are hoping they escape public scrutiny. I told others of my suspicions that he...

WASHINGTON'S big story for 2006 is likely to be a scandal with more bad characters than "The Sopranos," uncovered through the exhaustive reporting of the Washington Post. In the center, sits uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose trial in Florida on federal fraud charges -- involving his partnership in a cruise line -- starts Jan. 9. But it is the Washington angle that has revealed rot on Capitol Hill. Abramoff's colleague, public-relations ace Michael Scanlon (and former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas), is singing to federal prosecutors, having pleaded guilty to attempting to bribe public officials and agreeing to return $19...

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a close associate of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, to plead guilty to corruption, other charges, source tells CNN. That is the teaser on CNN. CNN reported that Abramoff has agreed to a prison sentence of a maximum of 10 years, pending his full co-operation with the justice department. Updates will follow.

Watching the action in the House of Representatives last week, it was easy to imagine that immigration was a strictly partisan issue. The bill under discussion, mostly the brainchild of Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, was about as tough as it gets: not just 700 miles of border fence and stiffer penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants but also a provision that turns illegal presence in this country from a civil violation into a federal crime -- subject to an entirely different kind of policing and punishable by much stiffer penalties. Over two days of emotional debate on the floor,...

Speaks at Log Cabin Republican fundraiser Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, is under fire for speaking at a Log Cabin Republican fundraiser in Texas. The Dallas event, the largest fundraising event of the year for the homosexual Republican group, was raising funds in part to fight Proposition 2; the proposed Texas amendment that would define marriage as between one man and one woman. Bob Knight, Director of CWA’s Culture & Family Institute, says this is not the first time high-profile conservative leaders have turned on the social conservatives of their own party. Click here to listen: http://www.cwfa.org/play.asp?id=cw20051021a...

A number of conservatives are seething over the fact that Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), was the featured speaker at a fund-raising event for a group of homosexual Republicans last weekend. One pro-family leader called Norquist's appearance "an act of utter betrayal." Norquist was the main attraction at the "Grand Ol' Party," the largest fund-raising event of the year for the Dallas, Tex., chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans, a homosexual advocacy group within the GOP. Carla Halbrook, a member of the national Log Cabin board and the organization's chapter in Dallas, told Cybercast News...

Texas leaders of the Log Cabin Republicans, a homosexual organization within the G.O.P., are headlining Grover Norquist as their main speaker at a fund-raiser tomorrow night. Norquist is the well-respected leader of Americans for Tax Reform, a group I was once part of as a Louisiana legislator. FRC has worked with Grover Norquist on tax issues and their impact on the family for many years. Because of our relationship, we have voiced our concern directly with Mr. Norquist over his apparent support of this anti-family group. We pointed out to Mr. Norquist that some of the funds raised would be...

Tax reformer Norquist to headline Grand Ol’ Party Log Cabin Republicans largest fundraiser of the year expected to be ‘bigger and better’ than ever By David Webb, Staff Writer National tax reform leader Grover Norquist is scheduled to speak at Log Cabin Republicans of Dallas’ Grand Ol’ Party on Oct. 15. Carla Halbrook of Dallas, a national board member of the gay political group, said she is expecting the appearance by Norquist to make the event, the group’s ninth annual dinner and fundraiser, the best in its history. ...Halbrook said she heard Norquist speak once before at a national Log...

The rise and fall of an Islamic Institute alumnus. Last Monday, David Hossein Safavian, a high-ranking White House official and pal of GOP powerbroker Grover Norquist, was arrested in a federal corruption case involving lobbying bad boy Jack Abramoff. According to the FBI, Safavian repeatedly lied to federal investigators in order to cover up Abramoff’s shady dealings. He not only bent ethics rules to accompany Abramoff on a 2002 golf junket to Scotland; he also used his position as chief of staff at the General Services Administration to deliver GSA-managed land into the lobbyist’s hands. But Safavian's not just tied...

Well, if 9/11 is one bookend of the Bush administration, Katrina may be the other. If 9/11 put the wind at President Bush's back, Katrina's put the wind in his face. If the Bush-Cheney team seemed to be the right guys to deal with Osama, they seem exactly the wrong guys to deal with Katrina - and all the rot and misplaced priorities it's exposed here at home. ..snip.. Besides ripping away the roofs of New Orleans, Katrina ripped away the argument that we can cut taxes, properly educate our kids, compete with India and China, succeed in Iraq, keep...

The New Yorker, a house organ of the left, recently published a fawning – yea, fatuous – article about Grover Norquist, a prominent conservative activist who heads Americans for Tax Reform and is one of the movement's most visible, serial bashers of its leftist partisan foes. What's going on? The most benign explanation is that the article is a deserved, if grudging, admission by the left of the effectiveness of the man it calls the right's "ringleader [who] keeps the conservative movement together." This proposition is bolstered by a comment made by the author, John Cassidy, in an online interview...

The cap on state spending that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants voters to pass in November is emerging as a centerpiece of a nationwide strategy by influential conservatives to slash government spending in state capitals across the country. Although the authors of the California proposal say they were not influenced by out-of-state groups, a loose affiliation of ideologically conservative organizations are hoping that the proposed California "Live Within Our Means Act" will help fuel a national taxpayer revolt they are working to coordinate in more than two dozen other states. "This is the next big thing at the state level," said...

CAGov. Reaches Deal With Democrat Legislators on No-Tax-IncreaseBudget Distribution Source : U.S. Newswire Date : Friday, July 08, 2005 To: State Desk Contact: Chris Butler of the Americans for Tax Reform, 202-785-0266 WASHINGTON, July 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and state legislative leaders from both parties have reached a budget deal that spends $116 billion but does not raise taxes. The budget also repays state debt ahead of schedule, guarantees that gas tax proceeds will be spent on transportation, and still funds many education and healthcare programs Democrats had made a priority. Observers are calling the...

Story ties Abramoff to Norquist -- scandal expanding toward White House? In a very positive step in the right direction, the New York Times ran a front page story yesterday ("Link to Lobbyist Brings Scrutiny to G.O.P. Figure," May 23, 2005) tying indicted lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, to non-indicted lobbyist, Grover Norquist. They are quite the pair of influence peddlers. Norquist is the man people are thinking about when they say they feel like they need to shower after a visit to Washington. Abramoff was so clever at facilitating the selling off of our democracy, and steering the bigger cut to...

Is Grover Norquist an Islamist? Paul Sperry, author of the new book, Infiltration, in an interview calls Grover Norquist "an agent of influence for Islamists in Washington." When asked by FrontPageMag.com why a Republican anti-tax lobbyist should so passionately promote Islamist causes, Sperry implied that Norquist has converted to Islam: "He's marrying a Muslim, and when I asked Norquist if he himself has converted to Islam, he brushed the question off as too ‘personal.'" As Lawrence Auster comments on this exchange, "Clearly, if Norquist hadn't converted to Islam, or weren't in the process of doing so, he would simply have...

My old friends Mitch Daniels and Grover Norquist are at each other's throats these days over Mitch's decision to raise taxes on his fellow Hoosiers within days of being sworn in as governor. Grover is, of course, the nation's chief advocate of "the pledge," which commits those who take it to forswear support of any tax increase. Its existence and Grover's aggressiveness in encouraging politicians to take it have had a salutary influence on campaigns, elections and the performance of those who have signed it once they take office. To sign Grover's pledge and then break it is very difficult...

Gov. Bill Owens stood in the bipartisan light of a news conference at the state Capitol on Thursday when he and lawmakers from both parties announced their budget deal. But in conference rooms and hallways and as far away as Washington, D.C., the Republican governor's endorsement of what opponents see as a $3.1 billion tax hike set off more conservative tempers. Owens met with House Republicans before the news conference to explain his position, saying that he is still a "fiscal conservative." But longtime political allies say that rings hollow. "That's over," said Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax...

Friday 2/18 10amET Freedom Works 11amET Kerri Houston and Peter Roff 12noonET Martha Zoller 1pmET Paul Weyrich 2pmET Accuracy in Academia 3pmET Paul Rodriguez 4pmET Grover Norquist Click HERE for RIGHTALK Programs LIVE from CPAC! Click HERE for CPAC LIVE Panel Feed!Click HERE for CPAC Panel Agenda!

One afternoon late last month, I paid a visit to the offices of Americans for Tax Reform, the conservative lobbying outfit headed by Grover Norquist. Though Norquist ranks among the Republican Party's leading operators, neither he nor his organization is quite yet a household name. Outside the Beltway, he is known mainly, if at all, for the cheerfully visceral quotations that regularly appear next to his name in newspaper articles. (Shortly after the G.O.P.'s Election Day victory, Norquist mused to The Washington Post that the city might become less bitter and fractious now that the Democrats had been more or...