Free Republic

No matter what the polarizing, propagandizing Left says about fiscal conservatives as it attempts to splinter this country into a pile of kindling, it's not about race, class, or anything like that... it's not even about a major social agenda about to be imposed on the country  (at least not for me). What it is about -and should be the GOP's unified, disciplined message- is the simple, straightforward idea that the American people (and the business they own/create) can do most anything better than government can... This is the foundation all effective conservative movements build-upon, and with it we can't miss...

**SNIP** Health officials say the "ReThink Your Drink" campaign is aimed at reducing the amount of sugar-sweetened beverages that Alabamians have in their diets. They say a 20-ounce soda or sweetened tea can have 240 calories from sugar.

PRINCETON, NJ -- Six in 10 Americans (60%) believe the federal government has too much power, one percentage point above the previous high recorded in September 2010. At least half of Americans since 2005 have said the government has too much power. Thirty-two percent now say the government has the right amount of power. Few say it has too little power.

The disease-fighting punch of green tea is largely due to its high concentration of epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), a substance with more antioxidant activity than vitamins C and E and other nutritional heavyweights. The other side of the green tea story: Even if you are consuming green tea, the truth is that you might not be getting what you pay for. Some bottled green teas and even green tea supplements contain only trace amounts of EGCG. Meanwhile, the amount of EGCG in other green tea–based products can vary by more than 240%. These and other findings, from the scientists at ConsumerLab.com,...

Congressmen and Senators, At this critical juncture, on the cusp of what most conservatives now expect to be another massive sellout of the people and of principle, I would like to take this opportunity to point out a few crucial facts concerning political ownership of public policy. FACT If you AGAIN fund Obamacare, you own it. FACT If you AGAIN vote to fund Planned Parenthood, you own it. FACT If our Posterity is further burdened with crushing debts to which they could not possibly consent, and you AGAIN vote for it, you own it. FACT If any immoral and/or unconstitutional...

How Does the Tea Party Affect the Republican Party? There is an opinion that the Tea Party Movement diminishes the Republican Party. The most important opinion is the Tea Party Patriots’ opinion. The Republican Party’s direction must weaken before achieving the Tea Party’s objective of a constitutional government. My motto if you will, “Tea Party Patriots don't make the Republican Party weaker, Tea Party Patriots make the Republican Party Conservative. The grass roots Tea Party Movement is unique because all they ask for in exchange for their vote is a constitutional government. I would love to hear every American demand...

While I'm loathe to fold-up Reagan's Republican 'big tent' for good, the Rove-Boehner-RNC-Fox-WSJ axis has taken the choice out of our hands, as they are clearly out to exterminate -or at least neuter- the TEA Party, particularly it's emerging new leadership i.e. Cruz, Lee, et. al... so it's kill or be killed (and I know which I'd prefer). But these losers can't win elections: Rove famously tanked in 2012 with those he and his Big Bux donors chose to back. Many of these GOP candidates were squirelly tools willing to do as he and the ole Bush gang tell them...

This fact marks our political age: The pendulum is swinging faster and in shorter arcs than it ever has in our lifetimes. Few foresaw the earthquake of 2008 in 2006. No board-certified political professional predicted, on Election Day 2008, what happened in 2009-10 (New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts) and has been happening, and will happen, since then. It all moves so quickly now, it all turns on a dime. But at this moment we are witnessing a shift that will likely have some enduring political impact. Another way of saying that: The past few years, a lot of people in...

Congress's investigation into the IRS targeting of conservatives has been continuing out of the Syria headlines, and it's turning up news. Emails unearthed by the House Ways and Means Committee between former Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner and her staff raise doubts about IRS claims that the targeting wasn't politically motivated and that low-level employees in Cincinnati masterminded the operation. In a February 2011 email, Ms. Lerner advised her staff—including then Exempt Organizations Technical Manager Michael Seto and then Rulings and Agreements director Holly Paz—that a Tea Party matter is "very dangerous," and is something "Counsel and [Lerner adviser]...

A judge Friday ordered Sooner Tea Party co-founder Al Gerhart to face trial in a blackmail case. Gerhart, a carpenter, is charged with two felonies over an email he admits sending to a state senator in an effort to get legislation passed. Oklahoma County Special Judge Susan K. Johnson rejected defense arguments that the email was protected political speech. “Your First Amendment rights are on trial, not just mine,” Gerhart told news reporters after the ruling was made at the end of a two-hour preliminary hearing. Sen. Cliff Branan, R-Oklahoma City, said he felt anxious when he first read the...

The initial firestorm surrounding the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups may have subsided, but tea party leaders say the situation has only become worse and may lead to more lawsuits against the embattled agency. New documents show the depth of information the IRS is seeking from Tea Party Patriots, a leading conservative group that first applied for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status in late 2010 and one of many organizations singled out for extra scrutiny by the Obama administration. An IRS letter sent to the group last week and obtained by The Washington Times contains a laundry list of requests...

Maybe it was something she sang? Oakland Tea Party protester Celeste Paradise used her one minute of public comment time to sing a protest song at a public meeting. That’s when the committee shut her mic off.

Needless to say, it was in America, with its love of labour-saving devices, that tea bags were first developed. In around 1908, Thomas Sullivan, a New York tea merchant, started to send samples of tea to his customers in small silken bags. Some assumed that these were supposed to be used in the same way as the metal infusers, by putting the entire bag into the pot, rather than emptying out the contents. It was thus by accident that the tea bag was born! Responding to the comments from his customers that the mesh on the silk was too fine,...

(CNSNews.com) – IRS employees were ordered by their superiors--including Lois Lerner who pleaded the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination rather than testify in Congress--to send certain Tea Party tax-exemption applications to the office of the IRS's Chief Counsel, which was headed by William Wilkins, who at that time was the only Obama political appointee at the IRS, according to a letter released today by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “As a part of this ongoing investigation, the Committees have learned that the IRS Chief Counsel’s office in Washington, D.C. has been closely involved in some of the applications,”...

A friend of mine was interested in knowing if anyone has heard who won the Jeep from Two if By Tea. Has it been announced yet?

Responding to harsh criticism from Tea Party activists and conservatives, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) defended his support of the current immigration bill on the Senate floor Wednesday. He appealed directly to the people who helped him get elected, saying “their opinions really matter to me.” “Over the last few days, I have received numerous emails and calls from conservatives and tea party activists from across the country regarding immigration,” Rubio began. “And they are increasingly unhappy about the immigration reform proposal in the Senate.” Marco Rubio Defends Himself Against Tea Party Attacks on Senate Floor Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., speaks...

When Barack Obama gave a speech in Berlin in 2008, he drew a crowd of 200,000. Wednesday's speech at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate was a little less popular. White House pool reporter Elmar Jakobs estimated the crowd at only 4,500.

Conservative activists are planning to storm Capitol Hill on Wednesday for what they are predicting will be “the largest Tea Party protest since 2010.” The protest — drawing tea partiers like TV host Glenn Beck and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul — is in response to the Internal Revenue Service’s recent admission that it has been specifically targeting conservative groups for extra scrutiny. The gathering on the West Lawn of the Capitol is being called the “Audit the IRS” Rally. Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/18/the-largest-tea-party-protest-since-2010-is-tomorrow/#ixzz2WaxhEEBG

(CNSNews.com) - In a belated and incomplete response to the House Ways and Means Committee’s request for Internal Revenue Service documents relating to the agency’s targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups for heightened scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status, Acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel has informed the committee that the agency is in the process of reviewing approximately 64,600,000 pages of documents from IRS officials “who may have potentially relevant information” about the targeting. Werfel also suggested to the committee that he believes the ultimate answers to who knew what and when in the White House and the...

This is an important point because Democrats like to pretend that if you have tax-exempt status that you are being subsidized by the taxpayer. But Laurens County Tea Party group founder Dianne Belsom, who says she’s outraged by the accusation, corrects the record and points out that donations her C4 group receives are not tax deductible and have already been taxed when they were earned. The point, she says, of C4 is to ensure those donations don’t get taxed again at the end of the year.