Free Republic

Tea parties: time to look at the big picture December 8, 7:37 AM It was reported on AOL this morning that the tea party movement may be fracturing. There are several different groups who make up the overall movement, and each is trying to put its stamp on the direction in which they are headed. Further, some think the drive is being co-opted by the Republican party for its own use. It can seem a tangled web.*snip* Without Washington our nation would not have been formed. Without Lincoln the Civil War may have been lost. Without Reagan the prosperity of...

Harry Reid likens Healthcare protesters to people who supported slavery December 7, 5:31 PMBaltimore Conservative ExaminerAl Ritter Reid with partner in crime Sen. Mikulski AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais This has to be not only the most contentious comment ever made in the Senate, but also the most false. I’m not exactly sure what Harry Reid wanted to accomplish with this falsehood, but his knowledge of history is sorely lacking. I can’t help but to liken his comment to someone who would make the very comparison of the Tea Party participants to followers of Hitler. Yes Nancy Pelosi, I am talking...

DECEMBER 8, 2009 The Mystery of Harry Reid How could such a thoroughly unappealing man have gotten so far in politics? By JAMES TARANTO Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is at it again. FoxNews.com reports on his latest utterance in the debate over ObamaCare:Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era. "Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right," Reid said Monday. "When...

Tea Party Support and the Social Security Institute Tell GOP Senate: “Stop Putting Your Christmas Vacation Ahead of Our Country” Posted : Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:14:19 GMT Tea Party Support ( http://teapartysupport.com ) and the Social Security Institute ( http://socialsecurityinstitute.com ) joined forces yesterday to blast out a million-and-a-half email messages asking people to demand that Republican Senators stop assisting Harry Reid to ram ObamaCare and the Reid health bill through the Senate by year’s end. The email campaign has generated more than 25,000 letters and emails to Capitol Hill so far. Tea Party Support President Matthew Perdue...

Here's one for those who believe that the tea-party movement is "astro-turf." Despite the long recession and a banking industry that teetered on the abyss last year, America still believes in the free market system. In fact it seems as if one of President Obama's unintended success stories is that he has driven more Americans to believe in the free market system. A new Rasmussen poll reports that 76% of voters say a free market economy is better than one managed by the government. Only 10% prefer an economy managed by the government. That is up from 70% a year...

James Groce said he and many others across American believe government is spending too much, taxing too much and borrowing too much. “We expect our government to show fiscal responsibility. A lot of our politicians aren’t doing the job we elect them to do,” Groce said. Many of those people, including Groce, have come together in Tea Party organizations to speak out against big government. “We have groups started in Dade County, Walker County, Catoosa County, Gordon County and Gilmer County. We are trying to get them started in all the 9th Congressional District counties. We lack Whitfield and Murray,...

Outgoing Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, recently told participants at the 11th annual American Democracy Conference in Charlottesville that the "corrosive" Tea Party movement was "devouring" the Republican Party. A recent Rasmussen poll, which found "Tea Party" more popular than the GOP, seemed to confirm Kaine's point. The growing grass-roots movement will indeed destroy the political careers of many politicians who fail to heed the warning it delivered Sept. 12, when 1.7 million angry voters (according to a crowd estimate by Zac Moilanen of Indiana University) descended on Washington to say they were totally fed...

BY STEPHANIE SIMON DENVER -- To retake Colorado, the Republican Party wants voters like Michael Schneider. A proud member of the diffuse 'tea-party movement' that gained steam during this summer's town-hall meetings on health care, Dr. Schneider is on the hunt for candidates who promise to buck the political establishment, defy the party elite and hew tightly to conservative principles. Colorado Republicans last week made a bold move to woo him and other restive tea-party activists by setting forth a conservative agenda -- dubbed the "Platform for Prosperity" -- and encouraging all candidates for state office to adopt it. The...

A new Rasmussen poll finds that the tea party movement's popularity is growing, so much so that it garners more support than the Republican party on a generic Congressional ballot. The poll hints that the burgeoning discontent among conservatives within the GOP threatens to splinter the party at a time when the popularity of President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress are waning as we head into an election year.

<p>Protesters march through Washington at a Tea Party Express rally on September 12.</p> <p>Washington (CNN) -- It emerged in anger and it threatens to split in anger.</p> <p>One major group in the Tea Party movement -- named after the famous Boston Tea Party -- is set to host its first convention in February, with former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as its keynote speaker.</p>

U.S. congressional hopefuls running as Tea Party candidates could fare better than those running as Republicans, a Rasmussen Report released Monday indicates. In a three-way generic ballot test, results found Democrats attracting 36 percent of the vote, the Tea Party candidate garnered 23 percent and Republicans collected 18 percent, Rasmussen said in a release. Another 22 percent of respondents said they were undecided. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party movement emerged victorious, the results indicated. Thirty-three percent of people surveyed said they preferred the Tea Party candidate, 30 percent said they were undecided, 25 percent...

LOS ANGELES (PIO) -- This past week, all across America -- from Marietta, Georgia to Davenport, Iowa to Beverly Hills, California -- sightings of the newest poster featuring President Barack Obama have been made. Simultaneously, many have become convinced that the poster's inscrutable label, TWAP, stands for The Worst American President. In what may well be an ominous sign for President Obama, the posters have appeared on many unleased stores, highlighting the devastating effect the recession has had on commercial real estate and small businesses across the country, the sector which most often leads the way out of bad economic...

going to collapse if we don't pass this Democrat slush fund called the "stimulus bill" tomorrow, the world is going to boil over in 3 months unless we turn our lives upside-down to stop global warming, our "moral standing" in the world is being damaged by Republican strategies in the war on terror, black churches are going to burn because America is a racist country, and millions of Americans are going to go poor and starving unless government does something to regulate those greedy corporate executives. These, according to Frank Rich — who according to his own writings agrees wholeheartedly...

"The stunning Rasmussen Poll showing the Republican Party finishing a decided third to a hypothetical 'Tea Party' candidate should send shock waves through the GOP. It demonstrates once again that the timid, tepid Republican leadership is leading its party to the brink of disaster. Tens of millions of Americans are looking for strong leadership to stand up to the Obama-Reid-Pelosi leftwing onslaught. Instead, the Republican Party is giving them the same shilly-shally two-step that cost it a majority in Congress, and the Oval Office. Looks like the American people are telling the GOP in no uncertain terms, 'Lead, follow --...

In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.

Franklin D. Roosevelt understood what it meant to be a core Democrat and maintaining his party’s ranks. He built winning coalitions around his policies by empowering previously suppressed groups, such as labor unions and urban ethnics. In the process, he created a 40-year dynasty for Democrats. Today’s bunch? Not so much. The problem for FDR’s party is that it hasn’t adapted swiftly enough to two realities – that jobs are the most important issue to the nation, and that the middle class (which Democrats claim to champion) is dissolving under its watch. It seemed that Democrats may be starting to...

What the Tea Party Movement Means for Conservatives by  Sal Russo 12/01/2009 As I have travelled across the country on the Tea Party Express buses, I have been struck by the similarity to the early days of Ronald Reagan.  The explosion of interest by every-day Americans in taking their country back, as well as the biased mainstream media trying to portray conservatives as crackpots, is all hauntingly familiar.    Will the tea party movement be the beginning of another Reagan Revolution, as I think it will, or will the left-wing media be right that we are nothing but a collection...

Paul believes in and promises to uphold the 9 Principles & 12 Values of the 912 Project 1. America is good 2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life. God “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” from George Washington’s first Inaugural address. 3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday 4. The family is sacred. I and my family are the ultimate authority, not the government. Marriage/Family “It...

DC Tea Party – What Now? 27 February 2008 Lafayette Park, Washington, DC Reports on the DC Tea Party have been filed at Hot Air Joe the Plumber at D.C. Tea Party: No one on the Hill gives a rip about you, and Michelle Malkin Scenes from the D.C. Tea Party. But what the hay I’ll add my two cents and a couple of pictures to boot. Early on there was a general milling about and DC Chapter folks were tough to spot. Once the “organizers” figured out where their permit authorized them to have a 2nd Amendment activity the...

He calls them “the teabag party,” actually, which I guess is slightly better than “teabaggers.” His hosannas to comparative Democratic unity and imminent Republican civil war come on a day when PPP, a lefty polling firm, declares that the top eight most vulnerable Senate seats next year are all currently occupied by Democrats. Not 24 hours ago, Rasmussen reported that Blanche Lincoln — a.k.a. vote number 60 on ObamaCare — trails four different Republicans in hypothetical match-ups, and there’s no mystery why: Against all four Republicans, she leads by wide margins among those who favor the health care plan proposed...

Republicans Pay Tribute at ‘Tea Party’ Movie Premiere Members of Congress Mingle With Activists at D.C. Film Debut By David Weigel 12/3/09 10:08 AM Presenters at the premiere of "Tea Party: The Documentary Film" Wednesday in Washington (Photo: David Weigel) Getting into Wednesday’s Washington, D.C., premiere of “Tea Party: The Documentary Film” meant walking through a steady rain into the Ronald Reagan building, a sprawling downtown trade and convention center where the economic conservative group FreedomWorks, which helped organize a number of Tea Party protests, had rented a foyer and a sizable auditorium. The stars of the film relaxed and...

Just about every blockbuster movie is followed by a sequel, or two. The tea party cross country caravan, it appears, is no different. A Tea Party Express official tells CNN that they're planning a third national tour in late March and early April that will culminate in the nation's capitol on April 15, tax deadline day. Levi Russell, a spokesman for the group, which is organized by the conservative political action committee Our Country Deserves Better, says the slogan for the tour is "just vote them out." Russell says that with the crucial 2010 midterm elections just months away, the...

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a darling of the Tea Party crowd, credited that movement with blocking Democratic health care reform efforts and predicted the conservative activists behind the movement could ultimately thwart the passage of that bill and others.. "The only reason we don't have national health care right now is you - is the people outside of Washington," DeMint told a gathering of Tea Party activists gathered Wednesday night in Washington for the premiere of a documentary about the movement. "I think we do have a shot at stopping this thing," he said of the health care reform bill...

Kaine: Tea parties 'savaging the GOP' By: Andy Barr December 3, 2009 03:58 PM EST Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said Thursday that the tea party movement is “savaging” the Republican Party and is already proving “corrosive” in key GOP primaries. Speaking at the 11th annual American Democracy Conference hosted by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and POLITICO, Kaine argued that while the “headwind” may be against Democrats heading into 2010, divisions within the GOP will prove deadly to the Republican brand. “The tea party movement is savaging the GOP,” he said. “It is something that we...

Union Violence: An African-American is beaten up at a political rally by thugs shouting racial epithets, and after three months his assailants are charged with the moral equivalent of jaywalking. Why wasn't it a hate crime? The beating of Kenneth Gladney by people wearing the purple shirts of the Service Employees International Union outside a Missouri health care town hall meeting three months ago met all the classic definitions of a hate crime. Time was, the beating of a black man outside a protest rally, and the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators, would be headline news. Gladney was working...

SALT LAKE CITY -- The mayor of Salt Lake City thinks extremist attitudes like those at some "tea parties" have no place here. Mayor Ralph Becker is slamming tea parties. He says he was visiting with a group from Ireland who had also been to a tea party in Utah. "They were surprised by how aggressive and mean-spirited the group was toward people who weren't just like them," Becker said. The Irish Times quoted Mayor Becker as saying the U.S. tea party movement represents "an incredibly narrow, bigoted, angry, nasty, mean view of the world." He clarified his comments to...

Dec 7 Navy SEALs Courts-Martial PROTEST - Norfolk Virginia SUPPORT OUR TROOPS! Type: Causes - Protest Network: Global Date: Monday, December 7, 2009 Time: 8:00am - 6:00pm Location: Naval Station Norfolk City/Town: Norfolk, VA Description As most of you already know, some of our military’s most elite, the Navy SEALs are under fire from the US Government for none other than bloodying the lip of one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq, the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. Matthew McCabe, Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe & Petty Officer...

Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters nationwide say they’re at least somewhat angry about the current policies of the federal government. That figure includes 46% who are Very Angry. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 27% are not angry about the government's policies, including 10% who are Not at All Angry........ The data suggests that the level of anger is growing. The 71% who are angry at federal government policies today is up five percentage points since September. Even more stunning, the 46% who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points from September.

I am working on a huge activity right now, and need to speak to leadership in Tea Parties or other forms of conservative activism, based in Manhattan and Queens. Please FReep me with your contact info ASAP, especially phone info.

Half of the media outlets covering the tea party in downtown St. Louis Saturday afternoon seemed to want to minimize the event by citing a small turnout figure.

While covering the St. Louis Tea Party at Kiener Plaza in downtown St. Louis Saturday afternoon, I ran into a fellow blogger. Not your ordinary blogger, this guy is 12 years old and, perhaps, the youngest conservative blogger in Missouri. His name: David Bader.

Among those rallying against government-run health care, high taxes and rampant socialism Saturday afternoon in St. Louis was local bakery owner Dave McArthur.

An estimated 2,500 patriots protested against government-run health care and rampant socialism during a rally this afternoon at Kiener Plaza in downtown St. Louis.

INDIANA, Pa. – Turn the corner onto Philadelphia Street in this small Western Pennsylvania town, and you might be on the main street of Bedford Falls, the mythical town in Frank Capra’s Christmas classic film, It’s a Wonderful Life. “This is a town where you hear people tell each other ‘Merry Christmas’ without ever considering if it is politically correct,” said Chris Carter of Dayton, Ohio, here for the day on business. Earlier Carter, 30, posed for a picture with the statue of Jimmy Stewart, Indiana’s hometown everyman. Carter thinks places like Indiana or his hometown of Dayton are overlooked...

In 1898, this city was years ahead of the rest of the American South, building an inclusive, interracial political culture. It had a burgeoning black middle class. A new era of hope dawned in North Carolina. But the losers in the 1896 elections, the white Democrats, sulked on the margins, threatened by political irrelevance. Their sense of entitlement to governance had just been rejected by white progressives and black voters. "Take back the state," became their battle cry. And they did just that. On Nov. 9, some Wilmington whites issued a White Declaration of Independence, proclaiming "that we will no...

4,000 patriots rallied in St. Louis today .James O’Keefe of ACORN-busting fame, headlined the Holiday Tea Party Protest.Keiner Plaza was filled with Tea Party mobsters and racists. More photos here: http://www.atraditionallifelived.com/2009/11/4000-at-st-louis-tea-party-let-off-some.html

She's a God, Country, Family, small government, no nonsense traditional Christian conservative. She's an outsider not corrupted by business as usual Washington politics. They hate her. She's pro defense. An army mom. She's pro-gun. Hunts, fishes and enjoys the great outdoors. She eats corrupt office holders and wasteful spenders for lunch. She drills for oil. She's a fighter. A winner! She's the exact opposite to Obama in all respects. She's an American patriot! In short, she's exactly what we the grassroots tea party patriots are looking for.

Tea Party Nation has announced they are holding the first of it’s kind National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee February 4-6 at the Opryland Hotel. Sarah Palin will be the Special Keynote Speaker at the event:

"Government Distrust and a Dead Census Taker."“...[W]as it part of the recent rage at what right-wing commentators decry as the big-spending, socialistic government of the first African-American President? Al Cross, a former reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal who covered the area for 30 years, believes that the conditions underlying the murder go back much farther and are much deeper — and more local — than the recent spate of ire. (Read TIME's cover story on Glenn Beck.)” Well, now it turns out that Kentucky investigators have concluded that poor Sparkman committed suicide, faking his own death in order to let...

Eleven months ago, he landed on the shores of the presidency, destroying everything in his path. A gigantic, fire-breathing monster wreaking havoc, consuming private sector industries, crushing institutions which have made America great, and destroying lives. With fear and trembling we dare to utter his name...Obamazilla! Though appearing indestructible and unstoppable, millions of brave patriots arose to challenge the beast, vowing not to sit idly by as America as we know it is terminated. As a patriot, I am totally focused on defeating Obamazilla, America's true nemesis. I will not allow myself to be sidetracked into participating in Tea-Party-movement family...

Sarah Palin will be the main attraction at what's being billed as the "First National Tea Party Convention." Tea Party Nation announced Wednesday that last year's Republican vice presidential candidate will serve as keynote speaker for the conference, scheduled to take place in Nashville, Tennessee February 4-6. A representative for Palin has confirmed the former Alaska governor's speaking role at the gathering.

We have a few more weeks, folks, to gather our thoughts and political weapons, and then 2010 is upon us. It will be a mad dash to the finish line, and we have a lot of priorities: Kill healthcare, kill Cap & Trade, pursue terrorists wherever they hide, win primaries, and stand atop Capitol Hill with the Conservative Flag in November. Horowitz is an old warrior. He's a good place to start.

A specter is haunting America – the specter of a people rising. All across the nation Americans are waking up to the threat of a leftist elite determined to fundamentally change America, push through a socialist agenda, and make every citizen dependent on the state. The Obama machine is spending trillions of tax-payer dollars to finance their takeover of the American workplace and stifle the independence of the American people. But America is resilient nation, built on the principles of private property and individual freedom, and the resistance to their socialist plans has already begun.

CHARGES WERE FILED TODAY IN THE KENNETH GLADNEY CASE!! Details coming. A confidential source just told me the news. Kenneth Gladney was beaten and stomped on by SEIU thugs outside the Russ Carnahan town hall meeting in August.

Palin, Bachmann to headline Tea Party convention Posted: November 25th, 2009 12:49 PM ET From CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser (CNN) – Sarah Palin will be the main attraction at what's being billed as the "First National Tea Party Convention." Tea Party Nation announced Wednesday that last year's Republican vice presidential candidate will serve as keynote speaker for the conference, scheduled to take place in Nashville, Tennessee February 4-6. A representative for Palin has not confirmed the former Alaska governor's speaking role at the gathering. The group also announced that Rep. Michele Bachmann will be speaking at the gathering...

ST. LOUIS COUNTY • Six people arrested in August outside a raucous town hall meeting in south St. Louis County have been charged with misdemeanor ordinance violations. The six, including a Post-Dispatch reporter, had attended a demonstration outside an Aug. 6 forum called by U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, at Bernard Middle School in Mehlville to discuss health care reform. The charges were filed Tuesday by the St. Louis County counselor’s office, which prosecutes misdemeanor ordinance violations in unincorporated areas. All are to appear in court Jan. 21. The maximum penalty upon conviction would be one year in jail...

Attention Tea Party. America Needs Your Help Congressional Lottery Pool America Will Thank You

I have never understood the Sarah Palin attraction. Sorry. I just don’t I am a die-hard conservative, but Sarah Palin does not do it for me. Never did. When she was first announced as John McCain’s running mate, I cringed, but then reluctantly understood. This was a political “Hail Mary” pass for the McCain campaign. Honestly, what could the poor man do from where he stood in the polls and in the modern American environment in which he was nominated? Answer: apparently little, aside from dumbing himself down to the political environment of the times—i.e., try to match the idiocy...

Eager to ensure that "tea partiers" don't undermine GOP candidates, conservative members of the Republican National Committee are pursuing the creation of a rule that would bar the Republican Party from funding candidates who fail a conservative litmus test. The group is circulating a petition among committee members that would enshrine former President Ronald Reagan's proposition that his 80 percent friend was not his 20 percent enemy. The rule would require Republican candidates to share at least 80 percent of the party's main tenets to be eligible for party aid. The resolution, if adopted, would withhold party money from the...

If you have been following what America's right-wing bloggers and radio talk-show hosts have been saying about President Barack Obama's just-concluded trip to the Asia-Pacific, you would be under the impression that Obama was not treated by officials in that region as the leader of the world's only remaining superpower and the largest and most advanced economy....