Free Republic

The lamb plans to enter the lion's den. U.S. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., plans to meet Wednesday evening with Charleston Tea Party members at North Charleston City Hall. "Our objective is to provide a forum that will foster issue based questioning and allow ample time for the Senator to provide detailed information on his positions and votes on those issues," according to a Tea Party news release. Graham's meeting comes as he looks to mend fences with the conservative core of South Carolina's Republican Party -- a core upset with some of his recent positions on immigration and energy reform.

The rally organized by conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck this weekend was a prominent reminder of the disenchantment many Americans feel about Washington—a sentiment that provides both opportunities and pitfalls for the Republican Party. The size and geographic diversity of the crowd demonstrated the breadth of anti-incumbent feeling. But many of those interviewed at the rally expressed dissatisfaction not only with Democrats but with the traditional Republican leadership too, saying GOP candidates shouldn't take their vote for granted.

WASHINGTON — The incumbent senator from Alaska is taken by surprise in a primary. A new conservative movement energizes Republicans in a furious response to a Democratic White House. Little-known insurgent candidates prepare to storm the Senate. It is starting to feel like 1980. While the 1994 Republican takeover of the House is regularly explored for insight into what might happen this polarized election year, parallels are emerging between the watershed Senate election of three decades ago and the campaign of 2010 as another conservative rebellion threatens to reshape the Senate. In 1980, shocked Senate Democrats lost 12 seats in...

WASHINGTON — If Democrats had doubts about the voter unrest that threatens to rob them of their majority in Congress, they needed only look from the Capitol this weekend to the opposite end of the National Mall. It's where Ken Ratliff joined tens of thousands of other anti-government activists at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial for conservative commentator Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally. "There's gotta' be a change, man," said Ratliff, a 55-year-old Marine veteran from Rochester, N.Y.

WASHINGTON – Independents who embraced President Barack Obama's call for change in 2008 are ready for a shift again, and that's worrisome news for Democrats. Only 32 percent of those citing no allegiance to either major party say they want Democrats to keep control of Congress in this November's elections, according to combined results of recent Associated Press-GfK polls. That's way down from the 52 percent of independents who backed Obama over Republican Sen. John McCain two years ago, and the 49 percent to 41 percent edge by which they preferred Democratic candidates for the House in that election, according...

This guy Obama is so out of touch -- he is so devoid of reality, living in such a self created fantasy world, so full of himself and his own lies -- that he's starting to believe all of his own BS. To go out and campaign at a Ford plant and take credit for their jobs? They didn't get any bailout money. Ford is surviving in spite of Obama, as is everybody else in this country who is succeeding. Whoever is enjoying success, whoever is making a go of it is doing so in spite of Obama. He's jetting...

Power: Show Me State voters overwhelmingly rejected the federal mandate to buy health insurance. Those who ignored the consent of the governed to pass ObamaCare take heed: The governed no longer consent. It is fitting that Missouri was the first state to hold a public referendum on ObamaCare, sending the notion that government can shred the Constitution to impose its will to a crushing defeat with three-quarters of the voters approving Proposition C. The measure would forbid the federal government from penalizing people who do not buy health insurance. A year ago, on Aug. 6, 2009, Kenneth Gladney, an African-American...

A clear pattern of behavior has emerged over the last 16 months. According to liberals, if you disagree with their thinking, and if you disagree with the Obama administration, you are not only wrong, you are a “racist.” The latest strike by the left comes from the NAACP, which has resolved that the tea party movement is inherently “racist.” At its most simple, this is a direct attack on the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans. The NAACP has long history of liberalism and racism. If you are a conservative — including a conservative African-American — there is no...

Here are two big questions hovering over this year's congressional elections: How radical is the mood out there, and do Republicans have a real chance of taking back control of the U.S. Senate? And here's a simple way to track the answer to both: Simply keep an eye on four tea-party amigos chasing Senate seats in the key states of Nevada, Kentucky, Florida and Colorado.

Why is the Angry Public so Angry? I think we all know why the Tea Party movement arose — and why even the polls do not quite reflect the growing generic anger at incumbents in general, and our elites in particular. Anger at Everything? There is a growing sense that government is what I would call a new sort of Versailles — a vast cadre of royal state and federal workers that apparently assumes immunity from the laws of economics that affect everyone else. In the olden days, we the public sort of expected that the L.A. Unified School District...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Are US voters as angry at BP over the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and at big Wall Street banks over the sour US economy, as they are furious at the political establishment in Washington? President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies, facing glum prospects in November elections shaped by anti-incumbent fire, hope the answer is yes, and have bet their fortunes on painting Republicans as pawns of wealthy interests. Obama on Saturday accused his foes of "dreary and familiar politics," saying Republicans were blocking his efforts to address unemployment and obstructing a bill to "hold...

Everyone seems to be going ga-ga over last week's primary victories of three female candidates in California and South Carolina. I really don't understand all the fuss. Because once again, 2010 will be the Year of the White Male Voter. Here's why. Representing 36% of all voters, the 45.1 million white male electorate represents the second largest electoral bloc in America, after white females (48.8 million white women voted in the 2008 presidential election, accounting for 39% of the total count). Let's turn back the hands of Father Time a few years. When white men went to the polls in...

Note: The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/seniors-across-america-host-local-meetings-participate-health-care-tele-town-hall-m Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 07, 2010 Seniors Across America to Host Local Meetings, Participate in Health Care Tele-Town Hall Meeting with President Obama Senior Obama Administration Officials to Attend Local Meetings WASHINGTON—On Tuesday morning, senior citizens across the country will gather at a series of local meetings to participate via phone in a national tele-town hall meeting on the Affordable Care Act with President Barack Obama. Additionally, more than a dozen senior Obama Administration officials will...

LOS ANGELES — How angry are Americans? People primed for change vote in 12 states Tuesday in contests that will decide the fate of two endangered Washington incumbents — a two-term senator in Arkansas and a six-term congressman in South Carolina — while setting the stage for some of the races that could determine the balance of power on Capitol Hill in the fall.In an Arkansas runoff, Sen. Blanche Lincoln could fall to a fellow Democrat, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who says "the only way to change Washington is to change who we send there." South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob...

If you think this is a political revolution, just wait a couple of years. Tea Partiers and status-quo destroyers are ecstatic at the spectacle of Washington bums—sorry, incumbents—being thrown from the parapets they've held for decades. Party swapper Arlen Specter will be heading home after 30 years in the Senate, bounced in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary by a relative newcomer, Joe Sestak. Republican stalwart Bob Bennett of Utah is departing from the Senate too, a victim of the insider status that used to count as an asset. In the Kentucky primary, Republican voters stiffed their party's anointed candidate and instead...

[This article was written about Bob Bennett loosing his Senate seat in Utah. But it contains, IMHO, the best definition of the Tea Party I've ever read. That is excerpted below.] The Tea Parties represent an asymmetric threat to political organizations optimized for party-line warfare. The threat is no longer across the aisle but outside the building. As such, two possibilities suggest themselves. The first is that the Washington elite will circle the wagons, bury their minor differences and concentrate on keeping the money and power flowing to the capital. A threat from outside the building is after all, a...

After toppling three-term Republican Sen. Robert F. Bennett in Utah, tea party activists and other conservative critics shifted their sights Sunday to a mid-May primary in Kentucky, their next big challenge to a political establishment they have vowed to upend. Bennett, 76, left the door open to a write-in campaign after losing his bid for renomination, raising the possibility of an unpredictable three-way race that could yet extend his career. But within minutes of Bennett's defeat, the chairman of the Republican senatorial campaign committee, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, announced the organization will support the winner of a June 22...

Senator Robert F. Bennett, an 18-year veteran Republican who had been seeking a fourth term this fall, was stripped of his party’s nomination on Saturday at the state convention, becoming one of the first Congressional victims of the surging ferment of discontent from the Tea Party-infused Republican right. Mr. Bennett, 76, was outmatched in delegate votes by two relative newcomers despite an enthusiastic endorsement and convention speech from Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and local Utah hero, and a political pedigree of deep Mormon roots and public service.

Growing Anger At Collapse Of U.S.A. Standard Of Living Politics / US Politics Apr 25, 2010 - 07:03 AM By: Global Research Hiram Lee writes: A series of recent studies conducted by the Pew Research Center shed new light on the scope of the economic crisis in the US and the level of hostility the majority of the American population holds for the US government. Released in March, before the passage of the Obama administration’s health care legislation, a survey entitled “Health Care Reform—Can’t Live With It, or Without It” indicates that 92 percent of Americans give the national economy...

Mark Williams Chairman of the Tea Party Express blasts Geraldo over the way they are being portrayed in the media, Geraldo's opening question is "should there be anxiety about extremists in the tea parties?"..and it went downhill from there..(Video)