• GOP,  Tea Party

    Poll Watch: Americans Believe GOP Should Heart the Tea Party

    Indeed, that is what the latest Gallup poll says.

    About 7 in 10 national adults, including 88% of Republicans, say it is important that Republican leaders in Congress take the Tea Party movement’s positions and objectives into account as they address the nation’s problems. Among Republicans, 53% rate this “very important.”

    However, the popularity of the Tea Party movement itself has remained the same as the GOP popularity has increased. See the poll graph below:

    So, what does this all mean?

    The GOP with the federal debt ceiling vote coming up will have to strike a delicate balance of Tea Party precepts and party politics.

    While media commentators duel over whether Bachmann’s response to the State of the Union address deserved prime-time coverage, the Republican Party has its own dilemma: how much deference to show Tea Party activists and their generally conservative proposals in crafting public policy. Almost all Republicans say it is at least somewhat important for GOP congressional leaders to take the Tea Party’s views into account, with about half saying it is very important. More broadly, the Tea Party has neither lost nor gained strength since the midterm elections. It remains popular with about 3 in 10 Americans who call themselves supporters of the movement, and it continues to generate as much opposition as support overall.

  • Charles Koch,  David Koch,  Saul Alinsky,  Tea Party

    Audio: Common Cause Holds Teleconference to Bash Weekend Koch Sponsored Conference – Uncloaking the Kochs?

    Common Cause Teleconference regarding the “Uncloak the Kochs” Protest, January 27, 2011

    The teleconference wasn’t much because the “Uncloaking Kochs” protest isn’t very much.

    You remember the information on the Saul Alinsky type street protest
    which will protest the Koch brothers right to free speech and assembly this weekend in the Palm Springs area of California.

    So, you ask, what is the big deal?

    Guess who’s holding a super secret, ill-intentioned meeting this weekend in Palm Springs, California? The nefarious Koch brothers – nefarious because they donate to conservative causes, of course.

    Already, leftist groups are beginning to fulminate (against what, it’s not quite clear), insisting that there’s something inherently corrupt in the free assembly of the Koch brothers and their cohorts.

    Take today’s conference call on the subject, conducted by Common Cause, featuring such liberal luminaries as former Clinton Labor secretary Robert Reich, disgraced former Obama official and Center for American Progress scholar Van Jones and his colleague Lee Fang, and DeAnn McKewan, co-president of California Nurses Association (yeah, I hadn’t heard of her either).

    Reich sounded the Koch alarm: “their ongoing biannual meetings epitomize the problems that our democracy are facing right now,” he told the participants on the conference call. These meetings, he said, are a “perfect storm for democracy,” because the Koch brothers are rich and can participate in politics, “and we have secrecy – it’s all in secret.”

    So, the Koch brothers hold private assemblies, participate in politics, and are, therefore, a threat to our democracy. Got it?

    OK, I get it. The Koch brothers have a lot of money, donate to conservative causes, think tanks and candidates (all within the law) and the FAR LEFT and BIG LABOR don’t like it.

    Listen to the entire audio above and smile as to how stupid and ridiculous the LEFT can be. They REALLY are.

    This weekend conference is NO different than countless others that are held every weekend and with folks who meet to represent their industry or political ideology within the American political process. I have been to plenty through my career for organized dentistry, for example.

    If you even listen hard enough to the audio above, you will hear two of the speakers try to answer the question as to why this conference is any different than any other?

    The answer: The Kochs have more money.

    Wow!

    It is not any different, yet organized Labor will send its minions into the streets with idiotic signs to make asses out of themselves, protesting people in suits, listening to speakers talking about limited government. Real dangerous stuff here.

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    Who is Sponsoring the “Uncloaking the Kochs” Protest?

    The LEFT ala Saul Alinsky Protest Koch Brothers Conference

  • Charles Koch,  David Koch,  Saul Alinsky,  Tea Party

    Who is Sponsoring the “Uncloaking the Kochs” Protest?

    Previous Koch Conference attendees conservatives include former Attorney General Edwin Meese, Rush Limbaugh, Senator Jim DeMint and Senator John Cornyn et. al.

    Remember the flap and the Saul Alinsky style street protest which I mentioned yesterday?

    This morning it has been picked up by Politico.

    This weekend, for the eighth straight year, the billionaire Koch brothers will convene a meeting of roughly 200 wealthy businessmen, Republican politicians and conservative activists for a semi-annual conference to raise millions of dollars for the institutions that form the intellectual foundation – and, increasingly, the leading political edge – of the conservative movement.

    In the past, the meetings have drawn an A-list of participants – politicians like Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, leading free-market thinkers including American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks, talkers Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and even Supreme Court justices – to mingle with the wealthy donors who comprise the bulk of the invitees. The meetings adjourned after soliciting pledges of support from the donors – sometimes totaling as much as $50 million – to non-profit groups favored by the Kochs.

    For the most part, the meetings, which are closed to the public and reporters, have attracted little attention outside conservative circles. But very different circumstances surround the Koch conference set to begin Saturday at an exclusive resort outside Palm Springs, Calif.

    The Koch brothers – Charles and David – have come under intense scrutiny recently for their role in helping start and fund some of the deepest-pocketed groups involved in organizing the tea party movement such as Americans for Prosperity, and for steering cash towards efforts to target President Barack Obama, his healthcare overhaul, and congressional Democrats in the run-up to the 2010 election.

    Liberal critics have launched a campaign to highlight what they say is the systematic way in which the Kochs use their political giving to advance a conservative economic and regulatory agenda designed to further the interests of their oil, chemical and manufacturing empire.

    So, who is behind the protest of this conference? The usual LEFT organizations but let’s take a close look.

    1. Common Cause –  sponsoring organization of the Uncloak the Kochs – The Billionaires Causcus and its Threat to Our Democracy.

    2. California Labor Federation

    3. Courage Campaign

    4. California Nurses Association

    5. Code Pink

    6. ACLU

    7. Sierra Club

    8. Greenpeace

    9. AFSCME

    10. MoveOn

    There are others, but you get the point – The FAR LEFT and BIG LABOR.

    What a shock.

    And, Big Labor is helping organize the turnout and bus rides down to the Palm Springs area to protest on the streets. This is how they roll.

    But, what is there to protest? Politics? Fundraising? Political Activism? Hobnobbing with the rich and famous?

    While the Koch conferences have taken on an undeniably political edge – a June summit featured sessions on voter mobilization efforts for the 2010 midterms as well as solicitations for an ad campaign attacking Democratic lawmakers – those who have attended say the meetings say the critics have it all wrong.

    “The main goal of the seminars appeared to me to be education on the challenges that face the American system of free enterprise and democracy, and what people can do about them,” said Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a conservative Republican who has attended at least seven of the meetings.

    McDonnell, who is not attending this weekend’s conference, said he was introduced to the gatherings by “free market friends up in Northern Virginia, some in the Koch enterprises institution,” and he cast the conferences as playing an important role in the political process.

    “Groups on the right, left and in the middle get together all over this great country to exercise their first amendment rights to talk about these issues – some of them are public. Some of them are closed meetings,” he said. “So, to the degree that some on the left may be trying to attack these Koch seminars is really ridiculous.”

    Really ridiculous is correct. This is good government in action and the LEFT hypocritically runs the same type conferences and accepts money from large donors like George Soros – hello!

    This entire protest is a Saul Alinsky type of exercise to ridicule/humiliate/demonize the RIGHT for the benefit of the LEFT – that is all.

    I don’t think it will work.

    Previous:

    The LEFT ala Saul Alinsky Protest Koch Brothers Conference

  • Charles Koch,  David Koch,  Saul Alinsky,  Tea Party

    The LEFT ala Saul Alinsky Protest Koch Brothers Conference

    Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries MIT-trained brothers turned family oil refining firm into America’s second largest private company. Koch Industries has stakes in pipelines, refineries, fertilizer, fibers and polymers, forest and consumer products, chemical technology. Sales in 2008: $110 billion. Brothers each own 42% of company. Employs 80,000 people and operates in 60 countries.

    Looks like the LEFT Counter-Movement has returned to Southern California to Saul Alinsky protest conservative/libertarian activists Charles and David Koch.

    A broad coalition of consumer, community, labor, environmental, student, civil liberties, and faith-based groups are sponsoring a rally in Rancho Mirage (near Palm Springs, California) next Sunday, January 30 to protest and draw attention to a secret meeting of right-wing billionaires and millionaires who are the key funders of the Tea Party, conservative think tanks like Cato Institute, and the extreme right wing of the Republican Party.

    The leaders of this group, the Koch brothers, oil billionaires, have invited like-minded big-money conservatives to a behind-closed-doors three-day summit at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort in Rancho Mirage to plot their strategy for the 2012 elections. Their agenda is simple: Roll back consumer and workplace protections everywhere, including the environment, health care, credit cards, banks, occupational safety, workers’ rights, and more. Thousands of progressives are mobilizing to peacefully and creatively call them out.

    Yeah, the New York Times last Fall received a “leaked” invitation and the LEFT cannot resist getting down and Saul Alinsky dirty with the Kochs. Here is the  nefarious invitation:

    Real ominous, isn’t it?

    This is the eight time in the Palm Springs, California area that the confab will be held. But, this year, the LEFT WILL organize street protests – and for what? Raising money and discussing how to affect government policy which affect their businesses – oh and playing politics.

    Hello, isn’t this the American political system?

    But, it seems the LEFT, beaten badly in the November elections nationally wants to create a scene ala Saul Alinsky Crash the Tea Party “movement.”

    I’ll have more later on who is behind this protest.

    Hint: The usual LEFTY players

  • Barack Obama,  Tea Party

    President Obama to Propose Budget Freeze and Earmark Ban in State of the Union Speech

    More triangulation by the left-wing President who moves to the right.

    Pursuing a path of deficit reduction and government reform, President Obama will tonight in his State of the Union address call for a ban on earmarks and he will propose an overall budget freeze, ABC News has learned.

    The proposals come as the president prepares to tackle the deficit and debt and as he faces a House of Representatives in Republican hands, many of whose members include those affiliated with the Tea Party who may be willing to embrace both moves.

    The president will propose some new spending in certain areas that address the speech’s theme of “How We Win the Future”: innovation, education and infrastructure. But those increases will be proposed as part of an overall budget freeze, which given the annual rate of growth is often seen in Washington, DC, budgeting as a cut.

    The FY 2011 budget was $3.8 trillion. Last year President Obama proposed a three-year hard freeze on non-security discretionary spending, to save $250 billion over the next decade; this would be much broader.

    A little too little and a little too late, especially for the 62 Democratic Representatives that lost their seats in the House last November. President Obama has never vetoed any spending bill, nor has he vetoed any earmark containing spending bill. And, the President will propose additonal spending tonight.

    I guess Obama is finally acknowledging the Tea Party but this proposal is WEAK TEA.

  • Richard Lugar,  Tea Party

    Video: Indiana GOP Senator Richard Lugar to Renew Assault Weapons Ban


    Conservative academic and political commentator John Lott in this video discusses large gun clips and the 2004 expired Assault Weapons Ban

    Senator Richard Lugar knows a Tea Party sponsored primary challenger is coming, yet he continues to push the RINO button.

    Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) this weekend called on Congress to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.

    Lugar is the first GOP senator to call for increased gun control following the Tucson tragedy that killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. But Lugar, who supported the initial 10-year-long assault weapons ban when it passed in 1994, said he’s not optimistic about the chances for passing gun control legislation this Congress.

    “I believe it should be, but I recognize the fact that the politics domestically in our country with regard to this are on a different track altogether,” Lugar told Bloomberg Television’s Al Hunt Jan. 14.

    Lugar also noted the increase in ammunition sales since the shootings, which he suspected was out of fear that Congress might pass far-reaching gun control legislation in wake of the tragedy.

    But, regardless, Lugar will push for the ban – even when he knows a bill has little or no chance of passing the GOP controlled House.

    Nonetheless, Lugar is going out on a limb by expressing his support for bringing back the now-defunct assault weapons ban – especially because local Tea Party activists have promised to field a primary challenger for the six-term senator. Lugar has a reputation for working across party lines in the Senate, and his support for gun control legislation would likely put him at odds with a more conservative GOP challenger.

    Lugar also said in the Bloomberg interview that a Tea Party challenge is “not one that I welcome, but nevertheless, this is a democracy.”

    If a Tea Party challenger plays it RIGHT, Lugar will NOT be renominated by the GOP in 2012.

  • Day By Day,  GOP,  Tea Party

    Day By Day January 15, 2011 – Turn the Other Cheek



    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Chris, the Dems this past November were spanked hard and will NOT have control of the House for at least a decade. The number of Republican take over of state legislatures and Governorships are enough to safely gerrymander a goodly number of red state Congressional seats that might have been in play due to demographic changes.

    This is not to say that the GOP leadership can rest on its laurels because conservative Tea Party folks will be watching and any move to Republican Big Government will result in costly primary election campaigns.

    The era of Progressive bullying is over and the era of the Tea Party has just begun.

    Previous:

    The Day By Day Archive

  • Howard Dean,  Tea Party

    Tea Party is “Last Gasp of the 55 Year Old Generation Says Howard Dean

    Howard Dean on Tea Party: ‘Last Gasp of the 55-Year-Old Generation’

    Speaking to reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast this morning, former Vermont governor and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Dr. Howard Dean shared his thoughts on the Tea Party.

    “I think it’s the last gasp of the 55-year-old generation,” said Dean, who was also chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005-2009. “Older folks have seen their life change dramatically. The country’s not the same.”

    Lets look at some of the photos which I snapped at the Ventura County, California 2009 Tax Day Tea Party rally.

    Ventura County Tax Day Tea Party April 15, 2009

    But, Howard Dean is wrong.

    Dean’s characterization of the Tea Party, however, doesn’t square with the facts. In July, USA Today reported that 23 percent of the Tea Party are non-white Anglos, while non-white Anglos make up roughly 25 percent of the total American population. Additionally, only 47 percent of the Tea Party is 55 years old and older, while 23 percent are under 35 years old. It may be a tough pill for Dr. Dean to swallow, but it seems the Tea Party is actually a fair representation, demographically speaking, of the American voting public.

    I suppose at the daytime Tea Party rallys I have seen, there are a goodly number of “white hairs.”

    Why?

    The younger members are WORKING.

    Howard Dean is simply pandering to the regional Democratic Party base = African  Americans and Latinos. The Tea Pary folks who oppose the Big Government policies of President Barack Obama = RACISTS

    Now, who is playing racial politics?

  • Steny Hoyer,  Tea Party

    Democrat Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer Says Tea Party Members Have Unhappy Families

    Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., left, and outgoing House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Md., take part in a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2011

    Say what?

    There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don’t want any compromise. My presumption is they have unhappy families. All of you have been in families: single-parent, two-parents, whatever. Multiple parent and a stepfather. The fact is life is about trying to reach accommodation with one another so we can move forward. That is certainly what democracy is about. So if we are going to move forward compromise is necessary.

    Good grief.

    Steny Hoyer is so out of touch with American voters.

    The Tea Party movement is not motivated by, as its members claim, record-high levels of spending and debt by the federal government and the possible economic consequences of that. It is not upset by the various federal bailouts of recent years. It is not riled up by a stagnant economy with 9.8% unemployment. No, they go to rallies because it is easier than going home apparently.

    Of course, this is better than former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who maintained the Tea Party was “astroturf” and really did not exist.

    Oh! “Can you hear us now?”

    Tea Party April 15 2009 046

    From the Ventura County Tea Party April 15, 2009