Tea party insists it's alive and kicking

A recent grass roots meeting brought in $5.23 to the party coffers ................
WASHINGTON (AP) — The foot soldiers of the tea party movement dismiss the chatter about its demise and stand ready to use their unbending political force against both President Barack Obama and the Republican establishment this election year.

The Tea Party Patriots, one of the major grass-roots groups, marked the fifth anniversary of the movement Thursday, attracting hundreds of members and plenty of speakers to a Washington celebration in which they directed their animosity at the Washington establishment.

Keli Carender, national grass-roots coordinator, said the strength of the group was reflected in the $1.2 million and counting that it raised in 10 days.

To the "establishment and permanent political class," Carender said, "we don't need their millions, we've got our own."

Republican primaries this election year will be a crucial test for the movement as the GOP establishment has aggressively challenged tea party-backed candidates in Kentucky, Kansas, Idaho, Mississippi, Michigan and elsewhere. Republicans blame the tea party for losses in winnable races in 2010 and 2012 that many believe cost the GOP a Senate majority.

The tactics were on display this week in Colorado. Tea party-affiliated Ken Buck, who lost a close Senate race in 2010, stepped aside to run for the House while more mainstream Rep. Cory Gardner launched a Senate bid in a political deal.

Tea partyers, who helped Republicans capture control of the House in 2010, made clear they don't like what the GOP establishment has done to their conservative agenda of limited government, free-market policies and what they consider fidelity to the Constitution. They signaled they will work hard to elect their uncompromising candidates no matter what the establishment does.

Friday, 20 July, 2012

How irrational is it to attempt to blame the "Tea Party" for the Colorado theater incident. News persons and politicians will grasp any straw, with or without "facts" to mislead the public. To politicize such a horrendous chain of events is  beyond comprehension.

I think those who implied these thoughts should be made to account for their actions.

Perhaps we would be more accurate if we blamed those who perpetrate these incidents rather than wildly blaming others, for whatever reason.

Special election to replace Gabrielle Giffords set for Tuesday in Arizona

By Paul Kane

Voters in southeastern Arizona will decide Tuesday whether to continue the legacy of former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D) by electing a former aide who was among those injured with her in a tragic 2011 shooting or to punish President Obama for his handling of the economy by supporting a tea-party-backed Republican.

In a special election to fill the remaining six months of Giffords’s term, Democratic former aide Ron Barber is matched against Republican Jesse Kelly, a Marine veteran who narrowly lost to Giffords in a bitter 2010 showdown. A win by Barber would offer reassurance to Democrats that they can triumph in swing districts, while a Kelly victory would be the latest blow to Obama’s political standing in what has been a bad couple of weeks for him and could end the recent Democratic speculation that the president might be competitive in Arizona this fall.

Scott Walker retains Governorship in Wisconsin recall race

By Rachel Rose Hartman

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker retained his governorship Tuesday night, besting Democrat Tom Barrett in a race that was a referendum on Walker's decision to take on public employee unions.

Walker led Barrett, who was the governor's 2010 opponent and is the current mayor of Milwaukee, 55 to 41 percent with 76 percent of precincts reporting. Walker beat Barrett in 2010 with 52 to 46.5 percent.

A Walker win is a huge coup for the tea party movement, which rallied tea partyers across the country, as well as for fiscal conservatives and reform-minded Republicans.

Walker was targeted last year for a recall by state and national labor groups, progressives, students and others who viewed his decision to push for an end to collective bargaining by state public employee unions as an attack on middle class America.

"Tonight, Wisconsin voters rewarded political courage," Republican Governors Association Chairman Bob McDonnell said in a statement. McDonnell highlighted Walker's efforts as an attack on the "status quo" and against "unsustainable entitlements and long-term fiscal liabilities" and hailed the governor's actions to close the state deficit, reduce property taxes and improve schools. "His actions have made Wisconsin stronger today, and tomorrow. And they have improved the lives of the citizens of Wisconsin."

A Senate Legend, Undone By His Greatest Strength

LIZ HALLORAN

In 2004, Indiana's longtime Republican senator, Richard Lugar, was intrigued by his newly elected colleague from next-door Illinois, a young Democrat named Barack Obama.

In Obama, the older man saw someone unabashedly interested in foreign policy and complimentary of the veteran senator's work on historic nuclear disarmament legislation, says longtime congressional correspondent John T. Shaw.

"Lugar understood that Obama was smart, interested in foreign policy and would bring star power" to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he chaired, says Shaw, author of the book Richard G. Lugar, Statesman of the Senate: Crafting Foreign Policy From Capitol Hill.

What Lugar could not have imagined at the time was that his characteristically collegial relationship with the future president would play a key role in ending his Senate run after 36 years.

There were many reasons for Lugar's loss Tuesday to Tea Party favorite Richard Mourdock in Indiana's Republican Senate primary. He turned 80 last month and ran a poor campaign. He was battered for not owning a home in the state and accused of being out of touch. He voted for the stimulus and the auto industry bailout.

But it was his friendship with Obama that, in the cauldron of hyperpartisanship, was most vividly turned against him by his own party. His well-known even-keel statesmanship, once admired in a state where he ran unopposed six years ago, was turned into his most glaring deficit.

Let's talk a little over a Cup of Tea

More and more politicians on both sides of the aisle are blaming the Tea Party for our problem – the economic crisis. Those accusers need to take out their calendars.


The economic crisis arose BEFORE the Tea Party showed up (April 2009) …and the Tea Party arose BECAUSE of the economic problems.

Let me remind you: the housing crisis began in 2007 because of the failure of leadership to watch over Wall Street, banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and S & P giving those toxic credit swaps a Triple A rating.

I may be wrong, but ...........

Well, it's happening. apparent voter FRAUD in Nevada, Reid will win that race out there. Not because he WINS, they just won't let him loose. That is scary. Why have the campaign and do the voting. Save all that money. Find out who THEY want to win, go that way and get it over with. Don't go through the farce of a FREE election.

We are no different than some of those little dictatorship countries where they have a rigged election for show, but control the outcome.

The winners in the election tomorrow will be those who THEY want to win. I have been preaching this now for months, but no one listened. Instead, the overconfident Republicans just sent out funny pictures of Obama. They had Tea Parties. I still think the Tea Party movement was secretly formed by the Liberals, knowing that it would split some voting, to the Liberal advantage.

I think that Kasich will lose in the Governor's race in Ohio. The Democrats want the state too bad. What not long ago was a Kasich landslide is now neck and neck, that to me means a Democratic Victory.

I can picture many solemn victory celebrations tomorrow night with a lot of people sitting around saying, "What happened?"

Then, on Wednesday morning they will be chanting, "Wait till 2012."