Free Republic

Jihad Watch Grover Norquist aiding Iranian regime through group linked to NIAC Grover Norquist's numerous unsavory ties to jihadists and Islamic supremacists are abundantly documented in Pamela Geller's expose here. And on the House floor in October, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) said of Norquist, "Documentation shows that he has deep ties to supporters of Hamas and other terrorist organizations that are sworn enemies of the United States and our ally Israel.”  He pointed out that “around the years 2000 and 2001, Mr. Norquist’s firm represented Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was convicted two years later for his role in a terrorist...

Frank Gaffney has written in FrontPage magazine an article that is much needed and long overdue: "A Troubling Influence," about the extensive ties that conservative activist Grover Norquist has with radical Islamic elements. This is a lengthy and exhaustively documented piece about a man who has stood as a singular obstruction to efforts to alert people to the gravity of the threat from radical Islam. All of it should be read carefully, but here are a few highlights: The association between Grover Norquist and Islamists appears to have started about five years ago, in 1998, when he became the founding...

Staffers at Americans for Tax Reform, the anti-tax group run by conservative activist Grover Norquist, evacuated their building Monday morning after a bomb threat was called in, according to authorities. A spokesman for the Washington D.C. police department, Anthony Clay, confirmed to The Daily Caller that officers from the explosive ordnance division were called to the building that houses the organization’s D.C. offices shortly after 9 a.m. The employees have since been allowed to return to work, another officer told TheDC from the scene. No explosives were found, the officer said. Police had shut down 12th Street in Washington near...

Yesterday’s vote failed for procedural reasons but they cleaned it up today and nailed down a remarkably bipartisan consensus. Eyeball the roll: 38 Democrats, 33 Republicans, and both independents voted yes, with no votes coming mainly from plains-states senators eager to keep the campaign cash flowing. When you’ve got both senators from California and both senators from Oklahoma on the same side of an issue, you’re working magic, my friends. The vote also could have ramifications on future votes to reduce the deficit. Much of the GOP conference supported Feinstein’s bill even though it does not include another tax break...

Fiscal Policy: Unimpressed by data showing that businesses, jobs and people flee high-tax states, the Land of Lincoln opts to squeeze the last penny out of taxpayers with a whopping 75% income-tax increase. Illinois is one of those states losing a congressional seat as a result of the 2010 census. Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania will also each lose one. New York and Ohio will each lose two. California, despite massive illegal immigration, will fail to gain a congressional seat since statehood was granted. Meanwhile, states such as Texas will gain four and Florida two, as...

So it turns out that the cure for “epistemic closure” is great quantities of crystal meth. The things you learn from Grover Norquist. In case you missed it, Norquist came down like a runaway gravel truck on Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, a favorite around these parts. Governor Daniels’s offense was declaring himself open to the possibility that a value-added tax might be an acceptable part of a wide-ranging reform of the federal tax system. Norquist replied, in a Politico interview: “This is outside the bounds of acceptable modern Republican thought, and it is only the zone of extremely left-wing Democrats...

...Backroom Deals In the Democrats Health Care Takeover Cornhusker Kickback: Perhaps the most well known in the Senate bill, the provision, included at the behest of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), ensures that Nebraska would be the only state to have the full amount of its increased Medicaid costs paid for by the federal government. The Louisiana Purchase: The Senate bill provides extra Medicaid funding for any state in which every county has been declared a disaster area. Because of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana is the only state that would qualify for the money. The $300 million provision for Louisiana was slipped...

Union Influence: The White House picks its most frequent visitor to sit on its deficit commission. He believes in big government, in big spending, and that the workers of the world should unite. What could go wrong? Computer security firms have been known to hire the best former hackers because they know best how to stop others like them. But the appointment of Andy Stern, president of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU), to a bipartisan commission to come up with ways to deal with the rapidly rising federal budget deficit is like having a serial arsonist organize Fire Prevention...

Guest post from Americans for Tax Reform If the Senate’s schedule remains unchanged, a cloture vote on Obama's nominee to the National Labor Relations Board, Craig Becker, is expected Thursday, February 4. Such a move will disenfranchise the Senate’s newest member, Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown. Democratic leadership reaffirmed numerous times that the Senate would not vote on any health care legislation until Senator Brown is seated. Harry Reid: “We’re not going to rush into anything. We’re going to wait until the new senator arrives to do more on health care.” Jim Webb: “It is vital that we restore the respect...

Back by popular demand: Obama BINGO! To help you get through the State of the Union address on Wednesday night, Americans for Tax Reform once again presents Obama BINGO! Use the cards to check off terms and phrases likely to be used during President Obama’s State of the Union address. We've prepared four different cards this year so that you may compete with your friends and family: Obama BINGO Card 1 Obama BINGO Card 2 Obama BINGO Card 3 Obama BINGO Card 4 Good luck, and let us know how it goes! (Or for those of you in Louisiana, let...

Not only does the Democratic health care bill include tax hikes, as reported by Americans for Tax Reform, it also would expand the role of the Internal Revenue Service. From Kaiser Health News: Under the proposed health care legislation, they would get another assignment: checking to see whether Americans have health insurance. The House and Senate bills require most Americans to have health insurance and to prove it on their annual federal tax return. Those who don’t would pay a penalty to the IRS.

“After 2010 you can have a polite conversation about who should be president in 2012,” Norquist continued. “But until then the only thing you’re doing is sucking oxygen out of the room. And you’re not being helpful. If you’re the governor of Indiana and you want to be presidential, don’t send me a press release about how you didn’t raise taxes. Beat [Sen.] Evan Bayh [D-Ind.]. Then I’d say, ‘Hey, there’s a guy to talk to.’” But Norquist also had an equally strong message for conservative activists — warning that they should not look to enforce ideological purity tests on...

POLITICO’s Arena features Grover Norquist’s thoughts on the 9/12 rallies: This past week I travelled to the center-right coalition meetings in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and North Carolina and then this morning back to DC. I took my daughter out with stroller and walked for two hours against the flow of the 9/12 march to the taxpayer rally along Pennsylvania Ave. How many? Dunno. But two solid hours of marchers going past. Lots of great signs. One group of Obama fans standing off to one side. They were huddled around their sign "billionaires for tax cuts" and dressed in tuxes....

Americans for Tax Reform, a non-partisan group opposed to all tax increases, did a bit of sleuthing through recent Federal Elections Commission (FEC) reports and found one indicating that just days before the 219-212 “cap-and-trade” national energy tax vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, nearly $50,000 in campaign contributions was passed from Democrat leaders to uncommitted Democrats -- apparently to solidify support for the bill. Democrat Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) distribued a total contribution of $28,000 among the following: Steve Driehaus, D-Ohio ($2,000); Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. ($2,000); Suzanne Kosmas, D-Fla. ($4,000); Betsy Markey, D-Colo. ($2,000); Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H....

As usual Obama is making statements that sound good to the media but is totally opposite of what he is doing. His actions will drive every major competitive company out of the country and dry up all the mom & pops so all that will be left are government owned and run entities.

Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) has called Grover Norquist’s anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform “lying sacks of scum” for lumping him in with other moderate Democrats who support the House health reform bill. “Americans for Tax Reform are lying sacks of scum, and anyone who knowingly repeats this false information is also a liar,” Taylor said in an unusually blistering statement for a member of Congress. The incident has so incensed Taylor, he’s pointing out Americans for Tax Reforms past ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The Americans for Tax Reform release said Taylor had agreed to a “backroom deal”...

Americans for Tax Reform doesn't like taxes or President Obama much. But even Obama fans might choke on the additional 10-year tax bill that the group tallied under the president's plans: $4 trillion. Americans for Tax Reform figures $2.3 trillion more if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire; $1 trillion from the cap-and-trade bill; and $722 billion for healthcare reform. It's roughly $4,000 per household, a ton more than Obama allies believe Americans will face but not as bad as some GOP warnings.

That's right. We are hearing 210 - 210 with 14 undecided. Keep calling the swtichboard 202-224-3121 and emailing through here to ensure your message gets heard! Remember: Over the 2012-2035 timeline, job losses average over 1.1 million. By 2035, a projected 2.5 million jobs are lost below the baseline (without a cap and trade bill). Particularly hit hard are sectors of the economy that are very energy-intensive: Manufacturers, farmers, construction, machinery, electrical equipment and appliances, transportation, textiles, paper products, chemicals, plastics and rubbers, and retail trade would face staggering employment losses as a result of Waxman-Markey.

"The unemployment rate has hit a 25 year high, now standing at 9.4 percent and since President Obama has taken office the U.S. has lost 2.2 million jobs. How does the Administration and tax-writers in Congress plan to remedy this? Well, by implementing policies that will ship more jobs and capital out of the U.S. and into foreign countries.

The Congressional Budget Office quietly announced that the Troubled Asset Relief Program will be much more expensive than originally figured. Instead of costing $189 billion, the cost is now up to $356 billion.

The second edition of “Rich States, Poor States” has just been released. Surprise! Surprise! Low tax states have the highest growth and high tax states have the lowest growth.

The small business owners that Obama is hiking taxes on are the ones generating the most profits, the ones employing almost 43 million workers.

“Perhaps no one has told the President that stopping research for a program that will lower gas prices, increase our national security, increase out GDP by eight trillion dollars and create a million jobs every year is a criminally stupid idea.” -Comment about the FY2010 budget.

International Property Rights Index is out and the United States ranks overall the 15th best in the world. The index focuses on three areas: Intellectual Property, Physical Property, and Legal and Political environment. US rank number one in copyrights, Patent Rights and Inheritance rights.

At the request of President Reagan, Grover Norquist founded Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) in 1985. ATR believes in a system in which taxes are simpler, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today. The government's power to control one's life derives from its power to tax. ATR believes that power should be minimized. ATR 's projects include the Taxpayer Protection Pledge that politicians sign pledging no new taxes. You can view the pledge on the website along with other tax reform news and information.

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 prohibits employers from offering workers paid time off as compensation for their overtime work. However, government and other public sector workers have long been privilege to this flexibility. Rep. Cathy McMorris has introduced the Family-Friendly Workplace Act so workers can find a balance between work and family

It took only 16 days for President Obama to break his campaign promise not to raise taxes on the poor. When President Obama signed the SCHIP bill, increasing the excise tax on Tobacco products by 156%, he raise taxes on 55% of smokers who are the “working poor” and the 25% of smokers who live below the poverty line. This bill is to provide health care to many of these smokers’ children. If he cared about the health of these children, the purpose of the cigarette tax would be to deter smoking because many children from homes of smokers require...

Congressman Roscoe Bartlett Urges Income and FICA Tax Holiday as Fastest, Most Effective Stimulus Responds to Speech by President-elect Obama One of 53 Co-sponsors of H.R. 143 “The fastest way to put more money in working people’s pockets and create jobs would be approving the legislation I support for a two-month holiday of personal income and FICA taxes,” said Congressman Roscoe Bartlett today. “People will spend their own money more wisely and more efficiently than government bureaucrats.” Congressman Bartlett made the comments in response to a major economic policy speech by President-elect Barack Obama. Congressman Bartlett said, “The Congressional Budget...

Cost of Government Day By Grover Norquist This year Americans have worked until today, July 16, to pay for the total costs of federal, state and local government. This is 197 days of the year consuming 53.9 percent of national income. Over the past 22 years, in only four years (1982, 1983, 1991 and 1992) did Cost of Government Day fall later in the year. Federal spending will consume 83.7 days. State and local spending will consume 50.5 days effort. Federal regulations cost 4l.7 days and State regulations cost 20.9 days. The spending data is precise, the regulatory burdens are...

We stopped paying for government three months ago. Tax Freedom Day was April 23rd. That's when the average American effectively finished paying taxes to government at all levels. But only the average American. Anyone living in a high-tax state, such as Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, had to work another couple weeks for government. But taxes are a poor measure of the total cost of government. Because of sizable and persistent deficits, total public spending is a better standard of what we pay for government. Even that isn't enough, however. Regulation adds another substantial charge to the bill. Americans...

A former California Republican Party official who resigned last year in a controversy over his immigration status had no valid visa or work permit during his high-profile career as a Washington lobbyist for conservative icon Grover Norquist..... Michael Kamburowski, an Australian citizen who served briefly as chief operating officer of the state GOP, worked from 1995 to 2000 as a vice president of Americans for Tax Reform in Washington, D.C., an organization headed by Norquist - an architect of modern conservatism who has advised President Bush and top GOP political leaders. For Norquist, Kamburowski lobbied Congress on dozens of issues,...

Among the 2008 presidential field, all but two of the Republican candidates -- Sen. John McCain and Fred Thompson -- have made a written commitment to the American people promising to oppose and veto income tax increases. McCain signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge as a candidate for president in 2000, and has signed and kept the pledge as a senator. For two decades, Americans for Tax Reform has asked all presidential and federal candidates to commit to their constituents, in writing, to oppose any and all efforts to raise income taxes. On the presidential level, every Republican nominee since Ronald...

All In the Family by: Bethany Stotts, December 07, 2007 .... A new report released by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) reveals that American political nepotism extends not just through the executive branch, but throughout Congress. The report showed that of the 535 Congressional seats (Senators and Representatives), 50 Members had relatives who served as Senators, Representatives, or Governors. The ATR report identified 15 members, 13 from the House and 2 from the Senate, who gained their seats immediately following their relatives’ resignation, retirement, or death. Of these “legacy” Congressional seats: • Four seats were inherited by widows...

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, has launched an attack on GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson for Thompson's refusal to sign Norquist's pledge against raising taxes. Team Fred spokeswoman Karen Hanretty explained her candidate's position in an e-mail: Fred Thompson’s record of cutting taxes and pushing for reform speaks for itself. This is the approach he will take as president. He is bound by that principle and does not make a practice of signing pledges. That answer was not good enough for Grover the Security Pushover (more on that further down the column), who told Ronald Kessler of...

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, has launched an attack on GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson for Thompson's refusal to sign Norquist's pledge against raising taxes. Team Fred spokeswoman Karen Hanretty explained her candidate's position in an e-mail: Fred Thompson’s record of cutting taxes and pushing for reform speaks for itself. This is the approach he will take as president. He is bound by that principle and does not make a practice of signing pledges. That answer was not good enough for Grover the Security Pushover (more on that further down the column), who told Ronald Kessler of...

Reform Group: Thompson Would Hike Taxes Thursday, November 8, 2007 3:05 PMBy: Ronald Kessler When it comes to taxes, Fred Thompson is the "worst" of the Republican presidential candidates, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, tells Newsmax. GOP hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have both promised not to raise taxes - Romney even signing an ATR pledge not to raise the marginal tax rate. Thompson, on the other hand, has not signed the pledge and has said high-income Medicare beneficiaries may have to pay more for coverage. “Thompson didn’t sign the pledge as a senator, and...

Alec "the Bloviator" Baldwin has a new bosom buddy: Beltway Republican strategist Grover Norquist. The Bush-bashing actor-turned-activist and the Muslim vote-courting political organizer joined together at a Washington, D.C.-area conference last weekend to perpetuate bald lies about the Patriot Act and to oppose the "repressive" War on Terror (repressing terrorist suspects apparently being a bad thing). Baldwin and Norquist's panel, titled "Strange Bedfellows," was sponsored by the ultraliberal group People For the American Way. When PFAW head and panel participant Ralph Neas ranted about the lack of judicial and congressional oversight of the Justice Department's terror investigations, the audience...

Please note that Romney, Brownback, and Hunter are not even on this list from last year. Romney only signed after he heard the call of poltical expediency.

The holidays can sure tax one’s patience, but that’s the only tax the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform want to see this holiday season (or at any other point during the year, for that matter). That’s why its annual holiday card puts tax cut advocates and tax cut enemies into “Naughty” and “Nice” lists. Those who made the “Naughty” list this year are guilty of being one of the following: “Tax Increase Advocate” or “GOP Non Taxpayer Protection Pledge Signer.” And those lucky enough to land on the “Nice” list did so because they are either a “Democrat Taxpayer...

With less than a week left to suggest names for two new elementary schools in Colorado Springs School District 11, a national group is making a pitch for residents to name one of the schools for the late President Reagan. The goal of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project is to have schools and other facilities named after the 40th president, whom it credits with ending the Cold War and turning the economy around in the 1980s, said Grover Norquist, chairman of the project and president of Americans for Tax Reform. John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., each have...

The I.R.S. said yesterday that it saw a sharp increase in prohibited political activity by charities and churches in the last election cycle, a trend that it aims to reverse as the country heads into the midterm elections. The tax agency found problems at three-quarters of the 82 organizations it examined after having received complaints about their political activities, according to a report the Internal Revenue Service released. The infractions included distributing materials that encouraged people to vote for particular candidates and giving cash to campaigns. The agency said it was seeking to revoke the exemptions of three organizations but...

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is an institution. Now in its 32nd year, CPAC is the largest annual gathering of grassroots activists on the right. But when it comes to co-sponsors, CPAC and its parent group, the American Conservative Union, are keeping strange company. CPAC always has a lustrous lineup of speakers. Ann Coulter, Oliver North, George Will, Sen. Rick Santorum (R.-Pa.) and Vice President Cheney all addressed this year’s conference. For the most part, the panel discussions and workshops were informative. Increasingly, CPAC is becoming a youth conference -- demonstrating the movement’s vitality. Of the 3,500 or so...

GEORGE SOROS’ INFILTRATION OF CPAC STATEMENT FOR THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD CONGRESSMAN MARK E. SOUDER (IN-03) FEBRUARY 8, 2006 Mr. Speaker, George Soros, the radical liberal financier who dedicated himself to defeating President George W. Bush in the last election, has taken a lesson from Jack Abramoff. As much of Abramoff’s pernicious lobbying technique has come to light, we’ve seen how he was adept at manipulating certain conservative organizations to pursue a decidedly anti-conservative agenda, namely the promotion of gambling. By working hand in hand with the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), for example, he was able in 2000 to undermine conservatives’...

The Bush administration's former chief procurement official tipped off lobbyist Jack Abramoff that the government was about to suspend the federal contracts of an Abramoff client, newly filed court papers say. David Safavian provided "sensitive and confidential information" about four subsidiaries of Tyco International to Abramoff regarding internal deliberations at the General Services Administration, say the court papers filed Friday in a criminal case against Safavian. Abramoff has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud in a burgeoning bribery probe centered on Capitol Hill but also involving the Interior Department. The White House is refusing to release photographs...

He's BAAAAACK! Yup, Prince Alberta, newly relocated to the liberal mecca of San Francisco ensconsed in his new multi-million $$ condo, working in the venture capital field (all bad things when he was running for the WH) will today crawl out from under his rock to deliver himself of a major address about the "evils of executive power"

Leading Conservatives Call for Extensive Hearings on NSA Surveillance; Checks on Invasive Federal Powers Essential 1/17/2006 6:36:00 PM To: National Desk Contact: Laura Brinker, 202-715-1540, for Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, laura.brinker@dittus.com WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances (PRCB) today called upon Congress to hold open, substantive oversight hearings examining the President's authorization of the National Security Agency (NSA) to violate domestic surveillance requirements outlined in the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, chairman of PRCB, was joined by fellow conservatives Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform...

Conservatives planning to attend Grover Norquist's popular Wednesday Group meeting tomorrow will be the target of a MoveOn.org protest outside Norquist's downtown Washington, D.C., office building. Tom Matzzie of MoveOn.org Political Action announced the protest in an e-mail to supporters Tuesday morning. Norquist's meeting is attended by a broad range of Republicans. It starts at 10 a.m. "The group hosting the meeting—Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform—is at the center of the Republican power machine in Washington and has been implicated in the corruption scandals from lobbyist Jack Abramoff," Matzzie wrote in the e-mail. "But they still meet even after...

ALERT: This message is specifically for DC-area activists. Can you take some time out tomorrow morning (Wednesday, Jan. 18) to counter a particularly nasty left-wing protest? The socialist wanna-be's at MoveOn.org, together with some of their far-left friends, are holding a morning "protest" from 9:45-10:15am outside of the offices of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). Most Wednesday mornings, ATR hosts a meeting of conservative and libertarian activists, Capitol Hill staffers and usually at least one representative from the White House. MoveOn.org can't stand the fact that conservatives are able to utilize their First Amendment rights to "peaceably assemble" in this...

Republicans are looking for "their" John McCain. The popular Arizona maverick is already a Republican, of course. But the GOP needs a McCain in the "Keating Five" sense. Back in 1990, Senate Democrats roped McCain into the scandal over savings and loan kingpin Charles Keating on tenuous grounds, just so not all the senators involved would be Democrats. The GOP now craves such bipartisan cover in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Republicans trumpet every Democratic connection to Abramoff in the hope that something resonates. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), took more than $60,000 from Abramoff clients! North Dakota Democratic...

Speaks at Log Cabin Republican fundraiser Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, is under fire for speaking at a Log Cabin Republican fundraiser in Texas. The Dallas event, the largest fundraising event of the year for the homosexual Republican group, was raising funds in part to fight Proposition 2; the proposed Texas amendment that would define marriage as between one man and one woman. Bob Knight, Director of CWA’s Culture & Family Institute, says this is not the first time high-profile conservative leaders have turned on the social conservatives of their own party. Click here to listen: http://www.cwfa.org/play.asp?id=cw20051021a...