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A federal appeals court on Tuesday unanimously rejected a challenge to a law that requires trade groups to disclose their members that contribute to lobbying efforts. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) had claimed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, passed by Congress in 2007, violated privacy and freedom of association rights.

Here is video of Grover Norquist, of Americans for Tax Reform, saying today on MSNBC that a future Justice Department needs to go back and see how all the Stimulus Money was distributed, following the lead of Attorney General Eric Holder who has decided to go after CIA officials who carried out interrogations of terror suspects during the Bush years . . . . (Watch Video)

A leaked memo sent by an oil industry group reveals a plan to create astroturf rallies at which industry employees posing as "citizens" will urge Congress to oppose climate change legislation. The memo -- sent by the American Petroleum Institute and obtained by Greenpeace, which sent it to reporters -- urges oil companies to recruit their employees for events that will "put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy," and will urge senators to "avoid the mistakes embodied in the House climate bill."

The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s support in a bitter legislative dispute, then the group’s chairman flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.

...The most recent high-water mark in media health care bias was last Wednesday, when ABC broadcast on four separate occasions from the White House during what they said was a day of their "moderating" a health care "conversation" with President Barack Obama. So we decided to offer up the other side of the deliberation in which ABC - and the media as a whole - aren't engaging.

What George Will missed: The decrepit state of the California GOP By Michelle Malkin  ?  May 4, 2009 02:21 PM George Will?s latest column on the sagging economy of California and the upcoming slate of massive tax-hike initiatives on the ballot only scratches the surface of what?s rotten in the formerly Golden State. The state GOP is a basket case. The party establishment epitomizes everything that is wrong with the Republican Party nationally: Cronyism, arrogance, waste, and leadership out of touch with its base. I reported on how grass-roots conservatives greeted California GOP chairman Ron Nehring with boos and heckles of ?Go...

At CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, which is being held in D.C. this week, former Rep. Tom Tancredo joined the fireworks brigade by brushing off party leader Rush Limbaugh and blasting GOP leading light Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Later, at a meeting of the Young Americans for Western Civilization, Tancredo told The Washington Independent’s David Weigel that “Gang of Five” neocon and anti-tax champion Grover Norquist should be jailed for advancing the cause of Muslim terrorism at the highest levels of U.S. government. Think Progress has the super close-up video of firebrand Tancredo on Jindal:

This year I had the pleasure to be one of the official bloggers for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which is winding down as I write. But rather than writing an action report with a long “to-do” list for fellow conservatives, I feel like writing an obituary for the conservative movement would be more appropriate. On the positive side of the ledger, this was a rare opportunity to meet many top conservative bloggers and put faces with the names. That said, however, those of us inhabiting the official bloggers row, sponsored this year by Pajamas Media, are clearly considered...

If you knew that a recent Zogby International survey found 59 percent of the respondents described themselves as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal," and if you were a head of a political party wanting to put together a winning platform, what would you do?The question is not all that tough, but both Republican and Democrat leaders have yet to get it right. The Republicans, after losing three straight, off-year special congressional elections, are in a panic about what to do to renew their "brand." The Democrats naively think they are in great shape, even though they only have an...

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That appears to be the strategy of GOP powerbroker Grover Norquist in his wicked project to dress Islamists up as patriotic Republicans so they can infiltrate the government. While he’s managed to get some of his Muslim proteges jobs in the Bush administration, getting them elected to public office has been another story. Voters aren’t buying their makeover.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. That appears to be the strategy of GOP powerbroker Grover Norquist in his wicked project to dress Islamists up as patriotic Republicans so they can infiltrate the government. While he's managed to get some of his Muslim proteges jobs in the Bush administration, getting them elected to public office has been another story. Voters aren't buying their makeover. Last November, his crony Faisal M. Gill lost a bid for a seat in the Virginia state legislature. Now another protege, Kamal M. Nawash, has lost his third political race in seven years....

A former California Republican Party official's false-arrest lawsuit against U.S. immigration authorities has been thrown out of court. A federal judge in Brooklyn, N.Y., ruled last month that immigration officers did nothing wrong when they jailed Michael Kamburowski, 35, on a deportation warrant in 2004, three years before he was hired as chief operating officer for the California GOP. Kamburowski, an Australian citizen, had sued in 2005, seeking $5 million damages from the government. The lawsuit was pending when state party chief Ron Nehring hired him in March 2007 to oversee the state party's finances, but party officials said they...

Attention all prospective Republican lobbyists: K Street kingmaker Grover Norquist has announced his wedding date, so you’ll know when to send gifts. Problem is, the location and the gift registry are still up in the air. Norquist, 47, will exchange vows with 31-year-old Samah Alrayyes of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on Saturday, April 2, 2005, he has revealed, although he told The Hill last week that he promised his bride-to-be the wedding will not turn into a political event. A source at USAID said Norquist joked that the couple should register at Costco. It makes sense, given...

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,...

WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain has long aroused almost unanimous opposition from the leaders of the right. Accusing him of crimes against conservative orthodoxy like voting against a big tax cut and opposing a federal ban on same-sex marriage, conservative activists have agitated for months to thwart his Republican presidential primary campaign. That, however, was before he emerged this week as the party’s front-runner. Since his victory in the Florida primary, the growing possibility that Mr. McCain may carry the Republican banner in November is causing anguish to the right. Some, including James C. Dobson and Rush Limbaugh, say it...

<p>Grover Norquist, president of the influential group Americans for Tax Reform told The Brody File today that while he has some reservations about Mike Huckabee's past record on taxes, he also is comfortable with Huckabee's present actions and thinks, "we should accept converts."  Read the quotes from him below.</p>

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...

It's pretty clear that Mitt Romney made a big mistake over the weekend when he told voters that he speaks for "the Republican wing of the Republican Party." Romney handed rivals Rudy Giuliani and John McCain the opportunity to remind GOP primary voters about the Old Romney, who was pro-abortion rights and courted gay voters when he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, then successfully for governor of Massachusetts. That's the Romney, who while debating Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1994, proclaimed: "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush." Of course the...

Congressional Democrats are attempting to make a down-payment on HillaryCare 2.0. Every time Congress spends new money on a government program it adds to the bill that taxpayers must pay. The taxpayer is the “forgotten man” who never gets mentioned when Congress pats itself on the back for adding to the federal-spending leviathan. Such is the case once again this week on Capitol Hill. Going against their promises to be “new Democrats,” the Democrat congressional majority will attempt to raise taxes and spending, all to make a down-payment on HillaryCare 2.0. The socialized medicine bill they will pass this week...

Beijing’s state-run Xinhua news service was quick to herald the latest lobbying effort on China’s behalf launched by the Club for Growth, a libertarian organization dedicated to electing public officials who agree with its free trade ideology. “More than 1,000 top American economists have signed a petition to urge Congress not to impose protectionist measures against China,” read the story filed by Xinhua from Washington on August 3. What the Club for Growth is protesting are two bills passed by the Senate Finance and Banking Committees seeking to pressure Beijing to cease its currency manipulation, a practice that gives producers...

THE GOP has a guy problem. Even after Veep Dick Cheney shot a friend in a hunting accident, he still hunts. In California, GOP biggies injure their comrades in a less ballistic manner. State party chairman Ron Nehring is under fire for handpicking an Australian immigrant -- who was ordered deported in 2001, was jailed on visa violations in 2004 and has filed a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security -- to be the party's chief operations officer. Under Nehring, the party also sought an H-1B visa so that a Canadian citizen could serve...

WASHINGTON --The head of a Republican environmental advocacy group is set to plead guilty in the Jack Abramoff scandal and is cooperating with an FBI investigation into corruption involving Congress and the Bush administration, two people close to the case said Wednesday. Italia Federici served as a go-between for Abramoff, the once-powerful lobbyist, and J. Steven Griles, the deputy interior secretary during President Bush's first term, prosecutors said Wednesday in documents charging her with tax evasion and obstructing a Senate inquiry into the Abramoff scandal. Under a deal with the Justice Department, she must cooperate with authorities and is identifying...

In a March 3 memo, the Senior Minority Counsel on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee outlines for Sen. John Glenn (Ohio) what he hopes will be the ranking Democrat's contribution to the Asiagate investigation — 11 subpoenas on conservative activist groups. The list, since forwarded to committee chairman Fred Thompson (R., Tenn.), reads like a "Who's Who" of the conservative movement, including Citizens for a Sound Economy, the Christian Coalition, and Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. In mid March, Senate Republicans agreed to open the door to this potential harassment of their allies after a high-stakes battle over the...

Although there will no doubt be a winner in their straw poll of Republican presidential favorites for ’08, many participants at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington March 1-3 voiced to me dissatisfaction with the current field -- all of whom except John McCain addressed the conclave of 6,000-plus conservatives at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. “I haven’t given it much thought,” Jennifer Graf, who managed the winning anti-affirmative action initiative in Michigan last November, told me when I asked her favorite for the GOP in ’08. Similarly, Diane Schachterle, who works in the office of affirmative action foe...

Christian Right Labors to Find ’08 Candidate WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 — A group of influential Christian conservatives and their allies emerged from a private meeting at a Florida resort this month dissatisfied with the Republican presidential field and uncertain where to turn. The event was a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive club whose few hundred members include Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Although little known outside the conservative movement, the council has become a pivotal stop for...

-snip- But not all conservatives agree about the House Republicans. Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist thinks there has always been a functioning House majority for comprehensive immigration reform. So what happened last summer? "The radio talk-show hosts got out there and poisoned the atmosphere," says Norquist, who worries that being overly harsh on immigration contributed to the GOP's loss of Congress. -snip-

THE morning after the Republican drubbing in the midterm elections, Ken Mehlman, chairman of the party, headed to the weekly coalition meeting where limited government conservatives, Christian traditionalists and gun-rights groups gathered to plot strategy. He brought a message they were only too eager to hear. The election, he told the crowd at the headquarters of Americans for Tax Reform, was not a repudiation of conservatism. It was a mandate to ?recommit ourselves to being reform conservatives,? he said, telling them that the president would not flinch from arguing for ideas like privatizing Social Security. Recalling a line Woody Allen...

WASHINGTON - Republican activists Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed landed more than 100 meetings inside the Bush White House, according to documents released Wednesday that provide the first official accounting of the access and influence the two presidential allies have enjoyed. The White House released the Secret Service visit records to settle a lawsuit by the Democratic Party and an ethics watchdog group seeking visitors logs for the two GOP strategists and others who emerged as figures in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Earlier this month, the White House suggested to the judge in that lawsuit that such records need...

Mr. Wayne LaPierre Executive Vice President National Rifle Association 11250 Waples Mill Road Fairfax VA 22030-9400 Dear Mr. LaPierre: As an NRA member of many years, I was surprised and disturbed to learn that the NRA now has a Spanish language website (www.nraespanol.org). I thought the NRA stood for patriotism and the defense of our nation and our way of life. Why, then, are you encouraging the balkanization of our citizens into English-speaking and Spanish-speaking camps? If people were born in the United States, surely they would have learned enough English to use the main NRA website by the time...

Grover Norquist: Conservative Exposed as Terrorist Sympathizer/Enabler Grover Norquist: Conservative Exposed as Terrorist Sympathizer/Enabler There's an incredible story brewing in Washington that is too hot for the networks to touch. Grover Norquist, whom most conservatives know as Executive Director of the College Republicans, boardmember of the NRA, and head of Americans for Tax Reform, has been exposed as helping Muslim groups and individuals who finance and support Islamic terrorism gain access to the Bush White House. Norquist has also been exposed as the founder of the Islamic Insitute, a group believed to be funded by foreign governments, Wahhab Islam elements...

First a disclaimer . . . I run a pro-Romney blogsite but do not get paid for it. I am a physician who blogs in my spare time and consider myself simply a vocal grassroots Romney supporter. ********************* Now on to the news at hand: This Examiner article has some interesting "insider information" for the 2008 GOP presidential race. To quote the start of the article: "Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Virginia Sen. George Allen are strong candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, although each has serious challenges to overcome. That’s the view of Grover Norquist, president of...

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Virginia Sen. George Allen are strong candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, although each has serious challenges to overcome. That’s the view of Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, and one of the most influential conservatives in Washington. “When I talk to each of the presidential candidates, every one of them brings up Romney — unsolicited — because they’re all focused on him as the smartest, toughest guy in the race,” Norquist told reporters Wednesday at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “He is very well thought of.” But...

WASHINGTON - Wanted: Face time with President Bush or top adviser Karl Rove. Suggested donation: $100,000. The middleman: lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Blunt e-mails that connect money and access in Washington show that prominent Republican activist Grover Norquist facilitated some administration contacts for Abramoff's clients while the lobbyist simultaneously solicited those clients for large donations to Norquist's tax-exempt group. Those who were solicited or landed administration introductions included foreign figures and American Indian tribes, according to e-mails gathered by Senate investigators and federal prosecutors or obtained independently by The Associated Press. "Can the tribes contribute $100,000 for the effort to bring...

The rise and fall of an Islamic Institute alumnus. Last Monday, David Hossein Safavian, a high-ranking White House official and pal of GOP powerbroker Grover Norquist, was arrested in a federal corruption case involving lobbying bad boy Jack Abramoff. According to the FBI, Safavian repeatedly lied to federal investigators in order to cover up Abramoff’s shady dealings. He not only bent ethics rules to accompany Abramoff on a 2002 golf junket to Scotland; he also used his position as chief of staff at the General Services Administration to deliver GSA-managed land into the lobbyist’s hands. But Safavian's not just tied...

WASHINGTON - In Jack Abramoff's world, prominent Washington tax-cut advocate Grover Norquist was a godsend. Moving money from a casino-operating Indian tribe to Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition founder and professed gambling opponent, was a problem. Lobbyist Abramoff turned to his longtime friend Norquist, apparently to provide a buffer for Reed. The result, according to evidence gathered by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, was that Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform became a conduit for more than a million dollars from the Mississippi Choctaw to Reed's operation, while Norquist, a close White House ally, took a cut. Without citing any specific...

A jury found former Bush administration official David Safavian guilty Tuesday of covering up his dealings with Republican influence-peddler Jack Abramoff. Safavian was convicted on four of five felony counts of lying and obstruction. He had resigned from his White House post last year as the federal government's chief procurement officer. The trial consumed eight days of testimony about Safavian's assistance to Abramoff regarding government-owned real estate and a weeklong golfing excursion the lobbyist organized to the famed St. Andrews golf course in Scotland and London. Safavian went on the trans-Atlantic trip while he was chief of staff at the...

NRA backs Cannon in GOP primary PROVO — The National Rifle Association is endorsing Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, in the Republican primary on June 27. The NRA Political Victory Fund has given Cannon an "A plus" rating and called him a strong and consistent supporter of the Second Amendment. Cannon helped pass the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act as a member of the House Judiciary Committee and chairman of the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee. Cannon also co-sponsored legislation to overturn the ban on gun ownership by residents of the District of Columbia and supported legislation allowing American...

Weekend Talk Show *Preview* for Saturday, June 10th and Sunday, June 11th, 2006 (not the live thread)The main message is the Sunday Shows on 6/11/006.  Message 1 will be the Saturday Shows and message 2 will be the show guest links post.  Then I'll post the ping list.ABC This Week (George Stephanopoulos) Meme: Yeah, yeah, a minor annoyance was murdered by the ruthless US military and Bushitler.  So what?Did you get a look at the hunk, Al Gore, with Steponallofus last week?  Talk about Presidential! Topics: Amb. L. Paul Bremer on al-Zarqawi's death and the fight for IraqRep. Reynolds vs....

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...

PATRICK BUCHANAN, COMMENTATOR AND former presidential candidate, looked over the issues on the political agenda in 2006 and liked what he saw. It was a paleoconservative's delight. There was the Dubai ports deal, rejected by a congressional uprising part nationalistic, part isolationist. There's immigration, soon to be debated on the Senate floor and always high on the paleocon list of concerns. Excessive government spending, a worry of all conservatives but especially paleocons, is a major topic this year. And the intervention in Iraq and President Bush's crusade for democracy face sharp criticism, with paleocons in the lead among the critics....

Last week, I skewered Democrat opportunists who have turned into tough-sounding profiling advocates to exploit the White House ports debacle. Today, I must express bottomless disgust with those on the Right who have turned into mush-mouthed race-card players to shift blame away from President Bush for his miserable mishandling of the situation. It's one thing for feckless grievance-mongers on the Left to accuse Americans genuinely concerned about national security of Islamophobia. It's quite another for the Right to sink to such a level in accusing all good-faith critics of demagoguery. Reasonable people can disagree on the process pitfalls and security...

Some of the nation's leading conservative thinkers and strategists are seeking, through Schwarzenegger's initiatives, to alter the balance of power between the right and left wings of California politics. Their hope is to turn California red in '08 and pioneer a new gospel that can spread across the country. The grandest Republican architect is Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform... Norquist is behind Proposition 75. It's a Trojan horse whose larger purpose is to tilt the balance of power in politics by limiting union support for Democrats without cutting corporate sources of Republican funding. Texas Rep. Tom DeLay...

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...