Free Republic

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....

Filming just wrapped on "Casino Jack," in which Kevin Spacey plays jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Having gotten a peek at Norman Snider's deft script, we can tell you that some of its real-life characters have cause for concern. The screenplay paints George W. Bush and Karl Rove as much chummier with Abramoff than they've acknowledged. ("How you doing there, buff guy?" Bush asks the black-hatted con artist in one Oval Office scene.) Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay comes off worse. Cigar-smoking DeLay, played by Spencer Garrett, is seen golfing with Abramoff on that infamous junket to Scotland. He also...

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”...

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.

California voters Tuesday put the truth to the lie that the tax rebellion has come to an end. Almost two-thirds of the electorate (65.4 percent) cast ballots against Proposition 1A, a measure which would have increased taxes in the cash-strapped "Golden State" by $16 billion. Voters in the state that, in 1978, gave birth to the modern tax revolt proved once again that the political pundits who the Republicans need to give up their anti-tax stance in favor of a platform that acknowledges the need for expanded government services that appeal to constituencies like those that shop at "big box"...

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...

More than 2,000 so-called tea parties are scheduled to take place around tax day this week, representing the biggest taxpayer protests ever, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, tells Newsmax. Income tax rates have not been raised since Bill Clinton was president, and President Obama’s tax increases take effect in two years. “But interestingly, the reaction is to the spending,” Norquist says. “People realize more spending will lead to tax increases. It’s a very sophisticated response from Americans. There are 2,000 of these tea party demonstrations scheduled around the country to take place around April 15. That is...

More than a decade after he stepped down as speaker of the House into what seemed like almost certain political oblivion, Newt Gingrich is back and seemingly more relevant than ever. Gingrich seems to be everywhere these days, headlining an endless circuit of GOP dinners, popping up on TV news shows, authoring yet another best-selling book and acting as a policy guru to out-of-power congressional Republicans on how to do battle with the Democratic White House. As beleaguered Republicans look for a standard bearer after last year's disastrous election, they've been tossing around the names of flashy new stars like...

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:

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.

RNC chair race: 'Everyone is basically p-ssed' By: Alexander Burns January 4, 2009 05:50 PM EST As Republicans struggle to determine the future of their party after a tough election, intraparty tensions have flared over three forums next week that may prove crucial to determining the winner of the six-way race for the chair of the Republican National Committee — a post that will hold considerable sway over the direction of the GOP. “Some people are p-ssed off at [Americans for Tax Reform President] Grover [Norquist]. Some people are p-ssed off at the Conservative Steering Committee. Some people are pissed...

Hank Paulson’s bail-out of the financial industry will cost taxpayers $700bn. Some believe that the bail-out signals an abandonment of the Reagan Republican goal of limited government. That debate is under way. Those who think Republicans have ditched their limited-government aspirations point to the Bush administration’s reflexive “throw money at it” response to every crisis. In 2001 the first response to September 11 was not to attack al-Qaeda, but to pass a $20bn domestic spending programme. The response to Hurricane Katrina was $85bn in public spending. The collapse of AIG, the insurance giant, cost $85bn; Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae...

Dear Mr. President: Now that the financial services package is back to the negotiation stage, I wanted to suggest several unilateral steps that could be taken by you to address the root causes of the financial panic. In order to make this bailout the last one, there are several necessary steps that should be taken by the Executive Branch: 1. Repeal the Clinton-era regulations encouraging reckless lending practices under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). In the 1990s, the Clinton Administration used the CRA as a club to pressure lenders into giving loans to marginally-qualified borrowers. The government should not be...

Grover Norquist: “Spencer Hates Muslims”   By Robert SpencerFrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, August 01, 2008 A week or so ago Ed Morrissey put up a post at Hot Air lauding Grover Norquist for his work for tax reform. I added this comment:Grover Norquist has been responsible, more than any other individual, for the infiltration of Islamic supremacists into the highest levels of the U.S. government. See here the seminal expose by Frank Gaffney of the immense damage Norquist has done.The continuing general ignorance among conservatives of the political aspects of Islam, and of the efforts by Islamic jihadists to impose...

Sen. John McCain's growing popularity among women is fueling speculation that he will selecta female running mate, ripening talk about conservative favorite Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, and former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina, one of his top economic advisers. Political pundits, election strategists and even some Democrats say putting a dynamic woman on the Republican ballot would tip independents, especially the "security moms" who helped President Bush win re-election in 2004. "If McCain picked a woman, it would certainly get the attention and perhaps votes of some Democrats and a number of independents who supported Hillary Clinton," said...

Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. are outraged over remarks made last Friday by Bud Day, a key supporter of John McCain. Day, a much-decorated Air Force Colonel and Medal of Honor recipient who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam with McCain, said during a conference call organized by the Florida Republican Party that “the Muslims have said either we kneel, or they’re going to kill us.” Day added: “I don’t intend to kneel, and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.” The reaction was swift. Saif Ishoof, president of...

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...

Norquist's Muslim Protégés By Paul Sperry FrontPageMagazine.com | 6/3/2008 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,...

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...

ABCNews’ Mary Bruce Reports: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is actively courting the Vice Presidential nomination, according to Republican Strategist Dan Senor. “Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this,” Senor said this morning on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” According to Senor, Rice has been cozying up to the Republican elite. “There's this ritual in Washington, the Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Grover Norquist, he holds a weekly meeting of conservative leaders, about 100, 150 people, sort of inside, chattering, class types,” Senor explained. “They all typically get briefings from political conservative...

On the campaign trail last week, Sen. John McCain declared at least three times that the Republican Party is "united." But is it? Some prominent conservatives say they remain disenchanted with the party's likely nominee. Sen. McCain isn't doing enough to persuade them of his conservative credentials, they say, or win them over to his side. Although the sentiment among conservative leaders is that they will vote for Sen. McCain come November, they aren't thrilled about the prospect. "I hear a good deal of rumbling from conservatives," said Alfred Regnery, publisher of the conservative American Spectator magazine. Mr. Regnery said...

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,...

LEADING Republicans believe they can trounce Barack Obama in the presidential election by tarring him as a shady Chicago socialist. They are increasingly confident that his campaign could collapse by the time their attack machine has finished with him. Grover Norquist, an influential conservative tax reform lobbyist, said: “Barack Obama has been able to create his own image and introduce himself to voters, but the swing voters in a general election are not paying attention yet. He is open to being defined as a leftwing, corrupt Chicago politician.”

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...

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...

The Bush administration has decided to defer the start of a new security screening program for thousands of officials of organizations seeking funds from the Agency for International Development until it reviews all the comments from those affected, according to USAID's acting deputy administrator, James Kunder. Although USAID said in a Federal Register notice last month that the program would become effective yesterday, Kunder said that it "would be effective, but not operational" until there is "a systematic review" of the views of the private organizations involved. The screening plan would affect top officials and board members of foreign aid...

Conservatives Fight Over Islam Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com Thursday, Feb. 20, 2003 WASHINGTON – A fierce, nearly three-week running battle of accusations and counter-accusations between two conservative icons has brought to the front burner a long-festering debate among President Bush’s supporters on how far the White House should go in seeking Islamic support. Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy and a former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, has accused two White House officials – Ali Talbah and his predecessor Sukhail Khan – of putting President Bush in the company of “people who have made no...

The project started in 2003 with a $2 million contract to help the new Department of Homeland Security quickly get an intelligence operation up and running. Over the next year, the cost of the no-bid arrangement with consultant Booz Allen Hamilton soared by millions of dollars per month, as the firm provided analysts, administrators and other contract employees to the department's Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection offices. By December 2004, payments to Booz Allen had exceeded $30 million -- 15 times the contract's original value. When department lawyers examined the deal, they found it was "grossly beyond the scope" of...

Islamisation of David Keene, American Conservative Union June 27, 2007 David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU), has been moving, along with several other paleo-conservatives like Dinesh D’Souza, towards a partnership with Saudi-funded, pro-Hamas institutions. A forewarning was the appointment of Grover Norquist to the ACU board. A second forewarning was the appointment of Suhail Khan to the ACU board. Then Tuesday, David Keene joined United for Peace and Justice, the ACLU, the Communist Party-USA, as a speaker in the “Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice” to “…call on Congress to restore habeas corpus, fix the...

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...

State Republican Chairman Ron Nehring has the distinction of being the first California Party State leader to go outside the United States to hire people to run the State Republican Party. Moreover, there appears to be a prima facie case that he has hired people to run the California Republican Party that may be illegal aliens or people who have fraudulently secured work papers, or both. There are two men, an Australian and a Canadian. We will discuss the Canadian in another installment. First, there is Australian citizen Michael Kamburowski – who runs the day-to-day Party for Nehring. He says...

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...

PayPal, the ubiquitous online payments service, has been in the news lately as much for its former employees as for its fast-growing business. From YouTube to LinkedIn, from award-winning picture “Thank You for Smoking� to path-breaking rocket company SpaceX, PayPal alumni are everywhere. As Forbes magazine recently put it, “maybe there was something in the beer.� It was just a matter of time until one of them got into politics. Enter Rod Martin. Martin is bigger than life, physically and every other way. Whether speaking to groups of 10 or 10,000, all across the nation he draws the crowd in,...

Who is Suhail Kahn and why does Grover Norquist want him on the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union?  The casual observer might think nothing of the candidacy of a fellow named Suhail Khan for election to one of two open seats on the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union – the political Right’s largest and most influential grassroots umbrella organization.  Certainly, for most Americans, the man’s faith would be of no interest.  If the fact that Khan is an adherent to Islam were even known, it probably would be seen as an asset ­– another...

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...

DHS also says the high-tech answer to border control will take 5 years to build WASHINGTON — The Bush administration's plan to build a high-tech ''virtual fence" along the Southwest border will require nearly $8 billion and five years to complete, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday. The report, demanded by Congress, provided the most detailed timeline and cost estimate yet for completion of a Secure Border Initiative designed to bring the border under operational control by the end of 2011. The Department of Homeland Security concedes that it has effective control of 284 miles of the nearly 2,000-mile...

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...

SNIP.... Politicians, however, are nothing if not fickle in their affections. So it was that last week the California Legislature, at the behest of a Republican lawmaker, decided that a statue of King should be replaced in the National Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol by one of a more modern Republican with a similar gift for public speaking: Ronald Reagan.The measure, which passed nearly unanimously just before the end of the legislative session on Thursday night, was hailed by State Senator Dennis Hollingsworth, its Republican author, as a fitting nod to the Great Communicator. “We have a lot...

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...

According the Christian Science Monitor, Conservative movement leader Grover Norquist has once again attacked Tom Tancredo and supporters of secure borders: [For] the Republican Party, as it deals with this issue, the tone is the central thing that is important... Some of these guys, who can be reasonable on what they are voting for, say things that will cost them and cost other people elections. [US Rep.] Tom Tancredo [of Colorado] is going to be costing Republicans elections in other states 20 years from now. In order to secure our borders, we need to take back the conservative movement and...

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...

John Fonte’s understanding of the immigration debate is unfortunately out of touch. (See his NRO piece, “Comprehensively Wrong,” posted on July 25.) So perhaps we can do something to help him better understand it. Fonte contends, among other things, that the reform we endorsed in our “Conservatives’ Letter on Immigration Reform,” published in the Wall Street Journal on July 10, is “mostly Democratic.” Tell that to President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Frist, and the 22 other GOP legislators who voted for that approach in the Senate. John Fonte may find some of these lawmakers insufficiently hardline — and he apparently...