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For decades, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has been a barometer of the different political tendencies inside the right-wing. In the 1980s, Reagan administration officials and Reaganite New Rightists dominated the podium. Pres. Reagan spoke at CPAC in both 1984 and 1988. In the 1990s, culture warriors like Pat Buchanan and the Rev. Pat Robertson joined Republican regulars such as Sens. Bob Dole and Phil Gramm. At this years’ CPAC13, Tea Party leaders and Tea Party-supported politicians will dominate the proceedings. The result is an agenda filled with bigots, conspiracy mongers, and publicity hounds. Consider the inclusion of...

I was surprised and honored that Jihad Watch was among the nominees for the People's Choice Blog Award, sponsored by Right Wing News and TheTeaParty.net, to be awarded at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2013. As you can see from the vote above, Jihad Watch won decisively, getting over 50% of the vote in a field of fifteen. And I received confirmation of the victory from one of the organizers of the CPAC blog awards when I asked him when voting officially ended: From: XXXXXXXXX Subject: Re: You've Been Nominated For A People's Choice Award At the CPAC Blogger...

Conservatives confronted with the Republican Party's "stupid party" image after the November 2012 election will be gathering on March 14-16 for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. CPAC is an annual, 3-day gathering of conservative activists and political leaders who network and set the tone of the conservative political agenda. This year, CPAC has not been without controversy . Box Turtle Bulletin's Timothy Kinkaid has pointed out that gays — and in particular, GOProud — are banned from any formal role because of the cries of the Family Research Council and other religious right activists. Chris Christie,...

their names are David Keene, Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan. It is Norquist who is blamed for getting Geller kicked off ... “ CPAC Shills For Islamic Terrorists.” . ... Grover Norquist’s troubling ties to Islamic supremacists and jihadists have been known for years. He and his Palestinian wife, Samah Alrayyes, who was director of communications for his Islamic Free Market Institute until they married in 2005, are very active in “Muslim outreach.” Just six weeks after 9/11, The New Republic ran an expose explaining how Norquist arranged for George W. Bush to meet with fifteen Islamic supremacists at the...

For the last four years, Pamela Geller of AtlasShrugs.com and the American Freedom Defense Initiative have held events at CPAC featuring guests she invites to discuss the influence of Islamism on America. But this year, the American Conservative Union (ACU) has no room for Geller or her message. [...] In years past, the events were standing room only thanks to their popularity, but that apparently was not enough to counter pressure brought to bear from somewhere to exclude Geller’s message.

On Tom Trento’s radio show today, former FBI agent, John Guandolo, who wrote the first Muslim Brotherhood training manual for the FBI, outs John Brennan, Obama’s nominee for CIA Director, as having converted to Islam while working in Saudi Arabia. (Embedded video: Fast forward to 11 minute mark and watch til the 52 min mark)

Americans for Tax Reform head Grover Norquist says that large-scale immigration is good for America and the Republican Party — and that critics of easy immigration should get out of the way. “There are a whole bunch of people who are listening to loud voices, some of whom claim to be Republican … talking about [employers] who didn’t fill out the paperwork, about going after [an immigrant's] aunt,” said Norquist, whose opposition to tax increases has made him popular among Republicans and a hate-figure among progressives. Once advocates for tighter immigration are sidelined, the GOP will be able to win...

We’ve had a wide variety of conservative: the neo-cons, the paleo-cons and most recently the crunchy cons. Have you ever noticed how many of the most prominent conservative voices in America sound more like liberals? I have, and I believe they are in class all their own: they have a special mission and fit a particular profile. They are what I like to call ‘kept cons.’ They are ‘kept’ by liberals in that kept cons generally work for liberal institutions and seem to fill the role of token...

Yay!! MORE POOR DEMOCRAT VOTERS! Anti-higher taxes activist Grover Norquist is joining an effort to convince conservatives to support statehood for Puerto Rico. Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, is scheduled to appear at a press conference with Luis Fortuno, the former Republican governor of Puerto Rico, in Washington to push statehood for the territory next week. The group organizing the effort is the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. “The group of conservative leaders will call on Congress to pass legislation to allow the people of Puerto Rico to decide their political future among non-territorial and constitutionally valid...

Shortly after the Center for Immigration Studies put out a report warning that the Student and Exchange Visitor Program was widely unregulated and abused, the Obama Administration has decided to dispose of the last restrictions instituted after 9/11 to prevent a repeat of the revolving door Saudi visa system. The United States, a decade after Al Qaida strikes in New York and Washington, has opened its doors to Saudi nationals. Diplomats said the administration of President Barack Obama has removed most restrictions on the entry of Saudis to the United States. They said the percentage of visa approvals for Saudis...

Grover Norquist declared in an exclusive Newsmax TV interview that President Barack Obama will not get to increase the nation’s debt ceiling unless Republicans “get a dollar-for-dollar reduction in real spending.” “That’s the leverage,” Norquist, the influential founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, tells Newsmax. “The president needs something. He’s running up debt. He needs a debt-ceiling increase.” As discussions to raise the nation’s $16.4 trillion debt ceiling near, House Speaker John Boehner has said he would not negotiate with President Obama. Still, “The Boehner Rule” — which ties a rise in the debt threshold to an equal...

Over the last four years, a die-hard cadre of activists and their allies in Congress have dragged the Republican Party into a fever swamp of Islamophobia and barely-concealed anti-Muslim bigotry. In their paranoid scenario, Islamic Shariah law is creeping into American courts; the Department of Justice has come under the sway of the Muslim Brotherhood; and the president’s engagement ring includes secret writing that indicates Muslim loyalties. But after a November election that saw three of the party's loudest voices on "creeping Shariah" defeated—and the GOP presidential nominee ignore the issue entirely—the anti-Islam movement within the Republican party may have...

For Grover Norquist, the Senate-backed fiscal cliff bill on its way to the House floor Tuesday is a tax cut that House Republicans can vote for and defend to their constituents without violating their anti-tax increase pledges.

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist defended the leadership of House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday during an appearance on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” after a caller suggested the speaker has been in Congress too long and recommended Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) as a better replacement. … Norquist defended Boehner’s leadership, saying the Ohio Republican was successful at “holding all the Republicans together.” …

A powerful anti-tax crusader said President Barack Obama doesn't have a better argument for tax increases today than he did two years ago, when he agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for all Americans. "Raising taxes is always bad for the economy," Americans For Tax Reform President Grover Norquist told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. "Tax increases are what's done instead of reforming government." Negotiations to avoid the "fiscal cliff" of mandatory tax hikes and spending cuts have largely been focused on the president's desire to raise tax rates for the top two percent of wage earners. Republicans have...

For years, Grover Norquist and Republicans have tried “starving the beast” of the federal government by capping taxes. While they’ve been highly successful at preventing tax increases, they have been less effective at addressing one problematic aspect of fiscal policy: the ability of the Federal Reserve and Treasury to borrow more and more to finance massive spending, as they have done under the Bush and Obama administrations. It’s simple: Borrowing today means a higher tax burden tomorrow when the debt comes due. True fiscal responsibility, then, requires us to curb spending in addition to limiting tax rates. Imagine if instead...

WASHINGTON – Getting Republicans to agree to a tax increase on “the rich” is not the ultimate aim of the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress, says noted tax activist Grover Norquist. “This is just the first act of a two- or three-act play,” Norquist said in an exclusive interview with WND. Norquist, president and founder of Americans for Tax Reform, said the first act “is to get congressional Republicans to put their fingerprints on what amounts to a minor tax increase.” “After raising taxes on the rich a little bit, the Democrats will come back for serious tax revenue,”...

Americans for Tax Reform chief Grover Norquist joined Alex Wagner on MSNBC’s NOW to discuss the current status of negotiations between President Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans to avoid the upcoming fiscal cliff. Norquist told the MSNBC host that he thinks President Obama is overplaying his hand in these negotiations, as he did in his first term, and Obama will cede the political advantage to Republicans because he “doesn’t have the mandate he thinks he does.” Wagner asked Norquist if he supported the plan put forward by Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Norquist replied that Boehner’s plan is “amorphous,” and said...

At times, it has seemed that Republican lawmakers eyeing a fiscal compromise with President Obama were moving closer to a public split with Grover Norquist, author of the famous no-new- taxes pledge that has defined conservative politics for decades. Yet Norquist, whose influence in the conservative movement spans well beyond his well-known fixation on taxes, remains an unwavering force in the GOP debate — and even some of the most prominent lawmakers publicly flirting with a break from Norquist have assured him in private that they remain loyal soldiers in the anti-tax cause. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), for example, might...

Newsmax Norquist: 'Tea Party 2' Backlash if Obama Sends Nation Over Fiscal Cliff Sunday, December 2, 2012 04:09 PM Grover Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, predicted a tea party backlash that would dwarf the movement’s success in the 2010 midterm elections if President Barack Obama pushes the nation over the “fiscal cliff. “Tea Party two is going to dwarf tea party one if Obama pushes us off the cliff,” warned Norquist on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” When asked “Are you over?” by host David Gregory, Norquist responded, “That was last week’s news.”