Free Republic

'We cannot fight Obama when we have to fight those who are supposed to be allies.' BY BOB UNRUH The Tea Party Nation, one of the largest groups in the tea party movement that rocked the 2010 elections, ejecting California Rep. Nancy Pelosi from her seat of power and electing a Republican majority in the U.S. House, earlier said that new Republican House Speaker John Boehner should be replaced because of his unwillingness to crack the whip on federal spending. Now Tea Party Nation leaders say they can't wait that long to seek his exit. "Three months ago, TPN called...

The liberal line of attack on the Tea Party movement that has gained the most traction is that it opposes President Obama because of his skin color, not his policies. The movement is, in the mind of many in the Democratic Party and liberal organizations, rooted in a fundamentally racist view of America and of the president.This charge is conventional wisdom for many in the media. Former NPR fund-raising executive Ron Schiller denounced the Tea Party movement to undercover conservative activists posing as Muslim financiers: “I mean, basically they ... believe in sort of white, middle-America, gun-toting. I mean,...

According to Real Clear Politics, Sarah Palin has found her history tour of the American northeast so successful that she will soon take similar bus trips to the Midwest and American south. Just by coincidence, the Midwest trip would end up in Iowa and the Southern junket will end in South Carolina. Iowa has the first national party caucus and South Carolina is an early primary state which votes soon after New Hampshire. Clearly Palin is conducting a test run of what may be the most unusual presidential campaign in recent American history. She means to bypass the Republican Party...

Lake of the Ozarks, Mo. — In a recent online op-ed piece by a former official in the George W. Bush White House, he claimed the Tea Party movement was splitting the Republican Party. He went on to surmise it didn’t matter, because at the end of the day they would vote Republican. He was wrong on both assertions. Two and a half years ago, the Camdenton Tea Party and other Tea Party movements were formed across this land and stepped out from their perspective political parties to tell our elected officials we are TEA (Taxed Enough Already) and the...

EUGENE, Ore. – While the Boston Tea Party holds a revered place in the history of the American Revolution, today’s “Tea Party,” has nothing to do with that kind of political independence that emerged back in 1773, states a local Eugene historian whose upset with this modern day Tea Party after reviewing a recent New York Times/CBS News poll that points to “Tea Party supporters” as being “wealthier than the general public,” and are viewed by many Americas as having racist views. “It’s important to acknowledge that the Boston Tea Party has nothing to do with today’s group of mostly...

Jack Davis: Counterfeit Tea PartierDon't get fooled by his ballot line. ‘Jack Davis is a total fake,” says Levi Russell, communications director of Tea Party Express. “He is a liberal Democrat who endorsed President Obama, supports cap-and-trade, and has given thousands of dollars to big-government liberals. Jack Davis is no more ‘Tea Party’ than Barack Obama is!” The man who speaks for one of America’s chief Tea Party groups does not mince words about the 78-year-old congressional candidate. And why should he? Davis, who is running in Tuesday’s special election in upstate New York’s 26th district, has turned that contest upside down. He finagled...

Republican primary voters are pretty skeptical about the nation’s political leadership. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 64% of Likely GOP Primary Voters believe the gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians who want to rule over them is now as big as it was between the American Colonies and Great Britain in the 18th century. Just 16% disagree with this sentiment, and 20% aren’t sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.) But then 84% of Republican voters trust the judgment of the American people more than that of the nation's political leaders...

Sen. Dick Lugar's (R-Ind.) campaign said Monday that State Treasurer Richard Mourdock (R) would meet the same electoral fate in 2012 that Republicans Sharron Angle and Christie O'Donnell did last November should he win the Senate nomination. Lugar is facing a tough primary challenge from the right in the form of Mourdock and has generated significant opposition from Tea Party groups, but his campaign is betting that Rep. Joe Donnelly's (D-Ind.) entry into the race will wake primary voters up to the electability argument. In a letter to Indiana Republicans on Monday, Lugar's political director warned them not to be...

I am often asked by many in the tea party movement what can be done to attract more blacks and other minorities to attend and become involved with a movement that is dedicated to restore and save our republic. It is a valid question, and it is a subject that deserves research and honest answers. The tea party has been accused of racism by the mainstream media and several civil rights groups since the group formed. In all these cases, this charge is fallacious, built on imagined perceptions. Many media outlets have printed stories about the exclusion of minorities from...

I am often asked by many in the tea party movement what can be done to attract more blacks and other minorities to attend and become involved with a movement that is dedicated to restore and save our republic. It is a valid question, and it is a subject that deserves research and honest answers. The tea party has been accused of racism by the mainstream media and several civil rights groups since the group formed. In all these cases, this charge is fallacious, built on imagined perceptions. Many media outlets have printed stories about the exclusion of minorities from...

For more than two years, the Tea Party has driven our national politics. It gave full voice to anti-Obama anger. It framed last fall's elections as a battle over spending and the growth of government. When its activists swept Republicans into power, the Tea Party established the contours of the current debate over deficits and reforming entitlement programs, which follow conservative principles much more closely than the Republicans' limited formal power -- they control only the House -- should allow. But last week, this tide seemed to peak, and then begin to roll back. Republican House leaders, having pushed through...

Fifty-two percent of Republicans want a major third party to compete with Democrats and the GOP, according to a Gallup poll released Monday. An even larger percentage of Tea Partiers, 60 percent, want a new party. The portion of Americans who want a third party has been at or above 50 percent since mid-2006, but this is the first time a majority of Republicans have felt that way since Gallup began asking the question in 2003. This is news Donald Trump can seize on--he's flirted with running as an independent once he's done flirting with running as a Republican in...

The tea partiers take legitimate credit for much of the upheaval in the 2008 congressional election, when Nancy Pelosi was tossed from her position as House Speaker and the Republicans were handed a new majority there – with enough party members to control the vote results without any help from Democrats. But things have deteriorated a little bit since then, and activists joined today in a news conference to issue a warning to the GOP members they describe as "RINOs," for Republicans in Name Only, to start responding to what voters want, or else. "We're deeply disappointed. Instead of a...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: There are major rumblings in the news media today about the terrible trouble that the Republican Party finds itself in. Juan Williams was on Fox yesterday saying the Tea Party's finished, it's over with, the Republicans are not on the same page, House and Senate Republicans and even within the House Republican caucus, not on the same page. They're splitting apart because of Medicare, because of Paul Ryan's Medicare proposal. In the Washington Post today, there's a blog published by Chris Cillizza, and it is obvious that both Republican Washington insiders, as well as Democrat power brokers...

'I am so glad not to be in high school anymore," Mary Hardy tells me. The wise college sophomore was responding to an article I asked her to read about adolescent girls dressing badly. As in, like sluts. Mary tells me: 'My parents never let me dress like that and I am grateful -- only now -- to them because the boys in high school, although they did not say it, did respect me more especially at the dances, where no one tried to come up and 'dance' with me in the manner they did with the other girls, whose...

Like most drivers, Karen Hayes of Palos Heights, Illinois is concerned about the high price of gasoline. She filled up yesterday at the station outside her local Dominick’s grocery store where gas was selling for $4.319 per gallon. She picked this station because they gave her a discount of ten cents per gallon for purchasing $50 worth of groceries. At a net of price of $4.219 she felt like she had uncovered a real bargain – a nearby Shell station was selling regular unleaded for $4.399. Before driving away, however, she followed the example of thousands of other Americans and...

Elections: Canada's conservatives roll to victory on a platform of lowered sales and corporate taxes, avoiding climate-change legislation, promoting Arctic sovereignty and upping military spending. Is the GOP listening? There are more than a few timid Republicans who could take a leadership lesson from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose Tories swept to a crushing victory over the Liberal Party in elections. No one will follow an uncertain trumpet, but if you fight openly for what's right and necessary, they will follow in droves. Harper, first elected in 2006, has never had a majority in Parliament until now. So he's...

Club for Growth President Chris Chocola gave six-term Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) some unsolicited advice Tuesday: Retire. Chocola, a former Congressman from Indiana who served in the House from 2003 to 2007, told ABC’s “Top Line” that his fiscally conservative organization is considering getting involved in Lugar’s 2012 re-election campaign in the Hoosier State. The club has already met with Lugar’s primary opponent, state Treasurer Richard Mourdock (R). “We are looking at that race very closely,” Chocola said. “We do have some concerns about Sen. Lugar and his service. We think it would probably be best if he would retire...

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin says that state and private money will be used to develop a system where Oklahomans could shop for health insurance. No cost estimate is available. ### Oklahoma will not accept a $54.6 million federal grant for setting up a system where Oklahomans could shop for health insurance, Gov. Mary Fallin said today. Oklahoma rejects $54.6 million federal grant Fallin said the state instead will use state and private money to form the system. She had no estimate of how much it would cost, but House Speaker Kris Steele said today that he believes a system can...

C.L. “Butch” Otter GOVERNOR NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Jon Hanian April 20, 2011 (208) 334-2100 11:028 GOVERNOR’S EXECUTIVE ORDER PROHIBITS STATE AGENCIES FROM IMPLEMENTING OBAMACARE (BOISE) – Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter issued an executive order today imposing a State prohibition on receiving federal funding for or otherwise implementing the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – often called “Obamacare.” Executive Order 2011-03 uses portions of House Bill 298, a so-called “nullification bill” that was approved by the Legislature this year. The executive order directs State agencies not to establish new programs, promulgate rules or accept federal funding...