Tea Party Activists are the New GOP

Tea Party Activists Are the New GOP

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 7:11 AM

By: Richard A. Viguerie Article Font Size



After withdrawing from the special election for New York’s 23rd Congressional District, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, who had been the Republican candidate, threw her support to the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, rather than Doug Hoffman, a Republican running on the Conservative Party ticket.


That was one more example of the “closed tent” mentality of big-government, establishment Republicans who have worked long and hard to keep conservatives out of power at the national, state, and local levels.


The GOP leadership’s backing of Ms. Scozzafava was a slap in the face to tea party activists, town-hall protesters, and conservatives across the country. The Washington GOP establishment’s abandonment of fiscal responsibility led directly to the election of Barack Obama as president, Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House, and Harry Reid as Senate majority leader.


The American people see the GOP leadership and establishment every bit as much a part of the problem as the Democrats.


Doug Hoffman and N.Y.-23 are an earthquake in American politics, the first of many challenges to establishment Republicans that we will see for the 2010 elections and beyond. The Republican leaders' stupid decision to pour $900,000 into the race against a conservative has unleashed a fury that will lead to new GOP leadership.


Conservatives’ anger at Washington-establishment Republicans will cost the national committees tens of millions of dollars, as conservative money will start flowing directly to the tea parties and their candidates.


It’s clear that the main opposition to President Obama and Pelosi’s agenda is not from Republican politicians, but rather conservative talk-show hosts, bloggers, cable TV hosts, tea party activists, town-hall attendees, and other grass-roots conservatives.


Tea party activists and conservatives feel betrayed by Republican leaders: John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Pete Sessions, Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Michael Steele, and Newt Gingrich.


These GOP leaders would rather follow the advice of professional political consultants, who are not small-government conservatives. These people would rather satisfy their friends in the media than win — and win with principle. They are the same people who try to denigrate the tea party and town-hall protesters by calling them “teabaggers.”


That type of thinking, which actively opposes the rise of conservatives and others who challenge the old Washington political establishment, will keep the GOP as a small tent. The tea party movement, like Reaganism, is the real big tent.


Over the last dozen years, Republican Party leaders have broken the bond of trust between them and the base of the party. It will not be restored until the GOP selects new leaders who represent the views and values of grass-roots Americans, not Washington views and values.



© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Do Not Underestimate the Will of the American People

Daily healthcare protests at Senator's and Congressmen's offices. August 22nd Recess Rally. 9/12 March on Washington DC. We have just begun.

Fishy

The Obama administration is encouraging US citizens to report "fishy" emails and communications from fellow Americans to a dedicated Whitehouse email address. Something stinks.

Where Have You Gone, Ronald Reagan?

Reagan’s Unfinished Agenda
A potent brew for the Tea Parties?

By Steven F. Hayward

Two questions currently preoccupy intramural conversations on the right. This first is, What’s up with the Tea Parties? Is this wave of spontaneous protests against President Obama’s program of sharply higher taxes and spending a movement of genuine depth, or just a spasm of discontent over losing an election? Once the teabags have been thrown figuratively into Boston Harbor again, is there a program, or just a caffeine jolt?

The second question is, Are the principles and example of Ronald Reagan still relevant for conservatives? Reagan ran at a different time; his famous axiom that “government is not the solution to our problems—government is the problem” is said to be inapplicable to the current economic crisis, which requires substantial government intervention to avoid total calamity. Some Republican leaders and even some conservatives say it is time to “get beyond Reagan,” and look for something or someone new and different.

There will never be another Ronald Reagan, but before discarding his principles and example the Right might wish to ask itself a serious question about why what was called “the Reagan Revolution” 25 years ago is being apparently swept away with such ease by President Obama. Why didn’t the Reagan Revolution succeed in erecting any lasting barriers to the governmental gigantism we are seeing today? What might Reagan say about this if he were surveying the scene now? Answering these questions might provide a program around which the Tea Party phenomenon can coalesce into a consequential movement.

The answer is contained in what I call “Mansfield’s Razor,” after Harvey Mansfield of Harvard University. Right after Reagan’s election in 1980, Mansfield wrote, “Reagan would be well advised to find his conservatism in the Constitution rather than to adopt a conservative populism. If he does the latter, he is likely to discover that the radical means of populism will overcome and outlast the conservative ends.” The paradox of American constitutionalism is that it rests our government on a popular basis, but also deliberately constrains government precisely to safeguard against populist excess, such as we are seeing at present.

Conservatives are dismayed and baffled at the sight of Obama’s Latin American-style personality cult and at poll results showing astonishing erosion in public support for free markets and limited government. “This is a center-right nation,” conservatives continue to insist. To be sure, Reagan and the conservative movement stoked the populist flames from the 1970s through the 1990s, with considerable success. But conservatives became too comfortable with the thought that populism would remain a reliable conservative force in American politics, and largely lost or disdained the art of constitutional argument.

Madison and Tocqueville knew better (as Mansfield has warned us repeatedly over the last two decades), and would not have been surprised by the present crisis. The other person who would not have been surprised is Ronald Reagan. This sunny optimist also warned repeatedly that “freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” Reagan’s greatest frustration as president was his inability to control spending. In contrast to Pres. George W. Bush, Reagan vetoed several “budget-busting” bills in the course of his presidency, only to see many Republican members of Congress join Democrats in overriding his vetoes. This led Reagan, late in his second term, to recognize the wisdom of Mansfield’s Razor and to embrace a bold constitutional strategy that no one much remembers today.

Throughout his presidency Reagan argued repeatedly for a balanced-budget amendment, and also for an amendment granting the president a line-item veto. But, starting in 1987, Reagan offered a more comprehensive package he called the “Economic Bill of Rights.” In addition to the balanced-budget and line-item veto amendments, Reagan proposed three additional amendments that would impose a federal spending limit, require a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate for any tax increases, and prohibit wage and price controls.

These amendments never had a chance of passage during Reagan’s presidency (the only one that ever came close was the balanced-budget amendment, which passed the Senate but failed in the House), and might not necessarily be good ideas to write into our fundamental charter — there are good arguments on both sides of each proposal. But, as a thought experiment, one can imagine how a constitutional spending limit, a supermajority requirement for tax increases, or a ban on wage and price controls would constrain Obama’s agenda today. (With wage controls currently contemplated for the financial sector, and price controls for the health-care sector, how long before a burst of inflation inspires the Obamanauts to extend the idea across the whole economy again?)

One of the notable aspects of Obama’s governmental gigantism is that there has been not the slightest peep about the constitutionality of his dictatorial manner of taking over the auto and banking industries, and hence little prospect of any serious constitutional argument over the coming conquest of the health-care sector. In this, Obama is simply following the advice of Woodrow Wilson that an increased role for the federal government could be accomplished “only by wresting the Constitution to strange and as yet unimagined uses.” In other words, liberals have been effectively able to amend the Constitution simply by reinterpreting it (or essentially ignoring it). Conservatives do not have this luxury. Now that the implicit constitutional barriers to unlimited government have been deliberately eroded, turning back unlimited liberalism may require reviving what might be called the unfinished agenda of the Reagan Revolution — it may require formal constitutional amendments.

Constitutional amendments are deliberately difficult to pass, but one notable aspect of constitutional amendments in American history is that they tend to come in bursts, and usually at the behest of populist reform movements rather than as a matter of partisan calculation. Several of the Progressive Era amendments — especially women’s suffrage and Prohibition — came as a result of pressure from populist agitation; likewise, a couple of the amendments of the 1960s and ’70s came as a result of pressure from the civil-rights movement. Similarly, the failed attempt to enact the Equal Rights Amendment was a product of the feminist movement.

Here’s where the Tea Parties come in. If the Tea Party movement wishes to stand for something concrete, and sensibly avoid being co-opted by the Republican party, it might consider embracing Reagan’s Economic Bill of Rights (perhaps with the addition of term limits and an anti-earmark provision just to make sure the politicians stay away). It is not necessary that agitation for constitutional amendments actually succeed in getting the amendments adopted in order to have a significant political effect. There is no chance that the current Congress would even bring any of these amendments to a vote, though the Tea Parties could agitate for resolutions from state legislatures. The progress of feminism showed the Equal Rights Amendment to have been unnecessary for its larger social goals. Advocating amendments to secure new limits to government would have the salutary effect of putting liberals on the defensive, just as the balanced-budget movement and tax revolt of the 1970s assisted the rise of Reagan and conservatives in general in the 1980s. It is the kind of populism that would gain Tocqueville’s approval and Madison’s acquiescence. Above all, picking this fight would reintroduce constitutional ideas to America’s political conversation. And not a moment too soon.

—Steven F. Hayward is F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the author of The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counter-Revolution, 1980–1989, forthcoming in August from CrownForum.

Don't Underestimate the Will of the American People

What We Want

What We the People Who Attended Tea Parties in Body or Spirit Want

Many pundits and leaders suggest the Tea Party demonstrations are an act of “desperation.” Well, if waking up at the eleventh hour to realize our Country has been hijacked elicits a touch of hysteria, then sure, we are feeling desperate. But that is not why the word desperation and others like it seem so carefully chosen. The real idea is to paint the Tea Party movement with broad and disparaging sound bites. That way, hundreds-of-thousands if not millions of protesters can be snidely dismissed, as when critics snigger, “ The ‘teabaggers’ do not even know what they are protesting for,” or when we’re condescendingly referred to as “those people waving teabags around.”

Well, maybe we are just lackeys bussed in by Karl Rove. Or maybe we are all unemployed and upset because our care-package has not yet arrived. Or maybe, just maybe, we know exactly what we want but critics do not like it because that particular sound-bite distills down to Liberty, and in a world crazed by political-correctness, Liberty cannot possibly pertain where guilty Americans are concerned. So for all you moral relativists, we will spell it out:

We want our Government’s current spending binge reduced or repealed as much as possible because we recognize that any tax cuts promised today are nothing but payoffs, and tomorrow’s tax burden will be insufferable. We do not want our grandkids’ kids to live under this yoke!

We want Government to adopt pay-as-you-go spending rules – at all levels! – rules that align with an income based on fair taxation. That means all taxes – Local, State, and Federal – when added together from cradle to grave should never exceed forty-nine percent of a citizen’s total lifetime income. Anything more constitutes slavery. And forty-nine percent should only be called for in times of dire National emergency. Otherwise, a lifetime tax-cap of thirty-three percent comes closer to
keeping faith with the spirit of our heritage. Along with that, some regulation to curb the excesses of Capitalism would be welcome. But replace it with Socialism? No way!

We want the Government the heck out of U.S. Corporations. Let the failures fail and restructure if they can, and otherwise let the rest operate without a political officer looking over their shoulder.

We want to know where the TARP money went and why its fate has been kept secret when we were promised transparency. We want to know who really pulls the strings at the Federal Reserve.

We want energy/environmental policies based on facts and science, not fear enabled by climate-modeling gurus and a PR machine. We want policies that take us into the future without cutting off our past at the knees – policies that build a bridge, not a cliff.

We want our borders closed and illegal immigration stopped. Cold! We want illegal aliens to be treated humanely but not given a free ride or invited gratis into the political arena to become a voter-block for the give-away Left.

We want mandatory photo IDs and proof of citizenship as minimal requirements to participate in elections.

We want the “politically correct” class to show a little more tolerance for those who have shown so much tolerance through the years we allowed political correctness to grow into a monster. Shame on us! It may be late but at last we are paying attention!

We want acknowledgement that, while taking pride in diversity and Religious Freedom, this Country's founding was primarily influenced by Christianity. Yes, the Founding Fathers espoused the separation of Church and State, but not separation from the values and moral imperatives of Religion: “ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." These threads run common to all peaceful religions, and we honor them.

We want term limits for all elected officials because career politicians grow corrupt. We need turnover. While we may throw an occasional “baby out with the bath water,” that sacrifice is necessary to purge the cesspool our bath water has become.

We want the First and Second Amendments to stand unsullied and inviolate. Period!

We want volunteerism to mean Volunteer-ism. Making it mandatory is an oxymoron and smacks of indoctrination. It runs contrary to promoting values that might lead one to volunteer of their own Free Will.

We want the Left to stop chipping away at Conservative Values and Morality so as to use social breakdowns as an excuse to codify amorality.

We want all the apologies for our Country’s existence to cease and desist! Give credit where credit is due and recognize that for all the mistakes the United States of America has made, her positive influence far outweighs them.

We want our leaders to stop using the rhetoric of failure. Stop demoralizing our men and women in uniform! We want our Veterans to be honored, not profiled!

We want to retain full control of our National Sovereignty. No treaties attacking our Rights; no bench rulings citing International Law.

We want an end to the vilifying of private sector achievers – the picking out and even cultivation of a few bad apples to create public examples for the purpose of stirring class envy. These attacks really rankle when so many elected officials go unpunished for the parts they have played and continue to play in creating this mess.

We want the restoration of proper checks and balances in our Government. We want to see judges who legislate from the bench get removed from the bench. We want the Executive Branch to be checked when it attempts to sweep whole agencies into its sphere of authority. Where is the due process to either cede such power or proclaim it excessive? We want a
Legislature that is prohibited from squelching or bypassing inconvenient minority dissent.

We want and desperately need journalists to honor the sacred trust bequeathed to them. Report the unvarnished facts without spin; tell the Truth when our elected officials have forgotten how or refuse to.

We want people to wake up and stop mouthing, “ We hope this President is the best and most successful we have ever had.” Think for a moment what that really means: More government takeover of businesses. More government meddling with our Freedoms. More government picking through our pockets. More government Control of our lives until we are so benumbed we no longer remember or care what it means to be Free.

We want to end the rhetoric of race-baiting. We are not immune to the allure of affirmation that would attend a successful Afro-American Presidency. But that does not make this President’s policies correct, which in turn makes knowing how misguided they are all the more painful. None of which makes us racist.

We want the recognition we deserve for holding one of the largest demonstrations in the history of this Country. The Tea Party mobilized hundreds-of-thousands if not millions of people, and for every one who attended there were dozens more who wanted to. This was a peaceful outpouring of True Patriotic Concern on a grand scale. There were no vandalized buildings, no tear-gas grenades, no arrests, and we even picked up our litter. What news could be bigger? But besides “desperation” and "teabaggers" all we get from the critics is, “ What’s next?” Please take this as a small down payment.

We want our fellow Americans to wake up and realize that labeling your conservative friends and neighbors domestic security risks is an act of despicable profiling. Our Freedoms – those of all American’s – are being systematically dismantled.

If all this makes us desperate then we are guilty as charged. But we are not going away quietly, and the more people we reach the more who will join us in the drive to renew the Vision of Our Country's Founding Fathers. That is what we want!

Respectfully yours,
We the People

Tea Party Rocks Rhode Island

Stimulated to protest
Yesterday was an historic day in Rhode Island and across America. People from all walks of life came out with enthusiasm to tell their elected leaders that they have had ENOUGH! I am overwhelmed by the response. We will not stop. This is the beginning of something big!

08:51 AM EDT on Thursday, April 16, 2009
By Philip Marcelo

Journal Staff Writer
Protestors with signs and flags turn out to the State House Wednesday afternoon to protest taxes and what they see as excessive government spending at the state and federal levels. Similar rallies were held nationwide.
The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

PROVIDENCE — At least 2,000 people rallied Wednesday in front of the State House to protest the unprecedented level of federal spending to help overcome the recession.

For those who took off work to come downtown on a sunny but windy afternoon, it was a way of saying that the country is moving in the wrong direction. That government is growing too big, too fast. That too much is being spent that will have to be borne by future generations.

“It’s unconscionable to have to send this bill to our grandchildren,” said Marcia Camp, a retired librarian from Scituate who held up a sign saying “Save Trees, Stop Printing $$.”

See the full article with video and photos here.

Tea Party Anthem

Where Did You Go, Mr. Jefferson?

Tea Party Video

Check out this great video advertising the San Antonio Tea Party. It definitely reflects the independent mindedness of Texans.

Tea Parties will take place across the nation in over 300 cities and towns on April 15th to protest big government spending. Find out the nearest location to you at http://taxdayteaparty.com

What Did You Do?

At the rate that the Obama administration is moving with it's radical social agenda, it is entirely feasible that the America in which we live in 20 years will look and feel vastly different from that which we have enjoyed during our lifetimes. Eventually, even this financial crisis will pass, albeit more painfully and slowly if managed poorly by the White House. (Thus far, economists have given both Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner "F's" for their performance in handling the crisis.)

But after the USA gets back on it's financial footing, what will the aftermath of Obama's tenure look like in this country? Despite his denial of socialist beliefs, he clearly desires to move the country towards a European style social democracy. He has used the current crisis to stoke the fire of hasty action, without accountability and without debate. He will continue with this course of action, hammering down socialized healthcare, redistribution of income, devastatingly expensive energy policies, and throwing more money into a broken educational system without addressing the root causes of its failure to adequately prepare our children for the 21st century. What effect will these changes have on our lives?

While each issue can fill books, I will try to summarize the effects in a sentence or two. Healthcare will undergo dramatic changes under total government control (and make no mistake that is Obama's end goal). Everybody's health record will be available to the government via the electronic records system. The government will set up cost effectiveness models to determine which medicines, treatments, and technologies you will receive based on set criteria such as age, medical history, and expectation for recovery. Government will make these decisions for you; not your doctor who will simply be the conduit of fulfilling the government's prescription for your treatment. Rationing will be the norm, as resources will need to be spread over a larger population. To provide care for everyone will be extremely expensive; costs will INCREASE, not decrease.

Redistribution of income is a major tenet of socialism. Those who create 70% of jobs in this country, small businesses, will be taxed at the highest levels, along with individuals in the upper tiers. This will result in a net decrease in jobs, as business owners will simply not have the financial resources to hire more people. Investment will dry up, creating a weak market, upon which most of us rely for our retirement savings.

Exorbitant cap and trade regulations will drive the cost of energy through the roof, without having any net positive effect on the planet due to the inaction of other major developing countries (China and India) to curb emissions. This will result in greater hardships for those at the low end of the income scale, as more of their income is spent on necessities which will be far more expensive due to high energy costs.

Obama's pandering to the teacher's unions will result in more expensive schools, without commensurate bang for the buck. Instead of creating a market based system and allowing schools to compete for kids, money will be thrown at the unions who have no stake in educational outcome, but rather their own security and pocketbooks.

All of this will end up costing everyone more money. The debt being incurred with the current spending mentality will have to be paid back. Confiscating all of the income of the top 2% of wage earners won't come close to paying for this mess. Thus, everyone's taxes will rise to levels we have not seen in this country to mirror the tax rates in social democracies in Europe. These high taxes and failure to incentivize innovation always result in stagnant economies with a standard of living at least 30% below what the US enjoys.

So in 20 years, when your kids and grandkids ask you what you did when the country was changed from a system of incentivizing ingenuity and valuing self reliance to a stagnant nanny state of decreased opportunities and standard of living, what will you say? Will you be able to look them in the eye and tell them that you took action to try to stop the madness? Will you tell them that you contacted your government leaders and the White House over and over, that you demonstrated peacefully to show your discontent, that you spoke with people about the dangers that lay ahead? If you cannot tell them this, honestly, then who will they blame for the lost America that slipped through your hands?

So I ask you, readers, what are you doing NOW to change the course of events unfolding before our very eyes? Please leave comments, and share your ideas!

Squeak Loudly and Often

As Obama releases new spending proposals on a daily basis, we have got to make our voices heard by our legislators again and again that we have had enough. I know many people put in a huge effort to contact their senators and Congressmen about the Stimulus Plan, seemingly to no avail. But we cannot let up. In fact, I think we've got to turn the pitch up even higher. Our government leaders are aware that we have reached the point of bailout and spending fatigue. We have lost track of the unthinkable amount of money Obama plans to spend on unending social engineering and projects aimed at Democrat constituencies. Our leaders also know that we do not have the money for this. Even the Democrats are starting to get fidgety. They are beginning to question Obama's power grabs with his czars over which the Senate has no control. While Obama's polls remain high, although average for someone in office for a little over a month, his base of independent voter support, which got him elected, is eroding.

This is why it is crucial that we do not stop with our efforts. Go onto Michelle Malkin's site (under my blogroll) and sign up for a tea party event taking place near you. Keep the pressure on your legislators, even at the state level. Join The Patriotic Resistance at www.resistnet.com, where they are planning a huge march in DC later this summer. Organize and inform friends. Start a blog. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. We cannot stop, for we are reaching a critical point from which our nation may not recover in our lifetime. America, It is Time To Revolt! I guarantee you that if you don't do SOMETHING to stop the lunacy, you will regret it.

Tea Party Movement Gains Momentum

Please check out the latest news and locations of the Tea Parties across America to take place this Friday. I urge everyone who lives near one of these locations to participate if at all possible.

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/25/tea-party-usa-watch-party-planning-continues/

Hope and Change? Maybe Not.

The natives are getting restless. Or at least catching on to the man behind the smoke and mirrors. Now that Obama actually has to lead, and not just pontificate, Americans are slowly beginning to realize that maybe the campaign was a dream, and now they've awakened to the nightmare that is the economic reality of America today. How will The One handle the growing sentiment that perhaps he is not up to the task at hand?

Check out this video from the floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1039849853


Further down the road, in Mesa, AZ, Dobson High School Advanced Placement government students watched the president's speech Wednesday. Here are some comments from the kids:


"Senior Syna Daudfar took some notes during the speech and was among the most vocally opposed to Obama's words.

At one point, when he talked about the costs of his stimulus plan, senior Maaike Albach and Daudfar looked at each other and said, "uh-oh."

"Overall I think it's a good idea, but he's not addressing the issues of the economic crisis," said Daudfar, a John McCain supporter who added he leans more toward being a moderate conservative. "The spending bill he just passed is just progressing the Democratic agenda rather than addressing the economic issues in the country."

Daudfar thinks Obama's plan is backward and deals with the "less important stuff" first. "Bailing out businesses" and "providing better regulatory systems for giving out money to businesses" should have been first, he said.

"If businesses can't afford to hire people, then people won't be able to work and pay off their mortgages," he said. "It's kind of like putting money into a funnel."

Albach, who is also a Republican, said Obama's plan sounds good but questioned how Obama can want to rely on "people's responsibility" when that is "what got us in this economic crisis in the first place."

"This puts us more into debt," said Albach, 18. "It's a horrible situation we're in."

Senior Brandon Miller wore a shirt with the words, "Hitler gave great speeches, too" above a picture of Obama.

Miller said he had been an Obama supporter "because of his speeches," but after debating the issues in this class and looking more into Obama's policies, his vote was swayed toward McCain. "I just don't believe all the things he's telling us. His goal is just too big and broad." Miller wanted to hear more about the costs and guidelines the stimulus bill entails.

Senior Katelyn Meyer, who also leans more toward being a Republican, said Obama's plan sounds good, "but it's easier said than done."

"I like the refinancing part, and I like the part about mortgages, but I'm afraid we're going to put the money in but won't see any effect," said Meyer, 18, who still thought it was "cool" to say the president was at her school, even though she didn't get to see him live.