We are the Tea Party and we elected you

The Washington Post is writing about this today, yesterday and last week.  They just cannot get over the fact that people who got together to change the makeup of congress would actually want their mandates enacted.  Here is today's: (actually it is first from  the Associated Press)

Tea party to House Republicans: Remember us? We helped elect you and we say no compromises

WASHINGTON — The tea partyers who helped drive GOP gains in the last election are rallying in the city they love to hate Thursday, urging Republican House leaders — Speaker John Boehner above all — to resist the drive toward compromise in the protracted fight over the federal budget. Even, they say, if that means Congress fails to do its most important job: pay for the government.
And if Boehner opts instead to agree to a deal with President Barack Obama?

“You’re going to see massive amounts of (GOP) primaries” in next year’s election, said Mark Meckler of the Tea Party Patriots. If the Ohio Republican strikes a budget deal that doesn’t cut spending enough, Meckler said Wednesday, “he is going to face a primary challenge.”

It’s tough talk from a member of the loosely affiliated political force that helped drive Boehner’s Republican troops into the House majority last year on a platform of smaller, more austere government. And during three months in power, Boehner’s been listening.

Read all the rest here.

This is getting serious when Michael Barone has noticed

Is the Tea Party pooped? It must keep making its case

Has the wind gone out of the sails of the smaller-government movement? Is the Tea Party movement going through a hangover?

You can find some evidence for these propositions. In Washington, Democrats like former National Chairman Howard Dean look forward gleefully to a government shutdown, and Sen. Charles Schumer thinks he can drive a wedge between Speaker John Boehner and "extremist" Tea Partiers.

And in state capitals some new Republican governors are getting hostile receptions to their plans for cutting spending and curtailing the power of public employee unions.

We are working hard to keep our local group going. Read the rest of what Barone has to say here

Tea Party for Dummies, at last we are explained in a way even liberals can understand

From Politico

'Tea Party' for dummies
By CURT ANDERSON
I’m fed up with all the foolishness written about the tea party. Virtually all the analysis has been off base. Liberals don’t get it. Democratic political players mistakenly think they can use it against Republicans. And the Republican establishment is cowed and terrified.

First, there should be a rule that no one can write about the tea party without attending events outside the Beltway. Here is what you would find: a mishmash of Americans who are a bit unusual yet oddly refreshing. There would be housewives with strollers, young people with edgy signs, old-timers with walkers, bikers with flags and Republican workers handing out literature that no one wants.
Like any political event, there would be smart people and dumb, well-intentioned folks and troublemakers, folks with their lives together and folks who need medication. There are clever signs and stupid signs.

Sometimes emotions run high. I saw a confrontation last year at a tea party event in Madison, Wis., between an obnoxious young “protester,” wearing a “Feingold for Senate” T-shirt, and a grizzled Vietnam veteran. The protester was filling the air with expletives, so the vet came over and said he was going to shove his cane down the protester’s throat. Sadly, the protester immediately stopped exercising his First Amendment rights.

I love it when enlightened pundits observe that there are “crazy people” at these events. No kidding. Ever been to a Democratic or Republican convention? Plenty of attendees would not pass a CT scan. Ever been to a PTA meeting? There are crazy people in America, on your TV and in your neighborhood. You may even be one of them. Deal with it.

Republican leaders are grappling with the tea party phenomenon as we speak. While publicly genuflecting to the tea party, many are privately scared and embarrassed. What do its members want? Are they trying to take over? How do we deal with them? It’s the cause of much consternation on the D.C. cocktail circuit.

A little history: My first job in politics began in 1984. There was a different, yet in many ways similar, dynamic afoot. This thing, which the media pejoratively labeled “the religious right,” had emerged as a political force and was threatening to upset the seating chart in the Republican universe.

Hand-wringing was everywhere. The late Jerry Falwell’s moral majority and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition were the proverbial Huns at the gate — threatening to crash the party.

The religious right had a beef with the GOP: The party was not conservative enough, particularly on cultural issues. President Ronald Reagan was the exception, not the rule. Rep. Bob Michel and Sen. Howard Baker were the moderate rulers on Capitol Hill — and were suspect.

There is a lot more in here comparing the Tea Party to the Christian Right showing the differences............

Today, the tea party movement presents the GOP with a similar challenge — albeit with its own unique wrinkles. If it was sometimes difficult to figure out who was in charge of the religious right, it’s impossible to do so with the tea party. For one thing, tea partiers are suspect of anyone who wants to be in charge or any party that wants to harness them.
.......
The tea party remains a movement. As such, it is darn near impossible to contain, organize or control. Don’t waste your time trying. Call it rugged individualism.

You can either appeal to its concerns by voicing the issues it cares about, or you can try to organize and control it. If you choose the latter approach, good luck.

In the tea party world, structure is bad, political parties are corrupt, politicians are liars and authority is suspect. In other words, members are just like my kids and American voters — but a little more so.

Many Republican elites fret about the downsides of the tea party. They point to the disastrous failure to beat Sen. Harry Reid in Nevada or to the absurd TV ad that began with the genius phrase, “I’m not a witch.”

Yep. You have some of that. Democracy is messy. But you also have some benefits — like control of the House. Let’s face it, at the end of 2008, the Republican Party was almost out of gas, having been routed in two consecutive elections.

The energy of the tea party movement, in concert with tremendous help from President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), created the potential for the Republican landslide of 2010. This is not an arguable point.

So enough hand-wringing already.

Curt Anderson is a Republican strategist and a partner at OnMessage Inc., a GOP media and polling firm. He co-wrote Gov. Bobby Jindal’s book “Leadership in Crisis.”

Read it all here.  You might want to print it out and have it handy to hand to your liberal friends who don't get it.

Elites vs Us the tea partiers

Another good article from the Washington Post. This one by Charles Murray who has been in the crosshairs of "the elite" ever since he wrote Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life.  The "Elite" have been at odds with his conclusions on intelligence and race. Here is his latest: 

The tea party warns of a New Elite. They're right.
The tea party appears to be of one mind on at least one thing: America has been taken over by a New Elite.

"On one side, we have the elites," Fox News host Glenn Beck explained last month, "and the other side, we have the regular people." The elites are "no longer in touch with what the country is really thinking," Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle complained this summer. And when Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell recently began a campaign ad by saying, "I didn't go to Yale," she could be confident that her supporters would approve.

All this has made the New Elite distinctly touchy (see Maureen Dowd's "Making Ignorance Chic"), dismissive (see Jacob Weisberg's "Elitist Nonsense") and defensive (see Anne Applebaum's "The Rise of the 'Ordinary' Elite").

"Elite?" they seem to be saying. "Who? Us?"

Read it all here.

Does McConnell actually get it, or did he just give in?

From The Hill:

GOP Senate leader McConnell backs down, agrees to earmark ban
By J. Taylor Rushing - 11/15/10 08:41 PM ET
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) announced Monday that he would join a GOP effort to ban congressional earmarks, a stunning turnaround that reflects a huge victory for the Tea Party movement.

A senior member of the Appropriations Committee, McConnell has been one of the Senate’s strongest proponents of local pork, but watched the practice fall into disfavor amid growing public anger over Washington spending that fueled GOP victories in this month’s midterm election.

“There is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight,” McConnell said Monday in a speech on the Senate floor.

“And unless people like me show the American people that we’re willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government,” he said.

McConnell’s decision puts another nail in the coffin for earmarks, which for years have been tucked into appropriations bills by members of both parties to benefit projects in their states and districts. Earmarks have been a lucrative business on K Street, where lobbyists seek to work with members to insert favored projects in spending vehicles.

Now those halcyon days appear to be a thing of the past.

Read it all here.

Reward the Faithful Republicans

From the Washington Examiner

House GOPers who stayed true should be rewarded, not tossed aside
By: Mark Tapscott

Molly Hooper of The Hill has a long piece today on Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann's challenge of Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling to succeed Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana for House Republican Conference Chairman.

As Hooper notes, Bachmann is portraying the contest as the Establishment GOP versus the Tea Party. Such a narrative probably makes sense to liberal journalists, but it misrepresents a key aspect of the struggle in recent years between faithful House GOP conservatives like Hensarling and those such as Jerry Lewis and Hal Rogers who went whole-hog for the old politics of earmarks and pork barrel.

Tea Party advocates are absolutely right to take down the Lewis and Rogers brand of Me-Too Republicanism, but what about those like Hensarling among the House GOP caucus who have been fighting the congressional GOP's drift leftward for many years?

Molly Hooper makes a good point. Read the rest.

More Liberal Bias in the Press this time on the Republicans against the Tea Party

Of course you will probably on see this only in Big Journalism.  Sarah Palin told about it on the Fox sunday morning show with Chris Wallace.  She told him, he didn't comment.

Anchorage CBS Affiliate Caught on Voicemail Conspiring Against Alaska’s GOP Senate Candidate
posted by P.J. Salvatore
The following voice mail message was inadvertently left on the cell phone of Joe Miller campaign spokesperson Randy DeSoto.
The following is a transcript of a call recorded after CBS Alaska affiliate KTVA called Joe Miller’s Senate campaign spokesperson. The call failed to disconnect properly. It was later authenticated by McDermott, who sent a text to Randy DeSoto stating, “Damn iPhone… I left you a long message. I thought I hung up. Sorry.”

The following voice mail message was inadvertently left on the cell phone of Joe Miller campaign spokesperson Randy DeSoto.

The voices are believed to be those of the news director for CBS Anchorage affiliate KTVA, along with assignment editor Nick McDermott, and other reporters, openly discussing creating, if not fabricating, two stories about Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Joe Miller.

Audio KTVA -

Clearly the reporters were conspiring to set up some type of smear of Joe Miller. With glee, they even cite a recent controversy over an incident involving the Rand Paul campaign, while discussing how they would spread the story via social media after whatever incident they had in mind came off. It also brings to mind another recent episode that ended with Jerry Brown’s California gubernatorial campaign being caught up in controversy when someone from Brown’s camp called Brown’s opponent, Republican Meg Whitman, a “whore.”

Check out Big Journalism, it always has some stories the MSM ignore.

As Paul Harvey used to say "There's Good News Tonight"

Mexico has busted some Hezbollah supporters.  This is in Haaretz.

Mexico thwarts Hezbollah bid to set up South American network
Militant group employed Mexican nationals with ties to Lebanon to target Israel and the West, Kuwaiti newspaper reports.
By Jack Khoury and Haaretz Service
Mexico foiled an attempt by Hezbollah to establish a network in South America, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Hezbollah operatives employed Mexicans nationals with family ties to Lebanon to set up the network, designed to target Israel and the West, the Al-Seyassah daily said.
According to the report, Mexican police mounted a surveillance operation on the group's leader, Jameel Nasr, who traveled frequently to Lebanon to receive information and instructions from Hezbollah commanders there.
Police say Nasr also made frequent trips to other countries in Latin America, including a two-month stay in Venezuela in the summer of 2008.
Nasr was living in Tijuana, Mexico at the time of his arrest, the report said.
The report follows warnings from the United States that Hezbollah and its backer Iran are stepping up operations in the region.

Read the rest.

Good News for Tea Party people from the Texas Tribune:
Texas GOP Incorporates Some Tea Party Positions
by Morgan Smith
If the rainbow flavors of the Tea Party feature a common taste, it’s that of fiscally restrained government — and the anti-Washington and pro-state fervor that comes along with it. Not coincidentally, that was the overwhelming theme of the Republican Party of Texas’ recent convention, setting the tone — as the Democrats did in their state gathering — for the November general election.
Gov. Rick Perry railed against the “shameful excesses” of Washington in his opening address. U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, a keynote speaker, praised a limited government that acts within its “jurisdictional boundaries” and excoriated the “unlimited credit card people” that make up the “cabal” of the nation’s Democratic leadership. And Attorney General Greg Abbott's constant assurances that he was defending the state’s rights against the overreach of the federal government were characteristic of all the statewide officials’ nods toward the Constitution and states’ rights. Does all this rhetoric mean the Tea Party’s growing influence within the state GOP has initiated a shift in focus from social to fiscal issues?
It’s easy to read the ascendancy of Steve Munisteri as party chairman as a token of that movement. Munisteri campaigned on his business bona fides and the contemptible state of the party’s finances. Cathie Adams, a former leader of the Eagle Forum and Perry favorite who came of age politically prior to the Tea Party’s insurgency, is known for her ferocious social conservatism, not her fiscal know-how. Debra Medina, the self-appointed flag-bearer of grassroots conservatism who has a history of scrapes with state party leadership — and of alliance with U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, the former libertarian presidential candidate and a hero to some Tea Partiers — is claiming Adams’ defeat as part of her legacy.
Read the rest.

From KTVU in California
Flag Mural Reappears On Sunol Highway Hillside
SUNOL, CAlif. -- Angered by California Department of Transportation removal of an American flag mural from a highway hillside, two men have painted a replacement in time for the Fourth of July celebrations.


Steve Giordano and Jim Gallagher scaled the hillside on Saturday and had the flag back in place for Sunday’s Bay Area Independence Day celebrations. There was no word from Caltrans whether or not the new rendition would be removed.

Lindsey Graham, say what???

I swear,(in the old time sense of the word meaning as my grandma would have said, I Swan)  every  time Lindsey Graham says anything I just shake my head in wonderment.
He really, really, really doesn't get it.  The Washington Post has this article (Media Notes) by Howard Kurtz:
Lindsey Graham Spits out Tea Party
.......

"In a previous conversation, Graham told me: 'The problem with the Tea Party, I think it's just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out.' Now he said, in a tone of casual lament: 'We don't have a lot of Reagan-type leaders in our party. Remember Ronald Reagan Democrats? I want a Republican that can attract Democrats.' Chortling, he added, 'Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today.' "
Yow. He's saying the tea party has no answers, and that his party has moved so far to the right that Reagan would be seen as a squishy moderate.
Graham didn't duck when asked why the Original Maverick, John McCain, wasn't with him on his compromise efforts: "John's got a primary. He's got to focus on getting re-elected. I don't want my friend to get beat."

It is all just ridiculous. Read the whole thing to see what all is said.  Graham tries so hard to be one of the guys in Washington it makes you think he has no friends. 

Tea Party At Ingleside On the Bay

We had a great time.  I estimate the crowd to be 150 at its highest point. We had six people from Rockport that I saw.  Thanks to Margaret Hoese's work in  spreading the word in Aransas Pass they had a good crowd show up from there.  I counted at least 12 and then stopped counting as they came. Here are some photos.
Just Getting started:

Here are some signs:

Two from Rockport:

I wish I had made notes on all the speakers and people I met, but I didn't. I will say this, you will be hearing more about Jessica Puente-Bradshaw and a PAC to help defeat Ortiz. She is from the valley and she can have a great impact down there.  I will do what I can here to help her.

Dan Quayle advice to the Tea Parties

From the Washington Post he is saying what we know,
no national leader need apply.

Dan Quayle: Don't let the tea party go Perot

Like many influential causes before it, the "tea party" movement appeared on the scene uninvited by the political establishment. Democrats in the White House and in Congress recognize it for what it is -- a spontaneous and pointed response to the Obama agenda -- but some Republican leaders still aren't sure what to make of it, as tea partiers have risen on their own and stirred up trouble in GOP primaries.

Sometimes in politics it's easier to recognize foes than friends, and this may be why Democrats have been quicker to figure out the movement's potential. They know that in November's midterm elections, Republicans will gain mightily from a growing discontent with the administration, which has disappointed the independent voters who made the difference for Barack Obama in 2008.

A close look at the tea party membership will find many of those independents who went for Obama but now regret it. After sweeping into power, Democrats assumed they had redrawn the political map forever, and they took this as a mandate to remake the federal government forever. To the surprise of millions of their supporters, they plowed ahead with federal control over health care and new spending financed by a decade of trillion-dollar deficits. Along the way, they have tried to brush off the Republican congressional minority as little more than spectators to one-party rule.

Read the rest,

Tea Party Must Walk the Talk: Part 4

This is Part IV (the last) of my essay on why the Tea Party should remain small and localized to maintain its momentum, strength and impact.

The Tea Party will work best by being what it is best at: normal folks, of many different political and economic persuasions, coming together and voicing their discontent – then using that to get people to be politically active -- running for office or simply showing up at the polls to stand up for – and vote for – what is right, and makes this country great.

The existence of the Tea Party is totally compatible with the existence of all the other political parties. And in its simplicity, it can continue to be a powerful, election-changing force.

But, once again, here is my warning: if it tries to grow itself into a major, political movement, it will fail. And rightly so. Just as the big Democratic and Republican machines are failing. They are failing because they are now controlled by "the system" -- which has metastisized into a political behemoth owned by lobbyists and the beltway network, not the people. That is how the Washington system is working now. For the Tea Party to think it can become highly-organized and be different in the current system is naïve and would be poor planning. As well as a going-out-of-business plan.

Save the Tea Party. Help get this country back to what made it great. Network, but do not organize nationally, be active locally, don’t centralize. Limit yourselves to small, local groups who preach the constitution and rally voters. Expand the power by expanding the number of small groups. That is how big things can get done!

It has to Start With US

The LA Times has an article we all need to read and make notes on.
'Tea party' activists filter into GOP at ground level
By Kathleen Hennessey

The conservative movement is urging its members to seek positions as Republican precinct representatives. Their goal is to remake the party - and U.S. politics - from within.

First there was the "tea party" protester. Now meet the Tea-publican.

Conservative activists who once protested the political establishment are now flooding the lowest level of the Republican Party apparatus hoping to take over the party they once scorned -- one precinct at a time.

Across the country, tea party groups that had focused on planning rallies are educating members on how to run for GOP precinct representative positions. The representatives help elect county party leaders, who write the platform and, in some places, determine endorsements.

"That's where it all starts. That's where the process of picking candidates begins. It's not from [GOP leader] Michael Steele's office down. It's from the ground up," said Philip Glass, whose National Precinct Alliance is among the groups advocating the strategy. "The party is over for the old guard."

Read it all here.

Time for Tea Party to Walk the Talk: Part 2

This is Part II of my essay on why the Tea Party should remain small and localized to maintain its momentum, strength and impact.

If the Tea Party tries to go “national” it will collapse on its own weight like the Democratic and Republican parties are doing now. Except it will collapse faster and more easily because it is new and amateurish. And then it will be absorbed back into the three groups -- Dems, GOP and independents -- because people will be disillusioned, once again, by the political process that does not work, but keeps getting repeated. Doing the same thing gets the same results.

Scott Brown was not elected because of the Massachusetts Tea Party. He was elected because people wanted to say no to government’s socialist trend – specifically the movements to take over healthcare, automobiles and energy.

Currently history looks like it's going to be repeated with the Tea Party. It will be a paragraph in history books ten years from now. If we act now, it can still exist in ten years and continue to help keep this country on track. But it will take the same discipline the Tea Party movement is asking of our Congress -- to limit yourselves.

Desire to grow bigger is part of the problem. It is not the solution. People think "we must do more!" Not true. There is huge power and sense in doing nothing. Being "the party of 'No'" was the most powerful thing for the Republicans this past year. Refusing to buy in to the Left's panicked cry of "We Must Do Something!" was wonderful, and the right thing to do with “Comprehensive Healthcare” takeover and Cap n Trade (energy takeover) movements. Those campaigns were a jump off a political cliff into a new regulatory depth and power over individuals and private business that the government simply should not have. And it was stopped by saying no.

Limited government starts with the individual. And it’s time for the Tea Party to limit itself to a few basic tenets in small, localized groups, and keep itself more like states – not a federal government. Do not "go national". Don't try to be a party competiting with the Big Two. The Tea Party should limit its focus to rallying more and more people to make the system work again -- by getting more people to be active in politics – starting with the simplest of activities: VOTING.

Look for part 3 next week.