Posts

Primary Season 2014: Grassroots America is Here to Stay

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: APBy Matt Kibbe.

Politics is a lagging indicator of real social change. To understand what is really going on, you have to take a step back to see the trend line.

So I’m not that surprised that so many political reporters got last night’s results so wrong. Too many analysts don’t understand what’s really happening; others aren’t even willing to try, settling for the easy and simplistic “Establishment Wins, Tea Party Loses” narrative instead. But that narrative misses what actually happened.

I would like to win every political battle we engage in, even as we try to topple well-funded establishment Goliaths. We always fight to win, but we won’t win them all.

We saw some real wins for the freedom movement last night. In Georgia’s 11th District, Barry Loudermilk came in first in his primary with 39 percent of the vote, and is headed to the July 22 runoff. Loudermilk is a true champion of limited government, and will advocate for freedom in health care and education in Congress. Also, Dr. Bob Johnson made his way to the July runoff in his primary in Georgia’s 1st District.

In addition to expanding the Freedom Caucus, we also saw the return of some old favorites from our previous electoral battles.

Read more from this story HERE.
________________________________________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: Fox NewsHow Conservatives Can Defeat the Media

By J.R. Dunn.

One unavoidable truth that must be faced regarding the media and 2014 is this: the American media has the conservatives’ number. They know exactly where the blind spots are, which are the most sensitive points, and how to do the most damage. And they have absolutely no compunction about taking advantage of it.

The relationship between conservatives and the media recalls the old skit by Monty Python concerning “the advantages of not being seen.” A plummy voice calls out, “Will Christine please stand up?” Christine rises from behind a bush, there’s an explosion, and down again she goes. “Will Todd stand up?” Here’s Todd, here’s the explosion, no more Todd. “Cliven, please…”

A simple formula, and one that always seems to work, no matter how often it’s attempted. Christine, after all, was blown up repeatedly by Bill Maher throughout the late 1990s before she even ran for office. Todd was vaporized in 2012, and Cliven, well, that was only last month. A movement made up of people who simply will not learn from experience would appear to be uneducable. But we’re going to try anyway.

Sensing easy prey in people who so avidly cooperate in their own destruction, the media has relentlessly expanded its strategy for portraying conservatives as gibbering idiots for whom no sane voter would press the lever. For decades the media has collaborated with Democrats and the liberal elites in creating a superstructure that exists for the sole purpose of humiliating conservative candidates and spokesmen. It is proactive, universal, and often quite successful. It has also been virtually ignored by the conservative establishment, which consistently behaves as if American politics is a gentleman’s pastime operating by the same rules that it did in the late 19th century.

It can be said without exaggeration that the major public uproars of the 2012 campaign were either media-generated or immediately exploited by the media/liberal superstructure.

Read more from this story HERE.

Harry Reid’s War on Conservative Speech

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHall Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has mentioned Charles and David Koch over 134 times from the floor of the Senate. Last week Sen. Reid announced that he would bring a constitutional amendment to the Senate floor that would allow Congress to set even more limits on political donations. Make no mistake, this isn’t a call to get “special interest money” out of politics. It is a directive from the most powerful man in the Senate to punish two private citizens for their beliefs and success.

In an interview with BuzzFeed, Senator Reid said, “The Koch Brothers, I’m not walking away from them. I’m going to be on their tail for the whole campaign because if they think Romney was watched closely by me, that’s nothing compared to what it’s going to be like with the Koch Brothers.”

In his call for the amendment on Thursday, Senator Reid made the false claim that this would “level the playing field” and “make campaigns fair.” But what is “fair”?

Is it fair that unions and liberal donors like George Soros and Tom Steyer aren’t singled out as, Reid called the Kochs, the greatest threats to America because they donate to political causes?

Is it fair for a government official to call people “un-American” because of their political beliefs?

Read more from this story HERE.

Why True American Conservatives Cannot Be Extremist and How Progressives are Ultimately Tyrants

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

It seems only yesterday, before the soothing elixir of “hope and change” was spoonfed to us by present-President Barack Obama, that Republicans could disagree with Democrats without being branded “teabaggers,” KKK-members, anarchists, Nazis, bomb throwers, arsonists, political terrorists or extremists.

The unspeakable crime of conservatives? Their heartless desire to live their own lives and to be left alone by the bullying U.S. government.

What has been the conservative outcry since disco was still a thing? Follow the Constitution, be fiscally responsible, and restore limited government.

Not to impose their will on anyone; and if anything, simply to work, prosper, express themselves freely and be allowed to watch the new season of 24 in peace.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t jibe with the progressives’ plans for control over Americans’ lives – regarding everything from education to dish detergent. There is no natural barrier to the left’s powerlust: the “progressive” seeks no less than to control the social and physical environment of all mankind.

Read more from this story HERE.

IRS Revokes Conservative Group’s Tax-Exempt Status Over Anti-Clinton Statements

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Internal Revenue Servicehas revoked the tax-exempt status of a conservative charity for making statements critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry, according to a USA Today report.

The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, based in Manassas, Va., “has shown a pattern of deliberate and consistent intervention in political campaigns” and made “repeated statements supporting or opposing various candidates by expressing its opinion of the respective candidate’s character and qualifications,” according to a written determination released Friday by the IRS.

The IRS said the center acted as an “action organization” by publishing alerts on its website for columns written by its president, former FBI agent Gary Aldrich, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

The IRS pointed out a column that appeared to be published by Townhall on April 2, 2004, in which Mr. Aldrich wrote, “if John Kerry promises otherwise ill-informed swing-voters lower gas prices at the pump, more than a few greedy, registered ignoramuses will follow him anywhere,” the Free Beacon reported.

Read more from this story HERE.

WATCH: Female Campus Reform Reporter Bullied at ‘Inclusive’ Feminist Conference for Being ‘Conservative’

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Campus Reform

Photo Credit: Campus Reform

Campus Reform’s Katherine Timpf attended the National Young Feminist Leadership Conference (NYFLC) — an event which promised to be about “inclusivity” and welcoming everyone — only to be told that “conservative” women were not welcome.

Timpf attempted to ask students’ their opinions on feminism, but conference organizers made an announcement advising participants not to talk to Campus Reform because it was a “conservative” outlet.

The organizers also followed Timpf around the conference to interrupt her conversations with students to tell them the same thing.

“They’re a group that’s conservative, so what we are fighting for is not something…” one organizer told a student who was talking with Timpf, prompting the student to walk away.

Read more from this story HERE.

House Leadership Makes Another End-Run Around Conservatives

/13 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Donkey Hotey

Photo Credit: Donkey Hotey

Once again, House GOP leaders have shown why it is important for us to elect enough stalwarts to replace the entire leadership team.

Every Republican complains about spending. One establishment Republican is even running an ad promising to “castrate” D.C. spending. Yet few of them are committed to blocking a new spending increase, much less roll back existing programs. Today, House leaders brought a bill to the floor that will increase spending. They didn’t have enough votes to pass it, so they decided to ram it through by voice vote.

Every year, due to the lack of free-market healthcare for seniors, Congress must supplement payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients. Government intervention into the healthcare market has precipitated such inflationary pressure in the healthcare sector that the government reimbursement rate, known as the SGR formula, is insufficient to cover the costs of Medicare payments. In order to rectify the situation, instead of passing free-market Medicare reform, Congress passes a temporary fix (doc fix) every year to reimburse doctors for the underpayments, which are roughly 24 percent of their payments.

After failing to adopt the annual temporary “doc fix” last December, the House passed a bill two weeks ago that will permanently boost payments and pay for the increased spending by tying it to a long-term delay of the individual mandate in Obamacare. H.R. 4015, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act, passed the House with 12 Democrats joining every Republican in the chamber. This bill actually used a legitimate offset to end this charade of temporary fixes until we can finally impose free market structural reforms on the single-payer Medicare system.

After Senate Democrats balked at the proposal, Republicans decided to give in and pass a temporary extension. They used a hodgepodge of tenuous offsets spread out mainly over the next 5-10 years to compensate for an immediate expense that will undoubtedly reoccur every year under the 10-year budget frame…

Read more from this story HERE.

Conservatives’ Frustrations Mount with GOP Establishment: Compromise Trumps Principle

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Charles DharapakProminent Republicans see no evidence that their party’s electoral successes have advanced the cause of limited government and moral governance.

“Today, our party’s leaders act like thermometers measuring the temperature of the electorate. We need to be the thermostats and set the temperature,” said Rob McCoy, pastor of Calvary Chapel, a few minutes’ drive from the Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif.

For Republicans like Mr. McCoy, who is running for a state Assembly seat, the national party has racked up decades of compromises that have led to relentless government expansion, ever-increasing spending growth, continually mounting national debt and growing intrusiveness into the private lives of Americans.

From her George Mason University’s Mercatus Center office in Arlington, Va., economist Veronique de Rugy looks at the objective evidence of the Republican Party’s effect on limiting government.

“Every president has spent more total real dollars in his last budget than in his first,” she said, noting that Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson increased spending by 38 percent, but George W. Bush, twice elected on a conservative Republican platform, increased spending by 53 percent during his presidency.

Read more this story HERE.

‘McCarthyite’: Cruz Applauds Hollywood’s Secret Conservative Group’s Refusal to Give IRS Names of Its Members

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Hollywood Reporter The group rightly refused a request from the IRS to reveal the names of its members, says the Republican senator from Texas; “FOA should respond to the IRS as it would to any McCarthyite request for information.”

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz will visit Hollywood’s not-so-secret group of conservatives called Friends of Abe next month, and he tells The Hollywood Reporter he will address what he considers is a government effort to intimidate artists who criticize President Barack Obama and his policies.

FOA, a group of about 2,000 entertainment industry workers, likes to remain under the radar. But The New York Times on Jan. 22 revealed the group’s two-year-long effort to be recognized as a tax-free charity organization. One thing the IRS has wanted from FOA is its membership list, and Cruz says the group has been right to refuse such a request, which he says stems from “an abuse of power.”

“FOA should respond to the IRS as it would to any McCarthyite request for information,” Cruz says in an interview. “The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that Americans have freedom of association and that groups should not be forced to reveal the names of members, because that information could be abused for political gain. There has already been an incident where the IRS leaked that kind of information about a group.”

Cruz says the IRS’ treatment of FOA is part of a pattern that includes the arrests of Dinesh D’Souza, who made 2016: Obama’s America, and Nakoula Nakoula, whose video, Innocence of Muslims, was blamed for causing the riots in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead. After the Benghazi attack, Nakoula spent several months in prison on charges unrelated to the video. And D’Souza, who is expected to release his next film, America, on July 4, is accused of violating campaign finance laws by raising more money than he should have for a friend who sought a U.S. Senate seat in New York.

Read more this story HERE.

Rep. Louie Gohmert Launches Conservative PAC to Defend Candidates Against Establishment Republican Attacks

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Joshua RobertsRepublican Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert is launching a new political action committee to help defend Houseconservatives from 2014 attacks from mainstream Republican PACs, Gohmert announced exclusively to The Daily Caller.

The new GOH Conservative PAC, inspired by the Senate Conservatives Fund, “defends conservative Republicans from the attacks that come from the mainstream,” Gohmert told TheDC. “That’s been a problem, we’ve seen in some races, where we’ve had leadership come and play and there was no counterbalance. So I’m going to do something about it.”

Gohmert detailed a long history of struggle and a do-nothing spirit within the Republican caucus, and the “depression” conservative House members felt when Speaker John Boehner conceded that Republicans shut down the government, a statement that must have been based on “reading the mainstream media and failing to read the record.”

“There’s a war against the tea party. There’s a war against conservatives, we’re told. If somebody declares war on me I’m not just going to lie down and take it. I’m going to fight,” Gohmert told TheDC. ”You’ve got to have money to fight opposition. The leaders in the party raise money so that [makes congressmen] feel they have to stay close to them. If we raise money on our own we can take a stand.”

Read more this story HERE.

Vulnerable Dems Seek More Aggressive IRS Crackdown on Conservative Groups for 2014 Elections

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP/Jacquelyn MartinEven with so many unanswered questions still surrounding the Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal, Democrats are demanding the tax agency be even more aggressive in monitoring spending from outside groups going into the 2014 midterm elections.

“There are two things you don’t want in political money, in the fundraising world and expenditure world,” Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) told The Hill newspaper. “You don’t want secret money, and you don’t want unlimited money, and that’s what we have now.”

Pryor is considered among the most endangered Senate Democrats up for re-election this year.

But that’s no reason to attack the First Amendment rights of citizen groups, said Washington attorney Cleta Mitchell, who is suing on behalf of several conservative organizations given extra scrutiny by the IRS in the 2012 election cycle.

“It is absolutely outrageous that these elected officials are distressed about having a citizens group discuss their voting records – and then calling on the IRS or any agency of government to ‘protect’ them from having to explain, justify or defend their voting records in Congress,” Mitchell told TheBlaze.

Read more from this story HERE.