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Robert Reich Accuses Tea Party Of ‘Plot To Undermine’ U.S. Government

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Photo Credit: Getty Images In a column posted Friday at Salon.com, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich accused the Tea Party of engaging in a plot to “undermine the government of the United States, to destroy much of its capacity to do the public’s business, and to sow distrust among the population,” Breitbart.com reported Saturday.

According to Reich, sequestration is “only the start.”

“What they set out to do was not simply change Washington but eviscerate the U.S. government — ‘drown it in the bathtub,’ in the words of their guru Grover Norquist – slashing Social Security and Medicare, ending worker protections we’ve had since the 1930s, eroding civil rights and voting rights, terminating programs that have helped the poor for generations, and making it impossible for the government to invest in our future,” he added.

Joel B. Pollack reminded readers that sequestration was Obama’s idea — something he said Reich downplayed. Pollack then asked if, in Reich’s view, Obama is “some kind of Manchurian Tea Party candidate designed to demonstrate the failure of liberalism?”

Pollack also observed that it was Obama who tried to stir up fear and anger among the American people with dire predictions of gloom and doom. “And,” Pollack added, “perhaps Reich should be reminded that it was Democrats who consciously chose a strategy of fear in selling Obamacare to the public.”

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Tea Partyers Fight For Soul of GOP

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Photo Credit: APThough years in the brewing, the internal fight over the direction of the Republican Party has exploded onto front pages and political talk shows this month after strategist Karl Rove announced the formation of a new political action committee designed to promote more electable candidates.

Fed up with what they see as a sellout of their small-government agenda and tired of Election Day disappointments, tea partyers and many conservatives are firing back.

The outcome of the battle will define the party and how it tackles everything from foreign policy to national security and immigration on Capitol Hill, where GOP leaders and tea partyers have been butting heads over taxes and spending.

“This is a fight,” Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, one of the largest branches of the grass-roots movement.

“It is a fight between the people across the country who think they know how to live their lives best and pick their own representatives, against the establishment that thinks it can decide what is best for us through laws, regulations, political consultants and a political class who thinks they should deem who are the most winnable candidates in any given election.”

Mr. Rove, who was former President George W. Bush’s chief strategist through his two presidential wins, is the father of the new Conservative Victory Project, which is designed to provide a counterbalance for influential groups such as the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks that have bucked the GOP establishment on occasion.

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Texas ‘Cruz Missile’ — Senator Standing By His Principles, Ready To Take The Heat

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Photo Credit: APTexas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has earned a few nicknames in the brief seven weeks he’s been in Congress – including the unflattering “Senator No.” But nobody can say the freshman senator has broken his campaign promise to shake up Washington upon arrival.

The Tea Party-backed candidate has so far made good on vows to be combative and uncompromising in his adherence to conservative principles.

The 42-year-old Cruz has already voted against Senate rule changes to modestly curb filibusters, aid for Superstorm Sandy victims and the Violence Against Women Act.

He also was one of only three “no” votes against Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry’s nomination to be secretary of State. And he publicly skewered President Obama’s nominee for Defense secretary, former Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel.

All of that has helped Cruz earn such nicknames as “Cruz Missile,” “Senator No” and even “The GOP’s Nasty Newcomer.” He also was featured in the past few weeks by Politico and The New York Times.

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Super PAC: Progressive/Tea Party Alliance Aiming To Topple Mitch McConnell?

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Photo Credit: APRepublican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is becoming increasingly concerned about his 2014 re-election chances in Kentucky, according to a progressive Super PAC that says it is partnering with unnamed Tea Party groups to paint McConnell as a corrupt insider and knock him out of his longtime Senate seat in a Republican primary.

A recent McConnell campaign fundraising email accused liberals of “attempting to infiltrate conservative” groups in Kentucky. Another McConnell campaign email accused the liberal organization MoveOn.org of supporting a “phony tea party” in an attempt to beat the senior senator. Though MoveOn disputed the McConnell campaign’s charges, the progressive super PAC Progress Kentucky is openly waging the kind of attack that McConnell seems worried about.

“Mitch McConnell has recently contributed through [his wife] Elaine Chao’s family $80,000 to the Kentucky GOP,” Shawn Reilly, executive director of the progressive super PAC Progress Kentucky, told The Daily Caller. “It looks to me like he’s trying to buy the Kentucky Republican Party in order to try to avoid a primary.”

“He also set up his campaign office a year earlier than he ever has, and he placed it in the same office where his 1984 campaign — his first successful Senate race — was housed,” Reilly added. “I hear from people that he’s pretty superstitious.”

Progress Kentucky, which filed as a Kentucky-based super PAC on Dec. 13, says it is making a concerted push to align itself with tea party groups in order to field and support a viable Republican primary challenger for McConnell. Reilly said that his group is already in productive communication with tea party leaders across the state.

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Tea Party Favorite Confirms Interest in McConnell’s Seat

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photo credit: Donkey HoteyMatt Bevin, a potential Tea Party challenger to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), confirmed on Tuesday that he has met with groups in Kentucky about launching a Senate bid, but has not made a final decision.

“As a point of clarification, Matt has made no final decision with respect to this race. He has, however, met in recent weeks with various individuals and groups who have expressed their frustration with their current representation in Washington DC and have encouraged him to consider entering the race,” reads an email sent “on behalf of Matt Bevin” by Amy Lowe.

Lowe is listed as operations manager at Waycross Partners, the investment firm at which Bevin is an adviser.

“These meetings, together with the recent reaction to the possibility of a primary race, have served to reaffirm the general sense of political disenchantment among many voters in Kentucky that has been widely reflected in recent articles and polls,” she wrote.

The Hill reported Monday that Bevin had been in touch with local Tea Party leaders about potentially launching a bid.

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Critics Slam Taxpayer-Funded Political Attack: National Cancer Institute Funds Study Calling Tea Party Tobacco-funded AstroTurf

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Photo Credit: Free BeaconCritics of a new study on the Tea Party movement that was funded by a federal agency are lashing out at what they see as improper taxpayer funding for academic work with an overtly political message.

The study in question purports to show that the Tea Party movement was created by and works to advance the interests of the tobacco industry.

Its critics have rejected the study’s findings and expressed particular concern that taxpayer funds were used to support “politically motivated attacks,” in the words of one Tea Party-aligned congressman.

The study, conducted by three academics at the University of California San Francisco’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, claims that the Tea Party was actually created in the 1990s by conservative groups fighting anti-tobacco policies with money they had received from tobacco companies.

“Rather than being purely a grassroots movement, the Tea Party has been influenced by decades of astroturfing by tobacco and other corporate interests to develop a grassroots network to support their corporate agendas, even though their members may not support those agendas,” the study states.

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Major Networks Refuse To Cover Rand Paul’s Tea Party Response

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerKentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul delivered the tea party response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday night — but even if you were watching any of the major television networks, you wouldn’t have been able to see it.

Unlike President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address and the official Republican response from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Paul’s speech was watchable only through online streaming.

“I speak to you tonight from Washington, D.C.,” Paul said at the beginning of the address. “The state of our economy is tenuous, but our people remain the greatest example of freedom and prosperity the world has ever known.”

The tea party senator then contrasted former President Ronald Reagan’s skeptical view of government with Obama’s worldview. “President Obama believes government is the solution: More government, more taxes, more debt,” Paul said. “What the president fails to grasp is that the American system that rewards hard work is what made America so prosperous.”

Paul pointed to the ideas of limited government espoused by Scottish philosopher Adam Smith in “The Wealth of Nations.”

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Video: Rand Paul Responds To The President’s State of the Union Address

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In a State of the Union response sponsored by the Tea Party Express, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul spoke of competing visions of economics: Robin Hood vs. Adam Smith.

Senator Paul insisted that the road ahead is the proven road mapped out for us by Adam Smith.

In telling personal fashion, he described Washington as being worse than he ever imagined, insisting that the spending problem in Congress must be addressed. He also said that Americans should impose term limits on politicians who refuse to rein in wasteful spending.

See video below:

No More Karl Rove Candidates

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photo credit: jd_wmwmKarl Rove has declared war on grass-roots conservatives and tea partiers. Rove, who had the richest super PAC in 2012 (American Crossroads, which reportedly spent $300 million in the 2012 election cycle), has started a new fund called Conservative Victory Project to spend big bucks in the 2014 Republican primaries to defeat Republican candidates not approved by the Establishment.

Rove’s big-money spending last year, which was similarly designed to help only Establishment candidates, especially if they had defeated a real conservative in the primary, was notoriously unsuccessful. Of the 31 races in which Rove aired TV ads, Republicans won only 9, so his donors got little return on their investment.

Establishment losers included Rick Berg who lost in North Dakota and Denny Rehberg who lost in Montana, even while Romney was carrying both those states. Other Establishment losers were George Allen in Virginia, Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin, Connie Mack in Florida and Heather Wilson in New Mexico.

Meanwhile, Rove was helping Harry Reid to keep control of the Senate by trying to defeat real conservatives nominated by grass-roots Republicans. Rove made nasty and hurtful remarks about conservative candidates he didn’t like.

After Missouri Republicans nominated Todd Akin in the primary, Rove told his super PAC donors that they should all apply pressure to “sink Todd Akin,” and that if Akin were “found mysteriously murdered, don’t look for my whereabouts.” When this malicious comment was reported by Businessweek, Rove tried to pass it off as a joke, but suggesting the murder of a congressman is not funny.

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Rand Paul To Give Official Tea Party Response To SOTU

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreSen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., will deliver the Tea Party’s official response to President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, Tea Party Express announced on Friday.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., will deliver the Republican response.

“Since the President has been re-elected, the debt has continued to skyrocket and unemployment has ticked up, but he has offered no solutions and has shown no leadership,” said Tea Party Express Chairman Amy Kremer. “In contrast, Senator Rand Paul has put forth solutions that would spur economic growth and rein in Washington’s out-of-control spending. We are excited that Senator Paul, a conservative leader and strong voice for the Tea Party movement, will be offering our perspective on the state of the union.”

The first Tea Party response was given by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., in 2011, and former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain delivered last year’s response.

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