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Chamber of Commerce to Spend $50 Million In Efforts to Crush Tea Party

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

On Christmas Day, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it plans to spend at least $50 million to “support establishment, business-friendly candidates in primaries and the general election, with an aim of trying to win a Republican Senate majority.”

“Our No. 1 focus is to make sure, when it comes to the Senate, that we have no loser candidates,” said U.S. Chamber of Commerce top political strategist Scott Reed. “That will be our mantra: No fools on our ticket.”

GOP establishment officials hope to elide Tea Party challenges by shrinking the nomination process down to a tight four-month window replete with penalties for states that shirk the rules.

Read more from this story HERE.

MSNBC Panelist’s Charge of Tea Party Racism Elicits Strong Response: ‘I Will Not Sit Here and Allow You to Say That’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Newsbusters

Photo Credit: Newsbusters

Democratic strategist and former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Angela Rye picked the wrong panel Sunday to accuse the Tea Party of being “racial.”

When he heard this during his appearance on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry show, Republican strategist Ron Christie strongly objected saying, “Racial! I will not sit here and allow you to say that!” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

During a lengthy political discussion with Christie as the lone conservative against four extreme liberals (including the host, of course), Rye said, “I was just thinking, to me, in 2010, the Republican infighting took a particularly dangerous tone because it wasn’t just about infighting anymore. It was about taking our country back with the resurrection of the Tea Party. And it was very, very racial, whether any of them will admit it or not.”

Christie quickly refuted this saying, “Racial! I will not sit here and allow you to say that!”

“I said it, and I’ll say it again,” Rye responded.

Read more from this story HERE.

John Boehner Fed Up With ‘Ridiculous’ Tea Party Intransigence on Budget

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Photo Credit: ABC News

Photo Credit: ABC News

House Speaker John Boehner blasted outside groups for their criticism of the bipartisan budget deal, delivering an unusually sharp rebuke today to tea party and conservative activists while signaling he has had just about enough of their intransigence.

“They’re using our members and they’re using the American people for their own goals,” Boehner said, his voice rising with anger during a news conference at the Capitol today. “This is ridiculous. Listen, if you are for more deficit reduction, you are for this agreement.”

From Boehner, it was a rare and pointed public dressing-down of Club for Growth, Heritage Action, the Koch Brothers and other conservative groups that have urged Republicans to oppose the budget deal. Boehner openly questioned the motives of such groups, demonstrating a far more aggressive posture than he usually takes.

In response to Boehner’s comments, Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said his group will still stand with lawmakers who oppose the deal.

“We stand with Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Tom Coburn, Rand Paul, members of the Republican Study Committee and every other fiscal conservative who opposes the Ryan-Murray deal,” Chocola said in a statement.

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University Sends Email to Alumni Equating the Tea Party with the KKK

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Photo Credit: Public domain/Library of Congress

Photo Credit: Public domain/Library of Congress

A public university sent an email to alumni highlighting the esteemed research of one of its professors — research that notes many similarities between the old Ku Klux Klan and its modern-day equivalent, the tea party.

The University of Washington’s email to alumni asked the question four separate times: “Is The Tea Party like the Ku Klux Klan?” Christopher Parker, a UW political science professor, argues in a new book that there are major similarities. The book is titled “Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in Contemporary America.”

“In this commentary from Professor Christopher Parker he argues that recent research shows racism is a strong indicator of Tea Party support,” said the email, which plugs Parker’s book.

Parker provided very specific examples in the commentary, according to Campus Reform.

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Will Failing to Support This Movement Prove the GOP’s Demise?

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Dear Friend of Liberty,

Current GOP Establishment leadership “wisdom” in Washington is saying it is time to stand up to the Tea Party and show them who is boss.

This misguided way of thinking seeks to oppose a movement that stands for a limited federal government, grounded in the Constitution, which should be exactly what the Republican Party is for, especially at this critical moment in our nation’s history. 

A return to these bedrock principles is the only hope for restoring the United States to a land where freedom and opportunity thrive.

The passion, principles, and political engagement of the Tea Party made the Republican Party relevant again. It fueled the GOP’s winning back control of the House and gave it the chance to get back in the game in the Senate only two years after the devastating losses of 2008, in which the Democrats not only took the Presidency and strengthened their grip on the House, but won a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. 

It was the Tea Party that understood immediately the fundamental transformation of America that Barack Obama and the Democrats were seeking. It was the Tea Party that stood, and continues to stand, in opposition to that socialist agenda. And it is the Tea Party that is fighting for a new birth of freedom in America.

Here in Alaska, Senator Mark Begich has been a faithful foot soldier in Barack Obama’s and Harry Reid’s march towards their socialist, utopian dream. From voting for the trillion dollar failed stimulus package, to exponentially growing the entitlement state as the nation racked up $7 trillion in new debt, to his 60th and deciding vote for ObamaCare, Senator Begich has been an unquestioning “yes” for the Democrat agenda. 

We have the chance to replace Mark Begich next year, but it must be with someone who is committed to a fundamental restoration of America. In this great challenge, a “go along to get along” Republican mentality will not be enough to stop and roll back the encroachments of the federal government during the last several years. 

You know where I stand; I’m not “Johnny come lately” to this fight! 

You don’t have to wonder whether I’ll fight for your Constitutional Liberties. You don’t have to wonder whether I’ll advocate for the free market. You don’t have to wonder whether I’ll speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves. You know I will.

I have been a strong opponent of ObamaCare from the start. I have advocated for its repeal. And I am the only candidate in this senate race who has embraced the accountability of signing the Senate Conservatives Fund Pledge to Defund Obamacare!

As Alaska’s next United States Senator, I will stand with leaders like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, because they understand the grave consequences to our nation if we fail to act and act soon to restore fiscal soundness and our constitutional freedoms.

Truthfully, my opponents will likely talk a good talk in the months ahead, but when given the opportunity to support tea party reform in the past, they chose the establishment status quo with its bailouts, crony capitalism and trillions in deficit spending. 

The contrast couldn’t be clearer. 

Our country is at peril, and there is little time to turn it around. It’s time to take a bold stand for the country we love and fight for its future!

When I am elected to the United States Senate, I pledge to confront this lawless administration and its radical socialist agenda. You can bank on it.

I cannot do this alone; but together we can. If you want a fighter in the United States Senate, I need your help today.

Thanks for your generosity and support!

Because America is worth fighting for . . .

Joe

Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck Take Establishment GOP To Task (+video)

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Glenn Beck joined Sean Hannity on his TV program Monday night to discuss the current state of the establishment GOP, which both agreed is hostile to Tea Party conservatives like Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

The former co-workers also talked about a few solutions that could help get the country headed in the right direction. Beck said “progressivism” in the Republican Party has pitted those who “believe in big government” against those fighting to restore the U.S. Constitution and change things in Washington, D.C.

“There is a lot of progressive Republicans,” he said. “And you have to remember, Theodore Roosevelt is the guy who started it. They believe in big government. And I’m sorry to say Sean, and you know this to be true, we send people in there, and it’s like sending them to the lion’s den, just waiting to be eaten by the machine that is Washington now.”

Hannity went on to explain that former President Ronald Reagan challenged a sitting Republican president in 1976. “That’s kind of Tea Party-ish to me,” the host said.

Beck agreed, explaining that Reagan was also attacked as a “loose-cannon” who was going to “destroy the Republican Party.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Mitch McConnell: Time for GOP Establishment to ‘Stand Up To’ Tea Party

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Photo Credit: APSenate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican up for re-election in 2014, told the Washington Examiner in an interview published Friday that he believes it is time for the GOP establishment to stop conservatives and Tea Partiers.

McConnell argued it is “utter nonsense” for groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), which has endorsed his primary challenger businessman Matt Bevin, to argue that Republicans like him in Congress are not fighting hard enough to defeat Democrats. In the interview, McConnell focused on deriding Tea Partiers for leading the effort to defund Obamacare—something that, coupled with the Democrats’ refusal to compromise on the soon-to-fail Obamacare, resulted in a government shutdown.

“The Senate Conservatives Fund is giving conservatism a bad name,” McConnell told the Examiner for the piece titled “The Establishment Fights Back: Mitch McConnell leads GOP battle against Tea Party insurgents.”

“They’re [SCF] participating in ruining the [Republican] brand,” McConnell said. “What they do is mislead their donors into believing the reason that we can’t get as good an outcome as we’d like to get is not because of a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president, but because Republicans are insufficiently committed to the cause—which is utter nonsense.”

McConnell had not only personally opposed, during the shutdown, the effort from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) to defund Obamacare, he actually whipped votes against them, according to a Congressional source. Cruz and Lee had staked their battle on a key cloture vote that would have, if McConnell had united the Republican Party to deliver 41 votes against the use of taxpayer money to fund Obamacare, stopped Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from using a procedural ploy to fund Obamacare with just 51 votes.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alleged Obama Letter to Texas School Teacher Calls Critics ‘Tea-Baggers’

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller President Barack Obama allegedly used the term “tea-baggers” to describe members of the Tea Party movement in a handwritten response to a fifth-grade school teacher’s letter criticizing Obamacare.

The crude and derogatory term, which is brimming with sexual innuendo, appears in a note penned on stationery bearing the words “The White House” at the top. The man who says he received the missive is Thomas Ritter of Irving, Texas, reports the Daily Mail.

Ritter, 49, had written a letter to Obama before Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, and well before the law’s embarrassingly disastrous launch.

“This bill has caused such a divisive, derisive and toxic environment,” he wrote. “The reality is that any citizen that disagrees with your administration is targeted and ridiculed.”

“I watched you make fun of tea baggers and your press secretary make fun of Ms. Palin which was especially beneath the dignity of the White House,” wrote the Texas teacher. “Do the right thing not the political thing. Suggest a bill that Americans can support.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Tea Party Still Standing Tall in Fight to Reform GOP

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Photo Credit: APThe Republican civil war erupted into full view this fall, and the establishment looked like it was about to shove the movement back in line.

But the early skirmishes ended with the tea party no weaker than it was.

And while the party’s internal fight will rage on, the opening battles suggest the establishment is just starting to see how much it will take to reclaim the power it has ceded to the movement in recent years.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s first big play: threaten to blacklist any consultant who does business with a key group taking on sitting Republicans.

The result: pretty much business as usual.

Read more from this story HERE.

Charlie Rangel Attacks Tea Party, says Obama Should Rule Like Dictator

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Photo Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty ImageAccording to Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., Tea Party Republicans want to destroy people in their districts, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did a good thing when he violated Senate rules to invoke the nuclear option, and Barack Obama should simply rule by decree, issuing executive orders for “everything,” Politicker reported Saturday.

“You know, the DREAM Act for the kids that came over here and didn’t know their home town, the president did that by executive order. What I did is I’ve taken out the language that he used and I’m gonna see why we can’t use executive orders for everything,” Rangel told NY1. “What’s he gonna do? Make the Republicans angry? They’re gonna get annoyed? They’re not gonna cooperate?”

Rangel — who once served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney under Robert F. Kennedy — also praised Harry Reid for violating Senate rules to invoke the nuclear option on filibusters against judicial nominees and wished he could do the same for legislation in the House.

He then slammed Tea Party Republicans for refusing to cooperate with Obama, and compared them to criminals.

“A police officer once told me when I was a kid that the worst criminal to deal with is one that doesn’t mind dying,” he said. “And if you take a look at what these Tea Party people have done–recognizing that there’s more sick and poor white folks then there is–but they still are resisting everything that the president wants to do so they can destroy the people in their district in terms of education and jobs, the Congress, the Republican name. And when we had the debt ceiling crisis, they were really prepared to let the United States of America fiscal policy to go in the tubes. How can you talk with people like this?”

Read more from this story HERE.