Gloves Off: GOP Establishment Goes After Tea Party

By Matthew Boyle 

falsenorthing.com

The National Republican Senate Committee, the GOP campaign arm responsible for Senate elections, has decided to use its political power to block consulting firm Jamestown Associates from receiving political work from GOP candidates or incumbents. 

Jamestown's "sin" is working with the Senate Conservative Fund, an organization that supports conservative candidates for the US Senate. 

NRSC communications staffer Brad Dayspring, a former spokesman for House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), told The New York Times on Friday, “We’re not going to do business with people who profit off of attacking Republicans. Purity for profit is a disease that threatens the Republican Party.”

Jamestown Associates has done work with the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), a conservative group largely responsible for the elections of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rand Paul (R-KY), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Ron Johnson (R-WI), among others. Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who left the U.S. Senate last year to become the president of the Heritage Foundation, founded SCF.

"In a warning shot to outside conservative groups, the National Republican Senatorial Committee this week informed a prominent Republican advertising firm that it would not receive any contracts with the campaign committee because of its work with a group that targets incumbent Senate Republicans," the Times wrote. 

"Even more striking," the Times continued, "a senior official at the committee called individual Republican Senate campaigns and other party organizations this week and urged them not to hire the firm, Jamestown Associates, in an effort to punish them for working for the Senate Conservatives Fund, a group founded by Jim DeMint, then a South Carolina senator, that is trying to unseat Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and some other incumbents up for re-election next year whom it finds insufficiently conservative."

The Times notes that a large part of the reason why SCF has drawn the ire of the GOP establishment is its endorsement of McConnell’s primary challenger, businessman Matt Bevin. McConnell’s chief of staff Josh Holmes, who is now working for the NRSC through the election, told the Times that McConnell plans to beat up SCF for being conservative like he would if it were a bar fight. “S.C.F. has been wandering around the country destroying the Republican Party like a drunk who tears up every bar they walk into,” Holmes said. “The difference this cycle is that they strolled into Mitch McConnell’s bar and he doesn’t throw you out, he locks the door.”

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Sean Penn: Commit Ted Cruz, Tea Party Pols by Executive Order

Breitbart

www.hoycinema.com

By Christian Toto 

Sean Penn cares, deeply, for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his fellow Tea Party members. It's why the Oscar winner wants Cruz and co. committed to a mental asylum.

Penn shared his views on the Tea Party during Monday's edition of the low-rated Piers Morgan Live on CNN. 

I think they have -- there's a mental health problem in Congress,” Penn said. “This would be solved by committing them by executive order, I think. Because these are our American brothers and sisters, we shouldn't be criticizing them, attacking them … this is a cry for help.
“You literally commit what, people like Ted Cruz?” asked Morgan.
“He is my American brother,” the actor said. “I think we should take care of him, he is in trouble.”

Morgan did not challenge Penn's assertion or ask any follow-up questions as even a third-rate journalist might. Instead, Morgan chuckled like a school girl sitting atop a whoopee cushion.

 

O'Really: It is personal between President Obama and conservatives

Ted Cruz: America Only Has A Couple Years To Turn Around

breitbart

5 unanswered questions about the IRS targeting of conservative groups

usnews

By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

Outrage intensified in Washington on Monday over the disclosure that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.

President Barack Obama, at a White House appearance with the British prime minister, said that he wanted all the facts but used strong terms to condemn the reported conduct.

“I’ve got no patience with it. I will not tolerate it,” he said. “And we will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this.”

The Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration will release an audit report later this week. In the meantime, here are five big unanswered questions looming over the IRS.

How did this start and why?

In January 2010, a Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United touched off a flood of political spending, much of it classified under a section of tax law known as 501(c)4 that entitles certain “social welfare” groups to tax exemption.

Two months later, a special unit of the IRS in Cincinnati assigned to screen applications for 501(c)4 status began searching for groups with descriptions that included “Tea Party” and “Patriots,” according to a partial draft of the inspector general’s report obtained by NBC News.

Lois Lerner, head of the IRS division on tax-exempt organizations, said Friday that the targeting of conservative groups was “inappropriate” but “absolutely not” influenced by the White House. She also said that none of the targeted groups was denied tax-exempt status.

What has not been spelled out is who in the Cincinnati office decided to search for conservative groups and why.

At least one Tea Party group called on the administration Monday to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the matter, which it called “un-American and Nixonesque.” One of the articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon accused him of targeting political opponents for tax audits.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress are determined to investigate.

“I just don’t buy that this was a couple of rogue IRS employees,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Sunday on the CNN program “State of the Union.”

Who knew what, and when, higher in the IRS?

Lerner learned in June 2011 that agents had targeted groups with names including “Tea Party” and “Patriots,” according to the draft obtained by NBC News.

She “instructed that the criteria immediately be revised,” according to the draft. Ten months later, in March 2012, the IRS commissioner at the time, Douglas Shulman, testified to Congress that the IRS was not targeting tax-exempt groups based on their politics.

The IRS said over the weekend that senior executives were not aware of the targeting, but it remains unclear who knew what and when. Shulman, who left the agency last fall, has not spoken publicly about the scandal and did not answer a request for comment Monday from NBC News.

Members of Congress had sent letters to Shulman as early as June 2011 asking specifically about targeting of conservative groups, according to a House Ways and Means Committee summary obtained by NBC News.

The IRS responded at least six times but made no mention of targeting conservatives, according to the committee’s summary.

Will anyone be fired?

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., on Monday demanded the resignation of the head of the IRS. That is Steven Miller, who is serving as acting commissioner until Obama nominates a replacement.

The last commissioner was Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2008, left the agency in November and has taken a position as a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Newt Gingrich, the Republican former House speaker, told MSNBC on Monday that Obama should say “he’s going to fire everybody he can legally fire who’s been involved with this.”

How will the White House contain the political damage?

The IRS scandal presents a daunting political challenge for the White House, which is already being forced to defend its handling of the deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, last September.

The furor over the IRS has come from both parties. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Monday the agency had committed an “outrageous abuse of power” and pledged a grilling.

“The IRS will now be the ones put under additional scrutiny,” he said.

Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia called it inexcusable, and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said the president “must immediately condemn this attack on our values and find those individuals in his administration who are responsible and fire them.”

How can this be prevented in the future?

Rubio, in his letter calling for the resignation of the IRS chief, called the behavior “seemingly unconstitutional and potentially criminal.”

But under existing law, the worst that can happen to an IRS agent who discriminates against taxpayers is getting fired, said Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican who sits on the House Oversight Committee.

Turner introduced a bill Monday to increase the toughest penalty to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

“This is about protecting the rights of all Americans and their ability to freely express their political thoughts,” he said.

-------------------

Kelly O’Donnell of NBC News contributed to this report. Reuters and The Associated Press also contributed.

SCANDAL WIDENS: IRS Targeting Went Beyond Tea Party, Conservatives

Read on foxnews >>

House Republicans swiftly announce hearing on IRS targeting conservative groups

Fox News

The IRS acknowledging that it targeted conservative political groups during the 2012 election season has sparked bipartisan calls for investigation -- with House Republicans already saying they will hold a hearing on the issue.

House Majority Speaker Eric Cantor said Friday the Republican-led chamber would investigate the tax-collecting agency for flagging the groups for additional review to see whether they were violating their tax-exempt status.

“The IRS cannot target or intimidate any individual or organization based on their political beliefs,” the Virginia Republican said.

Cantor’s comments were followed within minutes by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp saying he would hold a hearing.

The IRS on Friday apologized for targeting groups, but Camp, R-Mich., argued the agency had “repeatedly denied” such activity.

“The admission by the agency that it targeted American taxpayers based on politics is both shocking and disappointing,” he said.

The committee has jurisdiction over IRS, but it remains unclear whether other House committees also will investigate the issue, in which roughly 300 groups were flagged.

Republicans were joined by a leading Senate Democrat in the call for congressional investigations.

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said members have already been looking into the IRS's failure to make sure tax-exempt groups engage only in social welfare activities -- not partisan politics.

“Today’s announcement by the IRS raises a second issue: whether the IRS, to the extent it has enforced its rules, has been impartial in doing so,” Levin said Friday. “Both issues require investigation.”

Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, said that organizations were singled out because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status.

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, she said.

"That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate," Lerner said. "The IRS would like to apologize for that."

Republican lawmakers appeared vindicated in part by the announcement, after complaining about the suspected harassment more than a year ago.

A dozen Republican senators wrote to the IRS in March 2012 expressing concerns about various accounts that the agency inquiries were "perceived to be excessive."

However, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the agency was not targeting groups based on their political views.

"There's absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people" who apply for tax-exempt status, he told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.

Among Capitol Hill Republicans already raising further concerns or calls for investigations are California Rep. Darrell Issa, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky; Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

“The IRS’s political targeting of select groups based on their political leanings is reprehensible, and it should trouble every American to know that a federal government agency could abuse its power so outrageously,” Rubio said. “We need immediate congressional hearings.”

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. She said no high-level IRS officials knew about the practice. She did not say when they found out.

The IRS has put out a written statement saying protocol was changed at the Cincinnati office in response to the rising number of applications for so-called 501(c)(4) groups. This classification grants tax-exempt status to social welfare groups. Unlike other charitable groups, these organizations are allowed to participate in political activities but their primary activity must be social welfare.

The agents tried to "centralize work" in response to the applications, the IRS said, leading to problems the agency claims have since been fixed.  Lerner said the number of groups filing for the tax-exempt status more than doubled from 2010 to 2012, to more than 3,400. To handle the influx, the IRS centralized its review of these applications in the office in Cincinnati. As part of the review, staffers look for signs that groups are participating in political activity. If so, IRS agents take a closer look to make sure that politics isn't the group's primary activity, Lerner said.

In all, about 300 groups were singled out for additional review, Lerner said. Of those, about one-fourth were singled out because they had "tea party" or "patriot" somewhere in their applications.

El Tea Party apoya a Marco Rubio como vicepresidente

(ABC News) Sen. Marco Rubio today got the nod to be the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee — from the nation’s largest Tea Party group, not Mitt Romney.

The Florida senator — the only Republican whom Romney has confirmed is being vetted for a #2 spot on the ticket — was the top preferred choice of thousands of surveyed Tea Party Express members, the group announced today.

“It is not a big surprise that Marco Rubio is the favorite candidate of the tea party for the vice-presidential nod. He ran as a strong fiscal conservative, and he has delivered with his record in the U.S. Senate for the last two years,” said the group’s president Amy Kremer in a statement. “The only surprise is that he led the other excellent candidates by such a wide margin.”

Cuba: Partido único y Tea Party

 

Desde el sitio de Ichikawa

Federico Betancourt/

Al clausurar la primera conferencia del único partido, su primer secretario y general presidente, Raúl Castro, ratificó y confirmó el rasgo clave del Estado totalitario castrista: «un solo partido». De paso barrió a los expertos y analistas políticos, inventores de reformas y racionalizadores del socialismo, para recogerlos en bolsa plástica con membrete de «filósofo» y tirarlos al cesto de la basura histórica: todo se dijo ya en el primer congreso (1975) del partido único. Así aflora como única alternativa el Tea Party, a imagen y semejanza de su homólogo en el imperio, pero con señas de identidad cubanísima.

El Tea Party irrumpe en el ruedo político de la siempre fiel Isla de Cuba cada vez que tienen lugar las elecciones, en las cuales el elector recibe una boleta de papel común, entra a una cabina cerrada y opaca, vota sin cámara oculta ni seguroso mirahueco, sale y desliza la boleta por una hendija en cajón cerrado y opaco. Si no vota contra Castro es porque no le da la gana. Y si no lo hace por temor, entonces no está apto para la democracia.

El Tea Party se configura en Cuba tal y como en EE. UU. —gestión independiente sin estructura jerárquica ni disciplina— por quienes no van a votar o anulan o dejan en blanco su boleta. Para evitar suspicacias se margina a quienes votan tan solo por unos candidatos oficiales y no por todos, como pide el gobierno. Desde que Castro se atrevió (1992), sin mayores consecuencias, a reformar la constitución y la ley electoral para que la gente eligiera directo a los diputados a la Asamblea Nacional, el Tea Party pasa del millón de electores en cada comicio general o parcial.  Mas >>

Nancy Pelosi's Super-Secret Plan to Thwart Tea Party 'Terrorists'

By Andrew Stiles, National Review/

No it has nothing to do with al-Qeada, but House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) told a group of liberal bl...More >

Palin: 'If We Were Real Domestic Terrorists, Shoot, President Obama

Sarah Palin says that she isn’t just going to roll over and say to the left “hit me baby one more time, call me a terrorist again, call me a racist,” but rather she’s going to call them out on their hypocrisy. That includes Obama, of course, who she said wouldn’t have a problem with the Tea Party if they were really domestic terrorists:

"If we were real domestic terrorists, shoot, President Obama would be wanting to pal around with us wouldn’t he? I mean, he didn’t have a problem paling around with Bill Ayers back in the day when he kicked off his political career in Bill Ayers apartment, and shaking hands with Chavez and saying he doesn’t need any preconditions with meeting dictators or wanting to read U.S. Miranda rights to alleged suspected foreign terrorists. No, if we were real domestic terrorists I think President Obama wouldn’t have a problem with us."

Obama Says Tea Party Is Racist in New Book

But Obama, in his most candid moments, acknowledged that race was still a problem. In May 2010, he told guests at a private White House dinner t...
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Obama Says Tea Party Is Racist in New Book

Jared Lee Loughner may have been connected to American Renaissance.

An internal DHS memo obtained by FOX News indicates that Jared Lee Loughner may have been connected to a known hate group, American Renaissance.

Tea Party Video: In Search of People of Color

Tea Party candidates middle of the road?