WRONG - NOT TEA PARTY - California tea party legislator pulling ‘horrified’ teenagers from school to avoid transgender equality law

TPNR COMMENTARY:  What Assemblyman Tin Donnelly is doing is a good move.  Associating this agenda PRO or CON with the TEA Party is NOT PROPER.  The TEA Party is NOT about social issues like gay rights, abortion, racism, etc... The TEA Party is about fiscal responsibility, smaller government, lesser taxation, and constitutionality. 

California State Assemblyman Tim Donnelly went on Fox & Friends this morning and declared that he would be pulling his “horrified” children from public schools now that Jerry Brown has signed AB 1266 into law. The bill allows transgender students the opportunity to participate in sex-segregated activities and use restroom facilities consistent with their stated gender identities instead of the one on their birth certificates.
 
On Friday, Donnelly wrote that “[m]any of the parents I have heard from within the last few days have literally pulled their kids out of public schools and have enrolled them in homeschool and private school programs.”

Today, the self-described Tea Party conservative announced that he would be joining their ranks. After complaining that the bill “violates the rights of the 98 percent of students who do not identify as transgender,” he indicated that its passage unleashed a “tsunami of discontent” which, he believes, will lead to the bill’s repeal. A group calling itself “Privacy for All Students” filed a referendum to overturn the bill last week, but it is unclear whether they can gather 500,000 signatures in the 90 days required by California law.

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Tea party groups to target skeptical GOP senators on defunding Obamacare

A pair of tea party groups is teaming up to pressure key Republicans to support an effort to defund Obamacare.

Tea Party Patriots and the grassroots group For America are launching online ads against a dozen GOP senators who either oppose the effort or haven’t announced a position.

Along with the ads, leaders of the groups will embark on a six-state, five-day “Exempt America” tour (the idea being that the American people should be exempt from Obamacare) that will bring them to the home states of several of these senators.


Update 12:01 p.m.: The conservative group Heritage Action is also launching an online ad campaign pushing the Defund Obamacare effort. Heritage will spend $550,000 on online ads targeting 100 House Republicans.

The effort comes as Defund Obamacare – whose supporters pledge not to fund the government if it includes money for the president’s health-care law — struggles to gain the traction it would need to actually force the issue. Several GOP senators have opposed the strategy in no uncertain terms.

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The Morning Plum: GOP elites in full blown panic

The other day, I suggested there are increasing signs Republicans leaders now know that they have a major problem on their hands — the GOP’s posture on Obamacare is untenable — and are seriously grappling with it at the highest levels. I am not well sourced among top Republicans, so that was mostly speculation and tea leaf reading.

But Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei are well sourced among top Republicans. And today they weigh in with a big piece reporting that GOP elites are in full blown panic mode about the party’s drift towards a series of Apocalyptic showdowns this fall.

The most interesting bit is the profound worry about the drift towards a government shutdown over Obamacare. But I think the fundamental problem is still being overlooked. Here’s the key part:

Republicans are in jeopardy of convincing voters they simply cannot govern. Their favorable ratings are terrible and getting worse. But there is broad concern it could go from worse to an unmitigated disaster this fall. Most urgently, according to a slew of key Republicans we interviewed, conservative GOP senators have got to give up their insistence that the party allow the government to shut down after Sept. 30 if they don’t get their way on defunding Obamacare.
The quixotic drive — led by Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee — is part of Rubio’s effort to make up with the conservative base after he was stunned by the backlash over his deal-making on immigration. Pollsters say the funding fight makes Republicans look even more obstructionist, and causes voters to worry about the effect a shutdown would have on their own finances.
Whit Ayres of North Star Opinion Research, who has been drilling down on this issue for the conservative public-opinion group Resurgent Republic, said: “Shutting down the government is the one way that Republicans can turn Obamacare from a political advantage to a political disadvantage in 2014.”

This passage contains both an important recognition and an unwitting glimpse into the broader, unacknowledged problem here. The government shutdown push has focused the attention of GOP elites, because it is probably suicidal politically for the party. At the same time, though, the unspoken premise is that the problem is only one of excessive tactics, rather than something more fundamental.

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Vitriol has gone beyond partisan give-and-take in the nation’s politics. It is now seeping into and poison­ing the ranks of the Republican Party. - See more at: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2013/08/on_obamacare_tea_party_on_right_track#sthash.3HG6wWaW.dpufv

Vitriol has gone beyond partisan give-and-take in the nation’s politics. It is now seeping into and poison­ing the ranks of the Republican Party. - See more at: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2013/08/on_obamacare_tea_party_on_right_track#sthash.3HG6wWaW.dpuf

Tea Party looks to 2014 revival

New groups are forming as top races take shape

Following the 2012 elections, it was unclear how much momentum was left in the Tea Party movement, both nationally and in Minnesota. Political analysts blamed the conservative faction for several embarrassing Republican losses in high-profile campaigns, while overall public opinion seemed to have soured on the concept. Nationwide exit polling found 21 percent of voters had a positive opinion of the Tea Party movement, about half of the 41 percent support found in 2010 exit polls.

Locally, a number of Tea Party-aligned politicians who helped the GOP take control of the Legislature in 2010 were defeated. Perhaps worst of all, U.S. Senate candidate Kurt Bills, who won the party endorsement thanks to organizing by Tea Party and pro-Ron Paul elements, won only 30 percent of the statewide vote in November.

But if the last few months are any indication, the party’s not over. Energized by watching a full legislative session of DFL control and continued inaction in the federal government, new branches of the Tea Party have been springing up throughout the metro area. From April through the end of this month, five new suburban Tea Party groups will have held inaugural events.

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Jesse Lee Peterson, tea'd off in South L.A.

It's not a typo: The South Central L.A. Tea Party exists, and Jesse Lee Peterson takes a bow for founding it. He's also president and founder of the 23-year-old black bootstraps group Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, or BOND, and serves as pastor for a nondenominational congregation at its headquarters. As his public pronouncements make clear, he detests Planned Parenthood and legal abortion, welfare and the California-born black holiday Kwanzaa. He used to hold a "national day of repudiation" against Jesse Jackson; he has his doubts about women in high places. He is in demand as a black voice in conservative media, and his voice was still a little scratchy back home in L.A. after yet another speaking gig in the East.

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Tea party groups tell Sen. Lamar Alexander he’s vulnerable in 2014, should step aside

Twenty tea party and conservative groups in Tennessee have signed onto a letter that asks Sen. Lamar Alexander to retire, claiming “our great nation can no longer afford compromise and bipartisanship, two traits for which you have become famous.”

Their letter praises Mr. Alexander, a Republican, for his long service to the Volunteer State.
But they say he has not fought hard enough for conservative ideals, even if it means digging in his heels when congressional gridlock calls for a deal.

“America faces serious challenges and needs policymakers who will defend conservative values, not work with those who are actively undermining those values,” they wrote.

Mr. Alexander is up for re-election in 2014, and his reelection website touts a comment from campaign co-chair Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., Tennessee Republican, that refers to Mr. Alexander as a “good Republican and good conservative who stands up for Tennesseans.”

“Senator Alexander is focused on being the best senator he can be,” an Alexander spokesman said Wednesday.

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Tea Party Leader: Tea Party Fights Tyranny Like The Confederate Army, Women’s Suffrage, And Civil Rights Movement

Also, don’t call Florida’s first black Republican elected to state office since Reconstruction an African-American.

“Whenever tyranny raises its head, so does the spirit of the Tea Party that will come up and fight that tyranny. We saw it with the Revolutionary War, we saw it with the Civil War, we saw with the women’s suffrage movement, we saw it with the civil rights movement, and now seeing it again because people are rising up against tyranny tearing down the walls of our Constitution. They want to be protected by the Constitution. That’s what Tea Party is. When that tyranny has been defeated, it will melt back into the fabric of society until the next time tyranny raises its head.”

WATCH THE VIDEO.... of Mike Hill

Tea Party Republicans exert stronger influence in GOP primaries

A Pew Research survey in July found rank-and-file Republicans in agreement that their party needed to address major problems in order to do better in future presidential elections, but there was division over exactly how the party needed to change.

A major factor in this discussion is the influence Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who agree with the Tea Party exert in primary elections. Aside from challenges to Republican incumbents in state and congressional races in 2012, the 2012 GOP presidential primary season was marked by the rise and fall of a series of candidates who appealed to the party’s more conservative wing.

Overall, 62% of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters who agree with the Tea Party say they “always” vote in primary elections. By comparison, only 45% of non-Tea Party Republican voters say they always vote in primaries.

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The Tea Party on the comeback trail

They say no publicity is bad publicity. Is the same true for aggressive oversight by the Internal Revenue Service?


That's a question some folks in the Tea Party might be asking. Amidst the scandal of a politicized IRS putting conservative groups through the wringer prior to the 2012 elections, the Tea Party finds itself the subject of a number of recent media accounts.

It makes sense to take a more sober look at the Tea Party, about as maligned a political group as has come down the recent pike. For example, there was never a racist tack to anything the Tea Party advocated, and racists were never a welcome or prominent part of Tea Party rallies. There wasn't anything more outrageous about 99.9 percent of Tea Party gatherings than there was about 79.9 percent of anti-Bush rallies in the 1990s. After all, one man's heartfelt political beliefs are another's dangerous radicalism.


Still, none of that stopped portrayals of the Tea Party as something just short of an energized and resurgent Klan. So, too, with the slang "tea baggers" moniker which, if applied with the same ill intent to other groups, could possibly be construed as a hate crime.
 
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NPR Posts House Chart Laying Out IRS Harassment of Tea Party

The Corner at National Review Online, David French (a lawyer probing the IRS scandal) reports that NPR has posted a chart summarizing the House Oversight Committee’s findings on the IRS targeting of “progressive” groups versus conservative, Tea Party and “patriot or 9/12" organizations. The numbers are not close.

There were only seven “progressive” groups targeted and all seven were approved for tax-exempt status. By contrast, the IRS targeted 104 anti-Obama groups, and 56 of them are still waiting for approval (or gave up). French says it makes the New York Times look silly:
At

If progressives experienced similar targeting, why didn’t they make any notable contemporaneous complaints? After all, conservatives raised the issue well over a year ago, members of Congress asked the IRS commissioner about it directly, and the New York Times was even moved by the complaints to write its now-clownish March 7, 2012, editorial claiming the IRS was merely “do[ing] its job.”

Perhaps progressives didn’t complain because their targeting experience involved seven groups that were asked an average of just five additional questions (rounded up to be generous) and were approved at a 100 percent rate.

By contrast, 104 ”phony scandal” conservative groups experienced an average of 15 additional questions (14.9 to be exact), only 46 percent were approved, and 56 groups are either waiting for a determination or have withdrawn in frustration. There is simply no comparison.

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Nancy Mace Senate Run: Tea Party Favorite Announces Challenge To Lindsey Graham

Republican Nancy Mace announced she is running for the United States Senate, posing a primary challenge to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Mace is the first female graduate of The Citadel and a tea party favorite. She also runs a small public relations firm, according to the AP.

Mace announced her candidacy at a Saturday breakfast hosted by the Berkeley County Republican Party.

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Conservative and Tea Party Leaders: Now Is the Time to Stop Obamacare

Under a cloudy Washington sky on Thursday, members of Congress joined with conservative leaders and tea party groups to unite against Obamacare.

Comparing Obamacare to the day’s weather, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) said, “Obamacare hangs over our heads like a cloud of uncertainty because people don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring.”

The message from each speaker was clear: Now is the best chance to stop Obamacare by defunding it before implementation takes root on October 1.

Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) said elected leaders have an obligation to protect Americans from the President’s unfair, unpopular and unworkable health-care law.

“We’re standing for the people. I hope the President understands that and eventually, if we stand strongly enough, comes around and starts standing for the people instead of his party,” Gohmert said. “We owe future generations better than they’re going to get with Obamacare.”

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) demanded that if the President refuses to protect the American people from the health-care law, then it’s up to Congress to use its power of the purse to prevent Obamacare from being implemented.

“This debate is no longer about liberals vs. conservatives,” Lee said. “This law is about Washington, D.C. vs. everyone else in the United States.”

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Michele Bachmann: 'Charlie Rangel Should Apologize To Tea Party' For 'Outrageous Comments'

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is calling on Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) to apologize for negative comments he made about the tea party movement.

Rangeld told the Daily Beast tea partiers are part of "the same group" of "white crackers" who fought against Civil Rights.

“It is the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police," Rangel said. "They didn’t care about how they looked. It was just fierce indifference to human life that caused America to say enough is enough. ‘I don’t want to see it and I am not a part of it.’ What the hell! If you have to bomb little kids and send dogs out against human beings, give me a break.”

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Tea Party Delivers Letters to Congress Opposing Amnesty

In the hours before the Congress heads home for August recess, a large coalition of Tea Partiers from around the country delivered letters announcing their opposition to amnesty for America’s illegal aliens to every member of the House of Representatives.
 ...
The group detailed problems with the nearly 1,200-page Senate bill, including that it will “cost Americans taxpayers trillions of dollars,” will lower Americans’ wages according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), fails to close loopholes allowing illegal aliens access to welfare programs, does not secure the border, imposes “significant burdens on” state and local government, increases the flow of future illegal immigration, “contains payouts and political favors for special interest groups,” gives the Secretary of Homeland Security “total discretion” on whether to follow the law, “reverses America’s ‘melting pot’ tradition by funneling taxpayer dollars to community organizing groups that undermine the patriotic assimilation of new immigrants,” and “decimates” interior enforcement of America’s immigration laws.

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(Commentary:  The big takeaway is the cost.  This requires HUGE spending of our tax dollars for people that broke the law.)

IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins a Big Donor and Loyal Democrat

 As witnesses have testified to the House Ways and Means Committee, the chief counsel for the Internal Revenue Service may have played a role in the IRS’s practice of reserving special scrutiny for Tea Party and other conservative political groups. William Wilkins, chief counsel and one of two political appointees at the IRS, was “closely involved in some of the applications” for tax-exempt status, according to a press release from the committee.

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This is the face of a big donor to Barack Obama, William Wilkins.  He is one of only 2 political appointees by Barack Obama in the I.R.S. His office has been implicated in front of the U.S. Congress by I.R.S. employees in the targeting of TEA Party groups.

IRS scoreboard: 100 percent of “targeted” liberal groups were approved, conservatives languished

A House Ways and Means Committee staff analysis of the applications of 111 conservative and progressive groups applying for tax exempt status found conservative applicants faced, “more questions, more denials, more delays,” says committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich. That is, when the IRS sent groups letters asking for further information, conservative groups were asked more questions — on average, three times more. All of the groups with “progressive” in their name were ultimately approved, while only 46 percent of conservative groups won approval. Others are still waiting for an answer or gave up.

Racist Remarks by Charlie Rangel: Calls the TEA Party "White Crackers"

Democrat Congressman Charlie Rangel (NY) called Tea Partiers are the "same group" who fought for segregation during the Civil Rights movement.

“It is the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police...."

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Commentary:  If you want to see the modern face of racism, just look at Charlie Rangel.  He is a race hustler and should be forced resign for his racist remarks and tax evasion.  While the TEA Party is for less taxation; we are not for tax evasion and do not support the unethical practices of people like Charlie Rangel.

The TEA Party has no official position in Civil Rights other than the clear statement that ALL MEN (WOMEN) ARE CREATED EQUAL.  

IRS plans to press nonprofit political groups

(Commentary:  While the NY Times actually did report it, I find it amazing that their headline does not reflect the truth.  The headline should be, "IRS Attacks the TEA Party".  It's clear that this is a partisan attack on the organization.  It has happened on State, County, and Municipal levels as well.  When has the IRS looked into OWS, N.O.W., AARP, SEIU, or other left wing organizations?  When is the last time a city made OWS get a permit for a protest?  This is a clear attempt to intimidate TEA Party groups.)

By Jonathan Weisman - New York Times

March 07, 2012


WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service is caught in an election-year struggle between Democratic lawmakers pressing for a crackdown on nonprofit political groups and conservative organizations accusing the tax agency of conducting a politically charged witch hunt.

In recent weeks, the IRS has sent dozens of detailed, lengthy questionnaires to Tea Party movement organizations applying for nonprofit tax status, demanding to know their political leanings and activities.
The agency plans this year to press nonprofits such as American Crossroads, on the Republican side, and Priorities USA, on the Democratic side, to justify their tax-protected status as “social welfare’’ organizations, a status that many tax professionals believe is being abused.

Senate Democrats are readying a fresh legislative push to demand that such groups disclose their donors and attach disclaimers to their political advertising identifying the advertisement’s primary funders.

“The shadowy attack ads we see every day should be brought into the light,’’ said Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado.

The pushback is likely to be just as fierce. Jay Sekulow, a conservative lawyer known more for his stands on religious freedom than for his tax work, said he is representing 16 Tea Party groups that are asserting harassment by the IRS, and the number is growing.

“This is obviously a coordinated effort by the IRS to stifle these Tea Party and Tea Party-affiliated groups, and to stifle free speech activities,’’ Sekulow said. “It’s as onerous as what they did to the NAACP in the 1950s, and I plan to make that point.’’

At issue are groups large and small formed as 501(c)(4)s under the tax code, a designation created for social welfare groups but which includes overtly political organizations.

LINK

DuPage County Tea Party Endorses Debbie Boyle

(Commentary:  Another strong woman endorsed by the TEA Party.  Debbie Boyle would make a fine representative.)

The DuPage Tea Party has endorsed Debbie Boyle as the Republican candidate for the 81st State Representative.

“The decision was made as a result of widespread fiscal irresponsibility that has plagued our state," according to Claire Van Horner, organizer of the DuPage Tea Party, in a press release.

"Debbie is a true Conservative candidate who reflects fiscal values as well as other beliefs and values of the DuPage Tea Party such as the opposition to the Dream Act, Amazon Tax, and the Smart Grid. We encourage all voters to vote for Debbie Boyle."

“As a life-long resident of Downers Grove, I am pleased to receive the endorsements of the local residents of our district," Boyle responded in the release.

"These are the people that have been directly affected by the destructive policies and severe lack of leadership we’ve seen from Springfield Democrats, and even some members of our own party. They know the needs of our district, and they recognize that I am the only candidate with the character, integrity, and resolve to fight for them.”

Boyle has also received endorsements from the Downers Grove Township Republican Organization, the Illinois Liberty PAC has received support from the anti-tax watchdog group, Downers Grove Watch.

Ron Sandack is also running for the Republican nomination for the 81st District. Sandack began serving as a village commissioner for Downers Grove in 2003 and was elected mayor in 2007. He currently serves as a state senator for the 21st district, having been appointed last fall to replace Dan Cronin, who was elected DuPage County Board Chairman.

The 81st district constitutes half of the previous 47th district. Petricia Bellock, who currently serves the 47th district, has decided not to run for the 81st, so there is no incumbent candidate.

The newly created 81st district includes parts of Downers Grove, Darien, Lisle, Woodridge, Westmont and Naperville.

LINK

Tea party hosts evening with David Simpson

(Commentary:  David Simpson is a great asset to the TEA Party movement.  Also, to the author of this article, thanks for the coverage, but it's "TEA Party".... not "Tea Party". )

By Glenn Evans

Texas Rep. David Simpson of Longview got a free pass to criticize under-funded schools and a state budget wired by accounting gimmicks Monday at a tea party event envisioned as a debate between Simpson and fellow Republican Tommy Merritt.

It was reminiscent of the personal privilege speech with which Simpson closed out the 82nd Legislative Session last year by railing at state leaders he described as conservative in name only.

Merritt, of Longview, declined last week to attend Monday’s debate produced by We The People Longview, the tea party standard bearer for the Gregg County area.

The group’s two founders, he said, were biased against him. Half of that couple, Mike Schwartz, quipped Monday to a crowd exceeding 110 that Merritt’s claim lacked the promise suggested by his last name — merit.

“They had 30 minutes to go back and forth and go after it,” Schwartz defended the formal debate format the group had proposed in January. “Apparently, Tommy feels like answering the same questions that Mr. Simpson had to answer is somehow biased.”

The incumbent, who ousted Merritt after seven terms in Austin during 2010’s tea party wave, mentioned his opponent maybe three times, two of those times noting Merritt’s opposition to the bill requiring voters to show photo ID.

Passage of the voter ID bill was among successes Simpson touted from his freshman session.
The law requiring doctors to administer sonograms and describe the fetus in the womb 24 hours before performing an abortion was another success Simpson recalled to an applauding crowd.

He was critical of the two-year state spending plan, which he had opposed, noting it funded Medicaid only 18 of the 24-month period and short-changed schools, especially in rural areas.

Simpson during the session had proposed gutting the governor’s Economic Stabilization Fund used to give tax breaks and incentives to lure businesses to Texas. That money, he said then and repeated Monday, should have gone to public schools.