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A new liberal tea party? Really?

Donald Trumps presidency began with violent protests erupting on Inauguration Day, followed immediately by the Nasty Womens March Against Everything. Since then, Republican congressional town hall meetings across the country have experienced unprecedented massive disruptive protests. Media is quick to attribute this to the rising of a new grassroots liberal tea party movement.

I call that fake news.

Beyond the fact that about half the country was dismayed at the election results of 2008, 2012 and 2016, there is no similarity. Check the facts.

Who are these people? The tea party movement began as a real grassroots movement.

Citizen volunteers, upset with progressive policies and the direction of the country, banded together to make a positive difference and return the country to its constitutional center. They believe that liberty comes with personal responsibility. We are your neighbors, your family and friends, your co-workers. We may attend your church or synagogue. We come from many different walks in life: teachers, law enforcement, military, public service, small business, students, grandparents and parents.

Some are unemployed, some retired, but all care about their country.

The Alliance of Liberal Disrupters, as I like to call them, are orchestrated from the top. Much of the violence and mindless street protests we have seen receive funds through multiple groups sponsored by George Soros.

The Nasty Womens March, for example, received funding from 50 such Soros-funded organizations. The New York Post recently reported onOrganizing for Action: OFA, formerly Obama for America, has trained more than 10,000 leftist organizers, who in turn, are training more than 2 million youths in Alinsky street tactics, and they regularly hold organizing summits on college campuses. More funding and training comes through federally sponsored projects such as AmeriCorps, My Brothers Keeper and other nonprofit ACORN clones, who are being secretly bankrolled through Justice Department subprime settlement funds extracted from banks.

How do they differ?

Tea party groups encourage their members to first educate themselves on issues and the U.S. Constitution. They are encouraged to participate in governance at every level, in a constructive way working within the system, within the law. Many have run for office themselves. Their demonstrations are permitted, peaceful and respectful no violence, no looting or vandalism, no foul language. When the event is over, they leave the site as clean as it was before they arrived taking their signs with them.

On the other hand, the Alliance of Liberal Disrupters has no respect for our Constitution, our laws or law enforcement. They do not respect the rights and free speech of those who disagree with them. They accept no personal responsibility for their actions. Many cover their faces or wear masks as they protest and commit senseless violence and vandalism. They are anarchists, and intimidation and bullying are their hallmark.

While accusing conservatives of being fascists, it is these leftist groups that commit fascistactions themselves. Their goals can be summarized as overwhelm the system, disrupt, delay and destroy all that is America and replace it with chaos, anarchy and some sort of totalitarian control yet to be determined. Their minions are what communists would call useful idiots.

Where do you stand?

America has elected a new president who committed to restore the rule of law in our country, to secure our borders, to reduce burdensome bureaucratic regulations and to make America great again for all Americans. Are you going to stand by and watch this Alliance of Liberal Disrupters rule the day, overwhelm the system and destroy America, or are you willing to give him a chance, work together to make America great again?

Colleen Britton is a Vacaville resident and member of The Solano County Citizen/Taxpayer Group. Reach her by email at [emailprotected].

Original post:
No such thing as liberal tea party - Fairfield Daily Republic

BULLHEAD CITY Mohave County District 5 Sup. Steve Moss, R-Fort Mohave, said his main concerns at the moment are county roads and the state of law enforcement. Moss was the guest speaker at a recent Colorado River Tea Party Patriots meeting.

Moss, whose district includes Fort Mohave, Mohave Valley, Golden Shores and part of Lake Havasu City, described the Board of Supervisors as a countywide city council, controlling unincorporated areas including Fort Mohave and Mohave Valley.

Moss said the county needs $17 million to fix and maintain roads, and is coming up $5 million short, receiving about

$12 million in state Highway User Revenue funds, collected from the states gas tax. He said county Public Works is experimenting with different kinds of materials to pave roads, in order to save money. Roads in the worst shape are getting the most attention, Moss said.

Regarding the Mohave County Sheriffs Office, there are 78 sworn deputies when the county really needs 115, he said.

Recruiting new deputies is easy, but keeping them is a problem, Moss said, since they get hired away by neighboring police departments for higher wages.

Moss said the county has not raised its property tax in the past five years and there are no plans to raise it this year.

I cant say the same about the sales tax, he said, noting that a vote by the board to raise the tax must be unanimous.

Moss said only 17 percent of the property tax the county collects actually goes to the county, with the biggest amounts going to school and fire districts.

He said the people in the room at the Tea Party meeting could take over any school or fire board by getting three members elected to a given board.

Moss, who has won two elections to the Board of Supervisors, and several elections as a school board member, said Winning elections is not that difficult.

Moss, who delivered an animated presentation, received many questions and lots of feedback from audience members.

Originally posted here:
Moss outlines county's funding challenges to local tea party activists - Mohave Valley News

The Senate on Thursday confirmed President Donald Trump's pick to run the White House budget office, giving the Republicans' tea party wing a voice in the Cabinet.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., squeaked through on a 51-49 vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who is emerging as perhaps the most vocal GOP critic of the Trump administration, opposed Mulvaney for the nominee's past House votes supporting cuts to Pentagon spending.

"Mulvaney has spent his last six years in the House of Representatives pitting the national debt against our military," said McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senators then gave a tentative 54-46 procedural green light to Trump's choice to run the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. It was a signal that Pruitt should sail through on a final vote scheduled for Friday, despite being opposed by Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a GOP moderate.

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, two of the party's more moderate members, backed Pruitt.

Trump has tapped some of the wealthiest Americans to serve in his Cabinet and ethics reviews have slowed the confirmation process. So have Senate Democrats who have mostly opposed all the nominees and forced hours of debate.

At his news conference, Trump lashed out.

"I've also worked to install a Cabinet over the delays and obstruction of Senate Democrats," he said. "You've seen what they've done over the last long number of years."

In fact, Democrats pushed to secure confirmation of President Barack Obama's picks the past eight years.

Mulvaney's vote means that 13 out of 22 Trump Cabinet or Cabinet-level picks have been confirmed. Nominees to key Cabinet departments such as Interior, Housing and Urban Development, and Energy remain unconfirmed.

Mulvaney's confirmation promises to accelerate work on Trump's upcoming budget plan, which is overdue. That's typical at the beginning of an administration. But there is also the need to complete more than $1 trillion in unfinished spending bills for the current budget year, as well as transmit Trump's request for a quick start on his oft-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall and tens of billions of dollars in emergency cash for the military.

In the past, Mulvaney has routinely opposed catchall appropriations bills, which required Republicans to compromise with the Obama White House. The upcoming measure is also going to require deals with Democrats.

Mulvaney brings strong conservative credentials to the job, and he's likely to seek big cuts to longtime GOP targets such as the EPA and other domestic programs whose budgets are set each year by Congress.

Trump has indicated, however, that he not interested in tackling highly popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare and wants a major investment in highways and other public works. The House Freedom Caucus, a group of the most conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill, issued a statement saying that the president's pick of Mulvaney "sends a strong message that the Trump administration is serious about tackling our national debt."

Democrats opposed Mulvaney over his support for curbing the growth of Medicare and Social Security and other issues, such as his brinksmanship as a freshman lawmaker during the 2011 debt crisis in which the government came uncomfortably close to defaulting on U.S. obligations.

"He said to me in a one-on-one meeting how he would prioritize the debts he would pay if he defaulted on the debt," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "Wouldn't that be a great addition to the chaos we are all feeling right now?"

The vote came a day after Trump's pick to head the Labor Department, Andrew Puzder, abruptly withdrew his nomination in the face of Republican opposition. Puzder was met with questions over taxes he belatedly paid on a former housekeeper not authorized to work in the United States.

Mulvaney has managed to survive questions about his failure to pay more than $15,000 in payroll taxes for a nanny more than decade ago. He has since paid the taxes.

Read more from the original source:
Tea party gains voice in Trump's Cabinet with budget chief - ABC News

February 15, 2017 AtlantaSitting in the front row of a congressional constituent day in Greensboro, Ga., with one of his daughters perched on his knee, Ron Denham felt like he was witnessing democracy in action.

The people at the meeting were loudly, assertively, and peacefully demanding accountability and clarity from a federal government official. This, Mr. Denham told his 10-year-old twin daughters, was a real-life civics lesson.

Then he walked outside after the event, and there were state police cars everywhere. Someone had called for backup. Such a tremendous police response to free speech, Denham says, dismayed.

Then former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory suggested that a series of similarly contentious town halls across the country were the result of paid protests.

As a result, Denham says he has gone from galvanized citizen to one on fire.

Until last month, Denham did not know which congressional district he lived in, he says in a phone interview. But last Friday, he drove an hour and a half from his suburban home near Atlanta to the constituent event held by the offices of Georgia's two senators and a representative from a different district just so he could see and be heard.

He is one of the citizen activists who has risen up in what appears to be an uncanny reprisal of the 2009 birth of the tea party but this time on the left.

In 2009, the Democratic playbook involved avoiding town halls and dismissing protesters as paid stooges. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) famously said the protesters were not grass roots but fake Astroturf. A year later, tea party fervor reshaped Congress, with Democrats losing 63 seats in the House and five in the Senate. The Democrats have never recovered.

Today, the Republican playbook involves avoiding town halls and dismissing protesters as paid stooges. Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) called the protest that shouted him down at a recent town hall a paid attempt to bully and intimidate. Only 10 Republicans members of Congress are planning town halls next week, notes David Hawkings of Roll Call.

Thats a dangerous gamble, for democracy over the long haul but also for the lawmakers own self-preservation as soon as the next campaign, he writes in his blog.

Many political analysts agree. Republican lawmakers ignore Denham and his twin daughters at their peril. The events are certainly uncomfortable. Chants of Shame! and Do your job! have punctuated recent town halls. But, as in 2009, they speak to a deep unease that cannot be conveniently ignored.

Democracy is a messy thing, and this shows it and its also a fragile thing, says James Thurber, founder of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington. Thats why members of Congress have got to get used to this and listen to the feedback or there will be consequences for them, electorally.

Some have. Rep. Justin Amash (R) of Michigan stayed an extra 40 minutes to talk with angry constituents. And Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R) of Florida rejected the allegations that boisterous constituents at his events were bused in and paid, responding: Most of these people are my constituents."

But many Republicans have been knocked off-balance. One California representative was escorted out of a recent meeting by police, and several others have canceled events, citing the uncomfortable atmosphere.

On one hand, the trend so soon after the tea party anger of 2009 points to the rise of what political scientists call negative partisanship.

One of the things were seeing in American politics right now is its easier to get people energized in opposition to things they dont like than to get them energized to support anything their party or president is doing, says Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. People are really angry and worked up, and I dont think its going to stop. In some ways, this is even more organic than the tea party.

Yet for Caroline Keegan, the Greensboro event was about saving something she sees as positive: the Affordable Care Act.

At the Greensboro meeting, Ms. Keegan, a 20-something graduate student at the University of Georgia in Athens, for the first time in her life told strangers about a chronic medical condition that could ruin her financially should ACA be repealed. The speech, she says, was well-received by both the crowd and the aides to Georgia's two US senators and the area's US representative all Republicans.

Afterward, she says, her hands wouldnt stop shaking.

I felt deeply thrown off balance, because this wasnt just sort of a political issue that I was concerned about, this was a feeling of intense vulnerability and fear for my own body, and it really surprised me, says Keegan.

So when a spokesperson for Sen. David Perdue one of the legislators holding the event called it a manufactured protest, Keegan felt like she had been slapped in the face.

To be sure, some crowds have been unruly and disruptive. And attendees say there have been partisan anti-Trump elements. The constituent day in Georgia was not even a town hall but a routine meeting to help elderly citizens navigate Social Security and Veterans Administration benefits.

Initially, there was some concern amongst the sheriffs that there was going to be civil disobedience and some rowdy protesting, Keegan says. At the same time, the sheriff was very hospitable and welcoming, and the mood was really energetic. It was amazing.

While Republicans have cited personal safety as a reason to cancel such gatherings, crowds so far have applauded, cheered, even defended police officers.

Representative Chaffetz pointed to an incident where two men wearing bandannas and handguns (which are legal to carry in Utah) urged the crowd to rush the police. But local police said the crowd instead stepped in to defend the police by forming a barrier.

The crowd was great with us, police Lt. Dan Bartlett told CNN.

Republicans conundrum is how to play for time, says Sarah Binder, a political scientist at George Washington University.

My guess is accusing the protesters of being paid rabble-rousers helps these lawmakers justify fewer or no town halls and buys them time to figure out what to do, she says.

For all the their power in holding the White House and both houses of Congress, Republicans are in a sensitive situation. The same was true of the Democrats in 2009, after all. On average, 37 seat shifts when theres a president with less than 50 percent approval rating, according to Professor Abramowitz. So far, Trump is hovering around 40 percent.

I dont know if the Republicans realize how vulnerable they really are, Abramowitz says.

For his part, Denham says his concerns are hardly partisan, but really just kitchen table issues. He wants to know whats going to happen with Obamacare. And hes worried that the tone Washington is hurting women. One of his daughters recently said I cant be an astronaut because Im a girl.

So far, the technology worker from suburban Peachtree Corners says response from elected representatives to his questions has been all adversarial.

But Americans demand a response. They are getting off their couches and coming out, says Denham.

And for lawmakers concerned about their safety, he offers a solution.

Dont worry, my twin 10-year-old daughters will protect you.

Staff writer Francine Kiefer contributed tothis report fromWashington.

Continue reading here:
Tea party, reversed? How GOP town halls look from the inside. - Christian Science Monitor

Paul Wellman

SWEET, BUT NOT TOO SWEET: Indivisible Santa Barbara members (from left) Jennie Reinish, Christina Eliason, Laura Smith, and Loretta Smargon brought chocolates and valentines to Rep. Salud Carbajals office on Tuesday.

Members Mimic the Take-No-Prisoners, In-Your-Face Style of Right WingPopulists

Anti-Trump activists have designated every Tuesday a Trump Tuesday, a time to demonstrate their disagreement with the new presidents agenda. This last Tuesday started off on a positive note, with a delegation from Indivisible Santa Barbara, a branch of the nationwide movement, showering newly elected Congressmember Salud Carbajal with handmade Valentines greetings. We Love You Salud, proclaimedone.

Carbajal, of course, was in Congress at the timenot in his new digs by the Plaza de Oro movie theater. As the 24th Congressional Districts representative in Washington, D.C., Carbajal has become the go-to man for the growing legion of Indivisible volunteers in Santa Barbara. A liberal-progressive organization, Indivisible intentionally seeks to mimic the take-no-prisoners, in-your-face tactics of the right-wing populist Tea Party. Carbajal, a liberal Democrat who has already spoken out against Trumps policies on the floor of the House, has not yet experienced theirire.

No such luck for archconservative Republican Congressmember Tom McClintock, who represents the Sacramento metro region. (McClintock once represented Santa Barbara in the State Senate before moving north eight years ago.) Two hundred Indivisible activists from his district packed a town hall meeting McClintock scheduled in Roseville last week, leaving several hundred more protesters outside. Inside, they were boisterous and determined, challenging McClintocks stated intention to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Roseville police insisted Indivisible protestors were peaceful and cooperative, but since the crowd was bigger than anything theyd encountered, they gave McClintock a police escort when he left. McClintock later spoke on the House floor bemoaning the loss of civility in public discourse, but only after he first characterized the protestors as an anarchist element and the radical left. No Indivisible Valentines forMcClintock.

By PaulWellman

The national Indivisible organization began shortly after the presidential election as nothing more than a well-modulated civics primer on social media, written by former staffers of a former Democratic Congressmember from Texas. The 26-page how-to manual offered angry but politically inexperienced anti-Trump citizens ways to make elected officials feel their heat. It emphasized the success enjoyed by Tea Party agitators, who translated their rage against the bank bailout and the 2008 election of President Barack Obama into a highly effective campaign of uncompromising opposition. Certainly, Carbajals predecessorCongressmember Lois Cappsfelt their wrath when busloads of Tea Party activists assembled in front of her downtown offices to denounce Obamacare. After that, Capps hosted her town hall meetings in churches, hoping to encourage civildiscourse.

Indivisible soon morphed from social media underground into a flesh-and-blood movement thanks to a three-hour special broadcast by MSNBCs lefty commentator Rachel Maddow. In Santa Barbara, a couple of filmmakersJennie Reinish and Christina Eliasondecided Santa Barbara needed an Indivisible chapter of its own. They teamed up with Laura Smitha techie, sculptor, Summer Solstice organizer, and paid field operative for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. On January 2, the Santa Barbara chapter had 14 members. Two weeks ago, 185 mostly middle-aged and white people showed up for an organizational meeting. The next day, they packed a scheduled Carbajal press conference, transforming it into a bona fide political pep rally. One of his field workers exclaimed: We need people shouting into thehurricane.

By PaulWellman

Indivisible activists deliver Valentines cards to Salud Carbajals districtoffice.

Indivisible is all about writing and calling ones congressmember and senators, and showing up for office visits and town hall meetings. They ask yes or no questions. They leave short messages on oneand only onesubject. They share personal stories that are relevant to the issue at handthe Affordable Care Act, for instance. In Santa Barbara, most Trump Tuesdays have been spent focusing on Senator Dianne Feinstein, lobbying her to oppose all of Trumps Cabinet nominees. Californias newest senator, Kamala Harris, has publically announced her opposition to them. Feinsteinas a matter of policywaits until the very last minute before announcing her position on cabinet appointees. Three weeks ago, Indivisible raised the alarm that Feinstein might actually support Jeff Sessionsthe archconservative Alabama senator ultimately confirmed as Attorney Generalwith whom she allegedly enjoyed cordialrelations.

When Eliason and Smith first called Feinsteins office, they were told the senator had only received 5,000 callssix times fewer than those her office had gotten supporting former president Bill Clintons impeachment proceedings. Indivisibles all over the state turned up the heat. By the time Feinstein voted against Sessions, 114,000 people had called, 98 percent against the nominee. Three Tuesdays in a row, hundreds of Indivisibles rallied at Feinsteins downtown Los Angeles offices. That has always included a Santa Barbara contingent. After each rally, the organizers met with Feinsteins staff. When they learned Feinstein liked personal stories, they delivered. First Feinstein delayed the vote on Sessions; then she voted against him. At that time, she used some of the personal details shared by Indivisible activists to make hercase.

With Trump in the White House, the old rules of engagement no longer apply, Indivisible activists argue. The times are calling for someone to step in and be a true leader, said Eliason. Our kids need a hero. Our girls need a heroine. People need to feel theyre not alone. In the meantime, she added, the National Republican Party has already targeted Carbajals seat in 2018. To keep Carbajal in office is one thing, she said; to keep Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch off the Supreme Court for two years quiteanother.

Today, there are about 6,200 Indivisible chapters throughout the United States; Santa Barbaras boasts about 1,200 members, and that doesnt include the 80 people who just formed one in Carpinteria. But theres a big difference between reacting and organizing, Eliason believes. If youre just reacting, youll get burned out. We need to be better at organizing. This has been such an insanemonth.

See the original post:
Indivisible Santa Barbara Borrows Tea Party Tactics - Santa Barbara Independent