Tea Party Nexus

Tax hike opponents warned state legislators not to raise taxes to balance the state’s budget. The rally Tuesday was headlined by Grover Norquist, head of the national anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform. About 100 protesters - some wearing tea party T-shirts - gathered on the Capitol steps.

Facing dismal poll numbers in his home state, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid has devised a re-election strategy: welcome third party candidates who can split the opposition in the uphill battle to hold on to his U.S. Senate seat.

Employment: A new study finds that the problem with the latest recession wasn't job losses. It was a lack of job creation. And why aren't businesses adding to payrolls? There's nothing incentivizing them to risk it. After crunching the numbers, the Heritage Foundation found the economy actually lost fewer jobs — 48 million — during the first six months of this recession than during the milder downturn in 2001, when 50 million were shed. So why is

Health Care: The Democrats have two problems with their reform plan: One, they have sell it to the public, and two, they have to convince the public that the plan is so good, it's OK to skirt Senate rules to pass it. So far, Democrats have failed to solve the first problem. The public simply does not like their version of health care reform. Poll after poll, including our own, shows Americans wanting that plan scrapped and work on a new one begun.

Politics: The strange case of New York Democrat Eric Massa keeps getting stranger. Rep. Massa resigned last week under a cloud of ethics charges, but he now claims he was pushed out for opposing health care reform. Massa claims he's being investigated by the House Ethics Committee on trumped-up charges that he sexually harassed a male aide. If true, it shows the White House and Congress are indeed being run the "Chicago Way" — with bluster,

People often ask me why I left the Soviet Union. The real question is: How is it possible so many Americans ask such an absurd question? One seminal figure in the struggle for freedom in the USSR was Andrei Sakharov (1921-89), the leading figure in the development of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. A member of the Soviet elite, he enjoyed a better quality of life compared with most of his fellow citizens. Yet he witnessed the grotesque treatment of

Googling to my heart's content on a recent eve, I decided to match "health care" with "ram" to see what would happen. What I got was about 9.8 million hits, some of them right on the nose and reflecting the current conservative meme that after more than a year, several votes, countless presidential speeches and having to look upon the face of Harry Reid some 10,000 times, the health care bill is being "rammed" through Congress — an absurdity that

'Stop messing with Texas!" That was the message Gov. Rick Perry bellowed on election night as he celebrated his victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary for governor. In his reference to Texas' anti-littering slogan, Perry was making a point applicable to national as well as Texas politics and addressed to Democratic politicians as well as Republicans. His point was that the big government policies of the

Abraham Lincoln once asked an audience how many legs a dog has, if you called the tail a leg? When the audience said "five," Lincoln corrected them, saying that the answer was four. "The fact that you call a tail a leg does not make it a leg." That same principle applies today. The fact that politicians call something a "stimulus" does not make it a stimulus. The fact that they call something a "jobs bill" does not mean there will be more jobs.

Most politicians, and probably most Americans, see health care as a right. Thus, whether a person has the means to pay for medical services or not, he is nonetheless entitled to them. Let's ask ourselves a few questions about this vision. Say a person, let's call him Harry, suffers from diabetes and he has no means to pay a laboratory for blood work, a doctor for treatment and a pharmacy for medication. Does Harry have a right to XYZ lab's and Dr.

During his 35th speech on health care at the White House last Wednesday, President Obama called on Congress to give his reform package an "up-or-down vote" before the Easter recess, with or without Republican support. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claim to have the votes to do it. But going it alone by resorting to the controversial reconciliation process may prove politically costly for Democrats. After all, a

With a Tuesday deadline to reach a deal looming, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee said the House is making a good-faith effort to break the impasse with the Senate.

Call it a late-morning tea party. On the grounds of the state Capitol today, cheering, sign-waving opponents of higher taxes and big government rallied against Virginia’s work-in-progress budget. About 300 people, turned out by Americans for Prosperity, were urged by the organization’s Virginia director, Ben Marchi, to keep the pressure on the General Assembly.

With shouts of "Kill the bill!" and "Thank you, Mr. President!" demonstrators staked out their positions on health care legislation today outside the Arcadia University gymnasium where President Obama urged support for reform.

That, apparently, is a matter of debate within the grass-roots political movement, which has strong support in south Alabama. (The acronym stands for "Taxed Enough Already.")

It's not yet clear whether tea partiers will be spoilers or kingmakers. But it is certain that the Republican candidates are eager to have them in their camp.

WARSAW -- If a straw poll at a large tea party event Saturday in Warsaw is any indication, former senator Dan Coats could face a tough challenge against his four Republican opponents in the primary election for Sen. Evan Bayh's seat.

Rivals recognize movement's influence.

Rivals recognize movement's influence.

Rivals recognize movement's influence.

WARSAW -- If a straw poll at a large tea party event Saturday in Warsaw is any indication, former senator Dan Coats could face a tough challenge against his four Republican opponents in the primary election for Sen. Evan Bayh's seat.

Re “ A Young and Unlikely Activist Who Got to the Tea Party Early ” (front page, Feb. 28): Activists like Keli Carender would have more credibility if they had specific solutions for the problems they rail against. What exactly is the Tea Party plan for America?

ASHEVILLE — With a clock tracking the U.S. national debt and “Yankee Doodle Dandy” booming through speakers, about 300 members of the Asheville Tea Party gathered Friday to watch six Republican congressional hopefuls debate.

ASHEVILLE — With a clock tracking the U.S. national debt and “Yankee Doodle Dandy” booming through speakers, about 300 members of the Asheville Tea Party gathered Friday to watch six Republican congressional hopefuls debate.

ASHEVILLE — With a clock tracking the U.S. national debt and “Yankee Doodle Dandy” booming through speakers, about 300 members of the Asheville Tea Party gathered Friday to watch six Republican congressional hopefuls debate.

ASHEVILLE — With a clock tracking the U.S. national debt and “Yankee Doodle Dandy” booming through speakers, about 300 members of the Asheville Tea Party gathered Friday to watch six Republican congressional hopefuls debate.

Superficially, David Brooks has a point about certain parallels between the New Left of 40 years ago and today’s Tea Party. But the superficial resemblances disguise the deeper differences.

ASHEVILLE — With a clock tracking the U.S. national debt and “Yankee Doodle Dandy” booming through speakers, about 300 members of the Asheville Tea Party gathered Friday to watch six Republican congressional hopefuls debate.

Lisa Deaton, founder of local tea party group called We the People Indiana and Brian Jasper, We the People Indiana board member have personally declared their support for Don Bates Jr. for U.S. Senate., according to a release Friday from the Bates campaign.