FreedomWorks Media Roundup: May 30th – June 10th, 2013
Tea Party believes it is alive and well, and IRS scandal provided a boost
The Tea Party is short-lived. That’s the message from the leader of the U.S. Senate, Harry Reid, a Democrat. In an interview this week, Reid said Tea Party positions are “extreme” and when the economy improves we will see quote “less and less agitation from the tea party folks.” But Tea Party leaders believe the exact opposite is true.
“This IRS scandal is showing people the fears, the problems with big government,” stated Freedom Works spokesman Adam Brandon.Freedom Works, a group aligned with the Tea Party, says the IRS targeting of conservative groups has provided clear evidence for the doubters, and bolstered the cause of believers. Tea Party leaders around the country say the last few weeks have indeed ushered in new energy and provided the wake up call some of the grassroots groups needed. Staff Writer, May 31, 2013, Read More
Tea-party captain: IRS scandal leads to Obama
‘The path of authority is quite clear here’
FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe says the IRS scandal is twice as bad as Watergate because of the breathtaking extent the agency was used to target conservative organizations filing for tax-exempt status as well as their donors.
“Watergate was an example of abuse of power by a few very powerful people, including the chief executive and the specific targeting of a few specific enemies,” Kibbe told WND. “In this case, you have an institution-wide bias, a widely known understanding that the IRS was targeting people based on their politics and their political philosophy. It was known for several years and yet it continued and it continued, and so you have one of the most powerful agencies of the federal government, as policy, going after the citizens, the mom-and-pop community leaders. They weren’t powerful. They weren’t in a position to fight back. It was a widely known thing among tea partiers for years, and now the rest of America is finding out about it.” – WND Staff Writer, June 3, 2013, Read More
Common Core: Bad for Teachers, and Students
Beyond the major scandals currently plaguing Washington, D.C., grassroots conservatives have been mobilizing on an equally important, yet underreported, controversial issue: Common Core. When Race to the Top was introduced as part of the 2009 stimulus, states were bribed with billions of dollars by President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Contingent upon qualification for the money was the states’ adoption of the Common Core Standards (CCS), a top-down “one-size-fits-all” curriculum, thus giving the federal government a roundabout entrance into localized educational systems. – Henry Graebe, June 3, 2013, Read More
Glenn’s interview with Adam Brandon of FreedomWorks
The Vice President of FreedomWorks joined Glenn on radio today to explain the new movement Glenn is trying to put together – the new civil rights movement. Glenn said he believes this is what ‘my whole life has been leading to’ on radio today. Find out why it is so pressing in the interview above. – Glenn Beck Staff Writer, June 4, 2013, Read More
Just Because I’m Paranoid…
Matt Purple offers stark contrast between Sen. Rand Paul’s portrayal of an “assault on the Constitution,” and Sen. Lindsey Graham’s predictable giddiness at our ever-expanding surveillance state.
Matt makes a great point. These days, our expectations of privacy are especially flimsy. In fairness, that’s partly our own fault. Decisions made in the digital age require a personal gut-check every time your iPhone offers you a push notification. Now more than ever, we must conduct our lives with a healthy dose of common sense and personal responsibility. – Reid Smith, June 6, 2013, Read More
Fixing the Republican’s Youth Problem
When it comes to winning over young Americans, actions speak louder than words. At first glance, the 95-page report on youth outreach released Monday by the College Republican National Committee (CRNC) looked great. The straight-talking study made sensible recommendations to solve the Republican youth problem—if you want to understand a younger audience, go talk to them on their own turf. Sounds reasonable, right?
Well, there’s a little more to it than that. When you talk to young voters, you better mean what you tell them. The Republican Party has a youth problem—only half of all eligible voters, ages 18 to 29, participated in the 2012 presidential election. Of those, 67 percent supported President Obama. But once again, the Monday morning quarterbacks have analyzed everything surrounding the Party’s “policy agenda,” except the policy agenda itself. – Jackie Bodnar, June 6, 2013, Read More
Another Scandal Rocks the Obama Administration
Following news that the NSA has been collecting the telephone records, call location, duration, time and unique identifiers of Verizon customers in the U.S. for the past seven years, FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe had the following to say to US Daily Review.
“The iceberg just got a little bigger. The NSA’s eavesdropping on innocent civilians joins a long list of 4th Amendment violations in the U.S. that are surfacing in recent weeks. We are witnessing the arrogance of the political elite, the government feels it is entitled to know the minutiae of the lives of private citizens regardless of whether they are suspected or charged with a crime.” – USDR Staff Writer, June 7, 2013, Read More
Tea Party groups make gains against ‘ObamaCore’ education program
Tea Party groups are barnstorming state capitals across the country to stop an Obama administration-backed initiative to impose federal math and English education standards on public schools. Though conservatives have long argued that state and local officials can best make decisions on K-12 education, the Tea Party’s opposition to the federal program — Common Core State Standards — represents a pivot for the movement, which started in 2009 to promote lower taxes and smaller government. And they are making gains, as some states consider putting the program on hold.
However, Common Core states the program only sets standards for math and English language arts, not a national curriculum, and says teachers play a big role. “Local teachers, principals, superintendents and others will decide how the standards are to be met,” the group says on its website. “Teachers will continue to devise lesson plans and tailor instruction to the individual needs of the students in their classrooms.”
Neal and others suggest states were pigeonholed into accepting the program so they could get much-needed Race to the Top education grants in Obama’s 2009 stimulus package. And they are concerned about the gathering of student-assessment data for comparison among students, schools, districts and states. “It’s very creepy,” Neal said. – Joseph Weber, June 7, 2013, Read More
Why Should We Care? We Have Nothing to Hide…
The consistently principled Glenn Greenwald recently broke the story that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been secretly collecting phone records of millions of U.S. Verizon customers daily. Unsurprisingly, the usual Big Brother apologists chimed in with the rebuttal, “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.”
Ah, yes. Civil libertarians are used to hearing the nothing-to-hide argument from people who are willing to trade privacy for security, or a false sense of it, anyway. When American citizens strongly opposed the Patriot Act that allows the government to wiretap phone lines without a warrant, we were told: “No secrets? No worries.” When we criticized the warrantless house-to-house raids in Boston following the Marathon bombing, we were told: “If you’re not housing the terrorists, what’s the big deal?” – Julie Borowski, June 7, 2013, Read More
Libertarian America: A Conversation with Austin Petersen
Combining many passions into a meaningful, productive career can be a challenge. A man currently conquering that challenge is Austin Petersen, the Director of Production at FreedomWorks. There, he harnesses his artistic talent and libertarian zeal to produce videos, commercials, and event photography. He is also hard at work preparing the FreedomWorks University courses that will be debuting in the near future. Among others, the courses will feature Peter Schiff, Jeffrey Tucker, Steve Horwitz, and Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Prior to joining FreedomWorks, Petersen produced Judge Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch on Fox Business. He also operates Stonegait Pictures, an LLC under which he does portrait photography, media training, public lectures, and video interviews for private clients. – Joseph Diedrich, June 9, 2013, Read More
Obama’s Scandals Help the Tea Party, Hurt His Friends
President Obama had big plans for this second term, but they’ve been pulverized by a slew of controversies that have erupted all at once. The White House’s defensive crouch only tightened after revelations last week about Top Secret government programs to track Americans’ phone and Internet activities.
In addition to justifying those programs, it must also resolve the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, satisfy inquiries into the death last year of four U.S. officials in the Benghazi, Libya terrorist attack, and balance its claims of transparency with the Justice Department seizing the records of reporters at the Associated Press and Fox News who cover classified security issues. “We are witnessing the arrogance of the political elite, the government feels it is entitled to know the minutiae of the lives of private citizens regardless of whether they are suspected or charged with a crime,” said Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, whose group plans to kick off an educational initiative “to train citizens on how to exercise their basic constitutional rights.” – Josh Boak, June 10, 2013, Read More
In the Blogs…
TheHayRide.com: We had a big turnout last night for the showing of C.L. Bryant’s documentary Runaway Slave to open the @large conference, and we’ve got a revved-up crowd of attendees.Today’s festivities get started momentarily with Star Parker kicking things off, then we’re going to go into some terrific workshop presentations. Deneen Borelli will be speaking this evening to close out what should be a great day. Read More
UnitedLiberty.com: Julie Borowski, perhaps best known as the TokenLibertarianGirl, is out with a new video this week addressing the three scandals — IRS discrimination of conservative groups, the DOJ’s targeting of the media, and Benghazi — that have plagued the Obama Administration over the last few weeks.
Borowski scoffs at the notion of Attorney General Eric Holder investigating himself over the Justice Department’s scandals concerning the targeting of the Associated Press and James Rosen. “I’m sure that’s gonna be a very fair investigation of himself,” says Borowski, with a truckload of sarcasm. She also touched on the situation in Syria and explained how terrible of an idea it is to fund rebels connected to al-Qaeda. Read More
PsWrightBlog.com: Folks it has been an awesome couple of days! Had the opportunity to attend the @ Large Conference for a New Majority. Over the next few weeks we will be posting interviews with tom and Deneen Borelli, Rev. C.L. Bryant and his wife the lovely lady Jane, Dr. Tim Johnson founder of the Frederick Douglas Foundation, K. Carl Smith Frederick Douglas Republicans, News Ninja Wayne Dupree, Radiance Foundation’s Ryan Bomberg, and more! Read More
StacyOnTheRight.com: With the IRS scandal still at the forefront of the news cycles and Democrats running for cover everywhere, MSNBC host Martin Bashir has this time outdone himself. Yesterday, he hurled a ludicrous accusation against Republicans and pundits on the right in the ever increasing din of coverage on the IRS’s gestapo tactics against conservative and right leaning organizations applying for tax exempt status. In his “Clear the Air” segment, Bashir said the following. Read More
FundamentalRefounding.ning.com: FreedomWorks is a great resource for action alerts.They make it easy… Register to begin… Then you fill in a bit of information required (for contacting House Reps and Senators) to send faxes or sign a petition… They have the letter written for us… Read it to make sure you agree (if you are conservative, you will). Read More
Television & Videos…
Watch FreedomWorks President & CEO Matt Kibbe & FreedomWorks Executive Vice President Adam Brandon as they appeared on The Blaze TV on May 30th, Brandon & Kibbe discussed the recent IRS Tax Scandal with Glenn Beck. Watch Here!
FreedomWorks Pennsylvania Field Coordinator Anastasia Przybylski appeared on Fox News Hannity on May 30th, Przybylski and about 20 other Tea Party members joined the show to explain their recent experiences with the IRS Targeting conservative groups around the country.
Watch FreedomWorks President & CEO Matt Kibbe & FreedomWorks Executive Vice President Adam Brandon PART- II as they appeared on The Blaze TV on May 30th, Brandon & Kibbe discussed the recent IRS Tax Scandal with Glenn Beck. Watch Here!
Watch FreedomWorks Executive Vice President Adam Brandon as he appeared on CBS Channel 21 on May 31st, Brandon spoke about the recent IRS Tax Scandal. Watch Here!
Watch FreedomWorks Director of Outreach Deneen Borelli as she joined Fox News America’s News HQ on June 2nd, Borelli discussed the issue of should Eric Holder be held accountable for the recent Justice Department Scandals. Watch Here!
FreedomWorks Executive Vice President Adam Brandon appeared on The Blaze TV Wilkow on June 3rd, Brandon spoke about the recent IRS Tax Scandal.
Watch FreedomWorks weekly edition of Happening On The Hill on June 3rd, Watch Here!
Watch FreedomWorks Activists as they appeared on KENS Channel 5 News on June 4th, the activists spoke about their recent experience with the IRS Tax Scandal. Watch Here!
Watch FreedomWorks Activists as they appeared on CBS Channel 7 News on June 4th, the activists spoke about their recent experience with the IRS Tax Scandal. Watch Here!
Watch FreedomWorks Executive Vice President Adam Brandon as he appeared on Fox News Channel 45 on June4th, Brandon spoke about the recent IRS Tax Scandal. Watch Here!
Watch FreedomWorks Director of Grassroots Whitney Neal as she joined News Channel TMJ 4 on June 5th, Neal discussed the recent IRS Targeting on Conservative Non-Profit Groups. Watch Here!
Watch FreedomWorks Policy Analyst Patrick Hedger as he joined China Central TV on June 6th, Hedger discussed the NSA/Verizon phone records story. Watch Here!
Watch FreedomWorks On Tap “Defending Civil Liberties” from June 6th, Watch Here!
Watch FreedomWorks Activist Dianne Belsom of Laurens County Tea Party testifying on behalf of her recent experiences with the “IRS Targeting Of Conservative Groups.” Watch Here!
Watch FreedomWorks Activist Karen Kenney of The San Fernando Valley Patriots testifying on behalf of her recent experiences with the “IRS Targeting Of Conservative Groups.” Watch Here!
Watch FreedomWorks Activist Becky Gerritson of The Wetumpka, Alabama Tea Party testifying on behalf of her recent experiences with the “IRS Targeting Of Conservative Groups.” Watch Here!
Radio…
Listen to FreedomWorks Director of New Media Kristina Ribali as she hosted FreedomCast Episode 40 on May 28th, Ribali was joined by Jim Geraghty of the National Review Online, Jim discussed the Obama Administration’s scandals, the coming reformation of the Republican party, and how Congress hides the really insidious violations of your liberty in gigantic pieces of legislation. Listen Here!
FreedomWorks Executive Vice President Adam Brandon joined The Diane Rehm Radio Show on May 30th, Brandon discussed the future of the GOP and their efforts to “rebrand themselves.”
FreedomWorks Director of Communications Jackie Bodnar joined Revolution Radio on May 30th, Bodnar discussed the ongoing IRS Tax scandal situation and what FreedomWorks is doing to combat the targeted situation.
Listen to FreedomWorks President & CEO Matt Kibbe as he joined The WND Radio America Show on June 3rd, Kibbe talked about the IRS scandal being twice as bad as Watergate because of the breathtaking extent the agency was used to target conservative organizations filing for tax-exempt status as well as their donors. Listen Here!
FreedomWorks Director of Communications Jackie Bodnar joined FTR Radio on June 3rd, Bodnar discussed the ongoing IRS Tax scandal situation and what FreedomWorks is doing to combat the targeted situation.
Listen to FreedomWorks Executive Vice President Adam Brandon as he joined The Glenn Beck Radio Show on June4th, Brandon discussed the new movement Glenn is trying to put together – the new civil rights movement. Listen Here!
FreedomWorks Director of Outreach Deneen Borelli joined Conservative Commando Radio on June 4th, Borelli talked about How we stop Progressive education & Defeating Common-Core.
FreedomWorks Staff Writer & Editor Reid Smith joined KTRH Radio Houston on June 6th, Smith talked about the NSA’s ‘need’ to collect telephone data from U.S. citizens.
FreedomWorks Vice President of Public Policy Dean Clancy joined The Bill Post Radio Show on June 6th, Clancy talked about ObamaCare’s repeal process and what FreedomWorks is doing after the recent Supreme Court Decision to fully repeal ObamaCare.
