The January meeting of the Spartanburg Tea Party will be a volunteer fair … because … the work of the tea party is to show up! In our county we are represented by six House Reps who all voted against the GOP platform on at least one significant issue last session, and received mostly D’s and F’s on their SC Club for Growth scorecard. Several of our GOP Reps had DEMOCRATS who scored higher than they did! We believe our county can do much better, and intend to support some challengers in the June primary.

To that end, our January tea party meeting will be a volunteer fair; we will invite some conservative candidates who are stepping up to run against some of the platform eschewing incumbents. We will introduce them, listen to them, question them, and then sign up to volunteer on their campaigns! My goal is that each of our members in attendance that night sign up to volunteer for one campaign, and that EVERY MEMBER sign up for each candidate’s email list so we keep up with their campaign events.

We may not be able to field a candidate for each House seat, but those who run will have boots on the ground, some campaign help, some small donations to start out, and the encouragement of knowing a group of patriots who have their backs.

The Spartanburg Tea Party is convinced that taking care of business in our own backyard is paramount to seeing our entire country get itself righted, and that we have a responsibility to other tea parties in our state and our country to send the most conservative representatives to our state capital in Columbia. Please steal our idea!!!! and host your own volunteer fair in January for your county.

RINO Hunt, Americans Have Had Enough, and the Spartanburg Tea Party are teaming up to hold a retirement party for a sitting SC State Senator. Here’s the scoop:

Many of you may remember the USA Today story about South Carolina legislators collecting lofty pensions at the same time they continue to serve. The question is who are they serving? The legislators are not just taking advantage of a law that’s on the books; many of them created the law that they are benefiting from.

During the last legislative session they passed the largest budget in State history while funding many questionable projects and programs. The State’s health care system and the SC DOT are in deep financial troubles. Many legislators have admitted that the State’s retirement system is severely underfunded and reform is needed. However, they fail to mention the need to reform their own gravy train of retirement.

Because the foxes are guarding the hen house it is up to the citizens of South Carolina to “reform” the South Carolina Legislature. The best way to accomplish that goal is to retire as many of the self-serving legislators as possible in 2012.

That is why we are hosting a David Thomas Retirement Party this Thursday evening October 20th. The retirement party will be held at Chief’s Wings and Fire Water located at 723 Congaree Rd. Greenville, SC and will start at 6:00 pm.

Maybe the reason Senator Thomas continues to run for office is because no one has held him a party. During the party we will have an auction for a few of Senator Thomas’ retirement items including a pocket watch and maybe even his rocking chair. Please make plans to attend this fun event. Say thank you to Senator David Thomas for his 27 years of service to his constituents and himself.

Baby steps. It is my strong conviction that, as thoughtfully and practically as possible, we should not support those who are seeking … through intentional action/words or even those who are ignorant … to take away our liberties. That conviction extends to entertainment, shopping choices, travel, insurance companies … any time we as consumers can make a decision to support or not support liberty destroyers.

Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream has come out with a statement supporting those who are Occupying Wall Street. So this makes it easy to make one decision.

Will you decide with me to no longer purchase Ben & Jerry’s products? Will you visit their site and tell them why?

Once you take a stand on specific consumer choice, look for more. Information abounds on which companies, which entertainers, which vacation destinations, which in-your-home products are from entities who support the progressive agenda. Battle them one at a time. Spread the word. Visit their websites and tell them why. Be a consumer warrior.

We are still fighting here in South Carolina for registration by party in order to vote.  So many of our RINO problems in our state are because politicians who are Dems in their core convictions KNOW they cannot get elected running as a Dem, so they register and run as Republicans and the Dems cross over and vote for them.  Or the Dem crossover gives us a weak candidate rather than a strong conservative.  Then we get the maddening consequences of supposed Republicans, such as the Spartanburg Six (Rita Allison, Doug Brannon, Derham Cole, Mike Forrester, Steve Parker, Eddie Tallon) who vote to table and kill a school choice bill that is a Republican platform issue.

What if candidates who want to run as Republicans have to follow the Republican platform in order to get on the ballot?  What if we were able to only field strong conservatives based on their commitment to our platform … that wouldn’t give the Dems anyone BUT a strong conservative to cross over and vote for!

Greenville County has a plan to ensure those very things.  Take a look at this video.  You can bet we’ll keep you up to date on this!

BTW … we are able to talk about this because the tea party and liberty groups in Upstate SC worked very hard at precinct reorganization this year. Harry, founder of RINO Hunt is the County GOP First Vice Chair, Linda of Americans for Prosperity is the GOP County Second Vice Chair, Laurie original tea party activist is the GOP County Third Vice Chair, and the Precinct President and Precinct Executive Committeeman and delegate positions are filled with activist conservatives. Betty, long time conservative Republican and a leading figure in the National Federation of Republican Women is the Greenville GOP County Chair.

This is what we can do when we become involved in the GOP Party through our precincts.

Cross post from The Spartanburg Tea party

I’m an editor for a living, a freelance editor, so I need to occasionally contract for work with new employers. In order to determine whether my editing skills and viewpoints meet their expectations we come to certain agreements. I have to agree to edit their materials according to their house styles/standard. Once agreed, they hire me and pay me to do the work to the agreed standards. We have a contract.

If we reach an agreement, my employer and I, that all materials will be edited according to the Chicago Manual of Style and two weeks into the engagement I decide that I’m going to end every sentence with a question mark instead of a period it really doesn’t matter what my reasons are. I’ve broken the contract.

I could have a “personal preference” reason and say that questions marks are more quirky, more visually interesting, it could be an artistic decision, geared to produce materials that are fresher, jazzier, more avant-garde.

Or I could have a “philosophical” reason and tell my employer that the world would be a better place if we all asked questions in discussions, thus showing our interest in what our fellow man had to say rather than just relying on our own experiences. That questions rather than declarative statements are less threatening, and serve to build bridges and relationships. Contract still broken, I would lose the benefits of the contract (would not be paid), and I’d be fired.

When a politician runs for office as a Republican, the contract they have with voters is that they agree to vote in accordance with the Republican Platform. The voters “hire” that politician by voting for them, and that politician’s job is to perform in accordance with the contract … the Republican Platform.

There is some leeway. As I edit for my employer, I can decide which words best fit a certain situation; I can use “messy” or “unkempt” or disheveled”. Some decisions are up to the discretion of the employee and are not contract obligations.

For instance a politician can decide to vote for excess funds to be invested in infrastructure or set aside in rainy day fund, or used to bolster an existing program. We voted for them partially based on our assessment of their reasoning skills and judgment to make decisions on discretionary issues.

But not on issues that are a bedrock of the Republican Platform. In that, there is no discretion. It does not matter what an individual’s preference or personal conviction on a Platform issue is. That is the deal they made with voters when they decided to run as a Republican.

The Spartanburg Six (Rita Allison, Doug Brannon, Derham Cole, Mike Forrester, Steve Parker, and Eddie Tallon) broke their contract with Republican voters in their districts when they voted to table the School Choice bill and not allow any debate on it. The Republican Platform states:

“Parents should be able to decide the learning environment that is best for their child. We support choice in education for all families, especially those with children trapped in dangerous and failing schools, whether through charter schools, vouchers or tax credits for attending faith-based or other non-public schools, or the option of home schooling.”

As an employer of your Representative, you had the expectation that the Republican Platform would be upheld. In this case, not only did they not uphold their portion of your contract, they hid their defiance behind a tabling motion … they would not even allow discussion on the House floor for other Representatives who wanted to be heard on the issue.

If I turned all the punctuation to question marks in my editing work, then bypassed my employer’s review of my work and published it under their name without giving anyone the opportunity to see/comment/object to my work … I’d likely have some consequences to face. And rightly so, I did agree to the contract.

Cross Post from Spartanburg Tea Party

H/T to the Heritage Foundation for inspiring this post.

The Heritage Foundation has a timely report today which details how school choice is becoming the norm in states across our country, eager to give families the best opportunity to educate their children with a curriculum that suits their child and makes a path for success.

The Heritage Foundation outlines successes in places like the District of Columbia, where our SC delegation (Duncan, Gowdy, Mulvaney, Wilson, and Scott) joined John Boehner in “restoring and expanding the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program – which was placed on life support by Obama’s Congress. Now, low-income children in the District (one of the worst-ranked public school systems in America), have a chance at a quality education.”

Sadly, another of the worst ranked public school systems in America is right here in South Carolina, where Wednesday a Republican in Spartanburg County, Rep. Eddie Tallon, voted to deny South Carolina kids the same chance at a quality education as our Congressman Gowdy voted for the kids in DC. Yep. Tallon and Obama’s Congress. On the same side of that issue.

Heritage reports on Arizona who “enacted a groundbreaking Education Savings Account program providing parents with special-needs children options for private schooling. Parents in Arizona can now receive 85 percent of the state per-pupil funding in an ESA and can use that money to pay for private school tuition.”

What a great opportunity for those parents in Arizona to be able to choose a different path for their children who need an alternative education “fit” different than the regular public schools! You know who voted to keep kids in South Carolina who may flourish with a different opportunity from having their chance? Republican Rep Mike Forrester from Spartanburg said our kids didn’t get that alternative when he joined 44 Democrats voting against the bill moving forward Wednesday.

Wisconsin has had their share of victories in education this year. According to Heritage, they “successfully broke the union stranglehold on public education and expanded the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.” That’s great news for families in Wisconsin who can now have more options for deciding for themselves how to educate their own children. Rita Allison, a Republican from Spartanburg, with her vote on Wednesday decided FOR YOU that you would not be having the same options as the parents in Wisconsin.

Heritage relates that Indiana passed legislation, which will provide, when it is fully enacted, an estimated “600,000 children the opportunity to attend private school that better meets their needs”. Imagine 600,000 children who will go from the frustration of an environment that may be great for some, but not for them, to a school where their particular learning style is embraced and they can be excited about learning! Republican Steve Parker ensured with his vote on Wednesday that more kids in SC will be joining the rising percentage of SC high schoolers who drop out and never graduate because the public schools lack the curriculum to hold their interest.

In one of the more inspiring examples in the Heritage report, “Oklahoma has enacting a tuition tax credit program for businesses that choose to contribute to scholarship-granting organizations, which in turn provide vouchers to low-income children.” Think about it! Businesses who want to invest in the future of their state’s most important resources, the kids, are able to generously donate to scholarship funds which can provide education freedom for kids who are trapped in failing school districts. We know about South Carolina’s Corridor of Shame. Republicans Doug Brannon and Derham Cole of Spartanburg either don’t know about, or don’t care about the kids living in our state in failing schools, made more desperate by the generational poverty that keeps them there, since they voted Wednesday to kill the chance for businesses and individuals to contribute to scholarship funds.

Near the conclusion of the report Heritage education policy analyst Lindsey Burke writes:

Indeed, this is the new normal: we are now taken aback by the states that haven’t implemented some sort of school choice option for families, whether its tuition tax credits, vouchers or online learning.

We too are taken aback, to put it in the mildest possible terms, that six Spartanburg Representatives crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats to deny SC families education options that other states are embracing.

When we wonder why South Carolina, a proud state, full of independent citizens has schools with record numbers of dropouts that rank near last nationally we have to recognize what we have here in South Carolina that states like Arizona, Wisconsin, and Indiana don’t have.

They don’t have Republicans like Rita Allison, Doug Brannon, Derham Cole, Mike Forrester, Steve Parker, and Eddie Tallon who vote with Democrats (and the democrat masters, the teacher’s unions) and vote against our kids.

Cross post from The Spartanburg Tea Party

The candidacy of Doug Hoffman, who ran as the Conservative Party nominee against pro-abort, uber-RINO Dede Scozzafava was a killer for me. She dropped out and endorsed the Democrat. I cried when he lost. If you don’t remember just do a little Google work, but I think most of you do (here’s a sample). I sent him money, I called his campaign office and talked to his staffers, I was on his email list. It was my first realization that from that moment on … NO politics were local. What happened in that district “somewhere in NY” could potentially mark a point in time when the tide turned and the Every Man could make a significant impact.

And I remember how enraged I was when Newt Gingrich mocked us. Tried to destroy Doug’s candidacy. Endorsed and praised and supported that abomination of a women. Not once. Not a couple of times. For weeks. And he … was “on our side.”

I’ll never ever forget that. Neither will Stacy McCain. Neither will Michelle Malkin.

We all have our reasons for why we have stayed active in the Tea Party all this time, when it’s tough, when victories seem few and the winning of The War seems Soooooo far away. If it’s achievable at all. For me, one of the reasons at the very top was Newt Gingrich’s smug, condescending, elitist treatment of Doug Hoffman, Doug’s supporters, and me during that time. I will never forgive him for mocking a good man, and for the harm he did to the conservative movement. For using his bully pulpit on all the networks to prop up a pathetic excuse for a Republican and bash regular folks who supported an ordinary conservative patriot.

As long as Newt and his ilk think they know better than I do, that their experience as an American counts more than my experience I plan to stick around to convince them they are wrong, and if at all possible, because that’s the kind of girl I am … to rub their elitist noses in it when the opportunity presents itself.

You know I loved the “Rebuke in Debuque” … an ordinary guy walked up to Newt and had this exchange:

Guy: Speaker Gingrich, what you just did to Paul Ryan is unforgivable.

Gingrich: I didn’t do anything to Paul Ryan!

Guy: Yes, you did. You undercut him and his allies in the house.

Gingrich: No, I…

Guy: You’re an embarrassment to our party.

Gingrich: I’m sorry you feel that way.

Guy: Why don’t you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself.

Here’s the clip from Fox News.

I hope Newt burns out fast and gets out of this race. My loathing for him rivals my loathing for any of the progressives who are trying to steal my liberties. Newt could have use his position and power for good, instead he used it for self-aggrandizement, and is now harming anew our chances to save and restore our country by attacking Paul Ryan and all that the tea party has achieved since 2008.

Go away.

Cross post from Spartanburg Tea Party

Paying careful attention to Cold Warrior, Ron Robinson, and those who constantly spurred us to get involved at the precinct level and explained why it was so important, the tea parties/liberty groups in South Carolina worked hard on this in 2011.  Using our email and phone network we educated each other on why and how, shared resources on how to educate and inspire our group members, and helped problem solve when certain counties’ GOP elites moved dates and locations and withheld information (YES it happened!)

So now that those events have passed I wanted to share our victories!  Sparing you the statistical details (and kinda because I don’t have everything at hand) but giving you some anecdotal encouragement, tea parties across our state methodically planned our precinct reorganizations and we have MANY new delegates (what SC calls committeemen).  We got on talk radio, we blogged, we wrote letters to the editor.  We spoke about it in our monthly meetings, shared our experiences, volunteered to “go with”.  My county has a fantastic GOP Chairwoman and we have a very good relationship with her.  She gave us any info we asked for, and with a week to go before the reorg called and gave me the list of precincts that were “unorganized” and asked if I could find people within the tea party to organize them … and we got several folks who stepped up and now head those precincts.

We had many who became officers in their precincts, we have several counties who have tea party folks as their County Chair or Vice Chairs!  With our precincts organized, we turned our attention to making sure our delegates turned out for the County Conventions and passed some conservative resolutions.  Note that this happened in county after county!  We kept our enthusiasm through the State Convention where a State GOP Chairman was elected who had worked in the party pushing it to the right for years, standing firm against our Good ‘Ol Boy Network of RINOs and former Dems.  He is involved with the tea party, has been a speaker on conservative issues such as school choice for years, and early in his campaign reached out to make sure the tea party will have a voice in SC politics.

Beyond our numerical victories it was just so darn inspiring to ask at our post-precinct reorg tea party meetings “How many of you went to your FIRST precinct reorganization and are now delegates?” and see 3/4 of the room hold up their hands.  “How many of you became officers in your precincts?”  about a 1/3 of the room.  “How many are going to the state convention? … Will this be your FIRST state convention?” … so many people who had never thought of this level of involvement before now.  And BOY are they passionate!  Some knocked doors to organize their precinct, some made flyers, others are already planning their first precinct meetings to share with their new neighbors how to work in the party.

There are special challenges to living in a very red state like South Carolina, and we now have some bench strength in our precincts of committed patriots determined to work at moving our party and candidates and politicians to the right, back to Constitutional governance.  Already in my county we’ve had some eager for the next level, running for school board, or a county office, perhaps even a state position.

And in two years, we’ll be even better at organizing!

This is a concept that has rattled around in the back of my head for a while, a bit formless but I knew it was there and eventually I could share it with you … and then BAM! Bill Hennessey wrote it all out in his blog for me! Thanks Bill, for allowing me to be lazy and draft on your thoughts.

We’ve heard in the past few weeks here in Upstate South Carolina radio host Russ Cassell lament on WORD a few mornings “Where are the tea party rallies? We had huge tea party rallies in 2009 and 2010? Why aren’t there any tea party rallies this year?” and he went on and on about whether the tea party was “over” or “dead”. I called one morning to explain to him that the time for rallies and protests was over, that those events accomplished their purpose of waking up patriots, letting them know they were not alone, and giving them a passion and a purpose but that the work of the tea party now was … TO WORK! The rallies never accomplished the purpose of changing the minds of politicians as evidenced by the health care passage in the face of stunning numbers of rallies; the rallies were successful in what they accomplished in empowering the first wave of tea party patriots. Then THOSE PATRIOTS took on the task of changing the politicians, either their minds or their occupations! I gave him some specifics of what the tea parties had been doing for the past year … electing historic numbers of conservatives to office at local, state, and federal level … and quite recently how the South Carolina tea parties worked together to convince 13 GOP Reps in Columbia to take their name off of a Health Exchange Bill that would have served to help implement Obamacare. But Russ just couldn’t wrap his head around those facts, and his parting words to me as he went to break were along the lines of “Well, I guess the Union protesters in Wisconsin have more passion then the tea party does.”

Many of you have heard me express this before, but Hennessey does it really well! Here are a few excerpts from his article … but PLEASE go read the entire thing.

It’s time to start growing again.

In 2009, the first year of the movement, we did two things: we rallied and we demonstrated. These public events attracted the people who a) believe what we believe, and b) know it. They told me at Tea Party after Tea Party, “I’m so glad to know I’m not alone.”

So 2009 was the big coming together. It was all one, long recruitment drive.

Then in 2010, we went into campaign mode. We took the people had and put candidates into offices. All tolled, we elected about 800 Tea Party candidates nationwide. That ain’t bad.
Since the election, we haven’t added to our rosters. In fact, we might have even lost a few.

It’s time to broaden.

and …

See, we might have attracted everyone who believes what we believe and knows it; we’ve barely made a dent in the millions upon millions of Americans who believe what we believe but don’t know it yet.

This second group–Unknowing Believers–is the largest political group in the country. They love liberty, they had debt, and they like transparency. They just don’t realize how much they have in common with people of the Tea Party movement.

This I believe. Those who were open to being impacted by rallies and protests have already joined us. There are many people all around us who did not “wake up” in 2008 and 2009 in the same way/at the same time many of us did, but the alarm clock has begun buzzing incessantly in their ear and we need to make sure that when their eyes open … we are there. Hennessey urges us to make this happen by being positive and focused, having great conversations with anyone around which, because of the times we live in, will naturally evolve to issues of jobs, education, finances, security, and that we can share our enthusiasm for constitutional values and free market solutions as we find things in common with the next wave of the newly awakened patriots. Be ready. Know what you believe and why you believe it. Don’t overwhelm; suggest solutions and give them hope … and a task! Watch them get excited the way you and I got excited when we realized that there WAS something we could do!

Look for the Unknowing Believers, and take every opportunity to find common ground and encourage them.

Cross post from Spartanburg Tea Party

About 10 days ago I asked this question:

Why Set Up an Exchange Plan for a Law that is Unconstitutional?

A few blogs picked up on this, the SC tea party community exchanged some emails and Facebook comments, and several folks took it upon themselves to contact their representatives asking that same question, bolstered by this FANTASTIC article by Michael F. Cannon of The Cato Institute, which I also cited on our Spartanburg Tea Party website.

Ralph who is a tea partier from the other side of the state shared his plan of action with me; he contacted his Rep. Nelson Hardwick (R) (who was a co-sponsor of the bill) in a series of respectful, informative emails, backed up by the information from Michael Cannon and his own good common sense. Two days later Ralph told me Rep. Hardwick withdrew his name as a sponsor of House Bill H-3738!

Yesterday around 2:45 PM Talbert Black of Campaign for Liberty who is the anchor for all the liberty groups in Columbia when it comes to letting us know what’s going on at the Statehouse alerted us:

… the Ways and Means committee, chaired by Rep. Dan Cooper (R), intends to bring H3738, the Health Care Exchange bill up tomorrow, Tuesday the 29th, even though it is not on their agenda. It seems they want to give it a favorable vote without anyone there to witness it. However, if we can fill the room, then our supporters on the committee have said they will be brave enough to make a motion to send the bill back to sub-committee… effectively killing the bill. In order for this to work, we need everyone there in committee. We need to fill the room!

Plans were made, emails were sent, phone calls commenced. Around 4:30 we received this message:

Chairman Cooper has asked to send the below message to the entire caucus. H. 3738, “the SC Health Exchange Benefit Act” will not be placed on tomorrow’s Ways and Means Committee agenda. This is misinformation on someone’s part. Feel free to inform your constituents.

YAY! I sent out an email to our tea party letting them know to “stand down” but also informing them how just our intended presence and all our work in the past few years of being the legislative watchdogs had an impact. This message was from Talbert to the tea party legion:

Even if you didn’t have a chance to contact your representative yet, the knowledge that your calls would soon be pouring in has had the desired effect! First, let me say this was no false alarm. I had independent confirmation from two sources that the intention was to sneak this bill through committee tomorrow. Second, the voice of South Carolina’s people is powerful! This was averted because of you.

Talbert also informed us that he had received an email from Ways and Means Chairman Dan Cooper letting him know that “due to its controversial nature” he chose not to add it to the agenda for the day. Oh yes. And this one last thing. Dan Cooper is removing his name as co-sponsor of the bill because “it seems he got some incorrect advice on the bill.”

I enjoyed the Tea Party rallies I’ve attended over the past few years. I was inspired by the protests and marches, which served to show us just how many other Americans feel the same way we do. However, at this point in time the work of the Tea Party is just that … to work. To call. To email. To show up. To argue and persuade. To be present when and where we need to be. To inform citizens, and bring them with us to speak to those in power.

Yesterday in South Carolina, thanks to Talbert and the many Tea Party/liberty group leaders around the state, we did that.