04/10/17

“Punch Trump in the gut”: Kansas socialists back Congressional candidate James Thompson

By: Trevor Loudon | New Zeal

America’s largest Marxist organization, 20,000 strong Democratic Socialists of America, is intervening heavily in a special Congressional election to be held in the 4th District of Kansas.

DSA wants to “Punch Trump in the gut”…to deliver a shock defeat in the first Congressional election since Donald Trump won the presidency in November 2016. To this end, the socialists are heavily backing Democratic candidate James Thompson in a deep red district vacated by Trump’s CIA pick Mike Pompeo.

Regarded as an impossible mission only a few weeks ago, the April 11th election is now widely regarded as very much “in play.”

Candidate Thompson, a Bernie Sanders supporter,  plays to the middle, emphasizing his military background, but his Marxist supporters regard him as a “progressive Democrat,” very much worthy of their support.

Many Wichita Democratic Socialists of America supporters are actively supporting Thompson’s campaign. The most important is probably the candidate’s right hand woman, Field Director Rhonda Cox.

Rhonda Cox took on the important role of coordinating Thompson’s campaign volunteers in February, 2017.

In November 2016, Rhonda Cox joined the 400 member Wichita Democratic Socialists of America public Facebook groups and has signaled her intention to attend at least two Wichita DSA meetings since then.

Rhonda Cox has worked to enlist help from other “progressive” groups including Sister District and Moveon.org. She says “this is such an important race and a test of the Trump administration. If he (Thompson) can win this race in this red red state of Kansas it will be like punching Trump in the gut”.

Wichita Democratic Socialists of America seems to have made electing James Thompson a top group priority.

On February 8th, James Thompson participated in a debate with four other Democratic Party hopefuls, moderated by Friends University political science professor and Democratic Party activist Russell Arben Fox.

In recent days, the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) used Thompson’s alleged extreme pro-abortion views to attack the candidate in this ad.

The NRCC attributes its ad to statements allegedly made by Thompson at the February 8th event.

Russell Arben Fox

“That forum took place at Friends University, and I moderated it, and know exactly what was said about abortion that night, because I was the one who asked the candidates the questions,” says Russell Arben Fox.

“Thompson is pro-choice. But there was nothing – NOTHING – said that evening, by anyone, about “late-term abortions” or “sex-selective abortions.”

Thompson’s campaign has requested that the ad be pulled from a local TV station, but Matt Gorman, communications director for the NRCC, has said on Twitter that “the ad is still airing and is 100% accurate.”

No one unfortunately, has mentioned the fact that Russell Arben Fox has been a key leader of the Wichita Democratic Socialists of America for close to a decade.

03/14/16

American Spring – Bread and Circuses

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

George Soros

It was a hot time in the old town the other night in Chicago. Donald Trump was scheduled to speak at a rally there with thousands in attendance. That rally had to be cancelled because thousands of violent protesters showed up. Many had tickets to the event. The protest seems to have been organized by MoveOn.org, Bill Ayers and Code Pink. CPUSA, Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights and ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) also had a hand in it. George Soros has invested approximately $15 million to stage protests like this one to ensure a Clinton victory in November. Troops on the ground included La Raza, the Black Lives Matter movement, the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panthers. It was a who’s who of anarchists, extremists, radicals and freaks. Trump never even arrived at the event. He told the attendees to disperse and go in peace. Unfortunately, it did not go down that way. The decision to cancel the event was Trump’s and was not a recommendation from the police. I say he made the right call on this one.

Bernie Sanders of course blamed Trump, which is just ridiculous. Donald Trump has a right to free speech. The protesters also have a right to protest, but peacefully. They weren’t doing that, so the police should have dispersed them. This is what Sanders had to say:

“As is the case virtually every day, Donald Trump is showing the American people that he is a pathological liar,” Sanders wrote. “Obviously, while I appreciate that we had supporters at Trump’s rally in Chicago, our campaign did not organize the protests. What caused the protests at Trump’s rally is a candidate that has promoted hatred and division against Latinos, Muslims, women, and people with disabilities, and his birther attacks against the legitimacy of President Obama. What caused the violence at Trump’s rally is a campaign whose words and actions have encouraged it on the part of his supporters.”

Continue reading

07/8/15

Conservative Revolt Brewing Against Scott Walker Over Staffer Hired By His PAC

By: John Hawkins
Right Wing News

Last week, Right Wing News did an article about Scott Walker’s PAC hiring Brad Dayspring. If you don’t know who Brad Dayspring is, here’s an introduction from one of the conservative candidates he slimed during the GOP primaries.

“Brad Dayspring is well known as a despicable establishment operative who specializes in slander and character assassination against conservative candidates,” Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel—one such conservative Dayspring personally frequently attacked—told Breitbart News exclusively on Wednesday. “He is the perfect example of why conservatives no longer trust the GOP. He’s little more than a paid attack dog, without principle and honor, the personification of everything wrong with our present political system.”

Brad Dayspring

McDaniel added:

“Scott Walker appears to be a good man with solid conservative instincts. But his hiring of the unstable Dayspring is an insult to honorable political discourse. If Dayspring is aligned with Walker, then conservatives should be warned to look elsewhere for leadership.”

Right Wing News has contacts with Scott Walker’s campaign and with his PAC. We reached out to both and asked for them to go on the record about Brad Dayspring. Unfortunately, nobody was willing to go on the record defending him — which should tell you a lot.

If Brad Dayspring is indefensible, why did Scott Walker’s team hire him? Well, you hire a guy like this either to stab conservatives in the back or to let your backers in the establishment know that you intend to do exactly that despite the rhetoric you’re using to trick the “bubbas” into voting for you.

Why else would they go to the mat for a new staffer after the reaction Dayspring received?

Breitbart has written a negative article about the hire and so has the Daily Caller (Where it was noted Dayspring had been telling people he was going to work for Jeb Bush). Over at Redstate, where Walker wrote a July 4th guest diary, the Wisconsin governor has been compared to Thad Cochran over this. Brent Bozell, the head of the Media Research Center, wants Dayspring gone. Mark Levin, who has roughly 7 million listeners, has been smeared by Dayspring before and retweeted the Right Wing News article we put out about him.

Since the article came out, we spoke to another one of the grassroots conservative candidates that Dayspring vilified, Dr. Milton Wolf, who primaried Republican Senator Pat Roberts in Kansas. Here’s what he had to say about Scott Walker’s team hiring Brad Dayspring.

“It’s baffling that a principled conservative like Scott Walker would hire Brad Dayspring. Dayspring is an attack dog for hire who specializes in slandering and maligning conservatives in order to protect the failed insiders who have abandoned conservative principles and are destroying our Republican Party.”

Here are just a few of the tweets from dismayed conservatives that flooded Twitter since the Right Wing News article came out.

I agree 100% with that last tweet.

Maybe Scott Walker’s team didn’t do its due diligence before it hired Dayspring. That would be a mistake, but forgivable. On the other hand, if Walker’s team hangs onto Dayspring, it might as well be flat-out telling you to leave a spot open on your back so a knife can be slammed in there down the road. A veterans’ group wouldn’t bring in Jane Fonda and no conservative you can trust is going to keep Brad Dayspring on his team.

07/3/15

How Can Scott Walker’s Team Hire Someone Like Brad Dayspring?

By: John Hawkins
RightWingNews

Scott Walker’s campaign caught flack for hiring Liz Mair earlier this year. Liz, whom I know and respect despite the fact she’s well to the left of me on a number of issues, made the mistake of slamming Iowa’s position in the primary system. Most conservatives don’t like Iowa having so much sway in the GOP primaries, but most conservatives also aren’t working for a candidate who’s running in those primaries either. After Walker caught flack from Iowans over Mair’s remarks, she ended up resigning. That’s too bad because Liz is an excellent digital media strategist, but once her comments became a big enough issue to actually hurt Walker in the primary, it put him in a very difficult position.

Brad Dayspring

Today, he’s in a much worse position because Scott Walker’s Unintimidated PAC has hired Brad Dayspring.

Some people might excuse Scott Walker for this hire because he currently can’t coordinate with the PAC. However, people in the know realize that’s a cop-out. The PAC is run by former high-level Scott Walker staffers who would NEVER deliberately do anything he doesn’t agree with. Furthermore, you can be sure that there was PLENTY of coordination between Walker and his staffers right up until the moment he was legally unable to continue to do so. Is it possible that he personally approved the hiring of someone like Dayspring beforehand? Absolutely, but a big part of the value of PACs like this one is that they create a degree of separation between the candidate and the PAC. The PACs can run dirty ads and they can hire dirtbags who will undermine grassroots conservatives at every opportunity and supposedly, the candidate can’t be blamed.

Well, not this time.

Walker shouldn’t get a pass if his PAC keeps Dayspring on staff — and this is no small matter. If Walker becomes our nominee and wins the election, many of the staffers on his campaign and his PAC will end up working in the White House. The people holding those positions will have a tremendous impact on the sort of policies we’ll see. For example, one of the reasons that Ted Cruz has been such a champion of conservatives is that he ended up bringing in a number of staffers from Jim DeMint’s office. When a politician surrounds himself with those sort of staffers, it’s no surprise when he ends up fighting the good fight. On the other hand, when a politician is surrounded by people like Brad Dayspring, you can be sure he’ll end up fighting conservatives. Want an example? Brad Dayspring used to work for Eric Cantor. Was any grassroots conservative sorry when Cantor was beaten by Dave Brat?

Please.

Now, maybe the PAC just didn’t do its due diligence on Brad Dayspring. For example, maybe the PAC didn’t realize that he has a teen porn problem. Do the staffers who run Scott Walker’s PAC approve of that? People should ask them.

Here’s a little excerpt from Breitbart that will give you an introduction to one of the most loathsome people in the Republican Party and someone no grassroots conservative should ever trust.

There’s perhaps no Republican operative from the establishment side of the party, however, who’s been more effective in eliminating conservatives nationwide throughout the movement in recent years—and Team Walker’s decision to bring Dayspring aboard just a few months after the similarly problematic Liz Mair was let go could backfire in a significant way. The 2016 GOP presidential primary is shaking out to mirror the larger fight inside the Republican Party—the conservative grassroots is hungry for a Washington outsider, while the establishment side of the party is more interested in attempting yet again to win a general election without the GOP base.

“Brad Dayspring is well known as a despicable establishment operative who specializes in slander and character assassination against conservative candidates,” Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel—one such conservative Dayspring personally frequently attacked—told Breitbart News exclusively on Wednesday. “He is the perfect example of why conservatives no longer trust the GOP. He’s little more than a paid attack dog, without principle and honor, the personification of everything wrong with our present political system.”

McDaniel added:

“Scott Walker appears to be a good man with solid conservative instincts. But his hiring of the unstable Dayspring is an insult to honorable political discourse. If Dayspring is aligned with Walker, then conservatives should be warned to look elsewhere for leadership.”

Here’s more from Brent Bozell.

“Gov. Walker should have known better than to hire Brad Dayspring, the worst GOP anti-conservative hit man in Washington,” said Brent Bozell, the conservative chairman of ForAmerica and president of the Media Research Center. “Brad Dayspring has a despicable record using character assassination to besmirch the reputations of conservative candidates and public policy leaders. He’s paid to do the ugly work of the Washington establishment. He is the personification of everything that’s wrong in politics today. Gov. Walker, people are policy. If you want conservatives’ support, you need to get rid of this cretin immediately.”

Here’s Mark Levin on Dayspring.

Mitch McConnell’s National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) hit man, some idiot named Brad Dayspring, does not intimidate me and will not silence me with his sleazy inside-the-beltway tactics. In fact, I am more fired up than ever.

…Now, let me be clear. I hold McConnell and the chairman of the NRSC – Jerry Moran of Kansas – personally and politically accountable for the sleazy intimidation tactics of their current and former staffers. My opposition to McConnell’s re-election is underscored by pathetic behavior like this. Conservatives should not give a dime to the NRSC, money which is used to pay the salaries of these hit men and empower McConnell, et al.

Here’s more from Redstate.

As we have documented here on RedState, Brad Dayspring was one of the loudest lying voices in the dishonest, dishonorable, and disreputable campaign the NRSC waged on behalf of the mildly profoundly senile, corrupt, and adulterous Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) 46%. In this campaign Dayspring was front and center in lying about challenger Chris McDaniel. In fact, the scorched earth campaign waged by Dayspring against McDaniel exceeded any campaign the NRSC has ever run against a Democrat. He was also instrumental in launching attacks on the challenger to Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) 70%, Dr. Milton Wolf….

…Though there is no monetary teat, or other appendage, Dayspring won’t pull to extract cash, he routinely accuses conservatives, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100%, and conservative organizations like the Family Research Council of putting fund raising ahead of principle– which to Dayspring equates with whatever Establishment corruptocrat he’s being paid to support. At a time when the best man for his wedding was under arrest for child pornography (and favoriting pornographic tweets) he accused Mark Levin and the Senate Conservative Fund of pay-to-play purchases of Levin’s book. This is simply another of the lies Dayspring has told, knowing them to be lies. And then he moves along to yet another lie.

….There is no way I will support Governor Walker so long as Dayspring is affiliated in any way, no matter how tangential, with his campaign. This hiring of a casual liar, of a man who sets about to destroy the reputations of anyone he is told to attack speaks ill of Governor Walker. If he keeps Dayspring, it also tells you that Governor Walker is no conservative. He has now become the designated establishment candidate. If Dayspring stays with the campaign, conservatives must oppose him no matter the cost.

I like Scott Walker a lot. He’s one of my favorite candidates in the race, but if Dayspring is allowed to continue on with his PAC, grassroots conservatives would be wise to be very cautious about rallying behind Walker. I would also strongly recommend that NO ONE give any money to Scott Walker’s PAC or his campaign as long as Dayspring is affiliated with it. If you’re a grassroots conservative, this guy is not your friend and no one who wants him in a key position is your friend either.

You can tell a lot about candidates by watching when they’re willing to stand and fight. The fact that Walker fought the UNIONS in WISCONSIN and WON three elections in four years going toe-to-toe with them speaks very highly of him. However, if his staffers are the sort of people who know what they’re getting with Dayspring and are willing to lose the support of a lot of grassroots conservatives to keep him on board, that tells you they’re planning to spend a lot of time FIGHTING CONSERVATIVES if Walker gets elected. We have too many people like that in Congress as it is and we certainly don’t need one in the White House.

So, if you’re concerned, tweet Scott Walker and the PAC’s digital media director, Brittany Cohan. You should also send an email to Unintimidated PAC. Be honest, but polite. If you’re a conservative fan of Walker who’s concerned, say so. If you don’t intend to give any money to the campaign or PAC as long as Dayspring is there, say so. Give them the benefit of the doubt — for now. But, if they hang onto Dayspring, it’s a neon warning sign about Walker that’s fifty feet high and conservatives should heed it.

02/17/15

Suit Seeks Financial Damages from Snowden Inc.

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

A federal lawsuit has been filed against the Oscar-nominated movie “Citizenfour,” which features NSA defector Edward Snowden and celebrates his theft and release of classified documents. Snowden and his associates are being sued for financial damages for providing aid and comfort to America’s enemies.

Filed on behalf of a retired naval officer who saw the film and took offense at Snowden’s illegal activities, the suit says Snowden and his associates have participated in “a scheme to profit from stolen U.S. government property” and have no right to the money generated by the film. Snowden, who has been charged with espionage and is currently living in Russia, makes regular appearances via video to his supporters in the U.S. He spoke, for example, to a Koch Brothers-sponsored International Students for Liberty conference on February 13.

The “Citizenfour” film has already been shown in theaters, is up for an Oscar at the Academy Awards on Sunday night in the “documentary” category, and is then scheduled to air on the HBO cable channel the night of Monday, February 23.

The suit alleges that the film “glorifies international espionage for profit” and that Snowden’s “dissemination of top-secret documents to foreign enemies” has “seriously damaged” U.S. national security, putting the lives of Americans at risk. Information included in the complaint (Exhibit A) also alleges that the film is not eligible for an Oscar nomination because its entry violates the rules for documentary awards.

While the lawsuit has generated some interest from outlets like The Hollywood Reporter, it has not garnered the national press attention it deserves. Yet, the lawsuit has a very strong factual basis. It cites the 1980 precedent of Snepp vs. United States, in which a former CIA officer was denied the right to gain a profit from a book based on information obtained and then released to the public, in violation of his standard secrecy agreement.

Like Snepp, Snowden violated a secrecy agreement. What’s more, it has been reported that Snowden stole highly classified “Tier 3” documents about ongoing NSA operations. The NSA is part of the Defense Department and its mission is to support military men and women as they fight America’s foreign enemies.

The lawsuit shines a light on how Snowden’s disclosures have put our citizens, military personnel and allies in danger.

Snowden’s disclosures have been blamed for enabling the Russians to conduct a surprise invasion of Ukraine, and for the Islamic State terror group, also known as ISIS, to unexpectedly grow in power and strength in the Middle East. Former CIA officer Robert Baer has said, “…ISIS has been reading Snowden…they know to stay off phones, stay off e-mail and the rest of it. They’re communicating with mobile Wi-Fi. They can beat the National Security Agency…”

In addition to Snowden, defendants in the lawsuit include his collaborator Laura Poitras, the director of “Citizenfour,” and the Weinstein Company, which is distributing the film in the U.S.

To attempt to rectify the damage done to U.S. foreign policy, the lawsuit seeks the establishment of a “constructive trust” to hold the funds generated by the film. The suit argues that a trust would enable the government “to obtain an accounting of all monies, gains, profits, royalties, and other advantages that all Defendants have derived, or will derive in the future, from the publication, distribution, sale, serialization, or republication in any form, including any other rights, of the work entitled ‘Citizenfour,’ whether or not such gains remain in Defendant Snowden’s possession or in the possession, custody or control, whether direct or indirect, of any other Defendant herein.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Horace B. Edwards, a patriotic retired naval officer and former Secretary of the Kansas Department of Transportation. Edwards is also a former president of both a pipeline and an engineering company.

His local newspaper, the Topeka Capital-Journal, quotes him as saying that he went to watch the film and soon realized that it was celebrating illegal activity that hurt the United States. Edwards said he had a security clearance while working for the government and would never think of disclosing secret documents. He contacted a local attorney, Jean Lamfers, a former journalist, to bring the legal action.

“Plaintiff Edwards views Defendant Snowden’s acts as dishonorable and indefensible and not the acts of a legitimate whistleblower,” the lawsuit says.

The defendants have argued that their activities are protected by the First Amendment, and that Edwards doesn’t have the standing to sue.

As previously noted by Accuracy in Media, “Citizenfour” shows Snowden in Hong Kong, China, after arranging through encrypted messages to meet his collaborators and disseminate his stolen NSA documents. We argued that the film describes what amounts to an espionage operation to damage America and our allies. Snowden fled from China to Russia, where he is under the control of the Russian secret police, the FSB.

Because of the damage inflicted by Snowden and his associates, the suit anticipates that “hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars” will be needed “to protect human assets placed at risk, restore/revamp computer infrastructure, rebuild relationships with foreign governments, and respond to various enemies’ resurgence efforts, due to the blowback associated with the film and the release of classified information to foreign enemies of this Nation.”

A similar estimate has also been made by former CIA officer Baer, who said about Snowden, “…this guy has done more damage to U.S. intelligence than I’ve seen anybody do. And he’s gone way beyond…protecting privacy of Americans…It’s going to cost us billions.”

Catherine Herridge, chief intelligence correspondent for the Fox News Channel, noted in December of 2013, “A review of the NSA leaks by Fox News shows the majority of the leaks since June now deal with sources, methods and surveillance activities overseas, rather than the privacy rights of American citizens.”

We commented at the time that the evidence showed that Snowden “stole NSA documents and leaked them for the express purpose of weakening America’s defenses against terrorism.”

The lawsuit highlights the financial nature of the Snowden operation, and how he and his associates stand to make millions of dollars from undermining U.S. national security.

02/3/15

The Tea Party: Then and Now

By: Michael Johns

The largest and most impactful political movement, at least since the civil rights movement and perhaps in all of American history, originated in the minds and efforts of less than a dozen American citizens.

It was late February 2009, just weeks after the inauguration of Barack Obama, and there was every reason for conservatives to fear the worst: That we had elected a polarizing, far left and ultimately ineffectual president who would prove a threat to constitutional law, our economy and America’s global standing in the world.  Most concerning was that he would gradually or even quickly erode our nation’s two centuries of respect for individual rights and liberties upon which America was founded, “fundamentally transforming” (as he promised) our nation in destructive ways.

On the morning of February 19, 2009, as was often the case, I had the financial media outlet CNBC playing on a distant television in my suburban Philadelphia home.  This particular cold February morning, Rick Santelli, a Chicago-based CNBC reporter, was doing his usual stand-up reporting from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade (COMEX).  Santelli began reporting on Washington’s federal subsidies of housing under Obama when mid way through his report his sense of outrage began to escalate passionately.

Santelli accused the Obama administration of “promoting bad behavior” in subsidizing mortgages then at default risk with a $75 billion housing program, known as the Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan. He then turned and, while still live on CNBC, stated assertively to COMEX floor traders: “We’re thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party!” Santelli’s suggestion of a Tea Party response to the federal government’s overreach was greeted with supportive applause and whistles of approval from COMEX traders. Santelli then said: “What we are doing in this country is making our founders roll over in their graves.”

I found Santelli’s Chicago comments accurate, inspirational and even bold for a mainstream reporter in a media world that really never challenged Obama on much of anything during or since the 2008 campaign. What I did not realize was that his remarks were viewed similarly by several other conservative-leaning Americans, who would go on to inspire a national political movement that would shake the nation.

Just a few days following Santelli’s rant, 12 or so conservative activists, including me, were invited to participate in a strategic organizing Tea Party conference call moderated by Nashville-based, Stanford educated conservative Michael Patrick Leahy.  It was Leahy who earlier launched the now famous #tcot (Top Conservatives on Twitter) hashtag, where it remains today one of Twitter’s most commonly used hashtags and a key methodology for conservative communication.

Most on the call, unlike me, were new to political engagement.  They had largely never worked in government, public policy or politics. Aside from Leahy and me, the others had never managed an organization either.  They had largely never written or spoken on political or public policy themes, even though all of us would soon be called upon to articulate our Tea Party message nationally in the weeks to come.  Most had never even worked on a political campaign.  But the passion on that call was infectious.  The 12 or so of us left it with a feeling that a potentially influential national political movement was emerging—and quickly.

Several follow-up calls were scheduled, and they led us to devise a now well-known plan for Tea Party protests across the nation on Tax Day, April 15, 2009.  The aggressive six-week timeline, like much that the Tea Party movement has undertaken since its creation, was organized hastily, with a sense of urgency, and not without its errors. But April 15, 2009, is now a fairly notable day in American history in the sense that it was the physical manifestation of a national political movement, comprising tens of millions of Americans and quite possibly the largest in American history, that would go on to impact significantly the nation’s political debate.

The day of April 15, 2009, was a busy one. For my part, in the afternoon, on Boston Square in downtown Boston, just blocks from the original Sam Adams-led Tea Party on December 16, 1773, I spoke to a large and passionate crowd furious with Obama and the country’s direction.  I then left Boston to speak that evening at one of the nation’s largest tea parties of the day, held in lower Manhattan, not far from the memorialized 9/11 attack location. Three days later, on the grounds of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, I spoke for a third time in just three days to a very large and vibrant Tea Party rally organized by the Independence Hall Tea Party Association, of which I was then an officer.

The years 2009 and 2010 were full of flurry and a sense of urgency for the national Tea Party movement, an urgency that has continued to this day.  In 2010, in Quincy, Illinois, where Lincoln held his sixth debate with U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas on October 13, 1858, I joined Leahy and the late media personality Andrew Breitbart in addressing a large Tea Party crowd on the precise location where Lincoln pointedly articulated his anti-slavery message: “We (the Republican Party) also oppose it as an evil so far as it seeks to spread itself,” Lincoln said that day in Quincy.

By this time, the message of our movement was being refined and polished, comprised mostly of three universal themes that were and continue to be broadly popular with the American people: First, the federal government has grown too big and its taxes vastly too excessive.  Second, the sovereignty of the United States—in controlling its borders, in developing its national security and foreign policies — must be defended at all costs.  And third, that the U.S. Constitution was a document containing absolute truths to which government needed to adhere if it was to avoid lawlessness and chaos.

As I was in Boston and New York City, Leahy and others organized one of the day’s largest and most successful events in Nashville, drawing thousands.  In downtown Chicago, just a couple blocks from where the Santelli rant heard round the world took place, another Tea Party founder organized a large and hugely successful Tea Party rally.  His name was Eric Odom.

Quickly, the passionate and activism of this small cadre spread to thousands, then tens of thousands, and ultimately to millions of Americans who identified themselves as being supportive of the Tea Party movement. On November 2, 2010, a highly motivated Tea Party movement rocked the nation, sending 65 new Republican House members to Washington and thus forcing then Speaker Nancy Pelosi to surrender her gavel to new Republican John Boehner. Four years later, on November 4, 2014, the Tea Party movement again proved a huge difference maker, further increasing Republican presence in the U.S. House and increasing its U.S. Senate seats by nine, including pulling out wins in hugely contentious races in many states, including Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, and South Dakota.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. House of Representatives, a Tea Party Caucus, chaired by former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, had been developed with the movement’s input to coordinate the Tea Party agenda in Congress.  And the national strategy discussions continued. In Chicago, for instance, Odom and I spent three long days in detailed discussion on the movement’s strategy, messaging and allocation of limited resources.

In the months and years since, along with other Tea Party founders from the February 2009 conference call, we continued tireless efforts of what by then had become a vast, influential, though sometimes chaotically organized movement of political consequence. All the Tea Party movement founders from Leahy’s first conference call are impressive in their own ways, and have their own personal stories about what sparked their leadership in this now historical movement.

In the years that followed, along with other national Tea Party leaders, Leahy, Odom and I crisscrossed the nation articulating the Tea Party message and helped to organize the movement politically in order to prevail in elections.

In Dallas, Leahy organized a national Tea Party leadership meeting that included many of the founders from the original February 2009 call participated.  “Let’s begin this meeting with a prayer to God for His guidance of this movement,” I suggested privately to Leahy, who agreed. We began the meeting exactly that way.  Later, also in Dallas, we organized a two-day training course for regional and other Tea Party leaders on political and public policy activism.

One of those leaders was Chicago-based Eric Odom.  In fall 2010, from Las Vegas, we poured ourselves into the campaign of Nevada State Senator Sharron Angle in hopes of replacing the Obama administration’s strongest U.S. Senate ally, Harry Reid.  As the movement’s prominence (and the associated strategic questions facing it) evolved, Odom and I spent several days in Chicago asking and discussing those questions and developing our best answers.  And there was the day in Philadelphia where I invited Odom to join me in addressing an important pre-election Tea Party rally held on the iconic grounds of Independence Hall in front of the very building where 56 founders of our nation pledged with a “firm reliance of the protection of divine providence,” their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor” to remove imperial British forces and rule and establish a self-governed nation rooted in liberty and the rule of law.

The Tea Party movement’s efforts, as even its detractors would concede, have since proven hugely consequential, ensuring that Obama, at least since 2011, was not given full reign of the legislative and executive branches of government.  A Tea Party-influenced Republican House and Senate, along with our extensive grassroots efforts, have held liberal Obama’s agenda at bay, despite the Tea Party’s ultimate inability to defeat Obamacare.

Since that first February 2009 conference call, the founding and ongoing development of the historic Tea Party movement is one of many intriguing personal stories, and a singular collective story.  Along the way, we have done many things well (removing Pelosi and then Reid as Speaker and Majority Leader, respectively).  We have strengthened the Republican Party as a party that stands more than before for conservative principles expressed (but too often ignored) in the GOP platform.  We also quickly obliterated the 2008 progressive political culture that maintained that Obama was a man who singularly held the answers for the nation.  Time has proven those ideas were not at all innovative and were actually just a rewording of those from the liberal playbook of more government and more taxes.  In all these ways, since those February 2009 planning calls, the national Tea Party movement has exceeded the accomplishments of the effective and well-constructed 2008 Obama for America campaign that ultimately propelled Obama to the presidency.

All this history is important because it reaffirms the veracity of Margaret Mead’s famous statement: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” It’s worth asking: If those first organizing calls had not been launched, would Republicans today control the U.S. Senate and House? If no, that means that Obama’s entire far-left political agenda would have been rubber stamped by an equally liberal Congressional leadership.  Has the Tea Party movement saved the nation?  I believe it likely has.

Yet, to be truthful about the inner workings of the Tea Party movement, we have done many things well, but failed in others.  In 2015, the Tea Party and patriot movement’s top priority must be communicating and impacting public opinion and explaining why and how Tea Party principles can make America great again: creating jobs and economic prosperity, restoring rigid adherence to the U.S. Constitution, and restoring a strong America that can defeat serious national security threats.

With a reliance on divine providence again, let’s roll back this utterly destructive, unconstitutional government and welcome in a century or more of strong liberty leadership.  Next step: We must explain our Tea Party vision and solutions for America.