I am one of the featured speakers at the Inaugural statewide Tea Party Convention in Tennessee’s beautiful Smoky Mountains this weekend. But look at this: the unindicted co-conspirator, terror-tied Muslim Brotherhood front group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is trying to get the good, decent Americans of the Tennessee Tea Party to crush free speech by dropping me from the Tea Party convention this weekend.

Why is CAIR starting this campaign now? This is all about the mosque that Muslims are planning to build near Ground Zero. I spoke the truth about this supremacist initiative on the Sean Hannity radio show last week, in a debate with Islamic apologist Michael Ghouse. Who won the debate? Well, you be the judge:

The next day I was scheduled to be on the Mike Huckabee Show on Fox News along with a representative from the mosque, but at the last minute they decided not to send anyone. They sent Huckabee a written statement, which he read to me on the air. And now CAIR sends around this press release full of lies and distortions, trying to intimidate the Tennessee Tea Partiers into canceling me. The CAIR press release starts this way:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the organizers of the inaugural Tennessee Tea Party Convention to be held this weekend in Gatlinburg to drop an anti-Islam speaker who claims that ‘Hitler and the Nazis were inspired by Islam’ and that Islam ‘mandates’ lies and deception.

Sounds terrible, right? Except for one thing: it’s true. (more…)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is attempting to bully the Tennessee Tea Party Convention into dropping Pamela Geller as one of their speakers for their event this weekend in Gatlinberg.

In a stirring piece of Orwellian propaganda, CAIR cautioned the group via press release:

“The Tea Party needs to decide whether it is a legitimate national political movement or just a safe haven for bigots and extremists,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “We ask that convention organizers not legitimize Geller’s extremist anti-Muslim rhetoric by offering her an official platform.”

And CAIR should know a little something about being a safe haven for bigots and extremists. After all, their former communications director sits in jail right now after pleading guilty to weapons and explosives charges. He also admitted helping terrorists gain entry to a training camp in Pakistan.

While concerned about Ms. Geller’s exercise of free speech and the Tea Party’s exercise of free association, we missed CAIR’s press release denouncing the violation of human rights in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, etc… We’re sure they wrote one, it just wasn’t distributed as widely as this one.

(more…)

Glenn Reynolds in Saturday’s WSJ:

There were promises of transparency and of a new kind of collaborative politics where establishment figures listened to ordinary Americans. We were going to see net spending cuts, tax cuts for nearly all Americans, an end to earmarks, legislation posted online for the public to review before it is signed into law, and a line-by-line review of the federal budget to remove wasteful programs.

These weren’t the tea-party platforms I heard discussed in Nashville last weekend. They were the campaign promises of Barack Obama in 2008.

Mr. Obama made those promises because the ideas they represented were popular with average Americans. So popular, it turns out, that average Americans are organizing themselves in pursuit of the kind of good government Mr. Obama promised, but has not delivered. And that, in a nutshell, was the feel of the National Tea Party Convention. The political elites have failed, and citizens are stepping in to pick up the slack.

(more…)

Rob Long and Mark Steyn are joined by guests law professor John C. Yoo and Breitbart.com’s Andrew Breitbart. Topics covered include Miranda rights for terrorists, a report from the Tea Party convention, the joyless MSM, Al-Qaeda’s potential new bomb making strategy that may be particularly problematic for certain parts of Los Angeles, and some unconventional Super Bowl picks.

(Click on PLAY button and subscribe to podcast)

RIGHT ON— On Sunday the left went bonkers after they discovered that the TelePrompter-less former Governor Sarah Palin wrote notes on the palm of her left hand for her speech to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville. The far left absolutely freaked over this non-issue rather than focus on her brilliant speech knocking the Obama Administration’s horrid record on economics and national defense.

Today Sarah fired back…

She wrote “Hi Mom!” on her palm during her campaign stop with Governor Rick Perry of Texas.

Hah!

(more…)

The media and the Left cannot let a Sarah Palin appearance go by without trying to find something–anything–to discredit her. It’s become not only predictable, but downright funny. The latest drive-by assault on Palin–that she wrote 6 words on her hand–is being treated like a national scandal.

How short their memory is. For that last year we’ve witnessed numerous examples of President Obama’s staged press events and town halls–most recently the Politico reported on Obama’s preselected questions for an Organizing for America forum on February 5, 2010:

The four pre-selected questions Obama took were the exact issues he stressed this week: health care, small businesses, jobs and education, in that order.

Obama is rarely seen without a teleprompter and in the off chance his speech writers can’t put together a masterpiece for him, it’s a disaster.

(more…)

Founding Bloggers can confirm that we too captured an image of the writing on Governor Palin’s hand which was breathlessly reported on Huffington Post. The notes appear to be very innocuous.

On the other hand, the outrage on the left is being completely misunderstood by the right. Democrats don’t mind that she needed a few notes for her speech. They’re upset that Sarah used her hand, proving once again that she is an unsophisticated hick. Everybody knows that whether you are talking in a sixth grade classroom, or talking dirty to the First Lady, using anything other than a presidential-level teleprompter is simply pedestrian.

(more…)

HERE WE GO–

Andrew Breitbart just introduced tonight’s speaker SARAH PALIN.

Mindy and Madison were excited to hear Sarah Palin. They blogged this weekend, too.

(more…)

Smart Girl Politics led a breakout session this morning on “Conducting a Voter Registration Drive.” One of Smart Girl Politics goals is to focus on educating conservative women. As part of that goal, SGP members members Michelle Moore (r) and Bridget Blanton led the meeting.

Michelle Moore, SGP Director of Technology, and Bridget Blanton, SGP National Voter Registration Coordinator, led the training session at the event focusing on Women in Politics and Voter Registration. Michelle Moore will be tweeting the conference this weekend. The Smart Girls give a voice to smart, strong, well-informed conservative women. The Smart Girls are the women who will take back this country.

Smart Girl Politics is committed to providing a conservative community for women to express their opinions and ideas in an open and welcoming environment. SGP is dedicated to reaching out into the community to engage, educate, and empower conservative women to take a more active role in politics. And finally, we will debate and develop clear positions that encourage conservative activism in order to counter the negative activity of popular culture that is often found in the main stream media.

Michelle opened up the session and was terrific. She made St. Louis proud. Michelle said she found a home in Smart Girl Politics. She says she is inspired and empowered by the strong women of this movement.

(more…)

Media Matters is taking the Tea Party Convention to task regarding its limited credentialing for press access.

Tea Party convention hosts Palin and bans the press. Except Palin employer Fox News

Media message from the right wing: If you don’t give the Tea Party “fair coverage,” then you will be banned from covering its convention.

And who says the conservative movement doesn’t hold journalism in contempt?

So….when a quasi political convention held by a private group selectively excludes dissenting media, that’s contempt. But when the White House selectively excludes dissenting media, singling them out for vilification, that’s just fine with Media Matters.

For the record, I would like to see lamestream media outlets there. More often than not, when they cover the Tea Parties, they embarrass themselves in a way that simultaneously exposes their bias, while energizing and growing the base.

(more…)