Back in December of 2009, Rasmussen Reports found that the Tea Party brand beat out both the Republican and Democratic parties on a generic ballot.

The reason for this is relatively straightforward - Tea Party leaders across the country unapologetically stand for simple, time-tested American values: limited but effective government, fiscal responsibility, free markets and lower taxes.

These are American values are shared by the vast majority of Americans, whether they are Republicans, Democrats or independents - which is why all three groups are heavily represented within the Tea Party movement.

Attacked over and again as an angry mob, the Left fails to understand what drives Tea Party leaders - and many are not interested in understanding. It's not that the Tea party movement is anti-Democrat, or anti-Obama. They're anti-big government, anti-professional politicians, and they're determined to put our government back into the hands of its rightful owners - the people.

So as American Solutions and our General Chairman Newt Gingrich... more »

If you're the President of the United States or one of his political appointees and you're ideologically opposed to new oil and natural gas development offshore, what do you do when the public registers its overwhelming support for new drilling in public opinion polls?

You dance, delay, and deceive. You speak melodious words about seeking the wisdom of the public in making these decisions and then ignore evidence of the public will when you get it, or worse, you hide it.

First came the dance.  In August 2008, after soaring gas prices and a dramatic shift in public opinion caused President Bush, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain to reverse their positions on offshore drilling, then-Senator Obama also changed. The Democratic presidential nominee reversed his own position and that of his party, saying he was open to offshore drilling as part of an overall energy plan.  The Democratic Congress followed a month later by quietly dropping the 25-year Congressional ban on offshore drilling.

Then came the delay. In January 2009, President Obama inherited a draft five year offshore drilling plan prepared by the outgoing Bush administration.  The plan was already receiving public comment as part of the elaborate rule making process followed by federal agencies.  Ken Salazar, Obama's new Secretary of Interior, determined the decision about new offshore drilling was so important that he ordered a six-month extension to the comment period.

Third comes the dishonesty.
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STOP THE ENERGY TAX

Last week three House members (two Democrats and one Republican) launched yet another congressional effort to block the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The members include Collin Peterson (D-MN), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee; Ike Skelton (D-MO), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee; and Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO). Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) has a similar bill that would block EPA from regulating GHGs unless it received direct permission from Congress.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, Lisa Murkowski's resolution of disapproval of the EPA's authority to regulate GHGs is tentatively scheduled to be voted upon in March. Although the measure would not in itself block the EPA from regulating CO2, if passed it would launch a series of floor debates in the Senate with no time limit... more »

American Solutions has been working the last several months with the help of the Freedom of Information Act (more background about those efforts here) to get to the bottom of "Drillgate," the continuing saga of trying to find out from the Department of the Interior (DOI) what were the results of the six month long public comment period on the five year plan for new offshore oil and gas development. 

Finally, as reported today in the Wall Street Journal, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) of the DOI delivered some indirect confirmation in its response to our FOIA request that pro-drilling comments surpassed anti-drilling comments by a 2-1 margin.

Notwithstanding this new information, it's now over four months after the close of the comment period (in which 530,000 comments were received) and still no official public announcement by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar about the final results, who had said in April 2009 that President Obama directed him in respect of the comment period to "to make sure that we have an open and transparent government" and make sure that DOI was "maximizing the opportunity for the public to give us guidance on what it is that they want to do" because "these are not decisions that are going to be made behind closed doors."
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UPDATE 2/5:  Here are some quick links to recap last night's event in Irvine, CA which had over 1,200 people.

OC Register editorial: Newt on jobs

OC Register on our small business proposals

Newt on Hannity live from the jobs summit

A special thanks to Chip Hanlon of www.RedCounty.com for live blogging last night. See below for his blog. --Dan Kotman


Hello, everyone... I'm Chip Hanlon, CEO of www.RedCounty.com. The event with Newt will begin in a few moments...

6:33pm: Anaheim Mayor, Curt Pringle, takes the stage to intro Newt. In a state with the craziest of elected officials (Cirque du Sacramento), Pringle, the former Speaker of the State Assembly, is a real star-- a rare repository of common sense and conservatism.

A post yesterday at Think Progress, a blog run by the Center for American Progress (CAP), criticized Newt Gingrich and his Jobs First plan to start creating new jobs.  Their criticism: the plan calls for tax cuts rather than tax increases.  That's right, over at the Center for American Progress, closely aligned with President Obama and the Democrat Party, they think the way to create jobs is to raise taxes on savings and investment ("the rich"), and to maintain the second highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world on American businesses. 

They also think that President Obama should drop his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year, in order to raise the revenues they say are necessary to balance the budget, after the Big Government spending spree adopted by President Obama and Congressional Democrats.  They go on to criticize Newt Gingrich as "a deficit peacock who prefers scoring political points to solving problems."

But unlike anyone at the Center for American Progress, Newt Gingrich actually led a successful effort to balance the federal budget, when he served as Speaker of the House.
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