Tea party speaker presents proof Grover Norquist is a secret Muslim: ‘He has a beard’

By David Edwards/Raw Story

A speaker at a tea party event in Texas recently suggested that that anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist was a secret Muslim because “he has a beard.”

In a video posted by the Far North Dallas Tea Party on Thursday, Texas Eagle Forum President and former Chairman of the Texas Republican Party Cathie Adams presented evidence that Norquist was part of a “stealth jihad” in the United States.

Adams said that Norquist, who is married to a Muslim woman, was “trouble with a capital ‘T’” because “he’s showing signs of converting to Islam himself.”

“As you see, he has a beard,” she pointed out. “He’s married a Muslim woman. But he denies that he has converted himself. He denies that.”

“He and Karl Rove are very good friends. I don’t like Karl Rove, and I certainly don’t like Grover Norquist.”

Adams went on to suggest that CIA Director John Brennan could also be a secret Muslim.

“Where is the outcry?” she asked. “Thank God that Ted Cruz is now in the United States Senate!”

Norquist, along with conservative activist Suhail Khan, are often labeled as stealth Muslimsby Islamaphobic conservative activists led by Pamela Geller, Frank Gaffney and Robert Spencer, most recently at at 2013 CPAC panel.

Watch this video from the Far North Dallas Tea Party, uploaded May 30, 2013.

Fox guest Michelle Malkin links Grover Norquist to Boston Marathon bombing

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

During an appearance on Fox News on Wednesday night, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin alleged that influential anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist was indirectly linked to the Boston Marathon bombing.

“I think of course political correctness has always been the handmaiden of terrorism, on top of that political pandering, and unfortunately neither party has its hands completely free of this,” she told Sean Hannity while discussing the bombing suspects.

“If you go on my website right now, michellemalkin.com, I talk more about the first president of the mosque that the bombers attended, Abdurahman Alamoudi, who has ties to the GOP — and in particular Grover Norquist — that a lot of people in the establishment had never, never condemned,” Malkin added. “If this had been a liberal who was tied to it, everybody on the right would be screaming about it. So both parties, both establishments are guilty of not speaking up enough and not doing enough to stop these people.”

Alamoudi, former president of the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge, was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2004 after confessing to his involvement in a Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. Prior to his arrest, he was an influential financier of political and charitable organizations.

On her website, Malkin claimed that Norquist had worked with Alamoudi to create the Islamic Free Market Institute. She also alleged that Norquist helped Alamoudi obtain access to the White House.

Malkin is not the first to have attacked Norquist for his alleged ties to “Islamic radicals.” Conservative activists Frank Gaffney and David Horowitz were the first to accuse the founder of Americans for Tax Reform of helping “Islamists” infiltrate the U.S. government. The Southern Poverty Law Center has described Gaffney as “the anti-Muslim movement’s most paranoid propagandist.”

Watch video, courtesy of Fox News, below:

Thirty-Six Congressional Republicans (And Counting) Have Distanced Themselves From Norquist’s Pledge

Greg Noth/Guest blogger for Think Progress

Every day, more Republicans in Congress are backing away from Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquit’s anti-tax pledge. For more than 20 years, the pledge, which stipulates that those who sign will never — under any circumstance — vote to raise taxes while in Congress, has virtually been a requirement for Congressional Republicans.According to ATR, just 16 of the 234 House Republicans and 6 of the 45 Senate Republicans that comprise the 113th Congress did not sign the pledge.

However, the pledge may not have the staying power it once did. As of this writing, more than a dozen House Republicans — including Majority Leader Eric Cantor — and 10 GOP senators have distanced themselves from the pledge to one degree or another. Here are just a few examples or what members had to say:

— Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH): “The only pledge that keeps me up at night is the pledge I owe to the people of New Hampshire and our country to work as hard as I can to make sure America doesn’t go bankrupt.”

– Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA): “I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge . . . I don’t worry about that because I care too much about my country. I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist.”

– Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN): “Well, I’m not obligated on the pledge. I made Tennesseans aware, I was just elected, that the only thing I’m honoring is the oath I take when I’m sworn in this January.”

– Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA): “When I go to the constituents, it’s not about that pledge. It’s about trying to solve problems.”

– Rep. Peter King (R-NY): “A pledge is good at the time you sign it . . . In 1941, I would have voted to declare war on Japan. But each Congress is a new Congress. And I don’t think you can have a rule that you’re never going to raise taxes or that you’re never going to lower taxes. I don’t want to rule anything out.”

– Rep. Timothy Johnson (R-IL): “I would never in a million years have considered this as some kind of a locked-in-granite pledge. Frankly, I didn’t even remember it. That shows you how obscure it was to me.”

Other Senators that have signed the pledge and distanced themselves from Norquist includeSen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE), and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY). House Republicans also jumping ship include: Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY), Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI), Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA), Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AR), Rep. Pat Meehan (R-PA), Rep. Jon Runyan (R-NJ), Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE), Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE),Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH), Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID), Rep. John Kline (R-MN), Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-MN), Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN),Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE), Rep. Scott Rigell (R-VA), Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY), Rep. Allen West (R-FL), Rep. Robert Dold (R-IL), and Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA).

Norquist Tells GOP That Raising Taxes On The Middle Class Doesn’t Count As A Tax Increase

By Travis Waldron/Think Progress

Anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist, the president of Americans For Tax Reform and author of the radical anti-tax pledge that has played a significant role in hamstringing budget and deficit-reduction negotiations, has said that it is unacceptable for those who have signed his pledge to vote in favor of any tax increase. But now that President Obama and congressional Democrats are backing a tax cut aimed at stimulating economic growth, Norquist has changed his tune.

Norquist met with Republican members today to let them know that opposing the extension of the payroll tax cut — which would provide many families an extra $1,000a year — would not amount to supporting a tax increase, National Journal’s Billy Housereported today:

That stands in contrast, however, to Norquist’s position on tax cuts for the wealthy. Norquist has repeatedly warned GOP members about voting in favor of repealing the Bush tax cuts for the rich or tax hikes on millionaires, even verbally sparring with a member of a group of millionaires advocating for higher taxes on themselves last month in Washington, D.C. And yet, when it comes to tax cuts for the middle class meant to drive economic recovery, Norquist clearly takes a different stance.

Republicans who have defended those tax breaks for the wealthy aren’t so sure about holding the Norquist position, though. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) warned his rank and file this morning about opposing the extension, telling them that “taxes are a Republican issue and you aren’t a Republican if you want to raise taxes on struggling families to fund bigger government.” Multiple Republican senators, meanwhile, have come out in favor of the extension, and Sen. Sue Collins (R-ME) even proposed raising taxes on some wealthy Americans to pay for it.

Sen. Kerry: Grover Norquist was 13th member of ‘super committee’

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

Sen. John Kerry on Monday said Republicans prevented the debt “super committee” from reaching a deal in time because of their unwillingness to raise taxes.

The 12-member congressional panel announced Monday that they were unable to create a federal budget to cut U.S. deficits by at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

“We Democrats put a $4 trillion dollar plan on the table,” Kerry, one of the members of the committee, said on CNN before the committee announced it had failed.

“We had $1.3 trillion of cuts, and we had $1.3 trillion in revenue. Now, some of that revenue, we’re not asking that to happen tomorrow or the next day, it could happen in a year. This is a ten-year plan and longer. So we have the ability here to do something that’s fair for all Americans.”

“But unfortunately, this thing about the Bush tax cuts and the pledge to Grover Norquist keeps coming up,” Kerry continued. “Grover Norquist has been the 13th member of this committee without being there. I can’t tell you how many times we hear about ‘the pledge, the pledge.’ Well all of us took a pledge to uphold the Constitution and to full and faithfully and well-execute our duties and I think that requires us to try and reach an agreement.”

At least 279 Republican members of the current Congress have signed Norquist’s pledge to never raise taxes. Those who sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge vow to oppose any and all tax increases.

Watch video, courtesy of CNN, below:

PRO-TAX MILLIONAIRES GROUP TELLS GROVER NORQUIST: ‘MOVE TO SOMALIA!’

By Travis Waldron/Think Progress




Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, a group of millionaires advocating for higher taxes on the wealthy and an end to the Bush tax cuts, met with Congressional leaders yesterday in Washington. But they also met with anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, and according to one of the millionaires, the group told him that if he’s so opposed to taxation, he should move to Somalia, the Huffington Post reports. Eric Schoenberg, member of the millionaires group, told HuffPo that he asked Norquist if he’d be willing to sign a pledge forgoing all benefits paid for by tax dollars. “And he said, ‘If I don’t have to pay any taxes for it, I would forgo all those things!’” Schoenberg said. “To which my response was, ‘Well there’s an easy way to do that, move to Somalia!’” Norquist told HuffPo that Somalia’s problem, however, was that it had “a whole bunch of governments…compet[ing] to be in charge of pushing you around.”

CONSTITUENT SLAMS GOP REP. OVER ANTI-TAX PLEDGE: ‘WE ARE YOUR CONSITUENTS, NOT GROVER NORQUIST’

From Think Progress

The litany of Republican politicians willingly tethered to thedemands and direction of anti-tax activist Grover Norquist is no longer sitting well with Americans whooverwhelmingly support raising taxes on the wealthy to address the deficit. GOP freshman Rep. Chris Gibson (NY) faced a crowd of his constituents at a town hall in Millerton, New York Tuesday who demanded to know why he signed Norquist’s pledge barring any and all tax increases without consulting those he represents. “You didn’t sign this on my behalf. You didn’t ask me,” noted one constituent. “You didn’t ask me. We are your constituents, not Grover Norquist,” she added to resounding applause. Later quoting former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson who asked “Who is Grover Norquist the slave of,” the constituent asked Gibson, “By association, I would like to know who are you the slave of?” Watch it: