Sarah Palin is missing the nucleus of what the Tea Party activists are all about. They are not looking for another John McCain or George Bush. While I sympathize with much of Palin’s platform, she misses the entire isolationist sentiment of the movement.

Tea party activists want a return to the constitution. While they want to fiercely defend our country, they also do not want to conduct any more pro-active wars that bankrupt the nation. They also value the life of our young men and women more than the profits of Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. There are many right leaning independents that will no longer support the use of military force to spread democracy and build nations across the globe.

1. Will Tea Party seniors support reductions in Social Security and Medicare benefits and increases to the retirement age?

2. Will Tea Party farmers support elimination of farm and ethanol subsidies?

3. Will Tea Party members from Long Beach, Calif., support canceling the C-17 aircraft program?

4. Will Tea Party members from the Space Coast and Houston support cutbacks to the manned space program?

If the answer is yes, then the movement serves a purpose. Otherwise, it does not.

So the same folks who want to require a birth certificate to register to vote also want to remove the birth certificate requirement to apply for or renew a handgun carry permit.

A pair of bills introduced in the Tennessee General Assembly could literally shut down historic bars like Tootsie’s in Nashville and most every bar on Beale Street in Memphis. The shots fired to stop the shot glasses come from none other than one of the main sponsors of last year’s controversial “guns in restaurants” legislation.

Tea partiers should have at least flinched when Mr. Tancredo started out by attacking President Barack Obama by invoking his middle name of Hussein – that shopworn technique of not-so-subtly suggesting some nefarious Iraqi connection. Or perhaps when he blustered that “people who could not even spell the word or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House.”

But when the Republican suggested that Mr. Obama won because the nation lacks a civics and literacy test for voters, the crowd should have been stunned and alarmed. Surely, anyone familiar with this country’s civil rights history should have been. For decades, such tests had one purpose: to prevent blacks from voting.

And to make reference to them in the context of the country’s first African-American president? That’s not some slip of the tongue or a moment of political incorrectness. That’s the stuff of Klan rallies.

Blackburn never used the word “privatize.” But her idea to change the entitlement programs so people have separate accounts with their money is privatization.

“We need to make sure that individuals get the money out that they have placed in,” she said. “This is one of the reasons we have had the discussion over and over for our younger earners of having accounts that have their Social Security number and their information on it, so you have that personal account.”

SEE ALSO: Jeff Woods

The poll found that 36% of voters would support a Democratic candidate on a generic ballot, 25% would back the Republican and 17% would go for the Tea Party pick. Twenty-three percent of respondents are undecided.

In early December, the same poll showed the Tea Party in second place and the GOP in third. Unchanged between the polls, according to Rasmussen, is that 41% of voters have a favorable view of the conservative movement.

Club for Growth PAC announced two endorsements today in open-seat races for the U.S. House of Representatives – Wichita businessman Mike Pompeo in Kansas’s 4th district and former state Republican Party Chairman Robin Smith in Tennessee’s 3rd district.

“Mike Pompeo and Robin Smith are exactly what Washington and America need right now: honest, principled leaders who realize that big government is the problem, not the solution,” said Club President Chris Chocola.

“Mike Pompeo is running for Congress to bring real change to Washington,” Chocola said. “He is committed to the principles of limited government, economic freedom, and individual choice, and he will be a leader on these issues from day one.”

“Robin Smith is already a pro-growth conservative hero, an all-star ready to step up to the major leagues,” Chocola said. “She has been fighting for pro-growth principles for two decades, and has a proven record of taking on tax-and-spenders, even in her own party.”

Pompeo graduated first in his class from West Point before serving in the Army and getting his law degree from Harvard. He is now president of a successful oil equipment company in Wichita. Kansas’s 4th district seat is being vacated this year by U.S. Rep. Todd Tiahrt, who is running for the U.S. Senate.

Smith is a longtime conservative activist and has served as county and state party chair. As Tennessee GOP Chair in 2009, Smith stripped a prominent legislator’s “bona fide” party status after he cut a deal with Democrats to become speaker, preventing him from seeking re-election as a Republican. Tennessee’s 3rd district seat is being vacated this year by U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, who is running for governor.

“Let’s take our country back,” cried the Divine Sarah (allow me to borrow the great Bernhardt’s nickname) at the Perry rally in Texas. Back from whom? How? When did they get it? Never mind. Point is, whether or not we live at one of those storied historical “turning points” we read about, deep anger concerning government is real. Those who govern us smirk at their peril.

[S]he is not worried about fundraising right now. Pam Pryor, a former RNC senior adviser, leads Palin’s political action committee and is orchestrating her outreach to social conservatives. Randy Scheunenmann remains her policy maestro, with informal assistance from his Orion Strategies colleague Michael Goldfarb, the former Weekly Standard writer and McCain campaign rapid responder. (Goldfarb did not return an e-mail seeking comment about his future in Palin’s world.) Fred Malek is perhaps the single Washington establishment figure that Palin turns to, although Malek has insisted that he is neutral about the presidential race — though he admits to having a soft spot in his heart for Palin.

Pundits, Democratic lawmakers and opinion pollsters offer a smorgasbord of reasons - from Mr Obama’s decision to devote his first year in office to healthcare reform, to the president’s inability to convince voters he can “feel their [economic] pain”, to the apparent ungovernability of today’s Washington. All may indeed have contributed to the quandary in which Mr Obama finds himself. But those around him have a more specific diagnosis - and one that is striking in its uniformity. The Obama White House is geared for campaigning rather than governing, they say.

COHEN: He was my friend… He died because when he went in for gall bladder surgery his intestine was perforated and that should not have happened… It was, from my understanding, malpractice.

And somebody who loses their life because of medical fault should have a court system that can give damages, depending on what the person’s life expectancy was and the loss — and the loss of Jack Murtha’s great.”

HOST: Are you suggesting that Jack Murtha is a martyr in the cause of health care reform?

COHEN: No one’s a martyr, but the fact is he went in for gall bladder surgery and they perforated his intestine and that happens to other people around this country. So you should not not have some form of a court system… That’s also a way to stop malpractice.”

“I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Rep. John Murtha. He was one of the greatest patriots ever to serve in Congress and a man of deep compassion, commitment and courage. Rep. Murtha’s powerful advocacy on behalf of people who were powerless will be my lasting memory of his great legacy.”

Read more here.

State Senator Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro) has introduced legislation in the Tennessee General Assembly to make it easier for troops deployed overseas to vote in the next election. The bill, Senate bill 2681, comes as Tennessee’s largest National Guard unit is scheduled to deploy this week from Camp Shelby, Mississippi to Iraq.

“We need to do everything in our power to make it easier for our soldiers, who are defending our freedoms overseas, to have the opportunity to vote,” said Senator Ketron. “It is the least we can do as they have certainly earned that right and that respect.”

Not so very long ago southerners in search of jobs could count on employment in any number of garment factories and hosiery mills, sewing everything from blue jeans to sheets.

Those jobs were easy to come by, especially in rural areas. They required a disciplined work ethic, but beyond that willing employees didn’t even need a high school diploma.

My, how times have changed.

An Associated Press article published on the Web site Cleveland.com states that “Mr. Gee says the traditional formula that rewards publishing in scholarly journals over excellence in teaching and other contributions is outdated and too often favors the quantity of a professor’s output over quality.”

Mr. Gee is quoted as saying:

Someone should gain recognition at the university for writing the great American novel or for discovering the cure for cancer. In a very complex world, you can no longer expect everyone to be great at everything.

The article notes that Mr. Gee is but the latest in a long line of educators and administrators who have advocated a shake-up in the tenure-track process.

The Rev. James Lawson, an internationally acclaimed civil rights leader and religious scholar, will join a panel of civil rights pioneers to discuss local media coverage of the early civil rights movement in Nashville.

NAACP Nashville and the First Amendment Center are co-sponsoring the event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the sit-ins demonstrations that led to desegregation of lunch counters in May 1960.

The public program begins at 3 p.m., Friday, Feb. 12 at the John Seigenthaler Center on the campus of Vanderbilt University, 1207 18th Ave. S. Admission is free, but to ensure seating in the Lecture Hall call 727-1333.

In the state’s 5th District, former Navy aviator Les Phillip is challenging Rep. Parker Griffith, whose switch from Democrat to Republican made headlines last month.

A native of Trinidad who came to the United States with his parents when he was 8, Phillip could become the first black Republican elected to Congress from the Deep South since Reconstruction. His message of American exceptionalism and limited government draws enthusiastic applause at Tea Party events and has earned the endorsement of Mike Huckabee.

As with Barber’s primary contest with Roby in the 2nd District, however, Phillip finds himself contending against the GOP establishment.

A heavy Democratic turnout would certainly be welcome, but pardon me if I remain skeptical. Dr. Herenton apparently plans to run a campaign from the streets that says “we have no African-American Congressman from Tennessee, therefore vote for me”. His only real hope is that he can trick congressman Cohen into putting his foot in his mouth and turn off African-American voters.

Phillips said convention organizers wanted to attract Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine to address the people at the event at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center.

Phillips said the Republicans cited scheduling issues when he tried to get Steele to come to Nashville.

“We officially sent Michael Steele an invitation. I also called up to the DNC to find out who to talk to to invite DNC Chairman Tim Kaine. We never got even a return phone call from the DNC,” Phillips said.

“What we wanted to do was not have them down as speakers like the others. We wanted to set up a town hall type thing,” Phillips said. “What we really wanted was both of them. We wanted to allow them to say a few words to the people, then let the people address them, either ask questions or present their concerns, so it could really be a dialogue.

“So it’s really regrettable that they did not come.”