Non Socialist

For Release: August 8, 2011
Contact: David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or (703) 568-4727 or dalmasi@nationalcenter.org
or Judy Kent at (703) 759-7476 or jkent@nationalcenter.org

Washington, D.C. - Black activists with the Project 21 black leadership network are are the rebutting assertions made by rabid supporters of President Barack Obama that the recent downgrade of the nation’s credit rating is the fault of the tea party movement.

“Our country is at a crossroads, and I’m proud to stand with patriotic tea party activists who are concerned about the future of our nation,” said Project 21 fellow Deneen Borelli, a frequent speaker at tea party events across the country. “The tea party movement burst on the national scene as a spontaneous reaction to government gone wild — outrageous spending, growing deficit and exploding debt. Since its inception, the tea party movement has been a positive force for reducing the size and scope of government.”

In the wake of Standard and Poor’s downgrade of America’s credit rating from AAA to AA+ — a historic first downgrade of its kind in American history — defenders of the Obama Administration are seeking to pin the blame on tea party activists for holding politicians’ feet to the fire against excessive spending. Such pressure helped force a compromise by the White House in the recent elevation of the nation’s allowable debt ceiling.

“The credit downgrade is just another example of this president and his administration’s failure to lead,” said Project 21 spokesman Cherylyn Harley LeBon (LeBon will be guest-hosting the syndicated G. Gordon Liddy show on August 9). “One can hardly point to the tea party for the credit downgrade. The debt problem could have been addressed when it arose in the fall of 2010 when the liberals still had a majority in Congress. Instead, Obama took a pass — as he has done with so many issues — and lays blame with others.”

Senator John Kerry (D-MA), Obama campaign operative David Axelrod and Fox News commentator Jehmu Greene, among others, call the nation’s lowered credit rating “the tea party downgrade.” Former presidential candidate and ex-Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean claimed “right-wing splinter groups” kept Republican lawmakers from offering a debt compromise more to the White House’s liking that Dean implies would have averted a downgrade. On “Fox News Sunday,” however, David Beers, the head of Standard and Poor’s government debt-rating unit, said: “[T]his is not really about either political party… [T]he underlying debt burden of the U.S. government is rising and will continue to do so…”

Tea party activists — represented by many different groups and affiliated with no political party — have been almost uniformly consistent in calling for less government spending and not raising the debt ceiling without significant spending cuts and a framework to cap and control future spending. Obama, who has not offered a comprehensive plan for easing debt or controlling spending, said in his August 8 statement on the downgrade: “No matter what the credit agencies say, we will always be a AAA country.”

“The credit downgrade is a consequence forced upon the American people by a president who has consistently demonstrated no regard to the fact the Constitution grants no right to Congress to subsidize private interests,” said Project 21 spokesman Stacy Swimp, a tea party organizer in Michigan. “Corporate welfare, record spending and contempt towards the Constitution from liberals created the condition which ultimately has led to the downgrade. Tea party activists have consistently and correctly condemned the aforementioned fiscal irresponsibility.”

Project 21, a leading voice of black conservatives since 1992, is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research (http://www.nationalcenter.org).

Washington, D.C. – As expected, the new report that the NAACP is touting as proof of the radicalism of the tea party movement is rife with innuendo, hearsay and conjecture. Members of the Project 21 black leadership network are highly critical of a study obviously devised with pre-ordained conclusions and crafted to be a weapon to bring disrepute upon grassroots activism against the liberal big-government policies of the Obama White House and the current congressional leadership.

“Looking at the research that comprises this report, I find it interesting that it appears not a single leader of the mentioned tea party groups was asked for its background,” noted Project 21 member Coby Dillard, a co-founder of the Hampton Roads Tea Party in Virginia. “Had this research been conducted, the facts would show that two of the mentioned groups are simply capitalizing from the tea party movement and that two others are for-profit enterprises. I fail to see, just as I did this summer when their resolution was voted on, how this report ‘advances’ black Americans or those of any color. The longer the NAACP stays on this path, the more they show themselves unable to provide solutions to the issues most Americans care about.”

In his introduction to “Tea Party Nationalism,” which was created by the little-known Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and is being distributed by the NAACP, NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous says the report “exposes the links between certain Tea Party factions and acknowledged racist hate groups in the United States.” The first direct allegation of such raicalism made by Jealous, however, is the still-unconfirmed report that a racial epithet was used against Representative John Lewis (D-GA) during the health care debate last March.

In further examples of the report’s ideological agenda, it says the slogan “take our country back” — which has been used in various forms by liberals such as former presidential candidate Howard Dean, current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Nation magazine editor Katrina vanden Heuvel — is “explicitly nationalist” when used by tea party activists. As for tenuous linkages in the report, Tea Party Express is tied to the John Birch Society simply because they both played roles in the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference (as did the homosexual rights group GOProud, but that was not mentioned). The report also tries to tie the Tea Party Express to Dale Robertson — who was repudiated by tea party organizations long ago — by reporting “Dale Robertson noted that members of his group traveled to Nevada for the kickoff rallies of the third Tea Party Express” (the event was open to the public).

“This is gotcha politics, plain and simple. They are using tall tales and hearsay to obscure real concern about the state of our nation. I’ve read fairy tales with more credibility,” said Project 21 chairman Mychal Massie, who has spoken at many tea party events. “To drop down to their level, one could cite former NAACP executive director Ben Chavis as a link between the NAACP and the racial extremism of the Nation of Islam. The same could be done regarding IREHR board member Gina Chiala due to her years advocating for a pardon of Leonard Peltier, the radical Indian-rights activist who was convicted of murdering two FBI agents. I’m sure they wouldn’t think that’s fair game — even though both have or held leadership postions — but they’ll play that way when it comes to the tea parties.”

“This report is as credible as the recently-discredited U.N. report on climate change,” added Project 21 fellow Deneen Borelli. “This is nothing more than a cynical attempt to mobilize support for their policies through fear. Even though Obama’s policies are harmful to the black community, tragically, they seek to manufacture blind loyalty to the President by scaring them about the opposition. As a frequent speaker at tea party rallies nationwide, I know the movement has nothing to do with race and everything to do with toxic liberal policies.”

“As a black man, I scorn and resent this never-ending assault on the morals of all black people by the NAACP,” said Project 21 member Oscar Murdock, who took part in the Tea Party Express rally in Searchlight, Nevada. “In spite of being an organization that was correctly established to procure and preserve rights for a people to whom rights and dignity were being denied, the NAACP has descended into a group that is a disgrace to the humanity of the very people it was created to elevate. It is now only a bigoted and politically biased blight among organizations.”

Project 21, a leading voice of black conservatives since 1992, is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research (http://www.nationalcenter.org).

“Harmful Recommendations,” “Dreary” Tone Among Criticisms

Washington, D.C. – This year’s edition of the liberal National Urban League’s annual State of Black America report fails to effectively challenge the Obama Administration, is unnecessarily dreary and makes recommendations that would be harmful, say members of the conservative Project 21 black leadership group.

“It is long past time that groups such the National Urban League should be given a pass as they blame poor personal decisions, lack of personal preparation and the realities of life on a phantom bogeyman of conspiratorial dictates designed to impede black progress,” said Project 21 Chairman Mychal Massie. “If they are going to point fingers, they should not exclude pointing fingers at themselves. They cannot claim 100 years of making a difference in the lives of blacks while simultaneously claiming that blacks aren’t succeeding as quickly as every other group of Americans.”

This year’s National Urban League report, like past reports, dwells on negatives. National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial, for instance, says, “The election of the first black president does not mean we can all now close up shop and go home.” This echoes Morial’s predecessor, John E. Jacobs, who wrote in the 1993 edition that black Americans were faced with “bleak despair countered by fresh hope” upon the change of presidential administrations.

Among essays by entrepreneur and publisher Earl Graves, Jr. and scandal-plagued U.S. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), the report makes specific recommendations on policies pertaining to education, health care, homeownership and employment, among others. Some of these recommendations, as categorized in the National Urban League report’s executive summary, are constructively challenged by Project 21 members.

In the area of health care, the National Urban League recommends government-run universal coverage. As Project 21′s Massie points out, this sort of health care has failed abroad and would fail in America as well.

“Do we need the people who run the DMV in charge of the emergency room? That’s what you get with government-run health care,” said Massie. “Creating a new health care bureaucracy would stifle innovation and limit choice.”

“If you want an example of what may happen, look no further than the ‘Urban Health Initiative’ created by now-First Lady Michelle Obama and Obama political guru David Alexrod at the University of Chicago,” noted Massie. “Their plan seeks to divert residents away for the university’s elite hospital to county hospitals and clinics. This shocking plan is now being reconsidered after the Chicago Tribune reported that Dontae Adams, a 12-year-old dog bite victim, was given only a shot and some painkillers at the university hospital. He was told to seek follow-up treatment the next week at a county hospital. His mother immediately took him to another hospital on a bus for reconstructive facial surgery that same day.”

Massie added: “What happened to Dontae might be a common occurrence for all under government-run health care. What Americans need are more choices and the ability to make their own decisions when it comes to their medical needs. That’s what the NUL should be asking for.”

Regarding homeownership, the NUL report suggests funding educational initiatives and credit counseling, something that might find them at odds with some activist groups of which they are usually allied that have opposed such programs in the past as akin to “redlining” because they might target certain areas and populations.

But NUL also supports an expanded Community Reinvestment Act – the regulation that mandates risky mortgage lending situations and is blamed by many as the catalyst for the subprime mortgage crisis.

Project 21 Fellow Deneen Borelli said: “Government aid and intervention should not replace an individual’s responsibility to exercise good judgment. Achieving the American Dream of homeownership begins with understanding the terms of the contract and meeting those obligations. Expanding the Community Reinvestment Act risks inflating another housing bubble that would further hinder our country’s economic recovery. For the National Urban League to encourage more risky loans at this point is reckless.”

On education, the NUL suggests retaining the Bush Administration’s “No Child Left Behind” standards policy, but does not adequately speak out in favor of popular school choice and charter school programs that explicitly spotlight and seek to remedy failing government-run schools by denying them a captive student body. NUL suggestions still look to government as the best administrator of education despite its poor track record.

“The status quo on education has not worked and it never will work,” said Project 21 member Kevin Martin. “While the National Urban League is focused on what the government can do, they are not speaking out enough about what parents can do. Education is the civil rights issue of our time, and vouchers, charter schools and similar alternatives to the failed government approach need to be encouraged.”

Overall, Project 21′s Martin noted: “The black community does not need to be protected from capitalism, as the National Urban League’s report seems to imply. The black community needs to embrace capitalism. The free market is where true opportunity lies.”

Project 21, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research, has been a leading voice of the African-American community since 1992. For more information, contact David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or project21@nationalcenter.org, or visit Project 21′s website at www.project21.org/P21Index.html.