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Former conservative favoriteSharron Angle announced Tuesday she was running for Congress. Her latest political bid comesas tea party movement leaders say they are gearing up across the nation to fight mainstream Republicans in Congress and make sure President Donald Trump sees things their way.

Trump proved that America wants Constitutional, free-market conservatism, Anglesaid. The reality is the president can lead, but he cannot do it alone. In Congress, we contend with the unpredictable Republicans who support, or do not support, what the American people mandated on Election Day.

Anglewas embraced by the tea party in 2010 duringher unsuccessfulbid to unseat then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada. After losing to Reid, she ran for the Senate again in 2016, but lost theRepublican primary to U.S. Rep. Joe Heck by 50,000 votes. Trump also lost Nevada, but by a smaller margin ofabout 27,000 votes.

This time around, Angle is looking to unseatU.S. Rep. Mark Amodei,a Republican who served as Trumps Nevada state campaign chairman. It's unclear if he is running for re-election, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported Tuesday.

The tea party movement shook up national politics in 2009, forcing many Republicans in Congress to the right out of fear they would lose their seats to grassroots candidates such as Angle, who championed gun rights, mass deportations forundocumented immigrants and Christian values. At the time, 75 percent of tea party supporters were 45 or older, aNew York Times/CBS News poll found. Roughly89 percent were whiteand only 23 percent graduated from college.By the time tea party voters helped Republicans win back the House in 2010,about32 percentof the country backed the movement'sideas. That support dropped to 17 percent by 2015 as the tea party took a backseat in Washington.

"The tea party is less a new, independent movement than a reinvigoration, another manifestation, of the conservative movement. And it is something that weve seen strengthened in response to government overreach," a report from the conservative Heritage Foundation concluded last year.

But with Trump's surprise White House win in November, some tea party leaders are hoping to mount acomeback fortheir small-government platform. Tea party activistsholdinga rally against the Affordable Care Act last week on Capitol Hill were joined by Republican Sens. Rob Portmanof Ohio and Rand Paul of Kentucky, among others.

The battle is just beginning, said Paul, who won office duringthe 2010 tea party wave. They have to remember it was the tea party that put them in power, he added of lawmakers looking to replace the health care law.

The leader of the Tea Party Patriots worked this week to support Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, as a Senate hearing probed his qualifications.

Our Tea Party Patriots are making phone calls and sending emails and letters to their senators from across the country,Jenny Beth Martin, author of the 2012 book "Tea Party Patriots: The Second American Revolution," told Breitbart News.

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Is the Tea Party Back? After Trump, Sharron Angle and Other ... - Newsweek

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An obscure bureaucratic policy that allowed IRS officials totarget conservative and Tea Party tax exemption applicants during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns is still in place, meaning the same abuses may be continuing, according to a nonprofit government watchdog.

The federal tax agencys policy requires IRS officials to stop processing tax-exempt applications that are likely to attract media or congressional attention, the Cause of Action Institute said in a report made public Wednesday.

The policy also directs IRS officials to prepare sensitive case reports for their supervisors and to ignore the merits of the application if it involved a newsworthy topic.

Targeting was and is IRS policy, not a violation of it, the report said, noting that the policy is still in place. As a result, American taxpayers are at risk for similar treatment in the future.(RELATED:Real Power Behind IRS Conservative Targeting Scandal Still A Mystery)

In halting the applications, preparing such reports and referring the matter to supervisors, including political appointees, IRS employees behaved exactly as agency rules dictated, the report continued.

The IRS delayed hundreds of applications from conservative and Tea Party groups beginning in 2010. A federal court recently ruled the IRS is still targeting groups using the policy.(RELATED:Federal Judge Says IRS Still Targeting Tea Party With Classic Catch-22)

The policy automatically politicizes the process in an attempt to avoid potential embarrassment, according to the report. Partisan officials can use the vague and open-ended policy to selectively delay and obstruct those applications receiving higher scrutiny without a way to hold the officials accountable for their decisions. (RELATED:Justice Dept. Had Powerful Case For IRS Targeting Charges)

Issues that attract media or congressional attention are usually political in nature, and reliance on such a criterion means that the process itself cannot avoid partisan bias, the report continued, noting low-level employees could delaytax-exempt applications after watching a single TV news story.

Cincinnati-based IRS tax specialist Jack Koester referred a Tea Party groups tax exempt application to a supervisor one year after Tea Part rallies began. Cause of Action Institute called it the patient zero for forthcoming problems.

The application was passed up the chain of command until supervisors determined to hold it until Washington managers decided how to proceed.

This same procedure was followed in the numerous Tea Party applications that followed, the report said. In most of those matters, the higher-level decision on how to proceed would not come for several years.

Cause of Action Institute noted that one theme was consistent while the original case was passed around among managers concern about media attention, the report said. Five separate levels of management cited that concern specifically, including the reference to potential embarrassment, while no mention at all was made of workload concerns, novel legal questions, or other similar rationales.

The targeting became more elaborate over the following months, and the agency created be on the lookout lists ordering officials to hold all Tea Party or patriot applications. (RELATED:New FBI Docs Show IRS Tea Party Applications To Black Hole)

Regardless, the IRS hasnt changed its policy, even after an inspector general report, five in-depth congressional reports and extensivenews coverage.

Seven years after the targeting scandal began, the rule that enabled this inexcusable behavior still exists, the report said. Until that rule is removed from the internal manual used by all IRS employees, targeting of political opponents will remain a very real threat.

Cause of Action Institute noted that the IRS has the authority to change its policy without legislation.

Given the amount of criticism the IRS has received regarding its targeting practices, it is hard to believe the agency has not yet taken the steps needed to remedy the problem, the report said.

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IRS Targeting Could Happen Again, Watchdog Finds | The Daily ... - Daily Caller

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (screen grab)

President Donald Trumps proposed budget has been drawing predictable criticism from Democrats and even some Republicans, but a new report claims that even Tea Party favorites such as Maine Gov. Paul LePage and Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin are worried as well.

TheNew York Times reports that during a conversation with White House budget director Mick Mulvaney recently, both Bevin and LePage expressed concerns about some of the massive cuts proposed in the Trump budget to key programs that benefit their states.

Bevin was particularly upset by the White Housess plan to defund theAppalachian Regional Commission, which the Times describes asan economic development agency that spans 13 states and steers millions of dollars in federal money to Kentucky.

LePage, meanwhile, questioned the White Houses plans to cut low-income housing aid.

Although neither of these governors have gone public with their gripes yet, theTimes notes that their private opposition is symbolic of the difficulties that the Trump administration will have in making its proposed budget a reality.

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Even Tea Party Govs. LePage and Bevin are spooked by Trump budget's draconian cuts - Raw Story

Speaker Paul Ryans American Health Care Act would cut federal spending on health care by about $1.2 trillion, in part by reducing funding to Medicaid for the poorest Americans.

But cutting government spending on health care is deeply unpopular with the public overall and not just among liberals and independents. A new poll released Wednesday by the firm Morning Consult found that wide margins of both conservatives and self-identified Tea Party supporters want the government to increase its spending on health care, rather than decrease it. Only 20 percent of Republicans want less government spending on health care; more than half say that it should be increased.

The margins are not even really close:

These numbers, of course, are even higher for liberals, Democrats, and the country overall. By a 58 to 15 margin, Americans overall want increase rather than cut government spending on health care.

The irony of this finding is that the same Republican rank-and-file that wants more government health care spending is in favor of Ryans bill slashing it, at least according to the current polling. Morning Consults poll on Wednesday, for instance, found that 62 percent of Republican voters like the GOP health care plan. (Though thats down from the 65 percent who said they supported AHCA earlier this month.) Similarly, a Fox News poll last week found that 69 percent of Republican voters back Ryans bill, even as more than half of them want more government health care spending.

On Wednesday, Business Insiders Josh Barro described the central dilemma of the Republicans health care predicament: They campaigned on doing something to fix what voters hated about the health care system overall, without making clear that their remedy would involve cutting the programs voters support:

People are always upset about how much healthcare costs, and healthcare is very complicated, so it is hard for voters to tell whether a politician is actually able to keep his or her promises about it.

If you went around telling abortion opponents that you would ban abortion and abortion-rights advocates that you would give abortions out free, the two sides might notice you were promising two incompatible policies. But for years, Republicans were able to capitalize on public ignorance [about health care] and get away with promises that amounted to "much less expensive and much better."

Their political strategy was cynically brilliant until it led to their getting elected.

The new polling makes it additionally clear just how wide this chasm is. Republicans are caught between a promise (repealing Obamacare) that their base wants, and their main solution (reducing government health spending) that they dont. And with just one day until the House votes on Ryans bill, they dont have much time to figure it out.

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The House GOP is set to slash health care spending. Tea Party voters want more spending. - Vox

Saboteurs blew up arms warehouse - Ukraine military

More than 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict between Ukraine and the separatist rebels since 2014.

FILE: A tank from the Ukrainian Forces is stationed outside a building in the flashpoint eastern town of Avdiivka. Picture: AFP

KIEV The Ukrainian military said unknown saboteurs blew up a warehouse storing tank ammunition at a military base in the east of the country early on Thursday, but nobody was hurt.

The base, which contained about 138,000 tonnes of ammunition, is located in the city of Balakleya about 100km from the frontline of Ukraines war against Russian-backed separatists.

Rescue teams were evacuating nearby villages in the eastern Kharkiv region, the military said.

According to preliminary data ... as a result of sabotage, last night at 2.46am, fire and explosions caused the detonation of ammunition at several sites storing rockets and artillery weapons, Ukraines chief military prosecutor Anatoly Matios wrote on Facebook.

Military spokesperson Oleksander Motuzyanyk said security around other bases was being beefed up. Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman was due to fly to the area later on Thursday.

Saboteurs previously tried to destroy the same base using drones in 2015, another military spokesperson, Yuzef Venskovich, told the 112 TV channel.

More than 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict between Ukraine and the separatist rebels since 2014.

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Saboteurs blew up arms warehouse - Ukraine military - Eyewitness News