Category Archives: Tea Parties

Good news…bad news

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We had good news in Missouri late yesterday. Nixon’s veto of the tax-cut bill, SB509, was over-ridden in the Missouri Senate on a vote of 23-8. The Missouri House voted later. “The House vote was 109-46,” to override Nixon’s veto with the help of one democrat, “Rep. Keith English, D – Florissant, joined Republicans in voting for the tax cut.” Rumor has it that Representative English has been called, “a traitor to his party,” by opponents of the tax cut. (I say, “rumor,” because I saw the quote earlier this morning and now I can’t find it.)

Other bills are still pending. The paper ballot bill requires two more votes and has yet to be placed on the calendar. The impeachment bills are stuck in committee. The members and the committee chair are afraid to vote.

In addition, time is running out on HB 1439, the Second Amendment Protection Act. The Missouri Senate restored some language to the bill requiring one more confirming vote in the House. So far, that vote has not taken place and time is running out.

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On the other hand, conservatives lost some primary elections. John Boehner, with the help of his local organization and cross-over votes from democrats, won his primary election in Ohio.

Boehner wins Ohio primary, despite national unpopularity among GOP base

By , Published: May 6, 2014

House Speaker John A. Boehner cruised to victory Tuesday, easily beating two tea party challengers in his Ohio congressional district and proving that in spite of his unpopularity with the Republican base, his grip on power at home remains firm.

It was a rare moment of celebration for Boehner, who has endured a rough year, from the ongoing fights within his party over immigration reform to the tumult of October’s government shutdown.

Boehner’s win, however, does little to provide him with a significant boost in political capital in Washington, where he has been dogged by rumors about retiring and, failing that, a host of conservative critics who are plotting to oust him from his post later this year.

The column continues at the website and speculates on Boehner’s plans for pushing amnesty this summer.

In North Carolina, House Speaker Thom Tillis won the U.S. Senate primary against his Tea Party opponent.

Tillis Takes N.C. Primary in Win for GOP Establishment

By Scott Conroy – May 7, 2014

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In a significant victory for the Republican establishment, which has aggressively sought to beat back challenges from Tea Party-aligned candidates, North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis won the U.S. Senate primary outright here on Tuesday.

Tillis garnered 45.7 percent of the vote, easily clearing the 40 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff that would have initiated a costly intra-party battle preceding his general election matchup against incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan.

One interesting point in this election was that democrat candidate, Kay Hagen, supported Tillis’ primary opponents hoping to cause a run-off election. Her hope was for a runoff electoin that would further fragment conservative voters in the state and thus help her own chances come the Fall.

It is not surprising that the liberal press is touting the GOP Establishment vs. Tea Party battle for control of the party. CNN, the New York Times, and others have columns today on that subject.

Missouri’s primary won’t come until August. Neither of our Senators are up for re-election. Roy Blunt as two more years in his term and Claire McCaskill has four more years. On the other hand, all of Missouri’s Representatives will be up for re-election and some, like Vicky Hartzler, have conservative/Tea Party primary opponents.

It will be an interesting summer.

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News from the Front

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At times I feel like channeling Edward R. Murrow. There aren’t too many people who still remember viewing and hearing him. I’m one of those.

Murrow had a news program, See it Now, on CBS in the 1950s. Mom and Dad didn’t have a television on The Farm at that time. Instead, we’d drive over to Grandma’s place and watch TV there. Dad liked to watch Murrow and Dragnet. Mom liked listening to Murrow on the radio but she was never a TV fan. She’d rather read.

Imagine…instead of hearing Murrow say, “This is London,” as he would report during World War II, imagine him saying, “This is…,” and then pick a US location. Somewhere in Texas, Missouri, anywhere except Washington. In our version of history, image reporting as it was during WW II. Think of the parallels. Britain is now the  United States. In the imagined parallel, Washington must be Berlin. With that world in mind, we have two items in the news today; news from the front.

Conservatives forces are making gains on the continent…er, in Washington. Reports from the field have conservatives strengthening their positions as they advance on establishment positions. After a successful counter-attack led by Senator Ted Cruz, we have this news release.

Conservative insurgents strike blow against GOP Establishment

By TIMOTHY P. CARNEY | JANUARY 14, 2014 AT 6:30 PM

Sen. Ted Cruz is shown. | AP PhotoCold cash, together with control of institutions, is what makes the Establishment the Establishment. But in the current Republican civil war, the insurgents have secured their own money pipelines, and they control their own institutions – which means the GOP leadership and its allies in the business lobby have a hard fight in front of them.

The firing and hiring of conservative staffer Paul Teller makes it clear that the anti-establishment has built its own establishment.

Teller was a House staffer for more than a decade, and was longtime executive director of the conservative Republican Study Committee. The RSC always exerted a rightward pull on party leadership, but it is nonetheless a subsidiary of the party.

After the 2012 election, the Republican Establishment captured the RSC, in effect, by getting Congressman Steve Scalise elected chairman. Scalise is a conservative, but he is also a close ally of the party leadership – much more so than his predecessors Jim Jordan and Tom Price. Scalise immediately swept out most of the RSC staff.

Last month, Teller was accused of working with outside groups such as Heritage Action to whip RSC members – and Scalise showed Teller the door.

In the old days, this might have been a disaster for Teller. He had lost his job and landed on the wrong side of the party leadership. Anyone who picked up Teller would be spitting in the eye of the Establishment. But this week, Sen. Ted Cruz announced he had hired Teller as deputy chief of staff.

The Establishment no longer has the power it once had to demand obedience.

How did the party leadership maintain such power in the past? Basically with money. Party leaders had a near monopoly on access to money, both in terms of raising funds for candidates and landing jobs for individuals.

Floor leaders and committee chairmen have always been the GOP’s main contact point with corporations’ political action committees and lobbyists. If a member stays on the good side of party leaders, the leaders make a phone call to a lobbyist who throws the member a fundraiser.

Similarly, if a staffer always played nice with the Establishment, that brought with it job security: Even if your boss retired, you could land on your feet, as the leadership would recommend you for a job in another office, or K Street would hire you.

You can see how this would make dissenting staffers and members watch their words and actions. Sure, members were allowed to vote against the leadership – as long as the leadership didn’t need your vote. But at the end of the day, you had to play ball, otherwise you got no money for re-election, and no jobs for you or your staff.

But Teller landed on his feet — and today any conservative staffer disposed to fight the party leadership can hold out the same hope. The GOP Establishment has lost its monopoly, and the insurgents now have many bases of power – and thus many sources of money.

Conservative activist groups have always existed inside the GOP, but because they couldn’t raise and distribute large amounts of money, they functioned mostly through moral suasion – which means they were largely powerless. Eventually, these Beltway conservative groups grew dependent on the GOP, and instead of holding the party accountable, they often ended up being the establishment’s liaison to the conservative base.

Today’s conservative groups are fully armed, though. Thanks to advances in Internet fundraising and changes in campaign finance laws, the Senate Conservatives Fund, FreedomWorks, and the Club for Growth can raise and spend enough money to compete in GOP primaries with the Chamber of Commerce and lobbying firms.

Beyond these new pipelines of campaign cash, the insurgents now control institutions – institutions they created, and ones they took over. Jim DeMint, who founded the Senate Conservatives Fund in 2008, left Congress in 2013 to head the Heritage Foundation.

Heritage used to be a faithful ally of the GOP – at least when it counted most. Under DeMint, Heritage is a scourge of the GOP leadership and an enforcer of a hard limited-government line.

And the Senate offices of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul are three insurgent beachheads on Capitol Hill. Being a senator doesn’t merely give one a vote — it gives these men the budget to staff a congressional office. As they gain seniority, the Tea Partiers will get control over budgets for committee staffs.

When a member’s re-election, or a staffer’s ability to pay the mortgage, doesn’t depend on the Establishment’s favor, the Establishment may need to find a new way to gain conservatives’ loyalty.

Another news report from the Front exposes an attempt by enemy agents to infiltrate conservative support organizations. The target of these infiltrators was to misdirect funds and reinforcements from conservatives. The infiltrators, funded and organized by liberal operatives, were exposed as reported below.

The “Republican Main Street Partnership” is Democrat Funded

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  January 14th, 2014 at 10:32 AM

Steve LaTourette, a former congressman and friend of John Boehner, runs the “Republican Main Street Partnership”. Note the word “Republican.”

As the left-wing Talking Points Memo reported a month ago, LaTourette and his Main Street Partnership have created an affiliated SuperPAC called “Defending Main Street PAC.” Along with the Chamber of Commerce and Republican Leaders, the Main Street Partnership wants to take out troublesome conservatives.

Defending Main Street PAC plans to raise $8 million in this election cycle; by contrast the Senate Conservatives Fund handled $12 million in 2012 and expects to raise even more this time around.

Note, first, that LaTourette spoke with a left-wing site to reveal his plans. Note second that Defending Main Street PAC has had to release its year end campaign finance numbers.

According to its fundraising report, Defending Main Street PAC received its money from a Democrat donor, a group of unions, and an Indian tribe.

More specifically,

  • Bonderman, David gave $30000.00 – the Los Angeles Times referred to him as “David Bonderman, a significant contributor to Democrats, “
  • Laborers’ Political League Education Fund gave $100000.00
  • The Chickasaw Nation gave $50000.00
  • International Union of Operating Engineers [EPEC] gave $250000.00
  • Laborers’ International Union Of North America (LIUNA) PAC gave $150000.00
  • MEBA PAF gave $15000.00 (Marine Engineers Beneficial Association)
  • Working for Working Americans-Federal gave $250000.00 (Building Trades / carpenters PAC)

In other words, the “Republican” Main Street Partnership’s affiliated PAC intends to use George Soros connections and Democrat back groups’ money to defeat conservatives.

More troubling, the Republican Main Street Partnership has a lot of ties to Republican leaders. Again, folks, it is us versus them. You pick.

It is no longer sufficient nor wise to assume anyone claiming to be republican is working for our benefit and is a conservative. All too many ‘Pubs, elected using the Tea Part and other grassroot organizations, have turned out to be turn-coats. Instead of listening to and following the demands of their constituents, those who elected them, these turn-coats parrot the establishment line. In many cases, the turn-coats talk and agree with their constituents at home, while voting, in lock-step, with the establishment in Washington.

It is worse. The local party officials quake in fear of these turn-coats. They point to their massive campaign funds, funds gathered with the help of those local dupes, and declare the turn-coats are unbeatable. That may be true, if the local and state party organizations don’t disavow and work to present primary opponents to remove these traitors in our ranks.

Failure of the county and state parties will likely result in a repeat of 2012 in 2014 and 2016. The conservatives, feeling unrepresented and seeing no real difference between the two national parties, stay home. The dems retain the Senate, and may take back the House. It will be Pelosi back as Speaker and a repeat of 2008 through 2010.

Will it take a repeat of of 2012 to make the ‘Pubs listen? Or, in disgust, will conservatives leave the party forever, creating a new party that speaks for them. Only the republican officials can say.

It’s 1856, ‘Pubbies. Think on that.

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Another chip gone.

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Chip? What chip? It is a chip off the stone of GOP solidarity. Boehner and McConnell, in order to preserve their political futures, have started a war they cannot win. In the short term, as the GOP continues to fragment, the only winners are the democrats. In the long term…who knows. The real question is whether, when all the chips have fallen, will there be anything to rebuild—of the nation and the Constitution?

The Ryan-Murray budget ‘deal’ is another chip off that rock of GOP solidarity. Ryan, Boehner and the rest of the Washington establishment are willing to risk everything to avoid confrontation before the 2014 elections. Instead, they have risked the entire country to gain a little time.

What Ryan, Boehner, Cantor, McConnell and the others have done is to increasingly solidify the opposition of conservatives against them. The article below from the Washington Times supports the reports of growing opposition to the budget deal.

All-out war breaks out in GOP over budget

By Jacqueline Klimas and Seth McLaughlin, The Washington Times, Wednesday, December 11, 2013

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio,joined by House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., takes reporters' questions, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013, as House Republicans signaled support for a budget deal worked out yesterday between Ryan and Senate Budget Committee Chair Rep. Patty Murray, D-Wash. The budget deal was one of a few major measures left on Congress' to-do list near the end of a bruising year that has produced a partial government shutdown, a flirtation with a first-ever federal default and gridlock on President Obama's agenda. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)Tea party groups and fiscal conservatives wasted no time Wednesday in savaging a bipartisan budget agreement negotiated between House Republicans and Senate Democrats, drawing an unusually angry response from House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.

All sides were rating the winners and losers in the deal struck a day earlier between House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, Washington Democrat. The modest deficit-cutting deal had some sweeteners for defense contractors and oil drillers, while air travelers, federal workers and some corporate executives would take a hit.

But most of the passion focused on the politics of the deal, with Mr. Ryan, Mr. Boehner and the House GOP leadership defending their handiwork from attacks from conservative colleagues on Capitol Hill and from outside groups such as the Club for Growth, Heritage Action and Americans for Prosperity. Critics said the agreement effectively raised taxes in the form of higher fees, failed to restrain entitlement programs and permitted new spending in the short term in exchange for vague promises of long-term cuts.

Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, said in an interview that Republicans sacrificed their biggest point of leverage — the tough “sequester” spending cuts that were already in force — in the rush to get a short-term deal that did not address the long-term costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

“I am against [the deal] from just a basic point that we embarked on a position at the beginning of the year that said, ‘We will keep the sequester in place unless we get to make changes on mandatory spending that will save those program and put the budget on path to balance within the next 10 years,’” Mr. Jordan said.

Added Chris Chocola, president of the fiscally hawkish Club for Growth, “Apparently, there are some Republicans who don’t have the stomach for even relatively small spending reductions that are devoid of budgetary smoke and mirrors. If Republicans work with Democrats to pass this deal, it should surprise no one when Republican voters seek alternatives who actually believe in less spending when they go to the ballot box.”

— Continue reading here.

Unfortunately for fiscal conservatives, Boehner is pushing for a vote on the ‘deal’ as quickly as he can. The vote could take place as early as today and he, Boehner, wants a quick vote to prevent “interference” from conservatives. Heritage Action, Club for Growth and the American’s for Prosperity initiated call-in campaigns yesterday.

The lines are being drawn as more ‘Pubs shift to one side or another. Some will continue to try to sit on the fence, fearing offending one side or the other. Like so many in the months prior to December 1860, they will discover that fence-sitters will be despised by both sides and have support from neither.

Here is some links to addition columns in today’s digital newspapers.

KIBBE: Another Republican budget surrender

The short-term deal will assure long-term overspending — Washington Times

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Budget Agreement Gets Attention from the Tea Party (Video)

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John Boehner rips conservatives for prematurely bashing budget deal, but rushes bill to floor

By PHILIP KLEIN | DECEMBER 11, 2013 AT 5:48 PM(Washington Examiner)

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Budget deal a step backward: Opposing view

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December 11, 2013 at 4:06 pm (The Foundry)

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Boehner’s Outburst Fuels GOP Civil War

The worst speaker of the House and Republican leader in the memory of living men. (PJ Media)

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To say this deal is unliked is an understatement of biblical proportions.

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So it begins…

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Yesterday, Harry Reid detonated the nuclear option in the Senate by arbitrarily changing the Senate rules concerning federal appointments, including the Judiciary. Before Reid’s act, appointments required a 60 vote super-majority. Reid changed that to a simple majority.

Immediately after the vote, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) called for more reforms—eliminating the filibuster for legislation. Harkin’s call for eliminating the filibuster was retaliation against Senator Ted Cruz’s and Rand Paul’s filibusters this year.

Reid’s act and Harkin’s call to eliminate all filibusters is a blatant power grab effectively making the Senate a democrat rubber stamp. The days of polite discussion, of gentlemanly discord are gone. The democrats have known this for decades. The ‘Pubs, hopefully, have finally realized the same. Politics has turned bloody. When will the ‘Pubs realize you don’t show up unarmed to a gun-fight?

I’ve said before, our current history appears to be a repeat of those days before the start of the Civil War in 1860. The issue then was not solely about slavery, although that was a very significant issue. A major issue at that time was the loss of political power by the Southern States to the more populous and economically powerful North. Tariffs and trade issues were passed that favored the North to the detriment of the South, issues that reduced the South’s trade with Europe. The result, when the South saw no other recourse,  was Secession.

Reid’s act yesterday followed immediately by Harkin’s call to eliminate all filibusters is another step that mirrors the conditions immediately before December, 1860. South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860. Is it coincidence that Reid’s elimination of 225 of Senate tradition, of a history of a balance of power, happened in November? Are we approaching a day like that of 153 years ago?

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Positive Discrimination. What is that? It’s better known by its other name, Affirmative Action. Erick Erickson was invited to a debate on the issue at Oxford in the UK. The debate subject was “that positive discrimination is a necessary evil.”

Oxford Union Results: Winner

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  November 21st, 2013 at 08:03 PM

It is after midnight here in Oxford, UK as I write this.

Tonight, I debated in the Oxford Union — a society that has gathered each Thursday night for a black tie debate since 1823.

The proposition debated tonight was “that positive discrimination is a necessary evil.”

The side favorable to the proposition went first and vice versa to the end with me as the final speaker of the night. Each side had four participants — one student and three guests. The proponents included both Martin Castro and Ada Meloy, along with Carla Buzasi and Oxford student Toby Fuller. My side included Richard Kahlenberg, Heather McGregor, and Oxford student Martine Wauben.

I must thank Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity for encouraging me toward talk radio. I spoke for 8 minutes unaided by notes, which would have been impossible, but for two years of doing a talk radio show consisting of just me talking with no script. If you’ve ever seen the British House of Commons, you know how it went. We all stood beside dispatch boxes given by Winston Churchill. We all were interrupted by points of information by opponents.

Everyone told me I should expect to lose. Just last week the Oxford Union voted against patriotism. I simply made the point that positive discrimination, or affirmative action, is still discrimination and evil is still evil. Likewise, I pointed out that the United States is 150 years removed from the Gettysburg Address, we have our first black President, and we still have people clamoring for positive discrimination. We cannot trust that those who benefit from it will ever say we need no longer have it.

Likewise, I pointed out that we have had and will always have racism. A government that claims we are equal under the law, but still sees racism is not a government we can expect to write a law to dramatically get rid of racism.

But we do know that those negatively affected by positive discrimination will be bitter and those who benefit from it will always be under a lingering doubt that they were chosen as tokens, not on merit.

I had a wonderful time, topped off by a pint of Guinness with my wife and friends. Thanks for the prayers along the way. A guy who sounds like me somehow convinced a group of Brits that affirmative action is wrong.

My side won by 9 votes.

I agree with Erick Erickson. Discrimination, positive and negative, is evil and must be abolished. I prefer a meritocracy, myself.

mer·i·toc·ra·cy  (mr-tkr-s)n.pl.mer·i·toc·ra·cies

1. A system in which advancement is based on individual ability or achievement.

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An act of tyranny. The FEC by a 3-2 vote, refused to grant an exemption to the Tea Party Leadership Fund allowing them to keep their donar list private. The FEC has granted exemptions to the NAACP and the Socialists Worker’s Party but not the Tea Party.

Divided FEC rejects tea party group’s bid to conceal donors

Groups said disclosure opened door to harassment

By Kellan Howell – The Washington Times, Thursday, November 21, 2013

A sharply divided Federal Election Commission on Thursday denied a request from a leading tea party group for an exemption from disclosing its financial backers to protect them from harassment.

The FEC board voted 3-2 against a motion to exempt the Tea Party Leadership Fund. The fund will have to continue to disclose donors who contribute more than $200, despite its contention that its donors should be given an exemption given to special persecuted groups such as the Socialist Workers Party and the NAACP during the civil rights era.

FEC Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, quoting Supreme CourtJustice Antonin Scalia, said “requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.”

Commissioner Steven Walther, who also voted against the fund’s motion, said the group was “not a minor organization” requiring special protection from the normal rules of disclosure.

The TPLF “has a lot more muscle and a lot more money,” Mr. Walther said. “I don’t think the donors are really worried about threats to themselves and safety issues that plagued the Socialist Workers Party.”

But Commissioner Matthew Petersen, one of the two Republican members of the panel who supported the exemption request, said the TPLF’s petition documenting past harassment justified the group’s request. The fund submitted more than 1,400 pages containing examples of harassment, ridicule and threats against tea party members from the media and the general public. The submission also noted the still-simmering scandal over whether the Internal Revenue Service deliberately targeted some conservative groups applying for federal tax-exempt status for special scrutiny and regulatory delays.

The case of the TPLF, Mr. Petersen said “is just as strong as, if not stronger than that of the Socialist Workers Party. I think [TPLF] is entitled to exemption.”

The FEC will grant exemptions to leftist, socialist organizations but not to conservative ones. This is what we get when Obama and the dems have unlimited power to appoint heads of federal agencies.

Tick…tick…tick…

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Libertarians vs the Tea Party

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I had a FB conversation with some folks earlier this week concerning the creation of third parties. My view is that forging such an alliance would be difficult because of the ‘true believers’ in each group—particularly libertarians who would not compromise, expecting others to accept their platform entirely. As I scanned across my morning inbox, I found an article who mirrored my view.

The annual American Values Survey released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, indicated that 61% of libertarians would not accept association with the Tea Party. The differences between the two groups is startling once you begin to enumerate them.

Libertarians are in favor of abortion, the Tea Party is against abortion. The Tea Party are mostly church-going Christians with a strong Bible ethic, libertarians are not generally religious nor church-going. Libertarians support legalizing drugs, the Tea Party does not.

In fact, about the only consensus between the two groups, according to the article, is the demand for smaller government and lower taxes. There is some support among the two groups for the military. The Tea Party is strongly in favor of a strong, well-equipped military, the libertarians generally do not, believing a strong military will be used for ‘foreign adventures’—like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, or, perhaps, Syria. The Tea Party believes fighting our enemies on their territory instead of ours. Both, however, strongly support the troops, the soldiers, sailors, marines and airman as individuals and as groups.

Libertarians: Don’t call us tea partyers; survey finds blocs often clash

By Valerie Richardson, The Washington Times, Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, is often described as both a tea party member and a libertarian, but it turns out that most libertarians aren’t tea partyers.

In a surprising finding from one of the most sweeping surveys on the attitudes and beliefs of America’s libertarians, a majority of libertarians — 61 percent — said they did not consider themselves part of the tea party movement, according to the annual American Values Survey released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute.

“This new research reveals a libertarian constituency in America that is distinct both from the tea party and from the Christian right,” said Robert P. Jones, CEO of the institute. “While conventional wisdom has assumed that the tea party movement is fueled by libertarian convictions, most libertarians see themselves as outside of the tea party movement.”

Libertarians, it turns out, are principled but not always easy to pigeonhole: A majority of libertarians support legal marijuana but not gay marriage, they would allow doctor-assisted suicide but wouldn’t raise the minimum wage, and they really, really, really don’t like Obamacare. There also are signs that libertarians are likely to take up a bigger slice of the American political spectrum.

Mr. Jones said the survey this year represents the first time the institute has asked about libertarians, and the timing is spot-on. In some polls ahead of Virginia’s gubernatorial election Tuesday, Libertarian Party candidate Robert Sarvis is supported by a hefty 10 percent of voters, cutting into the base of Republican candidate Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II.

“I think we have a lot of growing interest in and activism among libertarians, but not a lot of data,” Mr. Jones said.

The difference between libertarians and tea partyers appears to boil down to attitudes about religion. Libertarians are about half as likely to see themselves as part of the Christian right movement as those who identify with the tea party, the survey found.

Libertarians represent about 7 percent of the Republican Party, less than the 20 percent of self-identified Republicans who consider themselves part of the tea party and barely a fifth of the 33 percent who identify with the religious right.

The survey found that the typical libertarian looks a lot like Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Nearly 94 percent of libertarians are white, two-thirds are male and 62 percent are younger than 50.

Where libertarians and tea party members agree is economic policy, including support of limited government and lower taxes and opposition of the Affordable Care Act and additional environmental regulations. The survey, in fact, found that an overwhelming 96 percent of the libertarians polled have an unfavorable view of President Obama’s national health care law.

Where they disagree is social policy. As their name suggests, libertarians aren’t thrilled with government intervention on issues such as abortion, euthanasia and marijuana legalization. Nearly six in 10 libertarians oppose making access to abortions more difficult, while seven in 10 favor allowing doctors to help terminally ill patients end their lives.

Among libertarians, 71 percent support legalizing marijuana, putting them at odds with a majority of Republicans. About 61 percent of Republicans, 59 percent of tea party members and 69 percent of white evangelical Protestants oppose legalizing marijuana.

Even so, libertarians are far more likely to be Republicans than Democrats. Nearly half — 45 percent — of libertarians identify as Republicans, and 5 percent call themselves Democrats. Another 8 percent are aligned with — surprise — the Libertarian Party, while 35 percent consider themselves politically independent.

The article continues at the website.

I know a number of libertarians. I agree with many of the planks in their political platform—but not all. I’m a Tea Partier. I also know my libertarians friends will read the column above and deny its validity all the while mirroring those same differences publicly and privately. If I reach back into my psycho-therapy days, I’d call it associative blindness.

What would it take for these two groups to ally with one another? One statement in the article may contain the kernel of that alliance: Both groups really, really, really oppose Obama and Obamacare. Perhaps it will be enough. After all, it took only a single issue to unite a number of factions that created the Republican Party in 1856—slavery. Perhaps, Obamacare, will be that single issue that unites the libertarians, the Tea Party and all the myriad other conservative groups into a singular, powerful political force to change the course of the nation.

It is also interesting, according to Rasmussen, that people evenly favor the Tea Party as do those who support Obama—both at 42%. So if the numbers of Tea Partiers equal Obama supporters, does that include libertarians? No, according to the article above. That means, collectively, Tea Partiers and libertarians, outnumber Obama partisans. The remaining 16% must be the establishment GOP and we don’t know which side they would support. If we listen to Boehner, McConnell and McCain, they’d side with Obama.

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No Country for Old Moderates

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Today’s post title is taken from an article that appeared in The Daily Beast. The writer is, supposedly, conservative. However, once you wade through all of his ‘inside the beltway’ bias, you will see he’s been feeding from the establishment trough. On the other hand, he does makes some points and not, I believe, in the fashion he intended.

No Country for Old Moderates

by

It’s not ‘moderates’ vs. ‘conservatives. The two opposing Republican sides, if they really are opposing, are ‘radical’ and ‘conservative.’ And only one side is fighting. The other is rolling over, says Michael Tomasky.

The more I think about this Republican “civil war,” the less it looks like war to me. It often gives the appearance of being war because these Tea Party people march into the arena with a lot of fire, brimstone, and kindred pyrotechnics that suggest conflict. But what, really, in hard policy terms, are these two sides arguing about? Practically nothing. It’s a disagreement chiefly over tactics and intensity. That’s a crucial point, and so much of the media don’t understand it. But I’m here to tell you, whenever you read an article that makes a lot of hay about this “war” and then goes on to describe the Republican factions as “moderate” and “conservative,” turn the page or click away. You are either in the hands of an idiot or someone intentionally misleading you.

This is Tomasky’s first error. The differences between the Conservatives and the establishment in the GOP is not just ‘tactics.’ It is about goals. The Conservatives want change, reforms, and a return to government as envisioned by the Founders. The establishment is interested only in maintaining their personal positions and power. Tomasky has swallowed the establishment’s pablum or is an active participant as an establishment propaganda organ.

What’s going on presents many of the outward signs of political warfare. Insurgent radical extremists are challenging already very conservative incumbents whose thought and deed crimes are that they are conservative only 80- or 90-something percent of the time instead of 100 (or 110, preferably). Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), American Conservative Union 2012 rating of 92, being challenged? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell? He got 100 percent in 2012!  Hey, I was joking about that 110!

So sure, running primaries against people like this can be called warlike acts. But a real war has two sides who believe different things and are willing to fight to the death for them. In this war, that description applies only to one side.

This…skirmish, let’s call it, is between radicals and conservatives. (It certainly doesn’t involve moderates; there are roughly four moderate Republicans in Congress, depending on how you count, out of 278.) The conservatives, the more traditional conservatives such as John McCain, Orrin Hatch, and many others in the Senate, and House Speaker John Boehner, could be a force if they wanted to. But by and large, they’ve refused to be. If the GOP had two warring factions, then you might expect that on all major high-profile legislative votes, the schism would evince itself in the roll calls. But when you look back over the list of high-profile measures that have come before them while Barack Obama has been president, the conservatives and the radicals only really split on two occasions.

Now you see where Tomasky comes from. He believes McCain, McConnell, Hatch, Boehner are all conservatives. I can not imagine how more wrong he could be unless his personal views align with Marxists like Sheila Jackson Lee or he’s in the pay of Karl Rove.

After the fiasco and sellout to Obama earlier this month, these politicians, the ones Tomasky calls ‘conservative,’ and those like them, have been unmasked. No, they are not conservatives. They are not even moderates. They are democrats in disguise.

Tomasky, according to his establishment talking points, sees little difference between these “conservatives” and the “extremists and radicals” like the Tea Party, Cruz, Lee and a handful of others.

The radicals may be fighting a war. But the conservatives are executing a classic rearguard action. At best. And that’s not much of a civil war.

If, above,  you substitute “conservatives” for radicals and “the establishment” for “conservatives” in the second sentence, the quote is correct.

One was the fiscal cliff deal as 2013 started. In the House, 85 Republicans backed that deal and 151 voted against it.  In the Senate, the vote was 89-8; 40 Republicans backed and five opposed. (Three Democrats opposed it because the tax-increase threshold went too high, from the expected $250,000 per household to $400,000.) The second was the vote we just had to reopen the government and raise the debt limit. That, of course, passed the House by a comfortable margin, with the support of 87 Republicans, while 144 opposed.  The vote in the Senate was 81-18, with 27 Republicans voting aye and 18 nay. 

That’s it. Interestingly, those two votes show us a radical caucus in the Senate that grew in 10 months from five to 18, while in the House, the radicals have outnumbered the conservatives in a remarkably consistent way. But those are the only diversions from party unity.

From Tomasky’s view, the Senate votes are the only ones that matter. He writes that a growth of conservative Senators from five to eighteen is massive. It is no growth. The Obamacare vote—oh, excuse me, the unlimited debt limit vote just unmasked all those RINOs from the GOP Senators.

He refuses to examine the differences between the houses of Congress. The House members have only two-year terms. The Senate six-year terms. The political changes across the country manifest themselves more quickly in the House than in the Senate. Once a ‘moderate’, read RINO, is elected, he remains in the Senate for at least six-years. The House, however, is more responsive to the moods of the country and you will see political trends appear there well before any such change is reflected, if at all, in the Senate.

One could add one more basis of disagreement. Occasionally, the conservatives cast votes conceding that the government ought to be able to function as designed; you know, with agencies having people run them. But that happens only once about every two years.

Now is the time for them to stand up and say “enough.” An October 7 Washington Post-ABC poll found that just 52 percent of Republicans approved of how Republicans were handling the budget negotiations. That’s margin of error to 50-50. So half of the Republicans in the country disapprove of what the GOP just did.

But they might as well be zero, for they effectively have no representation. The regular conservatives—most conspicuously the craven Boehner, but all the others, too—did nothing to represent these people until the last possible second, and until the radicals demonstrated conclusively that they couldn’t pull off defunding Obamacare.

Think about that. Half of one of our major political parties, constituting many millions of citizens, barely has a voice in Washington. If they did have a voice, none of this late madness would have happened. But the legislators who ostensibly represent them are cowards, kittens, balled up in the corner. The radicals may be fighting a war. But the conservatives are executing a classic rearguard action. At best. And that’s not much of a civil war. And it says a great deal about the character of the Republican Party, and especially of the conservatives. History will remember.

Remember, when reading the text above from Tomasky, everywhere he writes, ‘conservative,’ substitute, RINO. He is correct, however, when he says that fighting a rearguard action is doomed to defeat.

There are a few nuggets of truth in Tomasky’s article. You have to do some label substitution to get there, but truth is there. Tomasky, if he is to ever be a believable political writer, must get outside the weasle-pit that is Washington, and spend some time out here in fly-over country. The nation’s political world does not solely exist only on the coasts.

If the GOP is to survive, something that is very much in doubt at the moment, it truly must become “No Country for Old Moderates”—Old RINOs. A house-cleaning is coming. It will take a few election cycles to weed them all out but that weeding will occur—if we aren’t, first, in a real civil war. Early skirmishes may have already occurred.

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Emboldened Tea Party

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Today’s title is taken from a headline that appeared in the Washington Times. The dems and leftists think the Tea Party was heavily damaged in the debacle that just occurred in Washington. Boehner’s and McConnell’s surrender was evidence of that, thought the dems.

They were wrong.

If anything, the antics of Boehner, McConnell and Reid helped clear the decks for 2014. We, the Tea Party and conservatives, now know who is committed to conservative principles and who are only committed to themselves.

Boehner thinks he is in a ‘safe’ district. The dems keep him in office just as much as the GOP establishment clique that prevents any strong opposition to Boehner. That could easily change if a strong independent or GOP candidate could get on the ticket—preferable a GOP opponent who could remove Boehner in a primary election. Boehner is blessed with not one, not two, but, now, three opponents seeking to oust him, two in the upcoming GOP primary election.

One such opponent, J.D. Winteregg, is a school teacher from Troy, Ohio. Winteregg has received a number of endorsements from local Tea Party organizations.

Boehner to face Tea Party challenger in Republican primary

Staff Reporter- Dayton Business Journal

A third local person has thrown a hat in the ring to challenge John Boehner, R-West Chester, for Congress in 2014.

J.D. Winteregg, a school teacher from Troy, Ohio, announced his campaign against Boehner this month.

Active in local tea party groups and having received the endorsement of board members of several north Cincinnati Tea Party groups, Winteregg says his limited political experience means “his ideas truly represent the people in (Ohio’s eighth Congressional district).”

Among his political positions, Winteregg advocates for defunding Obamacare, a limited free market Capitalist system approach to the economy, and says the government should focus on forming public-private partnerships to shift dollars supporting economic growth from tax money to private investment.

Winteregg is the third local person who has announced his plans to challenge Boehner in the May 2014 primary. Matthew Trisler, a truck driver from Tipp City, is running on a constitutional conservative platform, while Butler County businessman Eric Gurr also announced he would challenge Boehner in the Republican primary.

McConnell has opposition, too.

Senate Conservatives Fund endorses Matt Bevin over Mitch McConnell

Oct. 18, 2013 11:22 AM

The Senate Conservatives Fund said Friday it has endorsed Republican Matt Bevin over U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell in Kentucky’s 2014 U.S. Senate race.

The group has been toying with the endorsement for some time. It has aired television commercials critical of McConnell as not conservative enough and it recently polled its members asking if it should officially back Bevin, a tea party-favored Louisville businessman.

“We have interviewed a lot of candidates this year and Matt Bevin is one of the very best. He’s principled, passionate, and has Ted Cruz-like courage,” said Matt Hoskins, the group’s executive director, referring to Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas, who led the fight to shut down government in an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

The endorsement comes just days after McConnell, the Senate minority leader, brokered a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, to reopen government and raise the debt ceiling before the U.S. defaulted on its debt.

In response to the McConnell-Reid deal, Bevin said Wednesday: “When the stakes are highest, Mitch McConnell can always be counted on to sell out conservatives.”

The group lambasted McConnell the same night as the shutdown-ending vote, accusing him of receiving a “Kentucky kickback” because the bill contained a higher $2.9 billion spending limit for the controversial Olmsted Dam and locks on the Ohio River. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Congressional leaders later rebutted that accusation.

Boehner and McConnell are not the only two RINOs who are receiving opposition in the coming primaries. All of those who voted to support Obama, Reid, and Obamacare, like our MO Senator, Roy Blunt, have marked themselves. Blunt still has a number of years left to his term. Others, however, do not.

A call to arms: Emboldened tea party moves to finish off weak Republicans

Mississippi senator first to face challenge

By Seth McLaughlin, The Washington Times, Thursday, October 17, 2013

Far from chastened by the debt debate, tea partyers and conservative groups signaled Thursday they’ve concluded they didn’t lose, but rather were sabotaged from within by weak Republicans — and they took the first steps to oust one of them.

Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel announced he would challenge U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in the Republican primary next year, a day after the GOP’s senior senator voted to end the 16-day government shutdown and grant President Obama more borrowing authority.

Mr. McDaniel immediately saw a flood of support from the outside groups that had rallied against this week’s debt and spending agreement.

“Our country can’t afford any more bad votes that stem from old friends and back-room deals,” said Daniel Horowitz, deputy political director of the Madison Project. “And as witnessed from the recent budget battle against Obamacare, we cannot win against Democrats if we don’t grow our conservative bench in the Senate.”

For the past two weeks, the deep divisions within the GOP have been on very public display.

Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah and their allies pushed to withhold all government spending unless Mr. Obama agreed to cancel Obamacare, while party leaders called that a losing strategy and tried to come up with alternatives.

On Thursday, the GOP accepted defeat, passing a bill that gives Mr. Obama a “clean” bill to reopen government through January, and to raise debt through at least February.

A majority of Republicans supported the deal in the Senate, but the situation was reversed in the House, where Cruz allies refused to sign off on a series of plans put forward by GOP leaders to end the stalemate.

The article continues on a second page noting Sarah Palin’s support for change in the “permanent political class” in Washington.

The result of the acts in Washington this month, while a setback for conservatives, is not capitulation. Instead, it is just the beginning. The Tea Party was fundamental is winning the House in 2010. Now, our goal is to widen that control in the House, eliminating the establishment stalwarts, replacing them with strong conservatives and to take the Senate from dem control,  dumping Harry Reid into the waste-bin of history.

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