The best question of the day
by digby
What is the point of this— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) October 13, 2015
She’s talking about Rand Paul’s insanely boring all-day livestream event. Which is hilarious.
Poor Olivia Nuzzi has been tasked with following him and it is really something …
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What we’d like to see in tonight’s debate
by digby
In a perfect world:
I think you could say that about any topic, frankly.
The article by Harold Pollack has a list of important questions about health care, but from what I have gathered so far anything they say will be interpreted by the media as a brutal attack on President Obama so they might want to avoid even mentioning that Obamacare could possibly be improved by some tiny little tweaks. (It’s an open question as to whether VP Biden would be held to the same standard.)
Anyway, good discussion of health care here. It would actually be really refreshing to have debates about single big subjects and let the candidates go deep. But that probably wouldn’t get the kind of ratings that the Donald Trump freak-show talking about how ugly Rosie O’Donnell do. And that’s what this is all about.
But you never know. That Martin O’Malley looks like he could be quite the loose cannon.
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Imagine a debate candidate saying this about TPP…
by Gaius Publius
As many readers know, I’m a big fan of what the game of Go calls a “strong move” — very aggressive play when the position is favorable. The position against TPP, the argument against, is beyond favorable, and the position against Malaysia, one of the world’s worst participants in the traffic in slaves, is unassailable. In addition, for the 2016 race, progressives have three candidates who have announced their opposition.
In this presidential season, I think progressives have been handed a wonderful opportunity to make a “strong move” against both TPP and slave trafficking — but only if they’re willing to take it.
In this piece, I want to look at the slave trade and Malaysia, then at TPP, both pre-vote and post-vote, and last at what a truly committed Democratic candidate might say in one of the coming debates. (To jump to that speech, scroll to the bottom or click here.)
“Human Trafficking” Means the Slave Trade in All Its Forms
The term “human trafficking” is accurate, but almost a white-wash in that it washes off the ears with little penetration of its meaning. Human trafficking is best called “slave trading.” What are slaves? Humans used as animals, as things for any purpose, including, but not only:
That list is just a subset. Any Jack Reacher–villain method by which a human, including a child, can be kept powerless for the purpose of abuse is encompassed by the term slave trading. From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on the ban against exploitation of humans:
Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal, manipulation or implantation of organs;
The “trader” makes his or her money capturing or selling slaves, the way Nestlé, say, makes money “capturing” water from the people of the Pacific Northwest, then selling it back to the people who own it in the first place. Water is a product to profit from. Slaves are a product to profit from. How can we improve the bottom line by improving the “throughput,” these profiteers ask?
Imagine your child treated this way, as a profit center and “throughput.” Now imagine your anger against it. Now hold that thought as you consider Malaysia and TPP. Malaysia is a nation in which slave trading is a major industry.
In 2014, the State Department Gave Malaysia an “F” for its Extensive Human Trafficking
Back in 2014, before Fast Track and TPP were part of the national discussion, the nation of Malaysia received an “F” from the U.S. State Department (technically, they assigned Malaysia “Tier 3” status) for its extremely lax enforcement of laws against trading in slaves.
The Guardian (my emphasis):
US penalises Malaysia for shameful human trafficking record
Continued failure to curb traffickers prompts US to downgrade Malaysia in its annual Trafficking in Persons report
The US has downgraded Malaysia to the lowest ranking in its annual human trafficking report, relegating the southeast Asian nation to the same category as Zimbabwe, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. The move could result in economic sanctions and loss of development aid.
Malaysia’s relegation to tier 3 in the US state department’s Trafficking in Persons (TiP) report – published on Friday – indicates that the country has categorically failed to comply with the most basic international requirements to prevent trafficking and protect victims within its borders.
Human rights activists in Malaysia and abroad welcomed the downgrade as proof of the government’s lax law enforcement, and lack of political will, in the face of continued NGO and media reports on trafficking and slavery.
“Malaysia is not serious about curbing human trafficking at all,” said Aegile Fernandez, director of Tenaganita, a local charity that works directly with trafficking victims.
“The order of the day is profits and corruption. Malaysia protects businesses, employers and agents [not victims] – it is easier to arrest, detain, charge and deport the migrant workers so that you protect employers and businesses.”
According to this year’s TiP report – which ranks 188 nations according to their willingness and efforts to combat trafficking, and is considered the benchmark index for global anti-trafficking commitments – trafficking victims are thought to comprise the vast majority of Malaysia’s estimated 2 million illegal migrant labourers, who are sent to work in the agriculture, construction, sex, textile or domestic labour industries.
Just read the bolded parts again. The government of Malaysia, our TPP partner, is a major participant in the market for slaves. According to our own State Department.
But that was then, before the push to “fast track” trade deals that the most corrupt members of both political parties wanted to give to their richest benefactors. Here’s what’s happened since.
“Senior Political Staff” in the State Department Recertified Malaysia as Fit for TPP
The State Department issued the above report in 2014. In 2015 Obama and the wealth-serving members of both political parties wanted to pass Fast Track, a law that would make it much more difficult for Congress to reject any “trade” deal, or any deal labeled a trade deal for the next three to six years. One obstacle to passing Fast Track was congressional opposition to the slave trade in Malaysia, one of our TPP “partners.”
The pro-TPP forces in and out of government desperately wanted to keep Malaysia in the deal, for a variety of reasons. So “senior political staff” in the State Department conveniently amended the department’s 2014 decision.
Reuters (my emphasis):
Special Report: State Department watered down human trafficking report
In the weeks leading up to a critical annual U.S. report on human trafficking that publicly shames the world’s worst offenders, human rights experts at the State Department concluded that trafficking conditions hadn’t improved in Malaysia and Cuba. And in China, they found, things had grown worse.
The State Department’s senior political staff saw it differently — and they prevailed.
A Reuters examination, based on interviews with more than a dozen sources in Washington and foreign capitals, shows that the government office set up to independently grade global efforts to fight human trafficking was repeatedly overruled by senior American diplomats and pressured into inflating assessments of 14 strategically important countries in this year’s Trafficking in Persons report.
In all, analysts in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons – or J/TIP, as it’s known within the U.S. government — disagreed with U.S. diplomatic bureaus on ratings for 17 countries, the sources said.
The analysts, who are specialists in assessing efforts to combat modern slavery – such as the illegal trade in humans for forced labor or prostitution – won only three of those disputes, the worst ratio in the 15-year history of the unit, according to the sources.
As a result, not only Malaysia, Cuba and China, but countries such as India, Uzbekistan and Mexico, wound up with better grades than the State Department’s human-rights experts wanted to give them, the sources said. (Graphic looking at some of the key decisions here: reut.rs/1gF2Wz5)
Note that the experts in the State Dept. didn’t re-evaluate the data. The political forces at State overruled those experts, for reasons you can easily guess. In the case of Malaysia, Reuters says this:
The Malaysian upgrade, which was highly criticized by human rights groups, could smooth the way for an ambitious proposed U.S.-led free-trade deal [TPP] with the Southeast Asian nation and 11 other countries.
Reuters certainly knows how to put two and two together. Will our Democratic political candidates do the same?
Which Presidential Candidate Will Stand Strongest Against TPP & Human Trafficking in Malaysia?
Which brings us to TPP and this political season. One of the big issues for progressives is to elect the most progressive president we can find. Another is to defeat TPP in Congress. A third — have you thought of this? — is to neuter TPP even if it passes Congress and Obama signs it.
After all, TPP is just an “executive agreement.” It’s not a “treaty” as the Constitution understand the term. It’s not ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, but simply signed by the president, often with a concurring vote of Congress. (A Status of Forces Agreement, for example, is “[t]ypically established by executive agreement.”) Even our actual treaties, such as the Geneva Convention’s prohibition against torture, are often simply ignored. Do we stop fighting a bad deal simply because it was signed? Or do we keep fighting? And what do we expect in that regard from our best candidates?
These three problems — how to elect the most progressive president, how to stop TPP from being passed by Congress, how to prevent TPP from taking effect if it is approved by Congress — come conveniently together in this presidential season, and in particular, in the upcoming. presidential debates.
This is another of my imagined progressive-candidate speeches, laid out as talking points in the candidate’s voice. Imagine the horror that millions of human slaves in Malaysia go through every day. Imagine your child as one of them. Then imagine your reaction to a presidential candidate who says this, out loud, in front of millions of TV viewers:
The moderator has asked each of us our views on TPP. Here’s what I say to the American people:
- I know that most Americans, including 87% of Republicans, opposed giving Fast Track authority to the president. I know that almost every labor leader in the country is opposed to TPP, knowing that it would do to jobs what NAFTA did to jobs … and do a whole lot worse besides, such as putting life-saving cancer drug prices out of reach of most people who need them.
- Therefore, if TPP passes and I’m elected president, I will:
1. Explore every avenue for “unsigning” — or at the very least, renegotiating — this agreement. Remember, by design this is not a “treaty,” but an “executive agreement”. Executive agreements, such as agreements to maintain troops in foreign countries, have been changed unilaterally in the past.
2. Make sure that every side agreement that offers protections to labor and the environment is aggressively enforced against all signing countries. I repeat … aggressively enforced. Every single one of them. If a signing country is forced out of TPP because they violate these side agreements, so be it.
These assurances regarding labor and the environment may have been meant cosmetically in the past, but not under my administration. I repeat, if a nation is forced out of TPP because of labor or environmental violations, they will be gone and I will be glad to see them go. The less force TPP has, the better, in my view and in the view of the American people.
3. Finally — and I take this most seriously — there is strong evidence that the country of Malaysia is a major and deliberate participant in the horrifying practice of human trafficking. I mean horrifying in its most literal sense. Our own State Department, in 2014, certified Malaysia as a participant in the global market for slaves — sexual slaves, workforce slaves, humans who are imprisoned so their organs can be harvested. Men, women, and children.
One source says, about this report, and I’m quoting here: “trafficking victims are thought to comprise the vast majority of Malaysia’s estimated 2 million illegal migrant labourers, who are sent to work in the agriculture, construction, sex, textile or domestic labour industries.” This is beyond immoral. It is monstrous. And it must be stopped.
The U.S. State Department said as much in a report on human trafficking in June of 2014. Yet in late July of 2015, the State Department reversed itself and removed Malaysia from the list of “Tier 3” human traffickers, the worst offenders.
This allowed Malaysia to remain in the negotiations for TPP. If I am your president, on day one I will order the State Department to immediately review that decision, with an eye to immediately reversing that decision and driving Malaysia from the TPP until it genuinely … not cosmetically, but genuinely … changes its laws and cracks down on this most monstrous of practices … the trafficking in slaves, humans treated like animals, as things to be used.
- Further, I challenge every candidate on this stage, most of whom oppose the TPP, to take these same aggressive stands. If we are strongly opposed to TPP and what it will do to jobs and the American economy — and especially if we are opposed to the slave trade in Malaysia — we must opposed it, not just before it passes, but after it passes, if indeed it does pass.
Consider again our three goals:
Now imagine someone you love as a victim of human trafficking in Malaysia.
If you are on board with all three goals — and share the revulsion any human would feel toward a business model that treats humans as things — how would you feel about the presidential candidate who gave the speech above?
But there’s more to this “strong move.” How would our current trading “partners” feel about TPP if they heard this speech given, ahead of the congressional vote?
(A version of this piece appeared at Down With Tyranny. GP article archive here.)
GP
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I am Debbie. I am The Gatekeeper.
by Tom Sullivan
Whatever has possessed DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is creating a buildup of negative human emotions in her party, and it must be stopped before it produces a psychomagnotheric slime flow of immense proportions.
Who ya gonna call? Beats me.
First off, The Gatekeeper has decided in the face of dissension in her ranks that there will be only six Democratic debates. “We’re going to have six debates. Period,” Wasserman Schultz told a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in September.
By limiting the number of debates, the DNC is “ceding the discussion and attention to the Republicans,” Martin O’Malley’s campaign manager told Politico. Plus, it gives the appearance that the DNC is protecting front runner Hillary Clinton. If The Gatekeeper is trying hard to appear impartial (as I read somewhere), she is leaving the opposite impression. DNC vice chairs, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and former Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak, have also called for more debates, and the chatter among other members is not favorable to Wasserman Schultz.
Gabbard was recently on television again calling for more debates. The Gatekeeper has since disinvited Gabbard from the Rectification of the Vuldronaii, or at least from tonight’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas:
“The prevailing message of that was that because I continued to call for more debates, that I should not go to the debate in Las Vegas,” the Hawaii congresswoman said. “The issue here is not about me saying, ‘Boo hoo, I’m going to miss the party.’ The issue here is one of democracy and freedom of speech.”
The New York Times reported earlier Monday that Gabbard had received a message through her staff about her attendance at the event one day after she appeared on television calling for more Democratic debates. Bernie Sanders campaign then offered her a ticket later on Monday.
According to the Times report, Wasserman Schultz wants to keep the focus on the candidates “rather than on a ‘distraction’ that could divide the party.” Instead, The Gatekeeper has become the distraction. Gabbard tells the Times:
“When I first came to Washington, one of the things that I was disappointed about was there’s a lot of immaturity and petty gamesmanship that goes on, and it kind of reminds me of how high school teenagers act,” Ms. Gabbard said in a telephone interview on Sunday night. She said she would watch the debate in her district in Hawaii, which elected her to her second term last year.
“It’s very dangerous when we have people in positions of leadership who use their power to try to quiet those who disagree with them,” she added. “When I signed up to be vice chair of the D.N.C., no one told me I would be relinquishing my freedom of speech and checking it at the door.”
Immaturity and petty gamesmanship? Oh, there’s plenty of that.
In addition, for some reason Harvard professor and Democratic candidate Lawrence Lessig will not be on the stage in Las Vegas, Chris Hayes reported last night:
“While three of the Democratic candidates, Lincoln Chaffee, Martin O’Malley, and Lawrence Lessig all scored less than half a percent in latest national polling, only two of them get to take part tomorrow. Lessig is the only one being excluded from the debate stage.” [timestamp 1:15]
As Hayes noted, it is CNN’s network and they can set their own rules, even if “somewhat mysterious.” Still, Lessig’s exclusion seems capricious, believes Bloomberg:
Lessig may be a gadfly, but he has a base of support. In just one month, he’s raised more than $1 million from 8,000 donors. Compare that with Chafee, who brought in $29,000 over the first six months of the year. Lessig has raised enough money to qualify for public matching funds — and if the public is going to pay for his campaign, the public ought to be able to see him on the stage.
Lessig has one other qualification going for him: Unlike Sanders, he’s actually a Democrat. And no matter how far-fetched his candidacy is, he’s right to demand his party take a more democratic approach to the debates.
That’s even weirder given The Gatekeeper’s April welcome of Bernie Sanders to the race, and her more detailed explanation to insiders for why Bernie Sanders will get to be on the Democratic primary ballot:
Senator Sanders doesn’t need to change his voter registration, because he can’t. According to the Vermont Secretary of State, Vermont does not have party registration. (The same is true in Virginia, where Senator Webb is registered to vote.)
- According to the DNC Rules, requirements for nomination as President or Vice President on the Democratic ticket require a candidate to do the following:
o be registered to vote, and shall have been registered to vote in the last election for the office of President and Vice President; and
o have “demonstrated a commitment to the goals and objectives of the Democratic Party”
- Additionally, the DNC 2016 Convention Call says that this person should have “a record of public service, accomplishment, public writings and/or public statements affirmatively demonstrates that he or she is faithful to the interests, welfare and success of the Democratic Party”
- Given his long record as a champion for creating jobs, fighting for hard working, middle class families, and living up to the Democratic goals of equality and opportunity, and given the fact that he caucuses with Senate Democrats in good faith, Senator Sanders clearly meets those requirements.
- Therefore, provided he meets the ballot access requirements in each state, he is eligible to seek the Democratic nomination, and we welcome Senator Sanders to the Democratic field.
That would seem to apply to Lessig, the registered Democrat. CNN, however, will not be welcoming Lawrence Lessig to the stage tonight. On the other hand, CNN has a spare podium handy just in case Gozer the Traveler should appear.
Who Sez the NY Times Got No Humor?
by tristero
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First, there’s the headline: Latest Unease on Right: Ryan Is Too Far Left. Anyway you cut it – haha or peculiar – that’s a funny thing to say. And then there is this hysterical lede:
Far-right media figures, relatively small in number but potent in their influence, have embarked on a furious Internet expedition to cover Representative Paul D. Ryan in political silt.
“Silt?” That’s not the first word that comes to mind when I think about what far-right figures like Schafly cover their opponents with. Kind of looks a little bit like “silt,”though. But the “i’s”in third position and there’s an “h”in second.
And then there’s this:
[Paul Ryan] was half the brain on a 2013 compromise with Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, to funnel more money to the government and avert two years of budget brinkmanship, even though two years earlier, he had refused to sit on the original committee that tried and failed to find a solution to the government’s financial problems.
“Half the brain?” Yeah, I always thought that about Paul Ryan.
Oh, I’m running low on popcorn now. Gotta make more.
QOTD: HRC
by digby
We know she calculates every utterance months in advance with massive focus groups and polling so this is somewhat surprising:
ANOTHER ROUND: In preparation for this interview, I watched a lot of your interviews, and I noticed you never sweat, like physically. I’ve done like a little bit of press and I get so hot — TV lights, stage lights. I’m sweating now and I’m sitting still. What is your deodorant situation?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, first of all, you’ve only done a little bit. When you’ve done as much as I have —
ANOTHER ROUND: But like, what is your secret?
HILLARY CLINTON: My secret is just you do it so often. You didn’t see me 40 years ago when I did my first ones. Right?
ANOTHER ROUND: I don’t mean sweat because you’re nervous. I just mean physically. I’m genuinely curious what your deodorant is.
HILLARY CLINTON: You know, I just turned off the thermostat. [Clinton glances at the wall.] No, no, I don’t know.
ANOTHER ROUND: Do you have a spray situation. Is it a liquid? I’m not joking.
HILLARY CLINTON: Solid. Solid block. I like the solid. Solid block is much better.
ANOTHER ROUND: OK. This is an odd question that I lobbied for a lot because it’s one of my favorite questions to ask people. If you don’t have an answer, that’s fine, but I will be a little sad. What’s the weirdest thing about you?
HILLARY CLINTON: The weirdest thing about me is that I don’t sweat.
ANOTHER ROUND: Obviously. Best argument for Hillary as a robot: zero sweat.
HILLARY CLINTON: You guys are the first to realize that I’m really not even a human being. I was constructed in a garage in Palo Alto a very long time ago. People think that, you know, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, they created it. Oh no. I mean, a man whose name shall remain nameless created me in his garage.
ANOTHER ROUND: Are there more of you?
HILLARY CLINTON: I thought he threw away the plans, at least that’s what he told me when he programmed me — that there would be no more. I’ve seen more people that kind of don’t sweat, and other things, that make me think maybe they are part of the new race that he created: the robot race.
ANOTHER ROUND: So there’s a cyborg army is what you’re saying.
HILLARY CLINTON: But you have to cut this, you can’t tell anybody this. I don’t want anybody to know this. This has been a secret until here we are in Davenport, Iowa, and I’m just spillin’ my electronic guts to you.
ANOTHER ROUND: And without bourbon.
HILLARY CLINTON: Without any bourbon. Yeah. That’s why I have to wait ‘til the end of the day.
I am disappointed to learn she doesn’t like tequila, though. There goes my vote. I can’t vote for anyone who doesn’t want to do shots of Chinaco with me.
I’m thinking Chafee looks like he might be a tequila drinker…
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Creepy brainwashing video of the day
by digby
They will never go away …
Citizenlink is Focus on the Family
h/t to @downwithtyranny
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by digby
This is rich. Politico reports on NY Times editor Dean Baquet views on the paper’s Clinton coverage which I think fair-minded people can all agree has been pretty egregious. (Exhibit A. Exhibit B.)
Responding to accusations that the Times is unfair to Clinton and her campaign, Baquet acknowledged the Times’ screw-up on a recent story — which the Times corrected — that erroneously claimed a criminal inquiry was being sought into Clinton’s email usage during her time as secretary of state.
While that story “fueled” criticism about the Times’ Clinton coverage, said Baquet during an interview on CNN, “We’re aggressive on all the candidates.” He likewise emphasized the breadth of the Times’ Clinton coverage.
“I will also point out that we also broke the story today about dissension within the Benghazi committee,” he said. “We also did the most deeply reported story about who did what in the whole Benghazi fiasco that led to the death of a U.S. ambassador, which I think the Clinton people would say was fair and did not point a finger at her. So I think if you add all that up, and add up the daily coverage of her, we’re not unfair. You have to look at the full picture. And you have to look at the fact that when we screw up, we own up to it.”
Defending the Times’ Clinton reporting has become a familiar activity for Baquet.“If you look at this reasonably, there is no institutional animus toward the Clintons. I don’t buy it,” he told The Daily Beast last month for an article titled, “Is The New York Times at War with Hillary?”
During a June appearance at Hunter College with Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., a woman in the audience said to him during the Q and A portion of the event, “I’d like to know why The New York Times signed an agreement with Peter Schweizer, right-winger, to promote his book,” a reference to “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich”
[…]
…We did not sign an agreement. That’s been mischaracterized. We took information—”
“From a right-wing crackpot like him?”
“We take information from all kinds of crackpots. That’s called reporting. You take information, you check it, you use it, you use what’s accurate…”
(That woman also claimed that reporter Amy Chozick was a right winger which Baquet denied and about which I have no opinion.)
But the fact is that taking information from anti-Clinton crackpots is journalistic malpractice by definition. It’s gotten them into so much trouble in the past you’d think they would have learned their lesson. They are clearly eager to believe any breathless accusation and simply cannot be trusted to verify the facts properly, as that “criminal referral” episode proves. They need to hire someone to police their emotional need to believe any silly bullshit the Republicans throw over the transom. They aren’t going to be the Woodward and Bernstein of Clinton scandals, certainly not on the basis of wingnut oppo BS. It just makes them look like idiots over and over again.
It’s true that this piece today about what goes on inside the Benghazi committee is an excellent expose of the decadence and dissolution among the staffers as well as their clear political intentions. Good for them. One does wonder if Kevin Mccarthy hadn’t opened his big mouth and this whistleblower hadn’t come forward if anyone would have looked this deeply into it. The committee has been around a long while, longer than any committee in House history, doling out its little tid-bits of juicy stuff for DC reporters to get all excited about.
Sure, it’s a crack-pot committee but they take information from all kinds of crackpots…
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How the extremist strategies of the NRA have overtaken Republican politics
by digby
(First, let me get this out of the way. If any of you right wingers are reading this, I never say that the NRA has been giving guns away. Salon tweeted that the NRA had “armed” America and my twitter feed is full of people screaming at the top of their lungs that I’m and idiot libtard who thinks the NRA has provided gun owners with their guns. It’s a misreading of Salon’s tweet and a perfect demonstration that nobody actually reads the article which says nothing of the sort. But whatever …)
Anyway, the article is really about how the NRA’s “take-no-prisoners” strategy has been taken up by Republicans as a whole — and largely because it’s worked for them. An excerpt:
Read on … The NRA is undoubtedly the most successful right wing institution in America. They lead the way.
Is Paul Ryan really the savior who will bring them together?
by digby
This came into my email from Richard Viguerie, Godfather of the conservative movement:
The Magic Number Is 218
It takes a majority of the House to elect a Speaker, so in theory it takes 218 votes to replace establishment Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner with a conservative.
Getting to 218 is a seemingly daunting task when the House Freedom Caucus, the group of conservatives that led the successful opposition to Boehner and Kevin McCarthy, his handpicked candidate to take over the Speaker’s gavel, has only 40 to 50 members.
Paul RyanBut the reality is that there are a lot more than 40 to 50 House Republicans who want to do the right thing – the majority of House Republicans have simply been bamboozled and intimidated into believing that conservatives are a minority, when in fact they are the majority, even in the establishment-controlled House of Representatives.
In a recent vote on a Continuing Resolution to fund the government at the existing Obama-endorsed level, 151 House Republicans voted against the House Republican leadership. Truth be told this was the vote that prompted Boehner’s departure.
So who voted for the CR to keep the government running at Obama’s ruinous spending level?
Mostly Democrats, and a relatively small number of Republicans who are in the establishment “leadership” or who could be intimidated by them into voting “YES” on a bill that funds Planned Parenthood, Obamacare, Obama’s executive amnesty and continues the ruinous deficit spending that Republicans promised to reign-in way back in 2010.
And, not surprisingly, the Republican “YES” votes are a Who’s Who of the establishment Republican candidates to replace John Boehner as Speaker.
Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican House Majority Leader whose campaign for Speaker just imploded was a “YES.”
Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican Chairman of the house Ways and Means Committee was a “YES.”
Darrell Issa, the California Republican who once served as Chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee was a “YES.”
Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the big spending member of the Appropriations Committee and former Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee was a “YES.”
Charles Dent of Pennsylvania who recently suggested that liberal Republicans should abandon the GOP and form a “bipartisan coalition” to elect a Speaker was a “YES.”
And so were National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Greg Walden and virtually all of the Members of the NRCC’s “Patriot Program” that funnels PAC and K Street money to vulnerable GOP incumbents – as long as they toe the leadership’s lobbyist-friendly line.
Who didn’t vote for the Obama-approved Continuing Resolution?
Daniel Webster, the principled limited government constitutional conservative Florida Representative who is the endorsed candidate for Speaker of the House Freedom Caucus voted “NO.”
Jim Jordan, the principled limited government constitutional conservative Representative from Ohio who once served as Chairman of the Republican Study Committee and helped found the House Freedom Caucus voted “NO.”
Jim Bridenstine, the principled limited government constitutional conservative who helped organize the opposition to Boehner in January voted “NO.”
And most importantly, Dave Brat, the Virginia conservative who won his 2014 congressional primary to defeat Eric Cantor, McCarthy’s predecessor as House Majority Leader voted “NO.”
And, after Cantor’s 2014 defeat, how did establishment Republicans who are already facing principled limited government constitutional conservative primary opponents, like Martha Roby of Alabama, Pete Sessions of Texas and Renee Ellmers of North Carolina vote?
No surprise – they all voted “NO” as well, because they may be arrogant and venal, but they are not stupid – they can at least read a poll and understand that the Republican grassroots demand congressional Republicans stand against Obama’s policies and will likely vote out any Republican who fails to fight them.
The magic number to elect a Speaker is 218. So far 151Republicans have shown that, even if they lack principle, they are interested in political self-preservation and are willing to vote for conservative outcomes when their political futures are at stake.
We urge you to call your Representative, the House switchboard is 1-866-220-0044, to demand that he or she vote for a thorough house cleaning in the House Republican leadership team and that no one, like Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy or Darrell Issa, who voted for the Obama CR be elected Speaker.
Keep in mind that Viguerie makes most of his money when the Republicans lose elections. This is him after the loss of the congress in 2006:
Sometimes a loss for the Republican Party is a gain for conservatives. Often, a little taste of liberal Democrats in power is enough to remind the voters what they don’t like about liberal Democrats and to focus the minds of Republicans on the principles that really matter. That’s why the conservative movement has grown fastest during those periods when things seemed darkest, such as during the Carter administration and the first two years of the Clinton White House.
Conservatives are, by nature, insurgents, and it’s hard to maintain an insurgency when your friends, or people you thought were your friends, are in power.
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