Tag Archives: GOP

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Tea party winning as it's losing

It’s time to give credit where it most definitely is due to the tea party wing of the once-Grand Old Republican Party.

Even when it loses it wins.

Take the race for U.S. senator in Mississippi this week. Sen. Thad Cochran beat back a stout challenge from tea party Republican Chris McDaniel. But did Cochran campaign in the GOP runoff on his ability to work with Democrats, or on his ability to funnel lots of money to his home state? Oh no. He campaigned on his conservative record — which he has established — and by telling Mississippians that he’s as conservative as they are.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/weakened-tea-party-takes-more-punches-n140851

I am no longer paying much never-mind to these predictions of the tea party’s death, resurrection and death yet again. The tea party wing of the GOP has won the debate.

It has dragged normally thoughtful conservatives into the rage pit right along with them. U.S. House Speaker John Boehner is as “establishment Republican” as they come. Now, though, he’s suing President Obama because the president has taken some executive action that has angered the tea party wing of the GOP. That means Boehner is mad, too.

Here in Texas, tea party Republican state Sen. Dan Patrick yanked Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst so far to the right that Dewhurst never got his legs under him or found his voice. He looked and sounded awkward trying to be as out there as Patrick, who’s smooth, articulate and glib. Patrick beat Dewhurst in the Texas GOP runoff.

Across the state, Republicans are sounding more alike all the time — meaning they’ve adopted the do-nothing mantra so popular among tea party officeholders in Washington.

There once was a Republican Party with pols who could work well with Democrats. Two come to mind immediately: the late U.S. Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois and former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas. There’ve been others, but those two men stand out in my own mind. Dirksen was pals with President Lyndon Johnson and helped LBJ enact civil rights and voting rights legislation in the mid-1960s. Dole was a dear friend of the late Democratic U.S. Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota. It helped that the two men both were World War II heroes and had a shared bond of military service. They also worked hand-in-hand on anti-hunger legislation.

Dole and Dirksen would be laughed out of the Senate chamber today.

The tea party’s strength can be seen in the debate that’s raging within the Republican Party — if you want to call it that when virtually all Republicans now are singing off the tea party song sheet.

The tea party, therefore, is winning, even when it’s losing.

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GOP 'outraged' over VA mess?

Jon Talton is a former colleague — and current friend — of yours truly.

He writes a blog that is at times biting and always insightful.

His link here discusses the resignation of Eric Shinseki as head of the Department of Veterans Affairs, but it contains a single sentence relating to Republican outrage over what’s happened at the VA.

http://www.roguecolumnist.com/rogue_columnist/

Jon’s point about the GOP’s phony outrage is spot on.

Granted, Shinseki needed to take the fall for what’s happened at the VA health care system. Much of this mess happened on his watch, but not all of it.

Perhaps just as outrageous, though, has been the reaction by congressional Republican leaders over Shinseki’s departure. They’ve said it’s not enough that the VA secretary leave office. They want more heads to roll.

And this is all coming from the same do-nothings who have refused to give financial support to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Let’s remember this. The stingy lawmakers, those who express their undying support for our veterans while refusing to authorize the expenditures needed to give them the help they deserve, now are seeking to channel every shred of blame to the individuals they have hamstrung with their stinginess.

As my pal Talton notes in his blog, “The episode is full of irony and hypocrisy.”

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GOP getting unhappy over IRS probe

Might there be some restiveness brewing within Republican congressional ranks?

It appears, according to Politico.com, that some GOP members of Congress are getting a bit tired of the incessant probing, questioning and spending of taxpayer money over a controversy that seems to have run out of steam.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/darrell-issa-irs-tea-party-investigation-105119.html?hp=l7

You remember the Internal Revenue Service “scandal” that boiled up nearly a year ago when it was learned that the most loathed agency in the federal government was vetting conservative political action groups’ request for tax-exempt status? Remember when all that broke?

It was considered a big deal because some folks feared that the IRS got its marching orders from the White House, perhaps from within the Oval Office itself. Heck, maybe the president himself awoke in the wee hours one morning, picked up the phone and called the IRS himself and ordered the agency to stick it to those right-wingers, correct?

Well, none of that seems to have happened. Instead, the IRS acted apparently as it is charged to do — with liberal and conservative groups alike — and vetted tea party groups carefully to ensure that they didn’t violate federal tax status laws. Investigators have determined that all decisions reportedly were made by field office personnel; they were not mandated by White House directives.

None of that has satisfied House Government Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who keeps beating the drum looking for something — anything! — that ties this controversy to President Obama’s shirt tail.

It turns out some of his GOP colleagues — not to mention Democratic House members — are getting weary of it.

“There is a perception that if your case is rock-solid, it doesn’t need months to sort it out,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who is considered a probable successor to Issa as chairman, given that Issa is being term-limited out of the chairman’s seat at the end of the current Congress.

The case has been far from rock-solid. In fact, it has been shown to be mushy soft and full of holes.

Let’s get off this one, Mr. Chairman, and get back to legislating — which is what we pay our lawmakers to do.

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Santorum says Cruz harming the GOP

Rick Santorum knows an extremist when he sees one.

The one-time Republican senator from Pennsylvania and former GOP presidential candidate once blamed contraception as a source of what ails America today. So it is with that intimate knowledge of wacky political rhetoric that he has declared that Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has harmed the Republican Party’s brand with rank-and-file American voters.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/10/rick-santorum-on-ted-cruz-in-the-end-he-did-more-harm/

Santorum says Cruz is “a face” of the party, not “the face” of it. Cruz’s effort to use defunding the Affordable Care Act as a weapon to shut down the government wasn’t helpful to the cause, which Santorum says is just. He, too, wants to get rid of the ACA. Santorum didn’t think much of Cruz’s fake filibuster, nor does he seem to like the fact that Cruz is everywhere all at once declaring his intention to “do whatever it takes” to get rid of the ACA.

One problem with Santorum’s critique of his fellow Republican, Cruz, is that Cruz doesn’t care that he harms the party. He has done himself more good than harm, if you are to believe some of the polls and the political chatter back home in Texas.

That’s what matters to the freshman senator, who in just nine months has elevated his profile to a level far more visible than many of the more senior members of the body in which he serves.

He’s acting like he wants to run for president in 2016. For that matter, so is Santorum.

Come to think of it, that might explain why one potential GOP conservative candidate for president is criticizing the antics of another one.

Whatever. Santorum makes sense when sizing up the contributions of Ted Cruz to his party’s cause.

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Ex-GOP boss right about impeachment talk

Michael Steele offers living, breathing proof that the Republican Party hasn’t been overrun completely by those with lunatic notions.

Republicans who are full of all those crazy ideas, though, are hogging the platform.

Steele, the former Republican National Committee chairman, told MSNBC that talk of impeaching President Obama is “asinine.” You got it that right.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/michael-steele-blake-farenthold-impeachment-95520.html?hp=r6

The latest impeachment talk came from, yep, another Texas Republican member of Congress. The goofball this time is Blake Farenthold, who told a small group of fans and supporters that the House of Representatives could impeach the president, but that he wouldn’t be convicted in a Senate trial.

Farenthold doesn’t specify on what charge the House would impeach the president. Why? Because nothing exists. He seems to be among those on the far right who dislike the president’s policies so much that they want to throw him out of office.

What an utter crock.

My hope is that Michael Steele and other reasonable Republicans can outshout the loons within his party. Clear your throat, Mr. Chairman.