Tag Archives: Tea party

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You got change for a Bitcoin?

Bitcoins have become a form of currency that some of us — myself included — need to understand.

As of this moment, I don’t quite get it.

That makes the decision by Republican U.S. senatorial candidate Steve Stockman to accept campaign contributions in this manner all the more bizarre — as if Stockman himself isn’t bizarre enough.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/01/03/stockman-enters-legal-grey-area-bitcoin-donations/

It’s called “virtual currency,” kind of like virtual video games. You pay it by swiping some computer image across a scanner that records the amount and logs it into a data base. The Texas Tribune reports that Stockman told Business Insider that he would accept contributions in this form and then confirmed it on Twitter and Facebook.

Stockman’s candidacy against incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is a long shot to begin with. He’s challenging the senior senator in the Republican primary this March. His chances of winning are slim and none, but it’s the slim part that worries many of us, given Stockman’s proclivity for goofy statements oddball policy stances.

The Tribune notes correctly that Stockman has flouted campaign finance laws already. He fired staffers and has faced questions about how money moves around his campaign coffers.

The Bitcoin makes it easier for contributors to give anonymously, so one might be unable to judge the motives behind the contribution.

Stockman calls the digital currency issue a matter of “freedom.” I prefer to think that accountability ought to matter as well.

If you give to a candidate, put your name on it, own up to it … for the record. Then let others determine whose interests are being served.

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Tea party Ted makes no apologies

This might be the least surprising development of the year-end review of all things political.

It is that U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, makes no apologies for his first year in office.

Imagine that. The guy who stormed into the Senate at the start of the year and began immediately to hog the limelight and TV time from virtually all his more senior colleagues, men and women who’ve worked hard to earn the respect of their colleagues.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/12/19/ted-cruz-ends-year-he-began-it-no-apologies/

Cruz sat down with the Texas Tribune and said, in effect, he’d do it all over again if given the chance.

Why in the name of all that is holy am I not surprised at that?

Cruz’s brashness preceded him to the Senate. He had knocked off the presumptive Republican favorite for the Senate, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. They were vying to win the seat occupied for nearly 20 years by Kay Bailey Hutchison, who retired from public life.

Cruz polled enough votes in the primary to force a runoff, and then beat Dewhurst to win his party’s nomination. He then swamped Democratic nominee Paul Sadler in November 2012.

It took him no time at all to make a name for himself in the Senate. He flouted tradition by spouting off about this and that. He impugned the integrity of two Vietnam War heroes — Chuck Hagel and John Kerry. He led a fake filibuster on the Senate floor to try to derail the Affordable Care Act. He has been virtually everywhere — seemingly at once. Turn on TV lights and there he has been.

This is my favorite: He has blamed all that he believes is wrong with the country on — get ready — his fellow Republicans who he has suggested don’t have the courage to join him in his fierce objections to virtually all legislation.

Cruz probably will run for the presidency in 2016. Heck, someone who stormed to the front row in the Senate so quickly likely feels it is his destiny to go for the next big prize. That’s his shtick.

This Texan is tired of him already.

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GOP fights with itself

I remember a time when Democrats were the fractious bunch and Republicans all held hands and sang off the same page.

That was, oh, about 40 years ago. The times they are a-changin’.

Now it’s the Republicans’ turn to fight among themselves. Democrats have locked arms and aren’t exactly crying crocodile tears over their “friends” troubles on the other side of the aisle.

Boehner-right fight moves to Senate

GOP House Speaker John Boehner stuck it in the tea party wing’s eye the other day after the House passed the bipartisan budget bill worked out under the leadership of Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and Democratic Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray.

Now it’s the Senate’s turn to approve the deal and, one can hope, start the nation toward a long-term repair of its budget problems. I’m not holding my breath for that to occur.

Republican senators are taking heat from their so-called “base,” aka the tea party, over their willingness to compromise with those dreaded Democrats. Many key Republicans aren’t being intimidated. “I’ve said for a long time that there are some outside groups who do what they do solely to raise money,” said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. “I’m glad that people are wising up.”

One GOP senator, Texan John Cornyn, is going to get a primary challenge from U.S. Steve Stockman, who might be among the looniest of the tea party types to serve in Congress. I’ll predict right now that by the time the March primary rolls around, Cornyn will be seen by many Americans — perhaps even me — as a true statesman when compared to the kookiness of Stockman’s pronouncements.

The Cornyn-Stockman fight symbolizes what’s happening to a once-great political party. It might be helpful for Republicans to have this fight, just as it cleansed Democrats of bitterness back in the 1970s. Of course, Democrats had some help from a Republican president, Richard Nixon, who got entangled in the cover-up that occurred after that “third-rate burglary” at the Watergate office complex.

For now, I’m going to watch Republicans gnaw on each others’ legs.

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Tea party faces big test in Texas next year

Ross Ramsey has put together another fascinating analysis for the Texas Tribune about the upcoming Republican Party primary race for the U.S. Senate in Texas.

It involves the incumbent, John Cornyn and a loudmouthed challenger, U.S Rep. Steve Stockman of Friendswood.

Stockman is a tea party favorite who’s decided to give up his House seat for a shot at Cornyn’s Senate seat. Good luck with that.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/12/13/senate-race-sound-and-fury-signifying-what/

Ramsey puts forth the view that Stockman’s candidacy may provide significant data on just how strong the tea party is in Texas. He notes that Ted Cruz knocked off Lt. David Dewhurst in 2012 to win the GOP nomination to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Stockman could do the same with Cornyn. I doubt it’s going to happen. At least I hope it doesn’t happen.

I’m trying to imagine Texas being represented by Ted Cruz and Steve Stockman in the same Senate chamber. Have mercy on us.

I didn’t have the honor of covering Stockman back in the mid-1990s when he was serving his first term in the House. He won that seat in 1994 by knocking off the legendary Democratic stalwart Jack Brooks of Beaumont. After watching the campaign from my post in Beaumont, I left the Gulf Coast for the Texas Panhandle in January 1995. My successor at the Beaumont Enterprise, Tom Taschinger, had the distinct pleasure of watching Stockman up close during his single term in Congress; he lost his seat in 1996 to Democrat Nick Lampson. My pal has written an equally interesting commentary detailing the folly of electing Stockman to the Senate.

Here it is:

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/opinions/columns/article/THOMAS-TASCHINGER-Stockman-faces-gigantic-odds-5063347.php

I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that Texas Republicans know better than to knock off a senior GOP senator with substantial conservative credibility in favor of a goofball who didn’t distinguish himself the first time he served in the House — and who has done even worse during this second tour of duty in Congress.

It is true that David Dewhurst got blindsided by Ted Cruz in 2012. I’m pretty sure John Cornyn will keep his eyes wide open as he hits the campaign trail against Steve Stockman.

Look for the mud to start flying soon.

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This race could determine Texas tea party power

Republican Texas state Rep. Joe Straus has been challenged for his San Antonio Texas House of Representatives seat by one Matt Beebe, who lost to Straus in the 2012 election.

Why does this matter to anyone outside The Alamo City? Straus also is speaker of the Texas House. Beebe is a tea party darling who lost to Straus in an ugly, name-calling campaign.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/12/house-speaker-straus-draws-familiar-primary-challenger/

So … what now?

By my reckoning, Straus has done a pretty good as speaker by trying to include everyone in the lower legislative chamber. That means Democrats. However, as has been the case whenever the tea party gets mentioned, the far right wing of the GOP just cannot stand it when Republicans work with Democrats to, oh you know, try to get legislation enacted. They try to make government actually work, make it function, try to get things to move forward.

I guess Beebe doesn’t see things that way. He says Straus isn’t conservative enough for the voters of House District 12. I beg to differ with him on that one, given that voters have re-elected him repeatedly. I would surmise from that electoral result that Straus’s conservatism fits his constituents just fine.

What I think Beebe really intends to say is that Straus isn’t conservative enough for, well, Matt Beebe.

Although it is true that Republicans hold a supermajority in the House of Representatives, the speaker is in charge of the entire body, not just the GOP wing of it. The speaker makes committee assignments involving Democrats, too. He must juggle multiple legislative balls in the air — and that means working with the other party when the need arises.

I believe Straus has managed to do that and it’s one reason why he deserves to be sent back for another term as state representative from San Antonio.

I’ll let the House members haggle among themselves over whether he should return as speaker.

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Boehner showing some spine … finally

I’ll admit that Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner’s sudden display of steel is quite becoming.

It’s nice to have so many of your House colleagues on board with a plan so that you can say what you really think — at least I hope it’s what he really thinks — of the ultra-conservative interest groups that have taken your Republican caucus hostage for the past three years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/12/13/john-boehner-back-on-top/

The House approved this week by a 332-94 margin a budget deal brokered by a committee chaired by tea party darling Rep. Paul Ryan and his Democratic Senate colleague Patty Murray. A few hardliners held out against the deal, which heads off a government shutdown, strikes down much of the mandated budget cuts created by sequestration and cuts the deficit a little bit over the next decade.

One guy who I feared might vote “no,” my own congressman Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, actually voted in favor of the deal. His West Texas colleague, Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, stuck with his do-nothing approach to government and cast a negative vote. I am not surprised Neugebauer wouldn’t sign on; after all, he was the guy who scolded a National Park Service employee for doing her job — at Congress’s orders — when she refused to let tourists into the World War II Memorial in D.C. during the government shutdown in October.

Boehner now has taken the gloves off, more or less, in calling out folks like the Club for Growth and Heritage Action, who oppose any deal that results from compromising with Democrats. He says they’ve “lost credibility.”

I’m kind of hoping that Boehner, who I believe at heart is a decent guy with good-government instincts, finally is realizing that as the Man of the House he has the power to get things done and that he doesn’t need to buckle under to the pressure brought by factions within his party.

As the Washington Post notes, he has clawed his way back on top “for now.”

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Bipartisanship clawing its way back? Maybe

The U.S. House of Representatives, led by the Republicans — who are in turn being rattled by the tea party wing of their own party — is beginning to rumble with bipartisanship once again.

Perhaps.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/12/12/house_passes_budget_bill.html

The House voted 332-94 in favor of the two-year budget deal hammered out by a conference committee co-chaired by Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray.

Is the deal perfect? Hardly.

But it prevents another partial government shutdown, which turned out to be a nightmare for Republicans in October — when the latest shutdown occurred.

The usual right-wing crazies are calling the deal a loser. They gripe about it not cutting enough money from government spending. They want to keep the mandated budget cuts called “sequestration,” which the committee managed to toss aside.

Some lefties also are unhappy, about the failure to provide long-term unemployment insurance for about a million jobless Americans. I happen to agree with their unhappiness — therefore, I won’t call myself “crazy,” if you get my drift.

The House vote, though, did attract a lot of GOP support, which produced the overwhelming victory for common sense and compromise … which ought to be the hallmark of legislating.

I still fear the tea party cabal in the House is going to find a way to torpedo further attempts to make government work. For now, it’s been pushed aside. I’m happy about that.

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Thornberry gets a challenge … from the right!

An acquaintance of mine read a blog I posted about state Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, drawing an opponent in next March’s GOP primary.

She wants to know what I think of another race involving a Republican officeholder: U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry of Clarendon.

Well, here goes.

There can be no doubt that Elaine Hays, an Amarillo financial planner, thinks that Thornberry isn’t conservative enough. For the life of me I cannot understand that one.

Here is Hays’s “issues” page taken from her campaign website:

http://www.elainehaysforcongress.com/#!issues/cdbv

Hays is seeking to bounce Thornberry out of the office he’s held since 1995. I looked at the issues summaries posted and I am having trouble finding anything substantively different from what Thornberry has supported during his umpteen terms in Congress.

I must stipulate that I do not know Elaine Hays. She calls herself a “dedicated conservative,” a wife and mother. I am quite sure Thornberry sees himself as just as conservative as Hays and he’s a dedicated husband and father to boot.

Of the issues Hays has cited, I cannot fathom how her voting record would differ from the incumbent’s. Thornberry has voted for pro-life legislation; he’s opposed spending measures proposed by Democrats; he supports gun-owners rights; he’s called for more exploration of fossil fuels to achieve “energy independence”; he’s given the cold shoulder to immigration reform efforts and has spoken in favor of strengthening our borders.

These all are things Hays is saying.

What makes her different? I’m guessing she’s going to be even more forceful than Thornberry in pushing them. That’s about all I can figure.

That spells “tea party Republican” to me.

I didn’t think it was possible to run to the right of Mac Thornberry. I’m guessing Elaine Hays is going to prove me — and a lot of other observers — so very wrong.

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Seliger draws GOP challenger; good deal

Incumbents have hated for years my mantra that none of them deserves to be sent back to office without a challenge.

Former state Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, would get particularly agitated with me as I extolled the virtue of forcing incumbents to explain themselves, their votes, their policies — why they do what they do on our behalf.

My answer: Too bad, David. That’s why we have elections.

Well, another legislative incumbent, state Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, has drawn a primary challenger. He is former Midland mayor Mike Canon, who told the Texas Tribune he intends to file his candidacy papers.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/12/07/former-midland-mayor-challenging-seliger-sd-31/

The Tribune’s Ross Ramsey notes that Canon’s candidacy could fuel a rivalry between the northern and southern ends of the massive Senate District 31, one of the largest geographically in the state. Given that the state’s population growth has occurred in regions east of here — and given that the law requires each Senate district to have roughly equal populations — that means West Texas districts’ borders keep getting expanded.

There’s long been a bit of tension between north and south in District 31. Before Seliger was elected in 2004, the district was represented by the late Teel Bivins, another stalwart Amarillo Republican; Bivins went on to be appointed ambassador to Sweden. Seliger defeated another ex-Midland mayor in that year’s primary. His most recent GOP challenge came in 2012 from a one-term school trustee from Odessa, whom Seliger trounced in the primary.

On one hand, it’s good for Seliger to be tested by someone within his own party. Primary challenges, indeed contested general elections, serve to keep incumbents on their game and enable them to explain to their constituents why they vote the way they do.

But there might some trouble brewing in this challenge. I don’t know Canon, but I’m going to make a broad presumption that he might be running to Seliger’s right, meaning he comes from the tea party wing of his party. This is the party wing that favors confrontation instead of compromise. Many tea party loyalists in Congress and in state legislators have been known to frown upon Republicans getting too chummy with those dreaded Democrats. Seliger over the years has told me of the friendships he’s developed with legislative Democrats; state Sen. Chuy Hinojosa comes to mind, as he and Seliger apparently are pretty good pals.

As Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst learned the hard way when he lost the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate to Ted Cruz, there’s danger in getting outflanked on the right. Dewhurst tried to tack to the right but it was too late. Cruz inflicted politically mortal wounds on Dewhurst.

Would a challenge from the right, were it to develop, push Seliger farther to at extreme end of the spectrum?

I’m hoping for Seliger’s sake — and for Senate District 31 voters — he stays the course.

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How did we sink the ARC?

It’s one day short of a month since an election in Amarillo that defeated a $30 million-plus recreational center.

I’ve been thinking about why it went down in flames, what factors contributed to its defeat, how the city could have done better to sell it to a skeptical public. I’ve been asking some folks in the know around town.

Here are a few preliminary conclusions:

* The Amarillo Recreational Complex was sprung on voters with little discussion. It would have cost $36 million or so to build. It would have included ball fields, indoor tennis and basketball courts, proximity to public golf courses and swimming facilities. I’m not suggesting here that the Amarillo City Council pulled this notion out of its hat at the last minute. Yes, there was some discussion — but not nearly enough of it.

* The light turnout played against it. Turnout was in the teens, meaning that fewer than two in 10 eligible voters cast ballots on Nov. 5. Who are the most dedicated voters in any community? Old folks like me. The young people who would have the most to gain from the ARC didn’t turn out. That’s just the way it has been in this country for as long as I can remember.

* The city had just spent $2.6 million on an abandoned railroad depot. The timing of the election came just after the city plunked down a big chunk of cash to buy the Santa Fe Railroad Depot downtown, just east of the Civic Center. I realize that the money was available and it wouldn’t affect our municipal tax rate, but there well might have been a feeling among voters that the city was adopting a spendthrift philosophy with public money. Why give the city more of it?

* There well might be a latent tea party movement that stirred to life. The pro-ARC signs became almost part of the city’s landscape in the weeks prior to the election. They were everywhere. It made me think the measure was going to pass by a huge margin. The tea party movement across the country operates largely under the radar. It comprises people who are just fed up with government. There might have been some of that at play in Amarillo.

I hope the ARC — or some version of it — comes back. Quality of life issues are difficult to quantify. The pro-ARC gang did a good job of explaining how the complex would keep business here, how it would attract out-of-towners to Amarillo, how it would benefit the city’s economic well-being while providing families here significant new recreational opportunities.

There will need to be a cooling-off period to be sure of perhaps a year, maybe longer. If and when it returns, I would encourage the city to get ahead of the story in a major way, stay there and put forth a serious marketing campaign to sell this worthy product.

That’s how you win elections.