Tag Archives: Tea party

national news

MAGA Nation at war with itself?

Heads up, MAGA Nation … there appears to be a multi-front battle forming among members of the cult that scored a victory in November but who amazingly don’t yet know how to spend the spoils of victory.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, one of MAGA’s chief proponents, could be in danger of losing his powerful post as second-in-line to the presidency. His sin? Johnson has deigned to work with Democrats on keeping the government from shutting down. The MAGA credo includes a prohibition against working with them dreaded Democrats.

Not only that, but Johnson’s performance in mishandling the budgeting legislation has pissed off the MAGA cultist in chief, Donald Trump.

High tech billionaire Elon Musk is wearing out his welcome at the White House’s waiting room simply by being in the news more than the guy who elevated him to the un-elected post he shares with GOP loudmouth Vivek Ramaswamy; the two of them want to cut trillions of dollars from the budget.

Ramaswamy has angered MAGA followers with some language they deem inappropriate for whatever cause they are seeking to put forward.

Now we hear elements of the TEA Party are entering the fray. You remember them, right? They were the “tax enough already” cult that used to rule the roost in Congress until they got shoved aside by the MAGA loyalists. (FYI, I choose to capitalize “TEA” because I see the word as an acronym meaning “taxed enough already.”)

Oh, and what about Vice President-elect J.D. Vance? Is he missing in action? Not word lately from the veep-to-be. Go figure where he stands on anything.

So, Donald Trump’s rocky start to ascending to the pinnacle of power continues. May the battle be as “bloody” as many Americans hope it becomes. I say that because I believe our government will survive … serious injury and all.

Uncategorized

Judge goes political … shamefully

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Judges are supposed to stay above and apart from political battles, at least that’s what I always have thought.

Oops. Not so fast. A Texas Supreme Court associate justice said the other day he believes Democrats are going to rig the 2024 election to keep the presumed Republican nominee from being elected president.

Justice John Devine needs to have his mouth washed out with soap. According to the Texas Tribune: “Do you really think the Democrats are going to roll over and let Trump be president again?” Devine asked in a keynote speech at the Texas Tea Party Republican Women’s 2023 Christmas event. “You think they’re just going to go away, all of a sudden find Jesus and [there will] be an honest election? I don’t think so.”

What is he saying? Is he implying crookedness in the election? Looks like it to me! It’s also totally inappropriate for a judge — who well might hear a case involving a two-party political dispute — to shoot off his mouth in such a fashion.

SCOTX Justice implies Democrats will cheat in 2024 election | The Texas Tribune

This is crap! The judge ought to know it, too.

“Judges should be honestly evaluating and applying our state’s laws, not giving partisan speeches baselessly accusing members of a different political party of ‘cheating’ in elections,” Houston County Attorney Christian Menefee said.

Justice John Devine needs to step away from the political fight.

State news

Recall the old ways, legislators

As the Texas Legislature prepares to commence its 88th legislative assembly next month, I would like to offer this brief admonition.

It is that Texas state government works best when legislators from both major parties find common ground, work under rules that give the minority party a slice of power and find compromise whenever possible.

I have a nagging feeling that today’s legislative leadership is going to heed the saber-rattling that comes from the Freedom Caucus, the TEA party, the MAGA crowd and assorted right-wing fruitcakes as they prepare to legislate their way through this 140-day session.

It need not be that way.

We once had a Republican governor, George W. Bush, who worked tightly with the likes of Democratic Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock and Democratic House Speaker Pete Laney. Democrats controlled the Legislature in 1995 when Bush took over as governor after defeating Democratic Gov. Ann Richards. Bush was new then to elective politics, but he turned out to be the quickest study imaginable as he grasped instantly the need to work with the other guys under the Texas state capitol dome.

He would later, of course, be elected president, handing the governorship over to fellow Republican Rick Perry, who didn’t quite grasp the Bush formula for legislative success.

It’s different these days. Republicans control the governor’s office and both legislative chambers. There still is a sizable Democratic minority in both the state House and Senate, some of whose members remember how it used to be in Austin.

House Speaker Dade Phelan appears slated to another term as the Man of the House. If he follows form, he will appoint House Democrats to committee chairs. I don’t have as much faith in Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate. But … bipartisan cooperation in one out of two legislative chambers is better than none.

The session will be busy. Legislators need to fix our electrical grid. They keep yapping about reducing property taxes. Our highways need repair.

I just want them all to keep their eyes on the prize and not worry about offending the fire breathers who make up both of their bases.

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national news

Boehner was right about the GOP loons

John Boehner once sat in the chair reserved for the speaker of the House. Then he walked away, because he said he was tired of dealing with the TEA party lunatics who populated the Republican caucus in the House.

Well, the TEA party loons have been replaced, more or less, by the QAnon cabal and MAGA right wingers who are seeking to control the agenda set by a new speaker.

That would be Kevin McCarthy, who appears set to take the gavel from Speaker Nancy Pelosi. McCarthy is going to remove three Democrats from key committees, accusing them of lying and of spreading anti-Semitic rhetoric.

We are heading to a new era of chaos in the House. It will be chaotic in a way that Speaker Boehner never imagined when he bailed out.

The new — and razor thin — Republican majority is going to unleash the blowhards to investigate, of all people, Dr. Anthony Fauci. They want to impeach President Biden and others of the Cabinet.

The lunatic fringe is running the lower legislative chamber … just as John Boehner spoke about in an earlier time.

What goes around is coming around once again. God help us!

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environmental news, Joe Biden

TEA party goes silent over aid to Florida

Hey, do you remember the TEA party gadflies who bitched out loud over billions of dollars in federal aid going to states battling natural disasters?

They would gripe about spending money without cutting expenses elsewhere to pay for the aid. My favorite example was the aid earmarked for Joplin, Mo., years ago as that city sought to recover from tornado damage; some Republicans in Congress resisted, demanding cuts in spending to pay for the aid.

Now come the Florida hurricane relief efforts. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, one of the TEA party golden boys, has resisted sending aid to other parts of the country. This time? He wants all he can get. Frankly, the state he governs deserves it! However, where are the TEA party stalwarts who complain about spending this kind of money.

Oh, wait. It might be because Gov. DeSantis is a rising political star and, by golly, the TEA party faithful dare not deny his state the assistance it deserves.

We are, after all, the United States of America.

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media news

Let’s give this a try

I have just joined a Facebook public policy group that purports to lean to the conservative side of the great divide.

It came to me under the name “Michael Johns.” I joined, read the ground rules and now am awaiting final “approval” by a group “administrator.”

Johns describes himself as a national TEA Party co-founder and an analyst with the Heritage Foundation; he now works as a health care executive.

This could be fun, if they allow me to join. I did get the invitation from this group, so perhaps they want me as part of their group.

You see, I look at public policy from a different point of view. I consider myself a “good government progressive,” which is to say I believe in compromise as a way to further constructive legislation. I do tilt to the left, away from this group I have just joined.

They ask contributors to be “fact based” in their posts. That does give me a bit of pause. Why? Because one side’s “facts” might not comport with the other side’s version of the same term.

So if I post something I consider to be fact based, will the gurus on the other side see it in the same spirit as I have posted it? We’ll see how that goes.

Meanwhile, I look forward to reading more conservative commentary. It likely won’t change my mind on the big, broad policy issues on which I stake my own political comments.

However, I am game … if they are, too.

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crime news

Is this true? Really?

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(Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

By JOHN KANELIS / [email protected]

In the realm of a “couldn’t happen to a nicer guy” category of reports, this one really blows my mind.

U.S. Rep Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and staunch culture warrior along with being a strident supporter of Donald John Trump, is now being investigated for engaging in a sexual relationship with an underage girl. What’s more, Gaetz is being looked at in a case of sex trafficking.

This is according to the New York Times. Other media have picked up the story.

Gaetz denies the accusation. That’s to be expected.

What is astonishing in the extreme is that this case involves a loudmouth TEA Party/Freedom Caucus conservative who holds himself up as a champion of old-fashioned cultural standards.

This guy is a standard, run-of-the-mill chump. Pure and simple. Now he might be a criminal … allegedly.

Hypocrisy, anyone?

local news, political news, State news

Rep. Slaton makes early impact

By JOHN KANELIS / [email protected]

Oh, brother.

I commented earlier on this blog about my respect for Texas state Sen. Kel Seliger, the Amarillo Republican whom Texas Monthly has identified as one of seven legislators to watch during the current Texas Legislature.

Well, TM also has ID’d a bold, brash and bodacious freshman lawmaker, a young man I know only casually, but who is — shall we say — also worth watching for an entirely different set of reasons.

State Rep. Bryan Slaton is another Republican. He hails from Royse City, just a bit east-southeast of where I now live. TM calls him The Fearless Freshman. Why? He is unafraid to make a name for himself for reasons that run quite counter to my own political world view.

Slaton got elected this past year, defeating longtime fellow conservative state Rep. Dan Flynn. I was aghast that he would run “to the right” of Flynn, but he did.

What does the young man do when he arrives in Austin for the start of the Legislature? He pitches a bill that would criminalize the act of a woman obtaining an abortion; she would, in Flynn’s eyes, be guilty of “murder” and would be subject to the state’s death penalty if she is tried and convicted of murder.

Texas Monthly wrote this about Slaton: A principled hard-right conservative and Gen Xer, Slaton is stepping into the void left by former representative Jonathan Stickland, a Bedford Republican who made his reputation as a troublemaker and thorn in the side of his party’s establishment. Slaton says he is focused on advancing social-conservative priorities, including eliminating abortion (by passing a law declaring the Roe v. Wade unconstitutional) and protecting historical monuments (by requiring a two-thirds vote to remove one of, say, a Confederate general, from a state university). 

Seven Texas Lawmakers to Watch – Texas Monthly

He also seems to believe that Texas can secede — again! — from the United States of America. Hasn’t anyone told him (a) that secession is illegal and (b) that the first time Texas did it in 1861, it didn’t work out well for Texas — or for the rest of the Confederate States of America?

My only visit with Slaton was over the phone. We had a cordial conversation. I was working on a story I wrote for KETR-FM, the public radio station affiliated with Texas A&M University-Commerce. I hope to be able to talk to him in the future as needs arise.

However, I must be candid. If he flies off the rails and starts yapping about secession, or protecting monuments honoring Confederate traitors or sentencing women in trouble to the death chamber, well … it could get ugly. In a big hurry.

national news

What’s with the Stars and Bars at the anti-pandemic restriction rally?

This picture was snapped at a rally today in Wisconsin, where some folks are seemingly angry about the restrictions being imposed on them by that state’s governor.

The issue? It’s the coronavirus pandemic. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, has declared a state of emergency. The shut down orders have frozen the state’s economy, as similar orders have done throughout the nation. Indeed, the entire nation has been frozen economically in place.

Worse, though, is that Americans are being felled by the deadly virus. Thousands of Americans are dying … still!

Here’s what is puzzling me: the presence of the Confederate flag. What in the name of civil violence is that all about? It appears to be a classic TEA party dodge. You remember those folks. They argue for less government, fewer taxes. They want government to get the heck out of people’s lives.

Some of these TEA party fanatics have been known to fly the ol’ Stars and Bars at their rallies. I saw a rebel flag pictured at a similar rally in Lansing, Mich. Do you know what that flag symbolizes to me? I am about to tell you.

It symbolizes high treason, a Civil War, a call for a return to the old days when white Americans could own black Americans and treat them like property … you know, sorta the way they treat their, oh, livestock.

Is this what we’ve come to in this country as we fight a deadly worldwide pandemic? That it’s OK to march under a banner that symbolizes — in my view — the darkest time in our nation’s history?

This bizarre juxtaposition appears to validate my own long held notion that those who want to rush the country back to the “old normal” are as insane as those who wanted the nation to go war with itself over slavery.

local news, State news

As if Sen. Cornyn needs to bend more to the right

I hear that Pat Fallon wants to run against U.S. Sen. John Cornyn next year.

Who is this guy Fallon? He’s a rookie Texas state senator from down the road in Prosper. He got elected to the Senate in 2018 by upsetting longtime Republican incumbent Craig Estes; Fallon is no political novice, though, having served in the Texas House of Representatives before moving to the other chamber at the other end of the State Capitol.

Fallon seems to think Sen. Cornyn isn’t conservative enough. He wants to steer public policy even farther to the right than Cornyn is willing to take it.

Hold on here! Cornyn, to my way of thinking, is pretty damn conservative. What in the world is young Sen. Fallon intending to do that Cornyn hasn’t already done?

Cornyn fought against the creation of the Affordable Care Act, along with everything else that President Barack Obama pitched during his two terms in the White House; he has resisted efforts to strengthen laws controlling firearms purchases; he is avidly anti-abortion rights; he stands pretty damn firmly in Donald Trump’s corner as the impeachment forces start gathering steam.

That isn’t good enough for Fallon … or so it might appear.

Fallon is a darling of what used to be called the TEA Party in Texas. The term “TEA Party” has fallen out of favor. It now operates under the name of the True Texas Project, apparently believing that only the most fervent right-wingers represent the “True Texas.” I happen to believe that is just so much horse manure.

As for Cornyn, he needs a strong challenger from the left, not the right. Cornyn has demonstrated, the way I see it, that he is as conservative in his thinking as almost any member of the U.S. Senate Republican caucus.

Fallon, for his part, sounds more like a stooge for Empower Texans, that ultra-right wing outfit led by Michael Quinn Sullivan, who’s waging a fight of his own with fellow conservative Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Good grief! Texas doesn’t need another GOP primary challenge to yank the state’s senior U.S. senator farther to the right. He’s already on the fringe!