The Tea Party’s Wasted Energy

[FuzzyLumpkins]

There are certainly some similarities — there are familiar contours to every battle for control of a party. But the differences are far more relevant and profound. Pick any three defining issues of conservatism — say, smaller government, low taxes, and opposition to abortion, or a strong national defense, entitlement reform, and gun rights — and you’ll be hard-pressed to find the supposedly liberal Republican “establishment” on one side and the tea-party faithful on the other.

Even on the policies that are splitting Republicans these days — say, foreign policy or immigration — the rift does not neatly divide the establishment and the “real conservatives.”

Such a statement will no doubt infuriate many conservatives who believe that the establishment is insufficiently committed to conservative principles. And that is an entirely fair complaint. But that criticism is about efficacy and passion, not policy or philosophy. And this is a hugely important distinction that has been deliberately airbrushed out of the picture painted by groups like Heritage Action and FreedomWorks. The inconvenient truth for these groups is that the current GOP establishment is more conservative than it has ever been.

In the recent internecine conservative donnybrook over the government shutdown, the insurgents insisted they were in an ideological struggle with the establishment. But there was precious little ideology involved. Instead, it was a fight over tactics and power. The Republican party almost unanimously opposed Obamacare, and the Republicans who’ve been in office far longer than Cruz & Co. have voted more than three dozen times to get rid of the disastrous program. And yet, the latecomers to the battle talk as if the veterans in the trenches were collaborators the whole time.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/361567/tea-partys-wasted-energy-jonah-goldberg

[boutons_deux]

not only a split between tea bagger neophytes and establishment Repugs but also it's VRWC donors against compromisers, ...

Big Conservative Donors Take Aim at Lawmakers Who Compromised

The crisis in Washington was always partly a story about money in politics, with big conservative donors pushing GOP lawmakers to an extreme stance with threats of primary challenges to those who didn't fall in line.
Now, even after the bid to defund Obamacare turned into an abject rout for Republicans, these same donors are making good on their threats.

Just one day after Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi voted for a deal to avert a default and reopen the government, the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund endorsed his primary challenger (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/17/chris-mcdaniel-thad-cochran_n_4116923.html) for 2014, Chris McDaniel.

Such endorsements, of course, have spelled doom in the recent past for other Republicans who stepped out of line. The Club for Growth spent nearly $20 million in the 2012 election cycle, much of it on primary challenges to lawmakers not deemed sufficiently conservative. The Senate Conservatives Club spent $15 million that year (http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2012&cmte=C00448696), including spending big to help take out Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana. These two groups together were instrumental in putting Ted Cruz in the Senate, spending millions to help him defeat a more moderate Republican in the 2012 Texas GOP primary.

http://www.demos.org/blog/10/18/13/big-conservative-donors-take-aim-lawmakers-who-compromised

and then there are big tea bagger Dr Frankenstein donors who didn't want a shutdown or debt default pushed by their Frankenstein tea bagger monster.

Repugs are fractured internally and VRWC donors are fractured for/against tea baggers and compromisers. :lol

Will the tea baggers and their donors try also get compromising wimp Boner removed from the speakership to prepare for the next shutdown in January?

Issa or Ryan as Speaker! :wow

[boutons_deux]

Donors' frustration with GOP mounts

At an event hosted by the NRSC a few weeks ago, donors vented about the inability of leadership to control Cruz and other vocal senators affiliated with the tea party.

Strains between the donor class and the party are taking a toll on GOP-leaning money groups. And after their sweeping losses last cycle, the Karl Rove-founded Crossroads groups, which recently held a donor conference in Washington replete with presentations, are among those feeling the hardest pinch.
Multiple sources familiar with Crossroads’ fundraising say that a year after the groups spent $300 million only to see Republicans lose the White House and several winnable Senate races, fundraising has taken a hit. According to the most recent filing American Crossroads, the 527 version of the group, made with the Federal Election Commission, it had just over $2 million to spend.

the grass roots — with its ability to raise money in low-dollar amounts online and spread a message through self-selected conservative-leaning media — have only demonstrated to major donors the limits of the national party’s influence.

“And those Republicans, it appears, are ready to self-immolate, and are willing to risk the destruction of the party by risking the destruction of the economy, by risking a default.”
He added, “I am desperate to get the Republicans moving again … in my view we’re becoming a party of irrelevancy.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/republican-donor-frustration-98513_Page2.html#ixzz2iBSG3Mzu

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Why the fuck do you always shit on my threads with other topics?

The article is about the history of the GOP over the last 40 years and how the party is not as polarized as the tea party tries to make it out to be.

You put shit that says the opposite? You put funding shit in here? It's like you never ever read the article in the OP. Take your communist shit elsewhere and quit piggybacking.

[symple19]

Why the fuck do you always shit on my threads with other topics?

The article is about the history of the GOP over the last 40 years and how the party is not as polarized as the tea party tries to make it out to be.

You put shit that says the opposite? You put funding shit in here? It's like you never ever read the article in the OP. Take your communist shit elsewhere and quit piggybacking.

Totally agree.

Good article, btw

[boutons_deux]

My posts were about the costs and retributions of shitty OP's article "fight over tactics and power".

the tea and their wealth baggers are purifying, cleansing the GOP of any GOP who doesn't vote with them. And since the highest value of Congressmen is their own political survival to enrich themselves, the non-tea baggers (none of whom are Rockefeller Republicans) were intimidated into voting with the tea baggers for continued shutdown AND for Treasury default ANd for defunding ACA.

I've read several of JG's articles in LAT and the guy is consistently full of shit. ie, here is full of shit because the tea baggers haven't wasted any energy, nor lost anything in power or popularity with their base, eg, Texas and rest of the Confederacy. These assholes, eg Cruz, think they are on a mission from God (Cruz literally, per his crazy papa) so the more they get their butts kicked, the more they and their base, all self-appointed martyrs for God, will fight with unlimited energy and Kock Bros/VRWC funds, those funds intending to weaken, destroy govt so THEY can fill the power vacuum.

[exstatic]

391561961021779968

[boutons_deux]

Read This One Document If You Want To Understand Why Republicans Followed Ted Cruz Off A Cliff (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/10/15/2770431/read-document-want-understand-republicans-followed-ted-cruz-cliff/)

understanding the siege mentality that’s captured both of these wings of the GOP is the key to understanding Cruz’s success in shutting down the government.

Contrary to a common belief among Democrats, Cruz’s followers are not all wishful thinking naifs who are unable to read a poll or to understand the results of last November’s election. Rather, they are fully aware of President Obama’s triumphs in his two presidential races, of the weakening position of the GOP, and of the likelihood that socially conservative and Tea Party policies may never again gain a foothold in Washington.

understanding the siege mentality that’s captured both of these wings of the GOP is the key to understanding Cruz’s success in shutting down the government.

evangelical Republicans believe their culture is systematically being destroyed by an alliance of Hollywood, Washington, and public schools.

the Republicans who believe that Obama’s banishing God and those who believe he’s banished liberty make up the most dangerous of armies — the kind that believes it must fight to the end or be vanquished completely. And Ted Cruz is the general leading them to their final stand.

Cruz Against The Apocalypse

The vision Cruz paints in his Values Voters speech would terrify most Republicans.

“Each of you is called to be here,” he tells the assembled conservatives. And then he compares them to Esther (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther), a Biblical heroine who saved the Jews from genocide.

apocalyptic vision animates much of the Republican Party base (http://www.democracycorps.com/attachments/article/954/dcor%20rpp%20fg%20memo%20100313%20final.pdf). “[T]he base thinks they are losing politically and losing control of the country,”

To many Republicans, the Constitution itself is on the verge of dying, and Obama has already “won his socialist agenda.”

Evangelical Republicans, according to the memo, perceive themselves as besieged by a culture demanding that they give up their guns and grant equal dignity to LGBT Americans.

another evangelical claims, “we’re all a bunch of racist, gun-clinging, flyover state, cowboy-hat wearing yokels.”

To Tea Party voters, “Obama’s America is an unmitigated evil based on big government, regulations, and dependency.” And this evil must be met with dramatic opposition if necessary. The founders, one Tea Party woman explains, “had to rise up . . . and take over this country and who knows if that has to happen again sometime.”

the Tea Party focus groups are split between men and women who fear the impending loss of liberty and those who worry Obama’s big government surveillance state has already taken freedom away.

Once Obama adds the newly insured to his base, evangelicals and Tea Partiers will be cut out of Congress and the White House forever.

This is why so much of the Republican base rallied behind Cruz’s shutdown-or-defund-Obamacare strategy, despite the fact that most GOP leaders viewed it as a suicide mission.

And this is why conservatives in Congress refuse to abort this mission even as it becomes increasingly clear that Americans at large resent the GOP’s decision to shut down the government.

So long as religious conservatives and the Tea Party hold the GOP’s reins, however, key Republican players in the House are unlikely to agree to a truce.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/10/15/2770431/read-document-want-understand-republicans-followed-ted-cruz-cliff/

... and the non religious, non tea bagger Congressional Repugs will be intimidated by the minority of crazies into not standing up to the crazies. Energy not wasted, Jonah Golderg but extremely well used.

[boutons_deux]

And so Cruz is clearly the GOP leader in the Senate AND the House

[FuzzyLumpkins]

And so Cruz is clearly the GOP leader in the Senate AND the House

He clearly was told to sit down in the last week of the stand down. If you would broaden your reading base you would have heard where a female Sentor told him he was mucking things up in a strategy meeting and he toned it down significantly. It was McConnell that brokered the deal that finally passed and Boehner who ignored him and his tea party bretheren to put the bill on the floor anyway.

And the OP was not about the cost ffs. Again it was about the history of the GOP and the ideology of the current GOP. You are just posting your Marxist rah rah bullshit about how the GOP is going to pay. Seriously go make your own thread and pile your shit in there. You already have you stupid shit they say thread now go and make a this is how they are going to pay thread.

[boutons_deux]

Marxist? :lol you stupid fuckers

You want a history of today's GOP? Here's one that rings true for me

Birth of conservative delusion: Roger Ailes takes his revenge (http://www.salon.com/2013/10/19/birth_of_conservative_delusion_roger_ailes_takes_h is_revenge/)

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/19/birth_of_conservative_delusion_roger_ailes_takes_h is_revenge/

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Marxist? :lol you stupid fuckers

You want a history of today's GOP? Here's one that rings true for me

Birth of conservative delusion: Roger Ailes takes his revenge (http://www.salon.com/2013/10/19/birth_of_conservative_delusion_roger_ailes_takes_h is_revenge/)

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/19/birth_of_conservative_delusion_roger_ailes_takes_h is_revenge/




Have you read Das Kapital or the Communist Manifesto? I have and your rhetoric of a landed elite suppressing the masses so entrenched that the proletariat is justified in rising is straight out of that playbook as is your notion that they all conspire together. You criticism of market economies as inherently slanted towards the elite is much the same.

At least with the refutation of fuedalsim, the landed nobles were indeed directly related by familial ties and how the aristocracy was structured. Nonetheless, your VRWC is much the same shit.

You can substitute words like 1% with renters and 99% with proletariat and it reads eerily similar to19th century writing. Perhaps you do not understand what you are regurgitating much like many of the board 'conservatives' around here in their way but the rhetoric is the same classic notions.

[TeyshaBlue]

Trying to have a rational conversation with boutons!:lol

Give ole Wild Cobra a spin next.:lmao

[boutons_deux]

Have you read Das Kapital or the Communist Manifesto? I have and your rhetoric of a landed elite suppressing the masses so entrenched that the proletariat is justified in rising is straight out of that playbook as is your notion that they all conspire together. You criticism of market economies as inherently slanted towards the elite is much the same.

At least with the refutation of fuedalsim, the landed nobles were indeed directly related by familial ties and how the aristocracy was structured. Nonetheless, your VRWC is much the same shit.

You can substitute words like 1% with renters and 99% with proletariat and it reads eerily similar to19th century writing. Perhaps you do not understand what you are regurgitating much like many of the board 'conservatives' around here in their way but the rhetoric is the same classic notions.

what pretentious, falsie-academic bullshit.

Class warfare, have vs have-nots, the moneyed class vs the poor, the commercial interests vs the rest, is ancient history.

Class war is EXACTLY what we have in USA, and the 1% is winning, has won, over the 99% and won't render their power or wealth.

Only a fool like you and your naivete won't or can't see it.

Make a fool of yourself and explain how America got as fucked up as it is now.

[boutons_deux]

TB! :lol always stalking The Great Boutons with content-free snarking.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

what pretentious, falsie-academic bullshit.

Class warfare, have vs have-nots, the moneyed class vs the poor, the commercial interests vs the rest, is ancient history.

Class war is EXACTLY what we have in USA, and the 1% is winning, has won, over the 99% and won't render their power or wealth.

Only a fool like you and your naivete won't or can't see it.

Make a fool of yourself and explain how America got as fucked up as it is now.

My post wasn't context free and you just ignored it so I don't see where you have room to complain.

Sorry that I have actually read Marx's works. Your rhetoric still sounds the same and your themes are the same.

You can call me naive all day but you are the one constantly talking up a vast right wing conspiracy. I can talk about income distribution, the out of control power of special interest post Citizens United, and I can talk about the political system and how it force feeds us the two party system. What I can also do is not couch it in terms of bourgeois and proletariat as you do constantly.

You can call me a fool all you like but there are reasons why no one here treats you seriously. Now go ahead and tell me to go fuck myself and your other goto responses. Old dogs cannot learn new tricks apparently.

[Chief Brody]

Written by Jonah Goldberg...oy vey!

[boutons_deux]

"Your rhetoric still sounds the same and your themes are the same."

maybe because The Great Marx and The Great Boutons see the same 1% vs 99% ancient polarization of society. Have your shit-for-brains progressed to the point where Marx and I diverge from solutions?

"one constantly talking up a vast right wing conspiracy"

It's been the CONSTANT, dominating, ACTIVE strategy for past 40+ yeaes. It explains all the little details I've documented well going back to Lewis Powell's memo, which was followed quite quickly by formation of 1%-financed stink tanks, VRWC-propagands mills Cato and Heritage with the goal of "take our country back" from the 99% that made so much progress after the 1%'s Great Depression, FDR's solutions, and the social progress of the the 1960s.

"one constantly talking up a vast right wing conspiracy. " because you refuse to let The Great Boutons sort your confused shit out, you refuse to see the big picture, to really see what has, what is, and what will be going on unstoppably.

oh, and GFY, and note that TB :lol is forming group of self-fuckers.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

"Your rhetoric still sounds the same and your themes are the same."

maybe because The Great Marx and The Great Boutons see the same 1% vs 99% ancient polarization of society. Have your shit-for-brains progressed to the point where Marx and I diverge from solutions?

"one constantly talking up a vast right wing conspiracy"

It's been the CONSTANT, dominating, ACTIVE strategy for past 40+ yeaes. It explains all the little details I've documented well going back to Lewis Powell's memo, which was followed quite quickly by formation of 1%-financed stink tanks, VRWC-propagands mills Cato and Heritage with the goal of "take our country back" from the 99% that made so much progress after the 1%'s Great Depression, FDR's solutions, and the social progress of the the 1960s.

"one constantly talking up a vast right wing conspiracy. " because you refuse to let The Great Boutons sort your confused shit out, you refuse to see the big picture, to really see what has, what is, and what will be going on unstoppably.

oh, and GFY, and note that TB :lol is forming group of self-fuckers.




So you admitted you were a marxist. Was that so hard?

[boutons_deux]

no, I said Marx and I and many others look at societies and see how they fall into the wealthy, corrupt 1% vs the 99%.

"Has your shit-for-brains progressed to the point where Marx and I diverge from solutions?"

[TeyshaBlue]

TB! :lol always stalking The Great Boutons with content-free snarking.

Thats The Great TB to you, fuckmonkey.

[boutons_deux]

TB :lol "There He Goes Again" content-free snarkiness nipping at The Great Boutons heels

[boobie4three]

Dick Cheney defends the tea party: 'These are Americans'

By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo News
2 hours ago

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/dickc_zpsaf646c91.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/dickc_zpsaf646c91.jpg.html)

Former Vice President Dick Cheney defended the tea party's assault on Obamacare on Monday, calling it a "normal, healthy reaction" to President Barack Obama, whom Cheney referred to as the "most radical operator in Washington."

In an interview on NBC's "Today" show, Cheney said the tea party has been a positive influence on politics.

"They raised issues Americans care about," Cheney said. "We have terrible track records with respect to federal spending. Nobody seems to be able to solve the problem. It's an uprising, in part, and it's taken place within the Republican Party. I don't see it as a negative. It's better to have that turmoil and change in the Republican Party than it would be to have it outside."

He also defended Sen. Ted Cruz's actions during the government shutdown. "He represents the thinking of a lot of people in Texas," Cheney said.

Cheney, though, stopped short of calling himself a member of the tea party.

"I'm not a card carrying member," he said. "I don't think there is a card, but I have respect for what the people are doing. These are Americans. They're loyal, they're patriotic and taxpayers and fed up with what is happening in Washington. It's a normal, healthy reaction and the fact that the party is having to adjust to it is positive."


The former vice president, who saw his influence within the George W. Bush administration wane, did not dispute the notion that by the end of the second term, Bush rejected his worldview.

"I was an independent thinker," Cheney said. "We had differences. He promised when he made me part of his administration I'd have the opportunity to present my views and I did. I was more influential in the first term. He needed my advice more than in the second term. I'm not surprised we had differences. I was the vice president. I got to offer my advice. Sometimes he took it. Sometimes he didn't."

http://news.yahoo.com/dick-cheney-tea-party-123611175.html

[boutons_deux]

Dick Cheney defends the tea party: 'These are Americans'

By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo News
2 hours ago

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/dickc_zpsaf646c91.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/dickc_zpsaf646c91.jpg.html)

Former Vice President Dick Cheney defended the tea party's assault on Obamacare on Monday, calling it a "normal, healthy reaction" to President Barack Obama, whom Cheney referred to as the "most radical operator in Washington."

In an interview on NBC's "Today" show, Cheney said the tea party has been a positive influence on politics.

"They raised issues Americans care about," Cheney said. "We have terrible track records with respect to federal spending. Nobody seems to be able to solve the problem. It's an uprising, in part, and it's taken place within the Republican Party. I don't see it as a negative. It's better to have that turmoil and change in the Republican Party than it would be to have it outside."

He also defended Sen. Ted Cruz's actions during the government shutdown. "He represents the thinking of a lot of people in Texas," Cheney said.

Cheney, though, stopped short of calling himself a member of the tea party.

"I'm not a card carrying member," he said. "I don't think there is a card, but I have respect for what the people are doing. These are Americans. They're loyal, they're patriotic and taxpayers and fed up with what is happening in Washington. It's a normal, healthy reaction and the fact that the party is having to adjust to it is positive."


The former vice president, who saw his influence within the George W. Bush administration wane, did not dispute the notion that by the end of the second term, Bush rejected his worldview.

"I was an independent thinker," Cheney said. "We had differences. He promised when he made me part of his administration I'd have the opportunity to present my views and I did. I was more influential in the first term. He needed my advice more than in the second term. I'm not surprised we had differences. I was the vice president. I got to offer my advice. Sometimes he took it. Sometimes he didn't."

http://news.yahoo.com/dick-cheney-tea-party-123611175.html

we were "fed up with Washington" when dubya and dickhead were fucking up the country and planet, and it stays fucked up thanks to them, and will be for decades, $Ts and lives wasted.