Free Republic

Urges House Not to Accept Deal and Receive Nothing in Return WASHINGTON, D.C.— The Tea Party Patriots today blasted the deal by Senate Democrats and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “The Ruling Elites in Washington, D.C. have completely abandoned the American people,” said Jenny Beth Martin, National Coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. “The deal cut in the Senate does NOT protect the American people from this unfair and unworkable law.’ “The Senate deal is a complete sellout. Speaker Boehner and the House should stand firm and reject this deal to reign in the Executive branch’s power before it is too...

This week, massive crowds of veterans descended onto Washington, D.C., to protest the Obama administration's vindictive shutdown of open-air memorial sites -- sites that require no guards but were fenced off simply to make Americans miserable as a bargaining chip in the government shutdown negotiations. Veterans, including many wheelchair-bound veterans from World War II, overturned the barricades placed at memorials by the administration and proceeded to carry them to the White House. The media covered the men and women who attended the so-called Million Vet March by suggesting that they were racists and terrorists and hoping that politicians allied with...

Ted Cruz and his followers represent Jacksonian America: angry... More than a decade ago, before the post-9/11 national fervor set in, Walter Russell Mead published an insightful essay on the persistent "Jacksonian tradition" in American society. Jacksonians, he argued, embrace a distinctive code, whose key tenets include self-reliance, individualism, loyalty and courage. Jacksonians care as passionately about the Second Amendment as Jeffersonians do about the First... --snip-- Many frustrated liberals, and not a few pundits, think that people who share these beliefs must be downscale and poorly educated. The New York Times survey found the opposite. Only 26% of tea-party...

Some tasks are occasionally necessary, though unpleasant. (Oops. My mind just drifted to that plastic bag you must carry with you when walking your dog.) Hunting down that roach your wife is just absolutely certain she saw scampering across the bedcovers would be one; talking to Harry Reid might be another. I’ll leave the roach to you. That’s what the Yellow Pages are for. Unfortunately the Yellow Pages are going to be of no help if you find yourself trying to make sense out of, or talk sense into, Harry Reid. Now Harry likes to throw around a lot of...

The government shutdown is denying members of the public a chance to weigh in on contentious planned regulations that would limit carbon emissions from existing power plants, Sen. Ed Markey charged Tuesday. The Massachusetts Democrat, who has long championed federal efforts to tackle climate change, blamed the Republican Party’s conservative wing for the shutdown, which prompted the cancellation of public hearing Tuesday on the Environmental Protection Agency proposal. “This Tea Party shutdown has shut out the public from even discussing climate change, and what our government can do about it,” Markey said during a conference call with reporters. Markey chided...

WASHINGTON DC (KDKA) — Frustration seems to be more common in Washington than the ability to reach a bipartisan deal across party lines. Pennsylvania’s senior senator, a Democrat, knows who he blames. “The Tea Party caused this shutdown, and if we allow it to continue, we’re going to have a Tea Party default and that’s not good for anyone,” says Sen. Bob Casey. Sen. Casey says ultraconservatives in the House are so fixated on repealing or changing Obamacare that they are willing to risk the nation’s economic health. “If they keep throwing out the ideas they’ve been talking about that...

Many tea party Reps want big/immediate change in DC. But the Constitution doesn't allow for rapid/big change - unless you win elections.T Party ideas about smaller gov are good, but their ideas won't be achieved if they don't change tactics.Nominating candidates who allow Ds to keep Senate seats is bad tactic #1.Picking fights that can't be won while empowering Ds is bad tactic #2.Diverting attention away from the failures of Obamacare is bad tactic # 3.Overreach is bad tactic #4. Big gov wasn't build (sic) in a day. It will not be turned around overnight. This is a long term...

The media just can't help themselves it seems. The coverage over the Million Vet March in Washington , D.C. is insulting and demeaning to our military veterans. At the march, many veterans removed the barricades blocking access to the World War II Memorial and then dumped the barricades outside the White House. Conservatives such as Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz spoke to the crowd about the current government shutdown (a false moniker as only 17% of the government is actually shut down). Yet, the mainstream media continues to carry water for Obama and do everything possible to denigrate and cast...

We’ve written extensively of late regarding the widening divide between fiscally conservative Republicans and the “neoconservative” fiscally liberal wing of the party – led by U.S. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn. In fact according to the website Mississippi PEP, they’ve censured him. For those of you unfamiliar with this aging RINO, Cochran is one of several Southern “Republicans” who habitually caves to U.S. President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats (along with Graham, North Carolina’s Richard Burr, Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander and Georgia’s Johnny Isakson). “When any official continues to engage repeatedly in a course of conduct that violates...

Apparently, it’s become fashionable to wonder whether fissures in the GOP might eventually grow into a schism, with tea party candidates mounting independent challenges to the GOP in the 2014 elections. Last night, David Frum went a step farther, writing that a tea party exodus might actually help Republicans by freeing them of Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz, allowing the GOP to slide back to the political center. It's a centrist fantasy. If Republicans think they have a pathway to victory without the tea party, they’re sorely mistaken. The tea party is not some small, fringe element of the Republican...

Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern, a Democrat from the 2nd District, says he has lost respect for Speaker John Boehner’s leadership amid the ongoing federal government shutdown. McGovern slammed the Ohio Republican on WAMC’s Congressional Corner. "I've always given John Boehner the benefit of the doubt, you know," McGovern says. "I know him and I remember when he was reasonable. But at some point, you become part of the problem, and at this point I think it's fair to say he is part of the problem. I'm not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt any more, nor I...

WOODBRIDGE, Va. – San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro (D), met with Democratic volunteers and campaign staff at the Prince William County Democratic Headquarters in Lake Ridge on Saturday, to support Terry McAuliffe’s candidacy for Virginia Governor and excite volunteers as Election Day draws closer. “I’m here because everyone around the nation is watching this campaign. Everyone around the nation knows what a great candidate Terry McAuliffe is for Governor of Virginia and sees the contrast that really exists in this race,” Castro said. Castro pointed out several of the contrasts between McAuliffe and Cuccinelli including social agenda, ideology and proposed...

Question: If Ted Cruz and John Boehner were both on a sinking ship, who would be saved? Answer: America. Harsh? Look around you at what is happening to America and you will see harsh. I am not talking about closed parks and monuments. I am talking about the funds cut to nearly 9 million mothers and young children for food, breastfeeding support and infant formula. That is harsh. Making a war against babies is harsh. And for what? Because Cruz, Republican senator from Texas, has grown so drunk on the sound of his own voice and so besotted with illusions...

Democrats may think they've won, but the nation will lose if warnings about spending, debt go unheeded. If congressional negotiators fail to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government, voters will blame House Republicans, but it's the president and fellow Democrats that are behaving like teenagers by wanting to spend irresponsibly. Studies by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and Medicare and Medicaid actuaries indicate if Washington continues spending and borrowing as current law requires, then all Americans, and not just the wealthy, will be paying higher taxes and more on private health care. Federal spending on Social Security and...

Tens of thousands of federal workers in New York City continue to feel the impact as the partial government shutdown continues. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) joined furloughed federal employees, union leaders and others affected by the shutdown to call on Congress to reach a compromise. Maloney said the crisis in entirely manufactured and is only being made worse with the nation getting closer to reaching its debt limit. “We need to end it I hope tonight or tomorrow morning. The idea of violating our debt ceiling is so disturbing,” she said. “A small group of conservatives are holding up the...

Video: What is the Tea Party really trying to get out of slimdown?

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Boehner offered Obama a clean debt ceiling bill. I mean everything Obama has asked for and he turned it down and said, "Nope, now you've got to do away with the sequester." And Boehner, poor Boehner, Boehner is -- by the way, I'm sorry. This is purely habitual. The table out here is not nearly as solidly attached to the wall, or the ceiling actually, as it is in Florida. Well, it's a broadcast quality table. It's just not anchored broadcast quality. Not a complaint, look, I do this by habit. I'm going to try to rein...

Here are some photos from the Tea Party Express event for Steve Lonegan. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10200836689423023.1073741841.1337520026&type=1&l=cd0cea750c

NBC News Chief White House Correspondent and MSNBC host Chuck Todd reported on Monday that tea party figures like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin helped scuttle a potential deal to raise the debt ceiling over the weekend when they led World War II veterans to march on the White House. Todd reported that the tea party Republicans are “doing everything they can” to keep the shutdown and debt ceiling standoff “alive.” “While the non-tea party Republicans are desperately trying to end this standoff, the tea party Republicans are doing everything they can to keep it...

We ought to think about the cultural roots of the budget crisis in Washington. The political left says the shut down is all about an ideological tantrum of a handful of Republicans. Certainly Tea Partiers have an ideology and vision about what ground rules would produce a more prosperous, freer, and fairer America. But let’s be honest. The gentleman in the White House, our president, is as hard-core in his ideological dispositions as any Tea Partier. Each side believes America would be better off if it were run according to their vision. What’s the crucial difference? As a Tea Partier,...

Here’s some free market advice to GOP legislators at all levels thinking about introducing bills supporting the state health exchanges under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA): Be prepared to wear the “Care” moniker around your name. You know? As in HillaryCare, RomneyCare or ObamaCare. Colorado’s Amy Stephens, a Republican state representative from El Paso County, was once considered a future Lt. Governor, or member of Congress. Instead, she may have flamed out her career by sponsoring a bill that would opt Colorado out of ObamaCare by implementing a so-called “health exchange” under PPACA. Yet that didn’t stop...

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – The Senate has taken the lead from the House in attempting to devise a plan to reopen the government and avoid a potential default in the coming week. Speaking with Bob Schieffer on Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he is “cautiously hopeful” that the Senate can pick up where House negotiations have become deadlocked, and hopefully avoid the continued government shutdown through bipartisan Senate discussion. “I’m cautiously hopeful, optimistic that we can come to an agreement and open up the government and avoid default based on the bipartisan meetings that are going on,” Schumer said...

I think we know the fix is in! We all know most Republicans have no balls and will sell the American people short once again. How can we blame them? I am sure they are being coerced, wined and dined, bribed and god knows the NSA info is ripe for blackmail. It is broken, two parties have become big fat pigs, sucking off the trough so much, us peons no longer have a chance. Together they ignore our needs and pass laws that just do us harm. They are in actuality corporations, neither pay taxes and they have control of...

WASHINGTON — Next year was supposed to be a prime opportunity for Republicans to retake the Senate. And for a while, everything seemed to be breaking their way: a wave of Democratic retirements, a fluke in the electoral map that put a large number of races in states that President Obama lost, a strong farm team of conservative Senate hopefuls from the House. Then the government shut down. Now, instead of sharpening their attacks on Democrats, Republicans on Capitol Hill are being forced to explain why they are not to blame and why Americans should trust them to govern both...

**SNIP** On Saturday, Palin told a rally at the New Egypt Speedway that Lonegan, a former mayor, would fight against ObamaCare and stand with Tea Party senators including Ted Cruz of Texas. "You have the momentum with Steve's campaign," she said. "The rest of the country knows." The 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor told the crowd to vote to defy the "fallacy" that a conservative Tea Party candidate cannot win in a Democratic-leaning New Jersey. Lonegan, who spent the weekend campaigning across the state, wants to repeal ObamaCare and "join those conservatives who stand up for...

The White House and the Senate are working to squeeze House Republicans into accepting a bipartisan compromise from the upper chamber to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling. Any emerging deal, however, will leave ObamaCare largely intact, angering conservatives who have demanded defunding or delaying President Obama’s signature achievement. House Republicans are fuming over the prospect that Senate Democrats and Republicans are working on a plan to jam them with a last-minute deal they would have to accept or risk triggering a federal default. “They are trying to jam us with the Senate and we are not going...

<p>Need evidence of Cruz's gains of late? He won the 2016 straw poll at the Values Voter Summit on Saturday with 42 percent of the vote and his speech at that gathering of social conservatives was received very warmly. He has become the center of gravity for a certain not-insignificant element of the Republican party. Cruz has proven that he will be “the Tea Party’s one true standard-bearer in the Republican presidential primary,” according to Evan Smith,the CEO and editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune,a independent media outlet covering the Long Star State.</p>

Numbers are slowly emerging, and they aren’t good for the president’s “signature piece of legislation.” The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, has been an unmitigated disaster. After three years and $634 million, healthcare.gov has proven itself unable to handle even the traffic a local supermarket website would get. In other words, it’s not a problem of too much traffic crashing servers, the problems lie in the code itself. Just like the problems with the website, the flaws in the program itself are structural. And this fact, provided they don’t screw it up, will be the greatest asset of Republicans going...

.........If Dowd thinks Cruz a radical for taking to the Senate floor with his legitimate grievances about ObamaCare and the underhanded manner in which it was imposed upon the American people,I wonder what she might say about Virginian Patrick Henry's response to the Stamp Act of 1765,which whipped American colonists into an anti-British fervor? Britain,trying to raise tax revenue to pay for the French and Indian War,from which the American colonies benefited,issued an edict requiring a government stamp on newspapers,legal documents,and other items. According to historian H.W. Crocker III, Patrick Henry:... used the Stamp Act to declare that as Caesar...

It’s three years away, but the ongoing government shutdown and debt ceiling debate makes it clear that Democrats need to be thinking now about a candidate able to effectively counter the Tea Party caucus in Congress — which thanks to gerrymandering, isn’t going anywhere until 2020. While the Republican field is already loaded with possible candidates — Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush III and Bobby Jindal – the Democratic field is apparently sealed: Hillary Clinton. RealClearPolitics finds Hillary getting 61 percent of the vote in a Democratic primary against Joe Biden (11), Elizabeth Warren (7),...

Recently, Peter King, the court jester of the House of Representatives, had this to say to PMSNBC's Andrea Mitchell about Tea Party heroes Rand Paul and Ted Cruz: *** "I'm really more concerned about why more Republicans around the country didn't join me in denouncing Ted Cruz. We now have people on the sidelines coming forward who we have to take a stand here. We cannot allow our party to be taken over by the likes of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. I mean, these are people, isolationists, I consider them RINOs, because they don't represent traditional Republican principles. Ted...

Watch the livestream of Sarah Palin and Mark Levin at the Steve Lonegan campaign rally. It begins at 4PM ET and should run until around 6PM or so.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- From county chairmen to national party luminaries, veteran Republicans across the country are accusing tea party lawmakers of staining the GOP with their refusal to bend in the budget impasse in Washington.

Yes, I never actually thought we’d win this ‘Defund Obamacare’ battle and my guess is many of you didn’t either. Look, I don’t think any of us are idiots. While it might be plausible to get something passed in the House and maybe even get a few Democrats to pass something in the Senate that would defund Obamacare, Obama would never sign it. I knew that coming out of the gate with this strategy. But despite that it was paramount that we have the fight. Why? Two reasons. One, we fight to change hearts and minds because we are not...

For nearly 150 years, there was something in America called the Republican Party. It was far from perfect. It made mistakes. But it was predictable; when it was in power, you knew, for the most part, what you were getting. Cut to now and things look mighty different. The Republican Party today is, as political scholars Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein put it, “an insurgent outlier in American politics . . . ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” But, to borrow...

We are being told that the affordable care act fixes great injustices of insurance by allowing those with pre-existing conditions and those with catastrophic illness to have coverage. In the past, they say, insurance companies would only provide such coverage at great expense or not at all. Not so. When we finally read the law that "no one knew until we passed it" we found out about IPAB, the Independent Payment and Advisory Board. Howard Dean, no friend of conservatives opposing the ACA recently was quoted about the IPAB: "One major problem is the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board. The...

Most people would probably agree that the Republican Party is having a bit of an identity crisis right now. To all intents and purposes, Tea Party activists have been holding the rest of the GOP — and the country — hostage in their attempt to defund ObamaCare. That's just part of a longer-term pattern of far-right candidates launching primary challenges against their fellow Republican incumbents whenever they haven't been suitably "conservative" enough for the Tea Party wing. Of course, some Republicans are in complete denial, as Fareed Zakaria points out at The Washington Post. They claim that the ongoing government...

(CNSNews.com) - Fifty-two percent of Republicans say that America needs a third party, according to a newly released Gallup poll. Forty-nine percent of Democrats say the same thing. "In fact,' said Gallup in its analysis of the poll, "this marks the first time that a majority of either party's supporters have said a third party is needed." The Gallup survey, which interviewed 1,028 adults (18 and over) nationwide, asked: 'In your view, do the Republican and Democratic parties do an adequate job of representing the American people, or do they do such a poor job that a third major party...

From county chairmen to national party luminaries, veteran Republicans across the country are accusing tea party lawmakers of staining the GOP with their refusal to bend in the budget impasse in Washington. The Republican establishment also is signaling a willingness to strike back at the tea party in next fall's elections.

Why aren’t Republicans more afraid? The entire premise of both the government shutdown and the threats to force the government into debt default is that Democrats care more about the consequences of these actions than the Republicans do. Republicans may go on TV and shed crocodile tears about national monuments being shut down, but the act isn’t really fooling the voters: The only way to understand these fights is to understand that the GOP is threatening to destroy the government and the world economy in order to get rid of Obamacare (as well as a panoply of other right wing...

The federal government had already shut down when Democrats appeared before the television cameras to showcase a poster-sized quote from Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman, one of the dozens of conservatives opposed to any government funding bill that didn't delay or derail Obamacare. "We have got to get something out of this," read Stutzman's words, in can't-miss yellow type on a blue placard. "And I don't know what that even is." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and his top lieutenants chuckled derisively at Stutzman's suggestion that Republicans didn't even know what they're fighting for. Reporters joined in the hearty laughter,...

"Every day, incrementally, this shutdown begins to add more and more pain to the American people. And the piecemeal, "let’s fix this little part because we’ve been criticized" that the Republican majority is attempting every day on the floor, whether it’s Head Start, whether it’s Impact Aid, whether it’s making sure the troops get paid, all these issues are not taking away from the fact that this shutdown is contrived. It is a mean—we’ve seen this before, where, you know, I’m going to—this kind of extortion. And then, unfortunately, Democrats give in, give in too soon. We have sequestration as...

TRENTON — With the special Senate election less than a week away, both candidates wasted no time Thursday to thrust the government shutdown front and center of their campaigns. At a press conference at the Statehouse, Newark mayor Cory Booker linked Republican challenger Steve Lonegan to the tea party contingent blamed by some for bringing on the shutdown, which has so far lasted 10 days. “New Jersey has a chance to send a message to Washington, as a chance to make a statement on behalf of all Americans, about what kind of politics we’re going to have,” Booker said. “Are...

On October 13, 2013, American veterans and other patriots are going to launch a major protest. President Obama has been using the government shutdown as an excuse to commit a string of almost unbelievable public outrages against Americans everywhere. These include the following unbelievable eye-poppers:Denying treatments for children suffering from cancer.Denying death benefit payments to families of fallen soldiers, while keeping the Andrews Air Base golf course open so Obama can continue to play.Ordering the Park Service to hold elderly Yellowstone Park visitors in their hotel rooms under armed guard, then ordering them out of the park on busses and...

Panelists at a Tulsa County GOP event Wednesday discussed ways Oklahoma and its citizens can resist the Affordable Care Act’s requirements, including the possibility of passing a “nullification law” and refusing to pay fines for failure to carry insurance. One panelist at the event called President Barack Obama’s administration an “oligarchy” and “an undercover dictatorship.” Another panelist claimed that the federal health-care law allows federal officials to inspect the homes of people who home school their children and to share citizens’ medical records. State Rep. Michael Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, said a bill allowing the state to nullify the federal law...

Conservatives will use the shutdown and Obamacare rollout embarrassments to push for delaying the law. Conservative groups and their allies in Congress appear to be rallying around a new strategy to refocus budget negotiations on Obamacare, the original point of contention that led to the government shutdown that’s is heading into its tenth day. In a somewhat ironic development, support is growing on the right for a short-term debt-limit increase with relatively few strings attached. “We should raise the debt,” Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham told reporters Wednesday. “My tactic is to focus on the [continuing resolution].” [SNIP] But first,...

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont (Independent) slammed the Koch brothers on MSNBC this morning, alleging that the billionaire businessmen behind the Tea Party were partly responsible for bringing about the government shutdown. Sanders is the Senate’s sole Independent senator, and he typically caucuses with Democrats. But the Vermont lawmaker lashed out at what he says is the unchecked and damaging influence of Citizens United on American governance, the House of Representatives in particular, during an MSNBC appearance this morning. Sen. Sanders addressed the current government shutdown, saying he believes the Kochs are behind the gridlock that ground the House to...

Steve Robinson's disappointment about the federal government shutdown Wednesday while standing outside the Topeka office of U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins reflected a personal stake in gridlock strangling the nation's political epicenter in Washington, D.C. His wife is among about 800,000 federal workers furloughed in the wake of decisions in the House, Senate and White House to engage in a spirited tug-of-war over implementation of health insurance reform, the federal debt ceiling and other partisan financial conflicts. Robinson, of Lawrence, said too many in Congress, including Republicans such as Jenkins, had anchored themselves to uncompromising tea party ideals espoused by the...

A Tea Party group has dropped its endorsement of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), citing criticism he reportedly made of conservative groups that has put him in their crosshairs for 2014. [big snip] "While endorsing Mitch McConnell seemed like the right thing to do at the time, Mitch McConnell has proven he is not worthy of conservative support. Glenn Beck is right. It is time to defund the GOP until the GOP pushes people like Mitch McConnell out of leadership," Phillips wrote in a post on the group's website. McConnell has clashed with conservatives in recent weeks over the...

House Speaker John Boehner's office says a small group of House Republicans will meet with President Barack Obama Thursday instead of the full caucus that the White House invited. Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said Wednesday that the meeting is only worthwhile if it's focused on finding a solution. So Buck said only the elected leadership and select committee chairmen will attend — 18 lawmakers out of the 232 invited.