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Eating Their Own Update: Republicans Raising Money To Defeat Republicans

It's not just the narrative about republicans not being conservative enough, anymore.  Now it's all out warfare between people elected under the republican banner.  The big question is, however, considering how stealthily the enemy always tries to infiltrate the opposition's camp, who's the foe?

It’s the Senate Conservatives Fund, an organization that used to prop up underdog conservative candidates but now is training its fire mainly on Republican incumbents — rather than Democrats. The group has ginned up anger on the far-right towards Republican senators for refusing to use a government shutdown threat as leverage to defund Obamacare — a campaign that has been good for its bottom line.

Since it started engaging in the defund Obamacare campaign, the group brought in the vast majority of the $3.5 million it has raised this cycle, pulling in $1.5 million in August as it unleashed a barrage of attacks on party leaders like Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn and veteran Republicans like Lamar Alexander.

The group didn’t stop there, attacking GOP senators for lacking the courage to fight a law the party collectively hates. The group dropped $340,000 in an ad buy in Kentucky where it said McConnell “refuses to lead” the fight against Obamacare.

“Obamacare starts in October, but Congress can stop its funding,” the ad said. “What’s Mitch McConnell doing? Nothing. … What good is a leader like that?” [POLITICO]

So what do the targets of this attack have to do in order to keep this movement from completely derailing the effort to win a majority in the Senate and hold the majority in the House?  Spend money raised for the purpose of defeating democrats fighting back against their own party members?

Sounds like a great strategy to help democrats doesn't it? Particularly when the guys firing the shots at their leaders have no plan for what to do once the earth has been scorched. 

Understanding The Weird Ted Cruz

I snagged this from HotAir because if you are like me, you are a little confused why Ted Cruz would have pushed the House to pass the continuing resolution with the "de-fund Obamacare" provisions in it and then be planning on a filibuster in the Senate to keep the bill from getting to the floor.  Maybe this will help.

Everyone understand why Cruz has been forced into this position? It goes back to the procedural quirk that Byron York wrote about last night and that I excerpted at length this morning. When Reid first introduces the House’s “defund” CR, it’ll face a cloture vote on whether to proceed to a debate about it. That requires 60 votes, but that should be no problem. Republicans will vote yes because they support defunding O-Care and Democrats will vote yes because they know it’s a necessary step to passing their own “clean” CR that includes funding for the law. Once that vote is over, though, Reid can strip out the “defunding” part of the House bill and then pass the new “clean” CR with simple majority votes. Thus, the only opportunity the Cruz/Lee contingent will have to stop Democrats from passing their own CR is by opposing the initial cloture vote on the House bill — even though that puts them in the singularly unusual position of trying to block a measure that was passed by their own party, which they themselves cheered all the way through passage in the other chamber.

Now, serious question: Why would Reid care whether the House bill is filibustered? We’re headed for deadlock here between the House and Senate one way or another. If Dems succeed in invoking cloture on the House bill and then strip out the O-Care funding, just as everyone expects will happen, then the ball is back in Boehner’s court. Either he can hold firm for awhile and risk a shutdown or he can cave and pass Reid’s “clean” CR. If, on the other hand, Cruz and Lee succeed in filibustering the House bill, then the Senate will pass nothing and … we’ll still be facing a shutdown. Except now, instead of simply blaming Republicans for it, Democrats will add the curious detail that Republicans in the Senate ended up blocking their own party’s bill in order to make it happen. Even worse, a successful filibuster would mean that red-state Dems like Landrieu and Begich who are up for reelection wouldn’t have to take a very tough vote in favor of funding ObamaCare as part of their party’s “clean” CR. If you’re going to go to the mat and shut down the government over ObamaCare, at least make vulnerable incumbents from the other party sweat through it.

Oh, and in case you were wondering why the adults in the GOP were not in favor of this method of de-funding Obamacare, it might be due to the fact that they understand how the process works.  The "young Turks" don't seem to care about that.  They just like to see themselves throwing tantrums on TV or in front of a bunch of "liberty" lovers.  And by "liberty" in this context I'm speaking of those Discordians who favor "No Rules!".

Republicans Equated With "Pod People"

Some say that Ted Cruz has made a bed for himself in which he will soon be sleeping alone.  A recent local article comparing the styles of Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell was not all that flattering to Rand, painting McConnell as more substance and success, and Rand as a pop-culture media hound.

Now an opinion piece at POLITICO has come up with a new way to describe what is happening within the GOP.  The writers call them "Pod People".

In the classic 1956 sci-fi film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, an alien race comes to Earth and begins turning humans into “pod people.” Their bodies are left intact, but their minds are regrown, rending them humanoid robots under the aliens’ command. Unrecognizable to neighbors, the pod people take over until nothing is left of human society.

At the time of its release, the film was seen as a metaphor either for communist takeover (according to conservatives) or an ironic criticism of the irrational fears of communist takeover (according to liberals). Today, we think the body snatchers conceit perfectly fits another trend: the takeover of the responsible conservative movement — or least what is left of it. A small faction-within-a-faction — government-decrying, religious-fanatic, anti-science — have turned thinking Republicans into pod people.

There is continuing fascination with the rifts within the republican party.  The old media helps to drive the discussion, which in turn gives the "new media" and "social media" savvy folks like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz fuel for their own personal fires.

But the real question is whether the sizzle over the rise of Rand and his brand of libertarianism and the unfortunate rise of pure obstructionists who lack his political skills which his popularity has spawned is good for the GOP in the long run.  The authors of the POLITICO piece, think not.

There is growing concern that while Republicans may dominate off-year congressional elections, their ability to win a presidential election is diminishing. The crisis on the right revolves around two issues: demographic trends working against the GOP in the general election, and insanity working against the GOP in the nomination process. Extremist outliers now dominate both the public face and internal organization of the Republican Party. It is time to snatch these bodies back, and to steer the debate toward more concrete issues: America’s role in the world and the global economy; cultural divides over how to address environmental issues; our healthcare system and the costs of aging families; and bridging multicultural divisions in our country and around the globe. These are the issues the GOP needs to address head-on, with input from a wider range of perspectives.

Good point.  While Rand's goal of increasing the size of the GOP may sound like a party building idea to his followers the "no compromise" positions that those same followers persistently take when it comes to their fellow party members feels more like a civil war than unity.  If it has to be "their way" or "no way", the only party they are building is the one of their dreams, not the one they joined.

And the authors make another good point.  There are some very serious issues upon which the GOP could take the lead and which would do a great deal of good for the party, the nation and the world.  Instead many among this new band of republicans who went to Washington with the attitude that they are solely there to be an obstruction are missing the opportunity to get things of importance done in order to feed their egos on the attention their tantrums are receiving.

The entire POLITICO piece is an interesting read.  Finally an adult discussion of the cancer which is killing the republican party.

Rasmussen: Political Class Crumbling

Scott Rasmussen says that the recall in Colorado, the public's refusal to fall in line behind the President's call for war in Syria and the fact that the public is growing impatient with the nation's debt situation are all signs that the "political class" is no longer a "ruling class".  But one question he didn't address is who will fill the void?

David Brooks of the New York Times gives a clue.

“What’s going on in the House, and a bit in the Senate, too, is what you might call the rise of Ted Cruz-ism,” Brooks said. “And Ted Cruz, the senator from Canada through Texas, is basically not a legislator in the normal sense, doesn’t have an idea that he’s going to Congress to create coalitions, make alliances, and he is going to pass a lot of legislation. He’s going in more as a media-protest person. And a lot of the House Republicans are in the same mode. They’re not normal members of Congress. They’re not legislators. They want to stop things. And so they’re just being — they just want to obstruct.” [Daily Caller]

So does the public want something done or nothing done?  What say you?

New Form Of Invasive Litigation Threatens American Businesses

Have you ever heard of "patent trolls"?  The words describe individuals or companies that go out, buy technology patents and then file suit against companies for patent infringement.  Yes, I agree, patents provide developers of new ideas with the chance to recoup R&R investment before their ideas become public.  But this is different.

In a letter recently sent to Congress a number of companies brought the need for patent reform to the attention of the committee on the judiciary.  What they described is a devastating problem which needs immediate attention.

The kind of patents which are being sued upon are ridiculous.  According to The Washington Post, costly litigation is being filed to stop companies from using what most would assume are publicly available ideas.

Even Whataburger, the hamburger chain popular in the south, is demanding changes to the patent system.

“We’re a burger company. We don’t own any patents. We make hamburgers,” says Whataburger general counsel Michael Gibbs. But in the last two years, he says, he’s been forced to deal with patent threats.

Gibbs says Whataburger has faced legal threats for using ethernet networking equipment and for putting calorie information on its Web site. And he says Whataburger scuttled plans to offer Wi-Fi access to its customers after learning that a troll had started suing companies that offered Wi-Fi services.

Supermarkets are also up in arms. Erik Lieberman of the Food Marketing Institute says his industry is also affected by the growth of trolls.

“There’s a troll out there claiming they have a patent on the rendering of JPEGs,” an image format that’s popular on the Web, Lieberman says. He says there’s a troll that claims to own the concept of sending a text message with an embedded link, something many grocery stores do. Another troll targeting grocery stories claims to own the concept of entering your zip code to find the nearest store. Other trolls claim concepts related to clickable online menus and QR codes.

Patents are necessary, but patent abuse must be stopped.  Now if we only had a Congress that would do something other than run for re-election, maybe we could prevent these kinds of abuses.

Ruh Ro: Rand May Get A Senate Vote On Egypt That Could Hurt McConnell

Rand Paul has been a very vocal opponent of sending aid to Egypt while roads and bridges in the United States, and particularly Kentucky, are in need of repair or replacement.  And now it looks like he might get a floor vote on one of two possible measures to cut off that aid.  But, one source says, this might hurt McConnell.

The Senate might vote this week on a proposal from Sen. Rand Paul that would cut U.S. aid to Egypt, sources said....

Democrats believe a vote on Egypt would be difficult for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a long-time defender of foreign aid. A McConnell spokesman declined comment. When asked several weeks ago about his position on assistance to Egypt, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Obama administration is taking a look at aid but declined further comment. The administration has delayed a sale of four fighter jets to Egypt in recent days, however....

Top Senate foreign policy voices like Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) have called for a suspension of aid to Egypt in the wake of the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi by the Egyptian military. They argue that a coup occurred in Egypt, a designation that would result in a loss of aid from the U.S. and one that the Obama administration has declined to make.

In otherwords the democrats who control the agenda and determine which bills get voted on and which don't, have calculated that allowing Rand's bills to get a vote might hurt Mitch McConnell and so they are playing THAT game.

It's all politics all the time.

POLITICO Puts On Its Blinders, Credits Obama With Rising Economy

Get a load of this.  POLITICO today published this theme:

The 2014 midterm election is shaping up as something the United States has not seen in nearly a decade: a campaign run in a strengthening economy with deficits on the decline.

No one is popping champagne corks yet, and risks remain. But the altered terrain, if it holds, could benefit Democrats and challenge Republicans whose rise to power in the House in 2010 came via a tea party movement that blasted President Barack Obama and his party for ignoring a stagnant economy and piling up an endless run of trillion dollar deficits.

The federal deficit is around half the size it was when the tea party reached its apex, due to tax hikes, spending cuts and stronger growth.

Now notice the timing of the improvements.  They say they began in 2010 when the TEA party and the GOP regained the House.

So Obama is the master who single handedly brought us an improved economy?  But when times are bad the problem is with the obstructionist Congress?

Oh no, it doesn't stop there.  Even Obama himself is driving the theme.

At another recent fundraising event in New York at movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s town house, Obama blamed GOP partisanship for blocking his efforts to improve the economy even more. “My thinking was after we beat them in 2012 that might break the fever,” he said to a group that included singer Justin Timberlake and actress Jessica Biel. “It’s not quite broken yet, but I am persistent and I am staying at it.”

Democrats down the line are echoing that message and taking credit for progress while arguing that Republicans are standing in the way of a stronger recovery.

Give me a break. 

Why Panic Thinking Should Not Rule

In several debates on this site and on Facebook I have found myself arguing with people who have lost or never learned the value of a Constitutional Republic.  People are impatient, they want changes to take place immediately.  They want the mood of the day to control policy.  What they want is mob rule democracy.

What I am about to share with you is one of the reasons why mob rule, the mood of the day and impatience are the very things our founders did their best to remove from our form of government.  What they knew would happen if they didn't create a republic vs. a pure democracy was this kind of reactionary over-reach.  From Jonathan Turley:

We previously discussed the case of Lisa and Anthony “A.J.” Demaree who had their three children taken away from them after a Walmart employee reported them to the police as child pornographers for innocent pictures in a bathtub on a vacation. The absurd reaction of Walmart led to their then 5, 4 and 1 1/2 year old daughters being taken away for a month and put the family through a ridiculous criminal process due to the equally negligent acts of the police and prosecutors. Their case is now before the Ninth Circuit in seeking to be able to present their claims to a jury.

The couple had simply sent 144 pictures from their vacation to Walmart in Peoria when a developer at the store noticed some naked pictures of the girls in the bathtub — a common picture for parents to preserve memories (and later torture their adult children).

The police continued to persecute this family despite medical evaluations that showed no signs of sexual abuse and an obvious explanation from the parents. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ultimately ruled that the photographs were not, in fact, pornographic.

Innocent behavior of parents was caught up in the frenzy of an alarmist mindset.  What a damned shame.

Yes there is real child pornography which does real harm to kids.  And yes there are child molesters who do real harm to kids.  But there can also be a gathering storm of popular fears which harm ordinary relationships and eventually harm society.

I can't imagine the worry parents have today by merely letting other kids come into their homes to play with their own children.  You are alone with other peoples children and vulnerable to being accused of just about anything.

Our fears about the real bad guys contribute to the destruction of society by vilifying the good guys.  The same can be said about any number of things beside the horror faced by the family in the story above.

Do we approve of drunk driving?  Of course not, but DUI fears have virtually destroyed nightclubs, dance clubs and live music venues where people used to gather, mingle, meet and enjoy time together.

Do we approve of crazy people using guns to commit crimes?  Of course not, but fear over the behavior of nuts is affecting the rights of ordinary citizens.

Do we approve of child abuse?  Of course not, but prosecutions for spanking unruly kids have given unruly kids the upper hand.

In some places, particularly the courts, reaction is often not tempered by the same processes that are in play in the other branches of government.  Judges, prosecutors and police officers are frequently called upon to react by the most vocal members of a community.  They often perceive their jobs to be on the line if they don't react and they often have no protection from criticism.

As a lawyer with over three decades of experience I've seen the tone, temperament and type of client change.  The "me generation" is now in their thirties and forties.  They demand immediate attention and refuse to accept that they could be wrong.  They demand that things be done their way, and NOW!

Impatience, lack of respect for any opinions that don't confirm their own and the failure to appreciate the way our system of government works creates a nearly explosive frustration with some of them.  While I doubt our founders could envision this exact kind of mindset what they did appreciate was how quickly public opinion could change and how unstable a government left to blow with the wind would be.

It's time for us to settle down a bit, in many aspects of our current life, and take stock of the value of our republican form of government, take stock of how temporary our lives will be and to stand up against some of the nonsense.

It's time for us to talk with each other and try to once again agree that panic thinking should not rule.

Can't Say It Any Better: "Join Or Die"

In keeping with the theme of today's blog postings I would direct you to another from a few days ago.  It is worth reading.  Here's a tease:

Fact No. 1 is to realize a political party isn't a church nor a cult but a mechanism to get diverse people who share some things in common to work toward a common position of power that none could achieve on their own. Fact No. 2 is that unless you can convert your principles into actual policies, standing upon them does no one a favor. If you believe in your principles but can't convert others, you are not an asset. If you antagonize them, you and your principles are a real liability, and perhaps you should shut the hell up.

The Tea Party loves the Gadsden flag symbol, with its poised-to-strike rattler and "Don't Tread on Me" message, but there is another illustration of that era that it ought to note: Benjamin Franklin's cartoon of a snake, chopped into 13 small pieces, unable to make any threatening noises. Beneath it was Franklin's exhortation for unity among the 13 Colonies: "Join, or Die."

READ FULL STORY HERE

Obama About To Divide And Conquer On Guns?

I have no doubt that some TEA party activists disagree with my assessment that their dissent from the party has any effect except a positive one, but others aren't so sure. "[U]nanswered [is]a question with big implications for Obama’s second term: If the president could divide and conquer House Republicans on tax increases, can he do it again on the debt ceiling, guns and immigration?" [POLITICO]

Well, that depends, right?  I know for those of us living in Kentucky we can't imagine that anybody, particularly a republican, would favor any kind of gun control, but that's a bit parochial don't you think?  There are republicans from blue states too you know, and some of those states are filled with people who are frightened by guns, never see them, never use them and see no reason for people to own or handle guns.

Of the 85 Republicans who backed the tax-hike bill — and provided it with the margin it needed to pass — 70 hail from states that the president won in November.

The rift rankled conservatives who see the House GOP going adrift — and raised hopes among Democrats who see a potential opening to exploit going forward.

House Republicans all say they want to take a hard line with Obama on spending; whether they keep a united front on potentially shutting down the government or forcing a default on the nation’s debt is another matter.

Immigration and gun control may also come to a head in the House at some point as the GOP reckons with its miserable performance among Latinos in November and growing calls for the government to do something about a string of mass shootings.

Democrats argue that the red state-blue state House GOP split that became apparent in the fiscal cliff vote provides them with an opening on other politically dicey legislation. [POLITICO]

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