A common response from radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh when it comes to the question about whether Barack Obama is intentionally trying to destroy the country or is doing so because he doesn't know what he's doing is one of dismissal. In Limbaugh's view, it doesn't matter because the result is the same.
Conservatives - whether they want to admit it or not - are being faced with a similar reality when it comes to U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) - a Tea Party darling - and his involvement with the 'Gang of 8', which consists of Senators who simply cannot be trusted to do what's best for America, let alone what's right on immigration (Schumer, Durbin, Menendez, McCain, Graham, etc.). When it comes to Rubio, conservative talk show hosts scratch their heads and want to know why Rubio is doing this. Is he naive or does he have an agenda diametrically opposed to conservatives who put him in office?
To paraphrase Limbaugh, it doesn't matter because the result will be the same if immigration reform is passed without first securing the border.
When you listen to Rubio attempt to explain why he's part of the 'gang of eight' or why he's supporting such a monstrous bill, he says the issue is 'complicated'. It's really not. Conservatives see it as quite simple and have for years. They're willing to talk amnesty, citizenship, reform, blah, blah, blah after one thing - and one thing only - happens.
The. Border. Is. Secured.
What's complicated is trying to understand what Rubio is saying. When you're done listening to him attempt to explain his position, you just keep coming back to one very simple question:
Why can't we talk about this after the border is secured? Rubio doesn't seem capable of asking that question. Then again, these conservative talk show hosts don't want to press him too hard, apparently because of his Tea Party bonafides. In fact, listening to his interview with Mike Gallagher, the lead up to Gallagher's first question reminded me of all those Senators who burned up precious minutes during Hillary Clinton's Benghazi testimony, praising her for being such a great Secretary of State and for serving her country.
A noteworthy moment during Rubio's exchange with Gallagher comes around the 5:50 mark. Gallagher asks Rubio if he believes there are Democrats on the other side of the aisle who simply do not want border enforcement and want open borders. Rubio's answer was quite telling:
"There's no doubt there are people that feel that way but they're not a serious player in this conversation..."
Really Senator? If that is indeed true, then you should be able to pass one very simple, one-page bill that demands the border be secured. There is a reason that hasn't been done; 'serious players' are preventing it.
I would love to know how Rubio is defining 'serious player' because every single one of his fellow Senators is one in this conversation and certainly the rest of the 'gang of eight' is. Are we to believe that Schumer and Durbin want a secure border? Please. Rubio's counterparts in the House will be 'serious players' as well. Essentially, what Rubio is saying is that every member of his 'gang of eight' wants a secure border.
Again, we're back to either naivete, denial, or dishonesty. The fact that we DON'T have a secure border right now is proof positive that we already have 'serious players' who don't want it secured.
Here is a portion of Rubio's interview with Sean Hannity, via Daily Caller:
The benchmark for conservative politicians is former U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), who now heads the Heritage Foundation. He's obviously not happy with Rubio's stance or the 'gang of eight' which should most definitely reinforce the concerns conservatives have about what Rubio is doing. As if that's not enough, as you'll see at the beginning of this clip, Barack Obama is praising the efforts of Rubio's gang (so is Howard Dean).
Via Daily Caller:
Rubio is so on the wrong side of this issue and it doesn't matter if he's doing so intentionally or because he doesn't know what he's doing - the result will be the same.
There are many reasons to like Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). First and foremost, the Sarah Palin effect, which is that the more a political figure is ridiculed by the mainstream media and the left, the more that political figure should be supported by conservatives. The second indicator is when RINOs like John McCain calls you a 'wackobird'.
There is another reason that comes across in this video from Freedom Works and it has to do with the ability to inspire and encourage.
Right out of the gate, Cruz doesn't just tell the audience what he knows they want to hear - that they are 'winning' - but he does it in such a way that it's believable. He then proceeds to make the case by citing what happened in the recent gun control debate. The story he relays from a Senatorial luncheon is classic and has John 'wacko bird' McCain written all over it.
Look, the Tea Party in particular and the conservatives in general started becoming demoralized and a bit more crestfallen each day it became more apparent that Mitt Romney was going to be the Republican nominee. Rock bottom was hit on election night. Establishment Republicans in office began caving to the Obama agenda almost immediately. Conservatives were so de-energized that they did little more than watch in disgust.
If there has been a consistent theme among conservatives since the election - perhaps even since the 2010 mid-terms - it's been disgust over the Republican Party's willingness to admit the truth and fight the Obama agenda.
Ironically, Cruz said establishment guys who wanted to cave in to the gun control push, yelled at him for not going along with the program. It's a self-evident truth that such political hacks are more comfortable yelling at a principled member of their own caucus than they are at our "Muslim socialist" president.
By the way, those aren't my words; they're Obama's:
Caveat necessary. The video below does not consist of House Speaker John Boehner saying that Obama's balls are made out of marshmellows. However, it does include a man named John Mauldin who claims to have been present when Boehner said it and it's not at all likely that someone like Mauldin would falsely attribute those words to Boehner.
So, for the sake of argument, let's assume Boehner actually said it. According to Mauldin, the House Speaker made the charge during the debt ceiling debate, which took place in the summer of 2011. In a word, the charge meant that Obama lacked 'audacity', which is defined as:
boldness or daring, especially with confident or arrogant disregard for personal safety, conventional thought, or other restrictions.
Yep, that pretty much describes Obama. It's also the opposite of Boehner's assessment.
If we include the debt ceiling debate and every battle Boehner has been involved in with Obama since then, how many has Boehner actually won?
Uh, can't think of any.
When it comes to the most powerful Republican in elected office (Boehner) and the most powerful Democrat in elected office (Obama), there have been two kinds of battles.
Battles fought
Battles not fought
As for the battles fought...
The debt ceiling
The 2012 elections
Fiscal cliff
Tax cuts
Spending cuts
Sequestration
Continuing Resolution
Healthcare Debate
Deficit / Debt Reduction
In all of the battles fought, it's hard to find one instance in which Obama has lost since the 2010 elections, which were actually won by the same Tea Party Boehner doesn't seem to have much regard for.
The debt continues to grow, despite the fact that the House is responsible for the purse strings; the 2012 elections were a major embarrassment for the Republican Party in general, to include Boehner as the House's gavel-holder. His lack of fight after the 2010 elections contributed to the base staying home in 2012. Boehner bemoaned making mistakes in the fiscal cliff talks by saying he shouldn't have negotiated with Obama and that he was 'full of regret' over how he handled it. Spending cuts? What spending cuts? Sequestration? Well, despite it being Obama's idea, Boehner is proving woefully inadequate when it comes to making the president own it.The continuing resolution debate will heat up in March. If the government is not allowed to shut down, Boehner will lose another round to Obama. Healthcare debate? Obama definitely didn't lack fortitude / audacity there.
As for debt / deficit reduction... Obama loves runaway debt and deficits. Let's assume for the sake of argument that Boehner wants to stem / reverse the tide. After the Republicans were swept into office in great numbers in the 2010 elections, Boehner had momentum (and the gavel). When it comes to the national debt / annual deficits, nothing has changed.
Advantage: 'Marshmellow' balls.
As for the battles not fought, two come to mind:
Fast and Furious
Benghazi Investigation
How about the battles not fought? Boehner REFUSED to make an issue of Fast and Furious; the Obama administration was wobbly in the knees for several months. Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa was essentially on his own. It was obvious Boehner wanted to avoid getting to the bottom of a scandal that demanded justice.
Marshmellows, Mr. Speaker?
How about the investigation into Benghazi? Boehner has been all but silent. Rep. Frank Wolf has twice formally asked the Speaker to form a House Select Committee to help get to the bottom of that scandal, which involves dead Americans and likely criminal activity on the part of the Obama administration.
Marshmellows, Mr. Speaker?
Really?! I believe Barack Obama is the worst president this country has ever had but to accuse him of having 'balls' of 'marshmellows' is rather audacious in light of your track record when it comes to fighting him.
Boehner's behavior smacks of projection. His entire record over the last two years reveals a man who is afraid to fight and is getting beaten like a drum. Yet, the guy who beats him is the coward? Mr. Boehner, with all due respect, the accusation you allegedly made about Obama 18 months ago appears to be an accusation you should be levying at yourself. Instead, you appear to be employing a psychological defense mechanism that is preventing you from making that admission.
Projection is the misattribution of a person’s undesired thoughts, feelings or impulses onto another person who does not have those thoughts, feelings or impulses. Projection is used especially when the thoughts are considered unacceptable for the person to express, or they feel completely ill at ease with having them. For example, a spouse may be angry at their significant other for not listening, when in fact it is the angry spouse who does not listen. Projection is often the result of a lack of insight and acknowledgement of one’s own motivations and feelings.
If Boehner is uncomfortable accepting the reality that it is he who lacks courage, he very well could be projecting that lack of courage onto Obama. The question that needs to be asked of Boehner is a simple one:
If Obama has 'balls made out of marshmellows' Mr. Speaker, how come he keeps beating you?
There's really no reason to doubt the authenticity of what Mauldin attributed to Boehner as having said but it is truly unbelievable that Boehner - of all people - would be the one to say it:
In an interview with CBN, U.S. Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz said two very significant things that resonate with true conservatives. One was that Barack Obama is the 'most radical' president we've ever seen. The other is that by failing to stand on principles, many Republicans should share some blame for that 'most radical' president being elected in the first place (ain't that the truth!).
The biggest frustration among conservatives is an unwillingness (cowardice) to fight on the part of Republicans. It's early but Cruz is showing signs of galvanizing such conservatives. A consequence of that - as we found out with Sarah Palin - is relentless media attacks. The good news? Cruz's effectiveness will rise in direct proportion to how much he is attacked in the media.
Here is the perfect example to demonstrate how best to deal with the media (pay attention, Boehner). After the mainstream media dredged up what they thought would be considered outrageous comments by Cruz years ago - that the Harvard faculty is rife with Marxists - the Senator from Texas did not go on defense; he went on offense with a super-appropriate tweet.
When it came to Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate, it was considered a good strategy because Ryan had developed a reputation as one of the few who could bridge the gap between the establishment and conservative wings of the Republican Party. This latest bit of news, if it bears out, could show that Ryan wasn't so much bridging a gap as he was attempting to play both sides of the fence, which brings us to an old adage that says:
You can't play both sides of the fence.
As differences between entities become more pronounced, riding the fence becomes less and less possible. There comes a point when everyone chooses a side and Ryan appears to be stonewalling questions about whether he had any role in helping Speaker John Boehner boot conservative members off of House financial committees. If he did play that role, he has chosen a side.
On Monday, Boehner and House GOP leadership removed four conservative Republicans from influential fiscally focused committees. Reps. Justin Amash of Michigan and Tim Huelskamp of Kansas were pulled from the House Budget Committee and Reps. David Schweikert of Arizona and Walter Jones of North Carolina were removed from the House Financial Services Committee. Huelskamp was also purged from the House Agriculture Committee.
For several days, spokespeople for Ryan – the Republican Party’s most recent vice presidential candidate who’s widely rumored to be positioning himself to run for president in 2016 – have refused to answer any questions about whether Ryan was involved and, if he was, what role he played.
Then, on Friday, Ryan spokesman William Allison would not deny Ryan’s involvement in the purge. “We are going to defer you to the Speaker’s office and the Steering Committee,” Allison told Breitbart News when asked if Ryan was involved and supported Boehner's move.
A spokesman for Boehner didn’t return a request for comment when asked if Ryan was involved.
Couple that with an ABC News report from today, which said, in part:
The day after the election, House Speaker John Boehner, the man now at the center of the negotiations with President Obama, called Ryan, according to a Boehner aide, because the speaker wanted "to make sure he was in the fold from Day One," adding he's been a "close part of the thought process."
And an aide to Ryan, who asked that his name not be used, says the role of the Wisconsin congressman is as a "resource to the speaker, a resource to House Republicans."
"He has responsibilities as the House budget chairman, he has responsibilities to the first district of Wisconsin. He needed to be where the fight is," added the aide. Nevertheless he wants to be "deferential" to those leading the conversation -- namely Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy.
So, according to a Ryan aide, Romney's running made wants to show deference to Boehner. Of course, deference is defined as:
respectful submission or yielding to the judgment, opinion, will, etc., of another.
This is not what conservatives want in the Budget Committee chairman. Now, of course, if one was inclined to cut Ryan some slack, maybe the Congressman from Wisconsin thought he could be more effective by being deferential to Boehner than by being on the sidelines with Huelskamp, et. al. The problem for Ryan, however, is that if he had a hand in jettisoning principled conservatives in deference to Boehner, he risks becoming more like Boehner himself.
In fact, if this is all true, it means Ryan threw principled conservatives under the bus for political self-preservation.
Again, if true, Ryan is already compromised goods and cannot be trusted.
With that said, I'm going against my better judgment and posting this song from hardcore liberal whacko Bruce Springsteen is actually appropriate. It's called 'The Big Muddy'. One particular line of note is:
"I had a friend who said watch what you do. Poison snake bites you and you're poison too."
How Springsteen could write a song like this and be such an Obamautamaton is beyond me. Then again, maybe it's autobiographical, which might help explain it.
Does Petraeus come to mind when you watch this?
Conversely, this song by the Wood Brothers is about those who don't compromise their principles.
As we demonstrated with The Abedin “Affairs” with Al Saud, there is a movement afoot in the West that seeks to transform Muslim minority lands into Muslim majority lands. And while the Right points fingers at the left on an array of issues, we need to seriously examine this movement’s spigot—Saudi Arabia and the Royal family.
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is a member of that family. He acquired 5.46% of Fox News Channel's parent Company - Newscorp. - in 2005. He is also its second largest shareholder. It was Fox News that provided a platform for perhaps the most stinging rebuke of Rep. Michele Bachmann's questions about Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in general, and Huma Abedin's background in particular. Edward Rollins - Bachmann's former campaign chief - denounced Bachmann with a piece entitled, "Shame on you, Michele" while Fox provided no counter-balance to speak of.
The Fox News website also reported the rebukes of Bachmann by John McCain and Republican House Speaker John Boehner, yet Bachmann's position was all but ignored.
So much for “Fair and Balanced”.
Alwaleed has purchased significant influence at major U.S. Universities and has contributed to CAIR. How does this all work? Well, it was explained by Al-Walid himself. In an article that appeared on Accuracy in Media's website, Diana West quoted from an interview the Saudi Prince granted to Arab News:
“Arab countries can influence U.S. decision-making ‘if they unite through economic interests, not political,’ (Alwaleed) stressed. ‘We have to be logical and understand that the U.S. administration is subject to U.S. public opinion. We (Arabs) are not so active in this sphere (public opinion). And to bring the decision-maker on your side, you not only have to be active inside the U.S. Congress or the administration but also inside U.S. society.’”
Even the very liberal, Soros-backed Think Progress, reported on bin Talal's influence over the Fox News Channel. In 2005, during riots in France (and two months after bin Talal acquired 5.46% of Newscorp.), the banner being run on Fox said, “Muslim riots.” Think Progress quoted bin Talal as saying the following:
“I picked up the phone and called Murdoch… (and told him) these are not Muslim riots, these are riots out of poverty. Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from Muslim riots to civil riots.”
In 2001, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly interviewed Sami al-Arian and aggressively pursued al-Arian when the latter seemed to implicate himself as being involved in terror fundraising. Al-Arian was eventually convicted and O'Reilly's efforts played a key role. It would be O'Reilly's high water mark on such matters.
In an exchange with bin Talal in 2011, Fox News host Neil Cavuto made the pecking order quite obvious when he referred to the Saudi Prince as “Your Highness”.
Then, in May of 2012, conservative host Sean Hannity welcomed none other than Ground Zero mosque imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf to his program to... promote his book. To his credit, Hannity was not as deferential as Cavuto was with bin Talal but he did provide Rauf with the platform to market his book.
Why?
The Democratic Party is lost and it has gladly welcomed Islamists so why are there Islamists with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood registering with the Republican Party? Part of the answer is that the Republican establishment is allowing them in. It is the Tea Party, which predominantly understands the Islamic threat that rejects Brotherhood elements.
Let us look at some examples.
NEZAR HAMZE
CAIR's Executive Director for South Florida is a man named Nezar Hamze. As such, Hamze is furthering the cause of CAIR's leadership. The group's national Executive Director and co-founder is Nihad Awad, a man who has expressed support for Hamas; he denounced the convictions of Islamic fundamentalists found guilty of the 1993 WTC bombing and did so while expressing a belief that the Mossad was behind that bombing. Prior to that Awad was the Public Relations Director for a Hamas front group. Incidentally, Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel.
Another CAIR co-founder - Omar Ahmad - was actually quoted by the San Ramon Valley Herald on July 4, 1998 as saying something that should be considered antithetical to both political Parties in the United States:
“Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran…should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”
If Hamze will not denounce the views of his group's leadership, he has no place in the Republican Party. Yet, Republican Party leadership will not denounce him.
MOIN "MOON" KHAN
When Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) made comments critical of CAIR and would not apologize, Moon Khan – a Muslim Republican who is a precinct committeeman and York Township board of trustees’ member – invited Walsh to his home for some 'dialogue' with some other members of the Muslim community. Walsh ultimately visited Khan's home and addressed more than 80 Muslims but did not apologize, though not for lack of trying on Khan's part.
SUHAIL KHAN
The son of Mahboob Khan, Suhail Khan, was born to a man who co-founded two Muslim Brotherhood groups in the United States – the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA). Despite this undeniable truth, while at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2011, Suhail said on camera that, “there is no Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.” With that one sentence, Khan denied his father's work and obviously did so because he didn't want the truth about it revealed.
Besides founding two Muslim Brotherhood groups, Mahboob Khan was an anti-Semite who agreed with the primary goal of the Muslim Brotherhood in America – overthrow the United States from within. The elder Khan never hid his true colors. In fact, as Paul Sperry wrote in Front Page Magazine, his son Suhail pledged to carry on his “dear father's shining legacy”. Conversely, at CPAC, Suhail denied his father's work. Yet, of all the people the Republican Party goes out of its way to distance itself from, Suhail Khan gets a pass.
GROVER NORQUIST
Then we have Grover Norquist who is perhaps the most prominent Republican to avoid accountability for his Islamist ties. Norquist is founder of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a conservative group formed at the behest of Ronald Reagan in 1985. Then, something happened circa 1998. Norquist began to be influenced by two men who would later be convicted on charges related to terrorism – Abdurahman Alamoudi and Sami Al-Arian. According to Center for Security Policy's Frank Gaffney, Alamoudi's deputy – Khaled Saffuri – co-founded an organization called the Islamic Free Market Institute (IFMI), with Norquist. In 2005, Gaffney reported that he made it known to Norquist that the ATR founder was consorting with Muslim leaders who had unseemly ties. Gaffney wrote at the time:
The idea that Norquist was unaware that he was aiding and abetting Islamists became untenable after I, among others, made known to him that his outreach effort was reaching out not to peaceable, tolerant, pro-American Muslims... but to those who are none of the above – i.e., adherents to an Islamofascist ideology and/or their sympathizers, financiers and apologists.
Less than two months after the 9/11 attacks, in a an article published by the New Republic, writer Franklin Foer wrote about how Saffuri, Norquist's co-founder at the Islamic Free Market Institute, began ushering Islamic leaders into the White House shortly after George W. Bush's inauguration nearly one year earlier with the help of none other than Suhail Khan, an administration advisor at the time whose job was to help with Muslim outreach.
Moreover, as recently as 2009, Khan was listed as a Board member of both Norquist's IFMI as well as CPAC's American Conservative Union (ACU).
In 2011, when much of the backgrounds of Khan and Norquist were available for public consumption, it was reported that Gaffney was the one who had been banned from CPAC while Khan and Norquist proudly attended.
The Republican Party's silence over such an egregious, two-pronged affront was not just deafening; it was a damning indictment of itself.
GEERT WILDERS
Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders launched his anti-Islam Party known as the Freedom Party (PVV) and has seen tremendous success. Formerly a member of the right wing, yet liberal VVD Party, Wilders broke away because VVD supported welcoming Turkey into the European Union (EU). With the passage of time, Wilders is vindicated on a near daily basis in that regard.
American politicians can learn much from Wilders' path. VVD's support for Turkey's ascension to the EU is indicative of Islamic influence on the Party. When Wilders formed the PVV Party, he eliminated that possibility by identifying his Party as being “anti-Islam”. In 2010, The Week reported that Wilders would be launching his Party in both the USA and the UK.
IN CONCLUSION...
As long as agents of the Muslim Brotherhood are able to successfully portray anyone who opposes them as racist, Islamophobic, or intolerant, Brotherhood apparatchiks will continue to make strides in much the same way that Nezar Hamze, Moon Khan, Suhail Khan, Grover Norquist, and Alwaleed bin Talal have made strides.
Conservatives will one day be faced with a decision. When that day comes, they will have to decide if the Republican Party can be sufficiently held accountable for identifying groups and individuals sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood. If it cannot, the birth of an anti-Islam, Tea Party will be in order.
Many of those who call us racist are anti-Semites, which makes them racist projectionists.
Walid Shoebat is a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood and author of For God or For Tyranny
Ben Barrack is a talk show host and author of the book, Unsung Davids
Why is Sarah Palin still scaring the Republican establishment? She's not running for anything. Why do members of that establishment feel the need to continue to go after her? The answers to those questions are that she still wields power (see Ted Cruz vs. David Dewhurst). It smacks of a case of 'thou doth protest too much.' Dick Cheney was the latest to do so, this Sunday, calling McCain's decision to select her as his running mate in 2008 a 'mistake.'
In reality, if 2008 taught us anything, it was that McCain was the mistake and the best thing he did was select Palin.
While appearing on Greta, Sarah Palin hit back at Cheney.
“Well, seeing as how Dick — excuse me, Vice President Cheney never misfires, then evidently, he’s quite convinced that what he had evidently read about me by the lamestream media having been written what I believe is a false narrative over the last four years, evidently, Dick Cheney believed that stuff, and that’s a shame,” Palin said. “So he characterized me as being a mistake.”
But Palin argued that the mistake wasn’t her selection. It would have been if she declined the nomination and pointed to her high numbers at the time of the 2008 presidential race that made her an attractive candidate.
“Here’s where the mistake would have been, Greta, I believe. It’s had I not answered the call — I was honored to get to run for vice president of the United States alongside Senator John McCain. I was honored to accept the nomination from the GOP. And I think that the mistake would have been me just deciding that, ‘Hey, I love my 86-87 percent approval rating up there in Alaska as the governor, moving and shaking and watching corrupt politicians and businessmen go to prison for crony capitalism, working on 16 to 20 percent of domestic energy supplies being able to be increased via Alaska’s resource development, ethics reform legislation that I was working on — that led to that 86 percent approval rating.”
People often forget that Palin did what the Republican establishment, which refers to her as things like a 'mistake' or unqualified, consistently prove incapable of doing - holding themselves and others accountable. In that regard, Palin was more qualified than McCain - in 2008. At minimum, she almost dragged McCain across the finish line despite his apparent unwillingness to cross it.
There are several reasons why the establishment resents the Tea Party. The former has a few secrets it doesn't want the latter to have access to. Sarah Palin - along with the candidates she continues to endorse and help win - represents forces that are demanding accountability from an establishment that doesn't like those forces and individuals on its heels.
It was supposed to be Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst's 'turn' in the Senate. Backed by Rick Perry and the Republican establishment, Dewhurst won a plurality of the vote in the primary but Ted Cruz was able to force a runoff two months later. That runoff was yesterday and the establishment lost.
Defying all early expectations and upending long-standing conventional wisdom in Texas Republican politics, former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz handily won the Republican runoff for an open U.S. Senate seat Tuesday night.
He moves on to the general election against former state Rep. Paul Sadler, who defeated retired educator Grady Yarbrough in the Democratic runoff.
Cruz defeated Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst after a lengthy, contentious political battle in which Cruz painted a longtime statewide elected official backed by Gov. Rick Perry as a moderate.
“Tonight is a victory for the grass roots,” Cruz said Tuesday night. “It is a testament to Republican women, to Tea Party leaders and to grass-roots conservatives.”
In a short concession speech, Dewhurst said he was proud of the race he had run.
“We got beat up a little bit, but we never gave up,” Dewhurst said. “And we stand tall in knowing that we never compromised any of our values.”
Then, in a classic case of projection, Sadler actually attempted to charge that the Republican Party had been 'hijacked' and that he would seek to recruit Dewhurst supporters.
In a statement, Sadler made clear that he will fight for Dewhurst’s supporters ahead of the Nov. 6 general election.
“Tonight, I stand alone as the only nominee of a major political party in Texas because the Texas Republican Party has been hijacked by the Tea Party,” Sadler said in a statement.
Uh, not so much, Mr. Sadler. The Tea Party is desperately trying to bring the Republican Party back from the abyss and it is YOUR party that has been hijacked - by Communists.
Then again, commies lie.
Here's a montage of the campaign between Cruz and Dewhurst. Make no mistake. If Cruz defeats Sadler in November, he will be a MAJOR upgrade to Kay Bailey Hutchison. To be fair, Dewhurst would have been as well.
One last point. Many of Dewhurst's problems stemmed from the Kabuki theater that took place during last year's special legislative session. It was obvious that the establishment in both the State House and Senate, which Dewhurst led, didn't want to pass the tough Sanctuary Cities Bill or the TSA anti-groping bill (brought up by Cruz in the video below). House Speaker Joe Straus and Dewhurst attempted to point fingers at the other house.
Each should have been held solely responsible, not just equally responsible, for not getting those bills passed. Last night, Dewhurst was held accountable, in part, for his Special Session performance.
Just some comments before I get to the video of Dick Cheney telling Americans that McCain's decision to name Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008 was a 'mistake.'
On today's program, I looked at the string of head-scratching incidents relative to the Bush administration's refusal to deal with the Islamic threat to the United States by the likes of Al-Qaeda Godfather Abdullah Omar Naseef. If you've ever wondered about the root causes of the animosity for the Tea Party that exists within the Republican establishment, the intelligence available to the Bush administration both before and after 9/11 about the perpetrators of 9/11 is something the establishment doesn't want Tea Partiers like Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann getting too close to.
Naseef had distinct ties to the Saudi Arabian government; he was named in a civil lawsuit in 2004 by the families of 9/11's victims. However, he wasn't identified by the Bush administration as a target of American ire after 9/11, which he definitely should have been. Here is what Andrew McCarthy had to say about Naseef's history of escaping U.S. accountability relative to his ties to al-Qaeda:
…in 2004, he was named as a defendant in the civil case brought by victims of the 9/11 atrocities. (In 2010, a federal court dropped him from the suit — not because he was found uninvolved, but because a judge reasoned the American court lacked personal jurisdiction over him.)
The questions I posed were simple: Why was Naseef merely relegated to being a defendant in a civil case? Why wasn't he targeted by the Bush Administration? Why wasn't he prosecuted by Bush's Justice Department like, say, Abdurahman Alamoudi, who had been a State Department employee during the Clinton administration? In October of 2003, Alamoudi was arrested and ultimately convicted of financing terrorism.
If Alamoudi's background was given even a cursory look, it would have become obvious that Naseef was a bigger fish the administration should have been very interested in; it wasn't. Naseef skated and the threats posed by him and his underlings to America are graver than they've ever been. There was the reality of Bush granting access to Alamoudi despite big red flags. Here's a photo of Alamoudi standing with George W. Bush, circa 2000.
Presidential candidate George W. Bush and his political adviser Karl Rove meet with Muslim activist Abdurahman Alamoudi. The meeting is said to have been brokered by Republican lobbyist Grover Norquist. Little is known about the meeting, which will not be reported until 2007. At the time, Alamoudi is head of the American Muslim Council (AMC), which is seen as a mainstream activist and lobbying group. But Alamoudi and the AMC had been previously criticized for their ties to Hamas and other militant groups and figures (see March 13, 1996). Bush and/or Rove will meet with Alamoudi on other occasions (see (see July 2000, June 22, 2001, September 14-26, 2001). US intelligence learned of ties between Alamoudi and bin Laden in 1994 (see Shortly After March 1994); he will be sentenced to a long prison term in 2004 (see October 15, 2004).
Then, of course, there was Bush's decision to stand with CAIR six days after 9/11, at a mosque:
In 2002, a terrorist entity known as the SAAR Network was targeted by U.S. authorities. Both Naseef and Alamoudi were connected to SAAR (Alamoudi was an executive assistant). Yet, despite all of the evidence required to convict Alamoudi, we're to believe that the Justice Department just overlooked Naseef?!
Hardly.
Alamoudi wasn't the only terrorist who was given access to Bush. Sami al-Arian was another, via History Commons:
Sami al-Arian attends a meeting in the White House complex with President Bush’s adviser Karl Rove. Al-Arian is one of 160 members of the American Muslim Council who are briefed on political matters by Rove and others. Al-Arian had been under investigation for at least six years by this time, and numerous media accounts reported that US investigators suggested al-Arian had ties to US-designated terrorist groups. Yet al-Arian passes the Secret Service’s stringent security check, enabling him to attend the meeting.
NEWSWEEK, 7/16/2001; WASHINGTON POST, 2/22/2003] “A law-enforcement official… [said] the Secret Service had flagged al-Arian as a potential terrorist prior to the event,” Newsweek later reports. “But White House aides, apparently reluctant to create an incident, let him through anyway.” [NEWSWEEK, 3/3/2003] In 2005, al-Arian will be found innocent of serious terrorism charges, but sentenced to almost three years in a US prison on lesser charges (see December 6, 2005). Abduraham Alamoudi is also at the meeting. US intelligence have suspected Alamoudi of ties to bin Laden and Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman since 1994 (see Shortly After March 1994). Rove and Bush met with Alamoudi in 1999 and 2000 as well (see 1999 and July 2000). Alamoudi will later be sentenced to 23 years in a US prison for illegal dealings with Libya (see October 15, 2004). [WASHINGTON POST, 2/22/2003]
Here's a photo of Alamoudi (far left), George W. Bush (center), and Karl Rove (far right):
So what does all this have to do with Dick Cheney telling ABC News that selecting Sarah Palin as the VP running mate in 2008 was a mistake? It's anecdotal as much as anything. The Republican establishment in general and the Bush administration in particular messed up in a major way by not going after the government of Saudi Arabia after 9/11. Any serious attempt to find out the truth would have led to Abdullah Omar Naseef - an al-Qaeda leader who was connected to the Saudi government.
We're left to conclude that the establishment will fight tooth and nail to prevent the truth about what it did (and failed to do) both before and after 9/11. Until these people come clean and 'fess up, America will be placed in ever increasing danger.
When the establishment relinquishes power within the GOP, the Tea Party movement will not only seize it but will finally have access to all of the intelligence about how the establishment so roundly miscalculated; that establishment will do all it can to prevent that from happening.
Take a look at what Cheney said today, when viewed within that context:
Of course, if you remember being taken aback by what Barbara Bush said about Sarah Palin back in 2010, maybe we're getting closer to understanding why. Perhaps it has something to do with the threat to the establishment of the group Palin represents. That threat very well could be the truth about our flawed post-9/11 strategy being revealed:
**UPDATE** In light of this angle, I thought it relevant that Liz Cheney would tweet in disagreement with her father about Palin:
What set the liberal Joe Scarborough off in this rant was the notion that conservative bloggers think Jeb Bush is a RINO after learning that Jeb said Reagan 'would have a hard time' in today's Republican Party because of the demands of its conservative base and its alleged unwillingness to compromise with the other side.
Of course, lost on folks like Jeb Bush is that the Democratic Party of today is far, far left of the Democratic Party of Reagan's time and the Republican Party - until the rise of the Tea Party - had gone much further left as well. We now know that Barack Obama lied about being a registered member of a Socialist Party (New Party).
As for compromise, perhaps someone should direct Jeb to the first two years of the Obama administration. Does the $787 Billion Stimulus or Obamacare ring a bell?
Anyway, here is Scarborough taking his liberal indignation up a notch, ripping conservative bloggers and telling anyone who thinks Jeb is a RINO to 'shut the hell up.' Lost on Scarborough is the fact that unlike him, we conservative bloggers aren't beholden to MSNBC Brass the propaganda arm of the Obama administration and don't sit next to a far left socialist (Mika) for several hours every day.
Before you watch the clip, keep this quote in mind (often attributed to Ghandi but origin unknown):
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they ridicule you, then you win.
Take heart, conservative bloggers. Joe Scarborough is in the ridicule stage. You're almost there.
36-year Indiana Senator Richard Lugar (RINO), one of the most liberal Republicans in the Senate (take your pick between him, Graham, and McCain) lost his primary to the Tea Party-backed Richard Mourdock. The argument for Lugar - made by the same establishment that wants Mitt Romney to be president - is that he knows how to compromise, which is exactly why the Tea Party wants him out.
Establishment types should also check their loyalties on another front. They're not the only ones upset at Lugar's loss. So is one of the Senate's most liberal Democrats - John Kerry, who is calling Lugar's loss a "tragedy."
This is a tragedy for the Senate and the loss is particularly felt by all of us who have been privileged to serve with Dick on the Foreign Relations Committee,” Kerry said. “It’s a blow to the institution during a period when the institution itself has been strained. Whether he was serving as Chairman or Ranking Member of our Committee, wielding the gavel or working the floor, Dick’s approach to governing was always the same: he wanted to find serious answers to some of foreign policy’s most vexing questions. He’s a class act and a gentleman and in a Senate that has seen so much change and transition these last years, his expertise on complicated issues honed over 36 years simply can’t be replicated.
If you're ever called a "class act" by John Kerry, it's time to question whether you've crossed the rubicon into the abyss.
Here's another excerpt from Kerry's insane screed:
It will soon almost sound cliched to say that America is safer today because of Dick Lugar’s 36 years of service in the Senate, but it really does bear repeating.
My latest column at Red County is posted. Basically, the fact that Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are the only two Republican nominees whose names will appear on the Virginia ballot got me thinking a little bit about a brokered convention. Yeah, I know the odds are long but if the Tea Party's energy was harnessed in 2012 like it was in 2010, there might be a way to proactively work toward a scenario through voting but it would take a level of coordination the Tea Party hasn't shown to be capable of yet.
Operation Tea Party Chaos
The Tea Party needs another Rick Santelli moment. Part of the reason for its collective apathy is that no one currently in the Republican field inspires it. Voting for the best option in a field where none of the candidates meet the standard is hardly energizing. The Tea Party needs something to strive for, an objective, a way to select its nominee of choice.
One way to do that would be to use Ron Paul mania to its advantage and cast their votes with one goal in mind:
A brokered convention.
For example, the only two Republican candidates who will be on the ballot in Virginia are Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. All others failed to get the required number of signatures. Whether you're a Gingrich supporter or a disenfranchised Tea Partier who calls Virginia home, it might be in your best interest to cast your vote for Paul, which would take delegates away from Romney.
National Review's Brian Bolduc laid out a scenario in which a brokered convention could result; he did so before it was learned that Paul and Romney would be the only two candidates on the Virginia ballot. That scenario involves a three-man race. Those three men are Gingrich, Romney, and Paul.
As Bolduc points out, there are 2286 total delegates up for grabs in the primaries. The total needed for any candidate to secure the nomination is 1144. Under the Bolduc scenario, Romney would win the majority of delegates but fail to win the amount necessary to secure the nomination. Paul comes in third, far behind Gingrich, who loses to Romney but not by much.
If, as some forecast, Santorum, Bachmann, and Huntsman all drop out, many of their votes are likely to go to Gingrich since the vast majority of them reject Romney's establishment credentials and haven't drunk the Ron Paul Kool-aid. However, a significant percentage of those voters could very well decide to vote for Romney because of the sheer volume of warts that have come with Newt's political schizophrenia.
This is where the Tea Party needs to get strategic by taking a page out of Rush Limbaugh's playbook.
Yes, it will be like herding cats and it will be somewhat risky but if the Tea Party groups can find a way to coalesce around a common cause that demands a brokered convention, conservative voters can cast their primary votes not based on the lesser of three evils but on ensuring that none of them wins.
In most cases, that will involve a vote for Ron Paul, assuming Bolduc is right about Paul's level of support, but it will also involve consistent monitoring as various primaries take place. That needs to be the job of Tea Party leaders and it will also require them all to put aside their differences. If the border collies can't work together, cat herding becomes exponentially more difficult.
The odds of a brokered convention are so long, that nearly everyone concedes such talk is reserved only for political junkies. However, those odds can be shortened drastically with a concerted effort by Tea Party leaders to generate the momentum necessary to implement such a strategy. In essence, the Tea Party needs to be proactive in addition to being simply prayerful.
One of the Tea Party themes has been to “take America back.” None of the current Republican Party candidates allow them to do that, which is why Tea Party leaders need to start thinking outside the ballot box and start working together for a common cause.
Besides, wouldn't the nomination of someone like Jim DeMint or Sarah Palin be worth it to the Tea Party?
It would also be deliciously ironic to watch poetic justice be administered through chaos.
Imagine you're a Tea Party organizer and in your dealings with the city, you follow all of the legal requirements for your rally. You pay for permits, security expenses, sanitation / toilets, etc. Then imagine watching OWS come to town, set up camp, and not have to pay for any of those things while placing a far greater burden on the city. Then, out of fairness, you decide to send the city an invoice for all of the things your group paid for but OWS did not.
Instead of a check, you receive a letter from the city informing you that you're being audited.
Two weeks after the Richmond Tea Party delivered an invoice to Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones for costs incurred for previous rallies; we received a letter from the City of Richmond formally stating that the city is auditing our Tea Party. Coincidence? This audit is an obvious attempt to intimidate and harass us for standing up against the unfair treatment and discrimination against our Tea Party.
First some back story: As reported on the front page of the Richmond Times Dispatch, the Richmond Tea Party delivered an invoice for charges incurred in our previous three Tax Day rallies at Kanawha Plaza because Mayor Jones chose to allow Occupy Richmond protesters to convene in the same park for two weeks.
The Mayor not only allowed the Occupiers to break the law, but he visited them in the city-owned park. “Jones said that as a ‘child of civil rights’ and protests, he had allowed the group to remain in the park but understands his mayoral responsibility to uphold laws of the city,” reported the Richmond Times Dispatch.
Apparently his mayoral duties included preferential treatment for a group he sympathizes with ideologically at the expense of the taxpayers.
The blog Virginia Right reported that the city provided services such as portable toilets, trash pickup etc. The incomplete invoices obtained from the city totaled $7,000. This was only a portion of the actual costs to taxpayers because the costs of police, helicopter and incarcerations were not included. Also not accounted for was the 24-hour police protection of the Mayor’s home after the Occupiers moved their camp next door to the Mayor’s house. The Richmond Tea Party, conversely, paid for all services for our rallies, including the police, portable toilets, park fees and permits, amounting to approximately $8,500.
Instead of seeing that the Tea Party was right, the Department of Finance doubled down on stupid and sent the Tea Party a letter notifying them of an audit.
How many OWS miscreants must rear their heads before it becomes patently obvious to more than about 40% of Americans that this movement is full of miscreants? In this case, Nathan Shafer, an OWS sympathizer, threatened to murder South Carolina Governor and Tea Party favorite Nikki Haley on facebook. I keep coming back to the exchange between Piers Morgan and Gabrielle Giffords' husband Mark Kelly, in which the host brought up Sarah Palin as some sort of irresponsible accomplice to the Giffords shooting, despite the Alaska governor having NO connection to that shooting.
Moreover, the shooter, Loughner, was apolitical at best, a crazed leftist at worst.
Contrast that with Shafer, who is obviously political - he is an OWS sympathizer - threatening the life of the South Carolina governor. Wouldn't you like to ask both Kelly and Morgan who's responsible for Shafer's rage?
With each passing day that the #Occupy Wall Street protests remain in place, violence seems to escalate and any comparison to the Tea Party is increasingly and grossly misplaced. There have been countless numbers of arrests (over 4000 at last count), there have been rapes, assaults, vandalism, theft, millions of dollars in damage, and now two shooting deaths. We're long past the point when any responsible politician or leader should express support for this movement. Perhaps some grace could be extended to some who showed support early on but now?
Colin Powell was interviewed by Piers Morgan and referred to the #Occupy protests as being as 'American as apple pie.' Though he was somewhat effective in his word smithing, Powell sounds almost exactly like Barack Obama in this exchange. Again, it is inexplicable for people of Powell's stature - who is a Republican, no less - to not see this movement for what it is. He comes across as a left wing statist who wants to give a derelict movement legitimacy. He does absolutely NOTHING here to squelch class warfare. After the video, have a look at what Powell had to say about the Tea Party one year ago.
Here is a great find by Hapblog, who points out that Powell didn't seem to care much for the Tea Party in 2010. Check out what Powell said then:
[And the tea party movement] doesn't become a real force until it's — until it starts to talk to the issues. You can't just have slogans. You can't just have catchy phrases. You have to have an agenda." —Republican and former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Meet the Press this morning.
I'm sorry but I have more respect for a Marxist with a "D" next to his name than a socialist like Powell who deceives people by putting an "R" next to his.
Military service and rhetorical mastery aside, Powell's stance on the Tea Party in 2010 vs. his stance on OWS in 2011 should tell you everything you need to know about who he really is.
I think it's safe to say that the City of Atlanta is leading the field when it comes to municipalities in the running for exhibiting the biggest double standard at this point. To set this up, know that Matthew Perdie is a Tea Partier who, in 2010, walked across the entire country while carrying his American flag. This month, Perdie was walking with fellow Tea Partiers in Atlanta while the lawless Occupy Atlanta protesters were doing their thing. Watch as Atlanta Capitol Police tell Perdie that he must either part with his flag pole or leave the city. Then watch as the camera captures the wide array of Occupy Atlanta poles hoisted into the air.
Note that in the video, Atlanta mayor Mohammed Kasim Reed makes an appearance and defends the Occupy Atlanta protesters. It's interesting to note that Reed's first name is Mohammad, according the Super Lawyers website from 2005. It appears that Reed attends the Cascade United Methodist church but he readily admits that his father toyed with the idea of converting to Islam. He also seems to be supported by the Muslim community.
Not saying that Reed is a Muslim. There is no evidence of that - besides his name - but he is certainly aligned with the far left. His alliance with OWS is shared with the American Nazi Party, the Communist Party USA, and CAIR (Muslim Brotherhood).
Reed's role in the egregiously disparate treatment levied against the OWS protesters and the Tea Party respectively is unclear but as mayor of Atlanta, he's got far more power than anyone else to address the problem.
I hope Ann Coulter caught this one. Oh, how the mighty New Jersey governor has fallen. It seemed like just yesterday that Glenn Beck was referring to his rants against unions as 'porn.' Since then, Christie has devolved into a moral equivalency pit; his moderate side is on display for everyone to see. The latest example is his equating the Tea Party with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) crowd. While he's at it, he tries to rise above the fray by saying both parties are at fault in Congress for not working together. The truth is that the Democratic Party is being run by full-fledged Marxists that the Republican Party can only defeat if the Tea Party holds its feet to the fire.
Christie's premise appears to be that both sides are legitimately angry because government is broken but that both sides are demanding different solutions. That's a line of thinking that says it takes two to tango whenever there is conflict. The problem is that it's flat-out wrong and Christie should be ashamed of himself. The Tea Party is sick of freeloaders and wants the government to stop subsidizing that lifestyle while piling on unsustainable amounts of debt; it wants more personal accountability and less government. OWS is made up of freeloaders who want even less personal accountability; they want the government to steal from the private sector and re-distribute the wealth. What Christie says here is the equivalent of saying Capitalists and Communists both have legitimate beefs. It's despicable and I could do an entire post listing adjectives to describe Christie's insane position.
I wonder if politicians like Christie have to convince themselves to believe this garbage to actually sleep at night. This is shameless, via Washington Examiner:
The Tea Party is orderly, non-violent, cleans up after itself, and has demonstrated time and time again to be law-abiding. The poster child for the OWS protesters is a middle-aged man defecating on a police car; the group stinks and has the backing of the Communist Party USA and the American Nazi Party. Here are two anecdotal examples of the difference between the Tea Party and OWS.
At the Occupy Wall Street protest in Seattle, a man was arrested for exposing himself to children at least five times. At the OWS protest in Cleveland, a 19-year-old female claimed she was raped when another protester entered her tent.
I guess in Chris Christie's world, it takes two to tango when there is a rape. In reality, there is a rapist and a rape victim.
It's inexplicable enough to see Ann Coulter endorse Romney but Jim DeMint? Such an endorsement would be a betrayal of the Tea Party. Senator Tea Party would risk becoming Senator Benedict Arnold. The only reason any conservative would get behind Romney is that said conservative has bought the premise which says Romney is the only candidate who can beat Obama. That is the extent to which any grace should be extended to DeMint for doing so. And it's a lame reason.
Mitt Romney is the favorite to receive Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-S.C.) much-sought-after endorsement in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to knowledgeable GOP sources.
DeMint, who endorsed the former Massachusetts governor in 2008, made clear in an interview late last week that he has made no decisions on whom he will support in the 2012 primary. But Republican operatives familiar with the DeMint-Romney relationship and privy to the conservative Senator's private assessment of the GOP field believe Romney is the most likely candidate to receive the backing of the tea party favorite.
"Jim is far more likely to endorse Mitt than anyone else currently in the race," a Republican with South Carolina ties said. "Jim is a business guy and that's his background. He's not really the good ol' boy conservative type. So Mitt in a lot of ways is a more comfortable fit for him."
The first sign that endorsing Romney is a bad idea is that the mainstream media wants him to get the nod, just like it wanted John McCain to get the 2008 GOP nomination. Until McCain won the nomination, the liberal media defended him and touted him up as the best choice because he could get the independent voters.
Once McCain got the nomination, what happened? The answer is that the liberal media turned on him, and quickly. The New York Times tried to push a story that said McCain had an affair with a staffer; the media in general pushed the narrative that said four years of McCain would be like four more years of Bush; he was too old to be president and he didn't know how to operate a computer. Remember?
McCain was thrown under the bus by the media only after he won the nomination. Why, on earth, would the same liberal media not do the same to Romney? The answer is that it would. But how will they do it? They could surreptitiously attack his Mormonism by keeping it alive as an issue to debate by pitting evangelical Christians against moderates.
Last week, there was talk - though quickly denied by camp Rubio - that the chief of staff for the Tea Party favorite from Florida worked hard behind the scenes to move up Florida's primary to help Romney. Whether true or not, there is a school of thought which says the longer voters are exposed to Romney, the more support he will lose.
There's the issue of Romneycare and now it's been learned that Team Romney reached out to Obama Science czar John Holdren in 2005 for the purpose of reducing CO2 emissions in Massachusetts.
The decision to support Romney is one based in fear, a fear that says no one else can beat Obama. The fact that the liberal media is pushing Romney should cause all conservatives to check themselves before they wreck themselves (h/t Ice Cube).
This is an extremely disturbing development if true. All over the country, Republican primaries are being moved up. One such state is Florida, the home state of Tea Party favorite, Senator Marco Rubio. Florida's primary has been moved up to January 31st, from March. There has been an easily understood school of thought that says the moving up of primaries will benefit one candidate more than any other - Mitt Romney. Robert Stacy McCain is reporting that Marco Rubio's chief of staff worked hard behind the scenes to do just that.
Yet while the moderate Republican faction in Tallahassee was immediately blamed for the primary date-switch, only insiders knew that a key factor was a push from inside the staff of the Tea Party’s own 2010 hero, Sen. Marco Rubio. GOP sources in Washington and Florida say that Rubio’s senatorial chief of staff, Cesar Conda, has been a major force in persuading Florida Republicans to move their primary to January.
“Cesar used to be with Romney’s campaign,” one informed source explained to me in an interview today, adding: “Conda used his contacts to push the primary to the 31st because they want Romney in.”
Conda’s loyalty to Romney was highlighted in a Politico story by Scott Wong last week: “At least six past and current Rubio Senate aides, including chief of staff Cesar Conda and his deputy, Terry Sullivan, worked for Romney’s 2008 presidential bid, establishing a direct link and a line of communication between the front-runner for the 2012 GOP nomination and the front-runner in the Republican veepstakes. There’s also a trail of fundraisers, donors and consultants who have overlapping relationships with Rubio and Romney.”
If this is true, Rubio will have quite a mess on his hands and be reduced to having two choices. 1.) Conda is relieved of his duties or 2.) Conda remains on board and Rubio risks being branded a Tea Party Benedict Arnold.
The other person to watch is Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) who is not only known as Senator Tea Party but went to the wall in order to make sure Rubio got elected.
McCain also explains the rationale behind Rubio's guys aggressively benefiting Romney with these shady tactics:
Some have speculated that, by delivering Florida for Romney, Conda would not only help Romney lock up the 2012 presidential nomination, but also secure the 2012 vice-presidential pick for Rubio.
Some may say this is just politics as normal but Rubio has been the quintessential poster child for a movement that at its core, rejects this type of thing.
If true, see which one of these two represents Marco Rubio:
As the Occupy Wall Street bums begin to run out of gas - largely because they can't clean up after themselves (let alone clean themselves) - 1960's radical icon Frances Fox Piven ran into a bit of a Tea Party buzz saw at one of the least likely places - a college campus. Symbolically, this is quite significant. The Obama administration seems to be following the Cloward-Piven strategy to a tee. In essence, anarchy is created by overwhelming the entitlement system with obligations it cannot meet. Here, Piven whips out the race card while referring to the Tea Party at Messiah College. Unfortunately for Piven, she wasn't expecting to hear a Tea Party rebuke from the audience.
Remember, when applying the Alinsky model, it is imperative that participants enjoy what they're doing, that opponents are sufficiently bullied into submission. When this doesn't happen, the model breaks down. That's what makes this so significant. In the context of this exchange, it may not mean much. In the bigger picture, however, Piven is a virtual icon of the left wing movement today. This was an extremely significant occurrence in that respect. Fireworks start at the 1:30 mark when Piven says the Tea Party didn't like the idea of a 'black president.'
This set up a question from someone in the audience in which Piven was asked to explain the rise of Herman Cain in light of her premise that the Tea Party has a problem with the idea of a black president. In typical heads-I-win-tails-you-lose fashion, Piven asserts that Cain 'dilutes the suspicion.' Translation: Herman Cain's rise is a Tea Party conspiracy. Note, however, that Piven modulates her position a bit when pressed:
Piven then comes full circle and gives the Tea Party legitimacy as a movement while asserting that she hopes it's not the 'only important movement in American society.' This is significant because it reveals a sense of doubt that the left may not have an answer for the Tea Party. Days later, the Occupy Wall Street movement appears to be winding down.
