After three election cycles and more than four and half years, grassroots conservatives have grown tired of waiting for
Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)35% to pass the conservative agenda he’s repeatedly promised.
Time and time again, Boehner has failed to provide a vision or use the robust majority in the U.S. House—which conservatives provided him—to advance our policies. Instead, Speaker Boehner has allowed President Obama to set the debate, set the terms, and summarily clean our clocks. Meekly, Boehner drifts along aimlessly and legislates by cliff and crisis, instead of bringing forward an optimistic agenda of bold colors that the American people crave.
It looks as though his empty promises and inaction may be catching up to him. Citizens United recently surveyed a cross-section of our members nationwide about congressional approval and whether their member of Congress should vote to re-elect John Boehner as Speaker of the House. Of the 4,025 polled, less than 6 percent would want their Representative to re-elect Boehner as House Speaker if the election were held today. Grassroots conservatives are through being patient with John Boehner.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a blistering floor speech Friday accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) of lying to him over a deal to vote on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank.
“Today is a sad day for this institution,” said Cruz, who is running for president. “What we just witnessed this morning is profoundly disappointing.”
The Texas Republican’s remarks come after McConnell set up a procedural vote on Sunday to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, which saw its charter expire last month. Democrats have said McConnell agreed to allow a vote on attaching Ex-Im to “must-pass” legislation to win support from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) for a trade package earlier this year.
On the floor, Cruz said McConnell in a private conversation denied to him that there was such a deal.
“The majority leader was visibly angry with me that I would ask him such a question,” Cruz said. “The majority looked at me and said ‘there is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal.'”
The Texas Republican said his staff at the time told him that McConnell is “lying to you,” but Cruz suggested that he took the Republican leader at his word.
“What I told my staff that afternoon, I said, well I don’t know if that’s the case or not. But I don’t see how when the majority leader looks me in the eyes and makes an explicit promise,” he added. “I don’t see how I cannot take him at his word.”
The percentage of those with favorable views of the Republican Party has dropped across the board since early this year, including sharply among Republicans, a Pew Research Center pollsays.
Fewer than a third of Americans, 32 percent, have a favorable impression of the GOP, a 9-point drop in the poll since January. Pew’s survey finds that 60 percent have an unfavorable view.
Positive views of the Republican Party have fallen 18 points since January among those who identify as Republican, from 86 to 68 percent.
It has also fallen 8 points among Independents since then, from 37 to 29 percent.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party’s ratings are closer — 48 percent favorable to 47 percent unfavorable — and Democrats’ views on their party have remained steady, 86 percent favorable, during the GOP’s dip.
Pew’s latest poll was conducted early last week amid a nascent 2016 presidential race that has been dominated in the media by businessman Donald Trump since he launched a White House bid in mid-June.
Scott Garrett defends handling of funds, won’t say if stance on gays played role
JULY 22, 2015, 11:24 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2015, 11:29 PM
BY HERB JACKSON
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT |
THE RECORD
Rep. Scott Garrett broke a silence he’s maintained for nearly a week and said Wednesday that he is refusing to support the House Republicans’ main campaign fund because of a series of disagreements with the leadership of Speaker John Boehner.
Garrett, however, would not discuss a media report that he told colleagues one of his reasons for the dispute was that the campaign fund had supported gay candidates.
That report led to condemnation from Democrats and gay rights advocates, and criticism from a few Republicans aimed at Garrett, R-Wantage, one of the most conservative members of the House and chairman of a powerful subcommittee that regulates the finance industry.
At issue was campaign money, and whether Garrett, who had more than $2.2 million in his campaign account as of June 30, would be sharing some of what he raises with the party so it could elect Republican candidates. In part because of his subcommittee chairmanship, Garrett has raised nearly $1 million in each of the last two election cycles from people and committees tied to finance, insurance or real estate businesses.
Interviewed as he went from his office in the Rayburn Office Building to the House floor in the Capitol for a vote Wednesday night, Garrett said he had a history of voting against the party line.
Garrett, 56, now in his seventh term, mentioned his opposition to Boehner’s reelection as speaker in January and his opposition to an important rule in June that set up votes on a trade package that was a top priority of President Obama.
“You know how I voted for the speaker. You know how I voted on the rule. You know how I’ve not always supported leadership. You know that I don’t necessarily support all the things they do. So it’s somehow a surprise to you that I don’t necessarily support where they spend their money?” Garrett said.
SAVAGE: America’s real enemies are the fake Republicans
by MICHAEL SAVAGE
In today’s issue: A caller told Dr. Savage that his program used to seem more optimistic. Now, the caller said, he doesn’t think Savage holds out much hope that America can be saved from the liberals. Savage replied that in many ways, liberals aren’t the biggest enemy any longer.
“The number one reason we lost is because of traitors in the Republican Party,” Savage told his audience.
They inveigled us into believing that they would listen to the people.
There’s a new poll out on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-=Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) approval ratings. Hint: Things are not going well.
Boehner has a 36 percent approval rating while McConnell sits at an all-time low of 35 percent.
It’s easy to see why: these two men are responsible for one GOP failure after another to deliver on its promises.
Conservatives have long argued that Boehner and McConnell needed to lead on conservative issues. But both have led—in Democrats’ direction.
So much so, in fact, that one wonders whether the country’s top two GOP leaders have been in cahoots with President Obama the entire time.
It’s time to stop trying to salvage these two. It’s time for them to go.
Let’s look at just the last few weeks.
It is well established that Boehner and McConnell spent 2014 promising they would do everything they could to get rid of Obamacare, if voters returned both chambers of Congress to the GOP.
Now that Republicans control Congress, each time an opportunity has risen for GOP leadership to stop Obamacare they have backed down. Worse, Boehner and McConnell’s preferred strategy of punting Obamacare to the Supreme Court backfired, again, in spectacular fashion.
When the 5-4 decision declaring gay marriage a right across the country came down, conservatives everywhere blasted the court’s overreach. Even Chief Justice John Roberts, who has been of little use to conservatives, made it explicitly clear that the decision was not constitutional.
But Boehner and McConnell made it perfectly clear that they wouldn’t do anything to challenge the decision and it would not be a priority for the Republican Congress.
The Left has already announced its intentions to challenge religious institutions’ tax status, including Catholic schools and Catholic hospitals. You might think Boehner, who is a Catholic, might show a little concern for religious liberty.
On one of the most important court decisions of our time where religious liberty could be threatened—where are our Republican leaders?
Filling the leadership void are Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Ida.), who have introduced religious liberty bills that would protect Christians, Jews, Muslims and other Americans of faith who reject the court’s decision.
Why isn’t McConnell out front with Lee’s bill? Why isn’t Boehner promoting Labrador’s legislation? Both of these bills should’ve been on the floor of each chamber on Friday, June 26, at 10:01 a.m., one minute after the Supreme Court announced its decision.
The White House gave Boehner and the GOP the middle finger when it was announced that Lois Lerner’s hard drive was destroyed. The only way to get the IRS to jump to attention now is for Congress to levy its power of the purse to close the bank window to that office. That is the role of the U.S. House of Representatives and Boehner is abdicating it.
The Benghazi drama continued in the Senate last month where there are still far too many questions and little to no satisfactory answers. Where is the leadership from McConnell in making sure the Obama Administration is held accountable for this massive intelligence failure? Imagine how Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would be acting if this kind of tragedy had occurred under a Republican president?
Hillary Clinton stands to lose the most from Americans finding out the entire truth about what went down in this tragedy. You might expect a Republican to think this was important.
When Trade Promotion Authority was passed, Republican leadership could have at least tried to get something for conservatives out of the deal from the White House—but Boehner and McConnell never asked, or thought to ask, and predictably got nothing.
With these two in charge, conservatives never get anything.
“Today’s Trade Promotion Authority bill doesn’t do enough to ensure proper congressional oversight of future trade deals, strengthen middle class New Jersey families, or protect American jobs; and therefore I could not support it. Trade requires trust, and many New Jerseyans find it difficult to trust a White House that gave us unconstitutional amnesty, maintained the broken tax code, and implemented a massive government takeover of our health care system. While I believe there is a path to trade agreements that strengthen our country and protect American jobs, today’s bill falls short of the mark.”
Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) issued the above statement after he voted against the Trade Promotion Authority bill:
Garrett was target of crackdown by House Speaker Boehner, report says
JUNE 25, 2015, 5:16 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2015, 5:21 PM
BY HERB JACKSON
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT |
THE RECORD
Rep. Scott Garrett’s penchant for bucking the Republican House leadership and voting his own way almost cost him his chairmanship of a House subcommittee, according to a report by Politico.
But Garrett told The Record he hasn’t been approached about his voting by either Speaker John Boehner or Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee. But he also went out of his way to mention he was pleased another conservative who did lose his chairmanship got it back on Thursday.
Politico reported Wednesday night that Garrett was one of the targets of a crackdown Boehner had begun on on conservatives who oppose the party on major legislation, especially those in privileged spots as subcommittee chairmen.
Prefering to handle discipline through committee chairmen, Boehner had House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy approach Hensarling, and he vouched for Garrett, Politico said.
The Star-Ledger hit a new low of innuendo and guilt-by-association smear tactics in editorially trying to link racists to the Republican Party. You get an A+ in McCarthyism and dirty tricks, but an F in integrity and respect for any point of view other than your own.The editorial’s not-so subliminal message is that Republicans who disagree with the paper’s editorial board or President Obama on policy do so for racially-motivated reasons.
Why not consider that maybe, just maybe, those who disagree do so because the policies are horrible, not in the national interest and complete failures?
Despite the insistence of some, it’s not a tautology that considering Obamacare a waste of money and a failure is racist. Wanting to secure our borders and control who comes into the country isn’t ipso facto bigotry. And maybe those of us who don’t want to see Medicaid expanded believe it’s too expensive and fiscally irresponsible.
Small and insecure thinking slaps the race card to cripple what should be legitimate debate.To paraphrase the words of attorney Joseph Welch in 1954 when he rebuked McCarthy: “You’ve done enough, Star-Ledger. Have you no sense of decency, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
RUTHERFORD – The contested Republican mayoral primary in Rutherford offers voters in the Bergen County borough an interesting choice.
Incumbent Mayor Joe DeSalvo, 47, an electrician by trade, a council member since 2009 and mayor since 2012, is facing off on June 2 for the GOP nomination against attorney Daphne Williams-Fox, 52. (Bonamo/PolitickerNJ)
Rep. Garrett urges Congress to let the Ex-Im Bank expire at a press conference on Tuesday morning
Garrett Pushes to End Crony Capitalism and Shut Down Export-Import Bank
Garrett: Congress Should Put the Export-Import Bank Out of Business
May 27, 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) issued the following statement after joining fellow members of the House Freedom Caucus and other concerned lawmakers at a press conference this morning to urge Congress to let the Export-Import Bank expire on June 30:
“It’s hard to imagine anything more unfair and un-American than having the government financially support mega-corporations at the expense of small businesses and American workers. But that is exactly what has been happening, and it will continue to happen if we don’t let the Export-Import Bank expire next month. It rewards those with close relationships with Washington bureaucrats and makes victims of startups that dare to compete against them—literally picking winners and losers in our economy.
“Ex-Im has transformed the role of government from a disinterested referee that guarantees a free and open marketplace into a biased actor that tilts the scales in favor of its friends in businesses. We have the opportunity to save capitalism from cronyism and to fulfill a promise to the American people to work for them instead of a select few with special connections in Washington. For the sake of the American taxpayer and the preservation of the free enterprise system, Congress should put the Export-Import Bank out of business.”
NEW YORK CITY – State Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi (R-39) successfully underwent surgery at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in New York City on Tuesday to fix a brain aneurysm and is doing well, according to her family. (Bonamo/PolitickerNJ)
Republican donors are counting on the 21-year-old to energize voters.
Charlie Kirk was just about to leave the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa when he spotted the multimillionaire investor Foster Friess in a stairwell. Kirk, who was 18 and fresh out of high school, had spent weeks memorizing the names and faces of the top 25 Republican political donors in case he found himself in just such a situation. He grabbed Friess into a handshake, took a nervous breath, and began his elevator pitch. Instead of going to college, he wanted to start a grass-roots organization to rival liberal groups such as MoveOn.org, which offer Democratic candidates a standing army of volunteer activists. All he needed, Kirk told Friess, was cash. Friess, who’d just blown $2.1 million on a failed quest to help Rick Santorum win the GOP presidential nomination, handed over his business card. Three weeks later, Kirk had a five-figure check. “He impressed me with his capacity to lead, intelligence, and love for America,” Friess says. “I instantly knew I wanted to support him.”
In the three years since, Kirk—who still sleeps in his childhood bedroom in Wheeling, Ill.—has built his organization, Turning Point USA, into the go-to group for reaching young conservatives. It has a presence on 800 college campuses, where fieldworkers hand out posters and collect e-mail addresses. At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February, the group hosted an event featuring Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, who have each since announced they’re running for president. On May 8, Paul was scheduled to speak at a Turning Point rally at Arizona State University, and Carly Fiorina is on deck to speak in June at a Turning Point conference for women in Chicago. Kirk says he’s met candidate Marco Rubio and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who is considering a presidential run.
After giving a version of his stump speech to a mostly gray-haired crowd in Iowa, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin was pressed on Friday by two twenty-something Republicans about a percolating issue he did not mention: immigration.
Mr. Walker’s apparent hardening on immigration has inspired a flood of reporting and commentary. Most recently he told the radio host Glenn Beck that he favored restricting legal immigration in tough economic times, a position to the right of most other 2016 presidential hopefuls.
He repeated that view Friday after a speech in Cedar Rapids, when Eddie Failor, 24, expressed concern “as a young Republican” that the party must make inroads to new voter blocs, including by supporting a comprehensive overhaul of immigration.
Mr. Walker told Mr. Failor that his top priority would be securing the border. He also said he favored “making sure the legal immigration system is based on making our No. 1 priority to protect American workers and their wages.’’
Alexander Staudt, the treasurer of the University of Iowa College Republicans, also told Mr. Walker in the meet-and-greet line that he was concerned that by talking tough on immigration, Republican candidates would turn off Hispanics.
MARCH 29, 2015 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, MARCH 29, 2015, 1:20 AM
BY MARC FISHER
THE RECORD
GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz is a lightning rod for controversy, a stickler for process, an evangelist for conservative principle, a constitutional wonk in ostrich-skin cowboy boots.
Marc Fisher writes for The Washington Post.
TED CRUZ looked out over a sprawling audience of Iowa farmers and agri-business leaders, people who rely on federal subsidies of ethanol, and the man who would be president stuck it to them.
“I know you’d like me to say I’m for the renewable fuel standard” — that’s the subsidy of their product — “that’d be the easy thing to do,” he said. “But I’m going to tell you the truth.” He’d take away their subsidy, he said with a big smile.
The farmers sat on their hands.
A week earlier, in a vast ballroom at Maryland’s National Harbor, where blood-red conservatives gathered to evaluate a showcase of Republican presidential wannabes, Cruz was again the steely man of principle. He railed against Washington, slammed his opponents (“Hillary Clinton embodies the corruption of Washington”) and asked the true believers to demand of their candidates, “When have you been willing to stand up against Republicans?” The son of a Cuban man who saw what happens when freedom is stripped away swore that “I’ll die before I let it happen again.”
This time, the crowd stood as one, roaring with admiration and hope.
A ‘modern Jeremiah’
His father describes Cruz as a “modern Jeremiah,” delivering the final warning before the collapse, sending an unpopular but vital message. His Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz, calls him “off-the-charts brilliant.” Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican and unsuccessful presidential candidate, once dubbed Cruz a “wacko bird.” His own wife says Cruz’s supreme certainty had a way of being “irksome.”
It is Cruz’s ramrod devotion to principle — or, its flip side, an unyielding insistence on getting his way — that could propel him to the front ranks of Republican contenders for president or render him unelectable.
Cruz, 44, was a marvel in high school, a kid who memorized the Constitution and wowed audiences with his speaking skills. In college, he was a prodigy and a pest; the same people who avoided having dinner with him went out of their way to watch him debate. As a politician, the senator from Texas is what he’s always been — a lightning rod for controversy, a stickler for process, an evangelist for conservative principle, a constitutional wonk in ostrich-skin cowboy boots.
Those who find his newly announced presidential campaign thrilling and those who find the notion of Cruz in the White House disturbing agree that his devotion to principle reminds them of that of Barry Goldwater, the movement conservative and 1964 Republican presidential nominee who famously said “I’d rather be right than president” and got his wish.
Uncertainty
Beneath Cruz’s mesmerizing speaking style — midnight-smooth delivery, never ruffled, even as he drops lacerating lines about the evils of Obamacare (although he acknowleged he signed his family up for Obamacare last week) — and his unthreatening appearance — suits, slicked-back black hair, baby-faced complexion — how the senator would govern remains unclear. Is he a rigidly uncompromising originalist or, as Cruz argues, more like Ronald Reagan, who preached conservative populism but governed as a dealmaker?
Although his father often proudly introduces his son guaranteeing that “Ted will not compromise,” Cruz says he follows Reagan’s approach: Push for limited government, but take what you can get. Despite the popular caricature of him as inflexible, Cruz says, “If they offer you half a loaf, you take it — and then come back for more.”
