Search






Jeff's Amazon.com Wish List

Archive Calendar

November 2024
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
252627282930  

Archives

Long game: Cruz and Lee still fighting

“Cruz to House Conservatives: Oppose Boehner”:

On a Thursday conference call, a group of House conservatives consulted with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas about how to respond to the leadership’s fiscal strategy. Sources who were on the call say Cruz strongly advised them to oppose it, and hours later, Speaker John Boehner’s plan fizzled.

It’s the latest example of Cruz leading the House’s right flank.

The private call came together after Boehner unveiled his strategy at a Republican conference meeting earlier this week. Boehner’s plan — to focus on a debt-limit package, rather than a drawn-out CR battle — made many conservatives uneasy. As they mulled a response, they reached out to Cruz.

On the call, Cruz told them that Boehner was making a mistake, and urged his friends to fight until the end on the CR. The group agreed, and they complained that Boehner’s shift to the debt limit was a diversion. Senator Mike Lee of Utah joined Cruz on the call, and both senators said they’d stand with House conservatives as they opposed the leadership.

By the call’s end, there was a consensus: until the CR talks are complete, Republicans should whip “no” on Boehner’s debt-limit plan, as a way of preventing the leadership from directing the strategy. And that’s exactly what happened late Thursday afternoon: GOP whip Kevin McCarthy worked the floor, but couldn’t find the votes for Boehner’s debt-limit plan. After McCarthy reported back about the Cruz-inspired uprising, the leadership shelved it.

[…]

Leadership sources, for their part, are startled by Cruz’s attempt to shape House strategy and work against the speaker. They knew he’d oppose Boehner’s playbook, but they didn’t expect him to huddle with conservatives and ask them to ignore it. So, Cruz’s meetings have made him a key House player, but they’ve worsened his already-fraught relationship with the leadership.

We’ve reached an existential point: the fight itself is the thing, win or lose.

At least those of us who take the proper stand will be able to look at ourselves in the mirror, right before we’re given that final dose of morphine to remove us as selfish burdens to the Greater Good.

71 Replies to “Long game: Cruz and Lee still fighting”

  1. Blake says:

    I wish I could have been there to listen to McCarthy and the responses McCarthy received. I also wonder just how hard McCarthy pushed the Boehner plan.

    Somehow, I doubt Senator Cruz much cares about his relationship with the GOP good ole’ boy club.

  2. Squid says:

    “So you’re saying that I’m unpopular with a handful of guys who are consistently in the low teens on popularity polls? Gee, that’s a shame…”

  3. sdferr says:

    How come these fellas Lee, Cruz, Paul et al didn’t learn the first principle of the Republican formation of a fighting strategy: “Take the enemy’s aims and adopt them as your own”? Where did their parents go wrong?

  4. leigh says:

    Heh. Reading the Federalist Papers will do that to you, sdferr.

  5. geoffb says:

    The other side’s long game.

    He describes the Republican posture as “we have to shut this thing down before people find out they like it.”

    This is the modern progressive formulation of democracy.

    The new progressivism arose in post-1960s politics and has been refined and taken to a new level by President Obama. Like the old progressivism, the new progressivism proclaims its egalitarian desire to democratize American political institutions by making them more responsive to the will of the people. At the same time, and also like the old progressivism, it doubts the ability of the people to recognize their true interests while exuding confidence in the ability of highly trained elites to impartially administer federal programs on the people’s behalf. But in contrast to the original progressivism, the new progressivism seeks to obscure its awkward combination of egalitarianism and elitism.

    […]

    [T]he paradox of progressivism — how to reconcile a professed commitment to greater democracy with a powerful conviction, in conflict with the preferences of the people, that justice requires more centralized government and more elite rule … It’s not merely that deliberative democrats believe that their theories give expression to something better and loftier than what the majority chooses.

    The key is the claim that the policies that theoretical reason demonstrates are fair and just are democratic in a higher sense than the policies that the people have voted for, or want to adopt in the here and now, or may wish to enact in the future. … It’s not merely that deliberative democrats believe that their theories give expression to something better and loftier than what the majority of the electorate chooses. It’s that the choices people would make — were it not for their poor education, combined with passions and prejudices corrupted by the imperfections of social life and the inequities of the market economy — are what deserve the designation democratic.

    The self designated “elite” know what you will love, want, and do need, before you poor ignorant emotional desire driven people do. And so it is their great burden to force what you will really want on you for your own good.

    The white man’s Progressive person’s burden. A heavy load they bear with pride and love … of the power.

  6. leigh says:

    President Pinhead is up pretty quick on the teevee.

    Bets on what he says?

  7. dicentra says:

    the fight itself is the thing

    There ya go.

    However, Jonah Goldberg is all whiny in his G-file today because Cruz made the Neville Chamberlain comparison with those who said “impossible.”

    He’s since become more sympathetic with Cruz’s position, but apparently he can’t see that Cruz was aiming his criticism more at his colleagues than at the punditry (though not exclusively).

    Take your medicine, Jonah: you were wrong to be pessimistic.

    He also included a keeper of a metaphor: “Personally, this week has been like watching Michael Moore doing a nude yoga routine, unendurably ugly from beginning to end, yet with a few moments of dark comedy in between.”

    I guess he had a lot of people e-mailing and tweeing that he was a “sellout.”

  8. geoffb says:

    Obama talked of the “radical Republicans” meaning the tea party supported ones and now Sen. Harkin “Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels.”

    Do they really want this to be their analogy? Have they so corrupted the education of the public that they can use this comparison without damage? We shall see.

  9. newrouter says:

    Jonah Goldberg is all whiny

    the death of cosmo might be a factor

  10. leigh says:

    Well, he talked about the Fugitive Slave Act the other day. Now again with the Civil War?

    He probably ought to quit while he’s ahead since there are enough of us who are ready to go to the mattresses as it is.

  11. newrouter says:

    If Harking wonders why there is no comity in Washington anymore, it’s mainly because Obama’s style of government by crisis, rinse, re-fight, has generated nothing but animosity and mistrust. The entire budget process has been a giant con and a crisis that Obama can turn on and turn off as his political needs dictate. It makes everyone in Washington look like con.

    It’s all one giant scam. We’re forced to play our roles in it all, choosing one side and throwing rocks at the other, while a bemused Obama tweaks the government bureaucracy behind the scenes to wage war on various sectors of the US economy and our traditional values and way of life. It’s quite cynical, even evil, the way he scams and manipulates us into one civil war after another, never letting the latest crisis go to waste.

    link

  12. Darleen says:

    Sen. Barbara Mikulski uses “teabagger” on Senate Floor

    “The reason Ted Cruz stood up and asked for a delay is so that he could have a vote during today when he’s… the teabaggers in his Tea Party were going to watch. This is why I have repeatedly said the greatest deliberative body in the world has become the greatest delaying body in the world.”

    Uncouth bitch.

  13. Squid says:

    How do my balls taste, Barb?

  14. dicentra says:

    the death of cosmo might be a factor

    I missed that.

    Poor puppy. I’d be cranky and whiny too.

  15. steveaz says:

    Obamacare is THE DISTRACTION. Cruz is only mostly right.

    What it’s supposed to distract us from is the gross amount of fraud in America’s existing, government mediated “health-care” system. By layering on Obamacare, all the “petty” stealing that’s been going on since the eighties will never be prosecuted; the losses due to fraud by both practicioners and patients will instead be ‘balled-up’ and hidden under rolls and rolls of Obamacare flim-flammery, and noone, I said NOONE, will ever be prosecuted for a whit of it.

    This is the end game of ObamaCare – bigger pools hide ever larger globules of graft and theft, and the tax-payer gets the tab for it all. That, and the juicy politics to be played with services allocation – as Dick Durbin alluded to two nights ago – that’s The Game.

    The thing about Medicare and Medicaid fraud to consider is, like so much of the fraud behind the housing bubble-and-bust, there is a distinct racial element to the fraud. I’d be willing to bet that, should any bespectacled inspector choose to prosecute against a class of defendents of Medi-Fraud, he’d necessarily be called a Racist. Because the prevaling swindling patients fall into the “other,” brown-skinned peoples type.

    Same thing with crimes of all types, be they gun-crimes or petty theft. The racial element is obvious for all with eyes to see, and much of what passes for government progams is designed to obfuscate this fact, and thus, to stymie proposals that deal directly with the real problem before us.

    Cruz is swifty becoming a folk hero to those of us not bes0tted by “government.” But, if a hearty state’s AG were to finally file suit against one or two noteables who have scammed the Gov’s “medi” systems, he’d quickly overtake Cruz’ notoriety because, instead of simply tugging on a loose thread hoping to unravel Obama’s knitting like Cruz is, he’d be undercutting Obama’s prestidigitation more directly.

    This is all about laundering all the fraud of the eighties, nineties and ‘oughts under a new moniker, with new faces, a devoted IRS bureau and an ungodly amount of taxpayers’ money. If the Dem’s can win at playing God, or garner donations from newly unionized healthcare workers, or lure their imported electorate with “free” benefits, then that’s just icing on the cake!

  16. leigh says:

    Thank God! I was so worried.

  17. RI Red says:

    Steveaz, I think you just nailed it

  18. newrouter says:

    fat man media
    “How many Republicans are you going to see walking up and down these streets like this?” she said. “He’s approachable. I really like that. And I think the people in Orange are really thrilled, whether they’re Democrat or Republican, that he’s here.

    link

    Cory Booker supporters to white Republican: ‘Go back where you came from’

  19. The trouble with Bryan Preston, whose article you quote from above newrouter, is that he fails to grasp that Harkin knows exactly what he is doing. Harkin knows that his side is responsible for the lack of comity. He has memorized the Leftist Playbook.

    What really angers me is that conservatives like Mr. Preston still don’t get it – even after all that we have seen these past five years.

    People like Harkin want to destroy The United States, reduce it to rubble, so that they can build their Utopia on the ruins.

    Mr. Preston: Tom Harkin is Evil. Obama is Evil. All Leftists are Evil. And, until you understand that, you’re useless.

  20. […] Bryan Preston’s entry at the PJ Tatler of Noon yesterday is worth quoting in full [tip of the fedora to Newrouter]: […]

  21. sdferr says:

    Politico: House GOP to attach Obamacare delay to CR

    Well, well.

    Does this indicate the House has decided to listen? That the House has at long last finally figured out the question?

    Then we can begin to wonder whether anytime soon these House members can open their Senate counterparts’ eyes.

  22. newrouter says:

    damn anarchists

    On Saturday, in fact, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said the House’s new plan was “pointless.”

    “The Senate will reject both the one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act and the repeal of the medical device tax,” Reid said in a statement, referring to the health-care law. “After weeks of futile political games from Republicans, we are still at square one: Republicans must decide whether to pass the Senate’s clean CR, or force a Republican government shutdown.”
    link

  23. newrouter says:

    i deem louise slaughter an exceptionally stupid proggtard

  24. newrouter says:

    impeached judge now up for ‘rats

  25. newrouter says:

    a voice of insanity: sheila jackson lee now makes noises and gestures.

  26. newrouter says:

    sheila points alot

  27. leigh says:

    When did Sheila start wearing her hair like Farina on the Lil Rascals?

  28. newrouter says:

    jerry nadler looks eloquent . i don’t dare turn off the mute.

  29. newrouter says:

    sheila was trying to confuse the liv by wearing red. the proggtards so mischievous.

  30. newrouter says:

    ‘rat frank pallone does one sided head tilts

  31. newrouter says:

    ‘rat kathy castor doling out the oil

  32. newrouter says:

    ‘rats have someone named douche pushing the cleansing qualities of O!care

  33. newrouter says:

    my bad deutch a sig heil too proggies

  34. newrouter says:

    screaming proggtard now. you go grrl!!11!!

  35. newrouter says:

    fag from vermont says “you meanies!!!”

  36. newrouter says:

    fresh from star trek the ‘rats have on babs lee

  37. newrouter says:

    oh tonite’s star trek is proggtardian : Operation: Annihilate!. just in time for deb washername shultz to mouth stupid stuff

  38. newrouter says:

    the orangeman should run some ads on the daily show with his position. at least make stewart’s writers tell good and true jokes

  39. newrouter says:

    chaka be talking. proggtardia is forever.

  40. newrouter says:

    steny whorer is a dignified old white guy

  41. geoffb says:

    Maybe next up they shroud add the Vitter amendment to the House CR, but Reid will reject that too. He and O! want just what they want and nothing else or else.

  42. newrouter says:

    oh good another old white dude levin from mi

  43. newrouter says:

    followed by an old white dude from nj

  44. newrouter says:

    that’s why orangeman should go on the pr offensive with the liv. do an ad on the morning shows.

  45. newrouter says:

    the muslim is doing his taki

  46. newrouter says:

    bikini waxman

  47. newrouter says:

    with no sound the proggtards are sensible?

  48. newrouter says:

    another old white dude neal

  49. newrouter says:

    old white dude israel from ny

  50. newrouter says:

    jan schak is giving the litany at the fed gov’t “shutdown”

  51. newrouter says:

    sheila jack is emoting in red

  52. newrouter says:

    gwen is doing the rap

  53. newrouter says:

    bald white dude now

  54. newrouter says:

    mock these losers loser rethugs

  55. newrouter says:

    clown says nih don’t get no money

  56. newrouter says:

    jim moran is very concern about the military.

  57. newrouter says:

    jim moran is an old white guy by the way

  58. newrouter says:

    oh my parks are closed in Oct. and weather peeps . the humanity of it all.

  59. newrouter says:

    jim moran: i don’t want you or steny coming to “work” anymore

  60. newrouter says:

    eff you steny clown

  61. newrouter says:

    oh steny : old white dude.

  62. newrouter says:

    What must become fundamental for us is initiation, not
    dissidence. That is, we should consider ourselves first and foremost
    as initiators of future possibilities and not as subversives, drop-outs
    or rebels who are anti-a, anti-b, or anti-c. We should leave resistance
    and repression to the ruling powers and transform our opposition
    into an increasingly clear position! Charter 77 represents the position
    of an independent citizens’ initiative that understands human
    rights as something given not de lege but defacto, And in that sense
    the initiators of a new position must be able not only to formulate,
    but also to bring to life the notion of a harmonious relationship
    between individuals and society.

    potp havel et al pg 104

  63. pdbuttons says:

    bobby orr plus

  64. newrouter says:

    good nite dc. effin commies!!11!!

  65. sdferr says:

    bobby orr plus

    Or a Nick Lidstrom, a Manny Machado and a Deion Sanders

  66. […] Long game: Cruz and Lee still fighting | protein wisdom […]

Comments are closed.