Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
A fascinating headline in the Washington Post today: Business
groups stand by Boehner, plot against tea party:
[I]nfluential organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are
standing behind Boehner. More importantly, Boehner’s friends in the
business community are getting ready to take sides in a few Republican
primary races against tea party candidates in Michigan, Idaho and
Alabama who could cause the House speaker more trouble.
* * *
Now that the shutdown and debt-ceiling fight have exposed a rift in
the Republican Party, lines are being drawn in the battle for control:
On one side, there is Boehner and his circle of powerful business
allies. On the other, tea party lawmakers and activist groups such as
Heritage Action and the Club for Growth.
“I don’t know of anybody
in the business community who takes the side of the Taliban minority,”
said Dirk Van Dongen, longtime chief lobbyist for the National
Association of Wholesaler-Distributors who has known Boehner since the
lawmaker’s first election.
In the hallways of the country’s leading trade associations, there is
talk about taking on tea party Republicans in at least three states.
Just three? Fight them everywhere they are!
I strongly urge the Arizona Chamber of Commerce to take on Arizona's four "Debt Denier" Tea-Publican radicals in Congress — and in the Arizona Legislature as well. Arizona's
2 GOP senators, House Dems back deal:
The Senate voted 81-18 to approve the deal . . . The House concurred 285-144 late Wednesday[.]
House members from Arizona toed the party line: Republican Reps.
Trent Franks, Paul Gosar, Matt Salmon and David Schweikert voted against
the deal, and Democratic Reps. Ron Barber, Ed Pastor, Raúl Grijalva,
Kyrsten Sinema and Ann Kirkpatrick voted for it.
McCain and Flake were part of a bipartisan group of 18 senators who
helped shape the plan to end the 16-day government shutdown and prevent
the country from defaulting on its debts.
Arizona's four "Debt Denier" Tea-Publican
Congressmen effectively voted in favor of defaulting on the U.S. Debt and to call into
question the full faith faith and credit of the United States, in
violation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Arizona's four "Debt Denier" Tea-Publican
Congressmen effectively voted in favor of
causing a financial and economic catastrophe that would purposefully
harm their fellow American citizens, and to cause damage to the
interational reputation of the U.S. as the world's reserve currency. (Just this week, China Calls for a De-Americanized World – Bloomberg.)
Arizona's four "Debt Denier" Tea-Publican
Congressmen are members of the "suicide caucus," as it was dubbed by Charles Krauthammer, or alternatively, the "Kamikaze caucus," as it was dubbed by the Wall Street Journal. Letter – Congressman Mark Meadows – U.S. House of Representatives (.pdf).
Arizona's four "Debt Denier" Tea-Publican
Congressmen thus supported the far-right radical strategy of Heritage Action, Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, Tea Party Express, etc., to engage in the undemocratic and un-American strategy of governing-by-extortion and taking hostages, i.e., a government shutdown and threatening the full faith and credit of the United States. Such economic terrorism against one's own country is never to be tolerated nor rewarded.
The actions of these Tea-Publican economic terrorists have already cost us $24 billion in reduced
economic growth this quarter, S&P: Shutdown Cost U.S. $24 Billion, 0.6% GDP In Projected Growth, and put the credit risk of the U.S. on
the watch list of credit agencies because of their actions. Fitch Puts US AAA Rating on Rating Watch Negative. There will be more economic fallout.
To whom should the American taxpayers send the bill for this internecine civil war in the GOP? Heritage Action, Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, Tea Party Express, etc., and the 18 Tea-Publican Senators and 144 Tea-Publican members of Congress would be a good place to start. "America called, it wants its money back!"
The Washington Post also has this fascinating headline today: Is
the tea party part of the GOP? Most Republicans say no.
The latest Pew Research Center poll is chock full of data revealing an emerging rift
between tea party-aligned Republicans and the rest of the party. But if
there is one area of relative agreement, it’s this: a belief that tea
party is independent from the GOP.
More than half of all Republicans (51 percent) say the the tea party is
separate. Only about three in 10 say it is part of the Republican Party.
Nearly equal shares of tea party Republicans and Republican-leaning
independents (52 percent) and non-tea party Republicans and GOP-leaning
independents (55 percent) say the movement is separate from the GOP.
Here in Arizona, the far-right fringe that comprises the Birthers-Birchers-Secessionists of the Tea Party have purged traditional Republicans — RINO's — out of the AZ GOP since 2004, led in large part by the hysterical nativist and anti-immigrant forces of disgraced former state senator Russell Pearce and his acolytes (several of whom are still in the Arizona Legislature). And of course, there are the culture warriors of Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP).
An argument can be made that traditional Republicans have already left the AZ GOP and registered to vote as "no party preference." What remains of the AZ GOP today is a boiled-down reduction of the far-right fringe that comprises the Birthers-Birchers-Secessionists of the Tea Party and the Christian Reconstructionists and Dominionists of the CAP. So the Arizona Chamber of Commerce has its work cut out for it recruiting disaffected traditional Republicans who have left the party to primary Tea Party radicals. But this effort must be made.
As I have said several times, "It is time for a Grand Alliance between Democrats, establishment
Republicans, and centrist moderates in a united front" against the far-right radical extremist elements of the Tea Party.
