Showing posts with label 2014 Midterms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2014 Midterms. Show all posts

Friday, July 24, 2015

Ted Cruz: What we just witnessed this morning is profoundly disappointing



















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Monday, February 2, 2015

The Surprising Power of Blue-State Republicans

◼ There is a basic mystery at the heart of modern Republican presidential politics. The party’s voters, despite electing conservatives to the House and Senate, have repeatedly chosen relatively moderate nominees, like Mitt Romney and John McCain, in the primaries. - New York Times







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Friday, January 9, 2015

BOEHNER RETALIATION HAUNTS REPUBLICANS WHO DEFENDED, VOTED FOR HIM

◼ House Speaker John Boehner’s decision to retaliate, or exact “revenge” as Politico puts it, against at least two House members who voted against him is haunting Republicans who supported him conference-wide and sparking a discussion in the party about the role Boehner should play as Speaker—and Republican members should play in challenging his authority. - Breitbart
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Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Krauthammer on Obama’s Veto Threat: ‘Bring It On, Mr. President’

◼ President Barack Obama will block 2015 funding for the Department of Homeland Security if Republicans includes spending curbs on the president’s executive amnesty, says a top aide. - Daily Caller

That amnesty action includes the award of work permits, drivers’ licenses, Social Security cards and tax rebates to at least four million illegal immigrants, despite the wage-cutting surplus of American workers in Obama’s economy.

The adviser, Dan Pfeiffer, told a Huffington Post interviewer Dec. 29 that the president would “absolutely not” sign a 2015 spending bill that would include limits on amnesty spending.

Would Obama veto the spending curbs? “Yep,” Pfeiffer said.



◼ How should Republicans handle Obama’s threat to use his “veto pen” in the coming two years? Charles Krauthammer says the GOP should say: “Bring it on, Mr. President.” - Kelsey Harkness/Daily Signal

Speaking to Kimberly Guilfoyle on “Greta” ...the syndicated columnist and Fox News commentator advised the GOP to, “Let the president show where the party stands, and let the country know that with a new Republican president, this stuff–which is very popular–will be able to get through.”
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Saturday, December 27, 2014

2014 was a historic year for the GOP.

Republicans now hold:
  • 54 U.S. Senate seats, the most since 2006
  • 246 House seats, the most since 1946
  • 31 governorships, the second highest GOP total since the 1920s
  • 4,100+ state legislative seats, the highest GOP total in history
  • 69 of the nation's 99 state legislative chambers, the highest total in history
  • More than half of the nation's Lieutenant Governors, Attorneys General, Secretaries of State, and State Treasurers
This victory was fueled by your contributions and driven by our grassroots leaders and volunteers. We invested over $105 million to win on the ground – including tens of millions of dollars on our data and digital efforts – to identify and turn out GOP voters.

◼ And we're not finished....
- Reince Priebus/GOP.com

We have many more historic races to win — especially the 2016 presidential election.

This is our time to continue making history, elect our country's next remarkable leader to the White House and get our country back on track.
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Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Republicans Are Winning the Fiscal Fight

◼ This is the great untold story of the Obama presidency. A president who wanted to “fundamentally transform” the country has completely failed to make America more like France. He didn’t even make us more like Germany. - Daniel J. Mitchell/The CATO Institute

...there’s been a remarkable shift in fiscal policy.

Many Democrats presumably can’t be happy that the lion’s share of the Bush tax cuts were made permanent. As a result, revenues are now projected to average only 18 percent of GDP over the next 10 years. That’s a smaller tax burden than we had throughout the Clinton years. And you can’t finance big government in the long run without a lot more revenue.

And they definitely can’t be happy that domestic discretionary spending is now below where it was during the Bush years, when measured as a share of GDP. And with sequester-enforced budget caps, it’s quite likely that number will drop even further.

Republicans, meanwhile, should be happy that all their fiscal battles have paid dividends. As a general rule, GOPers think that they lost the various shutdown fights, appropriations battles and debt limit showdowns. But short-term polling doesn’t matter nearly as much as the long-term policy results (not to mention the fact that voters just gave the GOP a landslide victory).

Perhaps even more important, looking forward, is that House Republicans for four consecutive years have approved budget resolutions that assume genuine reform of Medicare and Medicaid. And they’ve won their biggest majority since before World War II, so GOPers can feel reasonably confident that voters (perhaps sobered up by the fiscal disarray in Europe) understand the need to modernize these programs.

A turning point in 2017?

It’s unlikely that either party will alter the fiscal outlook over the next two years. At the risk of stating the obvious, any White House initiatives to expand the burden of government will get a chilly reception on Capitol Hill. But it’s equally true that Republicans have almost no chance of forcing additional spending restraint over a presidential veto.

But 2017 could be different, at least for Republicans. If they manage to win the White House and hold the Senate, then serious entitlement reform is genuinely possible. So not only will America have avoided becoming France or Germany during the Obama years, but the country would also be spared that fate in the 2020s and 2030s when tens of millions of baby boomers will be retired.

The best the Democrats can hope for, by contrast, is to block entitlement reforms by retaining the White House and/or retaking the Senate. But since it’s virtually impossible for them to get control of the House, there isn’t much opportunity to go on offense.
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Friday, December 19, 2014

The GOP's Obama-era rebirth.


◼ It’s official: GOP will have biggest House majority since before the New Deal - NOAH ROTHMAN/HOTAIR

On Wednesday, the Associated Press called the outstanding race for congress in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional district. Rep. Ron Barber (D-AZ), a former aide to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and her successor in office, was narrowly defeated by Republican Martha McSally.

With McSally’s victory, the 2014 midterm elections have officially concluded. At the start of the 114th Congress, Republicans will enjoy their largest majority in the House of Representatives since prior to the Great Depression and the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt with 247 members. The last time the GOP enjoyed that large of a majority was the 71st Congress in 1929 and 1930.

In the Senate, the GOP will be in an almost equally unparalleled position of power.

“Republicans will control 54 out of 100 seats,” The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake noted. “That’s tied for their fourth-highest number of seats since that same 1929-30 Congress, but the larger three were majorities of 55 seats — i.e. only one more seat.”

Combined with the GOP’s dominance at the state legislative level (Republicans control 56 percent of seats in the legislatures, the highest number since 1920), and the party’s control of 31 of 50 gubernatorial mansions, the Republican Party will be in the strongest position it has seen since prior to the popularization of Democratic progressivism.

“The last time the GOP clearly had more power than today was in the early 1920s, when it controlled more than 70 percent of governorships, 69 percent of the House and more than 60 percent of Senate seats,” Blake observed.

That’s nothing to sneeze at, and it is all due to the ideological realignment of the Democratic Party.

The press and the political analyst class are near myopically focused on the Republican Party’s ideological realignment. And it is true that the GOP has become a more conservative party since the end of the last century. They rarely, however, devote much of their attentions to the realignment of the Democratic Party, which has become markedly more liberal in the early part of this century.

The Democratic Party suffered two disastrous midterm elections not because the GOP made no mistakes or overreached. They did both, and they did so often. The Democrats suffered these debacles because the traditionally older and whiter midterm electorate has turned on the Democratic Party. As recently as 1998, it was possible for a midterm electorate in a Democratic president’s sixth year in office to overlook their frustrations with the incumbent in the White House. That kind of dispensation toward Democrats from a midterm electorate seems nearly unthinkable today.

In many ways, the Obama presidency has set his party back generations.

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Thursday, December 18, 2014

NOW THE DEMOCRATS ARE THE DIVIDED PARTY

◼ The liberal news media have gleefully been reporting the GOP’s political quarrels for many years. But that exaggerated story line all but vanished last week in the aftermath of the Democrats’ humiliating defeat in the midterm elections. - Donald Lambro/Human Events

Democratic leaders and their rank and file were deeply divided over the budget that was worked out in a deal with House Republicans — not only among themselves, but with President Obama, too, whom they bitterly blame for their deep losses in Congress.

Democratic Party discipline has been eroding fast as a result of Obama’s growing unpopularity, but last week the Democrats were deserting him in droves. And word ran like wildfire through their ranks that from now on, it’s everyone for themselves....
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Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Ted Cruz Was Right, Again

◼ The usual suspects are attacking Ted Cruz for doing his job. - Matthew Vadum/American Thinker
There was never, after all, a reason to rush an all-encompassing bill funding the federal government before appropriations ran out on Dec. 11. Instead of giving Obama virtually everything he wanted despite his party's historic drubbing at the polls last month, lawmakers could easily have drafted a stopgap spending bill to carry them over to January, when Republicans will control both chambers of Congress and have greater bargaining power in negotiations with the president.

But they didn't. After hours and days of arm-twisting, they rammed an abominable spending bill through Congress that funds Obama's Democrat voter-importation program.

It was an easy vote. A gimme.

But to their everlasting shame, 20 Republicans voted to reject Cruz's point of order, waive the Constitution, and green-light Obama's amnesty.

These quislings are Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), John Barrasso (Wyo.), Dan Coats (Ind.), Thad Cochran (Miss.), Susan Collins (Me.), Bob Corker (Tenn.), John Cornyn (Texas), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Dean Heller (Nev.), Ron Johnson (Wisc.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), John McCain (Ariz.), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Pat Toomey (Penn.), and Roger Wicker (Miss.)....
◼ Ted Cruz Strikes Back: ‘Too Many Republicans Willing to Be Complicit’ - Rob Bluey/Daily Signal
...The outspoken Texas Republican joined with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to force the Senate to take a vote related to President Obama’s recent immigration actions. The measure was defeated, 74-22, after Cruz said Republican leaders urged senators to vote against the constitutional point of order. (View the roll call vote.)

“Too many politicians in Washington don’t believe we can stand and fight,” Cruz told (Sean) Hannity.

He lamented that Republican leaders frequently plead to put off tough fights for another day, as they wanted to do on immigration. Cruz predicted Republicans once again would find an excuse not to act next year as well:

Mark my words, Sean, the odds are enormous that come January or February, the very same voices are going to say, ‘Well, we’ve got a Republican majority, but we don’t have 60 votes, so we can’t fight yet.’ If we had 60 votes, they would come back and say, ‘You know, we have 60 votes but we don’t have 67. We don’t have enough to override a veto.’

“It’s always, always, always let’s fight tomorrow,” Cruz said. “At some point, what the heck are we doing? Either stand up and demonstrate we believe the principles we keep promising voters … or pack it up already.”


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"It has become fashionable in Washington to argue that Obamacare cannot be reversed. That is nonsense. It’s a fight worth waging, and a fight which can be won."

◼ Jindal: The voters spoke, Republicans should listen - Bobby Jindal/Washington Examiner

“Elections have consequences,” President Obama said, setting his new policy agenda just three days after taking office in 2009. Three elections later, the president’s party has lost 70 House seats and 14 Senate seats. The job of Republicans now is to govern with the confidence that elections do have consequences, promptly passing the conservative reform the voters have demanded.

Commentators and pundits are already suggesting that Republicans need to be careful about what they do now that they control Congress. So do I — I believe we need to be very careful to stand up for what we believe in, and for what the American people voted for....

Let’s put the onus on the President and give him the opportunity to finally do the will of the American people. He can be constructive, or he can finish his Presidency as a liberal obstructionist ideologue who vetoes everything.
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'Wyoming's doctor' targets Obamacare

◼ Sen. John Barrasso has been waiting seven years for this. - David Drucker/Washington Examiner

Appointed to the Senate in June 2007, the Wyoming Republican has never served in the majority. That will change in a few weeks, when the GOP assumes command of the Senate for the first time in eight years. Like most Republicans and every GOP leader in Congress, Barrasso vows that his party will use this new opportunity to prove to the American people that it can govern responsibly and make their lives better.

...In an interview last week, Barrasso laid out a slew of policy priorities for the first six months of the new year, the period when the GOP will have its best chance of passing significant legislation. But the senator who delivers regular floor speeches to offer a “doctor’s second opinion on Obamacare” made clear that repealing and replacing the president’s healthcare law is his top priority....

Examiner: Would you favor using reconciliation — the Senate procedure that allows you to sidestep the filibuster — to go after anything in Obamacare that you could repeal according to whatever the rules will allow under that process? Medical device tax, restoring the 40-hour workweek, the individual mandate?... do you favor attacking Obamacare through reconciliation?

Barrasso: The answer’s yes.
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Sunday, December 14, 2014

REPUBLICANS IN LAME-DUCK CONGRESS LOOK FORWARD TO NEXT YEAR


◼ link - Donald Lambro/Human Events

The nation’s divided Congress battled down to the wire this week over its budget for the rest of this fiscal year, hoping to avoid a government shutdown.

The $1.01 trillion spending bill must be passed before midnight Thursday, though at this writing few were placing any bets on meeting that deadline. Still, Congress has dodged budget deadlines before and may do so again — if for no other reason than to drive a stake through the heart of a bitterly divided, unpopular legislature that can’t seem to agree on anything except going home for the holidays.

This was the last gasp of a lame-duck Congress before the Republicans can welcome their strengthened majority in the House and take control of the Senate in January — and begin to chart a new agenda to deal with America’s most pressing problems....
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Friday, December 12, 2014

It’s time for Republicans to do what we said — to fight to #StopObamasAmnesty



Sen. Ted Cruz Urges Colleagues to Stop President Obama’s Unconstitutional Amnesty















◼ Headline correction: “Ted Cruz makes his mark” (#CRomnibus) - Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion

The differing treatment of Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren pretty much sums up the state of implicit media bias.

Update: God Bless Senator Mike Lee too:



◼ Sen. Ted Cruz calls out Obama on amnesty: A ‘presidential temper tantrum’ is not discourse - Twitchy



◼ Cruz: Let’s not play Santa to K Street - The Hill

◼ Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Jeff Sessions Pushing for Defund Amnesty Vote - Daily Caller

◼ Senate objections to spending bill slowing, but shouldn't stop, final passage - Susan Ferrechio/Washington Examiner

"Every senator in this body should be put on record whether he or she believes it is constitutional for a president to disregard, to ignore federal immigration laws, and to grant blanket amnesty to millions in defiance of both the laws on the books and the voters" - Ted Cruz
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Thursday, December 11, 2014

Women flood ranks of GOP

◼ Republicans believe they had a breakthrough year with female candidates, electing several with unimpeachable resumes to Congress in 2014. - Jonathan Easley/The Hill

The GOP will send Capitol Hill its youngest-ever woman, 30-year-old Rep.-elect Elise Stefanik (N.Y.); its first black female Republican, Rep.-elect Mia Love (Utah); and the first female Republican senators from two states, Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) and Joni Ernst (Iowa), who is also the first female combat veteran to be elected to the chamber.

“These were strong female candidates that had to get through tough primaries, even before the general election,” a representative for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) told The Hill. “They had great backgrounds and could go tell voters what they planned to do. They were all very impressive.”
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Pay careful attention to these 5 points...

◼ What 2014 means for 2016 - Michael Barone/Washington Examiner @michaelbarone

(1) Democrats relied heavily on legacy candidates — and lost nevertheless.... The obvious implication for 2016 is that the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, is something of a legacy candidate too....

(2) Voters today increasingly vote straight party tickets....

(3) Old political species — Blue Dog Democrats, Rockefeller Republicans — are pretty much extinct....

(4) Today’s political map looks static, but may be a little more fluid than many think....

(5) Republican strength is at historic highs. The party holds more House and state legislative seats than it has since the 1920s and only one less Senate seat than its post-1920s high. The 2008 Obama coalition which, some argued would dominate politics for decades, has been fraying: blacks and gentry liberals remain faithful, but Hispanics and millennials are falling away, while Jacksonians grow increasingly opposed.... READ IT ALL, CLICK HERE
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Saturday, December 6, 2014

DEMOCRATIC LOUISIANA SEN. MARY LANDRIEU DEFEATED



◼ Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy defeated Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu on Saturday, denying her a fourth term and extending the GOP's domination of the 2014 midterm elections that put Republicans in charge of Capitol Hill for the final two years of President Barack Obama's tenure. - AP

With Cassidy's victory, Republicans will hold 54 seats when the Senate convenes in January, nine more than they have now. Republican victories in two Louisiana House districts Saturday - including the seat Cassidy now holds - ensure at least 246 seats, compared to 188 for Democrats, the largest GOP advantage since the Truman administration after World War II. An Arizona recount leaves one race still outstanding.

With nearly all the votes counted, unofficial returns showed Cassidy with a commanding victory.











◼ Republican Victories Mark the Beginning of a New Era - LA GOP

“This is a major milestone for the conservative movement in Louisiana,” LAGOP Chairman Roger Villere said. “We’ve fought tirelessly for decades to protect the unborn, properly define marriage, enact tort reform, strengthen our Second Amendment rights and give every child access to a quality education. Through it all, Louisiana has consistently and unquestionably rejected the liberal ideology of the Democrat Party. Democrats have become so out of touch with the people of Louisiana that they have forced themselves into irrelevance. There is a new dawn on the horizon and Louisiana’s future is looking brighter than ever before.”

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Saturday, November 15, 2014

"I’d never voted full ticket—not in 20 years of participating in my civic duty. I did on Tuesday. I’ve often considered or voted for third party candidates when at the polls over the last 20 years. Tuesday I did not."

◼ GamerGate: How the Media Gave Away America - Todd Wohling/TechRaptor.net

...Over the past 20 years, I’d spent between 2 and 6 weeks studying candidates and ballot measures to be as informed as possible. This election cycle, I was finished in hours. On this day, I stand before you to say that I did my part to hand the Legislative branch of the American government to the Republicans. Not that one vote matters in the grand scheme of things, but every traditionally Democratic vote that goes Republican is a two vote swing. So the Republicans own the Senate, but not with a “super majority” to completely dictate terms legislatively.

From my new perspective after Tuesday, it’s one down and three to go: Super majority in the Senate, the Presidency, and one Supreme Court justice. I’m disgusted for writing that last sentence....

There are roughly 730 days until Election Day 2016. The media that drove me away from my political leanings is going to need every one of those days to convince me that bashing gamers from August 28th until Tuesday was just a misunderstanding. They will need every one of those days to convince me that my input into the liberal ideology is valued regardless of my hobbies, support for GamerGate, or my gender. The alternative is to hand both the Legislative and Executive branch of the US Government over to Republicans, and as I found out on Tuesday, it is well within my capability to do so.

Tick tock. Tick tock.

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Is this the political map of the future?


◼ If you’re a political junkie — or at least if you’re a conservative political junkie — you’ve probably seen the map. - Michael Barone/Washington Examiner @michaelbarone

It’s a map of the United States showing the congressional districts won by Republicans in red and those won by Democrats in blue.

It looks almost entirely red, except for some pinpoints of blue in major metropolitan areas and a few blue blotches here and there — in Minnesota, northern New Mexico and Arizona, western New England, along the Pacific Coast.

Of course it’s misleading. Congressional districts are of basically equal population, and Democrats tend to roll up big margins in densely populated areas. So while voters have elected at least 244 Republican congressmen and probably will end up with at least 247 — more than in any election since 1928 — the map overstates their dominance.

But it does tell us something about the geographic and cultural isolation of the core groups of the Democratic Party...
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Thursday, November 13, 2014

Explosive Charges: Black Democrat Alleges Racism in Lawsuit against Ohio Democratic Party

◼ State rep. says there is a "plantation-style management of black public officials" in the state. - Paula Bolyard/PJ Media

An African American lawmaker — a Democrat — is charging the Ohio Democratic Party and chairman Chris Redfern with racism and defamation in a lawsuit filed this week, telling reporters there is a “plantation mentality” in the party that treats black lawmakers as a monolithic voting bloc.

Last week, Chris Redfern, head of the Ohio Democratic Party, resigned in disgrace after presiding over sweeping losses of every statewide office, a record-breaking majority of Republicans elected to the Ohio legislature, and the utter collapse of the Democrats’ candidate for governor. Redfern also lost his own seat in the Ohio House on Tuesday. As it turns out, all of that may have only been the tip of the iceberg of the Ohio Democratic Party’s problems.

◼ Related: And the Prize for Biggest Loser, Election Night Edition, Goes To… - Paula Bolyard/PJ Media
There were plenty of contenders for Biggest Loser, Election Night Edition, on Tuesday, but no one had a worse night than Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern, who has led the state party since 2005. Redfern presided over not only a sweeping loss of every statewide office, but also the epic failure of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald’s campaign, which made Politico’s list of the Worst Campaigns of 2014. This was the second statewide election in a row that Republicans cleaned Redfern’s clock. To make matters worse for Democrats, Republicans picked up an additional five Ohio House seats, giving them the largest majority held by either party since the number of districts was reduced in 1967.
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School Choice Wins, Common Core Loses in Election 2014

◼ (The Nov 4) election results have seismic implications for education policy at both the state and federal levels. Voters sent a message that school choice and local control are important to them. - Daily Signal

Voters resoundingly sided with candidates who both rejected Common Core national standards and tests and promised to restore state and local control of education.
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