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Karl Rove Declares War On Tea Party

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The battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party has begun. On one side is the Tea Party. On the other side stand Karl Rove and his establishment team, posing as tacticians while quietly undermining conservatism.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the “biggest donors in the Republican Party” have joined forces with Karl Rove and Steven J. Law, president of American Crossroads, to create the Conservative Victory Project. The Times reports that this new group will dedicate itself to “recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s effort to win control of the Senate.” The group points to candidates like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Richard Mourdock in Indiana as examples of Tea Party primary picks going sideways in major Senatorial battles.

But it is American Crossroads and its ilk that have run the GOP into the ground. Spending millions of dollars on useless 30,000-ft. advertising campaigns during the last election cycle, training candidates to soften conservatism in order to appeal to “moderates,” blowing up the federal budget under George W. Bush as a bipartisan tactic – all of those strategies led the party to a disastrous defeat in 2012. The Tea Party, which may nominate losers from time to time, also brought the Republicans their historic 2010 Congressional victory. If Tea Party candidates lose, it’s because they weren’t good candidates; if GOP establishment candidates lose, it’s because they weren’t good conservatives. The choice for actual conservatives should be easy.

But it isn’t. The Bush insider team that helped lead to the rise of Barack Obama insists that they, and only they, know the path to victory.

Read more from this story HERE.

Senate Republicans Complicit in Arming Muslim Brotherhood

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Photo Credit: National ReviewI’m done grumbling about how President Obama is empowering America’s enemies. After all, it is not just Obama. When it comes to abetting the Muslim Brotherhood, Republicans are right there with him.

Not all of them, of course. This week, for example, Senator Rand Paul proposed an amendment that would have prohibited our government from transferring F-16 aircraft and Abrams tanks to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood–dominated government. This lunatic plan is not just an Obama initiative. It is also a GOP brainstorm — of a piece with 2011’s Libya debacle, in which Republican leaders cheered as Obama, upon consulting with the Arab League, ignored Congress and levied war on behalf of the very jihadists who, quite predictably, have since raided Qaddafi’s arsenal, besieged northern Africa, and massacred Americans in Benghazi.

A few weeks back, the John McCain & Lindsey Graham roadshow made its way to Brotherhood Central in Cairo, with newcomer Kelly Ayotte in tow. Senator Ayotte appears to have filled the void created by Joe Lieberman’s retirement — after all, when you have Republicans, who needs another Democrat? The former trio is best remembered for its Tripoli triumph of late 2009, when the three kicked back in the Qaddafi compound and toasted our newly cozy relations with the dictator. The bipartisan solons then winged their way home in time to second the Obama State Department’s increase in funding for the Libyan dictator’s regime. After all, they reasoned, Qaddafi was our hedge against Libya’s jihadists. As is their wont, though, the solons soon dazzled us with a 180, suddenly deciding that what we really needed to do was back Libya’s jihadists in their war against Qaddafi. The rest, as they say in Mali, is history.

So the GOP brain trust now brings this Midas touch to Egypt, rallying behind Obama’s cozy relations with the new “Islamic democracy.” That would be the Brotherhood’s rapidly unraveling sharia basket case, into which our own bankrupt government has so far sunk nearly 3 billion U.S.-taxpayer dollars, with more billions soon to come through U.S.-backed IMF loans and, yes, sophisticated U.S. weaponry. Any moment now, as it was in turbulent Libya, the ground in Egypt is certain to shift, or crater. When it does, who knows whose side the senators will have us on . . . and who knows what American enemies may be wielding that U.S. weaponry?

Senator Paul, by contrast, has three ideas that seem positively batty to the McCain gang. First, he thinks that American foreign policy ought to be premised on American national interests, not on the shifting notions of “global stability” popular at the Wilson School and the Council on Foreign Relations. Second, he suggests that when we give aid and arms to anti-American Islamists, bad things tend to happen to America. Finally, Paul believes the foundation of American foreign policy is, of all quaint things, the United States Constitution. The Framers gave Congress not merely the authority but the duty to thwart executive excess. On the international stage, that primarily means the power of the purse, which enables the people’s representatives to defund such madness as the arming of Islamic supremacists.

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Deal With the Devil: GOP Establishment in Senate Joins Dems to Change Longstanding Filibuster Rules

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WASHINGTON – The tradition-laden Senate voted Thursday to modestly curb filibusters, using a bipartisan consensus rare in today’s hyper-partisan climate to make it a bit harder but not impossible for outnumbered senators to sink bills and nominations.

The rules changes would reduce yet not eliminate the number of times opponents — usually minority-party Republicans these days — can use filibusters, procedural tactics which can derail legislation and which can be stopped only by the votes of 60 of the 100 senators.

In return, the majority party — Democrats today — would have to allow two minority amendments on bills, a response to Republican complaints that Democrats often prevent them from offering any amendments at all. The new procedures also would limit the time spent debating some bills and nominations, allowing some to be completed in hours that could otherwise take a day or more.

The changes were broken into two pieces and approved by votes of 78-16 and 86-9. In both roll calls, Republican opponents were joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who usually sides with Democrats. Many of the GOP “no” votes came from tea party-backed senators like Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah; Rand Paul, R-Ky.; and Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

The two votes and a brief debate took less than an hour, impressively quick for the Senate. They came after a more typical day that featured a sprinkling of senators’ speeches and long periods when the Senate chamber idled with no one talking, while private negotiations off the floor nailed down final details.

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More Global Warming Hysteria: Environmentalists Push For Nuclear Option in US Senate

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photo credit: bhamrecycled

More green groups are putting their weight behind an effort to change the Senate’s filibuster rules.

Friends of the Earth, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the League of Conservation Voters, Clean Water Action and Greenpeace signed onto a Monday letter to Democratic leaders calling for changes to the upper chamber’s rules, joining the Sierra Club, unions and social justice groups as members of the “Fix the Senate Now” campaign.

Green groups hope changes to Senate rules could make it easier to push clean energy and climate change-related bills through the chamber.

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Debt Talks Could Redefine US Senate Races

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photo credit: donkeyhotey

Republican senators could find themselves with primary challenges in 2014 depending on how they handle the debt talks, a conservative group is threatening.

“The fiscal cliff negotiations and debt ceiling negotiations are going to define the primaries a lot better afterwards,” Club for Growth President Chris Chocola told The Hill.

The deep-pocketed, fiscally conservative group has been the biggest outside player in GOP primaries in recent years. They were a major factor in helping Sen.-elect Ted Cruz (R-Texas) win his primary, and gave Indiana Secretary of State Richard Mourdock (R) a big boost in his victory over Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.).

Chocola emphasized that he has “no idea” who the Club will target next year, and said much depends “on what happens with the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling” as well as previous votes.

“If Republicans vote for something that raises taxes, doesn’t do any entitlement reform or spending cuts, does nothing to actually address our fiscal challenges every one of them is going to have a problem and we’re the least of their problems, they’ll have primaries everywhere,” he warned. “This is an important test for all Republicans: Whether they go along and accomplish nothing or stand up and try to solve our problems.”

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Leahy Scuttles His Warrantless E-mail Surveillance Bill

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Sen. Patrick Leahy has abandoned his controversial proposal that would grant government agencies more surveillance power — including warrantless access to Americans’ e-mail accounts — than they possess under current law.

The Vermont Democrat said today on Twitter that he would “not support such an exception” for warrantless access. The remarks came a few hours after a CNET article was published this morning that disclosed the existence of the measure.

A vote on the proposal in the Senate Judiciary committee, which Leahy chairs, is scheduled for next Thursday. The amendments were due to be glued onto a substitute (PDF) to H.R. 2471, which the House of Representatives already has approved.

Leahy’s about-face comes in response to a deluge of criticism today, including the American Civil Liberties Union saying that warrants should be required, and the conservative group FreedomWorks launching a petition to Congress — with more than 2,300 messages sent so far — titled: “Tell Congress: Stay Out of My Email!”

A spokesman for the senator did not respond to questions today from CNET asking for clarification of what Leahy would support next week.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Senate to Vote on Outrageous Bill to Allow Fed’s to Read Your Email Without a Warrant

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leahyA Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans’ e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.

CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans’ e-mail, is scheduled for next week.

Leahy’s rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies — including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission — to access Americans’ e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge. (CNET obtained the revised draft from a source involved in the negotiations with Leahy.)

It’s an abrupt departure from Leahy’s earlier approach, which required police to obtain a search warrant backed by probable cause before they could read the contents of e-mail or other communications. The Vermont Democrat boasted last year that his bill “provides enhanced privacy protections for American consumers by… requiring that the government obtain a search warrant.”

Leahy had planned a vote on an earlier version of his bill, designed to update a pair of 1980s-vintage surveillance laws, in late September. But after law enforcement groups including the National District Attorneys’ Association and the National Sheriffs’ Association organizations objected to the legislation and asked him to “reconsider acting” on it, Leahy pushed back the vote and reworked the bill as a package of amendments to be offered next Thursday. The package (PDF) is a substitute for H.R. 2471, which the House of Representatives already has approved.

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Reid Moves to Limit GOP Filibusters

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday that he will try to push through a change to Senate rules that would limit the GOP’s ability to filibuster bills.

Speaking in the wake of Tuesday’s election, which boosted Senate Democrats’ numbers slightly, Mr. Reid said he won’t end filibusters altogether but that the rules need to change so that the minority party cannot use the legislative blocking tool as often.

“I think that the rules have been abused and that we’re going to work to change them,” he told reporters. “We’re not going to do away with the filibuster but we’re going to make the Senate a more meaningful place.”

Republicans, who have 47 of the chamber’s 100 seats in the current Congress, have repeatedly used that strong minority to block parts of President Obama’s agenda on everything from added stimulus spending to his judicial picks. A filibuster takes 60 senators to overcome it.

Leaders of both parties have been reluctant to change the rules because they value it as a tool when they are in the minority.

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Report: New Jersey Senator Up for Reelection Tied to Dominican Prostitutes

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By Matthew Boyle. Two women from the Dominican Republic told The Daily Caller that Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez paid them for sex earlier this year.

In interviews, the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000 acre resort in the Dominican Republic. They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.

The women spoke through a translator in the company of their attorney, Melanio Figueroa. Both asked that their identities remain obscured for fear of reprisals in the Dominican Republic.

When shown a photograph of Sen. Menendez, the women said they recognized him as the man with whom they’d had sexual relations at Casa de Campo this spring. Both said they were brought to the resort with the understanding they would be paid for sex.

Neither knew the identity of the man at the time. Both claimed to recognize him later as Sen. Menendez. Read more from this story HERE.

Dailykos Response to “Possible” Menendez Scandal

By Coolelegans. Apparently there is a rumor flying around that Sen. Menendez hired prostitutes while touring the Caribbean and it’s being pushed on Drudge. I have a few things to say about this. First of all it’s by the guy Tucker Carlson who got his *ss kicked by Jon Stewart and no longer has a job. He is desperate to hype up some breaking news because he is irrelevant, so I would take this news with a grain of salt. But, at the same time, I wouldn’t discount it completely, because they were right about Anthony Weiner before.

In either case, this whole thing is stupid. First of all, Menendez is crushing his opposition right now, and things aren’t going to move too much in a few days. Second, New Jersians right now care about what their politicians do for them, and Obama and co. are showing how good they are at handling the storm. Third, I don’t even think Menendez is married, Wikipedia says that he is divorced. So, basically conservatives are accusing Menendez of being attracted to women. Whoop-de-doo. As long as he didn’t use tax payer money for his trysts- who cares. Read more from this story HERE.

Sen. Mark Begich: I’m worried about Joe Miller & the entire national right-wing attack machine

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Photo credit: aflcio

Sen. Mark Begich is worried about Joe Miller and “the entire national right-wing attack machine.” Those are words he used in a recent letter soliciting funds for his 2014 reelection bid. Instead of starting with his positions on current issues and a list of his accomplishments, Begich devoted the first dozen sentences of the letter to how his opposition is preparing to take him down. But the underlying message in this uninspiring introduction is how the commercialization of our society is corrupting our democratic process.

As a Democrat in a Republican leaning state, Begich knows he’ll likely be the underdog in the race to retain his U.S. Senate seat. What will make his battle more difficult, he says, is that the GOP will be “spending millions of Washington dollars to distort [his] record and promote Joe Miller.” It’s a scenario he should be partly familiar with because that’s how the Democrats helped him four years ago while the FBI was investigating possible corruption by the late Sen. Ted Stevens. And just as he claims the GOP at the national level doesn’t “care about what’s important to Alaskans,” the D.C. Democrats back then didn’t either.

What will be different in his 2014 race is how campaign money will come into the state from undisclosed sources. That’s because the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case equated political contributions with free speech. The transparency problem created by the ruling could have been corrected before the election that year. Indeed, the Supreme Court actually advised Congress to pass new legislation that would have required sufficient disclosure so the voting public could determine which candidates might wind up beholden to special interests. But Senate Republicans defeated such a bill crafted by Democrats in 2010 and more recently shot down a similar proposal.

Begich may be sounding early alarm bells because Alaskans really won’t see much of the effect of Citizens United in this year’s national elections. But around the rest of the country, billionaires, large corporations and every other well financed special interest group are prepared to spend enormous sums of money to influence the outcome of other races. And while political analysts believe Republicans will benefit most from the lack of transparency in campaign spending, blaming them for the deterioration of our democratic process is too easy. There are other entities who for decades have been contributing of demise of our electoral politics.

Let’s start with the advertising industry. They’re drooling at the prospect of revenue from record breaking spending this year. It would be one thing if they were hired to honestly portray a candidate’s record and position on the issues. But the vast majority of their television and radio ads will be totally void of substance. Worse yet, the most effective ones are often those that slyly distort the truth. In other words, the most sought after advertisers are those who can legally deceive most of the people most of the time. New York Times columnist David Brooks put it this way — “the ad-makers now take dishonesty as a mark of their professional toughness.”

Read more from this story HERE.