September 30, 2015:
John Boehner’s Move Deepens a Republican Chasm
WASHINGTON — Far from quelling dissent in the Republican ranks, the resignation of Speaker John A. Boehner is intensifying the divide that has emboldened hard-right lawmakers and insurgent presidential candidates, leaving a party that prides itself on orderly process in uncharacteristic disarray.
The top three candidates in the Republican race at the moment have one thing in common: They have never held elective office. Dozens of members of the House of Representatives have held their seats only since the 2010 election, and many of them ran on a platform to force a drastic reduction in the role of government. A new class of billionaire donors, who can contribute unlimited amounts of money to support a candidate, has undercut the power and relevance of the national party.
This anti-Washington fervor has prompted the Republican candidates to go to great lengths to portray themselves as change agents primed to topple the party establishment. When Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, one of the candidates, announced Friday at a social conservative conference that Mr. Boehner had resigned, the audience responded with a booming ovation.
Even more notable was that Mr. Rubio, who has spent most of his adult life in politics, sought to align himself with those who forced out the speaker. “The time has come to turn the page and allow a new generation of leadership,” he said, excoriating “the political class.”
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Tea Party Activists Celebrate Boehner Resignation, Want Conservative Successor
by Michael Patrick Leahy 25 Sep 2015 125
Tea Party activists across the country tell Breitbart News they are happy that
Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) has announced he is stepping down as Speaker and resigning his seat in Congress, effective October 30.
“Back on March 1, 2011 I was the first Tea Party leader to call for Boehner to step down. Boehner’s departure from the Speakership is good for the GOP and for conservatives because as Speaker he had no agenda. We need a Speaker who will move forward with a conservative agenda and who is not afraid to fight Barack Obama,” Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips tells Breitbart News.
“This is a WIN for the Tea Party movement. We need to point that out,” long time Virginia Tea Party activist Mark Kevin Lloyd tells Breitbart News.
We in the Ohio TEA Party Movement in Ohio welcome the resignation of Speaker John Boehner,” Tom Zawistowski, President of the “We the People Convention,” a coalition of local Ohio Tea Party groups, tells Breitbart News.
“It is time for a Speaker who will do the things that the Republican base have sent our Representative to Washington to do. Defund Planned Parenthood, stop the borrowing, stop the increased spending, stop the unwelcome and unnecessary intrusion of federal agencies into our personal lives and into our businesses. We intend to work hard to elect a new Speaker who will defend Republican values not apologize for them,” Zawistowski adds.
How the Christian Right and Tea Party Make the GOP Unhinged
Republicans are keeping the religious right and its obsessions front and center.
February 13, 2014
As the 2014 election season gears up—and various politicians start floating the possibility of a 2016 presidential run—the question of what Republicans need to do about the religious right is only getting more serious. It’s become apparent that the religious right is an electoral albatross for Republicans. The invention of the “Tea Party” reflected this desire to bamboozle the press into forgetting that the Republican Party is controlled by a bunch of right-wing Christians, by floating this narrative that this new insurgence of conservative energy was somehow more about economic conservatism than social conservatism.
That narrative has basically collapsed in the face of overwhelming evidence that the Tea Party’s main impact is encouraging Republican primary voters to back even more embarrassingly Bible-thumping candidates than usual, from Ted Cruz to Christine O’Donnell. It’s impossible to ignore that the biggest result of the supposed Tea Party revolution has been to refocus Republican energies on attacking abortion rights and expanding the war on women to include attacks on previously non-controversial issues, such as insurance coverage of birth control and maternity care. Turns out the “Tea Party” was the same old religious right people know and loathe.
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http://www.alternet.org/belief/how-christian-right-and-tea-party-make-gop-unhinged
It is time to get very afraid: Extremists, authoritarians now run the GOP and no one can stop them
Boehner and McConnell weren't conservative enough for them. Nor Eric Cantor. Right-wing purists won't stop here
Sunday, Sep 27, 2015 05:59 AM EST
Movement Conservatives just claimed the head of House Speaker John Boehner. His political death was the price of preventing a catastrophic government shutdown after Movement Conservatives in Congress tied the very survival of the United States government to their determination to defund Planned Parenthood. Movement Conservatives are gunning for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell next. We should be very afraid. Boehner and McConnell are not wild-eyed lefties. They are on the very far right of the American political spectrum: fervently pro-business, antiabortion, opposed to social welfare legislation. But they are old-school politicians who still have faith in the idea of American democracy.
Movement Conservatives do not. They want to blow up the government and remake America according to their own radical ideology.
……. Donald Trump, who currently commands a significant lead, is the salesman who puts it most clearly. He tells his followers that “the world is a mess.” He promises to work outside the old order and replace it with something new and wonderful. He tells them a story in which Christianity is under siege, President Obama is a foreigner, and that immigrants—who actually commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans– are criminals. He refused to contradict a follower who announced that Muslims are a problem that we must “get rid of.” And he promises to “Make America Great Again.”
But Trump is not an outlier. Jeb! says that black people vote for Democrats to get “free stuff.” Mike Huckabeeinsists that the United States is criminalizing Christianity. Bobby Jindal promises to “fire” Congress. Ted Cruz hints that President Obama is a Muslim and warns that no Muslim should be president. All of the candidates demonize undocumented immigrants.
And Carly Fiorina makes the outrageous claim, on national television, that political opponents murder babies to harvest and sell their brains. Think about that.
The fantasy world of Movement Conservatives is no longer fringe talk. The leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination embrace it. They are playing to a chorus of true believers, and they are preaching what that choir wants to hear.
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