Tea Party Plans to Abandon GOP Stars

I have to confess that it gives me some deep pleasure to see the Frankenstein monster that the Republican establishment created - i,e., the Christofascist/Tea Party take over of the party grassroots - lurch increasingly out of control and threaten to utterly destroy the GOP long term.  When I resigned from my GOP City Committee seat some years back, I predicted that the party leadership would rue the day that it put short term expediency ahead of long term goals and in the process rejected logic, reason and intellect.  A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at the Tea Party's plan to go rouge on some of the supposed GOP stars.  Note how the Tea Party wants to inflect local political offices with its insanity.  Here are excerpts:

This wasn't the revolution the tea party had in mind.   Four years ago, the movement and its potent mix of anger and populism persuaded thousands of costumed and sign-waving conservatives to protest the ballooning deficit and President Obama's health care law. It swept a crop of no-compromise lawmakers into Congress and governor's offices and transformed political up-and-comers, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, into household names.

But as many tea party stars seek re-election next year and Rubio considers a 2016 presidential run, conservative activists are finding themselves at a crossroads. Many of their standard-bearers have embraced more moderate positions on bedrock issues such as immigration and health care, broadening their appeal in swing states but dampening grass-roots passion.

"They keep sticking their finger in the eyes of the guys who got them elected," said Ralph King, a co-founder of the Cleveland Tea Party Patriots. "A lot of people are feeling betrayed."

[M]any more say they plan to sit out high-profile races in some important swing states next year, a move that GOP leaders fear could imperil the re-election prospects of former tea party luminaries, including the governors of Florida and Ohio. 

Local activists say they have focused largely on their own communities since Obama's re-election and the ideological drift of some tea party-backed politicians. Many are running for school boards, county commissions and city councils, focusing on issues such as unfunded pension liabilities and sewer system repairs.

"The positions that people are filling at the local levels are more important for the future of the movement and the future of the country," said Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, a national umbrella organization. "It's creating a farm team for the future."

The Republican establishment, however, is concerned about 2014. Party leaders worry about the GOP's most passionate advocates walking away, particularly those supporters angered by the Senate's immigration bill.

 

The lesson to the GOP should be that when you allow the insane and irrational to infiltrate your party, bad things are bound to happen. 

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Tea Party Turns on Marco Rubio

Nothing makes for better sport than watching members of the GOP base turn on each other and their former darlings among the GOP elected officials.  As many expected, the drooling, knuckle dragging elements of the Tea Party (doesn't that describe all of the Tea Party?) are turning on Marco Rubio because of his support of the Senate passed immigration reform bill.  Here are highlights from The Daily Beast:

When Sen. Marco Rubio turned 42 on May 28, his Facebook page was swamped with more than 4,000 messages from people livid with him for championing the immigration-reform bill that was moving through the Senate. The notes variously called him a turncoat, a RINO, a traitor, or worse. Some birthday greetings suggested he celebrate in Mexico, Cuba, or hell, while one cheerfully said, “Happy Birthday! Now Resign!”

But the real backlash for Rubio came a month later, after he voted for the Senate immigration-reform bill. Senators headed home for the weeklong July 4 recess, or in Rubio’s case, a week of conservative blowback and hometown heartache, including a Tea Party protest in front of his Miami office.

“It was like a suicide mission that has served no purpose that we can tell,” said Everett Wilkinson, chairman of the Florida-based National Liberty Federation, of Rubio’s lead role on immigration reform. “The feedback I’ve received is that people are extremely upset with Marco. Tea Party members who were active with us and helped get Marco elected—several have said they’re no longer going to support him.”

A split now with conservatives and Tea Party members—the base of his base—will make Rubio a different kind of Republican going forward, for better and worse.

Juan Fiol, a libertarian Republican from Miami who volunteered for Rubio’s 2010 Senate campaign, says he won’t vote for Rubio again, nor will many Latinos he knows. “His own volunteers are turning against him. He’s in a lot of trouble,” Fiol said. “I am a Republican, but I do not identify with Rubio anymore. He could have been our savior, and he’s the nail in our coffin.”

While Rubio may have hurt himself at home with local supporters, the poll shows that his role on immigration reform has transformed his fortunes with national Latino voters almost overnight. He now dominates the potential 2016 GOP presidential field among Latinos, polling well ahead of Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, and Rand Paul, and has a majority of Latinos saying they’d be willing to consider voting Republican for the first time in years. The same poll also showed Hillary Clinton taking nearly two thirds of the Latino vote against any Republican if she runs.

But to get to a general election in Florida or nationally in 2016, Rubio will have to make peace with Tea Party activists or make plans to go around them. For now, many say they’d rather support Rand Paul or Ted Cruz.

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Marco Rubio's "47%" Moment?

At times it is breath taking how out of touch members of the GOP can be when it comes to a total lack of empathy - or even concern for - many American citizens.   During the 2013 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney showed his true colors and contempt for "the 47%" who Romney depicted as lazy slackers.   Now, Marco Rubio through an aide has denigrated many average Americans who are facing bleak employment prospects.  The inflammatory statement was first released by The New Yorker:

“There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it,” a Rubio aide told me. “There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly.”

The solution apparently in Rubio's mind?  Kick them to the curb and treat these Americans like disposable garbage as the GOP seeks to treat so many others, especially the poor and less fortunate.  It goes without saying that Rubio and company are frantically claiming that the statements were "taken out of context" which seemingly means they were not stated in a closed, controlled setting with limited access for reports.  Here's a sampling of the supposedly misquoted comments:

New York Magazine looks at this blunder by Rubio and the possible consequences for passage of meaningful immigration reform.  Here are excerpts:

Part of the fascination of the immigration-reform saga is that it provides a test of the Republican Party elite’s ability to tame its own base. For most of the Obama era, the bulging-eyed mania of the conservative activist base helpfully served the party’s interests.

Immigration reform is the clarifying event, directly pitting the passions of the base against the party elite’s long-term survival.

As a political matter, passing immigration reform is a necessary, though not a sufficient, condition for winning national elections. The Latino vote is not going to stop growing, and while Latino voters hold left-of-center views pretty much across the board, Republican hostility to illegal immigrants is the insuperable obstacle. Political scientist Dan Hopkins compared the GOP’s voting coalition in 2012 versus 2008 and found Latino Republicans defected at a higher rate than any other piece of the party’s voting bloc.

What makes immigration reform such a no-brainer for the elite is that Republican elites not only grasp its political necessity, but, for the most part, also support it on the merits. Immigration reform is helpful to business in any number of ways, one of them being as a legalized channel for low-wage labor.
[A]n aide to Marco Rubio strips bare the dynamic with a brutal frankness that I have never seen before in American politics   . . .   The idea that American workers don’t want to do certain jobs is a long cliché peddled by people who sit in soft chairs all day. American workers will do any job if it pays well enough — American workers toil in coal mines and collect garbage if they’re paid a living wage to do so. You certainly don’t have to take a cruel and ignorant view of the labor market to support immigration reform . . .

The Rubio aide quote is not only a piece of shocking candor, but also the biggest single blunder the pro-reform coalition has committed so far. Party elites may nod along when they read it, but there’s a reason nobody in politics ever says anything like this.

The question, as always, is, What will John Boehner do? The endgame of a successful law almost has to include the House passing a bill with mostly Democratic support. Boehner probably wants to pass a reform, and possibly a majority of House Republicans do, too, but there’s no chance a majority of them wants to vote for it openly.  . . . . No way in hell" is how several described the chances of the speaker acting on such a proposal without a majority of his majority behind him.

What I find most shocking about today's GOP - and the Christofascist puppet masters behind the scenes - is that they are utterly incapable of seeing the common humanity in others.  They whine about "Christian values"yet they display nothing but contempt and hatred towards those who are different, be they different because of the color of their skin, their national origin, their sexual orientation and a host of other criteria to fan division and discord.

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Lindsey Graham Warns GOP: ‘It Doesn’t Matter Who We Run In 2016′ If Immigration Reform Fails

The insanity and swamp fever that pervades the Republican Party base continues unabated and despite warnings that the Party needs to change course, the focus remains on pandering to the aging male, white supremacist elements of the GOP.  And when these folks aren't the ones being coddled, then it's the spittle flecked Christofascists who do not even grasp that they are slowly killing their own denominations not to mention the Christian brand as a whole.  The latest Cassandra is the Palmetto Queen, Lindsey Graham who is lamenting the GOP's future if immigration reform fails and the GOP retreats further into the racist world of the "real Americans" crowd.  Think Progress looks at Graham's warnings.  Here are excerpts:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — one of the Republican co-sponsors of an immigration reform bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11.1 million undocumented immigrations — told fellow Republicans that the GOP will fail to exist if reform does not become law.

“If we don’t pass immigration reform , if we don’t get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn’t matter who you run in 2016,” Graham warned during on appearance Sunday on NBC’s Meet The Press. “We’re in a demographic death spiral as a party, and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community, in my view, is pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don’t do that, it really doesn’t matter who will run, in my view.”

[W]hile several GOP-sponsored autopsy reports have urged the party to adopt a more welcoming tone toward immigrants, conservatives are still comparing immigrants to bankrobbers, while voting to deport DREAM-eligible immigrants. 

During a separate appearance on ABC’s This Week, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who also helped draft the Senate’s immigration reform measure and may run for president in 2016, would not commit to voting for his own bill.

Yes, you read that right. Congressman Steve King (R-IA) compared undocumented immigrants to bank robbers.   King, notorious for railing against any immigration reform efforts, used the comparison to argue that deporting people is “not a particularly draconian punishment.”

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Marco Rubio: Firing People for Being Gay Should be Legal

Marco Rubio - Anti-Gay Asshole

The more I see of Marco Rubio, the more I despise the man.   Now Rubio says he doesn't support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act because he thinks it should be perfectly legal to fire employees if they are gay.   Apparently Rubio is (i) so bigoted, (ii) so stupid, or (iii) so eager to whore himself out to the white supremacist base of the GOP that he hasn't figured out that his approach to gays is identical to that of white racists who think it should be fine to fire Hispanics.  If Rubio is the future of the GOP, that future is somewhat frightening.  Think Progress interviewed Rubio where he enunciated his contempt for LGBT citizens.  Here are highlights:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who is touted as a top GOP presidential prospect in 2016, thinks it should be legal to fire someone for their sexual orientation.

ThinkProgress spoke with the Florida Senator at the opening luncheon of the annual Faith and Freedom Forum on Thursday and asked him about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill to make discrimination against LGBT individuals illegal across the country.

Though Rubio bristles at the notion of being called a “bigot,” he showed no willingness to help protect LGBT workers from discrimination. “I’m not for any special protections based on orientation,” Rubio told ThinkProgress.

KEYES: The Senate this summer is going to be taking up the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which makes it illegal to fire someone for being gay. Do you know if you’ll be supporting that?

RUBIO: I haven’t read the legislation. By and large I think all Americans should be protected but I’m not for any special protections based on orientation.

KEYES: What about on race or gender?

RUBIO: Well that’s established law.

KEYES: But not for sexual orientation?

Workplace discrimination is an all-too-frequent reality for LGBT individuals. Two out of every five openly lesbian, gay, or bisexual employees have reported discrimination at their jobs. Among transgender workers, that figure rises to nine out of ten.

Though other Republicans have applauded Rubio’s so-called “middle ground” on LGBT issues, his record of late tells a far different story. In addition to opposing ENDA and marriage equality, Rubio also said today that he would walk away from his own immigration bill if it includes protections for gay couples.

LGBT workers aren’t asking for “special protections,” as Rubio would have people believe. They’re asking to be treated like everyone else and be allowed to do their job without fear of being harassed or fired for who they are.

The reasons to not be a Republican just seem to keep on growing.  Having been fired for being gay myself, few things enrage me more that this kind of bigotry.

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