Mike Lee

Republican Suicide As Result of Government Shutdown And Debt Ceiling: Long Term Damage!

The Republican Party has seen 144 members of the House of Representatives and 18 in the US Senate voting for default on the national debt!

The Republican Party has seen itself held accountable for an increase in government spending caused by the shutdown of the government, to the tune of $24 billion, instead of having 800,000 civil servants working for 16 days, but now getting back pay rightfully for their forced period out of work!

The Republican Party has shown it does not give a damn for the economic and emotional turmoil it caused millions of Americans by their reckless, selfish, delusional behavior!

The Republican Party has shown it has no limits in its determination to destroy this President, but it has failed miserably!

The Republican Party allowed itself to be hijacked by Ted Cruz and the Tea Party Movement, and it has lost all respectability and credibility to achieve control of the White House, the Senate, and at some point, the House of Representatives, as they have shown themselves to be no longer representative of a broad coalition needed to be taken seriously as a national party based on coalition and compromise!

Public opinion polls show the GOP in crisis mode, with the lowest ratings in recorded history for a major political party since polls began in the mid 1930s!

The only hope for a revival of the Republican Party is to:

Repudiate Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, James Inhofe, Marco Rubio and other Tea Party Senators.

Repudiate the Tea Party Movement in the House of Representatives.

Repudiate the talk show hosts on radio and Fox News Channel.

Repudiate the Heritage Foundation and other right wing think tanks, and come back to the moderate center which led to the elections of Eisenhower, Nixon, the Bushes, and yes, even Ronald Reagan, who would be mortified as to how right wing extremist the GOP has allowed itself to become.

But will the Republican Party take any or all of these actions? Do not hold your breath on this!

Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Sarah Palin And The Confederate Flag At The White House: Reprehensible!

A crowd descended on the gates at the White House on Sunday, led by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Mike Lee of Utah, and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP Vice Presidential nominee.

They stood by as Confederate flags were brandished, and a speaker said it was time for Barack Obama to stop obeying the Muslim faith, and to resign from the Presidency!

What a spectacle it was, with National Park police called out in riot gear, in case the demonstration became unruly or worse.

These three demagogues—Cruz, Lee, and Palin—who are destroying the Republican brand with their fight to undermine the federal government, blamed Obama for the shutdown of the federal government, rather than Cruz and Lee taking responsibility for encouraging House Tea Party Republicans to do what everyone knows they provoked, intimidating Speaker John Boehner into what has become a disaster for the Republican Party brand!

By appearing with these Confederate, secessionist, states rights riight wingers, they are encouraging violent insurrection against the government, and poisoning the atmosphere for peaceful resolution of differences, and also undermining respect for the office of the Presidency!

Republican leadership—much more than Senator John McCain of Arizona and Congressman Peter King of New York—must speak up and denounce these tactics, or the GOP is totally doomed as a major political party for the long run!

New Jersey Senate Race: Cory Booker Vs Steve Lonegan

New Jersey will have a new Senator after Wednesday, and it is urgent that Newark Mayor Cory Booker take over the seat of the late Senator Frank Lautenberg.

Booker is seen as a rising national star, who would do a lot of good for the middle class and the poor of his home state, which has not elected a Republican Senator since it gave Senator Clifford Case his last term in office in 1972. Case was an outstanding Republican Senator, a liberal Republican who built up an enviable record in his 24 years of Senate service.

New Jersey is a state which deserves a man of Booker’s caliber, and he is leading in the polls by about 12 percentage points, but the Tea Party is making a vigorous challenge to Booker in the person of Steve Lonegan, a businessman and former Mayor of Bogota, New Jersey.

Lonegan would help Ted Cruz, Rand Paul. Mike Lee, Marco Rubio and other Tea Party types in blocking progress, and refusing any cooperation with other Republicans, increasing the civil war that exists in the GOP. His statements and viewpoints are totally unacceptable for a state in the Northeastern United States, with many residents working in New York City or Philadelphia.

Lonegan is having Sarah Palin, the former Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nominee, coming in to campaign for him this weekend, and that is, in itself, enough reason for New Jersey to reject Lonegan, and elect Booker, as a leader who will do a lot of good for New Jersey, and become a figure of national stature, including a possible Democratic Presidential candidacy in the future.

House Republicans Are Wreaking Havoc On The Economy, Equivalent Of Sedition!

The House of Representatives Republican majority has become a party committing sedition, undermining the economic stability and security of America, and they will never be able to recover from this, as they face repudiation by all sensible Americans! 70 percent oppose the government shutdown, and only 24 percent now perceive the Republican Party in a favorable light, and only 17 percent see Speaker of the House John Boehner in a positive fashion!

With the government shutdown nearing two weeks, we are seeing many desperate people who have no paycheck forthcoming; businesses that are going bankrupt for lack of customers at national parks and monuments and other government buildings that bring millions of tourists annually; undermining of our ability to be prepared for bad weather, disease outbreaks, monitoring of food and drug imports; and so many other manifestations of what has become a total disaster!

The House GOP has also undermined any respect for our government, and sowed hatred toward our President, putting him in greater danger of assassination by their poisonous condemnations of everything emanating from the White House since January 20, 2009!

And the Senate and Gubernatorial Republicans do not get a free ride from guilt in this mess, as they have shown no concern for the effect on ordinary people by their insensitive, uncaring statements and policies!

And the Tea Party Movement and its heroes—Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and even Marco Rubio–are scarred by their reckless, seditious behavior—and their future dreams of the White House are guaranteed to fail, without any doubt!

The likelihood is that the Tea Party lunatics will break with the GOP, which is the only hope for the revival of the Republican Party, but will benefit the Democratic Party for years to come!

Barack Obama is totally correct in refusing a six week extension of the debt ceiling, without an ending of the government shutdown immediately! And the irony that the six week extension would end on November 22, the 50th Anniversary of the John F. Kennedy Assassination, is totally reprehensible!

The Reign Of Terror Of Ted Cruz And Tea Party House Republicans: Time For Adults To Take Over From Children!

The nation has had enough of the Reign of Terror of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and 35-40 Tea Party House Republicans!

It is time for the adults to take over from the children!

It is time for the Republicans in the Senate, minus Cruz, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, James Inhofe and a few others, to declare war on their reckless Senate colleagues and put them in their place once and for all!

It is time for John Boehner to show “cajones” and stop the destruction of American government for which he should be held accountable by the American people!

And it is time for Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, with greed and ambition waiting to replace Boehner, as the secret brains behind the House Tea Party Republicans, to be condemned by all sane Republicans, almost 200 of them, as having lost all credibility as a leader of their party in the lower chamber!

It is time for responsible moderate conservative Republicans to take hold of their party! When one loses one house of Congress, loses the White House, loses the majority of the Supreme Court, and the vast majority of their office holders, including Governors, accept that ObamaCare is here to stay, it is time to stop acting as hostage takers, and as anarchists!

Ted Cruz A Villain, Wendy Davis A Hero On Health Care

Texas Senator Ted Cruz failed to break the record of a filibuster today, stopping after 21 hours and 19 minutes, while the record remains 24 hour and 18 minutes by Strom Thurmond in 1957.

Also, Senator Alfonse D’Amato of New York and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon surpassed Cruz in time spent on a filibuster.

Cruz is no hero, as he had a few breaks with assistance from fellow Tea Party activists Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, James Inhofe, and a few other Republican Senators, and went off topic, referring to Dr. Seuss, Star Wars, Ashton Kutcher, and other extraneous topics.

On the other hand, Texas State Senator Wendy Davis spent 13 hours in her filibuster against the limitations on Texas health care recently, with no assistance allowed by others, and no extraneous topics allowed.

And Wendy Davis was speaking FOR health care, while Cruz has worked AGAINST health care coverage.

So Ted Cruz is a villain, while Wendy Davis is a hero!

Ted Cruz Moving Toward Longest Filibuster In American History

Texas Senator Ted Cruz seems now likely to break the record for an individual filibuster, surpassing South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who set the record at 24 hours and 18 minutes in a filibuster against Civil Rights legislation in 1957.

Cruz will likely enter the record books at just before 3 pm today, but it will be for naught, as the ObamaCare program will be part of our health care system no matter what Cruz says or does!

And in the process, we are discovering how senior Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, and Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, among others, are decrying the damage it does to the Republican brand.

But, at the same itme, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah, and Marco Rubio of Florida are joining the Tea Party rebellion in the GOP, which can only rent the party asunder over time.

So Barack Obama is watching the Republican Party fall apart over his signature domestic achievement, and guaranteeing Democratic victory for the Presidency in 2016, and likely control of the Senate continuing, and a good chance to regain the House of Representatives in 2014.

John Boehner Has Failed As Speaker Of The House, And Needs To Resign!

Speaker of the House John Boehner has given in to the Tea Party lunatics in his Republican caucus, rather than showing courage and leadership, and needs to resign as a failure, and the worst Speaker of the House in modern history! To think also that Boehner is two heartbeats away from the Presidency under the Presidential Succession Law of 1947 is terrifying!

Boehner will be forced out anyway, because he has shown he is a gutless wonder, who said he would not take the country to the brink of bankruptcy and a massive fiscal crisis, and then gives in to the Tea Party crowd, including anarchists such as Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and Mike Lee, who know what they are doing will destroy the Republican Party future, but have grandiose ambitions, in the case of Cruz and Paul, to be President!

God forbid that either Cruz or Paul ever gets near the Oval Office, as that will be the downfall of American civilization! These men are no better than anarchists, really more dangerous to our nation, than any foreign terrorist groups could ever be, as their desire to destroy Barack Obama and ObamaCare is a sickness and a disease that gives not a damn about the effect on millions of Americans!

The only good thing coming out of this mess is the fact that the House Tea Party Caucus is starting to criticize Ted Cruz, really the Robespierre of the Tea Party Revolution, whose greed and ambition and self centered nature reminds one of the man who he so closely resembles—the witch hunting Wisconsin Senator, Joseph McCarthy, the perpetrator of the Red Scare in the early 1950s!

So the GOP may be imploding, destroying itself, which would be a blessing, as what is needed is a moderate, mainstream conservative party with a sense of responsibility to the nation’s economic and social future!

A Moment Of Reckoning For The Tea Party Movement: McCain, Graham, Boehner Back Obama On Syria!

While the Syrian Civil War rages on, it is now clear that a moment long overdue is coming in the Republican Party–whether the anti government Tea Party Movement is finally going to get what it deserves—a total repudiation by the mainstream conservatives in the party over whether America takes a stand against the outlaw Syrian government and its war crime of chemical warfare against civilians!

Speaker of the House John Boehner, and Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have come out for the Obama stand, and are ready to fight for a resolution backing the President’s use of force against Syria.

So the gauntlet is thrown down for Tea Party members in the House, numbering about 75, and the Tea Party Senators, including Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Mike Lee, and others, as we see whether they will stop the partisanship and anti government lunacy, and back Barack Obama for once!

As predicted, a “civil war” is likely in the GOP, and if the Tea Party Movement triumphs, it will doom the Republican Party after 159 years! This is a battle for survival of sanity, responsibility, and mainstream conservatism as an alternative to the Democratic Party!

Republican Party Attempt To Defund “ObamaCare” Does Not Offer Alternative Program For Millions Of Americans!

The battle is on within the extreme right wing of the Republican Party to defund “ObamaCare” in the upcoming budget battles, or shut down the government.

Leading the charge are the Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives, and 12 Senators, including Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Mike Lee.

A majority of Senate Republicans are loathe to do what the Tea Party wants, figuring it will cause electoral defeats for the Republicans in the midterm Congressional elections of 2014.

But what this is doing is putting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and other more mainstream conservatives, including Speaker of the House John Boehner, in a tough situation, which is causing Tea Party challenges to McConnell, Graham, and others.

But ultimately, the biggest problem is that the Republican Party used to say they supported an alternative to “ObamaCare”, but now there is no such talk, and that means, were “ObamaCare” to be defunded by some manipulation, that millions upon millions of American citizens, who have not had health care insurance, and expected they would now have such coverage, would end up NOT having it!

And that means the Republican Party is saying, “To hell with these less fortunate people! Let them rot, let them do without, let them have to deal with a situation that denies them the “American Dream!””

Is that a message to draw voters, to show that government, and really all of us, have no compassion, and concern for those less fortunate? Is it a good thing to say to children, the elderly, the disabled and sick, and poorer citizens that they do not matter? That all that matters is acquisition of wealth and assets by the fortunate minority of Americans?

Is this the kind of country we want in the future in the 21st century?