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The Spectacle Blog
Several pro-Tea Party Congressmen have found themselves purged from committee assignments by the GOP leadership.
On Monday, Arizona Republican David Schweikert was removed from the House Financial Services Committee while Kansas Republican Tim Huelskamp and Michigan Republican Justin Amash were removed from the House Budget Committee.
This certainly doesn’t inspire confidence. If Boehner and Cantor see fit to exile pro-Tea Party Congressmen then is it any wonder why the Obama Administration feels emboldened enough to demand complete and unconditional surrender from the House GOP?
View all comments (73) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/12/04/thoughts-on-house-gop-purge-of
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Sean| 12.4.12 @ 12:28AM
Like a lot of us have been saying. Obama is not our only enemy. It is also the vast majority of Republicans. When you vote for Boehner and Cantor to lead you expect liberal advancement.
Jack in Wi| 12.4.12 @ 8:06AM
Boehner and Cantor are the Rockefeller and Rothchild leaders of the Republican Party. Until these groups are purged from the party there is no hope of a real opposition emerging in this country. These guys want people who will follow the orders of the elite. This country needs a real revolution where the elites are overturned. Jefferson was right about the need for periodic revolution. This country would be far better off if we just let the Northeast coast go it's own way. We can't stand anymore control from them. They are crushing the Middle Class. George Wallace campaigned for the end of the trusts like the Rockefellers. The rich don't care about high tax rates. They avoid them if possible and have accountants, lobbyists and lawyers to get the job done.
darcy| 12.4.12 @ 1:31PM
Wealthy libs do indeed avoid paying taxes in the manner you describe while congratulating themselves on supporting government policies that help the poor. The irony is that they are blind to the fact that the effect of such policies is to expand poverty in at least two ways: they breed dependency and sloth, and they harm the middle class who can ill afford the extra thousands in taxes foisted upon them and leave them with virtually no disposable income, which in many cases means that the dependent class is better off financially than they are. This is a recipe for mass resentment and a reality that the wealthy REFUSE to consider in their self-righteous redistributive do-gooder wet-dreams.
That is to say that if liberals are so compassionate toward the "poor," why are they so callous to the hard-working middle class?
And why are they so proud of the fact that the cost of the assuagement of their guilt (for being rich and having so much) is the death of self-respect, self-sufficiency, and resourcefulness within our culture among the less fortunate? Apparently intangible virtues such are these need to be expunged so that liberals' lives can have meaning.
darcy| 12.4.12 @ 4:18PM
Irony detection reaches far and wide:
'"The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing this year the greatest amount of free Meals and Food Stamps ever, to 46 million people. Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us: "Please Do Not Feed the Animals." The stated reason for the policy? "The animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves."
Thus ends today's lesson in irony."'
Compliments of dianawest.net/.
And if they never learn to take care of themselves the "providers" can rest at night believing they are doing the right thing, and thus sleep peacefully in their blissful ignorance of the actual -- and serious -- harm they perpetuate.
Sean| 12.5.12 @ 7:21AM
Jack remember that Obama Care is a tax. We are not hearing anything about eliminating that from the Republicans anymore.
Stan Redmond| 12.5.12 @ 2:58PM
Boehner himself declared it law of the land. I am sadly certain he will follow the King Obama's [pbuh] commands and fully impliment and fund this great and wonderful Obamacare.
Boehner's gotta go.
RJ| 12.4.12 @ 2:08AM
The GOP establishment keeps making it very clear that they do not represent our interests and are primarily enablers for Big Government.
Its time to re-read Angelo M. Codevilla's article on America's Ruling Class
aware| 12.4.12 @ 5:22AM
Only those who do not "vote" have a right to complain. The REAL enemy is NOT "liberalism", it is STATISM. And both wings(Nationalists and Socialists) of the Uniparty are Statist to the core.
Only after the entire rotten system is burned to the ground is there any chance of regaining what has been lost. A lot of posters here should be ashamed of being played like patsies by the GOP, but I bet they aren't. They'll fall in line next time cause they are fools.
Simon Templar| 12.4.12 @ 11:47AM
Liberalism is statism.
Patriotism is not Nationalism (the ideology).
All people are nationalist except for globalist and kooks like yourself.
If the system is burned down, fascism is the likely result.
Most posters here are not GOP sycophants are are well aware of the CINO and RINO's and the anti-conservative and yes, anti-libertarian, focus of the establishment GOP.
Speaking of fools, you are a part of the problem. You are just as stupid as the establishment GOP. You sit on our "left" tearing conservatives down and they sit on our "right" so to speak doing the same. If you had any brains you and the other libertarians like yourself would ally with conservatives and stop playing footsy with the liberals.
aware| 12.4.12 @ 2:31PM
I'm sure your place in line is reserved, dupe. And fascism is what we have now, dumbass. Do you know anything about politics?
Simon Templar| 12.4.12 @ 2:55PM
We have crony capitalism and a big government that has moved into every facet of American life. It is not Fascism, little boy. You do not have a clue as to what REAL Fascism looks like. As usual, you throw around terms you have little knowledge of or experience with..
Just the same way you use the word, Nationalism.
I am sure you call people, like the liberals, NAZI's of which you disagree with or who do not go along with your childish world views.
You are in your twenties or thirties, right asshole? The tone and style of your rhetoric and logic is revealing and the fact that you use these terms so loosely and without any understanding.
You are nothing but a troll and a dupe. The RCVs The DREDS, and the Purps have a special place for you when real fascism takes hold. That line will be a firing squad.
My gut tells me, however, that you will be the first to sell out and beg for mercy and join them when they start arresting, jailing, and prosecuting ( shooting) those that are threats to the PEOPLE and the People's state.
aware| 12.4.12 @ 4:27PM
Fascism is the alliance of big business and big government, shit for brains, in other words the system you support. Or as Il Duce called it corporatism. And I am in my late 50s and been fighting Statism since my late teens. Every post you make only confirms my rejecting "conservatism" as a way to liberty, neocon.
Here we have in 1 chart the "success" of "conservatism" against Leviathan:
http://www.intellectualtakeout.....s-spending
See if you can tell the great Reagan and Gingrich periods. Yeah you "conservatives" know as much about holding the line as you do about politics, dumbass. The results speak for themselves.
But don't let me stop you from beating a dead horse.
Matthew Quigley| 12.4.12 @ 7:21AM
Time to form a REAL Conservative Constitutionalist party. Boner and Can'tor need to be exiled to 'rat land where they belong.
Stkman| 12.4.12 @ 2:11PM
I'm with you Quigley. I think Jim Demint may have himself positioned to start a third party soon. Let's hope so.
mike 3/505| 12.4.12 @ 9:59PM
third Party won't work...unless we organize it from within an existing party. We need to "primary" Boehner. He thinks he's bullet proof. Remember....we can "discipline" the entire House of Representatives every two years...We should do so. I am willing to accept the risk of occasionally losing a couple seats...if we continue to move the ball toeard the conservative side.
Stkman| 12.5.12 @ 1:36PM
I respectfully dis-agree. We've been trying that and to no avail.
We have the numbers to do it. We just need to act. I ask yourself this, how many of your friends and neighbors think like you, act like you and go to work everyday like you? Now what about their friends. Trust your feelings about what other feel. They feel like you do and they are just as tired of being lied to as you are. All of us have been looking for an alternative but human nature tells us to do nothing until we are forced to do something. Well, Speaker Boehnor just forced us to do something. Instead of us trying to purge the RINO's just dump the whole party. Is it better to pull the band-aid off quickly, or slowly?
Martin kzovich| 12.4.12 @ 7:45AM
Let me put it this way: IF this is a prelude to a "cave in" then the Republican Party will lose its base of support and their could well be a Third Party. Could this be what the Republican Leadership really wants ? What the reason, I will not vote of Socialism light and never vote for a coward as exemplified by Bush (I and II ), McCaine, and Romney ever.
darcy| 12.4.12 @ 2:09PM
Democrats and Republicans are engaged in power-sharing; a uni-party with two wings, as one commenter noted, which serve to gather in most of the electorate by appeal to their respective bases.
But at governing time, both parties are moving further and further left in tandem. Elected conservatives within the Republican Party are being subsumed within the collective and have virtually no restraining power over the uni-party. Since the uni-party has decided to dismantle America's liberties and bleed the country dry, the only political recourse is a third party COMMITTED to halting and reversing the damage sustained.
It may never gain power enough to effect the needed reversal. But that is no worse than our situation today: reversal cannot ever happen as long as the Republican Party continues to play twin-brother to Democrats. And not for one second do I think establishment Republicans will ever give up their control of the Party; no amount of grassroots infiltration will topple the power structure -- the machine is too entrenched and protective of its power. Boehner is merely the most current exemplar of this fact.
aware| 12.4.12 @ 2:37PM
The way to get National(ist) Socialism in the US(formally America) is to have it come in 2 "parties" instead of the one Hitlerites used. That way you never see it coming until too late.
Now it is too late.
Simon Templar| 12.4.12 @ 3:00PM
Blah, blah, blah. We have some real and serious problems here, little boy, not your fantasies and your characterizations.
If it is too late, then shut the fuck up, and go play with your new i-pad or yourself.
aware| 12.4.12 @ 4:31PM
Exactly the kind of intellectual response expected from a genius like you, neocon. Maybe I'd better give up before you come back with a "yo momma", huh?
Teflon93 | 12.4.12 @ 7:58AM
Isn't it interesting that National Review has nothing to say on that?
By "interesting" I mean "totally predictable and very telling".
Teflon93 | 12.4.12 @ 9:10AM
What do Lowry and Ponnuru have to say about this:
http://dyn.politico.com/prints...
"Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have worked assiduously to keep conservative groups on the outside in line as they try to strike a massive deal to keep taxes low on all Americans and avoid spending cuts to the Pentagon and other domestic programs.
The traditional right — The Wall Street Journal editorial page, National
Review, Fox News and business-friendly analysts on CNBC — have been lockstep in line with Boehner, the result of careful outreach by leadership staff."
aware| 12.4.12 @ 4:46PM
The "traditional Right" was killed by the Buckleyites in the mid '50s. The Old Right had a strong steak of anti-Statism they were unwilling to set aside for the sake of "security", unlike the "new" Right.
Which reminds me of PRESIDENT EISENHOWER quote: "If you want security, go to prison. There you are fed, clothed, given medical care, and so on. The only thing missing....freedom."
JmsA| 12.4.12 @ 5:48PM
Good post, Teflon93.
JP| 12.4.12 @ 8:39AM
One wonders if Conservatives should pack-up leave the GOP?
RJ| 12.4.12 @ 12:45PM
Why surrender to the statists? Let's work on expanding conservatism support and take over the GOP and win elections.
Stkman| 12.4.12 @ 2:14PM
No, dump the GOP now and start a new thrid party. The longe we fight amongst ourselves the firmer the grip the Democrats(communist) have on the country.
We can start a thrid party tomorrow and have sevela house seats and possibly a senate seat or two in two years. In four years we could shock the world and actually control the house and win the Presidency. The people of this country are ready for a party that puts America and American citizens are tired of handouts to illegals and those that refuse to work and corporate profits at the expense of American jobs.
People just need to have some faith that we can do it.
Seek| 12.4.12 @ 4:22PM
It will never happen. In the tradition of Richard Viguerie, Howard Phillips and Paul Weyrich, you wildly overestimate the popularity of hardcore populist conservatism. The natural base of support just isn't there. And with the country becoming less Caucausian with each passing election cycle, the numbers will look even worse. Calling Democrats "Communist" isn't going to help either -- look where it got Allen West.
Stkman| 12.4.12 @ 4:28PM
I totally disagree with you. The natural base is waiting on a party that represents them.
Teflon93 | 12.4.12 @ 7:02PM
You don't know your history.
The same sentiments were presented about abolitionists in the 1850s. The whole reason the GOP exists today is because the Whigs then thought abolitionists too extreme and became irrelevant within 6 years.
Look it up.
Seek| 12.5.12 @ 12:32AM
Perhaps you could use a refresher course on recent U.S. history, Teflon Man. Radical religious populists have never had one of their own in the White House in the past century, and that includes Reagan, who governed like the moderate conservative he really was. The federal budget rose substantially under his watch, though after 1985 it was slowed by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act.
But there is one thing that really does threaten the survival of the Republicans: A lack of white people. Blacks and Hispanics will be the death of my GOP. They love free lunches. And Democrats serve the largest portions by far.
fmm| 12.4.12 @ 9:21AM
Wouldn't the formation of a conservative caucus be the fastest route to have an impact? This caucus would have to follow a set of rules different from that of the GOP leadership, creating a thorn in their sides, especially if the caucus is large enouigh to give the democrats more members than the statist GOP. Anything to change the status quo would be welcome.
Teflon93 | 12.4.12 @ 10:39AM
That was what the Tea Party Caucus was. Which Boehner sought to destroy by, among other things, denying its members committee seats and denying its founder any funding in a tight Congressional race.
Stkman| 12.4.12 @ 2:18PM
Let's not forget that John Cornyn of Texas is equally guilty of not funding or helping those in the Tea Party that run for office. Cornyn needs to be targeted when he comes up for re-election.
Teflon93 | 12.4.12 @ 3:15PM
You're absolutely correct---Cornyn has gone full RINO.
And a huge disappointment he is, seeing as how he once was reliably conservative.
Bob K| 12.4.12 @ 9:37AM
The Republican "leadership" wants the Republicans to be the minority party in the house.
They can't handle leadership because they never learned how to do it during their formative years in congress as members of the minority party.
You can't turn lapdogs into pit bulls!
Derek Leaberry| 12.4.12 @ 9:54AM
Notice that Boehner and McConnell don't mention that if the Obama built in stimulus was eliminated, much of the fiscal cliff could be solved. If we went back to Bush's last gargantuan budget, things might be manageable. But McConnell and Boehner are big spenders like Obama. They like Obama's spending. So they are the enemy.
fmm| 12.4.12 @ 10:36AM
Exactly. Baseline budgeting is the main problem and it is unconsciounable that the house has not defunded anything associated with the ongoing stimulus. That is why there needs to be formal resistance to the GOP leadership within the GOP house members.
Stkman| 12.4.12 @ 2:19PM
The reason these politician like big spending is it is so large no one can keep up with the money trail and they are all siphoning money from these spending bills.
irish19| 12.4.12 @ 10:18AM
The last actual (written by Republican) "gargantuan" budget had a $160 billion deficit. Given what we have now, I should think that is more than manageable.
Derek Leaberry| 12.4.12 @ 12:17PM
Bush's last budget was over $ 2.6 trillion with hundreds of billions off books for the fiascoes in Afghanistan and Iraq. I would call that gargantuan.
squalis| 12.4.12 @ 1:28PM
That 2.6 trillion (if that figure is accurate) was authorized by Congress, including an overwhelming majority of Democrats at the time, lest you forget. Moreover, the 2.6 trillion represents only aprrox 10% of what the debt will be after Obama's 2nd term. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the looming SS time bomb.
Derek Leaberry| 12.4.12 @ 1:41PM
My argument is that Boehner and McConnell should advocate dropping spending levels to the last Bush budget levels. The last Bush budget may have been exorbitant but it pales in comparison to the Obama-Democrat budgets.
Zeppo| 12.4.12 @ 10:18AM
The Party's over, it's time to call it a day...
Al Adab| 12.4.12 @ 10:33AM
Simply more of the same old stuff the GOP keeps saying to The Conservative Movement. Only when The Movement has preponderated in policy has the GOP enjoyed success, yet the GOP continues to purge Conservatives from its ranks and from its leadership. Why is it that the minority view within the GOP gets the blame every time the GOP suffers defeat? The true fault lies with the accomodationist GOP which sees itself as nothing but better managers of the administrative social-welfare State. The never question the legitimacy of statism only the management of it. That has been the pattern since Dewey through Ford, Dole, Bush 41, McCain and now Romney.
Conservatives look at the Movement and see Reagan and 1994 while the GOP elites see only Goldwater. Is not principled governance to be preferred to selling ones birthright simply to win elections?
Teflon93 | 12.4.12 @ 10:41AM
You misunderstand. Boehner, McConnell and the RINO et al would rather see the GOP lose than see a conservative run the party.
It is about their personal power and influence---nothing else.
They have no principle save power.
Al Adab| 12.4.12 @ 11:10AM
Oh I don't disagree. It is all about power and perks, not about what we sorely need with a return to free markets, limited government and Liberty. If winning requires that the GOP stand for nothing except better management of bread and circuses then it belongs with other extinct species. Would that the public realize their Liberty is of greater value than subsistence as slaves.
Teflon93 | 12.4.12 @ 11:20AM
Liberty requires too much of too many. You have to think, to reason, and to jealously guard your prerogatives as free men from the endless array of those who would enslave you with gold-encrusted manacles. You have to stand up and defend yourself against those who see you as a threat to their power. You have to forego the illusions and myths being spouted by those who wish to rule you. You have to refuse the bribes purchasing your fellow citizens' assent to helotry. You have to be an adult.
Our generation is simply too weak and decadent to be free. The Tea Party is the last hope.
Al Adab| 12.4.12 @ 11:44AM
...and in our current culture of perpetual adolescence adults are few and far between. Instant gratification after all is the grail.
RCV| 12.4.12 @ 11:50AM
The GOP leadership is wise in trying to excise the cancer that has so damaged it in the past six years. Responsible conservatism and tea party lunacy are two very different things. Let the kooks float off by themselves and the GOP might have a chance at revival.
Simon Templar| 12.4.12 @ 12:11PM
Yes, then it will be a hell of a lot easier for your complete and full implementation of the Socialists States of Amerika.
Troll. Useful idiot.
Al Adab| 12.4.12 @ 12:33PM
RCV:
Would you care to define for me the distinction between Conservatives and Tea party adherents?
I suspect most find the difference to lie in social issues but that would seem a more Libertarian/Conservative divide.
Zeppo| 12.4.12 @ 1:13PM
"Responsible" conservatism is the losing kind, of course.
RCV| 12.4.12 @ 3:34PM
When I think of conservatism in its true sense, I think of Bill Buckley and Barry Goldwater. That combination can involve, as illustrated, both libertarian and traditional conservative instincts.
The strain of Tea Party Republicanism that I am referring to, Al Adab, is an unintellectual, xenophobic, angry opposition that has manifested itself as obstructionist, hateful, religiously intolerant and paranoid.
Teflon93 | 12.4.12 @ 3:59PM
You do realize that "conservatism in its true sense" cannot consist of dead men?
Zeppo| 12.4.12 @ 7:58PM
RCV sees that we may be unhappy as Democrats, so he generously proposes that we become Libertarians.
Any specifics on this unintellectual, xenophobic, angry, obstructionist, hateful, religiously intolerant and paranoid trend that has you concerned? Are you referring to the Romney campaign?
RCV| 12.5.12 @ 12:51AM
Hardly. I'm speaking of the Bachmanns, Sharon Angles, Sarah Palins, Alan Wests, Christine O'Donnells who have led the GOP down the sorry path it finds itself dead-ended on today, to the cheers of many TASers here.
RCV| 12.4.12 @ 3:34PM
Simon, you get more irrelevant every day.
Simon Templar| 12.5.12 @ 10:38AM
And you, troll, become more of useful idiot in line for a rude, very rude awakening.
RCV| 12.5.12 @ 11:32AM
The rude awakening came for you reality-denying idiots ("the polls are fixed, we'll win in a landslide") this election day. Fortunately, we can now watch this tea party nonsense fade into history.
Simon Templar| 12.4.12 @ 12:07PM
This certainly doesn't inspire confidence.
Yes, it should not. What is should inspire is revelation of what is actually going on in this nation politically, and who is in control. It should inspire some real deep questioning and some soul searching. It should inspire the rest of us outside to take action. Actions other than what we have always taken, new and bold strategies and tactics are required.
It is really quite simple.
Conservatives must start thinking and acting like revolutionaries. Exactly like those revolutionaries of 1776, not the ones in this past century.
It will require mannerism, actions, styles, and thinking that many conservatives today are uncomfortable with and have lost since the days the first classical liberals took to the streets of Boston.
It really is amazing how impotent most conservatives and Republicans act and think. There comes a time in every social endeavor and political movement of people where they realize that they must fight and step outside of their comfortable zone and do whatever is required to win.
Simon Templar| 12.4.12 @ 12:28PM
Right now the House has an enormous group of new Tea Party candidates that have been elected in a sweeping mandate oriented election of 2010.
So, the focus should really not be on Cry'in Man Boner, but on them. The GOP establishment's recent actions should be no surprise, but expected. So, Goldstein why the shock. Why any confidence in the first place to be lost?
The real question of interest and focus should be, "What will this large political block of Tea party candidates DO, now?"
aware| 12.4.12 @ 4:35PM
Fold like a cheap tent?
RCV| 12.5.12 @ 12:52AM
Fade away into history like their Know-Nothing predecessors.
Simon Templar| 12.5.12 @ 11:04AM
Oh, look, our two useful idiot, 'know nothing but what my communist professors told me,' liberal trolls have replied to my comments. I always know when I have said something threatening and substantial as you two idiots respond like trained seals and quite predictably.
I take that back. You are not useful idiots. You are just idiots. Pathetic losers that get little kicks for their little egos by trolling and making idiot comments on conservative web sites would be a better description. The kind of losers who think they are making strides for the 'cause' and need it to prop up the idea that someone actually gives a rats ass what they think.
I want you to know something that I say in all sincerity. As a formal radical, I would fire both of you. This is why. Your commentary is sophomoric, childish, and lacks any coherency and substance. You have both demonstrated nothing but left wing cliches, cheap little quips, and shallow arguments. This is why I avoid engaging with you for the most part. I know I could do a better and have done better when I was a fellow traveler. Neither of you demonstrate any depth of understanding about anything either Left or Right. Frankly, you are too predictable and boring. I have been wanting to tell both of you that for some time now.
RCV| 12.5.12 @ 11:35AM
Simon, you haven't expressed an original thought throughout the years I've participated in this site, and I doubt that as a "radical" you did so either. People like you who can flip from one extreme to the other with the zeal of a true believer rarely have any original thought. You simply abandon one party line for another.
ChesterBelloc| 12.4.12 @ 1:00PM
Some creature called David Welch, former research director of RNC, opines today in the NY Slimes that Bill Buckley would happily have exiled the Tea Party as he did the John Birch Society as "extremist". We are dealing with a much more dangerous enemy from within. Our gunpowder is damppened and the firing pins from our guns are removed before we can engage the opposition.
aware| 12.4.12 @ 2:28PM
Buckley certainly would do just that. He would not tolerate any threat to his beloved Garrison State. Read Rothbard's "Betrayal of the American Right".
JmsA| 12.4.12 @ 6:09PM
Aware, as no doubt you're fully aware of (no pun intended), the founders designed a system of self-governance for a righteous, virtuous people. Much of that has been replaced by the very opposite, including the den of crooks that is Washington, where most except a relative limited minority of true patriots, concern themselves mostly with benefiting themselves, while no matter and irrespective the damage done to the country and their constituents, they endeavor to benefit themselves while retaining their sinecures and increasing their power.
aware| 12.5.12 @ 6:06AM
You, sir, are a patriot and absolutely right. The point I try to make, unsuccessfully with neocons, is that fascism does not sweep away, it hollows out. It leaves the facade in place and even "supports" traditions, terms, and labels. Courts, constitutions, elections, on the surface are still there and appear to be functioning but behind the facade a subtle and far reaching change has occurred. This is accomplished slowly almost without notice.
Instead of blasting the building to rubble and erecting a new one, as the Bolsheviks would do, the fascists take the building over one office at a time. Their success can be traced by the increasing dependence on the State by entities, institutions, and individuals.
After a point, to question or call attention to this process gets you labeled "unpatriotic" or even "kook" by those unaware because it appears you are attacking traditions that in reality no longer exist except as a veneer.
RJ| 12.5.12 @ 5:11PM
Good points. I agree with you on the problem. What can we do to fix it? I also want to thank-you for recommending "They Thought They Were Free." It was excellent. Do you have other recommendations? Best wishes.
LarryK| 12.4.12 @ 7:37PM
Boehner gotta go!