My goodness, Once-ler, quotes from your own link:
Oh, Once-ler:
What a great trade off. Whoopee!
Earmarks, anyone? Oh, that's right. We can't call them that.
Cincinnatus I've already said I can't prove that the $1.1T spending bill contains conservative elements to you. Your definition of conservatism is not mine, nor IMO a majority of voters. I believe an overwhelming majority of voters including the left, the center, and the right of center RINOs feel quite comfortable with this bill. They see a budget that includes no new taxes, increased military spending, abstinence education funding, stopping Obama-Rail, and a reduction in the rate of growth and can justify in their minds that some conservative elements worked their way into this law. I wasn't really trying to convince you it is conservative, but I felt compelled to explain the non-conservative view to anyone who wants to understand.
My original point was conservatives have been unable to pass legislation. Nobody is buying it. The GOPe does not need conservatives to pass legislation. The warning shot was the Senate immigration bill. The response was epic. A show of force by the right wing culminating in the threat of a government shutdown. Websites. FUNDRAISING, and endless talk radio...and they didn't stop nuthin'. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, the SCF, Club for Growth, Rush, Heritage, Hannity, and Red State flexed their muscle for a couple weeks and then failed.
The October shutdown proved to the GOPe that the GOP can't function as a minority party, much less a majority party, if it has to placate the Tea Party, and now the GOPe can't be fooled by a bluff. They have seen the mobilized political power of the right. And the GOPe has given that power due consideration with every bill they passed since Oct 17th. The GOPe just ain't that into you conservatives. Conservatives didn't deliver a promised grassroots uprising to call Senators and Reps to keep the pressure on and provide cover for the Defunders during the shutdown. So Boehner said they "lost all credibility," and then opened the government...like a Boss.
Since then the GOPe has passed stuff and prevented stuff. The are in the game, without the right wing.
Now Boehner is working rapidly to pass immigration reform. In response Mickey Kaus said...
If strong voter opposition makes itself heard again, as it has in the past, the majority of the GOP caucus that Boehner says he needs probably won’t go along with his pro- amnesty “principles.” If that opposition doesn’t materialize, some form of legalization-before-enforcement becomes an inevitability. The coming weeks will tell.
http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,126957.0.htmlI hope for your sake that conservatives do a little better job of working the phones and the emails than they did in October. You are not going to like amnesty when it passes with overwhelming rat support. It will mean Boehner had to give away even more to get enough rat votes to replace conservative advocacy and input.
On a personal note despite my sarcasm, I have enjoyed bouncing my thoughts off you. If you can't accept my sincere recognition that I know you believe what you write, and you believe your ideology is best for our country, then take heart in that I consider you a sharp spokesman for your views and feel it necessary to respond.