The Briefing Room
General Category => Politics/Government => Topic started by: mystery-ak on January 28, 2014, 06:58:45 pm
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http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/mike-lee-tea-party-102684_full.html?print (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/mike-lee-tea-party-102684_full.html?print)
Can Mike Lee Save the Tea Party?
Or is he just a nicer version of Ted Cruz?
By JONATHAN RIEHL
January 27, 2014
In its short history, the Tea Party has offered its own response to the president’s State of the Union address with a colorful cast of characters: Rep. Michele Bachman’s (R-Minn.) deer-in-the-headlights production in 2011 became rich fodder for late night comedians; she was followed in 2012 by the inimitable pizza CEO Herman Cain and last year by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has since moved in a more mainstream direction as he gears up for a possible presidential run. In contrast, this year’s Tea Party representative, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah)—a mild-mannered Mormon Eagle Scout whose father served in the Reagan administration—seems a sensible choice: The insurgent right appears to be developing some self-awareness that its message demands a better messenger.
That has become clear over the past several months. After more and more establishment Republicans criticized the Tea Party’s eagle-eyed anti-Obamacare agenda for holding the rest of the GOP hostage, the Republican insurgents then saw their strategy backfire in the government shutdown last fall, with the Tea Party’s unfavorability rating rising to 49 percent in October. The face of that insurgency and the march to a shutdown was the firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who, ever since riding into the upper body in the 2012 election, has bucked the leadership in both houses, memorably speaking for more than 21 hours on the Senate floor about the push to defund the Affordable Care Act.
Cruz’s bomb-throwing has met a palpable backlash in the press and among the Republican Party establishment—and has handicapped his chances as a viable national candidate. “It’s always the wacko birds on the right and the left that get the media megaphone,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) famously said last year, referring to Cruz, among others. “I think it’s important for Republican leaders around the country to speak out against him,” said Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). I’d venture that Cruz was probably considered for the response speech Tuesday night, though he appears to have been relegated to finding free media on the Sunday shows.
Enter Mike Lee, the low-key Utahan whose rhetorical style and demeanor are notably more mannered—a nicer version of Ted Cruz, perhaps. On all of the most pressing issues in Congress—budgetary policy, taxation, foreign relations (read: Benghazi) and the overall role of government—Lee has stood shoulder to shoulder with Cruz and the Tea Party, denouncing Obamacare, resisting a debt-ceiling increase, calling for a restrained foreign policy and forcing the government shutdown. Rhetorically, however, Lee presents a study in contrast. He has not jumped for sound-bite attention, and his name recognition is low (not to mention that he comes from a state wholly without the obvious electoral-vote pull of Cruz’s Texas).
“There’s no question Lee has a genuine interest in ideas, in open debate and exchange,” said Eugene Meyer, president of the conservative Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, where Lee has been active since his days in law school.
Could this be the new face of the Tea Party? After earning a reputation for pomposity, maybe the Republican insurgency is taking a new tack. Lee’s speech on Tuesday could be the test of that new image.
Through media accounts, we have gotten to know Cruz’s immigrant background—his Cuban émigré father, an evangelical pastor who today parades in the headlines with outlandish statements about homosexuality and evolution that make GOP insiders cringe. Lee’s family is less known. His father was the founder of Brigham Young University’s Law School in the 1970s and served under President Ronald Reagan as a notoriously independent solicitor general who sometimes appeared to break with the administration’s party line. He was even once quoted as clarifying that his job was to be “the solicitor general, not the pamphleteer general.”
Lee, who spent half his childhood in Utah and half in McLean, Virginia, appeared to be on a more moderate track earlier in his career, working as an attorney in Washington, D.C., and Salt Lake City, as well as general counsel to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. But in his 2010 Senate race he, like Cruz, ousted a sitting conservative Republican whose standing was seen as unshakeable. Robert Bennett, who had represented Utah in the Senate since 1993, was a pillar of the conservative establishment with decades of experience—as well as someone known to be willing and capable of debating and engaging with unlike-minded colleagues and the press. To beat him in the primary, Lee tacked to the right, riding a wave of Tea Party momentum to unseat Bennett and irking establishment Republicans and Bennett supporters in the process.
But whereas Cruz, who was elected to the Senate in 2012, all too quickly became seen as a Tea Party demagogue, Lee still stands the chance to emerge as the Boy Scout, who in addition to starting fires from scratch must also know how to put them out. (Lee is, literally, an Eagle Scout.) Not that this guarantees anything. Mitt Romney was a gentleman as well, and as the new documentary Mitt shows, he actually had the same mild-mannered persona at the podium as he was when the news crews weren’t following him. Ironically, Romney’s “messaging” failures led to a GOP postmortem that put an emphasis on style over substance, criticizing his staid manner for failing to incite conservative passion.
Few Americans may actually watch Lee’s entire speech on Tuesday, which will be broadcast just after Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) delivers the official GOP State of the Union response. But the Tea Party faithful are likely to tune in, and that will drive activism from the moment Lee’s address ends until its sound bites show up in TV spots and fundraising letters. Rather than a hectoring Joe McCarthy-stand-in, viewers are likely to see an amiable Utahan, an average man who speaks with a heartfelt and moderate tone. Not so nervous as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who in last year’s GOP response grabbed awkwardly for that off camera water bottle in an image met with much joking by the Twittersphere, or the clearly not-ready-for-primetime Bachmann.
But will Lee’s style do anything to rebrand the Tea Party image? He isn’t talked about as having 2016 ambitions, and there’s no guarantee he will succeed in persuading a broader audience, especially if he is kept under the influence of his colleague Cruz. But the choice to have Lee serve as messenger itself sends a message—and that alone is important. As William F. Buckley once wrote, “Truth alone does not necessarily vanquish.” Those who reject the Tea Party message see its “truth” as necessarily a delusion, while for those who embrace the Tea Party, the messenger is of little import. For the vast majority of the rest of us, who stand somewhere in the middle, it is Buckley’s follow-up line that matters: “Truth can never win unless it is promulgated.” Lee’s predecessors have failed in promulgation. And they have essentially been vanquished as a result.
“Promulgation,” as Buckley had it, requires style and substance—both matter. And while Cruz and Lee may be alike in substance, the contrast between their styles could not be starker. So which does the Tea Party want to be—Cruz or Lee—and which is it better off being? If Lee’s speech Tuesday night begins to budge the Tea Party’s renegade reputation in a different direction, the Republican far right will have him to thank. As some inside the GOP have argued to me, the Tea Party message is untenable politically, demographically and electorally—regardless of the messenger. But many said the same exact things about Ronald Reagan in the 1970s. And how did that turn out?
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(https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRJaFLT3jR4k6IXRsqPLcSr64vLwy-sfjr2KAm1Lnh1B4a_yN-K3A)
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Politico will soon discover the TEA party to be alive and well and functioning on all cylinders!
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Politico will soon discover the TEA party to be alive and well and functioning on all cylinders!
Keep the message strictly fiscal, win elections. Morph the message to unpopular social positions, lose elections.
The tea party is not and has never been about social positions - though they are not the loser you keep claiming they are.
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The federal government has no business favoring one social movement over any other. That's the problem with Obama and the establishment GOP.
The federal government has grown too big and should get back to constitutional government. Whether it's the "war on women" or the "war on the unborn" it has no place at the federal level.
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My post #3 above, was altered by Rapunzel in her capacity of a moderator. What I wrote has been deleted, and only one sentence left.
Why?
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The tea party is not and has never been about social positions - though they are not the loser you keep claiming they are.
The TEA Party was awesome before the Far Right and their extreme Social Conservatism co-opted the movement.
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My post #3 above, was altered by Rapunzel in her capacity of a moderator. What I wrote has been deleted, and only one sentence left.
Why?
Because she's no better than JimRob these days? I'm in another thread asking where Obama ever literally said he wanted to be a dictator, as some far right Texan GOP member said tonight. I'd LOVE to have that video as a Republican, but instead, all I get are videos where Obama says he'll bypass Congress. Well, no duh. We already know he's bypassing congress. Smart people on the right know this, and don't agree with it at all. What sells to LIVs are easy soundbites, and nobody can provide me where Obama says literally he wants to be a dictator.
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Actions speak much much louder than words and Obama's actions are of a dictator and that is a fact. I doubt any dictator gets up and announces he is one their actions make them one.
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Maybe , if he can unite the rest into one dynamic force.
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Actions speak much much louder than words and Obama's actions are of a dictator and that is a fact. I doubt any dictator gets up and announces he is one their actions make them one.
Exactly. A modern dictator seizes power with the consent of the people and without posting it on Twitter. Much as our little dictator is doing.
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Here is Rand Paul's response. I didn't see it posted anywhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0E6YMdgGUY4
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My post #3 above, was altered by Rapunzel in her capacity of a moderator. What I wrote has been deleted, and only one sentence left.
Why?
I have no idea....I will ask Rap
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bump for Rand Paul
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Because she's no better than JimRob these days? I'm in another thread asking where Obama ever literally said he wanted to be a dictator, as some far right Texan GOP member said tonight. I'd LOVE to have that video as a Republican, but instead, all I get are videos where Obama says he'll bypass Congress. Well, no duh. We already know he's bypassing congress. Smart people on the right know this, and don't agree with it at all. What sells to LIVs are easy soundbites, and nobody can provide me where Obama says literally he wants to be a dictator.
That's because nobody claimed Obama said "literally he wants to be a dictator." They said he wants to be a dictator, not that he's admitted it.
But you know this - and whine anyway.
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That's because nobody claimed Obama said "literally he wants to be a dictator." They said he wants to be a dictator, not that he's admitted it.
But you know this - and whine anyway.
What is your opinion about her deleting most of my post, as a Moderator, because she doesn't personally agree with me?
There was no profanity in my post, I attacked nobody in my post, my post was not directed to her, but she nevertheless butted in, deleted my own words.
So what do you think?
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I think she accidentally clicked on edit instead of quote, but why ask me? I was addressing my comment to someone else.
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What is your opinion about her deleting most of my post, as a Moderator, because she doesn't personally agree with me?
There was no profanity in my post, I attacked nobody in my post, my post was not directed to her, but she nevertheless butted in, deleted my own words.
So what do you think?
It was an accident. Rap didn't even realize she did it. No one is picking on you.
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I think she accidentally clicked on edit instead of quote, but why ask me? I was addressing my comment to someone else.
She might therefore speak for herself?
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It was an accident. Rap didn't even realize she did it. No one is picking on you.
It is not about picking on me or anybody. It is about censorship of speech, by a moderator.
She could speak for herself, BTW.
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It is not about picking on me or anybody. It is about censorship of speech, by a moderator.
She could speak for herself, BTW.
Send her a PM. Of course she can speak for herself. She's not shy about that. However, YOU asked Mountaineer. Both of us told you what happened, but you continue with the topic, and that is taking away from the subject of the thread. Why don't you let it drop?
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She might therefore speak for herself?
So why are you asking us to explain whatever she did or didn't do if you want her to speak for herself?
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It is not about picking on me or anybody. It is about censorship of speech, by a moderator.
She could speak for herself, BTW.
I've been gone all day. Get over yourself. I replied to your post and took out all but the part I replied to so you would know what I was replying to. What I didn't realize was I hit modify instead of quote since I was typing on my tiny little kindle and my fat fingers hit the wrong key. No one moderated you and if you would have actually looked at the post you would see what I did was obvious to the most casual reader... if I wanted your posts moderated I would hit abuse like you do so liberally and let Myst contact you.
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WELL???
Can Mike Lee save the Tea Party?
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WELL???
Can Mike Lee save the Tea Party?
He isn't running for anything, so I think speaking from the position of someone who is not running for a higher office I think he is a good spokesman. However, his speech last night he stated we should allow all Americans to aspire to the Middle Class........ I think we should allow all Americans to aspire to be as rich as Buffett or Gates if they have the ability to get there.
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WELL???
Can Mike Lee save the Tea Party?
The question assumes that the TEA party movement NEEDS saving. I don't think it does! In fact, I'm quite sure that it doesn't so why bother responding to a question the basis of which is fatally flawed?
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I've been gone all day. Get over yourself. I replied to your post and took out all but the part I replied to so you would know what I was replying to. What I didn't realize was I hit modify instead of quote since I was typing on my tiny little kindle and my fat fingers hit the wrong key. No one moderated you and if you would have actually looked at the post you would see what I did was obvious to the most casual reader... if I wanted your posts moderated I would hit abuse like you do so liberally and let Myst contact you.
How does a moderator accidentally "modify" another person's post? All I can modify are my own posts.
Interesting that this stuff only happens to those who aren't part of the amen chorus.
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How does a moderator accidentally "modify" another person's post? All I can modify are my own posts.
Interesting that this stuff only happens to those who aren't part of the amen chorus.
You aren't a mod so you don't have the ability....... it is actually very easy to do and several times several of us have caught ourselves before hitting post.
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He isn't running for anything, so I think speaking from the position of someone who is not running for a higher office I think he is a good spokesman. However, his speech last night he stated we should allow all Americans to aspire to the Middle Class........ I think we should allow all Americans to aspire to be as rich as Buffett or Gates if they have the ability to get there.
Come on...stop parsing.
Most people rise through the Middle Class to breathe Buffett air.
He was on the new "Center Chair" on Bret Baier's Big Hour on FOXNEWS this evening.
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Come on...stop parsing.
Most people rise through the Middle Class to breathe Buffett air.
He was on the new "Center Chair" on Bret Baier's Big Hour on FOXNEWS this evening.
I saw that. I like Mike Lee - a LOT. I thought he was good on Center Chair, too.
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How does a moderator accidentally "modify" another person's post? All I can modify are my own posts.
Interesting that this stuff only happens to those who aren't part of the amen chorus.
I've done it to myself once...that I know of. :silly:
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You aren't a mod so you don't have the ability....... it is actually very easy to do and several times several of us have caught ourselves before hitting post.
Having modded a bit - I agree. You can modify your own posts here. Mods can modify any post. It is so damned easy to hit modify instead of quote and not notice until you hit the post button. By then - way too late.
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The question assumes that the TEA party movement NEEDS saving. I don't think it does! In fact, I'm quite sure that it doesn't so why bother responding to a question the basis of which is fatally flawed?
Excellent response, Bigun!
The true Tea Party is an abstract label put upon an enormous sea of fellow Americans who are fed up with Socialist domestic enemies.
Their number hopefully grows exponentially each year.
Problem is image and reaching the low information voter through an antagonistic mainstream media.
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Excellent response, Bigun!
The true Tea Party is an abstract label put upon an enormous sea of fellow Americans who are fed up with Socialist domestic enemies.
Their number hopefully grows exponentially each year.
Problem is image and reaching the low information voter through an antagonistic mainstream media.
An excellent response to Bigun's excellent response.
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An excellent response to Bigun's excellent response.
:beer:
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How does a moderator accidentally "modify" another person's post? All I can modify are my own posts.
Interesting that this stuff only happens to those who aren't part of the amen chorus.
It's very easy to do since the quote and modify button are next to ea other..once it happens it leaves the message at the bottom of the post which can't be removed unless you remove the whole post...I've done this many times and a solution to this is that once we accidentally do this we should leave a comment saying what happened.
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Exactly. A modern dictator seizes power with the consent of the people and without posting it on Twitter. Much as our little dictator is doing.
VIII
The Herald of the Latines
Hath hied him back in state:
The Fathers of the City
Are met in high debate.
Then spake the elder Consul,
And ancient man and wise:
``Now harken, Conscript Fathers,
To that which I advise.
In seasons of great peril
'Tis good that one bear sway;
Then choose we a Dictator,
Whom all men shall obey.
Camerium knows how deeply
The sword of Aulus bites,
And all our city calls him
The man of seventy fights.
Then let him be Dictator
For six months and no more,
And have a Master of the Knights,
And axes twenty-four.''
"The Battle of Lake Regillus" -- Thomas Babbington Macaulay
:beer:
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Excellent response, Bigun!
The true Tea Party is an abstract label put upon an enormous sea of fellow Americans who are fed up with Socialist domestic enemies.
Their number hopefully grows exponentially each year.
Problem is image and reaching the low information voter through an antagonistic mainstream media.
A major problem in terms of the TEA Party's perception by the LIVs is the takeover by social conservatives, when the entire idea originally was based on fiscal conservatism. Economic conservatism and social conservatism are two very different things.
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The meme social conservatives took over the TP is a false flag. For example contrary to the constant harping otherwise, Akin wasn't the MO TP candidate - Sarah Steelman was. Akin won because McCaskill and Reid recognized against a woman she would be toast and they ran ads against the other candidates playing up Akin. Akin was the Democrats dream candidate.. ask raml, she lives in MO...... and if you recall when Akin stepped all over himself the conservative TP wing of the GOP begged him to get out of the race and let Bruner or Steelman have a chance to defeat McCaskill...
One other thing.. if anyone co opted the TP it was actually Ron Paul, which in a strange way I think may help Rand Paul if he runs.
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[[ The question assumes that the TEA party movement NEEDS saving ]]
Viewed in hindsight, years from now, the TEA party may actually be seen as a "stalking horse" for a yet-to-be-formed and yet-unnamed party that eventually will replace the Republicans as "the second party" of American politics.
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The meme social conservatives took over the TP is a false flag. For example contrary to the constant harping otherwise, Akin wasn't the MO TP candidate - Sarah Steelman was. Akin won because McCaskill and Reid recognized against a woman she would be toast and they ran ads against the other candidates playing up Akin. Akin was the Democrats dream candidate.. ask raml, she lives in MO...... and if you recall when Akin stepped all over himself the conservative TP wing of the GOP begged him to get out of the race and let Bruner or Steelman have a chance to defeat McCaskill...
One other thing.. if anyone co opted the TP it was actually Ron Paul, which in a strange way I think may help Rand Paul if he runs.
Sarah Steelman is a social conservative and an active member of the First Christian Church. What was your point?
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Sarah Steelman is a social conservative and an active member of the First Christian Church. What was your point?
A lot of conservatives are both fiscal and social conservatives and don't go around making stupid comments like Akin which people use to smear the entire TP movement. McCaskill was beatable - and polls at the time showed a woman stood the best change of defeating her, the person she did not want to run against was Steelman - not Akin.
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(https://scontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1724326_483175155122606_1188873626_n.jpg)
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[[ The question assumes that the TEA party movement NEEDS saving ]]
Viewed in hindsight, years from now, the TEA party may actually be seen as a "stalking horse" for a yet-to-be-formed and yet-unnamed party that eventually will replace the Republicans as "the second party" of American politics.
That is totally dependent on how things play out in the near term! If it goes the way I think it very well might there will be no need to pursue that course because the Republican party will have been transformed from within!
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Interesting factoid from the SOTU last night. Twitter (which has become the go-to place for these speeches) was trending two things above all else last night. Want to guess what it was?
#1- was Fox
#2 was The Blaze
and this came from (of all places) Politico....
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I've been gone all day. Get over yourself. I replied to your post and took out all but the part I replied to so you would know what I was replying to. What I didn't realize was I hit modify instead of quote since I was typing on my tiny little kindle and my fat fingers hit the wrong key. No one moderated you and if you would have actually looked at the post you would see what I did was obvious to the most casual reader... if I wanted your posts moderated I would hit abuse like you do so liberally and let Myst contact you.
The result of your mistake, was to delete most of my remarks from the thread. That matters to me.
Your response: "Get over yourself." A better response: "Sorry, I made a mistake."
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The meme social conservatives took over the TP is a false flag. For example contrary to the constant harping otherwise, Akin wasn't the MO TP candidate - Sarah Steelman was. Akin won because McCaskill and Reid recognized against a woman she would be toast and they ran ads against the other candidates playing up Akin. Akin was the Democrats dream candidate.. ask raml, she lives in MO...... and if you recall when Akin stepped all over himself the conservative TP wing of the GOP begged him to get out of the race and let Bruner or Steelman have a chance to defeat McCaskill...
One other thing.. if anyone co opted the TP it was actually Ron Paul, which in a strange way I think may help Rand Paul if he runs.
They didn't take over, they just glommed on. They saw a star and hitched their wagon to it. In the meantime, those who were more interested in fiscal sanity said "To Hell with this" and left.
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Interesting factoid from the SOTU last night. Twitter (which has become the go-to place for these speeches) was trending two things above all else last night. Want to guess what it was?
#1- was Fox
#2 was The Blaze
and this came from (of all places) Politico....
I want The Blaze!!! :taz:
I'll probably die of old age before Comcast includes it, although they were mighty quick to take on Al Jazeera and Logo.
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WELL???
Can Mike Lee save the Tea Party?
Pffft... no one can save the tea party, or the GOP. After the amnesty push, the right will be relegated to permanent back bencher status. You doubt me? Spend a few minutes reading the posts here.
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I want The Blaze!!! :taz:
I'll probably die of old age before Comcast includes it, although they were mighty quick to take on Al Jazeera and Logo.
We don't have cable tv anymore, but we get The Blaze through the internet. We subscribe to The Blaze (costs under ten dollars a month). We bought a little black box called Roku at Walmart (cost around fifty dollars for the basic model). My husband just plugged in a few places and it was working! We also get Netflix and lots of other channels - which we can now watch on our tv. You could still subscribe to The Blaze and watch it on your computer monitor without having to do anything else. I highly recommend it.
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It's very easy to do since the quote and modify button are next to ea other..once it happens it leaves the message at the bottom of the post which can't be removed unless you remove the whole post...I've done this many times and a solution to this is that once we accidentally do this we should leave a comment saying what happened.
I have done it many times too. Here is what we see and why it can happen:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v731/LiddyDole/5cd5b5cd-e1c7-48db-b37c-77e07c77aea9_zps41b65fce.png) (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/LiddyDole/media/5cd5b5cd-e1c7-48db-b37c-77e07c77aea9_zps41b65fce.png.html)
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I want The Blaze!!! :taz:
I'll probably die of old age before Comcast includes it, although they were mighty quick to take on Al Jazeera and Logo.
Call the 800 number and tell them you want it.... I understand the demand has been growing among all the cable companies with people demanding it. BTW The Blaze website had a record number of viewers yesterday - just under 9 million...
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We don't have cable tv anymore, but we get The Blaze through the internet. We subscribe to The Blaze (costs under ten dollars a month). We bought a little black box called Roku at Walmart (cost around fifty dollars for the basic model). My husband just plugged in a few places and it was working! We also get Netflix and lots of other channels - which we can now watch on our tv. You could still subscribe to The Blaze and watch it on your computer monitor without having to do anything else. I highly recommend it.
Interesting interview on The Blaze right now with Sam Brown, an Iraqi Veteran who was badly burned when his Humvee blew up and he was covered in diesel fuel..he is running for Texas State Representative in Dallas,Texas. This man and people like him give me hope for this country - you don't see interviews like this last half hour on Fox and certainly not on CNN or MSNBC. When you hear the story about how he met his wife when he was in ICU and she was the person sewing skin on his face and body.... He is going to be on Beck's regular show later today..
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Interesting interview on The Blaze right now with Sam Brown, an Iraqi Veteran who was badly burned when his Humvee blew up and he was covered in diesel fuel..he is running for Texas State Representative in Dallas,Texas. This man and people like him give me hope for this country - you don't see interviews like this last half hour on Fox and certainly not on CNN or MSNBC. When you hear the story about how he met his wife when he was in ICU and she was the person sewing skin on his face and body.... He is going to be on Beck's regular show later today..
Yes, I saw him on Glenn's radio show this morning. He was impressive and inspiring! We need people like him in office.
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Yes, I saw him on Glenn's radio show this morning. He was impressive and inspiring! We need people like him in office.
:amen: :amen: and :amen:
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The Tea Party does not need "saving." It's the country that needs to be saved.
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The Tea Party does not need "saving." It's the country that needs to be saved.
My point EXACTLY!