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Showing posts with label Obamacare; Senator Ted Cruz; Congressman Jim Bridenstine; continuing resolution; healthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obamacare; Senator Ted Cruz; Congressman Jim Bridenstine; continuing resolution; healthcare. Show all posts

Thursday, August 8, 2013

53 Days to Defund Obamacare : and Sen. Tom Coburn needs to hear from you

If you have not yet signed the online petition Don’tFundIt, go here.  You will receive an email to confirm that you intended to sign the petition. As of 2 pm on Thursday, Aug. 8, there were nearly 275,000 signatures, and counting.




53 Days to Defund Obamacare

The Washington Free Beacon identifies two prominent Senators who oppose the defund-Obamacare-in-the-continuing-resolution strategy, but offering no viable alternatives. And it is especially unfortunate that Tom Coburn, a physician, is one of them: 

Several Republican senators have come out against the effort to defund.
“The strategy that has been laid out is a good way for Republicans to lose the House,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) has said.
Coburn said the idea “will not work,” while Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.) has called the idea “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.” 
The public is not supportive of shutting down the government in order to defund the law,” Roy said of what he believes are political liabilities in the plan. [emphases added]

GET WITH THE PROGRAM: The whole point of Sen. Cruz’s strategy is to NOT shut down the government, but instead to defund Obamacare as a provision of passing the Continuing Resolution that keeps the government funded.

Click here for previous CTPP blogs with contact details for Sen. Rob Portman and Speaker John Boehner. Other legislators you can add to your list to call/ mail / fax are

Sen. Tom Coburn
Washington D.C.:
Main: 202-224-5754
Fax: 202-224-6008

1800 South Baltimore
Suite 800
Tulsa, OK 74119
Main: 918-581-7651
Fax: 918-581-7195

100 North Broadway, Suite 1820
Oklahoma City, OK 73102
Main: 405-231-4941
Fax: 405-231-5051

Sen. Richard Burr
Federal Building
151 Patton Avenue, Suite 204
Asheville, NC 28801
Phone: (828) 350-2437
Fax: (828) 350-2439

100 Coast Line Street, Room 210
Rocky Mount, NC 27804
Phone: (252) 977-9522
Fax: (252) 977-7902

Washington, DC
Phone: (202) 224-3154
Fax: (202) 228-2981

2000 West First Street,  Suite 508
Winston-Salem, NC 27104
Phone: (800) 685-8916
Phone: (336) 631-5125
Fax: (336) 725-4493

City Hall
181 South Street, Room 222
Gastonia, NC 28052
Phone: (704) 833-0854
Fax: (704) 833-1467

201 North Front Street
Suite 809
Wilmington, NC 28401
Phone: (888) 848-1833
Phone: (910) 251-1058
Fax: (910) 251-7975

Rep. Paul Ryan
20 South Main Street, Suite 10
Janesville, WI 53545
(608) 752-4050

5455 Sheridan Road, Suite 125 
Kenosha, WI 53140 
Phone: (262) 654-1901 
Fax: (262) 654-2156

216 6th Street 
Racine, WI 53403 
Phone: (262) 637-0510 
Fax: (262) 637-5689

Melt those phones and stuff those mailboxes!

Sunday, August 4, 2013

57 Days to Obamacare : Counting Down




Congress is now on recess. This month is the time to use that recess to delay implementation of Obamacare. If you have not yet signed the online petition Don’tFundIt, go here. After you enter your name and e-address, you will receive an email (from "Senate Conservative" - and no, you do not have to make a contribution!) to confirm that you intended to sign the petition. As of 12:50 pm on Sunday, Aug. 4, there were over 192,000 signatures. We need to get that number into the millions.

So what is the plan? Below is the report of the Tele-Town Hall meeting last Thursday with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Representative Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), Jenny Beth Martin, and thousands of Tea Party Patriots. If you missed the conference call, click on the embed link on the TPP page to hear the whole thing. 


Tea Party Patriots National Coordinator Jenny Beth Martin stood with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and other opponents of Obamacare to call upon Congress and the President to delay implementation of the troubled law. Last night, Senator Cruz, Jenny Beth, and Representative Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) spoke to nearly 50,000 Tea Party activists in a tele-town hall, explaining how to force Washington to give the American people the same relief from Obamacare the President unilaterally gave Congress and its staff.

The tele-town hall can be heard in full and is embedded on the TPP website here:
Senator Cruz started the conversation frankly, admitting right now he and his allies don’t have the votes necessary to delay Obamacare. He told listeners that he needs all of us to join over 150,000 Americans in urging Congress to delay implementation by signing up at www.dontfundit.com. He also urged everyone to call, e-mail, and otherwise tell their Members of Congress to support delaying Obamacare, and then tell 10 friends and family members to do the same.

The Senator reminded everyone that things are changing in Washington. Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) filibuster earlier this year and the gun debate that took place shortly after that totally reversed the Beltway’s course of action. Rather than ignore the will of the people, both President Obama (on drones) and Congress (on guns) listened to your loud, principled voices.

Representative Bridenstine opened his comments by addressing some of the falsehoods opponents of the delay effort have promoted:
First, they claim Obamacare is largely mandatory spending, and thus can’t be stopped with a Continuing Resolutions (CR). However, so-called “riders” have been attached to CRs for decades. It’s a common practice and can be used in this case.
Second, the narrative from many establishment Republicans, Democrats, and the media is that Senator Cruz and his allies are trying to shut down the government. This is demonstrably false – the goal is to fund the government except for Obamacare. Furthermore, even if the government shuts down, mandatory spending still continues.

The Congressman also noted that he would not normally support a CR of the kind that’s likely to be debated, but Obamacare is important enough to make it the issue to address. He advised the House to pass a CR and then leave Washington, putting significant pressure on President Obama and Senate Democrats to either go along with the House or be responsible for shutting down the government.

Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin spoke on labor unions and businesses that have received special treatment and waivers from The Obama Administration. Even with those favors, three major unions have publicly withdrawn their support of  Obamacare. Incredibly, less than an hour after the tele-town hall ended, the Administration unilaterally exempted Members of Congress and their staffs from Obamacare, thus saving Members of Congress money while continuing to bill their health insurance costs to you the taxpayer.

Jenny Beth reminded everyone of Tea Party Patriots’ message to Washington and America: We want to fund the government, but Obamacare needs to be delayed. Anything to the contrary is demonstrably false.
Senator Cruz was asked about why Republicans are so afraid to stand with him. He explained that many of them fear being blamed for a government shutdown, as happened in 1995. However, he also explained that the “shutdown” is no such thing.

It’s a partial shutdown, with many areas of the federal government funded by mandatory spending – as well as interest payments – exempt from being shut down. And while the 1995 shutdown was bad for the GOP, it was good for the country, as it helped lead the nation to lower spending for several subsequent years.

There are significant differences between now and then that should help with the success of our effort, the Senator pointed out:
First, today there are better communicators for the message.
Second, there is the ability to get hundreds of thousands of Americans behind the effort.
Congressman Bridenstine noted that even Democrats want the health care law overturned, as he sees every day in constituent communication.
Both Tea Party-minded Members gave some insights into how the GOP leadership works when it comes to prioritization of policy. Senator Cruz shared how a Senator wanted to force a CR stand-off with sequestration while ignoring the much bigger (and easier to gather support regarding) problem of Obamacare.
Congressman Bridenstine pointed out that the GOP keeps saying continuing the spending reductions in sequester is a major victory. He’s been in office for seven months, and this is at least the third time he has been told holding to the sequester will be a victory. He nailed his colleagues by pointing out Obamacare is far more important because once the subsidies start flowing in 2014, they are highly unlike to stop. Senator Cruz agreed, and noted that’s why it’s so important to get the facts right. For example, the goal is not to shut a government shutdown. The goal is to stand strong with the American people against a law from which many special interests have been exempted.

Jenny Beth Martin brought up $684 million in funding for Obamacare marketing included in the law. This is enough money to cover two presidential campaigns worth of advertising. It will have a tremendous ability to sway hearts and minds for elections. Senator Cruz urged listeners to call politically vulnerable Democrats as well as Republicans, to mobilize as large a coalition for delay as possible. Congressman Bridenstine explained that the goal should be to make it more politically dangerous to do the wrong thing.

The right thing is to delay Obamacare now, before its damage can’t be undone.

- See more at TPP

Up next: action plans for Cleveland Tea Party Patriots.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Ted Cruz: 61 Days to Defund Obamacare






The conference call with Senator Ted Cruz (TX), Congressman Jim Bridenstine (OK) last night started to map out the strategy for August. Jeffrey Lord at American Spectator ran this report  ("Conservative base fights Washington elites: Reagan’s tigers or Establishment rabbit") yesterday:
The fight is on.
A growing — and furious — fight between the conservative base of the Republican Party and its Establishment elites in Washington is rapidly taking shape.
Senator Ted Cruz took to Sean Hannity’s television show Tuesday night and took on Karl Rove, who had immediately preceded him on the show. In response to Rove’s strategy (Rove compared the defunding strategy to the famous — and losing — Pickett’s Charge of the Battle of Gettysburg). Cruz immediately countered by saying that while he wasn’t a military strategist he was pretty sure 100% of battles were lost if one surrendered before the battle began. 
The next morning Cruz was at the Heritage Foundation (seen here at Right Scoop) explaining how the defeat of gun control earlier this year can be used as a template to defeat ObamaCare.
As was discussed earlier this week in this space, this has become a battle between what Ronald Reagan once called “rabbits” and “tigers.” Reagan, a tiger himself on these matters, was furious with House Republicans when they abandoned him on a veto of a pork-laden “Clean Water Bill” out of fear of being labeled “anti-environment.” Reagan himself was targeted by Democrats over this veto and he never flinched, angry that House Republicans had abandoned principle. 
Reagan is gone, but his political heirs — his tigers — are very much in evidence in the fight to defund Obamacare.
Sign the online petition  here.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Delay the Funding for Obamacare: preliminary report





Preliminary report on the Tele Town Hall - August 1, 2013

9:30PM - This evening, thousands of Tea Party Patriots got on a conference call with Senator Ted Cruz (TX), Congressman Jim Bridenstine (OK), and Tea Party Patriots Co-Founder, Jenny Beth Martin to strategize how Congressional GOP leaders plan to use the upcoming Continuing Resolution (needing renewal in 60 days) to DEFUND Obamacare -- and how WE will help them do it. This strategy will delay Obamacare until a repeal can be proposed. 

It was a wonderful conference call -- and inspiring to be part of the process. This is how government is supposed to work. Engaged congressional leaders with moral clarity and an energized and active citizenry - working together. August WILL be busy!

Full details will be relayed tomorrow, but for now, you will want to sign (and get everyone you know to sign) the online petition started by Sen. Ted Cruz. The link to his Ramparts page is here  and it in turn links to the Don'tFundIt.com website here. We'll be keeping this link visible throughout August -- and our plan is to be a part of veritable tsunami of phone calls, letters, office visits, and of course whatever you can contribute to Tea Party Patriots.