TX Governor Rick Perry: An Imbecile or Clueless Establishment RINO?

While Texas Governor Rick Perry, with an eye on the White House, continues trying to fool voters by masquerading around as a true conservative, the curtain on this Wizard of Oz Governor continues to be pulled back showing his true colors -- GOP Establishment Red!

Just yesterday we posted how, in not falling for his tough Texas talk, many of the conservative groups in Texas are calling out Perry for his lack of "real" action with the invasion of illegal immigrants they are facing on their southern border.

Now, with a kick in the groin to conservatives and in showing a complete lack of personal integrity & decency, Perry has hired the GOP establishment lobbyist Henry Barbour and his group of race-baiting grifters.  (Click here to read more about Barbour & his race-baiting grifters)

And while he eyes another run at the White House, like Ohio Governor Juan Kasich, Perry has shown that not only is he a tool of the establishment GOP and not fit to run his state, they are surely not fit to run the country.

In the end, you can be sure as quoted below by Keli Carender of Tea Party Patriots, whether Perry is an imbecile or just clueless on who he is associating with, we will make his hiring of Barbour an issue in the 2016 GOP primary.

Barbour and the other party hack consultants auditioning for a job can put all the lipstick they want on this establishment RINO, but as we know - it is still an establishment RINO!

From The Daily Beast --

For a second there, diehard conservatives thought the Texas governor was something of a badass. Now they’re pissed about his new aides.

When Texas Gov. Rick Perry was indicted last month on two felony charges stemming from how he dealt with a misbehaving Democratic state official, the image of the stuttering 2012 Republican primary challenger was replaced with that of a hero-cowboy in the eyes of many conservatives. Perry was under attack from the left wing, and his response was not to apologize but to walk through a hail of blue-hued bullets and emerge laughing, without a mark on him. But some conservative true believers have begun to notice something rather suspicious: The company Perry keeps seems more suited to a mainstream Republican—or a right-of-center Democrat—than to their hero-cowboy.

Perry is associated with three operatives who have concerned some members of the die-hard right wing: lobbyist Henry Barbour, former Bill Clinton aide Mark Fabiani, and McCain-Palin campaign chief and MSNBC pundit Steve Schmidt.

Well, maybe “concerned” is putting it somewhat mildly.

“The only two options are that Rick Perry is a complete imbecile and he has no idea who these people are and what they’ve done and how the conservative base—who votes in primaries—feels about these guys, or he’s doing it on purpose because that’s the kind of message he wants to send,” said Keli Carender, the national grassroots coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots. Either way, she assured: “It will be an issue. We will make it an issue.”

Barbour is already working on Perry’s 2016 bid for the White House. But conservatives know him best for his role running the political action committee Mississippi Conservatives, founded by his uncle, Haley Barbour, the former governor of Mississippi. In this year’s Magnolia State primary fight—and “fight” is an understatement—between U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran and state Sen. Chris McDaniel, Barbour reportedly played an influential and controversial role.According to National Review, his PAC funneled money to produce ads against McDaniel that alleged he would set back “race relationships between blacks and whites and other ethnic groups.” The ads, which seemed intended to drive African-American voters to the polls, enraged McDaniel’s Tea Party supporters.

As reported by Breitbart News, some conservatives loathe Barbour so much that they tried to get the Republican National Committee to censure him, to no avail.

“Republicans should not hire Henry Barbour unless and until he apologizes for the tactics he helped fund in Mississippi...I don’t think [keeping Barbour around] necessarily means Perry is endorsing what he did, but it means he’s certainly not properly condemning it or taking it seriously enough,” Quin Hillyer, a conservative writer and activist, told The Daily Beast. “What he helped finance was so far beyond the pale that he should be blackballed by conservatives, and if Perry wants to be considered a conservative, he should no longer employ Henry Barbour.”

Rick Shaftan, a Republican consultant who involved himself in the Mississippi primary, offered a somewhat different view of Barbour to The Daily Beast: “I don’t like what he did in Mississippi, but you know what? It shows he’s a ruthless, cutthroat operative, and there’s something to be said for that on the Republican side. Because we don’t have enough of them. If the force of evil can be brought to do good, then that’s a good thing.”

Normally, staffers don’t matter much to voters, Carender noted. But Mississippi is different for many on the far right. It’s become the ultimate test of Tea Party fidelity, a measuring stick for whether a conservative will sell out his principles to inside-the-Beltway Washington RINOs or will stay true to the cause and the grassroots activists who are the heart and soul of the movement.

People don’t recognize, Carender said, just “how plugged in the conservative base is to Mississippi…If you’re a man of integrity, you don’t associate with Henry Barbour as far as we’re concerned.”

Perry has associated with Barbour since at least 2012, when Barbour served on his ill-fated but memorable presidential campaign. (Haley Barbour, for his part, supported Newt Gingrich.)

Publicly, Perry may have shrugged at last month’s indictment—but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been taking Lone Star State-size measures to ensure it doesn’t sink him for good.

As part of his legal team, Perry has hired the Harvard-educated Mark Fabiani, best known for his ties to the Democratic Party. From 1994 through 1996, Fabiani worked as special counsel to President Bill Clinton. He then served as Al Gore’s communications director during his 2000 presidential campaign. Fabiani has worked for the Democratic former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom as well.

Perry also has hired Steve Schmidt, a Republican strategist and former consultant to John McCain in 2008. Schmidt has long enraged Tea Party conservatives with his candor about members of his own party. Schmidt has called McCain’s VP pick, Sarah Palin, “someone [who] was nominated to the vice presidency who was manifestly unprepared to take the oath of office should it become necessary and as it has become necessary many times in American history.” Asked whether Palin would have a future in politics, Schmidt once remarked: “I hope not...And the reason I say that is because if you look at it, over the last four years, all of the deficiencies in knowledge, all of the deficiencies in preparedness, she’s done not one thing to rectify them, to correct them.”

Then Schmidt described Palin’s unflattering qualities, which could, unfortunately for Perry, double as descriptions for most members of the Tea Party: “She has become a person who, I think, is filled with grievance, filled with anger, who has a divisive message for the national stage...”

Conservative radio host Mark Levin wondered of Schmidt, “Why would Perry hire this conservative attacker and Palin hater?”

Schmidt made those comments on MSNBC, where he is employed as a political analyst. Shaftan said of Perry hiring the strategist: “If they have Steve Schmidt working for them, why are they telling people? That I don’t understand.”

Perry has been basking in the glory of the conservative credibility his fight with Texas Democrats has lent him—so much so that his mugshot features a prominent smirk, one you can wear on a T-shirt being sold by his PAC for just $25. Some Republicans made that same image their Facebook profile pictures in a show of support, in the way some do for gay marriage, or to end violence against children. But you’re only as good as the company you keep, according to some members of the far right who have in the past proved themselves to be loud enough to get their way.

Conservative HQ columnist Richard Viguerie wrote of Perry’s team: “When you hire a consultant, you hire his reputation, strategy, and tactics. We doubt that Governor Perry plans to win the Republican presidential nomination by race-baiting, recruiting Democrats to vote in Republican primary elections, and trashing as ‘poisonous’ conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh…”

Hillyer agreed: “A very important law of politics and government, as emphasized again and again by conservative movement leader Morton Blackwell, is that personnel is policy. If somebody wants to get a sense of how a political leader might govern, it certainly is important to see who he hires.”

Texas Tea Party Leaders Expose Governor Rick Perry over Lack of Action on Texas Border Plan

In the same way some conservatives living outside New Jersey were initially duped with a few YouTube videos and conservative sounding sound bytes into liking New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, we see the same case with many conservatives living outside of Texas gushing over Governor Rick Perry.

Perry, throwing on a pair of glasses in attempts to make himself look presidential, acting tough by sending the TX National Guard to the border for some good media coverage and making the rounds of the Sunday morning talking head shows, may have fooled those outside Texas, but not those living inside Texas.

Below you will read how the grassroots conservative groups and Tea Party activists, have pulled back the curtain and exposed Perry to be a tough talking phony like the Wizard of Oz instead of the Governor of Texas - 

From Breibart -- (Emphasis Added)

AUSTIN, Texas — Thursday at the Texas Capitol, a group of grassroots tea party activists gathered for a press conference to share the “Texas Border Crisis Action Plan” they had created after years of frustration with a government that they characterized as “criminally negligent in their duties.”

Speakers included JoAnn Fleming, the Executive Director of Grassroots America, Dale Huls, a board member of the Clear Lake TEA Party and Texas Border Volunteer, Mary Huls, the President of the Clear Lake TEA Party and Texas Border Volunteer, George Rodriguez, the South Texas coordinator for TEA Party Patriots and the President of the South Texas Political Alliance, Dwayne Stovall, the Director of Keep Texas Free, LLC and School Board Trustee for the Tarkington Independent School District, and Heidi Theiss, Vice President of the Clear Lake TEA Party and League City Council Member.

Several of these grassroots activists, including Fleming, had participated in an earlier press conference at the Capitol, back in July, where they laid out their frustration with both federal and state elected officials, requested Texas Governor Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott to call up the National Guard, and asked for Perry to call a special session of the Texas Legislature to address border issues. To date, Texas officials have not been receptive to the idea of a special session, but just a few days after their July press conference, Perry announced he was deploying 1,000 National Guard troops to the border.

Fleming and Dale Huls were the primary authors of the Texas Border Crisis Action Plan,which is available online at Grassroots America’s website. According to a statement released by the group:

The plan describes the roles the Governor, Attorney General, and the Legislature should play in framing a constitution-based justification for Texas securing its border. The plan stakes out the role state leaders should play in developing the proper mission for an effective border security effort and in making provision for necessary funding for the Department of Public Safety, the Texas National Guard, and the Texas Military (as defined by the Texas Constitution) to actually secure the Texas border with Mexico.

Fleming gave introductory remarks at the press conference, and outlined the long-standing frustration she and her fellow tea party leaders have with not just the federal government, but also the state government. “This country is spiraling out of control,” Fleming said, because we have abandoned the rule of law and are failing to protect our borders. She stated that she supported immigration, but emphasized that immigrants needed to come to this country legally, entering through one of the 29 legal ports of entry in Texas.

All of the activists who were there to speak at the press conference had visited the border in a trip organized by Breitbart Texas , Fleming explained. They had taken pains to make sure that “it was not a dog and pony show” for them, as they had visited not just the Rio Grande Valley sector that had gotten so much media attention, but also the Laredo Sector. Fleming noted that the RGV sector was the only sector that had an increased level of personnel, but it was “most assuredly” not yet secure.

Fleming advocated for Texas to refuse to participate in the federal “catch and release” immigration policies, where illegal immigrants are released into the United States with little more than some paperwork setting a hearing date months or even years into the future. “When is it going to be enough?” asked Fleming, citing the high cost burden of illegal immigration on Texas and the Border Patrol agents who had lost their lives in the line of duty.

Dale Huls spoke next, and shared how he was “outraged” that his state government had failed to adequately take action in response to the border crisis, and he asked why the task of creating an action plan had fallen to “regular people” like himself. “In their own words, they have called this an emergency situation,” said Huls, sharing his view that many Texas elected officials had delivered sharp speeches blaming the federal government but failed to act to implement any substantive ideas that were, in fact, within their control

Huls was especially frustrated that he felt their demands for a special session had been dismissed or even flat out rejected. “We expected leadership,” he said, and called the refusal to call a special session “shocking.” The goal of the group, Huls explained, was to “remove the shield of ignorance” behind which our elected officials were hiding. “If something bad happens in our state, don't just blame the federal government…we [will] hold our state leaders accountable.”

Rodriguez, a fifth generation Texan, spoke next. He too was frustrated with current immigration policies and the humanitarian crises they were created. “We can’t be the orphanage for the rest of the world, we can’t be the ATM for the rest of the world,” said Rodriguez. “This border has been open since 1848 and we haven't done a darn thing about it,” he added, and the world is not what it was in 1848

Mary Huls spoke next to address the moral issues related to the their plan and the border crisis, which she described as “this really is a humanitarian issue.” She called the sympathy-inducing photos of the unaccompanied minors “a distraction,” noting as others have that the children are no more than twenty percent of those crossing the border, and they are providing cover for dangerous criminals.

“Texas’ heart does go out to the children,” she said, but it is impossible to separate the good from the bad without a secure border. Huls described the many women and children who end up killed, raped, molested, forced into sexual slavery, and so on. She then said that our current system ended up enabling all these horrifying crimes by providing not just a “magnet” of jobs and social welfare that encourages people to come, but also by releasing unaccompanied alien children to “sponsors” who are supposed to be relatives and family friends, but little was done to verify their identities. “How do we know who the people are who come to pick them up at the detention centers? …Are we selling these kids into a life of sex slavery?”

Theiss, a local elected official from League City, has lived in Mexico in the past, near the border with Belize. She told how she saw how strictly Mexico used to enforce its border, witnessing first hand scared Guatemalan immigrants running and hiding from Mexican authorities. Now, however, Mexico is actively encouraging and expediting traffic from Central America to Texas. Central Americans are given medical care, supplies, and a free travel visa to journey through Mexico, provided that they continue to American and do not try to stay in Mexico.

“The free flow of traffic is coming directly into Texas,” said Theiss, and the surge of immigrants we’ve seen so far this year is “going to be dwarfed,” with Mexico continuing to expand this program.

Theiss then had sharp words to critique Texas government officials. “We have a state government that is negligent, criminally negligent, in their duties,” she said. They campaigned on rule of law, she said, put on a tough act, but “they've failed in every regard” to actually address the broader border issues.

“Shame on the governor and all the way down,” said Theiss.

Stovall began his remarks by citing the rising cost of illegal immigrants to the state of Texas: from $8.9 billion in 2010, to $12 billion in 2013. By failing to take action to solve the problem, Texas government officials were essentially “accomplices” to the criminal activity associated with the border crisis.

Fleming then shared more details about how their plan was created and its key points. The Border Patrol agents are “begging the American people to stand up for them and let them do their jobs,” she said, but “what our state government is doing is not going to solve the problem.”

The main authority for what Flemings’ group hopes the state will do is Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, which states: "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” They want Perry to invoke the constitutional authority and declare a state of imminent danger in Texas from what is essentially an invasion of people streaming across our border.

Again, they did not want to wait for the regular 2015 session to start, but called for immediate action, partly through executive orders for items under the authority of the Governor of Texas, and a special session of the legislature to address all others.

Key recommendations in the Texas Border Crisis Action Plan:

• Form a “Texas military border brigade” from DPS officers, activating the National Guard, and authorizing extra funding from sources like the Rainy Day Fund and eliminating business incentives like the Texas Enterprise Fund, subsidies to Formula 1, etc.

• Fortify border security by adding fences, electronic monitoring technology, and boots on the ground.

• Stop providing social welfare services to illegal immigrants.

• End “sanctuary cities.”

• Prevent illegal immigrant children from attending Texas schools.

• Increase criminal penalties for employing illegal workers, especially for repeat offenders.

• Stop following the federal “catch and release” policies, but because of the declared emergency, hold illegal immigrants in jail until they can be returned to their home country.

Mississippi: Tell RNC Chairman Reince Priebus to Censure Henry Barbour

With Ed Martin, Chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, and Senator Ted Cruz speaking out, pressure is continuing to build on the Republican National Committee (RNC) to look into the tactics used by the Cochran campaign in the MS Senate run-off race last month.

As more evidence shows that, Henry Barbour, nephew of former MS Governor Haley Barbour, hired high-priced democrat operatives to place robo-calls accusing McDaniel and the Tea Party of being racist and having ties to the Ku Klux Klan, Chairman Ed Martin has asked RNC Chairman Reince Priebus to appoint a task force to investigate Barbour's involvement.

And in exerting pressure from the grassroots end, Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund is currently circulating a petition requesting that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus censure Henry Barbour for his alleged involvement and for violating Rule 11(b) of the Rules of the Republican National Committee.  

For a timeline and a review of the tactics used in Mississippi by Henry Barbour and the GOP please click here.

From Tea Party Patriots --

It’s starting to hit closer to home. A prominent member of the Republican National Committee (RNC) is now calling for an investigation into some of the ads that were used during the Mississippi Senate run-off race last month.

RNC member Ed Martin, who also happens to chair the Missouri Republican Party, sent a letter to RNC chairman Reince Priebus requesting that he appoint a special committee to investigate “if one of our own members helped finance ads or robocalls that tarred tea partiers as a group of racists…”

Earlier this week, Texas Senator Ted Cruz led the charge by calling for an investigation into possible fraud in Mississippi. “What happened in Mississippi was appalling,” said Cruz. “Primaries are always rough and tumble. But the conduct of the Washington D.C. machine in the Mississippi runoff was incredible disappointing.”

We agree with Martin and Cruz. The bedrock of democracy and a free society is the assurance of fair elections. It’s not entirely clear yet what went on during those last few weeks of campaigning in Mississippi. But what we do know is that there is enough evidence to indicate the election was anything but fair.

We believe the RNC should take accusations of misconduct seriously, for the sake of the conservative movement and more broadly, for the sake of democracy. No one is asking for the RNC to take sides or throw stones, but in a society that claims to value truth and honesty, any kind of election wrongdoing cannot go ignored. We applaud Martin and Cruz for speaking out already, and hope others will join them. Fair and free elections after all, are at stake.

John Boehner's Tea Party Whopper!

With President Obama's, "if you like your health care plan - you can keep it," being the Lie of the Year for 2013, refusing to be outdone by his golfing buddy, Speaker Boehner immediately becomes the front runner for "Lie of the Year" for 2014 with his claim that he has attended "hundreds of Tea Party events."

From Breitbart --

Politicians may be known for stretching the truth, but Speaker John Boehner's claim he's attended “hundreds of Tea Party events” over the past four years apparently pulled it well past the point of breaking.

In reviewing press reports, Breitbart News was only able to identify three Tea Party events Boehner has attended, all of which occurred before he became speaker. Boehner's spokesman now says the Ohio Republican has merely “talked with hundreds of Tea Party supporters.” Several top Ohio Tea Party activists, meanwhile, said they didn't know of Boehner's attending any Tea Party events in his home state.

Boehner made the claim at a Thursday luncheon event at the Middletown, Ohio, Rotary Club, specifying that by attending so many events he's been able to identify patterns in who makes up the Tea Party.

“I've gone to hundreds of Tea Party events over the last four years. The makeup is pretty much the same. You've got some disaffected Republicans, disaffected Democrats. You always have a handful of anarchists. They are against everything. Eighty percent of the people at these events are the most ordinary Americans you've ever met – none of whom have ever been involved in politics. We in public service respect the fact that they brought energy to the political process,” Boehner said.

In 2009 and 2010, Boehner attended at least three Tea Party rallies.

The first was April 15, 2009 in Bakersfield, California, where he attended with House Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy. The second was September 6, 2009, where he spoke against Obamacare, then under consideration in Congress, at a Cincinnati Tea Party Voices of America Freedom Rally. The third was April 13, 2010 at a Tea Party rally held in Orlando, Florida, organized by Tea Party activist Jason Hoyt and attended by an estimated 2,000 people.

Incidentally, all were more than four years ago, which was the length of time Boehner specified during which he had attended the events.

Michael Steel, a spokesman for Boehner, told Breitbart News late Friday, “Rep. Boehner attended Tea Party rallies, including in Florida and California, from the very start of the movement, and he's talked with hundreds of Tea Party supporters in recent years as he has traveled in Ohio and around the country.”

Boehner keeps an extremely busy schedule as he travels the country fundraising for Republican candidates, during the course of which he has undoubtedly met many people who self-identify as being of the Tea Party.

However, back home in Ohio, prominent local Tea Party activists say he has largely been missing in action.

“Speaker Boehner is my Representative,” Ann Becker, an Ohio Tea Party activist, said Friday. “He has been to only one Tea Party event. It was in September of 2009. His staff has been to a few more events. But hundreds is an extreme overstatement. He also has met with Tea Party leaders in the district a few times.”

“I am unaware of Boehner attending 'hundreds of Tea Party events,'” Ralph King, co-coordinator of the Cleveland, Ohio, Tea Party Patriots, said. “I would say the closest Boehner would ever be to a Tea Party event is he would have been driving the British ship in the Boston Harbor!”

Marianne Gasiecki, founder of the Mansfield, Ohio, Tea Party told Breitbart News on Friday, “John Boehner has not been to any Tea Party rallies outside of his district that I know of.”

“If he does go to Tea Party rallies in his district," Gasieki said, "it's only during campaign season."

Boehner was a notable no-show at the massive rally attended by more than 20,000 Tea Party activists on the west lawn of the Capitol on March 20, 2010 called to oppose Obamacare one day before the final vote. Numerous Tea Party-friendly members of Congress, including Steve King (R-IA), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and Mike Pence (R-IN) spoke at the event.

Boehner also did not attend an August 27, 2013 Tea Party rally of 300 activists held in front of Speaker Boehner's Troy, Ohio, offices. The purpose of the rally was to urge Boehner to defund Obamacare.

At the luncheon Thursday, Boehner went on to explain how he has a fairly positive view of the Tea Party movement but not the organizations that claim its mantle in urging Congress to be more conservative.

According to Boehner, "[t]here's the Tea Party and then there are people who purport to represent the Tea Party."

"I don't have any issue with the Tea Party," Boehner said. "I have issues with organizations in Washington who raise money purporting to represent the Tea Party, those organizations who are against a budget deal the president and I cut that will save $2.4 trillion over 10 years. They probably don't know that total federal spending in each of the last two years has been reduced, the first time since 1950."

According to Boehner, Tea Party activists "probably don't realize that we protected 99 percent of the American people from an increase in their taxes. They were against that too, the same organizations. There are organizations in Washington that exist for the sheer purpose of raising money to line their own pockets."

"I made it pretty clear I'll stand with the Tea Party," Boehner concluded, "but I'm not standing with these three or four groups in Washington who are using the Tea Party for their own personal benefit."

Boehner also mocked Republicans who opposed his efforts to pass immigration reform legislation.

"Here's the attitude," he told the audience. Then, in a high pitched, theatrical voice, Boehner screeched out, "Ohhhh. Don't make me do this. Ohhhh. This is too hard."

 

John Boehner's Betrayal

Below is an Op-Ed by Jenny Beth Martin, Co-Founder of Tea Party Patriots, addressing Speaker Boehner's latest attacks on the groups that allowed him to become Speaker by default. 

It should also be noted -- these are the same groups that will take Boehner's gavel!

From The New York Times --

WOODSTOCK, Ga. — THERE’S a political axiom that says if nobody is upset with what you’re doing, you’re not doing your job. We’ve seen this proved time and again in the liberal attacks on conservatives like Sarah Palin and Dr. Benjamin Carson, who provide principled examples to women and minorities and are savaged by the left for doing that job so well.

But cheap-shot politics isn’t relegated to Democrats. Last week the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, attacked conservative groups who criticized the budget deal, hashed out by Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, and Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, for failing to reduce spending and for raising taxes.

“They’re using our members and they’re using the American people for their own goals,” he said, calling the opposition “ridiculous.”

In one way, Mr. Boehner is correct. The goals of groups like ours are those that congressional Republicans once espoused: smaller government, less spending and lower taxes. Alas, those who demand such things today from their elected officials face unfounded attacks.

Make no mistake: The deal is a betrayal of the conservatives who fueled the Republicans’ 2010 midterm shellacking of Democrats.

It raises discretionary spending above $1 trillion for 2014 and 2015. It reneges on $63 billion of sequester cuts. Its $28 billion in deficit reduction over the next decade is a pittance compared with the $680 billion deficit piled up in 2013 alone. And it raises taxes, particularly on airplane passengers through new travel fees.

Perhaps most troubling is that the deal locks in spending for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, ensuring that the worst parts of Obamacare will continue unfolding to the shock of increasing numbers of Americans.

But the budget plan is about more than taxes and spending. It was a slick means by which Senate Republicans could appear to oppose the deal while in fact allowing it to sail through the chamber.

Take Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, the minority leader, who opposed efforts to defund Obamacare earlier this year while claiming to do everything possible to stop it.

After attacking conservative groups for their efforts to prevent the funding of Obamacare, Mr. McConnell, who is facing a primary challenge in his 2014 re-election race, is now seeking to portray himself as a conservative darling, championing fiscal austerity by voicing opposition to the budget proposal. (My organization has not endorsed a candidate in that race.) Doing so gives him some nifty talking points that align with most conservative groups, but it is little more than parliamentary sleight of hand.

Consider how he handled the vote on the bill. To defeat a filibuster, its supporters needed 60 senators to win cloture and move to a final vote. Instead of rallying his troops against the vote, Mr. McConnell allowed a handful of Republicans in battleground states — who needed to be seen as supporting the bill — to vote for cloture, while he and the rest railed against it, casting themselves in the role of budget hawks.

With cloture accomplished, a dozen Republicans were then free to vote against final passage if they need wiggle room when they’re confronted on the campaign trail next fall by voters demanding action on government spending. Mr. McConnell and many Senate Republicans used the vote to manipulate the system, allowing them to cast themselves as deal makers or principled conservatives, depending on their audience.

This is not principled policy making; what we’re seeing is simple gamesmanship that raises legitimate questions about which values Republicans truly hold and which are merely interchangeable with those of Democrats.

The job of Tea Party groups and other conservatives is pretty simple: to inform Americans about the need for restraint in spending, tax relief, pro-growth economic policies and individual liberty — and to support the men and women who pledge to promote these positions. To the extent that the speaker of the House and Senate Republicans are attacking such groups, it looks as if we’re doing our job.

But after this budget vote, our job expands to include informing Americans about who keeps their word in Congress and who does not.

When establishment Republicans call spending increases spending cuts, deny that raising taxes is a hike, and champion deficit reduction that doesn’t scratch the surface of our nation’s debt, it suggests a detachment from the facts. But when those who voted for them criticize their elected officials for not keeping their promises, and are then attacked for doing so, it suggests that Kurt Vonnegut was right in observing, “A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.”

Jenny Beth Martin is a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots.

National & Ohio Federation of RINO Women Carry Water for GOP on Illegal Immigration

Like good little RINOettes, the Ohio Federation of Republican Women joined in with the National Federation of Republican Women in publicly jumping on the bandwagon supporting the GOP establishment elite's group hug of Illegal Immigrants. 

In a recent letter to the Plain Dealer titled "Settle the legal status of kids without a country", Ohio Federation of Republican Women President Jean Turner writes....

On March 9, 2013, the National Federation of Republican Women passed a Resolution regarding immigration that included this statement:

"RESOLVED, The National Federation of Republican Women urges the federal government to expeditiously establish criteria for young people in this country illegally through no fault of their own to earn legal resident status or citizenship when they demonstrate English fluency and knowledge of American civics, comply with all health requirements, have no criminal record, graduate from an accredited high school, and pursue a college degree, trade certification or enter into military service."

It is in this spirit that the Ohio Federation of Republican Women applauds Speaker John Boehner for having the courage to move the conversation forward with his recent comments that this issue is, "about basic fairness."

These are not children of foreign countries. These are not children of the U.S.A. They are children without any country. Our group urges the Ohio Congressional Delegation to join together to bring about a resolution to the question of legal status in these cases.

Jean Turner, 
Gibsonburg

Turner is the president of the Ohio Federation of Republican Women. Three other statewide officers also signed this letter.

First,  while surely getting a couple RINO points for parroting Majority Leader Eric Cantor, it is incorrect for Mrs. Turner to classify children brought here illegally by their parents as "kids without a country."  The country in which these children were born would be their country of origin.  

Many of the illegal immigrant children (aka Dreamers) in which Mrs. Turner is referring to are covered under the Deferred Action for Children Arrivals (DACA), which supplies no special path to citizenship, but does give these children a legal presence and many benefits.

In fairness, while many share the same concerns that something needs to be done about illegal immigration in this country, it is clear Mrs. Turner, in playing the tune of "basic fairness' on the bleeding heart fiddle, is looking for a special path to citizenship for these Memorandum created special class of illegal immigrants.  

To date, Deferred Action has been granted to over 455,000 "Undocumented Dreamers" creating a USCIS processing backlog at the expense of legal citizens and members of our military.   

And the slippery slope of a "special path to citizenship" for Dreamer's is already mutating into a "special path to citizenship" for the "Dream Parents" under the proposed DACA-Plus program and a current ICE Enforcement Directive.  

Estimated costs to U.S. citizens for Illegal Immigration nationwide are approximately $106 billion. In Ohio with a yearly cost of $878 Million, that works out to about $200 per year per resident. 

At $509 million annually, the cost of educating the estimated 25, 375 U.S. born children of illegal immigrants living in Ohio at the K-12 level is devastating to an already over burdened school funding issue in Ohio. Illegal immigrant children in Ohio covered under DACA are also able to get a drivers license which will enable possible voting rights and they get in-state college tuition over American children. 

 So, I would ask the National & Ohio Federation of Republican Women -- what about the "basic fairness" to every day American citizens, through no fault of our own, that are being forced to bear the fiscal burden of supporting these illegal immigrants?

Maybe instead of trying to score RINO points with the GOP establishment on illegal immigration by applauding Speaker Boehner for his so called "courage" -- Mrs. Turner should be asking Speaker Boehner where is his courage to speak up for the "basic fairness" for the U.S. citizens he was elected to represent!