Theodore Roosevelt Reveals the Ugly Truth Behind Ted Cruz's Federal Land Sell-off Bill

by Nomad

Here's a quote by the I found from over a hundred years ago. Our 26th President has something he has been waiting patiently to tell us about tricks of the Tea Party Republicans and their conservative principles.

If there is one person who can expose the corruption of today's Republican party, it is yesteryear's Republican, Theodore Roosevelt.

Here is a 1913 snippet from his autobiography, regarding legislation protecting government- owned lands from the exploitation by the robber barons of his age.

It is better for the government to help a poor man to make a living for his family than to help a rich man to make a living for his company. This principle was too sound to be fought openly. It is the kind of principle to which politicians delight to pay unctuous homage in words. But we translated the words into deeds; and when they found that this was the case, many rich men... were stirred to hostility, and they used the congressmen they controlled to assault us- getting most aid from certain demagogues, who were equally glad improperly to denounce rich men in public and improperly to serve them in public. 

Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography. The Natural Resources of the Nation  

The same old tricks are being used all over again and by all appearances, half the nation has been bamboozled by the same political charlatans and puppets of special interests.
Case in point?
Senator Ted Cruz's underhanded legislative fiddling this week.

Are Republicans Finally Waking Up to the Realities of the Sequester?

With so many insightful investigative report s and op-ed articles appearing online all the time, it's no wonder that so many of us are turning their backs on cable news sources. With so much out there,  scattered hither and thither, it's next to impossible to catch them all.
That's where I come in! Here's an op-ed article that I thought you might find interesting.

President of the United Steel Workers, Leo Gerard has written an excellent piece at In These Times called:

The GOP’s Big Yellow Taxi Syndrome

The same Republicans who thought Norquist's infamous comment about "shrinking government small enough to drown it in the bathtub" was witty and wise are now having second thoughts about the idea. Especially when it comes to cuts that affect their own districts.

Republicans bellyached for years that government must shrink. It had to be smaller. Cut the budget come hell or high water, they yammered. Well, darn if the sequester hasn’t brought hell and high water to Republican districts across America.....

Now that it’s here, now that it’s affecting their constituents, Republicans contend the $1 trillion in indiscriminate, across-the-board budget cuts they demanded should have been specifically targeted to eliminate only “waste, fraud and abuse.”

"Waste, fraud and abuse" is apparently a stock phrase that that been on the lips of the Republicans-especially the Tea Party radicals. And yet, when called upon to explain where they would have cut, (note the past tense) the GOP remained vague and tended to change the subject. It was a phrase that played well in sound-bites on Fox News and back home but, without any specifics, it was about as hollow as Satan's heart.

The Conservative Victory Fund Project: Has Karl Rove's SuperPAC Declared War on Tea Party Nuttery?

by Nomad

Recently Karl Rove’s American Crossroads group officially fired the first shot in the battle for the soul (such as it is) of the Republican party when he announced the creation of a new super-PAC, the Conservative Victory Fund Project.  
The mission of the SuperPAC is 

"to “recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s efforts to win control of the Senate.”

Take that, Tea Party Express.

According to the New York Times:

The group, the Conservative Victory Project,[CVF] is intended to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates over the last two election cycles. It is the most robust attempt yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline on the party, particularly in primary races.

As Insane as it might sound, it appears that the Rove Republicans are now playing the role of the old guard of the Republican Party. And apparently, the defenders of the empire have had enough of the Tea Party rebels. After all that wooing and courting, and skillful manipulation of least intelligent and most rabid right wing voters in ;last two election cycles, the GOP has finally come to the conclusion (a bit late) that maybe stitching together this pouty, disobedient Frankenstein was not such a bright idea after all. 
We, on the sidelines, stuffing popcorn in our greasy-lipped mouths, have seen this coming, of course. Look at how they treated Tea Party queen Sarah Palin at the Republican Convention in Florida last year. It was "Sarah who?" For the GOP, Sarah became their own  political form of  "Fatal Attraction." She was the drunken tryst in the backseat of the Republican Oldsmobile nobody wants to remember.