House GOP "Stop Government Abuse" Week was a Bad Joke!

This is a round-up from NARFE of what the Republican House did in the last days before a five-week recess.  Most worthless House ever IMHO as Republicans refuse to vote on bills they know might pass instead voting again to defund Obamacare knowing it is going no where.  The House Republicans need to refund some of their salary to the taxpayers.

Still haven't recovered from the biggest abusers in DC, Republican House, having e a "Stop Government Abuse Week" which is an insult to anyone with the slightest bit of intelligence.  That took nerve but one thing we have learned out of the Republicans in Congress is that nerve is their middle name as they push an agenda that is bogus and adds not one thing to help the 98% of American people. When a Party wants to cut food stamps by over $30B, it says it all - they could care less about those less fortunate because they don't fund their campaigns.  Republicans play to their new hard right base along with wealthy donors led by the Koch Bros and expect others to go along.  More and more long time Republicans are telling the GOP Goodbye!

NARFE Legislative Hotline – August 2, 2013

Message from NARFE President Joseph A. Beaudoin
“As lawmakers depart Washington for five weeks starting today, the stakes are high. The ball is in your court. Use the congressional summer recess to meet with your representative and both senators. Defend the benefits you earned and were promised during your career of service to the American people.”

#1 ‘Stop Government Abuse’ Votes Held
This week, the House of Representatives unveiled and voted on a series of bills targeting the federal government and federal employees as part of “Stop Government Abuse” week. In total, the House had planned to vote on 10 bills denigrating, one way or another, civil service and, in one case, even usurping state law as it relates to taping phone conversations. Most of the bills were on the House calendar under “suspension,” which means debate was limited and passage required two-thirds approval of the voting body. While some of the bills passed by voice vote, the House majority quickly learned it could not pass three of the bills by the required supermajority. It pulled the three bills from consideration and rolled them into one – Stop Government Abuse Act, H.R. 2879 – and voted on the bill yesterday, requiring only a simple majority. The bill passed by a vote of 239-176. To see how your representative voted, please visit: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll436.xml.

Even though passed as a package, these bills were exposed as material for campaign ads and not legislation deserving enactment. The federal community expressed satisfaction in forcing the bills off the suspension calendar. NARFE sent two strongly worded letters to the Hill in advance of the bills, one when the bills were scheduled to be voted on individually and one when the packaged was revealed. NARFE also signed a Federal-Postal Coalition letter opposing the bills. All three letters can be found here.

The bills have little chance of Senate consideration and are likely to die at this point. The attacks on the federal community, however, are unlikely to slow.

#2 Chained CPI Coupon Collection Goal Reached! The NARFE National Officers and Legislative team thank you for your tremendous generosity in sending grocery coupons for a planned September media campaign around the Chained CPI. We have exceeded our goal of $48,000 worth of coupons, and we are working to use the additional coupons in the media campaign. If you have coupons ready to be mailed or if your chapter has a coupon-cutting event planned, please go ahead and submit those coupons.  After the campaign, we will be sending all of the coupons to organizations across the country that provide coupons to our military and their families. Thank you again for your enthusiasm and generosity.
 #3 Take Advantage of ‘NARFE Grass-Roots Advocacy Month’ NARFE has 1,319 chapters and 54 federations, and each has a president listed on our website. These leaders should be in the process of planning meetings with representatives and senators during the congressional summer recess, August 3 through September 8. These five weeks are designated as “NARFE Grass-Roots Advocacy Month,” when NARFE leaders will need the help of every member. This is our opportunity to inform the many new members of Congress, remind many second-termers and re-educate long-time incumbents on the issues important to NARFE members. In the August issue of narfe magazine, President Beaudoin’s column, “Silence Is Not Golden” (page 4), and Sarah Weissmann’s article, “Grass-Roots Advocacy Month” (page 6), call on each NARFE member to defend their earned benefits. Take action now to do just that, and report your activity to the NARFE Legislative Department at leg@narfe.org.

The GOP House is using the bogus 'Groundswell' talking point papers back in their districts and states to try and blame Obama for the mess in DC.  There is only one group to blame -- Republicans with their trek to the hard right.

House Republican leaders have armed their members with their August recess talking point. If you hate government, it is all Obama’s fault. 

The AP reports, “House Republicans will take a carefully orchestrated, staunchly anti-Washington campaign to voters this month, blaming President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats for Americans’ unhappiness with government.” The AP story goes on to mention that it might be difficult for House Republicans to blame Democrats and Obama for everything being that they control the House of Representatives, but John Boehner’s spokesperson Michael Steel already had an answer for that, “We have control of only one-half of one-third of the federal government.” 

The House Republican argument is that you hate the government because Republicans don’t control enough of it. This argument ignores the fact that most Americans are upset with Washington because there is no cooperation, and it is House Republicans who are behind the vast majority of the gridlock. Then there is the problem of the policies that House Republicans are advocating. John Boehner’s Circus of Dysfunction can only seem to agree on doing one thing, voting repeatedly to repeal Obamacare. That’s it. The House has wasted 15% of their time in session trying to repeal Obamacare.

(snip) 

House Republicans have embraced a plan that only an idiot could love. They are going to insult the majority of the country by pretending like we are all stupid and don’t know what is really going on. It isn’t just insulting. It is should be offensive to anyone with one functioning brain cell, and it is destroying the Republican Party. 

Republicans are going to be in for a shock in their gerrymandered districts when all those Republicans they are counting on who they tossed under the bus in favor of the hard right social conservatives, religious right, Tea Party, John Birchers, Libertarians, and militia, decide to vote Democrat and tell the GOP to shove it.  The Republican Party doesn't seem to have a clue about how mad former Republicans are at what has happened to the GOP and how the new base has treated long time Republicans.    GOP may have the big donors but those don't equate to votes.

Republicans don't deserve to be in charge of anything with their obstructionism, wasting tax dollars, and voting on bills they know will never be law.  Yet bills like the jobs bills including for veterans, immigration bill, and appropriations bills just sit there while they work 126 days this year doing nothing except appeasing their new base and wealthy donors.  That they do well.  Being honest with integrity and doing what is best for the American people earns them an F!

Groundswell Members in Collussion with Republican Leadership in House on Scandals Against President Obama

(Groundswell) Group members are the water-carriers and action arm of the billionaires' tea party. Listen to the full 20 minutes of that audio (below), or read the transcript here to see just how destructive they intend to be.

After hearing the audio and reading the transcript, my breath is taken away at how far this group of hard right will go to win elections and hurt this President along with the Country.  I knew it was bad from the comments we have been witnessing out of what used to be some fairly sane people but today sound like hard right nutcases.  The transformation has been stunning to those of us who know some of these elected officials.  Now the picture is becoming clearer.  Groundswell which is made up of various individuals and groups seem to have no conscience, empathy, or ethics as anything goes in their world to win.  They have bought and paid for Republican officials at the highest levels and have access that only most people dream about because of their alliance with the wealthy billionaire donors of the Republican Party. 

This investigative piece of journalism by Crooks and Liars will have Part II tomorrow: 

Covering Ginni Thomas' involvement to see whether Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas engaged in unethical conduct or colluded with his wife and her associates.

Crooks and Liars was able to obtain the audio of the Groundswell meeting on 8 May which shows this group, Groundswell, plotting with leaders of Congress to take out the President via scandals.  Isn't there a law against this?  If not, there should be.  Must have been really bad in the meeting for someone to leak this audio recording showing the collusion between Groundswell and Congressional leadership:

When David Corn broke the Groundswell story last week, the general reaction among the politerati was a shrug and a giggle. Even influential NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen called it "no big deal." 

But audio of a May Groundswell meeting obtained by C&L from a source who wishes to remain anonymous reveals Groundswellers met with top Congressional leaders to lobby for a select committee endowed with subpoena power to investigate the White House. Lobbying may be too mild a term, since they really are plotting with those same leaders to invent very real scandals with very real investigations in order to sink the country into a mire of inaction and sabotage the remaining years of President Obama's term. 

Messaging is a part of their activity, but there is also an entire set of marching orders and demands made by this group and granted by Congressional leadership. It isn't limited to the Benghazi 'scandal', and it may not be limited to Congress.

By and large the mainstream media have become complacent and lazy for the most part reporting talking point papers instead of actual investigation.  The slack fortunately has been picked up by places like Crooks and Liars, Mother Jones, Politicususa, Talking Points Memo, Think Progress, Raw Story, and others who work hard to get to the bottom of the story making sure they have the facts not spin.  

Media Matters is one of the best sites for showing the facts when it comes to broadcast news.  One of my first stops every morning to see how badly Fox News blew it from the night before.  When Murdoch or should I say Roger Ailes took Fox News so hard right, most people were not prepared.  Some of the hard right still watch, but most people I know don't turn on Fox.  My line in the sand with Fox News was actually lines drawn in the sand by Geraldo during the Gulf War to show where our troops were at on his map he drew.  Haven't watched since - Fox News was never any good a breaking news so no reason to turn them on and get irritated.  

When I looked at Mother Jones to find out who the members of the Groundswell group are, I was shocked at some names like Blackwell, former Ohio Secretary of State, Mark Tapscott, Editor of the Washington Examiner from Moore, OK, just north of me, and the wife of Justice Thomas.  What didn't shock me was having a former (?) aide to Sen Cruz involved.  Rand Paul needs to take note that Cruz has one-upped him.   The meetings of Groundswell are held at Judicial Watch in Tom Fitton's office.  Am sure you don't want to know my real feelings about Fitton from years ago on a website.  If he said the sky was blue, go check.

One of the influential conservatives guiding the group is Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a columnist for the Daily Caller and a tea party consultant and lobbyist. Other Groundswell members include John Bolton, the former UN ambassador; Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy; Ken Blackwell and Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council; Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch; Gayle Trotter, a fellow at the Independent Women's Forum; Catherine Engelbrecht and Anita MonCrief of True the Vote; Allen West, the former GOP House member; Sue Myrick, also a former House GOPer; Diana Banister of the influential Shirley and Banister PR firm; and Max Pappas, a top aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). 

Among the conveners listed in an invitation to a May 8 meeting of Groundswell were Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News Network; Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who resoundingly lost a Maryland Senate race last year (and is now running for a House seat); Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society; Sandy Rios, a Fox News contributor; Lori Roman, a former executive director of the American Legislative Exchange Council; and Austin Ruse, the head of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. Conservative journalists and commentators participating in Groundswell have included Breitbart News reporters Matthew Boyle and Mike Flynn, Washington Examiner executive editor Mark Tapscott, and National Review contributor Michael James Barton.Catherine Engelbrecht "facilitated" the May 8th Groundswell meeting. Engelbrecht is the president and founder of True the Vote, a Texas group dedicated to challenging voting rights among the poor, students, and minorities. In addition to their regular work attacking sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act via lawsuits, Engelbrecht was the media go-to person for the media on the phony IRS scandal. That story broke on May 9th, after the Benghazi hearings had more or less fizzled out the previous day. 

There was wave after wave of headlines about these so-called scandals. Some people wrote about what an awful week the White House had. It wasn't coincidence. It was orchestrated and planned by this group of people, who had the will and the power to secure the participation of people like Darrell Issa, John Boehner and more.
True the Vote led the charge to sue the IRS and serve the highest-profile plaintiff among the "aggrieved" groups. Yet this audio recording shows their president "facilitating" a clearly partisan, right-wing activist group meeting of people who claim to be fighting a "30-front war." No big deal? When is the last time anyone you know could ring up the Speaker of the House and the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee and take a face-to-face meeting in the wee hours of the evening with approval from the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice?

Meet the members of Groundwell at Mother Jones. 

Speaker Boehner and Chair Issa need to be removed IMHO after hearing this report on the two of them from Jerry Boykin and Frank Gaffney in the 8 May meeting.  They are nothing but sellouts.  All you have to do is listen to Boehner on the Northern Keystone Pipeline he is pushing and understand he stands to make millions off his investment to know honesty and John Boehner do not fit in the same sentence:

At 3:45, Jerry Boykin advises the group of the meetings he and Frank Gaffney had with Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Darrell Issa concerning Benghazi on the evening of May 7th about how the Benghazi investigation is progressing. This was the night before the last Congressional Oversight Committee hearing was held on Benghazi, where the so-called whistleblowers were to testify. 

In the late-night meeting with Gaffney and Boykin, Boehner advised both that they needed to allow the regular order of committee meetings to play out before he would push for a select committee. Issa told him the same thing. Boykin and Gaffney reported this to the group, along with a promise that there "would be answers." Both reiterated that they and former Rep. Allen West were very concerned about the lack of a military response and assured the group that "what we'll find today is that Hillary Clinton made some egregious decisions and the president was basically absent from his post and did not make the decisions that as the Commander-in-Chief he should have been making...because he was focused on some other things." 

They further assured the group that they weren't backing away from their demands, but instead they "kind of have a pledge from...Issa and the Speaker." 

I am sitting here in shock about Groundswell and how they have bought and paid for members of Congress as the go-between with the wealthy donors.  Wondered who was the go-between and looks like Mother Jones and Crooks and Ladders have scored a direct hit - Groundwell.  Their group includes Ginny Thomas, wife the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who IMHO should resign if his wife is going to be part of this extremely partisan group because it has the appearance of impropriety of a sitting Supreme Court Justice based on some of his writings.

During the meeting, True the Vote made a presentation (document below) about their plan to attack groups who are actively working to protect voting rights around the country, particularly after the Supreme Court gutted most of the protections. Code-named "Hydra", True the Vote argues that the left is undermining voting rights, and must be stopped, by hook or by crook.

Crooks and Liars was able to obtain True the Vote's Plan to Attack Voting Rights which brings me right back to Clarence Thomas who was one of the five votes to destroy a portion of the Voting Rights Act and his wife works with the head of True the Vote trying to suppress voting rights of minorities with their Hydra Plan.  If that is not a conflict of interest, I don't know what the words mean.

The efforts of this group (Groundswell) should not be marginalized, given that what they are saying is repeated in the halls of the House and the Senate on a daily basis. It isn't just right-wing crazy people being crazy. These are activists with contacts in high places who are using those contacts to strip people of their rights, to invent scandals to undermine the President at every turn, and to marginalize Hillary Clinton if she should choose to run in 2016. Those are just a few of their goals. They have power and they're not afraid to use it.

Hydra Plan - Plan to Attack Voting Rights

What will Crooks and Liars reveal tomorrow?