FreedomWorks Thanks Sen. Mike Lee for Championing ObamaCare Repeal

Following news that Senators Mitch McConnell and Mike Lee released a joint statement in support of using budget reconciliation to repeal ObamaCare, FreedomWorks CEO Adam Brandon commented:

"Thank you Senator Mike Lee for standing up to Senate leadership and forcing a vote on repealing ObamaCare through budget reconciliation, so it would only need a simple majority vote. Activists across the country worked to elect leaders who would fight for them. Today we can join them in thanking Mike Lee for getting leadership to commit to a repeal vote that can actually reach the president's desk."

"ObamaCare is destroying our health care system, driving up costs, and decreasing the quality of care. It's about time the Senate acted on their promises and used every tool available to repeal this disastrous law."

"This will force the president to defend his signature law that is dismantling America's health care system. Even though he will likely veto the bill, it sets up health care as a major campaign issue in 2016. This is the dry run we need to demonstrate how to actually repeal ObamaCare, and we need all the presidential candidates to commit to full repeal."

FreedomWorks aims to educate, build, and mobilize the largest network of activists advocating the principles of smaller government, lower taxes, free markets, personal liberty and the rule of law. For more information, please visit www.FreedomWorks.org or contact Iris Somberg atisomberg@freedomworks.org.

Via: Freedom works

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Mike Lee: Americans deserve better than Congress' 'governing from a cliff'

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, addresses the 42nd annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 26, 2015 in National Harbor, Md. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Sen. Mike Lee criticized his fellow lawmakers for waiting until the last moment to act on the expiring Patriot Act.

"I do believe we have the votes … the question is not whether we will get this passed, but when," the Utah Republican said Sunday on CNN.

"It'll happen tonight or on Wednesday," he said, before criticizing how Congress continues to "govern from a cliff."

Congress knew the Patriot Act was set to expire June 1 four years ago, but failed to act on it, Lee, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said.

"American people deserve better than this … governing from a cliff," Lee said, adding, "This sort of thing has become all too common."

It's a "bad habit" adopted by both parties, Lee said.

According to Lee, the USA Freedom Act — which has been passed by the House but remains stalled in the Senate — solves the underlying problem of bulk collection of Americans' phone records and keeping the American people safe.

Senators are to adjourn Sunday in Washington to decide what to with expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, which expire June 1.

Via: Washington Examiner

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SEN. MIKE LEE: OBAMACARE DELAYS 'SHAMELESS POWER GRAB'

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) blasted President Barack Obama on Sunday for his myriad Obamacare delays designed to circumnavigate the looming midterm elections and the Constitution.

"This is a shameless act, a shameless power grab that is designed to help the president and his political party achieve a particular outcome in a partisan election," Lee said onFox News Sunday.

Lee added, "The solution is for the president to come to Congress and make the case to Congress on the policy merits of this question that Congress needs to act. It is not the president's prerogative to simply make this the law by the stroke of the executive pen."

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), appearing on the same program, disagreed, saying that if Obama's actions were unconstitutional someone would have sued by now.

"If this were against the Constitution, someone would have sued by now and the president would have to stop," said Becerra.

Via: Breitbart

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The Four Republican SOTU Responses Couldn't Agree On What To Say

There was no unified opposition at the conclusion of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night. Instead, four different Republicans -- representing, in some ways, four different factions of the Republican party -- had something to say to the nation.

They shared some of the same talking points: Obamacare is a disaster and Obama's economic agenda is ruining America's future. The GOP is trying to offer some kind of alternative to the electorate. But the similarities largely stopped there, in yet another display of the fractured Republican Party that has a chronic inability to present a coherent and singular vision to the country.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA) spoke for the party's establishment, with the added bonus of being a woman in leadership at a time when the party's standing with women seems shaky. Sen. Mike Lee (UT) was the self-appointed leader of the tea party, who rebutted the president while attempting to represent that nebulous constituency that has so influenced the party since 2010. 

Sen. Rand Paul (KY) more or less represented himself, the lone 2016 aspirant to speak Tuesday night, and also gave voice to the libertarian sect. And Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL) addressed the Spanish-speaking audiences on behalf of the party's leadership, another attempt to reach a population with whom Republicans have been unpopular.

That just about covers everybody. Each constituency had a messenger, and ascendant members of the party had an opportunity to showcase themselves in the national spotlight.
The only problem is: It was hard to tell what exactly Republicans, as a whole, wanted Americans to take away from their multi-pronged rebuke of the president, other than their always-fervent opposition to Obama.

As the official voice of the party, McMorris Rogers continued the rebranding effort that has obsessed Republicans since the 2012 election. What exactly it was actually remained a bit opaque, but the tone was undeniably optimistic.

Via: TPM
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[VIDEO] Tea Party Response To 2014 State Of The Union Delivered By Mike Lee

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee is set to be the face of the national tea party Tuesday night when he delivers the movement's response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech.

Excerpts of his speech show Lee will pin the widening wealth gap on the president's policies and tout the ideas of a new generation of leaders including himself and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

"Americans know in their hearts that something is wrong. Much of what is wrong relates to the sense that the 'American Dream' is falling out of reach for far too many of us," Lee plans to say. "We are facing an inequality crisis — one to which the president has paid lip-service, but seems uninterested in truly confronting or correcting."

Obama plans to use the State of the Union to announce executive actions to raise the minimum wage for new federal contracts, help the long-term unemployed find work and expand job-training programs.

Via: Huffington Post

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How Mike Lee Is Changing The Republican Party

Former-President Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson has a fine op-ed in today's Washington Post, heaping praise on Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). Gerson writes:

For those who expect and fear an irrepressible conflict between the tea party and the Republican establishment, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah is a hopeful anomaly. Should this anomaly become a trend, the GOP’s future would be considerably brighter.

Few have done more to burn ideological bridges within the GOP. Yet no one from the tea party side is now doing more to construct them....

Lee has been proselytizing for a “comprehensive anti-poverty, upward-mobility agenda” — making him one of the few Republican politicians talking in any sustained way about stalled economic mobility, stagnant middle-class wages and economic inequality. To this, Lee has added a dollop of populist “anti- cronyism,” proposing to simplify the tax code and rein in the big banks. Setting aside the policy details, Lee makes strikingly sane observations about the Republican future....

The subtext here is not a challenge to establishment Republicanism, which would offer no ideological objection to the role of government that Lee described. The real contrast is with libertarianism, particularly of the Rand Paul variety. And Lee has come close to making his criticism explicit. “Freedom means ‘we’re all in this together,’?” he said. “The conservative vision for America is not an Ayn Rand novel. It’s a Norman Rockwell painting, or a Frank Capra movie: a nation of ‘plain, ordinary kindness, and a little looking out for the other fellow, too.’?”

This is a good, general prescription for Republican recovery: More Frank Capra. Less Ayn Rand.

Via: Townhall
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Senator Mike Lee Critiques the War on Poverty

If you haven’t read Utah Senator Mike Lee’s remarks [Bring Them In] at the Heritage Foundation’s Anti-Poverty Forum you really owe it to yourself to do so. It is probably the most succinct conservative critique of modern government anti-poverty programs in recent decades.

When President Lyndon Johnson declared an “unconditional war on poverty” in his 1964 State of the Union address it represented, arguably, the high water mark for the acceptance on liberal ideology in America. The essence of the speech was a singleminded devotion to the “the perfectability of man”: the notion that perfection can be achieved on Earth through the efforts of man, or in the case, the federal government. Never mind that some famous guy, his name escapes me at the moment, warned us all that the poor will always be with us.

As is so often the case, federal intervention becomes a self-licking ice cream cone where the resources earmarked for the eradication of poverty do little more than sustain the bureaucracy dedicated to eradicating poverty. And for good reason, if poverty ends so do the jobs associated with its eradication.

The outcomes have been dramatic and had they not been visited upon those at the margins of society would have resulted in long prison sentences for all involved. Instead of declaring a war on poverty, by Johnson’s actions he actually began the institutionalization of poverty and hopelessness as a lifestyle.

Via: Red State

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BEDFORD: One month after the shutdown ended, Lee and Cruz are sitting pretty

It’s Nov. 16, 2013, and the partial government shutdown ended one month ago today.

In those four weeks, and the two prior, everything conservatives said would happen has happened. What’s more, the Democrats’ united stand against them has turned into a retreat — and is primed to become a rout — as they amend Obamacare’s disastrous rollout, President Barack Obama apologizes for his failures, and electorally vulnerable Democrats break ranks and flee.

Hell, even the polls that D.C.’s Republican pundits shrieked, wept and clawed over show the Grand Old Party has bounced back while the Democrats have fallen behind. Because, in the end, real people simply weren’t affected by the shutdown, so they won’t vote on it — a distinction Obamacare does not share.

It’s clear now that the whole shutdown thing could have been avoided if Mr. Obama had been willing to bend on his signature health-care law — something reality has since forced him to do, and something he will likely have to continue to do — instead of accusing the Republicans of being “terrorists” who are holding the country captive.

And rather than crashing, as the president predicted, the private sector survived just fine without government. Obama’s specific prediction — “I mean whatever effect Obamacare might have on the economy is far less than even a few days of government shutdown” — turned out to be precisely wrong. (VIDEO: It’s been two weeks and still no apocalypse, you guys)

Finally, the events of the last month have shown that Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee were correct to make a final stand against the law, and it’s really the president and his policies that are terrorizing the country. (RELATED: How Cruz, Lee and Paul shut down Obama’s agenda)

Because since Obamacare has come into effect, millions have seen their health-care plans cancelled; enrollment numbers have lagged 80 percent behind the White House’s predictions; every facet of the sign-up process has failed to deliver; and some of the very “navigators” who are supposed to make all that easier have been exposed as criminals.

And for the two weeks that preceded this debacle, the story is one of Republicans fighting with everything they had to save the country from what they saw coming.

Via: Daily Caller

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LIMBAUGH: WHEN YOU ATTACK SARAH PALIN, TED CRUZ, AND MIKE LEE, YOU ATTACK ME

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Rush Limbaugh: “I know that it’s an effort to undermine everything I believe. They attacked Palin, they attacked Ollie [North], they attacked Clarence Thomas, they’re attacking us–me!”

“What are they going after Ted Cruz for? What’s he done to anybody? It’s Obama they ought to be going after! Why are they going after Mike Lee? That’s why we defend these guys. They’re out there actually trying to beat this stuff back, and they’re doing it because they love the country. They’re doing it because they’re shocked and saddened by what they’re seeing happening here, and they don’t think it’s time to give up. Look how rare that is! Sarah Palin, the same thing.”Via: BreitbartContinue Reading.....

GLOVES OFF: GOP ESTABLISHMENT GOES AFTER TEA PARTY

The National Republican Senate Committee, the GOP campaign arm responsible for Senate elections, has decided to use its political power to block consulting firm Jamestown Associates from receiving political work from GOP candidates or incumbents. 

Jamestown's "sin" is working with the Senate Conservative Fund, an organization that supports conservative candidates for the US Senate. 

NRSC communications staffer Brad Dayspring, a former spokesman for House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), told The New York Times on Friday, “We’re not going to do business with people who profit off of attacking Republicans. Purity for profit is a disease that threatens the Republican Party.”

Jamestown Associates has done work with the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), a conservative group largely responsible for the elections of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rand Paul (R-KY), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Ron Johnson (R-WI), among others. Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who left the U.S. Senate last year to become the president of the Heritage Foundation, founded SCF.

"In a warning shot to outside conservative groups, the National Republican Senatorial Committee this week informed a prominent Republican advertising firm that it would not receive any contracts with the campaign committee because of its work with a group that targets incumbent Senate Republicans," the Times wrote. 

"Even more striking," the Times continued, "a senior official at the committee called individual Republican Senate campaigns and other party organizations this week and urged them not to hire the firm, Jamestown Associates, in an effort to punish them for working for the Senate Conservatives Fund, a group founded by Jim DeMint, then a South Carolina senator, that is trying to unseat Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and some other incumbents up for re-election next year whom it finds insufficiently conservative."

Via: Breitbart

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HANG ONE, TO ENCOURAGE THE OTHERS

One of the most effective ways of discouraging people is to make them think there’s absolutely nothing they can do about something, anyway. Thus, liberals have tried to insinuate that Obamacare is impossible to remove, hoping conservatives will despair.

But with only one-half of one branch of government, Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and the House Republicans have made it absolutely clear that Republicans are not giving up on repealing Obamacare. Inasmuch as “bubonic plague” is polling higher than “Obamacare,” I’d say this is a brilliant marketing strategy for the GOP.

Unlike every other idiotic government program ever foisted on us by the Democrats, this time Republicans are not rolling over on this illegitimately passed, disastrous legislation. Give Republicans a veto-proof majority in the Senate, America, and they will rid us of this plague. (Without even charging a co-pay!)

Not only that, but Republicans have exposed Democrats as hypocrites who are forcing the rest of the country to live under Obamacare, while shutting down the government rather than live under it themselves.

With any luck, the Obama-Reid government shutdown — as Sean Hannity calls it — has also impressed upon Republicans the importance of winning elections.

Whatever cavils and objections liberals have to the Republicans’ majority in the House, the Democrats’ Senate majority certainly does not reflect the popular will. At least nine sitting Democratic senators have asterisks by their names, indicating seats given away by Republicans through unforced errors

Via: Human Events

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PALIN: PRIMARY REPUBLICANS WHO WON'T FIGHT OBAMA'S TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA

On Thursday, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said lawmakers in Congress who do not oppose the fundamental transformation of America need to be primaried. 

When asked on The Kelly File on Thursday if she would support primary challengers to Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Thad Cochran (R-MS), Palin noted they were part of the "status quo" and said she would be looking very closely at their challengers.

"I've been saying for years that robust competitive primaries make for a better political system," Palin said. "It makes people work harder and express more articulately what their record is and what their intentions for our country is."

Palin said that those like Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) "and a whole lot of other Americans see that we are taxed enough already."

Palin noted that is the "acronym for the Tea Party movement, we are taxed enough already and we believe that the constitution, that's the blueprint that leads us towards a more perfect union and will fight very strong for that. "

"So if the GOP is standing strong on the planks and the platform that represent everything that I just mentioned, if we stand united, well, then we won't lose the House, and we could even win back the Senate," she continued.

Palin said the the enemy of "America's economic freedom is this fundamental transformation of America." She emphasized that those who do not intend to "stop this fundamental transformation and stripping away of our economic freedom" and those who "can't stand strong to defend our republic, to defend our constitution" needed to be primaried.

Via: Breitbart

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PALIN TO IOWA

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will return to Iowa on November 9, returning to the state that holds the country's first-in-the-nation caucuses. These are dominated by social conservatives who Palin appeals to as strongly as she resonates with independent-minded fiscal conservatives.

Palin will be a speaker at a Faith and Freedom Coalition (FFC) event that will honor Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who led the fight to defund Obamacare along with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

"We are thrilled and honored that Gov. Palin has confirmed to address Iowa's top conservative activists, as we kick off the 2014 election cycle," FFC president Steve Scheffler said. "Without a doubt, her appearance will motivate activists to be involved in grassroots politics here in Iowa that will help turn the tide here in Iowa, by electing more family-friendly public officials at all levels."

As David Brody at the Christian Broadcasting Network noted, the appearance will underscore Palin's influence among conservatives, especially those in Iowa, regardless of whether she decides to run for president in 2016. If she does not, her endorsement will be the most coveted among the GOP presidential contenders. 

One of the reasons Palin has been called the prototypical "Teavaneglical" politician is because she fervently appeals to faith-based voters as much as she does to fiscally conservative voters. Her influence was proven during the 2012 cycle when she praised Rick Santorum in December in 2011 when Iowans seemed lukewarm about the field of Republican primary candidates. After Palin made her remarks on December 2 on Fox News's Hannity, Santorum, who was at four percent in the polls in Iowa--barely above Jon Huntsman, who was not even competing in the state--started getting momentum and eventually won the caucus a month later. Though Santorum had gone "all-in" in Iowa and planted his campaign exclusively in the state, voters were persuaded to consider his candidacy more seriously after Palin spoke kindly of him. 

Via: Breitbart

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Ryan emerges a possible dealmaker in fiscal crisis, with ObamaCare still in mind

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan is emerging as the key congressional Republican in negotiating with Democrats to solve Washington’s two fiscal crises with a plan that only delays efforts to defund ObamaCare, not derail them.

Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, is proposing a plan to increase to the federal debt that is tied largely to simplifying the tax code, make enough changes to Medicare to offset cuts to domestic spending and defense programs and a solid promise from Senate Democrats and President Obama to continue talks about reopening the federal government, other fiscal crisis.

Failure to increase the debt limit within roughly the next week would result in the country defaulting on its debt for the first time in history. The partial government shutdown started Oct. 1.

“I'm working to get a budget agreement,” Ryan told a group of conservative meeting this weekend in Washington. “We need to completely rethink government’s role in helping the most vulnerable. … That means we can never give up on repealing and replacing ObamaCare.”

His remarks, in a video message for the Value Voters summit, were reassuring to conservative concerned that Ryan in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece seemed to have abandon the idea of defunding or altogether dismantling ObamaCare as part of fiscal negotiations -- considering how hard they, led by Tea Party favorites Sens. Ted Cruz, Texas, and Mike Lee, Utah, worked to garner support for the effort.  

Via: Fox News

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MCCONNELL REJECTS CRUZ, LEE OBAMACARE TACTIC

Monday evening, GOP Minority Leader announced that he would oppose a proposed filibuster from Sens. Cruz and Lee to block the House Continuing Resolution from reaching the Senate floor. McConnell's opposition was echoed by John Cornyn, number 2 in GOP Leadership, and Sen. Cruz's colleague from Texas. The move by McConnell and Cornyn virtually assures that the Senate will begin consideration of the House bill later this week. 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs the support of 6 Republican Senators to defeat any filibuster undertaken by Sens. Cruz and Lee, assuming he has the votes of his entire caucus. The decision by McConnell and Cornyn to vote against a filibuster ensures that Reid will have the Republican votes he needs to move forward with the bill. 

The expectation is then that, after a period of debate on the CR, Sen. Reid will file another cloture motion to cut off debate and proceed to amendments. By holding a cloture vote before amendments are considered, Reid will be able to add amendments to the bill by a simply majority vote. He will likely block any Republican amendments and off language to restore ObamaCare funding. The final resolution could then pass the Senate by a simply majority. 

It is unclear if McConnell or Cornyn would support a filibuster against Reid's controversial procedure to handle amendments. Under the Senate's regular order, amendments require a 60-vote threshold for adoption. It is possible the Republicans could still fight that rule change. 

The nuance of Senate procedure is lost on the general public, however. What the public sees is that just hours after Sen. Cruz began his fight to defund ObamaCare through the House CR, the top 2 Republicans in the Senate announced their opposition to his plan. 

The fight to defund ObamaCare may have ended Monday night. 

Via: Brietbart

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Sunday Show Roundup Cruz and Lee continue their push to defund Obamacare

Leaders of the effort to defund the health care law pointed to Friday’s vote to defund Obamacare as a legislative victory and provided additional insight into their plan if the legislation does not succeed in the Senate on Sunday.

“If Harry Reid kills this bill in the Senate, I think the House should hold it’s ground and should begin passing smaller continuing resolutions one department at a time,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) said on Fox News Sunday.

“Start with the military. Fund the military. Send it over, and let’s see if Harry Reid is willing to shut down the military just because he wants to force Obamacare on the American people. I think that would be a very perilous decision for Harry Reid to make,” Cruz said.

The House passed the 2014 Defense Appropriations Bill, a separate bill to fund the military, in late July.

Cruz’s statement showed that the senators leading the charge do not intend to back down despite concern from Republicans and political analysts.

Via: WFB

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Washington Builds a Bugaboo

How does Senator Ted Cruz tick off liberals? Let us count the ways.

Several times a day, especially if he’s out travelin’ and talkin’ to folks, as he always is when the U.S. Senate isn’t in session, Ted Cruz will stand before an audience and reflect, seemingly for the first time, about the generational shift taking place in the Republican party. 

Among that tiny fraction of Americans who are paying attention to such things, Cruz seems to be the only person who is forgetting Ted Cruz’s name. “I call them the Children of Reagan,” he says. He means the rising group of Republican officeholders who came to political consciousness during President Reagan’s two terms. He rattles off their names: “young leaders” like Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Nikki Haley, Mike Lee, Scott Walker .  .  . and then sometimes he’ll pause, letting you wonder if he’s leaving out any of the Children’s names. Sometimes a helpful fan in the audience will volunteer it, to general appreciation from the crowd.

“Americans who worry about democracy need to keep on this guy,” warned a reporter for the New Republic back in February. And no wonder! Skim the tweets or scan the blogs or, if you’re older than one of Reagan’s Children, read the actual newspapers, and you’ll soon discover that Ted Cruz is far more than the freshman senator from Texas, only eight months in office. He is also the “scary” “McCarthyite” “Taliban” “bully” and “bomb-thrower” known for his “extremism” and his “arrogant” and “nihilistic” “disregard of facts.” 

When you follow him around, however—for he is in constant motion, from Iowa to New Hampshire to every corner of Texas—this nasty fellow you’ve been reading about, the caricature Cruz, never appears. If “Ted Cruz” didn’t exist, professional Democrats and the mainstreamers in the Washington press corps would have to invent him. 

Via: Weekly Standard

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