Posted on 01/23/2014 4:19:11 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the Senate Democrats’ political guru, has a plan to poison the Tea Party by driving a wedge between its rich funders and its blue-collar rank and file.
Schumer, one of the Democrats’ most influential strategists, will argue in a major speech on Thursday that super-wealthy Tea Party donors have hijacked the grassroots movement that grew out of the economic anxiety of the 2008 financial collapse to suit their pro-big business agenda.
He’ll lay out a blueprint for how Democrats can exploit what he argues is a weakness in the opposition in the address at the Center for American Progress, a pro-Democratic think tank founded by John Podesta, who just joined President Obama’s inner circle at the White House.
Schumer will argue that Democrats must defend popular government programs such as extended unemployment benefits and student loan subsidies to persuade Tea Party voters that they can benefit from federal programs.
“He will suggest specific issues for Democrats to focus on in 2014 in order to remind the Tea Party and its supporters that government can be a force for good,” his office said.
Schumer contends powerful Tea Party patrons such as David H. Koch and Charles Koch have directed the anger of many independent voters toward the government to ease federal regulation of their multibillion-dollar industries.
“Wealthy Tea Party leaders have convinced Tea Party rank and file and many other Americans that anti-government ideology is the answer to their problems — but many Tea Partiers and sympathizers support government programs — Democrats must exploit the difference,” Schumer’s office said in a statement announcing the speech.
Schumer also plans to touch on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that gave outside groups more leeway to spend on elections. He supports legislation that would force outside political groups to identify major donors.
Tea Party representatives scoffed at Schumer’s plans, saying they’d heard similar arguments for years.
“Liberals have been trying to claim the Tea Party is something other than what it is from the beginning,” said Sal Russo, co-founder and chief strategist of Tea Party Express, a major Tea Party political action committee. “We heard everything from Karl Rove’s orchestrating it to the Koch brothers are doing it or oil companies.”
Russo said the Tea Party is an indigenous grassroots reaction to “exactly what Chuck Schumer is,” and that the movement resulted from “an oppressive intrusion into the people’s lives by the federal government, runaway spending and an unsustainable national debt.”
Schumer, however, thinks that Tea Party leaders are at a vulnerable crossroads because their unifying ideology centered on the federal deficit has become outdated.
A nationwide poll by Quinnipiac University earlier this month showed that 39 percent of respondents said the economy should be President Obama’s top priority while only 23 percent said it should be the federal budget deficit.
A CBS News poll from mid November showed 31 percent of adults nationwide rated the economy and jobs as the most important problem facing the country while only 7 percent pointed to the budget.
Democratic pollsters say a majority of Tea Party voters support increasing the minimum wage, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will address later this year.
“What the senator is getting at is they’re very populist and they are hard-pressed economically,” Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said of Tea Party voters. “So I think there is an interesting point right now where Democrats can lay out an economic agenda that really pressures the Tea Party leaders.”
Lake said Schumer and other Democratic leaders would be hard pressed to convince Tea Party voters to embrace big government but they can push a populist economic agenda that resonates with them.
“A majority of Tea Partiers do support raising the minimum wage. They like to stand up for the little guy,” she said.
Democrats also believe a majority of Tea Party voters support extending unemployment benefits, which Senate Republicans blocked before Congress left town last week.
Schumer also wants state officials to mull switching to a “jungle primary” system similar to what was adopted in California in which the two highest recipients of votes in a nonpartisan primary advance to the general election.
He believes this will reduce the influence of conservative ideologues in low-turnout races. The election of some hard-core conservatives has made it more difficult for Senate Democrats in Washington.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), for example, helped trigger the October government shutdown. He defeated former Sen. Robert Bennett, who had been more willing to cross the aisle, in a GOP contest
But the election of conservatives has also worked to the advantage of Senate Democrats by making it more difficult for Republicans to win Senate races.
Democrats will look to keep the pressure on after Schumer’s speech with a national press conference call on Friday focused on extending unemployment benefits.
And in another sign of better coordination between congressional Democrats and Obama’s team, Organizing for Action, a grassroots action group created to support the president’s agenda, has helped coordinate events around the country this week to pressure GOP lawmakers to support extended unemployment benefits.
Outside groups such as the AFL-CIO, SEIU, AFSCME and MomsRising have also participated in the coalition targeting GOP lawmakers. They helped organize events targeting Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) on Wednesday, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) on Thursday and Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) on Friday, according to Democratic aides briefed on their activities.
I contend that if the Koch Bros. went away tomorrow the Tea Party would not be changed one whit.
Also, I must say that schumer is the single most despicable slimy piece of excrement evacuated by NYC into the public domain since the self-exposed implosion of boy weiner.
And...support for MW is support for increased unemployment.
2% of the time FEDERAL government does good... 98% of the time it destroys everything it touches.
Support for raising the minimum wage is grounds for revocation of membership in the TEA Party. TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY!
THESE ARE CHUCKIE'S CONSTITUENTS---According to a NYC US Atty, 25 current and former Russian diplomats and 24 of their spouses allegedly participated in a scheme to illegally obtain Medicaid benefits by underreporting their income or falsely claiming that their children were US citizens. For nearly a decade, they milked the system of $1.5 million in benefits. The staff of Russian diplomatic offices in the US allegedly supplied false documentation to officials to bilk Medicaid.
The bilk was pulled off smoothly for decades.....and may have had official help----for a price. L/E needs to determine if Sen Schumer benefited from this fraud----and determine the ways he may have facilitated fraud.
Are Schumer's constituents hiding large amounts of assets from the courts adjudicating the Medicaid fraud?
<>>< Did Schumer use tax-paid offices to help facilitate felonies?
<><> Were tax dollars allocated to Schumer's constituents, collected under several identities?
<><> Were hefty bundles of tax dollars wired offshore?
<><> Many of the diplos skipped town when the heat was on. Did they stiff US banks for fraudulent sub-prime mtges (which we taxpayers have to bailout).
How many ways are Schumer's constituents riding the US gravy train---this would be very easy to find out. Are they receiving:
UI, SSI, Workmen's Comp,
TANF (temporary assistance to needy families),
WICS (food assistance),
subsidized Section 8 shelter,
ObamaPhone subsidies,
Utility Assistance subsidies,
$5000 a year EITC checks per identity,
hefty monthly "asylum" checks from SS ....
==================================================
<><> Did any of these diplos give Schumer campaign contributions?
<><>Did they donate to Schumer using their own names ---or the names of others?
<><> Did any of these people illegally vote for Schumer?
<><> Did Schumer use his tax-paid Senate offices to aid abet felonies?
<><> Do any of these diplos receive EITC refunds?
<><> Did Chuckie use his govt offices and US govt resources to setup other freebies for these criminals?
<><> Did they receive welfare, food stamps, SSI, free medical care, Section 8 housing, UI, Workmen's comp under several identities?
<><> Did they falsify US govt documents to unlawfully receive, monthly SS checks, claiming "asylum?"
<><> Does he have a sub-prime mortgage obtainedby falsifying bank documents?
<><> Did they make false claims on IRS forms in order to get EITC refunds?
<><> Do they have a legal driver's license?
<><> Do they have valid passports?
<><> How many times did they wire-transfer money back to their homelan--where they apparently fled when the heat was on?
=================================================
Taxpayers are urged to notify L/E.
FBI TIPS PAGE https://tips.fbi.gov
SUGGESTED LETTER: Collusion, conspiracy, and bribery
IN RE: financial irregularities
REFERENCE: govt fraud, falsified documents, wire transfers, accounting fraud, etc.
NARRATIVE Taxpayers demand to know the scope and dimension of multiple conspiracies by government insiders to collude in sub rosa deals to personally profit. Could be prosecuted under the Bank Secrecy ACT, RICO, and the Hobbs Act.
OF INTEREST TO LAW ENFORCEMENT--- Based on Sen Schumer's statements (and Senate vote for amnesty), Schumer approves the use of stolen SS numbers and multiple identities to defraud. The FBI should interrogate individuals for evidence of multiple schemes to falsify documents for additional insider schemes. The FBI should investigate any and all official documents submitted by Schumer's constituents.
Crimes might include---conspiracy. collusion, falsifying official documents (a felony), money laundering, tax evasion, extorting taxpayers, theft of govt monies, misuse of public office and government positions.
Really it only can be a “force for good” when it restricts its operations to what the founders determined were its purview.
Anything beyond that starts to distort the interactions of people in detrimental ways.
Shumer is just another arrogant liberal who thinks “the right people in power” can make everything better. And, of course, he’s one of “the right people”.
Support for the minimum wage shows an intellectual laziness that disqualifies membership in the Tea Party.
George Washington
During Bush v Gore I was holding a sign to traffic by LA’s Federal building that said, “DUTY HONOR COUNTRY”. I’ll never forget one particular brassy woman hollering form her car, “Who’s paying you?”
“Paying us?” I thought. “Paying us?”
I’m still shocked by it.
You’re right - government’s main “goodness” is when it gets the h**l out of the way and leaves us alone. I realized after rereading my post I forgot the sarcasm tag/emoticon after the “Yeah, sure” ... Chalk that up to a desperate need of some caffeine this AM.
Schmuckie has never worked in the private sector. Straight out of Harvard Law and into the public sector and has been there ever since (and is probably a multi-millionaire public servant by now). Maybe government can be a force for good (I sincerely doubt it, and The Framers did too), but I know it definitely cannot with smarmy self-serving self-righteous self-entitled power-mad know-it-alls like Chuck Schumer at the helm. And the NSA can forward this message to him!
The same people who voted for Schumer voted for DeBlasio.
Schmuck is delusional (As usual)
As far as I can tell there are no “rich funders” of the Tea Party movement. Who the bleep would they fund anyway? There is no centralized Tea Party structure
(off topic but important to me at the moment. I get fundraising calls from TEA Party Express, TEA Party Patriots and I think one more organization that uses TEA Party in it’s name. Is there a thread that discusses which of these organizations are on the level and which are worthy of our support?)
Government is a force for good (as a previous poster said) only when it does what it is Authorized to do and nothing else. Over all, in this country today, government has become a nightmare and an enemy of all that is good.
Indeed.
“Schumer, one of the Democrats’ most influential strategists, will argue in a major speech on Thursday that super-wealthy Tea Party donors have hijacked the grassroots movement that grew out of the economic anxiety of the 2008 financial collapse to suit their pro-big business agenda.”
That implies that at least 1 major Democrat acknowledges that the Tea Party was/is a grass-roots organization. A grudging acknowledgment. But there it is.
Nonsense.
The Tea Party does not support raising the minimum wage.
That is total, complete nonsense.
There is a huge conflict in the Tea Party presently, over American jobs. Some want to send American jobs elsewhere, to fight American unions.
Others thing that has gone on long enough, and now other issues have grown enough, that we now need to fight to bring back American jobs.
That conflict is real, growing, and very significant. Hugely significant.
On the other hand, nobody cares about the minimum wage.
Nobody.
Amazing.
Schumer is poison the the US.
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