Posted on 02/21/2014 9:08:20 PM PST by Sideshow Bob
Well, the elitist establishment (dare I say RINO) editors over at National Review and National Review Online (NRO) have sunk to another new low in their continued attacks on conservatives. It's been bad enough that the NRO stable of writers have been cranking out multiple hit pieces (including 3 in a row from the normally lucid Dr. Thomas Sowell) attacking Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and the House/Senate Tea Party caucus, but NRO is now moving towards silencing conservative criticism of NRO's writers, columns and seminar RINO and libertarian posters.
Don't get me wrong, I like posting and/or commenting on NRO articles here at FreeRepublic. In the past, it was because the NRO article had something new, interesting or important I wanted to share or discuss with other FReepers.
A few years ago NRO added a clunky commenting function to their website and offered a feature that FR didn't have - a like/dislike button (actually, positive/negative). The button allowed NRO readers to express their displeasure at the posting of another commenter. After a while, NRO changed their posting policy to require registration to post a comment or use the negative button.
OK, I wasn't thrilled with losing some of my web "anonymity", but figured NRO - as a conservative website -wouldn't abuse my privacy too badly. Besides, I still liked being able to use that speedy negative button to "shout down" the pinhead RINO's who sometimes trolled over at NRO.
Many people say that National Review has been in decline away from conservatism ever since founder William F. Buckley died. I am inclined to agree. To be sure, the NR/NRO staff is becoming increasingly filled with young elitist East Coast writers from elitist East Coast universities. They might still be Republicans - and Olympia Snowe Republicans at that - or even Libertarians, but their content and editorial slant are increasingly out of step with the conservative grassroots and Tea Partiers. And it's getting really obvious and obnoxious.
First it was NRO's easy acceptance of Juan McCain as the 2008 GOP nominee, then it was their shameless politicking for a Romney candidacy, their quick embrace of Chris Krispy Creme and finally their bizarre condemnation of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Tea Partiers and the government shutdown strategy.
With the clean debt ceiling bill recently passed by Congress you would think that NRO and the GOP Establishment writers would be happy with Ted Cruz and the House/Senate Tea Party Caucus. After all, Ted followed their advice and didn't shut down the federal government again to thwart Obama's continuing attempt to bankrupt the country.
Nope. Now the Establishment is ticked off that Ted & the TPers completely outmanuevered GOPe leadership, turned the tables on Boehner & McConnell and outed them as Obama surrender monkeys. It's taken a few days, but NRO has stepped into the breach and has launched a major offensive against Cruz and the conservative base. Each day for the past week NRO, their writers, their columnists and their editors have escalated their attacks. They want to embarrass Cruz and sway the conservative base back to the "reasonable" leadership of Boehner & McConnell.
The editors started by writing debt ceiling editorials that - just as in the government shutdown last fall - agreed with Cruz & TPers in the House on their conservative position, but criticized their tactics. NRO writers next move to writing puff pieces extolling Boehner's & McConnell's bravery in taking an adult position in passing a clean debt ceiling bill.
To NRO's shock and disbelief, their conservative readers are mixed in between seething anger and sneering, scoffing laughter at the positions and opinions of NRO, Mitch McTurtle, John Boehner, the rest of the GOPe circus and the Establishment RINO seminar posters on their website.
How can this be? Mitch & John are the GOP leaders, NR is the foremost opinion-leading conservative magazine (or so they think). They are confused why the conservative base isn't listening to them.
So the RINO Establishment media step up their game. Byron York (a former NR editor), Mona Charen, Ann Coulter and others sharpen their attacks on Cruz. As noted above, even Dr. Thomas Sowell writes 3 consecutive columns attacking Cruz. Their new storyline - Cruz is selfish and ego-driven. That's why Cruz forced poor Mitch & Assistant Senate Minority Leader John Cornyn to cloture vote in favor of raising America's insane amount of debt. Even worse, they argue, that self-serving Cruz is going to singlehandedly cause the GOP to blow their chance at regaining the Senate majority in November.
But this lie doesn't work either.
The NRO comments on these columns and editorials blow up from the normal handful of comments to HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of comments that are FURIOUS with the NRO, the GOPe, Charen, Coulter and especially Sowell. While it can't be proven, there appears to be an increase in the number of seminar Establishment posters (perhaps NRO staffers?) attempting to combat the reaction of NRO's conservative readership. But it doesn't help. These seminar NRO posters are getting crushed in thread debates and are being hammered with the speedy negative button.
Now perhaps it's just a coincidence, but in the midst of this conservative Tea Party commenting pushback NRO changed their policy regarding the negative button without fanfare. Readers even need to follow a hidden link to learn that NRO will no longer display the running count of users of the negative button. They claim that they will still maintain a negative count internally, but just won't display that to their readers. This gives their readers a false appearance that any debate within their story threads is balanced.
The good news for Free Republic is that more FReepers will abandon NRO's commenting feature and bring their discussion and debate of NRO materials to this website. It's hard not to interpret NRO's policy change as an attempt to diminish and control Tea Party conservative pushback against GOPe messaging. It's also very sad and ironic for NRO to be moving toward silencing conservatives during the same week that NRO pontificates against FCC's plans to censor news and media.
Not hindsight, I was warning here in comments before the shutdown that its was a coming train wreck.
Once the shutdown started I had to tone it down because its obvious the train wreck architects whole game from start was to point the finger away from selves once their 'plan' failed(train ran off tacks) .
That was the whole kid like game.
No, in fact I was warning here that a shutdown would not defund Obamacare back in September
If I didn't warn you would call it ‘hindsight’ as above.
We will NEVER beat Dems with silly ‘heads I win tails you lose’ games.
No hindsight, it was designed to fail from even before day 1(Oct 1, 2013) .
>Government shutdown wouldn't stop Obamacare
AP ^ | 9/26/2013 | FR post
Why isn't Obamacare being shut down during the CR debacle?
Vanity - self | 10/10/2013 | FR post
in fact a freeper here admitted to me it was a success because it gave us someone in GOP to point fingers at, it has never about Dem concessions. It was about blaming others once it failed(why it succeeded).
Yep, shutdown government services to take a stand on Obama-care spending with Obama-care spending unaffected by shutdown because its exempt from it.
Reminds me of 1996 after three weeks of shutdowns the GSAs got back salaries for all three weeks paying some overtime.(caught me by surprise at time)
Imagine how that would play in media and public opinion...
5 posted on Monday, August 05, 2013 12:06:19 PM by sickoflibs
I forgot about that house bill to pay furloughed employees back pay for time off last October. Fiasco!
Dr. Sowell is 83yo and he appears to have lost his fastball—he was bamboozled into writing three scathing, GOPe attacks on Cruz.
Certainly that merits comment—or are you a GOPe shill yourself?
Well, I sure am glad that you found a FReeper who agreed with your viewpoint. I guess that's all the proof I need.(/sarc)
Look how long it has taken to roust the GOPe from their slumber. Cruz has tried everything - either by himself, as a tagteam with Mike Lee or even with the entire House/Senate Tea Party Caucus - to get the GOPe to act. Unfortunately, the GOPe - instead of correcting their course back to the basic values desired by the base and the values they ran on - has lashed out at Cruz.
The sad truth is that the GOPe does NOT share the basic Republican values of Cruz or the party base. They cannot be asked, cajoled, begged, prodded, poked or pushed to do the right thing and substantively oppose Obama.
And if the GOPe won't move, they need to be removed. May God bless and strengthen Sen. Cruz as he fights the good fight.
Nice post, but if you believe that Ted Cruz shut down the FedGov, you need to look at it a bit more carefully. The shutdown was the responsibility of Harry Reid and Barack Obama and no one else.
No, I'm betting he's a Ron/Rand Paul Losertarian.
My use of the term was sarcastic. Sowell (and apparently sickoflibs) falsely claim Cruz's actions to be dangerous because Cruz's tactic of forcing cloture could have led to a shutdown of the government next week if the GOPe hadn't chosen to "act like adults" and vote aye in cloture. I was playing off the GOPe's false talking point repeated by Sowell, Charen, Coulter, Lowry, et al.
The shutdown was a planned disaster, a gift to Obama.
But beyond that Sowell has decided that Republicans are not as bad as Dems are, and he was making his case around that.
Will anything GOOD come from GOP in control?
History says not.
Did you read the June 17 Federal Register? I hope you did. It's tragic. Later this year (should have been last year but for Emperor/Dictator Obama acting unconstitutionally) employers will be dropping health insurance for millions. Has the GOP-e establishment done ANYTHING to inform much less protect the average American employee? Instead we get the link below:
Debt-Ceiling Surrender: Republicans use Senate rules to play a con game on the folks back home.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3126057/posts
For example, every time Boehner/McConnely make a statement they should do it under a Debt Clock and have an estimate of how many millions of Americans lost their insurance due to Obamacare.
You are focusing on defunding, I am focusing on informing the average Joe/Jo. The average Joe/Jo is mad as hell and the GOP-e has done nothing.
The defunding issue could have been the opening volley. Because the GOP-e had/has no effing clue on how to shape public opinion, they weren't ready to go for the initial retreat to make a big deal about Obama illegally and unilaterally changing Obamacare willy nilly. There should be ads day and night how Obama is acting unconstitutionally, how the average American is going to be hurt by Obamacare, etc. Aside, how come the GOP-e didn't make a big deal of FED employees being paid to close the WW2 monument and harassing 90 year old Vets during the shutdown? The government was supposedly shutdown, why the heck are those fed employees harassing WW2 Vets???? HUH??
I am now listening how Obama/Hagel are downsizing the Army to before the WW2 level. Well, that is going to end well.
As far as I am concerned, all of DC should close down annually until the deficit is zero (adjusting for the cost of government for the remaining fiscal year). Then fed employees can come back to work for the remaining fiscal year.
But even give that, the misplanned shutdown strengthened Bohner and their hands. It gave them (GOPe) ammunition and valid arguments and it convinced many in the House that another one must be avoided at all costs.
Bohner passed the debt limit with Pelosi votes, he got must of his members political cover, and he is stronger than ever.
it served zero positive purpose.
I should have added you to the “To:” bar. Sorry.
How about Peter King?
I bet those Long Islanders who got that aid $$$ think he's doing a great job. They Probably voted for Hillary as Senator, and Kirstinbrand too.
See in the real world not every Republican is elected to a district where 9 out of 10 get their info from talk radio. I know they wont tell you that.
I bet those LIers who elect him don't like Ted.
The GOP-e has no clue how to shape public opinion. NONE! NADA! ZIPPO
I will repeat myself, “Because the GOP-e had/has no effing clue on how to shape public opinion, they weren't ready to go for the initial retreat to make a big deal about Obama illegally and unilaterally changing Obamacare willy nilly. There should be ads day and night how Obama is acting unconstitutionally, how the average American is going to be hurt by Obamacare, etc.”
...and:
“For example, every time Boehner/McConnely make a statement they should do it under a Debt Clock and have an estimate of how many millions of Americans lost their insurance due to Obamacare.”
Wow, I want some of the meds you are taking. Boehner has been revealed to be weaker than ever. He will not be able to get any bill passed that doesn't have Democrat support. This will be Boehner's final term as Speaker and he knows it! Cantor knows it too and has begun angling for the job. There were multiple news stories posted here at FR on that very subject.
I been hoping you mention this.
I agree with that. I complain about that all the time.
However when I hear Mark Levin say it it also rings hollow.
Mark's points are designed to please his choir who believe what he says, his arguments wont work with those who are needed as converts to beat Dems.
When he says the GOP should preach gloom and doom and terrible sounding consequences over national debt (much like libs do on global warming), sure his fans must think that would work great.
But you gotta understand those like Mark and Rush have so isolated themselves from real debates that they dont know what it is like for those who cant just turn their speaker off and ridicule them.
In the real world if a GOP says the debt will take away all our 401Ks and savings, the response will be :”If you are so sure that will happen then lets raise taxes”
No, to beat Dems you have to know what arguments they will use. I see few who do.
I just responded directly to your challenge
Was the game for me to ignore it?
See in the real world, Republicans - especially conservatives - are starting to question why the GOPe continues to follow a national policy demanded by the 9 or 10 GOPe districts that get their info from the liberal mainstream media.
Dems started that rumor in 2011.
But is this a meaningful change, if its even true?
Doesn't he just vote as told?
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