Huelskamp Was Revenge For Cantor-- Will Ryan Be Revenge For Huelskamp?

Huelskamp hoped that his constituents wouldn't recognize him if he grew a satanic goatee

Kansas hasn't been Trumpanzee Country so far this year. Not only did Ted Cruz double his vote at the state's Republican caucuses 35,207 (48.2%) to 17,,062 (23.3%), Bernie outpolled him as well-- with 26,450 votes. Tuesday, Trump was wise not to stick his nose into the congressional primary in Kansas' first congressional district, a giant district stretching most of the way across the state from the Colorado border to the exuburbs west of Topeka. There are no cities and it is the reddest district, by far, in the state. Obama only took 28% of the vote in the district (while he won 38% statewide). Kansas' entire congressional delegation is Republican but the most extreme right-wing member of that delegation, Tim Huelskamp, was defeated by a more conventional Republican on Tuesday. It ws the reverse of what happened in Virginia when Eric Cantor was defeated by far right lunatic Dave Brat.

It was a bad night for the GOP extremists in Kansas with at least 11 allies of Governor Sam Brownback losing their seats to mainstream conservatives, including Senate Majority Leader Terry Bruce, a vicious and detested radical right pile of excrement he is refusing to talk with the press today. But the biggest news was Huelskamp's stunning 58,808 (57%) to 45,312 (44%) loss to Roger Marshall.

As of the July 13 FEC reporting deadline Marshall had outraised (and outspent) Huelskamp $889,056 to $718,383 but Huelskamp had a big war-chest and he went into the final 2 weeks of the campaign with $393,664 to Marshall's $42,552. Outside groups, however, made all the difference. An anti-Tea Party PAC, the Ending Spending Action Fund (Ricketts family), put $773,093 into anti-Huelskamp ads and another $378,283 in favor of Marshall. The Chamber of Commerce spent $401,907, about half shredding Huelskamp and half extolling Marshall. Another ad hoc anti-Huelskamp PAC, Strong Leadership For America jumped in with $206,812 against Huelskamp and $81,672 for Marshall. Meanwhile extremist groups like Club for Growth spent $364,814 smearing Marshall and another $55,017 trying to save the sinking Huelskamp; the House Liberty Caucus smeared up Marshall with a $202,795 ad buy and FreedomWorks jumped in with $89,383 in positive ads to help Huelskamp. In all, outside groups spent $1,893,018 on the Marshall side and $867,279 on the Huelskamp side.

Wednesday morning the head of the far right Freedom Caucus, Jim Jordan, seemed to declare war on the House GOP establishment in response to the Huelskamp defeat. Many of the Caucus members blamed Paul Ryan for the demise of Huelskamp. Jordan:

In an ugly and dishonest campaign, Tim’s record was attacked and misrepresented by big money special interest groups who wanted to exact their revenge. Republicans need to be unified behind conservative principles to stop the Obama/Clinton agenda. The House Republican leadership’s opposition to Tim Huelskamp significantly damaged the ability of House Republicans to do that.

Boehner had kicked Huelskamp off the Agriculture Committee, basically all that matters in KS-01 and Ryan had refused to reinstate him. This was one of the biggest and most effective weapons Marshall used against him-- that his ideological rigidity resulted in a loss of influence for the district.

Now Freedom Caucus members are whispering about helping Paul Nehlen defeat Ryan next Tuesday in his Wisconsin primary. No one on Capitol Hill thinks the whispering will amount to anything and one staffer told me that the only way to defeat Ryan is if people catch on to the idea DWT has been pushing, namely to get anti-TPP Democrats in Janesville, Kenosha and Racine to take advantage of Wisconsin's open primary, pull Republican ballots and vote for Nehlen. It would throw the House Republicans into turmoil and kill any chance of the TPP passing. "Ryan recalled fucked Huelskamp with that Agriculture Committee non-statement statement," my source told me last night. "The Tea Party guys were flipping out today but none of them has the cajones to go up against Ryan. They're all afraid Ryan and the Chamber can do to them what they just did to Tim... As you said on your blog a couple days ago, if only the DCCC had a brain, they could get rid of Ryan Tuesday. But they don't-- and they won't."

After the Trumpanzee's completely silly and childish refusal to endorse Ryan-- and his bold-faced lie about Ryan begging him for the endorsement-- Mike Pence, who apparently wants to have a career in Republican politics are the Trumpanzee crashes and burns, endorsed Ryan yesterday, in an act of defiance against the Trumpanzee, although the Trump campaign claims Trump didn't care and even encouraged Pence to do it.

The flirtation with Mr. Ryan’s challenger has infuriated Wisconsin’s leading Republicans. Gov. Scott Walker and Senator Ron Johnson both indicated that they would not join Mr. Trump at a scheduled appearance in Green Bay this week. And Mr. Walker on Wednesday posted a picture of himself with Mr. Ryan on Twitter, writing: “We stand with Paul Ryan!”

Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee and a Wisconsin native, is also said to be livid over Mr. Trump’s remarks about Mr. Ryan and is considering several options to show his public support for the Wisconsin congressman.

Mr. Priebus is debating the best way to demonstrate solidarity with Mr. Ryan, from a formal endorsement to an email publicly stating his support, said three people with knowledge of Mr. Priebus’s internal discussions. A public announcement could come as early as Wednesday.

Mr. Priebus has not yet had a direct conversation with Mr. Trump, according to people close to him. But he has been in contact with some of Mr. Trump’s children.

...Party officials are hamstrung-- there is no mechanism for removing Mr. Trump as the party’s candidate; he would have to step down himself. Nonetheless, party leaders are said to be furious at the controversies involving the Republican nominee.

There are now active discussions among high-ranking Republican officials about how much longer the party can wait before recasting their focus away from Mr. Trump and toward down-ballot nominees. One veteran strategist close to Mr. Priebus indicated that, much as the party did when Bob Dole’s presidential campaign was flagging in 1996, officials may have to turn their attention to congressional and governors’ races as early as next month.

Some Republican strategists, however, have little sympathy for the party committee, noting that it smoothed the way for Mr. Trump’s nomination in Cleveland by aggressively putting down efforts to let delegates vote their conscience.

And, many in the party note, Mr. Priebus can hardly act surprised now about Mr. Trump’s erratic behavior, given his string of inflammatory comments since entering the race.

“You would have to have had your eyes wide shut for the last year to think he would act differently in the general than he did in the primary,” said Josh Holmes, a top adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader.

The Fighting Spirit Among Kansas Populists-- Meet Jim Sherow

Kansas is one of the reddest of the red states. In 2012, Obama only managed to get 38% of the vote there. He won only two counties in the entire state, Wyandotte (Kansas City) and Douglas (Lawrence). Earlier, Rick Santorum won the GOP primary with 51%-- with more than double the votes Romney got. There are no Democrats in their delegation to Congress and in the 40 member state Senate, there are only 9 Democrats. But only one of Kansas' congressional districts actually looks, on paper, impossible for a Democrat-- the first CD, the massive western two-thirds of the state, which includes Manhattan, Salina and Dodge City. Last cycle the Democrats ran candidates in the other 3 congressional districts but gave radical right sociopath Tim Huelskamp a free ride. KS-02, represented by Lynn Jenkins has a PVI of R+8. KS-02's (Kevin Yoder) PVI is R+6. And the Koch brother's Mike Pompeo has a nice safe R+14 district in KS-04. Those 3 relatively safe seats look dangerous for Republicans compared to KS-01, where Huelskamp is the congressman. The PVI is a startling R+23. There are only 17 worse districts in America for a Democrat to run in and most of them are in Texas, Utah, Georgia and Alabama and produce lunatic fringe caricatures like Louie Gohmert, Steve Scalise and Steve Stockman. The closest any Democrat has come in recent decades to winning in an R+23 district is Jim Matheson's R+16 district-- and the voters there thought they were electing his father, a former much-admirered governor from their childhoods.

Enter Jim Sherow, a courageous, idealistic fourth generation veteran and former mayor of Manhattan, who has just opened an exploratory committee to challenge Huelskamp this year. His great-grandparents homesteaded in the what is now the first district and he was born and raised there. He's been teaching at Kansas State since 1992, where he is the Kansas historian and he's written five books on issues related to water, agriculture, Kansas and High Plains topics. He first entered local politics in a successful fight to prevent a super-Walmart from being built in an inappropriate part of town and was elected to the city commission in April 2007, serving until last April. I asked Jim to introduce himself to DWT readers with a guest post:

Why The Farm Bill Is Crucial For Kansas-- And For The Rest Of America
by Jim Sherow

Tea Party darling, Congressman Tim Huelskamp, represents one of the largest farming districts in the nation, but promises to hold final passage of the farm bill hostage until the food stamp program is drastically cut. In September 2013 the House passed its own version of the bill and reduced food stamp funding by $40 billion over ten years. Huelskamp celebrated this drastic reduction, and several news sources quoted him saying: “I think most Americans don’t think you should be getting something for free, especially if you’re able bodied.” Yet Huelskamp’s brother in southwest Kansas received $1.6 million in federal farm subsidies from 1995 to 2011, and the congressman’s parents received $1.1 million in farm subsidies from 1995 to 2009. But even if we set aside this type of Congressional hypocrisy we’ve come to expect, the question still arises: Why do we need a farm bill in the first place? Here’s why.

Farming is unlike any other occupation. Farmers have never controlled crop prices, weather conditions, or the land values upon which they are taxed. An old quip among Kansans is that the state never needed to legalize gambling because it had farming. Some level of economic stability needs be in place in order to keep farmers in business and to insure the nation’s food supply. The key to a sensible farm bill is providing the right level of support to those farmers who are actually in need.

In addition to making sure farms are able to stay afloat, the farm bill is also supposed to provide nutritional support for Americans who need it the most. The food stamp program (aka SNAP, Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) became part of the farm bill during President Eisenhower’s administration when representatives from farming districts recognized that they needed the political support from urban areas if they were to have any chance of using taxpayer dollars to subsidize farming. Food stamps aid many more urban folks than rural and go primarily to children, the disabled, and seniors. The program hardly results in “dependency” as the average adult recipient is employed and relies on food stamps for only about ten months.

Mr. Huelskamp sees himself as a fighter for smaller government (if any at all), and “free market” solutions to all of America’s economic woes. By all accounts Huelskamp is difficult to work with; so much so that Speaker of the House, John Boehner, removed him from the House Agricultural Committee in December 2012. For the first time in over a century, perhaps as long as there has been a House Agricultural Committee, Kansans find themselves without representation.

Boehner’s decision did not seem to dissuade Huelskamp, who retorted that Boehner’s move was a sign that “the GOP Establishment cannot handle disagreement.” Undeterred to stop government “waste,” Huelskamp went on to vote against the Senate version of the farm bill. His “principled” stance had nothing to do with giving undeserved subsidizes to large farmers and agro-business, (forget about being a true market purist), but because he believes SNAP is bloated with waste and encourages recipients to become lazy, shiftless people dependent upon governmental handouts. (Every system has abusers of course, but one wonders if Huelskamp knows that one in six Americans is food insecure.) Huelskamp helped push through the House $40 billion in reductions to SNAP over the next ten years. The different House and Senate bills resulted in a compromise to reduce nearly $9 billion in SNAP support over the next ten years. What are the odds that Huelskamp will support the compromise? Almost zero if he holds true to form.

The 2008 stimulus ended on November 1st , 2013, and the food stamp program in Kansas was reduced by $33 million affecting 317,000 Kansans. The current level of funding allows about a $1.40 a meal per person. And I am sure that everyone reading this blog can imagine what it would be like to cook a meal-- every meal-- for $1.40 a person. Not exactly generous, is it?

Prior to the current compromise, the House and Senate versions of the bill appeared to eliminate direct crop subsidies to farmers. This reform, however, led to other new “subsidies” protecting crop revenues. These subsidies are included in the current compromise between the House and Senate. Additionally, the current bill up for a vote includes increased crop insurance coverage with a price tag of $10 billion a year. While subsidies are part of the public record, payments in crop insurance are not.

I just recently visited with a farmer who profitably works several thousand acres. He is an excellent farmer who cares about the land, and takes sensible ecological approaches to his farming methods. He is debt free. He also received $60 thousand in subsidies last year, all part of the public record, and crop insurance payments in excess of $60k. He freely admits that in his case the subsidy, while nice, was probably not needed. Public watchdog Environmental Working Group noted that 26 policyholders received more than $1 million each to help pay crop insurance premiums in 2011 while another 10,000 farmers were paid more than $100,000 each. Yet you won’t hear Representative Huelskamp talking about the need to cut the bloat in revenue support and crop insurance.

Americans deserve better than the current version of the farm bill. Even my farmer friend is worried about the future of agriculture. How are new, young farmers without capital ever going to begin farming? With sons uninterested in continuing the family legacy, he will have to rely on a new farmer to take over in the future. He’s uncomfortable thinking about his land becoming part of a large corporate conglomeration, which is quite a strong possibility. He also understands, and is very supportive of the need to continue SNAP even above its current levels of funding. He knows that feeding hungry Americans and farm supports go hand in hand.

The current compromise of the farm bill is grossly inadequate because it largely ignores the fact that farming is rapidly changing. Many agree that newer, low acreage farming techniques near large metro areas are an important part of the future of farming. This farming is intensive, usually ecologically sound, and results in high quality (often organically produced) foods for urban consumption. Yet there is precious little in the current farm bill that supports this type of farming.

And finally, Congress’s is ignoring that the pumping of the Ogallala Aquifer cannot be indefinitely sustained. Hydrologists know, and as Mr. Huelskamp is well aware, that by 2070 the aquifer in western Kansas will no longer yield its water. This aquifer was produced by melting glaciers tens of thousands of years ago, and receives hardly any recharge. So tapping this source is akin to mining and as we have seen in many areas of the U.S. such as Appalachia, mining economics are very fragile.

Today the irrigated farming in the First District provides for a powerful economy of corn and hay production that feeds vast herds of cattle and mega meat processing plants in several western Kansas cities. Yet no one is preparing for that day when the water runs out. And there are already some counties where farmers have had to quit irrigating. There is an irrigator’s canary in the Big First and authors of the farm bill should be listening to it in order to recapitalize the methods of farming and preserve their way of life for posterity.

The key to a workable and successful farm bill is in providing the right level of support to those farmers who actually are in need and anticipating the fast approaching changes in agriculture. It’s rather akin to making sure that SNAP adequately addresses those children and families that need it the most. It’s a shame that Representative Huelskamp, who should know better, doesn’t recognize this connection.

In the Year 2013-- Not The Year 1913… And In Suburban Pennsylvania, Not Rural Texas

When Elizabeth Warren rails against what she called "backward-looking ideologues" she meant the 15-20 reactionaries who met to plot strategy with Ted Cruz at the notorious Tortilla Coast meeting Monday night, a meeting that included outright racists and secessionists like Steve King (R-IA), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Steve Southerland (R-FL), Mark Meadows (R-NC), Jim Jordan (R-OH) and, of course, Louie Gohmert (R-TX). She says these hostage-takers and terrorists "cannot cope with the realities of our democracy" and urges them to get out of the way so adults can save the country from the mess they concotted. They met just as the Washington Post and ABC News released yet another staggering poll showing that voters have turned against the GOP in so massive a way that its going to result in career-ending elections next year for dozens of Republicans in swing district House seats.

A new high of 74 percent of Americans disapprove of the way the Republicans in Congress are handling Washington’s budget crisis, up significantly in the past two weeks and far exceeding disapproval of both President Obama and congressional Democrats on the issue.

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that criticism of the GOP’s handling of the budget dispute has grown by 11 percentage points since just before the partial government shutdown began, from 63 to 70 and now 74 percent-- clearly leaving the party with the lion’s share of blame. Indeed 54 percent now “strongly” disapprove.

Some of the Tortilla Flats plotters are in districts where reelection can be won with just hard-core reactionaries and brain-dead Hate Talk radio fans-- think Gohmert's backward northeast Texas district-- but with 76% of independent voters now disenchanted with the Republican nihilism, this could be the death knell for phony "moderates" who loudly proclaimed their willingness to vote for a Clean CR-- like Charlie Dent, Mike Fitzpatrick and Pat Meehan of Pennsylvania-- and then stuck with the teabaggers on every single vote that would have allowed that to come to the floor. Even GOP polling firm Rasmussen agrees that the data shows Republicans will lose seats in 2014.

In fact, the Pennsylvania Republicans are among the most worried Republicans in the whole country. And they should be. Pennsylvania is not Georgia or Texas. Of the 13 Republican incumbents, 5-- Gerlach, Meehan, Fitzpatrick, Dent and Pitts-- represent districts that Obama won in 2008. These are swing districts and winners are determined by independent voters. Yesterday the Philadelphia Inquirer gave these Republicans a taste of what they can expect between now and the 2014 elections. Voters won't forget this charming little episode between now and then if Keystone Progress has anything to say about it.

A liberal group based in Harrisburg will fan out across the state and into the Philadelphia suburbs Tuesday to try to put pressure on Republicans in Congress toward ending the federal government shutdown.

Michael Morrill, executive director of Keystone Progress, said hundreds of people will place "cease and desist" posters outside the district offices of House Republicans, placing the blame on them.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has called the protest a partisan stunt that ignores efforts by Pennsylvania's GOP House members to end the impasse. While Keystone Progress prepared for the demonstrations, Senate leaders in Washington said they were closing in on a deal.

The targets include Reps. Mike Fitzpatrick, who represents Bucks County, and Jim Gerlach and Patrick Meehan, whose districts stretch across swaths of Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties. Keystone Progress wants them to end the shutdown by voting for a "clean" bill that raises the debt ceiling and does not attempt to defund the Affordable Care Act.

…"We've got members of Congress who are doing two things: either ignoring the reality of what's happening financially or playing word games," Morrill said. "In the case of congressmen like Fitzpatrick, they're saying they're opposed to the shutdown and don't want the country to go into default. But they're not taking any actions to follow up."

Responding to the planned demonstration, Fitzpatrick said, "People want the government back open, as do I. While I do not like how we got here, now is the time to focus on putting our country back on the right fiscal path."

…"These protests should be taken with a big grain of salt," Prior said. "Most Pennsylvania voters are trying to support a family. They aren't taking Tuesdays off of work to attend political rallies."

And while Pennsylvania Republicans worry about the general election, plenty of other Republicans have reason to worry about Tea Party primaries if they don't hold the line against… their own constituents. The Koch-owned Kansas reactionary who looks in the mirror every morning and sees the next Speaker, Tim Huelskamp, is threatening primaries against his colleagues. Speaking about the compromise Reid and McConnell worked out Monday night, Huelskamp growled “We’ve got a name for it in the House: it’s called the Senate surrender caucus. Anybody who would vote for that in the House as Republican would virtually guarantee a primary challenger.”

Tea Party Rejects... Blah, Blah, Blah-- Does That Mean The Koch Brothers Have Said No?

Boehner and Cantor and the rest of the sorry GOP congressional conservative mainstream are holding a tiger by the tail-- and the tiger is hungry. They've talked so much about repealing ObamaCare that the drooling imbeciles they helped elect as Republicans last year think its real. So the House leadership tried throwing them a bone... and they threw it back. Boehner and Cantor have to pass a government funding bill this week. DeMint's neo-fascist crew at Heritage-- plus the fractious boobs at Club for Growth and FreedomWorks-- have been rallying the extremists and threatening to primary any Republicans who don't vote to bankrupt the government over ObamaCare. The congressional lunatic fringe, led by crackpots like Louie Gohmert-- who apparently decided not to become a citizen of Egypt after all-- held an anti-ObamaCareCantor rally yesterday, lying his ass off and blasting the House leadership for trying to trick them with anything less than the unattainable end to ObamaCare/Medicare/Social Security/minimum wage... whatever. Oh... and impeaching Obama, of course.

Hundreds of simpleminded nihilists-- the Republican base-- booed and jeered Boehner's, Cantor's and Miss McConnell's refusal to just shut down the government. One of the cheerleaders for anarchy was one of the Koch brothers congressmen, Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) who the Kochs are pushing to replace Boehner as Speaker. A dangerous anti-government Bircher type, Huelskamp took the stage and told the assembled lunatics that Cantor is using "procedural tricks" to fool them and that "every Republican says they want to stop ObamaCare, but later, on Thursday, they will attempt to fund ObamaCare and convince you that's not the case." He was backed up by the odious Ted Cruz, who the Kochs want to run for president in 2016. Benjy Sarlin:

Several hundred Tea Party activists gathered outside the Capitol to declare war against Obamacare on Tuesday, even if it meant shutting down the government. But the battle may be over before it even begins.

Shortly before the “Exempt America” rally, which was sponsored by a variety of conservative groups, news broke that House Republican leaders were working on legislation to avert a shutdown. Under the new proposal, the Senate would have to vote on defunding the health care law, but the House would still fund the government in the short term even if-- as expected-- the Senate ultimately kept the law intact. The reported decision came after weeks of dire warnings from moderate Republicans, especially in the Senate, that forcing a shutdown over the Affordable Care Act would backfire politically an achieving its goals.

Several of the speakers at Tuesday’s rally, which included Sens. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee, among other Republican rising stars, condemned the emerging deal in their remarks. Conservative groups leading the effort to defund the bill issued statements slamming it as well.

...The House has voted 40 times already on repealing the Affordable Care Act, but the most recent fight is considered a higher stakes fight because of its timing. On Oct. 1, the law’s health care exchanges will begin their first open enrollment period, allowing individuals to buy subsidized insurance even if they have a pre-existing medical condition. As a result, future efforts to damage the law may be a harder sell as they would entail cutting off coverage for the millions of Americans projected to use the exchanges in the first year alone.

“What we’re seeing now in Washington, I would describe as the frantic last gasps of the extremists as they see yet another good piece of the Affordable Care Act roll out-- and probably the biggest one to roll out so far,” Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said at a morning press conference prebutting the Tea Party rally.

Despite the news that House Republican leaders may temporarily back away from a shutdown fight, there still will be more opportunities for conflict over the health care law in the coming months. According to National Review, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor plans to demand a one-year delay to the Affordable Care Act’s implementation in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Obama officials have said they will flatly refuse to negotiate over the debt limit, setting up another potential standoff.

This morning Jake Sherman and Ginger Gibson reported at Politico that the crazies in the House GOP caucus are now turning against mainstream conservatives in the Senate, threatening and raging at them in their importence and frustration. All it would take is 17 extremists to derail Boehner's and Cantor's plans to keep the government open. The Georgia House delegation seems to be recruiting among the far right lunatic fringe for just such an outcome.

[I]n quiet conversations among senior Republican aides, other motivations are becoming clear, as well. They say passing the defunding resolution along with the CR and sending it to the Senate is a dare, of sorts, to Senate Republicans.

If figures like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) call the plan chicanery, and other conservatives say the House is weak, GOP leadership wants to see him and others stand up and filibuster the CR. In short, the House is sick of getting blamed for being weak on Obamacare.

Asked whether they are trying to put pressure on Senate Republicans to filibuster, Rogers said, “You can say that.”

A senior GOP aide said, “They should be preparing for a two [to] three week filibuster, to prevent the Senate from adjourning.” The aide added that there are enough Senate Republicans to prevent a funding bill from reaching President Barack Obama’s desk.

“By any objective measure, that is 100 percent their failure to defund Obamacare because they can’t even achieve unity amongst Senate Republicans,” the aide said. “If they could tell us that they could do that, we would be in an entirely different strategic situation, but they have failed to even try, and now their plan is to blame everyone but themselves.”

It’s with these intraparty feuds, divergence of opinions and uncertainties on strategy that Congress is kicking off a frantic three-month stretch, during which it will deal with several high-stakes fiscal battles that will shape the contours of another year of Barack Obama’s presidency, and the 2014 midterm elections.

James Downie, at the Washington Post finds this very public challenge is remarkable for two reasons: "First, it suggests that senior House Republicans don’t expect to stop Obamacare and are looking for others to share the blame. Second, rather than take on organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth or right-wing pundits such as Rush Limbaugh for whipping up unrealistic expectations about the prospects of stopping Obamacare, the House GOP is publicly antagonizing the very people who it ultimately needs to work with to have any hope of blocking Obamacare." He concludes with the only conclusion available, namely that "Capitol Hill Republicans will remain in disarray right up until the end of the government-funding and debt-limit negotiations."

Liberal Congressman Mike Simpson? Really?

President Obama almost got a third of the votes in Mike Simpson's congressional district last year, down from a whopping 37% against McCain four years earlier. ID-02, like ID-01, is one red hellhole! Mike Simpson has been the congressman there since being elected in 1998. Before that, he was Speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives. Since being elected, Simpson's lowest share of the vote was last year (65.1%, not quite two to one). He's had over 70% three times. He gets challenged by extremists from time to time but always beats them to a pulp without breaking a sweat. This time is different. As we mentioned in July, the Club For Growth has decided Simpson isn't conservative enough. His career-long ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is 3.85. By way of comparison, Paul Ryan's score is 4.22; Louie Gohmert's is 5.95; and Tim Huelskamp, who the Koch brothers are pushing to be the next Speaker, has a 9.70. Michelle Bachmann, Queen of the Tea Party, has a 4.08.

Now watch the video up top. The Club for Growth/teabagger candidate claims Simpson is a "liberal." Hey, at least they didn't call him a communist, or even a socialist. But it's still early in the campaign. A friend of mine driving up the 15 Freeway Thursday told me he heard the ad twice between Pocatello and Idaho Falls. It's also blasting in Boise. Idaho voters are going to be pretty confused-- unless they understand they're part of a strategy by extremists to weaken John Boehner and replace him as Speaker with a radical... like Koch puppet Huelskamp.

Huelskamp (KS) is the most conservative member of this list. He has never shied away from a fight with the party establishment-- for example, he is one of the few GOP members who believe that shutting down the government is the best strategy for combating the Affordable Care Act.

At an August town hall meeting, Huelskamp stated, “I told the speaker of the House, Mr. Boehner, I don’t work for you,” claiming that Boehner had told him how to vote on a variety of issues, and accusing the GOP leadership of not being “aggressive” enough. Needless to say, Huelskamp could attract Tea Party Republicans, but he may face a problem with the rest of his party, which he believes is composed of “weak-kneed Republicans.”

Which GOP Blockhead Responded To The Immigration Question By Reading "America The Beautiful" To The Republican Conference?

Michigan closet case Dave Camp has a new angle on thwarting immigration reform

Wednesday, at the House Republicans' closed door strategy session about immigration reform, Boehner and Ryan begged their GOP colleagues to not doom the party to national electoral oblivion by sabotaging the bipartisan efforts in the Senate at a time when record majorities of Americans support comprehensive reform. But bigoted Members in nicely gerrymandered districts in primitive parts of the country where people get all their information from Hate Talk Radio and Fox, are not thinking about national trends or about the fate of their marginalized party outside their own little safe House districts. The quote that came through the closed door was Boehner's whiny warning-- unheeded-- that Republicans would be "in a much weaker position" if they are seen to be killing the immigration bill. Alabama KKK-sympathizer Mo Brooks responded by reading America the Beautiful aloud.

But Boehner is so weak as a Speaker that the two hour meeting resulted in nothing but negativity and a decision to do exactly what he and Ryan begged them to not do. The decision was made to kill widely popular bipartisan immigration reform. One of those hardline backward bigots, Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, seemed satisfied why he talked to reporters when he emerged for a pee break: “There is little consensus in there for doing anything other than border security." Huelskamp later told reporters he would trust Obama as much with border security as he would trust his own daughter with Bill Clinton. The man is obviously demented... but Kansans seem to like 'em like that in the last couple of decades. He and the other hatemongers kept harping on the theme that Obama can't be trusted to enforce the strict border stipulations-- even though Obama's policy is far, far stricter and more effective than anything ever seen at the southern border before.

Arkansas neanderthal Tom Cotton, a right-wing freshman extremist who would like to run for Marc Pryor's Senate seat next year, rushed a demented OpEd to the Wall Street Journal, basically, "it's my way or the highway... and forget citizenship for these lawless colored people."

[T]he Senate immigration bill undermines the rule of law without solving the country's illegal-immigration problem, and it will harm American workers. The House of Representatives will reject any proposal with the Senate bill's irreparably flawed structure, which is best described as: legalization first, enforcement later . . . maybe.

Boehner tried put on a happy face after he lost. "The American people want our border secured, our laws enforced, and the problems in our immigration system fixed to strengthen our economy. But they don’t trust a Democratic-controlled Washington, and they’re alarmed by the president’s ongoing insistence on enacting a single, massive, Obamacare-like bill rather than pursuing a step-by-step, common-sense approach to actually fix the problem. The president has also demonstrated he is willing to unilaterally delay or ignore significant portions of laws he himself has signed, raising concerns among Americans that this administration cannot be trusted to deliver on its promises to secure the border and enforce laws as part of a single, massive bill like the one passed by the Senate."

Writing for New York, Jonathan Chait, a conservative-consensus pundit, took note of the GOP's shocking decent into nihilism:

One of the novel developments in conservative thought during the Obama years is a burgeoning hatred not merely for government but for lawmaking. Before the Obama era, the ends of crafting laws divided the parties, but the means did not. The process of corralling votes, placating hold-outs, and hammering out compromises was not something either side especially loved-- you’ve heard the classic line about watching the sausage get made-- but also not something that one side disliked more than the other. But a hatred for lawmaking has emerged in the Obama years, first as a Republican tactic, and then as an apparently genuine belief system.

The distrust for lawmaking is the main argument — wait, “argument” is too strong; maybe premise?-- of a rare joint op-ed by Rich Lowry and William Kristol, editors of the National Review and the Weekly Standard. Lowry and Kristol urge House Republicans to kill immigration reform, because passing it would involve legislating, and legislating is bad.

So the strategies they decided on are to stall, delay, obfuscate and threaten to make the government default if they can't get their way. And House Ways and Means Committee Chairman-- and closet case-- Dave Camp (R-MI) declared that the Senate immigration bill is unconstitutional anyway because it's a revenue bill and revenue bills have to start in the House. So there!

This is as good a time as any to mention that despite Obama beating McCain in Camp's Michigan district, Steve Israel took him off the table and refused to recruit or back a candidate against him-- or any of Boehner's vulnerable committee chairmen. That leads to this kind of irresponsible rhetoric... and to this: