Tag Archive for Tea Party Powwow

80th District Special Election (2015), Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy

Apparently We Need More Popcorn

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Shakespearean tragedy, or phoenix rising from the ashes? At least now the voters will get the final say.

Clearly, she was serious about giving the voters in her district the final say in the matter. Just in case you’ve spent the past six days or so completely incommunicado, according to the Detroit News, WKZO-AM 590, WOOD-TV8, WXMI-TV17, the Lansing News, WWMT-TV3, the Detroit Free Press, WDIV-TV4, WXYZ-TV7, the Holland Sentinel, WZZM-TV13, and the Chicago Tribune, around 2:30 Thursday afternoon last, Cindy A. Gamrat has filed to run in the special election for the seat she was expelled from a week ago, as confirmed by the Allegan County Clerk’s Office. (Ironically, Chad Livengood got to be the one to break this story as well.) The joint opinion of the Grand Rapids Press and Kalamazoo Gazette editorial boards, whose newspaper coverage areas include the 80th District, was short and on point, but not necessarily shared by all of their readers.

Popcorn, anyone?

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80th District Special Election (2015), Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy

Repentance, Reconciliation, and Restoration

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Two apostles can teach us much about handling a current scandal.

For a little over a week now, we’ve been . . . treated . . . to a bit of a media circus revolving around a couple of tea party legislators in the Republican House Caucus in Lansing. Predictably, there has been much hand-wringing and calling for heads coming from key figures within the statewide republican establishment. Also predictably, there has been much hand-wringing and calling for heads from within the statewide tea party movement.

I say “also predictably” because many of the high profile tea partiers in this state have developed a habit of happily piling on any politicos from “our side” who screw up publicly. Given the way that these people are finding fault with every single republican POTUS candidate for 2016, I suspect that Jesus Christ himself could be on the ballot, and two out of every three tea partiers in Michigan would still figure out a reason to crucify him. Speaking of which . . .

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2015 MIGOP State Convention, 80th District Special Election (2015), Conservative News, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy

The Cover-Up Is Always Worse

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Did Watergate teach you nothing? (Yet another case of not learning from history.)

I got wind of this via a phone call at around 07:41 this morning, while I was still getting my head screwed on straight (on my first actual day off in about three weeks), and quite frankly, I have no idea how to categorize this one. “Wrong-headed thinking” seems like a solid characterization, and I’m well-aware of the double entendre involved.

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2015 MIGOP State Convention, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy

The Window Dressing of Reverse Racism

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Do we really want a third term for a Vice Chair who appears to be more interested in pandering than in outreach?

Since early 2014, there have been ever-escalating smear attacks against our national committeeman, Dave Agema, that have been as predictable as the calendar, in that they’ve occurred, if my memory serves me correctly, during the runup to every national or state committee meeting last year, as well as during the weeks immediately preceding the “fall” state convention (and are now occurring concurrent to the weeks preceding the “spring” state convention four weeks from now). The pattern is also predictable, in that either Ken Braun or Dennis Lennox (occasionally Kathy Hoekstra just for the sake of variety) will get wind (via one of their trolls) of a social media post on Agema’s Facebook page, will then cherry-pick some alleged “money quote” from the source article (or an article buried up to three links deep from that source) and then report that “money quote” as though Agema originally said it . . . and never-you-mind that they can’t be bothered to accurately report what he actually said with regard to why he found something post-worthy. The next step, again ridiculously predictable, is that the three amigos will then use their press credentials to publish opinion pieces, which allegedly-more-credible reporters will then use as source material for front-page “news” stories, which the usual suspects will then use to fuel a smear campaign of manufactured outrage, which the party’s useful idiots and low-information voter bloc will dutifully echo as an ever-increasing crescendo of calls for Agema to step down “for the good of the party.”

Fully detailing this pattern and the miscreants perpetuating it – which I intend to do – is a topic for another day soon. My purpose in mentioning it here is to merely highlight the hypocrisy of selective outrage within the party leadership, specifically in regard to a certain vice chair whose own conduct has been perhaps more offensive than that of the national committeeman for whose resignation she has recently called.

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2015 MIGOP State Convention, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy

Well This Is Embarrassing

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Young man, the plain language of the law is the plain language of the law, even when it works against you.

Regulars on either this site or the old one likely are sure to recall the Michigan Dele-Gate Fiasco. The quick synopsis, for the Johnny-come-latelies, is that, on the final night of February in 2012, the MIGOP Credentials Committee (at that time consisting of Bobby Schostak, Sharon Wise, Saul Anuzis, Holly Hughes, Eric Doster, Bill Runco, and Mike Cox) had the high-tech equivalent of a middle-of-the-night, smoke-filled-back-room meeting, and decided, by a 4-2 vote – Hughes didn’t get word of the meeting until after its conclusion – that the published and promulgated delegate allocation rules would be overridden, ex post facto, for no other purpose than to preserve the narrative of a “favorite son” presidential primary win. The resultant grassroots backlash culminated in the Showdown In Motown, where the alleged chief engineer of the fiasco, one Saul Anuzis, was convincingly replaced with Dave Agema (to the ongoing agony of Michigan Republican Progressives).

However, with now mere days before the MIGOP Policy Committee meets to rule on the affidavits of candidacy for the various 2015 State Convention candidates, we see a similar scenario playing out . . . with at least one familiar player in the mix.

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Conservative News, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Philosophy

Lt. General William G Boykin At The Tea Party Powwow

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Retired Special Ops General Speaks to conservatives in annual forum

The 2015 Powwow has ended, and even with threatening weather and bad roads and a misplaced tone of indignation, it went well.

The reality on the ground is that along with the Patriot voices radio hitting 5000+ listeners to the live stream of the event, we had nearly 400 on hand attending or participating in some way.  Some good folks were on hand (I will have photos out at some point) and some good information sharing to be had.

Boykin3For me, the highlight of Saturday’s activity was the speech by Lt. General William G Boykin which was as entertaining as it was inspirational.  An outstanding orator, he spoke on his service, the sacrifices made around him, and his thoughts on where we are as a nation.

The video is a little over an hour, but is well worth every single minute.  Forgive the weak camera work.  It was hard to keep up with it while thoroughly enjoying the presentation at the same time.

You Betcha! (29)Nuh Uh.(1)