Posts Tagged ‘2012’
Rep. Salmon to Tony Perkins: House Republicans are ‘the last bastion of freedom’
Tuesday, 19 March 2013 12:03
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An Arizona congressman on Monday told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins that Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives had a duty to stop President Barack Obama because they were “the last bastion of freedom.”

“We cannot let President Obama keep advancing his agenda,” Rep. (Read more…) Matt Salmon (R-AZ) said during an interview on Perkins’ Washington Watch radio show. “We have got to stop it at every turn.”

“You are the last bastion of freedom for this country, and we’re counting on you. So, use every tool in your toolbox,” he added.

But Perkins observed that “Republicans tend to be too concerned about keeping the majority than using it.”

“You know, if that’s where we’re at then you will lose it,” the Arizona Republican agreed.

Salmon compared Republicans who refused to use all the power of their office to oppose Obama to the parable of the the talents in the Bible, where a servant was rebuked and cast out for saving his master’s money instead investing it.

“The one that buried up his talents, was afraid that he would lose them, lost everything in the end,” the congressman warned.

Earlier this year, Salmon told CBS News that it was “about time” for another government shutdown.

“I think it drove Bill Clinton in a different direction, a very bipartisan direction,” he said of the 1995 federal governor shutdown. “In fact, we passed welfare reform for the first time ever, and we cut the welfare ranks in the last decade and a half by over 50 percent. These are good things.”

Listen to the audio below from the Family Research Council, broadcast March 19, 2013.

[Download audio]

(h/t: Right Wing Watch)

 
Republican Party ‘autopsy’ report: Make sure young voters don’t see party as ‘totally intolerant’
Monday, 18 March 2013 09:20
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A study ordered by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus after election losses in 2012 calls for major party reforms that would shorten the primary season and spend millions reaching out to minority voters.

At the National Press Club on Monday, Priebus said that he had initiated the “most comprehensive post-election review in the history of any national party” after getting a “wake-up call” in last November’s election.

The so-called autopsy report determined that there was no one reason that GOP candidates lost, but suggested that the party had a problem with messaging, an insufficient ground game and failed to include minority voters. (Read more…)

The “Growth & Opportunity Project” report recommended spending $10 million dollars Hispanics, African Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans and other minorities. The party, however, seemed most concerned about courting Hispanics. Priebus insisted that it would be a “tremendous benefit” to have a presidential candidate — like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio or former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — who speaks Spanish fluently.

The party also hoped to establish an “RNC Celebrity Task Force of personalities in the entertainment industry” and encourage candidates to speak to outlets like Comedy Central’s The Daily Show in an effort to reach younger voters.

“For the GOP to appeal to younger voters, we do not have to agree on every issue, but we do need to make sure young people do not see the Party as totally intolerant of alternative points of view,” the report said. “Already, there is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays — and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be.”

The document suggested that the party would not budge on its opposition to same sex marriage and other LGBT rights, but “that does not mean we cannot come together on the rest of the issues where we do agree.”

On Sunday, Priebus told CBS News that he was focusing on cosmetic changes like having less debates, earlier conventions, “hackathons” and year round “marketing.”

“And so one of the things we’ve brought out of this is not just branding and marketing around election time, but year round,” he explained.

“[The debates] hurt because there was no way to control it,” Priebus added. “We were debating and bailing the Republican National Committee out of debt. That tells you a lot of the story.”

“So if it gets to technology and all of the work that we need to do there and opening our technology efforts up to an open source, setting up an office in the Silicon Valley, doing hackathons across the country. This is going to be huge.”

On Monday, the current chairman was asked if former Chairman Michael Steele had ruined the party by leaving it in debt.

“I’m not going to go there, but the numbers speak for themselves,” he quipped.

Watch this video from C_SPAN, broadcast March 18, 2013.

 
 
Fox News hosts’ stunt to fund White House tours could pay for 90,000 food stamp meals
Friday, 08 March 2013 12:49
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Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Eric Bolling have offered over $140,000 — or enough to fund more than 90,000 food stamp meals — to keep White House tours open after the Obama administration temporarily suspended them due to automatic budget cuts.

NBC News on Tuesday reported that the White House had canceled tours to “reduce overtime costs and prevent furloughs that Secret Service employees potentially face” after Congress failed to stop automatic spending cuts in the so-called sequester.

On Wednesday, NBC reporter Luke Russert argued that President Barack Obama was trying to “stick it to rank-and-file congressmen” because they had the ability to promise tours to their constituents. (Read more…)

During the Thursday’s broadcast of Fox News’ The Five, host Eric Bolling offered the president “a deal.”

“Let these families take their White House tour next week and I’ll cover the added expenses,” he explained. “Word is it will cost around $74,000. If I can get the White House doors open, I’ll pick up the tab… You know this is an offer you can’t refuse. Give me a call.”

“I think we just realized that The Five isn’t your primary source of income,” co-host Greg Gutfeld quipped.

Later in the hour, Fox News host Sean Hannity joined in Bolling’s offer, tweeting, “[G]reat idea! Count me in, I will pay for a week also!”

But in all the fuss over whether or not lawmakers can give out White House tours as gifts, MSNBC host Martin Bashir pointed out that everyone was missing a very serious point that “it’s the public who are being injured by the sequester.”

For the the money that Bolling and Hannity have agreed to spend so that lawmakers can give constituents access to a short walk through the White House, the Fox News hosts could also provide one year of nutritional and preschool programs to 15 of the 75 children that could be cut from the Head Start program because of sequestration.

Or according to the Nation, they could fund over 90,000 meals to hungry families through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food stamps program, which is also expected to face cuts.

Watch this video from Fox News’ The Five, broadcast March 7, 2013.