Fellows - Tea Party Congress DA

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Tea Party Congress DA ............................................................................................................... 1 ***Tea Party DA***

***1NC*** ................................ .................................................... ..................................... 4 Tea Party 1NC ............................................................................................................................ 5

***Uniqueness*** ........................................................................................... ................... 9 Tea Party Weak ........................................................................................................................10 Mainstream GOP Strong ..........................................................................................................11 Tea Party Brink .........................................................................................................................14 A2 IRS Scandal Thumper ..........................................................................................................15 A2 NSA Thumper ......................................................................................................................17

***Link*** .................................................................................... ................................... 18 Link- War Powers .....................................................................................................................19

Link- Indefinite Detention ........................................................................................................25

Link- Drones .............................................................................................................................26 Link- Offensive Cyber Operations ............................................................................................28 Link- Isolationism .....................................................................................................................29 Tea Party Momentum Spills Over ............................................................................................31 2NC Rand Paul Link--- Topic .....................................................................................................33 2NC Rand Paul Link--- Drones ..................................................................................................35 Restricting AUMF = Win for RP ................................................................................................36 2NC Rand Paul Link--- Indefinite Detention .............................................................................37 Rand Paul Gets Credit ..............................................................................................................39 A2 GOP is not isolationist.........................................................................................................40

***Budget Impact*** ............................................................................. .......................... 41 Ext Block Budget ...................................................................................................................42 Ext Government Shutdown ...................................................................................................45 AT Tea Party Compromise ....................................................................................................47 A2 Economy Defense ...............................................................................................................49 Trade Mod ...............................................................................................................................51

***Creationism Impact*** ..................................................... ........................................... 54 1NC/2NC Creationism Mod .....................................................................................................55 Ext Church/State ...................................................................................................................58 Ext SciEd Key to Econ ............................................................................................................60 AT College/ Early Education ..................................................................................................61

AT Intelligent Design =/= Creationism ..................................................................................62 ***A2 Impact Turns*** ................................................. .................................................... 63

A2 Moon Base Impact Turn Private Sector Fails ...................................................................64 A2 Colonization ........................................................................................................................65 A2 Asteroids .............................................................................................................................71 A2 Moon Race ..........................................................................................................................73 A2 EU Impact ...........................................................................................................................77


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***Aff Answers*** Non-UQ - Tea Party Strong ......................................................................................................80 NSA Thumper ...........................................................................................................................87 Aff Hurts GOP Influence ...........................................................................................................90 Tea Party Resilient ...................................................................................................................96 A2 Debt Ceiling ........................................................................................................................97 A2 Credit Downgrade ...............................................................................................................98 Economy Defense ....................................................................................................................99 Democracy Defense ...............................................................................................................101 Tea Party Good--- Moon Colonization ...................................................................................102 Tea Party Good--- Space Colonization ...................................................................................105 Satellites Impact.....................................................................................................................106 Moon Race Good--- Hegemony .............................................................................................111 Colonization Good--- Asteroids ..............................................................................................115 Isolationism Good--- EU Leadership ......................................................................................116


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***Tea Party DA***


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***1NC***


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Tea Party 1NC

Tea Party influence is taking a nosedive recent pollsSareen 2013ANJALI SAREEN, Editor at The Huffington Post, Tea Party Popularity Falls To Record Low, Rasmussen Reports January 7th, 2013,http://www.mediaite.com/online/tea-party-popularity-falls-to-record-low-rasmussen-reports/

According to a new Rasmussen poll released Monday , the Tea Party is less popular than it has ever been ,with only 30% of likely voters saying they hold favorable views of the group. Nearly half (49%) have unfavorable views. HuffPost reports that the Tea Partys favorability rating has taken a

substantial nosedive since 2009, when a majority of likely voters approved. Besides just voter favorability ratings , theTea Party movement as a whole is seen to be declining , as evidenced by the poll. Over half of likely voters (56%)said the Tea Party has become less influential in the past year and only 8% said they identified as a part of thegroup. They might be right: just this morning, the Washington Posts Bob Woodward noted that having Speaker JohnBoehner in the House wasnt that bad compared to what kind of damage a Tea Party speakercould do . Woodward called Boehner a pragmatic moderate and said that a Tea Party speaker would just laydown and, you know, let the country burn. Woodward isnt alone in his criticism : conservativeradio host Michael Savage cited a lack of charismatic Tea Party leadership as a reason for their muted influence.

The plan is a huge winGrim 2013 (Ryan Grim, June 11, 2013, Divisions Over National Security State Scramble OldAlliances, Political Coalitions, Huffington Post,http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/nsa-leak_n_3421415.html)The contours of the debate around security and civil liberties that began the day after the 9/11attacks have been steadily shifting ever since, but have recently become contorted in the wakeof revelations about the depth and breadth of the National Security Agency's secret surveillance.The debate coincides and overlaps with disagreement over indefinite detention , the use of

force abroad and , specifically, the employment of drones in a sprawling array of countries inthe so-called global war on terror. The debate has taken on a partisan bent, with grassrootsDemocrats broadly lining up in surveys to defend the administration, and Republicans chargingthat presidential authority goes too far. But among the leaders in Washington and the media,alliances are scrambling, with the greatest dissension within conservative ranks. The battleinside the GOP has left leading tea party figures such as Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)and Mike Lee (R-Utah), Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh in uncomfortable alignment with independent Sen.Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist from Vermont who caucuses withDemocrats; Michael Moore; Glenn Greenwald; Julian Assange and Daniel Ellsberg. They arepitted against establishment figures from both sides, such as Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), liberal Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), and diplomat Richard Haass. Democrats,

owing partly to the simple fact that they control the levers of executive power, are more likelyto back the extensive use of that authority. Two recent surveys differed in how respondentsreacted to the NSA's surveillance programs, but they found similar patterns of partisanship.

Tea Party wins snowball--- saves their influence in CongressCillizza 2012 (Chris Cillizza, December 4, 2012, Is the tea party dead? Or just resting?,Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/12/04/whither-the-tea-party/)


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And Jon Lerner, a Republican consultant who works closely with the Club For Growth, insistedthat the tea party remains a major force in GOP primaries and, as such, is somethingestablishment Republicans should be very wary of ignoring. Tea Party voters represent ahuge portion of all Republican voters , so while the GOP establishment sometimes finds the TeaParty inconvenient, they are much better off making peace with it than making war with it, saidLerner. True enough. But, it still seems clear that the tea party is in the midst of a sort of soulsearching. For a movement that burst onto the national scene with a force almost never seenin modern American politics, theres no obvious second act . The movement needs a next

fight or, short of that, to make a decision as to whether it can live within the Republicancoalition or not. (That latter choice is complicated by the fact that the tea party was built as aleaderless enterprise and so the idea of such a major philosophic decision being made for theentire movement is anathema to, well, the entire movement. Rick Reed, a Republican mediaconsultant, suggested that there may be a couple of folks whom 10 percent of Republicanswould loosely and correctly associate with *the tea party movement+, but probably no more.) One senior Republican party strategist , granted anonymity to speak candidly about the futureof the tea party movement, expressed concern that while the tea party was at a low point

today, the coming legislative fights in Congress could lead to a renaissance in the movement.

Strong Tea Party wrecks budget compromisesPolitico 7/19 (Mitch McConnell's fractured Senate GOP caucus , Read more:http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/senate-republicans-splintering-94451.html#ixzz2amsQ0772)These Senate GOP factions arent set in stone, and some Republicans fl oat from one group toanother depending on the issue. But the GOP tension is playing out on the Senate floor as members of the leadershiphave consistently voted no on tricky issues that could cause them political headaches while rank-and-file Republi cans are voting yes. McConnells leadership team including Sens. John Thune of South Dakota, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Roy Blunt of Missouri and Jerry Moran ofKansas has taken the safe route by opposing these bipartisan proposals. That leaves a group of roughly a dozen GOP senators to swallow the toughand unpopular votes ranging from opening debate on gun legislation to passing an immigration bill to confirming Richard Cordray to head the GOP-despised Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (Also on POLITICO: McCain stalls Dempsey nomination) The entire leadership team opposed theimmigration bill, for instance, which passed with the support of 14 Republican senators, and the leaders voted to filibuster a bipartisan border securitydeal drafted by Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and John Hoeven of North Dakota. The leadership opposed beginning debate on gun legislation, eventhough 16 of their GOP colleagues voted to bring the measure to the floor. Most voted to continue filibustering Chuck Hagel as defense secretary, evenas 71 senators from both parties voted to allow a vo te on confirmation. Some think the leadership is ducking the tough votes and allowing the rank -and-file to shoulder the burden. This leadership team has adopted the Obama lead -from- behind approach to governing, said a senior SenateRepublican source, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly. It hasnt worked for the president and it doesnt appear to be working here either. Republican leaders defend their approach, arguing that they typically are siding with a majority of the conference on a number of divisive issues, no twith the smaller number of Republicans voting with Democrats, Cornyn argued. I think the majority of the conference votes the same way I do,

Cornyn said. In some of these issues, were not united. Its really as simple as that. The GOP factionalism could becomeeven more significant this fall when its time to cut deals with Senate Majority Leader HarryReid (D-Nev.) and the White House on boosting the debt ceiling and keeping the governmentoperating past September. McCain, Corker and other members of the Supper Club agroup of Republicans who have been discussing budget issues with White House Chief of StaffDenis McDonough met with McConnell on Thursday afternoon , seeking strategies for those looming fiscalshowdowns, which will really kick off in September. McCain wants to see Senate Republicans negotiate withDemocrats on these critical matters, but there are a number of GOP conservatives especially in the House who are prepared to shut down the government or default on thedebt unless Obama caves to their spending demands .


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Destroys the economy--- consumer confidence, dollar strength, credit ratingBrown 13 (Abram, 1/4, "GOP's Threat to Shutdown the Government is a Dangerous Strategy,"www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2013/01/04/the-gop-is-already-threatneing-to-shutdown-the-government-to-win-spending-cuts/)That Republicans are already warning the country that they will turn off the lights in D.C. is an

alarming situation. Depending on what happens in the debt ceiling debate, the TreasuryDepartment might just have trouble paying the bills on timeor the whole apparatus couldcease to function . Past that, theres a risk that the credit -rating agencies could downgrade theUnited States, raising the countrys borrowing costs (and making that newly approved debtmore costly ). Not to mention the damage to the broader economy. The last debt ceilingfiasco in August 2011 dashed consumer confidence. Why shop anywhere else than bargain-centers like Wal-Mart and or a dollar store when the nation seems to be falling apart? Shortlybefore the nation went past the deadline in 2011, the CEOs of Bank of America, Citi, JPMorganChase and Goldman Sachs sent a letter to The White House that urged for a quick resolution: Adefault on our nations obligations, or a downgrade of Americas credit rating, would be atremendous blow to business and investor confidence raising interest rates for everyone who borrows, undermining the value of the dollar , and roiling stock and bond markets and ,therefore, dramatically worsening our nations already difficult economic circumstances. Granted, the economy is in slightly better shape today than it was in August 2011. Not so strong,though, that the consequences of a shutdown would be much different.

Economic collapse causes nuclear conflictsBurrows and Harris 2009 Mathew J. Burrows counselor in the National Intelligence Counciland Jennifer Harris a member of the NICs Long Range Analysis Unit Revisiting the Future:Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis The Washington Quarterly 32:2https://csis.org/files/publication/twq09aprilburrowsharris.pdfIncreased Potential for Global Conflict Of course, the report encompasses more thaneconomics and indeed believes the future is likely to be the result of a number of intersectingand interlocking forces. With so many possible permutations of outcomes, each with ampleopportunity for unintended consequences, there is a growing sense of insecurity. Even so,history may be more instructive than ever. While we continue to believe that the GreatDepression is not likely to be repeated, the lessons to be drawn from that period include theharmful effects on fledgling democracies and multiethnic societies (think Central Europe in1920s and 1930s) and on the sustainability of multilateral institutions (think League of Nationsin the same period). There is no reason to think that this would not be true in the twenty-first as much as in the twentieth century. For that reason, the ways in which the potential forgreater conflict could grow would seem to be even more apt in a constantly volatileeconomic environment as they would be if change would be steadier. In surveying thoserisks, the report stressed the likelihood that terrorism and nonproliferation will remain

priorities even as resource issues move up on the international agenda. Terrorisms appeal willdecline if economic growth continues in the Middle East and youth unemployment is reduced.For those terrorist groups that remain active in 2025, however, the diffusion of technologiesand scientific knowledge will place some of the worlds most dangerous capabilities withintheir reach. Terrorist groups in 2025 will likely be a combination of descendants of longestablished groupsinheriting organizational structures, command and control processes, andtraining procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attacksand newly emergentcollections of the angry and disenfranchised that become self-radicalized, particularly in the


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absence of economic outlets that would become narrower in an economic downturn. Themost dangerous casualty of any economically-induced drawdown of U.S. military presencewould almost certainly be the Middle East. Although Irans acquisition of nuclear weapons isnot inevitable, worries about a nuclear-armed Iran could lead states in the region to developnew security arrangements with external powers, acquire additional weapons, and considerpursuing their own nuclear ambitions. It is not clear that the type of stable deterrentrelationship that existed between the great powers for most of the Cold War would emergenaturally in the Middle East with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity conflict andterrorism taking place under a nuclear umbrella could lead to an unintended escalation andbroader conflict if clear red lines between those states involved are not well established. Theclose proximity of potential nuclear rivals combined with underdeveloped surveillancecapabilities and mobile dual-capable Iranian missile systems also will produce inherentdifficulties in achieving reliable indications and warning of an impending nuclear attack. Thelack of strategic depth in neighboring states like Israel, short warning and missile flight times,and uncertainty of Iranian intentions may place more focus on preemption rather thandefense , potentially leading to escalating crises. Types of conflict that the world continues toexperience, such as over resources, could reemerge, particularly if protectionism grows and

there is a resort to neo-mercantilist practices. Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity willdrive countries to take actions to assure their future access to energy supplies. In the worstcase, this could result in interstate conflicts if government leaders deem assured access toenergy resources, for example, to be essential for maintaining domestic stability and thesurvival of their regime. Even actions short of war, however, will have important geopoliticalimplications. Maritime security concerns are providing a rationale for naval buildups andmodernization efforts, such as Chinas and Indias development of blue water navalcapabilities. If the fiscal stimulus focus for these countries indeed turns inward, one of themost obvious funding targets may be military . Buildup of regional naval capabilities couldlead to increased tensions , rivalries, and counterbalancing moves, but it also will createopportunities for multinational cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. With water also

becoming scarcer in Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing waterresources is likely to be increasingly difficult both within and between states in a more dog-eat-dog world.


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***Uniqueness***


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Tea Party Weak

The Tea Party is weak split on policy positionsPR 7/31Pew Research, Whither the GOP? Republicans Want Change, But Split over Partys Direction July 31, 2013, http://www.people -press.org/2013/07/31/whither-the-gop-republicans-want-change-but-split-over-partys-direction/

Tea Party Republicans are split on the question of whether the Republican Party mainly needs tomake a stronger case for its current policy positions or if it also needs to reconside r some ofits policy positions (51% vs. 46%). But 70% of non-Tea Party Republicans, including 79% of moderates, saythe Republican Party needs to reconsider some policies. There is no consensus among GOPvoters who think the party needs to reconsider some policy positions about what thosepositions are . About one-in-five (19%) say the party needs to reconsider its position on immigration and border security, 18%abortion and 11% cite gay marriage, gay rights or homosexuality. These responses have a long tail numerous issues receivementions by relatively small percentages (less than 5%) of those who believe the party needs to reconsider some positions. A third(33%) of Republican voters who say the party needs to rethink some of its stances could not come up with a specific issue.

Immigration reform provesNevarez 13GRISELDA NEVAREZ, Tea party influence on immigration reform is weaker than ever June 21, 2013, http://www.voxxi.com/tea -party-weaker-immigration-reform/

Without a doubt, the tea party movement emerged as a dominant political force in 2010, leading efforts to spread anti-immigrantrhetoric that eventually helped prevent immigration reform bills from passing in Congress. Starting in 2007, tea party membersbegan mobilizing. They were successful in making calls to congressional leaders and influencing them to vote against immigration

bills with a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants. But just how much influence will the tea partyhave this time around compared to years past? The answer could be not as much, as clear signs existthat the tea party movement is fading. Yet, tea party leaders say theyre still very much in the fight against anyimmigration reform bill that includes a path to citizenship. Polls show the number of followers of the tea party

movement is at a historic low, making it easier for members of Congress to reach across theaisle and work together on immigration reform. The latest poll, released in January by Rasmussen Reports,shows only 8 percent of the 1,000 likely voters surveyed said they are members of the tea party . Thats downfrom a high of 24 percent in April 2010. With their influence fading, Patty Kupfer , managing director at the pro-immigrationreform group Americas Voice, said she doesnt be lieve tea party leaders are having the same impact asthey did in past years.


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Mainstream GOP Strong

Republican party conflicts now but mainstream Republicans are barelyprevailing

Klein 8/1 (Rick, ABC News' Political Director, a co host of Top Line and regular contributor toABC News.com and the Note, Chris Christie vs. Rand Paul: Splintered Battle for Future ofRepublican Party, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/chris-christie-rand-paul-splintered-battle-future-republican/story?id=19830305)The adage holds that Democrats fall in love, while Republicans fall in line. These days, though, the GOP line looks morelike a scrum or, more accurately, competing lines forming at odd angles on a range of differentissues . From immigration and national security policies to how far to take the fight against Obamacare -- which the Republicansare practically unanimous in hating -- major players inside the Republican Party are deeply dividedagainst one another in unusually public fashion . With the party's splits on vivid display on both Capitol Hill andamong expected players in the nascent 2016 campaign, the question growing inside Republican circles is whether the deep rifts willheal themselves in time for the next election, where GOP leaders see huge opportunities to make gains. "We have an identity crisis,and you see the identity crisis playing out through all the various fissures," said Ron Bonjean, a veteran Republican strategist. "Itcould take several election cycles until we actually come to consensus again. Our party may have to go to the brink of disaster before

we pull back and realize what we have to do ." The internal battles are generally following the contours ofinsider-outsider disagreements that have defined the Republican establishment's oftenuneasy relationship with the Tea Party . But the shifting cast aligning or opposing one another on various fronts makethe battles difficult to track, much less control. The most colorful d isplay is the ongoing brawl between two of the Republicans'

brightest young stars: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. Last week Christie worried aloudthat attacks by Paul and other libertarian-leaning Republicans on National Security Agencysurveillance programs were "dangerous" and reflected forgotten lessons of 9/11. Paulresponded by saying the comments were a "cheap and sad" attempt to exploit the victims of9/11, and suggested that those who think like Christie are forgetting the Bill of Rights. By earlythis week, the battle between the party titans devolved into outright name-calling. Paul labeled Christie the "King of Bacon" for hisattempts to secure federal dollars for his state; Christie retaliated with statistics on Kentucky's dependence on U.S. taxpayers and

went on to call Paul a "Washington insider" fighting words inside either party. The NSA battle also flared up lastweek in the House of Representatives. A back-bench Tea Party congressman, Rep. JustinAmash of Michigan, came within a few votes of defeating the combined forces of the White

House and House Speaker John Boehner , in an attempt to cease NSA surveillance programsthat made for the strange bedfellows of liberals joining libertarians.

Mainstream Republicans holding onto control over the tea partiers nowRoll Call 7/12 (GOP Majority Whipped Into Shape, 2013http://blogs.rollcall.com/goppers/gop-leaders-get-their-groove-back/)The House GOP celebrated Independence Day a week late. On Thursday, Republican lawmakers in the House declaredtheir own sort of independence from the tyranny of outside conservative groups, from Nancy

Pelosi and from the chatter in Washington that their leadership team had lost control of theirconference. The vote on the farm bill 216-208, with every green vote coming from Republicans was an exceedingly rareevent under Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy ofCalifornia, not because they passed a bill but because they faced down the Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America and

won and did so without relying on a single Democrat. The stakes hardly could have been highe r for a leadershipteam that has suffered one stumble after another this year with increasingly cocky groups talking openly ofgetting new leadersh ip more to their liking and repeatedly working to undermine the leadersagenda. Another floor defeat would have dealt a deep blow, particularly to Cantor, who took much of theblame for the defeat of the farm bill the first time around over his backing of a conservative amendment Democrats considered a


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poison pill, and who championed the plan to drop food stamps from the bill in a risky bid to win an all-Republican majority vote.

The alternative going to the Democrats, hat in hand would have been humiliating. So the majority leadereffectively put the hammer down as members returned from the Independence Day recess,dressing down five House chairmen, including Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, for voting againstthe farm bill the first time. Cantor told them that, as leaders of the conference, it wasunacceptable for them to vote against the bill. They wouldnt cross him again. The same day,Republicans held their first whip count on the new strategy during Monday evening votes. The results werent encourag ing. According to one lawmaker familiar with the whip count, there were 150 to 165 Republicansin support of the revised farm bill . The leaders had lost votes. But Cantor did not relent. He clearedhis schedule and began the slog to 218. Over the next few days, Cantor had dozens ofconversations with individual lawmakers. Sources insist he did not twist arms but used theold-fashioned art of persuasion. He doesnt work based on threats, one Republican lawmaker said. Still, one GOPaide said, McCarth y plays the good cop; Cantor plays bad cop . On this bill the duo teamed up, and aides sayCantor and McCarthy work well together and have direct lines of communication. McCarthys whip staff even includes formermembers of Cantors whip staff. Lawmakers said a major turning point for the bill was when Agriculture Chairman Frank D. Lucas ofOklahoma changed his mind and said he would support the split strategy. Erica Elliott, McCarthys spokeswoman, said the victorywas the product of the hard work done by our entire leadership team, our whip team and the dedicated members of theAgriculture Committee, specifically Chairman Lucas. Cantors spokeswoman, Megan Whittemore, called it a team win. Everyonein leadership and all the members of the committee, especially Chairman Lucas, deserve credit, Whittemore said. But one GOP

lawmaker insisted the win was two -thirds Cantor, one- third the strategy. Dropping food stamps gave rank -and-file Republicanscover to vote yes to appease farm interests while being able to argue back home that they werent backing welfare. Butleaders faced another foe working against them both Heritage Action and Club for Growthdeclared a key vote against the measure while Democratic votes evaporated. Lawmakers,aides and strategists ripped into the groups as hurting their partys cause. They dont act liketheyre interested in building a conservative movement that can win races and do things, one GOP strategist said. They play gamesthat make them feel powerful but ha ve the practical effect of lost seats and lost opportunities to enact a conservative agenda. Others got more personal. House conservatives have grown tired of being lectured on conservativism by an ex -Giuliani staffer whoworks for the organization tha t created Obamacare, said a House leadership aide, needling Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham.So many conservatives voting for the farm bill is the proof in the pudding. Heritage Actions communications director, Dan Holler,said his group wants to have a debate on policy. We dont want to have a debate with anonymous staffers making ad hominemattacks that Geoff Davis made two years ago, Holler said. Davis, a former Kentucky representative, called out Needham two ye arsago in a dispute over his Heritage scorecard. Other Republican aides, meanwhile, said members felt double-crossed by Heritage,which had pushed to split the bill in two only to oppose it anyway. But Heritage says it is the Democrats who duped Republicans. The group insists the product of a conference com mittee with the Senate will be a farm bill that is more costly than the Senate -passed policies and those proposed by President Obama. It says breaking the unholy marriage between food stamps and thefarm bill is only one component. If someone is wil ling to settle for what they would perceive as a field goal when the touchdown isright in front of them, thats their prerogative, Holler said. But our decision is to score the touchdown. But even some ofHeritages allies, like Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, say the group overreached. Sometimes you just have to take the victorywhen its right in front of you and move forward and try to capitalize on it and next time well fight other fights, he said . The floorvictory for the GOP, however, may not translate into a broader political or policy victory. Democrats are convinced they can bashRepublicans for failing to vote for food stamps and are increasingly confident that they will be able to prevent significant food stampcuts in the end. After a ll, Lucas suggested the likely result will be that the Senates far slimmer cuts to the program will be adoptedin conference. That was precisely Needhams concern when he ripped the GOP leaders bill as nothing more than a naked attemptto get to a conf erence committee with the Senate. For their part, Democrats also mounted an impressive whip operation. Not a

single one voted for the split farm bill. But in many ways, the impressiveness of the Democratic whipoperation points to the impressiveness of the GOP operation. We were against all theoutside forces, we were against all the Democrats who tried holding up the vote all day, oneGOP lawmaker said. And they won .

Mainstream Republican control nowIfill and McCain 7/29 (Gwen, PBS Newshour anchor, John, US Senator from Arizona, Sen.John McCain Discusses Partisan Divide in Congress, Future of the GOP, 2013http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec13/mccain_07-29.html)GWEN IFILL:Do you see the comeback of the GOP moderate that everybody said was dead not long ago? SEN.JOHN MCCAIN: I think that there is a comeback amongst GOP senators that see the low approvalratings that we have that see the disapproval and almost contempt that people hold us in


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because of our failure to act , and I think it's not so much moderates some of the people who have been in thesenegotiations are (utmost) conservative. It's not so much moderate as it is people who are result-oriented. Could I just mention Bob Corker and Hoeven? Neither one of them are viewed as, quote,"moderate." They are strong conservatives, but they are result-oriented. GWEN IFILL: I thinkBob Corker , the senator fromTennessee, said he was thinking about not running again, he was so depressed about where the Senate was. But it feels like i t's

changed. SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Buthe's emerged as an important . I won't say dealmaker, but an important part of thediscussion and the results. And so is Hoeven. But so is Susan Collins and so is Kelly Ayotte and so isLindsey Graham. And so there's a large number of people. And by the way, I have been given some credit forthis latest thing, but it was a collective effort . It wasn't John McCain; it was all those people I just mentioned to you andmore who were engaged in constant conversations, and so I don't take credit for it. I give them credit. GWEN IFILL: As the formernominee of your party, and having watched 2012 from the sidelines been obviously to 2008 as you look forward to 2016, do youthink that the party survives or has another shot at the White House only if the kinds of things you're talking about really take root?The return of the moderate? The reaching across aisles? The bipartisan cooperation? SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Yes. I think

Americans want that from the Republican Party, but they also want r esult s, OK? They want they want something thatRepublicans can go to the people and say, look, we passed a balanced budget amendment. OK, I don't think that's outrageous thatwe got the XL pipeline done, that we cut your taxes, that we did the things that we promised we would do. So it's not you just can'tgo to the electorate and say, we blocked everything that President Obama was trying to do. I think you got to show them somepositive results and some positive vision for the future.


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Tea Party Brink

Tea Party influence on the brinkInternational Business Times 13 The Republican Civil War: Who Wins -- The Tea Party, Rand

Paul And Rush Limbaugh, The Mainstream And Karl Rove, Or The Social Conservatives Like MikeHuckabee? March 29 2013, http://www.ibtimes.com/republican-civil-war-who-wins-tea-party-rand-paul-rush-limbaugh-mainstream-karl-rove-or-social, DOA: 8-2-13, y2kRemember the Tea Party ? Even its members appear to have forgotten themselves . Just three years after itburned through a huge swath of the U.S. political landscape, retaking the House of Representatives for the Republicans in the 2010 off-year elections, the Tea Party seems to be fading as a national politicalphenomenon. Need evidence ? How about this: the Tea Party caucus in the House hasn't met since last summer and its its webpage is defunct. Moreover, anybody with real GOP influence, from the architect KarlRove to party head Reince Preibus, has implicitly or explicitly blamed the Tea Party for nominating Senate candidates whose unorthodox views about rape and other sensitive issues led to defeats against

vulnerable Democrats in Indiana and Missouri. But perhaps the Tea Partys relative public reserve these days is less a sign of the

groups growing irrelevance and more an indication that its attention is demanded elsewhere -- in the middle of an all-out battle for who gets to be the face (and heart) of the RepublicanParty now and in the foreseeable future. *Its+ a civil war within the Republican Party , said EdwardHudgins, director of advocacy at the libertarian-leaning Atlas Society. The participants can be broken down into three categories. The first group consists ofheavily religious Republicans , in large part evangelical Christians, who care about social issues, from abortion to same-sex marriage: They loathe both, but their numbers are dwindling,and society is moving away from them. Their standard-bearer could be Mike Huckabee, the Baptist preacher, then Arkansas governor, then failed presidential candidate, then Fox News Channel personality. Thesecond group encompasses establishment conservatives , old-school Republicans with a power base in Washington, who

still believe in compromise , but are increasingly pressed by the party's right wing into taking all-or-nothing stances. Think John Boehner, the House majority leader who oftenlooks like he would be ready to cut a deal with President Barack Obama, but can't do it because that would provoke a revolt by a large minority of his caucus -- mostly Tea Party-influenced members elected in

2010. And the third group is made up of those on the right flank, feisty and vocal: They arelimited-government Republicans who want to shrink the federal government and cut publicspending to the bone . That's where Tea Party-backed politicians largely reside . They famously don't have a leader,

but if one figure spoke for them, it would be Rush Limbaugh, the intransigent, take-no-prisoners radio provocateur who has become the voice of the American right. So who's winning ? Notsocial con servatives, according to Hudgins. Worrying about what goes on in peoples bedrooms is guaranteed to lose them elections, he said. The youth vote , consisting ofthose from 18 to 29 years old, is growing and represents about 19 percent of the votes cast in

the presidential election last year . Obama was backed by 60 percent of that demographic group, while Mitt Romney was supported by 37 percent, according to a Centerfor Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement report on Edison Research's National Election Exit Polls. These young voters have no interest insocial conservatism at all . Thats a major problem in the Republican Party , Hudgins said, recalling how young

Ron Paul supporters were given no credence and shown no respect during the primaries. This

group is going to be a growing proportion of the electorate. The Republican Party is going tobe relegated to the dustbin of history if it doesn't embrace them, he said.


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A2 IRS Scandal Thumper

IRS has zero effect on the Tea Party MovementSteven J. Gulitti 13 "The IRS Scandal and the False Hope of Tea Party Revival," 5-31-13,

bluemassgroup.com/2013/05/the-irs-scandal-and-the-false-hope-of-tea-party-revival/ DOA: 8-2-13, y2kAmid all of the sound and fury bubbling up from the IRS examination of the various conservative organizations theres hopeamong the Tea Party faithful that this controversy will somehow breathe new life into their movement . Butwill it be enough to reinvigorate a movement considered to be in disarray, if not politicallystalled ? Yes the vast majority of Americans holds the IRS in low esteem and is troubled by the revelations that the agency has, if nothing else, tangled rightwingorganizations in excessive red tape, even if it hasnt moved to cripple them altogether. How ever, as Sam Tanenhaus of the New York Times pointed out, this isnt

the first time that an administration has used the IRS against the opposition , even though, to date,

theres no evidence that President Obama ordered any such action . While the wild eyed voices on Capitol Hill have beenbellowing for the impeachment of the president, the more level headed among them, and among conservative political pundits, have counseled caution least the Tea Partyclaque in Congress overplay its hand with negative consequences for 2014. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a meticulously detailed piece outlines the vast differences betweenWatergate and the current IRS controversy. It is an analysis that undermines the very argument being made by the far right for the impeachment of President Obama: Those

who bother to read these historical snippets will find many important departures and only tenuous parallels between the Obama Administrations IRS affair and Richard NixonsWatergate-era IRS scandal. A principal distinction is the ingredient of direct presidential involvement. President Nixon was the fulcrum, the visionary and the principalconspirator in his various capers to use the IRS as a political weapon. Nixon personally directed and persistently harangued his staff to audit, investigate and gather dirt on hisenemies for personal purposes. Nixon went to reckless extremes even punishing IRS agents who refused to participate in his vendetta. A mean-spirited viciousness and hiscontagious enthusiasm for law breaking were also distinctive Nixon bailiwicks. In contrast, there is no evidence that Obama even knew of the IRS investigations which were

presided over by Donald Shulman, a Bush appointee. The most recent evidence indicate that the Tea Party auditsresulted not from intentional political targeting of conservatives from the sheer preponderousof Tea Party applications among the hundreds of 501(c)(4) tax exemption requests thatdeluged a tiny understaffed IRS field office. But while its important to note the fact that, to d ate, the current scandaldoesnt even come close to approximating the severity of Watergate as an assault on the

Constitution, there is evidence that Tea Party organizations have pushed the limits of whatwas politically legitimate. That in turn has increa sed the attention given these groups by the IRS, which isnt necessarily unwarranted or beyond the paleof legitimate agency operations. In the article Groups Targeted by I.R.S. Tested Rules on Politics, referenced below, two p olitical reporters, Nicholas Confessore and MichaelLuo, detail the many activities undertaken by conservative organizations over the past few years that have given rise to legitimate questions on the part of IRS agents who haveconducted these examinations. Have those agents been o verzealous, perhaps, but at the same time those agents wouldnt be looking into these groups if they didnt have a

reason to believe that somehow these organizations hadnt run afoul of the law. The IRS simply doesnt have the luxury of excessmanpower with which to carry out such a political wild goose chase no matter who mighthave requested such a thing. Likewise the claim by conservative columnist Peggy Noonan, a

tireless critic of Barack Obama, that conservatives generally have been singled out for IRS

harassment has been debunked prima facie as well by Nate Silver , as referenced below. With all of theabove being understood, what affect, if any, has the IRS scandal had , to date, on the publicperception of the Tea Party movement as a whole? Is there any reason thus far to believe that this

controversy is breathing new life into the Tea Party? Presently the answer is emphatically no . Jon Cohen and Dan

Balz of the Washington Post, analyzing the results of the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll concluded the following: The

IRS scandal has brought the tea party back into the spotlight, but it has done little to changethe publics impressions of the political movement . In the poll, 40 percent of all Americans say they support the tea party

movement and 43 percent oppose it, numbers stable back to last year. A record high of 17 percent express no opinion on the question. About 73 percent of conservativeRepublicans say they support the movement, but thats the lowest percentage to say so in polls going back more than two years. Moreover, whe n you go inside the results ofthis poll 74 percent of the respondents saw the IRS actions as inappropriate and 56 percent of respondents see this activity as deliberate harassment; 54 percent see the Federal

Government as threatening the individual rights of the average citizen. One would think that for all of the public discomfortbeing generated by the actions of the IRS that the American people would see anew somevalue in the Tea Party and its ideas . Ironically that has proven not to be the case . Likewise you would think


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that these same Americans would now be looking to throw Obama, the far rights new Nixon, under the bus but that hasnt happened either. Obamas poll

numbers have actually edged up since this controversy began. In fact if you examine the bulk of

the data compiled by PollingReport.com, referenced below, the Tea Party movement has seen , in net terms, its popularity and

acceptance decline overall since 2010 and it is, thus far, in no way positively affected by the current spate of

scandal and revelation. One would ask why, with all the unpopularity surrounding the IRS and big government generally and with all of the sensationalmedia coverage and the mainstream medias new found interest in challenging the Obama administration, why is it that the Tea Party seems to be getting little if any tractionfrom all of this? I think that to for many informed observers the answers are self- evident if not outright obvious. For one thing, even though Americans are wary of too muchgovernment they have little stomach for deliberate government gridlock and when it comes to gridlock they see the Tea Party movement is the chief culprit in affecting thedysfunctional state of affairs that has come to characterize Washington D.C. generally and Capitol Hill in particular. Gridlo ck aside, the Tea Partys penchant for economicausterity works to the movements disadvantage as this economic policy has come to be seen as a failure, even among serious conservative thinkers in organizations like theAmerican Enterprise Institute. Finally, the movement is now beset by scandal as well, its onetime Congressional standard bearer Michelle Bachmann has decided not to run forreelection with a scandal of her own as a backdrop. The essence of American democracy has always been compromise and it has been at those junctures in American historywhere the practice of compromise broke down that our democracy has been seen to fall short, sometimes with disastrous results, the Civil War being the most obvious example.In the current era it has been the Tea Party movement that has epitomized the belief put forth by Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser of pre-Civil war fame, who famouslystated, If you cant compromise you cant govern. Today the American people know that there is little in the way of real po litical progress being made in Washington D.C. Theysee the Republican Party and the Tea Party specifically as the reason why. Furthermore, after three plus years on the American political scene, serious Tea Party missteps at thelevel of Republican Presidential politics and in Senate races have cast Tea Party politics and politicians in a less than flattering light. All one need do is think back over the clownfest that was the 2012 Republican primaries or some of the absurdities surrounding Tea Party backed candidates for the U.S. S enate during the last two election cycles and itsnot hard to see why, even in the wake of the current scandals and with issues that play right into the anti-government creed, that the Tea Party could still fail to benefit from thiscurrent state of affairs. Scandals have rocked Washington before and they will rock it again. That said theres another reason that the current round of scandal may fail to

reinvigorate the Tea Party movement. The reason for this is that voters have had over three years to get to know themovement and there seems to be little coming out of it that those who dont already support

it find compelling. In fact if you go back inside the data in PollingReport.com you find that the numbersprove that those respondents who claim they dont know enough about the Tea Party havebeen halved since data collection began in 2010, sometimes falling to single digits . It could be that eventhough the average American is disgusted with the state of American politics, those same Americans may see the Tea Party movement as part of the reason for that disgust and

therefore the mo vement isnt seen as part of the solution. After all one of the chief complaints about Washington today

is gridlock, a word synonymous with the Tea Party and thats not a good thing. If the aforementioned is infact the case, and I for one strongly believe it is, then there is little in the way of hope to be had from all of this that will ultimately bode well for the Tea Party. Yes voters canpunish the Obama and the Democrats in 2014 at the ballot box, but that doesnt mean that theyve finally and firmly embraced the ideas of the Tea Party and the far right. Wecan see a replay of the 2010 elections which I believe to have been nothing more than a protest against the perceived excess of the first Obama administration rather than arejection of progressive ideas. For if in fact the 2010 elections had been a rejection of the essence of the first Obama administration there would have never been a second one

and as we all know it was Barack Obama and not a champion of the far right who was elected in November of 2012. In other words, as far as the fortunes

of the Tea Party movement are concerned, the more things change the more they seem to

stay the same.


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A2 NSA Thumper

Tea Partiers are failing on NSA nowAckerman 2013 (Spencer Ackerman and Paul Lewis, August 2 , 2013, NSA controversy gives

unfamiliar allies impetus for and against reform , The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/02/nsa-washington-congress-obama-reform)The controversy over the N ational S ecurity A gency's surveillance methods has turned somepresumed political certainties on their head. There are very few issues in Congress that uniteTea Party Republicans with the more left-wing Democrats. Conversely, establishmentRepublicans and Democrats , typically at each others' throats, have found a reason tocooperate in their opposition to any changes that they say would hinder the NSA in protectingAmerica from terrorist attack. The House speaker, John Boehner , and the Democratic minorityleader, Nancy Pelosi , trenchant adversaries, both lobbied hard to defeat an amendment by theRepublican Justin Amash that would have defunded the NSA's bulk collection, as did thebipartisan leadership of the intelligence committee.

Both parties are splinteredLitvan 2013 (Laura Litvan and Timothy R. Homan , July 30, 2013, NSA oversight gainsmomentum in US Congress , Sydney Morning Herald, http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/nsa-oversight-gains-momentum-in-us-congress-20130730-2qw7l.html)Lawmakers are "being bowled over by a public reaction to the level of surveillance and theabsence of knowledge and the absence of checks and balances," said Gordon Adams, aprofessor at American University in Washington who teaches national security policy. "We'regoing to start seeing some legislating." In last week's House 205-217 vote, both parties andtheir leaders splintered over an amendment to an annual defence-spending bill th at wouldhave ended the NSA's blanket collection of phone records. While 94 Republicans and 111Democrats supported curtailing funding for the telephone record-collection effort, 134Republicans and 83 Democrats voted against it. Supporters of the amendment includedRepresentative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking Democrat in the House, andHouse Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington. Thechamber's top party leaders -- Republican Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader NancyPelosi -- both voted against it.


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***Link***


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Link- War Powers

Limiting war powers is a tea party rallying point--- also builds support from GOPestablishment

Antle 2013 (W. James Antle III, Editor, The Daily Caller News Foundation, March 7, 2013,Rand Paul speaks as parties change places on executive power, Daily Caller,http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/07/rand-paul-speaks-as-parties-change-places-on-executive-power/)Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul has finally stopped talking, but the conversation aboutpresidential war powers and extrajudicial killings sparked by his filibuster continues. OnThursday morning, pro-Paul hashtags like #StandWithRand remain among the top trendingtopics on Twitter. Nearly ever major news outlet has covered Pauls filibuster, which delayed theconfirmation of President Obamas CIA no minee John Brennan. Flying death robots may be apopular concept in movies, but the issues raised by the U.S. drone program had been confinedto the fringes of political debate. Paul and Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee had been working

with some of the Sena tes most liberal Democrats on civil liberties for months, starting with lastyears congressional votes on the National Defense Authorization Act and the ForeignIntelligence Surveillance Act amendments. National security reporter Eli Lake dubbed Paul andOregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden the drone odd -couple, noting that they called themselvesthe Checks and Balances Caucus. For some time now, Wyden and Paul along with twoother senators, Republican Mike Lee of Utah and Democrat Mark Udall of Colorado have beenworking together to try to curb the broad authorities the Obama administration has asserted inthe war on terror, Lake wrote. There was a strange bedfellows element to Pauls dronesfilibuster as well. It attracted the support of the American Civil Liberties Union and Code Pink, inaddition to tea party groups like FreedomWorks. Wydens participation made it a bipartisanaffair. But the biggest development was the support from Republican senators. In addition toLee and fellow tea partier Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn ,Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran , Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey , FloridaRepublican Sen. Marco Rubio , South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott , Arizona RepublicanSen. Jeff Flake , Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss , and Wisconsin Republican Sen. RonJohnson all joined with Paul. Few of those senators had ever expressed much interest in thedrone program before, and several of them voted against Paul on recent high-profile civilliberties votes , such as the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense AuthorizationAct. By the end of the filibuster, even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had alignedhimself with Paul. Frankly, it should have been answered a long time ago, McConnell said ofPauls question to the Obama administration about drone strikes in the United States. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus urged all GOP senators to go to thefloor to help Paul. The National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a fundraising effort

based on Pauls filibuster. Former South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint also sent out asupportive tweet. DeMint is now president-elect of the conservative Heritage Foundation, whichhas frequently supported a strong executive in wartime. It is likely that an outpouring ofsupport for Paul from conservatives on social media motivated some Republicans to getinvolved, as criticism of executive power during the war on terror was unpopular in the partyunder President George W. Bush. But since Obama has been commander-in-chief, there hasbeen a bit of a partisan role reversal.


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Tea Party favors restricting the presidential war powersRebekah Metzler 13 is a political writer for U.S. News & World Report. Ma rco Rubio, RandPaul Strike Out to Re-Brand Their Party: Fresh takes on foreign, domestic policies aim to shakeup GOP, February 6, 2013, http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/02/06/marco -rubio-rand-paul-strike-out-to-re-brand-their-party, DOA: 8-1-13, y2k

Paul , delivering a foreign policy speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation Wednesday, struck a balance between George W. Bush era neo-conservativism and support for nation building, and his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul's, unique brand of isolationism . The

Kentucky senator criticized the traditional GOP stance that money should be no object when

it comes to the U.S. military and its mission , and said that America should rethink its role in the

world while recognizing the cost to U.S. blood and treasure. "I'd argue that a more restrained foreign policy is the true

conservative foreign policy , as it includes two basic tenets of true conservatism: respect for the constitution and fiscal discipline," Paul said,

reflecting libertarian ideals held by both Tea Partiers and some progressives. Congress also must be more

assertive when it comes to its role in providing checks and balances to the president's war

powers , he said. " We did not declare war or authorize force to begin war with Libya," Paul said. " This is

a dangerous precedent. In our foreign policy, Congress has become not even a rubber stampbut an irrelevancy." A senator who at times finds himself the only member on a certain side of things whether it's a willingness to place secret holds onnominations to get a vote on a certain amendment, or an opposition to some spending provision that most Republicans agree with Paul was obviously striving to legitimizehimself as a leader with original but appealing viewpoints. "When foreign policy has become so monolithic, so lacking in debate that Republicans and Democrats routinely passforeign policy statements without debate and without votes, where are the calls for moderation, the calls for restraint?" he said. "Anyone who questions the bipartisanconsensus is immediately castigated, rebuked and their patriotism challenged."

Tea Partiers want to limit war powers--- establishment bandwagonsCarney 2013 (Timothy P. Carney, Senior Political Columnist at the Washington Examiner,March 7, 2013, Why Rand Paul's Filibuster Matters, http://nation.foxnews.com/rand -paul/2013/03/07/why-rand-pauls-filibuster-matters)Besides delaying for a day the vote on President Obamas nominee to head the CIA, JohnBrennan, did Sen. Rand Paul accomplish anything besides blowing up Twitter, as his cohort

Ted Cruz put it ? He certainly did. How much he accomplished will be determined, but here aresome places to look: He got the major media talking, for almost the first time, about thegovernments ability to kill U.S. citizens, without trial, even when theyre not posing animminent threat, on U.S. soil. Also, more broadly, about our government using drones toexecute people that maybe we should be trying to capture and try. He got manyRepublicans to express objections to extrajudicial drone killings. Republicans, as a party,havent been very worried about U.S. overreaches in the Global War on Terror. Paul wassomething of a loner on this front when he was running in 2010. But Pauls filibuster capturedthe attention of the media, and the heart of conservatives and libertarians around the country. Twitter provided such instant feedback, that it was pretty easy for Republican politicians to seethere is a real demand for these sorts of civil liberties concerns on the Right. It may even be that

some conservatives who rushed to Stand to Rand were really coming out of the closet,emboldened by Paul. Probably, most politicians coming to Pauls side were being opportunistic.Certainly many conservatives in the Twitterverse and Blogosphere were motivated a bit bypartisanship knocking Obamas hypocrisy on due process and civil liberties. But still, evenwhen politicians move for opportunistic or partisan reasons, they move, and the bounds ofpermissible dissent move with them. Its now easier for any future Republican politician orconservative commentator to push back on military overreach. Paul made a conservative casefor limiting war powers. Ill sound an even more hopeful note here: Paul may have made some


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conservatives watching on C-Span or even some GOP lawmakers watching from the floor more skeptical about executive power in the sprawling war on terror.

Passing the plan is a massive win for the Tea PartyMytheos Holt 13 "Can the 'Moss Covered' GOP Be Pruned, or Wil The Old Guard Strike Back?"

3-27-13, www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/27/can-the-moss-covered-gop-be-pruned-or-will-the-old-guard-strike-back/ DOA: 8-1-13, y2k

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) earlier this month, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul attacked the Republican party for

having grown stale and moss covered. Now, many observers are hoping that Paul and his compatriots, such as

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, will be able to prune that moss from the GOP . Experts wonder if the

new guard will be able to do what it takes , as a push to seriously reform the GOP will almost certainly

involve the shooting of more than a few of the partys sacred cows. The reaction to Pauls filibuster to

stall a vote to confirm John Brennan as CIA director foreshadowed this problem. Almost immediately after the event, many members of the neoconservative foreign policy establishment blasted Paul as everything from awacko bird to leader of the Code Pink Faction of the GOP. This response makes eminent sense to University of Virginia Professor and political prognosticator Larry Sabato,

who says figures like Paul and Cruz, who speak for a more libertarian message, will necessarily have to apply that message to issues

that have longstanding purchase in Republican circles . The old bulls can still gore an opponent ,

and should never be written off until they are off the stage , Sabato told TheBlaze. But you always look to

the new energy in any party the fresh leaders who create buzz and fire up the base . The

Rand Pauls and the Ted Cruzs have to perform a neat trick to succeed, though. They have to mainstream themselves to a reasonabledegree without losing the fervor of their followers. They may also have to apply their libertarian approach to places whereparts of the GOP base wont want it to go social issues and defense , for example. As Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are both finding outalready, advocating stances more associated with libertarianism than traditional three-legged stool conservatism can easily put you at odds with some big names in the GOP andsome traditional conservative/Republican constituencies, Mair wrote. Can those types of people coexist in a coalition with more socially or culturally conservative folks,hardcore economic conservatives, and even some foreign policy conservatives on either the realist or the isolationist ends of the spectrum? And if so, can such a coalition form a

sufficient base from which to win a national race? Quite possibly. The challenge is that thats rather untested, whereas the three -legged stool model is tried and tested andeveryone know who belongs in it and what it can do even if in the current political situation, there are some obvious limits to its appeal in a national race, given what the

electorate could look like in 2016. Some data suggest that there is reason for hope that those risks could be worth it. To begin with, whileRon Paulite skepticism of Americas motives has not gained any traction with conservatives, the general idea of a more restrained

foreign policy is becoming more in vogue with the wider GOP. Half of participants in thisyears CPAC straw poll said they thought America should take a humbler approach to foreignpolicy and leave Americas allies to fend for themselv es to a greater degree , compared with 34 percent whodisagreed and 16 percent who werent sure. The same poll found 86 percent disapproved of using drones to kill American citize ns in any context, and 70 percent disapproved of

even spying on Americans with drones. Thats a seismic shift away from the confident adventurism and

skepticism of civil liberties present in the Bush administration, and it may signal that the GOP

base is now war weary.

Plans a win for the Tea Party Daniel Larison 13 is a senior editor at TAC, where he also keeps a solo blog. He has beenpublished in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, Orthodox Life, Front PorchRepublic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and is a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhDin history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Dallas. Follow him on Twitter, "'Fierce'Internationalism Is Dragging the GOP Down," 7-11-13,


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www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/fierce-internationalism-is-dragging-the-gop-down/DOA: 8-1-13, y2k This bit from Norm Ornsteins analysis of the internal politics of the GOP is just a lazy assertion :And while some Southern Republicans such as Lindsey Graham remain fierce internationalists , the South, andthe House, have become the epicenter of anti-defense and anti-diplomacy isolationism typified now by

border Senator Rand Paul . As a description of Pauls views , this is wrong for all the usual reasons , andas an analysis of where the antiwar and non-interventionist Republicans are it is verymisleading. There are some antiwar Republicans from the South and in the House, such as Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina, but there are a lot more hawks andinterventionists. Judging from Ron Pauls support in the 2012 primaries, there is less support in Southern Repu blican electorates for a non-interventionist and antiwar message

than among Republican voters in other parts of the country. To the extent that all House members are more responsive

to their constituents views , there is probably a higher percentage of House Republicans opposed

to intervention in Syria compared to Republicans in the Senate. That is not because House Republicans are

preoccupied with ideological purity and tribal politics in this particular case, but because their voters

are so averse to greater involvement in Syria than the representatives feel compelled to break

ranks with their partys hard-liners and ideologues. If Ornstein thinks that an increase in so-called

anti-defense and anti-diplomacy isolationism among Republicans is an obstacle to building a durable,

competitive national party base to win presidential and Senate majorities, he is badly misreading the publics

mood on foreign policy . Perhaps because his description of Pauls views is such an absurd

caricature , he fails to recognize that moving away from an aggressive and overly militarized

foreign policy is likely to broaden the partys national appeal . One of the GOPs political

weaknesses is the accurate perception that it will reflexively support increased military spending and foreign

wars. Insofar as the GOPs foreign policy is identified with the fierce internationalism of aLindsey Graham, a majority will be able to write the party off as reckless and irresponsible on these

issues for many years to come.As for supposed ly being anti -diplomacy, it isnt non -interventionists and realists that continually portray most kinds

of diplomatic engagement as betrayal, appeasement, or some other form of villainy. On the contrary, they are the ones that favor engagement with other governments in orderto reduce tensions and lessen the chance of conflict.

Plans seen as a win for the tea party Paul, 10(Ron Paul, representative for the 14th Congressional District of Texas in the U.S. Congress, "ATea Party Foreign Policy", Aug 27,www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/27/a_tea_party_foreign_policy NL)As one who is opposed to centralization, I am wary of attempts to turn a grassroots movement against big government like the TeaParty into an adjunct of the Republican Party. I find it even more worrisome when I see those who willingly participated in the mostegregious excesses of the most recent Republican Congress push their way into leadership roles of this movement without batting

an eye -- or changing their policies! As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Partyrealize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad . We cannot

talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about thebudget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700

military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a fewthousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home whileturning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the worldcombined . Our foreign policy is based on an illusion: that we are actually paying for it. What we are doing is borrowing andprinting money to maintain our presence overseas. Americans are seeing the cost of this irresponsible approach as their own


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communities crumble and our economic decline continues. I see tremendous opportunities for movementslike the Tea Party to prosper by capitalizing on the Democrats' broken promises to overturnthe George W. Bush administration's civil liberties abuses and end the disastrous wars in Iraqand Afghanistan. A return to the traditional U.S. foreign policy of active private engagementbut government noninterventionism is the only alternative that can restore our moral andfiscal health . I am optimistic, and our numbers are increasing!

Plans a win for the tea party Beinart, 11(Peter, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is associate professor of journalism andpolitical science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New AmericaFoundation, "The Tea Party's Blind Spot", Jan 4,www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/01/04/tea-party-foreign-policy-where-they-stand.htmlNL)But beneath this apparent right-wing continuity lies a massive shift. For President Bush, believing in theConstitution meant believing that when it comes to national security, the federal government in general and the president inparticular can do pretty much whatever they want. For the new Republican Congress, by contrast, believing in the Constitutionmeans believing that when it comes to intervening in the economy, the federal government in general and the president inparticular can do barely anything at all. Todays Tea Partiers generally ignore this shift because they ignore national security itself.

Their Contract from America doesnt even mention foreign policy. But imagine what would happen if the TeaPartiers did grapple with the foreign policy implications of their constitutional vision . They believe,after all, that the framers of the Constitution wanted federal power to be extremely limited so it wouldnt infringe upon per sonal

liberty. Theyre fo nd of quoting Thomas Jefferson, the founder most associated with distrust of apowerful federal government . And they generally downplay the role of Alexander Hamilton, who believed that only astrong central state could build America into an industrial pow er. But Jeffersons distrust of federal power was deeply bound up with

his fear of militaries and empires. He believed that a standing army, if created, would menace individualfreedom and he wanted America to be a trading nation that would steer clear of theentangling alliances that defined European power politics . Anyone genuinely worried aboutdebt cant ignore the fact that defense constitutes a majority of federal discretionaryspending . Throughout American history, as Walter Russell Mead has catalogued in his book, Special Providence , the disciples ofJefferson while often suspicious of government intervention domestically have been downright terrified of governmentintervention overseas. And while Jeffersonianism does not fit simply into todays left-right spectrum, many of the most impassionedmodern Jeffersonians have been conservatives. In the early years of the 20th century, for instance, it was generally progressives likeTheodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson who championed a powerful executive branch, increased government oversight of theeconomy and an America that flexed its muscles overseas. By contrast, it was conservatives like Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidgewho preferred a weak presidency, unregulated capitalism and an America that stayed out of Europes military squabbles. Inmodern times, conservative presidents like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have tried to reconcile their efforts to rein in federalpower with their support for a large military and an interventionist foreign policy. But both times, the latter has seriously trumpedthe former. Under both Reagan and Bush, aggressive, militaristic foreign policy produced more presidential power and larger

deficits. Tea Partiers say their movement is a response to the way government power, andgovernment debt, grew under both Bush and Obama. But if they looked seriously at the reasons for thatgrowth under Bush, they would see that much of what theyre upset about is the military and homelandsecurity spending justified by his exp ansive war on terror. Anyone genuinely worried about debt cantignore the fact that defense constitutes a majority of federal discretionary spending. And anyone devoted to a strictinterpretation of the Constitution cant ignore the fact that America is still fighting inAfghanistan and Iraq, not to mention Pakistan, Yemen and lots of other places, without formalcongressional declarations of war, although that is what the Constitution requires . The Republicanforeign-policy apparatus in Washington, which is in large measure funded by defense contractors, has declared preemptive war onthe idea that military spending should be part of deficit-reduction discussion. But before going along, the Tea Partiers should think

about how theyd like to be remembere d by history. If they dont extend their constitutional vision to foreignpolicy, theyll be abandoning any serious chance of cutting the deficit and reducing the size ofgovernment . Theyll become indistinguishable from other conservative Republicans, jus t the latest in a long line on the right toput a globalist foreign policy over a minimalist state. If, on the other hand, they genuinely chart a foreign-policy course based upon


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their understanding of the Constitution if they subordinate the war on terror to the demands of fiscal solvency they will be anew and subversive force in American politics, and the Republican Party will be headed for a fascinating ideological showdown.

Would that make the Tea Party a positive force in American politics? Heck no. But at this point, Idsettle for them simply being an interesting one.


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Link- Indefinite Detention

Limiting indefinite detention is part of the Tea Party agendaWhite 2012 (Jeremy White, March 30, 2012, Republicans Join Fight Against Indefinite

Detention In NDAA, International Business Times, http://www.ibtimes.com/republicans -join-fight-against-indefinite-detention-ndaa-432196)Some Republican members of the House have rallied behind the same principle, according tothe Associated Press. They are motivated by a concern that the provisions will vastly expandthe scope of executive power without imposing important checks. I intend to help put as muchpolitical pressure on this issue as possible , Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) told the AssociatedPress. I intend to spend a lot of time - and I already have been doing so - making the publicaware of this issue so we can get the change we need to address it. Presidential PowerConcerns Since 9/11 Concerns about presidential power in post-911 era are nothing new. During the Bush administration, Democrats warned vociferously about what they saw grave civilliberties violations for those accused of terrorism, abuses that were epitomized by the militaryprison at Guantanamo Bay. But rather than allay those concerns, the Obama administration hasembraced and in some ways expanded an assertive view of executive authority. Obama hasissued waivers that shield most terrorism suspects from mandatory detention, but some of hisother actions -- including authorizing a lethal strike in Yemen on the radical Al Qaeda clericAnwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen -- have faced legal scrutiny. The Republican opposition to thedetention provisions in the NDAA is in part fueled by the influx of Tea Party-affiliated Housemembers who emphasize the primacy of the Constitution. Half of the House Republicansvoting against the legislation were part of the Tea Party -inflected wave of first-termrepresentatives elected in 2010, including Amash.


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Link- Drones

Tea Party hates dronesYonkman, 13

(David, Newsmax Washington Correspondent, "ACLU, Tea Party Align Aainst Drone Program",Feb 13, www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/aclu-drone-policy-counterterrorism/2013/02/13/id/490246 NL)The American Civil Liberties Union is joining tea party activists in opposing the use of armed drones andother counterterrorism operations to kill suspected terrorists , even American citizens. A recently surfacedJustice Department memo revealed that drones can strike against a wider range of threats, with less evidence, than previously

believed. Both the ACLU and tea party groups cite the Fifth Amendment, which says that Americansare guaranteed due process of law under the Constitution, and that the classified programcircumvents that right. Everyone has a right to know what the rules are, and thats whatsbeen hidden from the American public and even Congress , ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel ChristopherAnders tells Newsmax. He joins Kent ucky Sen. Rand Paul, who gave the official tea party rebuttal to President Barack Obamas State

of the Union address on Tuesday. Paul said: We will not tolerate secret lists of American citizens who

can be killed without trial. Obama told Congress in the annual joint session that he will continue to engage withCongress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention, and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws andsystems of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more tra nsparent to the American people and to the world. Theremarks did little to satisfy the ACLU or tea party activists. Its good to have a commitment to that, but theres no specificity to it,

the ACLUs Anders said. Were not a nation of secret laws. Eleven senators eight Democrats and threeRepublicans asked Obama earlier this month to justify the use of the drone program to lawmakers. The bipartisan group warnedit might stall the nominations of John Brennan as head of the Central Intelligence Agency and former Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraskaas Defense Secretary should Obama not provide the classified information. Currently, both the CIA and the military are authorized toremotely pilot unmanned, missile-carrying drones against terror suspects.

Pau ls filibuster proves Beauchamp and Brown, 13(Zack Beauchamp and Hayes Brown, writers for Think Progress, "Rand Paul Launches TalkingFilibuster: Demands Assurance Obama Wont Use Drones Against Americans In U.S.", March 6,thinkprogress.org/security/2013/03/06/1683851/rand-paul-launches-talking-filibuster-demands-assurance-obama-wont-use-drones-against-americans-in-us/ NL)Sen. Rand Paul (R- KY) has long demanded a national conversation about President Obamasclaimed power to kill American citizens . On Wednesday, he took a big step towards startingone, using a rare talking filibuster to hold up the nomination of John Brennan to head theCIA and deliver an extended critique of the targeted killing of Americans on American soil . Brennan played a critical role in the development and codification of the ObamaAdministrations targeted killing program, so his nomination has become a flashpoint for Pauland others worried about the scope of the powers claimed in it. Publicly released documents,particularly the infamous CIA white paperoutlining the legal thinking behind the strike on

American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, have not provided specific guidance on the territorial limits ofthe Presidential power to kill citizens. A more recent document, submitted to Congress byAttorney General Eric Holder, suggested that under extraordinary circumstances, such as PearlHarbor or 9/11, the president could kill an American citizen on American soil. In testimonybefore the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Holder specifically admitted that killingan American in the United States would be inappropriate and unconstitutional if the individualdid not pose an imminent threat. Throughout his filibuster, Paul repeatedly said that he wouldbe willing to move to a vote on Brennans nomination if the Obama administration translated


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Holders reply into a written response and stated that it did not believe that the executivebranch could target and kill Americans on American soil in most instances . Paul acknowledgedthat it was unlikely that Obama would launch a drone strike against someone sleeping in theirbed, but demanded clarification of what criteria the administration had for conducting targetedkilling. While he initially questioned the principles behind so- called signature strikes againstsuspected terrorists not currently fighting, Paul later shifted his focus to whether tactics usedoverseas could be transferred to American citizens within the U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), whoreferred to himself and Paul (both whom have strong records on civil liberties issues) as thechecks and balances caucus, also joined the questioning. He emphasized the need for publicdisclosure of classified documents about the legal authorization of targeted killings, arguingthat every American has the right to know when their government believes it is allowed tokill them. Ive had four sessions now with the classified documents and I still havequestions, Wyden said, concluding that theres a very strong case for being able to declassifysaid documents. Wyden parted with Paul only on the forthrightness of Administration officials,suggesting that Brennans testimony that the the CIA does not have the authority to conductthose operations [targeted kill ings+ was an adequate answer to Pauls questions about thescope of the targeted killing power. Wyden also suggested that the Attorney General has

moved in the direction of what wed like to hear. Paul responded by claiming that theAdministrations res ponses did not rule out targeted killings inside the U.S. and suggested thatthe administration should clarify its position. The senators did not address the broader issuessurrounding the targeted killing program, such as whether, under the Administratio ns currentunderstanding of law, the authority to conducted targeted killings against all suspectedterrorists will ever expire.


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Link- Offensive Cyber Operations

Plans a win --- House Republicans hate executive cyber authority and have triedto limit it before

Sasso 2012 (Brandon Sasso, December 21, 2012, House Republicans urge Obama not to issuecybersecurity order, The Hill, http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon -valley/technology/274391-house-republicans-urge-obama-not-to-issue-cybersecurity-order)A group of 46 House Republicans , led by Reps. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Steve Scalise(La.), sent President Obama a letter on Friday urging him not to issue an executive order oncybersecurity. "Instead of preempting Congress' will and pushing a top-down regulatory

framework, your administration should engage Congress in an open and constructive manner to help address the serious cybersecurity challenges facing our country," the lawmakers wrote. The White House is currently drafting an executive order that would encourage operators ofcritical infrastr

Documents

Fellows - Tea Party Congress DA