1. The Day the Establishment Died
The strategy used in the Mississippi Senate runoff revealed just how desperate and out of ideas the GOP establishment really is.
Facing a candidate who pulled more votes in the primary, and was propelled by a massive network of grassroots enthusiasm, the Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) camp had no choice but to fire the last arrow in its quiver. They did what no self-respecting conservative would ever do: they went running to the Democrats for help.
In this most underhand of tactics, Cochran used Republican Party dues money to conduct get-out-the-vote activities for Mississippi Democrats, charging Chris McDaniel with “causing problems for President Barack Obama,” and accusing the liberty movement of indiscriminate racism. Read more here...
2. GOP Bucking Business Priorities on Capitol Hill
“It seems like K Street has had an upper hand at the GOP table, and I think that’s changing with the decentralization of politics that gives activists a bigger voice,” said Matt Kibbe, head of FreedomWorks, an advocacy group affiliated with the tea party. “The tension’s always been there but I think that in the past when push came to shove the Chamber was more likely to get its way, and that’s not necessarily so anymore.” Read more here...
3. New Scorecard Ranks How Your Representative Stands on NSA Spying
Where does your representative stand on NSA spying?
FreedomWorks has joined with groups across the political spectrum to bring you a scorecard that tracks your representative’s voting and co-sponsorship history on NSA reform bills. Read more here...
4. Hobby Lobby Ruling a Narrow Win for Freedom
Today’s much anticipated Supreme Court decision on the case of Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. was expected to have broad implications for the application of the Affordable Care Act vis a vis the Constitution. Can the government dictate what kinds of insurance employers are required to provide, or should individuals be free to enter into any contracts they choose?
Now that the 5-4 decision has been made public, there is both cause for celebration, and grave disappointment among those of us who were hoping for a broad ruling in favor of individual liberty. Read more here...
5. SCOTUS Rules for Workplace Freedom, While Preserving Union Power
For the past year, the Supreme Court has been mulling the case of Harris v. Quinn, in which the state of Illinois was asserting its authority to collect union dues from non-union members working as home health care workers under a Medicare program. The state’s argument was that, since public sector labor unions negotiate contracts that benefit non-union members in terms of higher wages and better working conditions, it would be acceptable to expect these workers to pay union dues in return.
Opponents of this scheme pointed out that workers should not be forced to join organizations against their will, and that collecting dues from non-members was the state’s way of recruiting people into unions involuntarily. They further argued that these dues represented the forced subsidization of other people’s speech, which would violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Read more here...
6. Tell Your Members of Congress: Support the Transportation Empowerment Act
As one of our over 6 million FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and senators and ask them to support the Transportation Empowerment Act (H.R. 3486 and S. 1702) and to co-sponsor the bill if they have not already done so. Sponsored by Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), this act would put the money and decision-making for transportation projects back in the hands of the states.
Currently, the federal government is in the business of maintaining thousands of miles of highways, funded via a federal gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon which is deposited into a Highway Trust Fund. This centrally controlled process is inefficient and cumbersome, wasting large quantities of taxpayers’ money on bureaucratic middlemen and wasteful projects instead of actually keeping the highways in top shape. Read more here...
7. We NEED More Like Mike
Politicians and interest groups control the American political
process. Special-interest groups – big business, big unions, education,
seniors, and a multitude of others - seek favors: tax breaks, subsidies,
exclusive legislation, etc. Interest groups give enormous amounts of
money to political campaigns and receive gigantic benefits in return.
Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) is an establishment Republican and *was *very powerful. He excelled at courting and pleasing big business and Wall Street. In exchange for Cantor’s powerful help and protection, big business and Wall Street contributed enormous amounts of money to Cantor’s political campaign, which made him the second most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives. Read more here...
In Liberty,Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) is an establishment Republican and *was *very powerful. He excelled at courting and pleasing big business and Wall Street. In exchange for Cantor’s powerful help and protection, big business and Wall Street contributed enormous amounts of money to Cantor’s political campaign, which made him the second most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives. Read more here...
Jackie Bodnar
Director of Communications, FreedomWorks
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