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The Senate on Thursday confirmed President Donald Trump's pick to run the White House budget office, giving the Republicans' tea party wing a voice in the Cabinet.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., squeaked through on a 51-49 vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who is emerging as perhaps the most vocal GOP critic of the Trump administration, opposed Mulvaney for the nominee's past House votes supporting cuts to Pentagon spending.

"Mulvaney has spent his last six years in the House of Representatives pitting the national debt against our military," said McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senators then gave a tentative 54-46 procedural green light to Trump's choice to run the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. It was a signal that Pruitt should sail through on a final vote scheduled for Friday, despite being opposed by Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a GOP moderate.

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, two of the party's more moderate members, backed Pruitt.

Trump has tapped some of the wealthiest Americans to serve in his Cabinet and ethics reviews have slowed the confirmation process. So have Senate Democrats who have mostly opposed all the nominees and forced hours of debate.

At his news conference, Trump lashed out.

"I've also worked to install a Cabinet over the delays and obstruction of Senate Democrats," he said. "You've seen what they've done over the last long number of years."

In fact, Democrats pushed to secure confirmation of President Barack Obama's picks the past eight years.

Mulvaney's vote means that 13 out of 22 Trump Cabinet or Cabinet-level picks have been confirmed. Nominees to key Cabinet departments such as Interior, Housing and Urban Development, and Energy remain unconfirmed.

Mulvaney's confirmation promises to accelerate work on Trump's upcoming budget plan, which is overdue. That's typical at the beginning of an administration. But there is also the need to complete more than $1 trillion in unfinished spending bills for the current budget year, as well as transmit Trump's request for a quick start on his oft-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall and tens of billions of dollars in emergency cash for the military.

In the past, Mulvaney has routinely opposed catchall appropriations bills, which required Republicans to compromise with the Obama White House. The upcoming measure is also going to require deals with Democrats.

Mulvaney brings strong conservative credentials to the job, and he's likely to seek big cuts to longtime GOP targets such as the EPA and other domestic programs whose budgets are set each year by Congress.

Trump has indicated, however, that he not interested in tackling highly popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare and wants a major investment in highways and other public works. The House Freedom Caucus, a group of the most conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill, issued a statement saying that the president's pick of Mulvaney "sends a strong message that the Trump administration is serious about tackling our national debt."

Democrats opposed Mulvaney over his support for curbing the growth of Medicare and Social Security and other issues, such as his brinksmanship as a freshman lawmaker during the 2011 debt crisis in which the government came uncomfortably close to defaulting on U.S. obligations.

"He said to me in a one-on-one meeting how he would prioritize the debts he would pay if he defaulted on the debt," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "Wouldn't that be a great addition to the chaos we are all feeling right now?"

The vote came a day after Trump's pick to head the Labor Department, Andrew Puzder, abruptly withdrew his nomination in the face of Republican opposition. Puzder was met with questions over taxes he belatedly paid on a former housekeeper not authorized to work in the United States.

Mulvaney has managed to survive questions about his failure to pay more than $15,000 in payroll taxes for a nanny more than decade ago. He has since paid the taxes.

Read more from the original source:
Tea party gains voice in Trump's Cabinet with budget chief - ABC News

February 15, 2017 AtlantaSitting in the front row of a congressional constituent day in Greensboro, Ga., with one of his daughters perched on his knee, Ron Denham felt like he was witnessing democracy in action.

The people at the meeting were loudly, assertively, and peacefully demanding accountability and clarity from a federal government official. This, Mr. Denham told his 10-year-old twin daughters, was a real-life civics lesson.

Then he walked outside after the event, and there were state police cars everywhere. Someone had called for backup. Such a tremendous police response to free speech, Denham says, dismayed.

Then former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory suggested that a series of similarly contentious town halls across the country were the result of paid protests.

As a result, Denham says he has gone from galvanized citizen to one on fire.

Until last month, Denham did not know which congressional district he lived in, he says in a phone interview. But last Friday, he drove an hour and a half from his suburban home near Atlanta to the constituent event held by the offices of Georgia's two senators and a representative from a different district just so he could see and be heard.

He is one of the citizen activists who has risen up in what appears to be an uncanny reprisal of the 2009 birth of the tea party but this time on the left.

In 2009, the Democratic playbook involved avoiding town halls and dismissing protesters as paid stooges. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) famously said the protesters were not grass roots but fake Astroturf. A year later, tea party fervor reshaped Congress, with Democrats losing 63 seats in the House and five in the Senate. The Democrats have never recovered.

Today, the Republican playbook involves avoiding town halls and dismissing protesters as paid stooges. Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) called the protest that shouted him down at a recent town hall a paid attempt to bully and intimidate. Only 10 Republicans members of Congress are planning town halls next week, notes David Hawkings of Roll Call.

Thats a dangerous gamble, for democracy over the long haul but also for the lawmakers own self-preservation as soon as the next campaign, he writes in his blog.

Many political analysts agree. Republican lawmakers ignore Denham and his twin daughters at their peril. The events are certainly uncomfortable. Chants of Shame! and Do your job! have punctuated recent town halls. But, as in 2009, they speak to a deep unease that cannot be conveniently ignored.

Democracy is a messy thing, and this shows it and its also a fragile thing, says James Thurber, founder of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington. Thats why members of Congress have got to get used to this and listen to the feedback or there will be consequences for them, electorally.

Some have. Rep. Justin Amash (R) of Michigan stayed an extra 40 minutes to talk with angry constituents. And Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R) of Florida rejected the allegations that boisterous constituents at his events were bused in and paid, responding: Most of these people are my constituents."

But many Republicans have been knocked off-balance. One California representative was escorted out of a recent meeting by police, and several others have canceled events, citing the uncomfortable atmosphere.

On one hand, the trend so soon after the tea party anger of 2009 points to the rise of what political scientists call negative partisanship.

One of the things were seeing in American politics right now is its easier to get people energized in opposition to things they dont like than to get them energized to support anything their party or president is doing, says Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. People are really angry and worked up, and I dont think its going to stop. In some ways, this is even more organic than the tea party.

Yet for Caroline Keegan, the Greensboro event was about saving something she sees as positive: the Affordable Care Act.

At the Greensboro meeting, Ms. Keegan, a 20-something graduate student at the University of Georgia in Athens, for the first time in her life told strangers about a chronic medical condition that could ruin her financially should ACA be repealed. The speech, she says, was well-received by both the crowd and the aides to Georgia's two US senators and the area's US representative all Republicans.

Afterward, she says, her hands wouldnt stop shaking.

I felt deeply thrown off balance, because this wasnt just sort of a political issue that I was concerned about, this was a feeling of intense vulnerability and fear for my own body, and it really surprised me, says Keegan.

So when a spokesperson for Sen. David Perdue one of the legislators holding the event called it a manufactured protest, Keegan felt like she had been slapped in the face.

To be sure, some crowds have been unruly and disruptive. And attendees say there have been partisan anti-Trump elements. The constituent day in Georgia was not even a town hall but a routine meeting to help elderly citizens navigate Social Security and Veterans Administration benefits.

Initially, there was some concern amongst the sheriffs that there was going to be civil disobedience and some rowdy protesting, Keegan says. At the same time, the sheriff was very hospitable and welcoming, and the mood was really energetic. It was amazing.

While Republicans have cited personal safety as a reason to cancel such gatherings, crowds so far have applauded, cheered, even defended police officers.

Representative Chaffetz pointed to an incident where two men wearing bandannas and handguns (which are legal to carry in Utah) urged the crowd to rush the police. But local police said the crowd instead stepped in to defend the police by forming a barrier.

The crowd was great with us, police Lt. Dan Bartlett told CNN.

Republicans conundrum is how to play for time, says Sarah Binder, a political scientist at George Washington University.

My guess is accusing the protesters of being paid rabble-rousers helps these lawmakers justify fewer or no town halls and buys them time to figure out what to do, she says.

For all the their power in holding the White House and both houses of Congress, Republicans are in a sensitive situation. The same was true of the Democrats in 2009, after all. On average, 37 seat shifts when theres a president with less than 50 percent approval rating, according to Professor Abramowitz. So far, Trump is hovering around 40 percent.

I dont know if the Republicans realize how vulnerable they really are, Abramowitz says.

For his part, Denham says his concerns are hardly partisan, but really just kitchen table issues. He wants to know whats going to happen with Obamacare. And hes worried that the tone Washington is hurting women. One of his daughters recently said I cant be an astronaut because Im a girl.

So far, the technology worker from suburban Peachtree Corners says response from elected representatives to his questions has been all adversarial.

But Americans demand a response. They are getting off their couches and coming out, says Denham.

And for lawmakers concerned about their safety, he offers a solution.

Dont worry, my twin 10-year-old daughters will protect you.

Staff writer Francine Kiefer contributed tothis report fromWashington.

Continue reading here:
Tea party, reversed? How GOP town halls look from the inside. - Christian Science Monitor

As Democrats continue to lick their wounds after a bludgeoning in the 2016 presidential election and after the loss of more than 1,000 political seats across the country under President Obama, progressive leaders are throwing ideas against the wall in hopes something will stick.

The latest strategy? Become the Tea Party of the left in order to regain power.

The irony of this suggestion is quite rich considering the slander repeatedly leveled against everyday American men and women who dared to participate in the original Tea Party movement. Who could forget Obama administration official Steve Rattner equating Tea Party members with suicide bombers in 2011?

These Tea Party guys are, like, strapped with dynamite, standing in the middle of Times Square at rush hour and saying, Either you do it my way, or were going to blow you up, ourselves up, and the whole country up with us, Ratner said during an interview with MSNBC.

Or how about when New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman called the movement a Hezbollah faction of the Republican Party that must be snuffed out?

The Tea Party was regularly smeared in media as a violent, bigoted, astroturf movement hellbent on opposing the first black president because of his skin color rather than his big-government policies. These classifications were made without evidence, and there were many more.

Obamas government took things a step further when the IRS unfairly and illegally targeted Tea Party groups and their members.

The Tea Party movement started in late 2008 as a rejection of President George W. Bushs bailout of the auto industry and Obamas excessive stimulus spending. It evolved into a movement opposed to ObamaCare, and grassroots efforts were employed to find qualified political candidates who could beat incumbents.

This strategy and work paid off when Republicans won a historic landslide election in 2010, taking back the House of Representatives. The momentum continued, and in 2014 Democrats lost control of the Senate.

Results were driven from political action on the ground, not by smashing windows or burning down buildings. Tea Party participants got together in local homes to tailor their strategy and to find the best candidates for office. The movement centered on opposing specific policy proposals and government overreach. It wasnt about obstructing progress for the sake of obstruction as weve seen on the left since Donald TrumpDonald TrumpFox News anchor Shep Smith defends CNN reporter who asked about Russia If Gorsuch pick leads to 'crisis,' Dems should look in mirror first Trump airs grievances at first full press conference MORE won the White House in November. In the months since, weve seen rioting in city streets and college campuses.

On Inauguration Day, dozens of anti-Trump protestors were arrested for destroying property and blocking inauguration attendees from getting through security checkpoints. A number of comrades from the Disruptj20 group were charged with felony rioting .

The day after, Madonna took the stage in Washington to declare shes thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. Across the country a Black Lives Matter protester at an anti-Trump event in Seattle raged about why its time to start killing people and how The White House must die.

On college campuses from coast to coast, pro-Trump speakers are being shouted down, physically attacked and threatened with death. The resist movement has taken hold as a way to oppose the new administration and its supporters at every turn, no matter what the cost or the tactic.

As we watch this potential strategy of a progressive Tea Party movement play out in public debate, many have equated the two movements as somehow being the same.

The Tea Party was far better behaved than the leftist mobs were seeing now. Equating the two only further smears the movement as something it never was: violent and unhinged.

Pavlich is editor for Townhall.com and a Fox News contributor.

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

See the original post:
Pavlich: Smearing of the Tea Party - The Hill

Paul Wellman

SWEET, BUT NOT TOO SWEET: Indivisible Santa Barbara members (from left) Jennie Reinish, Christina Eliason, Laura Smith, and Loretta Smargon brought chocolates and valentines to Rep. Salud Carbajals office on Tuesday.

Members Mimic the Take-No-Prisoners, In-Your-Face Style of Right WingPopulists

Anti-Trump activists have designated every Tuesday a Trump Tuesday, a time to demonstrate their disagreement with the new presidents agenda. This last Tuesday started off on a positive note, with a delegation from Indivisible Santa Barbara, a branch of the nationwide movement, showering newly elected Congressmember Salud Carbajal with handmade Valentines greetings. We Love You Salud, proclaimedone.

Carbajal, of course, was in Congress at the timenot in his new digs by the Plaza de Oro movie theater. As the 24th Congressional Districts representative in Washington, D.C., Carbajal has become the go-to man for the growing legion of Indivisible volunteers in Santa Barbara. A liberal-progressive organization, Indivisible intentionally seeks to mimic the take-no-prisoners, in-your-face tactics of the right-wing populist Tea Party. Carbajal, a liberal Democrat who has already spoken out against Trumps policies on the floor of the House, has not yet experienced theirire.

No such luck for archconservative Republican Congressmember Tom McClintock, who represents the Sacramento metro region. (McClintock once represented Santa Barbara in the State Senate before moving north eight years ago.) Two hundred Indivisible activists from his district packed a town hall meeting McClintock scheduled in Roseville last week, leaving several hundred more protesters outside. Inside, they were boisterous and determined, challenging McClintocks stated intention to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Roseville police insisted Indivisible protestors were peaceful and cooperative, but since the crowd was bigger than anything theyd encountered, they gave McClintock a police escort when he left. McClintock later spoke on the House floor bemoaning the loss of civility in public discourse, but only after he first characterized the protestors as an anarchist element and the radical left. No Indivisible Valentines forMcClintock.

By PaulWellman

The national Indivisible organization began shortly after the presidential election as nothing more than a well-modulated civics primer on social media, written by former staffers of a former Democratic Congressmember from Texas. The 26-page how-to manual offered angry but politically inexperienced anti-Trump citizens ways to make elected officials feel their heat. It emphasized the success enjoyed by Tea Party agitators, who translated their rage against the bank bailout and the 2008 election of President Barack Obama into a highly effective campaign of uncompromising opposition. Certainly, Carbajals predecessorCongressmember Lois Cappsfelt their wrath when busloads of Tea Party activists assembled in front of her downtown offices to denounce Obamacare. After that, Capps hosted her town hall meetings in churches, hoping to encourage civildiscourse.

Indivisible soon morphed from social media underground into a flesh-and-blood movement thanks to a three-hour special broadcast by MSNBCs lefty commentator Rachel Maddow. In Santa Barbara, a couple of filmmakersJennie Reinish and Christina Eliasondecided Santa Barbara needed an Indivisible chapter of its own. They teamed up with Laura Smitha techie, sculptor, Summer Solstice organizer, and paid field operative for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. On January 2, the Santa Barbara chapter had 14 members. Two weeks ago, 185 mostly middle-aged and white people showed up for an organizational meeting. The next day, they packed a scheduled Carbajal press conference, transforming it into a bona fide political pep rally. One of his field workers exclaimed: We need people shouting into thehurricane.

By PaulWellman

Indivisible activists deliver Valentines cards to Salud Carbajals districtoffice.

Indivisible is all about writing and calling ones congressmember and senators, and showing up for office visits and town hall meetings. They ask yes or no questions. They leave short messages on oneand only onesubject. They share personal stories that are relevant to the issue at handthe Affordable Care Act, for instance. In Santa Barbara, most Trump Tuesdays have been spent focusing on Senator Dianne Feinstein, lobbying her to oppose all of Trumps Cabinet nominees. Californias newest senator, Kamala Harris, has publically announced her opposition to them. Feinsteinas a matter of policywaits until the very last minute before announcing her position on cabinet appointees. Three weeks ago, Indivisible raised the alarm that Feinstein might actually support Jeff Sessionsthe archconservative Alabama senator ultimately confirmed as Attorney Generalwith whom she allegedly enjoyed cordialrelations.

When Eliason and Smith first called Feinsteins office, they were told the senator had only received 5,000 callssix times fewer than those her office had gotten supporting former president Bill Clintons impeachment proceedings. Indivisibles all over the state turned up the heat. By the time Feinstein voted against Sessions, 114,000 people had called, 98 percent against the nominee. Three Tuesdays in a row, hundreds of Indivisibles rallied at Feinsteins downtown Los Angeles offices. That has always included a Santa Barbara contingent. After each rally, the organizers met with Feinsteins staff. When they learned Feinstein liked personal stories, they delivered. First Feinstein delayed the vote on Sessions; then she voted against him. At that time, she used some of the personal details shared by Indivisible activists to make hercase.

With Trump in the White House, the old rules of engagement no longer apply, Indivisible activists argue. The times are calling for someone to step in and be a true leader, said Eliason. Our kids need a hero. Our girls need a heroine. People need to feel theyre not alone. In the meantime, she added, the National Republican Party has already targeted Carbajals seat in 2018. To keep Carbajal in office is one thing, she said; to keep Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch off the Supreme Court for two years quiteanother.

Today, there are about 6,200 Indivisible chapters throughout the United States; Santa Barbaras boasts about 1,200 members, and that doesnt include the 80 people who just formed one in Carpinteria. But theres a big difference between reacting and organizing, Eliason believes. If youre just reacting, youll get burned out. We need to be better at organizing. This has been such an insanemonth.

See the original post:
Indivisible Santa Barbara Borrows Tea Party Tactics - Santa Barbara Independent

By By NANCY DUNN

Published: 2:06 pm, Tue. Feb. 14th, 2017Updated: 2:05 pm

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(Nancy Dunn For the Daily Press)

Sometimes the best parties are the ones that werent exactly planned and Lynette and Jade Throneberrys annual Victorian Valentine Tea Party is a case in point.

Jade learned about the Victorian tea party tradition when she was pretty young and decided that it would be a lot of fun to host one. So she proceeded to invite a large group of ladies from her church to come over to our house for a tea party which was very sweet, but she forgot to tell her mother Lynette about it!

Lynette found out she was hosting a tea party a few days before the event and was able to scramble around and make it happen. It turned to be so much fun that the event has become an annual Throneberry tradition, and this year was the eighth year for them to host their Victorian Valentine Tea Party for local friends.

And what a party it is! The attendees dress up in their finest ladies tea party outfits and are transported by members of the Artesia Car Enthusiasts in vintage cars. This years party had 30 attendees (including chauffeurs and servers), and the traditional menu included two kinds of quiche, three kinds of cakes, assorted scones, fresh fruit with cream, cheeses and crackers, and even cucumber sandwiches.

Nearly everything was made from scratch, too. And of course, there was nearly every kind of tea imaginable also, with tea bags as party favors.

There are a lot of ways to celebrate Valentines Day, and Lynette and Jades mother-daughter tradition has become an eagerly-anticipated event for all their friends a nice way to show their love to all.

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Local mother, daughter host Victorian Valentine Tea Party | Artesia ... - Artesia Daily Press