Club for Growth and Freedom Works both stop funding Justin Amash, so he'll just have to tap the family Chinese tool company fortune made on the backs of America's downward-spiraling middle class

Story here, whose author has probably never once in his life seriously thought about trimming legislative power overreach.

Campaign finance reform for the people

Under an expanded US House of Representatives, wouldn't current campaign finance laws still be a problem?

Well, duh.

But there is a simple solution.

Your man or woman in Congress should represent YOU, not Freedom Works, The Club for Growth, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood or any other national organization, including his or her own political party. It is not right that the RNC collects contributions for Kevin Yoder in Kansas-3 and spends them on the US House race of Maria Elvira Salazar in Florida-27.

Your representative should represent YOU, and the money that elects him or her should represent you, too, and therefore all campaign contributions must come from his or her congressional district, from people and businesses actually domiciled within district boundaries. That's it. No other limits.

Nancy Pelosi can raise all the money she wants from tuna companies domiciled in her district who exploit workers on Pacific islands. Let the actual residents of her (much reduced in size) district decide if they're still OK with that. And Fred Upton of Whirlpool fortune fame in Michigan can find out for himself if his much reduced number of constituents are OK with making their lightbulbs more expensive or unobtainable.

Power to the people.

Just remember: The House Freedom Caucus is no friend of ours, so to stop amnesty all you can do is call 202 224 3121

"The Club for Growth and Koch Industries — both pro-amnesty — are the biggest donors to Freedom Caucus members."

Libertarian Club for Growth really did hit up Trump for $1 million in June 2015, now it spends millions attacking him

Here.

Ken Blackwell of Club For Growth is delusional: 47% of Trump's supporters won't vote for Cruz if he's given the nomination by the convention

There's that number again, 47%.

Of Trump's popular vote to date, that's only 3.7 million Trump voters rebelling against the Republicans.

Remember Rush's Limbaugh's "4 million stayed home in 2012"?

Ken Blackwell, quoted here:

“As far as my objective of forcing this into a contested convention, I feel very optimistic about it," said Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state who is working with a pair of anti-Trump groups, including Our Principles PAC, which paid for the Wisconsin billboards. ...

Blackwell said he wasn't concerned about a Cruz convention victory splitting the party, as long as the process was “transparent.” He also said the party could afford to alienate new voters Trump is bringing to the party—Blackwell referred to them as “undocumented Republicans”—because the traditional base would be motivated to stop Clinton.

“Folks will get over it,” Blackwell said. “The prospects of Hillary Clinton naming a liberal justice to the Supreme Court, expanding our welfare state and furthering our incompetence in international affairs will drive out the old base that didn't come out for Romney.”

The Gay Mafia funds so-called conservatives: Club for Growth, Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Justin Amash just love pot-smoking queer billionaire Peter Thiel's money

And if you think there's no payback expected for that then I've got a bridge to sell you.

Reported here:

Peter Thiel is a pot-smoking gay man, which makes him the kind of person Cruz supporters would like to launch into some sort of Martian exile. But Thiel is also, crucially, a massively rich bussinessman [sic], which is enough for Cruz to shelve his Tea Party druthers and accept hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Silicon Valley luminary. Adjacent bigots have yelled at Cruz for pocketing Thiel's cash, but he has every reason to ignore them: last year, Thiel gave $2 million to Club for Growth, a SuperPAC that in turn poured over $600,000 into Cruz's (successful) senatorial run. Club for Growth is still a vocal supporter of Cruz as he's flailed and railed against Obamacare.

Heritage Foundation's Stuart Butler of ObamaCare mandate fame decides he's more comfortable at the liberal Brookings Institution

Conservatives seeking institutionalization. No wonder Robin Williams committed suicide.

Seen here:

Mr. Butler, 67 years old, said he was attracted to Brookings by the idea of working at a place that is not monolithic in its approach to public policy.

“Brookings is a different kind of institution. It’s a collection of scholars as opposed to a team-focused organization,” Mr. Butler said in an interview Thursday. “There’s an opportunity to sit around in the cafeteria to talk about all kinds of different issues from the theoretical to the practical.”

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Stuart Butler was the author of the original healthcare mandate idea at Heritage in 1989. He's been trying to walk that back ever since 2010, but what appears to have driven him into the arms of the liberals was the ascendancy of libertarian Senator Demented Jim to head up Heritage, who subsequently brought in Club For Growth founder Steve Moore, who was The Wall Street Journal's libertarian bad boy for many years.  

Grand Rapids Press Laughably Says Justin Amash Opposes Corporate Special Interests, Praises His Evolution Toward Democrats

You mean like the DeVos family's special interests, or his own family's, or the Club for Growth's which has spent nearly $400,000 attacking Amash's challenger, Brian Ellis? What a joke.

Here:

"But Amash has, during his two terms in Congress, started to evolve. He has worked with Democrats, most notably to try curtailing federal spying programs. He also promises to never outright vilify Democrats as a party, a welcome approach during a time of toxic political discourse. Amash has built a broad following at home and nationally. He also remains staunchly opposed to the outsized influence of corporate special interests."

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Justin Amash is as bought and paid for by powerful outside interests as any representative in America.

Justin Amash represents DC's Club For Growth, not Michigan's Third District

Justin Amash must be worried about his reelection prospects.

Amash is blanketing Michigan's 3rd Congressional District with a barage of anti-Brian Ellis radio ads and mailings even though Amash claims an overwhelming lead against his humble opponent based on his own polling data. Why waste the money if he is so far ahead? Well, maybe it's not exactly his money.

What the voters probably don't realize is how much of Amash's anti-Ellis attack is financed by the Club For Growth, a libertarian organization founded by a former editor of The Wall Street Journal who is now employed by The Heritage Foundation, one Steve Moore (Heritage, it will be remembered, gave us ObamaCare long before Obama came along, as their answer to HillaryCare). Like Heritage, Club For Growth is based in Washington, DC, not in Michigan's Third. Amash gets the benefit of their negative attack ads while being able to claim he has nothing to do with them.

So far in the campaign, Club For Growth appears to be responsible for almost $400,000 of spending in attack ads against Brian Ellis, who by contrast is in large measure underwriting his own campaign with a remarkably similar amount of his own money. It is notable that Ellis is pledging to overturn ObamaCare, which in Michigan is causing health care workers to lose their jobs, while showcasing his endorsements by Michigan Right To Life, veterans groups and other conservatives upset with Amash's failure to walk the conservative talk.

Amash has an excuse on Facebook for every vote which he has failed to deliver on behalf of social and economic conservatives in his own district, just as Obama can always point to someone or something for why he never gets anything accomplished as president.

Republicans ought to consider the similarity and ask themselves if those two aren't really just cut from the same cloth.

h/t Detroit Free Press

Do you think the 30,000 people who live around Club for Growth HDQ would vote for Justin Amash?

Hm.

Sean Trende Calls For A Larger US House But Never Mentions The Actual Language Of The Constitution

In "It's Time To Increase The Size Of The US House", here, Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics makes many of the same points we have made about the sorry state of representation in these United States, including the importance of the "unratified" Article the First as the real First Amendment as opposed to the mythology which has grown up around the default one.

As Trende ably shows, Article the First would have fixed representation eventually at 1 US representative for every 50,000 of population. He appears horrified, however, at the prospect of a Congress of 6,100 representatives today.

Is that why he never mentions Article I Section 1 of the actual constitution which is ratified and under which we are supposed to operate?

"The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand . . .."

If 6,100 representatives is horrifying, the 10,533 representatives we should have according to the spirit of the actual constitution is downright heart-stopping. I can understand Trende not talking about this, but how come the Tea Party never does? After all, they carry the constitution around with them pretty much everywhere and are supposed to be the quintessential originalists these days, second only to Antonin Scalia.

This was the language Article the First was supposed to remedy. But as it stands, the constitution was ratified with this loophole specifying how many representatives we may not have, but not how many we should. As a consequence, when the light finally dawned on the dimwits in Congress in the 1920s that they could fix representation at the then current 435, they set up for themselves quite the little oligarchy of power, influence and corruption, and representation ceased to expand ever since. And along with that expanded our discontent.

That's why your congressmen doesn't know your name nor the name of the other 728,000 average constituents in his district. Nor does he care to. The only name in his Rolodex (sorry, I'm dating myself) is the Club for Growth or some such "org".

It's also why we have the other problems Trende mentions: malapportionment as in Montana, gerrymandering of the most unnatural sort just about everywhere, underrepresented minority enclaves and rural areas, and the expensive bought and paid for campaigns which depend on mostly outside money.

Trende mentions the British House of Commons has more representatives than we do, but the irony that they are better represented than we are never dawns on him. Nor does Trende mention New Hampshire. They have 400 in their House, a ratio of 1:3300.

America should be more like New Hampshire.  

Both Political Parties Are Now Essentially Libertarian, And That's The Problem

Seen here:

John Carr, who now heads the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University, thinks both parties are now essentially defined by their commitment to economic or lifestyle libertarianism. "These libertarian tendencies are reinforced by large campaign contributors and powerful interest groups on the left and right (e.g., Emily's List and the Koch Brothers, Planned Parenthood and the Club for Growth). Who died and left Arianna Huffington and Grover Norquist in charge? Is there any room left for compassionate conservatives and pro-life Democrats?"

Libertarian Free-Trader Immigration Amnesty Supporter Stephen Moore Moves To Heritage From The Wall Street Journal

Demented Jim DeMint makes good on his promise to make overtures to the libertarian movement by making Stephen Moore of Club for Growth fame its chief economist.

Story here.