Steamed does not begin to describe my reaction to this piece by Politico:

It is not clear how effective DeMint’s flamboyant brand of politics will be in the long term. For now, however, he is the most vivid example of how, in a new-media age of cable television and the Web, a politician willing to step on toes and play to ideological crowds can jump the line of older colleagues in establishing a national profile.

In an earlier age, a politician like DeMint — a former House member and businessman whose fiery views coexist with a surprisingly mild personality — could have expected to languish for years in relative obscurity.

By becoming for practical purposes the Washington leader of the tea party movement, DeMint also illustrates the degree to which energy on the right is now flowing to the capital and not from it. Congressional GOP leaders like House Minority Leader John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell derive their power from the inside, by virtue of the support of their colleagues. DeMint is the model now for how a rank-and-file member otherwise consigned to the back bench can be relevant without any title. It may not make him popular at the weekly caucus lunches, but it will get him on Sean Hannity’s show…

…On politics, it means offering only a deafening silence toward senators facing primary challenges he views as insufficiently conservative — Arizona’s John McCain and Utah’s Bob Bennett — and backing more ideologically pure candidates than his party’s leadership prefers in the Senate primaries in Florida and California.

Further rankling his colleagues, DeMint is using his political action committee, the Senate Conservatives Fund, to rate senators on just how conservative they are. Several who were given relatively low marks by DeMint — based on their votes in the last Congress — are dismissive of the ratings.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said his 89 percent lifetime ranking from the American Conservative Union is “what counts” — not the 76 percent rating from DeMint, who, not surprisingly, is the only senator to receive a 100 percent rating on his website.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, vice chairwoman of the GOP Conference, who got a 50 percent score for her votes in 2008, said that DeMint’s ratings were “assuming his standard of conservatism.”

And Bennett, a close ally of McConnell’s who received a 60 percent score from DeMint’s PAC, said he had “no idea [on] what basis people make these kinds of calculations.”

“I can show you surveys that show you I’m one of the most conservative members and another survey that shows me that I’m not,” said Bennett, who is facing multiple GOP candidates running on his right flank. “It all depends on who is picking the votes to come to the conclusion he wants.”

Asked to respond to DeMint’s decision not to endorse him in the race, Bennett said: “I have no comment.”

McCain said he wasn’t bothered by DeMint’s decision not to endorse him in his primary contest with former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, pointing out his support from other conservative figures, such as his 2008 running mate, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).

What is clearly bothering others in the caucus, though, is DeMint’s seeming preference for being pure and in the minority than having a squishy majority.

His new stump speech mantra: “I’d rather have 30 Marco Rubios than 60 Arlen Specters.

Read the whole thing and remember the names of establishment GOP whose habitual dismissive behavior of DeMint is disingenuous as the reader will soon see.

Looks like DC needs to break some bad habits, like identifying effectiveness and then attempting to squash it. Not on my watch. A little history is in order.

Why would leaders such as Senator McConnell squirm at the mention of Senator DeMint? That requires a trip down memory lane.

Continued at Wolves of Liberty.

Related: The rise of Jim DeMint.

In other news and opinion:

The cartoon jihadists never forget

If you want to go fast – go alone. If you want to go far – go together.

Before proceeding, one of the best primers on Unanimous Consent agreements requiring 60 votes can be found here. If one is confused by the procedural descriptions in the email I quote below from Dr. Larry Hunter, the gist of the matter is this: there is a procedural hurdle that can delay debate in the Senate on healthcare called the removal of Unanimous Consent. Below I link to a post on this site which goes into more detail. This tactic would effectively slow down and ultimately block ObamaCare from passage. The typical Republican excuse of not wanting to be labeled the “party of no” is also addressed.

Per an email I received from Dr. Larry Hunter (some editorial changes were made to translate from email shorthands to a more formal presentation):

Had the Dorgan re-importation amendment been adopted, it would have blown up the deal with Pharmaceuticals. This would have been another huge poison pill on top of the abortion poison pill that remains in the current Senate bill. Add on top the recent “public option/Medicare expansion” problem and ObamaCare would have been getting very heavy and taking on water.

The Republicans made several mistakes. First, they agreed to requiring 60 votes for the amendment to pass. But then, that was part of the original bigger problem in which they agreed to do everything by Unanimous Consent including making all amendments pass the 60-vote hurdle. Instead, they should have not agreed to any Unanimous Consents and filibustered every amendment, forcing Reid to file cloture, burn time and get 60 votes to shut off debate.

On the Dorgan amendment in particular, Republicans should have recognized the perfect opportunity to vote strategically, pass the amendment and put the poison pill in the bill. The amendment failed on a vote of 51 – 48, because it failed to get 60 votes. Here is how the vote broke down: 27 Democrats, 23 Republicans and 1 Independent voted in favor of Dorgan — 30 Democrats, 17 Republicans and 1 Independent voted no. Had but 9 of those 17 Republicans voted in favor of the amendment, it would have passed and the poison pill would have been in the bill and it would have punished Pharmaceuticals big time for selling out to Obama.

Better yet, Republicans should have never agreed to Unanimous Consent to begin with; forced Reid to file for cloture and then all vote no on Cloture. The Democrats would have been stuck between a rock and a hard place: Opponents of the Dorgan amendment would not want to invoke cloture because if they moved to a vote on the amendment itself, it would have passed with 51 votes; but had the opponents prevented cloture from being invoked, the Senate would have remained stuck on the Dorgan amendment and the Reid Bill could not have proceeded forward. You see, had the Republicans had their wits and guts about them, they could have tied the Senate up in knots and made life very, very difficult for Reid et al, and perhaps have weighted the bill down so much that it would have sunk of its own weight.

Once again, the GOP passed up the chance to be the party of no, which is why they poll lower than a generic Tea Party candidate. The American public does not want this bill, so being the party of no when it comes to this legislative boondoggle should make sense – to a sensible person – but then we are talking about the Senate GOP leadership and many of the GOP Senators themselves whose strategy is basically a non-strategy of being hands-off.

As the Tea Parties are the party of no, you would think the Senate GOP would pick up on the obvious and switch strategies. As explained here ObamaCare should be procedurally blocked at every turn, a fact even RNC Michael Steele is picking up on.

Next we have the pro-life movement whose complete lack of understanding of Senate strategy is going to bite them in the end. Make no mistake that their hero right now – Senator Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) – is acting the part of Judas to the movement. In the end, through manager amendments, make no mistake that Nelson will get the language he needs to provide him coverage, but he language will be so obscure that, with the government running healthcare abortion will be covered, probably sooner rather than later. This is how DC works. By improving the bill you help guarantee its passage. Read The Endgame Strategy To Kill ObamaCare – Lessons From The House Bill and Killing ObamaCare In The Senate – The Need For Strategic Voting. From the later post:

The Republicans knew full well Pelosi’s plan but voted in the name of political expediency to include the Stupak amendment, all but guaranteeing the passage of healthcare legislation in the House. So twisted is the current legislative process that if the general public were truly aware of the posturing and cowardice of our so-called leaders it would sicken them. As Dr. Larry Hunter wrote to me in an email:

If you haven’t already figured it out, most everything that goes on inside Washington is pure posturing and self-serving. Most of these jokers would rather have the issue to raise funds on than win the battle. I knew asking people to engage in strategic voting would be a heavy lift, and it looks like it is going to be beyond them.

The reason politicians are able to pull off these shenanigans is the complete ignorance of many, but not all, of the public to the importance of strategic voting and our unwillingness to hold accountable those whose interests are self-serving, thereby aiding the enemy in the full-scale assault on our liberties and ultimately destroying this country. We must be willing to hold them accountable for their cowardice. Even more guilty are the tools of the Democrats, the Family Research Council, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Americans United for Life, and National Right to Life Committee. The reader may be shocked to read these groups are unwitting tools of the Democrats, but a useful idiot is a tool until they decide to quit being useful idiots.

Which is why I am frustrated this morning to read Stop the abortion mandate:

To get the latest breaking news from our nation’s capital, you are invited to participate in a LIVE webcast event on Tuesday, December 15, at 9 PM Eastern (6 PM Pacific, 7 PM Mountain, 8 PM Central.)

The event will be approximately one hour long. If you have access to the Internet — even with a dial-up connection — you can listen to the live webcast audio and ask questions.

During this important nationwide event, you will discover:

* The LATEST UPDATES straight from our nation’s capital…
* The shocking implications of the bill that the abortion industry is trying to ram through the United States Senate RIGHT NOW…
* Why respected leaders, national organizations, and pro-life people are joining together in record numbers to BLOCK this attempted power-grab…
* How YOU can make a difference at this crucial moment…
*… And much more!

We have met the enemy – and he is us.

Given the fact that a it doesn’t take 40 Republicans to succeed in stopping the Reid Bill; it doesn’t take 20; it only takes one Republican to object each time Harry Reid propounds a unanimous consent agreement to rush another amendment through the process, McConnell has shown himself to intellectually challenged. The GOP strategy will not stop ObamaCare as the Redstate story makes plainly clear. Therefore, only one option remains – throw up every procedural block in the book to slow down ObamaCare, for if it passes McConnell and the rest of the GOP, with the exception of Senator Jim DeMint who stands alone in standing up for this country, will have succeeded in pushing the themselves and the rest of the GOP over a cliff and pulling the country along with them.

RNC Michael Steele gets the message and fiscal conservatives applaud him for recognizing how McConnells’ strategy is bad for the country and a nightmare in the making for the GOP. Last week CBS reported that RNC leader Michael Steele sent a memo to the Senate GOP telling them to pull out all the stops and use every trick in the book to stop ObamaCare. What screw is loose in McConnell’s head? The Senate GOP should do their job and defend this country. This is and always has been warfare and wars are won by engaging the enemy, not running from them of prostrating oneself before them. This is the very definition of impotence. What the GOP leadership needs now is a large canister of mental Viagra.

Today is the day folks – call your Republican Senator and burn up the phone lines, or send them an email. Inundate them with one clear message: “Let ObamaCare pass and we will abandon you – in droves”.

What McConnell fails to realize that we live in an age where information flies at speeds he can’t even begin to comprehend. With blogs, social networks, and events like the National Conservative Symposium and the technology that will be brought to bear by Tea Party Support, it will not be long before his treachery is household knowledge and his dreams of a GOP tidal wave dissipate before his eyes. Watch yourself Senator.

The time for wobbly and treacherous strategies is over. Listen now our join many of us in the unemployment line. To the Senate GOP I say this – do not follow McConnell. Sell us out and we vote you out. Period.

Get this story out on the social networks. Email it to all your friends. Now is the time for action for time is indeed short.

Related:

Democrats Play Hardball with Their Own

If the Tea-Party/Grass-Roots movement is for real it will make its bones right now by pledging to throw out of office any Republican Senator who fails to object, obstruct and fight to kill the Reid Bill by any parliamentary means available to them—with no possibility of a commutation of sentence before they next stand for reelection regardless of how they try to atone for their mortal sin between now and then.

Nobody says it better than Dr. Hunter: YES, WE WANT NO OBAMA – CARE:

Unless Republicans become galvanized to actively obstruct the Reid Bill, our guess is Democrats will get their game together at last and push a skinnied-down version of ObamaCare through the Senate by year’s end. What a shame that will be. And, far from redounding to the electoral benefit of Republicans as the Senate GOP Leadership seems to calculate, it likely will result in conservative activists staying home from the polls in droves next November.

Code Red Rally in D.C. today; Update: What will Nelson’s payoff be?; MoveOn to hold counter-protest

ObamaCare: the not-unexpected cave-in on the public option

Breaking: Lieberman wins, Senate drops Medicare buy-in

CBO confirms ObamaCare is a takeover of the health insurance industry

How much is America worth?: Dems Offer Nelson up to $500 million in Earmarks to Vote Yes. So that’s how much the Democrats think America is worth. Going once, going twice….sold! For $500 million dollars. I guess with the Senate GOP doing nothing about it equates to their price for America being, well, nothing.

Below is the original post:

Stand with Jim DeMint and Just Say “I Object” (fax blast and email). Please note that faxes are a better way to impact your Senator.

This is the hill we will live or die on. This is it folks. For years we have allowed Republicans to act in the name of political expediency instead of taking off the gloves for a bare knuckle fight. For years we have allowed them to use one excuse after another to hide under a rock. For years we have allowed our so-called representatives to put self-interest over country. No more. As this story states the Tea Party is now more popular than the GOP in a national poll. Can you hear us now?

The time to pony up has arrived. If the Republican Party wishes to continue to exist they will start paying attention to their bosses – us. If they allow ObamaCare to pass – and don’t let them fool you or give sorry excuses for it is well within their power to stop it – then 1/6 of the U.S. economy will be under the control of wealth distributionists and socialists. If that happens, it is a fair question to challenge the usefulness of the Republican Party.

It doesn’t take 40 Republicans to succeed in stopping the Reid Bill; it doesn’t take 20; it only takes one Republican to object each time Harry Reid propounds a unanimous consent agreement to rush another amendment through the process.

Fortunately, under Senate rules the Democratic leadership can rush these amendments through only if they get what’s called “unanimous consent.” That means all 100 senators have to agree to rush the amendments through by consenting to a unanimous consent agreement, which severely limits debate and restricts the time available for experts to analyze the amendments. It’s the old bum’s rush.

Even ONE senator objecting would be enough to slow the rush of amendments down and give the American people at least two days of debate on each amendment. Two days is the minimum we should have to analyze amendments and to allow Senators an opportunity to comment on and debate them.

Let me say that again: It takes only one Republican to object each time Harry Reid tries to jam another amendment through the process with limited debate and little public scrutiny. With 40 Republicans in the Senate, that means even if Harry Reid kept the Senate in session 24 hours a day (as Senator Durbin threatened), each Republican Senator would have to spend no more than 36 minutes a day doing floor duty as a sentinel against the Majority Leader jamming another amendment through the Senate process under a rigged unanimous consent agreement. Last week Senator Jim DeMint did just that and waited for Republicans to back him up. When Dick Durbin threatened to keep the Senate in session 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, our so-called leaders in the Republican Party slithered away whimpering like a bunch of cry-babies and left Senator DeMint dangling over a cliff.

Christmas first, country second – a fitting label for a weak and morally corruptible party. Ask your Republican Senator, “Why are you allowing this to be done to our country?”. If ObamaCare passes the Republican Party will face an all out war from within their own ranks the likes of which they have never seen. Tea Parties will turn to state legislatures and nullification movements to take back this country and Republicans will face a wave of primary challenges beyond imagination.

The Republican Senators have been protesting vehemently in the media about how much they oppose ObamaCare and the Reid Health bill, and despite their constant reassurances to grassroots activists that they are doing everything humanly possible to defeat the bill, Republicans in fact are quietly stepping aside and allowing the ObamaCare Express loaded down with the Reid Bill and tons of amendments to barrel through the U.S. Senate so they can go home for Christmas Vacation without delay and not have to work long hours in the meantime. Cowards and swine.

All year we’ve been trying to convince Senators who support government health care to change their minds and Senators on the fence to come out against it. That’s still vitally important. But given the way the Senate works, it is more important right now to make sure Republican Senators who claim to oppose the Reid Bill have the courage and character to use the enormous leverage they possess to prevent the bill from passing this year. Remember, there is no way the Reid Bill can pass the Senate as it is currently written. Therefore, it must be amended to pass. But those amendments will be highly controversial, even among Democrats. That is why it is vitally important that each and every amendment be given close public scrutiny and at least two days debate.

If the Democrats want to play brinksmanship by holding the Senate in session long hours, seven days a week until Christmas Day, so be it. If the Democrats drag Senators back to Washington between Christmas and New Years for marathon sessions, so be it. Giving up Christmas Vacation is the least Republican Senators can do to stop a socialist government takeover of healthcare this year. Our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq don’t get to take time off from combat to celebrate Christmas, and they are putting their lives on the line every hour of every day. No U.S. Senator fit to serve in that august body would even think about shirking his or her duty to defend America against a government takeover of healthcare just so he or she can work bankers’ hours and enjoy college-student vacation time.

Millions of Americans across America don’t even have a job this Holiday Season and they are demanding that Senators do their jobs to protect and defend America against another government takeover.

If one or both of your Senators are opposed to the Reid Bill, contact them and make a very simple request: “Do not help Harry Reid rush any aspect of this outrageous legislation through the Senate by giving him your consent to proceed along the fast track. Use your power to object to any unanimous consent agreement limiting debate and restricting time for deliberation; demand that every amendment be given at least two days debate and public scrutiny so that everyone has time to understand and comment on each one of them.

If ObamaCare is enacted into law this year, it will be the fault of the Republican Senators because they refused to suffer a little bit of personal inconvenience and political risk to defend their country against another government takeover. Make no mistake, all Republican Senators must do to stop ObamaCare this year is object to the Democrats fast-track scheme to jam one amendment after another through the Senate with limited debate and restricted public scrutiny.

You can do something about this and take action now. Stand with Jim DeMint and Just Say “I Object” (fax blast and email). Tea Party Support is an organization I have posted about here. If the fax campaign is out of your budget, please consider using the donate button and provide a one time donation or recurring donation for as low as $1 a month. I like to look at it this way – donate a few bucks to Tea Party Support now or allow Washington to raid your coffers for the rest of your life and the life of your children and grandchildren. I vote for the former case.

What else can you do to help? Use the ShareThis button at the bottom of this post to blast this information to the social networks or email it to a friend, or just email the following TinyUrl link to all you friends and family: http://tinyurl.com/ylblvuf. Take the time to do this and take back your country. It is not much to ask. Get the word out or get ready for ObamaCare.

Enough is enough.

In other news and opinion:

ObamaCare: Is the GOP helping pass it?

Dude, Where’s My Strategy?

EPA declares air a danger to human health

ObamaCare: Nelson is Stupak all over again, but possibly worse