Not quite two weeks removed from Thanksgiving, it is worth giving thanks to John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy. I really am thankful for them.

Yesterday the three of them purged fiscal conservatives from committees as punishment for being authentically fiscal conservatives. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina was put on the Financial Services Committee to show fiscal conservatism had nothing to do with removing Congressmen Justin Amash and David Schweikert, but that just causes me to question Mick Mulvaney’s conservative bona fides now.

Congressmen Schweikert, Amash, and Congressman Tim Huelskamp now removed from the Budget Committee, have been punished for daring to defy John Boehner during the debt ceiling fight, etc. They pointed out what would happen with John Boehner’s deal. They were the Cassandras of the fiscal cliff, predicting we’d be exactly where we are and they voted against getting us here.

They have now been punished.

On the same day John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy punished fiscal conservatives for standing up for their convictions, they sold out their own convictions by agreeing to raise taxes by $800 billion. They intend to seem reasonable to the press in negotiations with the White House. They’re going through an elaborate kabuki dance, but they’ll get blamed nonetheless.

Pointing their fingers as fiscal conservatives now punished, casting them out as scape goats, will do nothing to woo the media or the White House, but we should be thankful. We should absolutely be thankful for these three men.

As the sun rises this morning we can look at John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy and know the opposition is not just across the aisle, but in charge of our own side in the House of Representatives. All the time and energy I would otherwise have to spend to convince conservatives that these gentlemen would be a problem for the GOP has been spared. They’ve proven it themselves.

And now is a time for choosing for Congressman Scalise. He said he wanted to work with leadership. He said he wanted to move closer. Leadership has now signaled that it has no interest in working with conservatives without compromising not just tactics, but principles.

If Congressman Scalise sells out conservatives in the House to work with House leadership who’ve just sold out their own principles in the name of looking reasonable, conservatives will need to find a new home outside the Republican Study Committee.

In the meantime, Freedomworks, Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth, Heritage Action for America, Madison Project, Concerned Women of America, Susan B. Anthony, Gun Owners of America, etc. etc. etc. must start working hard immediately to find quality candidates to challenge incumbent Republicans. These three men and Karl Rove over at Crossroads are going to work hard to stop conservatives though.

Conservatives must seek retribution or become the paper tiger John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy just declared them to be.