Introduction by The Editor:

There's very little difference between the two major political parties in the United States, and the differences are shrinking every year.  Both parties are in a race to deliver freebies to potential voters.  Neither party has any interest in term limits or spending caps.  Both parties respond only to criticism in the news media, not from the citizens.  Both parties support the United Nations more than they support the 10th Amendment.

The teeming masses are kept quiet by diverting their attention (to professional sports, celebrities, and lotteries) and by sending them food stamps and monthly "disability" checks.  The party that promises to keep the checks coming is the party that gets their vote, if they vote at all.

The usual criticisms are that GOP stands for Gutless Opposition Party, and that there's little or no difference between the two major political parties.  A tax-and-spend liberal is the same as a tax-and-spend "moderate" Republican.  But whenever the idea of a third party pops up, it is strongly opposed by the kingpins of both parties, because they like the system we have now.  (The news media like the status quo, too, because the quadrennial horse race is good for business.)  The only way to cut away the arrogant crust in Washington, in my opinion, is to impose term limits on our representatives in Congress.  But the current system (and the people in power) will never permit such a thing.  Politicians in both parties who stay in Washington longer than ten years are concerned with only one thing:  re-election.

Perhaps the squishy centrist Republicans aren't RINOs after all.  It appears that the Repulican Party itself is Conservative in Theory Only.  (Obviously that title will have to be re-worded in order to generate a catchy acronym.)  Republicans are the only ones "reaching across the aisle" to make deals and maintain friendships with the elected representatives on the other side, which is why they're sometimes called "the stupid party" — by other Republicans! [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

For me, the presidential race in 2016 was the last straw.  Donald Trump was not only allowed to identify and run as a Republican, he got the party's nomination!  "Party unity," i.e., winning, was more important to the Republican Machine than the candidate's biography, baggage or beliefs.

The two previous presidential candidates were not much better.  Both John McCain and Mitt Romney refused to criticize Barack H. Obama either because [#1] they were afraid of the backlash in the news media, or [#2] they weren't really interested in winning, because the end results would be approximately equal.

On its current path, this country will soon collapse.  And it's going to be ugly.

This page is about the Republican Party as a whole.  Specific RINOs are called out on this page, and Donald Trump's sudden political career is discussed here.

[Appended 12/3/2022]:
Looking back, it was a mistake to add Donald Trump to the RINO page.  At the time he was added (see above), I thought he was an independent candidate using the Republican brand to get elected, and wasn't too excited about him.  Of course, President Trump turned out to be the best president since Reagan, and had he been given an honest chance to do his work, he would have drained the swamp and wrecked the Uniparty machine.  That's why he encountered so much resistance, and still does.

Dysfunctional and Dangerous.  [Scroll down]  It's not like one would get anything different from voting Republican, though.  Look at the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, if you want to verify that statement.  All the promises to have regular order, to operate under the rules of the House, all went by the wayside in a nanosecond.  Ken Buck and Mike Gallagher demonstrate how Republicans are really Democrats anyway, because they're all on the same team.  Claire Wolfe put it perfectly in the film Lies of Omission, once elected, representatives and senators, even state representatives and senators, become government agents, not agents of the people.  They are there, she said, "to represent the government to us, rather than us to the government."  The people, the source of all the money the government spends, either literally from taxes, or by leveraging our future wages to go into debt, never actually get a say.

Democrats Seize Control of House.  House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) made history Thursday night just before midnight by essentially surrendering Republican majority control to Democrats.  For the first time in recorded history — since the House began keeping records — the House Rules Committee relied on minority party votes to overcome objections from the majority and advance a rule bill to the House floor.  [Advertisement]  The committee voted nine to three, with all four Democrats on the committee voting with five Republicans to move a rule to the House floor, which, if passed with Democrat support as expected, would allow votes on Johnson's foreign aid package, including a bill that includes tens of billions to fund Ukraine.  [Advertisement]  Conservative Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX), Thomas Massie (R-KY), and Ralph Norman (R-SC) voted no.  [Advertisement]  [Tweet]

Mike Johnson Promised To Fix The Border Before Funneling Money Overseas.  He's Doing The Opposite.  Before Republican Rep. Mike Johnson became speaker of the House, he wasn't an open proponent of bankrolling the Russia-Ukraine war.  Even the Lousiana native's first few months with the gavel were marked by his repeated pledge that the lower chamber would not pass legislation promising money to secure other nation's borders while ours was still under attack.  Now that his leadership is threatened thanks to his continual collusion with Democrats and establishment Republicans, however, the self-proclaimed "wartime speaker" is abandoning his record of Ukraine skepticism in favor of joining the push for an endless stream of money to a corrupt overseas regime.

86 Republicans Vote To Allow Warrantless Spying Of Americans With FISA.  Eighty-six House Republicans voted against an amendment to the FISA reauthorization bill, which would have added a warrant requirement to prevent the U.S. government from spying on Americans without their knowledge.  FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, recently grabbed headlines nationwide after conservatives pointed to the intelligence community's illegal surveillance of the then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign during the 2016 election.  This surveillance, authorized by FISA, has been criticized for its role in perpetuating the "Russiagate" narrative against Trump's presidency.  House Republicans believed the amendment, introduced by Republican Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, would serve as a guardrail against the intelligence community's abuse of power.  Among the Republicans who voted for the legislation without the inclusion of Biggs' amendment are Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emme and Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw.

Speaker Johnson's Mishandling Of Mayorkas Impeachment Evidence Could Botch Case, Source Says.  Republicans may struggle to convict Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in his impeachment trial due to Speaker Mike Johnson's mishandling of the evidence, a Capitol Hill source told the Caller Tuesday.  Impeachment managers tasked with prosecuting the case against Mayorkas expressed concerns about the "ill-prepared evidence" against the Secretary and laid the blame squarely on Speaker Johnson, the senate aide told the Daily Caller.  [Advertisement]  [Tweet]  "The ill-prepared evidence is just an indication that Johnson's folks didn't do a good job on putting this together, weren't planning on fighting it, and were counting on Schumer to deep-six before they got a chance," the source told the Daily Caller.

GOP senators convince Speaker Johnson to delay Mayorkas impeachment article delivery.  Republican senators convinced House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to delay the delivery of two impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, citing concerns that Senate Democrats will look to quickly dismiss them once a trial begins in the upper chamber. "To ensure the Senate has adequate time to perform its constitutional duty, the House will transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week.  There is no reason whatsoever for the Senate to abdicate its responsibility to hold an impeachment trial," a spokesperson for Johnson told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

Why Are So Many Pushing for America to Have a Hot War with Russia?  The mistakes of the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars appear lost on many.  Today, we hear stirring calls to arms against Russia from a totally corrupt and dangerous media supporting a rogue American regime.  Unfortunately, several establishment Republicans stand in support.  Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are at the forefront of the Republican establishment's support for confronting Russia.  I would include Senators John Cornyn and John Thune in the mix, along with House members like Dan Crenshaw and, certainly, former House member Liz Cheney.  Even if the United States were to win such a war on the battlefield, we would lose.  At best, it would be a Pyrrhic victory.

Finally — House Subcommittee Chairman Pete Sessions Starts Looking at Root of DC Lawfare Activity.  Representative Pete Sessions is Chairman of the Subcommittee for Govt Operations and the Federal Workforce within the House Oversight and Government Accountability Committee.  The subcommittee has a few key Republican representatives, including Clay Higgins and Byron Donalds, who are aligned with MAGA, Donald Trump, pushback against the weaponization of our modern UniParty government — and they appear as allies in the effort to stimulate a larger awakening amid the American electorate.  As readers here are very aware, I am exceptionally frustrated with the willful blindness that permeates most of our Republican representatives.  The GOP reps ignore the root causes of the problems and choose to focus on the politics of narratives.  As a result, congressional hearings, soundbites, letters written etc. generate nothing that stops the weaponization of govt.  Quite simply, there are specific people within the administrative state that are the core of the corrupt activity.

Another RINO bites the congressional dust, or is something more sinister going on?  News broke today that Rep. Mike Gallagher (RINO-WI) is leaving the house well before his term ends.  He'll join former Representatives Kevin McCarthy and Ken Buck, both of whom bowed out before their terms ended.  I can think of four reasons for a politician to bow out early:  necessity, pique, changed alliances, and one other thing more sinister than the other three.  As of January 2023, Republicans had a very narrow majority in the House.  After the rebellion against Kevin McCarthy, the latter, in a fit of pique, withdrew on October 3, 2023, long before finishing his term, diminishing the Republican majority.  Then, the Republicans, proving that they truly are the stupid party, decided to show their "moral superiority" by kicking out Rep. George Santos.  Yes, Santos is an odd bird, but he wasn't so bad that he needed to be tossed.  Doing so shrank that slender majority still more.

There never was a Republican House majority.  You might be forgiven for thinking that the Republican Party had a majority in the House of Representatives.  After all, it secured slightly more seats than the Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections.  But believing that the GOP had a majority in the House would be a mistake.  Since the 118th Congress convened in January 2023, House Republicans and what was initially a four-seat majority have been plagued by infighting and drama that now threatens to hand control of the chamber over to the Democratic Party.  On Friday, three things happened:  First, a minority of Republicans along with most Democrats passed a spending bill to fund the government through the rest of the year, much to the chagrin of the conservative wing of the GOP.  Second, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), announced he would be resigning from Congress in April.  Third, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed a motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and freeze the chamber for the second time this Congress in retaliation for the spending bill.

Ed Cox Is Running New York State To The Ground By Repeatedly Backing Never Trumpers.  The Ed Cox-led Republican Party in New York State is like the gang that could not shoot straight.  First, there was the nonsensical George Santos ouster, in which a cadre of disgruntled Republican congressmen, including Nick LaLota and Mike Lawler, backed by state party leaders, led the effort to expel the former Congressman from NY-03, because, at bottom, they were jealous of his popularity among the MAGA grassroots — and extraordinary success story — relative to their own.  This utterly braindead maneuver forced a special election, in which the Democratic candidate, Tom Suozzi, easily won back his seat.  The State Party nominated an unknown, highly incompetent politician by the name of Mazi Pilip, who was a registered Democrat and, even worse, indifferent to President Trump.  Pilip, seemingly ignorant of the weaponized justice system occurring in her own backyard with the political prosecution of President Trump by bad-faith actors like Letitia James and Alvin Bragg, blithely opined that "nobody is above the law" — perhaps the most tone-deaf statement a Republican candidate from New York could possibly make.

Never Trump Republicans to Spend Millions on Ads in Effort to Turn Voters Against Trump.  Never Trump Republicans are still unable to accept the fact that former President Donald Trump will be the Republican Party's nominee for president in the general election and are spending roughly $50 million to run ads featuring Republicans who say they can no longer support the presumptive nominee.  While Trump undoubtedly stood as the frontrunner throughout the entirety of the Republican Primary race, winning state after state, his status as the presumptive nominee was solidified after Super Tuesday when former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) opted to drop out of the race, presumably seeing no viable path forward.  Unlike some of her fellow challengers, such as Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), she did not formally back Trump, despite admitting that "in all likelihood, Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee when our party convention meets in July."

Never Trump Republican Groups Are Bottom-Feeding Grifters, Not People of Principle.  The tedious Never Trump Republicans are in their happy place now that the election year is finally upon us.  These money-grubbing hustlers know they can now put minimum effort into filling their coffers because they will be getting copious amounts of free press from the mainstream media until election day.  They do it all, of course, under the guise of being more principled than the people who are going to vote for Trump, whether they're thrilled with him or not, because we understand that the alternative is the dismantling of the Republic as we know it.  The Never Trumpers are really just sellouts, not paragons of lofty principles.  Being a sellout pays, though.

Why Conservatives Need to Stop Saying 'My Country's Not Perfect'.  A "Persian flaw" was originally a flaw purposely included in a handmade carpet because, the thinking was, only God could aspire to perfection.  'Tis true, too, that perfection is not a thing of this world.  Given this, you may wonder why I write in my title that conservatives must stop issuing disclaimers to the effect of, "We all know our country is not perfect."  Well, consider a little analogy:  Imagine you were giving a speech in honor of your mother and opened with, "Now, we all know my mother's not perfect."  Might there not be some stunned silence?  Is it possible some listeners might view you as a bad child?  Moreover, if your mother heard your disclaimer, mightn't she be hurt?  This reaction to it would not be registered because the impression prevailed that your mother was a Jesus-like figure who walks on water.  Rather, because your mother is human, it's a given that she's not perfect.  Thus, making a point of issuing such a disclaimer implies that your mother isn't just saddled with the "normal" human imperfections but is uniquely or profoundly flawed, so much so that you'd be embarrassed lauding an aspect of her life without first acknowledging her uniquely defective character.

How The GOP Committed Suicide Trying to Stop Trump.  When did the GOP cease to be a functioning party?  When was the exact moment that you knew the GOP establishment stands for nothing and stands against nothing?  For many, this became apparent in the awful months immediately after Election Day 2020, of course, when a steady stream of GOP leaders took to the airwaves to let their voters know that "the most secure election in history" had just taken place.  For others, it was the Second Impeachment of Citizen Trump — a symbolic exercise that only served to destroy the political career of Mitch McConnell, and raze his reputation as the bluegrass Machiavelli of our times.

Indiana's GOP-Run Government Working On 11 Land Deals With Chinese Communist Businesses.  A bill to slightly limit foreign adversaries' ownership of Indiana land revealed a state agency is currently planning 11 business deals with Chinese companies worth an estimated $14.4 billion.  The Indiana Economic Development Corporation, however, wouldn't release to The Federalist the names or locations of these foreign-owned ventures.  In fact, said Republican state Sen. Jean Leising in an interview with The Federalist Friday morning, state lawmakers tell her the IEDC even uses "code names" for its foreign business deals to preserve secrecy until they're completed.  The IEDC will not even release basic information about any of these deals to the state lawmakers who give the IEDC billions in tax dollars.

Why Almost Nothing Changes When Republicans Are Elected.  [Scroll down]  Folks, I promise you Donald Trump is as ignorant about the Constitution as Joe Biden.  The overwhelming majority of government officials at any level (city, county, State or federal) know jack squat about the Constitution.  Even worse is, they KNOW they don't know, and they don't CARE that they don't know.  The only time either side tries to quote the Constitution is when they think it might help their position.  If they know their position is counter to the Constitution, they simply ignore the Constitution and maintain support for their position.  In other words, on the whole, our congressmen and senators from both parties are cheap, crooked charlatans and con artists.  But as long as we have an electorate that is ignorant of and apathetic to our Constitution, we will continue to elect and re-elect the same constitutionally illiterate, self-serving con men to be our governmental representatives.

Good Riddance To Mitch McConnell:  A List Of GOP Senate Chief's Worst Blunders In Leadership.  Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky announced Wednesday he will step down from his leadership role this fall, citing his age and health. [...] Here are some of McConnell's worst moments as Republican Senate leader.  [#1] 2024 Senate Border Bill:  One of McConnell's latest blunders came in the form of a bipartisan spending bill to codify the Biden administration's open borders into law.  Earlier this month, the Republican Senate chief deputized Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford to put forward a $118 billion spending bill with $60 billion for Ukraine and $20 billion for the border.  The legislative package not only gave disproportionate funding to Ukraine, but would have allowed 5,000 crossings per day and asylum for all.  "[McConnell] didn't just bless the deal.  He wrote the deal," said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrats' lead negotiator on the bill.  The GOP Senate leader's team "were in the room every single day."

Mitch McConnell Betrays Mike Johnson on the Border Because the GOP Doesn't Care About You.  The Republican Party is full of big talkers.  They'll promise you the world, but when push comes to shove, they almost always end up lying on the ground, wondering how they once again ended up in that position.  Enter Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is now urging House Speaker Mike Johnson to surrender on the border lest Ukraine not continue to be the top priority.  That's not the worst of it, though.  McConnell went so far as to betray Johnson by calling Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat, in an attempt to force through Ukraine aid as a separate vote.  [Tweet]  Sure, somewhere around eight million illegal immigrants have been encountered at the border in the last few years, leading to chaos in America's cities both financially and regarding crime.  According to McConnell, though, we shouldn't focus on that.  Instead, we should only worry about spending another $60 billion on Ukraine's stalemate with Russia.  To try to then go work with Hakeem Jeffries to bypass the Republican majority is just the icing on the cake.

Republicans Live Up to Being the Stupid Party.  America's political system is based on two parties, Republicans and Democrats.  Given that the collective differences between the two parties are minimal, they are referred to as the uni-party, the ruling class, or simply "the swamp." [...] I have names for both parties.  Democrats are the "evil party" and Republicans are the "stupid party."  Democrats are evil because they support the murder of full-term babies and encourage confused teenagers to surgically mutilate their bodies for short term adulation but long-term misery, as the New York Times surprisingly pointed out.  They want to control people, sacrificing individual liberty and free expression in favor of what they perceive as the "collective good."  They believe themselves to be their own higher power.  Their version of "natural law" is their whims of the day rather than "unalienable rights" endowed by our Creator.  Republicans are stupid because they cannot articulate or enact any opposition to Democrat evil.  They believe principled opposition is a watered-down version of Democrat policy.

What's to Blame for GOP Fundraising Woes.  For those confused by the odd paradox of the Democrats out-raising the GOP by a 3:1 margin despite historic unpopularity at the top of their ticket, consider this anecdote from October 2017.  Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) resigned from his congressional seat after it was revealed that he had engaged in an extramarital affair.  The scandal was compounded by the fact that Rep. Murphy, a staunch defender of the pro-life movement, reportedly encouraged his mistress to get an abortion when they thought she might be pregnant.  The real gut-punch of the scandal was the text that Rep. Murphy sent disavowing pro-life messages released from his own campaign.  Upon his mistress calling out his hypocrisy in suggesting an abortion despite his anti-abortion advocacy at events such as March for Life, he responded: "I get what you say about my March for life messages.  I've never written them.  Staff does them.  I read them and winced.  I told staff don't write any more.  I will."  Hypocrites, at the very least, know that what they are doing is wrong.

Why Are Red State Republicans Often Such Losers?  How come we are always so grievously disappointed by red state Republicans? [...] Take Senator Jim Lankford — that's James to you, peasants!  Take him, please!  He's from Oklahoma, so he should be so right-wing he makes Genghis Khan look like a San Francisco pinko pervert.  But no.  Given the chance to negotiate immigration reform — a proper reform would consist simply of us shutting the border and deporting all illegals — Jimmy rolled over for Chuck Schumer and agreed to the most embarrassingly bad deal since a bunch of Dutch sharpies ripped off the local indigenous peoples by buying Manhattan for 20 bucks worth of beads and some smallpox-laden blankets.  Now, by many measures, Jimmy is a hard-core conservative.  Donald Trump endorsed him.  He's pro-America.  He likes freedom, within corporately-defined limits, of course.  He thinks we have a right to guns, probably.  But then again, he also abased himself for correctly questioning the questionable 2020 election results.  Pathetic.  He's hard, in the sense that butter is hard when you take it out of the fridge, but when you apply a little heat, it melts into a bubbling puddle of goo.

Why Are Republicans Advancing A Bill That Lets Outsiders Buy A South Dakota Address And Use It To Vote?  With the help of Republican lawmakers, South Dakota Secretary of State Monae Johnson has brought a handful of election-related bills to the 2024 legislative session, all to the ire of her campaign supporters.  At her request, lawmakers have presented bills to share the statewide voter registration file, establish the crime of threatening a poll worker, and recently SB 17, which modifies the state's recently-enacted law requiring new South Dakota voters to have resided in the state for at least 30 days.  As currently amended, this bill would essentially open the door to anyone living anywhere to vote in South Dakota elections. [...] Now the bill, in its current form as amended by the Republican-controlled Senate, would abandon the 30-day residency protections entirely and do away with current residency law that defines a residence as "an actual fixed permanent dwelling."  Such a change would allow practically anyone to buy a South Dakota mailing address and use it to vote.

The Republican Party Is Not Prepared for the 2024 Election.  There is a growing consensus among conservatives and the vast majority of Republican voters that the 2024 election is a watershed moment for the United States.  The dire reality of another four years of a Marxist-dominated Democrat Party in total control is beginning to increasingly come into focus.  However, the Republican Party hierarchy appears unconcerned, as exemplified by their near total lack of urgency regarding the need to offset voting manipulation by the Democrats and a lack of understanding of 2024 political demographics.  Is the Republican Party hierarchy serious about winning the White House and both Houses of Congress?

After blowing all the money (and support), Ronna McDaniel floats the idea of a credit line for the RNC.  Peace breeds prosperity, and prosperity gives way to indulgence and decadence; there's no greater display of that reality than the one seen when you observe the antics and behaviors of the Self-Imagined Elites of the American political class running our country into the ground.  The idea that you live within your means and exercise fiscal responsibility, especially when you're dealing with other people's money, should not be controversial.  And, it's certainly not a lot to ask of people who masquerade as our representatives, ostensibly in service to the public, and claim to be looking out for the general welfare of the citizenry, or the taxpaying class.  The bar is basically as low as it can be[,] but somehow it's still too high.  The federal government can't do it — we hit a record-breaking $34 trillion debt figure to start the new year — and apparently, neither can the party that claims to be the "conservative" apparatus.

AZGOP's new chair took $15k per month from the taxpayers [...] to produce nothing.  [Scroll down]  The chair of the state party leading the charge to derail the America First (and Arizona first) movement?  This is nothing out of the ordinary; DeWit's predecessor, Kelli Ward, repeatedly undermined and sabotaged the grassroots, all to aid and abet Martha McSally in handing over another federal seat to Democrats.  The chair of the state party protecting the interests of the political establishment?  Again, we'd just been through this with Kelli Ward, who "imploded" when confronted about the fact that she had no plans to force governor Doug Ducey to end the Covid "emergency" he was using to tyrannize the people of Arizona.  To add another level to the betrayal, at the time Ward refused to take any action against Ducey, he'd recently certified the 2020 presidential election results for Joe Biden, despite the endless evidence that things had gone awry.

House Republicans Agree To Help Democrats Grow The Welfare State And Shrink The Workforce.  In the debt ceiling agreement last spring, House Republicans passed legislation making modest changes to work requirements for certain government programs.  Less than 12 months later, another congressional agreement could effectively undo that progress.  Congressional leaders recently announced an agreement on a tax package, the rumors of which had been circulating for several weeks.  The House Ways and Means Committee passed the agreement shortly thereafter.  In so doing, committee members took another step toward expanding the welfare state, one that will lead to more low-income families on the government rolls than in work.

McConnell Returns to Back Ukraine Funding Joined to Immigration Bill.  The most brutally Machiavellian Senator, Mitch McConnell (U-DC), is the leader and source of anxiety created by the coalition of professionally Republican liars we call DeceptiCons.  They are a select group of around 16 "Republican" senators who scheme, lie and support the left-wing of the UniParty vulture.  McConnell is their leader.  Yesterday, on the heels of the New Hampshire primary win by Donald Trump, Senator McConnell intentionally fed a media narrative that a border crisis deal could not be reached because candidate Trump didn't want one.  The media ran with the story based on comments by Republican senators who were in the meeting.  McConnell made those comments intentionally, because he is trying to create as much friction for MAGA and Trump as possible.  Today, McConnell says he supports the Ukraine funding proposal connected to the "border security" proposal being negotiated by James Lankford (U-DC).  The red-haired DeceptiCon from Oklahoma, shifted from his prior role on the Senate Intel Committee (SSCI) to his current role in supporting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plan for amnesty and expanded illegal entry (cheap labor) at the border.

Arizona GOP Chairman Jeff DeWit steps down after Kari Lake tape leak.  Arizona Republican Party Chairman Jeff DeWit announced he would step down as head of the party after audio of him allegedly attempting to bribe Kari Lake to not run for Senate was released on Tuesday.  The audio featured DeWit asking Lake what price she would take to not enter the Senate race, which she is now running in.  Lake said that DeWit should resign in the aftermath of leak.  DeWit announced on Wednesday that he would be stepping down in a lengthy statement accusing Lake of leaking the recording herself.

Kari Lake Demands Resignation Of "Corrupt" GOP Chair Caught Trying To Bribe Her.  One day after the Daily Mail published a leaked recording of Arizona GOP Chairman Jeff DeWit trying to bribe Trump ally Kari Lake to stay out of politics for two years, DeWit resigned.  "This morning, I was determined to fight for my position," he said in a statement reported by Just the News.  "However, a few hours ago, I received an ultimatum from Lake's team: resign today or face the release of a new, more damaging recording.  I am truly unsure of its contents, but considering our numerous past open conversations as friends, I have decided not to take the risk.  I am resigning as Lake requested, in the hope that she will honor her commitment to cease her attacks, allowing me to return to the business sector — a field I find much more logical and prefer over politics."

Republicans Are About to Get Fooled Again.  Here is a message to you, spineless Republican senators:  Stop trying to do immigration deals with the Democrats.  This same sorry scenario gets replayed over and over again.  Some soft, bipartisan-curious GOP senators try to hammer out a deal with the donkeys, get hammered but don't know it, and then try to convince the party faithful to swallow their latest dog's breakfast of a proposal.  It always ends in humiliation.  Immigration is the graveyard of Republican careers.  Remember when Marco Rubio was a fresh young voice of the future of the Republican Party?  And then he got wrapped up in an immigration compromise and now he's a footnote to an afterthought.  Don't be Marco.  Certainly, don't be Lindsey Graham.  Stop trying to do immigration deals with the Democrats.  You're bad at it — very bad.  I know that the Senate is full of lawyers, but you're bad lawyers because you wouldn't be in the Senate if you were good lawyers who knew how to negotiate.  You make terrible deals.

America in January of 2029.  Virtually every presidential election over the past forty years has been described by one of the candidates or by either left-wing or right-wing pundits as being the most crucial since (fill in the date).  However, in light of the Marxist radicalization of the Democrat Party over the past sixteen years, 2024 is evolving into being the most crucial election cycle since 1860 as the future of this nation as founded precariously hangs in the balance.  Considering the factors that contributed to the debacles that were the 2020 presidential and the 2022 midterm elections combined with the Republican Party's seemingly never-ending incompetence, inability to turn out the vote, and lack of determination to combat voter fraud and manipulation, it is very likely that the Democrats could run the table in 2024.

Speaker Johnson Is Willingly Funding The Biden Regime's Authoritarianism.  When Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., led the charge to oust then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year, many conservatives were cautiously optimistic that his successor, Louisiana's Rep. Mike Johnson, would lead the lower chamber more capably.  Surely the man with the self-professed biblical "worldview" and somewhat conservative voting record would be the fighter GOP voters need to take on Democrats' extremism, right?  Wrong.  With Democrats in control of the White House and Senate, the House remains the only tool Republicans have at the federal level to stop funding President Biden's authoritarian agencies and destructive policies.  Yet on nearly every major spending fight that's come across his desk, Johnson has surrendered to Democrat demands and placed conservative priorities on the back burner.  The speaker's latest act of betrayal came Thursday, when the House passed a continuing resolution, or CR, to keep the federal government funded through early March.  Despite insistence from Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., and other House Freedom Caucus members on attaching a border security amendment to the bill, Johnson declined to do so, leaving America's open border unaddressed for at least the next month and a half.

Speaker Johnson Cut His Bad Deal Because Republicans Don't Want To Cut Spending.  The outline of the spending agreement House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., cut with Democratic leaders sounds bad on its face.  But the underlying reasons for that agreement seem far worse.  As I wrote last week, "Speaker Johnson and Republican 'leadership' ... bailed the Democrats out of the predicament they put themselves in last May."  To which I should make an important addition:  In many ways, Johnson didn't bail out Democrats from a tough political predicament as much as he did his own Republican members.  Because most Republicans don't want to reduce spending — and they don't want their constituents to know that either.

Speaker Johnson's Spine Stiffens as Senate Republicans Try to Surrender on the Border.  House Speaker Mike Johnson is pushing back on the immigration deal being negotiated between Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate.  That comes via a new report that includes several quotes from GOP senators urging Johnson to accept what they send over. [...] There are a lot of problems with the argument that this is the "best" deal Republicans can get.  Namely, the fact that if a "deal" results in a worse situation, then it would be preferable to have no deal.  So what's in the deal?  We don't know for certain if the details have changed, but we know what the bullet points were just a few days ago.  Johnson himself panned it online, giving a firm "no" to what was leaked.

A Pointless Republican Primary.  President Trump will almost certainly be the Republican nominee.  He is far ahead in every primary poll.  His supporters originally worried that he would be too polarizing and would go down in flames in the general election, but it appears he will also win the general election against incompetent, unpopular, and increasingly demented Joe Biden.  Indictments, lawfare, media propaganda, and phalanx-style opposition from the organs of conservatism have all been arrayed against Trump.  He has also earned the contempt of the managerial class's elite: the judges, the academics, and the think tankers, as well as the GS and SES class around Washington, D.C.  Even so, his enemies have barely dented him.

Republicans sell out America.  Off the Press reported, "Conservative activists are up in arms as details of an immigration deal being negotiated in the Senate have been leaked.  The proposed plan suggests that illegal border crossers will be immediately eligible for work permits, and the government will allow up to 5,000 illegal immigrants a day before new expulsion powers kick in.  "Rosemary Jenks, government relations director at the Immigration Accountability Project, has been briefing others on the current framework.  She has revealed that it includes a right to government-funded lawyers for illegal immigrant children and would also expand legal immigration, both of which are priorities for President Biden."  The Party of the Bushes once again rescues Democrats right in the nick of time.  The public finally rose against illegal immigration and the invasion by immigrants — only to have these Trikki Nikki-level Faux Conservatives sell us out.  Mitch McConnell and the rest are just a Ray Epps and a pack of Judas goats leading America astray.  Enough RINOs will defect in the House to pass it[.]

Senate GOP Border Deal Leaked:  Migrants to Get Work Permits, Lawyers, Green Cards.  The Senate GOP leadership's draft border deal with the White House would reward illegal migration and encourage more foreign graduates to take jobs from American graduates, says the Immigration Accountability Project.  "There's nothing in there that [restricts immigration], in fact, it's just going to encourage more people to come," said Chris Chmielenski, president of the Immigration Accountability Project, adding:  ["]It essentially authorizes the Biden administration to continue to catch and release people into the country.  It authorizes them to give them work permits [to illegal migrants and] authorizes them to grant parole [legal status] to everybody that they're able to funnel to a port of entry.["]

Sounds like Texas.
The Louisiana GOP Has Total Control Over State Government, Plans to Immediately Cave to Democrats.  In the 2023 election cycle in Louisiana, conservatives let their voices be heard.  It wasn't just a Republican wave in the state last year[,] it was a decidedly conservative wave.  Moderate (read: really Democrat) Republicans were thrashed just as much as actual Democrats were.  It was a wonderful turn of events for a state that had elected Democrat John Bel Edwards to the governor's mansion in the previous two election cycles.  Edwards' own choice of successor, Shawn Wilson, couldn't even make it to a runoff with multiple other Republicans on the ballot (Louisiana is a jungle primary state, meaning all candidates, regardless of party, are on the same ballot). [...] Still, one would hope that with a supermajority in the legislature and a Republican in the governor's mansion, they wouldn't be handing out power to Democrats like party favors.  Louisiana voters made it clear that they wanted Republican leadership — that they wanted conservative leadership — and, apparently, the first thing they want to do is put Democrats in charge of legislative committees.

Apropos of Everything — Republican Speaker Johnson Promises to Keep "Advocating" for Border Security.  Republicans can shut down government, shut down agencies, cut off funding, and tell the American people why they are doing it.  They can use their power to force Joe Biden to fight them and simultaneously make Biden justify to the American people why he refuses to secure our nation.  Republicans could file court cases, force action, hold impeachment hearings, issue subpoenas, force testimony, demand action or face the consequences.  There is much they can do.  Alas, instead of taking severe action in the face of severe peril, they pretend to be powerless and announce they will "advocate" which means in DC, talk about it more.  We are in an abusive relationship with government, and the GOPe is a gaslighting wing of the UniParty vulture.

No Republican Can Single-handedly Rescue This Nation.  The Democrat and Republican parties have dominated the political landscape of the United States since 1856.  In 2024, they are mere shells, in the process of being commandeered by two distinct and warring tribes.  It is at present a one-sided conflict that will inevitably lead to the transformation of the United States.  Increasingly occupying the decaying remains of the Republican party is the tribe that openly supports the founding tenets of this nation, but contains a significant majority of members who, when they have the option of choosing reliably conservative candidates for state and federal offices that reflect this outlook, would rather assume the role of non-participant disparagers.  The vast bulk of the membership of this tribe prefer to seek out one individual to whom they will proffer unconditional and undying allegiance in the belief that he will single-handedly rescue the nation and slay the dragon that is the current Democrat party.

Republicans propose another deep state bureaucracy to enforce civil rights laws.  Failure theater:  In their typically impotent attempt to fight the leftist movement that is imposing a new racial bigotry across America, several Republicans in Congress have proposed a new special government office in Washington that will be specifically assigned the job of preventing racial discrimination at universities.  These senators and congressmen, along with several conservative think tanks, think naively that this office will the place for anyone of any race to go to get justice should a university receiving federal funds create a program that specifically excludes them solely because of their race.  The aim will supposedly be to target specifically the new Diversity-Inclusion-Equity programs at universities and in governments that are imposing this new discrimination against whites, Asians, and Jews.  The foolishness of this plan is hard to measure.  First, it expands the administrative state, which means it by definition increases the power of that bureaucracy to the detriment of Congress and the people who vote them into office.  Congress has been doing this for decades, which is why it is now generally so helpless.

Catherine Herridge Predicts a "Black Swan Event" in 2024.  Hey, remember when Catherine Herridge was a Fox News national security expert?  She was too real and legit for them so they decided not to offer her a new contract.  Now she's rather muted at CBS, but did make a scary claim today:  2024 will see what's call a "Black Swan Event", which means 'A National Security Crisis with Unpredictable High Impact'.  Communists and the rioters have been hinting at this for years.  Is 2024 really the year?  2024 sure seems to be a potentially interesting year, to say the least, and I'm not just talking about the November election.  Catherine Herridge is no news hack either.  I don't know [how] she leans politically (unlike the rest of the media).  I would take her warning very seriously.  The desperate Biden regime is willing to try anything to destablize this country.  I mean, 12,000 illegal border crossing per day and nothing is done or said by feckless, weak Republicans?

Report: RNC Corporation Has Lowest On Hand Bank Funds Since 2016.  As the story is told, the "republicans" have the lowest amount of reserve cash on hand in the past seven years.  However, as readers here are well aware, it's not the republicans that are "running out of money," it is the RNC Corporation that is running low on funds.  These are two distinctly different things.  In the era of the great political awakening, the term "uniparty" has now become a well-known in conservative lexicon to describe our national political situation.  The RNC and DNC are two private corporations that form each wing of the Uniparty vulture.  The RNC and DNC are private entities, private corporations, that manage the illusion of the two-party political system in the United States.  The reality is that both corporations are funded by the same multinational donors.  The RNC and DNC are essentially private clubs, business entities that exist within a political system they create and control.  In the era of Donald J Trump, this stark reality is now clear to almost every voter.

The Republican Party's Paper Elephants.  The worst kept secret in politics is that most Establishment Republicans play for the other team.  If not unofficial card-carrying Democrats, they are full-time members of a Uniparty that actively undermines the work of rank-and-file Republicans.  For the longest time, Republican voters just thought their "leaders" were stupid.  Their unimpressive "representatives" not only seemed incapable of making the simplest of political layups, but also routinely dribbled the ball down the length of the court just to score on themselves.  Far from ever witnessing elected Republicans snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, middle-class Republicans regularly watched country club Republicans snatch defeat from certain victory.  All that inexplicable buffoonery finally revealed something far more unsavory: just as Marxists have been engaged in a "long march" through our institutions in a diabolical but dedicated effort to replace America's foundations in freedom with communism's concrete boots, they did not spare the Republican Party from their subversive infiltration.  There's a reason why Republican officials in Georgia, Arizona, and elsewhere have worked with lawless Democrat prosecutors to imprison any Republican fighting for free and fair elections: those "Republican" officials have always been agents for the other side.

GOP To End Debate Season In The Arms Of CNN, Disney Media.  The once-lofty dreams for GOP primary debates have ultimately ended with the party's retreat into the arms of corporate media companies that the electorate views as inherently hostile, and no decision maker, from the campaigns themselves to the Republican National Committee (RNC), wants to take credit.  The Daily Caller talked to the RNC, the DeSantis campaign, the Ramaswamy campaign and CNN, and reached out to the Haley campaign.  No one can explain how RNC Temporary Committee on Presidential Debates David Bossie's 2022 promise to center debates around independent and conservative media ended up with the RNC in full retreat and candidates flocking to CNN and Disney-owned ABC on the eve of the first primary states.  Meanwhile, voters and the RNC's own state representatives have thrown up their hands in collective disgust.

GOP Betrays Voters, Again.  [T]his week the Senate passed the $886.3 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by a vote of 87-13, with only six Republicans voting against the 3,000-page boondoggle.  That's right, all the other "conservative" GOP senators (like Cruz, Tim and Rick Scott, Rubio, Cotton, Johnson, Blackburn, et al) once again pulled the football back at the last minute, Charlie Brown, and left you, the hapless and gullible GOP voter, humiliated... and on the hook for another almost trillion dollars in debt.  I mean, it's not like we're already $33 trillion in debt, or that last year the feds took in $5 trillion but spent almost $7 trillion (which they'll apparently do again in 2024).  What's a trillion or two among friends, after all?

147 Worthless Republicans Vote to Reauthorize FISA Program So DOJ-FBI Can Spy on President Trump Again.  147 worthless Republicans voted on Thursday to reauthorize the FISA program abused by the FBI to spy on candidate and then President Donald Trump the entire time he was in office.  No one was ever jailed for the injustice, and the FBI, of course, hid this illegal act from the American public.  According to Rep. Eli Crane, "FISA 702 is a violation of the 4th Amendment.  Additionally, this bill continues to entangle us in forever wars abroad and even managed to abandon heroes from Northern Arizona, including the Navajo Nation, that sacrificed for our country during WWII."  [Tweet]  According to Rep. Matt Rosendale, "FISA Section 702 has allowed the FBI to spy on U.S. citizens more than 278,000 times without a warrant!  FISA should not be combined with our national defense, and it is UNACCEPTABLE that the D.C. Cartel is bypassing regular order to jam Members by forcing them to vote on two unrelated bills in one vote."

The GOP Wants To Lose Again In 2024!  If you've spent the last three years wondering why Republicans have allowed the Democrat-aligned deep state tyranny to rule unopposed, then you're not alone.  GOP politicians don't fear perpetual Democrat control of the federal government — they fear Donald Trump, and the end of their own control of the Republican Party.  That's why plenty of GOP senators just advanced the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) toward a final vote — even though it allows a clean reauthorization of FISA 702, which is a section of surveillance law that has been abused by the FBI and the national security state.  In other words, the GOP senate leadership does not think the FBI should respect the Fourth Amendment and get a warrant before spying on American citizens.  They're in favor of the Banana Republic of Biden.  In fact, only seven Republican members of the Senate oppose allowing the Pentagon to fund abortion tourism, transgender surgeries at taxpayer expense, race-based academy admissions, DEI offices, and drag shows on military bases.  That would be:  Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Tommy Tuberville, J.D. Vance, Cynthia Lummis, Josh Hawley, and Mike Braun.  That's it.

Ronna McDaniel represents another of the GOP's missed opportunities.  If there ever were a poster child for nepotism, the honors would go to Mitt Romney's niece, Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee.  As Vivek Ramaswamy outlined in the last GOP presidential debate, the track record of McDaniel's leadership of the Party is abysmal.  "Since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022, [the] red wave that never came.

To Win, Republicans Have To Be Smarter and Tougher Than Sen. James Lankford.  Career Democrat and ABC host George Stephanopoulos completely emasculated Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma this weekend on his Sunday show.  Right at the beginning of the interview, Stephanopoulos advanced a flurry of disinformation and lies, to which Lankford, who purports to be a conservative senator of the burgundy-red state of Oklahoma, bowed down in complete supplication:  [Transcript]  What an absolutely preposterous line of questioning.  Any Republican elected official with a room-temperature IQ and even a modicum of self-respect would be livid at the propaganda and lies and immediately push back.  But not Lankford.

The Republican Party is saturated with abject cowards.  Could the Republican Party as currently constituted be any more ineffective?  Any more cowardly?  Any more easily and willingly steamrolled?  Not likely.  There are a few good men and women, to be sure, but they are too few to fight the limp-wristed, irresolute majority of their colleagues.  Most of them work for the opposition, Kevin McCarthy being the recent prime example.  He made promises to become Speaker, did not keep any of them, and was justifiably dethroned.  Now he wants to submarine the new speaker, Mike Johnson, who may be entangled beyond his ken.  Johnson may just be a good man who has been thrown to the wolves of Congress.  Will he survive?  Will he have the courage to do what McCarthy would not?  Hold the corruptocrats accountable?  That would be the Biden family of grifters; Christopher Wray, the despicable, lying head of the FBI; Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas, the chief saboteur of the nation with his calculated importation of ten million illegal aliens from all over the world; and Merrick Garland, the thoroughly venal Attorney General who has persecuted any and all persons who were in D.C. on January 6, 2021.  Garland is singularly the face of the police state America has become with the acquiescence of the Republican Party.

Where's America's Conor McGregor?  [Scroll down]  By the inaction of the GOP, none of the possible solutions have been tried, not even approached.  Their officials aren't interested in fixing the election system and the elected aren't interested in fixing the problems or squaring the budget.  It's time for that antiquated, corrupt organization to go the way of the Whigs.  The GOP has allowed the woke leftists to run the table with their insane policies, losing (intentionally?) every election post 2016 and this is where it's gotten us.  They've lifted not a finger to discover what the judge in Georgia did, that the voting machines are a violation of human rights; that they deprive the people of their voice in choosing who these representatives will be; who will make the larger decisions and when disconnected from the will of the people, they are illegitimate.

Something is very wrong — What now?  The elites who rule over us won't secure our border — or do many other things most of us want them to do — so in a very real sense we have taxation without representation.  We have come full circle and find ourselves in much the same position as our founders did almost 250 years ago.  We know what the founders' answer was.  What will ours be?  We know what they did?  What will we do?  Can we match their wisdom — and courage?  Is it even possible anymore?

The Editor says...
The Congress can't even stop Daylight Saving Time, which most citizens dislike.  There's no way they'll ever find the backbone to seal the borders and deport the illegal aliens.

Wrongthink to Avoid.  I was born in the greatest country in the world, perhaps in history, the United States of America.  But now, seventy years later, the U.S. is no longer the land of the free or the home of the brave.  Today, you are most definitely not free to speak your mind.  In fact, you can lose everything you own or hold dear for having the wrong views.  But don't take my word for it, ask Donald Trump.  And forget home of the brave.  As the Deep State attempts to crucify our former and perhaps future president in new and ever more bizarre ways, what are the politicians of Trump's party doing about it?  That's right, putting their heads in the sand and their considerable fundaments in the air, the braver ones sending out strongly worded letters and subpoenas that are summarily ignored.  A party of cowards.  If you hold conservative beliefs, or God forbid, Christian ones, there is no one to protect you.  You're on your own.

Why be a Republican?  Republicans are Styrofoam when the nation needs granite.  No wonder Republicans cringe in fear when they hear the words Make America Great Again — the battle cry of Trump AND Reagan.  We need a Republican Party that puts America first.  That means kicking illegal aliens out.  That means ending trade with Red China.  That means reducing the federal government and increasing our liberty.  That means balancing the budget and creating a surplus to pay down the national debt.  We do not have such a party.  We have the Grandstanding Old Party.  Trump found that out as president.  He learned in 2020 that Republicans in Washington do not care if Democrats steal elections.  Republicans in Washington don't care if the FBI tricks their voters and sends them to prison.  Republicans in Washington don't care if we waste trillions on wars, welfare and ruin.

Latest Republican Fundraising Numbers Are a Horror Show, and Something Has to Give.  [Scroll down]  The mounting election losses speak for themselves.  Something has to give or Republicans are going to be staring at a lot more losses in the future.  That starts with looking inwardly at those who are tasked with raising money for the party's national apparatus.  It becomes a lot less defensible to keep the status quo going when the status quo is delivering election losses and a large deficit in fundraising.  The RNC serves no purpose if that's going to be the end result.

The GOP Is A Fake Opposition Party With No Vision For The Country.  When Louisiana's Mike Johnson was pulled from obscurity and elected House speaker last month, many conservatives were cautiously optimistic that the man with the self-professed biblical "worldview" and somewhat solid voting record would be the fighter they've needed to halt Democrats' Marxist takeover of society.  Unfortunately, it didn't take long to discover that Johnson is just as weak-kneed as his Republican predecessors.  On Tuesday afternoon, Johnson and House Republicans are set to surrender to Democrats yet again on a major government spending fight.  Rather than stand strong and fight for conservative priorities, Johnson is proposing a continuing resolution, or CR, to keep the federal government funded through the beginning of next year.  Unsurprisingly, the proposal does nothing to address key issues plaguing the nation, such as the Biden-manufactured crisis at the U.S. southern border, and maintains already-high spending levels.

Yellow-bellied Republicans are killing America.  Republicans lack the killer instinct to win.  Congressional Republicans not only have no fire in the belly, they have no brains in their heads.  Why else would they be voting with Democrats?  They vote against their own agenda, their own conservative ideology, their own chances to Make America Great Again?  Why do they do that?  Maybe it is because, as Dan Bongino often notes, "Many Republicans are Democrats, but no Democrats are Republicans."  For too many decades, Republicans have voted with the enemy.  The former can reliably be depended upon to advance the Democrat agenda, but how often will any Democrat vote with Republicans?  Rarely.  At least Democrats know how to advance their Marxist-Diversity-Communist agenda in order to destroy the American fabric and its Constitution.  Republicans would rather look good than be good.  Democrats in Congress are petrified to vote with Republicans because they quiver at the prospect of being punished by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Obama-ites, but the reverse is never true:  Republicans have no deterrent against voting with Democrats.  They don't suffer for their weakness.

Matt Gaetz Files Ethics Complaint Against Kevin McCarthy For 'Assaulting' Tim Burchett.  Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz filed an ethics complaint Tuesday against former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy after he and Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett, who voted to oust McCarthy as speaker, got into a heated altercation after a closed-door GOP meeting.  As McCarthy and Burchett were leaving the closed-door meeting, McCarthy reportedly bumped into the back of Burchett, to which the Tennessee Republican responded by saying, "Hey Kevin, have some guts," and also called him a "jerk."  Burchett later claimed that he was elbowed in the back and that the incident caught him off guard "because it was a clean shot to the kidneys."  Burchett said he chased after him and in an interview said, "if you haven't been hitting the kidneys, it's a little different."

Resign, Ronna!  How much failure is enough failure, because Republicans have had a lot of failure lately and we're looking forward to more failure next year and perhaps we ought to do something to start getting ourselves on the road to the opposite of failure.  And the opposite of failure is the opposite of Ronna McDaniel.  Doubt me?  Here's the kiss o' death — Frank "Lumpy" Luntz just said, "Ronna McDaniel is the @GOP's secret weapon.  An amazing speaker and smart strategist."  That seals it.  Good-bye Ronna, it's time to go.

How many elections will Republicans lose in 2024 because of the abortion issue?  Yes, if there is a heartbeat, it's a baby.  The problem is that Republicans cannot save innocent babies if they keep losing elections.  And if we lose elections, especially the White House, Senate, and House in 2024, more than babies might die as the nation tilts toward Marxist Democrat control. [...] Based on votes in 2022 and 2023, the American people do not trust government (no surprise there) on the issue of abortion.  They want the health conversation to remain between the doctor and patient.  Just look at what happened last year.  In 2022, abortion rights ballot measures won in all six states including red states like Montana, Kentucky, and Kansas.  The other three states were Michigan, California, and Vermont.  Those six states were loud warnings to Republicans, and they ignored them.

GOP Can't Make Up Its Mind About Abortion.  Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court set the record straight in the Dobbs ruling, returning the decision to the states via their people or elected representatives, ["]The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe v.  Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v.  Casey are overruled; the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.["]  Some states jumped at the opportunity.  My state of Colorado has no limits on abortion, allowing it from conception until birth.  Last week Ohio passed a more limited right to abortion via Constitutional amendment, with no restrictions up until fetal viability, around 22-24 weeks of pregnancy, or later if necessary "to protect the life or health of the mother."  Not defined is "health" of the mother.  Physical health?  Mental health?  Emotional health?  These will be decided on a "case by case basis", probably without much thought or scrutiny.

McDaniel, RNC Cave After Threatening to Disqualify Candidates Over Christian Event.  There is something very wrong with the priorities of the Republican National Committee.  During the third GOP primary debate on Wednesday, candidate Vivek Ramaswamy called on RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to resign, citing the party's struggles in recent elections.  He labeled the GOP a "party of losers," reminding viewers of the "red wave that never came" in 2022 and the latest election losses suffered by Republicans on Tuesday.  [Tweet with video clip]  Ramaswamy also criticized the RNC for allowing the debate to be dominated by the establishment media and said conservative figures like Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk should have been chosen as hosts instead.

This Isn't Rocket Science, GOP — Figure It Out.  Another election, another round of recriminations.  I have ZERO confidence that the Republican Party will heed anything I say here since they don't listen to the dozens (or hundreds) of other better-known commentators making similar points.  But as proof of the triumph of hope over experience, here goes:  No. 1:  Ronna McDaniel has to go.  How many embarrassing electoral defeats must the party endure before this woman is replaced?  It was astonishing that McDaniel was reelected in January of this year to a fourth term as Republican National Committee chair on the heels of midterm elections that were, if not disastrous, then inexcusably disappointing for Republicans in what should have been a banner year.  At the January meeting, McDaniel said, "We heard you, grassroots.  We know ... [W]ith us united and all of us joining together, the Democrats are going to hear us in 2024."  Oh, I see — just not in 2023?

Republicans Aren't Tired of Losing Yet.  Think back to the day after the 2022 election.  The GOP was predicted by essentially everyone to have a red wave, but in the end, it was a red trickle.  Garnering only a four-seat majority in the House and actually losing ground in the Senate, it was one of the largest underperformances in recent memory when considering the timing and fundamentals at play.  The morning after, I penned a piece entitled "I'm Sick of Losing, I Hope You Are Too."  In it, I detailed the stagnant nature of the GOP, including the fact that there's no accountability for the party's leadership.  Contrary to my hopes of an enduring wake-up call, though, nothing really changed.  In January of 2023, the incumbent chair easily won re-election to head the RNC, marking her fourth ascent to the position.

Vivek Slams RNC for Picking NBC as Debate Moderators, Calls for McDaniel's Resignation.  GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy ripped the Republican National Committee (RNC) for picking NBC News as Wednesday's debate moderators and called for committee chair Ronna McDaniel's resignation.  The statement expresses the angst among some Republicans who doubt the RNC's effectiveness after several election defeats.  In his opening statement, Vivek took direct aim at the RNC for permitting NBC News, which pushed disinformation about the "laptop from hell," to protect President Joe Biden in 2020.  "I am upset about what happened last night," he said about Tuesday's poor election results for Republicans.  "We become a party of losers.  At the end of the day there is a cancer in the Republican establishment."

Republicans Call on Ronna McDaniel to Resign Following Tuesday's Elections.  Republicans across social media are calling on Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to resign following Tuesday evening's elections, which saw a major GOP loss in Kentucky.  Republicans experienced a mixed night, as Democrats scored victories in Kentucky — reelecting Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear over Trump-backed candidate Daniel Cameron — as well as Virginia and Ohio.  Democrats took control of the General Assembly in Virginia while pro-abortion activists won in Ohio, as Ohioans passed issue one, codifying the supposed "right" to murder an unborn child in the state constitution.

What is the Republican Party's guiding principle?  We have yet to see the core principles of the current Republican party.  We would be so much better off if the Republicans told everyone what they were for and provided solutions, rather than what they are against.  Some of us wonder if they even know.  In what alternate universe does anyone have faith in any government?  At best, government sets a pathway for transaction and interaction, enforces written laws, protects the nation from foreign and domestic invaders, and itself adheres to the Constitution's restrictions on government actions.  That's the best that government can do.  It can stay out of the way.

It's almost as if the RNC wants to lose!
RNC makes insane choice to host next presidential primary debate.  The ever feckless Republican National Committee (RNC) recently announced that it is going to have NBC News host its next presidential primary debate.  This seems an odd choice, if only because NBC News hates Republicans.  The news organization detests President Trump, Trump voters, patriotic Americans, capitalism, traditional values, borders, the Constitution of the United States of America, straight white males, Christianity, Israel, pro-lifers, Fox News, the Second Amendment, Mike Lindell, Lee Greenwood, "anti-vaxxers," Joe Rogan, Aaron Rodgers, fossil fuels... and those of us who reside in Middle America in general.

Idaho Republican Rep Mike Simpson Views Constituent Contacts as "Intimidation and Threatening".  It is a good thing to see the masks dropping amid the professionally republican class who view themselves as something more than representatives of their constituents.  In public response to the requests of the voters, Idaho's Second Congressional District Representative Mike Simpson reminds voters that their opinion means nothing.

Very bad things are about to happen, on all fronts.  The right is divided and weak, and too often unwilling to stand up to the worst behavior of the left.  It is so divided that it can't even elect a speaker in the House of Representatives.  The left meanwhile is united and angry, and willing to use that anger forcefully at all times. [...] There is great uncertainty on whether the 2024 elections will be run fairly, or whether the Democrats will use fraud and vote tampering to falsify a victory.  The weakness and disunity among the Republicans only reinforces this uncertainty.  Adding to this uncertainty is the violence and barbarism in the streets of most American cities.  All political meetings — from school boards to Congress — seem fraught with anger and shouting and chaos, and it seems impossible for any sane and civilized person to make any headway against this madness.

20 House Republicans Blocked Jim Jordan on First Ballot — Here's Who They Are.  Keep this list handy.  These are the twenty Republicans who are stealth Democrats and voted against Jim Jordan.  Yes, there are some surprises, including John James of Michigan.  [List]  Accept things as they are, not as we would pretend them to be.

Team DeSantis and Team Haley Pitch Themselves to the Never Trump Billionaires During Donor Strategy Meeting in Texas.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says he can beat Trump.  Nikki Haley says, no, DeSantis is a diminishing meatball now; only her neocon curriculum vitae is strong enough to go against Godzilla Trump.  Team DeSantis scoffs.  Team Haley sneers.  Can you imagine being a billionaire stupid enough to subject themselves to this nonsense?  The R.A.T coalition (Republicans Against Trump) is so desperate, they held a strategy session with DeSantis and Haley to decide which one of them would carry the banner of most approved & purchased candidate. [...] In the best-case scenario, together these two knuckleheads have maybe 20% support.

The Ronna Romney RNC is utterly useless.  [Scroll down]  So here's the situation we face now:  the RNC has kept an iron claw on the debate process, preventing candidates from facing off in any other venue than their predetermined choices.  They've done so while allowing the leading candidate, former president Donald Trump, to skate by, avoiding any requirement to debate or participate.  The effect has been embarrassing to say the least — too many candidates, too little time and a Univision-backed questioner in the second debate who was heinous, inaccurate and essentially functioned as a Democratic plant.  The RNC has done a terrible job of managing this cycle, just like they did in 2016 — except worse, because nothing this year has been very unpredictable.  But they threaten anyone who wants to break out of their management cabal, like some form of politically impotent OPEC run by model UN nerds, with the most disastrous of consequences.  Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie just experienced this when they were supposed to be on the same Fox set for thirty minutes!

Trump's Not the Problem — He's the Reaction to the Problem.  Rather than causing the problems, he is the voters' response to decades of feckless GOP leadership and broken promises to their voters.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and the GOP offered up a decades-long vacuum of leadership and principles.  Trump filled the vacuum as did Rep. Matt Gaetz last week.  Although it probably began much earlier, a notable starting point for Republican duplicitousness was from George H.W. Bush in his 1988 presidential campaign against Michael Dukakis.  He uttered those famous six words, "Read my lips, no new taxes."  As Time reported, Bush as president, "Signed into law a stealth budget that, while leaving the income tax alone, raised various fees and levies."  Promises made, promises broken.  He dropped like a stone in the polls, ushering in eight years of Bill Clinton.

Where is the red-state Laphonza Butler?  You'd be hard pressed to find a single Democrat outside a swing state who dissents from the party line on a single issue of significance.  Yet when you flip the tables, you won't find a single Republican from a solidly red state who does not harbor some liberal views on critical questions, whether it's illegal immigration, gay marriage, green energy, or — especially! — Ukraine.  Few if any elected Republicans are entirely in line with their base.  The few Republicans who are good on one issue will usually screw us on another critical issue.  One might be good on medical freedom but crush us on gay marriage.  Another one who is strong on social values will shill for Ukraine or open borders.  Even Utah's Mike Lee, who arguably has the most consistent conservative voting record in the Senate this past decade, is passionate about freeing criminals and handing out more visas.  Republican governors aren't much better.  Why do we keep talking about Ron DeSantis?  Because he is the only red-state governor willing to power through corporate politics, identity politics, and the temptation of federal funding.  Every other Republican governor supports some level of illegal immigration, mass vaccination, funding for Ukraine, and green energy subsidies.  The imbalance between the parties is simply unsustainable.

Time To Jump On The Grenade.  Trump and DeSantis are the only two candidates who have a realistic shot at winning the GOP nomination — which means all of the other candidates will ultimately be forced to drop out eventually — it's only a matter of when.  But in my view — and a view that is shared by many others — DeSantis has a far greater chance of winning the presidency than Trump does, which is why it is in the interest of the other GOP candidates to suspend their presidential ambitions for the good of the country by "jumping on the grenade."

Local Florida News Station Broadcasts Reality of DeSantis Campaign.  WFLA news broadcasts in the Tampa Bay area of Florida.  Recapping Governor Ron DeSantis' campaign trip in the area, the broadcasters were brutally honest.  According to the reporter on the ground, about 200 people showed up for DeSantis, and things get worse as the political analyst explains the status of nonexistent campaign funds and donors pulling away from the governor in his doomed bid to reestablish the Bush era in national politics.

Matt Gaetz is a hero.  [E]ight conservatives have successfully ousted Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House and much of the conservative punditry is angry!  What does that tell us?  It tells us that all those RINOs who voted to retain McCarthy are not conservatives.  That any member of Congress can and does vote to perpetuate the brutally irresponsible spending of the uniparty that runs the swamp which should be a wake-up call for all Americans.  Congress can't stop spending and the Fed can't stop printing money to do it.  Modern monetary theory is a joke; printing money backed by nothing is a dangerous way to operate.  It's a pathway to catastrophic economic failure.  We are nearly there.  What is so shocking is that several of our most prestigious conservative columnists and commentators agree with the RINOs; There's Mark Levin, Victor Davis Hanson, and John Hinderaker, for example.  Each of them are fiscal conservatives who grasp the nature of the disaster that is the Biden administration.  And yet they are mad at Matt Gaetz!  He is the sanest and bravest member of this Congress.

The RNC doesn't want you to get an unmediated glimpse of the competing candidates.  Each Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858 lasted for three hours, with a 60-minute opening, a 90-minute response, and a 30-minute closing.  Americans were mesmerized as these two great speakers brilliantly illuminated the opposing Republican and Democrat ideologies in that pivotal era.  The RNC debates in 2023, by contrast, although ostensibly intended to illuminate the difference between the various Republican candidates in this equally pivotal era, have been two-hour-long clown shows intended not to explore ideas but to have the choreographed excitement of a brawl at a WWE event.  It's no surprise, then, to learn that the RNC bars the Republican candidates from engaging in one-on-one exchanges of ideas.  Voters might learn something, and we can't have that.

McCarthy gets Liz Cheneyed.  [Scroll down]  [Newt Gingrich] wrote, "But Gaetz has gone beyond regular drama.  He is destroying the House GOP's ability to govern and draw a sharp contrast with the policy disasters of the Biden administration."  House Republicans' ability to govern?  Does he mean the losers who wasted two years of power by not lifting a finger to Build The Wall?  What is the sharp contrast with Biden's open borders disaster?  House Republicans made Biden's policy possible.  House Republicans' ability to govern?  Does he mean the losers who wasted two months defending Liz Cheney when she gave Nancy Pelosi cover for that January 6 witch hunt?  House Republicans' ability to govern?  Does he mean the losers who sit on the sidelines while Democrats railroad President Trump with frivolous lawsuits and indictments meant to bankrupt him in legal fees? [...] The animus against Trump and Trump supporters has turned Reagan's big tent party into a party run by clowns.  What exactly has Ronna done as RNC chairman besides raise a lot of money to keep her and her staff well paid while losing election after election after election.

Why McCarthy Got Ousted.  Republicans make history in dumping former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.  And the time was perfect for this historic act.  McCarthy demonstrates how unprincipled politicians act.  And his actions show what Republicans have accepted for decades.  When the time came for McCarthy to put on his big boy pants and stand up to Democrats, he caved almost every time.  He caved even under the pressure of the constant threat of losing the speakership.  Imagine how he would have behaved without the constant vigilance. [...] In the end, Gaetz forced McCarthy to show his hand.  He had nothing.  McCarthy hoped his nuance on positions would fool MAGA Republicans into allowing him to keep his job.  For example, where are the January 6 tapes McCarthy promised?  Also, since when does a Republican allow a bill to pass with the support of more Democrats than Republicans?  Lastly, how about the budget baseline?

Suicide of the House.  Who was it who said of the Palestinians that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity?  You could say the same of the Republican Party.  Then there is the adage, attributed to Napoleon, that you should never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake.  The Republicans violated that one today, too.  By rights, the Democrats should be in disarray.  The Biden administration has been a disaster, as pretty much everyone knows, regardless of what some loyalists may tell a pollster.  And yet it is the Republicans who can't get their act together.  Once again, they have bailed out the Democrats with an idiotic vote to oust Kevin McCarthy as Speaker.  Only eight Republicans voted for Matt Gaetz's motion, but of course every Democrat voted to get rid of McCarthy.  Whatever their faults, the Democrats have party loyalty, and they know their self-interest when they see it.  Unlike many Republicans.

This was written two years ago, but I just saw it today:
How the GOP Committed Suicide Trying to Stop Trump.  What we're witnessing right now in America is the two-party system collapse into a one-party system.  On all the important issues in America like vaccines, lockdowns, spending bills, fake insurrections, big tech censorship, and election reform there's no meaningful difference between the two parties.  There's just a different set of talking points.  The GOP has basically committed a kind of ideological suicide in its push to oust Trump and his allies from the party.  This became very clear with the insane negotiations they conducted with Nancy Pelosi over the January 6th Commission: only Republicans would be dumb enough to empower a commission of Democrats to conduct an investigation of Republicans.  The GOP establishment is so awful that it actually voted to make Juneteenth a national holiday while the FBI was still arresting GOP voters over a fake insurrection.  That's really all that you need to know.  The merging of the Republicans and the Democrats into one big anti-Trump party has enormous implications for our country and all of them are bad.  Just consider our civil liberties: do we still have any?  Every time Mitch McConnell gets in front of the TV cameras to harass Americans one more time into getting vaccinated, I'm pessimistic on that score.  The GOP doesn't even care about deficit spending anymore either.

In One Fell Swoop the National GOP Is Looking Like the Michigan GOP and That Has Me Worried.  [Scroll down]  The second thing lurking in the background is this.  The small group of members led by Gaetz who are presenting this as some sort of noble act now have shown that the GOP is willing to set aside unity in a fractured way to go after an issue that neither Republicans or Democrats are actually going to tackle.  I heard a lot of talk about the deficit and the $33 trillion debt.  These are important issues, of course, but to actually do any sizable work on the debt you would have to tackle Social Security and Medicare and there is no one in that chamber of 435 members that is willing to even talk about it let it alone make a proposal to rein in spending to tackle the debt.  If there is, send along their name; I want to thank them.  Even the people cheering from social media sidelines and saying this is the right thing to do, go ahead and tell them that the Social Security that they plan on collecting in five 10, or 15 years won't nearly be as much as they have been told and a temper tantrum will ensue that would embarrass a two-year-old.

With Just Over 30k in the Bank, the Funeral March Has Begun for the Michigan GOP.  I understand, particularly in Michigan where Trump won by 11,000 votes in 2016 that anytime a Republican loses now it is fraud but when you lose by 14 points that is more than a loss it is a landside [...] This is going to make me do something I do not want to do but I guess I might have to.  I might to have to join the Michigan GOP to at least be able to watch this circus personally and not from others' reporting.

How Republicans Will Botch the Biden Impeachment.  In a previous article, I warned that the GOP's knee-jerk reaction to the Trump indictment would be an impeachment of Joe Biden, and that such a move would backfire tremendously on the party through a very clever appeal to emotion by the Democrats.  To make a long story short, the GOP will be — and by some, already has been — painted as making the impeachment not about Joe Biden himself, but rather, what his son Hunter has done.  Beyond the fact that it is much more difficult to tie these accusations back to Joe himself, rather than just make it about the President from the onset, some are already going straight for the heartstrings by bringing up the Biden family's genuinely tragic past.  Some, such as former Senator Claire McCaskill, have already begun framing the narrative that Biden is being punished by the opposition party for simply being a loving father, standing by his son after their family has experienced such disasters as accidental deaths, health complications, and histories of substance abuse.  It may very well be totally fictional, but that's the point of storytelling.

Do Republicans Care About Winning Anymore?  Yes, we all know the weaponized Biden justice department indictments against Trump are a disgrace that serve no legitimate purpose other than to weaken him politically in the general election — should he win the primary.  But 91 sham indictments or no indictments, most Americans already have a view of the former president that is fully baked into the cake and is unlikely to change based on any court ruling.  According to an AP-NORC Center survey that was conducted in August, 53 percent of Americans said they would "definitely not" support Trump next November.  What that means is that a considerable share of the electorate will gladly vote for a barely sentient man, a man who is responsible for overseeing the greatest decline of our country since Jimmy Carter.  Yes, as illogical and destructive as it is, the Marxists would rather pay $8 per gallon of gas, let China run roughshod over us, expose minors to inappropriate sex-education and watch as their urban cities turn into crime infested hell holes — rather than vote for the evil orange man.

Viewers Blast RNC, Fox for Including Univision in Debate.  Viewers of the second Republican National Committee (RNC) debate blasted the RNC as well as Fox News for including Univision as a partner in the event.  The debate kicked off with Univision anchor Ilia Calderón opening up the debate by speaking Spanish, telling viewers that the candidates are trying to win them over. [...] But the irritation of the inclusion of Univision only grew throughout the night, as moderators asked about "gun violence," amnesty, Obamacare, and more.  "It's a good thing Univision is an official media partner of this debate so issues that matter Republican voters are covered — said not one Republican primary or caucus voter," Sean Spicer observed as one commenter remarked, "It was pretty obvious when they tried to get the candidates to sign on to amnesty."

Whose idea was it to invite Ilia Calderón?  How many Republicans watch Univision?  How many Univision viewers become Republicans?
Second GOP Debate Marred By Univision Moderator's Anti-American HATE and LIES.  The second GOP presidential primary debate Wednesday night was a case study in why the Republican Party shouldn't award debate moderation privileges to hostile and dishonest members of the liberal media.  While Fox Business Network occupied two of the moderator positions (Stuart Varney and Dana Perino), the third was given to Univision anchor Ilia Calderón.  Her questions were by far the most anti-American and dishonest; ranging from lies about gun violence being "unique" to America to blaming America for the drug trafficking at the southern border, and more.  In a question directed to North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, Calderón peddled the liberal media's BIG LIE about gun violence:  "Mental health concerns are not unique to United States.  But gun violence is."  Back here in reality, Central American and South American countries were some of the most dangerous countries in the world.  Their violence was often cited as a primary driver of illegal immigration to the U.S. According to reporting from NPR, those countries have per capita violent gun death rates many times that of the U.S.

A Reality Check for Republican Voters.  There are three realities that Republican voters can no longer avoid.  The first, Joe Biden will not be the Democrat nominee in 2024.  Second, the Democrats want to face a damaged Donald Trump in November of 2024.  Third, Trump's age, unforeseen events, and the egregious lawfare he is facing could eventuate in Trump having to drop out of the race.  Ron DeSantis is the only viable proven conservative candidate to replace him and yet Trump and many Republican voters are foolishly determined to permanently destroy DeSantis and render him unelectable.

Ken Paxton's Tucker Carlson interview and Texas's Vichy Republicans' war against conservatives.  As you know, Ken Paxton is a conservative attorney general and he's been a thorn in the side of the Biden administration.  He's filed suit after suit against Biden's executive orders and, if he gets to court, he often wins.  In addition, within Texas, he's been fighting a valiant battle against election fraud.  Incidentally, Paxton thinks the big threat to America isn't voting machines.  Instead, it's mail-in ballots.  Mailing them to everyone makes it impossible to know who is returning those ballots or how many are honestly returned.  One would think that, in a red state like Texas, election fraud and other chicanery wouldn't be a problem.  However, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston are all hard left, and leftists control the election systems in those cities.  Paxton was trying to sue to correct fraud there and, when he got to court, he won.  So, the Karl Rove/Bush branch of the Republican party, via judicial fiat, stopped that.  In other words, between election fraud, corrupt politics, and open borders, Texas is heading for the blue side of the political spectrum and, once it does, the biggest bulwark against permanent Democrat power in D.C. is gone.

Do Republicans Care About Winning Anymore?  [Scroll down]  According to an AP-NORC Center survey that was conducted in August, 53 percent of Americans said they would "definitely not" support Trump next November.  What that means is that a considerable share of the electorate will gladly vote for a barely sentient man, a man who is responsible for overseeing the greatest decline of our country since Jimmy Carter.  Yes, as illogical and destructive as it is, the Marxists would rather pay $8 per gallon of gas, let China run roughshod over us, expose minors to inappropriate sex-education and watch as their urban cities turn into crime infested hell holes — rather than vote for the evil orange man.  Sure you can refer to those baby-killing, open border radicals, globalist loving, climate change freaks, as morons all you want, but it does nothing to change the facts.  And the reality is, we simply cannot afford to remain on the path to hell that is our current trajectory, which means we need to nominate someone who can win and reverse the decline as quickly as possible.  When President Nixon was considering whether or not he should run again for President in 1968, he wrote in his memoirs, "A good candidate must have five qualities:  brains, heart, judgment, guts, and experience."  There is no denying that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis unequivocally possesses all of those qualities.

Keywords:  Stalling, snail's pace, slow-walking, all talk and no action.
McCarthy to Endorse Biden Impeachment Inquiry as 'Logical Next Step' in Corruption Probe.  House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) is expected to endorse an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden in a closed-door meeting with House Republicans this week.  McCarthy plans to tell those present that the move is the "logical next step" in the Republican Party's probes of Biden and his son Hunter's alleged influence peddling schemes, Punchbowl News reported Tuesday and Fox News confirmed.  At the private meeting set for Thursday morning, House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) and House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R., Ky.) will each provide an update regarding their respective investigations into the Biden family's foreign business dealings.

The Editor says...
[#1] Joe Biden is far too senile to make any policy decisions, and he has been for some time. Thus there is no point in impeaching Joe Biden for the havoc being inflicted by the "Biden administration."  The actual culprits, which could include Barack H. Obama, DOCTOR Jill Biden, Bernie Sanders, Valerie Jarrett, and many others, will face no punishment (in this life) for what they've done, because Joe Biden is just the curtain they hide behind.  [#2] Joe Biden is likely to die of natural causes long before the spineless Republicans take any action against him.  Joe Biden is not the least bit worried about impeachment.

America Is Gone, Says Sebastian Gorka.  America is dying because the Republican party died years ago.  True God loving conservatives are less than 20% of the republican party.  The Republican party worships at the altar of money and kneels at the feet of Democrats.  The party is dead, but Trump's movement is not.  [Video clip]

Republicans Must Impeach Biden.  There is a reason the issue of impeaching President Biden has finally come into the spotlight, and it isn't what you may think.  The Republicans have neither the spine nor the skills to pull off an impeachment, even with a teed-up softball like this.  Democrats want the threat of impeachment without the impeachment itself, but Republicans can call their bluff.  I often said I would fear being grilled by Trey Gowdy in a congressional hearing.  He was excellent at his job and was brutal in cross-examination.  But despite all the information and even drop-dead proof he generated, no one has even been charged, much less brought to justice.  Big hat, no cattle.  No spine.

The Veil of National Security.  I can't get into minute detail here, but in Texas there's the "Prior Term Doctrine" which states that if the issues were known prior to someone's election, (in Paxton's case, they were) the candidate cannot be impeached for something that happened in the prior term.  This is exactly what is happening to Ken Paxton in particular and Texans in general.  The reason for the Prior Term Doctrine is to demonstrate that the voice of the people will not be ignored.  This impeachment, investigated in secret, with testimony not held under oath, violates the rules of the House, jurisprudence and the Prior Term Doctrine all at the same time.  There is no criminal charges here, only some unusual or questionable reactions to impropriety Paxton was investigating.  This is a bigger issue than just for Texans, because it affects the border issues.  If Ken Paxton is impeached and they get someone like George P. Bush into that office, forget any border enforcement that Texas might strive for going forward.  In fact, Bush would likely sue Abbott for what little he has done to enforce the border.  Why do I bring up George P. Bush?  Guess who Paxton beat in the last election for Attorney General.  Yep, George P. Bush.  This is a way for the establishment to win the election they just lost.

Mask Mandates Are Back, and You Can Thank Republicans.  It was just a matter of time before the shoes started to drop, and mask mandates are now making a comeback.  Multiple school districts around the country, including most recently in Washington, DC, are reinstating mandates as positive cases of COVID-19 are discovered.  [Tweet] [...] Republicans share in the blame.  Remember when GOP politicians told you to elect them in 2022 as a way to enact accountability for what occurred during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic?  How's that going?  Because last I checked, Dr. Anthony Fauci still hasn't even been called to testify.  Instead, House Republicans have found other hobby horses to pursue.  That's not to say investigations into the weaponization of government aren't needed, but it is to say that what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic was, by far, the biggest weaponization of government in my lifetime.  How is that not a priority? [...] The GOP promised accountability, and instead, Republicans swept everything under the rug because it was convenient for most of them.  After all, why own up to your failures when you can just pretend they didn't happen?

Party!  Party!  If you are shocked and bewildered that totalitarian tyranny creeps through our country without opposition, the reason is simple: there is no official opposition.  The capture of government looks nearly complete by a party that lusts to punish its citizens for the pleasure of watching them suffer, while it steals everything they've worked for and forecloses their future.  At least half the country objects to this.  Where is a party that stands for them?

The Republican Debate Was Unsatisfying Because No One Addressed The Most Important Issue.  The greatest threat to our Republic, to our democracy, to our country as we know it is the unholy alliance that has been exposed between the Democrat Party, federal agencies, and the media — resulting in the greatest level of corruption we have ever witnessed.  Saying this just a few years ago was called a conspiracy theory.  But sadly, we know that this cabal's most significant effort — Russiagate — involved almost innumerable illegal acts of conspiracy, perjury, collusion, propaganda, and censorship.  These were often requested and/or committed, not by a rogue staffer or two, but by top leadership in governmental agencies.  The debate moderators didn't ask a single question about or even mention what many call the greatest political scandal in our nation's history.  Russiagate was not an isolated scandal that is now old news.  Rather, it was a very large signpost showing a deep level of corruption within our government.  That corruption has not faded away.

Montana Republicans lost Held v Montana.  On August 14, 2023, Montana Republicans lost the Held v Montana (HvM) climate lawsuit, as I said they would since June 2022, based upon how AG Knudsen was failing to prepare to defend HvM.  The judge did not make a biased decision, as AG Knudsen now clams.  The judge properly used the evidence presented in the trial.  The Supreme Court will agree with the judge.  The trial was NOT a "clown show" as several Republicans have claimed, unless we are talking about AG Austin Knudsen.  Montana lost because Knudsen did not defend against the plaintiffs' climate claims.  Worse, before the trial began on June 12, 2023, Assistant AG Michael Russell stipulated, "for the purposes of trial, there is a scientific consensus that earth is warming as a direct result of human GHG emissions, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels."  Knudsen gave away the farm.  He caved on climate and gave the Democrats control of Montana's mining, energy, economy, and education.

A Country Worth Conserving.  If your only reason to be conservative is the inadequacy of liberalism, you are only a spurned lover, an ex-liberal yearning for some liberalism of yore.  A proper conservative ought to have some positive reason to be a conservative — something more than a list of complaints that reveals you are ultimately still in love with liberalism.

Donald Trump and the 2024 General Election.  Thus far there has been no indication that the Trump campaign or the Republican National Committee understands or has developed any strategy to win the general election.  The ongoing lawfare against Trump will, in all likelihood, spawn a number of uncontrollable factors.  Among them will be Trump's ability to campaign and the necessity of spending massive sums of campaign cash on legal expenses instead of opposing the Democrat nominee.  Additionally, the outcomes of the public trials that will be held prior to the election could potentially result in dramatic negative reactions by the electorate directed towards Trump.  Therefore, the Republican primary voter needs to know what will be the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee strategy if voter sentiment turns markedly against him and/or multiple states arbitrarily and unconstitutionally attempt to disqualify Trump from their ballots based on the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment.

An Inconvenient Trump:  Republicans Are Living an Enormous Lie.  The Republican primary debate charade, hosted by a hapless Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, revealed two things:  Vivek Ramaswamy is a rising star, and Donald Trump dominated as the elephant not in the room.  The Democrats and the media run a constant clown show, but the Republicans play along as useless puppets, willfully participating in a system designed to destroy them.  The Republican party is allowing itself to be rigged by playing by the rules of an old system that no longer exists.  The Democrats, bureaucracy, and media are vicious apparatchiks.  They are a dirty and obvious enemy who clearly need to be fought.  The Republicans are worse because they don't see their own participation in the Big Lie.  They would rather step over Trump's dead political body than save the republic.  In so doing, they will never have power again, even if they regain it.  They will be vassals of the state apparatus, nothing more ... or else.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy Still Will Not Commit to Impeachment Inquiry But Dances Around the Idea.  Speaker Kevin McCarthy joined Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures this weekend.  Bartiromo opened up the discussion asking McCarthy if he will launch an impeachment investigation.  McCarthy balked once again.  This guy is so weak.  Democrats are destroying the country on every front.  They are stealing our freedoms and have indicted the leading Republican with 91 bogus charges on speech charges.  And McCarthy is still talking about someday, possibly, if the stars align, he will open an impeachment inquiry!

After President Trump's 4th Arrest, the RINOs Said Nothing to Defend Him.  This worthless group of clueless RINOs said NOTHING when President Trump was indicted and arrested on bogus criminal charges the past six months.  On Thursday night President Trump was arrested on 13 more bogus charges.  President Trump's only crime was speaking out against the stolen 2020 election.  And now the Marxists have arrested the most popular sitting president in history with 91 felony charges.  If the leftist courts convict President Trump for unapproved speech, he could face over 400 years in prison.

Republican National Committee picks Houston to host 2028 presidential nominating convention.  The Republican National Committee on Friday named Houston, Texas as host city for their 2028 presidential nominating convention.  The news was announced in a release following a vote by the RNC's 168 committee members.  Houston was one of three finalists to host the 2028 convention, along with Miami, Florida and Nashville, Tennessee.  "I am excited to announce Houston as the host city for the 2028 Republican National Convention," said RNC Charwoman Ronna McDaniel.  "After a smart business decision made by the RNC last spring to allow us to select the next convention city earlier than ever, we are looking forward to seeing Houston in the spotlight come 2028.  The entire RNC membership is eager to work with Governor Greg Abbott, Mayor Sylvester Turner, the Houston Host Committee, and Houston First Corporation to follow in Milwaukee's footsteps by delivering an incredible convention for our Party."

The Editor says...
That's a brilliant move, Ronna, because Houston is a solid-blue city, dominated by left-wing socialists, and everybody who benefits will be a Democrat.

The Longer Republicans Sit On Their Hands, The More Likely America's Self-Destruction Becomes Irreversible.  Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Friday that U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss, who orchestrated Hunter Biden's sweetheart plea deal, will now serve as special counsel in the government's probe of the Biden family business.  The blatantly partisan decision to appoint a co-conspirator in the plot to cover up the Biden family business should not go unpunished.  Republicans should start by impeaching Garland, whose track record even before the recent special counsel appointment was worth immense scrutiny.  Garland's decision to bestow special privileges and status on yet another one of Biden's corrupt deep-state attorneys only adds to the growing list of reasons why he should be prosecuted and removed.  Garland isn't the only one who should pay.  The whole DOJ, its pawns in the FBI, and whoever in the White House is giving them orders should be held to account for their travesties against the American people.

Understanding why Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp Supports Corrupt Fulton County DA Fani Willis.  Republican and Democrat politics is a club structure.  Factually, voters are irrelevant in the system the two private corporations have constructed.  Whether you align with Republicans or you choose to align with Democrats, the main thing to always remember is — they don't care.  Voters are not part of the RNC/DNC party construct.  Voters are irrelevant.  The interests of voters are not part of any discussion that takes place inside the private corporations.  On a scaled basis of control, the Georgia republican apparatus is near the top of the GOPe structure for total operational control.  Georgia voters are even less relevant than other states.  Georgia voters, much like Texas voters, are the least important part of the party process.  Georgia and Texas are closed party states.  Much like "districts" in the former Soviet era, Texas and Georgia are under the control of private party officers.  If you live in either of these states, and if you try to effect political organizing that impacts the party apparatus, you are an annoying gnat to be removed.

DeSantis Team Works with RNC to Hide Small Donor Contribution Details.  The New York Times has an article written yesterday noting how the DeSantis team has a special agreement with the RNC, via WinRed, to hide the small donor contributions to their campaign.  Knowing how the Big Club operates within the private corporation known as the RNC, and with small donor contributions being a debate qualification, it makes you wonder if this "special RNC agreement" with the DeSantis team might carry a motive to ensure a debate hurdle is overcome. [...] Knowing with absolute certainty that everything surrounding the campaign of Ron DeSantis is manufactured, fake, Astroturf and artificial, I would strongly suggest the special arrangement between the RNC and DeSantis is motivated by their joint goal to remove MAGA from the organization.

Biden's crime family is all of DC.  [Scroll down]  Hillary said she would bring DC down with her.  Guess what?  She never was indicted even though she forwarded state secrets via email to foreign donors to her fake charity when she was secretary of state.  Jim Comey, then FBI director, even admitted publicly that he had the evidence but would not recommend prosecution. [...] His FBI spied on political opponents to please Barack Hussein Obama.  When this became public knowledge, do you know what a Republican-controlled House and a Republican Senate did?  Nothing.  They did nothing.  No prosecutions were recommended.  Paul Ryan likely laughed.  He hates President Donald Trump with a passion because Trump is an existential threat to the Banana Republicans and their allies in the Democrat Party.  Life is good in Washington.  Everyone goes along to get along, and the pay is great.

America and the Common Characteristics of Authoritarian Regimes.  [#9] A Dummy Opposition:  In order to demonstrate their 'commitment to democracy' the regime always ensures the existence of an opposition party.  This party is like lapdogs that crawl when they are asked to bend and prostrate when asked to crawl.  They may say the right thing and pretend to be critics, but when the time comes they side with the regime.  There are eight minor political parties in China but they operate under the CCP's united-front system.

Conservatives Can't Play Political Hardball.  The notion of "facts" or "accuracy" doesn't matter in the progressive playbook.  The only thing that matters is going on offense.  Conservatives are forever playing an inadequate game of catchup.  That is, when conservatives even bother to fight back at all.  Too often, they simply absorb the blows unanswered, pleased with themselves for simply surviving the round until the bell.  As an experienced political observer, I've witnessed this for years on the national level.  But just recently, I saw this first-hand in my home state of Massachusetts, a blue-dominated state where Republicans are outnumbered 135-25 in the State House of Representatives and 37-3 in the State Senate.

The Editor says...
The Texas legislature is the same way:  Republicans are in the majority, but the Socialists get whatever they want.

Republican Party Elites Want to Change Primary Rules to [Deprive] Trump of Delegates.  A poll released earlier this month projected President Trump would win in a massive blowout in the Republican Primary. [...] This terrifies the GOP elites.  They hate Trump and hate the fact that they cannot sway Republican voters away from President Trump.  Massachusetts is the latest state where Republicans are playing with the rules to thwart President Trump in the upcoming primary.

GOP Senators Thune, Kennedy, Tillis and Paul Push Back Against Impeachment.  Earlier today Senator Rand Paul went on with Maria Bartiromo on FOX Business Network.  Senator Paul does not support impeachment for Joe Biden at this point.  He wants to see more evidence.  And, being such an upstanding American citizen, Paul does not believe every president should be impeached.  He leave that to Democrats.  [Tweet with video clip]

They are rubbing our noses in their filth.  As long as President Trump is out of office, it is felonious business as usual in Corruption City.  There is no incentive for the crooked Republicans in Congress to help Trump, which explains why John Fetterman is in the Senate and not Dr. Oz.  But that is not the narrative fake conservatives feed us.  Over at Paul Ryan's Express — a clever name for Fox News — Newt Gingrich is saying the dam is going to break and the bribery scandals are going to bring Biden down.  Sure they are, right after Republicans repeal Obamacare.  But the Bud Light of cable news believes false hope will appease and entice enough conservatives so it can go back to beating MSNBC and CNN in the fake ratings war.

The GOP Death Wish.  The current GOP now stands for "gladly out of power" as elected Republicans are doing everything they can to commit political suicide, becoming a permanent minority in national, and in many cases state and local, politics.  The GOP's behavior ever since Donald Trump transitioned from television and real estate impresario to presidential candidate, then president, ex-president, and now candidate once again, suggests a death wish, leading conservatives and Republicans to wonder why we even bother voting.  Trump was not the preferred GOP candidate in 2016.  Instead early on it was Jeb! the would-be third president in the Bush family monarchy.  We make fun of the British royals, but between the Clintons, Bushes, Bidens, and Obamas, we have our own ruling families.

Senate Republicans Despise Their Voters.  Lisa Murkowski is the perfect mascot for Senate Republicans.  She is a Democrat in all but name, an aristocrat who inherited her office, and a beneficiary of rigged elections.  She has more in common with Nancy Pelosi than the average Republican voter, and every time Alaskan Republicans attempt to throw her out of office, Mitch McConnell's minions manipulate the rules to save her.  For McConnell, Murkowski is another beholden senator kept securely in his pocket who will vote how he wants on any given day.  That might not be so bad (except for the good people of Alaska, whom she purportedly represents) if McConnell were not also an aristocrat who routinely betrays Republican voters.  However, because his loyalties lie with President Xi, multinational corporations, the World Economic Forum, and his good friend Joe Biden, China Mitch uses the leash around Murkowski's neck only when he needs help sticking it to the American people.

Caution:  This article in The Hill reeks with bias:
GOP senators rattled by radical conservative populism.  GOP senators are saying they're being increasingly confronted by constituents who buy into discredited conspiracy theories such as the claim that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election or that federal agents incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.  Growing distrust with government institutions, from the FBI, CIA and Department of Justice to the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health, make it more difficult for Republican lawmakers to govern.  Republican senators believe their party has a good chance to take back control of the White House and Senate, given President Biden's low approval ratings and the favorable map of Senate seats up for reelection, but they regularly face political headaches caused by populist members of their party who say the rest of the GOP is out of step with mainstream America.

Did Mike Pence Just End His Presidential Candidacy?  Before Tucker Carlson had an epiphany, the media establishment was a comfortable place. [...] The Democrats went to every left-leaning channel and attacked the right.  The Republicans appeared on Fox News and attacked the left.  But nobody on Fox News ever challenged Republicans from the right — i.e., nobody ever asked them about open borders or amnesty to illegals or the lack of action on abortion. [...] Tucker Carlson has changed that norm for the right. [...] We focus on Carlson's interaction with former vice president Mike Pence.  Carlson asked Pence about his stance on U.S. foreign policy pertaining to the conflict in Ukraine.  Pence claimed that the U.S. had "made progress" in assisting Ukraine.  Carlson challenged Pence on why U.S. leaders are more interested in Ukraine than in the rampant crime and downfall of major American cities.  Carlson also reminded Pence that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's government is suppressing and arresting Christian priests by branding them pro-Kremlin.

Tucker Carlson Helps Cull the Republican Presidential Field.  If, like me, you find the presidential debate format a rather meaningless exercise, you will be astonished at what one-on-one interviews by a skilled interrogator can accomplish.  At the Iowa family Leader conference, Tucker Carlson interviewed several leading contenders for president Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Ron DeSantis.  If the participants thought this was going to be another tongue bath, they were certainly surprised.  He asked hard questions and some of their answers exposed their muddled thinking.  At least two of them — Asa Hutchinson and Mike Pence — were clear losers and can now be safely considered out of the running.

Enough!  When the Democrats don't frustrate your efforts with cheating, fake ballots and the intelligence community running full-on regime destabilization techniques, there's the GOP, who are as bought-off and criminal as any leftist out there and will not let you have a candidate that will do your bidding.  Everyone the GOP offers is a bought-off surrogate of Paul Ryan and his ilk.  Sorry DeSantis bros, the fix is in, even with him.  It's not that the left hates, you it's that both the left and the right hate you.  You are a bug, a roach exposing their filthy kitchen.  You believe in right and wrong, law and order, good and bad.  They don't.  They see money and how to get it and everything else is confusion and/or criminal.  Those who make the laws make the exceptions and making exceptions is how they get paid. [...] Trump is a pipe dream.  The GOP won't even let him have the nomination.

Why Are Georgia Republican Legislators Proposing In-State Tuition For Illegal Aliens?  This week Breitbart reported on the group of four Georgia Republican House members who, along with two democrats Tran (D) and Marin (D), are pushing HB 131.  The bill is positioned as a "Workforce" bill, which sounds like a nice thing.  However opponents ask why, with limited space in college classes, we would consider making it more difficult and perhaps more expensive for a U.S. citizen to attend these Colleges, while incenting non-U.S. citizens to take the seats at potentially lower cost.  Another factor would be the additional illegal aliens such a move could draw into Georgia to take advantage of such a law.

Pennsylvania Republicans Get Played and Betrayed on School Choice.  Pennsylvania continues to be a place of nightmares for Republicans.  Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro, who ran in 2022 on being a strong supporter of school choice (an oddity in his party), has done an about-face and will now line-item veto the necessary funding to provide vouchers.  That represents a capitulation to the teacher's unions that lobbied the governor's office.  In all, $100 million will now be denied, locking students in failing schools.  Democrat in the State House had previously demanded $750 million more in funding for public schools as a counter to the school voucher program.  Senate Republicans in the state put out the following statement in response.  [Tweet]

Fighting for survival in the belly of the beast.  Did you ever feel that the two major political parties are involved in a personal vendetta, similar to turf wars between organized crime syndicates?  Republicans and Democrats seem to be fighting their own private wars, mostly to gain political points for each party, while the masses of people they supposedly represent are merely insignificant pawns in a power-hungry chess game between omnipotent oligarchs.  Keep in mind that those elected officials almost never disagree with the party-line policies they embraced when running for office.  That's because they want support when it comes time for their reelection.

DeSantis: I'll Abolish Education, Energy, Commerce Depts — And The IRS.  Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis declared that as president he would eliminate the cabinet-level Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, and the IRS.  DeSantis, who has delivered on multiple promises in his state during his tenure, made the comments while speaking to Fox News' Martha MacCallum, who asked him if there were any federal agencies he would attempt to eliminate.  "We would do Education, we would do Commerce, we'd do Energy, and we would do IRS," DeSantis declared.  "If Congress will work with me on doing that, we'll be able to reduce the size and scope of government," he continued.  "If Congress won't go that far, I'm going to use those agencies to push back against woke ideology and against the leftism that we see creeping into all institutions of American life."

The Editor says...
Ri-i-i-ight.  During the primary debates, every right-of-center Republican boasts about the branches he or she wants to prune from the government, but no matter who wins the election, the government continues to grow.  The Departments of Labor, Energy, Education, and Transportation would never be missed, and as I have pointed out elsewhere, every state has at least one environmental protection agency, so there's no need for the EPA at the federal level.

Report: House Freedom Caucus Discusses Kicking Marjorie Taylor Greene to the Curb.  Call it whatever floats your boat:  circular firing squad, internecine warfare, intentional implosion, or Republican intraparty politics as usual, but the song remains the same: the Republican Party has a long history of doing more damage to itself than any damage caused by the Democrats and their lapdog media stooges.  In the latest example, the House Freedom Caucus is reportedly discussing kicking Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to the curb over her "unprofessional" behavior.

'Someone's got to go to prison'.  When will any of these low-down thugs who have a grip on our nation go to prison?  Probably never.  They lie with impunity and most of the Republicans in Congress are such squishes that the few that lobby for justice get nowhere when they try to make a Democrat pay for his or her crime.  We do have a two-tiered system of justice, and everyone knows it.

The GOP is Losing the Vote Fraud War.  A Rasmussen poll taken in October of 2021 found that 56% of all likely voters believed that cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.  Another Rasmussen poll dated April of 2023 revealed that 60% of all likely voters believed that cheating affected the outcomes of many 2022 midterm elections.  Unsurprisingly in a Rasmussen poll published on June 14, 2023, 54% of all likely voters believe that cheating will determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.  For a majority of the American electorate, and for a much higher percentage of Republicans, the issue of whether there was rampant cheating in the past two election cycles is no longer in question and their concern about the outcome of the 2024 election is fully justified.  The Republican National Committee (RNC), beyond issuing the usual fatuous press releases and reports about what they are going to do, has done nothing of substance on the ground to offset unabashed Democrat cheating.

Twenty Republicans Save Adam Schiff from Censure.  Fox News reports that twenty Republicans in the House of Representatives sided with most Democrats in voting against a resolution that would have censured Rep. Adam Schiff, (D-Calif.), for repeatedly peddling the hoax that former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.  The reprehensible Schiff was one of the foremost proponents of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.  He repeated the falsehood in every forum possible.  With every appearance, the lies became more ridiculous.  He even claimed that Trump was an asset to the Kremlin.  This wasn't a mistake on Schiff's part.  Schiff knew these were fabrications but he said it anyway.  His actions were purposeful and malicious.  The Democrats had assigned him the task of running their biggest disinformation campaign and he did it without caring about the effects it would have on the nation.  Such was his desperation that Schiff fell prey to a prank by Russian radio hosts who told him that they were in possession of compromising images of President Trump.

Resolution to Censure Adam Schiff Fails Because Republicans Can't Do Anything Right.  Are you ready for another round of failure theater?  A resolution put forth by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna to censure Adam Schiff failed on Wednesday after 20 Republicans joined with Democrats to kill it.  The names of those who defected are listed below along with another oddity, which was Rep. George Santos voting present despite putting out a video earlier in the day urging members to vote in favor of the measure.  Four other Republicans did not vote or were not present to vote.

20 Republicans Join With Democrats To Kill Schiff Censure.  Twenty House Republicans joined with Democrats to table a resolution that would have censured and fined Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff.  The resolution, introduced by Republican Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, asserts that Schiff "purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people" during the special counsel investigation into former President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.  It would have fined him $16 million, half the special counsel investigation's cost.

Articles of Impeachment Filed Against Biden, Harris — and the Charges Are Right on the Money.  Democrats have been willing to throw everything up against the wall and all the rules under the bus in the effort to take down former President Donald Trump.  But Republicans have been reticent even to use the proper tools available to legally pursue Democrats when they don't comply with the rules or laws.  It's one of the things that most ticks off the Republican base.  There never seem to be any consequences for Democratic bad behavior.  If there are never any repercussions for such behavior, then people continue doing it so long as it serves their political purposes.

Congress's cowardice collapse.  When it comes to the budget, Congress does not represent nor protect the American people.  They represent their self-preservation and protect their party's position of power.  Every single time Democrats gain power, they build up "their" administrative state, overspend and move us toward bankruptcy, while packing the administrative state agencies with leftist activists.  When Republicans gain power, they surrender the battlefield to the Democrats, pass budgets that bankrupt us further telling us how this is saving us money, never unpack the leftist insurgents from agencies, and then tell us how they saved America by raising the debt limit and by slowing the debt increase.  Not stopping it, but by letting it grow slower until Democrats can gain power again and increase spending beyond our capacity to avoid bankruptcy.

RNC Canvassing Lists: The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight.  There is nothing more fundamental to electioneering than taking a list of registered voters, knocking on their doors, pitching your candidate, handing each a flyer, and getting them all out to vote.  This is the building block of election management.  It is stunning how absolutely incompetent the Republican Party is performing this fundamental task.  Last week, NBC News did a story about how the canvassing for Republican candidates was so bad that it likely lost the Senate elections in Nevada and Georgia, and probably others as well.  Our Republican Party pals could not deliver a list of voters that was close to accurate!

A Whisper to the Conservative Movement.  Change at the margins is not enough — not with inflation at 50-year highs; rampant crime in our streets; military preparedness and our children's education compromised at the altar of wokeness; social experimentation occurring in our schools without parental knowledge; protection of our southern border having collapsed; government and large corporations coordinating censorship of certain viewpoints; and weaponization of the Department of Justice and FBI.  Against this backdrop, it is stunning that Republicans were unable to win a majority in the Senate and only able to win a slim majority in the House in last year's midterms.  This must serve as a wake-up call to conservative donors that we need to do things differently going forward.

Do you live in PA, MI, WI, NV, GA, VA, NJ, NY, WA or AZ?  In certain states, the RNC is committed to fighting today's political battles with yesterday's weapons.  The RNC will not adapt, ever. [...] The difference between "ballots" and "votes" is previously explained and absolutely critical to understand before moving forward.  Thankfully, a large percentage of conservatives, intellectually honest independents and even some GOPe donors, have read our research and are now starting to have the 'votes' vs 'ballots' conversation.  That understanding is critical, because any conversation that does not accurately identify and accept the problem is futile.  Having said that, do not think we are smarter than the RNC.  We are not.  The RNC knows exactly what not to do.  They are following instructions from the multinationals and Wall Street Sea Island donors.  Do not miss this point or you miss the 'ah-ha' moment.

The Party's Over.  Osama bin Laden rightly coached his followers that "the people want to follow the 'strong horse' and will abandon the weak one."  We are witnessing our nation now being destroyed by the powerful Democrat demons and betrayed by the pitiable weakness and cowardice of our Republican champions.  Unless the Republicans, the Patriots, the Conservatives, the lovers of our Constitution, quickly rise up and display backbone, this great American experiment may well perish from the earth.

Mafiocracy.  I cannot express how incredibly criminal this debt deal is.  Understand, 75% of the American people wanted no debt limit increase without budget cuts or no debt limit increase AT ALL.  15% of the people wanted to flat out default to get it over with and 60% didn't want to increase the debt limit without significant cuts in spending.  Seventy-five percent of the people backed the original House bill or more extreme measures than that and McCarthy came back with some Democrat give away.  Oh, they got all of the talking points covered to explain to the 75% who think they're retarded, why they are not, but it's all just cover.  Of the $80 billion that was to fund the weaponized IRS, a whole $1.8 billion was cut.  That's nearly 3%! [...] That'll really make a statement to the bureau!  As Mike Lee, Senator from Utah recently said on Don Bongino, "that's a rounding error."  This lets them go on Oprah and talk about the $1.8 billion they cut from the IRS budget.

The Vote Fraud Monster Is Coming for Ted Cruz.  We deal in a world of imperfect pols — it's just frustrating to see our imperfect pols treated with different rules from their imperfect pols.  Texas, like a lot of conservative states, is run by leftists and RINOs.  Take Wyoming — one of the most overwhelmingly red states — yet its Legislature is RINO city.  In Texas, the house leadership was often, and currently is, RINO.  It's a stupid thing.  It's what elected conservatives do:  they run as a conservative, win, then sell out by electing leadership that will eviscerate conservative programs.  They all do it.  There's a bigger story here.  Texas is preparing to go purple in 2024 and take out Ted Cruz.  To do that, there must be industrial-scale voter fraud from the large cities.  Ken Paxton stood in the way.

The GOP's Festival of Losers.  [Scroll down]  Then there's Tim Scott, the favorite of everyone who thinks Mike Pence is too fiery and aggressive.  I like Tim Scott.  [...] I like Mike Pence too.  They would make terrific Sunday school teachers, but it's Saturday night and all right for fighting.  Gentle people like them have a role, and that role is not "leader."  Leaders have to lead, and sometimes that means leading the troops through the midst of the enemy behind sharpened, gleaming bayonets.  Tim Scott is a nice guy with a nice story and a nice demeanor who does not take pleasure in crushing his enemies, which means that he will not aggressively seek to crush his enemies, and the crushing of our enemies is the key requirement of a Republican nominee in 2024.

Puppy Dog Republicans [are] Afraid to Act.  The examples of Democrat Party malfeasance go on and on, through the three-letter acronym agencies Like the FBI, CIA, and IRS, Democrat politicians like Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Elizabeth Warren who intentionally introduce false evidence into official government proceedings, have illicit affairs with hostile foreign operatives, and willfully misrepresent themselves to gain unfair professional advantage.  Yet through all this, Republican response is tepid at best.  Hardly a protest or a word of objection.

Spineless Republicans Beg DeSantis to Surrender to Disney in Pathetic Showing.  On Thursday, news broke that Disney had canceled an office complex project that was set to add 2,000 jobs to Florida's economy.  That was the headline at least.  Of course, there was more to the story.  In reality, the project had been placed on hold back in 2021 and postponed to 2026 due to various financial concerns.  When current CEO Bog Iger took back over the beleaguered entertainment company, that was the final nail in the coffin because he long thought the entire project was a terrible investment.  Obviously, he's right, as building large office buildings post-COVID is like setting money on fire.  The fact that Disney has been hemorrhaging money overall didn't help either, and nixing the entire project was an easy cost-cutting move.  Regardless, leave it to the press to suck up to Disney and misrepresent the entire situation.

By The Standards Democrats Applied To Trump, Joe Biden Is A Traitor.  Democrats play for keeps, while Republicans for some reason still can't figure out what year it is.  It's been eight years since Democrats openly used their political power to upend every norm in the playbook.  They filed impeachment charges on the first day of Trump's presidency.  They spent years contesting presidential elections.  They are sweeping elections with low-quality absentee ballots.  Their cronies are turning domestic disagreement into domestic terrorism, targeting Christian pro-life moms as "extremists" who warrant surveillance and curtailment of online speech.  If Republicans can't figure out what era we're in and how to stop the left's destruction of self-government, our country is toast.  Republican voters figured this out good and hard when the Russiagate hoax was unraveled.  Why can't their representatives?  It's long past time for Republicans to start using Democrats' standards against Democrats until they agree to play fair.

Why Republicans Lose All the Time.  You can have all the facts on your side and still lose an argument.  How?  Because the other side is not bound by facts, they're arguing emotion, and emotion always overrides facts.  It sounds stupid, it is stupid, but it's also true.  Think about the things you've apologized for in your life — I'd give you odds it was for things you said in the heat of the moment, not after thinking about the situation in a cool, rational way.  That emotion factor is a big part of why Republicans always seem to get rolled when it comes to policy debates, but it's not the only reason.

Lara Logan, Texas Republican Politicians Working Against Border Security.  Resident of Texas, Lara Logan, appears on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast to discuss the illegal alien invasion that is happening right now in the lone star state.  Logan notes that Texas republican politicians are actively working to keep the border open with migration flows controlled but not stopped.  As CTH has long documented, illegal mass immigration is a policy that both wings of the UniParty support.  Logan reports that Texas republicans, the Bush wing of the professional republican apparatus that controls Texas politics, recently blocked a state border security effort in order to keep the immigration flow in place.  This is a remarkable interview with details to support the baseline as discussed.  [Video clip]

The Battle Within the Club is Escalating Now.  It is critical to understand that both the DNC and RNC are private corporations with no affiliation to government.  It is a difficult shift in thinking, but the party system in U.S. politics revolves around two distinct private corporations, two clubs that feed from the same corporate trough and position for influence and affluence within a political dynamic they control.  The priority for both clubs, Republican and Democrat, is NOT politically or culturally ideological.  In the modern era, the corporate priority first begins with a battle over who controls each corporation.  As long as there is no challenge, the clubs operate without issue.  However, when there is a battle for control of the corporation, a battle that will ultimately determine the financial outcome, the internal battle becomes the priority.

Why I'm Not a Republican.  I am not now and never have been a member of the Republican Party.  I usually hope Republicans win elections but this is not because they are very good.  It is because the Democrats are even worse.  The first problem with the Republican Party is that there are too many Democrats in it.  Arlen Spector made official what was already obvious when he decided that it would help his political career to put a big "D" behind his name.  And he is not the only one.  There are also far too many members of the Republican Party who are just "spineless".  Like the Democrats, many of them never saw an appeal to emotion fallacy that didn't make them all wet and weepy.  Many appear to think they are just cash registers.  Many of them do not appear to know what they are.  Some do not appear able to understand English; for example, the expression, "shall not be infringed" in the Second Amendment at the ninth grade level.

Senator Mitch McConnell Reminds White House of the Republican #1 Priority.  The professional Republican Party is totally and completely disconnected from the average MAGA voter within it. [...] This disconnect between the Republican establishment and the base voter has always been frustrating and annoying, but now they are taking it to entirely new levels of ridiculousness.  There must be multiple siphons and financial laundry operations from this Ukraine policy.  Nothing else makes sense.  Seriously.  Go ahead and tell me how the professional Republican Party is worth saving.  I'll be over here, supporting President Trump.

The Crazy Contours of the Crazier 2024 Election.  We forget that in May and June of 2015, we were variously lectured that Jeb! was the Bush who should have been president, that Chris Christie was the sort of blue-state governor that could win nationally, that it was time for Marco Rubio to meet his destiny, that a can-do Rick Perry of 2012 in 2016 would bring Texas know-how to the White House, that Ben Carson was the real outsider we've been waiting for, that Ted Cruz alone could unite the anti-Trump vote to rescue the nomination, that Mike Huckabee's 2012 bid was a just a run-up for his 2016 surge, that the perfect governor Scott Walker had all but locked up on the nomination — and that Trump was a supposed buffoon with zero chance of being nominated and less than zero of being elected.  When Trump currently cuts commercials focusing on the Biden catastrophic record, when he gives televised interviews in which he outlines his solutions to the current self-created messes, and when he omits reference to the "stop-the-steal" past and focuses on 2024, he wins.

GOP backs-off of abortion restrictions amid fears of 2024 backlash.  Republicans are balking on restrictive abortion stances as the 2024 campaign season ramps up and polls show most swing voters are not in favor of women having less access to abortion procedures and medicines.  New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said Sunday morning that the 'next generation of Republicans' are against abortion restrictions.  He advised anyone considering a 2024 presidential run — himself included — to stop talking about abortion.  Republican Rep. Nancy Mace also warned her colleagues to 'read the room' when it comes to these particular women's healthcare issues.

Whose Side Are They On?  Republican Senators Help Dems Advance Biden's Judicial Nominees.  Some Republican Senators are helping advance Joe Biden's agenda.  Due to the absence of Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is on medical leave, the Senate Judiciary Committee is tied with ten Democrats and ten Republicans.  This means that without Republican support, Democrats can't advance judicial nominees.  On Thursday, The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced seven judicial nominees with the help of some Republican Senators.  Republican senators Lindsey Graham, Chuck Grassley, and Mike Lee are among those who voted for Democrat nominees.

America needs a new GOP.  You can't have a Republican Party if you don't have a coherent and cohesive agenda.  What do Republicans stand for? [...] Here is a proposed agenda for a new GOP.  Add your own:
  [#1]   The elimination of any and all race-based programs, curricula, or political philosophy in American business and education.  This includes DIE, CRT, ESG, and SEL.
  [#2]   Energy independence with nuclear power as a real goal.
  [#3]   The reduction of taxes across the board.
  [#4]   Fire all the heads of all Agencies, including the FBI, SEC, FCC, CIA, EPA, and IRS, who show bias of any kind.
  [#5]   Free the Jan. 6 prisoners and lock up the real criminals who are turning blue cities into bloody prisons.
  [#6]   Go back to paper ballots.
  [#7]   The removal of all Chinese police stations, property-gobbling, and other sinister buyups by Chinese nationals.
  [#8]   Removal of all sex-based curricula, drag queenery, and anti-white segregation in public schools and colleges.  Then defund these colleges if they will not let conservatives speak.
  [#9]   A hands-off approach to Churches and synagogues. This is hallowed ground.
That's enough for now.  Just nine simple ideas.  But so far, we have heard only one attempted "Contract with America" from Republicans and that was months ago.

The Editor says...
Yes, go back to paper ballots, and "Election Day" — one day in November on which you show up at the polling place, show some valid identification, and cast your vote — or else you don't vote.

Senate Republicans Bungle [an] Opportunity To Curb [the] Democrats' Radical Abortion Agenda.  Senate Republicans had a shot at successfully passing a vital resolution in the Democrat-controlled upper chamber that would protect Americans from funding abortions.  Instead of allying with their own on an issue that has set the GOP apart from the left for decades, however, at least two of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's closest allies sided with Democrats' radical abortion agenda when they voted 51 to 48 not to proceed with the legislation.  Most Americans oppose taxpayer-funded abortions yet both Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska publicly committed along with to opposing the resolution that would stop the Biden administration's latest attempt to force abortion costs on U.S. constituents.

Senate Republicans Bungle Opportunity To Curb Democrats' Radical Abortion Agenda.  Senate Republicans had a shot at successfully passing a vital resolution in the Democrat-controlled upper chamber that would protect Americans from funding abortions.  Instead of allying with their own on an issue that has set the GOP apart from the left for decades, however, at least two of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's closest allies sided with Democrats' radical abortion agenda when they voted 51 to 48 not to proceed with the legislation.  Most Americans oppose taxpayer-funded abortions yet both Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska publicly committed along with to opposing the resolution that would stop the Biden administration's latest attempt to force abortion costs on U.S. constituents.

Unforced GOP Errors on Abortion.  There's a big difference between virtue signaling on things you don't really stand for and having a plan.  People who do the former, (and you can't go wrong by citing Senator Lindsey Graham on virtually any issue) overreact and then backtrack because they're trying to appeal to voters on issues they don't have a gut feeling for.  Having a plan, and the Left tends to have plans, means picking your battles, defeating the enemy and then claiming the spoils.  The Supreme Court's Dobbs decision was an important legal victory, it wasn't a political victory.  It didn't happen because the public changed sides, but because conservatives had made their own long march through the judiciary.  The enemy had been defeated legally, but not politically or culturally.

House GOP Seemingly Abandons Plan to Impeach Mayorkas.  House Republicans have gone silent on their past threats to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.  The GOP made Mayorkas's impeachment a top issue during the November midterms, but lawmakers have yet to act on a resolution to remove the immigration czar.  Two impeachment resolutions against Mayorkas were introduced last year, but have not been touched by House GOP leadership.  Two GOP aides admitted to the Washington Examiner this week that Republican leadership would rather focus on bolstering border security via legislative efforts.  No impeachment action has been taken against Mayorkas, said one of the aides, because Republicans are "hard at work right now on a border package."

It Looks Like House Republicans Are Preparing to Cave on the Debt Limit.  For months now, the Democrats have been attacking the Republicans, accusing them of attempting to cause the U.S. to default on its financial obligations.  Meanwhile, the GOP has insisted they aren't going to cave on the debt limit but also says they are looking for cuts to address Washington D.C.'s exorbitant spending.  That has become the rallying cry that has gotten conservatives behind House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.  But, behind the scenes, there appears to be very little progress on actually finding a path forward on this.  McCarthy hasn't spoken with or negotiated with President Joe Biden in months, and the plan GOP leadership is coming up with amounts to little more than "Throw all the red meat at the wall and see what sticks."

Two More Reasons Why The GOP Has No Chance In 2024.  The GOP has done virtually nothing to prevent the 2024 election from being rigged in the same manner the 2020 election was rigged.  What's the plan to prevent regime-media/Big-Tech censorship?  What's the plan to combat "Zuckerbucks" and copycat Zuckerbuckers?  What's the plan to compete in vital swing-states where election-day has been replaced with a month(s)-long ballot-harvesting contest?

Expelled TN Democrat to Be Reinstated, GOP Speaker Appears to Fold.  Justin Jones, one of the so-called "Tennessee Three" who ended up expelled may be back on the job in no time.  According to a new report, Jones appears to have secured the votes from Nashville's council to be reappointed to the position he was removed from.  The Democrat was booted from office after he and two others helped lead an insurrection that breached the Tennessee capitol building.  Jones then used a bullhorn to lead chants on the chamber floor in solidarity with the mob.  Republicans came together and voted to expel him on Thursday. [...] These deep blue areas reappointing the ousted lawmakers was always a foregone conclusion.  Still, didn't expect the House Speaker, a Republican, to fold so quickly.  According to the Washington Examiner, Jones and presumably Justin Pearson, the other expelled Democrat, will be seated.

Is It Time to Panic Yet Over the State of America?  Will the hapless GOP fight back or simply send out more fundraising letters and emails?  Are there any Republican D.A.s or attorneys general with the cojones to convene a grand jury and indict Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, the Biden family, or Nancy Pelosi?  Fat chance.  This is the only way to fight back but the current GOP prefers taking the high road to irrelevancy.  The ruling class elites, regardless of political party, protect their own.  As Trump has a double-digit lead over his presumed GOP establishment primary opponents, expect the tyrannical attacks to continue.

Who's "They"?  If you think "Republicans" are the solution, then you don't understand the construct of the 'Big Club.'  Political parties were created to present you with:  (1) a controlled outlet for your focus (pro-tip the Big Club "they" control it); and (2) the illusion of choice.  Now there are some differences between the two political parties — between the two wings of the same DC vulture.
  •   The DNC wants power.  The RNC wants money.
  •   The DNC uses money to get power.  The RNC use power to get money.
  •   The ideology of the DNC drives their donor activity.  The ideology of the donors drives the RNC ideology.
This is the essential difference in their business models.  This is also how the system works when you think about 'money' and raw 'ideological power'.

You're Being Played, Republicans!  Democrats are playing Republicans like a fiddle.  The left's sole objective is to make Trump the Republicans' 2024 presidential nominee.  He's already lost three election cycles for the GOP — why not make it four?  A month ago, things were looking bad for the Democrats.  Immediately after Trump announced for president last November, he may as well have gone into the witness protection program.  Even Fox News cut away from his announcement speech.  He had to have dinner with a noted Hitler enthusiast to get any attention, and, when he spoke at CPAC in February, the room was half-empty.  Looming before them was the threat from Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis.  He was beating Trump in the presidential polls without even announcing.  He'd scored victory after victory against Democrats and won his reelection bid — in a purple state! — by 20 points, despite attacks from Trump.  Against DeSantis' smarts and energy, the Democrats would be running President Senile Dementia and a vice president whose sole credentials are that she is black and a woman.  They had only one hope:  Get Trump the nomination.

We send politicians to stop the madness of government, but nothing changes.  Why?  Washington DC is a Potemkin village.  We focus on the visible but the constructs that impact us do not originate from the false facade.  There's something behind that facade, and what we see is — entirely — a facade.  That's why sending the politicians doesn't change the outcome.  To get to the core of the issue, we must first stop looking at the Potemkin village and instead look behind it.  Legislation, rules, regulations and laws are not written by congress.  The paperwork comes from the assembly of legal and lobbyist foot soldiers on K-Street.  That's where the ink is put to the paper and the legislative outcomes first originate.  K-Street is where the corporations, multinationals and financial organizations control the process.  If the corporations behind the DC facade want to shift the money, they proactively write the rules, regulations and laws that steer the actual policy outcomes to their financial target or destination.  Their wealth expands and they reward the participants, the politicians.  Most of the entry level politicians are oblivious to where the corporations have proactively moved; however, a few of the politicians — the leadership groups — know exactly where the destination of the legislative intent is going.  The latter are tenured in the power structure behind the facade.

Why Vote GOP?  I asked this question on these pages on August 2021.  At the time I bemoaned the fact that during President Donald Trump's first two years in office, Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress, and accomplished little.  Despite lofty campaign promises in 2016, they squandered their majority in opposition to their party's leader, President Trump, simply because elected Republicans were part of "the big club" and Trump wasn't in it.  Obamacare was not repealed, Planned Parenthood remained funded.  Benghazi and Hillary Clinton's emails were not seriously investigated, while fully fabricated Russian collusion dossiers, paid for by the Clinton campaign hamstrung the first years of the Trump administration.  Most elected Republicans sat on their hands and thereby condoned the Trump witch hunt.  The border wall was not funded, as the GOP Congress felt it was more important to kiss the boots of the Chamber of Congress and donor class than respect the wishes of Republican voters who elected Trump to "build the wall" and "drain the swamp".

Why are the Republicans in Congress so meek, weak, and afraid?  Conservative Americans have for a long time realized that the majority of their representatives in Congress, in both the House and the Senate, are squishes; men and women without the courage of their stated convictions.  They fear the leftist media so much more than they fear their own constituents, for whom it seems they only have contempt.  There are exceptions, of course, and we all know who they are: The indefatigable Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Jim Comer, Thomas Massie, Jim Banks, Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Green, to name a few of the few, fighters all.  So far, Kevin McCarthy is doing a fair job as Speaker of the House.  But why, oh, why, are even the good ones not gathering together to make a stand against the criminal district attorney of Manhattan?

There Are Compelling Pragmatic Considerations Behind Supporting Trump Or DeSantis.  [M]any patriots respect both Trump and DeSantis and would gladly vote for either man.  But they also think that without election integrity, it does not matter whom the Republican party nominates for president.  They believe Democrats plan to steal the 2024 presidential election just as they did in 2020. And through it all, they are convinced that the UniParty GOP will have done little to nothing before, during, or after.  Patriots must contact their local and state GOPs and ask what they are actively doing to promote fair and honest elections. [...] Many local and state GOPs form election integrity committees that rarely or never hold meetings.  Instead, these committees were created primarily to make Republicans think the GOP is doing something.  Then the GOP uses the nearly non-existent election integrity committee for fundraising.

Government Tyrants Play with Fire.  Now is the time to see who stands where, whose verbiage is nothing but fluff, and whose words are backed with mightier stuff.  If Republican Party leaders do nothing while the Deep State locks Trump up, then that party is dead.  If Americans who claim to respect free speech say nothing while a political leader is imprisoned for his words, then their appalling silence will speak volumes.  If Americans who wrap themselves in the American flag and claim to stand for liberty instead hide and wilt away, then we will know once and for all who really sacrifices for America's rights and freedoms when every day becomes Independence Day.  There stands Trump, fighting the good fight, refusing to give in; now we will see where every politician, pundit, or self-proclaimed patriot stands, too.

Republicans Can't Beat Democrats' Election-Industrial Complex By Adopting Its Strategies.  Over the last several months, a growing number of Republicans, including Donald Trump himself, seem to be having a change of heart about universal mail-in voting and ballot harvesting.  While few Republicans are ready to completely abandon policies that support election integrity and transparency, more and more seem willing to follow the old adage "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," and suggest that Republicans become significantly more reliant on universal mail-in voting and ballot harvesting to win elections.  There is no worse idea in politics today.

No, Ukraine Aid Isn't a Top Priority.  Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is on board with one Biden initiative:  funding the administration's war packages to Ukraine.  The Kentucky Republican claims this is a top priority among Republicans.  Polling suggests otherwise, and it's not just members of the GOP — the nation at large is starting to get tired of the Ukraine excursion that's rapidly becoming yet another endless war for the United States, albeit by proxy.  The situation on the ground there is stalemated because Russia's military is racked by incompetence, coupled with shoddy weapons and tactics, while the Ukrainians have some of the best weapons but lack the manpower to rout Russian forces entirely.  That's the 30,000-foot overview, but if this conflict requires NATO troops, specifically our forces, to move the needle, and there have been insinuations to that effect, then this whole affair could take an ugly turn.  Biden is a disaster abroad, but let's hope what little brain activity he has left knows the danger that could come from American troops being deployed.

A Subtle Way for Establishment Republicans to Sabotage Trump.  By the time the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida arrived, Congressman [Ron] Paul had amassed a plurality of delegates from six or seven states and territories.  Though he never held enough delegates to take the party's nomination for president, he did hold enough to push his ideas into the mainstream.  What would follow was a demonstration to the grassroots of conservatism that their votes are wanted, but not their voices.  Then-RNC chair Reince Priebus, House speaker John Boehner, RNC lawyer Ben Ginsberg, and candidates Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan instituted a loyalty pledge requiring all delegates to the national convention to devote their delegate vote to Romney/Ryan, thus binding votes that state legislatures did not.  When delegations like those of the Republican Party of Maine refused to sign the loyalty pledge, the RNC had many delegates forcefully removed from the convention and replaced with their hand-picked representatives.  Contested voice votes that were taken while entire delegations weren't present changed the national rules.  The delegate threshold for the nomination was increased from five to eight.  The insurgency was over.

The Solution to Ballot Fraud.  Forty years of Republican acquiescence and temerity brought us here — the end of free and fair elections.  Election fraud is baked into every state's voter rolls — protected by government.

Ronna McDaniel's pathetic bid to 'unite' the Republican Party in 2024.  Once again displaying her total obliviousness, Republican National Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced Sunday that 2024 presidential candidates will likely have to pledge to support the winner in the general election, or they'll be kept out of the primary debates.  Who cares?  This is nothing but a lame attempt to paper over the party's stark divisions over ex-President Donald Trump, one of three declared candidates so far.  The simple fact is that many GOP voters won't support him if he's the nominee, and some of his voters likely won't show for any other Republican.  And all GOP politicians will jump whichever way they think serves their interests best.  That includes the candidates themselves:  Coming up with excuses to break your most solemn pledge is Politics 101, all across the spectrum.

Why Are the Red State Republicans So Soft?  Look at South Dakota under Chamber of Commerce Cowgirl Kristi Noem.  It took her years and the realization that running interference for the squishes by refusing to sign on to a bill protecting kids from gender freaks was destroying her chance of ever being president before she finally signed something.  In places like North Dakota and Idaho, which should be on the cutting edge of medieval conservatism, they regularly elect Buick Republicans who think we should use our inside voices.  What gives?  Take at South Carolina.  Please.  Red, red, red.  Except it has given us Nikki Haley, who makes Jeb!  look like... well, her with lower heels.  And it has Tim Scott, a nice guy but someone who would never, ever choose to leave a heap of his enemies skulls on the field of battle as a warning to those who might challenge us.  Look, if you are not into skull-stacking in 2023, you are out of step with the strategic needs of the movement.  And then there's their other senator, Lindsey Graham, the guy who is all in on Ukraine, confirming Dem judges, and amnesty.

With Republicans Like These, Who Needs Democrats?  Reagan's famous refusal to "exploit his opponent's lack of experience" was a class method of swatting away the petty political poking of using age as an automatic determiner of ability.  Just as everything once old becomes new again, the conflating of age with skillset has been dusted off by both Nikki Haley and Sara Huckabee-Sanders. [...] Trump is no saint.  He did business in Atlantic City.  He was monogamy-challenged during his first marriage and perhaps at other times.  Character as an issue is one thing, but not at the expense of losing our country.  Though Trump has been elected by the media and local district attorneys to be the proverbial ham sandwich, he has not been convicted of a crime post multiple investigations.  He offered no new definitions of is‑is.  He is not an anti-Semite.  No attendance of church services with Jeremiah Wright.  He is not a rapist — no requests for a female in his presence to put ice on her lip.

Dems Changed The Rulebook For Congressional Oversight.  Now, Republicans Must Use It Against Them.  During the previous Congress, the Democrat-controlled January 6 Select Committee ended decades of precedent and changed the rules when it comes to congressional oversight.  Unfortunately for the Biden Administration, those newly-minted changes still apply now that Republicans are in control of the U.S. House of Representatives.  As the old saying goes, the toothpaste can't be put back in the tube; the decision was made to break the system in order to make it easier to go after former President Donald Trump and Democrats must now live with it.  New GOP Committee Chairs must be just as aggressive and utilize the new rules set by the J6 panel in their quest for answers from the least transparent administration in the history of our republic.

What If RINOs Throw a Republican Party and Nobody Comes?  "RINO" is such a funny acronym.  The vast majority of the Republican base use it to disparage the small coalition actually vested with powers in the Republican Party.  The people most proud to call themselves "Republican" are likely the same ones whom most Republican voters would call "Republican in name only." The RINOs rule, and the Republican voters hate them for it.  I remember seeing Mitt Romney getting booed and heckled at an event in Utah by ordinary Republicans who correctly see him as a backstabber extraordinaire, and Monsieur Pierre Delecto burst into an aristocratic episode of tsk-tsk-ing and why-I-never exasperation [...] Romney is the perfect mascot for a gaggle of Roves, McConnells, Lincoln Project rejects, and Chamber of Commerce globalists à la Paul Ryan.  They are generals without troops, prancing around like the prima donna, blissfully unaware that no one follows them anywhere. [...] Yet here we are again with the 2024 presidential race kicking into low gear, and the RINOs remain convinced that they can manipulate the Republican electorate into doing their bidding.

A newly discovered writer, Josiah Lippincott, shows the GOP what to do.  Our country's faux-conservative Republican politicians have failed to preserve the principles our Founding Fathers established as the bedrock of this nation.  How often have we put our faith in leaders who might say the right thing yet do all they can to backstab anyone attempting to right the conservative ship of state?  Conservative pundits have not been shy about cataloging the nations' ills.  While also labeling much of what ails us, one writer has provided insight into the causes of our troubles and also offers solutions.  Josiah Lippincott, a former Marine officer, and current student at the Van Andel School of Statesmanship at Hillsdale College, has suggested a conservative and spiritual way forward for America.

The 2024 Presidential Election is Already About Abortion.  The Republican National Convention is placing abortion front and center for the 2024 election cycle, now convinced that being pro-life is a winning political strategy.  On August 25, I warned Republicans that refusing to advocate for the preborn would dilute the red wave.  And so it did.  The red wave died on the beach of indifference.  Where is the confidently anticipated Senate majority?  No comfortable majority in the House either.  Hidden within the results there is a mandate:  killing the preborn up to and after birth is not acceptable and representatives who hedge on protecting all people equally are not desirable to the American people.

Republicans need a good look in the mirror.  Where is the consistency among Republicans?  What is the underlying principle that unites us?  The party is ripped apart by MAGA versus NeverTrump.  These two groups can't even agree that it would be better if Republicans won so we can influence the course of the nation.  Talk about a chasm.  It's not Trump or some other person; it's getting like-minded thinkers elected and in power so we can reverse the course the left has chosen for us.  Why do we continue to be our own enemy?  Just about every working stiff in America agrees that the government is spending too much money.  There are only three types who want more spending:  those on welfare, government bureaucrats, and those who want to control the rest of us (politicians).  So why are Republicans so easily diverted from the control inherent in excessive government spending?

The Republican Party Hates You.  As RedState reported, Ronna McDaniel has been re-elected as the chair of the Republican National Committee.  That followed a contentious, months-long battle with notable GOP lawyer Harmeet Dhillon, who ultimately ended up well short of the number to overtake McDaniel.  McDaniel is now the longest-serving party chair in modern American history.  What did she do to deserve that honor?  She and her party lost the 2018 election, lost the 2020 election, and severely underperformed in the 2022 election.  Apparently, being a consistent loser is all it takes to win the blessing of the GOP's party elite.  Why?  Because the Republican Party hates you.  As a GOP voter, you only serve two purposes for the GOP's guiding lights.  You provide the party's leadership with lots of money to shower upon themselves in various schemes, and two, you give them political power via elections.  Other than that, you are an afterthought and are a despised means to an end.

McDaniel wins reelection as RNC chair in contentious election.  Ronna McDaniel won a fourth term to head the Republican National Committee (RNC) during a secret ballot vote by members on Friday, capping off a contentious election spurred by calls within the party for new leadership.  McDaniel fended off two challengers — California attorney Harmeet Dhillon and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a staunch denier of the 2020 presidential election results.  She received 111 votes, while Dhillon received 51 and Lindell received four.  Former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who did not ultimately make a run for RNC chair, also received one vote.

Republicans' Idea of 'Winning' Is Not the Same as Your Idea of 'Winning'.  As if you need another reason to conclude that the Republican Party is not worth supporting, here's another.  According to a recent report, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has been making oodles of cash to helm a sinking ship.  The Washington Examiner reported that McDaniel was paid $122,582 in 2017, her first year serving as chairwoman.  Nothing too crazy there, right?  But the report goes on to note that from January 2022 through November 2022, McDaniel made $358,431.  In 2020, she raked in a whopping $410,640.  That's right, folks, she doubled her salary while presiding over a series of crushing losses for the GOP.  It is also worth mentioning that McDaniel's raise saw her being paid for more than her predecessor, Reince Priebus, who made $257,782 in 2016, the highest he ever made while serving as RNC chairman.

The GOP's Worst-Case Scenario.  Let's assume the Republican Party, as is its wont, decides to do what it traditionally does and make the worst possible decision.  Let's assume it re-elects Ronna McDaniel Chair of the Republican National Committee.  We talked about the case for Ronna in my previous column and found there is none, but the subject of the GOP's choice to flip off its base is important enough to talk about again.  And I am speaking to the 168 Republican National Committee members directly.  Folks, nothing less than the future direction of the Republican Party is at stake.  Are we moving forward to victory in 2024 or treading water in a reeking cesspool of failure?  We will know on January 27, when the RNC members will meet at a Waldorf Astoria in California to choose between accomplished Republican attorney and GOP veteran Harmeet Dhillon and the aforementioned five-time election loser Ronna McDaniel.  It is a secret ballot, and the numbers have been moving Harmeet's way.  Ronna's strategy has been to make this seem like a done deal, assisted by a regime media eager to have someone so manifestly unable to win at the helm of the GOP.

Mike Pence Joins the Scandal, 'Finds' Classified Documents at His House.  If the Biden administration was looking for a deflection from the president's classified documents scandal, they've now been handed one.  According to CNN, multiple classified documents were found at the home of Mike Pence after he apparently had his lawyer conduct a search. [...] Is it really that difficult for Republicans to not constantly let their political opponents off the hook?  This whole snatching defeat from the jaws of victory thing got old a long time ago.  But you know what?  Let's have some consistency.  Throw the book at Pence and Biden if they illegally possessed classified information.  I think most have had enough of the two-tiered justice system anyway, and if you or I were in this position, we'd be getting prosecuted.  That's not what will happen, though.  Because of Pence's stupidity, the narrative will shift to blaming the system in order to excuse Biden's criminality.  This was the lifeline the president needed.

How RNC Policy Lost a Winnable House Seat.  While working on combat veteran and Gold Star husband Joe Kent's campaign for Washington state's 3rd Congressional District, I knew by early October we were in trouble. [...] We learned that the Republican National Committee was investing in field programs in Washington state and reached out, only to get a startling reply: Because our campaign had elected to use a third-party voter data vendor and door-to-door app, the RNC would not provide ground support as a matter of policy.  I was dumbfounded.  Perhaps they were concerned that valuable identification data would be lost if we used another program.  But I was still rebuffed when I offered to return all of that data to them so they could match it back into their system.

2024: Republicans on Course to Get Blown Out by Phantoms.  You would think rational electioneers in the Republican Party would, in 2022, do everything to stop the election jiggering that took place in 2020.  You would be wrong.  Republicans like Speaker Vos in Wisconsin, the election commission in Maricopa County, New Hampshire RINOs, and the Republican leader in the Senate all stood aside and let the leftists do their thing — thus the Red Trickle.  As the parties pick their candidates for 2024, assembling multi-million-dollar consultant-led electioneering teams, not a dollar is spent on cleaning election rolls.  Every swing state has between 5% and 18% of its election rolls — people, addresses — that are deliberately wrong, misspelled, incorrect, written without an apartment number — scores of opportunities for inserting fraudulent voters.  If you were in Las Vegas, playing blackjack, and had a 5 [to] 18% advantage over the dealer, the casino would be bankrupt by dawn.  Yet this is exactly what Trump and DeSantis face as they launch their campaigns or stealth campaigns — whatever.

Just What Kind Of A Republican Is Mitch McConnell?  If there's one thing that's become clear over the past two years, it's that there is a giant, yawning chasm between the Republican establishment and conservative voters who had long thought they had a home in the Republican party.  In many venues, at both the national and the state level, the Republican establishment has been working against conservative candidates whom the voters support.  There were too many individual parts to the dishonest 2020 Presidential election to believe the Democrat party did not have help from Republican leadership.  That would explain former President George W. Bush exuberantly attending Joe Biden's inauguration.  There were reports that Bush went up to Congressional Black Caucus leader James Clyburn, who was instrumental in getting out the South Carolina black vote in the primary, and told him he was a savior for getting Joe Biden elected. [...] The fact is that the Pre-Trump Republican Party was a corporatist, elitist cabal of liars and actors who pretended to be concerned with the lives of ordinary Americans but in reality, could not care less.  They enriched themselves through massive spending on unnecessary wars and joined with Democrats to spend money we do not have.

The RNC's Only Hope Lies With Change, and That Change is Harmeet Dhillon.  In contrast, the DNC has mastered the art of branding.  Although their leaders are just as old as — or even older than — their GOP counterparts, they present themselves as younger and more in touch with the masses and are successful in portraying Republicans as the party of stodgy, old white men.  In reality, this notion couldn't be further from the truth.  It's time for Ronna McDaniel to pass the baton to a bold, new leader who's ready and able to invigorate, and capitalize upon, an evolving party.  Without change, the party is "on the verge of permanent irrelevance."  Harmeet Dhillon is a masterful strategist, which is one trait that makes her such a formidable foe in the courtroom.  But most importantly, she's a fearless leader.  Leadership: it's that inner blessing that can't be taught.  Because it's a gift.

Dear GOP Establishment: It's You, Not Ourselves We Loathe.  Let's start with the omnibus bill, passed in December, which provides very little for border protection and lots of inflated money for green energy and woke indoctrination.  This bill contained 4,155 densely typed pages, and Congress was required to vote on the text, before any human being could possibly have read it through.  Why did McConnell cosponsor this highly partisan Democratic bill?  Why did he and nine congressional Republicans tie the hands of the incoming Republican majority in budgetary matters until next fall?  And why was McConnell recently on a tour with Joe Biden talking up a bloated infrastructure bill that was passed with the votes of other Republican defectors?  McConnell couldn't stop telling Biden about his intention of "working together" throughout that one-sided lovefest.  If we wish to talk about "self-loathing," it would be more appropriate to address the obvious contempt in which McConnell, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and other "moderate" Republican politicians hold their conservative base.  Unlike our political elites, this base has no interest in being invited to fashionable cocktail parties and doesn't give a rip about what the Washington Post says about their insensitivity.  These populist voters think very differently from Rich and Mitch.

Why does the GOP elite hate its own base?  What's becoming undeniable is that core members of the GOP hate their base.  We first saw this trend emerge during the Tea Party era. [...] I suggest that this failure is because the GOP is no longer conservative in the sense of being pro-Constitution, pro-free market and, most important, pro-American.  Instead, establishment Republicans are ideologically oriented to the same agenda that powers the Democrat party, a toxic soup of globalism, socialism, and nihilism, all of which emerge as anti-religious policies, obeisance to "diversity, equity, and inclusion" and "critical race theory," and a complete buy-in to the radical environmental theories.

Gaslighting of the highest order.  [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell states that he is looking forward to "working together to check and balance Washington Democrats, bring oversight to this reckless Administration, fight the far left's radical policies, and defend America."  Apparently, McConnell thinks the rest of us were born sometime in the last few days because he literally just got done doing what was essentially a joint campaign stop with Joe Biden in Kentucky.  Together, the two lauded the passage of a massive infrastructure bill, seen as a key victory for the White House's agenda prior to the last election.  McConnell himself helped whip the votes for that spending package.

Republicans Routinely Undermine Their Speaker — By Design.  The humiliating days-long spectacle of allowing the top candidate for House speaker to go down in flames in failed vote after failed vote is an unprecedented public display of intra-party dissension — at least this century.  But it's not entirely unexpected.  House Republicans have a recent history of engaging in bruising battles with their own leaders that wounded previous GOP speakers and left others rushing for the exits.  Perhaps this propensity to hobble those entrusted with authority comes with the territory — distrust of governmental power is an integral part of the modern GOP's DNA. But this week it hasn't been a pretty picture.

How Is The Uniparty Destroying America?  Let Me Count The Ways.  Another example of the elites putting their thumbs in the eyes of average Americans is the $1.7 trillion budget that Congress passed in December.  No Congress in modern history has seen an outgoing House majority pass an omnibus appropriations bill in a lame-duck session.  Had Congress articulated its priorities and passed the bill before the election, that would have been one thing, but it didn't because doing so would have allowed the American people to vote on said priorities.  Nonetheless, even without Democrats showing their anti-American hand, voters decided to deliver a GOP majority to the House. [...] Of course, the GOP could have stopped it with a filibuster, but instead of giving the American people a voice, 18 treacherous Republicans voted "Yes," forcing Americans to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to:
  •   Send $45 billion to Ukraine on top of the $66 billion already provided.
  •   Ensure that $410 million "remains available" to reimburse Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman for "enhanced border security."
  •   Spend $11 million on LGBT-themed projects.
  •   Prohibit any of the $339 million for ICE from being used to "acquire, maintain, or extend border security technology and capabilities."

Poll: Three Quarters of Republicans Want Ronna McDaniel Gone.  A poll from late December seems to show what a lot of conservative activists have known all along — Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel should no longer be in charge.  The poll, which was conducted by Trafalgar for the group Convention of States Action, showed that almost 75 percent of Republican voters think that the RNC should find a new chairperson to lead the organization, while just over 5 percent said the RNC should stick with McDaniel.  More than 20 percent of voters weren't sure what the RNC should do.

The thundering herd of impunity.  There aren't enough adjectives in the whole English language that can adequately describe the chutzpah of the majority of the 535 members of our two deliberative legislative bodies when it comes to their collective flight from responsibility.  The most recent example is the defection of eighteen Republican senators who voted for a $1.7 trillion omnibus budget bill that contains more pork than all of the Jimmy Dean sausages ever made.  What were these people thinking?  I'll tell you what they were thinking:  they wanted to go home and trim their Christmas trees after hanging all their taxpayer-funded goodies on the federal tree, that's what.  I'm sure the Republicans who sided with the Senate Democrats thought that nobody was paying attention as they proceeded to do a 180 on all their rhetoric about 'holding the Biden administration accountable.'  Or maybe they thought they could come back later in the new year and challenge the very same appropriations that they, themselves, voted for.

Joe Biden Teaming Up with Mitch McConnell in Kentucky to Promote Infrastructure [Spending].  President Joe Biden plans to appear with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in Kentucky on Wednesday, to promote infrastructure.  The president will use his appearance with McConnell to signal bipartisanship with establishment Republicans even as they take control of the House of Representatives.  Biden and McConnell are expected to celebrate the massive $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed in 2021, which McConnell and establishment Republicans worked with Democrats and the White House to get passed.

The Editor says...
Joe Biden is arguably the most destructive president in American history.  He should be opposed at every opportunity.  Instead, Mitch McConnell is aiding and abetting Biden in this destruction.

A Plan for Rescuing America.  Our dollar is purposely weakened through insane spending bills slid through Congress at the 11th hour containing hidden provisions that weaken our voting laws.  Anyone who voted for the recent 4,000-page bill has pinned a badge on themselves as being an anti-American member of the OmniParty.  We think of the competition between the two political parties as a balance of power.  Conservatives look at African-Americans and shake their heads, wondering how they could be so blinded to the deception of the Democrat leadership that has ruined the inner cities — while still demanding their votes.  Wake up Conservatives, the GOP sees us as just as gullible — they pretend to care about America, but whenever they can, they cave to the Democrats.  There is no two-party system — we are a government of the Elites, by the Elites and for the Elites.  Oppose them and you will be destroyed.

2022, Perhaps the Apex Year for an Era of Pretending.  History provides reference points, and prolonged pretending never ends up in a good place.  So, there is room for optimism on a couple of points.  First, there is more support than ever for the 'burn it all down' approach.  Whereby we keep the basic U.S. Constitution in place and shred every other institution created that has nothing whatsoever to do with it.  This includes both the DNC and RNC wings of the UniParty apparatus.  I mean, really, at the core of it, what do we have to lose?  Why not just get rid of the dysfunctional systems that abuse us.  Second, in a weird way, we are in a rare space where we can feel the history around us.  Normally we would have to look in retrospect at the events as they unfolded to recognize the inflection point historians would use — not now.  We can look around us right now and have full confidence the most influential voice in the next two decades will be the man, woman or entity that starts openly and publicly calling out this ridiculous pretending.

The Mar-a-Lago-McDaniel Connection.  Right Coast Strategies, a consulting firm led by senior Donald Trump advisor Susie Wiles, has been paid $285,000 by the Republican National Committee since last summer, Federal Election Commission filings show.  Wiles is currently leading an effort by the former president's camp to retain Ronna McDaniel as RNC chair, even as his base revolts against her leadership, partly because she is a failure and partly because McDaniel is a fixture in the political establishment they oppose.  Unfortunately for them, however, Trump and Wiles have their own reasons for keeping McDaniel around.

The End of Free Elections?  This week, leftists and RINOs admitted, under oath, that they changed the print settings, on election morning, so Republican votes would not be tabulated, on the one day most Republicans vote — and the Maricopa County judge said "...it wasn't intentional."  A Republican governor candidate who easily won by multiple points was denied her rightful election.  Several million Arizona voters were disenfranchised.  Not a word from Republican leaders!  Wake up, America.  Leftists and RINOs have spent the last 40 years transforming election machinery to end your right to vote — and they are about to finish the job.

The Globalist Uniparty Murdered the American Constitutional Republic.  The U.S. government is a corrupt, one-party authoritarian state controlled by a Globalist Uniparty of Democrats and Republicans, who steal from the American people on behalf of rich and powerful multinational interests and use the federal bureaucracy, particularly the national security agencies, to suppress dissent and deny individual rights guaranteed under the Constitution.  The American Constitutional Republic died in Arizona from yet another stolen election, the kill shot being administered by Maricopa County Super Court Judge Peter Thompson, who just dismissed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake's lawsuit despite overwhelming evidence of election law violations and malicious intent.  The Globalist Uniparty has been injecting lethal poison into the body politic of the American Constitutional Republic ever since the American people defied Globalist Uniparty dictates and practiced actual democracy by electing Donald Trump as President.  Recognizing that democracy was a existential threat to its survival and its iron grip control of the U.S. government, the Globalist Uniparty did everything in its power, to not only undermine the Trump Presidency, but took measures to ensure that the American people would never again pose a threat to its absolute power.

What are Senate Conservatives Going to Do about McConnell?  The script is sickeningly familiar by now, isn't it?  Establishment Republicans — led throughout the '22 elections and in their aftermath by the notorious Kentucky senator-for-life Mitch McConnell — betrayed their party's base, which is staunchly conservative, increasingly in an America First sorta way. [...] RINOs are affirming Democrats coming out as authoritarians who mean to centralize ever-greater power in Washington, D.C.  The purposes are undercutting the people's liberties, radically altering the nation.  In fact, cementing alliances with elites in corporate suites, the leftist academy, and other major institutions to monopolize power.  RINOs, in turn, are "transitioning" to full statist.  Need we detail two years of Biden administration policies and Pelosi and Schumer-led efforts to have Uncle Sam control all elections, attack our 1st and 2nd Amendment rights, promote the unrestricted killing of babies in the womb, destroy conventional energy exploration and production, erase the southern border, spend like crazy drunks, and... oh, what else?  If you need convincing at this juncture about Democrats' and their allies' intentions, you've got some hard work ahead of you.

The GOP's Moronic House Speakership Fight.  The new Republican majority will get its first chance to present a unified front on Jan. 3, when the House meets to elect a new speaker to replace Pelosi.  Yet a small cadre of GOP opportunists vows not to vote for the only realistic choice — current Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). [...] For a little perspective, compare McCarthy's record in the House to that of Mitch McConnell in the Senate.  During the last two cycles, the former picked up 23 seats and the House majority.  Meanwhile, the latter lost four seats and the Senate majority.  If McCarthy's record looked like McConnell's record, the antics of the "never Kevin" caucus might be understandable.  As it is, there is no rational basis for their position.  They are obviously taking advantage of the GOP's narrow majority to grab a few headlines and make ridiculous demands.

Be gone!  [Scroll down] I would like to narrow the focus, however, to the Republican Party leadership and much of the GOP's Congressional delegation.  They are an accomplice to Congress's depravity, and well fall under the condemnation of Cromwell's words.  Ronna McDaniel has been making her case, even on Townhall, to remain as RNC chair.  She has every right to try to convince a rather skeptical conservative audience.  So far, I perceive she is batting about .000 among the party's base.  She hasn't convinced me, either. [...] Ronna McDaniel is emblematic of the very thing wrong with Washington, D.C.:  people who have miserably failed the country, but are too in love with themselves and the power they hold to give it up, even when it is obvious they are horribly mismanaging their responsibilities.  As long as they are in the limelight, as long as they are in the news, as long as they are well-known, as long as they please the Washington establishment, they don't care if they are successful or not.  Destroying the country is totally immaterial to them.

How The GOP's Civil War Turned Hot.  In the last few weeks, Andy Biggs and a group of GOP conservative representatives (including Matt Gaetz, Bob Goode, Matt Rosendale and Ralph Norman) have been providing a master class in leverage.  In order to become House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy needs their votes — and so, by threatening to withhold their votes, they have managed to drag Kevin McCarthy to the right in previously unimaginable ways.  McCarthy has been forced to make at least 6 pledges so far — ranging from removing Democrats from committee assignments to rolling back IRS funding — that he had never previously supported.  Do I think Kevin McCarthy was going to keep these promises?  I do not.  There's plenty of GOP politicians who share that skepticism.  Getting McCarthy to make promises is one thing — getting him to keep those promises is another thing entirely.

Weak and Compromised Republicans Have Unleashed A Spending Monstrosity.  In their final hours as a narrow majority in a lame duck Congress, Democrats are desperately seizing the opportunity to use an earmark-filled 4,100-page "omnibus" spending bill to implement more of their radical leftist agenda using taxpayer dollars.  And, unfortunately, swamp-sustaining Senate Republicans have done nothing but enable this last-ditch effort to pass policies that are antithetical to everything conservatives stand for.

Omnibus Bill: Don't Get Mad, Get Even.  There is a general consensus that a dozen or so U.S. senators who are mostly aligned with the America First movement have screwed up royally by allowing the 4,100-plus-page omnibus $1.7-trillion budget to be adopted — and they know it.  None of them was willing to play hardball on behalf of their constituents or on behalf of the country.  None apparently recognized that a nay vote was not sufficient or had the fortitude or common sense to filibuster or read the entire document into the Congressional Record in order to slow its progress into the new session of Congress.  How else could the American people or even members of Congress know the exact specifics of runaway government spending and what mysteries are hidden within this largely sequestered omnibus?  There is also general consensus that about twenty U.S. senators who are part of the McConnell Club (AKA RINOs) also screwed up royally by repeatedly joining the Democrats for assorted omnibus votes as the country's indebtedness rose to an unconscionable $31 trillion (not counting Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid).  Meanwhile, the Uniparty have yet to discover exactly how severely their constituents and rest of the country have been alienated.

Mitch McConnell Was OK with Purple-Haired Crazy Lady Sitting at Omnibus Table But No House Republican Was Present.  Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans really, really hate their voters.  The Senate Minority Leader approved the $1.7 trillion spending bill this week along with 17 Republican Senators.  Mitch was OK with the purple-haired crazy lady, Democrat Rep. de Lauro sitting at the Omnibus table but NOT GOP's Appropriations Committee ranking member Rep. Kay Granger.  Rep. Kat Cammack told Maria Bartiromo 98% of all Democrat earmarks made it into the package.

The Consequences of Senate Republicans' Omnibus Surrender.  The GOP's omnibus betrayal is complete.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and 17 other Republicans joined Democrats as the Senate passed a $1.85 trillion monstrosity of a spending bill Thursday [12/22/2022] that does a whole lot more than just waste money.  The vote was 68-29.  The bill moves to the House of Representatives, where the lame-duck, majority-Democrat ghost of Congress past almost certainly will vote in favor.  The omnibus spending bill effectively sets federal spending for all of fiscal year 2023, which began Oct. 1, kneecapping the new Congress not just on budget issues but oversight of the Biden administration and a whole lot more.

McConnell Stabs House GOP in the Back, Speeds Democrat Omnibus Boondoggle.  As if it were not painful enough for Republicans to watch the vaunted red wave merely ripple across their ankles, they now must endure 2022's final insult: A red wave of deficit spending courtesy of lame-duck House Democrats, triumphant Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer of New York, and Senate GOP "leader" Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.  Fiscal responsibility [notwithstanding], Democrats are riding one whale of an omnibus spending bill.  The $1.7 trillion Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 washed in on Monday at 11:48 p.m.  Its 4,155 pages are thrice as long as Leo Tolstoy's classic doorstop, "War and Peace."  This averages $409,145,607.70 per page.  Taxpayers should be seasick.

This $1.7 trillion-dollar circus demands a new debate over term limits.  Term limits were always a peripheral debate.  If you'd ask most Americans, it wouldn't be shocking if this proposal got supermajority support, but all politics is local.  The same old folks keep getting re-elected no matter how bad the anti-incumbent bias becomes.  That's the paradox:  voters might not like other people's representatives, but they want theirs.  I was indifferent to the whole affair, but I might be more open to it, though it only took multiple trillion-dollar omnibuses to get my head straight here.  The latest $1.7 trillion omnibus is an atrocious bill, filled with the Democrats' last-minute items they know wouldn't see the light of day under a Republican House majority next Congress — and Senate Republicans went along with it. [...] Then, on the omnibus itself, McConnell has the gall to say that this bill, fraught with liberal initiatives, was a good piece of legislation that showed Republicans could get their agenda aims accomplished under a Democratic Congress.  Also, he added that billions more in aid to Ukraine is a top priority for Republican voters.  Two patently false things were uttered by one of the faces of the GOP and our leader in the US Senate.  To make things worse, McConnell does know that billions were allocated to the Internal Revenue Service to harass Americans, right?

Jan. 6 committee releases long-awaited final report on Capitol riot.  The House select committee investigating last year's Jan. 6 Capitol riot released its long-anticipated final report Thursday night that accused former President Donald Trump of engaging in a criminal "multi-part conspiracy" to overturn the results of the 2020 election.  The 814-page report, nearly 18 months in the making, also contends that the 76-year-old former president failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol Building as lawmakers worked to certify Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.  "The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed," reads the report.  "None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him."

18 Republican Senators betray their constituents and vote for the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill.  The bill in question spans 4,155 pages.  It's impossible that any of the Senators who voted for the bill have actually read and comprehend the impact of this bill.  Yet all efforts were spent to pass it. [...] So what are the specifics of the bill?  The bill grants $45 billion in military, humanitarian and economic aid for Ukraine and funds to replenish Pentagon stockpiles of weapons that the U.S. sent to Ukraine, along with additional aid for NATO allies.  This adds to the $66 billion of taxpayers' money lawmakers have already approved for Ukraine.  To put this in perspective American taxpayers have given more aid to Ukraine in 2022 than Afghanistan, Israel, and Egypt combined in 2020.  The amount of U.S. aid to Ukraine in just a few months has surpassed three of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in history.  There are no tracking or accounting measures for these funds for Ukraine.  The same bill prohibits U.S. Customs and Border Protection from spending more than $1.5 billion for "border security technology and capabilities, except for technology and capabilities to improve Border Patrol processing."

Will the Republican Party Tell the GOP Base to Go Pound Sand?  Who needs those icky rank-and-file Republican voters who ring the doorbells, make the calls, and write the checks?  Not the Republican Party!  At least that's what some at the top of the party pyramid think.  Some of this elite cabal is utterly disregarding what amounts to the base's effective unanimity that current GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel needs to go away.  After three terms of ignominious failure, she is pushing for a fourth go 'round as the Republican National Committee (RNC) head honcho and, incredibly, a declining but still significant portion of the 168 committee members who will elect the new RNC Chair at a swank Cali retreat on January 27, 2023, are still behind her.  Re-electing Ronna would be a raised middle finger to the base, prompting the base to return the favor.  And the base has a lot more middle fingers.

Senate Republicans Betray the Base.  The Senate vote this past Thursday for a stopgap funding bill to keep the government running through December 23rd passed 71 to 19 — with 22 Republicans lending their yeas.  The intention is to provide more time to reach an agreement before the year closes out, after which the GOP takes control of the House of Representatives.  Getting a bill through to the current Democrat-controlled House of course gives the Left the upper hand in ongoing spending negotiations, ensuring that anything that gets past the split Senate will have to include funding for their ideological pet projects.  It seems intuitive that Republicans should refuse to provide significant policy concessions and push to hold out until the changing of the guard in the House.  But Minority Leader Mitch McConnell does not agree.  He told reporters that the deal was "very close" and that he would support a subsequent bill proposed next week so long as it is a "truly bipartisan full-year bill without poison pills."

Ten Establishment Senators Help Mike Lee's Title 42 Amendment Fail, Enabling Omnibus Advancement.  Ten establishment senators on Thursday helped Sen. Mike Lee's (R-UT) Title 42 amendment fail, enabling the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill advance in the Senate, while providing political cover for 2024 endangered Democrat senators.  Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) worked with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Jon Tester (D-MT) Thursday morning to circumvent Lee's amendment by crafting a side-by-side amendment to provide political cover for ten senators to ignore Lee's Title 42 amendment, which was thawing a wrench into the passage of the omnibus bill.

Chip Roy Explains Why the 'Swamp GOP' Is Working With Democrats Instead of Republicans.  U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas has been a stalwart and outspoken figure in the fight to defend conservative principles on Capitol Hill, something that cannot be said of some of his party's members in the upper chamber.  As Townhall reported on Tuesday, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a press conference that the "number one priority" for the United States was providing more aid to Ukraine amid its onslaught by Russian troops.  McConnell also said he was "proud" to work with Democrats on the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill that will mean the new GOP majority in the House has little leverage over Biden and his party until next fall.  In a lengthy Twitter thread posted Wednesday morning, Rep. Roy did not hold back on those Republicans in the Senate who are playing nice with Democrats and President Biden in order to screw over House Republicans set to take majority control of the lower chamber on January 3.

Two Provisions in the Omnibus Bill Will Have You Breaking Things.  Senate Republicans are gearing up to punch their voters in the mouth again, this time by passing a massive omnibus bill that gives the farm away to Democrats for essentially nothing in return.  The reasoning behind the push is a bit of a mystery.  Are we really to believe that these Republicans fear a short government shutdown so much that they are willing to concede the power of the purse their party fought so hard to win in November's election?  Color me skeptical on that front.  On the contrary, as a nice change of pace, I think this move isn't about cowardice but is about business as usual.  It's a bunch of big-spending initiatives greasing the palms of a group of mostly outgoing Republican senators looking for one last payday.  In other words, this omnibus package is everything that's wrong with Washington, condensed into one 4,000+ page bill that they won't read.  Others are reading it, though, and the contents are as much of a dumpster fire as you'd expect.

18 Absurdities of the McConnell-Schumer Omnibus Spending Bill.  Congressional leaders have dropped 6,825 pages of text for their "omnibus" spending bill, plus explanatory materials that include a list of at least 4,000 earmarks, on the doorstep of every American family.  When announcing the gargantuan spending bill, its authors put "the federal government" before "American families," and that is exactly what this bill is intended to do.  However, it's only the beginning of the list of absurdities in this spending bill.  In a stunning betrayal of the American electorate, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., worked with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democrat leaders to author this example of congressional corruption. [...] In under two weeks, the new GOP majority in the House finally will have the chance to use the power of the purse to rein in the reckless administration of President Joe Biden.  Instead, Republicans seem poised to give up this oversight power without firing even a single shot.

GOP Can't Be Successful Until Mitch McConnell Is Gone.  Comments Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made on Tuesday show why he has become the single biggest obstacle to GOP success.  The Kentucky Republican claimed giving more money to Ukraine is "the No. 1 priority for the United States right now, according to most Republicans."  The new $1.7 trillion Democrat spending bill he enthusiastically supports would give Ukraine another roughly $45 billion in assistance, bringing the total over the past eight months to more than $100 billion, a staggering figure even if it weren't happening during a time of inflation, looming recession, and other serious domestic problems.  [Tweet]  The comment about Republican priorities is so false as to be completely delusional.  Among the many concerns Republican voters have with Washington, D.C., a failure to give even more money to Ukraine simply does not rank.  A large coalition of conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation and the Conservative Partnership Institute, publicly opposed ramming through more Ukraine support during the lame-duck session before Republicans take over control of the House on Jan. 3, 2023.  Strong pluralities and majorities of Republicans have told pollsters they want decreases, not increases, in foreign spending and global military involvement.

Rand Paul Says What His Spineless Republican Colleagues Won't.  Yeah, inflation is still crazy high, and eggs cost $6 a dozen now, but what we really need is to spend millions of dollars in taxpayer money on LGBT "pride centers" while shoveling even more money into the black hole that is the Department of Defense.  You'd hope that we'd at least get extra spending for border security in such a monstrosity of a bill, but nope, there's a provision that expressly disallows that.  Because of course there is.  And don't expect Republican leadership to stand in the way of the gravy train.  Heck, they are all for it.  Mitch McConnell even praised the omnibus as a major win for the right, suggesting the GOP got all its priorities.  A sane person would ask what the trade-off was and whether it was worth it.  Unfortunately, there aren't many of those around.  Well, except for senators like Rand Paul.  He took to the podium today with all 4,000+ pages of the omnibus and said what his spineless Republican colleagues won't.  [Video clip]

Mitch McConnell Says America's 'Number One Priority' Is Helping Ukraine.  In a press conference on Tuesday afternoon in the U.S. Capitol, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was talking about priorities for the United States as lawmakers rush to pass a $1.7 trillion omnibus bill.  According to Leader McConnell — who said he was speaking for "most Republicans" — the "number one priority" for the United States is not any of the pressing domestic issues plaguing Americans as a result of President Joe Biden and his administration.  No, McConnell said that "providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now, according to most Republicans."  Really?  [Tweet]

McConnell and Senate Republicans Agree to $1.7 Trillion Spending Bill with $45 Billion to Ukraine and Clause to Make It Impossible to Challenge Stolen Elections.  If you are a conservative voter in America today at some point you have to realize you have no representation in the US Senate.  Mitch McConnell has a 33 percent approval rating, the lowest in the US Senate and yet he was reelected as GOP Leader with 37 votes to 10 votes for Senator Scott. [...] Senate Republicans, under the leadership of Mitch McConnell, have come to an agreement with Democrats on a $1.7 trillion spending bill to avoid a government shutdown.  The bill gives another $44.9 billion to Ukraine — where it disappears into the ether.  The bill also makes it impossible for Americans to challenge a stolen election.  Republicans did this to you.

Why Just Mayorkas?  Leave it to Republicans to fall short, either from nearsightedness, timidity, or both.  Case in point, Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas.  Twenty House conservatives, led by the quixotic speaker-aspirant Andy Biggs (R-AZ), are calling for Mayorkas' impeachment.  Their intentions are good, but their call is a little like calling for the arrest of Bonnie Parker but letting Clyde Barrow and his gang run free.  Bonnie was nothing without Clyde. [...] It's these elites who must stand accused in the court of public opinion of crimes against the American people... who lend not just their assent to the debauching of the southern border and, since January 2021, the ensuing deluge of an estimated 5.5 million illegals into the country, but whose voices, dollars, and institutional heft weigh heavily in this unprecedented assault on the nation's integrity, security, and welfare.  But, of course, it's outside the scope of the soon-to-be House Republican majority to pursue that extra-governmental supporting cast.

Senate GOP support of the omnibus spending bill is a betrayal of House Republicans.  Save America, kill the omnibus bill.  That's a good place to start tonight.  Stop the lame-duck spending spree being conducted by the Democrats in both houses, but with the support of Senate Republicans, including Mitch McConnell and retiring appropriator Richard Shelby of Alabama.  Mr. Shelby, who has a fine conservative record down through the years, is blowing it up in his last weeks.  He won't be around to pick up the higher inflation pieces that may result from his omnibus spending increases, including his status as the league leader and most valuable player of the earmarks World Series.  When I say Sen. Shelby is the league leader, I know whereof I speak.  According to his own Senate Appropriations Committee, his earmarks come to $650 million.  The runner-up is another retiree, Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma with $511 million, that is followed by recently re-elected Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska at $490 million.  So, of the top 10 most valuable player candidates for earmarks, eight of them are Republicans.

Analysis of RNC Spending Since 2017 Shows Millions Were Spent on Private Jets, Limousines, Luxury Retreats, Broadway Shows, and More.  Back in 2010, RNC Chair Michael Steele was heavily criticized and eventually lost his position because donors were angry about what they believed was luxurious spending on private jets, floral arrangements, chauffeur services, and member meetings in expensive tropical locales.  Donors were used to frugality from the RNC under the George W. Bush administration, when "Karl Rove would [complain] if there were flowers on the tables" and staff holiday parties were catered by Chick-fil-A.  Despite Joe Biden's economy and three straight cycles of election losses, the RNC's big-spending days are back with a vengeance.  Perhaps because of these losses both RNC donors and committee members are intensely interested in the committee's finances, particularly the spending.  Late last week, RedState was provided a report dated October 7, 2022 that examined RNC's 2021-22 spending.  It calculated more than $500,000 in private jet expenses, $64,000 at clothing retailers, and $321,000 in floral arrangements.

The GOP Is Gambling on a Bill That Could Give Conservatives a Reason to Never Vote for Them Again.  I never thought I'd see the day when some Republicans would willingly back a mass amnesty bill and be blind to the fact that the only people who gain to benefit from this push, both in the immediate and long term, are Democrats.  In the words of Ellen Ripley, "nuke the entire site from orbit" when it comes to this bill, which we have railed against since the first details were made public.  The bill has many border security measures logrolled in, serving as an ammunition belt for the members of Congress who need to sell this legislation back home as a border security measure.  More money for border patrol agents, salary hikes for current officers, and an expedited deportation process for migrants who fail to meet asylum benchmarks.  The flanking maneuver here is something you already know:  the two million Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients who will be put on the citizenship track and who could then sponsor their extended family members once they're through the process.  We're talking millions of people, and it doesn't disincentivize illegal immigration.  If anything, it resets for another massive amnesty move in a generation or two, so it doesn't secure the border, doesn't take the issue off the table, and is a classic kick the can down the road move we often see from elected officials.  The only difference is it's the GOP that is going to get screwed.

The GOP Has Ghosted FBI Whistleblowers.  Did you think that the GOP establishment was actually going to investigate the FBI? Hey, I know that they promised to really do something about the corruption of our national security state before the midterm elections — but come on people.  Those are campaign promises.  It's like Kevin McCarthy not having enough votes to become House Speaker — suddenly he promises to subpoena the 50 intelligence agents who lied about the Hunter Biden laptop, and he announces this promise at the same time that he's handing out medals to cops for participating in the January 6th federal insurrection orchestrated by the FBI!

Thom Tillis Will Destroy the GOP.  It really is that simple.  If you want to wreck our party, do the one thing we absolutely told the party not to do.  Give amnesty.  The Republican Party is coming off five national losses in a row — and if you think that the dismal results in the 2022 general constitute a victory in light of the historical trends and loathsome opponents we faced, I cannot help you.  Right now, the base is disgusted and demoralized.  It looks out across the smoldering ruins of what used to be a great nation, and it might be forgiven for thinking that the GOP is irreparably broken.

'Conservativism' is no longer enough; it's time for something new.  Glenn Ellmers, a conservative scholar, has looked at the American political scene and concluded that myriad divisions have turned us into two separate nations, half of whom believe in a constitutional America, and the other half of whom subscribe to the values the leftist revolution introduced.  Despite this manifest schism, he argues, "Conservatism, Inc." remains clueless and, therefore, dangerous.  For those who are disheartened, though, he has a plan of action for fighting back with a counter-revolution.  Ellmers is an intellectual:  He's a research fellow at the Claremont Institute, which is trying to re-imagine an American civil society true to the Founders' vision.  He's also a Fellow at the Institute for American Greatness and a visiting research scholar at Hillsdale College.

Republican Babes-in-the-Woods Will Soon Meet the Democrat Realpolitik.  When they take control of the House, Republicans have said that they will investigate Joe Biden.  Democrats will not sit still for this and are already preparing to attack any investigations and any Republicans who are involved.  Republicans have made no secret of the fact that in the new Congress, they are planning to use their oversight powers to launch investigations of the Biden clan's finances, the fiasco at the southern border, and the politicization DOJ/FBI — among other things.  They likely believe that their Democrat colleagues will sit still for this the same way that the Republicans did when they were attacked and demonized over the past six years.  And usual, they'd be wrong.

All I Want for Christmas is Election Integrity.  As we start the most magical time of the year, we must still make sure Republican leadership hears us through the mistletoe.  Most conservative patriots remain disgusted that McConnell, McCarthy, and McDaniel (now known collectively as McFailure) did nearly nothing following the 2020 Presidential debacle.  Their lack of spine and urgency to protest and legally challenge numerous election irregularities emboldened our "friends" across the aisle to be more blatant with election shenanigans.  The proof is Arizona's gubernatorial election.  State and national Republican leadership in Maricopa County, Arizona, made as much noise as cacti on Loop 101. [...] As our percolating banana republic goes from "election integrity" to "election thievery," Republican leadership's answer is to get on the bandwagon and play the same ballot harvest game.  Their thinking is that if blue states like California can take days to count votes, so there's plenty of time to find boxes filled with ballots for Democrat candidates, Republicans can do it, too.  If Democrats can get dead people to vote, Republicans can do it, too.  If Democrats can win with more votes than there are people in a district, Republicans can do it, too.  If Democrats can dump dubious ballots into isolated ballot boxes, Republicans can do it, too.

Where's the Outrage?  Bob Dole ran a pretty poor campaign against Bill Clinton in 1996.  It was no surprise, then, that he lost.  But let history acknowledge the former U.S. senator from Kansas asked the very best question in the entire election cycle. "Where's the outrage?" he thundered at a GOP event at the end of October 1996.  Back then, the chief issue was the Clinton Administration's use and abuse of 900 FBI files on their political opponents.  Imagine!  An American president using the FBI as his secret police!  Have you ever heard of anything so outrageous?  In America, amidst Our Democracy?  Then as now, however, the answer to Dole's question is simple:  Nowhere.  There was, there is, no outrage.  Then, as now, there are little flutters of enthusiast unhappiness among the rest of the faithful who greet news of outrageous behavior with applause and expressions of solidarity.

A Credible Conservative Warrior Emerges to Lead the RNC.  After the 2022 midterm elections and the failure of the "Red Wave" to materialize, there has been a crack-up in party leadership at every level.  The conservative base wants RINO scalps, and the establishment wants to blame Trump.  The battle for the party's soul is no more apparent than it is in the leadership battle at the Republican National Committee.  There have been several interesting and captivating names thrown out there for RNC Chair.  Lee Zeldin, the gubernatorial candidate in New York who had a strong showing by going on the offense against far-left Democrats; Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder who has become an election fraud crusader following the 2020 presidential election; and Scott Presler, the grassroots community organizer who has registered thousands of Republicans on the ground around the country.  But one stands out above the rest: conservative civil rights attorney and California RNC committeewoman Harmeet K. Dhillon.

The terrible consequences of stolen elections and government corruption.  The left cheats; they can't win if they don't cheat so they regularly cheat.  Nothing makes that clearer than the 2022 midterm elections in Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  Polls show that about sixty percent of the American people believe the 2020 election was stolen; those people are not all Republicans.  Chances are that in their heart of hearts, ninety percent of Americans know it was stolen.  The Democrats steal without shame, as if it's their divine right.  They do it blatantly because they know they can get away with it.  The GOP leadership are spineless pushovers as it happens; Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham, Thom Tillis, et al. who gladly do the Democrats' bidding.

How the Republicans Actually Fought Against the Democrats on NDAA — and Won.  Republicans, it seemed, were on the verge of losing yet again in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) fight with Democrats angling to include a number of controversial and unrelated provisions including the Journalism Competition and Preservative Act (JCPA) — a controversial bill that would create media cartels.  Conservatives have been furious with Republican leaders in recent years because the dynamic is usually that the GOP always caves to the Democrats no matter the issue or bill, the only questions being how fast and how much the GOP caves.  But all that changed this week, [...]

These 7 Trump-Critical GOP Senators Have No Plan To Deal With Unconstitutional, Election-Altering Censorship.  Seven Republican U.S. senators who slammed former President Trump for suggesting that new censorship revelations warranted a reconsideration of the 2020 presidential election results have no plan to address the First Amendment-violating censorship Trump was reacting to in "The Twitter Files."  More and more evidence is exposing how our corrupt FBI brazenly violated the Constitution by dictating to social media monopolies what speech to censor from public and private discourse ahead of the 2020 election.  Yet GOP senators are more preoccupied with Trump talking about altering the Constitution than they are with the deep state committing actual violations of it.

Republicans Insisting The Party 'Move On' Are Daring Voters To Do The Exact Opposite.  It needs to be a rule for the Larry Hogan wing of the Republican Party that anytime they drone about it being time to "move on," they're required to say out loud exactly what it means to move on.  Because when the Wall Street Journal or Mitt Romney repeats that condescending line with absolute disdain, they're not just talking about zeroing out the political viability of a single man who offends their delicate sensibilities.  They're talking about a complete memory-holing of the GOP's shift from country club to Costco and the abandonment of all the issues that brought hundreds of thousands of new voters into the fold.

Why Does the GOP Elite Hate Its Own Base?  The GOP elite's scorn for its own voters has, at this point, been a long time in the making.  The trend accelerated during the 2009-2011 rise of the Tea Party, a grassroots movement fueled by constitutionalism and anti-elite populism.  The crustier elements of the Republican establishment ran as far away as possible from the Tea Party, and the 2012 presidential coronation of private equity plutocrat Mitt Romney effectively killed the movement.  Four years later, the Republican establishment fought tooth-and-nail against presidential candidates Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the two candidates who most vociferously condemned the establishment's myriad shortcomings; as an unsurprising corollary, Trump and Cruz fetched the most primary votes that cycle from actual rank-and-file Republican voters.  The Trump presidency saw the continuation of the same basic dynamic.  Republican voters, by nominating a loudmouth non-politician like Trump, were clamoring for something new.

An Utter Betrayal by the GOP.  It's a well-known fact these days that the Republican establishment has become a bunch of perennial losers.  The Georgia runoff was a catastrophe, as anticipated.  Now, they want to triple down on the losing.  A so-called "Republican Senator" named Thom Tillis has struck a deal with Democrats to give amnesty to millions of illegals.  This is unacceptable, and we won't stop fighting to tell the truth about this betrayal.

Ronna McDaniel Promotes Her Own Ouster in Delusional Rant on National TV.  Ronna McDaniel continues to make the case for why she must be ousted as RNC chair, even if unintentionally.  Appearing on Fox News on Wednesday, McDaniel delusionally ranted that "our ground game worked" while bragging that the GOP flipped the House of Representatives.  Here she is insulting your intelligence, showing not an ounce of contrition.  [Video clip]  As my election post-mortem laid out, the 2022 mid-terms were an unmitigated disaster for the Republican Party.  One of the most favorable electoral environments in decades was squandered to the tune of actually losing seats in the Senate (made official by Herschel Walker's run-off loss on Tuesday) and picking up the slimmest of majorities in the House.  Was that majority in the House the result of McDaniel's great work?  Of course, it wasn't.

The last midterm miss: The big lesson for GOP in Walker flop.  In a way, last night's runoff election in Georgia provided the perfect cap to a midterm cycle full of missed opportunities and poor assumptions.  Herschel Walker narrowly lost as a celebrity outsider to a two-year Senate Democrat incumbent who should have been uniquely vulnerable in 2022.  And yet Walker finished behind Raphael Warnock not once but twice, in a state that elected Republicans into every other statewide office last month. [...] In other words, a significant number of Georgia voters who turned out for Kemp and the rest of the Republican ticket in 2022 simply refused to vote for Walker.  That's not a scenario of stolen elections or fraud.  That is a failure in candidate selection, and a failure of assumptions in what moves voters in the first place — and it's not the only such failure this cycle, either.

Herschel Walker was the problem.  Just how historically anomalous was Herschel Walker's 2-point loss to incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) in the runoff on Tuesday?  Consider these facts in light of the reality that President Joe Biden expanded Democratic control of the upper congressional chamber to a 51-49 majority.  Since World War II, the president's party has gained Senate seats in only four of those 19 midterm elections.  For the first time since the 17th Amendment, which transferred the voting power of senators directly to the people, all incumbent senators in the president's party running for reelection won.

Will GOP Commit Political Suicide With Bipartisan Amnesty Bill?  One of the more frustrating aspects of being a conservative Republican is the constant need to look over one's shoulder for stealth attacks by moderate squish members of the GOP on important issues like health care, gun control, and amnesty for illegal immigrants.  Such ideological shivs in the back always arrive under the execrable guise of bipartisanship. [...] I cannot begin to ponder what [Senator Thom] Tillis's rationale is for signing onto this.  He should probably be put into the NFL concussion protocols because a Republican with all of his faculties fully functioning would know that this is a horrible idea.  Even Sinema's sponsorship is disappointing, given that she often acts in the best interests of Arizona even when her fellow Democrats are excoriating her for doing so.  As a native of this great state and someone who lives a mere 60 miles from the Mexican border, I can assure this is not in the best interests of the citizenry here.  The second tier free-for-all in this bill is what is particularly galling, and makes any Republican support for it unforgivable.  It's as if they want to merely crack open the gate for a short while, then fling it all the way open when they hope no one is looking.

Democrat Voter Fraud: A Brief History.  [Scroll down] A similar chain of events occurred in the election of Al Franken in Minnesota in 2008.  Incumbent Norm Coleman originally prevailed with over 700 votes, which were mysteriously whittled down to 200 in short order.  Franken called for a recount, and begorrah, the votes suddenly started appearing.  Some, anyway — an envelope of votes from one county simply disappeared, but were counted regardless, the totals evidently being read out from tea leaves.  By the time it all ended, Franken was ahead by 312 votes.  Coleman, a Republican gentleman of the old school, made perfunctory efforts at protest, but was undercut by the GOP itself, led by former governor Arne Carlson, a RINO to rule them all, who had refused to endorse Coleman during the campaign.  Shortly after the election, it was discovered that at least 1,099 illegal votes had been cast by felons, and this had been known during the vote count, but had been ignored.  Franken exchanged his diapers for a suit and spent the better part of two terms voting the way he was told and embarrassing his party before being forced out during the "Me Too" craze.

Growing number of GOP leaders, elected officials say it's time for a change in RNC leadership.  Due to the massive underperformance of the GOP during the midterm elections, calls for new leadership at the Republican National Committee are growing among prominent Republicans.  Current RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel recently announced that she will be running for another term.  She has held this position since 2017 and a majority of RNC members support her.  "We, the undersigned members of the Republican National Committee, are proud to offer our endorsement for your re-election as Chairman of the Republican National Committee," reads a letter to McDaniel signed by 101 members.  McDaniel made the RNC "stronger and more effective," according to the letter.

What If MAGA Shrugged?  Congressional lizards posing as "leaders" met with China Joe in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, and the wretched gerontocracy that rules over us looked happy as clams to be reunited after the political theater of the midterms.  Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Kevin McCarthy, and Turtle McConnell all sported sly, devilish grins that suggested they got exactly what they wanted in last month's elections.  In undermining MAGA candidates, Turtle's iron-fisted control over his Republican minority remains absolute.  Up-Chuck and Child-Sniffer Joe still hold the Senate and retain the power to ram more lawless federal judges through confirmation (with Lindsey Graham's obedient assistance, of course).  Middling McCarthy has such a weak House majority that he will end up playing so much ball with Democrats in the name of "compromise" that "selling out" will continue being Republicans' favorite sport.

Revenge of the Neocons?  Few factions of American political life have suffered a fall as lamentable as the neoconservatives, a group of Reaganite intellectuals who held sway in Republican politics from the mid-1990s until the advent of Donald J. Trump. [...] Feckless, out of touch, out of power, and often quite happy to be that way in exchange for comfortable lives of blue-state social acceptability, neocons today are a preening remnant huddled in the capital's vast pastureland of worthless think tanks, meaningless advisory boards, and distrusted legacy media.  A vital part of what has derisively become known as "Conservatism, Inc.," one rarely finds them outside the Washington suburbs, though some have retreated to heartland places to look authentic, reduce expenses, or avoid the real-life consequences of their many failed policies.  A decidedly baby-boomer movement, barely any are under 65, and those who are usually look and act twice that age.  They have virtually no achievements of which to be proud, no mentorship networks to nurture, no winning personal qualities about which to boast, and no natural means to pass down their discredited ideas to a new generation.

Our Republican Leaders Have Failed Us.  We need to replace the current leaders of the Republican Party — RNC chair Ronna McDaniel (niece of Mitt Romney), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.  They have failed miserably in their duties.  But we can't insist that they recount the votes or complain that they didn't support Trump candidates.  They'll just dismiss us as "right-wing extremist election-deniers."  Instead, we need to use their own rules against them.  First, they violated the sacred rule that the party members choose the candidates in the primaries, not the leadership elites.  Primaries are where new and exciting candidates are discovered and developed.  Kevin McCarthy interfered in the primaries on a massive scale.

Republicans Are Sick Of the Establishment's Impotence, Fecklessness, Weakness.  "The Republican voters are sick to death of Republican leadership, their fecklessness, their impotence, their weakness.  They have no problem coming together to pass a spending bill for Ukraine, but they can't do anything that the base actually wants or needs," Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway said on Fox News's "Special Report."  "They can't fight the media.  They can't fight their Democrat opponents.  And so whoever gets [the speakership] — it will likely be Kevin McCarthy — they need to understand that there is such deep frustration and anger in the base of the Republican Party.  They need Republican leadership to act in a much more competent and focused way that benefits their voters."

No backbone.
Florida Republicans Expected to Reverse Decision Stripping Disney of Autonomy over Walt Disney World Property.  Florida lawmakers are reportedly preparing to reverse their decision to strip the Walt Disney Company of its authority over the state's Reedy Creek Improvement District, which includes the land on which Walt Disney World sits, the Financial Times reports.  Earlier this year, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill to take away the firm's ability to write its own regulations and building codes, as well as operate its own municipal services within the district after it weighed in against Florida Republicans' Parental Rights in Education Act.  The legislation forbade educators from providing instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation through third grade, and was pejoratively deemed a "Don't Say Gay" bill by progressive critics.

The Republican Lt Governor Appears on CNN to Tell Georgia Republicans Not to Vote for Hershel Walker.  People around the country are looking at the Georgia Senate runoff between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Hershel Walker.  Lots of people wondering what is going on.  Well, last night the Republican Party of Georgia gave an excellent example of what it means to be Republican in Georgia.  Republican Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan appeared on CNN to share his opinion of Republican candidate Hershel Walker.  As Republican Duncan outlined during the interview, he stood in line for an hour, took a ballot at the polling location, and then decided he could just not vote for a Republican in Georgia, so he turned around and walked back out without voting.  Republican Geoff Duncan had no issue pushing this on CNN much to the smiles of the CNN producers, Democrats and the Warnock campaign.  [Video clip]

Dear Establishment Republicans: If You Won't Step Up To The Challenge Of Saving Our Nation, Step Down.  There's no doubt that our nation, which a majority of voters say is headed in the wrong direction, needs salvaging.  Half of Americans are counting on Republican politicians to get serious about the myriad of crises facing our country and actually do something effective.  The problem?  Congressional Republicans are, as of late, historically weak.  They never seem to tire of capitulating to the Democrat's radical policy whims.  They refuse to hold tyrannical bureaucrats and politicized departments accountable for acting unjustly.  And they refuse to leverage their power to stop bad-faith policies in their tracks.  Over and over and over again, the GOP establishment and its allies have burned Republican voters in favor of protecting their power.

Republicans' Christmas Gift To Voters Is Helping Democrats Pass A Major Omnibus Spending Bill.  Congressional Republican leaders are working in lockstep with their Democrat counterparts to pass a massive taxpayer-funded spending bill before the end of the year.  The move comes immediately after a dozen Senate Republicans helped their Democrat colleagues advance a bill permitting radical leftists to wage legal war against religious Americans who value the true meaning of marriage.  After meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday, House and Senate leaders announced they had reached an agreement on the need for Congress to pass an omnibus spending package before the government's current funding runs out on Dec. 16.  Unlike a continuing resolution (CR), which would fund the federal government for a few months, an omnibus bill would provide funding for the entire 2023 fiscal year.

A GOP With Backbone Would Support Elon Musk, Punish Apple, And Fight For Free Speech On Twitter.  Apple's threat to remove Twitter from its App store for the crime of being a slightly more open forum for free speech under Elon Musk has been met with a chorus of outrage and substantive threats of congressional action by Republican leaders.  Just kidding.  Republicans have barely said anything about it, and establishment Republicans have said nothing at all.  With the exception of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who offered his opinion on a matter outside his purview as a governor, Apple's threat to crush Twitter has been met more or less with silence, even from members of the GOP who consider themselves conservative.

Voters fired Nancy Pelosi, so why are Republicans helping her pass another spending bill?  On November 8, the American people fired House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, so why are some Senate Republicans giving her another spending bill to cram with wasteful spending and woke policies?  Last night, Alabama Senator Richard Shelby — the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which oversees spending — told reporters that Congress could be working on the upcoming government funding bill until Christmas.  Current funding runs out on December 16, and Shelby, Vermont Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy, and House and Senate leadership have all been working together to pass a big "omnibus" spending bill, meaning it's several spending bills combined into one big package.

A non-fiction book for kids helps explain 2022's non-existent Red Wave.  I'm certain that garden-variety illegal fraud, combined with the legal fraud of ballot harvesting and mail-in voting, went a long way to explain how Americans suffering terribly in a bad economy did not deliver a wipeout to the Dems in the 2022 midterms.  I also reserve a great deal of blame for the GOP, which is trying hard to drive MAGA from its ranks and is willing to lose to do so.

The coup-attempt party.  A political light bulb went on regarding Adam Schiff's remark on CNN's "State of the Union" as reported by Breitbart's Pam Key.  In the interview, Schiff again mentioned the Russia hoax he has promoted for five years, if not longer.  (Note that Dana Bash did not call Schiff on this huge lie.).  With Schiff continuing to assert this gross falsehood, the Democrat Party has, for years, switched from being a loyal opposition party to priding itself as a party of the permanently-attempted coup.  How dumb of me not to have taken seriously the Democrat cries of "Resistance," as of the Trump inauguration, January 20, 2017 — but I then understood such cries to be figurative and fanciful references of a politically romantic nature.  But where were the Republican political experts like House Speaker Paul Ryan back in early 2017 when the "Resistance" was gearing up?  Alas, the anti-Trump Ryan was silently supporting the Resistance.  How could the Democrats have succeeded with the Mueller probe if Ryan had spoken out forcefully against what was apparently a coup attempt to oust the legitimately-elected president?

Report: Ronna McDaniel Pulls Ground Resources from Arizona Motivated by RNC Power Challenge.  This is a significant dose of sunlight that aligns with everything known about how the RNC Corporation operates.  Additionally, given what we have witnessed coming from the history of the RNC operation, the claim tracks.  [Tweets]  History does show that Ronna McDaniel cares more about her Wall Street donor appointed position in the corporation, than she does about election outcomes that would be against the interest of those same Wall Street donors.  So, this claim makes sense in multiple ways.

What 1972 Can Teach Us about 2022.  [Scroll down] Republican control of the House will help the Democrats by placing GOP fingerprints on whatever catastrophes the country will endure between now and 2024, thereby allowing the Democrat allies in the media to paint Biden's missteps as the fault of Trumpian conservatives.  A McCarthy-led House will act as an ideal straw man.  McCarthy's caucus will do little more than these four things:  (1) occasionally hold the budget hostage in exchange for pro-corporate fiscal moves as part of a narcissistic spectacle  (2) call for Benghazi-style hearings for two years that will certainly annoy voters in time for the next election cycle  (3) pass photogenic legislation that will get smacked down in the Senate or vetoed in the hallowed tradition of "repeal Obamacare"  (4) adulate the military by signing off on the Democrats' fanatical gravy train to Ukraine.  Perhaps Democrats engaged in voter fraud to protect a few of their villainous governors (like Whitmer, Hochul, and Newsom), and, beyond that, for the sheer fun of it.

The Core Battle Within the Republican Party.  An inflection point is coming.  In preparation for what we are about to witness, it is critical to understand that both the DNC and RNC are private corporations with no affiliation to government.  It is a difficult shift in thinking to appropriately understand, but the party system in U.S. politics revolves around two clubs that feed from the same corporate trough and position for influence and affluence within a political dynamic they control. [...] 2024 is going to be the election season when we see this corporate battle explode inside in the Republican group.  Decades of entrenched power are at stake, and there has been four years of counter positioning and backroom discussion leading up to this moment.  As a consequence, and I know this might sound odd to many people — but winning and/or losing elections becomes a secondary issue.  The RNC is not focused on winning elections.  The RNC corporation is focused on retaining control.

Has the GOP Learned Anything After the Midterms?  Predictions of a red wave, including by yours truly, didn't materialize.  Instead, it was more of a pink trickle with the GOP flipping the House.  The Senate is still up for grabs, with the best outcome for the GOP being a 50-50 split, depending on the Georgia run-off results. [...] How did this happen?  And in an eerily similar fashion to the 2020 elections.  Has the Republican Party learned anything in the past few election cycles?  Or have voters voiced their preference for personal and national decline over prosperity, choosing to make America weak rather than strong?  One obvious explanation is the election process.  Republicans focus on winning votes while Democrats concentrate on gathering ballots.  There are quasi-legal ballot maneuvers including ballot-harvesting, mass mailings of ballots weeks or months before the actual election, extended counting, ranked voting, and similar election procedures enacted with Republican support or minimal resistance.

Republicans must stop relying on the political consultant class that's addicted to losing.  If there's one thing the 2022 midterms made clear, it's that Democrats have a huge ground game advantage over Republicans.  Whether it's a month of harvesting (and curing) ballots thanks to early voting, or going door-to-door filling out ballots for huge swaths of unlikely voters, Democrats know that turning out ballots is more important than turning out votes.  They don't have to rely on generating traditional Election Day enthusiasm through distributing campaign mailers or running TV ads.  Republicans, however, still insist on investing the majority of their campaign funds into these antiquated (or pre-2020) methods.  And they're showing no signs of stopping.  Why?  Blame the political consultant class.

Report: Senate Republicans Start Amnesty Talks with DACA Illegal Aliens.  A handful of Senate Republicans reportedly started talks with illegal aliens enrolled in and eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as House and Senate Democrats, along with corporate special interest allies, hope to pass an amnesty in the lame-duck Congress.  This week, DACA illegal aliens and open borders activists descended on Washington, DC, in their efforts to lobby ten Senate Republicans to join Democrats in passing an amnesty — before the GOP takes control of the House — that would secure them green cards and, eventually, naturalized American citizenship.

The real problem in the 2020 election wasn't corruption.  In the end, the "Red Wave" floundered because most Republicans are doing nothing different.  They compromise their morals for leftist causes, they have no national message that appeals to conservatives and, ultimately, they just wait around for the Democrats to hang themselves, something Democrats will never allow.

A House Majority, if Republicans can Keep It.  Republicans have secured a U.S. House majority, barely.  Barely is better than not at all.  But a slim margin will pose daunting challenges to Republicans, who will be led by Kevin McCarthy. [...] The question to ask McCarthy and the usual suspects who'll fill other GOP leadership roles is, "Now that you have the majority, what do you plan to do with it?"  The fear is that House Republicans will spend the next two years as deadweight, simply serving to drag down Biden's and Chuck Schumer's anti-everything-that-makes-sense measures.  Stopping Democrats is critical, indeed, but not sufficient.  Voters don't just want naysaying.

Election Fraud 2.0! O.K., So What Are You Gonna Do About It?  Only in politics could 2022 players be surprised by the "innovation" of a mail-in ballot-led strategy exactly the same as was used in 2020. [...] The next morning, I had to present the voter roll phantoms to its Secretary of State, via a Zoom call.  I had two hours to find at-scale phantom voters in one of the reddest states and present them to a group of 20 lawyers after my first cup of coffee the following morning.  It wasn't hard.  Voters registered in prison.  People voting from homeless shelters — for 20 years.  (Homeless shelters do not have 20-year residents, don't email me about this).  Active voters in a frat house who were 106 years old, and a voter who was 1,900 years old who registered to vote, just before the 2020 election.  The response from this Republican secretary of state was complete denial.  No matter how crazy the phantom's address was — like a jail — he refused to concede there was any phantom inhabitation of his state's voter rolls.  We now run about 20 states and they are all like this.  Phantom voter fraud is the heart and soul of ballot-harvesting election-stealing.  If we eliminate phantom voter fraud, people will still screw with machines, Maricopa County will make sure its voting machines do not work in Republican precincts, but the fake-ballot harvesting at scale will end.  It's where the big votes are!  Election fraud is an industry.  It is core to the fabric of both Democrat and Republican establishments.

OK, Who is Getting Fired?  Somebody better get canned.  Someone has to pay.  Somebody important.  Our culture is a disaster in large part because we have failed to hold leaders accountable when they screw up, because we have given losers a free pass and accepted excuses and therefore, accepted sub-par performance. [...] This goes for the GOP in the wake of last week's fiasco.  We were supposed to win big on Election Day.  The fundamentals were there — history, the bad economy, general malaise.  The president is a doddering pervert and at least one of the opposing candidates was a brain-addled ogre.  We were told we were going to see a red wave, maybe a red tsunami, and the red we ended up seeing was our blood on the floor.  So, who in a very top position of power in the GOP — not some second-tier functionary — is getting fired because of it?  Now, I understand there are a lot of people with a piece of last week's debacle.  But this is a situation that us lawyers call "joint and several liability."  That means a lot of people are to blame and all of them own the results jointly.

McConnell Ended 2022 Midterms with $40 Million in the Coffers — Refused Funding to Blake Masters Who Was Outspent by $70 Million.  On Tuesday, after a week of counting ballots in an obviously fraudulent election where Republican voters were blocked from voting when they went to the polls, Blake Masters conceded his race to far left Democrat Mark Kelly in Arizona.  Arizona was a dependable red state until Democrats and secret sleeper Republicans turned the state over to mail-in voting, ballot harvesting, and broken and fraudulent voting machines, and election tricks by the communist left.

The Unpopular Cure for Our Electoral Woes.  Here we are, a week after the 2022 elections, and we are still in the fog of ballot-counting.  A nation who put a man on the moon a half-century ago somehow cannot tally the votes of the people in a day.  Read into that whatever you wish.  Over at the Conservative Treehouse, site owner Sundance provides an excellent article distinguishing the difference between ballots and votes.  Votes are the expressed intention of a voter for a particular government leader.  Ballots are filled out pieces of paper that express the choice of a particular leader.  Both are counted for an election.  In the current system, ballots are gathered or harvested either, legally or illegally, and submitted.  Given the lack of prosecution, the legality of it apparently does not matter.  Votes represent the will of the people; ballots may or may not.  This disenfranchising process could not happen if one political party vehemently opposed it.

GOP Senators' Top Priority After Failed Midterms Is Helping Democrats Trample The Meaning Of Marriage.  Having seemingly learned nothing from their losses in the 2022 midterms, Senate Republicans are preparing to sell out their voters by working with their Democrat colleagues to alter the definition of marriage under federal law by the end of this week.  On Monday [11/14/2022], a bipartisan group of senators announced they had reached an agreement on adding an amendment to the deceptively named, "Respect for Marriage Act," which they claim would both codify same-sex marriage into federal law and protect "Americans' religious liberties and diverse beliefs."  Under the proposed legislation, states would be legally prevented from denying "full faith and credit to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding" with respect to marriages between individuals based on "sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin."  The Democrat-controlled House had previously passed an earlier version of the bill this year, with the help of 47 Republicans.

Trump/DeSantis 2024.  As election day, November 8, is turning into election week or month, the outcomes are being dissected through the lens of the 2024 presidential election.  What looked like a red wave initially is turning out otherwise as several swing states, perhaps after discovering on election day that their preferred Democrat candidate lost, delayed releasing any official results until they could "recount" the ballots or "find" additional ballots to put their preferred candidate in the lead.  Interestingly, these delays only seem to favor Democrat candidates.  This is a repeat of 2020, and the feckless GOP leadership appears to have learned nothing over the past two years, or else they prefer to remain in minority status.

Now Is The Time To Boot Failed GOP Leaders, Not Bicker About Trump Vs. DeSantis.  Forget about the Trump versus DeSantis question for a minute.  Right now, the far more important and pressing task at hand is to hold Sen. Mitch McConnell, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, and other GOP leaders like Rep. Tom Emmer, the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, and Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, accountable for their massive failures this election cycle.  Any time wasted speculating on the 2024 primary is time not spent talking about McConnell's dereliction of duty as the leader of the GOP — not just his horrible funding decisions during the midterms but also the past two years of facilitating President Biden's agenda. [...] But McConnell and McCarthy aren't the only ones whose feet need to be held to the fire.  The dust hadn't even settled after Election Day when Emmer, a complete RINO from Minnesota who should be kicked out of the Republican Party altogether, launched his bid for House GOP whip, the third-highest ranking position in a Republican House majority.  As head of the NRCC, it was Emmer's job to ensure Republicans won House races, a task he miserably failed.

[The] Republican Leadership [is] Worse than Worthless.  The feckless behavior by Republicans by no means began recently.  In 2012 the Republicans picked Mitt Romney as their presidential candidate.  Unfortunately, Mitt did not seem to know what his message was and did not seem particularly interested in winning.  Mitt's disastrous campaign followed the 2008 election when the Republicans nominated John McCain to run against Barack the Great.  Unfortunately, McCain did not seem particularly interested in winning either.  His running mate, Sarah Palin, stated that "those elitist brainiacs in the GOP-machine running the campaign" forbid her from bringing up Obama's radical associations with Rev. Wright, and former terrorist-turned-beloved University of Chicago lecturer, Bill Ayers:  "Couldn't talk about that.  Couldn't talk about Obama's lack of knowledge and job inexperience and the things he said like America had 57 states, [etc.]."  The star-struck McCain appeared to be content to lose gracefully, thereby showing that he is a good person.  Newsweek asked at the time if McCain's campaign was "the worst ever".

How Wisconsin Streetfighters Disrupted a Democrat Ballot-Gathering System.  When Election Day became Election Month, mail-in ballots replaced in-person voters, and the electoral world changed forever.  It is not changing back.  Democrats, expert in anything government-related, drove states to change laws, increase voting days, loosen voter standards.  Republican leadership dozed.

In 2022, the GOP had the most favorable political environment ever.
  •   80% of Americans say America is on the wrong track.
  •   58% do not support President Joe Biden.
  •   62% do not support Vice President Kamala Harris.
  •   Democrats have caused the highest inflation in 40 years.
  •   Americans said inflation was their number one issue in this election.
  •   Democrat policies have led to sky-high gas and fuel prices.
  •   Democrats persist in doubling down in their war on fossil fuels.
  •   Democrats continue their anti-police rhetoric.
  •   Democrat efforts to defund the police have contributed to rampant crime and murder in many major cities at epidemic levels.
  •   Democrat open border policies have led to 100,000+ fentanyl/illegal drug deaths in 2021, [...]
  •   Since Joe Biden became president, at least 5,000,000 illegal aliens have responded to his open border policy and invaded America.
  •   Democrats no longer try to hide the extremism of abortion on demand for any reason and up to the moment of birth.
  •   Democrats now require taxpayers to pay for these abortions.
  •   President Biden's abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan led to the worst foreign policy defeat in American history.
  •   Our enemies in Russia, Iraq, and China see that we have a weak, ineffective, and mentally challenged president.

Were the midterm elections the establishment's latest trap for Trump?  From the day Donald Trump became a force to reckon with in the GOP, the D.C establishment has relentlessly worked to ruin Trump politically. [...] When the Trump-Russia collusion hoax failed, they impeached Trump, baselessly claiming that he was soliciting foreign interference in U.S. elections during a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  When they were not fabricating hoaxes, they engaged in other baseless claims.  On some days they claimed Trump was a sinister dictator, on others he was a criminal genius.  On all days, they called Trump imbecilic and bigoted.  All through these scandalous violations and phony charges, the GOP leadership were spectators when they should have been fighters.  When the powerful become spectators in response to baseless attacks on any ally, it means they are supporting the attackers.

Three Primary Factors Stopped That Red Wave.  By far the most important factor is the Republican elites.  In 2020, the GOPe was almost as glad as the Dems to be rid of Donald Trump, so they ignored and denied the massive vote fraud that swept Joe Biden into office.  After Biden's many undistinguished years in the Senate, they convinced themselves that he was their friend and would work with them, in other words, "he's one of us...."  With a few notable exceptions, they went along with the Dems' "insurrection" claptrap hoping it would vanquish Trump from the national scene for good.  The GOPes ignored the effect these actions had on the Republican base, which was far more loyal to Donald Trump than to the Republican party.  My husband and I are pretty typical conservatives, and we were outraged at the Republican elites long before the 2020 election.  Even though I changed my registration to "independent" after the Romney disaster, I continued to contribute regularly to the Republican Party and Republican candidates.  That stopped cold in January 2020 after the GOPe rolled over and denied the 2020 voting irregularities and chastised anyone who questioned the results.

It's time to pull the GOP's plug.  The McConnell/McCarthy "Surrender Caucus" has lived up to their name once again.  Expect them to rubber stamp many of Biden's proposals over the next two years so they can be called obstructionists and blamed for everything anyway.  It's ironic that the latest thing the 'conservative' party has failed to conserve is their own viability.  The question everyone who's voted for the GOP even once in the last couple of elections is, why do it again?  Without sweeping changes across all levels of party leadership, there is no answer.  Whether it's incompetence or malice is immaterial; if the GOP cannot or will not advance, promote, and implement policies its voters want, there's no reason for it to continue to exist.

The Unigovernment.  Keep a weather-eye on the Republican Party as soon as the elections are over.  Don't expect them to rush head over heels to represent your views or actually do what you wanted them to.  Trump did what the voters wanted and look what they did to him — and by "they" I mean the Republicans as much as the Democrats:  You can serve the people or you can serve the government, but you can't do both.  Guess which side the GOP leadership is on?  If a new Republican caucus were serious about its duties to the voters, it would fire Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy today.  No more nonsense about how good they are at maneuvering through the minutiae of procedure in Washington.  It's not that these men are incompetent; in fact they're very good at what they do.  It's just that they're playing for the wrong team.  They've been the leaders of a party we didn't vote for, elected under false pretenses by paying us lip-service every two years.  They get elected by pretending to offer us an alternative to Democrats.  Gotta keep that old illusion alive — it keeps everyone paying their taxes.  Mitch McConnell must not become majority leader in the Senate.  Kevin McCarthy must not become majority leader in the House.  But they will.

Who has really been running our country?  On the day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, he signed dozens of extensively radical executive orders.  Then the Biden administration began populating the federal government and the federal Judiciary — including the new Supreme Court vacancy — with hundreds (probably thousands) of the most extreme anti-American people imaginable. [...] This has all the fingerprints of the Soros organization.  The people there are extremely intelligent and proficient, they passionately hate America, they've been leading up to this for several decades, and they have access to untold wealth and influence.  Everything mentioned above is something they are more than capable of organizing and carrying out.  But most of this couldn't have been accomplished during Biden's first two years without the cooperation of the 50 Democrat U.S. senators and the Democrat majority in the House.  And then there are the cowardly Republicans in both houses, including the leadership, who consistently put up a "gentlemanly" fight that is destined to lose.  Right now, job number one is openly exposing the "shadow government" that is really running America, and doing everything possible to drive them completely out.

Democrat PACs Are Already Tracking 2022 Midterm Votes Cast, By Party, By Age, By County, and Gender — Why Is This Allowed?  Obviously, the Republican Party was caught flat-footed on Election Day on November 3, 2020, when President Trump exceeded all expectations and gained the most votes ever for a sitting president but ended up losing the election several days later in the greatest theft in US history to a corrupt, imbecile who spent most of his time in his basement during the campaign.  For some reason, Ronna McDaniel did not resign in shame at the time.  She should have.  And, do not forget, when President Trump called supporters to the Ellipse in Washington DC on January 6th, one million patriotic Americans turned out in the cold while the GOP elites met at a Ritz Carlton resort on Amelia Island instead.

McCarthy Says He Won't Impeach Biden, Administration Officials if GOP Regains House Majority.  [Minority Leader Kevin] McCarthy last Wednesday downplayed talk of impeaching Biden or officials of the disastrous administration if the GOP regains control.  Just one problem.  Republican lawmakers have introduced more than a dozen impeachment resolutions targeting Biden, Kamala Harris, and controversial Cabinet members, including Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.  As reported by the Washington Post, McCarthy told Punchbowl News: "I think the country doesn't like impeachment used for political purposes at all," and,  ["]You watch what the Democrats.  They all came out and said they would impeach before Trump was ever sworn in.  There wasn't a purpose for it.  If you spent all that time arguing against using impeachment for political purposes, you gotta be able to sustain exactly what you said.["]  Even worse, when he was asked if anyone in the Biden administration has risen to a level that would prompt him to consider impeachment proceedings, McCarthy said:  "I don't see it before me right now."

The Editor says...
Impeaching the president with solid (laptop) evidence in hand, and with an assortment of plausible accusations, is not "impeachment used for political purposes."  Nor is it merely political to impeach incompetent Cabinet secretaries.

18 Questions for Ronna McDaniel and the RNC as the 2022 Midterm Quickly Approaches.  [#4]  Where is the RNC litigation that mandates State and County election officials report the total number of ballots in their possession on election night?  The old term "Total Ballots Cast" was applicable when everyone voted in person, on election day.  It should probably now be called "Total Ballots Collected" or similar.  Knowing this total on election night can prevent late ballots from being added.  Elections now only report the ballots counted, then update this each day after the election.  [#5]  Where is the RNC's aggressive fight and litigation to clean up voter rolls?  There is no visible offense by the RNC here.  The only movement is from the Public Interest Legal Foundation who file a few lawsuits each year.  This issue needs a grenade, not ticky tack lawsuits over 73 dead people.  Many feel this matter should be pushed to the Supreme Court once and for all.

The FBI Vs.  The People.  America's principal law enforcement agency, the FBI, has declared yet another war.  It's just like the war on drugs, the war on organized crime, and the war on terrorism from decades past — but this time, the bureau's enemy is average Americans who are not Democrats.  That's not a mere Republican talking point.  Indeed, few Republican officials are talking about the FBI at all, despite the bureau's repeated use of Stasi tactics to intimidate their constituents.  No, this is now a fact of American life.

GOP: Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way!  The Republican party has three choices.  It can lead in a resurgence of individual liberty, follow grassroots state organizations in victory...or get out of the way. [...] Rising star Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) recently urged the fossilized faction of the Republican party to "stop accepting the rhetoric of the left in the media [and] instead, go on offense." [...] The Republican party has a second choice if it can't figure out how to save the republic from the anti-liberty authoritarians of the fascist far left.  Then the least they can do is stop trying to sabotage our efforts to save it.  In plain English, this means letting the people take over and give up trying to "help" by taking careful aim and shooting themselves in the foot whenever they can.

Everyone knows what the Republicans SHOULD do.  Don't hold your breath.
The First Thing Republicans Should Do When They Take Back Congress Is Impeach Merrick Garland.  Should Republicans take control of the U.S. House and Senate in November, their first order of business — before tax and spending cuts, abortion restrictions, gun legislation, or anything else in their predictably anodyne agenda — should be to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland.  Under Garland, the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been thoroughly politicized and weaponized, transformed into instruments of terror aimed at ordinary American citizens who have the temerity to oppose the Biden administration's radical agenda.  Tax cuts for domestic manufacturers, or whatever out-of-touch, boilerplate thing GOP leaders imagine their priority should be once they regain Congress, can wait.  The urgent thing now is to impeach and remove Garland before he causes irreparable harm to the republic.  Everything Garland has done as attorney general has been mendaciously political, from smearing parents who speak out at school board meetings as "domestic terrorists" to targeting peaceful anti-abortion activists while doing nothing about actual pro-abortion vigilantes attacking churches and crisis pregnancy centers.  He has to be stopped, and a determined GOP-led Congress is the only thing that can stop him.

Infowars Poll: Voters Believe GOP Leadership Will 'Betray' Them After Retaking Congress in Midterms.  The majority of conservatives believe the Republican Party leadership will stab them in the back after the midterms, an Infowars poll reveals.  When asked what they expect from the GOP leadership should they retake the majority in the House and Senate, 55% of respondents said Republican leadership will "betray voters" and "side with Democrats on big issues."  The poll, which has accumulated over 30,000 votes as of Sunday, also found that 21% percent [sic] of respondents believe the GOP leadership will bring "only partial results" of their agenda to stop Joe Biden and the radical left agenda.

Republicans abandon Obamacare repeal.  Republicans are abandoning their long crusade to repeal the Affordable Care Act, making the 2022 election the first in more than a decade that won't be fought over whether to protect or undo President Barack Obama's signature achievement.  The diminished appetite for repeal means the law — which has extended health care coverage to millions of people and survived numerous near-death experiences in Congress and the courts — now appears safer than ever.  With slightly more than a month before the next election, Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail aren't making an issue of Obamacare.  None of the Republican Senate nominees running in eight key battleground states have called for unwinding the ACA on their campaign websites, according to an NBC News review.  The candidates scarcely mention the 2010 law or health insurance policy in general.  And in interviews on Capitol Hill, key GOP lawmakers said the desire for repeal has faded.

To the Republican Leadership, or Lack of Leadership, In the US Congress.  Wake up and smell the coffee.  Can't you see what's happening in our country?  We elected you to do precisely the opposite of what you are doing.  Your priorities should be God, country, community, family, and self.  In that exact order.  I believe that's what Tom and George and Ben and the guys that got together in 1776 decided that America was supposed to be.  A country made-up of strong individuals, coming from different phases of life, working together to construct legislation that benefits everyone.  That is not the situation in our Congress, and you know it.

Why some polls show a dead heat for a generic ballot.  Rasmussen's Mark Mitchell reports that last July, Republicans had a 13-point lead over Democrats on a generic ballot.  Today, they don't. [...] Given the horrific devastation Biden-as-a-tool-of-the globalists has accomplished so far, it is shocking that the Republicans are not fifty points ahead in the polls. [...] Why aren't they?  Because most of the Republicans in Congress are self-interested squishes who are far too comfortable in their D.C. swamp establishment that has made them all wealthy.  As long as they behave and do what the lobbyists tell them to do; as long as they go along to get along with the odious Mitch McConnell and his acolytes — Liz Cheney, Lisa Murkowski, and every other RINO willing to sell his or her soul for their thirty pieces of silver to betray the American people at every turn.  And despite the hard and diligent work of the few legitimate representatives, most elected members of the GOP are willing sell-outs.  That is why the Republicans are not winning in the polls by fifty points.  We do not and cannot trust them.  They cave to the left day after day after day.

Does the GOP know how to communicate with today's generations?  [Scroll down] Conservative campaigns are abysmal:  cable TV, "knocking on doors," spam emails and texts, robocalls, mailers, and droning campaign ads without intensity.  GOP campaigns rarely convey a direct cause-and-effect relationship between failed Democrat social and economic policies and the problems affecting Millennials and Zoomers:  high rent, low wages, no job security, high cost of living, high crime, substandard health care, lockdowns.  The GOP must update its messaging to reach new generations, or the country could tip irrevocably away from a constitutional republic.

When it comes to doing their job, Republican congress people are failing badly.  The Conservative Review interface gives A through F grades to every person in Congress.  People with an A are highly committed to individual liberty.  Those who have an F are pure statists.  The worse the grade (by a traditional report card metric), the more tyrannical the laws for which the congressperson votes.  If you use the chart to see the grades for congresspeople in "red" or conservative states, the ones that send Republicans to Congress, you find that the politicians, especially the senators, often receive D or even F grade.  Is there a more conservative state than Mississippi?  Yet both senators receive an F, and the representatives aren't much better.  In Texas, the grades are F and B.  You see the same disappointing grades in Alabama.  In Kentucky, Mitch McConnell gets an F, while Rand Paul gets an A.  Rand Paul is an outlier.  When it comes to Senators, an A is unusual.  Only five receive an A and seven a B out of all 50 Republican senators.  Twenty Republican senators get Fs, and it's the usual suspects: Romney, Collins, Cassidy, and on and on.

Is Lindsey Graham Trying to Throw the Midterm Elections to Democrats?  Was Mitch McConnell Behind It?  Joe Biden is the worst president in US history.  Inflation is at 40 YEAR HIGHS — and it is NOT receding!  Gas Prices are the highest they have ever been under Joe Biden — And this is a direct result of his anti-energy policies.  Joe Biden surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban and armed them with $80 billion in US arms.  Including 600,000 weapons and 200 aircraft! [...] Joe Biden declared open war on his political opposition.  Joe Biden opened the border to 2 million illegal aliens this year!  Joe Biden allowed tons of illegal drugs entry into the country via the open border causing over 100,000 annual deaths!  Joe Biden pushed the US economy into recession in 18 short months.  Republicans should be in GREAT SHAPE for the upcoming elections.  But Lindsey Graham wants to change the subject.  Lindsey Graham wants the 2022 midterm election to be all about abortion.

Cowardly congressional Republicans are focusing on the wrong issues.  Just yesterday [9/13/2022], Sen. Marco Rubio submitted a bill to prohibit protesters from blocking interstate highways.  While in itself, this bill is needed at some point, other things are needed much earlier.  Like now.  This is the second time in as many days that a denizen of Congress (Sen. Lindsey Graham) came up with a bill that is far less pressing compared with the other far more dangerous issues we face.  He wants a ban on late-term abortions.  Banning late-term abortions is not on the radar of most Americans in this very dangerous time of malignant inflation and cultural collapse.  Abortion is bad.  Ignoring existential threats to American sovereignty and survival is worse.  I want America to survive so that issues like abortion can be addressed at some point.  This is not the point.  Congressional Republicans in both the House and Senate seem distracted at best, which may be one reason why Americans are so bothered and angry at Congress, which has a pitifully low approval rate.

Would You Please Stop Being Stupid?  Think about it:  Democrats are supporting men participating in women's sports and being in girls' bathrooms.  Democrat district attorneys are releasing criminals without bond who go out and commit theft, murder, and rape.  Democrats are letting in tens of thousands of illegal immigrants and giving them thousands of dollars.  Democrats are causing the biggest rise in food prices and gas prices in 40 years.  Democrats are imposing censorship on television, the internet, in schools and businesses.  Democrats used the COVID farce to destroy people's livelihoods and destroy small businesses.  Democrats are forcing people to take defective vaccines that have killed many.  Democrats have turned television networks into propaganda outlets.  Democrats are conducting drag queen shows in schools and libraries.  And are Republican candidates forcefully bringing this up in ads?  Of course not!  That would be rude.  The prissy conservatives don't want to offend anybody.

The McConnell betrayal: Why Republicans never win.  Conservatives wonder why the party leaders that are supposed to represent them do such a poor job of doing so, and why, frankly, they as voters keep getting cynically shafted by these same Republican leaders.  Unfortunately, many establishment-Republican leaders do not appear to grasp that the rise of Trump was due precisely to rank-and-file anger at weak undependable Republican leadership that was not put there to enrich itself but to represent the Republican base and stick to conservative principles, on the economy, on education, on guns, and on immigration.  Perhaps the most important of these, Sen. McConnell, does not appear to be bothered by the fact that he is both the most unpopular senator but also that he has lost the confidence of most Republicans.  Astonishing, it appears that McConnell may prefer to lose the Senate and continue to subject the country to Biden's hellish policies rather than lose his status as minority leader if a sufficient number of Trump-Republicans win their Senate races.  The fact that the Republican base still prefers Trump should settle the debate for McConnell no matter what his private views.

FBI harasses a Republican congressman, and what will the GOP do?  The day after the FBI swoop-down on Mar-a-Lago, Rep. Scott Perry had his phone seized by — you guessed it — the FBI.  If an FBI agent dared to seize the phone of a Democrat, the entire Democrat caucus would be on the steps of the Capitol denouncing this expression of fascism in America.  This writer sent an email to Mr. Perry's communications director to inquire how the House GOP will respond to this act of Stalinism.  Perhaps Mr. Perry's aide is too busy to respond.  Perhaps Republicans are too busy to respond to queries from citizens about Democrat encroachments on the liberty of a Republican member of Congress.  But to be silent as a group as the FBI abuses a Republican House colleague?

GOP Candidates Blast FBI's Mar-a-Lago Raid: 'Horrendous Abuse of Power'.  Republican candidates are slamming the Federal Bureau of Investigation's unprecedented raid of former President Donald J. Trump's Mar-a-Largo estate in Palm Beach, Florida.  Former Fox 10 Phoenix anchor Kari Lake, the GOP gubernatorial nominee in Arizona, called the raid an "incredibly horrendous abuse of power."  [Teeets]  "When street crimes go unsolved but opposition leaders are hounded by federal police, you're living in a third world country," he continued.  Republican nominee for Senate in Ohio, J.D. Vance, slammed the execution of the search warrant of the former president as "disgraceful and unprecedented."

The Editor says...
Only a handful of Republicans are objecting.  McConnell and Cornyn are completely silent.  The Republican nominees are quite vocal, because they haven't been elected yet!

The Time To Hold Corrupt Bureaucrats Like Christopher Wray Accountable Is Before They Are Even Confirmed.  Several Republicans have signaled they plan to investigate corrupt and partisan bureaucrats such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and Wray if they win back Congress in the November midterms.  For now, while Democrats control the White House and the legislative branch, the GOP has resorted to letters and the occasional "oversight hearing" that accomplishes little.  If Republicans' failure to hold bureaucrats accountable via letter-writing campaigns wasn't apparent before, it was after an oversight hearing on Thursday when, instead of taking responsibility for any of his agency's failures including the botched Larry Nassar investigation, a Hunter Biden investigation cover-up, and the slow response to pro-abortion attacks across the nation, Wray repeatedly refused to answer questions about the FBI's track record of lying in ways that affect national election outcomes.  As a matter of fact, he doubled down and refused to condemn the Russia collusion hoax that his agency proudly spun for years.

House GOP Finally Offers Border Security Platform.  The House GOP leadership has released a brief and vague two-page policy platform on border security for the 2022 election, after more than a year of inaction.  Titled "House Republicans:  We Must Secure the Southern Border," the low-drama paper ignores the voter-mobilizing, economic impact of legal and illegal migration, and was released on a Friday before the weekend.  But the platform does include significant promises of 2023 legislation to reform current laws on asylum, parole, and other high-profile issues outside the narrow issue of border control.

Don't hold your breath.
Republicans Prepare Biden Family Business Investigation Storm.  Republicans are preparing to investigate Hunter, James, and President Joe Biden's history of shady business deals after the GOP likely reclaims the House in the midterm elections.  Plans have already begun to investigate the Biden family business.  Demand letters are being written and strategies developed to ensure Hunter, Joe, and James Biden are held accountable for the misdeeds and falsehoods perpetrated on American citizens, which includes the establishment media's suppression of the "Laptop From Hell" leading up to the 2020 presidential election.

GOP Leaders to Religious Right:  We Don't Care About Marriage.  For all of the media's hyperventilating about the GOP's "culture war," most Republicans show little to no interest in fighting it.  In truth, the "culture war" is hopelessly one-sided, pitting tenacious Democrats against irresolute or decadent Republicans.  Take Nancy Pelosi's recent gay marriage bill.  It passed in the House of Representatives not in spite of the GOP but in part because of it: 47 Republicans, including members of GOP leadership, joined the Democrats in supporting the bill.  Imagine the cries of horror from the media and the Democratic base if 47 Democrats ever voted for a piece of GOP legislation on a crucial social issue.  That's inconceivable.  The Democrats never wave the white flag in the culture war.  But the GOP can't even summon the energy to back Bill Clinton's Defense of Marriage Act.  That's now considered an "extreme" stance by many GOP elites.

Republican Establishment Already Looking to Give up on the Mid-Terms.  Stop me if you've heard this story before.  Republican establishment figures don't get their way in a primary and promptly run to the liberal media to express how winnable races will now be lost, costing the GOP an electoral victory.  You've almost certainly heard it before because it's exactly what happened in 2016 as the consultant class rushed to proclaim that Donald Trump simply couldn't beat Hillary Clinton.  He wasn't going to just lose.  He was going to be crushed, they said.  Of course, he did win, going on to appoint three Supreme Court justices that recently delivered a multitude of long-sought decisions, including the overturning of Roe v Wade.  No lessons were learned, though.  The same establishment of Republican leadership, consultants, and pollsters are already looking to throw in the towel on November's mid-terms.

New York Republicans Crumple on Abortion.  Dobbs disappointed many — many Republicans, that is.  Many Republicans wanted the Court to rule that the Constitution prohibits abortion altogether, a true reversal of Roe.  Yet a mere days after Dobbs, Republican loss-fetishists in the New York Senate joined leftists to do even worse than Roe and install an unlimited abortion guarantee into the state's constitution.  Should the proposed amendment pass, when popular opinion in New York turns against abortion — and it will — untold millions of babies will continue down the conveyer belt into the furnace until New York voters can put the slow machinery of constitutional amendment into reverse.  Although a small majority of Americans sometimes report in polls that they prefer a limited right to abortion, they really don't care.  Abortion causes great national harm, but only a small and continually shrinking minority are responsible for it.  Roughly half of all abortions are committed by women who have already had one.  About a fifth of women who get abortions have several.

Tucker Carlson savages Republican politicians' disrespect for Americans.  Despite the media's covering for Biden, people have noticed raging inflation, a recession, lawlessness, broken borders, a tenderness for Ukraine denied to America, cultivated race-hatred, efforts to disarm law-abiding citizens, and the arrogance of the LGBTQ+++ crowd — and they don't like any of it.  It turns out that mean tweets aren't so bad when compared to a government that's hostile to its own citizens.  The Democrats' intentional mismanagement is so extreme that the party is losing Hispanics and blacks in droves.  In theory, this should be a golden age for Republicans.  It's not, though, and that's the fault of the Republican political class, few of whom seem to embrace conservatism or Americans.

Do Republicans Even Know What Democrats Did to Them With This Anti-Gun Bill?  The Republican Party decided to play nice, try to get some good press with a media establishment that hates them, and join the legions of the righteous and blessed by hashing out a gun control bill during a midterm election cycle.  Is everyone up there hitting the crack pipe?  What are we doing?  What [...] is this?  We have category five hurricane gusts to our backs heading into November — and the GOP decided to do what it does best:  find a new way to blow it. [...] Republicans don't even see the trap here.  It's one that Democrats have suckered them into for years.  The Left play to the GOP's sense of duty, honor, and tradition.  They did that to Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.  They get the bipartisan talking point in defending this circus act with the select committee on January 6.  They also get the base to get into a tussle about Trump... again.  The contents of the bill are trash.  Yes, funding for school security is fine, but not at the cost of red flag law expansion which is arguably unconstitutional.  There are no legal guardrails to protect citizens from overreach.

After 14 GOP Senators Voted To Limit Your Right To Keep And Bear Arms A Reporter Overheard Their Next Betrayal On The Senate Floor.  The Senate on Tuesday broke through nearly 30 years of stalemate on gun control legislation by voting 64 to 34 to advance an 80-page gun safety bill[.]  The Senate voted to proceed to the bill just more than an hour after negotiators unveiled its text, giving lawmakers little time to digest its details.  The Daily Wire lists exactly what the bill would do, including provisions to grant the federal government the ability to deny you weapons based on "red flags" it defines.  (Hint:  Believing in the Constitution is a "red flag")

Republicans Who Sold You out on Guns Prepare Their Next Betrayal.  On Tuesday evening [6/21/2022], the text of the new Senate gun control bill was released, with it being advanced by 14 Republican votes.  Among those who gave their stamp of approval after just an hour of the 80-page bill being released were senators Lindsey Graham, Mitt Romney, Mike Caputo, and John Cornyn, with the latter being the lead negotiator on the legislation, working with Democrats to craft it.  RedState covered some of the most troubling provisions, including its funding of "red flag" laws while dumping billions into the partisan DOJ.  A cursory reading also finds the funding to harden schools that Cornyn and others promised missing.  That was supposed to be the big "win" for Republicans in this bill, but all I see are payoffs to federal bureaucracies and a few billion for community anti-violence programs.

We Asked Every US Senator if They Support Banning 'Kid-Friendly' Drag Shows — Only 1 Said Yes.  Few people have the spine to stand up to evil.  One Republican senator has shown to be an exception.  The Western Journal reached out to every U.S. senator after the horrid "Drag the Kids to Pride" event took place in Dallas on June 4.  Many Republicans and conservatives did not think this was acceptable and called for a ban on children attending drag shows. [...] The drag show for kids held in Dallas was not isolated.  These "family-friendly" degenerate events take place in the U.S. all the time and little is done to stop them.

House GOP plans to punish Garland for alleged partisanship at DOJ.  Republicans are preparing to take on Attorney General Merrick Garland if they win the House majority this year, including mulling impeachment, and several Department of Justice whistleblowers have come forward to help them.  Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said more than a half-dozen whistleblowers have come forward.  "We just need to investigate and get all the facts right now," Mr. Jordan told The Washington Times, stressing that Republicans have not yet decided on what should be the appropriate action against Mr. Garland.  "We're focused on getting the truth for the American people."

The Editor says...
An article that starts with "House GOP plans to" is usually a waste of time.  The House GOP plans to cure cancer, build the border wall, and put Hillary in prison.  Such great plans.  These are the same House GOP people who roll over and play dead when the Democrats do away with natural gas and coal, and block the production and transmission of petroleum, and insist on 45-mpg cars, 1.6-gallon toilets, and federal handouts for ethanol, solar panels, and windmills.  Not to mention direct payments to individuals, whether they need them or not, for no reason other than Covid.  The House GOP plans to stop inflation somehow, while going along with multi-trillion-dollar spending sprees.  The House GOP also plans to get rid of federal subsidies for PBS and NPR.  They've been planning that, and boasting about it, for at least 20 years.  The House GOP plans to get rid of all wasteful spending, and everybody knows the Departments of Energy, Education, and Labor would never be missed if they disappeared, (and the same is true of the EPA, and about a quarter of the agencies on this list), but — like an untreated cancer — the federal government never shrinks.

So, Why, Exactly, Should We Vote Republican?  [Scroll down]  As of this moment, if not for the media reminding us that Republican politicians still exist, we could be forgiven for thinking that there is no Republican Party in America (if, that is, the GOP were the viable alternative to the Democrats that it is made out to be).  Think about it:  For over two years, the world was brought to a standstill as national economies were wrecked, global supply chains destroyed, and the lives of countless men, women — and, yes, children — ruined in every conceivable way in the name of combatting a virus.  Constitutional liberties were indefinitely revoked and all of those "little platoons," as Burke referred to the civic organizations and communities that shield individuals from the state and invest their lives with meaning, were systematically and systemically undermined.  Republicans not only did nothing to prevent these crimes against humanity — they were complicit in fueling the narrative that made this destruction possible.  Now that the Democrats recognize that COVID is no longer good business, they're moving on from the incalculable harm that they've inflicted upon the planet's population via this unprecedented power grab to do more harm under the pretext of other causes.  And Republicans and conservative pundits seem just fine with this.  To repeat, an historically unprecedented exercise of power occurred in 2020 — the country was, essentially, interned — and to judge from the silence of Republicans, the latter are perfectly comfortable with the prospect of Anthony Fauci retiring and traipsing off into the sunset in 2024.

A country its leaders do not live in.  There is an election on November 8. Chickens won't be coming home to roost.  Eagles will arrive, talons up.  Newt Gingrich sees 75 House seats flipping Republican — which would be his party's best showing in 128 years.  This only works if you flush about half those 200 or so sitting Republican congressmen down the commode with their Democrat pals.  We found that out in 2010 when Republicans threw away their Tea Party victory like Biden threw away Afghanistan.  The people we elected to take care of our politics don't live here anymore.  They live in gated communities and work in a Capitol patrolled by 1,869 uniformed officers.

Rep. Daniel Webster's Health Called Into Question.  For quite some time, rumors have been circulating around Florida's 11th congressional district that Rep. Webster's health has diminished since he was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives a decade ago.  Over the last several years.  Rep. Webster has missed floor votes, and committee assignment hearings, and has been all but invisible to his constituents.  Among the votes that Webster has skipped, Webster did not vote on H.Res 503, the measure that established the current January 6th Select Commission.  Most Republican legislators voted against forming the committee to investigate the Capitol Riot. [...] Not voting on the vote to create the 1/6 Commission, and skipping the vote on the second impeachment of former President Trump, could prove problematic for Webster, who will also have to answer to his constituents for missing about a quarter of the votes this past year.

It's the Mental Health System, Stupid.  [T]he reality is that Democrats and Republicans both screw up the economy.  The difference is that Democrats promise and follow through on their disastrous policies, Republicans talk a good game on the campaign trail and then renege on most of their promises.  The net result can be summarized as Republicans bad, Democrats worse.

If Republicans Collaborate with Dems to Betray Us on the 2A, They Will Lose the Midterms.  The Democrats are giddy.  They were hoping that SCOTUS putting the kibosh on kid killing was going to save them from annihilation in November.  That did not work — Americans were less interested in preserving a non-existent right to snuff out a life two minutes from crowning than in $6 gas.  But this scumbag's murder rampage in Texas has given them new hope, they think.  All the GOP has to do is be spineless and stupid.  So, they're feeling pretty confident.

It's Obama's fault.  Our current period of political turmoil can be considered to have begun with the presidential election of 2008.  The meteoric rise of a virtual unknown from the Illinois state Senate to the White House is fairly unprecedented.  Though he lacked any depth of understanding of why things are the way they are, Mr. Obama was gifted with a commanding stage presence.  After all, superficial appeal invariably trumps substance among the political activist community.  Obama was certainly helped when the Republican establishment decided that 2008 was a time to lose.  Thus, the Republicans rewarded one of their own, John McCain, by giving him a place in the sun... much like what they did for Bob Dole in 1996.

America is Regressing into a Tribal Society Rife with Acrimony, Anxiety and Suspicion.  There are but two basic components in this evolution to the present fractured society.  The first and foremost, has been the widespread submissive capitulation to the malicious exploitation of the nation's racial past.  The second, has been the lack of a viable opposition party to challenge the transformation of the nation's institutions.  For nearly five decades, while the Republican Party and establishment conservatives reveled in their "civility" and "bipartisanship," an increasingly socialist/Marxist Democrat party, media/entertainment complex, and education establishment has been conditioning two-plus generations of Americans to look to the federal government as the source of salvation, opportunity and rescue in times of difficulty.  This has created an ever-growing mal-educated, susceptible and easily exploited segment of the citizenry that by the turn of the Twenty-First Century was large enough to impact the governance of the nation.

34 RINOs Voted Yes for Ukraine and No for Americans.  On Thursday [5/19/2022] — just hours after approving another $40 billion in US taxpayer dollars for Ukraine — the US Senate blocked a bipartisan $48 billion aid package for restaurants, gyms, and other small businesses that have been struggling in Biden's post-lockdown economy.  Presumably, they can't launder that money as easily as shuffling it off to Ukraine, so American business owners get the shaft yet again from its traitorous elected officials.

Why didn't the GOP Establishment vet Barnette 13 Months ago?  As Pennsylvania's May 17th primary election draws close, conservative media outlets have begun lobbing intense attacks at one candidate on the ballot.  And no, it is not Lt. Governor John Fetterman, the far-left candidate who is poised to secure the Democratic nomination.  Rather, their ire has been directed primarily at Kathy Barnette, a political commentator seeking the GOP nomination. [...] Pennsylvania has typically been a highly competitive purple state.  Keeping the open Senate seat in GOP hands is essential for retaking control of the Senate.  Losing this seat would be even more disastrous in light of John Fetterman's embrace of far-left policies on issues such as abortion.  Meanwhile, Kathy Barnette was not treated as a serious candidate by the GOP establishment until her passionate anti-abortion statement in a May 4th debate, which coincided with a significant rise in the polls.

Why Are We In Ukraine?  As Mark Antony observes during Caesar's funeral oration:  "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."  Welcome to the boneyard of America.  This is, alas, true regardless of whether the men themselves were of good character.  Clinton wasn't, Bush more or less was, Obama isn't, and Biden is one of the worst men ever to assume the presidency:  a bully, a liar, a plagiarist, a mediocrity and, at this stage of his senescence, a clear and present danger.  As for Trump, no one ever mistook him for a secular saint, and indeed he was brought down and done in by his own manifest personal imperfections, poor personnel choices, and chronic inability to control his self-destructive solipsistic nature.  But in Trump's case the good he did has already been interred with the bones of his presidency, and we are now left at the mercy of a vengeful Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party determined to bring us to heel and ruination.

Tucker Carlson's Latest Takedown of the GOP Is Must-See.  As of Thursday afternoon [5/12/2022], Sen. Rand Paul was blocking the passage of a $40 billion bill ostensibly meant to help Ukraine defeat Russia.  That followed on the heels of Rep. Chip Roy absolutely lambasting the spending package, noting that he and his colleagues didn't even get a chance to read it.  Per my prior write-up on the matter, that anger is righteous and justified.  The bill in question is full of unrelated expenditures and provides essentially no accountability or safeguards regarding money that does go to Ukraine.  With that backstop, Tucker Carlson took to the airwaves on Wednesday evening and delivered what I believe to be his best monologue of the year.  In a takedown for the ages, the Fox News host not only took the bill itself to the cleaners, but he also lit into Republicans who pushed for it when far more responsible, nuanced approaches were available.

Pennsylvania GOP Primary Brings Out All The Club Moves.  In this outline I will explain the easily visible GOPe club moves without trying to support any particular candidate, that's for Pennsylvania voters to decide.  However, once you understand the background play, it might help clarify what the Keystone state voters are witnessing.  Background:  President Trump has endorsed Mehmet Oz.  However, many people in the MAGA base are stuggling with that endorsement because they just don't like the guy and question the bonafides of his sudden, seemingly convenient, MAGA-mindedness.  Meanwhile, David McCormick is the GOPe candidate from the mold of the typically Wall Street Mitch McConnell tribe.  McCormick is the quintessential corporate republican, or what might be described as the 'establishment' party choice.  I would call McCormick the club candidate.  Kathy Barnette is the alternative favorite in the race for the MAGA base who just cannot bring themselves to support Oz.  Barnette is the outsider and carries a fierce independent streak that appeals to frustrated voters who have had enough of the nonsense.

What 'Moving On' Has Cost Us.  Republicans have traditionally conformed to the "move on" mentality after every election.  After his 1960 loss, Richard Nixon declined to pursue JFK's obvious election chicanery.  Republicans may score points with voters by complaining about democrats' election and governing abuses.  But when they must choose to actually do something about it or move on, they move on.  The same theme is playing out regarding the COVID theater of the absurd that devastated the economy, granted Democrat authorities virtual dictatorial control and cost thousands of citizens their jobs, constitutional protections, and in far too many cases, their lives.  In the mold of Donald Trump, Kentucky's Sen. Rand Paul has vowed to bring the effective ringleader of the COVID scam to justice by promising to investigate Anthony Fauci's questionable handling of the crisis.  Anyone familiar with Paul doesn't doubt that he intends to bring the Senate's investigative powers to bear on Fauci.  Anyone familiar with the Republican party's track record also knows the party will not allow such an investigation to extend to indictments of Fauci and co-conspirators, irrespective of what is uncovered.

Will a New Republican Majority Actually — Finally — Walk the Talk?  President Joe Biden thinks you and I need a Far-Left Mary Poppins to tell the rest of us what we can and cannot read and hear, so he's appointed her to run the Department of Homeland Security's newly established Disinformation Governance Board (DGB).  If there is anything most clearly barred by the First Amendment to the federal government, it is the authority to create an obscure, unaccountable bureaucracy to decide what is "disinformation" and what isn't.  That is censorship, pure and simple.  Biden is doing this despite the fact the First Amendment says Congress "shall make no law" that gives anybody, anywhere in the federal government the power to censor speech and thought in this country.  Sadly, no amount of criticism from Republicans in Congress or the conservative media will stop Biden from going forward.  The only thing that can stop him is Congress refusing to fund the DGB.

The consequences of the stolen 2020 election are increasingly catastrophic.  The elephant in the room is this:  Why has no DOJ investigation been mounted given the overwhelming volumes of evidence of election fraud?  Why have the courts dismissed each case without even looking at the evidence?  The only answer is that the DOJ, every other federal law enforcement agency and the corporate media are corrupt.  They are all agents of the Democrat party.  As Dennis Prager often comments, truth is not a left-wing value.  Beyond the mules, the illegally harvested ballots, fake ballots that were never folded, mailed or signed, the finagling of people like Republican Gov. Kemp and Sec of State Raffensperger of Georgia and the never-Trump powers that be in Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan and probably numerous other states, the 2020 election was the most dishonest, the most unscrupulous in American history.

The 2022 Election, Here's Everything You Need to Know About DC Republicans in 30 Seconds.  Page 14 of my unpublished wisdom book says:  the space between words is the most important sound you will ever hear when listening to people positioning for influence or affluence.  Learn how to hear what they don't say, and others will think you are wise beyond imagining.  [Video clip]

A Bridge Too Far, the Demise of the Democrats.  [Scroll down]  The other devastating part of the demise of the Democrats is their totalitarian, tyrannical nature when it comes to squelching any dissenting thought, perspective, opinions, and assessment.  The fact that the left wants to establish a Disinformation Board in the Department of Homeland Security is highly disturbing.  And that is true especially when you consider the Secretary of Homeland Defense's assertion that the southern border is being well managed.  The left in America has gone too far, but will constitutional conservatives rise to the occasion and crush them at the ballot box?  The Republican party must realize that this is not the time for bipartisanship, compromise, or any other forms of weakness.  This is the time to resoundingly defeat leftism in America.

Senate Republicans Find the Worst Possible Time to Restart Immigration Talks with Democrats.  We have every issue playing in our favor.  The Left's culture wars are turning off swaths of voters who are flocking to the GOP.  We have the start of the Biden recession.  We have high gas prices, inflation, and a southern border crisis — and what do Senate Republicans decide to do?  Hold immigration reform talks with the Democrats.  Do they not realize they caused the border fiasco?  There are three issues that zap the energy out of the GOP base when it comes to Republican candidates.  They're abortion, gun control, and immigration.  Any Republicans who are pro-abortion, pro-gun control, and pro-amnesty should consider switching parties; you're not going to get our people to vote for you.

Republican Leaders Privately Hate Their Own Voters, and the Feeling is Mutual.  National pollster Richard Baris, colloquially known as "the People's Pundit," is calling attention to a massive issue that plagues Republican governance in the United States — GOP voters despise the elected officials who are elevated to office, and vice versa.  This unfortunate situation is reflected in recent polling data, according to Baris, which shows GOP leaders, like Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, having critically low favorability among Republican voters.  McConnell's approval rating, specifically, is in the toilet, with just 9.7% of Republicans having a "very favorable" opinion of him.  Astoundingly, the number is just two points higher than with Democrats, who checked in at 7.6% "very favorable.

Fraud is the Only Issue.  [Scroll down]  With no actual accomplishments to point to, having ruined everything that was running so well for the American people, Democrats are turning to what has become their most effective electoral tool in recent years:  Fraud.  They did a magnificent job of perpetrating a total fraud on the country in the 2020 Presidential election.  We all know what they did and what they got away with.  Late night Democratic vote "discoveries" totaling in the thousands, untraceable interstate trucks delivering thousands of Biden ballots, voting locales reporting over 100% voter turnout, 19 of 20 bellwether counties being won by President Trump, Republicans not being allowed to monitor the vote counting process, state voting rules being changed in direct contravention to state law, and on and on.  And this point needs to be re-emphasized:  Just because the liberal media refuses to acknowledge these facts, doesn't mean it didn't happen.  The big question is what have the Republicans done to ensure that this degree of election-stealing fraud doesn't happen again?  Unfortunately, it seems Republicans have done essentially nothing truly significant to stop Democrat vote fraud.

Tennessee Republican Party Removes Three Candidates From Ballot for US House Seat.  The Tennessee GOP has voted to remove three candidates who were vying for a seat representing the state's 5th Congressional District.  Republicans voted to boot Morgan Ortagus, Robby Starbuck, and Baxter Lee from the primary ballot, Tennessee Republican Chairman Scott Golden told news outlets.  Golden and the party did not respond to requests for more information.  Ortagus, a State Department spokeswoman during the Trump administration who recently moved from Washington, was just endorsed by former President Donald Trump.  Starbuck, a filmmaker who used to live in California, has promoted Trump policies such as strong border enforcement.  Lee is a businessman who has described himself as a conservative outsider.

News From The Culture War Front.  The GOP-E is notoriously skittish about the Culture War that's been raging in America.  The GOP-E preference, we've been told, based on fairly indisputable evidence, is to manage the devolution of America into a Social Democrat utopia — managers of the Revolution.  And they've been paid well to take on that role, so it's small wonder that so much of the GOP-E were frankly appalled at winning.  It wasn't just Trump — it was all the deplorables coming out, getting involved, voting.  The whole thing.  That's the story behind what investigations of Election 2020 are documenting — the coup against Trump was enabled in no small part not only by DC Establishment GOPers but by the state party apparatus as well.

The Debasement of our Professional and Political Classes.  Would a Republican-led House set up a special committee to investigate the racketeering and "conspiracies" across state lines that led to a near "coup" and "insurrection" marked by "the riots of 2020?" Would such watchdogs offer up criminal referrals for all those responsible for attacking a federal courthouse and torching a police precinct or for setting an historic church afire?  Or causing $2 billion of damage, over 30 deaths, and 1,500 law enforcement officer injuries — while carving out illegal no-go zones in major downtowns?

The Editor says...
Don't hold your breath waiting for the Republicans to address the 2020 riots, even when they hold all the cards.  And even if the Republicans take any action, the news media will call the riots "ancient history," among other things.

Establishment Republicans Decide They Want to Lose in Georgia.  Every recent poll has shown Georgia's Herschel Walker, who is running to replace current Sen. Raphael Warnock, with a somewhat comfortable lead heading into November's mid-term election.  As RedState reported on Wednesday, Walker leads Warnock by four points in the latest survey.  You'd think that means the GOP is ready to put the pedal to the floor to secure a major Senate pickup that could help decide the majority.  Of course, you'd be wrong because this is the Republican establishment we are talking about.  That means they are desperately looking for ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Understanding the Progressive Mind.  Unfortunately, Republicans, and conservatives generally, are too polite, and therefore ill-equipped to confront the criminal nature of the Democrat Party and its government in Washington.  It's as though Republicans don't want to embarrass thieves caught in the act and hurt their feelings.  The harshest words Republicans will use to describe the Democrats' campaign to free hundreds of thousands of violent criminals and stimulate a national crime wave is that they are "soft on crime."  Democrats — progressives — are not soft on crime, they are pro-crime.  They regard it as "social justice."  Mobs of mainly black predators looting department stores in broad daylight is to them "reparations" — a socialist redistribution of income that provides "equity" to a group allegedly — but never specifically — oppressed.

The erosion of Republican values.  Abortion is a hot-button issue, and rightfully so, because people should be enraged over the wholesale slaughter of those not yet born.  The apathy towards, or worse, the approval of such a barbaric act by those who claim to support innocent life, details a sad reality that Republican values are decaying.  During this legislative session, both Massachusetts and California introduced bills to legalize infanticide.  The obvious fact to note, is that these states are run by Democrats.  But eventually, as the revolution of which [Max] Horkheimer speaks continues to occur, it won't just be Democrats pushing the envelope to legalize murder, it will be Republicans too.

Ukraine and the RINO Delusion.  The Stupid Party strikes again.  Just one short month ago, Republican leaders and strategists were salivating over the prospect of a GOP blowout in the approaching midterms, as Joe Biden lurched from disaster to disaster. [...] With even mainstream media outlets acknowledging that the president's polling numbers had rapidly cratered to unprecedented lows (with no bottom in sight) only one year into a new administration, it appeared that all Republicans needed to do to win big in November was to stay out of the way while the Democrats self-destructed.  But one can never underestimate the insularity and obtuseness of the Washington GOP establishment, whose sensitivity is exclusively attuned to the interests of their donor class rather than to the interests of their voting base, or even the national interest.

Democrats become ever more extreme in their claim that men are women.  While transgender "women" are destroying girls' and women's sports, USA Today columnist hailed Assistant Health Secretary Richard/Rachel Levine as "...a ground-breaking leader who credits family support for helping her succeed.  Admiral Levine wants her work to be a shining example for all." [...] Progressives get away with this nonsense because so many elected Republican officials and Republican organizations are timid.
  •   Where are most of the Republicans in Congress?  Were they too busy passing a $1.5 trillion 2,700-page spending bill they hadn't read?
  •   Where is the Republican National Committee?  Were its members too busy starting their "pride" coalition?
  •   Where is the National Federation of Republican Women with a national campaign?  What issue is more crucial to Republican women than biological males eroding what it means to be a woman?
And the Republican Party and Republican organizations wonder why so many conservatives are switching to No Party Preference!  Call him Rachel.  [C]all him Richard.  Whatever name you use, Levine is still a biological man.

Rand Paul Slams Republicans Who Voted To Keep Fauci But Impeach Trump.  Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul slammed a group of five Republican senators who voted Tuesday against his amendment to remove Dr. Anthony Fauci but had once voted in favor of impeaching former President Donald Trump.  "I guess I'm not surprised that Republican senators who voted to get rid of Donald Trump voted to keep Anthony Fauci," Paul said in an exclusive statement to the Daily Caller.  "Disappointed but not surprised.  I think if Republican voters in their home states learn of this vote to keep Anthony Fauci, these voters will be very unhappy."  Republican Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas all voted against the amendment.

These 6 Republicans Voted Against Ousting Fauci.  Six Republican senators voted against an amendment Tuesday that would eliminate the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) position, which is held by Dr. Anthony Fauci.  Senators voted on Kentucky Republican Rand Paul's amendment to replace the NIAID with three separate national research institutes on Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C.  Republican Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, and Jerry Moran of Kansas each voted against the amendment.

Senate Republicans wield teeny-weeny twig on vaccine mandates.  The U.S. Senate, with a Republican-dominated voice of 49 to 44, passed a resolution to block Joe Biden's presidentially decreed coronavirus shot mandates for healthcare workers.  Republicans are calling it a victory.  But it's not.  Not really.  Neither the Democrat-led House nor the White House support it, and it won't pass.  But that shouldn't matter.  It shouldn't matter because Republicans in the Senate, if they wanted, if they so chose, if they truly believed in the constitutionally disgusting idea of government forcing an untested-for-long-term-safety-and-efficacy shot into the arms of 17 million or so health care workers — if they honestly wanted to put a stop to the madness and executive overreach — they could.

GOP establishment taps communist China-loving Iowa governor to give State of the Union rebuttal.  Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds will be giving the official Republican response to installed President Joe Biden's State of the Union address.  At a time when Americans are desperately looking outside of Washington, D.C. for political leadership that will put the citizens of this nation first, Reynolds and far too many of her fellow GOP governors instead seem to have another agenda in mind.  First and foremost, that involves doing lucrative state business with communist China.

Senate Republicans fail to block Democrat-led Vaccine Mandates.  If you ask any vaccine skeptics about their objections to the vaccine mandate their answer usually is two-fold.  First, they are concerned about the effectiveness and side effects of the vaccine.  The authorities are frequently redefining the term 'fully-vaccinated' by adding boosters also alarms them.  They are also troubled by government overreach.  They realize that once freedoms and rights are encroached upon by the government, they are seldom fully relinquished completely.  The Biden administration has successfully mandated vaccines for health care workers, military personnel, and non-citizen air travelers, while their attempts to mandate the vaccine for federal government contractors and employees and private sector employees have failed.  There have been proposals to vaccinate children, including those under 5.  State administrations have imposed restrictions on movement, access to public spaces, and public assembly.  There have been instances of police arresting and fining individuals for merely attending a party or being part of religious gatherings.  While other restrictions can be undone over a period of time, the citizen understands that the vaccine once injected into your body will cause permanent changes.  Since the Democrats have been dogmatic about vaccine mandates, the people look towards the Republicans for support.

Four Senate Republicans Fail to Show Up for Vote on Amendment Defunding Vaccine Mandates, Ensuring Failure.  Four Senate Republicans failed to show up to vote on an amendment that would have defunded President Joe Biden's remaining vaccine mandates, thus ensuring its failure.  The Senate voted on Sen. Mike Lee's (R-UT) amendment to the continuing resolution (CR), which would defund Biden's remaining vaccine mandates.  The measure failed 46-47, with Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Richard Burr (R-NC) failing to show up, depriving Senate Republicans a potential majority to pass the amendment to the CR. [...] The Supreme Court has blocked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration vaccine mandate for large employers; however, the federal government can still enforce the other four mandates, which include the mandates on medical workers, military personnel, federal employees, and federal contractors.

House RINOs Push Amnesty for Illegals Plan.  At a time when Biden's weakness and terrible policy choices have presented an open flank against which the GOP could attack and win major political victories, or at least score some big points before the midterms to help boost their reelection chances, what are the RINO members of the party doing?  Are they temporarily growing a spine, if only so that they can trick voters into letting them keep their cushy Congressional jobs?  Nope.  Instead, the Congressional RINOs have spent time working on an "amnesty for illegals" plan that they're now pushing.

Six Comments On The Canadian Truckers' Freedom Convoy.  In [a] brief, and what appears to be unplanned and spur-of-the-moment, video, [Jordan] Peterson goes after the leaders of Canada's "conservative" opposition party leaders.  Where are they?  Why aren't they rallying around the truckers?  Why aren't they seizing this populist movement and harnessing the frustrations and desires of regular Canadians who want only to live in a free society?  Part of his appeal to the absent leadership includes some pretty common-sense language: [...] It begs the question:  What is it about conservative government officials here and elsewhere?  Are they not really conservative?  Are they cowards?  Do they place their own job security and social standing over the needs of the people they claim to represent?  We have seen enough Liz Cheneys, Lindsey Grahams, and Aaron O'Tooles for one lifetime.  [Video clip]

A lot of Republican congress members are trying to foil MAGA candidates.  Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 Republican primary reflected the feelings of ordinary Americans that the political class — especially the Republican political class — had betrayed them.  Whether these politicians were simply lukewarm conservatives or actual false-flag Democrats was irrelevant.  What mattered was that they, along with the Democrats, sold out America through open borders, sending manufacturing to China, and bowing to the racism industry.  These same Republicans-who-are-not-conservatives are now working hard to make sure that Trump's MAGA agenda stays good and dead. [...] Call them quislings, Vichy Republicans, Manchurian politicians, or what you will, but these are the people who, along with the Democrats, want open borders, China's control over all American production, and the continued ascendency of the racism industry.  They hate you as much as the Democrats do.

Republicans Plan To Win Back The Senate, Then Do Nothing, Per Usual.  The 2022 agenda for House Republicans may be out of touch with the current political moment, but at least they can say they're trying.  Over on the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the leader of the Senate's Republican conference, has announced he's not even putting out an agenda for 2022. [...] In other words, McConnell and GOP senators seem prepared to run solely on a platform detailing how bad the other guy is, and that scrupulously and intentionally avoids discussing what they intend to do about it.  In fairness, this is not completely irrational.  "Never interfere with an enemy when he's in the process of destroying himself," as the old war adage goes.  With their class-shaming Covid protocols, woke militancy, endless race-baiting, and radical cultural crusading, Democrats seem intent on doubling down on an agenda that is turning off Americans in droves.

It's time to take 2022's Republican primaries very, very seriously.  What's been even more disheartening than the Democrats' destructive combination of viciousness and ineptitude has been that Republican congresspeople are supine.  Most of them crumble when anyone says "racist" or "January 6."  Worse still are those Republicans who have chosen to ally with the Democrats regarding everything from January 6 to the radical LGBTQ+ agenda.  The only way to change this is through the primaries. [...] You must understand that, by November, it's too late to get politically involved.  If we're to have a Congress that will stand up to Biden, investigate corruption, and reverse creeping socialism, we must have conservatives on the ballot, rather than whatever RINOs the GOP selects.  The battle ends in November but it begins with the primaries.

The FBI Is a Scumbag Terrorist-Protection Organization and Must be Defunded To Save America.  And you know what the GOP will do about this if they win back the House and Senate?  Nothing.

The only time Republicans are this bold with their "threats" is when they know they won't have to follow through.
Republicans threaten takeover of Senate floor with votes on Keystone XL pipeline, abortion and the border if Dems kill filibuster.  Senate Republicans are threatening to force votes on a slew of bills designed to split the Democratic caucus and take over the floor agenda should Majority Leader Charles Schumer carry out his threat to push through a change in Senate filibuster rules for voting rights.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been leading a Republican filibuster against the bills, threatened to use Senate rules to call up a raft of legislation in response — including bills that might peel off a vote a or two from vulnerable Democrats.  'Since Sen. Schumer is hellbent on trying to break the Senate, Republicans will show how this reckless action would have immediate consequences,' McConnell vowed.

When will the House GOP do something about its Liz Cheney problem?  Office-holding Republicans, most of them, have a lamentable tradition of not rushing to the defense of Donald J. Trump.  Can House Republicans accept, equally passively, an angry charge against their leader from a "Republican" whose anti-Republican vituperation is consistent with the anti-GOP libels from the leftist playbook?  Republicans need not even go so far as to vote to end her position in the House Republican Conference.  All they need do, it seems from here, is to issue a statement, signed by all House Republicans, expressing regret and dismay that a Republican would speak in accusatory terms, directed at the Republican leader, that echo the worst calumnies hurled, quite without basis, in fact, at Republicans by Democrats who respond to efforts at comity with loathing and vitriol.  This pathetic case of a "Republican" Member of Congress should then decide if she chooses to remain a member of a conference that has signaled its discomfort that she has placed the ambitions of the Democrat party above her commitment to party and country.

Florida Republicans Try to Surrender on Redistricting, Giving Democrats New Hope.  While Florida certainly has the best GOP governor in the country, that doesn't appear to be true regarding the Republicans who run the Florida Senate.  Today, the subcommittee in charge of redistricting for the 2022 election (and beyond) narrowed things down to two maps.  Yet, their choices are leaving Republican voters asking exactly what [...] is going on.  Instead of taking advantage of the fact that the GOP controls all three branches of government, Republican members appear to be looking to surrender in the face of massive Democrat gerrymanders in places like California, Illinois, Maryland, and New Mexico.

Very Interesting Marionette Strings Visible in South Dakota, There Are No Coincidences of This Scale.  Late December, the New York Times reported that South Dakota Senator John Thune, the heir apparent to Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, was considering retiring because the Trump influence, the MAGA base, was not in alignment with his corporate and Wall Street donor class worldview.  Those who have watched closely know Senator Mitch McConnell has positioned Senator Thune to take over in the Senate.  The Machiavellian purpose of the positioning is to put Thune in place as a line of defense to protect the interest of the political establishment and the aligned Fourth Branch of Government. [...] The DeceptiCons know what is coming.  The DeceptiCons are positioning to take political advantage of the food supply chain crisis they know is about to happen.  The DeceptiCons want the food crisis as much as the people behind Joe Biden want the opportunity the crisis represents.

What to Do with Feckless Republicans?  In short, from every angle — economic, foreign relations, immigration and especially public health/safety — this Democratic administration is a total, abject failure, the likes of which have never been seen before.  It's truly historic.  But you wouldn't know any of this from the way the Democrats control the public narrative.  Republicans do not fight.  They let the Democrats set the agenda and present all the public talking points.  Whether Republicans are incapable of effectively countering the Democrats or are simply too afraid to try to is an open question.  Republicans sit by passively as the Progressive Big Tech monopoly bans one conservative after another.  Marjorie Taylor Greene is banned by Twitter — another in a far too long line of Republicans removed for the "crime" of presenting conservative views — and her party says nothing.  If there were a reciprocal situation in which a Democrat was unfairly targeted by a conservative media source, the entire liberal machine would kick into high gear and beat the publicity drums with unrelenting outrage. [...] Yet the Republican leadership is mostly silent.

Twitter bans Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Where is the GOP?  I'm not the biggest fan of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the GOP congresswoman who just got banned on Twitter.  She tends to speak a little wildly.  The hard reality, though, is that she's better than any Democrat alternative.  That doesn't seem to have gotten through to the GOP leadership in Congress, which ought to be stamping mad about the naked Twitter censorship that came of this ban, shutting down and silencing another fellow Republican.  Any outrage?  Based on what I've seen so far, they haven't said a thing.

Eighty House Republicans Vote for More Government Spying.  Our lack of privacy, not to mention the increased ability of the government to spy on us, has been ratified by eighty — count 'em eighty — House Republicans, including minority leader Kevin McCarthy (who wants us to see him as a viable replacement of, an actual savior from, Nancy Pelosi) and Burgess Owens of all people (Et tu, Burgess?  Who can we rely on now?)  What these GOP members of what seems more and more like the People's Congress of Cambodia under Pol Pot have voted for en masse, joining one hundred percent of the Democrats (something suspicious right there), is a bill to fund a Federal Vaccination Database.  Known as the Immunization Infrastructure Act (H. R. 550), this baby would provide $400 million of your dollars and mine for an "immunization system data modernization and expansion" of "a confidential, population-based, computerized database that records immunization doses administered by any health care provider to persons within the geographic area covered by that database."  In other words, it's a handy way to get the "wrong" people fired, ostracized or whatever, while getting their children kicked out of school.

The Counterrevolution and the Republican Party.  [Scroll down]  The Republican Party may not be much, but, institutionally, it's all we've got.  Every other major American institution has either signed on for the revolution or completely acquiesced to it. [...] The Republican Party, the only electoral vehicle that can deliver America from this mess, is the same Party that got us into it.  Its decades-long failure to defend America from the Left's malicious falsehoods and delusional notions goes back at least to 1992.  But politically attentive conservatives and patriots must be charitable and realistic about the Republican Party:  In all Western democracies it's the left who are the political pros, the fanatics armed with utopian truth who live politics 24/7, most of them all their lives.  Republicans and their center-right cousins elsewhere, as defenders of tradition and gradual change against revolution, are always and everywhere the amateurs.  This will never change.  They are the part timers, who before politics actually accomplished something: [...]

Republicans betray their voters, again, this time in the Senate.  The first betrayal occurred November 30, when 80 House Republicans voted for a bill that would spend $400 million of taxpayer money to fund the creation of a federal vaccination database.  The bill compels health care providers to share vaccination status information with the federal government.  There are myriad ways that this information can be misused, abused, and weaponized.  The authoritarian Democrats have misused the Covid 19 pandemic to encroach on inherent rights of citizens such as the right to movement and the right to earn a living.  Freedom of choice is being challenged with persistent attempts to mandate vaccines.  The Republicans knew about all of this, yet they voted in favor of the vaccination database that could hurt the lives of their voters.

The 80 House Republicans Who Voted With Dems to Create National Vax Database.  Eighty House Republicans voted with Democrats to pass the Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act, which would fund a federal vaccination database, Breitbart News first reported.  We have listed all of the Republicans who supported the measure below — along with links to their email addresses.  "The text specifically outlines an expansion of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Public Health Department capabilities and the ability for state and local health departments, as well as public and private health care providers, to share health data with the federal government," Breitbart reported.

House passes federal vaccine database bill, 80 Republicans betray their voters — again.  Yesterday [12/2/2021], the House of Representatives passed a bill called H. R. 550 that would facilitate the creation of a federal vaccination database.  The purpose would be to track the vaccination status of all U.S. citizens.  To call this bill a danger to the personal freedoms of every citizen is an understatement.  The bill states that $400 million of taxpayer money will be used to "direct the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to take actions to improve data sharing and other aspects of immunization information systems.  These are confidential, population-based databases that maintain a record of vaccine administrations." [...] To sum it up, the bill provides sweeping powers to CDC and compels public and private health care providers at both state and local levels to share information with the central government. [...] Not one, or two or ten or even twenty but EIGHTY Republicans voted for this bill, this includes Kevin Owen McCarthy who is the House Minority Leader in the United States House of Representatives.

No guts.
Glenn Youngkin:  I won't stop local governments that want to impose COVID mandates.  With this, the governor-elect will challenge the land-speed record for traveling from populist hero to RINO sellout.  But he's being consistent.  When he says he doesn't support mandates, he means mandates of both the Democratic and Republican varieties.  He won't order masking or vaccination from the governor's office but he also won't order local governments not to issue their own orders to that effect.  He's not Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer but he's not Greg Abbott or Ron DeSantis either.

Hearteningly Disheartened; The REAL Message From Virginia.  Wanna know what conservatives do very well?  They take unearned, unwise, thoroughly unhinged victory laps.  They sit back and rest on their laurels, admiring the battlefield they've just conquered (by a razor thin margin) and behave as if everything is suddenly being put back to right.  Conservatives are very good at forgetting that Democrats don't quit.  They're very good at ignoring history.  They're very, very good at looking past a few absolute realities of our electoral system, namely that Democrats don't give a crap about the electorate, and never have; and also, that Republicans have no party unity, no loyalty to anything, no actual agenda, and no spine with which to prop an agenda up even if they did have one.

Tell me again why I should vote Republican.  A mere two days after this great political victory that was supposed to signal a profound change of direction in the body politic — one that would send a message to everyone that taxation, regulation, border anarchy, racism, and authoritarian mandates were given a resounding rejection — thirteen Republican House members voted to support the president's "infrastructure" spending plan that would all but guarantee the continuation of everything that we thought we opposed.  (Nineteen Republican senators also voted for this bill.)  So what is the point in continuing to elect Republicans when they sell out principles so easily?  This is only the latest example of "moderate" and "centrist" GOP pols assisting the Dems to further their growth policies in the areas of government debt, deficit, regulation, taxation, and control.

Are Republicans trying to demoralize their voters?  Victor Davis Hanson is as articulate a defender of the American spirit of liberty as we have, but I have to take issue with the way he ended his October 29 article at The Federalist. [...] As noted, the article appeared October 29, and on November 2, Woke-ism and Biden seemed to have begun to face their reckoning, indeed.  That is, until the Republicans put a stop to that, providing the votes to pass Biden's lots-of-goodies-for-the-left Infrastructure bill, November 5, a bill that will likely cost 2 trillion dollars.  Thirteen House Republicans voted in favor of this giveaway to the left measure, to be paid for on the backs of middle-class voters, the GOP base.  That's right, thirteen House Republicans acted to impose onerous taxes on those suburban families that supposedly deserted the Republican Party in 2020.

GOP betrays its base — again!.  It has been almost a year since Biden occupied the White House, and his record has been a disaster.  Inflation is out of control; gasoline prices have risen; the supply chain crisis means that essential items may not reach shopping centers; the IRS wants to monitor bank transactions; and the border is open, leading to a historic surge of illegal aliens.  They are considering $450,000 payments to illegal migrants separated from their families at the border.  Vaccine mandates are hampering essential services and causing unemployment.  Afghanistan was a total disaster of chaos, defeat, and instability, while China is emboldened.  Hunter Biden brokered shady deals in Ukraine and China that earned him millions when Joe was vice president, and now, when he is president, Hunter's paintings fetch a price higher than works of Claude Monet and Edgar Degas at anonymous art auctions, pointing to likely bribery and influence-peddling.  This merits the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the conflict of interest and to know if Biden is compromised or is susceptible to blackmail.  How do the Republicans react?  A majority remain silent.  The Senate and House minority leaders are missing.

7 Insane Things I Just Learned About How U.S. Elections Are 'Rigged'.  [#1] The DNC Controlled All Poll Watchers for 40 Years:  I had to read this section of the book two or three times to absorb what it was saying.  I couldn't believe it could possibly be true.  Yet it is:  "Shockingly, the 2020 contest was the first presidential election since Reagan's first successful run in 1980 in which the Republican National Committee could play any role whatsoever in Election Day operations."  What?  Next sentence:  "For nearly 40 years, the Democratic National Committee had a massive systemic advantage over its Republican counterpart: the Republican National Committee had been prohibited by law from helping out with poll watcher efforts or nearly any litigation related to how voting is being conducted."  This section in chapter 1 goes on to explain how such an insane thing could be real.

Election Fraud Investigation Hesitancy in Michigan.  [Scroll down]  What part of "election security" do they not understand?  The legacy media spout the notion that the 2020 election was the most secure in history.  In fact, it was the least secure election.  In a soon to be released, explosive inside report on the events that occurred at the TCF Center in Detroit during the 2020 election, author Phil O'Halloran explores in gritty detail the egregious violations of state election laws and statues in Michigan, major security breaches, illegalities, intimidation, and verbal as well as physical abuse of GOP challengers.  O'Halloran was present at the TCF Center and was an eyewitness to what occurred. [...] The response from the Republican Michigan legislators who dominate the state House and Senate has been tepid at best and AWOL at worst.  Michigan grassroots conservative patriots have sadly experienced the death of outrage in their beloved state.

New York's Feckless Republican Delegation.  At this point, it is well known that these ruling class authoritarian methods are not limited to New York, California, and other big blue states.  The Left's increasingly totalitarian bent is a key component of their playbook that has now become universal and is readily on display wherever Democrats hold power.  In Trump-leaning North Carolina, for example, the same thing happened as in New York:  175 noble hospital workers were handed pink slips at the behest of Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.  Cooper, like [New York governor Kathy] Hochul, was merely following orders like a good party member — heeding the proselytizing seductions of the cult of "science" while probably also receiving a handsome side bonus from any number of pro-vaccine North Carolinian donors.  In normal times, either of these cases should have provoked a national uproar.  Sensible individuals of all ideological and political stripes would recognize them as patent violations of the Constitution and human rights in general, and enter hyperdrive to ensure that such infringements would never happen again.

Facebook Whistleblower Is a Democrat Activist [...] Republicans Pretend They Cannot See What's Going On.  The transparency of this operation was/is brutally obvious.  Frances Haugen appears on CBS 60-Minutes as a Facebook "whistleblower", and already had a congressional hearing lined up for 48 hours later?  C'mon man... did the lessons of Sandra Fluke or Christine Blasey Ford not register with anyone?  Former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen is a left-wing activist with a long history of giving money to far-left fellow travelers including congressional moonbat AOC.  Haugen is the Blasey-Ford of 2021 and her objective is to further advance the premise of censorship and political targeting under the guise of protecting children.

The PA GOP Establishment Offers Another Election "Reform" Bill That Does Nothing To Fix Elections.  In a never ending nihilistic orgy, Republicans in Pennsylvania's State legislature have proposed yet another 'assault-on-liberty' piece of election legislation.  The latest entry in the race to destroy the Republican Party is named Senate Bill 878.  The Republican history of insane election bills is rich, indeed.  It begins with Act 77, a bill for which there was no popular demand, that needn't have been proposed and yet gave away the crown jewel of voting to the Democrats — no excuse mail in ballots.  Who knows what deals were made by House and Senate leadership for that one.  They say they got the elimination of straight ticket voting in return.  That's a worse deal than the Lenape Indians made for Manhattan Island.  Pennsylvania's Republican leadership and Republican Representatives and Senators have yet to take any responsibility or ownership of the Act 77 catastrophe.  In fact, some still think it was a good deal.  In an attempt to repair the damage that no one admits occurred, the House Government Committee held a dozen or more hearings on a new bill, declining to take testimony from 'riff raff' such as County Chairmen, the PAGOP, the PAGOP Election Review Committee and those dealing directly with the ground level process and taking the brunt of the ground level discontent.

Is America Heading Towards Authoritarianism?  [Scroll down]  The perpetually blundering Biden has presented the Republicans with a galore of opportunities.  How are the Republicans reacting?  They appear on Fox News to express their outrage and call for Biden and his cabinet to resign.  During hearings, they appear incensed as they grill their opponent.  Their YouTube clips are captioned 'Republican ABC destroys/grills Democrat XYZ'.  Alas, they are merely preaching to the converted.  The Republican Senate Minority leader and House Minority leaders are not even making these perfunctory noises.  The Republicans appear to have no coordinated strategy to carry the message to all people.  They should ideally be going back to their constituency and holding public meetings to highlight the failures of Biden.  They should be releasing advertisements and touring the mainstream media to highlight numerous catastrophes under Biden. [...] At such times it is the function of the opposition to be the voice for those people.  Alas, the Republicans lack the killer instinct, it is almost as if the Washington establishment neutered them for good.

Border-surge spending is sapping money from COVID-19 fight, GOP investigators say.  The Biden administration's move to siphon money away from health programs to finance housing for the record number of illegal immigrant juveniles is putting a dent in the effort against COVID-19, the top Republican investigator in the House charged Thursday [9/16/2021].  Rep. James Comer, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee, led a letter to Health and Human Services demanding to know just how much money has been moved around and suggesting the shift was done without full congressional approval.  The members of Congress are particularly interested in $589 million reprogrammed within HHS's budget.

The Editor says...
I think Representative Comer has it backwards.  The wide-open border is a serious problem.  In the real world, not the television world, Covid is not a problem at all.  If you turn off your television, you'll see nobody's sick.  It's not that easy to shut off the heavy-handed tyranny which is being ushered in by Big Government, using Covid as a shoehorn.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Unloads on 'Weak Republicans' For Excusing 'Dictator Joe Biden'.  Feisty Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene dumped on "weak Republicans" in a Twitter thread Saturday [9/11/2021] whom she accused of enabling "dictator Joe Biden" following his vaccine mandate last week for many businesses and federal employees.

The Weak, Feckless Response From the National GOP to Biden's Tyranny.  Yesterday [9/9/2021], the President of the United States essentially declared his power unlimited.  Taking to the podium, Joe Biden, mimicking the mannerisms of an angry drunk, announced that he has ordered OSHA to create a rule to force all businesses with more than 100 employees to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine.  In doing so, he threatened the unvaccinated, claimed he could get governors who resist "out of the way," and asserted that "patience" was running out for those who don't comply.  It was truly the most disturbing, tyrannical speech I've ever heard from a president, and I don't say that lightly.  We have entered a new place as a nation, and that place is not good.  Given the severity of the situation, you'd hope a real opposition party would be ready to go.  Unfortunately, the GOP is not a real opposition party so instead, we got bot-quality responses like this.  [Tweets]

Never Trump Figures out a Way to Defend Biden's Vaccine Mandate.  Last week, the federal government at the command of Joe Biden initiated the worst abuse of power from the American executive in modern history.  In an angry, incoherent speech, the president pledged to use OSHA to force a vaccine mandate on private, American businesses.  The enforcement mechanism? $14,000 fines per instance, per week, if an employee either isn't vaccinated or doesn't test negative.  That's enough to effectively bankrupt most mid-sized businesses, if they are out of compliance with even a few workers.  Given that extensive overreach, many on the right immediately spoke out.  After all, this is a crossroads moment regarding whether bureaucracies will simply be allowed unlimited power or if there are some limiting principles still in place.  Perhaps this would even be a situation where the principles first, norms worshiping Never Trump contingent might speak out with righteous indignation against Joe Biden's dictatorial overreach?

National Review and Other NeverTrump Mags Sold Out for Google Cash.  The disconnect between the ostensibly conservative party, the GOP, and the Republican base has been apparent for years.  Voters gave Republicans Congress and the White House in order to repeal Obamacare, only to be sorely disappointed.  They wanted a wall along the border but got none.  They're demanding that action be taken on election fraud, only to be told by their representatives that 2020 was "the most secure election in history."  They're asking for protection against mask and vaccine mandates, only to have their cries for help fall on deaf ears.  And the "thought leaders" who for decades were held up as the standard-bearers of conservatism are just as disconnected.  Big name publications such as National Review and The Weekly Standard, along with "intellectuals" such as George Will and Bill Kristol, have proven themselves just as violently opposed to the conservative agenda as Democrats.  In the case of the politicians, Americans have generally assumed that these Republicans are bought off.  But what about the consevative intellectual elites?  What's their excuse for now standing hand-in-hand with the leftists who for so long they claimed to oppose?  It turns out the influencers and policy wonks were paid off, too.

How The National Review Sold Its Soul to Google.  There were rumors in the summer of 2018 that an audiotape was circulating that would send shockwaves through the think tanks of Washington and the conservative intellectual movement in particular.  A top Google executive had been recorded telling his fellow employees that Google generously donated to conservative think tanks and magazines to dampen criticism of their anti-conservative bias.  In essence, Google was buying off Conservatism Inc. and the GOP establishment to stay silent while Google monitored, harassed, and excluded Trump supporters.  If true, the tape sounded like a smoking gun: incontrovertible evidence of the corruption and double-dealing of Conservatism Inc. that would permanently discredit it with Republican voters.  I was told that the tape had been offered as an exclusive to the Wall Street Journal.  Months went by, and nothing happened.  (There were rumors during that time that Big Tech lobbyists were trying very hard to get the Wall Street Journal to kill the story.)  Then I began to get a series of messages from various anonymous sources that the organizations that were guilty of taking Google money to stay silent included: the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the Cato Institute, CPAC, the Weekly Standard and the National Review.  (A weak article appeared on September 27th by John McKinnon in the Wall Street Journal but it hardly mentioned the tape or its implications.)  This was, needless to say, a huge story:  was it possible that the entire conservative intellectual movement was being bought off by Big Tech companies?

Nancy Pelosi will probably bow to far left to push $3.5 trillion in spending.  Nearly 20 Senate Republicans have foolishly signed on to a bipartisan bill with $550 billion in new infrastructure spending.  By contrast, Democrats must go it alone to pass the American Families Plan, their $3.5 trillion package of welfare spending and all sorts of other goodies.  Dems are trying to cram the plan through the budget reconciliation process as the House reconvenes Monday morning [8/23/2021].  The $3.5 trillion plan still faces some hurdles in clearing Senate rules, under which budget bills are only supposed to contain spending, taxes and other things related to them — not new laws.  Sen. Mitch McConnell is also pledging a vote against raising the federal debt ceiling if Democrats forge ahead with the $3.5 trillion in spending on their own.  But the minority leader can't actually stop the Democrats if they are united.

Everything Is Not All Right.  In all of this insanity, where is the Republican Party?  There seem to be two possible responses:  Republicans either hope to stay silent and allow for the Biden Administration to self-implode by 2022, or they are complicit in allowing the rapid decline of the United States.  There really is no middle ground.  Famed Nixon economist Herbert Stein, the father of actor Ben Stein, theorized that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop.  This has come to be known as Stein's Law.  The question remains, which will cease first, the absurdities of the Biden Administration, or the United States itself?

Why Vote Republican?  Frustration over the mostly feckless national Republican Party is nothing new. [...] America is a runaway freight train, heading toward a cliff.  When Democrats are in charge, it is pedal to the metal.  With Republicans driving, the gas pedal is only partially pressed, with no effort to hit the brakes, save for rare bursts of a Reagan or Trump, and despite the opposition from their own party.  The current GOP is quite happy in the minority.  They can whine and complain, with no actual responsibility or voice in legislation.  Campaign donations are solicited with promises to reverse the leftist agenda, promises never kept, unlike the campaign contributions they collect.  Conservatives have no home in the current Washington, D.C. political machine.  Conservatives are not a small fringe group like the Lincoln Project NeverTrumpers, but 80 million Americans who voted for the last and best hope to stop the run-away train before it crashes into the abyss of poverty and tyranny.

After Infrastructure Surrender, Republicans Deserve to Lose.  Republicans have helped put President Biden several steps closer to passing his top legislative priority in voting multiple times to advance an unnecessary and costly infrastructure bill that will pave the way for Democrats to pass their multi-trillion dollar social agenda.  This is a pathetic surrender that has been built on a mountain of lies.  Republicans who voted for this monstrosity claimed that the infrastructure bill they negotiated would be fully paid for.  It isn't.  They claimed it would narrowly focus on traditional infrastructure such as fixing roads and bridges.  It doesn't.  They claimed it would help convince moderate Democrats to abandon Biden's larger bill.  It won't.  Republicans have voted for a bill that will add to the deficits at a time when debt as a share of the economy is on track to break the World War II record this year, according to Biden's own budget.  And at a time when inflation is on the rise.

Insufferable Senator Kevin Cramer Brags About $450 Billion for Actual Infrastructure Inside a $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill.  During this interview with Maria Bartiromo, North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer (U-DC) actually has the nerve to brag about $450 billion in infrastructure spending amid a phase-one bill that has $1.2 trillion in total.  What's the other $800 billion dollars being spent on doofus?  Another of Cramer's advocacy points is how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports the bill; as if that's a good thing.  Making matters worse, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer devised a process pledging that this part of the infrastructure bill (phase-1) will only advance if it is married to the House party-line legislation (phase-2) that will spend as much as $3.5 trillion MORE on climate change action, paid leave policies, health care expansion, and other progressive agenda items.

Why aren't congressional Republicans impeaching Biden now?  We all know that the Democrats fight dirty; always have, always will.  The Republicans on the other hand just sit back and let them lie, cheat and steal as if it would be rude to call them out for their crimes.  They seem to delight in being known as the polite party.  As a result, the left is plowing them under with glee.  They impeached President Trump twice over nothing, less than nothing.  And now, as Biden is transforming the country and its demographics before the world's eyes by encouraging migrants from all over the world to illegally enter the U.S. over the southern border, the Republicans are as usual sitting back and doing nothing.  Never mind that while the administration demands American citizens be vaxxed and masked, these migrants endure no such mandates.  Some are spreading COVID and all are welcomed. [...] If this is not an impeachable offense what is?  But for a few legitimate representatives of their constituents, the rest of the Republicans just sit back on their imaginary laurels, take the money, go to the parties and spend their time being careful not to engender any bad press at the New York Times or the Washington Post.

California GOP Won't Endorse A Candidate In Special Election To Recall Democratic Gov. Newsom.  On Saturday morning, California Republican Party delegates opted to withhold an endorsement in the upcoming special recall election set for September 14 when Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom could be ousted from office.  Officials said the decision was made "with nearly 90 percent support" during a virtual meeting the day after two influential California Republicans reportedly encouraged members of the state GOP not to endorse a candidate.

Trump Vows To Withhold Support From Republicans Who Vote for 'Disgraceful' $1.2B Infrastructure Bill.  Former President Donald Trump pledged to withhold financial support and endorsement backing from any Republican who voted to support a massive, expensive infrastructure spending bill that contains several controversial provisions and will serve as a gateway to an even larger bill featuring a left-wing wish list of packages.  The former president's threat to withhold support follows a 67-27 vote on Saturday in which the Senate advanced the $1.2 trillion spending measure.  Eighteen Republicans joined 49 Democrats to advance the legislation for further debate and negotiations, far surpassing the 60-vote filibuster threshold.

Senate GOP poised to give Biden huge political victory.  Senate Republicans are about to hand President Biden a huge political victory by voting for a historic $1 trillion infrastructure package that the president can then tout as fulfilling a campaign pledge to restore bipartisanship in Washington.  GOP senators and aides predict as many as 20 Republicans — twice the number needed to avoid a filibuster — could vote for the legislation, which would provide the most funding in decades for roads, airports, railroads, drinking water and other priorities.  "I think everybody pretty much knows what they're going to do.  I think some people are trying to get to yes," said a Republican senator who helped craft the legislation that was unveiled on Sunday.  "So my prediction is 20."

It's Republicans Who Are a Threat to Democracy.  The Harris-Biden administration has been marred by scandals and several instances of misgovernance, such as these:
  •   Hunter Biden profited in the order of millions from foreign adversaries when Joe Biden was vice president and continues to do so now that he is president.  He has been accused of consuming drugs and racist language.
  •   The investigation of the Capitol Hill "insurrection" and confronting "White Supremacy" is being used as an excuse to silence, demean, and destroy all political opposition.
  •   There are indications that citizens may be mandated to get the COVID vaccine despite being skeptical and mask up despite being fully vaccinated.
  •   There are also indications that COVID restrictions may be reimposed without much scientific basis.
  •   The border chaos has caused a mass [influx] of illegal aliens, many of whom are COVID-positive.  These individuals are being surreptitiously transported to the interiors of America.
  •   Big Tech continues to silence opposing voices — a serious threat to the First Amendment.
How did Republicans react to all this?  Some of them merely do not react at all.  Some appeared on Fox News to viciously condemn Biden and the Democrats with every epithet available in their lexicon.  Some played to the galleries during Senate and congressional hearings to have "testy" exchanges as they question the adversary.  Some gleefully crossed the aisle and concurred with the Democrats.  But beyond the amateur theatrics, precious little was actually done to prevent or correct the many missteps of the Biden administration.

The GOP Should Revolt Against Lame Duck Pelosi's Dictatorship.  The ridiculous mask kabuki that Lame Duck Dictator Nancy Pelosi is attempting to impose upon the Party of Freedom is the perfect opportunity for the GOP to demonstrate that it is not a flock of hapless, wriggling invertebrates.  A little spine shown right about now would go a long way, not only to winning back Congress in 2022 by an even bigger margin than currently anticipated but to fixing the institution that power-mad harridan has grievously damaged.  It might mean accepting that Republicans will be booted from the House for a bit, but who cares?  We have zero input anyway.  Make a stand. [...] Maybe she'll "fine" you.  Great.  Have lawyers on standby to go to court for an injunction against her unilateral attempt to alter your pay as legislators.  Courts exist to solve disputes, and you have a good case.  Can she also dock your pay for not voting as she sees fit?  Why or why not, Democrat ambulance chasers?  Let's have that fight.  Maybe she will expel the Republicans.  Great.  In her regime, the GOP can't do anything anyway.  It cannot even pick its own committee members.  So what, exactly, do we lose if she bars the door and expels our reps?

Republicans Fully Embrace Being the Stupid Party and Prove Their Critics Right in the Process.  Last night, 17 Republican senators voted to advanced a currently unwritten "infrastructure" deal totaling over $1 trillion.  That came after months of those same GOP members getting bamboozled by Democrats, and even Joe Biden himself in all his senility, to the point where it simply boggles the mind that they didn't walk away from negotiations.  But what's done is done.  The bill will now be put into print, no doubt totaling thousands of unaccountable pages of special-interest spending, and those same 17 Republicans will vote for its final passage.  Joe Biden will be handed his "bipartisan" achievement and all the credit along with it.  In other words, Republicans have fully embraced being the "stupid party."

Jenna Ellis Calls Out RNC for Abandoning Trump Camp After Election.  A forthcoming book from Michael Wolff says that last November, Republican National Committee (RNC) chief counsel Justin Riemer emailed Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, questioning Trump's election fraud claims.  According to a report from Business Insider, which obtained an early copy of the book, "Riemer reportedly wrote to his RNC colleagues asking why they were backing Trump's unfounded claims of election fraud, while also expressing that the organization raised more cash battling Democrats than challenging election results."  When Ellis received the email, she was having dinner with Rudy Giuliani and former New York City police commissioner Bernie Kerik.  They all viewed the message and were stunned by it.

Trump 2020 legal adviser Jenna Ellis leaving Republican Party in protest.  Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to former President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign, said on Monday she is leaving the Republican Party in protest following the disclosure of an email from a top Republican National Committee lawyer criticizing her efforts in challenging the results of the November contest.  Ellis made the announcement on Real America's Voice and called on RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and other members to "resign now" to create a clean slate, adding she would not return until they do.  She also questioned what happened to the "millions raised" by the RNC in November and December of last year when the election challenges were playing out, saying, "The Trump team never saw a dime of that help."

Senator Murkowski Tells Alaska Radio She Has Not Decided if She Will Run for Re-election.  CTH readers know Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowsi very well.  Her history of political manipulation and DeceptiCon activity is deep.  Murkowski was defeated in the GOP primary in 2010 by Joe Miller (who we supported), and yet the Alaska senator refused to give up her power and ran as a write-in candidate. [...] The RNC club never punished Murkowski for those 2010 shenanigans because, well, the RNC club supports this type of cocktail club ideologue.  This reality is part of the entrenched problem with the RNC as an organization, they rebuke the efforts of the grassroots base.  Ronna McDaniel is simply one vile person in a long-line of vile RNC people who maintain this corrupt club operation.  Lisa Murkowski is a prime example of the type of politician who permits the Intelligence Branch to exist because the superseding branch of government allows her to continue living a life of indulgence and influence.  She is a grifter and a liar of the highest order.

Trump calls for GOP pullout from Biden's $1.2T mega-spending talks: 'You're just being played'.  Former President Donald Trump called Friday night [7/9/2021] for Senate Republicans to withdraw from negotiations over President Biden's $1.2 trillion spending proposal, warning that "RINO Republicans" were "just being played by the Radical Left Democrats."  "They will give you nothing!" Trump warned in his message, which was distributed by email under the banner of Trump's "Save America" organization.  "Very important that Senate Republicans not allow our hard-earned tax reductions to be terminated or amended in an upward trajectory in any way, shape or form," Trump wrote.  "They should not be making deals on increasing taxes for the fake infrastructure proposals being put forward by Democrats, almost all of which goes to the ridiculous Green New Deal Marxist agenda," Trump continued, referring to the signature climate-change package of proposals from far-left Democrat U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

The GOP Doesn't Deserve to Exist Any Longer.  There seem to be two types of Republicans — those who learned something from the Trump era and those who didn't. [...] As the minority party heading into 2022 with strong tailwinds, Republicans have one job.  That job is to be the opposition.  That means not making "deals" that worsen the plight of working-class voters in order to hand Joe Biden and his allies a huge win.  GOP voters do not care about being bought off by payouts to obscure special interests.  They care about knowing their representatives have the ability to actually hold the line.  Now, to a normal person, that all seems like a rather easy task.  After all, it only requires uttering one word over and over — no.  In regards to the recent "deal" on infrastructure, the GOP should have never been negotiating in the first place.

Club Moves, Pence and Haley Coordinating With Establishment GOP.  The one issue that frustrates me personally; amid the known deep weeds and moves of the RNC as a club and their vitriolic hatred for the Tea Party before and MAGA movement now; is why President Trump continues to express confidence in Ronna McDaniel. [...] McDaniel is working against the interests of the MAGA base.  The head of the RNC does nothing to highlight demonstrable election fraud; she stands aside and watches as media frame an extremist narrative against the base of the party she is supposed to represent.  McDaniel does nothing to support the legal alliance needed to push back against election fraud; and worse yet she does nothing to support the recruitment of MAGA minded candidates to lead the middle-class working revolution against the corrupt political system.  Yet, amid these brutally obvious realities no one ever seems to call it out.

To save America, we're going to have defeat both Democrats and Republicans.  Yes, the Dems are the obvious target.  They have control of the entire government right now, they stole the election and are implementing their agenda at warp speed.  However, while they are the obvious target, they are not the primary target.  The chief enemy that we are going to have to root out is the Republican Party.  I know that Ronald Reagan made the 11th Commandment famous, which states:  Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.  In today's political landscape, that is simply an impossible command to follow.  The Republican Party is filled with RINOs:  Republicans in Name Only.  In reality, they are Democrats that have infiltrated our party.  In other words, they are wolves in sheep's clothing.  They'll spout Conservative talking points in front of the cameras, during interviews and on their social media accounts, but when push comes to shove they never truly govern the way we elected them to.  This puts us in a difficult position.  We are their bosses, yet they refuse to implement our wishes.  They continually strip us of our Constitutionally protected rights.  They are fighting against us instead of for us.

The Editor says...
Even if all that is true, and it may be, to save the country and restore the good old days, you would also have to overcome and defeat the IRS, the FBI, the EPA, the NSA, the activist judges, the "mainstream" news media, BLM (and their corporate sponsors), Antifa (ditto), the mentally ill people camping in the streets, and at least half of these guys.  Good luck with that.

Republicans Fall For Biden's Infrastructure 'Bait and Switch'.  Senator Lindsey Graham is usually a mild-mannered sort of fellow, not given to outbursts of anger.  But Graham couldn't contain himself after the White House announced a slight alteration in the bipartisan infrastructure bill recently agreed to by the White House and Senate that Graham said makes the GOP look like "[...] idiots."  Indeed, it does.  Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer informed the Republicans that if they want that infrastructure deal, they're going to have to pass the rest of Biden's multi-trillion-dollar agenda.

Republicans Are on the Verge of Giving Up All Their Negotiating Power.  Never discount the possibility that the Republican party will screw everything up.  If Chuck Schumer is telling the truth — which, I grant, is a big if — the GOP is about to solve the Democrats' political quandary for them, at the cost of trillions of dollars of your money: [...] If Schumer is telling the truth when he says that the Senate will do both bills — and again, one can never be sure — Republicans have decided to give up all their negotiating power and, in effect, to permit the spending of trillions of dollars (the Democrats want six trillion!) that they oppose.  Remind me what the point of this party is again?

Why Is Republican-Run Indiana Letting Tax Dollars Fund Critical Race Theory?  State agencies in Republican-controlled Indiana are providing taxpayer dollars and marketing assistance to a far-left organization that is bringing two prominent critical race theory activists to a statewide teachers' conference this summer.  Indiana Black Expo, a group that bills itself as "celebrat[ing] cultural diversity and inclusiveness across all races, ethnicities, nationalities, generations, socioeconomic levels and religious affiliations," will host its annual education conference from July 13 to 15.  Dena Simmons and Dr. Bettina L. Love, two activists who frequently rake in thousands from taxpayers to lecture on "systemic racism," will deliver keynote speeches.  Both did not respond to The Federalist's request for comment.

To Stage the Counter-Counter-Revolution, GOP Must Learn From Lenin.  For too long, conservatives have been on the back foot, constantly reacting to the Left's ongoing provocations and, mostly fruitlessly, attempting either to resist them or roll them back.  From gay marriage to transsexuals in the military — both long thought not only unthinkable but, in the case of the latter, unbelievable — has been but the work of a few years.  During the same period, not a single major conservative policy has been enacted, in part because the Republican Party is engaged in defense, when it should be on offense.  The Trump administration managed briefly to roll back via executive order some of the most egregious excesses of the Obama administration, but it failed to finish off Obamacare — thanks, John McCain! — and even its legislative victories, such as tax reform, are in the process of being swiftly negated, thanks to the Democrats' narrow control of both houses of Congress.

Voting Rights:  It's 'Racist ' Not to Let Democrats Cheat.  Why aren't Republicans screaming from the rooftops about the Democrats' plans to change voting rules to give themselves an advantage?  Their sleazy election bills, HR 1, the "For the People Act," and HR 4, the "John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act," are intended to help Democrats win majorities in both houses of Congress, at which point they will ignore Republicans entirely, end the filibuster, and pass everything in AOC's Dream Journal — amnesty, gun control, a wealth tax, and a rainbows and unicorns energy bill.  So it's kind of important for Republicans to kill these bills in the crib.  It shouldn't be hard.  All they have to do is tell people what's in them.

The Failure Is the Point.  [Scroll down]  Many supposed conservative commentators (which neither of the above really are anymore) have spent years telling Republicans to fight cultural battles at the local level with a ground-up approach.  Now that parents are doing that, they suddenly decide this is yet another battle that should be preemptively surrendered.  Convenient, right?  Whether these people are surrendering on vaccine passports, mask mandates, lockdowns, Joe Biden's crappy foreign policy, the biased mainstream media, big tech, or transgender ideology being pushed on kids, the trend is clear.  The only thing you can get these guys to agree to fight for is corporate tax rates.  There's a reason Never Trump is quickly becoming Never DeSantis as well.  None of this is by chance.  Rather, it's calculated.  Any battle Republicans might win must not be fought.  The failure is the point.

The Award for Worst Political Strategy in History Goes to Republicans Who Sided with Communist-Democrats in Stealing 2020 Election.  It's pretty clear after decades of failures and the rise of the Marxist left in the US that Republicans are not the brightest politicians and strategists.  They somehow stumble into wins.  Their policies make sense and most Americans agree with these policies.  But Republicans have a knack for losing even when wins are handed to them.  So it's should be no surprise that Republicans would own the uncoveted award of worst politicians ever.  The Republicans were blessed with candidate Trump in 2016.  He was the only person who could have beaten the Hillary Clinton machine.  He did this because he was everything that the Clintons and most politicians were not.  He was independent and was owned by no one.  He was honest, too honest for the media and his enemies.  He had the smarts that many of the politicians in Washington DC today lack.  But overall, candidate Trump was an outsider.  He didn't have years of political life and lies.

To Save The Republican Party, the GOP Must Die.  Having exhausted their support from corporations and the religious right, the GOP establishment is now in a race to the bottom of identity politics.  They call it recruitment, but I call it debasement.  Whether promoting record numbers of female or minority candidates or elevating the Caitlyn Jenners of the political world, the GOP has lifted a page from the Democrat playbook.  The American Left is quick to pounce on conservative minority candidates as tokenism, and, the way in which they are paraded around specifically on their minority status, I have a hard time disagreeing with the label.  Identity politics is the entire electoral strategy of the American Left, so if anyone knows tokenism it's the Left.

Senate Republicans propose allowing states to redirect federal funds to debt reduction.  Senate Republicans will introduce legislation Thursday [4/20/2021] to allow state and local governments to redirect federal government grants they receive to go toward paying down the growing national debt instead.  In particular, the bill would ensure that Democratic-led blue states don't end up receiving federal funds that red states have rejected.  GOP Sens. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Rick Scott of Florida are set to introduce the Pay Down the Debt Act of 2021 to give state and local leaders the power to take concrete steps to reduce the federal debt.

The Editor says...
I'm no economist, so tell me how that's supposed to work.  The federal government prints up a bunch of money, borrowed from the national debt.  Then the states take the money, and instead of spending it, they send it back to the federal government to pay down the debt.  That won't affect the debt at all.  The federal government could eliminate the middle-man and just print $20 trillion, and then have a big ceremony at which they drop all that cash into an enormous made-for-TV piggy bank.  The effect is the same.  This kind of shell game is something you'd expect from the Democrats!

Republican Royalty Has Been Dethroned.  The last few weeks have not been a happy time for the royalty which once ruled the Republican Party.  Liz Cheney lost her leadership role in the House Republican Conference.  Mitt Romney was not met with overwhelming acclaim at the Utah Republican Convention.  And former President George W. Bush did an interview which again demonstrated his irrelevance to both his party and the country.  The GOP's royal families — the Bushes, Romneys and Cheneys — view the party as their patrimony.  Romney is the son of a governor who ran for president in 1964.  Founded by Senator Prescott Bush, the Bush dynasty has included congressmen, governors and two presidents.  Liz Cheney is the daughter of a vice president.  The Republican royalty despise Donald Trump.  He may have Mar-a-Lago, but he's not a member of their country club.

How do people like this get elected?
Ilhan Omar has higher conservative rating than Elise Stefanik, according to Club for Growth.  Conservative PAC Club for Growth gives Rep. Ilhan Omar a higher conservative rating than the new House GOP conference chair, Rep. Elise Stefanik.  The Minnesota Democrat has a 38% conservative rating, according to Club for Growth, and Stefanik, R-N.Y., the new No. 3 Republican, scored 35%.  Stefanik's opponent in the GOP conference chair race, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, scored a perfect 100%, and was endorsed by the group.  Stefanik also received relatively low scores from the American Conservative Union and the conservative group Heritage Action.  Stefanik, however, had the backing of former President Trump and other leading House Republicans.  Stefanik voted against certifying the election in favor of President Biden but Roy did not.

GOP: Seek Not Phony Bipartisanship.  Save the Nation.  Why would Republicans fall for the Democrats' age-old ploy of pressuring them into working on "bipartisan" legislation that will only advance the Democratic agenda and damage the nation?  Indeed, what's the point in the GOP puffing up its chest about ousting Liz Cheney from her House leadership position if they're just going to turn around and behave like never-Trumpers by caving on President Biden's agenda?  Why would they play footsy with the most militantly leftist party in American history?  That can't possibly be good for America, nor can it be good for their political fortunes, as voters don't want them to be spineless wimps.  Republicans need to do more than just talk.  They must summon all of their power to block Biden's disastrous agenda — not for the sake of partisan obstructionism but for the sake of the nation.

The three faces of the Republican Party.  Thanks to Donald Trump, we can all clearly see who among our officials actually represents the American people who elected them; which members of Congress are interested only in keeping their seats; and those who passively align themselves with the Democrats to push our republic into a version of communist China with a social credit system, struggle sessions, and mandatory submission to an all-powerful government that would make Mao and Stalin proud.  Far too many of them are sitting still for this.  The Republican Party is in serious disarray; it's fractured.  Yellow-bellies like Kevin McCarthy are the majority, and the open NeverTrumps are traitors to their constituents.  Where do they all seem to work together?  When confirming Biden's dismal appointees to high office within his illegitimate administration.  They are all awful!  William Burns for CIA has numerous links to the Communist Party of China; Susan Hennessey to the DOJ is a confirmed rabid Russia hoaxer.  Lisa Monaco probably ordered the raid on Giuliani.  On this one score, their three faces meld into one insipid like-mind that cravenly submits to the most radical administration in U.S. history.  Republicans never fight as the Dems do.  They capitulate.  The Democrats never capitulate; they fight like the thugs they are.

Six Insane and Idiotic Positions by Democrats, and How Republicans Should Respond.  Regardless of the issue, the most fundamental aspect of any Republican response to Democrats needs to be an insistence to stand by conservative principles.  Democrats are all over the place.  One minute they're beating the drum for defunding the police, and the next minute they're backtracking on what "defund" means.  Voting Republican should mean voting conservative, and that will be a winning strategy.  Conservatism works and leftism doesn't.  Leftism is just a lie.  So, stick to your guns GOP, and have some backbone.

Are Republicans serious about defending your right to bear arms?  Twenty states have passed "Constitutional Carry" laws in anticipation of another Democrat gun grab.  While open carry and concealed carry without permit is a shot across the bow, let's not get misty.  Gun control is one of two issues Republicans roll out every election, abortion being the other one, even though they lost that.  They also lost on marriage.  Why tempt fate?  Because Republicans think their constituents are knuckle-dragging white supremacists and religious fanatics.  They won't say that.  They just let Democrats say that unchallenged.  But times are tough for Republicans.  They are losing their Facebook accounts. [...] And don't expect any mighty Republican to stand up against that victim you "brutally murdered."  That's how Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) still refers to George Floyd.

The Left is credited with having good intentions.  [Thread reader]  Unfortunately, the Left is dedicated to attacking the very moral and philosophical pillars of the American republic and Western civilization, and they utterly dominate culture and academia, so conceding good intentions is a zero-sum game.  This is why so many GOP politicians and conservative pundits are of little use in pitched political battle, or eagerly turn against other conservatives.  Having conceded the good intentions of the Left, they have also tacitly agreed to question the intentions of their own side.  Some of the more absurd pronouncements of NeverTrump types over the past few years can be viewed in this light.  They made their peace with left-wing radicalism and do what they can to apologize for it.  They internalize the Left's critique of less pliable conservatives.

When it comes to GOP failings, Tucker Carlson names a name.  Tucker Carlson opened Friday night's show with rather unique information.  The rhetorical question was why the Republican leadership is so disconnected from Republican voters.  One of the reasons, he said, is Frank Luntz.  For decades, Luntz has been giving the GOP leadership its talking points.  The problem is that Luntz is not a conservative; he is a corporate servant and his points always align with corporate America — and lately, corporate America has been aligning with the woke left. [...] Frank Luntz is a man who has no loyalty, yet the Republican party leadership is incredibly loyal to him.  He's the one who tells them that Republican voters love illegal immigration, want amnesty, and think it's a great idea for the government to take their weapons.

Where are the Republican Lawsuits Under the Administrative Procedures Act?  What passes for Republican "leadership" in Congress these days is timid, feckless, uncoordinated, corrupt, and ineffective in the face of the ongoing left-wing Democrat onslaught.  Where is the pushback against the Democrats' socialist policies?  Where is the grand national Republican Party leadership?  We see it only at the state level, where legislatures are passing new election security laws, Second Amendment protections, laws contrary to federal masking guidelines, and challenges to federal inaction at the Mexican border. [...] But where is the coordinated national-level Republican counterattack against The Hologram's myriad left-wing executive orders and proclamations?  Where is the Republican National Committee?  Where is the national Republican communication strategy, including daily press conferences, to expose the lunacy of the Democrats' actions?  As usual, the Senate RINOs are making vapid public statements, dabbling in the arcane, and practicing "Democrat-lite" policies with their slimmed-down version of an infrastructure bill reminding us of their past slimmed-down bills that went nowhere (e.g., bailouts, healthcare, etc.).

Bush Republicanism Must Go Away.  The Democratic Party is actively trying to start a race war in the United States, and George Bush thinks it's Republican voters who need lessons in humanity and fellowship.  Bush is on the media circuit these days pushing amnesty (while calling it anything but!) for millions of foreign nationals who have entered the country illegally; lecturing Republican voters on being "more respectful about the immigrant"; and trying desperately to reclaim the Republican Party as the slightly less socialist wing of the Uniparty where neoconservative, offshoring, job-destroying, globalist-advancing, Chamber of Commerce-approved, multinationals-funded, (secret) limousine liberal, military-adventuring, surveillance state, Big Government devotees who follow in the footsteps of Nelson Rockefeller while feigning allegiance to President Reagan's "revolution" can offer Americans the opportunity of voting against Democratic Party by pushing a platform identical to the Democrats' own policies ten years earlier.

It's Time for Republican Politicians to Get Tough with Corporations That Target Conservatives.  Because conservatives love the free market, don't hate the rich, and generally understand that having successful corporations is a good thing for the country, we're cheap dates for businesses.  These corporations know that when it comes time to cut taxes, cut regulations, kneecap unions, or generally make life easier for them, conservatives are going to be there for them.  The problem is that this isn't a mutually beneficial relationship.  The corporations are happy to use conservatives when it's convenient for them, but meanwhile, they're wining and dining the Left on a regular basis.  This is not how it should work.  For example, even if it's not to the advantage of unions to support Democrats over the short haul, they stick with the Left because they understand where their bread is going to be buttered over the long run.  On the other hand, many corporations have made a very different calculation.  These businesses think conservative politicians are so stupid that they will continue to blindly support corporations that spit in their faces while liberal politicians can be brought over to their side if they are wooed.  Guess what?  For the most part, that assessment has turned out to be correct.  Grassroots conservatives may get spitting mad at corporations that make a big deal about being woke, but for the most part, Republican politicians have given them a free ride.

What the Professional UniParty, Including Republicans, Have Intentionally Kept Hidden From The American Voter.  It is critical that people understand the landscape.  Underline it.  Study it.  Research the issues and teach everyone about it.  Consider if you will, the backdrop of current U.S. politics; the influence of Wall Street and the multinationals who align with globalism; the reality of K-Street lobbyists writing the physical legislation that politicians sell to Americans; and then overlay what you are witnessing as those same multinationals now attack the foundation of our constitutional republic.  All of this is CORPORATISM, a continuum that people were ignoring for decades.  Now, thankfully, there is a new awakening.

GOP Freshmen Stand Up to 'Surrender Caucus'.  If you needed a reminder that the swamp is alive and well, look no further than the recent vote by the House Republican Conference to bring pork-barrel spending back to Congress.  Egged on, no doubt, by the special interests that fund their campaigns, 102 Republicans — who identify as conservatives when campaigning — just decided to undo one of the biggest accomplishments of the Tea Party era.  Now, Senate Republicans are similarly considering a proposal to follow suit.  If this isn't a sign that Congressional Republicans need new leadership in Washington, I don't know what is.  The good news is that a new group of freshman Republicans who are taking Washington by storm may yet return fiscal sanity to their conference.  Unlike D.C. swamp elites who care only about their interests and investments, these bold new leaders promise to serve as the conscience of a caucus that is adrift and hell-bent to normalize the deviancy of Democrats.

Richard Levine highlights the problem of maverick Republicans.  [Scroll down]  During both the Bush and the Trump years, Republicans sometimes controlled both the White House and Congress — yet they still couldn't accomplish diddlysquat.  If the 75-80 million people who voted for Donald Trump want to see a change in 2022 and 2024, they need to start primarying Establishment Republicans immediately.  Otherwise, it's going to be Romneys and Murkowskis all the way down, and endless political losses to go with it.

A Revolution Is Brewing (and Necessary) in the Republican Party.  From several meetings and events I have been to lately, including CPAC, as well as reports from others across the country that I have heard, a revolution is brewing in the Republican Party.  It couldn't be more necessary.  The leadership is having trouble keeping up with a rank-and-file who are increasingly distressed, even appalled, by the rapid changes in our country being instigated by the new administration and its phony claims of collegiality.  With notable exceptions, much of the GOP leadership, elected officials and party officials, have been relatively passive, treating the situation as if it were just another changing of the guard, business as usual, but it is far more than that.

GOP Moves to Save Biden:  We Want Amnesty, Too!  President Joe Biden's immigration bill will put virtually all illegal immigrants on a bullet train to citizenship, provided that they meet the onerous requirement of claiming to have entered the country before Jan. 1, 2021.  Only terrorists and convicted felons are excluded — at least in theory, but past experience suggests they'll get amnesty, too.  Even illegal immigrants who've already been deported will be invited back and given amnesty.  So far, the Republicans' response has been to propose their own amnesty, while throwing in some boob-bait for the rubes about border security.  Even the election of Donald Trump, a ridiculous creature who became president by promising to crack down on illegal immigration and build a wall (promises he ignored), hasn't put a dent in Washington's enthusiasm for overwhelming the country with the third world.  On this, the parties are united!  The only difference is, Republicans lie to the voters about securing the border.

Secret Republican Vote to Restore Earmarks Is a Betrayal of the Voters.  The House Republican Conference vote on Wednesday [3/17/2021] to restore earmarks was a betrayal of the voters, and undermined one of the remaining legacies of the Tea Party.  The vote was close, 102-84, but that is no consolation, especially as it was by secret ballot, preventing voters from holding their representatives accountable.  If Republicans do not hold a revote, they can expect conservatives to stay home in 2022.  They will have blown their chance to retake the House — and will deserve to lose.

Senate Republicans Are Failing Us... Big Time.  The Democratic Party stood virtually united "resisting" Trump for four years.  Their stalwart opposition was ruthless and unwavering.  It had been my hope that if there was any lasting legacy of Trump in the Republican Party it would be that he taught them not just to not walk away from a fight but to actually fight back.  Yet again, I find myself disappointed.  On Wednesday [3/10/2021] the Senate confirmed racial conspiracy theorist Marcia Fudge as HUD secretary, and Merrick Garland as attorney general.  Fudge was confirmed 66-34, and Garland 70-30.  How did Fudge get sixteen Republicans to vote for her confirmation?  And How did Garland get twenty?

Sen. Mike Lee Hops Aboard the 'Too Little, Too Late' Election Fraud Bandwagon.  When Popsicle achieved the impossible by winning fifteen million more votes than Obama did in 2012 while simultaneously losing most bellwether counties and traditional battleground states, was Senator Lee too preoccupied with chasing phantom "white supremacists" in his party and condemning patriotic grandparents as "domestic terrorists" to look around at all the numerical anomalies surrounding the election and wonder, "Does something about this whole thing smell kinda fishy?"  Republican voters could smell the fish guts of the last election from Georgia to Arizona.  They had no problem understanding that mass mail-in balloting had introduced so much untraceable fraud and uncertainty into the election process that nothing about it could be trusted.  Polls in November showed that half the country (including 30% of Democrats!) believed that the fix was in to give Popsicle the win.  That time, not now, was the moment in history for elected Republicans in D.C. to find some resolute principle, set themselves atop it, and stand upright as if with fixed vertebrae.  The war for "election integrity" can't be won by forfeiting its first and most important battle.  The hour to act came and went four months ago.

A tough-on-China GOP is split on whether to boycott the China Olympics.  President Joe Biden is under growing pressure from hawkish Republicans to use the 2022 Winter Olympics to punish the Chinese government over its human rights abuses.  But even within the GOP, there's disagreement over how far to push.  Some are calling on Biden to outright boycott the Beijing Games, which China is hosting.  Others say they oppose boycotts, arguing that only the athletes get punished.  Many are instead pressing Biden to push the International Olympic Committee to revoke China's role as host and stage the Games in another country — or at least to delay the competition.

Trump Tells GOP and Republicans to Quit Using His Name for Fundraising without Permission.  For years the Republican Party has been fundraising off of President Trump's name — even when they were attacking him at the same time.  In 2020 the Republican Party somehow managed to turn a landslide victory for President Trump into a defeat.  The election was filled with impossibilities and obvious fraud.  Much of it was even recorded on video.  But the Republican Party quickly moved on after Joe Biden was declared the winner.  The GOP let the Trump campaign and Trump supporters battle to find the truth of the election.  We can guarantee you The Gateway Pundit did more work to seek the truth and expose the fraud than the GOP did in the past four months.

The GOP's New Strategy Document Shows Party Leaders Still Don't Get It.  The Republican Party's leaders still don't get it.  That's the big takeaway from a newly-released strategy document from the largest Super PAC backing Republican House candidates.  The Congressional Leadership Fund spent $140 million in the 2020 cycle, and could very well spend even more in 2022.  It will hold enormous sway over what candidates are recruited in next year's House races, and what their message is.  Republicans substantially outperformed expectations in 2020's House elections.  While more forecasters predicted Democrats would gain a dozen seats or more, they instead lost 13 and emerged with one of the narrowest House majorities ever.  There were many reasons for those gains.  President Trump drove a dramatic surge in Republican turnout, but it was more than that.  Millions of voters saw Democrats push an agenda of mass rioting and cultural arson and were understandably repulsed.  Many voted for Republican House members even when they didn't vote for Trump himself.

A New Zealander's 9 'Starter Steps' to Save America From Socialism.  [#4] Close the Republican Primaries Immediately:  This should be a no-brainer, but no one is talking about it.  Only five U.S. states have truly closed Republican primaries.  This means that in most states Democrats and Independents (even communists) can vote in Republican primaries — and they do.  All over the country, the GOP's enemies vote in Republican primaries to pick the weakest, most wimpy candidate they can.  That's why the Republican base is super patriotic but most of their elected representatives in most states vote like "progressive" Democrats.  Close the primaries, Republican patriots.  It will transform your party.

Taking the GOP Out Behind the Woodshed.  The sails of the Republican party started to luff early on in the Trump administration when former speaker Paul Ryan, acting more like a beard for his opponents across the aisle, surrendered the gavel after squandering a Republican majority in the House.  In the footsteps of his predecessor, John Boehner, [...] Ryan sidestepped opportunities to solve the issues of healthcare, immigration, and energy independence seemingly out of distaste for a president unvarnished by Beltway politics.  Hamstrung by his own party, President Trump was left to tackle these issues through impermanent executive authority and a shell game of budget reallocations.  In 2018, Republicans were crippled by the loss of the lower chamber and found themselves beaten down by the revolutionary politics of a new generation of young and radicalized House Democrats.  For their part, heavyweight Republicans like Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy exhibited lightweight defiance in the House well, preferring to save their bluster for five-minute monologues on conservative talk shows.

The Merrick Garland nomination shows Republicans at their worst.  Merrick Garland is Biden's nominee for attorney general.  Although presented as a "moderate," he is anything but. [...] This is a man whom Republicans should oppose.  Certainly, if the shoe were on the other foot, the Democrats would oppose him en masse.  The reality is that, because Kamala Harris can break a tie, Garland will get confirmed regardless of Republican actions — but at least the Republicans could make a principled stand.  The problem is that "Republicans" and "principled stand" are not words often paired in a single sentence. [...] As long as voters keep sending the same anti-American, pro-Chinese incumbents back to D.C., we'll get the same outcome:  a congressional uniparty that is entirely Democrat in its policies.

The GOP's 2024 Race Will Be Brutal And It's a Fight We Need to Have.  The GOP is in the midst of a civil war to determine if it's going to be the party of normal people who want freedom and prosperity, or return to being the party of donor-suckling corporate shills carefully overseeing our country's descent into ruin. [...] The last election, as much of a fiasco as it was, did offer some good omens for America First.  Minority voters voted Republican in unexpected numbers.  GOP candidates did very well in the House races.  And we know a bunch more Republican senators would have voted to convict President Trump if they had not been so terrified of our wrath.  This is good — we want Republican officials in a permanent state of terror over our wrath.

Gaetz: Establishment GOP working hard to take party away from Trump-inspired 'America First wing'.  Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz said Sunday that the GOP was now solidly a pro-President Donald Trump party, and that rank-and-file voters have no interest in going back to "losing politely" with so-called "establishment" candidates.  In an interview with Fox News' Steve Hilton, Gaetz responded to the host's monologue in which he said Republicans appear divided and more focused on attacking each other than President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party's policies.  "After the 'Art of the Deal' comes the art of the comeback," Gaetz, in reference to a book by the former president, said as he began his response.  "I believe the future of the GOP is another candidacy for President Trump in 2024."

McConnell's Bitter Turtle Soup.  [Scroll down]  McConnell should have mocked the whole [impeachment] affair as obscene.  Instead, his decision to browbeat the president right after finding him "not guilty" reeked of cowardice.  He gave every appearance of having raised a wet index finger in the air before determining how to proceed, and when it was clear from recent polling that Republican voters had not abandoned President Trump en masse, as McConnell no doubt had hoped, the minority leader decided to turn King Solomon's wisdom on its head by cutting the impeachment baby squarely in half — acquitting the president on procedural grounds while verbally excoriating him nonetheless.  It was a striking reminder that, with President Trump now sidelined from power, two-faced, stand-for-nothing Republican leadership is back on top.  O glory days!  And McConnell would rather destroy the MAGA movement than ever win again. [...] If the Republican Party does, indeed, wither and die in the near future, it is this kind of underhanded duplicity that will finally do it in.

'Americans' appetite for a third party has never been greater': Gallup poll.  Interest in a third political party is intensifying and now has reached an unprecedented level of approval according to a new Gallup poll.  "Americans' appetite for a third party has never been greater in Gallup's nearly two decades of polling on the subject, and now a majority of Republicans are joining the usual majority of independents in wanting that option," wrote senior editor Jeffrey M. Jones in an analysis released Monday [2/15/2021].  "Sixty-two percent of U.S. adults say the 'parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed,' an increase from 57% in September," he said.

Conservatives Must Read Marx.  Conservatives don't like to think of themselves as a class.  They reject Marx's definition of history as class struggle.  Life isn't 100 percent economic and human beings have souls that transcend politics.  OK — but the Woke don't care.  They treat you as a class, and it works.  They target your livelihood, so you better start thinking about a better response than "That's not right."

70 Percent of Republicans Would Consider Joining Trump-Led Party, Poll Finds.  More than two-thirds of Republicans would join or consider joining a new political party if former President Donald Trump were to start one, a CBS News poll suggests.  Thirty-three percent of Republicans participating in the survey, conducted between Feb. 5 and Feb. 8, said they would join a Trump-led breakaway party.  Another 37 percent said "maybe" they would join the new party, while the remaining 30 percent said they would stay with the Republican Party.  The poll was conducted among 2,508 adults living in the United States by YouGov, a London-based online polling company, with a plus/minus 2.3 point error margin. [...] In addition, 46 percent of respondents identified as Republicans said they believe it is "very important" for the party to remain loyal to Trump, with 27 percent saying it is "somewhat important."  Fifteen percent said the Republican loyalty to Trump is "not too important" and twelve percent said it is not important at all.

Calling out the Unholy Six Republican senators who voted to advance Trump's impeachment trial.  What profit is there in turning to Republicans for succor against the self-aggrandizing, tyrannical Democrats if they lack the will to call to account the GOP turncoats in their own ranks?  It is to be expected that the power-mad Democrats will place themselves not only above the law, but above our Constitution.  It is unforgivable for elected Republicans to ignore people in their own ranks who are no more committed to the rule of law, to the Constitution, than the malevolent Democrats.  The readiness of the Unholy Six to accept the lie of the Democrats that this affront to the Constitution is acceptable is indication enough that these six sorry servants of the left will accept all the lies the rabid left hurls at and heaps upon private citizen Trump, including the malicious accusations that he incited the January 6 events at the Capitol.

The Problem for Republicans Isn't Unity, It's Reality.  What does the recent vote keeping Liz Cheney in her leadership role among House Republicans mean?  It means that the Republican Party may try to claim unity around establishment ideas, but it also means they are not serious about representing the interests of Republican voters.  Despite reports of a possible loss, Cheney retained her leadership role among Republicans in the House of Representatives.  But what does Cheney "represent"?  What issues have she and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who backed her in the vote, led on?  What issues are they passionate about?  Every establishment Republican has this same problem.  What do they stand for?  What are they fighting for in Congress?

Dems' COVID-19 Bill Is A Grab-Bag Of Leftist Goodies — Not Stimulus.  After a group of 10 Senate Republicans duly trudged to the White House on Monday to show their "bipartisanship" on yet another COVID-19 stimulus bill, President Joe Biden did the predictable:  He looked at their outreached hand of political comity and spat on it.  Just as well, since the only thing the Democrats' plan will "stimulate" will be more debt.  Biden and his party were never really interested in bipartisanship at all, despite their claims to the contrary.  The whole point of this choreographed Kabuki political theater was to humiliate the Republicans, who foolishly took Biden and the Democrats at their word.

The Death of Civic Nationalism.  The story of the past forty years is civic nationalists trying to figure how to make the system work to their advantage.  They did not get what they wanted from Reagan but were told it was because the Democrats controlled Congress.  In the 1990s, they put the Republicans in charge of Congress.  When that did not work, they were told it was because a Democrat was in the White House.  Finally, at the turn of the century the dream was realized.  Conservatives controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House.  Not only was Bush a conservative, but he was also an evangelical Christian who liked to talk about Jesus in public.  The great fusion of cultural and economic conservatives had been made real.  The result, however, was the complete opposite of everything middle-class whites had been told about conservatism.

The political storm ahead.  The cabal of Big Tech, the Deep State, and the progressive/socialist party is for all practical purposes ignoring and curtailing the Bill of Rights.  At this time, the Thought Police appear to be winning.  This "Digital Kristallnacht" by Big Tech oligarchs is moving forward without impediment. [...] Since the controversial Election of 2020, The left has "disappeared" citizens, outlawed free association, cancelled books, had people fired or made them unemployable because they thought or voted in a different way.  This new regime has actually discussed publicly, re-education camps.  Publishers are being threatened.  This Orwellian dystopia from the left will get worse before it gets better.  It appears the only prominent souls brave enough to take on this regime are Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, and Donald Trump.  For the most part the opposition party, the GOP, is oddly quiet and mute.  Most of the GOP leadership seem to be hiding from this storm under the covers.  Some actually appear to resemble those Frenchman who sided with the Nazis when the Germans overran France.  Very few at this time appear to be a part of the Resistance.

Rush Limbaugh Sends Dire Warning After GOP Plans To Get Rid Of The "MAGA" Movement.  Rush Limbaugh spent a portion of his program on Friday [1/29/2021] discussing what he believes is more treachery by the GOP establishment as it seeks to 'cleanse' the party of Trumpism — which most realistic analysts believe, at this point, would be political suicide.  And that's precisely the point, the conservative talk king noted.  Limbaugh, who has long since been known for his keen intellect and ability to see through the political chaff, said that the GOP elites won't have a problem at all becoming the minority party for the foreseeable future if it means the end of the MAGA movement — much like the RINO elite opposed the conservative populism of the Tea Party movement a decade ago.

One week in, Biden administration shows its exquisite cruelty.  [Scroll down]  How's that for the end of our democratic republic?  And DHS is about to surveil all conservatives as potential domestic terrorists.  They've done this without a shred of evidence or threat.  It is clear that they hope to incite a few militia types to make their case for eavesdropping on us all.  Within one week, this new and illegitimate administration has revealed itself to be the most fascist, the most illiberal in U.S. history.  These people intend to continue to use COVID as a weapon, the vaccine as a weapon, a second faux impeachment as a weapon.  Where is the mass press conference attended by every Republican in Congress?  Why are they not on every cable news program decrying what the left is doing?  We must be grateful for Cruz, Hawley, Johnson, Jordan, Gaetz, et al., who are the precious few doing what each and every one of them should be doing:  fighting back as if our lives depended upon their fighting back.

[Dispense] With Unity.  The recent betrayal by Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is a reminder that the ruling class in Washington, D.C. values nothing so highly as being the ruling class in Washington, D.C.  Offer them a choice between maintaining a "good working relationship with their colleagues across the aisle" on the one hand, and democracy on the other, and they'll stick with their colleagues:  Their daily lives change little no matter who is in power.  Their priority is that they be able to chat amicably at parties with people who just called them liars on cable TV.  It's just politics, after all.  It's just a game.  They don't feel the effects of their policies because they live in the one city in America that gets wealthier when the economy gets worse.  But ordinary people will feel the effects.

What to Do Now?  Here's former Republican Majority Leader McConnell on the floor of the Senate proclaiming, "The mob was fed lies.  They were provoked by the president and other powerful people."  And then comes Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy on the House floor:  "The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters."  Then he suggested censure of Trump instead of a second impeachment. [...] Deserting their party's president and bloodying him with false accusations, a president who won the loyalty of 90 plus percent of their party, who is justly celebrated for his achievements by over 74 million who voted for him, who has won more Black and Hispanic votes than any Republican president in history, isn't only disloyal.  It's staggeringly stupid.

A New Party:  Recipe for Failure.  A major theme among conservatives over the past few weeks is that "Donald Trump should start a new party" — the American Conservative party, the American Patriot party, or something similar.  The impulse behind this is understandable, considering the collapse of the GOP in the face of open electoral fraud and the Capitol false-flag operation, in which we learned that it's okay for a cop to shoot an unarmed white woman if she's a Trump supporter, not to mention the ratlike scurrying to appease the Democrats that we've seen in the days since.  GOP behavior throughout all this has been a disgrace.  It might be going too far to say that Republicans actually worked with the Left, but when we look at such creeps as Pat Toomey, Betsy DeVos, or Brett Kavanaugh, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that they just don't care one way or another.  Without question the party has deteriorated into a slimy gang of backstabbers, hustlers, and opportunists, so bad they're even inept at their cheap hustles.  There are exceptions, yes, but they are not in the majority.  But despite all this, a new party would still be a mistake.

Stop the Third Party Insanity.  Let's look at the big picture.  The design of the Constitution essentially mandates a two-party system.  A third party has never won the presidency, and one rarely wins legislative seats.  Usually, such candidates call themselves "independents," but Democrats know they are really Democrats and understand this is just a ploy to appeal to the suckers.  There is always going to be a party of the left, and a party of the right, with the battle over the middle.  A party getting 55 percent of the vote is considered to have won in a landslide.  America is that closely divided.  For our sins, the party of the right is the Republican Party.  And math says we are stuck with it.

Mitt Romney Shares His Picks for the Future of the GOP, and Laughter Abounds.  [Scroll down]  I'm trying to think of three worse names to put out there as the future of the party than Chris Christie, Larry Hogan, and Ben Sasse.  Christie and Hogan are northeastern moderates who lack just about everything needed to bring the GOP voter base back to the table.  Hogan, specifically, is pro-abortion, pro-gun control, and pro-crony capitalism.  He's like Mitt Romney if Mitt Romney stopped going to the gym.  Meanwhile, Ben Sasse is the consummate do-nothing, rattling off statements from his office while never accomplishing anything of value.

'Moving on from President Trump' is a Failing Strategy for the GOP.  From the moment President Trump took office in 2017, the GOP almost instantaneously morphed into a strong political party helmed by a non-politician.  Under Trump's lead, the once weak-spine, dull, and globalist-focused party transitioned into the people's party.  Although a registered Republican since the age of 18, I was never enthused about any Republican candidate; in fact, I would often stall at the polling booth and ponder if the Democrat candidate would be a better choice — on more than one occasion I ended up voting for the opposite side.  Trump brought energy to his adoptive party not seen since President Reagan.

GOP pigs go full 'Animal Farm' and stab Trump in the back.  Trump rose to power on promises of Make America Great Again and vows to put America First — meaning, American citizens first.  And he did.  He ticked off the Democrats.  He ticked off the globalists.  He ticked off the Democrat-leaning, globalist-minded Republicans.  Republicans, in fact, were among his worst political enemies for the length of his entire presidency.  Remember his starting days, when he had a Republican-controlled Senate, a Republican-controlled House, and Republicans refused to work to pass his agenda, forcing him to turn to executive orders, instead?  When Trump refused to back down and bow down and do the elitist political thing and work with the globalists, his Republican enemies changed tactics and simply quieted down a bit.  They worked with the president; actually, they pretended to work with the president.  As it now shows, as it's now proven with the 10 "off with his head" pro-impeachment, anti-Trump Republicans — they simply pretended to work with the president, biding their time, waiting their days, to take revenge.

The RINOs Never Learn.  The squishes are almost childlike in their belief that if they only submit to the Establishment hard enough by offering gooey platitudes everything will work out fine for them, like a kid who keeps hoping that this time Santa's really leaving a pony under the tree.  But some people on the right need to understand and accept that there's no kraken, and others on the right need to understand and accept that there's no pony.  The Jeb!  Faction thinks it's riding high now.  Please clap as you see the media elevate them, and why not?  They do the Establishment's bidding.  Liz Cheney gave what used to be her prestige over to Impeachment II: Electoral Boogaloo and got a lot of praise from the libs for that, followed by more hatred from the libs.  That's the thing about ostentatiously showing off your alleged principles whenever they require you to shaft your own side — the other side is never impressed by your moral purity.  In fact, it's laughing at you.  It's happy to benefit from your petty treason, but it still hates you and you're still practically Hitler.

Where to Find a Principled Right-Wing Party.  During the Cold War, Soviet propagandists mocked the American political system by pointing out that its two major parties are the same. [...] In every election, people are forced to choose the lesser evil.  This is a completely abnormal situation that runs counter to the democratic order and damages mostly the right-wing adherents. [...] Some people hope that the GOP could be hijacked by "true republicans" and reformed.  They could not be more wrong, as historical analysis shows that such attempts were made before, and all of them failed.  At any given time, the GOP has "mavericks" who go "across the aisle" and are ready to stab you in the back.  The GOP cannot be transformed since it is firmly established in the Washington swamp, and any innovative ideas will be drowned in the quagmire.

The Glass-Jawed Party.  It never fails.  A setback occurs, and rather than rolling their sleeves and getting to work, they collapse into bawling, whining puddles.  They're like a glass-jawed boxer who take a hit and goes down immediately.  But instead of hauling themselves back to their feet and slugging away, they just lie there, sobbing, "It's over... there's no point... wave goodbye to Lady Liberty for me..."  There's nothing new about this.  During the Obama epoch it was eight years of, "Obama is eight feet tall.  Obama can walk through walls.  He can see you and you can't see him..."  It was the end of the Republic, we were told repeatedly.  No alternative, no way out.  Time to wave the white flag.  Before that, it was Bill and Hillary, and before that, LBJ and the Great Society, and I'm sure, FDR's endless reign.  It never changes.  Conservatives are the people who give up and give in, who consistently snatch victory form the jaws of defeat, who can't go that last mile.

The Madness of the Arizona GOP.  What is the point of a political party bent on renouncing its own members?  A party exists for two purposes:  to win elections, and to govern as its members want.  The two goals are sometimes in tension:  Parties should aspire to a big tent at election time, but not such a big tent that they can never agree on how to govern.  A party must be willing to govern in ways that drive away some voters, or it will never attract any voters.  And on rare occasions, it may need to renounce people who falsely claim to represent it, if it wishes to promote a coherent message.  But it should not practice subtraction without the prospect of addition.  The recent actions of the Republican Party of Arizona make no sense from any of these perspectives.

I Am Done.  [Scroll down]  Raised to be a Republican, I held my nose and voted for Bush, the Texas-talking blue blood from Connecticut who lied us into 2 wars and gave us the unpatriotic Patriot Act.  I voted for McCain, the sociopathic neocon songbird "hero" that torpedoed the attempt to kill the Obamacare that's killing my family financially.  I held it again and voted for Romney, the vulture capitalist skunk that masquerades as a Republican while slithering over to the Democrat camp as often as they'll tolerate his oily, loathsome presence.  And I voted for Trump, who, if he did nothing else, at least gave a resounding Bronx cheer to the richly deserving smug hypocrites of DC.  Thank you for that Mr. President, on behalf of all of us nobodies.

A Trump Future Candidacy Isn't What Democrats and RINOs Are Afraid Of.  Well, folks, our Paladin has set yet another record, that being the only President to be impeached twice... and in a single year no less.  How awesome is that?! Once again the old saw applies:  Taking flak?  You must be over the target.  President Trump is indeed over the target. [...] There is a reason the term Uniparty has become a common term in conservative circles.  As I heard Newt Gingrich once quip, There isn't a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats, just about who gets to spend the money.  The former Speaker and author of the "Contract For America," is correct, especially among the membership of the Senate, where there appears to be more emphasis on "collegiality," at least by Republicans, than representing the Americans who sent them to DC.  President Donald J. Trump upended a lot of that, starting with his campaign.

Rand Paul Warns One Third of Republicans Will Leave Party if GOP Senators Back Impeachment.  Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) warned Friday that one third of Republican voters could leave the party if GOP senators vote in impeachment proceedings to convict President Trump.  Paul made the comments in an interview on Fox News's The Ingraham Angle.  The senator's remarks come amid an increasing divide between congressional Republicans who oppose impeaching the president, and a smaller number who support the measure following the riots at the Capitol on January 6.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) is reportedly hopeful that Republicans can use impeachment to purge Trump from the GOP, although he would need the support of at least 16 additional Republican senators to vote to convict.

The Unwanted Ghost of Trump?  Robert W. Merry of The American Conservative has written a commentary calling on Republicans to hold on to pieces of the Trump legacy while ridding themselves of their "toxic" leader. [...] How exactly does Merry intend to make Trump's base forget about their leader? [...] No other American politician, certainly not Sleepy Joe who continues to ooze sympathy for Black Lives Matter, enjoys a level of popularity comparable to Trump's.  How does Merry propose to exorcise "the ghost of Trump" hovering over his constituency?  Are we supposed to offer these voters, who would walk over glass with bare feet for their leader, a more palatable mainstream alternative?  I cannot think of any substitute for Trump who has Trump's support among so many Americans.  Can Merry?  I'm also at a loss to know where Merry believes we can find all of these moderates who would join the renamed and reconditioned Trumpites.

Our Leaders Have Betrayed Us.  [Scroll down]  The Republican-led state legislatures also failed us, by nonchalantly observing this multi-pronged attack by the Democrats to remove all the fail-safe mechanisms protecting voter integrity.  Many of us who watched the post-election testimony of Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Colonel Philip Waldron, Jovan Pulitzer and others before state legislative committees in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and elsewhere were heartened at what appeared to be the sympathetic response of Republican legislators.  Instead, we should have been appalled — because they should have known all this beforehand.  They should have fixed these problems, restored the fail-safes and reasserted their constitutional authority while there was still time.  So well before the election and afterwards, the state legislatures failed us.  The sycophantic media didn't fail us because they abandoned their duty to inform the public a generation ago when they became the communications arm of the Democrat party.  Still, it shocked and dismayed many of us to watch Fox News join the Fake News media cabal on Election Night.

The Republican Party Killed Itself.  When voters turn a blind eye to their suspicions that only a UniParty exists in D.C., actively support Republican lawmakers, and find themselves inevitably betrayed by those same lawmakers nonetheless, the sting is particularly fierce.  From the point of view of a Trump-supporter, the Republican Party has wasted a tremendous opportunity.  The "stupid party" looks as if it's achieved peak stupidity.  But from the point of view of D.C. Republicans who have worked to thwart President Trump's agenda for four years, it is a certainty that the only stupid Republicans they see are their own voters. [...] For some Trump-supporters, the choice between authoritarian Democrats and turncoat Republicans is a coin toss.

A message to RINOs — it's time to choose.  A handful of squishy Republicans (RINOs) supported the impeachment of Donald Trump.  To be clear, this effort is little more than rabid wolves baying at the moon.  What could be more impotent than impeaching a President who is leaving office?  All the same, RINO participation in this nonsense very disturbing.  There are a lot of Republicans who want to work across the aisle, just like the old days.  News flash:  This is not politics as usual.  You cannot compromise with people whose values are diametrically opposed to your own.  If you both want to fix the opioid crisis but have different ideas — fine, talk it out and compromise.  However, if one side wants liberty, and the other tyranny, it's foolish to think you can compromise, and immoral to try.

A Window Into Who We Are Dealing With in Congress.  Now that Biden has been "certified," Republican members of Congress who voted "aye" are fanning out in their home states and districts to explain their votes to their constituents.  If the Thursday night's teleconference with Congressman Dustin M. ("Dusty") Johnson (R-SD) was any indication, then Republican voters aren't buying the obviously prepared talking points conveyed by representatives such as Johnson.  Johnson (like many in the political class) is a smooth-talking prevaricator who dances around tough questions using rhetorical tricks like topic-shifting, blame-shifting, and "answering" questions with his own questions while actually avoiding direct answers.  Let us examine some of what transpired.  Many of the questions asked during the call related to specific evidence of election fraud cited and why Congress rushed to certify Biden's election without any examination of any of the evidence.

Republican No More:  The GOP's Existential Crisis.  In the wake of the trauma of the last two months, two inescapable questions emerge.  First, what does it mean to be republican?  And second, does the Republican Party represent those values at all any more?  The answers to both have led me to disaffiliate myself from the GOP after the disgrace that took place in Congress last week, with not just tacit but explicit cooperation from party leadership.  Granted, in Minnesota, it's easy to disaffiliate as the state does not have any affiliation attached to its voter registration process, so the only action necessary is to just tell people you're no longer a member of the party.  Still, at this point it's impossible to act as though Republicans are republican, especially while its leadership makes clear that it doesn't care one whit about the party's own foundational principles.

What is the GOP's Problem?  Scores of Republicans are jumping ship like rats as pressure mounts for Trump's ouster amidst patently absurd accusations he incited the January 6th Capitol riot.  The list of defections grows as GOP senators and representatives denounce the president while White House staff and cabinet members resign in droves.  A few rational analyses exist.  Liberal criminal defense and constitutional law expert, Jonathan Turley states that Trump's speech does not meet the legal definition for inciting violence, and warns that impeachment is foolhardy and sets a dangerous precedent.  But exploiting a crisis is vintage Democrat behavior.  Spineless "going along to get along" antics?  Vintage Republican.  The Hill reports that two anonymous Republican senators bemoan not doing enough to rein in Trump's bad behavior — especially regarding election fraud.  They blame him for inciting the Capitol riot, "inflict[ing] serious [long-term] damage on his party," and losing Georgia by suppressing the vote with his election fraud fantasies — even though turnout was record high and he campaigned in Georgia to adoring crowds, despite weak candidates.

Dan Crenshaw Condemns Fellow Republicans for 'Lying' to Trump Supporters.  Representative Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas) on Thursday [1/7/2021] criticized fellow Republicans for "lying to millions" of people about the significance of Wednesday's electoral vote count, which was delayed for hours after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol during the proceedings.  In an appearance on Fox News, Crenshaw said that while he disagreed with Senators Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) "in a fundamental way about the constitutionality of this process ... and the ability of Congress to overturn any electoral votes," period, that the pair were not to blame for the rioting that erupted on Wednesday.

Big Tech Launches Massive Coordinated Cyber Attack on 74,000,000 Trump Voters — GOP Silent.  Big tech has launched an unprecedented and coordinated cyber attack on President Donald Trump and his 74,000,000 voters.  As this was happening, the GOP was dead silent.  On Friday, Twitter permanently banned hundreds, if not thousands, of Trump supporters and prominent allies — before banning the president himself.  Nearly every account that helped to promote the Stop the Steal rallies or challenge the election results were banned, including Ali Alexander, Michael Coudrey, Gen. Mike Flynn, Sidney Powell, and Lin Wood.  Countless smaller accounts that supported the president were also getting suspended in a seemingly constant rate.  The same has been happening over on Facebook and Instagram.

Doing Better.  [Scroll down]  Ah, yes, finally, the Republican Party.  Every two or four years, there are calls to bolt the GOP.  It fits the definition of insanity:  Saying or doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  This time, a different result needs to happen.  Establishment Republicans are simply irredeemable.  They've been that way since FDR.  They aren't going to change, and repeatedly prove to be a drag on the grassroots or populist conservative movements in the party.  Those movements have produced Goldwater, Nixon (who glommed on to Goldwater's populism), Reagan, and Trump.  But RINOs are the permanent faction in the GOP.  President Trump and others would do MAGA a great favor by spearheading the formation of a new party, call it Liberty, Patriot, or MAGA.  But the grassroots need a new home, free from the inertia, backstabbing, and unctuousness of submissive, jaded Republican lifers.

Welcome to a Wilderness of Lies.  [Scroll down]  The GOP, which we will not abandon because in a two-party system you can't really start a new party, has been dragged kicking and screaming our way.  Oh, not completely, not even close.  But it is moving our way over time.  The Jeb!s and Nikki!s think they stand to inherit it when that mean old Trump leaves.  Nope.  Not happening.  This is a long war.  If you want a quick win, you won't get it.

Breaching the Capitol:  The Surprise That Was No Surprise.  There are risks to impeachment and removal of the President.  The GOP risks making him a martyr and losing half of their base, maybe more.  The President's son, Eric Trump, threatened to primary every Republican who is seen as betraying the President.  That's not an idle threat.  70% of the Republican base believe the election was stolen.  The leadership of the GOP seems to be indifferent to whether that actually happened.  It matters, though, for their own re-election bids, that their voters believe that votes count.  The Senate was lost in Georgia possibly because people believed that their votes didn't matter.  Have the Republicans considered whether people will vote for them in the future if they believe their votes don't matter? [...] Most of the Republicans in Washington despise Donald Trump and that includes the folks who gingerly interacted with him over the last four years.  They helped stymie Trump's policy goals.  They aided and abetted the Democrats seeking to thwart those goals with spying, investigating, and general persecution.  Today will leave many of these scoundrels overjoyed.  They better enjoy this moment, because it's not going to last.  There are many possibilities after today.  A new party, perhaps?  A significant portion of the GOP who leave and never vote again?

To the GOP: Trump You!  The Republican Party poo-pooed electoral fraud and made no effort to investigate or at least make a stink about it, with the exception of only a handful of GOP members of Congress. [...] Where are state level Republicans, governors and legislatures, those charged with certifying electors? [...] The party of eunuchs is terrified to oppose anything.  They were silent over Spygate and a summer of riots destroying American cities.  They offered no pushback over punishing lockdowns and business closures.  Through their silence, they endorse electoral fraud and their political suicide.  The Republican Party, through their inaction, has made themselves permanently irrelevant.  No Republican will ever get near the White House.  Democrats will keep enough Republicans around as pets, useful idiots, below any threshold needed to stop a constitutional amendment or any other legislation.  If elections can be stolen this easily, twice in two months, Republicans are destined for a long walk in the wilderness.

The Self-Immolation Of The GOP And What It Means For 2A Rights.  As I write this, it looks like Raphael Warnock has won a U.S. Senate in Georgia, while the race between Republican David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff remains too close to call.  Who's to blame?  Fingers are being pointed at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for thwarting a vote on $2000 stimulus checks shortly before Election Day, Kraken theorists like Lin Wood and Sidney Powell who encouraged voters to stay home, President Donald Trump for bashing the Republican governor and secretary of state while also embracing the idea that the presidential election in November had been stolen and the voting process could not be trusted; as well as Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger themselves, for allowing the fraud to continue with the Senate elections.  In truth, there's enough blame to go around that the various parties will simply keep pointing the finger at others rather than accept any responsibility themselves.  In my opinion, though, the lion's share of the problem rests at the feet of the president and those supporters of his who encouraged Georgia voters to stay home and not cast a vote.

Never Trumpers got their wish.  The country does not deserve a trust-fund communist senator (Ossoff) or a black nationalist communist one (Warnock), but in their zest to run President Trump out of the Oval Office, Republicans enabled Democrats to steal the state of Georgia.  I hope Governor Kemp enjoys his retirement in 2 years.  When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade.  And this lemonade is sweetened by the knowledge that RINOs have been stripped of power.  Or shall I say, they stripped themselves of power.

Soros Soars, GOP Cowards Cower.  I devoted my Dec. 15 column to newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón and his benefactor George Soros.  Gascón has one goal:  to put the people of L.A. at the mercy of criminals.  He's the face of anarcho-tyranny, and George Soros is the wallet. [...] As I wrote in my Dec. 15 column, a key element in Gascón's victory was the fact that the local GOP didn't lift a finger to oppose him.

Why I Am Joining The Jan. 6 DC March For Trump.  [Scroll down]  Hoping that becoming involved in party politics could help steer the type of legislator we elect, I joined the state Republican Party.  For years I dutifully went to every precinct meeting, county meeting, and district meeting, even volunteering for the platform committee numerous years.  Every year a group of us tried to create policies that would require Republican legislators to follow the platform upon which they ran but six years of work saw no success with that, or any other activity that attempted to make Republican politicians more accountable to the people who elected them.  I became frustrated and disillusioned with the party system and I quit.

McConnell and GOP Senators Must Stop Deserting Their Constituents.  Excuse me, but if I get another text message from Mitch McConnell asking for money — I seem to get one roughly every five minutes, and one came 10 seconds after midnight to welcome 2021 — telling me that things are desperate for the GOP and that if I don't donate another $50 (to be matched at 5X, of course, or is it 7X?) all will be lost, because I'm an "important patriot" for whom a "critical deadline" has been "extended" (who writes these things?), I will leave the Republican Party forever and register as an independent.  Or maybe move to New Zealand.  OK, I'm exaggerating — but not by a lot.  Frankly, these endless messages and emails are nauseating, especially when emanating (supposedly) from the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, who seems to be, deliberately or not, so far out of touch with the wishes of his constituency he may as well be in another galaxy.

Some Hard Truths We Face as Patriotic Americans as We Near January 6th:  Americans have absorbed the truth that the institutions long depended upon for redress are compromised.  For years we had always suspected this, but in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election this has been confirmed with much dismay and sadness. [...] Here are 25 hard truths Americans can no longer rationalize away:
  [#1]    A presidential election was stolen from President Donald J. Trump in the most brazen and in your face way possible.
  [#2]    The government elites in all three branches, and in both parties, appear to be in on or complicit in the steal either by omission or commission.
  [#3]    The strings of our government are being pulled by China and other global interests that have no qualms about tearing down our time-honored values of freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of religion.
  [#4]    The Supreme Court, except for Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito has allowed partisanship, virtue signaling and cowardice to influence the merits of the cases they have deigned to accept or reject.
  [#5]    There is no Democrat and Republican Party, only a UniParty.  Both parties are merely two sides of the same coin, dedicated to selling out the country to China for power and enrichment. [...]

D'Souza: "GOP establishment should realize Trump supporters demand the election challenge".  Dinesh D'Souza points out:  "the GOP establishment must recognize there is no way forward without the Trump voters, and the Trump voters demand a challenge of the election results."  I would slightly disagree with the party linguistics, but essentially D'Souza has a point.  Unfortunately, the GOPe doesn't care.  [Video clip]  Also unfortunately the un-discussed aspect is the unity pact between both wings of the UniParty bird.  The GOPe wants elimination of "Trump" supporters in exactly the same way the GOP wanted, and orchestrated, the elimination of the Tea Party.  If America-First or "MAGA" ideology is the Republican brand, that means the elimination (ie. lots of republicans being primaried) of tenured GOPe politicians.  As an outcome, "Trumpism" is a risk to their structural power.  The charge against the Tea Party was led by Republicans.  The same charge against Trump is led by Republicans.

Hey, GOP: This is Your Do or Die Moment.  Republicans talk a good game about "getting 'em next time" but there will not be a next time.  Do Republicans say that in California, now that the Golden State has been renamed the Blue State, with not even a whiff of Republican red anywhere in sight?  Such is the course for America. [...] If opportunity knocks and the GOP doesn't answer the door, then it's lights out for the Republican Party.  And for many of us, good riddance.

Trump calls for 'new & energetic Republican leadership', rails against cowardly old guard.  President Donald Trump is fed up with "pathetic" Republican leaders who "only know how to lose."  The president unloaded his frustration with Republicans in a series of tweets on Tuesday as he reacted to the latest reports of "troubling discrepancies" in election data from Pennsylvania.  After having the U.S. House of Representatives override his veto of the defense bill Monday, and with some GOP lawmakers publicly calling on him to concede the presidential victory to Joe Biden, Trump has understandably grown angry with his party.

The unspeakable, duplicitous cowardice of the Republicans in Congress.  While there are a few exceptions who need to be celebrated — Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, Matt Gaetz, and Jim Jordan, to name the most prominent of the heroes — the rest of the Republicans in Congress are abject cowards.  So anxious to go along to get along with the establishment they were oh, so comfortable with, they have been and are willing to betray their constituents to regain their access to power and money.  Forget representing the people; they represent themselves.  President Trump is the best man for the party to come along since Reagan, and they are nearly all ready to throw him under the bus.  It is disgusting.  No conservative should ever again donate a dime to any of the traitors who claim to hold conservative values.  Very few of them do.  Even McConnell of the Senate and McCarthy of the House are working to undermine Trump's legitimate attempt to expose the massive election fraud that took place on November 3.

Now What?  A question that will be answered in 2021 is where the Trump supporters go now that they no longer have a champion.  Unlike the Perot people, the Buchanan Brigades, or the Tea Party, these people have had a taste of success.  Those prior populist efforts all failed and when they did the ranks broke and that was the end.  Some went back to the GOP and others dropped out entirely, but the movement was dead.  This time seems to be different.  A sign of that is how quickly they abandoned Fox News over the election coverage.  Even Tucker Carlson has seen a 50% decline.  Trump will most likely try to capitalize on this reality by holding rallies and carrying on like a shadow president.  There are strong signs that this group will rally around the idea of destroying the establishment Republican Party.  That is where you see the populist youth movement heading.  Young Nick Fuentes has been holding rallies in the states with the most election fraud.  Thousands show up to these things hearing a twentysomething say they will destroy the GOP.

Everything That Is Wrong with FOX News in One Brit Hume Tweet.  President Trump won a landslide election in November and had it stolen from him, by a guy hiding in the basement, hours after midnight, in at least five swing states.  The evidence of fraud is undeniable.  But the GOP elites, liberal fake news media, the tech giants, the Chinese and the cheating Democrats want President Trump to fold.  GOP elites are willing to wait for the next Republican to win in a landslide and maybe win the election.  Our GOP elites are not so bright.

Christmas Message for a Broken Republic.  Watching the current parade of venal clowns, liars, debased politicians, media trolls, and corrupt public servants raises the question of how a society founded on goodness, such as ours, can hatch such corrupt monstrosities.  We are all culpable.  The Republican Party did not object firmly enough.  Republicans were intimidated, or bought, into looking the other way.  The Republican Party is therefore a washout!  It consorts with the enemy.  Right, Mitch?  Right, SCOTUS?

Destination: Socialism.  [Scroll down]  Based on the above, we can conclude that despite the right-wing slogans, the Republican Party, in fact, is not an effective defender of capitalism.  It allowed both a latent attack on private property and the collectivization of consciousness.  That is why the GOP is not a genuine right-wing but, at most, a center-left party.  Therefore, the slogan about the non-admission of socialism in the U.S. has long been late.  There are plenty of socialist traits in our society that Republicans failed to recognize.  We can't expect the party that allowed the socialist transformation of society to protect it from socialism.  The Democrats are the engine of socialist changes, and the Republican elites are enablers.

The Abominable 'America Last' Porkulus Bill.  This country is not governed by a "Republican Party" and a "Democratic Party."  It is governed by an establishment "uniparty" that betrays our citizens at every turn.  Exhibit A:  The joint annual ritual of fiscal vulgarity known as the omnibus spending bill. [...] The juxtaposition of measly COVID-19 relief for U.S. citizens against the backdrop of lavish aid for illegal immigrants, the military-industrial complex, Big Pharma, overseas social justice warriors, nongovernmental organizations and foreign countries is just too brazen to ignore.  Americans will receive $600 COVID-19 relief checks and $300 unemployment payments as part of the consolidated federal government funding package.  The $900 billion in COVID-related aid is folded into the massive, 5,600-page legislation encompassing 12 fiscal 2021 spending bills worth $1.4 trillion. [...] We've had enough.  A manufactured public health crisis, post-George Floyd anarchotyranny, and the wholesale hijacking of our election system are pushing citizens to the brink of revolt.

If Only the GOP Spent as Much Time Protecting Conservative Speech As Protecting Hollywood.  Republican legislators keep claiming that they can't do anything about internet platforms censoring conservative speech, but they're more than willing to help Hollywood take on those same platforms over copyright.  Disney, a sworn foe of Section 230, always get a hearing in its jihad against tech companies.  Worse still, the radical lefty company's lobbyists, along with those of other major industry companies have repeatedly written legislation to favor their own interests and agendas.  One of the obscene items in the orgy of congressional garbage that is the omnibus is the CASE Act which would allow companies to terrorize internet users over copyright issues by shoving them into arbitration and hitting them with $30,000 penalties.  Meanwhile the same industry that keeps lobbying to free muggers and killers is also lobbying to send people who stream their content to prison for 10 years.

RINOs Should be Ashamed for Turning on Trump.  It's been appalling to see so many Republicans desert President Trump in the election fraud challenges, telling him to give in and concede.  Fox News started out the trend election night by calling Arizona for Biden.  RINO judges piled on, dismissing election challenges with flimsy excuses that no one bought.  Gradually, elected officials have turned on him.  The MSM loves talking about the politician defectors but never explains why they're deserting.  They're deserting because politics has never been about principles for those Republicans.  They ran for office looking for fame and fortune; most of them are narcissists.  They survive in office based on campaign contributions and other perks.  They are beholden to the wealthy corporations, special interest groups and billionaires funding their reelections.  Once those establishment players start threatening to withhold the money supply, they cave.

Fighting On.  So Mitch McConnell thinks it's over.  We need to congratulate Biden (whom I have taken to calling "President Asterisk"), forget everything, put it all behind us, and move on.  According to Mitch, the greatest political crime in American history is something you just walk away from.  Mitch is not alone in this, nor was he the first. [...] The consensus among this crowd is that there is no upside to continuing the fight, no benefits to be gained, nothing at all to be achieved.  Instead, we should back down, as Republicans and conservatives have done a thousand times before, take our whipping, resign ourselves to the fact that no honest election from dogcatcher on up will ever again occur in the U.S., and prepare the single suitcase we're allowed while we wait for the truck to take us to Alger Hiss Reeducation Camp at Prudhoe Bay.

What Can We Do?  [#1] Grousing about the GOP is a pastime.  What's past time is expecting or relying on the Republican Party to fight for us.  It will not.  It's time to organize outside of the hidebound two-party monopoly to build a sustainable, effective grassroots movement that surpasses the Tea Party in scope and strength.  Patriot associations need to form in every county in every state of the nation — most certainly in red counties.  They'd serve as a vanguard.  From these county associations come state organizations.  State organizations would coordinate among themselves to maximize opposition to Washington tyranny.

Will The Republicans Go The Way Of The Whigs?  Assessing The Fallout From The 2020 Election.  America in the 1850's was a nation torn apart by a single issue, slavery.  A low-level guerilla war over the issue was ongoing in Kansas and Missouri.  Abolitionists like John Brown were advocating arming slaves in the South and igniting a race war.  The two major parties of the day were the Democrats and the Whigs, the latter a name taken from that of a British anti-monarchist party.  The Democrats took a clear position on slavery.  They were for it, and they wanted it to remain a part of American life.  The Whigs took no clear position.  As battle lines were drawn, and the nation moved ever closer to war, the Whigs remained focused on tariffs, the role of the Supreme Court and the power of the Presidency.  They remained obsessed with issues from an earlier day, and ultimately, they made themselves irrelevant.  Most of the people who joined the new Republican Party came from the Whig Party, which would soon cease to exist.

The Fight Will Continue.  [Scroll down]  That's not to say the Republican Party is in any way ideal.  It has been an unreliable ally, a fair-weather friend, to the cause of liberty.  Many Republicans, Mitt Romney, Jeff Flake, Mike Lee and many others are either part of or have sold themselves to the corporate and high tech finance and influence sectors.  They paint themselves as entrepreneurs, but they are really careerists of the most hypocritical kind.  The irony is that even though they think of themselves as entrepreneurs, they also believe that government is the ultimate answer to all problems.  They just believe in somewhat different goals.  Without Donald Trump as the disruptor, The Republican Party would have continued on the path to irrelevancy that it scurried back to after the Reagan years.

Our Crisis Already is at DEFCON-3.  Let me address the GOP:  The steal is ongoing.  The left disenfranchised our vote by cheating.  They stole an election.  And this cannot stand.  There are those in the GOP along with some independents who know this, and who are standing up and shouting it from the rooftops.  And there are those who look like the pathetic monkeys who hear, see, and speak no evil.  Those who won't lift a finger to deal with the fraud.  Wake up sleepers!  Either act to end this fraud now, or face one of two ends:  As worthless props, or historical heroes.  Will the GOP be the stupid party forever?  If so, we're toast.

Republicans [are] Pushing Themselves Off the Cliff.  Trump is still president, although his path to a second term is becoming narrower by the day.  Establishment Republicans, particularly those of the NeverTrump variety, are eager to "move on" from the 2020 presidential contest, happily accepting the results of a crooked and stolen election, with vague promises of electoral reform and a more favorable outcome in 2024.  Only two-thirds of House Republicans joined in the Texas lawsuit, meaning the other third was happy to send Trump packing, pushing him, and their party off the cliff.  If the political parties were reversed, does anyone doubt that 100 percent of Democrat House members would have backed the lawsuit?

Republicans Must Not Cave on Blue-State Bailouts.  Democrats have spent the last few months demanding bailouts for states and local governments.  They claim that if you oppose spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to bail out states such as New York, Illinois, and California, then you support laying off teachers, health-care workers, and first responders.  Guess what?  They're lying.  And unfortunately, too many of my Republican colleagues have bought their lie and are getting ready to cave.

GOP State Legislatures: Cowardice Under Fire.  Despite the mendacious claims of the legacy "news" media, there is clear evidence that egregious violence was done to election laws in at least five states during the recent presidential contest.  Sworn testimony from dozens of eyewitnesses, well-documented breaches of statutory ballot counting protocol, and damning security camera videos have been presented to legislators in these states.  Republican lawmakers in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin have the constitutional power and the moral duty to rectify the resultant fraudulent outcomes.  The only obstacle to reestablishing voter sovereignty in these five states is the inaction of the spineless GOP majorities that control their legislatures.  As I and others have previously noted, the Constitution reserves the sole power to select presidential electors and the method by which they are chosen to the state legislatures:  "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress." No other state official or judge can make this call without legislative consent.  The pathetic excuses of the lawmakers themselves notwithstanding, they can restore election integrity in their states.

Prepare.  Right now, President Trump is watching how the Republican party is responding to the brutal and transparent evidence of election fraud from coast to coast.  As CTH has said since our inception, there is only one way out of this mess.  Accept the UniParty as a functional one-party apparatus within Washington DC, and start getting serious about a genuine Second Party.  Form the "Rebel Alliance".  A MAGA inspired party would not be a third party because there is currently only one party in Washington DC.  Thankfully, a larger portion of the American electorate is now awake to a situation that has existed since long before Donald Trump entered the political arena.

The Precarious Duplicity of the Republican Apparatus in Georgia.  Essentially, Georgia voters are presented with a hostile scenario.  A Machiavellian republican apparatus that will not fight against voter fraud on behalf of the voters because GOPe leadership are in alignment with UniParty (Big Club) political interests. [...] As an outcome Georgia Governor Brian Kemp does nothing but talk about the horrors of the 2020 election fraud, and does nothing.  Meanwhile Kemp says everything must be done to protect the two republican Senate candidates.  MAGA-minded patriots are facing an option where they do not want to support the duplicity of a transparently corrupt GOPe apparatus; yet if they do not show up en masse to support party candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler they will be turning over control of the U.S. Senate to democrats.  This dynamic is an all too familiar position within the cycle of abuse.  A dynamic that has kept Senate Leader Mitch McConnell in power.

The Stupid Party Redux.  On the evening of December 2, led by Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), the GOP quietly convened, avoiding public hearings, and gave their unanimous consent agreement for an amended version of S. 386, the "Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act."  "Under the bill, those on a long-term temporary visa who can secure a job offer requiring a college degree will, after a wait of 270 days, be able to obtain a three-year renewable work permit and permission to travel in and out of the country," explains Jessica M. Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.  "It will be a status comparable to permanent residency with a green card, but without having to wait in line or be restricted by annual immigration limits," she adds.  "It will potentially apply to hundreds of thousands of people each year, including foreign students, exchange visitors, NAFTA workers, investors, and more."

Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue can only win if they listen to Lin Wood and help expose voter fraud in Georgia.  Second, where exactly are Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue right now?  They are sitting Senators and their home state is the epicenter of an attempted coup against the government as well as a direct attack against the Constitution they have sworn to defend.  Job one of any public servant is to defend the Constitution and we have seen nothing, zip, zilch from these United States Senators. [...] Looking at their Twitter accounts and listening to their speeches, there is one thing that is conspicuously missing:  Support for the President and condemnation of the forces behind the attempted coup.  This is their duty as Senators and their responsibility as representatives of the Republican Party.  But they're playing it safe.

White House planning a packed season of holiday parties.  [Scroll down]  At the first such event Monday afternoon [11/30/2020] — a reception for volunteers who helped decorate the White House — guests were given champagne and snacks and mingled in the State Dining Room and the East Room, among other places.  Some did not wear masks or adhere to social distancing, officials said.  The parties, likely to cost millions of dollars, will be paid for by the Republican Party, according to a person with knowledge of the planning.  Two holiday parties were scheduled for Tuesday at the White House, an official said.

The election has been stolen.  The Republican leaders made it clear they will address the election irregularities in their next session.  Whoopie!  By then it will be too late.  I expect the same thing to now happen in Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan.  Republican-controlled statehouses are going to acquiesce to these results, despite amply evidence that demands a thorough review.  (And I say this even though my own Republican state representative, Mark Finchem, today called for Arizona to withhold its electoral votes.  He might be fighting the good fight, but he is also fighting his own party leadership.) [...] I fully believe that these state Republican leaders are lying when they say they are going to do a full review of the election process.  As we have seen for decades, they are experts at failure theater.  They make big noises about standing up to their opposition, but always fold like wet rags at the slightest pressure.  They will do so again.  The result:  The likelihood of a legitimate election occurring ever again in the United States is low, if not impossible.

How spineless and traitorous are most of the GOP?  [Scroll down]  What is so shockingly infuriating to the millions of people who voted for President Trump is the abject cowardice of most Republicans in Congress and in those state legislatures.  It is as though they've been gelded.  We Trump-supporters revere the Republicans who step up:  Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan, Ron Johnson, Matt Gaetz, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Marsha Blackburn, state senator Doug Mastriano of PA, among others.  These are the good guys, the brave ones.  Most of the rest of them are utter cowards, afraid to ruffle the feathers of their fellow swamp-dwellers.  How many have betrayed us?  Oh, so many.  Every single one of them who is calling for Trump to concede is a traitor.  Trump should never concede.  They all know [quite] well that the election was fraudulent, and they want us to overlook that fact in the name of "unity."

Letting the Democrats Steal This Election Is Real Appeasement.  What if President Trump's team really does have the goods to prove a massive voter fraud on the part of the Democrats?  Then what should we do?  How far should we be willing to go?  Should we let ourselves be cowed by the threat of leftist violence in the streets — by the prospect of 2020's riots multiplied by 10 or 20? [...] If indeed a wide conspiracy of Democrat politicians and electoral officials accomplished vote fraud on the massive scale alleged by Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, and Rudolph Giuliani, that fact alone should sober us.  It ought to appall us, of course.  To fill us with righteous outrage, and patriotic resolve.  But will it?  I'm not certain.  I think some Republicans eager to silence the president's team want to just shove Trump aside, and restore the GOP to its recent historic role as designated loser.  As long as they control the party's mechanisms, cash its checks, and keep out "dangerous" populists like Donald Trump, they're happy.

Are the Republicans Writing Their Own Political Obituaries?  The Republican establishment is trying hard to convince President Trump to concede.  Some of the so-called conservative pundits are eager to assure their viewers and readers that now is the time to look forward to 2022 and 2024.  There is only one perfect label for them:  cowards!  There is massive evidence showing that the Left have committed the greatest election theft in history.  Anyone with an open mind can find on the Internet numerous highly credible analyses and facts that show the myriad fraudulent practices the Left used to rig the election.  To simply ignore it and hand power to the Democrats means that the Republicans will have written their own political obituaries.  Few of the current GOP legislative and executive members will survive in the next elections.

Sidney Powell:  "We Will Not Be Intimidated".  "In terms of the level of corruption we are looking at here, we have no idea how many Republican or Democratic candidates... paid to have the system rigged to work for them." — Sidney Powell  [Video clip]  We already knew the metadata available in the NSA database is for sale by private contractors to any politically connected high bidder.  That data is worth trillions.  Does it not seem likely that Dominion election engineers would offer their services to both sides of the political equation.  How many campaigns purchased those services?  How many currently sitting political leaders know the phone number to Dominion election services?  You think the GOP leaders want an actual investigation?

An Unserious Movement for an Unserious People.  We all should probably acknowledge that we Americans, in many ways, have become an unserious people. [...] But it's not just about the American people as a whole: conservatism is an unserious movement (if one can even call what exists a movement), and Republicans are deeply, deeply unserious as a political party.  Consider, in the immediate, our election system again.  Can we even call such a disjointed mismash a system?  Let's face it:  where we are today, with mail-in ballots, questionable voting software systems, no requirement to show photo ID, "dirty data" voting rolls — we have allowed the creation of myriad reasons for distrust to materialize underneath our noses.  The Left has not been shy about what they wanted to do and what they were hoping to accomplish with any of this.  And what has been our response as a "movement" and a "party"?  Pathetic whining and that's about it.

Building a New, Less Cowardly Republican Party.  Many of us are wondering why the Republican Party seems to have been reactive and defensive rather than aggressive in support of President Trump and the America First agenda.  Many of us want to know which of our elected Republican representatives are supporting and defending us and which ones are eying the exits.  We are looking to these officials to stand up and protect our voices, and now to ensure that the integrity and transparency of our electoral system are upheld.  Some of our Republican "leaders" seem to be playing defense instead of going on the offense.  Playing not to lose while the Democrats play to win is not what we expect from a party that is there to represent our ideas, and to uphold the Constitution that defends our inalienable rights as Americans.  The Republican Party is a vessel for preserving and deploying our agenda.  Many of us are conservatives first and Republicans second.

GOP fears conceding Trump loss would spark base revolt and loss of seats.  Top Republicans in Washington are reluctant to call Joe Biden the president-elect publicly, fearing a rebellion by grassroots conservatives loyal to President Trump that would sink the party's Senate majority.  Republican insiders privately concede Biden ousted Trump and dismiss suggestions voter fraud, ballot errors, or other issues would be uncovered sufficient to alter the election.  But with the president claiming otherwise and two Georgia runoff elections set for January that will decide the Senate majority, plus midterm elections in 2022, most congressional Republicans are backing Trump.  The move is purely transactional.

GOP are getting slammed for their silence during the election chaos: 'cower to the media mob'.  Many knew that we would not have immediate election results to determine who the next president of the United States would be.  Now, four days later, we have just received a final determination, however, the amount of illegal activity surrounding the votes and the counting of the ballots is astronomical.  Many GOP leaders have been staying tight-lipped about all of it, and it is not going unnoticed.  As President Trump and his team are laying the framework for a historic legal battle over the extreme bias and down right unlawful compromise of the election system, the "deafening" silence from key players of the Republican Party is started to be criticized by some.  In the key battleground states, President Trump is attempting to protect the rights of the voters by trying to put a stop to all of the illegal activity taking place.  Issues from election monitoring, to the late arrival of mail-in ballots, to allegations of dead individuals "voting," the Trump campaign is charging forward, vowing to challenge these issues head-on in court, Breitbart reported.

Meet the Back-Stabbing Neo-Cons Who Refuse to Defend President Donald J Trump Amid The Most Corrupt Election in World History.  Neo-Conservatives who've made a career off of the Donald Trump presidency, but who also reluctantly support the President when challenged by other conservatives, aren't supporting the President in this most dire hour.  If these Neo-cons refuse to fight for Donald Trump, mark my words, the people will vote them out of office.  These "conservatives" have directly benefited from historic voter turnout, due to the enthusiastic support of the public created entirely by President Donald J Trump, but while they benefit from the president, they've turned their backs as the nation faces the most historical instance of mass voter fraud ever experienced in recorded human history.

An Open Letter to Every [...] Politician!  On the Election, Corruption, all of it!  Night after night, year after year, we watch you on the evening news pontificate about this issue or that scandal and yet you all do nothing.  We're sick of it!  We watched Hillary Clinton break every law in the book by lying to the FBI about her using her own private server to conduct government business, and then deleting over 33,000 emails once she was caught.  She broke the law multiple times, regardless of intent.  In fact, the laws she broke specifically said that intent was not needed for the law to be broken.  And what did you do?  Nothing.  Sure, you put on a show, but who was punished?  Who went to jail?  Who was held accountable?  Hillary Clinton?  James Comey?  Please.  And what about the IRS targeting Tea Party Groups.  After the IRS was caught intentionally harassing these groups, they finally came clean and admitted that they were breaking the law.  Who was sent to jail?  Who was fired?  Lois Lerner?  James Clapper?  Obama?  CIA Director, Brennan?  No one, that's who!

GOP Slammed for Silence amid Election Chaos:  Cowering to the 'Media Mob'.  Critics are beginning to underscore the "deafening" silence from major GOP players as President Trump and his team gear up for a historic legal battle over the fundamental integrity of the presidential election.  The Trump campaign has been sounding the alarm and filing lawsuits in key battleground states as part of a greater effort to protect legal voters.  From issues to election monitoring, to the late arrival of mail-in ballots, to allegations of dead individuals "voting," the Trump campaign is charging forward, vowing to challenge these issues head-on in court.  Donald Trump Jr. is among those on the right who have noticed a stunning lack of action from members of the GOP in the midst of this historic battle.

Never Bring A Republican to a Street Fight.  We are now reaping the crop of 50 years of acquiescence by the Republicans.  Texas Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson, running behind in his Senate race "found" boxes of new votes.  There were just enough to get him over the hump, not too many, and his friends jokingly called him "Landslide Lyndon."  There was the Chicago vote for John F. Kennedy.  Just enough.  The found votes for Al Franken, just enough.  It goes on and on.  What do the Republicans do?  Acquiesce.  Tell people to be calm.  Follow the process.  Show up at a gunfight with a lawyer.  So here we are.  Trump was leading in several states and then they stopped counting.  You know the story.  The real story is how this has gone on for generations and the result is always the same.  The Republican candidate, who likely won, is out.  Then the Republicans, in the House or Senate, welcome their new "colleague" and promise to work across the aisle.  Bipartisanship.  Let's be pals.

Why Do Some Republicans Drift Leftward?  Why do Republicans turn soft and drift leftward, but Democrats never seem to drift to the right?  There is no McCain analogue on the left, no "Maverick of the Senate" Democrat who votes often with the conservatives.  We never seem to question whether the Democrats will hold their ranks or how many Democratic senators will bolt and vote the other way.  Is there even the slightest doubt as to how Breyer, Sotomayor, or Kagan will vote?  Was there ever even a scintilla of doubt as to how RGB was going to vote on contentious liberal-conservative issues?  No.  All four were and are reliably, completely rubber-stamp liberals, every single time.  As to why Republicans drift, this is tougher to pin down.

Revolution 2020.  [Scroll down]  Why have conservatives mostly obeyed perverted authority?  Did the ruling class succeed?  Is the revolution over?  A minority seem to believe that example may lead leftists once again to recognize their opponents' equal rights.  In short, they are conservatives who yearn to preserve something already gone.  They are not yet revolutionaries for their own cause.  Most have felt sandbagged by Donald Trump's and the Republican Party's verbally combative but toothless reaction to the oligarchic revolution.  They waited in vain for them to use the active and passive devices available to any president or house of Congress to deprive the ruling class of its government-derived powers:  commanding and prohibiting, funding and defunding, hiring, firing, rewarding and punishing, accrediting and discrediting to punish violations of freedom of speech, religion, and assembly, of basic civil rights.  Instead, these officials largely gave the oligarchic regime a pass.  Private persons cannot easily defend themselves while their own officials don't.  Now they no longer care what the Trump administration's calculations might have been.

The conservative moment.  From outlawing prayer and Bible reading in public schools, to the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion, conservative Republicans have yearned for a time when a Republican president and Republican majority Senate might put an end to judges making law and return to the day when Congress was the legislator.  Yet, Republican presidents have appointed several liberals to the Court.  President Dwight Eisenhower appointed five members to the Supreme Court, including Earl Warren and William Brennan.  Eisenhower purportedly said years later that, "I have made two mistakes, and they are both sitting on the Supreme Court."  Richard Nixon named Harry Blackmun, the primary author of Roe v. Wade.  Gerald Ford named liberal John Paul Stevens.  Ronald Reagan selected Sandra Day O'Connor, who upheld several challenges to Roe v. Wade, and Anthony Kennedy, who ruled same-sex marriage constitutional.  George H.W. Bush picked David Souter, a liberal, and George W. Bush selected John Roberts, who has been inconsistent on some issues, like Obamacare.

Confirm a Justice Now.  If Republicans are good at anything, it's finding "principled" reasons to betray their constituents and contradict their much vaunted philosophy.  President Trump, naturally, has sounded strong, as, to his credit, has Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).  But the majority leader has to manage a fractious caucus and a thin margin.  Many of his members either will be looking for excuses not to vote, or for a reason to vote no, or (worse) will be persuadable by sophistical arguments as to why stabbing their president, their voters, and their country in the back is "the right thing to do."  Herewith, if any of them are listening, are some reasons not to take those paths.

A Republican Party That Won't Fill Ginsburg's Seat Will Die, and It Will Have Deserved Its Death.  The Senate and the White House are held by the same party.  The McConnell rule does not apply in this situation no matter how many times "journalists" pretend to not know what he originally said.  What this means is that a replacement must be nominated and that they must be confirmed.  Yet, sentiments to the contrary on the right are already popping up.  I've seen some commentators suggest the pain for the country would be too great and that we should wait.  Some Senators, including Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, have also put out statements saying they will not support a vote before the election.  I've also seen suggestions that Trump should purposely not nominate someone in order to make this an election issue, punting on the once-in-a-generation opportunity to finally re-shape the court.

The GOP Senate [Had] Better Confirm Whoever POTUS Appoints.  Perhaps it is glib to observe that, at the end of the day, Republicans should confirm a replacement for Justice Ginsburg because they can confirm a replacement for Justice Ginsburg, but there is a lot of truth to that observation.  They can do it because the president has the power under the Constitution to appoint a nominee (I expect it to be Amy Coney Barrett, but Barbara Lagoa is a possibility and a great one), plus because the Senate has the power under the Constitution to confirm said nominee.  And they better do it, because the Democrats intend to crush us if they can, and if the GOP wimps out, our voters will melt down.  The GOP can do this, so the GOP must.

Senate Intel Committee Refuses to Give GOP Senators Documents From Russia Investigation.  Of all the tells that have surfaced in the past four years, this is the biggest.  This is the one that reveals just how corrupt and duplicitous the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence really is.  Do not pass over this information without pausing and evaluating just how explosive this refusal is amid the largest, most corrupt scheme in political history.  The republican led Senate Intelligence Committee (SSCI) is refusing to provide documents to republican senators from their Russia investigation.  Citing archaic justification within senate parliamentary rules current Chairman Marco Rubio (R) and Vice-Chairman Mark Warner are refusing to allow Senator Johnson and Senator Grassley to review the evidence the SSCI assembled to create their report on Russian election interference.  The reason and motives for the denial are simple, yet the majority of Americans have no idea.  The SSCI was the legislative entity, both republicans and democrats, who participated in the unlawful effort to remove President Trump from office.  The risk of exposure is exactly why Mitch McConnell put Senator Marco Rubio on the committee as chairman to replace Richard Burr.  The Senate was participating in the soft-coup.

Never-Trumpers Need A Lesson In Basic Math.  [Scroll down]  But a Joe Biden win?  That will harm the entire country.  And the damage will last a lifetime.  If you don't think so, look at the legacy of past Democrats who were able to shove their agendas through.  Now in place for 55 years, Lyndon Johnson's Medicare, Medicaid, and "Great Society" programs account for a third of the federal budget.  (And their fiercest defenders are often Republicans.)  ObamaCare costs close to $100 billion a year (after Republicans betrayed voters and failed to repeal it).

GOP Unveils $500 Billion 'Skinny' Stimulus That's Dead on Arrival.  On Tuesday, Senate Republicans introduced a $500 billion COVID-19 stimulus bill, pared back from their $1 trillion proposal which they introduced in July.  The new bill nixes another payout of stimulus checks but includes unemployment benefits, loans for small businesses, and funding for education and the post office.  It stands no chance of passing the House, with Democrats advocating for the fatter $3 trillion Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act.

The Editor says...
The Democrats want to spend three trillion dollars on a grab bag of political pork, most likely including a bailout of all the poorly-managed states and cities with unsustainable pension funds, and so on.  The bill is probably so massive that they'll have to pass it to find out what's in it.  On the other side of the aisle, we're supposed to congratulate the Republicans for keeping it down to a mere $500 billion.  This proves once again that the U.S. has two political parties:  Democrat and Democrat Lite.  Those are your only choices in November.  But don't let me discourage you from voting!

We're in a Fight to Preserve Western Civilization and You Don't Do That by Losing.  [Scroll down]  Up until Donald Trump the Republican Party never looked at itself as something that was designed to win.  It was supposed to lose.  Lose with honor.  If it lost, which was going to happen because we're the minority party, this is what the people that led the party believed.  This is what the Romneys and the McCains, you know, this group of people that led the Republican Party, their belief was — like McCain knew he wasn't gonna be elected president.  That's not why he ran.  He ran to put it on the resume.  He ran to make sure that his life and his resume were complete.  He wanted the honor of having started out John McCain, son of John McCain, goes to Annapolis, serves in Vietnam, shot down, Hanoi Hilton, all that, caps it off by running for president.  He knew he gonna lose, especially after he shut down his campaign in the middle of the financial crisis.  Expected to lose.  Romney expected to lose.  They didn't really think they were gonna win.  But losing with honor, losing with good manners, losing in such a way that the left and the Democrats still respect you in the morning was the objective.

America's tech tyrants will do anything to elect Biden.  Through YouTube, Google also pulls down or demonetizes conservative content, especially content that channels the Democrats' Wuhan virus narrative.  Facebook does the same.  Twitter routinely locks out conservative views with which it disagrees, including censoring President Trump.  The window of time within which to fix this was the first two years of the Trump administration.  However, a feckless, selfish, weak Republican cohort preferred to cozy up to the tech tyrants, rather than defend American rights.

It's Trump's Republican Party Now.  Before President Trump, the Republican Party, and the Democrat Party for that matter, were controlled by the ruling elites of their respective parties.  Neither party had any interest in those they claimed to represent, instead bowing to big money donors in exchange for power and position.  Once called the military industrial complex, it is now the globalists, wealthy individuals and families happy to hide behind foundations and corporations, ruling America without the consent of the governed, using coercion and force if necessary.  This is what candidate Trump railed against. [...] He was running against not only the Democrats and their allies in the media, academia, Wall Street, Hollywood, and in the Beltway, but he was also fighting his own party.  Republican elites, feeding off the teat of the uniparty, wanted no part in replacing a political establishment that they controlled and benefited from.

Our BLM Jihadis.  [Scroll down]  Laura Ingraham articulated that point of view last week:  "The inescapable conclusion from all that has been tolerated in liberal cities these last 10 weeks:  If the Democrats win, the looters will know that they have free rein to attack not just every city and town in the country — but the suburbs as well.  And that's exactly what they'll do."  That's a neat little talking point, but I'm not certain it's effective.  Telling voters that "if the Democrats win, the looters will have free rein" is kinda dependent on those voters being too stupid to realize that the looters have free rein right now, under Trump.  I mean, what exactly have Trump, Barr, and the Senate Republicans done to stop any of the mayhem?  For the GOP strategy of "If we're out of power, we'll no longer be able to protect you from the thugs" to work, the GOP needs to actually be protecting us from the thugs.  And it isn't.  William Barr is no John Ashcroft (who put political correctness aside to root out potential terrorists after 9/11).  Barr's done precious little to protect us from the black terrorists of BLM or the white terrorists of Antifa.  Trump and Barr have given the electorate no reason to say, "Boy, I'm sure glad these guys are in charge, otherwise there'd be nonstop carnage."

The Case for Trump.  No president — Democrat or Republican — has ever come to power facing organized efforts by his own party's middle management to tally lists of people declaring on the record that under no circumstances will they work for the incoming administration.  It's been hard, to say the least, to staff up when a good chunk of the party is dead-set against their leader, and nearly all the rest spent their careers furthering policies diametrically opposed to those he ran — and won — on.  And that's just President Trump's ostensible own side.  Then factor in all his open enemies from the other party, and virtually every other power center in our society, plus the steadfast opposition of the so-called "deep state" — i.e., the very federal bureaucrats whom he was elected to oversee and direct.  Viewed from this angle, one may fairly wonder how it's been possible for him to accomplish anything at all.

The Worthlessness of Congressional Hearings.  [Scroll down]  So what's to be done about all this?  Congresspeople decided on "hearings".  While Democrats have focused on the CEOs' wealth, the GOP has mostly just lobbed stupid softballs at them in an attempt to make their constituents think they're really doing something.  This is an old scam, and nobody is better at it than Senator Lindsay Graham, who's always telling the media he's troubled by something and is making preparations to get ready to do the things necessary to look into the matter.  He's always getting ready to do something "next week".  It's like the old 'free beer tomorrow' sign outside bars.  Next week never comes.  Congressional Republicans usually avoid actually doing anything about the things their constituents are concerned about (they can't actually rock the boat, right?), so everyone has to be content with having their representative talk about how outraged he is and how he's going to get to the bottom of it.  When something is egregious enough that they actually have to have hearings, they walk a tightrope of sounding really, really serious, while not actually doing anything of substance.

The Constitution, Donald Trump, and 2020.  It isn't just politicians on the left who are eager to toss the country overboard to curry favor from the frenzied mob and their media cheerleaders.  Certain politicians on the right have recently displayed a backbone commensurate to a glass noodle.  In the all-too-well established tradition of the squishy Republican who is more comfortable in the swampy green rooms and cocktail parties of Washington D.C. and New York than amongst their constituents, certain Republican senators from Oklahoma and Wisconsin have proposed replacing Columbus Day, a holiday celebrated in the American colonies as early as 1792, with "Juneteenth," a date commemorating the emancipation of slaves in Texas.  Are these Republicans actually under the delusion that their constituents are not only regular readers of, but set their internal politics to, the New York Times?  Perhaps.  Too many of our politicians have too readily lost their heads at the slightest twitch in opinion.  Fortunately, we have the Constitution to protect us from spineless politicians and, more importantly, the worst angels of our nature.

GOP considers extending unemployment benefit at reduced level of $100 a week through December.  Republicans are considering extending the enhanced unemployment insurance benefit at a dramatically reduced level of $400 per month, or $100 a week, through the rest of the year, sources told CNBC.  Congress passed a $600 per week, or $2,400 a month, boost to jobless benefits in March to deal with a wave of unemployment unseen in decades as states shut down their economies to combat the coronavirus pandemic.  The policy expires at the end of July as the U.S. unemployment rate stands above 11%, despite two strong months of job growth.

The Editor says...
There are two political parties:  Democrat and Democrat Lite.  The Democrats want to send everyone borrowed money, to buy their votes.  The Republicans want to do the same, but in smaller amounts.

BLM Republicans.  [Scroll down]  In the face of this cultural onslaught by the Left, supported by our dominant institutions, including academia, the media, the Democrat Party, and corporate America, the Republicans speak of "police reform," renaming military bases, and eliminating Columbus Day.  But then Republicans begin every confrontation with the Left by accepting their premises and narrative, fighting, in effect, on their territory and disagreeing minimally if at all, seemingly oblivious to the threat.  Wars, however, are not won by playing defense.  Republicans should begin by defending our culture, institutions, and history.  They should extoll our legacy of human rights, liberty, Constitutional governance, and Western achievements in art, music, literature, science, and technology.  Our unparalleled standard of living and material, moral, and spiritual riches should be proudly brandished and upheld.  But Republicans must also go on the offensive, and attack the decadent, degenerate Left, within our country and without.  Point out their record of poverty, oppression, and genocide.  Describe the devastation of the Soviet Union, Red China, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.  Wrap the Marxist record of destruction around the necks of their successors in the American Left and the Democrat Party who now openly embrace that corrupt system.  Draw inspiration from a previous Republican leader, Ronald Reagan, who confronted tyranny and defended liberty.  Reagan lambasted the Soviets as the "evil empire," and demanded that Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev "tear down this wall" to the chagrin of RINOs and Democrats of his day.

The GOP Senate Is Asleep at the Wheel.  As American cities burn, police departments across the country come under assault, the culture feasts on itself in a frenzy of Twitter-driven cancellations, Google controls the presentation of information for 90 percent of the world, Twitter gets hacked by the Saudi government, Planned Parenthood reaps millions in CARES Act money it wasn't supposed to get, the "conservative" majority on the Supreme Court kicks people of faith in the teeth, and China sends Uyghur Muslims to concentration camps while exerting massive censorship influence over U.S. corporations, Congress has been on vacation for the last two weeks.  In reality, the House of Representatives has been on vacation for much longer than that.  Attendance has been optional in the People's House for so long that Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) recently cast a vote in committee while "working from home" — either on a beach or a boat.  The Republican Senate has been showing up for work.  Or, what work looks like to the Senate, which is about 2.5 days a week of confirming a handful of judges in between accidentally legislating.  The Senate's fecklessness is less a bug than a feature of the 116th Congress.  But for the conservatives among their constituents, it is more outrageous than ever, considering that Senate Republicans may be in the waning days of power.

Cowards!
Mitch McConnell says GOP convention may not happen amid COVID-19.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell broke with the White House on Thursday and said the coronavirus pandemic may scuttle plans for the Republican National Convention.  "We will have to wait and see how things look in late August to determine whether or not we can safely convene that many people," McConnell said in his home state of Kentucky.  The Republican leader did not directly answer whether he's willing to skip the Jacksonville, Fla., gathering along with a handful of other GOP senators.  "I think the convention is a challenging situation and a number of my colleagues have announced that they are not going to attend," he noted.

GOP Group with McConnell's Blessing is Spending $2 Million Against Pro-Trump Senatorial Candidate Kris Kobach in Kansas.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is working to defeat Trump favorite Kris Kobach in Kansas.  A RINO group "Plains PAC" is spending $2 million in the primary against pro-Trump Republican Kris Kobach.  They will run ads against Kobach accusing him of ties with white nationalists.  This is a disgusting tactic coming from open border Republicans.

Could IT Happen Here?  Timid Republican elected officials mistakenly believe that removing Confederate statues from the Capitol will quell rioters.  The Grand Old Party's overall silence emboldens anarchist organizations like Black Lives Matter the way silence emboldened Germany's Nazis.  As Albert Einstein said, "the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." [...] Sadly, the Republican Party and many of its elected officials are quieter than a child waiting for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.  They seem to have collectively decided that ignoring anarchists is the best route to a quick return to posh country club fundraisers.  Ignoring the mob didn't work so well in Germany in the 1930s.

GOP Saps Need to Quit Being Idiots.  Here's the thing you do when you want to win an election, and I can't believe I have to tell the GOP's pols this but apparently I do.  You do things the people who might possibly vote for you want done. [...] We already have a group of dishonest suckers undermining the country.  They are called "Democrats" and we don't need two parties of them.

Sheep in Elephant Costumes.  [Scroll down]  One could convincingly argue that had Senate Republicans followed through on just half that list, we would be experiencing a very different political climate right now — one that didn't reward lawlessness and promote thuggery, or leave our constantly-imperiled president out to dry.  Instead, aside from a brief burst of courage during the Kavanaugh debacle, Senate Republicans have been an embarrassment to the party — a textbook example of how to squander your political power and betray your constituents.  The past few weeks have been a particularly shameful period for Senate Republicans; while the country burned, they had little or nothing to say in defense of the country or our president.

What Should Republicans Do?  I've been hammering away at conservatives and Republicans for failing to defend the symbols of national pride the woke leftist mob has been tearing at in recent weeks.  Yesterday on the "Brian Kilmeade Show," I admitted to letting my anger get the best of me a bit.  Brian said I was speaking not as a publisher but as an American — and that's fair.  But part of my frustration is that this is such an obvious challenge that anti-American leftists and their enablers in the Democratic Party are offering, and Republicans seem loath to meet it.  The questions I had from multiple politicians and their offices yesterday were all some version of:  What would you have us do?  Well, there are several things you can do.  First, stop thinking your Tweets and statements matter.  They don't.  The thirst among Republican voters isn't even for policy.  It's for seeing the politicians they elected join the fray.  As of today, Tucker Carlson is so popular because he seems to be the only prominent figure pushing back against the arguments allowed to stand alone in the public square.  Voters need visuals, and they need them now.

Republican senators propose replacing Columbus Day with Juneteenth for fiscal reasons.  A couple of Republican senators rolled out a proposal Wednesday to cancel Columbus Day and replace it with Juneteenth, saying they don't want to just list both dates as federal holidays because that would "put us further in debt."  Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and James Lankford of Oklahoma made the fiscally hawkish suggestion in an amendment to a bipartisan bill that would make Juneteenth a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery without tinkering with Columbus Day.  "We have offered a counterproposal that does not put us further in debt," Johnson said in a statement.  "We support celebrating emancipation with a federal holiday, but believe we should eliminate a current holiday in exchange."

Tucker Carlson Begs Republicans to Stop Being Democrats.  Tucker Carlson used his opening monologue tonight to beg Republicans to stop being Democrats.  Most of what Carlson outlines is accurate, especially the "Nikki Haley waiting in the wings" to return to the UniParty rules part.  The end solution is the appropriate course.  We The People must take action to force a resounding Trump reelection, and then demand the GOP abandon their leftist alignment.

Tucker Carlson, now officially the king of cable news, delivers historic challenge to GOP.  Tucker Carlson now has the highest ratings of any program in cable news history, adding extra weight to his historic program last night, in which he laid out the peril ahead if Biden wins and a clear strategy for the clueless GOP to follow in order to prevent that from happening.  [Video clip]  I don't agree with every single point he made, but I still hope the mush-heads who keep the GOP acting like a whipped puppy, pathetically accepting the premises of the Democrats and trying to be accepted as by them and their media adjuncts, take heed.

How do we fight the woke militants?  [Scroll down]  Over the past few years, my political pessimism has grown as I have watched the Republican Party, the only political party in which social and religious conservatives have any voice at all, fail to defend principles and institutions that ought to be defended.  As readers of The Benedict Option know, I had my red pill moment with the GOP when I learned from a face to face meeting in Washington that post-Obergefell, the Republicans in the House and Senate had no plans at all for legislation that would shore up religious liberty protections around religious schools and other institutions.  They are afraid.  Notice right now that none, or almost none, of the Republican political leaders are speaking out against this progressive putsch. They are hoping that it will all go away, and that after Trump, they can get back to tax cuts and serving corporations, while making impotent gestures of support to religious and social conservatives.  But this is not going to work.  The game is up.

Where are the gutless Republicans?  [Scroll down]  The question is, where on Earth are the Republicans?  Why has there been no press conference with every Republican in the House and Senate standing together to denounce all this violence?  To passionately defend our police?  They know [quite] well that Chauvin is an outlier, a bad cop who has kept his job because his Democrat-run city kept him despite his abusive tendencies.  Would any of these Republicans put up with their own children behaving in such a manner?  Of course not.  Every Republican knows that when you permit bad behavior, you get more of it — lots more of it.  A small child wants to find out where the limits are.  The same is likely true with these perps.  Let them act out day after day, and they will escalate, as they have in Seattle.  Governor Inslee is a fool, as is Mayor Garcetti of Los Angeles.

With Unemployment Rate at 15% — Nine RINO Senators Including Lindsey Graham Push President Trump to Offer More Work Visas to Foreigners.  The unemployment in the United States today is at 15%.  There are over 39 million Americans who have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus.  And yet on Wednesday nine US Republican Senators wrote President Donald Trump telling him not to restrict work visas for foreignors [sic].  Lindsey Graham was one of nine RINOs who want to bring in more foreign workers when there are 39 million Americans out of work.

An Open Letter to the D.C. Right.  [Scroll down]  Then Donald Trump came along.  He spoke of liberty and of putting America First.  Your public rage at him — and his supporters — was instantaneous.  It was visceral, full-throated, and constant.  I didn't remember any of you getting that worked up about Barack Obama.  Ever. [...] Trump represented an existential threat to everything you had — your job security, your social status, your sumptuous lives in places like Chevy Chase, Falls Church, and Georgetown.  You knew — somehow all of you could tell instinctively — that when Trump talked about liberty, he meant it. [...] And the economy boomed.  Jobs came back.  Americans began to prosper as never before.  And you hated every minute of it.  You made that clear in your articles and TV appearances and social media posts.  When the Democrats tried to sell the patently phony Russian-collusion narrative and impeachment case, some of you joined in the pile-on.  Some didn't: such matters weren't in your wheelhouse.  Besides, at least some of you had to have realized early on that it was all lies.  But none of you blew the whistle on it.

Useless Senate Republicans [are] No Match for the 'Bums of Steele'.  The letter, signed by one of the most powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill and addressed to Fusion GPS, indicated the jig was up.  Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Glenn Simpson, Fusion's co-owner, 13 questions about his involvement with the so-called Steele dossier and ties to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.  "When political opposition research becomes the basis for law enforcement or intelligence efforts, it raises substantial questions about the independence of law enforcement and intelligence from politics," Grassley wrote.  The letter showed that Senate Republicans were aware Christopher Steele was a paid operative working on behalf of Trump's Democratic enemies inside and outside the government. [...] In other words, Republicans knew at that point the whole dossier-fueled collusion storyline was a massive scam.

Dear GOP: Stop Cowering Before Bad-Faith Race Card Attacks.  Republicans might consider stepping out of their long-term defensive crouch.  If they're not racist, they shouldn't be so afraid of being called it by partisans.  They should denounce vicious rhetoric and not be afraid to advocate for their political philosophy and the policies that philosophy produces.  They should speak against the messages of The New York Times' 1619 Project and in defense of the United States, her founding, and her Constitution.  They should loudly note that they feel no need to apologize for the country, and to praise it for being the place — despite its many faults — with the most opportunity in the world for all its people.  They should be unafraid to note the problems with viewing everything through a divisive, racialist lens and to dismiss racists of all stripes.

Obama's De Facto Russian Collusion Co-Conspirators.  [Scroll down]  Since 1989 and the election of George H.W. Bush, a majority of Republicans elected to national office have chosen to worship the twin gods of civility and compromise rather than vigorously defend and promote liberty, free enterprise and limited government.  Meanwhile, their political adversaries, the Democratic Party and the Left (now one and the same) had no such compunctions, as they were determined to achieve their ends regardless of the means.  In conjunction with their accomplices in the mainstream media, Democrats quickly ascertained that any outrageous accusation on their part, such as that Republicans are determined to starve children, would eventuate in the near complete surrender of any opposition to their proposed policies.  Further, rather than support their colleagues in the Party who were oftentimes the victims of specious and malicious accusations, the spineless elites in the Republican Party willingly sacrificed their members on the altar of civility and faux integrity.  On the other hand, in an effort to show a willingness to "compromise" when in control of either or both Houses of Congress, the Republicans inevitably slow-walked or initiated cursory investigations of any Democrat wrongdoing.

The U.S. Senate Is the Heart of the Problem.  [Scroll down]  An amendment to forbid the FISA court from authorizing surveillance of American citizens (thus forcing the National Security Agency and the FBI to go through the traditional courts to get a warrant) from Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) failed.  So, too, did an amendment from Senators Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to require a warrant before allowing the NSA to snoop through the browser and search history of individual Americans.  One of the senators who voted against requiring a warrant for internet-snooping, ironically, was served with one of his own just a day later.  Richard Burr (R-N.C.) had his cell phone seized by the FBI as they continue to investigate allegations that the senator profited from classified information regarding the coronavirus, making several stock trades following an intelligence briefing that netted him up to $1.7 million.  His brother-in-law, working at the federal National Mediation Board, made similar trades.  The swamp [...] really is as vast and wide as you think.

Suicide of the Woke Republicans.  It is clearer than ever that the chairman of a legislative committee overseeing national intelligence misled the American public and, by undermining the Trump administration's ability to govern, harmed our national security.  What's more, we're not talking about the odious Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), whose perfidy at the service of partisanship and ideological madness is obvious.  We're talking about the nominal Republican who up until a few hours ago was chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, North Carolina's Richard Burr.  Schiff's conduct has been what one would expect of a Nancy Pelosi protégé.  Burr's is quite a different case.  If one imagines a Forrest Gump-like cipher as putty in the hands of K Street lobbyists, that is the portrait of Richard Burr.

Pelosi's Congress Should Shelter At Home For The Rest Of The Year.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is as determined as President Franklin D. Roosevelt to exploit this crisis for political gain, on the well-founded calculation that if Democrats ask Republicans to unleash a horde of locusts, they'll agree to half the locusts.  Maybe even three-quarters!  Despite failing so far to use the pandemic to get race and sex quotas for corporate boards, insane emissions requirements on airlines, more money for Democrat politicking funneled through unions, student loan bailouts, and bigger tax credits for solar panels, Democrats have already commandeered it to send pork to the Kennedy Center, bail out the U.S. Postal Service, get raises for Congress as 26 million Americans filed for unemployment, fund PBS stations, and upcharge for refugee resettlement.  And they're just getting started.  Pelosi has started talking about moving beyond blanketing the nation with deficit-funded checks into a "guaranteed income."

If GOP Governors Won't Re-Open, What's the Point of GOP Governors?  Georgia is set to "re-open" its economy, and [Chris] Escobar's comment vividly explains why the state should re-open, why it's more than safe to, and also why the shutdowns should never have happened in the first place.  His response is a reminder that people and businesses don't need a law.  They don't because it's generally not their style to do that which might kill them.  That the coronavirus unknowns are many means that with or without lockdowns, Americans would have been quite a bit more than cautious.  And they still will be.  In a free society, there's no such thing as a "do nothing" response to anything that has the potential to kill.

GOP Governor Greg Abbott Disappoints With a Timid Reopening Plan for Texas.  In a series of Executive Orders issued on Friday [4/17/2020], Texas Governor Greg Abbott laid out the initial aspects of his plan for re-opening the Texas economy.  The plan will be managed by what Gov. Abbott is calling a "statewide strike force" chaired by Austin banker James Huffines.  If these initial steps and the governor's statements about them are any indication, the reopening in red-state Texas will be little different than the process in many blue states around the country. [...] The disappointment comes in the lack of any effort whatsoever to distinguish Texas, which has had far fewer cases of the Wuhan Virus than much smaller states on the East and West Coasts and even Louisiana, from the approaches that will be taken by those other states.  For example, why no attempt to treat the 100+ Texas counties who have had 5 or fewer cases of the virus differently than the big-city epicenters of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin?  64 counties have reported ZERO cases of COVID-19.

When will Republicans go on offense?  The natives are getting restless.  They want to see elected and appointed Republicans get into the fray with smarts, determination, and energy. [...] We've grown tired of unanswered Democrat assaults that get nastier with each iteration.
  •   Weaponizing the Intelligence Community against candidate Trump
  •   The RUSSIA! hoax
  •   Pelosi-directed nonstop committee investigations
  •   The slanderous Kavanaugh hearings
  •   Mueller's corrupt investigation, which scrapped together a mountain from a molehill
  •   Ukraine as a ruse for impeachment
  •   Using the coronavirus as a platform for unrelenting and shifting attacks
That's not to mention the improbable deaths of Seth Rich and Jeffrey Epstein, Anthony Weiner's infamous laptop, disappearing hurricane aid to Puerto Rico, voter fraud, the Imran Awan congressional cyber-scandal, appalling leaks from congressional committees, cities that don't enforce laws, scandals involving all three of Virginia's statewide elected officials, leftist street violence, social media as the arbiter of speech, sanctuary cities and states, Hunter Biden acting as a cut-out for dear ol' dad, and the true origins of the Wuhan Virus.

Coronavirus Reveals Utter Sameness of Democrats and Republicans.  Libertarians keep saying that there are very few meaningful differences between the Republicans and the Democrats.  And one of the many things revealed by the political response to the coronavirus pandemic is that there are very few meaningful differences between the Republicans and Democrats.  You can see that in the $2 trillion CARES Act, the single largest spending bill in U.S. history.  It passed with 96 yes votes and zero no votes in the Senate. (Four senators could not attend the vote.) After Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) tried to instigate a conventional recorded vote on the measure, the House passed it on a voice vote so that individual members didn't have to go on the record supporting it.  That was something on which the top Democrat (Nancy Pelosi) and top Republican (Kevin McCarthy) joined forces.  As Massie told me, they did that to shield current members from having to explain their votes in the fall's election.  Technically, the bill passed unanimously, even though he and a few others said they would have voted against it if given the opportunity.

The GOP Needs a Real Response for Democrats' Games.  For Democrats, politics trumps all else, and Republicans must have a response.  In case the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process or the more than three years of anti-constitutional and unconstitutional resistance to President Donald Trump did not make it crystal clear, the Democrats' brazen gambit to use the coronavirus crisis to impose their radical agenda on the country by holding hostage emergency relief legislation should have removed all doubt about their singular desire for power.  Simply put, for Democrats, the ends justify any and all means.  The fact that Republicans were so blindsided and befuddled by this in the coronavirus context indicates the GOP still lacks an understanding of the nature of their political adversary.  Democrats will shamelessly use crises to cram their policies down our throats.  Do Republicans have any answer to this?

Don't Get Distracted:  Democrats Still Have Eyes on the Prize.  Remember the Democrat mantra: vote blue no matter who.  It's Republicans who tend to view politics through a romanticized lens of "working together," "compromise," "reaching across the aisle," "civility," "independent voters," "bipartisanship," "policy" and polemicizing in the Socratic dialogue in the garden of Plato's republic; all that is nice for the Cub Scouts and altar boy training, but not the bloodsport of politics.

Three ways to reset our coronavirus financial crisis.  Instead of springing to meet traditional Republican goals, the Trump administration appears to be delivering its opponents' program: spending like crazy, offering tax rebates in the thousands of dollars designed to encourage instant spending, bailing out target industries and widening government authority.  In an election year, it seems, we are all Democrats.  The Republican memory loss isn't just a pity; it's a tragedy.  That's because delivering policy that fulfills the Republican Party's old free-market agenda actually could do more than we imagine for the stock market, stability, long-term employment prospects and general American prosperity.

The Bushes Have Poisoned the Well Forever.  [Scroll down]  An objective analysis of the George W. Bush presidency leaves no other conclusion than he was just a slightly different version of the Clintons and the rest of the Washington political establishment.  Over the years there was a constant dribble of things that irritated the GOP base about the Bush family.  After portraying himself as the opposite of Bill Clinton and fundraising and campaigning and being beat up by the Clinton machine, Poppy Bush and Clinton — and their wives and families — would often hobnob, socialize and be seen working together on things.  Not that being friendly is a bad thing, but they had their supporters at each others' throats and pouring money into their campaigns.  Bush and Clinton sat on Boards of Directors together and golfed and laughed and fundraised together.  The whole political campaign thing where they distinguished themselves was all just a big act.  It was just two flavors of the same corrupt, putrid D.C. establishment.

13 Key Takeaways From President Trump's Epic State Of The Union Address.  [#7] Boldness Unmatched by Any Other Republican President:  Smack dab in the middle of the speech, President Trump thanked conservative hero Rush Limbaugh for "decades of tireless devotion" to the country.  In recognition of his work and the inspiration he has provided millions of Americans, Trump announced the country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  He had Melania Trump immediately present the honor in front of the assembled crowd.  While it is beyond common for liberal heroes and liberal celebrities to receive awards, Republican leaders acted over the course of decades almost as if it was okay for conservatives to be treated as second-class citizens in this regard. [...] No other previous Republican president or nominee would have had the courage to bestow this award on such a deserving American.  They would instead have worried about a media backlash.

The Factions of the Right and How They Fight.  The Republican faction is composed of those whose primary allegiance is to the Party.  Whatever benefits the Party is what they support and defend.  Republicans are further subdivided into groups who support bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle to Democrats on virtually every issue and those whose bipartisanship is more limited.  The former are usually the ones Christians sneeringly refer to as RINOs.

With several Republicans apparently succumbing on impeachment witnesses, Mitch McConnell may need to go 'nuclear'.  The Wall Street Journal reports that Mitch McConnell has told Republican Senators that he does not have the votes to block witnesses: [...] As detailed many times, the entire Democrat strategy has been to Kavanaugh the hearings, to call witnesses the House never called in order to turn the trial into a circus in which the process becomes the punishment.  The House impeachment was in bad faith, and the Kavanaughing of the hearings also is bad faith.  That four Republican Senators may succumb to these tactics speaks volumes about the weakness of Republicans.

A Vision for California's Visionless Republican Party.  About a month ago, the California Republican Party apparently harvested my email address, because since then I've been the lucky recipient of an email avalanche from "CAGOP." [...] The letter, like the emails, was filled with short, single-sentence paragraphs, liberally sprinkled with words written in all capital letters, or underlined, or in bold type.  Written in a style that would not challenge the average third-grader, all of them were designed to serve red meat to knee-jerk conservatives but offered nothing in the way of a policy agenda.  We push buttons.  You give money.  Me Tarzan.  This is condescending, hypocritical garbage, coming from a party leadership run by consulting firms whose mission is not to save California, but rather to stay in business.

Who needs Democrats?  Florida Bloomberg Republicans pass gun control out of legislative committee.  In case you thought Democrat control of Congress was the only thing standing in the way of conservative governance, take a look at what Republicans do even when they control all three branches in the state of Florida.  Support for the Second Amendment and the understanding that criminal control, not gun control, is the key to public safety used to be universal Republican principles, dating back to the Reagan era.  Evidently, not any more, with the likes of Florida state Senator Bill Galvano.  Rather than target known criminals with tougher anti-crime laws, Florida Senate's Infrastructure and Security Committee unanimously passed SB 7028, a bill that will require private gun sales to include massive documentation, verification, and red tape.  This casts a wide net on a protected constitutional right; already-burdened gun collectors and enthusiasts are going to have to spend even more money buying and selling guns.

GOP senators: don't overthink impeachment scam.  Like poison, cowardice flows through the GOP's bloodstream.  Trump does not fit their mold because he is fearless and speaks his mind.  He's not one of them.  It hurts my ears to hear conservative pundits say that we need the Democrat party as some sort of loyal opposition, so they can "reach across the aisle."  No more neutrality.  It is now clear from the recent Project Veritas recording that the leftists at the Bernie campaign (and no doubt everywhere else) intend to destroy this nation by violence, if necessary.  There really is a civil war going on.

For Pelosi's Impeachment Democrats, It's All about the Disruption.  [Scroll down]  But the fact is, this is where Democrats outplay us every time.  They knew from the get-go of this impeachment brouhaha that RINOs are our Achilles' Heel.  They knew that many Republican senators simply tolerate Trump but aren't really behind him.  They knew many of our senators care more about "principle" than party and are so worried about being the bad guy that they'll side with Democrats even though they'll politically shiv Republicans the first chance they get.  They might target Mike Lee and Rand Paul knowing they will brazenly defy the president if agreement with him conflicts with a belief or principle they hold, or their views on the Constitution.

Whoa! GOP does not have 51 votes to dismiss?  How imbecilic are those Republicans trying to make a name for themselves by supporting the unconstitutional Schiff/Pelosi articles of impeachment?  Beyond polite description.  Susan Collins, Rob Portman, probably the self-serving Mitt Romney, are all trying to be the biggest monkey wrenches in an already ridiculous endeavor to remove President Trump from office.  Each of them should just admit he is a Democrat at heart and switch parties.  How else to explain their betrayal of their own party?  Poor judgment is one thing, like Matt Gaetz voting for Pelosi's meaningless resolution to limit Trump's ability to counteract Iran.  That was just dumb, a hopefully momentary lapse.  As for the rest of them, they are idiotic, masters of their own demise.

GOP leadership:  There aren't 51 votes to dismiss Trump articles of impeachment.  Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told reporters on Monday [1/13/2020] that the Senate Republican caucus doesn't have the votes to dismiss the articles of impeachment against President Trump, who endorsed an "outright dismissal" over the weekend.  "I think our members generally are not interested in a motion to dismiss. ... Certainly there aren't 51 votes for a motion to dismiss," Blunt, the No. 4 Senate Republican, told reporters after a closed-door leadership meeting.  Republicans have warned for months that they will not dismiss the two articles of impeachment against Trump, predicting a trial will end with votes on either acquitting or convicting him.

Republican Governors' 'Tolerance' Will Kill Us All.  It's as though our "leaders" have been fed stupid pills and chased them down with healthy quantities of idiocy.  Take, for example, anchor babies.  I'm shorthanding it here a little, so bear with me, but it works a bit like this: let's allow illegal noncitizens into our country — people who shouldn't be here, have no right to be here — and let them have their babies on American soil.  Voila!  We now have new American citizens!  A few here, a few there, and suddenly you have an entire new generation of "American citizens" who were born on the taxpayers' dime after their parents arrived illegally and.  We're not talking about thousands per year:  last year alone, as far as we know, at least 376,000 anchor babies were born in the United States.  Throw into this mix "chain migration," also known by the Orwellian term "family reunification."  Chain migration, which, like anchor babies, is also legal, allows a naturalized citizen to bring in an unlimited number of relatives into our country.

Nationalism Is Looking Pretty Normal Right Now.  The recent troubles with Iran highlight the problem with America First nationalism: it would mean placing the interests of regular people at home before transnational "interests" like foreign wars that have no bearing on middle-American life.  Put another way, real people living in a real country with real interests of their own have a real problem with really stupid government and the real Stupid Party, otherwise known as the Republicans, that enables bad government while pretending to stand against it.

Now 18 of 27 GOP governors are requesting refugee resettlement — without any dissent.  Shutting down the refugee resettlement scam and transformation of our communities was one of Trump's campaign promises.  Unfortunately, when it comes to the key issues that propelled Trump into office, elected Republicans side with Democrats.  Nowhere is this more evident than on the issue of refugee resettlement.  Last week, I reported that, despite record illegal immigration draining resources in the states, 15 GOP governors requested refugee resettlement, after the State Department required their consent in order for contractors to begin resettling in a given jurisdiction.  Now, as conservatives remain complacent in this fight, 18 GOP governors have requested resettlement.

Also posted under Hijrah.

Why Shouldn't Pelosi Try to Strong-Arm the Republicans?  It Has Worked for Decades.  There has been a great deal of speculation as to why Nancy Pelosi was so anxious to rush her impeachment Schiff Show through Congress, but is now demanding that Mitch McConnell make the Senate's process as unfair as hers was before she allows him to get the ball rolling.  Many have even speculated that she is embarrassed by the whole thing and just wants it to go away before it completely kills the reelection hopes of too many Congressional Democrats.  It is more probable, however, that she is demanding certainty that the Senate trial be "fair," by which she means "viciously biased against the President," because she knows that the Republicans are likely to give her everything she wants.

The Senate Needs to Stop Sniveling.  The Hill reported this week that should the House Democrats be foolish enough (they were) to pass the two articles of impeachment[,] Senate Republicans will drag their feet on calling witnesses for a potential Senate trial.  While I realize the default position of most Republican Senators is not one of political or moral courage, I would encourage them to dig deep and see if for once they might be able to muster some.  Their excuses for not wanting to call witnesses range from it "wouldn't be popular" to it "might drag this on."  Well boo-hoo.  Cry me a river.  Little Linds of South Carolina even said his perfect Senate trial would not include any witnesses at all.  That's not going to work for me.  While I understand John McCain's buddy is probably a wee-tad nervous about more coming to light regarding McCain's role in this absurdity, and perhaps even his for that matter, let's try to think about the American people for once, shall we?

The Next Democrat President Must be Impeached.  The Republican Congress can take a page from Nadler, from Waters, from Engel, from Schiff and all the rest.  They should issue scores and scores of subpoenas.  Scores of subpoenas, for financial information, for bank records, for tax information; all kinds of communications with, around and about the president; issue subpoenas for the president's White House Counsel, Chief of Staff, National Security Adviser, and other people who are closest to the president so he ceases to function.  You want to burden this Democrat president as much as possible.  You want to undermine him as much as possible.  And you can wave around the Pelosi doctrine, the Schiff doctrine, the Nadler doctrine, and all the rest of them.  Use their rules and take him down.  Do the Republicans have the guts to do so?  I doubt it, but they must.

The Editor says...
The situation proposed in the article above will never happen.  The reach-across-the-aisle Republicans don't have the backbone or the insolent gall to carry out such a plan, unlike the Democrats.  The last Democrat president should have been impeached at least once, but the Republicans were afraid to even discuss the idea.  If the next Democrat president is a woman, or black, or homosexual, or Muslim, or blind, or Hispanic, or some combination, he or she will be completely immune, just as Obama was.

Republicans Will Live to Regret Joining Climate Alarmists.  [Scroll down]  These Republicans are making a huge mistake.  Joining the global warming bandwagon is a losing strategy because Republicans can't out-extreme the Democrats.  Joining the alarmist bandwagon only lends credibility to an issue that is helping Democrats.  What Republicans should be doing is opposing Democrat climate alarmism with alarm over the economic impact of the trillions the Democrats plan to spend on influencing the climate and the negligible effect that will have on global temperature.  Republicans need to raise alarm over what vast solar and wind farms are doing to the environment.  Republicans need to accuse Democrats of creating panic to win elections.  Republicans need to expose Democrat declarations of scientific consensus for their doomsday scenarios as false propaganda spread by a reckless media eager to sell sensational stories.

Will There Really Be a 2020 Landslide for Trump?  As we head into the most consequential election in our republic's history, you can listen to what you want to hear or what you need to hear.  Hillary Clinton was far closer to winning than most realize, and whatever liar or crazy Democrats nominate for 2020 will have the identical advantages Clinton enjoyed. [...] Most of the Republican electorate thinks elections are won on policy and ideology.  This is wholly inaccurate.  Democrats view elections in shades of black and white; there's a winner and a loser.  Republicans view elections in shades of gray, meaning let's be all things to all people, and then somehow, we'll garner enough votes because we're appealing to everyone.  This, of course, is the exact opposite of how elections are won, especially considering that red states no longer exist; they're only blue or purple.

Georgia GOP Governor To Pick Romney Donor and Planned Parenthood Advocate For Vacant Senate Seat?  Brian Kemp, the Governor of Georgia, is going against President Trump's recommendation for a U.S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by Senator Johnny Isakson, who is stepping down due to health problems.  President Trump and North Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz have been vocal about the fact that they want Kemp to appoint pro-Trump Georgia Congressman Doug Collins to finish out Isakson's term.  Rep. Doug Collins is a ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee and has been relentless in defending President Trump against the impeachment coup.  He has done so in hearings, in media appearances, and on Twitter.

The Empire Strikes Back.  [Scroll down]  Trump's intraparty enemies hate him, and wish to be rid of him, precisely because he is not one of them, because he stands for, and represents, something fundamentally different.  Getting rid of him is, for them, a way to get back to business as usual.  But there is no going back.  A few of them in safely anti-Trump states or districts may survive the president's removal but the vast majority will not.  A new party — a Trumpian populist-nationalist party — will arise from the Republican Party's ashes.  More blue collar in economic orientation and less in hock to coastal and financial elites, it will do a better job of attracting Democrats and independents — possibly pointing the way to the first real national majority coalition since the Reagan era.

How President Trump Loses in 2020.  Here's how it will look.  The Democrats will continue to funnel huge sums of money into local races targeting swing districts using front organizations like Planned Parenthood and MoveOn.org.  The Establishment Republican Party will resign itself to failure in those districts, fail to mobilize voters, or act too late to make a difference.  Republican voters will fail to go to the polls and vote.  Republicans will fail to volunteer to act as polling officers and be in a position to prevent election fraud.  Over the next year, those who believe in Making America Great Again will do nothing to engage the apolitical or apathetic around them and convince them that their vote matters in the General Election.

The Real Reasons Republicans Lost Virginia.  The GOP played to not lose rather than to win.  Defense never wins elections.  In the Richmond area, most of the Republican political ads stressed that the Republicans only had a one-seat majority in both houses and begged the voters to please help them to keep the evil, socialist Democrats out of power.  Notwithstanding the pro-after-birth abortion (killing live birth babies at the mother's whim) stances and socialistic tendencies of the Democrats, Republican ads stressed very few solid reasons to vote for the Republican candidates.  One incumbent Republican senator's ad rambled on in an ominous voice about the wrongs of his opponent and then stated that he, in contrast, was for "sensible" gun control and the pouring of more money into the schools as the only way to improve them.  One had to search the internet to see if he was a Republican.  He should have at least lobbied for increased school funding tied to school choice of parents, thus not pouring more money into the pockets of teachers' unions bent on destroying Republican candidates.  Which brings up the next point.  No one is quite sure what the Republican Party stands for in Virginia, nor does a visit to the Virginia Republican website remove any ambiguity.

Republican Leader Apologizes for Counter-Jihad Lecture Because Democrats Objected.  And here they go again, providing yet another demonstration of why the Republicans deserve the sobriquet "Stupid Party," and why the Republican establishment is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of Americans.  It all has to do with a lecture I gave up in [New Hampshire] several weeks ago.  According to New Hampshire's Valley News, a man named Randy Britton, who is described as "a retired Navy captain with 25 years of active duty and Navy Reserve service, had raised concerns about the impact of Spencer's appearance on a Muslim family who lived near the original proposed venue for the fundraiser in the Eastman Community Association."  Britton's political affiliation isn't listed, but he is unlikely to be a Republican.  Even though many Republicans are, like Smith, cowed and subservient to the Left, it is usually only Democrats who outright oppose resistance to jihad terror and call it "anti-Muslim."

VP Pence's Mealy-Mouthed Interview With Chris Wallace Over Al-Baghdadi Is Why You Got Trump.  One of the reasons voters got so frustrated prior to Trump was the constant fake, high-minded tripe that passed for political speech throughout the Obama years.  Republicans voters felt abandoned, part of a party that was too concerned with image vs. actually doing the right thing.  Yesterday [10/27/2019], an example of that reared its head.  It came during an interview between VP Mike Pence and Fox News' Chris Wallace, which my colleague Elizabeth Vaughn covered earlier today.  Wallace, who has basically decided he must snipe at the Trump administration every Sunday or lose his seat at the cool table, started asking some questions in an attempt to frame Trump's decision not to inform Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff about the Al-Baghdadi raid as being improper.

Who [are] "they?".  Obama is like the Left's version of the New Testament's John The Baptist.  Obama was put in office to pave the way for future unbridled destruction of the Constitution.  The weakness and corruption within the Republican Party allowed Obama to take a wrecking ball to the American system of government.

GOP Has A Choice:  Fight Anti-Trump Coup Effort Or Surrender Government To Democrats.  Republicans have two choices for how to handle the Resistance's latest attempt to undo the 2016 election through dramatic means.  They can sit there and take it, or they can fight it.  Some Republicans can be counted on to sit there and take it.  This approach entails allowing Democrats to hold secret hearings where they handpick snippets to leak to a compliant media in service of setting a narrative.  After the leaks are published by the compliant corporate press, these Republicans can impotently push back on some of it.  The other approach is to learn something from the previous few years.

We Asked Every GOP Senator About Impeachment.  Seven Ruled It Out.  Most Republican senators refused to rule out voting to remove President Donald Trump from office in an impeachment trial over the Ukraine scandal when contacted by the Daily Caller this week.  The Caller contacted all 53 Republican Senate offices Monday and Tuesday [10/22/2019] to ask if senators would rule out voting to remove Trump from office, and received a variety of responses — seven senators explicitly rejected impeachment in their statement.

We Will Remember The 129 Republicans Who Refused to Stand With President Trump.  [Scroll down]  Why is this important?  Well, today [10/16/2019] 129 Republican House members spat upon our President as he works tirelessly to defend out interests and put America First.  129 Republican House representatives voted against the one Republican who is doing everything he possibly can to fulfill the expectations of those who elected him to office.  129 back-stabbing cowards, voted to condemn President Trump for withdrawing the U.S. military from Syria; the same military engagement those same spineless cowards in the House would not vote to authorize.  Those 129 Republicans should be shamed.

House Dems Move to Impeach, Senate GOP Writes Mean Letters.  An infuriating sideshow to the Democratic House's impeachment "inquiry" is that Senate Republicans refuse to wield their power with any measure in return.  Instead, while House committee chairmen haul Trump administration officials and former campaign associates out in front of cameras to publicly humiliate them while issuing a flurry of subpoenas to create the chimera of a lawless presidency, Senate Republicans make empty threats and send letters.  It's an inexcusable abdication of power and a pathetic display of political cowardice.

Can we keep our Republic?  Starting with Woodrow Wilson, and continuing through FDR's New Deal, LBJ's Great Society programs, and Barack Obama's further expansion of entitlement programs and take-over of the health care industry, the country has been moving relentlessly toward more and more centralization of federal power, expansion of the federal regulatory regime, and encroachment on the freedom of states, civil society, families, and individuals.  And don't forget, along the way Republican elites have supported and abetted this weakening of the Republic.  They have created or expanded intrusive regulatory agencies like the EPA and the Department of Education, illiberal programs like race-conscious set-asides, and increased the number and scope of redistributionist programs like Medicaid and Social Security.  More recently they have joined forces with the identity-politics left to support amnesty for illegal aliens and laxer immigration protocols.  Worse yet, they have frequently endorsed and legitimized the politicized, illiberal ideology of race, "gender," ethnicity, and sexual identity that provides Democrats with tools for leveraging political power and influence in order to achieve "social justice."

Trump is Winning the Great Game of American Political Football.  It has been known from the morning after the last presidential election that Trump was planning an assault on the political conventional wisdom in policy matters. [...] The political class — which with minor variations to the right under George W. Bush, and a somewhat deeper turn to the left under President Obama, had held all the territory between the 30-yard lines on the political playing field since the retirement of Ronald Reagan — locked arms to repel the intruder.  The Democrats, both the Clintonians and the Obamans, who had composed their marginal differences opposite the Sanders charge from the left, prepared to obstruct and harass the incoming administration.  The Republicans, both the Bush-Romney-McCain center and the Cruz right, sat on their hands in the Congress, with towering skepticism, and neither Speaker Paul Ryan nor Senate leader McConnell gave the new president any assistance at all.

President Trump's wake-up call to Romney and other sleepy Republicans.  Where [...] are the Capitol Hill Republicans?  Have you noticed how quiet they are as another Democrat/Deep State hoax is perpetrated against President Donald Trump?  With the exception of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, can you name another Republican interested in the origins of the Obama/Deep State plot to overthrow a duly elected Republican president?  In an unconstitutional, illegal coup no less?  Why don't turncoat Senator Mitt Romney and other sleepy Republicans hear President Trump's wake-up call?

Donald Trump's lesson for Mitt Romney.  Genteel Republicans like Mitt Romney complain about Donald Trump's unpresidential behavior but how else does he combat the dirty left?  Only a barbarian could defy the liberal establishment as he has done.  Imagine if Romney were president, trying to be dignified and patrician.  They'd eat him alive.  Unless, of course, he did nothing to block their agenda, in which case he'd be left alone like all the other cowardly roll-over Republicans.

What is the Purpose of the GOP?  The Republican Party, in its budgeting and voting, is a left-of-center party; it is, as I often referred to it as, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.  With an increasingly Marxist Democratic Party, and no serious conservative opposition from "soft-progressive" Republicans, the trajectory of the nation is all to the left: more spending, more programs, more socialism, and ultimately more tyranny.  Rather than promote a constitutional, limited government agenda that would actually expand liberty and shrink the power of the federal government, the GOP, in effect, embraces the tenets and policies of the Democrats (other than occasional, meaningless rhetorical flourishes to the contrary).  Thus, there is no active force to thwart the mortgaging of the nation and future generations by politicians seeking short-term political gain.

Jeff Flake says 'at least 35' Republican senators would privately vote to impeach Trump.  Former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake made a bold claim on Thursday when he said "at least 35" GOP senators would privately vote for President Trump's impeachment.  Appearing at the 2019 Texas Tribune Festival, Flake, a frequent critic of the president, offered his own reaction and predicted that close to three dozen Republican senators would back impeachment.  "I heard someone say if there were a private vote there would be 30 Republican votes.  That's not true," Flake said during a Q&A.  "There would be at least 35."

Will gutlesss GOP senators sell out Trump the way their predecessors did Nixon?  When an important one of their own is attacked, Republican senators, many of them swamp things themselves, and mostly men of much wealth and little political judgment or knowledge of history, simply don't have the circle-the-wagons, defend-the-power and-the-agenda-above-all, attitude of the Democrats.  They can be stampeded and rolled.  Already once in living memory Republican senators participated in the lynching of one of their own, Richard Nixon, whose trivial infractions would not have cost him his presidency had he been a Democrat.  Nixon was politically assassinated[i] because long-standing Democratic hatred of him engendered a relentless war to bring him down that weak-willed Republican Senators were not intellectually, politically or psychologically equipped to win.

Nunes: 'Stop Giving Quotes' to Mainstream Media Outlets Allied With Dems.  Last night, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) urged Republicans to stop cooperating with the hostile, corporate media. [...] "Most of the media out there, they are just assets of the Democratic party.  I think Republicans need to just — if there's fair reporters out there, fine.  But the New York Times and the others that continue to spread these fallacies, just like the other bombshell the other day talking about these sources that were supposedly blown, it's also fake news.  This needs to stop and Republicans need to stop giving quotes to these mainstream media outlets."

Limbaugh: Washington Establishment And Media Only Function Peacefully When The Republican Party Agrees To Be The Loser.  Syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh on Monday afternoon [9/9/2019] warned Trump supporters that there will never be peace and tranquility in the Washington Establishment and the mainstream media unless the Republican Party agrees to be "the Washington Generals to the Democrat Party's Harlem Globetrotters."

Why Are Republicans Caving to Socialist Price-Setters?  Many Republicans have gone along with the Trump era less with fervor than out of fear.  And the economic logic of Trump's populist instincts is mixed.  Trade is a special area where more aggressive maneuverings can achieve important aims even if they cause temporary, short-term harm.  But one instinct that has been seeping from the socialist left into the Republicans side in the Trump era ought to be expelled forthwith.  It is the temptation to use price controls to set the world as one wishes it would be.  A price control is the government setting prices to some arbitrarily desirable rate by fiat.  In the 1970s, it was gas prices.  Today, it's drug prices.

Dobbs grills RNC chair over 'spineless RINOs' who 'roll over like puppies'.  Lou Dobbs confronted the chair of the Republican National Committee on the Party's plans for 2020 and its weak "establishment candidates."  The Fox Business host had plenty to tell Ronna McDaniel during her appearance on "Lou Dobbs Tonight" Wednesday [9/4/2019], pressing her on the expectations for the upcoming election and what would be done with spineless "RINOs" who "roll over like puppies."

5 things the Republican Party can learn about politics from Donald Trump.  [#2] One of the big problems with candidates like Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney is that they centered their campaigns around pleasing the establishment wing of the Party while doing little to appeal to the grassroots.  Consequently, all of them lost.  On the other hand, even though Trump is talked about as the most diehard populist in the White House since Andrew Jackson, he has still been a business-friendly president who pushed through a large tax cut.  In other words, he has done more to cater to the establishment than Bob McRomney ever did to cater to the base.  Future Republican Party presidential candidates need to work much harder to please and activate the grassroots.

Proposed Gun Laws Would Do Nothing to Prevent Mass Killings, and Everyone Knows It.  The country is again in an uproar following the latest mass shootings in Texas and Ohio.  In response to the hysterical clamor in the media to "do something," politicians in both the Democratic and Republican Parties want (yet again!) more gun laws.  Republicans, including President Trump, are proposing a "red flag" confiscation law that would enable police to summarily seize an individual's guns based on hearsay.  Such a law would blatantly violate the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments.  In practice, these laws would have no significant effect on actual shooters, but would ensnare people like Donald Montgomery, a retired police officer from Long Island who sought insomnia treatment — and was declared "mentally ill" and had his guns permanently seized under Andrew Cuomo's notorious "SAFE" Act.  Republicans should know better, but apparently, they don't.

Mass Shootings and Mainstream Conservative Twaddle.  [Scroll down]  Now whites constitute 61% of the country's population, followed by Hispanics at 17.8% and blacks at 12.7%. As with all violent crime, most mass shootings are committed by young men.  But whether we adjust for age and gender or not, white people are underrepresented among mass shooters.  So are Hispanics.  Blacks, however, are highly overrepresented.  Of course, since whites are a kind of scapegoat these days — whereby other groups form an alliance, albeit thin and transitory, via enmity for whites — the left-wing media present mass shootings as a distinctly white phenomenon.  "White-nationalist terrorism" and "Alt Right ideas, memes & speech," we're to believe, are about to turn the U.S. into Nazi Germany.  Such an egregiously biased perspective, if it does anything, will likely lead to more "white-nationalist terrorism."

Everything They're Telling You About Mass Shootings Is Wrong.  Not only are congressional Republicans making noise about gun control laws that Obama could never get passed but the New York Times reported that President Trump is looking for ways to enact gun control through executive action.  Allow me to propose a radical thought:  Rushing important legislation that affects people's most fundamental rights based on what's trending on Twitter is not the best way to run a serious country.

Patterns in Republican Retirements from the US Congress.  One narrative has it that Republicans were retiring because they were fed up with the toxic political environment or were afraid of losing elections, but these narratives were prematurely formed or they lacked correlation.  There actually are three possible hypotheses that explain, single or combined, this phenomenon:  [#1] Republicans fear losing the majority in their own chamber of the Congress,  [#2] Republicans prefer to avoid a tough re-election, and  [#3] Republicans are not aligned with the direction President Trump has imposed on the party.

Democrat Prospects Are Bleak As The Wacky Pack Takes Over.  Donald Trump is the odds-on fave to win reelection, and the Republicans can take back the House and keep the Senate if they aren't stupid and incompetent — meaning it's far from a done deal.

The principled GOP of the near past wouldn't recognize today's party.  The party of fiscal conservatism is now in favor of spending the country into oblivion.  The party's leader in the House makes pathetic excuses for the big spending, plus the Republican president actually boasts about it.

The Co-Conspirators in the American Left's Takeover of the Democratic Party.  The watershed moment came in 2008 with the nomination for president of one of the most feckless members of the party's hierarchy, John McCain, followed by an even more feckless Mitt Romney in 2012. The door was swung wide open for a frustrated and angry electorate to vote for Barack Obama, a creation of American Left indoctrination and a glib counterfeit "moderate." [...] From 1989 through 2015, the Republican Party suffered from the ineptness, timidity and lack of a philosophical core at all echelons of the party.  This failure includes the two Bush Administrations, virtually the entire cadre of Republican Congress members led by leaders such as Denny Hastert, Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Bill Frist, Trent Lott, and Mitch McConnell, and the board members of the Republican National Committee.

Here comes the McConnell budget 'deal' that will rule the rest of Trump's presidency.  Thanks to the one policy success conservatives secured in the past decade, spending will automatically go down by $35 billion on October 1, when the budget caps kick in, and by another $89 billion on January 1, when sequestration takes effect.  Yet from day one of budget negotiations, there was no disagreement between GOP leaders and Nancy Pelosi.  They both agreed on unconditionally raising the debt ceiling for two years and busting the budget caps for not just this year but next year as well, for a total of over $300 billion in more spending.

The Democrats And The Republicans Are Both Conspiring To Bankrupt America And Destroy Our Future.  Both major political parties are working together to destroy America's financial future, and most Americans don't seem to care.  Once upon a time, the Republicans were considered to be "the party of fiscal responsibility", but now they are just as bad as the "free spending" Democrats.

Jeffrey Epstein, Alex Acosta and an Elephant Named Bill.  The fact is, nobody really remembered or cared who Jeffrey Epstein was until about five minutes ago. [...] Typically, this was a case of Republicans failing to see the forest for the trees.  The Democrats could not care less whether Epstein — a Democrat contributor — got a too-good deal back in 2008.  They had eight years to do something about it while they controlled the Justice Department under President Obama.  Did they?  Of course not.  The Obama Justice Department, FBI, IRS, Bureau of Land Management, ATF, and numerous other agencies were too busy engaging in their own political hackery to worry about what a Bill Clinton buddy was up to after serving his one year sentence.  And that's the real point.

Where the Democrats are Trying to Take Us.  The primary threat to this nation is not Donald Trump nor his supporters but an evolving autocratic oligarchy made up of the hierarchy of American Left, which includes elements of the political class, the mainstream media, the education establishment and, most recently, the titans of Silicon Valley.  Over the past 25 years, while the bulk of the Republican Party and the hierarchy of the conservative movement myopically extended the hand of friendship, this cabal has been overwhelmingly successful in their stealth takeover of the Democratic Party, which is now the vehicle being utilized to manipulate the "unenlightened and inferior" masses with utopian promises and empty rhetoric.

Mark Levin Lights Up Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Like a Christmas Tree at Chernobyl.  This Democrat Party is a horrid party.  It is a party of hate.  It is a party of racism.  It's a party of anti-semitism.  It's a party of un-Americanism, which perhaps explains why the media are attached at the hip to the Democrat Party. [...] It's the party of the New Left and the old Reds.  It's the party of socialists and Marxists and other radicals.  It's the party of open borders.  It's the part of criminals against cops.  It's the party that seeks the evisceration of the United States military, accusing us of imper[i]alism and colonialism.  It's a hateful, vile, political party.  It's too bad the Republican Party is so weak and impotent.

The Dems' 2020 Election Strategy.  [Scroll down]  We see the Democrats swear for decades to guard the border, build a wall, and protect the endangered lower economic class and African Americans from a swarm of cheap labor, until the Democrats figure out that the lower economic class and African Americans are in their pockets anyway, while the New Illegals actually turn Republican strongholds into Democrat states.  So we turn to Republicans, who promise to fix the border.  Next thing you know, the capitalist big business "Chambers of Commerce" are in cahoots with the Left, importing the same Illegals for cheap labor.

Congress will definitely keep spending.  Much as with the border invasion, Senate GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn don't believe our unprecedented spending is a problem.  They only perk up when the Trump administration tries to combat either of those problems.  Then, they say they care about the problem but just oppose the administration's solution, of course, without offering their own.  In just the first eight months of this fiscal year, our government has spent $3 trillion.  That is $255 billion more than at this time last year and nearly half a trillion more than during the first eight months of FY 2016.  In other words, congressional Republicans have signed off on spending that is 18.2 percent higher than under the final year of Obama's presidency, when Republicans were railing against the unconscionable rise in debt.

Texas is about to make sex jokes on campus a criminal offense.  Republican lawmakers seem to have a better grip than their Democratic colleagues on the inherent censorship of so-called free speech zones and viewpoint-based security fees.  David French of National Review counted eight states that have passed campus free-speech bills in less than six months, most recently Texas.  He has one major quibble with the new Texas law:  its failure to define a phrase that dictates when students can be punished for disruptions.

Conservatives, Re-Think Your Giving.  If [conservative think tanks] were effective, they would be attacked relentlessly by the Left and, given their timid posture, all but destroyed.  Yet their presidents are regularly paid a salary of $1 million and up, excluding travel budget.  They have annual gala dinners with popular cable news pundits to raise the overhead budget, five staffers keep cushy jobs, and the Left continues marching us toward socialism like we aren't even there.  At a lunch recently, I said to a colleague that if 60 percent of the conservative think tanks in the country disbanded, no one would care.  He replied without missing a beat:  "No one would notice."

NY Times Labels Top Conservative YouTubers as 'Far-Right' in Continued Push to Ban Conservative Content Online.  The push to eliminate conservative content online continued on Sunday in The New York Times.  Since the 2016 election there has been an organized and well funded movement on the left to eliminate conservative content online.  And it has worked — thanks to a weak and ineffective Repubican party.

America's Second Tea Party 246 years after Boston.  The ruling class that has been ascendant for well over the past 30 years has found comfort in their lofty seats of power.  Hence, they are loath to give them up.  The fable of Democrat versus Republican has been well played over the years.  Sensible people have bought into their boxing match.  One party gets in, and the opposition rails; the other party gets in, and the reverse happens.  Lately, both parties are of the same ilk.  Both endorse big government.  Both party's representatives in Washington, D.C. enjoy smoking the same cigars at the same club of insiders.  The drama is played out in a complicit media, supported by a school system designed to create like-minded robot victims of students.

The Beatings Will Continue Until The Stupidity Ends.  [Scroll down]  Indulge me in an example near and dear to my heart.  Assume Republicans retake the House and expand their majority in the Senate.  They also grow spines.  They send up a budget not merely stripped of Planned Parenthood funding, but that instructs that no Medicaid funds may go to any abortion provider.  States may use their own funds as they will, but Federal funding is right out.  Trump, because he's not smart but he knows marketing, signs this.  Raise your hand if you honestly believe a venue-shopped District Judge won't void that part of the budget because reasons.  Keep it up if you think the Ninth or Fourth or Second Circuits, where venue will probably be, won't affirm.  If the Trump years have taught us anything — an open question — it is that the total absence of a Constitutional basis for this behavior is irrelevant.

With Republicans Like These, Does Texas Even Need Democrats?  As you wake up this morning, you need to take note of something if you live in Texas:  Your legislative Republicans intend to raise your taxes without you knowing about it. [...] A bill in the state legislature, HB3579, would institute a fee on anyone who uses a service like Orbitz, Hotels.com, etc. to plan their vacation.  When you book a hotel room in Texas, you are already assessed a tax on the hotel room, but now these Republicans in the state legislature want to double-tax you, whether you are a Texan booking a trip within your state or an out-of-state visitor coming in to see your family, on a business trip, etc.  And, again, this is a Republican-led effort.

Maxine Waters Let Obama's Cat Out of the Bag in 2013.  In 2010, following the roughshod passage of Obamacare, the American people during the midterm elections unambiguously expressed their disgust with high-handed government edicts.  A furious populace handed a solid House majority to Republican leadership, who promptly squandered the opportunity, never missing a chance to stand down, pledging unconvincingly to "fight on the next one."  Epithets swirled like leaves in a dust devil.  Spinelessness was given a new and deeper meaning, and dissatisfaction with the "establishment" went from an undercurrent to a raging flood.  Through it all, our Republican leadership still surrendered faster than a French tank battalion as the Left rolled across the nation virtually unopposed.

Us vs.  Them.  There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country.  The real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare.  Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending.

Senate Republicans Use New Rules to Save a Crony Institution.  After nuking their debate rules for nominations last month for the stated reason that they wanted to push the confirmations of more Republican judges, the Senate this week used the rule change instead to waste precious floor time expanding corporate cronyism.  The Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank for more than 1,000 days has lacked the full quorum of its board of directors, which is necessary to approve taxpayer-funded loans of over $10 million to benefit America's richest corporations (think Boeing, Caterpillar, and General Electric).  The board now has a full slate, and can confirm loans up to $100 million.

Trump Administration to Crack Down on Illegals in Public Housing.  It is stunning to think this was happening in America today.  It's as if there is NO opposition party to the radical Democrats in Washington DC.

The Democrats' Sore Loser Syndrome.  [Scroll down]  The Democrats' next sore loser was Al Gore, the inventor of the Internet.  He lost to an obscure Texan in a race that was decided in the Electoral College.  Al whined and tied the election up for 35 days until the Supreme Court had had enough and called the election for that obscure nobody from Texas.  The election was decided in Florida by 537 votes after the votes of almost 6 million Floridians were counted.

The Editor says...
What would Al Gore have done as President?  Would he have outlawed incandescent light bulbs?  Would he have expanded the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts by $18 million?  Would he have signed the "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2002?  Would he have demanded that we dilute gasoline with ethanol?  George W. Bush did all that.

Walk Away Event Encourages LGBT People To Separate From The Democratic Party.  I like a lot of Austen Fletcher's videos but this one is a bit different than most.  In this clip, Fletcher isn't at a campus talking to people, he's at an event in West Hollywood called "#Walk Away" which is aimed at encouraging LGBT people to consider distancing themselves from the Democratic Party.

The Editor says...
No, that's okay, you can stay with the Democrats.  This country doesn't need two Democratic Parties.  The Democrats are welcome to retain their core constituents:  welfare queens, prostitutes, homosexuals, bikers, communists, homeless bums, and assorted troublemakers.

Why Is the GOP Slacking on Oppo Research?  The GOP used to be good at oppo research.  Feared, even.  Operatives for the national party and countless other state affiliates and related groups would pour through the records of Democrats on the rise and gather evidence.  It was all kinds of good, deep dive stuff.  When Democrats announced they were running for office, the GOP oppo squad would release the results of this research to the Drudge Report, local papers, or television affiliates and then send it viral.  And Democrats would get blown up.  Lately, though, Republicans have been slacking.

American Workers Lose As Republican Swamp Keeps Steve Moore Off The Fed.  [Scroll down]  Like others in the supply-side movement that came to prominence designing Ronald Reagan's tax cuts, Moore knows that an economy growing at optimum speed does not cause inflation.  And he would have been the first Fed governor ever who unapologetically refused to raise short-term interest rates for the express purpose of slowing down an "overheating" economy.  He wouldn't take part in killing Americans' jobs for fear of an inflation ghost that the evidence says doesn't really exist.  He also understands that money supply and interest rates are not the federal government's playthings, which is why Moore has emphasized the importance of looking to the real world indicator of gold and other commodities for guidance, and has even wondered — like free-market Nobel laureate Milton Friedman — if the Fed should even exist in its present form.

2020 climate madness looms.  The Republican Senate artlessly failed to debate the explosive GND, while the wily Democrat House has silently buried it under eleven different Committees.  But while Congress may never vote on the GND, it is not about to go away, quite the opposite.  The Presidential race guarantees it a large life, at least until the Democrat National Convention.  While so far avoiding the GND, the Democrats running the U.S. House have promised to introduce a never ending series of separate and distinct climate activist bills.  The goal of this piecework strategy is to make climate change a big 2020 election issue, no matter who their candidate is.

What Does It Mean To Be Moral In the Public Area?  Republicans since Ronald Reagan long have made big promises, whether it was repealing Obamacare, cutting the national debt, fixing our broken welfare system, and stopping the madness at our southern border.  But the overwhelming majority of them abandon those values when it counts.  The late Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) railed against Obamacare and the consequences for our healthcare, raising millions of dollars for his reelection on the promise he would end it.  But when the moment arrived, he voted to prop up the failing, costly program.  President George W. Bush had countless opportunities for serious reform of our welfare system.  Instead his domestic legacy is the expensive and unnecessary Medicare Part D.  Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan ran as pragmatic conservatives ready to shrink the size of government, but when Ryan had the chance to work with President Trump, he failed to push through meaningful reforms.  Now Romney continues his sniping at the president from his safe seat in his newfound home of Utah.

Felon Voting:  Suicide for Republicans.  Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and top adviser, thinks felons could be part of the Republican Party's "new coalition."  Last week, he made a dubious claim:  "One statistic that I found very pleasing, is that in Florida, they passed a law where former felons can now vote.  We have more ex-felons registered as Republicans than Democrats."  This is a not uncommon view among Republicans.  Black conservative Candace Owens said last September she believes most felons, if given the vote, would "vote against the Left."  Conservatives Charles and David Koch support felon enfranchisement, and they influence the groups they fund.  Some conservatives even backed a 2015 federal measure that would have given non-violent felons the right to own a gun as well as vote.

How Bad Will the Border Get Before Senate Republicans Care?  Senate Republicans will not bring a single piece of legislation to the floor or even rhetorically address the border invasion in a meaningful way.  Meanwhile, the administration continues to flounder, but Stephen Miller is trying to inject some sanity into its policies.  Rather than focusing on the invasion, Senate Republicans are more concerned about Stephen Miller.  [Video clip]

The Republicans are a disgrace to phylum chordata.
Republicans writing off hard-line DHS candidate.  Senate Republicans are waving President Trump off from nominating Kris Kobach, a favorite among conservatives who want tougher enforcement of immigration laws, to serve as the next secretary of Homeland Security.  GOP lawmakers are already scrambling to contain the controversy surrounding two potential nominees to the Federal Reserve Board — Stephen Moore and Herman Cain — and they don't want to find themselves in another political fight with the White House over the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The Enemy Within.  Evidence:  Millions of students, kindergarten through graduate school who, due to brainwashing and indoctrination by a leftist dominated educational system, believe socialism is The Way and that "the planet" is in immanent danger of environmental destruction; millions of criminal invaders, entirely unvetted, possibly disease carrying, allowed to roam free, murdering, raping, stealing at will, and adding the coup de grace, voting in our elections in massive numbers; dozens of high government officials who are known to have indisputably committed multiple felonies, breaking a myriad of federal laws, continuing to hold positions of power, and/or walking around free and unindicted; an out of control deficit and a similarly out of control federal budget; leftist terrorists, by the government's own definition, allowed to continue violent attacks on conservatives with little, but mostly no punishment; a media engaged in 24/7/365 dissemination of lies, slander, libel, disinformation, distortion, obfuscation, and propaganda; the Democrat Party, encouraging, funding, instigating, covering up for, constantly lying about, and engaging in all of the above; a judiciary dominated by leftist judges who regularly and without fear of consequences, create law from their personal political agendas; and, pathetically sad to say, the Republican Party doing nothing of substance to slow, much less stop this, and worse, often aiding and abetting.
[Emphasis added.]

Republicans' day of reckoning on Trump is coming.  Twelve Senate Republicans stopped Donald Trump from invoking a national emergency to pay for a wall on the southern border last Friday [3/15/2019] — three times as many senators than needed to pass it.  That's the good news.  The bad news?  Even more Republicans will be needed to override Trump's veto.  What's worse is the fact that if more Republicans don't join Democrats in overriding this veto they will provide Trump even more power when he has a history of not acting in the best interest of our country.

Why Is Trump Having to Fight Alone?  I'm giving up the hope that any elected government leaders other than President Trump, are willing to stand up for the beliefs and intentions of a majority of Americans.

The Senate's 'Dirty Dozen': Doing nothing about the border except obstructing Trump.  Oh, the sudden appeal of the constitution!  Oh, that sudden 'concern' about separation of powers, and an imperial presidency.  Oh, those creepy claims to really, truly, ooly, caring about border security as the caravans with a 's' prepare to roll in.  Funny they only come out with this [stuff] when the issue is President Trump's border wall.  Where were they, and all their Elmer Gantry pieties, back when President Trump and his recent predecessors declared other states of emergency — such as the one on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, or the importance of not doing business with Burundi, or the one about blocking property of bad people running Nicaragua?  Because let's face it, declaring states of emergency is routinely done by presidents these days.  Somehow, they didn't get as loud.  In fact, we didn't get any of this talk from them, based on what I was able to find, though I wouldn't put it past Rand Paul.  No, they've decided that now is the time to bring up constitutional separations of powers as the real issue and let what happens, happen, at the border, never mind that it actually is an emergency.

Border Security Vote — McConnell Unleashes Two-Thirds of Decepticon Caucus to Keep Borders Open.  Delivering a targeted message from U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Dohonue, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell unleashed twelve members of his Decepticon caucus to rebuke the border security efforts of President Donald Trump.  Doing what he does best, Leader McConnell held back (protected): John Thune, John Cornyn, John Barasso, Mike Crapo, Ben Sasse, Thom Tillis & Cory Gardner.  However, the remaining dozen were permitted to vote against the President for Joint Resolution (H.J. Res. 46 ).

Trump is an Army of One.  Republicans controlled the House and Senate for two years.  Other than a corporate tax cut, what did they accomplish?  Obamacare wasn't repealed, despite endless promises to do so ahead of each election.  The wall, Trump's signature issue, wasn't built.  Planned Parenthood remained funded as did sanctuary cities.  Two Supreme Court nominees were confirmed, although the Kavanaugh process was a travesty, aided and abetted by a handful of squishy Republican Senators.

Northram and the GOPe.  There is a lesson from scandal of moonwalking Gov. Ralph Northam (D-Va.) being photographed in either in a KKK hood and sheet or blackface in his medical school yearbook.  In 2017 Northam decisively defeated Ed Gillespie for governor 54 to 45.  (As an aside, Bill Kristol backed Northam.)  In that race, the Democrats played the race card for all it was worth, while Gillespie was as hapless as a deer in the headlights.  This should not be a surprise.  Democrats do what Democrats do — play to win at any cost.  And establishment Republicans do what establishment Republicans do — lose 'gracefully.'  And to be sure, Gillespie is a dyed-in-the-wool establishment Republican.

An Amazing Theory Of Why Ed Gillespie's "Campaign" Missed Northam's Blackface/KKK Pictures.  During the 1992 campaign, I was a military aide to an assistant secretary in one of the cabinet departments and all of my counterparts were Bush Schedule C appointees.  Through them, I became acquainted with some senior people on the Bush campaign team.  There was tons of oppo on Bill Clinton and his horndogging and the fights between Bill and Hillary on the campaign trail and some really salacious stuff on Hillary's extra-curricular activities but the Bush campaign elected not to use it in large part because Bush was still stinging from the Willie Horton ad.  So finding a GOP campaign acting against its own interests for the sake of being a noble loser isn't new.  I would submit the 2008 McCain campaign had as its objective to be a gracious loser to the first viable black presidential candidate.  I've never really been convinced Mitt Romney wanted anything more than to lose cleanly in 2012.

The Unilateral Disarmament Of Conservatives.  Unfortunately and for too long, conservatism (and the GOP) has lacked a [General U.S.] Grant who knows how to wage a war with the goal of victory and unconditional surrender.  We lack a person — worse, a mindset — willing to drop a political atomic bomb on the opposition.  We lack a slash, burn and pillage mentality.  Instead, for too long we have been content with playing by the equivalent of the Geneva Convention political rule book and hoping for a Korean War-like stalemate against the Left.  We have been told that we must rise above their rhetoric and tactics.  This line of thinking offered up the likes of John McCain, Bob Dole, Mitt Romney, John Boehner, and Paul Ryan.  In their own right and own way, I am sure they are/were good people with one major flaw:  they lacked the will or the know how in winning a war.  In short, they were losers.  Meanwhile, the Left are not "culture warriors;" they are culture terrorists. [...] We have been lectured about mocking and criticizing people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nathan Phillips, the lying Native American drum-beater in need of a good dental plan.  That is the exact recipe for losing the war.  The Left has no reservations whatsoever when it comes to criticism and mockery.

The Left Won't Allow a Peaceful Separation.  Until Trump, the GOP saw itself as one wing of a responsible governing class.  All the talk of shrinking the government and the culture war was just overheated rhetoric that no one in power seriously believed.  The party's leadership functioned to divert its voters discontent into an agenda more palatable to the ruling class.  Thus, every campaign sounded like the second coming of Paul Revere, but in the end, the practical outcome was some work on the margins related to tax cuts.  For issues like gay marriage, abortion, immigration, crime, and affirmative action, the Republican leadership mostly tried to avoid them altogether.  After every electoral loss, the solution was to be less divisive and to focus on economic issues.

Establishment Republicans Want the Pro-Life Movement Dead.  Is any political constituency as regularly swindled and abused as are pro-lifers?  From their promises to defund Planned Parenthood to their assurances that Roe v. Wade is very soon to be on the chopping block, establishment Republicans are masters at talking a big game but doing nothing at all to advance the right to life of the unborn.  Too many Republican politicians either are cynical grifters or outright liars who don't care a whit about the 14th Amendment's promise of "equal protection of the laws" to all persons or the Declaration's teaching that "all men are created equal" and "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" — chief among them being the right to life.

The Conservative Coward Caucus.  It's a truism that whenever Republicans are in the minority in Congress, they act like it but whenever the GOP has the majority, they still behave as though they are in the minority.  Power seems to embarrass them. [...] Republican leaders were very good at constructing a litany of excuses for why they could never win — despite having control over the levers of power.  By the time Donald Trump won, the Republican elite was caught unawares.  They had convinced themselves that nothing could stop Hillary Clinton and they all made arrangements simply to acquiesce in the wiles of the Clinton machine and the Democrats; to save their own hides while in Washington and abandon the voters who put them in office.

Congressional GOP Is Why America Doesn't Have a Wall.  [Scroll down]  You see, the GOP was given a great gift by the American voter:  they were granted dominion over the United States House of Representatives, the Senate, and the presidency in 2016.  Yet, don't tell that to the Republican establishment.  After dominating every aspect of government for two years, the GOP has little to show for their monumental electoral victory in 2016.  Donald J. Trump is hated even more by the Republican establishment than he is by the Democrats. [...] Ultimately, the GOP is not on Trump's side any more than the Democrats are.

Democrats are The Party of Death — But Weak Republicans Never Force Them to Own It.  No other issue is as easy to frame, and supported by the majority of American voters, as the issue of illegal alien impacts on local communities.  Yet, we never see republican politicians making democrats own and defend these toxic negative outcomes.  The reason is likely because both wings of the UniParty benefit from massive lobbying to keep the problem in place.

Democrats: A plague on the nation.  It appears that the entirety of the left — the media, the Deep State, Wall Street, and the Democratic Party — is working in concert to bring Trump down, no matter the consequences to the country.  Meanwhile, the Republicans in the Congress, most but certainly not all, are as bendy as can be.  With notable exceptions — Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Tom Cotton, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert — they hate Trump, too.  He has ruffled their feathers, their comfortable position as go-alongs-to-get-alongs in D.C.  They have no real principles, no gumption, no fuel for a fight.  They are cowards all, pajama boys.  Paul Ryan is their poster boy.

Are the Investigations the Cover-Up?  What we are witnessing here is a carefully planned and orchestrated cover-up of a series of very serious crimes.  The deep swamp is pretending to investigate the deep swamp.  This cover-up would not be possible if the mainstream media were honest and aggressive fact-finders, but they actually function as a branch of the Democratic Party.  The cover-up would fail if Republicans were unified in absolutely demanding to see all the evidence that is currently being hidden, but Republican 'leaders' do not unify and fight hard for anything.  They appear to be comfortable with losing this battle.

Republicans Working with Democrats to Ban Counting U.S. Citizens in Census.  Republican lawmakers are working with Democrats to ban the 2020 Census from asking United States residents whether or not they are American citizens.  In March, President Donald Trump's administration announced they would put the citizenship question back on the census.  It has not been included since 1950. For seven decades, all residents living in the United States have been counted on the census but have not been asked whether or not they are American citizens, making it impossible for the federal government to know the size of the citizen population versus the immigrant population.

The Radicalism of Conservatism, Inc.  At least one reason that official conservatism has done so poorly is that its spokesmen speak in slogans that ignore the expressed concerns of their voters, often devolving into maudlin sentimentality.  George W. Bush labeled himself a "compassionate conservative."  His brother Jeb famously said, "Immigration is an act of love."  Jeb and most of the losers from 2016 showed no willingness to affirm that the country is more than a mere idea, but a place that is supposed to further the good of its people.  Similarly, this week, Marco Rubio tweeted a kind word for nationalism that ended up being a cheer for open borders: [...]

5 Dumb GOP Mistakes We Better Fix Before 2020.  Lesson Three:  We need to be ready.  We need lawyers prepositioned and poised to fight wherever we expect the corruption to happen.  And we need to win races outside the margin of fraud.

The Midterms Were a Wake-up Call for Republicans.  If we don't get it together soon, if someone doesn't come out with a centralized strategy and a formula for people to follow in every state in every locality, a formula they can tweak to meet their local needs; if we don't get Republicans to run as independents in some key states under secret promise to caucus with the GOP; if we don't reach the youth and women and minorities even more than we have; if we do not have organizations that are prepared at a moment's notice to do what they have to do in support of a candidate, to rally, to protest, to show up; if we don't have a centralized website that serves as a portal for all information you could possibly need in organizing, getting out the vote, meeting with other people; if we don't figure out how to utilize the net, YouTube, Instagram to reach the youth or those in remote areas; if we don't support the President and our candidates in lock-step, and most importantly, if we don't field excellent candidates around whom we swarm to protect them from leftwing invective, accusations, and lies... we will lose this country.

There Are RINOs but Never DINOs.  The RINO is an interesting political phenomenon and relatively new.  It stands for Republican in Name Only, meaning that although the office-holder is a registered Republican, his voting record and public statements are too often aligned with liberal causes. [...] This kind of politician seems to exist only on the Republican side of the fence.  Only Republicans have to scramble to make sure all their members are on board for crucial congressional votes.  When a Senate vote looms on a controversial measure, only Republicans have to be certain that all their members are on the same page.  John McCain was famous for deviating from Republican orthodoxy, earning him the positive-intentioned nickname from the liberal mainstream media of "Maverick of the Senate."  There are many Republican politicians who are famous for their voting or public speaking "undependability," such as Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), and Susan Collins (Maine), and, before her, Olympia Snowe (Maine).  With the Senate as closely divided between the parties as it's been in recent years, a few perfidious Republican senators are all it takes to defeat a conservative initiative.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: Conservatives and Christians need to stop electing 'nice guys'.  Evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr. is blasting Republican leaders as "a bunch of wimps," and suggesting that conservatives and Christians should stop electing "nice guys."  "They might make great Christian leaders but the US needs street fighters like @realDonaldTrump at every level of government b/c the liberal fascists Dems are playing for keeps & many Repub leaders are a bunch of wimps!" Falwell wrote on Twitter late Friday [9/28/2018].

What your GOP Congress did while you were distracted.  Republicans have controlled the House of Representatives, the body closest to the people and the one that is run with a simple majority, for 20 of the past 24 years.  Yet they've done nothing with it.  Now, in the waning days of their control of the House, alongside a Republican president, they are spending their time passing dozens of banal "suspension" bills, agreeing to the liberal lie on the opioid crisis, and passing a budget with priorities on abortion, immigration, and spending that are indistinguishable from anything that would be signed into law by a President Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, or, yes, Michael Avenatti.  Yesterday [9/26/2018], the House passed the budget betrayal bill, sending it to the president who, contrary to promises of "never again," has agreed to sign it.  Yet it won't even be a footnote in the news cycle for most in the conservative media.

Healthy Shame Woefully Absent in Washington, DC.  [Scroll down]  And don't forget NeverTrump Republicans, happy to sit quietly on the sidelines while everything they have embraced for decades is thrown on the scrap heap, as long as Trump's agenda suffers.  Where are Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney?  Wasn't Kavanaugh on top of their list of Supreme Court nominees if they won the White House in 2012?  Why aren't they leading the charge to defend Kavanaugh?

Shame of the Senate RINOs.  If Brett Kavanaugh were a hard Trumpian nominee, you could at least spin the feckless cowardice of Senator Flake, Senator Murkowski and the rest of the part-time Republicans as revenge on Trump or, at least, a rejection of an extremist nominee.  Kavanaugh was picked by Justice Kennedy.  A fairly reliable swing vote.  George W. Bush is out there making phone calls for him.  Senator Graham unleashed wrath and fury on Senate Democrats, whom he normally cultivates, precisely because picking Kavanaugh was a form of outreach to the Bush wing of the party, the self-proclaimed moderates and the liberals.  It wasn't just that the Democrats used every dirty trick in the book to go after Kavanaugh.  It's that the liberal Republicans who were supposed to have his back abandoned him.  Not all of them.  Graham is fighting.  But Jeff Flake once again flaked.  The less said about Kasich the better.  This isn't principled opposition.  It's cowardice.

Some Ads We'd Like to See.  [Scroll down]  The problem is that the Republican Party is also known as the Stupid Party, and with good reason.  You would think they would take advantage of the embarrassment of riches that Trump has bestowed on them, but let's be honest:  the Republican Party is populated by imbeciles.  They will probably continue to run ads created by the usual hacks, showing off their families as if it were a contest as to which candidate has the best-looking family.

No Contest:  Kavanaugh vs. the Committtee.  If Brett Kavanaugh wins confirmation to the Supreme Court, he can thank himself.  With nobody willing to say "boo" to Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh's accuser appeared credible, nice, and likable in her testimony. [...] Don't blame Rachel Mitchell entirely.  Blame the eleven men hiding behind her.  Whereas Democrats constantly interrupted Kavanaugh and turned the hearings into chaos earlier this month, Republicans on the committee did not utter a peep to Ford on Thursday.  This strategy had everything to do with protecting themselves and nothing to do with protecting Kavanaugh, Ford, or the truth.

Cowardly Republicans Grant a False Premise.  When Senate Republicans accepted the premise that Christine Blasey Ford's accusation of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh was a legitimate personal complaint rather than a political maneuver orchestrated by the Democratic Party, they placed themselves in the grips of a logic leading them through bargaining about how to accommodate her as he was dogged by a nationwide campaign of personal and political vilification. [...] The circumstances of Ford's accusation — formulated by a Democratic activist, held in pectore by the chief Democratic strategist on the nomination until all other ploys had failed to yield the desired result, and used to achieve delay along with mobilization of Democratic constituencies were as obvious to Republicans as to Democrats.  There was no reason for Republicans to pretend otherwise — except cowardice.

Stop This Idiocy And Confirm Him.  As I write this, the "I really, really wanna testify, but..." goalpost has moved west right past my house and out over the Pacific Ocean.  You get the distinct impression that Christine Ford's handlers are making it up as they go along — "She can't testify on Monday because, I dunno, she's afraid of airplanes.  Yeah, that's a thing now."  The GOP is, as usual, afraid to be seen as insufficiently submissive.  We have Chuck Grassley announcing, by tweets that sound like they were composed by a twelve-year-old texting her girlfriends after breaking into mom's cooking sherry, that he's ready to roll over yet again.

Republicans Have A Simple Choice:  Vote To Confirm Kavanaugh Or Get Slaughtered In November.  The rubber is about to meet the road for Senate Republicans.  They have a simple choice: they can vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, thereby ending the baseless and unsubstantiated Democrat- and media-fueled smear campaign against him, or they can kiss House and Senate majorities goodbye for the next decade, if not longer.  In case the election of one Donald J. Trump was not enough to compel the D.C. Republican establishment swamp creatures to wipe the muck from their eyes and see what's happening with their own constituents, Republican voters have had enough of feckless do-nothings whose careers consist of little more than not doing everything they promised to do.

Ben Sasse:  I 'regularly consider' leaving the GOP.  Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse said on Twitter Saturday he's thought about leaving the Republican Party.  The tweet, a response to another Twitter user who claimed to have switched their affiliation from the Democratic Party to "no party" to be "part of the solution," was short.

Sasse: I Think About Leaving the GOP 'Every Morning When I Wake Up'.  Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) said he thinks about leaving the Republican Party "every morning."  Sasse said, "I probably think about it every morning when I wake up and I figure out, 'Why am I flying out of Nebraska to go to D.C. this week?  Are we going to get stuff done?'"

The Maverick is Dead, Long Live the Maverick.  [Scroll down]  There developed among Republican intellectuals a romanticizing of failure.  I'm picking on [George] Will, but it was all of them, the Republican pundits and think-tankers who knew it was their job, in the end, to lose — the NeverTrumpers.  They preferred striking a dramatic pose while dying on a hill to taking it.  Thankfully, that world was finally buried last week in a blaze of splendor never to be seen again.  John McCain was a war hero.  Politically, though, he was a one-trick-pony.  When he frustrated his party's policy initiatives upon a claim of principle, he was hailed as a maverick by the same cultural forces that paid George Will to be insipid.  Adorably, he believed it.  So much so that he ran for president as a maverick on the Republican Party's platform that asserted the very policy initiatives it was his job to scuttle.

Twitter Trolls Can't Stop Salena Zito.  Selena Zito was one of the few reporters who dared venture out into the heartland of America in 2016 and talk to Americans who were fed up with the DC Uniparty.  She used the stories she collected of former Obama voters and Republicans who had enough of the feckless GOP Establishment for her columns and book, The Great Revolt, which you should get if you haven't bought it already.  For telling the truth, she is now getting attacked by the defenders of the ruling class.

Do-Nothing Republican Senate Goes Home.  he Senate adjourned this week amid self-administered backslaps for "working hard during August" (they worked a grand total of 6.5 days) and donning self-congratulatory laurels as they praised themselves for implementing "major Republican priorities."  But for anyone paying attention, the Senate's latest "work" session had all the characteristics of the 115th Congress:  wildly exaggerated rhetoric, few actual results, a lot of excuses, and a stunning lack of urgency to accomplish anything they promised voters.

It's Time For A Conservative Purge.  You typically don't grow a movement by subtraction, but it's become clear that some prominent figures in the world of conservatism are negative numbers.  They are net liabilities, and we need to boot them out of the big tent or they will keep stinking up the place.  We need to clean house, to send the cruise-shilling hacks, whiny geebos, and the careerist dillweeds of Conservative, Inc., packing.  Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, and others, I'm looking at you.

Dealing with Democrats' Swarm Tactics.  [Scroll down]  Who would join the military if it left soldiers behind?  Same in the war of politics — if we continue to abandon our people when they are being attacked by the left, pretty soon, too few "good men" will run for office on our team.  Why would you risk your livelihood and reputation to do your civic duty if you'll be beaten up by Democrats and then left to bleed out on the political front by your fellow Republicans?  That is precisely what the Republicans do, so they bring a good deal of this on themselves.  Once charges are levied against a fellow Republican, leadership reflexively strips him of this or that chairmanship and pressures him to resign from office or the race. [...] There is one other thing that Republicans and conservatives do that you never see on the left:  openly criticize our party, our policy, our president, our elected officials, and our candidates.

What to Expect if Democrats Win the Midterms.  Would conservatives achieve an easy victory against the left if it came down to civil war?  The question seems less absurd by the day as tensions increase between the right and left. [...] I am nowhere near as confident as Kurt Schlichter that the right wing could trounce the left wing in battle.  We can't even unite to keep Alex Jones on Facebook.  It is true that conservatives have more guns and are probably better street fighters.  But conservatives also cave in large numbers even when their most sacred cows are in danger — such as the First Amendment or Christian principles.  The two latter issues sit at the core of academic bias and debates on sexuality, respectively.  I have the war wounds from both battles and can attest to the repeating scenario:  conservatives talk and talk about what they believe and how bad the left is.  Then they give up [in] droves when it comes time to fight.

No Borders, No Nation.  [Scroll down]  Although this article has focused almost exclusively on the fact that the Democratic Party has been the main proponent of open borders, it should be said that their radical agenda would never have gotten as far as it has without the constant betrayal by Republican Party leaders.  Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, Senator Jeff Flake, Senator Mitch McConnell, Representative Paul Ryan, and other GOP leaders have repeatedly squished out or sold out on virtually every important immigration issue over the past half century.  While ever playing to the Republican base with border security overtures, they have reliably caved in at the critical moments.

How Mitch McConnell Stole the 2016 Congressional Elections.  [Scroll down]  McConnell's scheme is clandestine, far more shrewd and effective.  His method was to allow everyone to vote, then cut off the input voters have on congressional bills at the Senate level.  If the House passes 768 bills and Senate Leader McConnell ties up 569 in the Senate, then 74% of those House bills may as well not exist. [...] What McConnell did violates the constitution in the most direct way possible.  Since all spending every two years must be decided by the voters — this is why the entire House is elected every two years — for McConnell to deprive the voters a Senate vote on the House bills is identical to denying them their opportunity to express their will and consent.

Jim Jordan is the Grassroots Choice for Speaker.  Republicans in Congress ran on a conservative platform.  They told voters that they would fight to cut spending, repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, fund a wall, and help secure our border.  But as soon as they were re-elected, they went back to their old ways and legislated as liberals, pushing our country further into debt and failing to keep their word.  In fact, they just didn't simply fail to keep their word, in some cases Republicans actually did the opposite of what they said they would do.

The Republican Party:  Not Much of a Horse But the Only One in the Corral.  The tragedy of American conservatism is that its only electoral home is in a party most of whose funds come from those who agree with the globalist agenda and whose privileged position insulates them from its disastrous cultural consequences.  In short, America's corporate elite is making tons of money from globalism — chiefly, mass immigration and manufacturing outsourcing — while they experience no negative effects in their privileged and insular world.  Oh sure, they advocate a bit of border protection here, a little improvement in US trade deals there, but basically they're on board for free trade, relaxed borders and mass immigration.

Democrats Embracing Crazy Could Be A Gift To The GOP.  The message from Democrats is nuts, dangerously so.  But it has the advantage of being partially obscured by sustained insanity and conspiracy.  Republicans need to find a coherent way to cut through it all, something they're particularly awful at doing.

If you love liberty, don't wish for Democratic victories.  Most conservative commentators opposed Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican primaries.  Many also refused to support him over Hillary Clinton in the general election.  Some have continued their opposition now, and the president gives them ammunition with his shortcomings, ethics, decorum, and some policies.  Among those who still wear the label "Never Trump" there remain some self-identified conservatives who want Democrats to win the midterm elections, arguing in at least one case that the Republican Party must be destroyed in order to be rebuilt from the ground up.

An American Awakening.  Critics will say that Trump is "not a conservative" and that he doesn't have any governing philosophy but, as they have been with almost everything when it comes to Trump, the critics are wrong.  Trump does indeed have a governing philosophy.  It just isn't the one we have been hearing from Republican leaders for the past 40 years — including everyone from Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich, the Bushes, Paul Ryan, and all of the leading conservative think tanks, National Review, The Weekly Standard, and the rest.  Trump's philosophy goes deeper and further back than our self-destructive dalliances with globalism, "free trade," open borders, what's good for Wall Street, and an imperialistic, "neoconservative" foreign policy.

Hollywood "Celebrities", Deviants and Predators, Continue Showcasing Democrat Ideology.  [Scroll down]  We watched the passage of Obamacare at 1:38am on the day before Christmas Eve in 2009. We watched the Senate, then the House attempt passing Amnesty in 2014.  We know exactly how it passed, and we know exactly why it passed.  We don't need to stand around talking about it.  We know what lies hidden behind "cloture" and the UniParty schemes.  We watch the 2009 $900+ billion Stimulus Bill being spent each year, every year, for seven consecutive years. [...] We've waited each year, every year, for ten years, to see a federal budget, only to be given another Omnibus spending bill by Speaker Ryan.  Omnibus, Porkulous, QE1, QE2, Bailouts, Crony-Capitalism.  We know exactly how this works, and we know exactly why this ruse is maintained.

Can the GOP Establishment Stop Being Idiots Just Once?  The Congressional GOP, in its finite wisdom, has taken a look at the Democrats blowing their Blue Wave and decided that the smart play to exploit their unexpected (and undeserved) improving prospects by embracing the exact opposite of what the militant Normals sent them to Washington to do because... because they are establishment Republicans and stupid is what they do.  These geniuses have considered all the possible ways to use the limited legislative time available to implement a conservative agenda and decided that the big legislative priority during the ramp-up to the midterms must be handing citizenship to a bunch of future Democrats who shouldn't even be here in the first place — and all over the thunderous objections of GOP voters.

Steve King Sounds Alarm:  The Establishment is Stampeding GOP Towards Amnesty Cliff.  The House GOP leadership will push a new amnesty bill today that does not set upper limits on an amnesty or even cut migration levels but which does exclude reforms found in Rep. Bob Goodlatte's immigration reform bill, sources tell Breitbart News.  In November, if House Speaker Paul Ryan gets his way, most GOP legislators "will be on record in support of amnesty," Iowa Rep. Steve King told Breitbart News.  "It is not going to help us in November" if there is a vote in the House on amnesty, King said.

That clown car again:  GOP House members defeat GOP House members.  Elect a Congress dominated by Republicans, they said.  It'll be fun, they said.  Both houses will work together then to enact a broad GOP legislative agenda, so a Republican president can sign them into law. [...] So, how's that working out for ya?  Quite badly actually.  So badly, in fact, that polls and historical patterns point toward Nancy Pelosi's Democrats taking back House control in November, not by anything they're doing, but because the majority Republican caucus is behaving like schoolyard kids arguing over who gets to be pitcher until the recess bell ends the debate.

A grim spectacle:  The left fully revealed.  Over the eight years of the Obama administration, the Democratic Party moved left, then more left, then hard, radical, Alinskyite left.  Terrible damage was done to the country as a result. [...] The Democratic Party has devolved into a manic state of hysteria in which its members no longer know right from wrong or good from evil.  The Republicans in Congress had better step up to the partisan plate and fight these traitors to their own country, or we are lost.

DACA Delay Exposes Hypocritical Republican Congress.  In March, the president made good, announcing he was rolling back DACA. Shortly after the president initiated the program's rollback, however, district court judges in Brooklyn and San Francisco issued national injunctions to keep DACA in place.  Now, a district court judge in the District of Columbia has gone even further.  His ruling would not only keeping the program in place, but order the government to accept new applications.  What?  This recent out-of-control judicial ruling speaks to two central issues that, increasingly, are becoming the deciding factor when it comes to Trump's ability to accomplish his agenda: district judges hell-bent on blocking his efforts, and a Congress unwilling to do its job.

New Poll to GOP: Either Drain the Swamp or You Will Sink in It.  A new poll of 1,000 likely voters by McLaughlin and Associates has good news and bad news for the Republican Party.  The good news is that the "Blue Wave" so hoped for by the liberal media is not at all inevitable and that there is still a possible path to Republican victory in November.  The bad news is that tough talk about getting control of spending, securing the borders, and reining in the bureaucracy won't cut it with the GOP base this time.  Republican voters are wanting results, and many in the GOP base see Republican leadership as supporting the swamp they were sent to Washington to drain.

Last Chance for the GOP.  At this point [the Republicans] will certainly lose the House and quite possibly the Senate too.  Worse, they've so botched their opportunity that only they can save themselves now.  The $1.3 trillion Omnibus Bill — their omnibus bill — was not just the most reckless spending bill in history, it was an abject surrender on every single political and policy pledge made to those who put them in office, save helping the military.  It's been this way from the start.  First, they asked for control of the House and its appropriations authority to right the fiscal ship, and as importantly, end Obamacare.  In 2010, they got it — and immediately stated they could do nothing without the Senate.  In 2014, they were awarded that too — and just as quickly declared they could do nothing without the White House.  So, in 2016 they were handed that, and with it complete control of the legislative process, but now with no more excuses available.

Is Ryan's Exit the End of the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party?  I coined the term "Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party" to describe the unholy bond between Republicans and Democrats in Washington, who have long existed in a kind of incestuous, sado-masochistic relationship in which each of them knows their place and, after a fashion, enjoys it.  On the one hand we have the largely regnant Evil Party, congressionally ascendant during the long reign of FDR and Harry Truman, which has since the 1970s gradually morphed into the anti-American "progressive" party devoted to perverting the Constitution and undermining the foundational principles of the republic in the name of discovering their "real," if occult meaning.  And on the other, the Stupid Party, which never met a promise it didn't want to dishonor, a foreign war it didn't want to fight, or a domestic fight it didn't want to throw.

Memo To House GOP: Save Your Majority — Elect Jim Jordan Speaker.  The conservative grassroots of the Republican Party are angry and fed-up with the establishment Republican leadership that has betrayed them, and the agenda that catapulted Donald Trump to the White House in 2016.  It has been looking more and more like, in a replay of 2006, conservatives would sit out the 2018 midterms.

How Trump and the congressional GOP can undo the worst of the omnibus.  Plenty of Republicans remain bitter that their party passed that bloated $1.3 trillion omnibus — almost as bitter as President Trump, who felt pressured to sign it.  But this fight doesn't have to be over.  Across Washington, principled conservatives are noodling with an idea that — if done right — could be a political winner.  It's a chance for Republicans to honor their promises of spending restraint and redeem themselves with a base turned off by the omnibus blowout.  It's an opening for the GOP to highlight the degree to which Democrats used the bill to hold the military hostage to their own domestic boondoggles.  And it's a chance for Mr. Trump to present himself again as an outsider, willing to use unconventional means to change Washington's spending culture.

A New Kind of Gridlock.  Last week, for example, Republicans passed a massive $1.3 trillion omnibus funding package to avert a government shutdown.  It included full funding for Planned Parenthood and the regional Gateway rail project, but not full funding for the border wall.  Republicans had spent years decrying deficits, criticizing funding for Planned Parenthood and ripping useless stimulus spending; they'd spent years clamoring for a border wall.  When push came to shove, they did nothing.

Note to GOP: Enough with the Betrayals.  Trump received the most votes in the history of his party's primary.  Rather than ride that unprecedented wave, the GOP keeps wiping out like a three-year-old on a boogie board for the first time.  The well of the lesser of two evils has run dry for the Republican Party, I fear.  We elected Republicans not to live under Democrat policies, such as catch and release, Planned Parenthood funding, Obamacare status quo, and sanctuary city funding — all of which were included in the $1.3 trillion omnibus the President signed last week.

10 ways the GOP sold you out in the omnibus spending bill.  For this budget bill, Republicans had sole possession of the ball, and of course, they have tossed an interception.  The only question now is whether Trump will need to hear a raucous rebellion from his voters before he changes his mind and finally uses his veto pen.  Rather than spending the weeks leading up to the budget deadline outlining their vision for the country in terms of spending priorities and policies, the GOP used the time to promote the possibility of including a number of Democratic priorities.

Once Again, I Ask:  Why Vote Republican?  Republicans control the White House and Congress.  Obamacare has not been repealed, and Mexico has not had to pay for a wall since there is no wall.  The omnibus spending bill sailed through Congress.  One point three trillion dollars in spending passed by the party of fiscal restraint.  Sure, there is increased military spending, but there's only chump change for the border wall, enough funding for only 33 miles on the U.S. southern border.  Instead, Ryan's and McConnell's spend-a-thon provides $500 million for a 274-mile wall on Jordan's border with Syria and Iraq, along with a wall for Tunisia, too.  Planned Parenthood is funded, as are sanctuary cities, with catch and release alive and well.  Didn't Republicans run on defunding all of this?

Only 25 House Republicans tried to block the $1.3 trillion omnibus.  House Republicans narrowly scraped together enough votes to pass a procedural step Thursday morning [3/22/2018] to advance the monstrous 2,232-page $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill toward passage.  Conservative opposition to the omnibus forced House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., to ask Democrats for help to pass the procedural rules vote necessary before they can consider the omnibus.  The procedural vote passed 211-207.  Only 25 House Republicans had enough spine to stand up to leadership and vote no.

Rep. Paul Gosar:  Omnibus Is Christmas in the Spring for Liberals and Special Interests.  It's Christmas in March.  Today, liberals and special interest groups received a present personally gift-wrapped by leaders in the House and Senate.  This massive spending bill would be more aptly named the OmniBUST Bill for busting through spending limits put in place in 2011.  Worse, it provides funding for Planned Parenthood and blocks penalties for Sanctuary Cities.  This pork-riddled bill forks over half a billion dollars to build a tunnel for liberal New York Senator Chuck Schumer.  This bill also fails to fully fund President Trump's request for a border wall along the Southern border and does not include language allowing for carrying concealed weapons across state lines — a promise made to me and our entire Republican majority.  Hidden in this bill is a section on school safety which prohibits money from being used for guns and gun training.  In other words, none of the Omnibus funds can be used to arm teachers or school resource officers.

You Can Vote For Conservatism, But You Can't Get It.  I first made that observation — you can vote for conservatism, but you can't get it — quite a few years ago.  Sadly, it remains true, as exemplified by the $1.3 trillion spending monstrosity that President Trump signed today [3/23/2018].  How bad is the bill?  Rand Paul tweeted in real time as he read the bill — or as much of it as he could read through in the hours available.

Congress clears massive spending bill in midnight vote.  The House approved a $1.3 trillion spending bill Thursday [3/22/2018] to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2018 and the Senate followed suit early Friday morning, beating the shutdown deadline and leaving Republicans and Democrats to fight over credit and blame.  The bill was a testament to what Congress could do when both sides agreed to open the federal checkbook, with the GOP touting the biggest cash infusion for the military in 15 years, and Democrats saying they won billions of dollars in new spending on health care, education and infrastructure despite being largely shut out of power in Washington, D.C.

GOP's Spending Bill Fully Funds Planned Parenthood.  Despite the promises of President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and GOP leaders such as House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) that they want to defund Planned Parenthood, the $1.3-trillion omnibus spending bill pushed through on Wednesday night [3/21/2018] by the Republican-controlled House does not defund the abortion provider.  Rep. Tom Garrett (R-Va.) reportedly is planning to introduce an amendment to the bill that would defund Planned Parenthood, reported The Hill.  However, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told The Hill this amendment and several others have "zero percent" chance of passing out of the House Rules Committee.  The latest annual report of Planned Parenthood, for 2016-17, shows that it performed 321,384 abortions in its fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2016.

The Worst Part Of The GOP's Massive $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill Is What's Not In It.  Republicans used to love to trot around copies of ObamaCare, pointing out how its massive size — around 2,300 pages — was a sign of runaway government.  The spending bill Congress just approved is nearly as big, weighing in at 2,232 pages.  And, like ObamaCare, no one who voted on it had read the bill before casting their ballots.  Then there's the amount of money we're talking about.  That $1.3 trillion is what will be spent in just the next six months.  And that represents just a fraction of what the government will spend, since it doesn't include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, ObamaCare or welfare.  For perspective, until 1991, the entire budget of the federal government for the whole year was less than $1.3 trillion.

The Omnibus Disgrace.  The omnibus spending bill was crafted in secret and will be passed under pressure; raises discretionary spending as the national debt grows; and fails to deliver on any major GOP priorities except increased defense spending.  What might turn out to be the signature achievement of unified Republican government this year is the sort of legislation that would have been right at home in the Obama administration.  Start with the process.  The 2,232-page bill was written in secret by leaders of both parties, unveiled Wednesday night, and passed by the House this afternoon.  If the Senate doesn't pass the budget by Friday, the government will shut down.  So much for the 72-hour rule Republicans sought back during Barack Obama's first term.  The procedural abuse means that many lawmakers are voting up-or-down on a bill they didn't write and had no opportunity to debate.  It adds up to a breakdown of the budgetary process, a particular embarrassment for Congress given that passing budgets is one of the few duties that it still discharges with regularity.

Rand Paul:  Republicans, Democrats 'Joining Hands Together to Blow a Hole in the Debt'.  Some conservative Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), voted against the massive $1.3 trillion spending bill produced by Republicans and cheered by Democrats.  But enough Senate Democrats and Republicans joined together to pass the bill early Friday morning.  "It's Republicans and Democrats joining hands together to blow a hole in the debt," Sen. Paul told Fox News's Tucker Carlson on Thursday [3/22/2018].  "This could have been written by President Obama and liberal Democrats," Paul said.

The Second Amendment rights of more than 4 million Americans are at risk thanks to Republicans in Congress.  Just before President Obama left office, his administration finalized new regulations banning Social Security recipients from buying a gun if they have trouble managing their finances.  About 10 percent of all people 65 and older risked being classified as "financially incompetent" — about 4.2 million in all.  Using the Congressional Review Act, Republicans and two Democrats passed a bill overturning the regulation.  But the bill did more than that.  It also prevents any future president from reinstituting the ban without new legislative authorization from Congress.  Unfortunately, the spending bill passed Thursday [3/22/2018] allows the ban to be reinstituted because it reauthorizes the 2007 National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Improvement Amendments Act.

With Omnibuses Like These, Who Needs Democrats?  The imminent Omnibus package hurtling toward passage in the U.S. Senate shows how bad it's gotten in Washington, D.C. The latest spending package defines the Swamp, and shows how it has overwhelmed every facet of public life and federal funding in every way.  Sen. John Kennedy slammed it as a "big whiz" on the leg of American taxpayers.  The Freedom Caucus issued a resounding "NO!" against this bill as soon as it went public.  Congressmen David Brat and Mark Meadows both urged President Trump to veto the bill.  Their fellow Freedom Caucuser Justin Amash exposed how these legislative shenanigans erode American voters' confidence in the federal government — if they ever had any.  Even my own left-wing lunatic Congressman Ted Lieu voted against this Satan Sandwich.

President Trump Reluctantly Signs Omnibus — MAGA Community Feels a Little "Less Great" Today.  There's no escaping the reality that today's [3/23/2018] Omnibus spending bill is a significant slap in the face to Trump voters and supporters.  The $1.3 trillion UniParty spending scheme is a bitter rebuke from the legislative branch.

ObamaCare Bailout:  Will Republicans Betray Their Voters?  After promising voters for eight years that they'd get rid of ObamaCare at their first opportunity, why would Republicans even consider dumping tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to bail it out?

Paul Ryan's Omnibus Bill Provides More Money to New York to New Jersey Tunnel than to Trump Border Wall.  Speaker Paul Ryan is set to pass the second largest spending bill in US history next to Barack Obama's trillion dollar failed stimulus.  The budget funds all of the Democrat priorities including sanctuary cities and Planned Parenthood.  The bill will also funnel billions of dollars to Obamacare markets.

How McConnell and Chao used political power to make their family rich.  In 2004, current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, current US Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, had an average net worth of $3.1 million.  Ten years later, that number had increased to somewhere between $9.2 million and $36.5 million.  One source of the windfall, according to a new book from Peter Schweizer, was a 2008 gift from Chao's father, James Chao, for somewhere between $5 million and $25 million.  But this gift could be seen as more than just a gift.  It may have been acquired, according to Schweizer, thanks to the couple's fealty to China, the source of the Chao family fortune.  And that fealty may have occurred at the expense of the nation they had pledged to serve.

Paul Ryan's $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill Funds Planned Parenthood, Sanctuary Cities — Won't Fund Trump Wall.  Speaker Paul Ryan is set to pass the largest spending bill in US history next to Barack Obama's trillion dollar failed stimulus.  President Trump spoke on Monday [3/19/2018] about the importance of the border wall with Mexico to enhance national security and battle the opioid crisis in America.  But once again it is unlikely that funding for the border wall will be included in the spending bill.  Democrats don't want it.  So it is unlikely Ryan will include it in the bill.

Exclusive:  GOP Leadership Is Going To Fund Sanctuary Cities.  Republican leadership is going to fund sanctuary cities in the must-pass spending bill next week, giving Democrats a huge victory while simultaneously undercutting conservatives who put them in power, a senior GOP aide told The Daily Caller News Foundation.  "House and Senate leadership has rolled over and played dead on border security.  When it comes to a border wall, they say it is not our problem.  When it comes to funding sanctuary cities, they say it is not our problem.  What they are essentially saying is we are going to pass bills with more Democrats than Republicans," the aide told TheDCNF.

UniParty At Work — Paul Ryan SuperPac Campaigned to Elect Democrat Conor Lamb.  It's well known that Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan doesn't want to be in an actual leadership position; and it's also well known — enhanced by the campaign, and victory, of Donald Trump — that Republicans did not want to win the majority position and face having to reveal their true UniParty agenda.  The evidence of this UniParty positioning has been staring the electorate in the face, repeatedly and brutally, since candidate Donald Trump actually campaigned on key tenets of the Republican party and found himself being openly opposed by GOP leadership.

Obamacare Bailout: Dumb Policy, Dumber Politics.  The congressional leadership of the GOP seems determined to hand their congressional majorities back to the Democrats.  Otherwise, why would they even consider including two Obamacare bailouts — the cost-sharing reduction (CSR) and risk mitigation programs — in the upcoming omnibus budget bill?  These bailouts would allegedly reduce future increases in health insurance premiums and incentivize insurers to remain in the Obamacare exchanges.  They will accomplish neither, but they will send a clear signal to the voters that the GOP was never serious about getting rid of Obamacare.

A Member Of Congress Explains Why The Corruption In Congress Is Much Worse Than You Think.  What would you say if I told you that committee chairs were for sale in Congress?  And what would you say if I told you that many members of Congress spend far more time on the telephone raising money than on the jobs that the people of their states actually elected them to do?  There is a reason why so many Americans absolutely hate Congress.  At this moment, Congress has an approval rating of just 15 percent, and approval ratings for Congress have been at extremely low levels for a very long time.  We all know that Congress has become completely corrupt, that it is completely unresponsive to the American people and that it has become all about the money.

Republican Party Is Allowing 'The Resistance' To Run The Score — And The Government.  Senate Republicans are heading toward midterm elections with control of their chamber and the biggest advantage any majority party has had since 1790.  Yet every week, the Democrats are allowed to work just 2.5 days before returning home to duke it out with their Republican challengers.  That is, Mitch McConnell is allowing Democrats to hit the campaign trail hard while obstructing 139 of the president's nominees.  In eight months, eight Republican seats and 26 Democratic seats are up for grabs.  That's less than one sixth of GOP seats, and more than half of Democrats' seats, including 10 in states President Donald Trump won in 2016 — half of which by 10 or more points.

Here come the big government Republicans!  Trumpublican conservatives love to compare America's 45th president to their revered Ronald Reagan.  Both were populist.  Both were scorned by the media.  And both, of course, delivered bigly cut taxes.  But Reagan's Republican Party, built on enthusiasm toward markets and skepticism toward government, would never have embraced big government the way President Trump's party has.

Ted Cruz Stands Alone in Opposition to 'Free-for-All' DACA / Immigration Debate.  On Monday, Senator Ted Cruz was the only senator to vote against Senator Mitch McConnell's plan for the Senate this week:  a so-called "free-for-all" open debate about immigration on the Senate floor.  Fears of a Democrat-leaning deal on DACA are rampant among Republican activists, and with conservative websites calling this the "amnesty debate", Senator Cruz's solitary objection gives voice to the thousands of voters who believed what they were told on the campaign trails of 2016.

With A Budget Like This, Can Tax Hikes Be Far Behind?  Unlike in previous years, when the president's budget was declared dead on arrival as soon as it was released, President Trump's budget was dead before it arrived, killed by a spendthrift Congress.  Nevertheless, the budget does serve a purpose, if only to show how Republicans are paving the way for massive tax hikes down the road.

Trump budget abandons fiscal conservatism — and so does hypocritical GOP.  Remember Republicans' enduring commitment over most of our lifetimes to eliminate the federal budget deficit and trim the national debt?  Well, forget it.  In fact, with the GOP controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, the government this year will likely inflict nearly an additional trillion dollars on the existing $20 trillion national debt.  And just like your credit card balance, the total federal obligations will also increase right along with now rising interest rates.  Amazingly after all the promises and pleas for more than two generations, it seems everyone, except maybe a showboat senator making a futile late-night legislative gesture, seems good with such overspending.

Trump's New Budget Plan Is a Fiscal Disaster.  The federal government's fiscal outlook has been in decline since the Bush administration, and President Trump's new budget plan is another step in the wrong direction.  Trump's 2019 budget ramps up spending on the military and border security.  Although the budget offers some ideas for domestic spending cuts, most of these won't see the light of day.  In other words, it continues the long-term unwinding of the nation's fiscal discipline.

When will it stop?  Conservatives who vowed to cut spending keep spending.  Tea party Republicans arrived in Washington seven years ago with a clear, loud message from angry voters:  Slash spending.  But once again, spending is going way up.  "Part of our job right now (is) that we keep pounding that Republicans still stand for fiscal responsibility," said Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., who chairs the House Republican Study Committee, a coalition of conservatives.  But he was on the losing side as the House early Friday cleared a massive two-year spending package that President Donald Trump quickly signed into law.  Sixty-seven Republicans voted against the two-year budget plan that became law Friday, but 167 voted yes.

Republicans consider the unthinkable:  A gas tax increase to pay for infrastructure.  Republicans are weighing whether to raise the federal gas tax.  It's an idea they are prone to hate, but they may need it to pay for President Trump's infrastructure investment plan.  Supporters of the idea note that the tax hasn't been raised since 1993 and have plenty of evidence that resistance to a hike is wearing down.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently called for the Trump administration and Congress to raise the gas tax by 25 cents per gallon to help pay for an infrastructure package, projecting it would generate more than $375 billion over a decade.  For 25 years, the federal tax on gasoline has held steady at 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel.  It is not indexed to inflation.

Republican Promises.  [List of broken promises.]

Six Ways the GOP Is Trying to Lose the Amnesty and Immigration Fight.  GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has devised an immigration debate this week which can help an alliance of Democrats and roughly 15 business-first Republican Senators push an amnesty through the Senate while blocking President Donald Trump's pro-American reforms. [...] This week's Senate debate on immigration was designed by McConnell, and it helps an informal coalition of Democrats and business-first Republicans collect 60 votes to pass an amnesty and prevent any cutbacks in legal immigration.  McConnell designed the even-handed debate rule after helping Democrats' retreat from their pro-amnesty, unpopular and damaging government shutdown mistake in January.  His rule says Senators will start with an empty bill and insert whatever proposals get 60 votes. [...] But McConnell's empty-bill rules means that many Senators can first fake a vote for Trump's plan — and then swiftly push through a pro-business, cheap-labor amnesty.

The Editor says...
The lesson here is obvious:  Don't vote unless you know what you're voting for.  Otherwise, you'll have to pass the bill to find out what's in it.  And we've seen how well that works.

Budget Deal Is Bipartisanship At Its Worst.  If this budget agreement is what passes for governing in Washington, we'd like to see less of it, not more.  Mainly what this bill does is blow up the 2011 spending caps — imposed by Republicans in Congress in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling — that have served as an effective check on lawmakers' unquenchable desire to spend more money, a desire equally shared on both sides of the aisle.

Republicans betray American taxpayers.  While American taxpayers were nestled snug in their beds, congressional Republicans were plotting to pass the second-largest spending increase in a decade.  The Republican-controlled Congress voted to raise caps on spending by $300 billion over the next two years.  There are some estimates that suggest the bill will increase government spending by $1.5 trillion.

The wrong senator from Kentucky is the Republican majority leader.  A travesty occured in the chambers of Congress last night and early this morning [2/9/2018].  Republicans in Congress exposed themselves as hypocrites and frauds by passing an unconscionable two-year budget deal that will explode this year's deficit and add $1.5 trillion to the debt.  This is a level of spending that is three times larger than government spending in President Obama's final year in office.  A majority of Republicans in both chambers of Congress voted for the bill, and President Trump signed it Friday morning.  Whatever pretense of fiscal conservatism the Republican Party once professed has vanished from all but a few conservatives in Congress.

Rand Paul on Spending:  "When Republicans Are In Power, There Is No Conservative Party".  Sen. Rand Paul speaks about the spirit of why he is holding up the passage of the budget deal through the Senate:  [Video clip]

Treason.  I've known as much as anyone outside Washington can, of how corrupt the Obama years were, especially in its second administration when it seemed to be able to get away with anything.  All the bad signs were there to be seen. [...] The political opposition parties, a part of whose usual job is to highlight any abuses of power which might occur, were mute.  They were totally ineffective through a mixture of incompetence and having no stomach for a fight, especially the latter. [...] None of those parties did their job in the eight years of economic, political and societal decay that characterised the Obama era.  However, the traditional group on whose shoulders should have rested the main burden of enforcing accountability, the press, essentially gave the administration a free pass for eight years.  There was never to be any holding to account for failures, no criticism of blatant corruption and everything was spun as sunshine and light.

6 reasons why the Senate vote on abortion was a sham.  How is it that Republicans could possibly be serious about banning abortion, at any point in pregnancy, by law when they are still choosing to fund private organizations under criminal investigation for harvesting baby organs in their own budget proposals?  It's amazing how granting amnesty for illegals has now become a legitimate request in a budget bill from a minority party, but defunding Planned Parenthood is not even up for discussion by the majority party.  Any stand-alone legislation that will not get around the filibuster is meaningless when Republicans are still using taxpayer dollars for this barbaric organization.

What It's Like to Live in a State Hostile to Gun Owners.  One of the other reasons why New York is the way it is, the Republican leadership, for the most part, is as bad as the Democrats when it comes to politics.  When the Safe Act was passed, it did so because of many of the Senate Republicans, including Dean Skelos, [who was once convicted of Corruption] the former Majority Leader of the State Senate, voted in favor of it.  In the end, nine Republicans voted in favor of the Safe Act despite pleas and calls from their constituents telling them to oppose it.  All across the state of New York, county after county voted to oppose the Safe Act, with only a handful voting for it.

Senator Grassley burrowing in to DoJ, Democratic party corruption.  If there's one thing Democrats have learned since Republicans took over the House and Senate, it's that they can stonewall, lie, and simply refuse to answer questions put to them with no consequences whatsoever.  From the ATF, to the IRS, to the State Department, to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary's staff, the byword has been non-cooperation.  Think of all the subpoenas that have been ignored or only partially filled.  Think of the misleading and even lying testimony given over the years.

RINO Republicans Help Democrats To Keep Memo Locked Up.  While the Establishment Media continues its fabricated government shutdown hysteria through the weekend, some Republicans continue to demand the public be allowed to see a memo which apparently shows a shocking abuse of power during the Obama administration that, among other things, attempted to unduly influence the 2016 Election outcome.  It is a litany of abuses some have suggested would rock the nation to its core, exposing Deep State corruption at the highest levels and providing proof of corruption that is at this very moment, impacting millions of private citizens.

The NeverTrump Traitors.  Conservatives have been pleading with the Republican Party for decades to put forth a candidate willing to assume this role, and for decades, the Republicans have refused.  If not for the insurgent candidacy of Ronald Reagan (who upended his presidential race in much the same way as Trump) we would have seen an unbroken line of feckless leadership for nearly a century. [...] Our Republican leaders talk of conservative principles yet govern from an agenda essentially homogenous to that of the Democrats — only slower, at lower cost.  We hold election after election and get the same result, because none will shoulder the mantle of champion longer than a moment, invariably shrugging it off and running away at the first sign of political danger.

President Nobama.  Republicans have not seriously attempted to roll back the administrative state since Reagan.  On key issues of climate change, entitlements, illegal immigration, government spending, and globalization, it was sometimes hard to distinguish a Bush initiative from a Clinton policy or a McCain bill from a Biden proposal.  There was often a reluctant acceptance of the seemingly inevitable march to the European-style socialist administrative state.  Of course, there were sometimes differences between the two parties, such as the George W. Bush's tax cuts or the Republicans' opposition to Obamacare.  Yet for the most part, since 1989, we've had lots of rhetoric but otherwise no serious effort to prune back the autonomous bureaucracy that grew ever larger.  Few Republicans in the executive branch sought to reduce government employment, deregulate, sanction radical expansion of fossil-fuel production, question the economic effects of globalization on Americans between the coasts, address deindustrialization, recalibrate the tax code, rein in the EPA, secure the border, reduce illegal immigration, or question transnational organizations.

Congratulate Mitch McConnell on Electing Doug Jones.  Roy Moore did not lose Tuesday's U.S. Senate race on substance.  He lost the special election due to an over-the-top smear campaign from the Left and betrayal by his own party's leadership.  Let's congratulate Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on electing yet another Democrat to the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.  Moore's election should have been a slam-dunk.  On paper, Moore made sense as the candidate most likely to win the Senate seat held previously by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  Moore is a conservative Republican; he was an ardent law-and-order candidate who served 40 years as a judge; and he was a devout Christian and strongly pro-life.  But today's Republican Party is renowned for its ability to kowtow to the Left.  Whether they be rival Democrats or members of the media, the GOP is in a constant struggle to be perceived as legitimate or "normal" in order to combat the Leftist counter-narrative.  Republicans care too much about what the Left thinks of them.

Republicans Just Gotta Stop Clobbering Each Other Like the Three Stooges.  For truly conservative Republicans, the Eisenhower and Nixon Administrations, though better than the Democrat alternatives, were not ideologically conservative presidencies.  Nixon's the One who enacted price and wage controls, appointed several ideologically mushy judges after the fiascoes of Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell, greatly expanded federal spending on social programs, and engaged in rapprochement with China and détente with the Soviets that did not net America or him as much as it afforded them.  His successor after Watergate was pragmatically a Ford, not a Lincoln.  The two Bushes by-and-large were not better than a Byrd in the hand.  America's borders were porous throughout, and the price of GOP dereliction is reflected in a California, once the state that made Nixon and Reagan viable as Presidential candidates, altered irremediably for the next generation.

There Is Nothing More Despicable Than a Democrat.  The Democrats are relentless, they come at you from all angles, they never stop, and they have absolutely no rules.  For them, at least, anything goes — lie, cheat, steal, and defame, it doesn't matter as long as they win.  Yet in the world the Democrats and the media have created, the Republicans have plenty of rules, and if they don't abide by each one, the media tries to make it a scandal.  It doesn't help that there are a lot of Republicans and conservatives who are just too pure to get down and dirty.  Many Republicans would rather lose with dignity than win, but people who voted for Trump want to win.  America wants to win.  Republicans, all Republicans need to learn how to fight like the Democrats, or the nation is lost.

Fake Tax Reform.  After supposedly chomping on the bit for years to pass meaningful tax reform, Republicans are now set to blow an historic opportunity. [...] For generations, taxpayers and politicians alike lambasted our overly complex tax code for its myriad of economic distorting loopholes that seemed to produce nothing except employment for legions of accountants and tax lawyers adept at gaming the system.  As a result, talk about tax reform has always included proposals to make the system simpler, fairer, and more transparent.  But on that front, the Republican proposals fail miserably.

Our Reps Are (Still) Idiots.  OK, so they finally passed it.  The Senate tax reform bill, however imperfect, will return money to taxpayers, spur business, and increase jobs.  Significantly, the bill repeals the Obamacare mandate and provides other benefits, such as opening portions of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas drilling.  These are major accomplishments.  Yet nearly half of our representatives in the Senate voted no, and what with Sen. Corker's obstruction, Republicans came close to stumbling once again. [...] Why would the people's representatives, all of them, not rush to pass a major reform that would bring such good to ordinary Americans?  Obviously, because they are idiots.

Trump shows how superficial DC conservatives are.  It's all about style not substance to President Trump's critics.  The conservatives in DC get their pigtails in a knot over his tweets.  For all their sanctimonious proclamations of principles, they have none.  For if they did, they would rally behind Trump because he is actually doing all those things conservatives said they wanted done.  He is re-setting the judiciary, eliminating the Islamic State, erasing the Obama legacy, and kicking political correctness to the gutter where it belongs. [...] It turns out the conservatism for many in Washington was just skin-deep.  A mask.  An illusion.  A marketing scheme.

The Ultimate Argument for Roy Moore.  Franklin D. Roosevelt made the Democrats the party of big government.  Naturally, Americans who disagreed with, felt burdened by growing government, gravitated to the Republicans, then led by Robert A. Taft.  But the Party was always anchored by officials and donors tied to big business, who disdained ordinary Americans as much or more than Democrats.  Beginning with Barry Goldwater's movement in 1960, and culminating in Ronald Reagan's 1981-89 presidency, the Party became an advocate for liberty vis-à-vis government and a defender of American culture — at least rhetorically and at the local level.  But in Washington, under the Bush dynasty, ever-bigger government tied Republican officials ever more tightly to Democrats and their agendas.  Ever since 2006, Republican voters have been trying to take back the Party, or to find another political vehicle for their needs.

Here Are The GOP Reps Who Voted Against Tax Reform.  House Republicans managed to pass the first comprehensive tax reform bill in over three decades Thursday without the support of 13 GOP defectors.  The bill, which passed 227-205, eliminates the state and local tax deduction, a measure designed to compensate residents of high tax states by reducing their federal tax bill.  This revenue saving measure sparked opposition from Republican delegations from New Jersey, New York and California, who believe the bill will result in a higher net tax for their constituents.  Here are the 13 GOP members who voted "no" on the bill: [...]

Are Republicans Really This Stupid?  With an important political and economic victory on tax cuts tantalizingly close at hands, what is a Republican senator to do?  If you're Sen. Ron Johnson, you try to sabotage the effort for absolutely no good reason.

Is There Nothing Republicans Can't Screw Up?  If you'd told me last year that complete Republican control of Congress and the White House would lead to nothing getting done, I would have laughed at you.  Of course, last year I would have laughed at the idea of complete Republican control of government, so the idea of no legislative accomplishments would have been a joke not worth telling.  Turns out all the jokes, at least so far, have been on us.  That Obamacare repeal fell apart — or, more correctly, never really got off the ground — was a surprise only because Republicans had promised it for years only to have it exposed that many of them didn't really mean it.  They were like the high-rolling poker player who'd just had his bluff called by a rank amateur — they'd painted themselves into a corner.  Republicans always have been afraid of health policy as an issue, just as Democrats have little to say on national defense, because only a few actually know the details.

The GOP Establishment Wants To Burn Down The Village To Save It...For Itself.  We keep hearing about how angry Trump voters are destroying the Republican Party, but last week's Schumer-show demonstrated that the people running it would rather run it into the ground than give up their grip on power.  The Smart Set managed to get slaughtered on election night — let's not sugarcoat it, we got creamed.  And the dim bulbs in Congress seem determined to somehow turn tax cuts into something Republican voters hate.  The GOPe makes everything worse, like pumpkin spice. [...] All this makes it hard to come to any conclusion but that the GOP establishment thinks that the only way to defeat the virus of conservatism is to set fire to the party and hope that a few elections from now their Boehner-based, crony trough-feeding paradigm will rise again from the ashes like a K Street phoenix.  It's as if they want to get wiped out in 2018, and that's the one objective they actually seem capable of achieving.

Is the GOP establishment behind the Roy Moore hit?  [Scroll down]  Hours after the Washington Post piece went viral, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell joined the dance, calling for Moore to withdraw from the Alabama Senate race "if these allegations are true."  No pause.  No circumspection.  No waiting until the facts are in before rushing to judgment.  It's reminiscent of President Obama immediately concluding that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly" after the Henry Gates incident or jumping on the "hands up, don't shoot" bandwagon before the facts were known.  McConnell's dance partner, Senator John McCain, was quick to the microphone, not even considering whether the allegations against Roy Moore were true, saying, "The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying.  He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of."  It is just like when senators also wanted Clarence Thomas to step aside based on disturbing allegations that could not be substantiated.  Senator McCain, judge, jury and executioner.  He and McConnell are moving faster on this than they ever have on a piece of legislation.  Too bad they couldn't move even half as quickly on tax cuts or Obamacare repeal.

The GOP's Boneheaded 'Bubble' Tax Will Pave The Way To Higher Tax Rates.  The bubble tax is basically an attempt to take away the initial 12% tax bracket from wealthy taxpayers.  Under the House plan, a family making between $1.2 million and $1.6 million would pay a 6% surcharge on income in that range, on top of the 39.6% rate they'd already face.  That way, the tax cut will be more "fair."  Remember:  The original plan would cut the top rate to 35%, so right off the bat this seems like a major step backward both for pro-growth tax cuts and simplicity.  But fear not, says Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, because this is a bubble rate that would make President Reagan proud.

The Left's Long Goodbye.  Conservatism has always had a problem with striking the killing blow.  We're told that our system requires political balance, that we need a loyal opposition to make our representative democracy work.  We hear that it is neither Christian nor American to be vindictive.  That it's only politics, after all.  Many conservatives are already aiding the left in their bitter eagerness to bring down Donald Trump.  How long before they start rescuing the left from the quicksand of its own making?

Establishment Crumbling:  Poll Shows Mitch McConnell, Senate Allies' Approval Ratings in Free Fall.  A Politico/Morning Consult poll released on Tuesday for the third quarter shows plunging approval ratings for most incumbent senators from both parties among all voters.  Republican establishment senators aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) see even more dramatic declines in their net approval ratings among likely Republican primary voters, [...]

NeverTrumping to Oblivion.  [Scroll down]  But, the elite have not been vanquished.  Take, for example, Kevin D. Williamson of National Review.  Williamson writes pieces calling Trump voters racists; insists Trump voters are too dumb to understand how free trade helps them; and asserts that Mitt Romney may have "been the champion Republicans needed, but he was not the champion Republicans wanted." [...] According to Williamson, Romney was "cool, calm, cerebral, restrained" and had "much more in common socially and stylistically with Barack Obama than he does with, say, Steve Bannon or Sean Hannity."  Well ... yes!  And this was precisely the problem with Romney (and with all Republican presidential candidates since Reagan).  One can see the appeal of characters like Romney from the entrenched point of view of our nation's elite.  Despite being a Mormon, Mitt Romney represented a return to a blue-blood Republican Party that evinced concern for the issues that secured their own power and status — and accomplished little else.

GOP Would Rather Lose than Fight.  One might think the Republican Party is the resistance to the progressive enemy.  A slide toward socialism, communism, fascism, or any other "ism" leaving the anointed ones in power deciding for the masses what is best, how they should live, what they should think, how they should behave.  Yet the GOP is not pushing back, instead its members acquiescing or cowering in fear of being called mean names by the prominent newspapers and television networks.  Acting like wimps.  Not willing to fight, to teach, to explain — the only way to win this war.  The pushback is instead coming from one man, his assembled team, and 65 million citizen supporters.

It's Not Too Much To Ask That Our GOP Hacks Show Some Loyalty To Their Voters.  Let me break it down in simple terms so you don't have to go get one of your minions to explain the big words.  Stop taking sides with the enemy against us or we are going to throw you out of your nice, comfy offices. [...] Criticize Trump's actions if you feel they deserve criticism; criticize the man if you think he falls short.  Ted Cruz does, and we dig him.  But you need to be loyal to the people who sent you to Washington.

An American Oligarchy vs.  We the People.  A year after the election of President Trump, we have yet to see a Republican Congress make good on its promise to repeal Obamacare and institute tax reform.  The election of Donald Trump held hope for millions of Americans who believed they now had a voice in our halls of governance, but that voice is continuously trampled on as the puppet-masters behind the scenes succeed at stifling the will of the American people.

Republicans Officially Give Up Trying to Cut Spending.  After the rise of the Tea Party in 2009 as a grassroots expression of revulsion at government bailouts, spending, and Obamacare; [...] and then after Republicans re-took the Senate and eventually the White House... after all this activity, when it finally came time for the GOP to stand up and demonstrate its values of fiscal stewardship and limited government, you could count the number of Republicans voting to restrain government spending on exactly one finger:  Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), was the only Republican no-vote in yesterday's 51-49 Senate approval of a $4 trillion budget resolution for fiscal year 2018.  The resolution, more of a vague blueprint for the next decade, includes $43 billion next year for "Overseas Contingency Operations" (OCOs), a notorious budgeting gimmick that has been responsible for more than $1.7 trillion in off-budget spending this century.

How Corrupt Are American Institutions?  If this [Russia/uranium/Rosatom] story is true, then all our worst fears have been confirmed, and we are indeed living in a banana republic, with one set of rules for the rich and powerful, and another set of rules for everybody else. [...] This scandal will be a true test — perhaps the final test — of whether American government can still work for the people.  If Republicans walk away from this story for fear of ruffling Democrat feathers, we will know that the fix is in.  A lot of reputations are on the line, beginning with that of Donald Trump.

Paul Ryan at the Center of the Greatest Political Scandal of the 21st Century.  [Scroll down]  One possibility is that the Awans were so fully embedded on Capitol Hill that electronic data belonging to members of both parties was compromised.  Perhaps Republicans are just as fearful as Democrats of what the Awans stole and what ultimately they will do with it."  [Peter] Flaherty went on to put into words what our take on this has been since the Democrat IT scandal first broke and the Republican leadership studiously ignored it:  A greater possibility is that the House branch of the Republican Party has ceased to function as a real political force.

Bucking the System.  Today we begin with an extraordinary interview with a sitting member of Congress.  It will make you mad but it's something you should hear.  Republican Ken Buck is speaking out of school about the shocking, transactional nature of Washington politics.  About party elites he says, "live like kings and govern like bullies."  And he's lifting the curtain on why he says nothing gets done in Congress, describing collusion between Democrats and Republicans to fleece taxpayers on behalf of special interests.  [Video clip]

Angry GOP Donors Close their Wallets.  Republicans are confronting a growing revolt from their top donors, who are cutting off the party in protest over its inability to get anything done.  Tensions reached a boiling point at a recent dinner at the home of Los Angeles billionaire Robert Day.  In full view of around two dozen guests, Thomas Wachtell, a retired oil and gas investor and party contributor, delivered an urgent message to the night's headliner, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell:  Just do something.

GOP Sens. Blunt and Moran Offer Green Cards to Outsource More White-Collar Jobs.  GOP Senators Roy Blunt and Jerry Moran have introduced legislation which would outsource another 125,000 white-collar jobs to foreigners each year.  The outsourcing bill is being pitched as a pro-technology, pro-entrepreneurship bill even though many young and middle-aged Americans in the two Senators' home states of Missouri and Kansas are already working with technology or as entrepreneurs.  The outsourcing bill is dubbed the "Startup Act," and it closely models prior bills sought by the high-tech sector, where executives and investors are working to raise profits by further reducing the salaries paid to American college graduates and technology experts.

Matt Drudge:  No Difference Between Dems And GOP Anymore.  News aggregator Matt Drudge tweeted Wednesday that recent GOP legislative failures have shattered the "illusion there is a difference between parties."  Drudge said that the GOP's failure to repeal and replace Obamacare and now the possibility they raise taxes on the wealthy proves that they aren't any different than Democrats.

Susan Collins, Rand Paul and John McCain are leading us to socialism.  The current situation simply causes damage to everyone.  By forcing insurance companies to provide products that don't work economically, the companies have to either raise rates — which is what is happening — or withdraw from markets — which is also happening.  Graham-Cassidy takes a difficult situation and says, "It's clear we're not going to solve it in Washington, so let's turn it over to states and let each state deal locally with its challenges."  This is indeed what America is about.  This is what the founders of the USA wrote into our constitution.  A limited federal government, and the rest left to the states.  And they were right!  But liberals, like Susan Collins, have upset the apple cart over the years and now we have a mess in Washington.

Sen. Bob Corker Announces Retirement One Day After Breitbart Reports on His $3 Million Swamp Deal.  Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) announced late Tuesday afternoon [9/26/2017] he will not be seeking re-election to a third term in the Senate in 2018, just hours before polls were scheduled to close in the Alabama U.S. Senate Republican runoff election between conservative Judge Roy Moore and Corker's establishment ally, Senator Luther Strange (R-AL).  Corker's surprising announcement came one day after the publication of the third story in a series by Breitbart News that documented his sweetheart deal investment in a Mobile, Alabama retail center arranged by a law firm that donated $28,000 to Luther Strange's Senate campaign.

WaPo: Swamp Worries That a Luther Strange Defeat 'Could Prompt Some GOP Senators to Retire'.  The Washington Post reports that, although President Donald Trump and his staff were hesitant to campaign in Alabama for establishment-friendly Luther Strange, Swamp Republicans forced the president's hand — fearing that a victory for Judge Roy Moore would motivate several allies to retire from the Senate rather than face Breitbart-backed challengers in 2018.

The Awful Future that Looms for a Majority of Today's Americans.  The Republicans, while cognizant of the dire future ahead, prefer to hide their heads in the sand and defer matters to another day and another Congress and another President, as they are fearful of telling the people the truth and risk losing political power.  Thus, their pre-determined inability and lack of fortitude in addressing Obamacare or any long-term spending programs.  Donald Trump continues to tout new programs (such as paid maternity leave), adamantly refuses to address the out of control entitlement spending, and is content with modified single-payer health care.

Senate, led by frightened GOP, passes worthless anti-KKK resolution.  Senators on Capitol Hill passed this week with both speed and unanimous voice a resolution that condemns white supremacist groups and that suggests President Donald Trump ought to do the same.  This strikes as a frightened, "Hail, Mary" move to save their own political seats.  And don't forget:  Republicans are in the majority.  Rather than signing their names to meaningless political documents that give leftists more fuel to toss on their anti-Trump fire, Republicans could instead talk about the evils of racism by mentioning their own party's support for the Civil Rights Act — and their Democratic colleagues' unfortunate stand on the opposite side.  Or, they could name-drop — can you say Sen. Robert Byrd? — and petition for the clearing of this ex-KKKer's name from roads and structures at key spots around West Virginia.  Instead, Republicans, like their Democratic counterparts, chose to go the politically expedient route and pass a piece of paper.  Wow, what bravery.

The Do-Nothing Republican Congress Acts Fast — To Spend More Money.  Less than two weeks after Hurricane Harvey made landfall, the House passed an $8 billion bill to help the Houston region recover.  So Republicans in Congress can get things done quickly, just not when it comes to enacting a conservative agenda.

Please note:  The Republican Party currently enjoys a majority in the Senate.
Senate Resolution Condemns White Supremacists, Not 'Anti-Fascists'.  A bipartisan joint resolution being introduced in the Senate condemns "white nationalists, white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and other hate groups" for their role in the violence in Charlottesville, Va., last month, but does not mention so called anti-fascist groups.  The joint resolution, signed by Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia and Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, calls on the Trump administration to deploy all available resources to "improve data collection on hate crimes and to work in a coordinated way to address the growing prevalence of hate groups."

All This 'True Conservative' Talk About 'Principles' Is Just Another Lie.  [Scroll down]  So now, suddenly, Congress is moving to try and keep DACA alive through — gasp! — legislation, though that's probably not going to happen since most GOP legislators understand that amnesty is ballot box poison.  See, that's why they loved DACA — they can't pass it as a law, so they simply feigned outrage for the benefit of us rubes when Obama did exactly what they wanted with his pen.  And in the most Congressional GOP move of all possible Congressional GOP moves, they now want to try to pass a proposed DACA fix using Democrat votes and so their proposed deal to the Democrats — who really, really want 800,000 future voters — is to trade it for [...] nothing.  The GOP isn't asking for anything.  No new limits on immigrants, no reform of chain immigration, certainly no wall.  Nothing.

The Slow Death Of The Republican Party.  Every Republican candidate's stock speech sounds the same, the thunderous roar about a government out of control, federal spending out of control (insert charts and graphs and why, if you stack hundred dollar bills, they will reach the edge of the universe), federal taxes out of control (insert comparisons to socialist countries), the federal bureaucracy out of control (insert metaphors about chains, yokes, and the like), the family shattered with federal funding of abortion a crime against humanity (watch for it — there!  The heart-wrenching sob), and our military is emasculated.  Two more items were added to the menu, courtesy of Obama.  Obamacare Will Be Repealed! and Illegal Immigration Will Not Stand!

Frustrated voters to GOP: Do something!  To date, all the country has to show for putting Republicans in charge is Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.  That's not nothing, as they say, but it's not enough.

The Clownish Commissars of the Culture.  Paul Ryan, deferring to the propaganda of the commissars, says Trump "messed up" with his post-Charlottesville remarks.  Leave it to the stupid party to ratify the lies of the left.  Trump said nothing untrue and has behaved far more honorably than his cowardly "conservative" critics.  They joined the anti-Lee mob; he didn't.  Remember that the next time one of those critics clears his throat pompously about the "threat that Trump poses to the conservative movement."  Those who use that phrase the most advance it the least.

The Republican Party Reveals Itself.  The Republican Party once was the party of conservatives.  It still is the only place any conservative can be elected in today's political world.  So far.  Unfortunately, the party of Reagan has disappeared.  Trump did not make them disappear, but his improbable run, and win, has revealed who the party really is. [...] I am not the first to say this, but let's be clear, the GOP has become a party of spineless wimps and frauds.  They have betrayed half of America, betrayed the base that once supported them so well, and also betrayed their country.

Replacing the Republican Party.  Having refused to repeal Obamacare, the Republican Party is dead, as was the Whig Party in 1854 after it colluded in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act which opened these territories to slavery.  Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress as well as control of legislatures and governorships in 26 states veil the fact that, in 2017, there are no longer reasons to vote Republican any more than there were to vote Whig after 1854.  The Republican Party's successes in recent electoral cycles were due to the American people's desire not to be governed by a ruling class, headed by the Democratic Party, which is restricting, insulting and impoverishing the country.

At the Orgy of Self-Righteousness.  By the way, what exactly do "conservatives" conserve anymore?  It is difficult to say, except maybe their seats on Meet the Press and Morning Joe.  Turn on the TV and you are likely to hear some "conservative" rebuking Trump for his ban on transgendered troops, extolling the glories of gay marriage, and casting Robert E. Lee as a traitorous dirtbag.  Rich Lowry wants to see the Confederate monuments "mothballed."  One wonders what entitles this generation to speak so confidently about past evils given its inability to recognize present ones.  Modern America is awash in the blood of millions of aborted children — a monstrous evil we're told is as central to the modern lifestyle as slavery was to the ancient one.  Can anybody imagine the "conservatives" heard this week lecturing Trump on his comments ever refusing to appear in the company of abortion advocates?  No, the Bill Kristols are only too happy to belly up to the smugfests of the pro-abortion liberal elite.  They consider their pro-abortion peers very fine people indeed.

Republicans' Approval of Congress Hits 2017 Record Low After Failure to Repeal Obamacare.  Only 16 percent of Republicans approve of the job Congress is doing, according to the latest Gallup poll.  This is the lowest job approval rating Congress has received from Republicans in 2017.  It is also a significant departure from the 30 percent GOP approval for Congress from April to July.  The drop is likely due to the Republicans' failure to repeal and replace Obamacare before going on August recess as the survey was conducted August 2-6th.  Republican approval of Congress was at a high of 50 percent after President Trump's inauguration in February but gradually fell in the months following.

The New Tenure of Office Act.  Congressional Republicans have been waging a quiet war on their own President.  The Senate voted unanimously to stay in session thus denying President Trump the power to make recess appointments — and they themselves have refused to move his appointments forward.  They prevented Trump from even using private funding to build a border wall in a previous deal.  They refused to even repeal Obamacare, the cornerstone of every Republican campaign promise.  And they have gone along with the Democrats with these investigations, which the GOP knows full well are purely political.

One Day.  There is a moment when a government becomes so corrupt that it can no longer be tolerated by the people and I suggest that we are there.  It is much more openly corrupt today than it has ever been. [...] The media has openly chosen sides and are operating as a publicity machine for the coup.  Understand that, they are providing aid and comfort to the conspirators to overthrow the duly elected President of the United States.  Words don't have the power to convey the level of treason that is being played out before our eyes, in the headlines, with absolutely no repercussions from the Republicans in office.

Republican donor from Virginia Beach sues GOP, accusing the party of fraud over failed Obamacare repeal.  A retired attorney in Virginia Beach is so incensed that Republicans couldn't repeal the Affordable Care Act he's suing to get political donations back, accusing the GOP of fraud and racketeering.  Bob Heghmann, 70, filed a lawsuit Thursday [8/3/2017] in U.S. District Court saying the national and Virginia Republican parties and some GOP leaders raised millions of dollars in campaign funds while knowing they weren't going to be able to overturn the ACA, also known as Obamacare.  The GOP "has been engaged in a pattern of Racketeering which involves massive fraud perpetrated on Republican voters and contributors as well as some Independents and Democrats," the suit said.  Racketeering, perhaps better known for use in prosecuting organized crime, involves a pattern of illegal behavior by a specific group.

The Swamp's Biggest Willful Blindness — Republicans Don't Need Democrats To Fund Southern Border Wall.  On December 12th 2014 the Republican controlled House of Representatives passed a 1,600 page continuing resolution, an "omnibus" spending bill of over $2 trillion dollars.  Every one of President Obama's policy and agenda items was fully funded; including Obama's executive action on immigration called DACA (Deferred Action for Children of Americans).  Approximately two months later, February 2015, the key-note speaker for the CPAC conference was Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.  The same Paul Ryan who just passed a $2+ trillion Omnibus and eliminated the debt ceiling.  At the conclusion of his speech over 1,000 members of the CPAC audience gave Speaker Ryan a standing ovation.  During a discussion of the irony and hypocrisy someone coined the phrase "Battered Conservative Syndrome" to describe the audience.  What, exactly, did that CPAC audience see as "conservative" in the fiscal action of Paul Ryan in the preceding two months?

Republicans and the Lost Art of Deterrence.  When Republicans get re-elected on repealing and replacing Obamacare during the assured Obama veto-presidency, and then flip in the age of surety that Trump would reify their campaign boasts, should we laugh or cry?  Is the Republican establishment's aim to see Trump's agenda rendered null and void — or does intent even matter when the result is the same anyway?

Now Republicans Are Running Away From Border Security Promise.  These Republicans.  Has there ever been a more disloyal, spineless, leaderless bunch?  The Democrats are insane of course — but at least they are fully devoted to their own madness.  Republicans prefer a more two-faced approach, promising many things while doing none of them.  The latest exhibit to be added to the long list of Republican broken promises is border security.  Republicans are now running from the Trump "build that wall" promise that was critical in his winning the 2016 Election.  So many Republicans are failing to follow up on this promise (they've been making it to voters for more than three decades) that an open floor vote might prove disastrous.  Instead, a bit of cash will be thrown at the problem, a few miles of new fence, and tens of millions of dollars devoted to further "study."

House Republicans seek to dodge border wall vote.  House Republicans are poised to fund $1.6 billion for President Donald Trump's border wall through a procedural maneuver designed to avoid a floor vote that might fail.  The House Rules Committee is expected to attach funding for the wall that Trump has proposed building along the Mexican border to the so-called minibus, a downsized spending package for the Pentagon, the Energy Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the legislative branch — but not DHS, the Cabinet agency responsible for the wall.  If an amendment to fund the wall is adopted by the Rules Committee, this line item can circumvent a floor vote, sparing GOP immigration moderates and fiscal hawks from being pressed to approve a project that their constituents might view as xenophobic, misguided and wasteful — and sparing GOP leaders possible defeat.

Republicans repeal and replace the Tea Party.  Even when Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress, liberalism remains the default ideology of the federal government.  A Republican Senate could not muster even 50 votes for the full repeal of Obamacare's taxes and spending.  Six Republican senators who had voted for repeal in 2015, when the party was merely pretending it was possible, flipped on Wednesday [7/26/2017] rather than deliver.  Five of the six represent states President Trump won in November.  The sixth hails from a state Trump lost by less than 3 points.

GOP Rep Mo Brooks:  McConnell Should Step Down as Majority Leader If Obamacare Isn't Repealed.  Friday [7/28/2017] on CNN's "New Day," Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, suggested it might be time for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to step down from his leadership position if he is unable to repeal Obamacare.  Brooks explained that if were unable to accomplish that repeal, then he may be unable to fulfill other parts of President Donald Trump's agenda.

The 7 GOP Senators Who Betrayed You By Voting Against a Straight Repeal of Obamacare.  The Republicans had one primary freaking objective and they couldn't even get that right.  Earlier this week, seven Republicans betrayed all of us and refused to vote for a straight repeal of Obamacare.  I'm ashamed to say one of those is Dean Heller from my state of Nevada.  Shame on him.  If the Republicans had listened to Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Rand Paul and had done a straight repeal, they would have had two years to straighten things out and let the free market do its thing.  But no... these people wanted their pork and their kickbacks from the insurance industry.  They all need to go.

Betrayal: Republicans Push Anti-Free Speech Bill Written By Islamic Terror-Linked Groups.  The United States already has strict laws on the books that protect against hate crimes, so one reasonably asks, "why do we need this new resolution?"  Yes, this particular legislation is merely a "resolution" or a formal statement by a legislative body, but might the continued discussion of this matter really seek to prepare us to slowly move toward the next step in the process and expand the concept of what actually constitutes a "hate crime," — perhaps to include speech that some may find offensive?  In fact, its bent is quite the opposite and could end up landing you in federal court for espousing a politically incorrect opinion.

I'm a conservative — and I now see voting Republican is a waste of time.  What would you conclude if you voted for a candidate or a party because of a promise to repeal or change a law that you strongly felt was harmful and unjust, but once in office the party refused to do it?  You might conclude, rightly, that those politicians didn't really work for you, and the party didn't care what you thought.  That's precisely the message Republicans have been sending their constituents throughout the Obamacare repeal fiasco.  The failure of Senate Republicans to pass a so-called "skinny repeal" in the early hours of Friday [7/28/2017] is merely the latest instance of GOP fecklessness on health care reform.

The 7 Republican Obamacare Judases in The Senate.  During the Obama years, there was one message we heard over and above all others.  One that was repeated time and time again.  One that was repeated so often that EVERYONE knew that's what the Republican Party wanted to do.  It was that if the Republican Party had its way, it was going to torpedo Obamacare.  By 2014, the GOP had tried to defund Obamacare at least 6 times, and by the Democrats' count, had tried to gut the law more than 50 times.  Republican candidates across the country promised to repeal Obamacare.  Mitt Romney promised to repeal Obamacare.  Donald Trump promised to repeal Obamacare.

Let's Not Forget:  Obamacare is Destroying American Healthcare for All of Us.  One of the great tragedies of the Orwellian-named Affordable Care Act was its intricately-designed fangs that would sink deep into the flesh of America's healthcare system, ensuring that any later effort to repeal the beast would result in holes that could be exploited politically for maximum damage.  That's what Republicans are facing these days; and as expected, they are failing miserably to stand firm and keep their promises to the American people.  It's not like Republicans should have any trouble firing back or making a mockery of the hyperbolic rhetoric coming from those fierce defenders of Obamacare, a law that caused premiums to skyrocket across the country, countless thousands to lose an insurance plan they liked, businesses and employers to dramatically cut workers' hours to avoid draconian government penalties.

Capitol Hill Republicans — Starting With Paul Ryan — Need a Backbone.  Where are the Republicans?  Where are the demands to Mueller that if he is to expanding his Russia investigation then it's past time to bring in the Clintons and investigate the pay-to-play use of the Clinton Foundation, that expensive Bill Clinton speech in Moscow, and the use of the State Department as the ultimate pay-to-play Clinton toy.  Newsflash:  Democrats and their media allies are playing hardball.  They don't want a debate on health care or taxes, they want to delegitimize and overthrow a duly elected President of the United States because they still can't believe they lost the last election.

Schumer's Criticism of Hillary Is Worse Than It Seems.  Yes, as we also all know, the Republicans have their issues, to put it mildly.  For a party controlling practically everything, they are remarkably inept and self-destructive, but at least, beneath it all, they have the potential to come together and move forward.  (Who knows if they will?)  For the Democrats it is another matter.  They are hamstrung on all sides.

Weak-Kneed Ryan Stalls National Concealed Carry Reciprocity.  Our friends at the Virginia Citizens Defense League recently put out an alert letting gun owners know exactly where the problem is with the national concealed carry reciprocity bill — with Democratic Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

Ari Fleischer Slams GOP for Failing to Repeal Obamacare.  Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer had a glum view on Tuesday while he reacted to the collapse of the Senate GOP's health care bill.  "This is a dismal day for Republicans," Fleischer said on Fox & Friends.  "This is an abandonment of the heart of what Republicans promised people for eight years, and not to be able to deliver on it."  Fleischer went on to talk about the Senate's responsibility to replace the Affordable Care Act, and how their failure "should not go un-noted" in the polls.  Fleischer said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Trump are not to blame for the bill's demise, and that the burden is on the shoulders of Senate Republicans.

And All for the Want of a Spine.  If it's not one thing causing GOP senators and governors to equivocate on the repeal and replacement of Obamacare, it's something else:  Medicaid expansion vs.  Medicaid contraction; cheaper vs. costlier insurance policies; eligibility for coverage of pre-existing conditions; contraception coverage; etc.  Meanwhile a united Democratic Senate bloc watches with ill-disguised amusement.  This is how you get things done in an age of political acrimony — you just do 'em.  Good things, bad things, it doesn't matter.  You do 'em and wait to see what happens.

Why Republicans Exempted Their Own Insurance From Obamacare Rollback.  Senate budget rules are giving opponents of the rollback of the 2010 health care law an easy way to attack Republicans for hypocrisy.  The Senate GOP may not really want to immunize their own member and staff health plans from their health care policy changes, but because they are seeking to bring their bill to the floor under the expedited budget reconciliation process, they have little choice.  Sen. Ted Cruz has already unveiled a fix to nullify the exemption, but that bill would take 60 votes to overcome any filibuster attempts.

Why are most of the Republicans in Congress so spineless?  Obamacare was passed in 2009 without a single Republican vote.  Everyone who paid attention to its details knew that it was designed to fail, miserably. [...] It was and remains a giant boondoggle.  For eight years, Republicans have campaigned for office in order to repeal it.  The House voted repeatedly to repeal it.  Now they have the House, the Senate, and the White House and suddenly cannot do what they have promised to do all these years despite having all the power to do it. [...] Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania let the cat of the bag as to the Republicans' pathetic inaction at a recent town hall:  "We did not expect Trump to win."  So these Republicans who have been promising to repeal Obamacare once they achieved maximum power were just faking it.  They had no plan to actually repeal Obamacare, and it appears now that they never had any intention to do it.

Congress declares climate change a national security threat.  The Republican-led House decisively approved a defense policy bill on Friday [7/14/2017] that declares climate change a national security threat, demands rigorous oversight of the Pentagon's cyber operations and rejects the Trump administration's bid to close military bases.

The Editor says...
The global temperature is changing (up or down) at the rate of one degree per century at most.  That's a small fraction of one degree over the lifetime of any military weapon or system.  By contrast, the temperature in many parts of the world goes up and down 40 degrees or more from morning to night, and that doesn't impede the performance of any military system of which I am aware.  How did the Republican-controlled House of Representatives find it necessary to vote for this claptrap?

Freedom and the GOP are dying under 'Leader' McConnell.  In a not-so-subtle chess move late last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sent a signal to his rank-and-file that the time is coming to capitulate to Democrats on health care reform.  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., did not hesitate to exploit the weakness: [...] Stock criticisms of McConnell's conservatism and principle indeed apply.  But this last fumble, here at the final showdown over Obamacare — the apex of our generation's duty to limited government — goes well beyond questions of principle; it reveals a basic lack of competence to lead the Senate.  The majority leader is not up to the job.

Tough talk is cheap.
Republicans Threaten to Investigate Clinton's Emails Again if Democrats Don't Drop Russia Scandal.  Amidst a fresh Trump-Russia scandal ironically involving Donald Trump, Jr.'s emails with a Russian national, Republicans have somehow found a way to circle us all back to Hillary Clinton's emails.  After learning that Trump Jr. communicated with Russians for "dirt" on Clinton, was told outright that the Russian government backed his father's campaign, and then with his father vouching for him, lied that these meetings were about U.S.-Russia adoption laws, Republican Rep. Steve King from Iowa is threatening to open up a Congressional investigation into Clinton's emails.

The Editor says...
There is no need to threaten to investigate Hillary Clinton's emails.  Nor is there any reason to hesitate.  That's one of the things that got Donald Trump elected.  The Republican campaign speeches were all about building the border wall, repealing Obamacare, eliminating the IRS, EPA and Department of Education, and putting Hillary Clinton in prison.  Stop talking about it and do it.

Senate GOP Decides to Keep Obamacare.  I miss the old days, when Republicans stood for repealing Obamacare.  Republicans across the country and every member of my caucus campaigned on repeal — often declaring they would tear out Obamacare "root and branch!"  What happened?  Now too many Republicans are falling all over themselves to stuff hundreds of billions of taxpayers' dollars into a bill that doesn't repeal Obamacare and feeds Big Insurance a huge bailout.  Obamacare regulations?  Still here.  Taxes?  Many still in place, totaling hundreds of billions of dollars.  Insurance company bailouts?  Those, too.

House Republican says health care bill in jeopardy over Planned Parenthood.  Rep. Trent Franks said Wednesday that if Planned Parenthood funding is added to the GOP health care bill, numerous Republican senators will no longer support it.  "I think a lot of us are 'no' votes," the Arizona Republican said.  "We can't continue to subsidize abortion as part of health care.  It's just something that's not American."  Mr. Franks said.  Some GOP senators, including Susan Collins of Maine, have said they were unlikely to support the bill without funds for Planned Parenthood.

US planning to create 'Space Corps' as sixth branch of armed forces.  The House Armed Services Committee has voted to create a US "Space Corps", which would become a new branch of the armed forces and incorporate the current space missions of the US Air Force.  If the US Space Corps goes ahead, it would be the first new military service in the country since 1947.  The move has caused consternation as committee members of the panel say they were only recently informed, giving them little time to protest against the proposal.

The Editor says...
Expansion of the federal government is exactly what we would have expected from President Hillary Clinton.

Congress Takes Off More Than 200 Days Per Year.  Congressmen take off more than 200 days a year, according to the congressional calendar.  "I would not want to be a member of Congress heading home for the July the Fourth recess," Stuart Varney said on "Mornings With Maria."  He explained that many Americans will be annoyed that Congress hasn't come close to accomplishing anything on health care or tax reform.

The GOP is about to stick it to us again, America.  Republicans have been promising the American people for six years they would repeal ObamaCare.  But all they've given us was one excuse after another.

Senate Republicans Side With Democrats To Protect Obamacare.  For eight years Republicans promised voters they would dismantle Obamacare.  They took in millions upon millions of political donation dollars on that promise.  They ran on it.  They were elected and re-elected on it.  And now some of them are breaking it.  Exhibit one of this two-faced politicking is Nevada Republican Senator Dean Heller who has now gone on record stating he will effectively stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Democrats to protect the failing Obamacare debacle.

The Politics of Professional Procrastination.  The election result in Georgia's sixth district is yet another example of Trump supporters removing excuses the DC UniParty puts forth; yet the DC apparatus is so entrenched in their opposition to President Trump's policy agenda, they sit idle spinning various congressional hearings-to-nowhere in an increasingly transparent effort to avoid action.  Anyone who believes Democrats own exclusive opposition to Donald Trump are completely ignoring the deliberate construct of the 2015/2016 republican primary.  There are just as many — if not more — natural enemies within the Republican apparatus as there are within the Democrat group.  "America-First" is antithetical to the UniParty.

Have Congressional Republican Leaders Joined the 'Resistance'?  William F. Buckley, Jr. ran for mayor of New York City in 1965, he was asked, "What will you do if you win?"  His reply:  "Demand a recount."  Of course, he was being flippant.  The young Conservative Party of New York had no chance of winning even a plurality in the liberal bastion of New York.  I would not have been surprised to have heard Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell utter those words in October of 2016.  Not only did they expect Trump to lose to Hillary Clinton in a landslide, they were counting on it.  In a divided government, with a Democrat in the White House and Republican majorities in the Senate and House, governing the country was a matter of bipartisan deal-making — and they were in the driver's seat.  No one could hold them accountable for actually governing the country — what a deal!

Trump's reversal allowing amnesty for Dreamers enrages conservative base.  The Trump administration has approved tens of thousands of temporary amnesties for illegal immigrant Dreamers, according to numbers released Thursday [6/8/2017] that underscore a major reversal for President Trump.  The decision has enraged the president's conservative base, which hoped he would make good on his promise to revoke the policy, known in governmentspeak as DACA.  But immigrant rights advocates, who were harshly critical of Mr. Trump during the campaign, said he deserves some credit for defying his right wing and keeping the program intact.

Where is the special prosecutor for Hillary and Barack?  Every time I think we have plumbed the depths of stupidity among congressional Republicans, someone comes along to prove that we are so far from the bottom that we can't even see it.  Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), supposedly an up-and-coming conservative "star" in the U.S. Senate, proudly announced that the Senate Intelligence Committee had voted to give itself "blanket authority to issue subpoenas" regarding the investigation into Russian election meddling.  This means the Democrats have been granted unrestricted license to go after President Trump despite what is obviously a partisan witch hunt.  How could Republicans be so stupid?

Senate GOP's love affair with Senate process blocks Trump agenda.  The President and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate ran on a platform in 2016 of Obamacare repeal and replace, tax reform, and border security. [...] Senate rules have one purpose, to avoid tough votes.  If there is one thing a politician doesn't like, it is a tough vote.  Tough votes will appear on campaign literature in their primaries and the general election.  Senators do not want to defend those votes, despite running on making that vote, in front of a town hall.  The current healthcare legislative situation in the Senate, proves this.  In late 2015, the Senate passed an Obamacare Repeal bill with 52 votes knowing it would be vetoed by President Obama.  Now that the vote is for real, the Senate is scared to call the vote.

Are Republicans Their Own Worst Enemies?  Here's the good news.  It's 2017 and Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House and more statewide offices than you can shake a big bundle of fake news papers at.  And, potentially soon, a Supreme Court that takes its guidelines from the Constitution not Das Kapital and the National Social Justice Party.  Here's the bad news, Republicans are still Republicans.  Whether it's Flynn, Bannon, Gorka, Kushner, Clarke, they are all too eager to fall for the latest left-wing scandal.  The media throws some chum in the water and watches the bloody fun as Republicans go after Republicans.  Scandals are manufactured and strategically aimed to divide and conquer Republicans.  But the real target is the conservative agenda.  Bogging down the White House in scandals keeps it from dismantling more of Obama's regulations and orders.  Every milligram of oxygen that foolish conservatives give the left's narratives is a milligram taken from the lungs of the conservative agenda.

The Price of Power:  Congress' Maddening Cash Quota System.  Here is an exclusive first look at a new report that says you can put a price on success when it comes to Congress.  The report by "Issue One" exposes the secretive money system in which members of Congress "buy" top spots on the most powerful committees.  To raise the money, they often collect from the very interests their committees are supposed to oversee...  As an example, ordinary Republicans have six-figure party "dues."

Memo To GOP: Dems Didn't Waste Their Majority Playing It Safe.  The recent spate of news stories predicting that Democrats will reclaim the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections could be brushed off as little more than wishful thinking on the part of liberal journalists.  But the GOP would be wise to get as much done as they can, before it's too late.

Republicans Go to Jail, Democrats Run Free.  If not for the ethically compromised former attorney general Loretta Lynch — who famously entertained Bill Clinton on her official airplane just days before the FBI interrogated his wife — and the alternately accusatory and accommodating former FBI chief James Comey, Hillary and Huma likely would have faced felony charges under the Espionage Act and federal bribery statutes.  And yet, with America's foreign policy up for auction, and state secrets fluttering around Washington like confetti on New Year's Eve, members of the Stupid Party could not figure out how to investigate this.

The Suicide of the Republican Party.  Giving the devil his due, I give the fake news media credit for their all-out effort — they are waging total war on the Trump presidency.  They are painting him as the devil incarnate, the physical embodiment of evil, so much so that every move that Trump makes is reported as a ghastly deed, or as a dangerous miscalculation at best. [...] Trump won't be undone overnight, but he will be undone.  Slowly, methodically and painstakingly, he will be milked for all the benefits he can enact for big business interests.  But, during that time, and with the aid of Democrats — aid that is witting or unwitting — he will be undermined, so that at the right moment, his entire edifice will fall into a sinkhole of treachery.  That's the new Republican plan.  Of course, I don't know the details.  If I did, I would already have taken my place alongside Vince Foster.

With the GOP Congress, the stench of surrender is in the air.  As Republican careerists continue to cower in various corners of Congress, K Street, and the political consultant/donor world, a whispering campaign is afoot.  Fewer than six months into the new Administration, the talk on the Republican side is not about impending victories, but impeachment.  No more talk of truly repealing Obamacare.  Few signs of life for tax reform.  No hint of a border wall.  In fact, there's no indication of any Republican agenda at all; nor any results affirming the voters' decision less than 200 days ago to entrust the GOP with power.  Just whispers of impeachment... by Republicans... against a duly elected Republican president... in hushed tones.  In America, that's how coups arise — not with guns or armed insurrections — but with leaks and gossip and whispering campaigns.

Why We Don't Need the GOP Establishment.  I have absolutely no fears whatsoever of a resurgence of the Democratic Party.  The Democrats have shown no ability to learn from their mistakes.  The only thing keeping the Democratic Party alive today is the gross ineptitude of the Republican Party.

The Bipartisan Push to Increase Spending and the National Debt.  Once again, we are reminded that "bipartisan" is Washington-speak for "Hang on to your wallet."  Democrats, Republicans, and the Trump administration have reached a bipartisan agreement to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year.  Much of the media is trumpeting the agreement as proof that "both sides can work together."  Sure they can ... if the goal is to further fleece the taxpayer.

Limbaugh grills Pence on budget: 'What is the point of voting Republican?'.  Radio host Rush Limbaugh received a call from Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday, and he wasn't shy about voicing his displeasure over the 2017 budget deal.  "The Rush Limbaugh Show" rarely has guests, but a $1.2 trillion federal spending deal made between Republicans and Democrats to avoid a government shutdown prompted an interview with Mr. Pence.  The theme of the exchange boiled down to one question:  "If this is what happens, Mr. Vice President, why vote Republican?"  "What is the point of voting Republican if the Democrats are gonna continue to win practically 95 percent of their objectives, such as in this last budget deal?" the conservative host asked.

Republicans Abandon Conservatism.  This week alone, congressional leaders reached a "compromise" on a $1 trillion budget deal that consisted primarily of concessions made by the GOP majority and points scored for Democrats.  These include the continued funding of Planned Parenthood and so-called "sanctuary cities," nearly $300 million for Puerto Rico's Medicaid program, and language preventing the funding of any border-wall construction.  The $1.5 billion apportioned for border security does not permit any funding of a deportation force. [...] One is left wondering what good it does for Republicans to hold the White House and both chambers of Congress if they still can't manage to achieve any conservative victories.

Trump Voters:  Ya Got Took.  [Scroll down]  No fighting China on currency, no [Mexican border] wall, no NATO reform.  Add a few more items to the list:  Janet Yellen was definitely out before she wasn't; our relationship with Russia was "great" during the campaign but today is a "horrible relationship" that is "at an all-time low" (he may not know about the Cuban missile crisis); the president could not make war on Syria without congressional approval ("big mistake if he does not!") until he could.  The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land.

Hey, Republicans — take a memo:  You won.  Do Republicans even know they won?  Forgive the question, but it dawns, given their recent behavior in Congress, that Republicans are either above and beyond courteous, desirous of helping Democrats every which way they can — or they just don't know they won, that they are the party of the majority.  In a phrase:  Budget bill.  Rather than fighting, Republicans rubber-stamped.  And for Democrats, it's a dream come true.

Rand: AHCA 'First Time' GOP Has Supported 'Deplorable' Practice of Subsidizing Insurance Companies.  On Thursday's [5/4/2017] broadcast of the Fox News Channel's "Your World," Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) argued the revised American Health Care Act is "the first time that Republicans have affirmatively put their stamp of approval on a program where federal money, taxpayer money, is paid to insurance companies."  He later characterized subsidizing insurance companies as "deplorable."  Rand said the House Freedom Caucus "made the bill a lot less bad."  He added, "But what I'm still concerned with is, this'll the first time that Republicans have affirmatively put their stamp of approval on a program where federal money, taxpayer money, is paid to insurance companies. ... And it boggles my mind how that became a Republican idea."

The Obama Republicans Fully Fund Planned Parenthood, Obamacare, Sanctuary Cities, Don't Fund Trump's Wall.  As per the usual arrangement, on Sunday [4/30/2017] Republicans reached a deal with Democrats to pass a $1.1 trillion spending bill that will avoid a government shutdown through September.  Here's what's in the bill:  funding for Planned Parenthood, Obamacare, the Iran deal, the National Endowment for the Arts, and sanctuary cities.  Here's what's not in the bill:  funding for President Trump's planned border wall.  Incredibly, the new omnibus even includes a measure to increase the influx of temporary workers under H-2B visas through September.

Democrats Bully Republicans into Spending Surrender.  Initial conservative skepticism has turned into rising outrage over a spending bargain approved by GOP lawmakers Sunday night — the first budget agreement hammered out since President Donald Trump took office.  "They are, in fact, funding President Obama's priorities," Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, told LifeZette, referring to the Republican members of Congress who sit on the Appropriations Committee.  "They're behaving as if President Obama's still in place."

Moderate Holdouts Offered $8 Billion Extra for Stability Fund to Get Their Votes on Health Care.  A GOP source close to the health care negotiations told Independent Journal Review late Tuesday night [5/2/2017] that moderate Reps.  Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Billy Long (R-Mo.) are considering a deal granting $8 billion in additional funding to the plan's state stability fund in exchange for the lawmakers' support on the health care bill.

Frustrated conservatives ready to start winning under Trump.  The spending deal struck over the weekend to avoid a partial government shutdown is just the latest failure of GOP-controlled Washington to deliver for conservative activists.  To them, that bill is part of a larger pattern of putting off fights with the Democrats for another day only for tomorrow to never come — a trend they were already experiencing with run-of-the-mill Republicans, but one they hoped would end under Trump.

1,665 Pages:  GOP Spending Bill Longer Than Obama's Stimulus.  The new federal spending bill proposed in the Republican-controlled Congress to fund the government through the end of September — which is now posted on the House Rules Committee website — is 1,665 pages long and includes an average of approximately 210 words per page.  That makes this bill approximately 350,000 words long — or about twice as long as the stimulus law (the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act") that President Barack Obama signed less than a month after his inauguration in 2009.

Obamacare and the Gutless Wonders of the GOP.  The GOP holds majorities in both houses of Congress, the president is a Republican, and only a tiny minority of the voters support Obamacare in its present form.  It should be possible, under these propitious circumstances, for the Republicans to honor their pledge to repeal the rapidly imploding "reform" law.  Yet the party that ended slavery and successfully championed women's suffrage, both in the face of violent Democratic opposition, can't muster the courage to repeal even the worst provisions of the Affordable Care Act.  This cowardice has now inspired the law's apologists to openly mock the GOP and President Trump. [...] One hopes they will grow a collective spine and repeal Obamacare. Otherwise, the Democrats win in 2018.

Obamacare Cost-Sharing Subsidies Will Not Be Part of the Deal Republicans Make to Keep Democrats From Shutting the Government Down, Ryan Claims.  In exchange for you continuing funding Obamacare, we'll allow you the benefit of also being permitted to continue funding Planned Parenthood.  We are always bargaining from a position of weakness.  Never strength.  Just this cramped posture of a beaten boy who rolls up into a ball covering his head and crying "Uncle."  And by the way, I assume this is a negotiating position and when the Democrats shut down the government, we'll give in on some cost-sharing subsidies for Obamacare.  John Sexton explains what cost-sharing subsidies are:  Direct payments to insurance companies[.]

Why can't House repeal Obamacare?  Because a lot of Republicans don't want to.  Republicans have 238 seats in the House.  Repealing Obamacare will require 217 votes.  Even with unanimous Democratic opposition, Republicans could lose 21 votes and still prevail on repeal.  Why haven't they done it?  By this time, it's becoming increasingly clear that Republicans have not repealed Obamacare because a lot of Republicans do not want to repeal Obamacare.  They don't even want to sorta repeal Obamacare.  The bill currently on the table, like the bill pulled in March, falls far short of a full repeal of Obamacare.  And yet Republicans still cannot agree on it.

Will GOP Fund Planned Parenthood But Not Border Wall?  According to the Congressional Research Service, the Government Accountability Office determined that Planned Parenthood Federation of America affiliates received $400.56 million in Medicaid reimbursements in both federal and state dollars in 2012.  Planned Parenthood affiliates, according to GAO, also spent $64.35 million in federal Title X funding in 2012.  When the House Republican leaders this year put together their weak and redistributionist reconciliation bill to "repeal and replace" Obamacare, it included language that would have denied Medicaid money to Planned Parenthood — for just one year.  But it would not have denied Title X money to Planned Parenthood — because reconciliation bills do not deal with discretionary spending like that doled out under Title X.  When principled House conservatives opposed that Obamacare bill, the Republican leadership did not bring it up for a vote.

Republicans Set For Full Capitulation In April Budget Fight.  [A]ll signs now point toward the Grand Old Party preparing for a Grand Old Surrender.  There is no appetite whatsoever among congressional Republicans right now to wage battle over taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood — despite the fact that the organization demonstrably profits off the sale of dismembered baby parts, and despite the reality that the current state-sanctioned prenatal infanticide regime is the moral and legal successor to the antebelleum slavery that the nascent Republican Party was once formed to stand athwart.  There is no appetite right now to go to budgetary war over defunding the jihad-funding, kleptocratic Palestinian Authority.  There is no appetite to once and for all defund President Obama's lawless executive amnesties, to stop unvetted refugee resettlement from the Islamic world, or even to pay for Trump's unambiguously highest profile, most frequently cited campaign promise: the construction of the "big, beautiful" border wall.

The condition they call a "government shutdown" should be a goal, not a deterrent.
Congressional Republicans take heat at home on ObamaCare, say priority is avoiding shutdown.  Congressional Republicans returned this weekend to their districts to get another earful about ObamaCare, while giving mixed statements about how close they are to replacing the health care law and suggesting that avoiding a looming government shutdown is now the priority.  California GOP Rep. Tom McClintock again held a town hall event in which residents expressed concerns about the GOP-led Congress repealing and replacing ObamaCare with more expensive and less comprehensive coverage.  "Are you aware that you don't answer questions?" one town hall attendee asked McClintock at the event outside Sacramento.  Another attendee suggested McClintock was a [poor] representative and that Republicans could vote with Democrats to replace him.

A Guide To Repealing ObamaCare, Hidden In Plain Site.  The GOP has apparently decided that, despite the problems it causes, any ObamaCare repeal plan must keep the core feature of ObamaCare — its protections for those with pre-existing conditions.  Are they not aware that several states have already gone through this exercise before, and that many ended up abandoning these very protections after their insurance markets started to implode?

Say, let's release browsing history of pols voting to rescind internet privacy.  A Republican Congress voted this week to rescind personal internet privacy protections enacted just six months ago and President Trump indicates he will sign the legislation. [...] Critics suggest this will enable internet providers to collect vast volumes of personal information on any American's Internet use, including search and browsing histories.  And to peddle it, presumably to commercial operators eager to sell you stuff.  Have you noticed those eerie pop-up ads about things you just perused on Amazon? [...] In fact, there's mounting outrage about the GOP move.

Is health care a right or a good?  After the Republicans acquired full control of Congress in 2015, they delivered numerous repeals of ObamCare to President Barack Obama, knowing that he'd veto them, which he did.  These were complete repeals — essentially removing the federal government from the regulation of health insurance and the delivery of health care.  Now that Republicans control Congress and the White House, you'd expect that they would do the same, as they have promised.  No such thing has happened.  The legislation that Republican House leaders offered last week retained the basic premise of ObamaCare — that health care is a right and the federal government has a duty to provide it — and just nibbled a bit at the edges.

Why Aren't Liberal Republicans Being Blamed For RyanCare's Demise?  For a week now, the conservative House Freedom Caucus has been taking hits for derailing the Republican effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare.  But why are moderate/liberal Republicans who refused to support the bill getting a free pass?

Republican Leaders May Not Fund Border Wall in Must-Pass Spending Bill.  The Trump administration has asked Congress for $1.4 billion in supplemental spending this year to begin the president's long-promised border wall, but the money apparently will not be included in must-pass legislation to keep the government funded beyond April 28.  At a news conference on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was asked if supplemental money for border security and defense — a total request of $33 billion dollars requested by the Trump administration — would be included in the spending package that must pass by April 28 to avoid a partial government shutdown.

Republicans Are Now Medicaid's Biggest Boosters.  There are few federal programs as poorly designed as Medicaid.  Its open-ended funding mechanism — where the federal government matches spending by the states — encourages waste.  Since 2000, Medicaid spending climbed 172%, and the Government Accountability Office has listed Medicaid as a "high risk" for fraud and abuse. [...] You'd think, then, that Republicans would have been eager to hit the brakes on this runaway Medicaid train.  Instead, the proposed cuts in the American Health Care Act prompted a chorus of complaints from Republican governors and lawmakers.  Even before the House had released its bill, four GOP senators announced that they wouldn't back any plan that cut Medicaid.  Several House members refused to support the bill because of its Medicaid cuts.

Republicans Claim That Obamacare Repeal Is Still On The Table, Don't Believe Them.  On one side of the debate, there's the Freedom Caucus and other hard-core conservatives who want nothing less than the complete repeal of the PPACA, including portions that are popular with the public such as guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, the ban on lifetime coverage caps, and the provisions which allow adult children to remain on their parents policy up until the age of 26.  As far as replacement goes, this group is often rather vague at what they are aiming at, but typically what you hear from them involves returning to some kind of "free market" in health care which they apparently (and falsely) think existed before the PPACA became law, allowing insurance companies to operate across state lines, which isn't really forbidden under current law but is also not as easy as they make it sound, and Health Savings Accounts combined with high-deductible catastrophic care coverage for things other than routine medical procedures.

Why "repeal and replace ObamaCare" has always been a scam.  During every election cycle, to maintain the illusion of representative government, Republicans tell voters exactly what they want to hear.  After the election, successful Republicans candidates either simply ignore their campaign promises or offer legislation that provides the appearance rather than the substance of fulfilling those promises, usually in a form constructed to reward their real constituents, the special interests.  No one should be shocked.  The American Health Care Act H.R. 1628, RyanCare, TrumpCare or whatever you prefer to call it, is the bill the Republicans were working on for seven years.  The Republicans championed "repeal and replace" because it was a more effective campaign slogan and fund-raising tool than "tweak."  People should have known what was coming — that Republicans would never decisively act against ObamaCare [...]

Who Owns Obamacare Now?  These people call themselves the "Freedom Caucus."  Yet, by refusing to support the American Health Care Act (AHCA) last week, they preserved one of the most outrageous assaults on individual liberty ever signed into law.  They have virtually guaranteed that Obamacare will never be repealed.  Now they own it.

The GOP's Obamacare retreat: Another circular firing squad.  Since 2010 the House of Representatives had staged dozens of symbolic Obamacare repeal votes, which it knew full well were futile as long as what's-his-name had his feet up on the Oval Office desk.  Repeal was torpedoed by a rump pack of Republicans themselves who've shown a keen interest in policy-strutting but none in the actual teamwork of governing.  It's worse than embarrassing.  After seven long years of Obamacare opposition, Republicans couldn't agree on what to repeal and what to substitute.

GOP cave on Obamacare repeal is the biggest broken promise in political history.  Republicans ran on repealing and replacing Obamacare for seven years, over the course of four election cycles.  They won the House majority in 2010 in large part because of the backlash against the passage of Obamacare — and the vow to "repeal and replace" Obamacare was part of their "Pledge to America" campaign document that year.  The botched rollout of Obamacare helped them win the Senate in 2014.  House candidates, Senate candidates, gubernatorial candidates, and even state legislative candidates ran against Obamacare — and won.

Failure Of Health Care Bill Is An Indictment Of GOP Leadership.  Yes, AHCA failure is a failure for the president, but it's much more a failure for House leadership and Paul Ryan.  They had seven years to prepare for this moment, and they failed to do so sufficiently.  At some point, it is incumbent upon Republican leadership to reevaluate their approach.  They've been complaining about a post-earmark legislative process for years — when will they realize it isn't coming back?  The point isn't that the Freedom Caucus isn't obnoxious.  The point is that they're not going away.  An economically and politically self-sustaining conservative faction in the party isn't a fad.  It's the way things are now.

Why Are These Conservatives Waving The White Flag On ObamaCare?  If the Republican's ObamaCare replacement plan ends up looking an awful lot like ObamaCare, here's one reason why:  Prominent conservatives have already conceded defeat.  In his latest column, Charles Krauthammer declared that "For all its catastrophic flaws, ObamaCare changed expectations.  Does any Republican propose returning to a time when you can be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition?"  Another well-known conservative commentator, George Will, wrote almost exactly the same thing in his column that just posted.

Immigration provision cut from Obamacare rollback, angering conservatives.  Some conservatives in Washington were fuming on Tuesday [3/21/2017] after an Obamacare rollback bill was tweaked by Republican leaders to delete a provision meant to crack down on illegal immigrants getting federal healthcare insurance coverage. [...] The provision would have allowed the Treasury Department to access data at the Department of Homeland Security to verify that healthcare tax credits went only to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, not to illegal immigrants.

What Was the Point of Winning the Election?  There is an interesting phenomenon that happens among red state Democrats in the Senate every six years.  They suddenly start sounding conservative when their re-election bid approaches.  They talk more conservatively.  They act more conservatively.  They vote more conservatively, at least until they get re-elected and can go back to holding the Democratic Party line in the Senate.  The same phenomenon happens in the Republican Party.  Only last year, the American people called their bluff, put them in power, and now expect them to do what they promised.  Republicans are terrified at the prospect.

Dear GOP Congress:  Keep Your Promise on Obamacare or Face Eviction.  Lost in all the shouting over the possible "repeal" of Obamacare and its stealth replacement by a Republican version midwifed in the dark by speaker-of-the-House-for-now Paul Ryan is the only thing that matters:  if the GOP is seen to have welshed on its solemn promise to clean-repeal, it will pay with a historic wipeout in the polls next year.  And two years after that.  And two years after that.

When people say the Republicans and Democrats are indistinguishable, stuff like this is what they're talking about:
Mattis: 'Climate change' is a national security threat.  In a clash with President Trump's environmental team, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has declared that climate change is a threat to national security and one military planners must consider in drawing up strategies.  According to a report from ProPublica, Mattis told Democratic senators that climate change is real and "can be a driver of instability."  His position, at odds with President Trump and his Environmental Protection Agency chief, came in answers to questions from senators following his confirmation hearing.  They were released to ProPublica which reached out to the White House and Pentagon for comment without success.

Psychopolitics and the Republican Repeal of Obamacare.  On first impressions the bill also appears to do away with the so called individual mandate; however, upon closer scrutiny it is learned that a failure to maintain insurance still results in a fine, it is just paid directly to the insurance companies as opposed to the IRS.  What the Republicans are offering is anything but a full repeal of the unconstitutional law.  In fact, it is nothing more than an expansion on the idea that government should be in control of health care.  The Republicans have become fearful of repealing the law because they have been made to believe that the majority of Americans accept this to be a government responsibility and they don't want to take it from those that are dependent.  In other words, Republicans have been brainwashed into believing that dependency is the new norm.

The Wisconsin lesson:  Voters will reward Republicans if they do what they promised.  Six weeks into a new administration, with unified Republican government for the first time in a decade, the GOP should be busy enacting a bold reform agenda.  Instead, the party is wracked by internal divisions on key issues from health care to taxes.  After House Republicans released their long-awaited bill to repeal and replace Obamacare it was attacked from all sides of the GOP spectrum — with conservatives calling it "Obamacare lite" and moderates openly worrying it won't do enough for the Obamacare Medicaid expansion population or those who will lose their Obamacare subsidies.  The House GOP tax plan also faces intra-Republican disagreements over a proposed "border adjustment tax" (BAT) that would apply a reduced corporate tax to imports, while making U.S. exports tax free.

Obamacare 2.0 Is All But Guaranteed to Impose Crushing Costs on Voters, Hurt Trump's Base, And Hand Power Back to the Democrats.  [For example,] Illegals can get health care through identity theft and fraud, because Obamacare 2.0 makes it impossible to check enrollees' immigration status.  The bill incentivizes further illegal immigration by encouraging illegals to come to the U.S. to cut into taxpayer-funded programs meant for citizens.  Poll after poll shows Trump's immigration policies prioritizing Americans and their problems over foreigners and their wants are hugely popular with voters.  Giving away health care to illegals, while ramping up the price for Trump's core voters, is a slap in the face.

In Replacing Obamacare, Republicans Face the Pottery Barn Rule.  Ramesh Ponnuru is right when he points out that the harsh judgment on the American Health Care Act has been rendered without acknowledging the parameters within which Republicans are forced to work. [...] That said, I don't recall any asterisks in the mountains of campaign literature promising to repeal and replace.  There was no fine print about the filibuster in the TV ads, no disclaimers about the Byrd Rule in the radio spots.  Fairly or unfairly, Republicans are being graded on a curve of their own making — even if that means campaigns floated political checks the conference can't legislatively cash.

GOP Plan Orders Insurers to Charge People 30% More If Uninsured for 63 Days.  The plan to repeal and replace Obamacare unveiled by House Republican leaders on Monday [3/6/2017] orders insurance companies to charge people 30 percent more in premiums for a full year if they did not have insurance for 63 days or more in the previous year.  The sections of the Republican bill that create this mandate on insurance companies are titled:  "Continuous Health Insurance Coverage Incentive," and "Encouraging Continuous Health Insurance Coverage."  The first subsection of the "Encouraging Continuous Health Insurance Coverage" section is entitled:  "Penalty Applied."  This subsection says insurance companies "shall" impose the penalty.

It Would Be Better for Republicans to Do Nothing Than to Pass Their Swampcare Plan.  If Republicans pass swampcare, their Obamacare-lite pretend replacement plan, they will have violated their repeated promises to the American people over the past seven years.  If Republicans do nothing, they will likewise be violating their repeated promises to the American people over the past seven years.  But if Republicans pass swampcare, they will own each and every failure in the American healthcare system.  Changing one line of Obamacare would force the GOP to own it, and the GOP would be unable to withstand the media blowback.

Republicans Cave On ObamaCare.  Seven years after vowing to repeal ObamaCare, Republicans have labored to produce plan that replaces ObamaCare with ... ObamaCare.  The plan released Monday — called the American Health Care Act — has some good parts.  It repeals ObamaCare's multitude of largely hidden but no less destructive taxes on health insurance plans, medical devices, flexible spending accounts and so on.  It gets rid of ObamaCare's individual mandate and the job-killing employer mandate.

Obamacare Repeal:  The Dangers of Unrealistic Expectations.  From the moment the GOP released the American Health Care Act, the first iteration of what will evolve into Obamacare repeal and replace legislation, conservatives have been griping.  The editors of Investor's Business Daily sum up the general reaction of the right thus:  "Republicans have labored to produce plan that replaces ObamaCare with... ObamaCare."

The Enablers of Obama's Wiretapping Scandal.  Since 1989 and the election of George H.W. Bush, the vast majority of Republicans elected to national office have chosen to worship the twin gods of civility and compromise rather than vigorously defend and promote liberty, free enterprise and limited government.  Meanwhile, their political adversaries, the Democratic Party and the Left (now one and the same) had no such compunctions as they were determined to achieve their ends regardless of the means.  Among the means were endless intimidation, extortion and ridicule of the Republicans in Congress or either of the two George Bushes.  All this without fear of retaliation or even the slightest hint of a vigorous defense or response.

Sessions Under Fire:  GOP Rushes to Eat Their Own Again.  Some congressional Republicans were quick to agree Thursday [3/2/2017] with Democrats calling for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election, following leaks and media reports that Sessions met with Moscow's ambassador twice last year.

Trump's Senate Saboteurs.  The Republican-controlled Senate is to blame for only 17 Trump confirmations so far.  Trump has 1,242 more needing Senate approval, or the number may be as low as 500 — it's hard to pin down.  Republicans are to blame because they are in the majority and thus in control of the schedule.  Given the Senate's vacation schedule — officially, the "state work period" — there is an almost impossibility of Trump getting all 1,242 appointees confirmed in four years even if they worked round the clock.  If the figure is only 500 appointees, it would take nearly two years of round-the-clock work.

Voters won't forgive Republicans if they fail to repeal ObamaCare.  Two months into a new Congress and a bill to repeal ObamaCare has yet to move.  Initially, Republicans had hoped to put a repeal bill on President Trump's desk on his inauguration day.  Then the timeline moved back to Presidents Day in February.  As we head into March, the timeline threatens to slip again as a GOP plan to repeal and replace is coming under serious conservative criticism.  The draft repeal plan leaked last week replaces parts of ObamaCare with a plan that centers on a refundable tax credit — a new program that conservatives fear could cost nearly as much as ObamaCare itself.  That approach has left a lot of conservatives scratching their heads.  Of the refundable credit approach, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told the Wall Street Journal, "It's a long, fancy title for an entitlement program."

McConnell: Trump's State Dept. cuts 'probably' can't pass [the Republican-controlled] Senate.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that a budget that slashes State Department funding likely wouldn't clear the Senate.  Asked if a budget that cuts the agency's funding by roughly a third could pass the upper chamber, McConnell told reporters "probably not."  "When we get to funding the government, obviously it will be done on a bipartisan basis," he said.

Anti-Trump Democrats' Best Allies Are Senate Republicans.  So far, the Senate has confirmed 14 of the 549 senior federal positions that President Trump needs to run the government and who need Senate confirmation — Cabinet secretaries and people who run the departments, bureaus, agencies and the rest of the government.  The rest of the government is being run by career bureaucrats and a few Obama holdovers.  There are another 120 vacant federal judgeships and, of course, the Neil Gorsuch nomination to the Supreme Court.  Each requires Senate approval.

Boehner: Republicans won't repeal and replace Obamacare.  Former House Speaker John Boehner predicted on Thursday that a full repeal and replace of Obamacare is "not what's going to happen" and that Republicans will instead just make some fixes to the health care law.  Boehner, who retired in 2015 amid unrest among conservatives, said at an Orlando healthcare conference that GOP lawmakers were too optimistic in their talk of quickly repealing and then replacing Obamacare.  "They'll fix Obamacare, and I shouldn't have called it repeal and replace because that's not what's going to happen.  They're basically going to fix the flaws and put a more conservative box around it," Boehner said.

What Is The Republican Congress Doing?  Most presidents get their chief agenda items passed early.  Obamacare was done by March 2010.  That's because as presidencies age, issues build up, resistance accrues, fractures appear.  Enthusiasm is highest early on.  The bloom is likely to come off the rose slightly faster with Trump than it did with Obama among the public — Republicans are likely to face just as much pushback from Democrats as Democrats did from Republicans.  That means time is of the essence.

Drudge: GOP 'Should Be Sued For Fraud' Over Inaction on Tax Cuts, Obamacare.  Drudge Report creator and editor Matt Drudge is not happy with the Republican Party's performance in Congress, and he issued a rare series of tweets today to let everyone know about it.  Drudge doesn't usually make direct commentary on daily political goings-on, but he decided Wednesday to emerge on Twitter and scold the GOP for not making good on their 2016 promises faster.  Drudge noted that Republicans voted to silence Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on the Senate floor last night, but he suggested that they weren't fit to lead and ought to be sued if they can't get hurry up and repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut taxes.

Old-Guard Republicans to Push Carbon Tax at White House Meeting.  A group of prominent Republicans and business leaders backing a tax on carbon dioxide were taking their case Wednesday [2/8/2017] to top White House aides, including chief economic adviser Gary Cohn.  The group, including former Treasury Secretaries Hank Paulson and James Baker, is pressing President Donald Trump to tax carbon dioxide in exchange for abolishing a slew of environmental regulations.  They unveiled their plan with a press conference in Washington and an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

The Republican Surrender Caucus Returns.  Over the weekend, Americans were again reminded that the default position of Republican "leaders" in Congress is to preach about the evils of unlimited government but to work at every turn to undermine anyone who actually stands up to do something about it.

Krauthammer: Not Repealing Obamacare 'Would Be the Ultimate Betrayal of the Electorate'.  Republicans are between a rock and hard place when it comes to fixing Obamacare.  For years Republicans ran on the campaign promise to repeal and replace the former president's signature legislation, but with millions of people already on it, repealing and replacing is easier said than done.  This reality seems to have set in for some key Republicans, who are now making fixing the Affordable Care Act their goal, rather than dismantling it and beginning anew.  But if the GOP backs out of its oft-repeated pledge to repeal and replace, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer says it will be the "ultimate betrayal of the electorate."

Records: Soros Fund Execs Funded Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, John McCain, John Kasich, Lindsey Graham in 2016.  Employees of a hedge fund founded by the king of the Institutional Left, billionaire and Democratic Party mega-donor George Soros, donated tens of thousands of dollars to top Republicans who fought against President Donald Trump in 2016, donation records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show.

GOP running into opposition from GOP on tax overhaul.  House Republicans face opposition to their plan to overhaul the way corporations pay federal taxes from a powerful group of lawmakers - other Republicans.

McConnell won't use federal funds to investigate voter fraud claims.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday [2/5/2017] he won't spend federal funds to investigate voter fraud despite President Trump's claim millions of illegal votes were cast in the presidential election.  "Election fraud does occur," McConnell said on CNN's "State of the Union," adding that "there's no evidence that occurred in such a significant number that it would have changed the presidential election."  The Kentucky Republican said any examination of voter fraud would be better left up to the states.

Uniparty Embed Jason Chaffetz:  "We Won't Investigate Voter Fraud".  We would be failing in our due diligence if we did not point out a history of UniParty affiliations and the subsequent willful blindness. [...] Remember the IRS hearings that went no-where?  Remember the House Committee hearings on Clinton's email use that went no-where?  [A]nd more importantly:  Remember the 2010 Tea Party led surge against the usurping GOPe agents and the push to have Jason Chaffetz challenge Senator Orrin Hatch?  Oh yes, there's a history here to track the exact moment when Chaffetz joined the UniParty.  That moment when he retracted his challenge to Senator Hatch and took the payoff from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in combination with the McConnell constructed promise of a major House Committee chairmanship if he removed himself from the equation.

Four Senate Republicans Want To Make Taxpayers Pay For Abortions.  In the same week as the March for Life and the anniversary of the Roe v.  Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, congressional Republicans are presenting strikingly different messages on the issue.  While the House of Representatives on Tuesday [1/24/2017] approved legislation (H.R. 7) that would prohibit federal funding of abortions, with all House Republicans present voting for the bill, on Monday [1/23/2017] four Republican senators introduced a bill that would allow direct taxpayer funding of abortions.

Will Republicans Tank Trump's Spending Cuts?  President Trump hasn't released a detailed budget plan yet, but already some Republicans are signaling their disinterest in making deep cuts to federal spending.  The biggest obstacle to the conservative parts of Trump's agenda could be his own party.

Entrenched GOPe Show Their Cards — Construct "Border Adjustment Tax" To Oppose Trump's America-First Agenda.  Anyone who believes Democrats own exclusive opposition to Donald Trump are completely ignoring the deliberate construct of the 2015/2016 republican primary.  There are just as many — if not more — natural enemies within the Republican apparatus as there are within the Democrat group.  "America-First" is antithetical to the UniParty.  Again, prior to Donald Trump there was one party in Washington DC, "The UniParty".  President Donald Trump represented a second party, an independent approach toward legislative and economic priority.  He was not a third choice, he was the second option.

Mixed Bag of Republicans Vote Against Obamacare Repeal Vehicle.  House Republicans on Friday passed a bare-bones fiscal 2017 budget resolution with few intraparty defections, as most GOP members saw the unbalanced and long-delayed spending plan as a necessary means to an end of repealing the 2010 health care law.  The nine Republicans who voted against the measure raised concerns about either the budget not balancing, a key priority for fiscal conservatives, or the aggressive timeline of repealing the Affordable Care Act, given that the GOP has yet to present a replacement plan.  The final vote was 227-198.

The indefensible Cork-screwing of America's Iran policy.  Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn did far more than any of his Republican colleagues in the Senate to fight for a deal that vastly enriched the Islamic supremacist nation of Iran.  In his dealings with President Obama, Corker authored the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, which undermined the Senate's treaty power in the Constitution.  He provided a path for President Obama to hand over an estimated $150 billion to the mullahs in Tehran, and now Corker wants to make sure his legacy legislation stands.  Sen. Corker wants President-elect Donald Trump to stick with his nuclear deal, which puts Iran on the path to a nuclear bomb in the next decade, according to estimates.

Growing chorus of GOP senators could doom Obamacare repeal.  A small but expanding group of Republican senators are casting doubt on whether Republicans are moving too fast to repeal Obamacare without a replacement ready.  More than five senators expressed doubts in the last week about immediately repealing the law but leaving it intact for a few years while a replacement is created and approved.  Major sticking points include adding billions of dollars to the deficit and a measure included in the repeal bill to defund Planned Parenthood.

Here We Go!  Republicans In Congress Turn On Trump — Make Move To Stop Border Wall.  And here come the charging RINOs!  Intent on stopping President-elect Donald Trump from building a wall on the border.  You'll recognize the names... it's the same [people] every single time:  Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake and Lisa Murkowski.  They join Turban Durbin on drafting a measure that would allow illegal alien children to stay in the US.  Uh, no.  In this particular instance, the sins of the father and mother are the sins of the child.  You cannot justify breaking the law because they are children.  They should stay with their family in their country of origin until they come here legally... the right way... through the front door, not the back.

Republican Leaders Want to Keep the Obamacare Taxes.  Did the GOP not just win an election, in part, because of the devastating effects Obamacare is having?  They keep pledging they are going to repeal it, but one Republican Senator who will have a great deal of say in the matter wants to keep the Obamacare taxes in place.

North Carolina Republicans stall vote to repeal 'anti-LGBT' bathroom law.  Republican legislators in North Carolina declined to repeal the controversial bathroom bill after multiple delays and private meetings between GOP lawmakers.  The state House adjourned without voting to repeal the Public Facilities and Privacy Security act, or House Bill 2 (HB2), during a special session called by outgoing Gov Pat McCrory.  Shortly after, the Senate voted down the repeal, to chants "shame" as lawmakers filed out of the chambers.  Democrats introduced the bill to repeal HB2 Wednesday afternoon [12/21/2016], which was met with an amendment from Republicans including a "cooling off period" — a proposal to would block municipalities from approving ordinances affecting public accommodations and access to restrooms for more than six months.

Good Riddance to Pre-Trump GOP.  A traditional candidate stood no chance of winning this election, regardless of what any polls might have said months ago.  We know how the legacy media treats Republican politicians.  We saw how they savaged George W. Bush daily throughout his 8-year administration, all while he refused to fight back.  Bush left the Republican Party in tatters, culminating with Barack Obama's landslide win in 2008.

Death Panels:  Obamacare IPAB Repeal Can't Wait Three Years.  You have to ask yourself, if Republicans couldn't agree over the last eight years of the Obama administration on a replacement bill, what do they think three more years is going to accomplish?  It's not like there's an easy solution, it's just nobody had time to deal with it yet because there were more pressing matters.  Many Republicans spent many hours diligently working on a health care bill, but every effort fell apart in acrimony.  The big problem with waiting for three years is the law has plenty of terrible things in store before then.  For example, the law's rationing mechanism — officially called "Independent Payment Advisory Board" or, colloquially, the Obamacare "death panels" — is still in place and threatens to cause major damage to the health care system.

House Votes To Refer Koskinen Impeachment Back To Committee.  In a 342-72 vote, the House referred a motion to impeach embattled IRS commissioner John Koskinen to the House Committee on the Judiciary.  One hundred and sixty-six Republicans joined 167 Democrats to squash House Freedom Caucus chairman Jim Jordan's attempt to oust the government official.

GOP Establishment Blocks Effort To Impeach Koskinen.  Despite the best efforts of outgoing Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), House Speaker Paul Ryan and the rest of the GOP establishment successfully blocked the effort to impeach the corrupt IRS Commissioner, John Koskinen. [...] The pathetic excuse given by Ryan and other gutless invertebrates was that a vote of impeachment just before their Christmas vacation would disrupt the legislative calendar for 2017.  So, what was their excuse back in September when Rep. Jordan originally suggested impeaching Koskinen?  Oh yeah.  It was election season.

House gently kills IRS impeachment resolution.  House Republicans on Tuesday mercy-killed a resolution calling for the impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, but did it their way, not the way most Democrats wanted to kill it off.  The resolution was put forward by House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan, who argued Koskinen had not been forthcoming to Congress about an investigation into the IRS targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.  Jordan announced the impeachment for "high crimes and misdemeanors," and outlined four articles of impeachment against Koskinen, all revolving around the investigation into the IRS targeting.

House Republicans derail impeachment effort against IRS commissioner.  Republican leaders managed to derail impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen on Tuesday, forcing the debate back to a committee for more study, where it will die when Congress adjourns at the end of this year.  It was a quiet end to a saga that had bedeviled GOP leaders for more than a year, dating back to revelations that Mr. Koskinen misled a congressional investigation looking into the tea party-targeting scandal and former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner's lost emails.  Conservatives had been agitating for impeachment, saying Mr. Koskinen should be punished for defying a subpoena and providing inaccurate information.

GOP leaders actively working to stop IRS impeachment.  House Republican leaders remain opposed to a vote on impeaching IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, and were actively working Tuesday to scuttle the vote before Congress leaves town for the year this week.  Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the outgoing Freedom Caucus chairman, announced Tuesday that an impeachment resolution would be introduced today [12/6/2016], setting up a vote later this week.  But GOP leaders don't like the move to force a vote, and have been working for months to prevent it from coming to the floor, including by trying to appease proponents of the move by holding hearings on the embattled IRS leader.

Red flag!  GOP leadership will not support repealing Obamacare.  Republican leaders in the House have squished out again.  They have passed a key Obama administration health care initiative titled the "21st Century Cures Act."  This betrayal by establishment Republicans is further proof that the voters can't trust most Republican House members moving forward.  It is also a sign that the American people who voted to repeal Obamacare may not get what they wanted.  The citizenry voted for repeal, yet establishment Republicans may give them a "repeal and replace" that will resemble Obamacare.

7 top RINO moments of the week.  [#2] Who doesn't want to cure cancer?  Under the guise of discovering the cure to cancer, GOP leadership passed an "unpaid-for" $6.3 billion health care spending bill that threw even more money at the HHS, which already spends about $1 trillion a year on health care programs.  Once again, conservative members were placed in a tough position between the false choice of either appearing to be against a cure for cancer and some good reforms or creating a lot of wasteful big government programs.

Ignoring The GOP Establishment's Advice Might Have Been Trump's Smartest Move.  With this week's announcement that Donald Trump has officially won the vote in Michigan, the 2016 presidential election has just about finally come to a close — last-minute recount petitions notwithstanding.  With Republicans now set to control both houses of Congress, the White House, and numerous governor's mansions and state houses, GOP optimism has skyrocketed as party leaders begin to plan the next year's agenda.  In fact, in the wake of Trump's surprise electoral victory, it has become distressingly easy to forget exactly how much America's political outlook has changed over the course of just a few short years.

Dems marched off the cliff in lockstep.  During the Obama years, the Dems almost never broke ranks.  They stuck together even in the face of two shellackings in mid-term elections.  During the Bush years, by contrast, you could almost always count on GOP Senators to defy the administration, and not just after the 2006 thumping.  Nor were Arlen Spector and the two ladies from Maine the only mavericks.  Lindsay Graham, John McCain, George Voinovich, and John Sununu were among other GOP defectors in one or more major fight.  During the primary season of 2012, it was more of the same.

Nikki Haley:  Trump Won Despite Republican Officials, Not Because Of Them.  Nikki Haley told attendees at the Federalist Society's annual convention Friday that Donald Trump won the 2016 election in spite of what elected Republicans have done over the past decade, not because of their actions.  She called for the party to examine itself and move toward principles of freedom, limited government and inclusivity.  The South Carolina governor stated that "President Trump will likely have the ability to shape the Supreme Court for a generation, and thanks in large part to the people in this room, America should be a much better, much more just nation because of it."

House GOP Weighs Proposal to Bring Back Earmarks.  One week after Donald Trump won the presidency on a promise to "drain the swamp" in Washington, House Republicans will vote on a proposal to bring back earmarks.  The vote will take place Wednesday when House Republicans meet to adopt their rules for the next Congress.  The House earmark ban dates to 2010 when the GOP won control of the chamber.  Now, a trio of Republican lawmakers wants to return to the practice of earmarking, which became synonymous with government waste and pork-barrel spending during the GOP-controlled Congress of the early 2000s.

Why would House Republicans vote to make earmarks great again?  The Republican president-elect promised to take back Washington, D.C., from lobbyists, entrenched special interests and the elites.  He didn't suggest rolling back the ban on congressional earmarks.  On their own personal initiative, though, three House Republicans have drafted an amendment to the Republican House rules package that would make earmarks great again.  For a party trying to capitalize on a reform mandate, that's not a winning initiative.  And it's also nearly a political impossibility.

The election is over!  House GOP celebrates by passing a new tax ... on concrete.  Monday night [11/14/2016], the Republican-controlled House voted in favor of a tax on concrete to placate special interests in Washington D.C. Provided yet another opportunity to expand the size and scope of government, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed H.R. 985, the Concrete Masonry Products, Research, Education, and Promotion Act of 2015, a tax in all but name.  The bill, introduced by Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., would create a Concrete Masonry Products Board composed of 15-25 members appointed by the Department of Commerce after a referendum approval by producers of concrete masonry products.  This board will have the power to establish, finance, and carry out a "coordinated research and education program," ostensibly to "promote masonry products in the domestic market," according to a legislative bulletin email from the Republican Study Committee.  This program will be paid for by a "federally administered assessment."

Another Smackdown of the Smug Elite.  The Republican establishment has been called many things, but introspective is not one of them.  One thing they might reconsider is their assumption that they alone know just what kind of presidential candidate is needed to win elections.  But the two most surprisingly successful Republican candidates of the past half century — Ronald Reagan and now Donald Trump — bore no resemblance to the candidates who epitomized the Republican establishment's model, such as Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney.  Among others who could also use some rethinking is Donald Trump himself.  When he acted like a petulant adolescent, he may have gotten the adulation of his core constituents.  But it was only toward the end, when he began to act like a responsible adult seeking the highest office in the land, that he began to overtake Hillary Clinton.

A mandate means you can ... and you'd better.  In fairness, the post-9/11 era was a time when the primary focus was on fighting terrorism, and whether you agree or don't agree with the way the Bush Administration fought that fight, you can't deny that they fought it hard.  But that is no excuse for the lack of action on things like the tax code, health care, energy policy, federal spending and entitlements.  Bush seemed pretty bold during his 2005 inaugural address, pushing for partial privatization of Social Security.  But when Republicans on Capitol Hill got nervous about the political consequences of messing with the program, the idea quickly died.  Dick Cheney headed up a commission on energy policy that seemed to have promise for freeing up domestic resources — but too many congressional Republicans were scared of the environmental lobby.  It went nowhere.  And everyone loved their spending!

Nuke 'Em:  Priming the Senate for Necessary Action.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) could do to the Dems what they were planning to do to the Republicans in 2017.  But he won't.  And there's the rub.  Congressional Republicans have been severely criticized — in this column and elsewhere — for refusing to stand up to Obama on issues ranging from the budget to the Iran nuclear weapons deal to Obama's avalanche of executive orders and regulations that have injured the Constitution (such as amending several laws, not just Obamacare, without congressional action).  They enabled him to transform the Constitutional doctrine of separation of powers into a bad joke.

5 Ways Trump Shows How To Win Elections.  The GOP is ashamed of its base.  It doesn't like being associated with the very voters who made 2016 happen.  Its autopsy last time around searched for ways to leave the white working class behind.  There's a party that did that.  Their symbol is a jackass.  They just lost big because they ran out of working class white voters.  The Democrats have tried to manufacture their base using immigration, victimhood politics and identity politics.  The GOP has wasted far too much time trying to compete on the same playing field while neglecting its base.  Trump won by doing what the GOP could have done all along if its leadership hadn't been too ashamed to talk to people it considered low class because they shop at WalMart.

GOP-controlled Washington needs to put up or shut up!  So, with the Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, we should be able to expect the GOP to finally keep the campaign promises they made in 2014 on issues such as:  repealing Obamacare, defunding Planned Parenthood, reducing burdensome regulations, lowering taxes and reducing spending.  After all, if the reason Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan were unable to keep their promises in these areas was due to Obama's presidency, that hurdle has now been removed, so getting things done should be a breeze.  Right?  Well, before we jump to any conclusions, we need to remember that this is McConnell and Ryan we're talking about. [...] Ryan isn't called Boehner 2.0 for nothing.  He has a well-established track record of deeds worthy of his status as a Washington RINO. [...] And then there's McConnell, who has elevated the practice of surrendering for political advantage into an art form.

The New Republican Party.  We can begin to drain the swamp.  What that adds up to is a reversal of the parade of horribles that have been enacted over the last eight — indeed eighty — years.  One thing is absolutely crucial, and that is the necessity of abandoning the Senate filibuster.  The Democrats don't honor it, and it's become a handcuff that fetters only the Republicans.  Trump's legislative agenda will be DOA if the filibuster survives.  As it stands, it's turned out to be the principal obstacle to republican government, since the gridlock it's given us provided Obama the excuse to rule as an elective monarch.  We're also going to have a new Republican Party.

Roll Up Your Sleeves, Deplorables.  We do not have time to sit on our hands in our basket and bask in the thrill of victory.  We must begin right now to crystalize and articulate what we will demand of our newly elected Republican government — from the White House to the Congress — and be prepared to hold all of their feet to the fire.  Come January, it will be time for them to deliver.  A Supreme Court justice like Scalia?  The end of Roe and judicial games with marriage, "gender," and toilets?  Abolishing the Department of Education?  A patriotic, non-interventionist foreign policy?  A border?  Gun-owner rights?  An attorney general who doesn't persecute state and local law enforcement?  Trade deals that benefit Americans?

Trump Destroys Elites' Assumptions:  Autopsy of the 2012 'GOP Autopsy'.  We learned last night that the punditry's "GOP autopsy" after the 2012 Mitt Romney loss was dead wrong.  Also called the "Growth and Opportunity Project," the autopsy scolded the party, insisting that new immigration policies and racial pandering were necessary to win future elections.  Naturally, such policies would have been a growth and opportunity project for the consultants who would be paid to create them.  Had Jeb Bush been on the ballot yesterday, and had he followed the autopsy recommendations, Hillary Clinton would be president.  Any candidate following the autopsy's recommendations of pandering to racial identity politics would have lost precisely in the states that gave Trump his win:  Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Hillary Clinton, Pedophile And Child Kidnapping Ring, And Endorsement Of Trump.  Six months ago I bid farewell to politics.  It had nothing whatsoever to do with Trump or his moral indiscretions.  It had everything to do with the eviction of Christian thought from the GOP.  The alt-right is welcome in the GOP, I am not.  The obscene pervert Milo is a friend of the current staple of politics on the right, mine has gone the way of the Dodo bird.  This election cycle has managed to do what the progressives couldn't do in a hundred years, i.e., separate Christians from any party at all and relegate our views to the trash heap of history, at least, as far as the eye can see, notwithstanding a sovereign God who rules all things and can revive the country if He chooses to.

It begins now:  Election starts reclamation of nation.  The Republican Party adopted tea party concerns rhetorically, promising for the 2010 and 2014 midterms that stopping the Obama agenda and defunding Obamacare would be their top priorities.  We believed them and gave them the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.  Then they facilitated the Obama agenda and kept Obamacare fully funded.  Instead of seeing the tea party movement as a warning, as an opportunity to adapt to the concerns of an increasingly worried American populace, the bureaucracy instead cast arguments against the Obama-Clinton domestic and international agenda as racist, sexist or ignorant.  For eight years now the American people first thought they were being betrayed, then were pretty sure they were, and then became convinced of it.  The Republican-led Congress made a career of having hearing after hearing about Obamacare or Benghazi — lots of theater and no action.

If Hillary wins, we'll have chosen our leaders for the rest of our lives.  In 2011 George Will told us that if [the Republicans] lost the election the next year they should get out of the business.  He was right, and the 2012 election was the last chance for a party that was faithful to conservative principles but didn't much care for the American people.  Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 primaries was simply the last nail in the coffin.  And the divide between the different wings of the Party is so great that it's unlikely that anyone can put it together again.

10 Signs That An All-Out Attempt Is Being Made To Sabotage The Trump Campaign.  We always knew that politics in America is a dirty game, and that the Clintons are the dirtiest players in the game.  And we always knew that the mainstream media was going to be in Clinton's corner, although it has been a shock to what degree they have completely abandoned any pretense of objectivity during this election cycle.  So it was always going to be an uphill battle for Donald Trump, but what he didn't anticipate was blatant and widespread sabotage of his campaign from within his own party.  In recent days it has become clear that the worst sabotage to the Trump campaign is being done by people that are supposed to be on his side.  It is being called "the Republican civil war," and I don't think that is overstating the case at all.

Most GOP Senators Defecting from Trump Backed Amnesty Push.  In a 2013 email published a few days ago by WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton expressed views wildly at odds with those of the American citizenry:  "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders." Most of Donald Trump's Republican defectors are poised to help her achieve her open-borders dream.  As Republican elites continue to defy Republican voters on the crucial issue of immigration, it's not surprising that the Senate's open-borders crowd is refusing to back the man who — largely because of his hawkish immigration position — was chosen by Republican voters to be their party's nominee.

The Selfishness of Republicans Too Good for Trump.  Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan, Sen. John McCain, and the rest of those who simply can't support Donald Trump, or who do so only halfway, don't seem to get, or don't seem to want to acknowledge, that this election is a binary choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton.  We will have one or the other as president.  Republicans who don't vote for either and try to keep their consciences pristine are handing half a vote to Hillary.  They help her by not doing what they would normally do, voting Republican.  So how does that feel on their consciences, helping elect Clinton for four and — most probably — eight years?

The Return of The Mule.  If you go back and watch videos of Reagan in the 70's and 80's, one of the things that jumps out is how aggressively he attacked the Left.  In his first inaugural address, he attacked the very essence of what Jimmy Carter stood for as a politician.  The man was sitting just behind Reagan as the Gipper explained that everything Carter believed was dangerous nonsense.  The other thing that jumps out, when watching old Reagan speeches, is that no Republican talks like that anymore.  Instead, every Republican that has aggressively pressed the attack against the Left over the last quarter century, has been attacked by the media and so-called conservatives as unacceptably "polarizing" as if that is a thing.  Official Conservatism has instead insisted that they abide by a set of gentile rules designed by the ruling majority, intended to perpetuate their hegemony.  You could be forgiven for thinking that maybe the whole thing was a setup, a game of bad cop — worse cop, in order to rig the results.

Trump and the Surrender Caucus of the GOP.  No Democratic Party president or presidential candidate in history has ever been subjected to, or will be subjected to, the kind of savage attempted assassination by his own party's leaders that Donald Trump is now enduring from the great and the good among Republicans and "respectable" conservatives.

The Sun Is Setting on America as Founded.  The Democratic Party is irretrievably socialist and the home to the what would be considered the authoritarian Left.  The leadership of the Republican Party, for the past 20 years, has willfully chosen to not fulfill their obligation to be the opposition party extolling the virtues of limited government and vociferously opposing the agenda of the Left.  During the terms of the Barack Obama presidency, the GOP, despite controlling at least one of the two Houses of Congress for six years, acquiesced to virtually every spending and legislative demand and surrendered without a whimper their authority insofar as treaty ratifications as well as rubber-stamping all of Obama's Judicial and executive branch nominations.

Republicans cave on everything and leave town.  What a way for the GOP-controlled Congress to end the legislative mandate given to them in 2014.  It can truly be said that whereas Democrats are the Navy SEALs of political combat, Republicans are the NAVY SEALs of political capitulation.  They managed to give Democrats everything they wanted in both houses, got it all passed by violating their own rules, and left town to campaign for re-election [...] This bill funded every major Democratic policy priority with no meaningful limitations on a single illegal, abusive, or harmful executive action taken by the president.  It contained no limitations or reforms to Obamacare, Planned Parenthood funding, Obama's transgender bathroom mandate on the states, sanctuary cities, or DACA amnesty.

Conservative media needs to do its job and start telling people the truth.  During the 2014 general election, I sat aside my differences with the Republican Party's more moderate and/or establishment wings, and did what I could to encourage people to vote GOP since control of the U.S. Senate was at stake.  Let's just say the ROI for that resounding election victory has been underwhelming.  Republicans have rubber-stamped all of Obama's administrative and lower court judicial appointments.  They funded all of Obama's schemes, and aside from show votes used none of their constitutional power of the purse to stop either Obama's illegal amnesty or Obamacare.  Instead, the GOP opted to file meaningless lawsuits and force taxpayers foot the legal bills for on both sides.  Other than filling the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court created by Antonin Scalia's untimely death, it's tough to pinpoint exactly how things would be substantively different if Nancy Pelosi were speaker and Harry Reid the majority leader.

Shedding Light On Years Of Terrible Blindness Among Conservatives.  The harshest reality Republicans and conservatives have to come to grips with is understanding why Democrats continually beat them in national elections.  As a party, Democrats put winning above everything else.  Conservatives can either accept the reality of the political expediency they've been blinded to and accept it or continue to feel "betrayed," nominating candidates with little chance of winning only to see the leaders and institutions they look up to, get in line to support the nominee.

Republican senators tell Trump to avoid Bill's scandals as takes on Hillary in next debate.  Republican lawmakers are urging Donald Trump not bring up Bill Clinton's sexual dalliances when he takes on Hillary Clinton at the next debate.  Talking about Monica Lewinsky, Gennifer Flowers, Juanita Broaddrick and other women Clinton has admitted to sleeping with or has been accused of manhandling will only serve as a 'distraction,' they're warning — the former first lady has other vulnerabilities he can tap into that are less 'sensitive.'

The Editor says...
In other words, the Republicans want to win, but they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.  This of course is nonsense.  Bill and Hillary Clinton's mountain of accumulated baggage is fair game — all of it.

GOPe budget deal snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.  Yesterday I posted an article about how Reince Priebus threatened Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Jeb Bush, saying that if they continued to refuse giving their endorsement to Donald Trump, he would rig the primaries against them if they decide to run for president in 2020.  And using a Star Wars analogy, I concluded that "Lord Priebus" was essentially telling Conservatives everywhere that, when it comes to the Republican party, this is not the party we are looking for.  Well, just as the evil Sith Lords of the Dark Side had an army to force their will on the galaxy, Lord Priebus has his own version of loyal storm troopers in Washington marching to victory as they force the will Empire we know as the GOP establishment.

Republicans Cave on IRS Impeachment — Just as They Always Do.  Last October (2015), Utah representative Jason Chaffetz, one of the few Congressman who actually takes his job seriously, presented four Articles of Impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to the House Judiciary Committee.  It should have been a slam dunk. [...] One of the reasons (not a good reason) the House will not pursue impeachment is that [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell apparently called over and said that the Senate will do nothing regarding Koskinen, regardless of whether the House passes Articles of Impeachment or not.  But what does that have to do with it?  The House has an obligation to do their job.  What the Senate plans to do should be irrelevant to the House completing its job.

How the GOP Spells Victory:  S-U-R-R-E-N-D-E-R.  Time and time again, the GOP has spelled victory wrong.  They've spelled surrender instead.  Consider that the GOP is going to proceed with zika virus funding while caving on Democrat demands to fund Planned Parenthood.  The Center for Medical Progress documented what Planned Parenthood does.  The organization chops up children, keeps babies in freezers, and harvests organs.  The GOP is now going to fund Planned Parenthood, caving to Democrat demands.  On top of that, we are now several trillion dollars beyond where the GOP was willing to draw a line in the sand five years ago and engage in brinksmanship over the debt ceiling.

Republicans move to impeach IRS chief.  House conservatives moved on Tuesday [9/13/2016] to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen over allegations that he misled investigators over the agency's inappropriate targeting of Tea Party groups.  Rep. John Fleming, R-La., introduced the resolution to impeach Koskinen on Tuesday afternoon. "[Koskinen] engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with his duties as an officer of the United States," Fleming said on the floor.

Media always has Republicans in a state of panic.  Hillary Clinton is hospitalized and Tim Kaine is a nobody grifter from Virginia.  About now, Democrats should be pulling their hair out.  Instead, the media spin is Republicans are in a panic because Trump might win. [...] According to the press, Republicans are in a perpetual state of panic.  Republicans panic if they think they will lose.  Republicans panic if they will win.  Republicans panic when nothing is happening at all.  According to the press, Democrats never panic.

NeverTrumps and the End of America as We Know It.  Never before in American history have intellectual and political leaders of a major party deliberately attempted to open the gates of enduring power to an enemy sworn to their eradication.  Are they moved by general snobbery, confusion caused by overwork, East Coast social pressure?

The Story of 2016: Republicans Feeling "Betrayed" by Their Leaders.  At some point, Republican voters need to look in the mirror and start asking some questions of themselves.  What are they watching, reading, or hearing that has created an environment and mentality in their party that seems so different from the broader electorate?

I Have Lost All Faith In The Republican Party.  The scenario which has existed since the convention — Trump says something totally ridiculous, so false that by the time the fact checkers comment the general public (not the die hard Trump fans) know that what he said was absurd.  He then backtracks and blames "the liberal media" for not realizing that he was speaking sarcastically.  However, he doesn't realize that sarcasm is only taken as such when it is used sparingly and not repeated for a day.  Trump is on a path of self-destruction and we ask ourselves why.

Why Hasn't the Republican Party Collapsed?  To be a political scientist in the Trump era is to constantly ponder one big question: whether the Republican Party is in a state of collapse.  Could the growing split over Donald Trump bring about the end of one of our major political parties?  The truth is that American politics doesn't offer many points of comparison.  The first two parties to vanish, the Federalists and the Jeffersonian Democrats, were proto-parties that lacked much of the organization that really makes parties succeed.  A later party, the Whigs, which collapsed in the 1850s, was similarly loosely organized, and its members had decidedly mixed feelings about how things like patronage and campaigns should work.

Establishment Republicans Shoot At Trump — And Hit Themselves In The Foot.  Republicans seem to like nothing more than kicking one of their own when he's down.  So it's not entirely surprising that dozens of Republicans decided that now is the time to declare Donald Trump unfit for office.  But in doing so, they've made themselves, not Trump, look like idiots.

Only Republican Defeatism Can Hand Hillary The White House.  Hillary Clinton has never won an honest election.  And she isn't about to start trying to win one now.  Her favorite kind of race is rigged.  Deeply unpopular and deemed untrustworthy by huge numbers of voters, she plans to win by panicking Republicans into abandoning Trump to "save" themselves.  Hillary is an insider and her weapon of choice is the media.  The weapon has a limited impact on the average Republican voter, but has a great deal of impact on the establishment Republicans who are her targets.  Their weaknesses are position and respectability.  From the very beginning some establishment Republicans preferred to see Hillary win to maintain the status quo.  For some that meant the policy status quo in which illegal alien amnesty, mass immigration, support for the Muslim Brotherhood and nation-building remained the deranged staples of GOP policy.  For others it was about maintaining their privileged positions and access to power regardless of how badly they lost.

Yes, the System Is Rigged.  If 2016 taught us anything, it is that if the establishment's hegemony is imperiled, it will come together in ferocious solidarity — for the preservation of their perks, privileges and power.  All the elements of that establishment — corporate, cultural, political, media — are today issuing an ultimatum to Middle America:  Trump is unacceptable.  Instructions are going out to Republican leaders that either they dump Trump, or they will cease to be seen as morally fit partners in power.

GOP Goes Full Democrat.  [Scroll down]  It seems that the GOP establishment has far more in common with the Democratic Party than their own party.  The Republican Party establishment has just endorsed cronyism, as demonstrated and mastered by the Clintons.  As well as open borders, big government, political correctness and the steady decline of American greatness and culture.  The new and improved GOP endorses a candidate willing to sell anything and everything, including national security, to line her own wallet.  A candidate with a resume of nothing except failures in foreign and domestic policy.  One who will stack the Supreme Court with a bunch of Ruth Bader Ginsburgs eager to rewrite the Constitution without a First or Second Amendment.  Stop Trump and get Hillary along with all of this and much more.  I am a life member of the Republican Party so I'm stuck with that label.  But locally I am registered as unaffiliated.  My letters and emails from the GOP go into the trash.

Hannity: If Trump Loses, I Am Pointing the Finger at Ryan, McConnell, Graham, McCain, Kasich.  Wednesday [8/3/2016] on his syndicated radio show, conservative talker Sean Hannity criticized several high-ranking Republicans for how they have treated their party's nominee Donald Trump.  According to Hannity, if Trump loses in November, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will be to blame for the loss because they have spent more time criticizing Trump than President Barack Obama.

Why Ted Cruz's Stand Against Trump Is So Important.  Ted Cruz may never be the President of the United States.  But he can sleep well at night and he has created a test of character that few Republicans will pass.  Wednesday night [7/20/2016], Cruz said three little words that has sent the Trump cult into a frenzy:  "vote your conscience."  Since then they have responded with a hate on social media that has lasted for days. [...] Then Cruz used the following Kryptonite on the Trump cult:  ["]If you love our country, and love our children as much as you do, stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom, and to be faithful to the constitution.["]  The Trump GOP then booed loudly.  They know deep down that supporting Donald Trump is unconscionable and Cruz had revealed that they were emperors with no clothes.  It is also a party that no longer supports freedom and the Constitution, especially if they conflict with the wishes of its Supreme Leader, Donald Trump.  If you love liberty, the Republican Party is no longer your home.

Republican Platform:  The Constitution Gives Federal Government 'No Role in Education.  The official 2016 platform of the Republican Party asserts that since the Constitution gives the federal government "no role in education," it should not join with "centralizing forces" that have attempted to reform education and have subsequently done "immense damage."  The platform affirms the primary role of parents as educators in a child's life, and supports a constitutional amendment to protect the right of parents to direct their children's education from the overreach of federal and state governments and from potential international intruders such as the United Nations.

The Editor says...
There was nothing in the Constitution about federal involvement in education when President Carter created the Department of Education in 1979, as a spin-off product of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.  The wording of the Constitution didn't change while Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 held the office of president, and none of them dismantled Carter's creation.  One can easily surmise that the Republican Party platform is a mass of lofty but toothless rhetoric that will never be converted into meaningful action.

Today All True Americans Are Left Without a Party.  If you are a true, constitutionally minded American, you really are left without a party or even a faction.  It really is that simple. [...] The Republican Party is a failure because it has essentially joined the Democrat Party as junior member of the engine geared to turn the nation socialist.  Liberals and Democrats are failures because they abandoned American ideals over 120 years ago and instead decided to build the machine geared to replace Americanism with socialist ideals.  So, as a man who reveres the Constitution, I stand here without a party and nearly without a nation.  And if you care about the Constitution, you do too.

Trump's Republican Party Is Now Secular, Materialist, And Big Government.  In Other Words, Leftist.  Trump's new Republican Party has nothing to do with the Constitution or conservatism — he mentioned the Constitution one time this week, conservatism zero times, freedom one time, liberty zero times, the unborn zero times, God zero times, and himself some 83 times. [...] The other big-name speaker on the docket on Thursday night was Paypal CEO Peter Thiel.  Thiel explicitly rejected social conservatism.  He stated, "Now we are told that the great debate is about who gets to use which bathroom.  This is a distraction from our real problems.  Who cares?  Of course, every American has a unique identity.  I am proud to be gay.  I am proud to be a Republican.  But most of all I am proud to be an American.  I don't pretend to agree with every plank in our party's platform; but fake culture wars only distract us from our economic decline, and nobody in this race is being honest about it except Donald Trump."  This earned a standing ovation.

GOP wusses join Dems to go soft and squishy on radical Islam.  The more the American people learn about House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's, (R-Calif.) so called "Homeland Safety and Security Act," the more there is to dislike about the bill. [...] This bill puts into law the Obama administration's controversial "Countering Violent Extremism" (CVE) program that was created by Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson without Congressional approval. [...] Expanding the power of the Department of Homeland Security as a panacea to make the American people think that the federal government is taking action to prevent terrorism would be to lie to the American people.  This new bureaucrat will not protect America.  This is an Obama administration idea that has been adopted by House Republican leadership.

Conservatives' List of Grievances Against the 2016 GOP Establishment.  It's time once again to celebrate our nation's birth with a reminder to read the Declaration of Independence.  If you spend any amount of time searching for great deals on summer items at the much-hyped Fourth of July sales, you have the time to put yourself back in time when, after decades of abuse, the American colonies proclaimed that they would govern themselves, drawing from the consent of the governed.  The document itself is not that long, but it can be tedious document for some to read, what with all the arcane language.  It should be noted, however, that if you tried to read any of the bills Congress has foisted upon us in modern times, the Declaration is at least self-explanatory and instructive.

Confused Who Has the Majority in Congress?  You're Not Alone.  In 2014, Republicans won a majority in Senate.  However, if you've been watching the Senate lately, you'd be forgiven for wondering who is actually in charge.  Democrats demand — and receive — amendment votes, while Republican amendments are stifled.  Appropriations bills, ostensibly written by Republicans, come to the floor lacking any GOP priorities, while conservative efforts to amend the bill are set up to fail.  Even more troubling are the policies coming out of this Republican-led Senate.  Appropriations bills are passed, but at higher spending levels than even President Barack Obama requested.  Just this week, the Senate voted to bail out the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico — without considering any of the economic reforms supported by conservatives.

House GOP to Promote Muslim Brotherhood, Gun Control Agenda this Week.  Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas conducted a hearing which revealed that the Department of Homeland Security, at the behest of Muslim Brotherhood organizations, is deleting critical counter-terrorism research that would have connected many Muslim Brotherhood leaders to global Islamic terror networks and could have prevented some of the recent attacks.  When Cruz asked Jeh Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security, about this at a subsequent hearing, the lead homeland security officer vehemently denied having any knowledge of the cover-up and adamantly declined to investigate it.  A sane Republican Party would immediately pursue this issue, and the failure to do so belies our failed homeland security policy.  Instead, Republicans plan to pass an "anti-terror package," which actually validates the very Muslim Brotherhood agenda endangering our homeland.

Republicans go one way, George Will and I go another.  The victors of [the 1966 and 1968] elections controlled the party and, in fact, the country until the Watergate scandal drove Nixon from the White House and birthed the two men most responsible for the nascent ruin of the country accelerated by President Barack Obama.  They are President Jimmy Carter and four-term California Governor Jerry Brown.  Between them they plunged the country downward with their introduction of larger government and public employee unions.  Moving forward to 2016, we have George Will's abandonment of the Republican Party and announcements by Republican heavyweights including former National Security Advisor General Brent Showcroft, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage that they will vote for Hillary Clinton.  Between now and November, many other Republicans will announce they are voting for Hillary Clinton.

George Will bolts GOP: 'This is not my party'.  Conservative columnist and commentator George Will announced that he is no longer a registered Republican after changing his Maryland registration from the GOP to "unaffiliated."  "I'm an unaffiliated voter in the state of Maryland," Will told PJ Media in an interview.  "This is not my party," Will said during a speech beforehand to the Federalist Society.  He also reportedly said that House Speaker Paul Ryan's decision to endorse Trump was part of why he left the party.

House Republicans Aim to Reform Tax Code to Fit on a Postcard.  House Republicans, led by Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), have introduced their tax reform plan, which would simplify the tax code so it could fit on a postcard.  "For years, hard working American taxpayers have asked Washington for a tax code so simple and fair and understandable that it could fit on a postcard," said Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas) who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee.  "That is exactly what we propose."  The plan would lower taxes for Americans at every income level and would limit the number of tax brackets to three.  It would lower the corporate tax rate from the highest in the world to 20 percent, and would lower the top individual tax rate to 33 percent.  "This postcard form will simplify the number of tax brackets by more than half," Brady said.  "It will take less from taxpayers at every income level because Washington takes too much of your hard earned dollars."

The Editor says...
The Republicans have been talking about this for years, and it will never happen.  They aren't going to get rid of the IRS or the EPA or the Department of Education or the Department of Energy.  They can't even get rid of ethanol subsidies, windmill subsidies, PBS subsidies, funding for Planned Parenthood, or the National Endowment for the Arts.  You'll never send in your tax return on a post card.  It sounds good in a campaign speech but it will never happen.  It's all just hot air.  There is no help on the way.

House Sit-In:  A Brief Tutorial on How American Government Works Now.  For those of you who may still be laboring under the illusion that we live in something resembling the antiquated notion of a constitutional republic, allow me to enlighten you about how things have changed since your high school government class.  Here's how the legislative branch works now:  When the Democrats are in power they get everything they want, even if it means ramming through legislation in the middle of the night and twisting the rules until they are virtually unrecognizable.  When the Republicans are in power, the Democrats still get everything they want because the Republicans basically just hand it to them to avoid being called racists or misogynists.  When they don't get what they want, Democrats throw temper tantrums and hold their breath until they get what they want.  Either way, they win.  Always.  This is definitely not how I learned it in government class, but trust me, this is how it works now.

[The Republican-controlled] Senate Falls One Vote Short of Giving FBI Access to Browser Histories Without a Court Order.  Privacy-minded senators on Wednesday [6/22/2016] blocked an amendment that would give the FBI power to take internet records, including browser histories and email metadata, without a court order.  But the victory may be fleeting.  Just one vote kept the measure from clearing a 60-vote procedural hurdle, and political arm-twisting may soon result in a second vote.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., switched his vote to "no" to allow reconsideration in the near future.  That made the final tally 58-38, with four senators not voting.

Orlando and the Political Blame Game.  You recall the 9/11 Commission.  Savvy Democrats worked very hard to ensure that the blame for the terrorist attack fell completely on George Bush.  They worked very hard to ensure that no one came away with the impression that the Clinton administration had anything to do with the rise of Islamist terrorism or that the lack of communication between the FBI and the CIA, a Clinton administration policy, had anything to do with the attack.  Republicans on the committee missed the point completely.  They thought that they were there to discover the facts.  Naïve and innocent they were.  Now they are wondering why so many of their constituents think they are dupes and dopes.

GOP Committee Says No to Defunding Obamacare.  Obamacare repeal was a campaign promise for nearly every Republican — you'll recall that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell campaigned on repealing the law "root and branch" — and one of the most decisive issues that propelled Republicans to retake the Senate from Democrats.  Yet, the unimaginable happened:  Republicans never repealed Obamacare.  In fact, they hardly even tried.  Today [6/7/2016], with little fanfare, McConnell's Senate appropriators will advance a bill to fund the law they promised to repeal.  The start of that process began this morning when the Senate's Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor and Health passed a spending bill that provided full funding for Obamacare.

Trump Gets It.  The GOP Doesn't.  Instead of explaining our candidate, rallying behind him, and jumping aboard the Trump train, we call him a racist and jump on the politically correct, anti-Trump bandwagon — which, by the way, is engineered and steered by the Democrat-Media Complex.  No rational being can possibly expect that bandwagon to take us all the way to the White House.  And herein lies the rub — it is the very ineptitude of Republicans articulating our principles and policies and their failure, once elected, to implement the policies promised during campaigns, coupled with all of the politically-correct backtracking they do in an effort not to be criticized by the Democrat-Media Complex, that is responsible for the rise of Donald Trump in the first place.  And this leads to my final query:  are Republicans deliberately undermining this nominee because they truly believe 4-8 years of Hillary is better than 4-8 years of Trump?  Are Republicans really that stupid?

No Republican candidate for U.S. Senate on November ballot in California.  There will not be a Republican on the ballot when Californians cast votes in November's U.S. Senate contest.  Instead, two Democrats will compete under a new top-two primary system that was approved by voters in 2010.

Levin Roars:  Obama is a 'Truly Sick' Man.  On Tuesday's [5/24/2016] radio program, Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin excoriated President Obama for continuing his apology tour in communist Vietnam.  "We have Barack Obama overseas right now, and you know what he's doing again?" Levin asked.  "He's in Communist Vietnam, apologizing for America." [...] President Obama hates America, Levin said.  He asked, is it too much for Republicans to stand up and call him out on it?

Don't Let Them Lie to You Again.  [Scroll down]  This is who the Republican Party is, and always has been.  It is not the party of Reagan.  It is the party that tolerated Reagan when it had to, and then proceeded to dismantle his legacy while also cynically capitalizing on it from the moment he left the national stage.  Since Eisenhower, the GOP always produces this result, with two glaring exceptions (Goldwater and Reagan).  It's only the packaging that changes. [...] It won't work, just like it never works, because voters only vote Republican on issues, not personalities.  And Trump has refused to run on any issues other than personality (name-calling, scandals, etc.).  He's moved left on all his signature issues already, and ignores issues like tranny bathrooms and religious liberty that would actually excite voters.  Just as Romney ignored Chick-fil-A, McCain ignored the roots of Obama's worldview, etc.  The Republican Party has never met a brick wall it doesn't like running into headfirst.

Rap Sheet:  The Women Who Claim to Be Victims of Bill and Hillary Clinton.  Despite a laundry list of extremely disturbing allegations involving everything from rape to groping to harassment to character assassination, the DC Media has not only protected white Democrat Bill Clinton, in a number of cases, the media has joined the campaign to destroy these women. [...] Nevertheless, Bill Clinton is the man the DC Media wants as America's very first First Gentleman, and other than Donald Trump, no one in the Republican Party has the stomach to make this the issue it deserves to be.

RNC announces who will write GOP platform.  The Republican National Committee revealed the leadership of its platform committee for this summer's convention.  The platform committee, renamed the "Committee on Resolutions," could become the scene of an epic battle between Donald Trump's supporters and GOP delegates about the principles and future of the Republican Party.  Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso will serve as chairman of the Republican National Convention's platform committee and Oklahoma Gov.  Mary Fallin and North Carolina Congresswoman Virginia Foxx will serve as co-chairs.

If the Democrats did this, it would be called cheating.
Chaos in House after GOP votes down LGBT measure.  The House floor devolved into chaos and shouting on Thursday [5/19/2016] as a measure to ensure protections for members of the LGBT community narrowly failed to pass, after Republican leaders urged their members to change their votes.  Initially, it appeared Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney's (D-N.Y.) amendment had passed, as 217 "yes" votes piled up over 206 "no" votes when the clock ran out.  The measure needed 213 votes to pass.  But it eventually failed, 212-213, after a number of Republican lawmakers changed their votes from "yes" to "no" after the clock had expired.

So-long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodnight GOP.  Mike Huckabee just told millions of good Republicans not backing Trump they should leave the party.  "You're either on the team, or you're not on the team," he said.  Giving 15,933,645 people the boot is a bit edgy I'd say, considering RedState.com reports that of the 26,651,002 votes cast, Trump only received 10,717,357 or 40.2 percent of the votes — even with Democrats' help.  I'm sorry I can't oblige him, but it may console him to know I already burned up my GOP membership card, sometime between President Obama's reelection and John Boehner's golf dates with the president.

Reminder:  the Senate is controlled by the Republican Party.
First Senate Appropriations Bill Passed Spends More Than Obama Requested.  The U.S. Senate's first spending bill of 2016 spends more than President Barack Obama requested and lacks significant conservative amendments, but it still sailed to passage in the Republican-led Senate Thursday [5/12/2016].  An overwhelming number of U.S. senators on both sides of the aisle approved the energy and water development appropriations bill by a vote of 90-8.  Conservatives had objected to the higher spending levels and lack of policy riders in the weeks leading up to the vote.  In the end, it didn't seem to matter.

The Republican Party Died Long Before Trump.  Think of other chronic medical diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or cancer.  The mind or body slowly fail, not typically in a linear fashion, but always in a long term unrelenting downward trajectory.  There are improvements along the way, providing hope to those afflicted and their loved ones, but the hope is short lived, and the disease, despite a short pause, picks up where it left off.  The first sign of illness post Reagan was George HW Bush, in his acceptance speech at the RNC convention, calling for "a kinder and gentler nation."  Kinder and gentler than what?  Obviously a repudiation of Reagan's brand of conservatism, which candidate Bush once called "voodoo economics." [...] Next was George HW Bush's famous pledge, "Read my lips.  No new taxes."  Right out of the Republican Party playbook.  Music to conservative ears.  Cancer in remission.  Until he turned his back on his pledge and raised taxes.

What Now, Conservatives?  The party of Lincoln is in ruins.  A minority of its primary voters have torched its founders' legacy by voting for a man who combines old-school Democratic ideology, a bizarre form of hyper-violent isolationism, fringe conspiracy theories, and serial lies with an enthusiastic flock of online racists to create perhaps the most toxic electoral coalition since George Wallace.  Then — to add insult to injury — multiple GOP leaders bulldozed the ashes by issuing nauseating calls for unity, foremost among them Reince Priebus.

Our National Dumpster Fire.  [Scroll down]  And now he will be the Republican party's nominee for president.  Reince Priebus, the party's chairman, called for Republicans to unite around Trump and rally to his cause.  One by one they fell in line — the unprincipled sellouts, the rising stars, the veteran officeholders, the would-be nominees.  Jon Huntsman and Rick Scott.  Nikki Haley and Brian Sandoval.  Rob Portman and Kelly Ayotte.  Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal.  Some of these people had previously warned in the starkest terms about Trump — with Rubio calling him "erratic" and a "lunatic" and Jindal suggesting he's "dangerous" and a "hothead" who should be kept away from the nuclear codes.  This wasn't overheated campaign rhetoric.  It was the truth.  It is the truth.  And that's what is remarkable about many of the Republicans lining up to support Trump:  They are choosing to support a man they recognize as unfit for the office.  Representative Peter King of New York described Trump as "a guy with no knowledge of what's going on."  He then told the New York Times that he would support Trump for president and was open to campaigning for him.

Goodbye, Republican Party.  And Good Riddance.  I mean that in more ways than one.  I'm leaving.  You're dying.  I could stick around while you gasp your last pitiful breaths, but what would be the point?  I'm certainly more pro-life than you ever were, but when it comes to political parties that have been overtaken by some kind of unintelligible, socially liberal populism, I say pull the plug.

Reince Priebus:  Trump's win 'probably good for our party'.  Looking back to when the Republican presidential primary kicked off in earnest last year, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said that he never expected Donald Trump to become the presumptive nominee but suggested that the billionaire businessman's success is probably good for the party.  "You know what, I think something different and something new is probably good for our party," Priebus said Wednesday on CNN, a day after he tweeted that Trump will be the presumptive nominee and called for unity against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.  "Look, I don't think anyone predicted what happened.  So, look, we're here.  We're going to get behind the presumptive nominee."

[The Republican-controlled] Senate Caves To All Of Union's Demands on Veterans Affairs Firing Bill.  All of a federal employee union's objections were removed from a Senate bill designed to help the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) discipline bad employees, making it politically easier for the bill to pass, but indicating it may not be doing the very thing it's supposed to.  The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) sent a letter April 18 asking taxpayer-funded employees to pressure Sen. Johnny Isakson, chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.  Isakson is a Georgia Republican.

The GOP Establishment:  They Are Who We Thought They Were.  [Scroll down]  The 2016 cycle's bifurcation of the Tea Party has left us with clear lines in the sand.  Trumpkin Twitter zombies and personality cultists yearn for a strongman whose disdain for Founding-era political theory and the rule of law summons a thoroughly unholy mixture of Woodrow Wilson-style Progressivism and European-style "nationalist Rightism" — or, what was known last century as fascism.  For conservative constitutionalists in the Cruz camp, many of whom (such as myself) have arrived at the #NeverTrump conclusion, existentially opposing such a cartoonish selling out of the Kirk-Buckley-Goldwater-Reagan conservative movement is instinctual and a no-brainer.  Donald Trump is a lifelong liberal Democrat, Planned Parenthood apologist, de facto Code Pink-er, morally crass, grossly uninformed, and probably psychologically disordered megalomaniac who openly brags about buying off politicians.  No way [...] will we be complicit in his thinly veiled attempt to destroy that which we have worked so diligently to build.  The problem is that, in the midst of this existential fight, the Republican Party's spineless establishment has revealed itself to be exactly what we thought it was.

Elective Despotism:  RINOs Sweep Every Congressional Race.  Last night [4/26/2016], as Donald Trump was winning county after county with third world election size margins of victory, every last establishment Republican congressman was reelected.  Which tells us that the Trump phenomenon has nothing to do with an angry electorate that is chomping at the bit to throw out the establishment.  It has everything to do with persona and name ID, and in the case of Trump in recent days, the sense of inevitability.  Thus far, not a single Republican congressman, no matter how liberal or corrupt, has gone down in a primary.  Even the Democrats knocked off an incumbent in a Philadelphia district last night.

This is one issue on which the two parties agree -- unfortunately.
Senate votes to restore full taxpayer subsidies for windmills.  Hot air still rules on Capitol Hill, where senators voted Tuesday [4/26/2016] to restore millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for windmills, in a signal that Congress is still eager to pick winners in the emerging renewable energy sector.  A sizable number of Republicans joined most Democrats in backing the subsidy for research on wind energy which, while small in terms of dollars, is considered a major symbolic test of Congress's commitment having alternative energy sources be part of the mix, even if they aren't economically viable on their own yet.

More about wind power.

Fiery GOP rhetoric about impeaching IRS chief rings hollow after decades of inaction on tax code reform.  Anger at the IRS has rarely been higher.  Politicians gripe about a calcified tax code that Congress hasn't overhauled since 1986. Yet 30 years later, lawmakers get on the stump and campaign about the necessity of renovating the nation's tax system. [...] Yet little changes.  Antagonists are crucial in politics.  Politicians need to cast themselves as caped superheroes, warring against the evils of the state.  Lawmakers appear to have perfect adversaries in the IRS and an outdated tax code.  Eliminate the IRS and pass tax reform and suddenly lawmakers are deprived of foes.  As a political issue, it might not be better to change anything.

Congress is still wasting taxpayers' money.  Remember the spending caps that were supposed to keep Congress from overspending?  Gone with the wind.  How about the promise Republicans made about no more earmarks on spending bills?  It disappeared almost as fast as a gold coin in a magician's hands.  Of course, they are not calling these new and improved earmarks earmarks.  They call them something else, so they can claim they are keeping their promise.  Is it any wonder this political season is characterized by voter anger?

The 'Voice of the People' Fallacy.  This would not be the first time that the conservative majority votes in a Republican primary season have been split so many ways that someone who is not a conservative ends up with the nomination.  That is how the Republicans ended up with Mitt Romney in 2012 and lost the election.  That is also how the Republicans can end up with Donald Trump and lose this year's election.  Worse yet, from the standpoint of the country, that is how Donald Trump might end up in the White House.  The Republicans in Wisconsin who were scared of the possibility of Trump as President were on to something.  We should all be scared.

GOP Establishment carries all the blame for bringing the party to the brink.  Who is to blame for the unraveling of the Republican Party?  If you listen to establishment gurus, you'd be led to believe that the Republican primary voter revolt was birthed by the governance of President Obama, creating fertile ground for the emergence of one Donald Trump.  This fairy tale version of reality casts Trump as the villain who has swept in to capitalize on voter frustration with Obama's alleged weakness, lawlessness and rampant liberalism.  The villain must be stopped or the Republican Party will be destroyed.  Or so we are told.  The old saw that you have to first acknowledge that you have a problem to solve the problem applies here.  What the GOP "leaders" refuse to accept is that Trump is not the problem.  They are.

Is the DNC running the RNC?  Is the soap opera style Republican primary race really being master-minded by the omnipresent Democrats? [...] You don't have to be over the top to think that the Republican Establishment has been mega infiltrated by the Democrats.  After 8 years of the mostly under-the-table Obama regime, nothing should surprise the electorate.  What's really new about the Dem-infiltrated Republicans?  The Republican Party threw in with the Democrats immediately after gaining both House and Senate majorities in the 2014 mid-term elections when all Republican voters expected the Repubs to go after Barack Obama to turn the tide.  They never turned the tide, and many would argue, didn't even try.  In fact, the Fundamental Transformation of America continued on as if the Republican majority didn't exist.

House Conservatives to Leadership: It's Not That Hard to Cut $30 Billion.  House conservatives don't mind getting creative to find a solution to the ongoing budget standoff.  Alternative ways to achieve actual savings work, they explain, but promises of future spending cuts do not.  At a gathering with reporters Tuesday [3/22/2016], conservative leaders said they're open to accepting higher spending levels now in exchange for spending reductions later.  Conservatives are at odds with Republican leadership in the House over top-line government spending levels.  GOP brass has pushed a budget that sets spending at $1.07 trillion.  But conservatives complain that number is out of touch with fiscal and political reality.

The Trump Fiasco Demonstrates that the Republican Party Has to Change.  The establishment needs to make itself acceptable to supporters of these candidates, not the other way around.  To my mind, Republican leaders owe it to what they are supposed to stand for to get behind Cruz, not because they need to love him, but because it's the right thing to do — besides being the only way to derail Donald Trump, who would either lose to Hillary or rule like Hillary.  One way or the other, though, when the Trump dust finally settles, it will be clear that the Republican party as currently constituted is unsustainable.  The people who oppose what the Left is doing to the country want an opposition party.  The Republican establishment has shunned that role, preferring to be Washington than to fight Washington.  The people are looking elsewhere.

Drunk On Power: GOPe senior official says that the insiders choose the nominee, not the voters.  [The writer predicts] that if the GOP establishment tries to steal the nomination from Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, there will be a political upheaval unseen in this country since the Civil War.

GOPe sells out on... Common Core, of all things.  [Scroll down]  For example, the Senate GOP sold out its base on the issue of Common Core this week.  Despite the fact Republicans have a majority in the Senate, seven members of the GOP joined a majority of Democrats to confirm President Barack Obama's nominee, John B. King, Jr., as education secretary.  King is an avowed supporter of Common Core and other top-down, government knows best, education policies.  But at least the GOP is going to put up a fight on government spending, right?  No, actually, they aren't.  Apparently House and Senate leadership have decided the budget deal former House Speaker John Boehner and Obama agreed to last year is such a good one that they will keep it.  That's right, despite the fact Congress passed a Budget Control Act, supposedly to control the budget, Boehner and Obama blew through it, adding another $30 billion.  And despite the fact that Boehner's compliance in this matter is one of the primary reasons he is no longer in Congress, the current leadership is taking the same path.  Their reasoning?  Obama will fight us if we try to "cut" spending.

Let's scrap the GOP and start over.  The lowest moment of last night [3/10/2016] — maybe the lowest of the election and in the history of the GOP — came before the debate, when Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus pledged that the RNC "is going to support the nominee, whoever that is, 100 percent." [...] To begin with, no one asked Priebus to speak.  He could literally have said nothing other than "Thanks for coming!"  He's a functionary, and no one came to hear him.  He, unfortunately, turns out to be a functionary who is entirely unwilling to question, let alone condemn, the vile conduct of the front-runner candidate.  The RNC now stands for no principle and upholds no standard of conduct.  It exists merely to win.  In doing so, it loses conservatives of good conscience who believe a party is a receptacle, a vehicle for ideas that advance the country's well-being.

Rockefeller Republicans Fear Losing Their Power More Than They Fear A Hillary Clinton Presidency.  [Scroll down]  This beltway betrayal and incompetent, power-hungry politicians on both sides of aisle, are the reasons why many Americans — democrats, republicans, independents, blue collar, middle class, evangelicals, and minorities are supporting Donald Trump.  These republican fraudsters, who disguise their progressive appetite by campaigning as conservatives, have zero explanation or excuse on their direct role in:  expanding the size of the federal government, entitlement programs, the $19 trillion debt, the funding and implementation of Obamacare, VA death panels, the expansion of outdated, corrupt visa programs which are endangering our country and taking jobs from American workers, and in their abject failure to build a freaking wall — the same wall which had been promised to Ronald Reagan when he granted amnesty to millions of immigrants.

Senate Republicans Help Advance Obama Education Nominee Who Supports Common Core.  Despite opposition from former educators, school boards, and public officials for his "blind commitment" to Common Core, a Senate panel Wednesday voted in favor of confirming John King Jr. to serve as the secretary of education through the end of President Barack Obama's term.  The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee approved Obama's nomination, 16-6.  With the committee's blessing, King's confirmation will go before the full Senate.

GOP Elites for Hillary! They hate Cruz as much — if not more — than they hate Trump.  [Scroll down]  None of this should surprise to anyone who has followed the intersecting paths of the GOP & Democratic Establishment.  "The differences just aren't that great," commented Tucker Carlson of the Weekly Standard.  "On trade, on immigration, on foreign policy they're pretty much on the same page."  As for Mrs. Clinton's left-wing abortion views, no problem!  For the GOP Establishment, killing Trump is still worth the risk of blowing up the entire party and handing a victory to Hillary.  "On the social issues, they don't care," Carlson told me.  "Most of them are, in real life, they're pro-choice.  They have more in common with her."

The Republican Establishment is Worse Than Trump.  Being part of "the establishment" is more than just having power in the Republican Party or alternately being obsequious to the people in power; it's a contemptuous attitude toward the concerns of grassroots conservatives and Americans in flyover country.  It's an attitude that says [...]
  •   Yes, we promised you that we'd fight Obama on the campaign trail, but if you actually expected us to do it, you're a chump.
  •   Sure, we talked tough about illegal immigration to the yahoos to get elected, but now that we're in office, we're going to do the opposite.
  •   We're going to use the contributions and influence of Republican Party organizations to defeat electable conservatives in GOP primaries because we prefer go-along-to-get-along moderates in Congress.

We've seen this movie before.  Every presidential cycle, the mainstream media select our candidate for us.  Dole was the sane candidate, superior to the crazies.  McCain was the "maverick," whose adoration was sung by all the liberals.  Romney was the class of the field, otherwise dominated by ideological purists. [...] So, each cycle, the MSM purposefully take out all true conservatives during the primary, leaving their preferred RINO standing alone.  Until, of course, their designated RINO wins the nomination.  Then they turn.

[The] Republican Establishment [is] the Next Whig Party.  The difference between the Republican elite and its Democrat counterpart is mostly rhetorical.  Republican insiders are comfortable with big government — as long as they get to distribute the largesse.  They view social issues as stuff to stick in a platform to keep activists happy, and promptly forget once in office.  Now their chickens have come home to roost with a vengeance in the form of a sleazy New York real estate developer who brags about buying politicians.  The one candidate who could stop him, Ted Cruz, they won't give the time of day because he's an authentic conservative.  If nothing else good comes out of this election, at least it will mark the demise of the Republican establishment.

An Open Letter to the Conservative Media Explaining Why I Have Left the Movement.  First, I spent the last 20 years watching the conservative media in Washington endorse and urge me to vote for one candidate after another who made a mockery of conservative principles and values.  Everyone talks about how thankful we are for the Citizens' United decision but seems to have forgotten how we were urged to vote for the coauthor of the law that the decision overturned.  In 2012, we were told to vote for Mitt Romney, a Massachusetts liberal who proudly signed an individual insurance mandate into law and refused to repudiate the decision.  Before that, there was George W. Bush, the man who decided it was America's duty to bring democracy to the Middle East.  And before that, there was Bob Dole, the man who gave us the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Dazed And Confused, The Republican Establishment Has Had It Coming.  Donald Trump's string of victories on Super Tuesday has left the Republican establishment dazed and confused.  The GOP's political brain trust (and we use that term ironically) seems to be asking:  Where did all these angry voters come from?  The revolt of the working class is dismissed as a movement of political philistines.  The left calls them rednecks; the right calls them "low-information voters."  But that speaks volumes about the incompetence of pollsters, pols and campaign pros in both parties — the parties that profess to stand for and behind these voters — and how oblivious they are to what's really desired.

Herman Cain: Republicans Who Don't Back Nominee Trump Are 'Absolutely Insane'.  The GOP establishment is making a concerted effort to prevent its own party's frontrunner from clinching the nomination; several prominent Republicans have spoken out against the Republican candidate leading in the polls; and former presidential candidate Herman Cain thinks these in-party efforts to sabotage Donald Trump are "absolutely insane."

The Editor says...
I think I made it clear in the Donald Trump subsection (above), but just to be sure, let me say again that I will not vote for Donald Trump.  If Trump is the Republican nominee, I'll vote for the Libertarian candidate, whoever that may be.

Donald Trump Is The Next Barack Obama.  During the twentieth century's second half, both parties and all branches of government made a mockery of the Constitution of 1789.  Today's effective constitution is:  "The president can do whatever he wants so long as one-third of the Senate will sustain his vetoes and prevent his conviction upon impeachment."  Obama has been our first emperor.  A Donald Trump presidency, far from reversing the ruling class's unaccountable hold over American life, would seal it.  Because Trump would act as our second emperor, he would render well-nigh impossible our return to republicanism.

The Republican Party is already dead — they just don't know it yet.  [Scroll down]  This can play out in one of two ways.  The GOP establishment can block Trump at the convention, through rule changes or other shenanigans, creating a brokered convention and choosing a different nominee, say Mitt Romney.  Or if Trump is the nominee, they can campaign against him in the general election, preferring Hillary to Trump, handing the White House to her.  Either way the Republican Party is finished. [...] If the GOP establishment manages to derail Trump at the convention, expect about half the GOP electorate to revolt, leave the Republican Party for good, support a third party candidacy, or just stay home on Election Day.

Rewarding a Corrupt IRS with a Bigger Budget: Another "Own Goal" by the GOP.  The good thing about being nonpartisan is that I can freely criticize (or even praise) policy makers without giving any thought to whether they have an R or D after their name.  That doesn't mean Republicans and Democrats are the same, at least with regards to rhetoric.  The two big political parties in the United States ostensibly have some core beliefs.  And because of that, it is sometimes very revealing to identify deviations.

Congratulations, GOP, You've Created a Monster.  How did Trump arrive on the scene?  Because of immigration.  That was his signature issue when he arrived on the presidential scene last summer.  How has Trump been able to blast his way through this GOP primary season thus far?  Because the Republican National Committee expressly rigged and accelerated the primary system to benefit a well-funded candidate with good name identification.  Instead of Jeb Bush, they got Trumped.  The party elders decided long ago, in their post-mortem of the last presidential election, that the GOP could not alienate Hispanics and consequently there was an effort to pass some kind of comprehensive immigration reform.

RNC chairman: 'We're going to embrace whoever the nominee is'.  Despite Donald Trump's commanding win in the Nevada caucus Tuesday, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is holding off crowning the Republican front-runner as the standard-bearer — for now.  "I think it's pretty clear we're going to embrace whoever the nominee is.  I embrace all of these candidates," he told CNN's Alisyn Camerota Wednesday [2/24/2016] on "New Day."  "Whoever the nominee ends up becoming they're going to join the biggest RNC operation we've put together."  Priebus said the GOP is still pretty divided in its support.

Liberal Senate Republicans Go Spineless Over Supreme Court Hearings.  Just days after Justice Scalia's untimely death and an even shorter period of time since Republican leadership declared its intention not to consent to an Obama nominee; moderates within the Republican Party are going wobbly. [...] I will be stunned to see McConnell follow through with not allowing hearings when Obama nominates an ultra-radical.  But I believe he could nominate Bill Ayers and McConnell would capitulate.  He and the rest of leadership are more scared of being called mean, or do-nothing, or obstructionist than the destruction of the country.

Conservatives Must Not Squander This Opportunity.  [Scroll down]  I have said before that the establishment gave birth to Donald Trump by surrendering to Obama too quickly and not vigorously opposing him.  Indeed, I believe the Republicans' failure to join Cruz in these budget battles was a contributing factor.  Their calculus about that always-looming next election should now be seen as folly.  The grass roots simply didn't believe the GOP was fighting for them, and now we are all paying for it.  The grass roots believed that even conservative Republicans were too feckless or ineffective to oppose Obama's agenda, and many are overreacting and choosing Trump.  They don't seem too concerned about whether he is a reliably consistent conservative, or about his record of supporting many liberal causes.

Appoint a Justice — Don't Appoint One — What's the Hurry?  The upcoming presidential election is being hailed as the most important in our lifetimes — possibly in the history of this nation.  We always hear this type of thing every election cycle.  This time however, the claim is absolute due to the recent passing of Justice Scalia and the subsequent tipping point in the balance of power of the supreme Court.  So I agree with those who claim that we will lose our country — we lose our Constitutional rights and liberties should just one more liberal justice be appointed.  For this reason, it is imperative that the Senate leadership not even allow hearings, much less a vote on whomever Obama nominates.  The Senate leadership must understand that literally anything can happen should they allow an Obama nominee to come to a vote.  There are simply too many spineless Republican Senators to take that chance.

GOP to Kasich: Get out.  The Republican establishment has a message for John Kasich: get out, and get out of Marco Rubio's way.  A string of elected officials, GOP insiders and prominent donors officially threw their support behind Rubio on Monday [2/22/2016], calling him their last chance to take down Donald Trump.  Their statements had another common theme.  Some explicitly called for Kasich to quit, while others sent the same message by saying the Ohio governor's ongoing presence is holding Rubio back.

Senate Republicans easing on blockade of Obama court pick?  Cracks are starting to appear in the Republican wall of opposition to President Obama nominating the next Supreme Court justice, as several prominent senators signal that a hearing — at least — could be allowed.  Those lawmakers include Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who would not rule out a Judiciary Committee hearing on the president's forthcoming nomination to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died suddenly during a retreat at a Texas resort on Saturday.  He was joined by Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who appeared to welcome the debate in comments Wednesday, but nonetheless encouraged Obama to "put the will of the people ahead of advancing a liberal agenda" with his pick.

A Refresher on Supreme Court Nominations.  We can expect the Democrats to be going full out for rapid approval of any Obama nominee. [...] Democrats fear Republicans will not follow tradition and might actually offer resistance, thus they could use circumspect methods, such as a recess appointment, to slip in a leftist extremist, such as Holder, Lynch, or Kamala Harris.  However, if the Democrats stick to principles they would honor their own Senate Resolution 334 which urges no SCOTUS recess appointments.  The likelihood of that occurrence is about on par with Bill Clinton honoring his marriage vows.  With decades of practice, the Democrats have mastered the art using the judiciary for agenda advancement and they play to win, no holds barred.  Republicans still believe their Senatorial opponents are gentlemen who play by Robert's Rules of Order.

Grassley Shows Why Republicans Have It Coming To Them.  Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley immediately undercut the Senate Republican leader's pledge not to let President Obama pick Justice Scalia's successor.  No wonder GOP voters are mad.  In "The Art of War," Machiavelli advised leaders in battle to "endeavor with every art to divide the forces of the enemy."  But in the all-out war shaping up between the two parties on filling the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death on Saturday of Reagan appointee Justice Antonin Scalia, Democrats apparently don't have to bother dividing the enemy; Republicans are dividing themselves.

Dems Predict GOP Cave on Scalia Replacement.  Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) are already predicting Senate Republicans will back away from their initial vows to block President Obama's nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.  "Just as in 2013 when there was a huge public outcry and Sen. [Mitch] McConnell (R-KY) had to back off," Schumer said in reference to the 2013 government shutdown, "the same will happen now.  Sen. McConnell will have to back off."  Schumer made his comments Wednesday [2/17/2016] on a conference call with reporters organized by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal activist group.

That Debate Moment When the Script Is Evidenced.  No intellectually honest person can deny the Greenville South Carolina debate was constructed to provide maximum benefit for Marco Rubio.  The structure was so brutally transparent even the customarily obtuse punditry are having a hard time obfuscating.  We have been pointing to the GOPe road-map for over two years.  As each tripwire is crossed, the ridiculous justifications of those in denial necessarily increase; but that doesn't mean we will stop pointing out the strings on the presidential marionette show.  Cue yet another audio visual demonstration.

RNC Under Fire Over Debate Audience Stacking.  The chairman of the local Republican Party here confirmed to local television that 2016 frontrunner billionaire Donald Trump's concerns — and those of his closest competitor Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) — with the Republican National Committee (RNC) allocation of debate audience tickets are well-placed.  Chad Groover, the chairman of the Greenville County Republican Party here, told WYFF — the local NBC News station — that party donors get tickets to the debate.

After years of false alarms, the 'conservative crackup' has arrived.  [Scroll down]  Here's Rush Limbaugh on Friday [1/22/2016]:  "Forget the name is Trump.  If a candidate could [guarantee to] fix everything that's wrong in this country the way the Republican Party thinks it's wrong, if it were a slam dunk, if it were guaranteed, that candidate will still be opposed by the Republican Party establishment. ... If he's not part of the clique, they don't want him in there."  In other words, the GOP establishment has become so corrupted, its members would knowingly reject a savior just to protect their comfortable way of life.

Joy Reid: Republicans Brought This On By Ignoring Conservatives, And Immigration Was Deal-Breaker.  [Scroll down]  Immigration is where the bargain just broke down.  And that base, the base of the party is no longer willing to go along with any part of the elite.  Not the movement conservatives.  Not the money elite part of the party.  They're just not willing to go along with it.  Immigration was the deal-breaker and they are gone.  They cannot be brought back into the tent.  Not even by the mighty National Review.

8 Theories in Search of an Establishment.  [#1] They actually want to kill off Trump.  The Establishment is not stupid.  It knows voters hate it.  Its embrace of Trump could be the kiss of death.  Problem:  Too obvious. [...] [#4] They're actually trying to help McConnell:  Even if they don't think they can derail Cruz, they'll get points with the Senate Majority Leader for trying to discipline an obnoxious freshman who caused him trouble and called him a liar.  And if you're a K St. lobbyist it may be more important to get Sen. McConnell on your side than to get your first choice into the White House.

Cruz Has Been Right All Along.  The establishment has always been squeamish about standing up to liberalism, forever cautioning us not to sound too much like the conservatives we are for fear we will sound mean and alienate independents, centrists and other squishes we need to win national elections.  Never mind that the only time we've resoundingly won these elections — presidential and congressional — is when we've run decidedly conservative candidates or pushed strongly conservative themes.  With our moderates we have mostly lost.  The establishment's allergy to fighting reached its apex with the advent of Barack Obama.  Presumably because of his race, his initial popularity or his projected image as a uniter, their fear of resisting Democrats grew into full-blown paranoia.

The American People vs. the Political Establishment.  On these pages in January of 2012 I defined the political establishment as being made up of the following:
1.  A preponderance of current and retired national office holders whose livelihoods (re-election for current office holders and lobbying or consulting for retired politicians) requires fealty to the Party in order to maintain financial backing as well as access to government largess;
2.  The majority of the media elite, including pundits, editors, writers and television news personalities based in Washington and New York, whose proximity to power and access is vital in order to gratify their self-esteem and to sustain their standard of living;
3.  Academia, numerous think-tanks, so called non-government organizations, and lobbyists who fasten onto those in any administration and Congress for employment, grants, favorable legislation and ego-gratification;
4.  The reliable deep pocket political contributors and political consultants whose future is irrevocably tied to the political machinery of the Party; and
5.  The crony capitalists, i.e. leaders of the corporate and financial community as well as unions, whose entities are dependent on or subject to government oversight and/or benevolence and whose political contributions assure political cooperation.
[...] Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie have been a part of the establishment for their entire political careers as they have been in the political arena for nearly their entire adult life and dependent on Party support for their electoral success.  They cannot escape nor plausibly deny their membership in the establishment.

The GOP establishment is blinded by their hatred of Ted Cruz.  As actual voters get ready to weigh in on the GOP presidential race, establishment Republicans are laying down a marker:  Sen. Ted Cruz must be stopped at all costs, even if it means nominating Donald Trump.  It appears that these Republicans are so blinded by their personal hatred of Cruz that they've convinced themselves that the party would be better off choosing somebody who represents everything they claim to abhor.  In making this calculation, they are exhibiting the same shortsightedness and lack of pragmatism that they claim to hate about Cruz.

Lies My RINO Told Me.  [Scroll down]  Lie #2 — An Angry Candidate turns off voters and is unelectable.  Is that so?  What evidence is there to support this claim, at least at the Presidential level.  We just don't know because the GOP has not run an angry candidate.  Was Romney angry?  McCain was an angry man — angry at the GOP base, but lovey-dovey with the media and the Democrats.  Bush Jr.?  Bob Dole?  Bush Sr.?  All of these candidates eschewed anger for reasonableness, for clear-headed policy wonkishness and comity.  People have forgotten, but Ronald Reagan actually WAS an angry man in many ways; Reagan coined the term "liberal" as an insult, for example.  Reagan called the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire" and mocked Jimmy Carter with "there you go again!".  What RINOs fail to grasp is there is a huge difference between being angry and being nasty.

They Fear Cruz This Much: GOPe Cozying Up to Trump.  I said the other day that they'd rather go all in with Trump than nominate Ted Cruz.  They hate him. [...] They think if Cruz came in the status quo would get rocked and they could possibly find themselves shut out of power.  The Republican Establish is more afraid of losing power than they are saving the country and reducing government.

RINO Doesn't Mean Anything Any More.  In modern politics, a Republican candidate who supports universal taxpayer-funded healthcare would undoubtedly qualify as a RINO.  So would a candidate who pledges to raise taxes on the so-called "rich" or supports a ban on so-called assault weapons.  Any Republican who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to liberal Democratic politicians and causes would also surely fit the RINO profile, as would any Republican who defends the Kelo Supreme Court decision that allowed the government to seize private property in the name of progress.  Or would he?  Every one of those statements describes Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination and a man whom many genuine conservatives point to as the most fiercely anti-RINO candidate in the current GOP field.

The Entrenched Parties Have Weakened America.  The rise of Trump is not a fluke, but it reflects anger with the establishment.  His vocabulary is inflammatory; he is braggadocio to a fault.  The establishment opponents do not understand the frustrations of the citizenry.  Our conservative leaders have not redeemed their promise to halt Obama's Executive Orders, his damage to our military, the bleeding of our treasury, the division among the races, illegal immigration at the expense of citizens and states, and loss of national pride and exceptionalism.  Our nation is resilient, but our politicians have created this mess.

The GOP establishment has ruined the Republican brand.  The GOP brand was one that championed limited government.  The second largest expansion of the federal government came under the stewardship of President Bush 43 with the GOP in control of both the House and the Senate.  Since 2008, the growth has exploded, with more debt added during the Obama administration than all others combined.  And since 2010, the GOP leadership has approved every single spending measure.  So much for limited government.

It Shouldn't Be So Hard For GOP To Tell The Truth About Cruz.  Does anyone care about the facts?  It's no secret that many people in Washington, and even in the Senate, don't want Cruz to win the Republican nomination for President.  That said, he's best positioned now to mortally wound Trump in the early states.  For that reason alone there should be an enthusiastic effort from those in the GOP to dismiss the birther speculation, but many such as McCain and Paul, seem to be stoking the controversy instead of doing anything to quell it.

GOP Falls Into Purity Trap.  Republicans fulfilled a popular campaign pledge Wednesday [1/6/2016] when, by a 240-181 vote, the House passed a bill repealing the Affordable Care Act and defunding Planned Parenthood.  The bill, already passed by the Senate, now goes to the desk of President Barack Obama, where it surely will be vetoed.  Just when, I have to ask, did my Grand Old Party's idea of victory become passing bills that won't become law?  What's so glorious about fecklessness?  The GOP House put an awful lot of work — it has voted to repeal Obamacare 62 times — into passing something that cannot become law while Obama is president and there are not enough Republicans to override a veto.

Republican Leadership Prepares to Whine About Obama Gun Control — And Do Nothing.  Everyone knew that Barack Obama intended to infringe on American's gun rights this week.  It's not as if Obama had been hiding it.  He announced his intentions in advance, and then proceeded to drop a series of executive actions that, if implemented, would require the creation of a national gun registry.  So, what are Republicans intending on doing about it?

For Republicans, Mounting Fears of Lasting Split.  The Republican Party is facing a historic split over its fundamental principles and identity, as its once powerful establishment grapples with an eruption of class tensions, ethnic resentments and mistrust among working-class conservatives who are demanding a presidential nominee who represents their interests.  At family dinners and New Year's parties, in conference calls and at private lunches, longtime Republicans are expressing a growing fear that the coming election could be shattering for the party, or reshape it in ways that leave it unrecognizable.

The Pathetic GOP Response to Obama's Executive Action.  In case anyone thought Republicans would offer a more meaningful and spirited response to Obama's executive action on guns than they did on immigration, you're out of luck.  Major GOP leaders have offered the typical bluster and contrived outrage.  Some even call his action unconstitutional, but fail to respond in a manner that lives up to the severity of the charge.  Absent from all their responses, however, is a commitment to defund any new executive action.  That is because they just gave away the full year's funding until October.

GOP plans to ignore Obama, not fight him.  House Republicans are shrugging off Obama's latest executive actions on gun control, and instead say they want to focus on building their own agenda for the year.  The GOP reaction stands in stark contrast to years of battling Obama's actions through legislation and the courts, and it signals a course change for Republicans who are now more interested in who will be in the Oval Office in 2017 than duking it out with the current president.

Rob Maness Goes After 'Spineless Republicans' In Congress Responsible For Allowing Obama's Gun Control To Move Forward.  Prospective candidate for U.S. Senate from Louisiana, retired Colonel Rob Maness, is calling on Congress to ensure that lawmakers "use every resource at their disposal, including the power of the purse, to rein in his lawlessness once and for all."  Maness says he's strongly opposed to Barack Obama's "illegal executive order to restrict our 2nd Amendment rights."  Maness released the following statement, calling Republicans in Congress who are unwilling to fight the measure "spineless."

GOP Establishment Has No Problem with Hillary Win, Won't Address the Clintons' War on Women.  Breitbart News' John Nolte had a perceptive piece this weekend on the GOP Establishment having no desire to beat Hillary Clinton or elect Donald Trump.  They don't want to use the most potent issue against Hillary, who is counting on an overwhelming advantage among women:  her alleged bullying of the women unlucky enough to be Bill Clinton's alleged sexual targets.  Only Trump has the courage to debunk the notion that Hillary has been "an advocate for women and girls."

Desperate RINOs Scheme to Deliberately Throw Election to Hillary.  In their desperation, liberal Republicans have escalated hostilities against their conservative enemies.  The strategy of running a third party spoiler to throw the election to their Democrat allies is similar to that used in France's recent elections to keep the National Front out of office.

The Great Republican Revolt.  The GOP planned a dynastic restoration in 2016.  Instead, it triggered an internal class war.  Can the party reconcile the demands of its donors with the interests of its rank and file?

Franklin Graham Leaves GOP Over Planned Parenthood Funding.  Evangelist Franklin Graham announced Tuesday [12/22/2015] he is leaving the Republican Party following the GOP's cave to Democrats last week in the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill.  Graham particularly likened the continued taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood in the bill to the funding of Nazi concentration camps.  "Shame on the Republicans and the Democrats for passing such a wasteful spending bill last week," he posted on Facebook.  "And to top it off, funding Planned Parenthood!"

Are Establishment Republicans Fools or Traitors?  Senate bill 153, the Immigration Innovation Act (or I-Squared), led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), would allow for virtually unlimited Muslim immigration into the United States.  Several of Rubio's most prominent financial backers are among the bill's boosters.  Rubio's campaign theme, "A New American Century," employs a euphemism commonly used to describe demographic transformation of the United States brought about by immigration.  A recent Pew Research report found that "nearly all Muslims in Afghanistan (99%) and most in Iraq (91%) and Pakistan (84%) support sharia law as official law."  Yet in the last five years, the U.S. has issued 83,000 green cards to Pakistan, 83,000 green cards to Iraq and 11,000 green cards to Afghanistan.  According to Fox News' Chad Pergram, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and House Republicans are gearing up to attach a proposal to the omnibus spending bill that gives Barack Obama a blank check, empowering him to bring in an unlimited number of refugees.

RIP Republican Party.  If there was any question about the relevance of the Republican Party, this week's budget deal removes all doubt.  The Republican Party might as well close up shop and merge with the Democrats.  Not as a merger of equals, but more of a capitulation, a surrender, a sellout.  There is no need for two parties in Washington DC as only one party is relevant in terms of advancing an agenda.  The irony is that the agenda driving party is in the minority and despite losing badly in two midterm elections, the Democrats are still running Congress.  Another 2000-plus page bill passed by Congress with little transparency or discussion.  You mean ObamaCare?  No Paul Ryan's $1.1 trillion spending bill, his first major legislative "achievement" as House Speaker.

House Republicans Declare Independence.  On the cusp of a critical — perhaps historic — election year, House Republicans (the faction that rules) have declared independence — on behalf of the GOP establishment. [...] Establishment Republicans see a libertarian stance on social issues as better accommodating the social "progressivism" of millennials and younger cohorts generally, principles and values [notwithstanding].  Make no mistake, the other key takeaway from the budget deal was the Republicans full acceptance of big government.  House Republicans swapped higher spending for special interest tax cuts — and plenty of earmarks.

Had Enough? Sellout Repubocrats Must be Defeated.  Congress has adopted a 2016 federal budget that makes it official:  The Republican Party and the Democrat Party have merged.  In the name of stability and progress, Republican leaders have agreed with Democrats to put big government on autopilot — with no change in the programmed destination, full-blown socialism.  On December 18, at Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)'s urging, 150 House Republicans voted to double down on the politics of surrender.  Yesterday, we thought we had two parties, Republicans and Democrats, but now we see that we have only one, the Repubocrat Party, the party of No Shame.

Meet the 28 GOP Senators Who Funded Sanctuary Cities, Importing ISIS, Abortion, and Welfare for Mexico.  Meet the 28 Republicans who voted for fund sanctuary cities, importing of Syrian terrorists, funding abortion, sending welfare to Mexico and central America and so forth.  These are the names of the 28 Republican Senators who sold you out, voting to destroy you and your childrens' futures.  In fact, these 28 Republicans are no different than the Democrat-Socialist Party.

The Disappointing Omnibus Bill.  It would be bad enough had Republicans merely acquiesced to foolish policies, but in this bill they actively advanced them.  The bill's most egregious proposal will temporarily expand the H-2B visa program, quadrupling the issuance of visas to foreign workers for nonagricultural or temporary service jobs in 2016 — and it was a Republican initiative from start to finish.  What is the rationale?  There is strong evidence that large-scale hiring of foreign workers depresses wages for Americans, and it's not as if Ferris wheels and ski lifts will go unmanned if we stop importing Peruvian labor.  Clearly, Republican leaders bent to the demands of a tiny segment of employers.

Just So We Are Clear — The Paul Ryan Omnibus Spending and Tax Bill Was Passed With Democrat Majority Support.  By now everyone is aware the Omnibus Spending and Tax Provision bills, used by Republicans in lieu of an actual Fiscal Year 2016 budget (Thanks Boehner Inc), have passed today.  However, for the sake of clarity — and because in the current legislative climate so many refuse to believe reality — it must be absolutely noted, without doubt, what took place. [...] We gave Republicans large majorities in both the House and Senate so they could push-back against ridiculous progressive big government spending.  What did the Republican leadership do with the majority?  Republicans constructed big spending on behalf of the Democrats and voted with them to end up with the same result if Democrats were in control.

Paul Ryan Omnibus funds sanctuary cities, refugees and abortion.  Meet Paul Ryan.  Just as worthless and cowardly as John Boehner.  The $1.1 trillion omnibus [fiasco] has tons of goodies for progressive liberals.  The Paul Ryan omnibus funds Planned Parenthood, Syrian refugee resettlement, sanctuary cities and even funding for global warming.  We've gone from the Weeper of the House with John Boehner to the Mullah of the House with Paul Ryan.  This is what we get for giving the GOP their biggest majorities in the House since the 1920's and control of the Senate.

Conservatives give Ryan a pass on budget deal they despise.  The House Freedom Caucus hates the massive government-funding bill:  Spending levels are billions of dollars higher than what conservatives wanted, and at least two top policy priorities — language addressing Syrian refugees and so-called sanctity of life — were cut.  But unlike past fiscal battles, when lawmakers took shots at GOP leaders and tried to tank bills, this time conservatives are largely holding their fire.  Even as they vow to oppose the package, many are still praising Speaker Paul Ryan's handling of the $1.1 trillion spending bill and $680 billion in tax breaks.

Who Wrote the Omnibus? Four Lawmakers, Many Lobbyists.  The ugly work that went into the massive pork-filled omnibus spending bill snaking its way through congress is now starting to be exposed.  And it's not for the faint at heart.  Members of congress had little input in the bill and didn't even in many cases know what was in it.

Senator Sessions — Paul Ryan's Omnibus Spending Bill is Evidence Why "Voters Are In Open Rebellion".  Thank you Senator Sessions.  In the dead of night after 2 am this morning, Congressional leadership unveiled a more than 2,000 page 'omnibus' year-end funding bill which would, among other things:  fully-fund the President's refugee expansion; fully-fund sanctuary cities; fully-fund the resettlement of illegal aliens youth and their families crossing the border; lock-in tax credits for illegal aliens; and quadruple the highly controversial H-2B foreign worker visa being used to replace Americans as truck drivers, construction workers, theme park employees, and in blue collar jobs across the nation.  [Video clip]

Omnibus Bill: Search in Vain for the Regulatory Relief.  There are certainly some good things in the Omnibus Spending/Tax Extenders bills that dropped early this morning [12/16/2015] (though I thought this Congress was elected to stop this kind of legislation-by-crisis).  Unfortunately, what's not in the bill suggests Congress missed several opportunities to rein in the Obama administration's regulatory overreach.

Levin: Establishment Would Rather Lose Than Nominate a Conservative.  News broke yesterday [12/11/2015] of GOP establishment figures plotting to take over a brokered convention and nominate some alternative hand-picked candidate for president.  Such a move by Republican leadership would destroy the party.  On his Friday night program, Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin explained that the GOP establishment is perfectly comfortable doing that.  They would rather let Hillary Clinton become president than suffer a constitutional conservative in office. "The Republican establishment is about big government," says Levin.  "If they can't nominate who they want, then fine... they want to control the republican apparatus."  And they're willing to lose the election to remain in control.

Carson Threatens To Leave GOP — 'Will Assess His Party Participation Going Forward'.  Ben Carson lashed out against the Republican National Convention on Friday [12/11/2015], culminating in a threat to leave the party if rumors of a brokered GOP convention prove true.  On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that several high ranking GOP delegates met to discuss the possibility of a brokered convention, meetings Carson claimed would eventually "destroy the party."  "If it is correct, every voter who is standing for change must know they are being betrayed.  I won't stand for it," Carson said in a Thursday statement.  "I assure you Donald Trump won't be the only one leaving the party."

Surrender-Monkey Republicans Give Away All Leverage... Again.  In the run up to all of the biggest legislative fights of the year, Republicans have time and time again surrendered whatever leverage they may have had before the battle lines were even drawn.  The omnibus spending bill now being prepared is no exception.  While Democrats are digging in their heels and vowing to vote against the package if they don't like it, Republicans have already signalled their utter unwillingness to insist upon... well, anything.  The omnibus bill, like so many before it, was hastily thrown together behind closed doors without adequate input from rank and file members — exactly the process Ryan pledged to change as Speaker.

An Impossible Homework Assignment: 2,360 Pages of Highway, Education Bills.  Republicans have essentially telegraphed the message to Obama that they will not stand in his way to fundamentally transform America on a single policy issue. [...] On Thursday [12/3/2015], Republicans plan to pass S. 1177, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). [...] That Republicans would sign off on a bill that further entrenches the federal government in education policy is unconscionable given the party consensus for abolishing the Department of Education altogether.

GOP Establishment: Let's Prop Up Rubio!  Oh, we don't support Obamacare they said.  We'll repeal Obamacare they said.  We'll replace Obamacare with sensible legislation they said.  Well, that was prior to the mid-term 2014 election. [...] If you don't enmesh yourself in fully understanding the intricate details of how Washington DC is playing "UniParty" it is almost impossible to keep track of their maneuvers; this too is entirely by design.

Time to Secede — From the GOP.  Is there anyone remaining with an IQ above room temperature who actually believes that the Republican Party believes in limited government, as defined by the U.S. constitution?  If so, they have either been hibernating or have been in complete self-denial.  Every election cycle the Republican Party counts on its "conservative base" to dutifully turn out and mark their ballot for whatever candidate has been selected by the GOP leadership.  We are told ad infinitum that doing so will keep the Democrat liberal demons from furthering their agenda.  The inside the beltway establishment has been chanting this mantra for years and in the process we keep getting Republicans who stand for nothing except their own political gain.

Giving Thanks for the Republican Establishment.  It is a fact that the Republican establishment seeks to expel conservatives from the party. [...] My friends, there are only three candidates left in the race who operate outside of the GOP establishment:  they are Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump.  It's important to understand one, simple fact:  should one of these three outsiders become President, they will also become the de facto head of the Republican Party.  That's right:  in one fell swoop, an anti-establishment candidate could take over and control the GOP leadership structure, by dint of the bully pulpit and a massive fundraising capability.

GOP Set to Fund Obama's Islamic Refugee Plan.  We can always count on Republicans to take a 90/10 winning national security issue and turn it into a shiny object.  Instead of listening to their constituents and following the calls of 30 governors to shut down Islamic refugee resettlement, Republicans are about to pull the classic bait and switch:  pass a phony standalone bill and decline to defund it in the budget bill.

Time for GOP panic? Establishment worried Carson or Trump might win.  Less than three months before the kickoff Iowa caucuses, there is growing anxiety bordering on panic among Republican elites about the dominance and durability of Donald Trump and Ben Carson and widespread bewilderment over how to defeat them. [...] The party establishment is paralyzed.  Big money is still on the sidelines.  No consensus alternative to the outsiders has emerged from the pack of governors and senators running, and there is disagreement about how to prosecute the case against them.

Why Is GOP Pushing Disastrous Low-Skilled Immigration Increase?  Right out of the chute, the first thing a GOP-led Congress pushes under new Speaker Paul Ryan is a bill that would boost the number of low-skilled immigrant workers in the U.S. Have they learned nothing?

RNC appears to be conspiring with liberal media to poison GOP debates for conservatives.  Earlier today, our source Deep GOPe participated in a teleconference conducted by the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA).  While not formally aligned with the Republican National Committee, the RNLA can be said to be loosely linked to the GOP establishment.  Featured on the call was Randy Evans, an RNC Committeeman.  The topic of the GOP debates was a central theme of the teleconference.  As the call unfolded, it became very clear that the RNC remains in bed with a hostile vintage media.

With Republicans Like These, Who Need Enemies?  After the CNBC debate and the bias it laid bare, the field was united.  The party was united.  There was an opportunity to change, maybe even revolutionize the debate process.  Then Republicans acted like Republicans again.  The greatest opponent Republican candidates face is not the media, nor the Democrats.  It's themselves.  Had the field held together for more than 20 minutes, we could've been looking at some serious debates focused on issues.  But that didn't happen.

Globalist Republican Senators (GOPe) Who Voted For Unlimited Spending Bill. 
  •   Did the GOP secure the border with control of the White House and Congress?  NO.
  •   Did the GOP balance the budget with control of the White House and Congress?  NO.
  •   Who gave us the TSA?  The GOP
  •   Who gave us the Patriot Act?  The GOP
  •   Who expanded Medicare to include prescription drug coverage?  The GOP
  •   Who created the precursor of "Common Core" in "Race To the Top"?  The GOP
  •   Who facilitated the Iranian Nuclear deal?  The GOP
  •   Who facilitated the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership?  The GOP

See How Your Senator Voted on the Boehner-Obama Budget Deal.  Less than five days after it was introduced, the Senate passed the 144-page, two-year budget deal that suspends the debt limit until March 2017 and raises spending caps.  The Senate passed the budget deal, 64-35, just after 3 a.m. on Friday.  Thirty-five Republican senators opposed the deal, though it was not enough to stop the bill from heading to President Obama's desk.

Budget buster: Senate passes debt and spending hike in dead of night.  Senate Republicans managed to wrangle enough of their troops to overcome a filibuster early Friday morning [10/30/2015] and pass the new budget deal, granting President Obama yet another debt holiday, busting the budget caps and boosting spending some $80 billion over the next two years.  Democrats, who are far more thrilled with the deal, did the heavy lifting, providing most of the votes as they won some $40 billion in new domestic spending in 2016 and 2017.  They also forced the GOP to retreat on the hard-fought 2011 budget agreement that had helped bring deficits back under control.

3 A.M. Budget Travesty Is Shameful Cave-In By GOP Leaders.  The fiscal 2016 budget deal that emerged at 3:15 a.m. Friday [10/30/2015] was little more than a blank check for President Obama's final two years.  Now he'll sail into retirement knowing he can spend what he wants with little opposition from a GOP Congress.  The bill passed 64-35, with only 18 Republicans in favor.  But that was more than enough.  Which raises a question:  Why have a Republican majority if its leadership is going to let the Democrats run Washington?

Former Congressman: I'm Quitting GOP.  In a panel discussion at the University of Colorado after the recent Republican debate, I was asked by a student why she should be a Republican.  The question forced me to ask myself the same thing.  I gave the young woman the standard talking points — that Republicans believe in smaller government, individual rights, fiscal responsibility, and free enterprise.  But as I drove home, her question — and my inability to respond with any level of real conviction — got me thinking:  Does the Republican Party leadership fight for these values and principles today?  After much thought, I reluctantly concluded that the answer is "no."

Skip the investigations, win the election.  House Republicans don't quite get that they are hopeless at oversight hearings.  They keep losing — and now the chairman of the House Oversight Committee has just introduced articles of impeachment against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.  I'm sympathetic to the GOP motive, given how the Obama IRS has consistently obstructed and misled Congress in the tax-exemption scandal.  But impeachment is no ordinary move.  No agency chief or Cabinet officer has been impeached since 1876.  And even proponents admit that there is no chance of Koskinen being removed from office because the Senate will never convict.

The Editor says...
Just win the election ignores the fact that nothing will change if Republicans are elected, because there's very little difference between a tax-and-spend open-borders welfare-state big-government Republican and a tax-and-spend open-borders welfare-state big-government baby-killing Democrat.

If Congress Won't Cut Spending Now, When Will It?  No wonder John Boehner and the rest of the Republican "leaders" are rushing to get their budget deal voted on and to the president's desk for signature.  The more we learn about it, the more rancid it smells.  Maybe Republicans are supposed to read it after they vote on it.  And to think they used to make fun of Nancy Pelosi for that.

3 Ways Conservatives Can Stop the Coming GOP Sellout Theater.  Somebody in Congress needs to stop production of this show, because it will hurt conservatives and will give President Obama, yet another, opportunity to spike the football.  As establishment Republicans rack up another bipartisan deal, they are killing the Republican candidates running for President, because as Obama's popularity rises so do the prospects of the third Obama term embodied in likely Democratic nominee for President Hillary Clinton.  While Republicans conduct government by oversight hearings, the American people want politicians who are willing to toss sand in the gears of government.

House approves Ex-Im renewal.  A majority of House Republicans joined all but one Democrat Tuesday [10/27/2015] in voting to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, whose charter expired in June.  After a rare procedural move brought Export-Import to the House floor against the wishes of GOP leaders, the bank saw surprising support in the 313-118 vote to renew, including from 127 Republicans.

3 sentences that explain just how clueless establishment Republicans are about 2016.  The dirty little secret in Republican politics these days is that the longtime pillars of the party — politicians and ex-politicians, major donors and the consultant class — are further removed from the views of the GOP base than at any time in modern memory.

12 Times the GOP Establishment Kicked the Conservative Base in the Teeth.  [#9]  Allen West:  In 2012, The Florida GOP gerrymanders Tea Party conservative Allen West's district to a Democrat majority.

Senator Warns: "Great Danger" of Mass Amnesty Invasion in 2017 by the Beltway Uniparty Traitors.  Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is echoing the concerns of other prominent conservatives that the events unfolding now in Washington could lead to mass amnesty in 2017.  "The word is... that 2017 is the year to watch for immigration," radio host Laura Ingraham asked Sessions.  "What are the chances... that if Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is Speaker and Hillary Clinton is President of the United States, or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is President of the United States that they would move in the first 100 days to push a massive, similar [to the 'Gang of Eight'] immigration reform bill?"  Sessions replied, "I think there's a great danger that that would happen."

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Announces Goal To Destroy Nationalists and Conservative Politicians.  We spend a lot of time following Tom Donohue and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce simply because if you trace any tentacle of globalist advancement from DC back to its origin you'll find Donohue and the CoC at the nucleus.  In a post Citizens United SCOTUS landscape, it was Donohue in 2011 who seized upon the unlimited finance opportunity, used K-Street lobbyists, and formerly announced his plans to attack Tea Party (conservative) insurgent politicians.  Donohue followed through on this plan in 2012 with primary support for Mitt Romney, and again another announcement in October of 2013 in advance of the 2014 mid-terms.

Will the Senate let Obama bypass it on Paris climate deal?  Remember that part of the Constitution that gives the executive branch of government the authority to make a commitment with foreign powers to cap carbon emissions levels and then enforce that commitment domestically with onerous environmental regulations?  Me neither.  But that's exactly what President Obama plans to do in Paris later this year, where he will agree to a new international compact limiting how America uses energy.

No Time for Cowardice in the GOP Presidential Field.  [T]he current crop of candidates, including Donald Trump, running for the Republican nomination are reluctant to point the finger at the current administration and the socialist policies of the Democratic Party as the catalyst for the nation's economic problems.  There appears to be a fear of even mentioning the name of Barack Obama.  Further they are unwilling to offer viable and easily understood capitalist solutions to counter the extreme socialist proposals of Bernie Sanders and embraced by Hillary Clinton.

Republicans Would Rather Lose Than Help Conservatives.  Time and time again we see Republican leaders berate conservatives for allegedly taking their football and going home after a loss only to see those very same leaders be the ones who actually do leave the field.  It is happening again in Kentucky where the prospect of a Matt Bevin win has so terrified the Republican Establishment, they are fleeing the state so a Democrat can win.

Senate GOP Pushing Obama's Get Out of Jail Free Policy.  This week, as a consolation prize for abusing conservatives for so long on the issue of immigration, the Senate will vote on a bill punishing sanctuary cities for releasing thousands of criminal aliens into our communities.  At the same time, the Senate Judiciary Committee is marking up the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015 (S.2123), a bill that will retroactively release a number of dangerous criminals into our communities.  Ironically, many of them are illegal aliens.  Sadly, the effort is being led by several conservatives and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee.

The Democratic Party's Decline.  It doesn't take more than a cursory glance at the headlines to get the impression that the Republican Party is in the middle of a prolonged suicide attempt. [...] A sizable portion of the Republican base of primary voters is registering its dissatisfaction with the party by backing one of the three candidates in the race who have no experience in political office.  The contest's front-runner is such a toxic and unacceptable alternative to Democrats that analysts have speculated the GOP primary voter would prefer to see the party torn down and rebuilt from scratch than to license the continuation of business as usual, even if that means sacrificing a winnable presidential election.

Wanted: A President of Good Character.  [Scroll down]  Instead, let's look at our experiences — of GOP establishment candidates.  Bob Dole (remember him?) was the logical pick in 1996, and is now mainly remembered for falling off a stage.  Nice man, but doomed to lose.  Then John McCain received the blessing from above, having served in the Senate forever, and looking like A Weekend at Bernie's.  What a great pick.  Mitt Romney was next, and never counter-punched at the howling jackals of the media.  Romney could not tell the plain truth to the anointed Messiah of 2008, Barack Hussein Obama, who was qualified by the color of his skin.

GOP Establishment Scrambling For New Plan B.  The Republican establishment designed the process to deliver the 2016 presidential nomination to a business-friendly moderate who avoids so-called social issues.  The consultants who rewrote the party rules after 2012 are now trying to explain to their patrons what went wrong and how to fix it.  Plan A, of course, was to assure the nomination of Jeb Bush, whose views are the perfect reflection of the Republican donor class.  But despite many months of campaigning, $114 million of political funds raised through June 30, and two presidential debates watched by a record-setting average of 24 million people, Jeb Bush has dropped to sixth place, registering only 4% in the latest Pew poll.

Note To Phyllis Schlafly: There Is No "Plan B".  [Scroll down]  The GOPe road map is so heavily contingent on Jeb Bush that no alternate plan was even considered, thought about, discussed or generally presented as plausible.  Every Wall Street luncheon since October 2013; every K-Street breakfast; every Chamber of Commerce dinner; every RNC national and regional rules meeting — all of it; has been built up based on a cornerstone and central tenet that Jeb would fulfill all of the handshake agreements contained within all of those meetings over the past 23 months.  There simply is no other option.  Period.

Ted Cruz Gives Epic Speech on Senate Floor Exposing GOP Leadership.  The video [in this article] is of Ted Cruz on the Senate floor two days ago [9/28/2015].  The senator from Texas (and Republican presidential candidate) exposed the way Washington works:  the games that are played, by both parties, and the lack of principles among Republicans.

The Silliness of the Anti-Shutdown Republicans.  In 2013, the government shut down. It was the first shutdown since 1996 and the media, who has no memory of anything existing before 2000 (and that's being generous), freaked out like you wouldn't believe.  Of course, it doesn't take someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of history to realize that shutdowns have been used quite often and quite frequently with little to no negative effect on the country as a whole.  Jimmy Carter, for example, with a Democratic House and Senate behind him, led the government shut down five times.  Ronald Reagan let it shut down five times.  Bill Clinton let it shut down twice.  The idea that a 16-day shutdown was the worst thing in the world to happen is hilariously misinformed, when it is only the third-largest shutdown since Gerald Ford's administration.

Ted Cruz: 'Republican Leadership Leads The Onslaught Attacking Conservatives'.  Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed Republican leadership on Monday [9/28/2015] for slavishly serving the interests of major corporations — and worse, leading attacks from the Left on its conservative grassroots base.  The Democrats are "relentless" in pursuing their principles, Cruz said, which include ever-increasing government spending and unlimited abortion rights.

Only 19 Republican vote against funding Planned Parenthood.  What is the purpose of the Republican party anymore?  Only 19 Republican senators voted against funding Planned Parenthood in a stop-gap bill to fund the government.  All the squishy RINOs like McConnell, Thune, Corker and Cornyn seem voted in a favor of a government funding bill that stripped out defending language for Planned Parenthood.

The Republican Party's Surrender Politics.  What happens in politics when one side is absolutely committed to its principles, willing to fight for them no matter the cost, and the other side reflexively surrenders on every issue?  We have modern-day Washington.  Today, President Barack Obama fights relentlessly for his liberal priorities.  Like the Terminator, he never gives up, he never stops.  And Republican leadership responds to every challenge by surrendering at the outset.

Ted Cruz Says Republican Leadership Is Guilty Of 'Peremptory Surrender'.  Texas Sen. Ted Cruz says the Republican leadership in Congress is guilty of "peremptory surrender" once again, criticizing House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for not going along with the plan favored by conservatives to defund Planned Parenthood.  "Republicans need to act like Republicans," Cruz said Thursday afternoon [9/24/2015] to a group of reporters inside his Capitol Hill office.  "Leadership needs to lead.  Together, we need to actually honor the commitments to the men and women who elected us."

The UniParty Evidenced — Another Missing Federal Budget, This Time With Republicans In Full Control.  It was September of 2007 when George W Bush sat behind his oval office desk and signed into law the Fiscal Year 2008 Federal Budget.  Exactly eight years ago.  It has now been eight consecutive years without a federal budget.  Eight consecutive years of debt ceiling increases, continuing resolutions to fund government, threats of shut-downs and the insufferable back-and-forth blame.

Ted Cruz: 'Hell Will Freeze Over' Before Establishment GOP Listens To American people.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told conservative radio host Mark Levin on Thursday evening that establishment GOP politicians will "never" listen to the American people.  "If we wait on the entrenched politicians in Washington, hell will freeze over before that happens," Cruz answered when Levin asked whether Republicans will ever listen.  "This is nothing new.  The answers come from America, from millions of people standing up and holding elected officials accountable."  Cruz, who coined the Twitter hashtag #MakeDCListen during the government shutdown episode, has often returned to a theme of forcing Washington D.C. insiders to listen to the public.

Calls to depose GOP leadership mount: 'Who is in charge right now?'  Conservative disappointment with the Republican leadership on a host of issues from the Iran deal, to federal funding for Planned Parenthood, to the failure to secure a budget, left some members openly calling for the leadership's removal over the weekend.  "Time for new congressional leadership," Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich. tweeted Saturday [9/12/2015].  He added:  GOP leaders "in Congress refuse to listen to regular Americans."  GOP leaders "don't follow their own party platform," former Sen. Jim DeMint, who now heads up the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Sunday.  "Things that were mainstay 10 years ago [like] balancing the budget, limited government, getting rid of cronyism, [are] now called radical or far right."

How the GOP leadership hit rock bottom with its base.  When conservatives held a Washington, D.C., rally last week in opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran, which names do you suppose inspired the loudest boos from the crowd?  Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and John Kerry would be good guesses.  So would Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  But none of those are the right answer.  Instead, it was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner, the two most important Republican leaders in Washington, who seemed to get the loudest boos.  When Dave Brat, who won his Virginia congressional seat by beating then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a GOP primary last year, mentioned the pair, the conservative crowd erupted in a thunder of boos.

Trump and Cruz are Precisely What the Putrescent GOP Leaders Deserve.  The contempt for ordinary Americans and the pontificating arrogance of the Republican establishment was on full display when Fox News contributor and faux conservative George Will stated that Trump supporters need to come into the Republican Party "on our terms", not theirs.  That Republican Party, which Mr. Will wants voters to join, is one that consistently betrays its constituents and bows to Barack Obama's agenda:  Who "pre-approved" the Iran nuclear deal using, instead of the Constitution's treaty approval process, Republican Bob Corker's amendment (Corker/Cardin Amendment) changing ratification to a 67-vote-threshold for denial, as opposed to a customary 67 vote threshold for passage?  The GOP.  Who did not block and voted to fund Obama's executive amnesty that Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, called "un-American" and "unconstitutional, illegal" and promised that, if the Republican Party takes the Senate, they will do everything in their power to stop it?  The GOP.

John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the Muslim invasion.  Now we have John McCain and Lindsey Graham jumping into the fray regarding "Syrian refugees," recommending we take them in.  It's not a surprise they would be on the wrong side of this issue, as they are on so many issues, but it's no less sickening every time they, or any member of the Republican Party, reveal how spineless they are.  Last week, responding to a report that international groups are pressuring the United States to take not 10,000, but 65,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2016, Tucker Carlson asked McCain and Graham if allowing any refugees into this country is in the best interest of America.

Also posted under Hijrah.

The War on Innocents.  Allowing the tax-funded expansion of Planned Parenthood's abortion industry to continue is national suicide.  This crisis must be confronted as the greatest internal threat facing our nation since slavery.  Ted Cruz and House conservatives are alone in this battle, insisting that any funding bill signed by Obama explicitly exclude tax funding of abortion.  Establishment Republicans have already capitulated the leverage of a government shutdown, with majority leader Mitch McConnell saying this is "another issue that awaits a new president with hopefully a different point of view toward Planned Parenthood."  Hopefully a different point of view?  Is that the rousing Republican response to Planned Parenthood's bloody desecration of human lives on the taxpayer's dime?

Congress Is Great At Manufacturing One Thing: Crises.  Congressional Republicans have become adroit at flexing their manufacturing muscles.  They wait until the legislative calendar absolutely requires that Congress acts on bills, thus creating a crisis.  Congress then rushes to get the bills passed.  These must pass bills are often constructed in a way contrary to conservative principles.  So to get them passed, Republican leadership has to feign sympathy with conservatives through a show vote or issue statements to acknowledge the conservative grassroots.  Once that is done, they can advance legislation that buttresses the status quo and avoids reforms the country needs, but that the establishment disdains.  The past and current way the Republican establishment deals with major issues before it is to stall and pass:  run the legislative clock and move legislation that won't change anything.

Also posted under What's the rush?

America, you're watching the beginning of the end of the Republican Party.  The Republican Party is dying because the GOP in DC has gone corporate and K Street.  They attack any Republicans who dare hold them to their promises.  They've gone to war against Heritage Action for America, Club For Growth, the Madison Project, etc.  They've blackballed any political consultant who does work for outsiders.  But even more importantly, the GOP protects their failed consultants who keep bringing in the bacon.  The Project ORCA guys are doing quite well.  The guys who collapsed Voter Vault are doing well.  The idiots who run outreach for the GOP go out and form consultancy groups, then get embedded within the NRCC, NRSC, or RNC itself and hand contracts back to themselves.  In short, the GOP has become so incestuous it continues to hemorrhage and will die.

An Open Letter To Jonah Goldberg — RE: The GOP and Donald Trump. 
  •   Did the GOP secure the border with control of the White House and Congress?  NO.
  •   Did the GOP balance the budget with control of the White House and Congress?  NO.
  •   Who gave us the TSA?  The GOP
  •   Who gave us the Patriot Act?  The GOP
  •   Who expanded Medicare to include prescription drug coverage?  The GOP
  •   Who created the precursor of "Common Core" in "Race To the Top"?  The GOP
  •   Who played the race card in Mississippi to re-elect Thad Cochran?  The GOP
  •   Who paid Democrats to vote in the Mississippi primary?  The GOP
  •   Who refused to support Ken Cuccinnelli in Virginia?  The GOP
  •   Who supported Charlie Crist?  The GOP
  •   Who supported Arlen Spector?  The GOP
  •   Who supported Bob Bennett?  The GOP
  •   Who worked against Marco Rubio?  The GOP
  •   Who worked against Rand Paul?  The GOP
  •   Who worked against Ted Cruz?  The GOP
  •   Who worked against Mike Lee?  The GOP
  •   Who worked against Jim DeMint?  The GOP
  •   Who worked against Ronald Reagan?  The GOP

The Next Justices.  When Chief Justice John Roberts administers the oath of office to the next president, he will be flanked by three, and almost four, octogenarians:  Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg (83), Antonin Scalia (80), Anthony Kennedy (80), and Stephen Breyer (77).  The next president will likely have the opportunity to appoint a replacement for one, two, three, or maybe even four of those justices.  These decisions will reshape the Court and how it reads the Constitution for decades to come.  Republican presidential candidates will likely pledge to appoint "constitutional conservatives" to the bench — which ought to mean judges who will be constrained by its original meaning.  However, GOP presidents have filled 12 out of 18 Supreme Court vacancies over the past half-century, with disappointing results.  This track record teaches five important lessons that should guide future nominations.

What's Going on With the Republicans?  As I wrote earlier this year, it was hacker Marcel-Lehel Lazar, calling himself Guccifer, who in May 2013 revealed that Clinton had been using a personal email address for official business.  We learned of other information only through Freedom of Information Act lawsuits filed against the State Department by organizations such as Vice News, Citizens United, and Judicial Watch.  Some of these FOIA emails, it seems, were already in the possession of Trey Gowdy's select committee, for it leaked hundreds of them to the New York Times only hours before the State Department published its first batch.  Why had the select committee done nothing but sit on these?  And why leak to the New York Times?  Which leads one to wonder about Trey Gowdy.  Why is he allowing Hillary to run the clock on these emails?  More importantly, why is Boehner instructing him to do so?

GOP Leadership Ignores Immigration Entirely in Town Hall Talking Points.  Republican legislators have gotten their messaging instructions from their top leaders:  Tout unpopular free-trade measures during the August recess, ignore popular curbs on the migration that saps Americans' wages.  Breitbart News has exclusively obtained an internal August recess messaging instruction set for Republican legislators produced by Sen. John Thune (R-SD), who orchestrates the GOP Senators' PR pitch.  This 20-page messaging instruction manual seems to confirm prior reports by Breitbart News that Republican Congressional leadership has no plans to enact popular immigration reforms to curb large-scale migration.

We Need a New Republican Party.  If there is any political viewpoint in this world which is free from slavish adherence to abstraction, it is American conservatism.  When a conservative states that the free market is the best mechanism ever devised by the mind of man to meet material needs, he is merely stating what a careful examination of the real world has told him is the truth.  When a conservative says that totalitarian Communism is an absolute enemy of human freedom he is not theorizing — he is reporting the ugly reality captured so unforgettably in the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  When a conservative says it is bad for the government to spend more than it takes in, he is simply showing the same common sense that tells him to come in out of the rain.  When a conservative quotes Jefferson that government that is closest to the people is best, it is because he knows that Jefferson risked his life, his fortune and his sacred honor to make certain that what he and his fellow patriots learned from experience was not crushed by an ideology of empire.  Conservatism is the antithesis of the kind of ideological fanaticism that has brought so much horror and destruction to the world.  The common sense and common decency of ordinary men and women, working out their own lives in their own way — this is the heart of American conservatism today.  Conservative wisdom and principles are derived from willingness to learn, not just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before.

Republican Party, R.I.P. (1854 - 2016).  After eight years of broken promises and Republican collaboration in Barack Obama's agenda to expand government, the Grand Old Party has been confronted with a moral evil in Planned Parenthood.  Undercover, unedited videos show Planned Parenthood officials laughing about harvesting organs from babies. [...] Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)'s response has been to call for more investigations while keeping federal dollars flowing to Planned Parenthood.  Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have kept federal dollars flowing to all areas of Barack Obama's agenda.  From Obamacare to the IRS to Obama's immigration expansion, the Republicans have chosen not to use any of their constitutional powers to restrain executive overreach.  Instead they will let judges sort through everything.

Republicans [Are] Chasing An Hispanic Unicorn.  For almost a decade, the Republican party has interpreted losses at the ballot box as its inability to attract Hispanic voters.  This, in turn, is blamed on segments of the conservative wing of the party whose rhetoric allegedly turns off Hispanic voters.  When conservatives empower a Republican victory, as in 2004, 2010 or 2014, the win is dismissed as almost an aberration.  Oh, that victory you have there is because Hispanics didn't vote, Republican leaders imply.

How Republicans Can Win Back Conservatives.  Conservatives poured time, energy and money into a party that promised to counter Obama and take back America.  The GOP controls both houses of Congress and conservatives have nothing to show for it. [...] There has been a profound loss of faith in the Republican Party and the larger political establishment orbiting around it.

GOP Should Worry Less About Trump and More About Itself.  For many Americans — who knows what percentage? — the Republican Party is not an antidote to President Obama's seven-year wrecking ball.  They look at the GOP and occasionally see strong rhetoric but mostly observe a lack of inspiration, energy and any sense of urgency about the current state of affairs.  They recall that when Republicans didn't have control of Congress, they asked for patience until they recaptured the House.  In the meantime, we were not supposed to rock the boat and jeopardize the upcoming elections.  Since winning back Congress, they've offered a similarly tired excuse:  We don't have control of the presidency.

It is not Trump who is alienating people.  The spin is that Donald Trump cannot be elected because he alienates people.  The reality is the Republican Party leadership is the problem.  His supporters — already one in four Republican voters — already are alienated by the Republican Party.  Their grievances are many and they go unheard.  In 2008, they went along with a RINO named John McCain as [the] presidential nominee, who not only lost but stood by idly while his campaign manager destroyed Sarah Palin with the help of a willing press.  In 2010, they elected a Republican House to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  In 2012, they went along with a moderate named Mitt Romney, who lost.

Republican Elites: You Can't Secure The Border, You can't Deport, You Can't Stop Illegal Aliens.  Laura Ingraham scratches the surface on the "anchor baby" issue, but more directly frames the discussion around the larger picture of failed immigration enforcement which has led to the crisis.  We are in this ridiculous place because the 'Beltway Betters' have failed to enforce existing law, failed to secure the border, failed to secure employment law and lied to the American people about their intents therein.

Trumping the Republican Establishment.  The alarm bells are reverberating throughout the halls of the Republican Establishment as the realization has begun to sink in that their days controlling the Party are over.  Nothing is more telling than the Real Clear Politics average of the four most recent polls of Republican voters.  The Establishment's favored candidates (Bush, Christie, Graham, Kasich and Rubio) account for only 24.7% of the polling results (Trump alone has 22.3%).  The pent up anger over the abysmal performance of the Republican Party hierarchy over the past 27 years has justifiably reached a boiling point.  The current iteration of the Republican Establishment has been dominant in the Party since 1989, setting up a process wherein they have effectively chosen all the presidential candidates and steered a course of fawning cooperation with the Democrats.  The responsibility for the current state of the country as well as its dismal future rests heavily upon their shoulders.

Second Republican Consultant Rips Conservative Base as Stupid.  We now have a second top Republican consultant who appears to believe that trashing voters is the way to win elections.  Cheri Jacobus [...] says she has been fighting for the GOP for three decades.  Over these same decades, in 5 of the last 6 presidential elections, these genius consultants have consulted us to losses in the popular vote.

Why We Lose: Top GOP Consultant Rick Wilson Trashes Republican Base.  The national Republican Party has lost the popular vote in five of six presidential elections.  The only one they were able to win was a lay-up, the re-election of a sitting president, George W. Bush, during a time of war.  And while the national Republican Party has been able to win majorities in Congress, other than better congressional offices for the winners, what exactly was the point?

New Poll Spells Trouble For Establishment RINO Leaders.  A new poll from Gallup poll indicates that establishment RINO leaders, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are facing a growing problem of bipartisan discontent among Americans, showing that their "go along to get along" attitude with the dictatorial Obama regime and radical leftist Democrats is backfiring more than the squishy and unprincipled duo could have ever imagined.

If I Were Trey Gowdy...  [Scroll down]  Ever wonder why Hillary Clinton's long history of felonious malfeasance (an easy prosecution, I can assure you) hasn't led to criminal charges?  Easy answer:  Democrats and Republicans alike are protecting her, because public sector unions, corporate cronies, and other rentseekers carry far more influence than do the people.

There is Only One Political Party In Washington DC.  Select your candidate, believe it makes a difference, and then predictably you'll get the CoC selection, Jeb Bush.  There is no substantive difference between Jeb and Hillary, and there is absolutely no difference between the current National GOP and National Democrats.  Both parties are intent on the expansion of government, the diminishment of U.S. national interests (Main Street), along with the inflation of Wall Street interests (CoC) and capital markets (Koch Brothers).

No guts:
GOP Leadership may look to keep Planned Parenthood out of spending fight.  As conservative lawmakers look to the fall spending negotiations to defund Planned Parenthood, Republican leaders may dash their hopes by arguing it can't be done effectively in a government funding bill, at least in the short term, as they work to avoid the politically damaging threat of a government shutdown  Instead, the move to defund the group may be addressed in another standalone bill.  "We are going to be doing a lot of different things, not just dealing with the funding," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday [8/4/2015].

Heritage Action CEO: Conservatives 'sick' of the GOP.  The chief executive of the Heritage Action for America super-PAC said on Sunday [8/2/2015] that conservative voters are weary of the Republican political establishment.  Michael Needham argued that the GOP is alienating its base by ignoring its concerns.  "Most Republican voters hate their party, and that's what needs to be addressed," Needham told host Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday."  "People are sick of this," he said of the political process.  "It's a game."

Their Lies Have Boxed Them In.  Republicans leaders have no choice but to fight now to defund Planned Parenthood.  Discretionary spending cuts will not be enough.  The pro-life movement will not compromise with evil and more videos are coming to show just how evil Planned Parenthood is.  The party leadership's lies have boxed them in.  They have nowhere else to go but into battle.  They they will have no retreat but destruction at the polls or victory.  Democrats think they want this fight, but what they do not understand is that they have options.  Republican leaders have no options but victory for the survival of their party.

Hard Truth for the GOP from its Base.  The Republican field is frozen in error by lack of either vision or courage on this issue, and by its need to please its corporate donors.  These corporate donors want cheaper labor forever and delude themselves about the not far off social and political consequences of massive illegal immigration.  After all, those consequences will reach them later than they do the rest of us — they have not shown up yet in the gated communities, elite private schools, high-income jobs and country clubs of the nation's governing class.  Only the Democratic Party knows what is really happening, and it appears destined to get exactly what it wants:  A few hundred thousand more dependable client voters in a bunch of key states, after which it can rest easily in the certainty of victory in every presidential election for the next half century.

Levin: Republican Leaders 'Smother' The 'Few Voices Of Liberty' In Congress.  [Scroll down]  "Those who are paying attention and are informed would be more repulsed by what McConnell, Lamar Alexander, Orin Hatch, John Cornyn et al. have done to the few voices of liberty in the Senate," Levin told The Daily Caller.  "They smother them and try to silence them and then go to liberal media outlets to trash them."  "I think what McConell tried to do with the highway bill and the Export-Import Bank is quintessential Washington, which is to lie through your teeth," the radio host added.  With these acts in mind, Levin believes it should be the task of conservatives like [Senator Ted] Cruz and Utah Senator Mike Lee to expose the Republican establishment's supposed misdeeds.

Mark Levin: The Republican Party Won Its Majority on a Lie.  Levin argued that on every issue from Obamacare to executive amnesty to Obamatrade, the establishment Republican Party has refused to represent the interests of Americans.  Perhaps nowhere is this more acutely noticeable than on the issue of immigration.

No Congressional GOP Leaders Will Support Reducing Immigration.  As U.S. census data projects that immigration will soon exceed all documented historical records, not one Republican leader in Congress supports the popular step of reducing immigration.  Each year the United States admits one million people with green cards, their dependents and refugees, as well as half a million foreign youths sought by college administrators.  Census data projects that, if visas are not slashed or halted, another 14 million immigrant settlers will arrive in the U.S. over the next decade.  Polls from Fox News and Gallup show that Americans — by a 2-to-1 ratio — want to see visa issuances reduced.

Carly Fiorina: The Benghazi 'Punch Didn't Get Thrown' In 2012.  Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina says the Benghazi "punch" could have defeated President Obama in 2012, but it "didn't get thrown."  "We thought in 2012 that Benghazi was Obama's Achilles' heel," the former Hewlett-Packard CEO said in a Thursday [7/30/2015] call with supporters.  "But the punch didn't get thrown.  We can't count on the media to do this... And so the only way to make sure these questions are asked and answered is to have a nominee who will demand an answer."

The very real consequences of the effort to remove John Boehner.  North Carolina Republican Representative Mark Meadows has filed a motion to remove John Boehner as speaker of the House.  Technically it's called a motion to "vacate the chair," though it feels as though the chair has been vacant for some time already, given the absence of any meaningful opposition to Obama's agenda.  Meadows is unhappy with Boehner's unwillingness to fight for Republican or conservative values (which used to be the same thing).  Of course, his motion has no chance of passing, and publicly Boehner and his cronies will probably smirk and laugh at Meadows as it is voted down, the very same way Mitch McConnell and his Chamber of Commerce mafiosi smirked at Ted Cruz when Cruz confronted McConnell about his lies concerning the Export-Import Bank.

The GOP Senate is Not On Our Side.  The latest example, part one billion in an apparently never ending series, concerns funding for Planned Parenthood.  Republican voters ([indeed], really everyone with a pulse who is not an elected Democrat) have been horrified for three straight weeks as video after video has been released showing that Planned Parenthood is very obviously in the business of selling baby parts for money.  Now listen, regardless of how you feel about abortion generally, anyone of even marginal conservative (or libertarian!) principles can agree that taxpayer money should not be going to an organization like this.  Look, this is a slam dunk issue — by a huge, overwhelming margin, every American demographic (including millenials and women) oppose taxpayer funding of abortions.

The GOP Senate is Not On Our Side.  We have reached the point where a clear majority of sitting Republican Senators do not deserve your vote even in the general election.  I say this because, quite simply, they have demonstrated time and time again that they are not on our side.  Instead, they are on their own side.  The priorities that these nattering, out of touch buffoons have embraced are so far out of step with the voters who sent them to office that they don't even have the good sense to be embarrassed at how clueless they sound.

Why Congress Won't Defund Planned Parenthood.  In case you had any hopes of Congress ever defunding Planned Parenthood (PP/PPFA) in the wake of investigative videos showing senior employees haggling over selling baby body parts obtained during abortions, please let me dash them right now. [...] We've watched too many times as promises come and go, even as we watch traditional values slip away, the size and cost of government continue to expand, and the widespread destruction of the unborn continue. [...] In 2011, President Obama was willing to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood funding, in part because he knew the GOP would back down — which it did.

Phony GOP Conservatism Has Worn Out Its Welcome.  The long-simmering disconnect between the Republican Party's conservative base and its leaders in government has degenerated into a full-blown schism.  While President Obama accelerates his increasingly radical agenda, the GOP, despite its congressional majority, can barely muster an objection, let alone block his momentum.  Other than to offer a toothless public rebuke of Obama's destructive schemes, what was the point of the 2014 GOP congressional landslide?  It's no longer just a small percentage of conservatives questioning the GOP.  Our people are furious — and rightly so.

This is the lie GOP leadership told ME.  There are three reasons why the Ex-Im Bank is a horrible idea for a free enterprise opportunity economic system:  1. It duplicates private venture capital[,]  2. It is nothing more than corporate welfare[,]  3. It is a perverse manner of granting foreign aid[.]  The federal government has no business being in the business of economic cronyism and corruption by using American taxpayer dollars for venture capitalism.  Government ends up using tax dollars to select the winners and losers in the private sector.  This is a horrible idea — so why is the GOP majority in the Senate supporting it?

Republicans on Road to Ruin With Highway Bill.  Later this week, the highway trust fund officially runs out of money unless Congress authorizes more funding for roads and bridges.  But the bill that is being pushed by Democrats and some Republicans is starting to look like a Republican Party Dunkirk that could infuriate conservative voters and even wind up costing the GOP the 2016 election.  The $320 billion six year public works funding bill would raise government spending, increase taxes on businesses and possibly provide a new lease on life for the corporate welfare queen — the Export-Import Bank.  This happens every time a highway bill comes up for a vote.  Republicans toss out their fiscal conservative credentials and line up for the pork.

The Chaotic, Backbiting GOP Does Not Look Like a Governing Party.  Gradually, painstakingly, Republicans have won back the voters' support and hold more elected offices today than they have for close to a century.  But all that improvement threatens to be undone by the not inaccurate impression among voters that the GOP is in crisis — at war with itself — and that may be unable to serve as a responsible governing party.

Where's The Outrage?  I realize Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100% is a competitor to the other candidates, but if they cannot share the Republican voters' outrage over what happened in the Senate yesterday [7/26/2015], they might need to let Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) run for office.  The Senate Republicans, joined with Democrats, and set the stage for reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, a bank that Governor Rick Perry of Texas has been vocally critical of with Cruz, and the Senate Republicans refused to put up a vote for defunding Planned Parenthood or Obamacare.

Why does the Republican Party exist?  What is its purpose as a political entity — to what end do its members work to elect their fellow Republicans?  What are its priorities?  Whose interests does it serve? [...] Perhaps you believe the Republican Party exists as today the lone pro-life party in the United States.  This cannot be possible after the weekend, where Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blocked any attempt to force President Obama and all his fellow Senate Democrats to take a stand for or against not even the legality, but the taxpayer subsidization of harvesting organs from aborted babies.

Here's Why Republicans Hate The Republican Party.  It's conceivable, and I'm just spitballing here, that many conservatives are wondering: If the Republican Party is incapable or unwilling to make a compelling case against the selling of baby organs or the emergence of a nuclear Iran or the funding of a cronyist state-run bank — or all three — then really, what exactly can it do?

Republican 'Old Guard' pushes back against Cruz and Lee.  The GOP "Old Guard" in the Senate Sunday [7/26/2015] pushed back against outspoken conservative critics, avoiding direct attacks on Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, but making it clear his recent renegade actions are unwelcome in the upper chamber.  Without saying a word, the Republican conference sent a powerful message to Cruz and other conservatives like Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, by not backing their efforts to add amendments to a "must-pass" highway spending bill.

Chamber of Crony Capitalism Declares War on Limited Government Conservatives.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is paving the way to unseat "obstructionist" Republicans in the House who have successfully blocked much of the organization's agenda.  The move is spurred by Chamber frustration after the group poured nearly $70 million into the 2014 election to strengthen the Republican coalition in the Senate, only to have its efforts thwarted in the House, Politico reported Friday [7/24/2015].  The Chamber intends to primary sitting House conservatives who have halted many of its legislative priorities, including immigration reform, the Export-Import Bank's renewal and a long-term highway bill.  Ken Cuccinelli, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund, said the group's strategy to target conservatives verifies that the lobbying organization is interested solely in "cronyism."

Steve King: Chamber of Commerce for 'cheap labor at any cost'.  Politico's Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman report the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is "gearing up to challenge some House Republicans in primary elections" after "many of [the Chamber's] legislative priorities — immigration reform, the renewal of the Export-Import Bank and a long-term highway bill — have been held up by a clutch of conservative lawmakers in the House."  It would be an unprecedented move, and even floating the idea suggests how determined the Chamber's national leadership is to fight for more immigrant labor and taxpayer-paid subsidies for business.

Chamber of Commerce looking to unseat conservative Republicans.  In many respects, Big Business has the same agenda as Big Labor and the Democrats.  They want amnesty, they want subsidies for big companies who don't need it, and they want more government spending.  Note the code words they use:  "bipartisan," "getting things done," and avoiding "obstructionists."  They want to pass whatever Obama and the Democrats want to pass.  Frankly, I really don't understand why these interests simply aren't Democrats.

GOP Elites: A Confederacy of Dunces.  These elitists don't realize that millions of conservatives are disgusted that the GOP is controlled by a moderate, "country club" wing and are ready to bolt the party if it continues.  Sadly, GOP powerbrokers are not getting the message.  At the recent Republican Governor's Conference, party bigwigs conspired to keep Trump, the leading candidate, out of the upcoming presidential debates.  They hoped to convince other candidates such as Bush and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to boycott the debates if Trump participates.  Eventually, the harebrained plan was rejected, but only after it was leaked to the media.

Truth is an existential threat to the US government.  The United States is not a constitutional republic.  It is an oligarchy controlled by wealthy financiers who hire politicians to pass legislation beneficial to them and employ journalists to keep the citizens ignorant and compliant.  Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans believe in democracy.  It is simply an ideological contest between two different forms of totalitarianism based on big government, where they represent only themselves in their pursuit of personal power and profit.  Over the last hundred years, the Democrat Party has moved farther and farther to the left, evolving from populism to Marxism and developing an operational model resembling that of the mafia.  Its leaders are a gaggle of coffeehouse communists and unindicted felons, who seek the lifestyles of the rich and famous while practicing the politics of Joseph Stalin.  The Republicans are democratic only in the sense that they are willing to sell their votes to the highest bidder, where their political power and, ultimately, compensation from their rich donors increase proportionally with the expansion of government.

Why Are Republicans Resurrecting Uber-Failed Green Energy Subsidies?  Thank goodness we last November gave the Republicans the Senate majority.  Who besides the GOP would resurrect government money for ridiculous "green" "energy" — which is neither green nor energy?  To the tune of tens (if not hundreds) of billions of dollars more down the juice-less rat hole.  Oh yeah — every Democrat on the planet.

Tone it down? No way! Donald Trump needs to crank up the volume.  Donald Trump was taken to the GOP woodshed yesterday [7/8/2015].  Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus reportedly spent an hour on the phone — telling Mr. Trump to tone down his comments about the illegal aliens. [...] It's easy to understand why Mr. Trump's message about illegals pillaging and plundering our nation is resonating with average Americans.  But what I can't seem to understand is why Country Club Republicans find his honest and straightforward appraisal is impolite and ill-mannered.

Will GOP Elites Ever Learn?  Have Republican elites learned nothing from the past?  Think back to 2012, when the long and bitter contest for the GOP's presidential pick left the eventual nominee, Mitt Romney, in a much weaker condition vis à vis Barack Obama than he would otherwise have been.  In his efforts to defeat Romney, Obama and his handlers were able to use several of the charges against Romney that were first uttered by other GOP contestants. [...] If the eventual Republican presidential nominee enters the general campaign for the presidency in 2016 already bloodied up by other contestants for the GOP's prize, he or she may face a relatively unscathed Hillary Rodham Clinton, who presently seems to have the inside track in the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

Trump Doesn't Exist in a Vacuum.  The idea that Donald Trump is so damaging to the GOP brand is itself laughable because the GOP has worked rather well in destroying its own brand.  When the upper echelons of the party declare outright war on its conservative peers and its conservative voting base (which is much larger than its moderate base), you see what happens to the party.  Rife with division, we have a GOP establishment that has constantly pushed out weak candidates with more than just "moderate" leanings and fought tooth and nail to keep conservative candidates out of multiple races.  It is very clearly in the pocket of major corporate interests and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but accuses its opponents of being in it for the money.  The worst sin of all is the party establishment's insistence that the party's woes are due to conservatives.

Ted Cruz's New Book Blisters Mitch McConnell and Other Members of the RINO Surrender Caucus.  Wherein I highlight some of the key findings of Ted Cruz's new book, starting with MSNBC, which I read so you don't have to subject yourself to the filmy and unhygienic commentary.

Are Key Republican Leaders in D.C. Being Blackmailed?  Please tell me how it's possible that President Obama and his socialist cabal suffered the most massive and historic defeat in modern political history only 9 months ago — and since then they've gotten everything they've ever wanted handed to them on a silver platter.  Does that make sense to you?  How's it possible that the GOP — the party that won in a massive historic landslide gained nothing and won nothing?  Not one victory.

Republicans Should Stop Nominating Mushy Moderates to the Supreme Court.  Many people are looking at the recent Supreme Court decisions about Obamacare and same-sex marriage in terms of whether they think these are good or bad policies.  That is certainly a legitimate concern, for both those who favor those policies and those who oppose them.  But there is a deeper and more long-lasting impact of these decisions that raises the question of whether we are still living in America, where "we the people" are supposed to decide what kind of society we want, not have our betters impose their notions on us.

Constitutional Remedies to a Lawless Supreme Court.  As Justice Scalia put it regarding Obamacare, "Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is 'established by the State.' ... We should start calling this law SCOTUSCare."  And as he observed regarding marriage, "Today's decree says that ... the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court."  Sadly, the political reaction from the leaders of my party is all too predictable.  They will pretend to be incensed, and then plan to do absolutely nothing.

Republican-led Congress hands Obama major win on trade.  The measure to strengthen Obama's hand in global trade talks cleared the Senate on a vote of 60-38, and will go to the White House for his signature — less than two weeks after it was temporarily derailed in the House in an uprising of Democratic lawmakers who argued it would cost American jobs.

Sessions: They Won the Vote, But Lost the 'Trust of the American People'.  Senator Jeff Sessions will release this statement in response to Senate's vote to advance the fast-track trade bill: [...] "President Obama, and allies in Congress, have won this fast-track vote.  But, in exchange, they may find that they are losing something far greater:  the trust of the American people.  Americans have a fundamental, decent, and just demand:  that the people they elect defend their interests.  And every issue to come before us in the coming months will have to pass this test:  does this strengthen, or weaken, the position of the everyday, loyal American citizen?"

Here is How Senators Were Paid Off to Support Treasonous Obamatrade.  To put it simply, the Senate is run by looters.  Treasonous looters who care nothing about the constitution, you, me or America.  And the record breaking quick passage of the anti-American TPP proves it beyond a doubt.  But what kind of force could convince the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, to betray the American people and hand over power to a foreign government-like body?  What could possibly make Senators want to give up power and give Obama the power to render the Senate irrelevant?  Money.

If Your BS Detector Isn't Shrieking, It's Broken.  The entire American political system is a con, a sleazy mix of legalized bribes, auctioning off of favors, revolving doors between government agencies and the corporations they enrich and the blatant hypocrisy of snake-oil salespeople who know the marks (voters) face a false choice between two parties that are the same poison sold under different labels.

Dealing away American sovereignty.  The legacy media and the federal bureaucracy are really, really, hoping you'll be distracted by the arrests of soccer executives.  And if that's not your speed, they have the drama of federal charges against former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, sparking questions about blackmail, "bad acts" and Mr. Hastert's time as a teacher and wrestling coach in his hometown.  But there is something much more ominous facing the United States, which is not just being pushed by President Obama.  Rather, it is facilitated by Senate Republicans — the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

So the GOP Must Embrace Evil to Survive? Really?  A black liberal columnist made the point in his article that the future of the GOP rests on it getting rid of its conservatives.  Then, the GOP can modernize; attract more young voters of color by embracing open borders, amnesty, abortion and all the other filth coming out of the Democratic Party.  Embracing this strategy is tantamount to embracing evil.  Many consultants and sadly, GOP politicians concur with the columnist's strategy.  In essence, we are being told that the only way the GOP can win future elections is to embrace an anti-God and anti-righteous agenda.  I can not and will not embrace this vile defeatist lie.

So the GOP Must Embrace Evil to Survive.  Really?  A black liberal columnist made the point in his article that the future of the GOP rests on it getting rid of its conservatives.  Then, the GOP can modernize, attract more young voters of color by embracing open borders, amnesty, abortion, and all the other filth coming out of the Democratic Party.  Embracing this strategy is tantamount to embracing evil.  Many consultants and sadly, GOP politicians concur with the columnist's strategy.  In essence, we are being told that the only way the GOP can win future elections is to embrace an anti-God and anti-righteousness agenda.  I cannot and will not embrace this vile defeatist lie.

Nevada GOP removes social issues from platform.  The Nevada Republican Party stripped opposition to abortion and gay marriage from its platform Saturday [4/12/2014] as state convention delegates instead focused on judging fellow Republicans on their worthiness to serve in office and adherence to GOP values.  The platform, with few changes, was adopted overwhelmingly as the Las Vegas convention stretched late into the evening.  The vote mirrors that of the Clark County GOP, which voted earlier to remove platform language defining marriage as between a man and a woman and statements opposing abortion.

Bipartisan crony capitalism and America's Constitutional crisis.  Some people are beginning to notice that as more Republicans get elected, the more things stay the same.  Conservative Republicans are wondering why they bother voting for big "R" politicians that cave to a big "D" chief executive.  The last straw for some was the GOP leadership's passing of the fast-track trade bill that gives President Obama unprecedented authority to conclude trade pacts without congressional oversight.

Drudge rips GOP leadership: 'Night of the Republican suicide'.  Media giant Matt Drudge blasted Republican leadership on Twitter Friday night after the GOP-led Senate approved a new free trade bill.  "Twisted DC: Electing Republicans is guarantee of MORE powers for Obama... of course none of them read 'secret' bill!" Mr. Drudge tweeted.  The Drudge Report founder slammed House Speaker John Boehner who expressed support for the bill after the Pacific trade bill passed the Senate.

Dear GOP: Don't Work with Obama — Stop Him.  GOP hacks like the loathsome Mitch McConnell and Weepy John Boehner seem to think the GOP needs to show it can "govern" — by which they mean push various pieces of crappy legislation through their respective chambers — before voters will trust them with the keys to the White House.  Meanwhile, the public keep screaming:  STOP OBAMA!

Can Dr. Price Cure GOP Cowardice?  The Supreme Court is probably about to hand congressional Republicans a once-in-a-lifetime chance to eradicate the Obamacare contagion from the body politic, but the GOP has been typically timorous concerning whether to take advantage of this opportunity.  A refreshing exception to this poltroonery has been Tom Price, chairman of the House Budget Committee.

The British Tories Are Like American Republicans.  Many people seem to think that the results of the British general election — a gain of 24 seats for the Tories, giving them a majority — herald a major win for conservatism.  They don't.  They herald a major win for the Conservative Party, but just because it calls itself the Conservative Party doesn't mean it does conservative things. [...] The Tories, meanwhile, have the same problem the Republicans do:  they have ceased to be an effective vehicle for the kind of conservatism most of their constituents want.  No one trusts they will accomplish anything significant, especially on issues like immigration and the European Union.

Fast-Tracking America's Economic Destruction.  Last week's congressional committee votes to give President Obama "Fast Track" negotiating power may go down in economic history as among the most self-destructive ever.  The leaders of the Republican Party betrayed their voters, may have destroyed their own political careers, and may have even destroyed America's economic future.  In the 2010 and 2014 elections, American voters gave Republican leaders majorities in first the House and then the Senate so that they could stop President Obama's agenda.  But instead of stopping him, the Republican leadership decided to give him more power.  Republican leaders are determined to advance Obama's fast-track agenda despite deep opposition by their base.

Did The GOP Just Surrender On ObamaCare?  Voters who handed Republicans control of the Senate, largely on the promise of killing ObamaCare, must be wondering why they bothered.  Senate leaders now want to protect the law for the next two years.

The Disgraceful Republican Cave-in on Loretta Lynch.  Hillary Clinton didn't have such a bad week after all.  Sure, she's reeling from the latest unseemly revelations about the Clinton Foundation family piggy bank.  But they're only marginally worse than earlier unseemly revelations about the Clinton Foundation.  They are roughly on par with the revelations about how Mrs. Clinton obstructed Congress's Benghazi investigations by purging her unlawful private e-mail system, which was worse than her obstruction of the State Department's Benghazi investigation.  Yet it may not have been as bad as the obstruction of justice that was a staple of her husband's administration.  Those obstructions, in turn, were on par with her husband's selling of a pardon to a fugitive fraudster on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List ... which itself was not quite as bad as his awarding pardons to FALN terrorists — to ingratiate Hillary! with the New York Puerto Rican community (or at least the radicals therein) in preparation for her Senate campaign.

Republican stance on death penalty appears to be shifting.  Nebraska's Republican-dominated Legislature is making a concerted push to do away with the state's death penalty, the latest sign of cracks in conservatives' once-bedrock support for capital punishment.  When lawmakers voted 30-13 vote [sic] to repeal the state's death penalty last week, Republicans delivered 17 of the votes in favor of the measure, outnumbering the 13 votes Republicans cast against it, according to The Wall Street Journal.  GOP Gov. Pete Ricketts has vowed to veto the bill.

Obama's Republican Collaborators.  The GOP swept to victory in November by declaring that this imperial presidency must be brought to heel, and President Obama's illicit seizures of Congressional power must end.  That was then.  Now is now.  This week, Congress takes up legislation to cede His Majesty full authority to negotiate the largest trade deal in history, the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, and to surrender Congress' right to amend any TPP that Obama might bring home.

Obamacare Repeal Falls Off Republicans' To-Do List As Law Takes Hold.  After five years and more than 50 votes in Congress, the Republican campaign to repeal the Affordable Care Act is essentially over.

New GOP Congress Pretty Much Like The Old Democrat One on Spending.  Remember when Republicans were running in November and they said, "Vote for us and we'll extend liberal spending programs like CHIP and add hundreds of billion in debt!"?  Neither do I but that's what happened last night [4/14/2015].

The Corker Cave-In.  I keep reading today [4/15/2015] that the White House folded, caved, threw up the white flag, rolled over on its sword and died a humiliating death by accepting legislation by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., giving Congress "a role" in the Iran negotiations.  In this case, that's a bit of spin that both the White House and Republicans want you to buy.  Because Republicans want you to think they've etched out some kind of a victory over Obama, and finally stood up one of his power grabs.  While the White House want to camouflage ... its latest successful power grab.

It's impossible to win a war with an army of weaklings, cowards, and traitors.  It's time conservatives realize that the country moving to the tune of liberals, no matter who wins elections, is due not to the domination of the mainstream media (MSM), but to the weakness, dishonesty, or cowardice of Republican politicians. [...] When the Republican speaker of the House surrenders to Nancy Pelosi and sets up a vote where a Democrat/RINO coalition overrides the majority of Republicans to fund something most Republicans ran against in the last election, we have to realize that it's not the media that's the problem.

A rising insurrection against Obama.  It's a scary thought, but here it is:  If some red states were to openly defy the authority of President Obama in the exercise of his constitutional duties, would today's Republican Congress side with him?  Or would they honor the insurrection?  I wish it could be said with confidence that the legislative branch would oppose a rebellion against the executive branch of government.  But I'm not so sure.

Downsize the Federal Government.  Recent studies have found that economic growth rates decline when relative government spending exceeds 26% of GDP, and the United States government current spending is close to 40% of GDP.  The Republican Party claims the core principle of limited government, but has actively participated in this growth in both size and scope of the federal government.

Fix the GOP, Don't Abandon It: A message to Glenn Beck.  Last week, to much fanfare, Glenn Beck declared that he was leaving the Republican party and becoming an independent. [...] Granted, he's overstating the case to some degree — political constraints are such that the GOP can't do a lot of what he demands.  But there are indeed issues where the politics favor the Republicans — the insurer bailout in Obamacare, farm subsidies, highway spending, and the Export-Import Bank — where the party is not doing much of anything.  Far too often, the GOP seems more inclined to go-along-to-get-along then do the hard work needed to reform government.

The Editor says...
Fixing the GOP means removing the fossilized leadership establishment and installing backbones in the few who stay.  I can't do that.  Here's what I can do:  I can vote only for political parties and candidates who line up with my beliefs.  The ones who line up with their own (stated) beliefs.  For the last 40 years, I've voted for Republicans only because the others were so much worse.  (Except for the time I voted for Perot instead of Bob Dull.)  If there were two good choices on the ballot, I wouldn't have to choose between bad and worse.

The Old, Rich Washington Lawyers' Party.  The recent mention of Al Gore as a possible alternative to Hillary Clinton suggests that the top five Democrat contenders, if Gore actually gets in the contest, will be, in order:  Hillary, Warren, Biden, Gore, and Webb.  Governor O'Malley trails even Webb in the polling data, and Bernie Sanders, of course, is a Socialist and not a Democrat. [...] [These] Democrats are lawyers, Ivy League professors, and federal politicians.  They live within the Beltway of Boston to Washington.  They are old.  Everything about these five reeks of insider influence, unproductive jobs on an engorged public teat, and physically living in the Never-Never Land sandwiched among the rich, spoiled Ivy League academia; the global capital of the news media; and Washington D.C., whose only product is government.

Glenn Beck: I'm Done With the GOP.  I am now well and truly convinced of the Object Lesson our Establishment Masters sought to teach us last fall and this past winter:  They will lie to us, always, so that we cannot even have an argument about policy differences with them.  We cannot explain to them why amnesty is a bad deal because they lie and claim that they are already against amnesty.  They will not even respect us enough to have the argument with us.  They will betray us constantly, because they think they can.

Republicans Learn to Play Hardball.  Politics can be aspirational, though mostly it's just transactional — a straight-up game of giving and getting.  The left's tantrum this week over the stalled nomination of Loretta Lynch is a reminder to Republicans that their best bet for notching any accomplishments during this Congress is to keep it nakedly transactional.

This Is What It Comes To.  Today, I see Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)N/A collaborating with Democrats to line up votes to expand government.  I see Republicans in Congress waffling on Obamacare and thinking of fixing it. [...] I see 300 Republicans beg the Supreme Court to impose gay marriage on the nation by unilateral fiat because they're inconvenienced by it as a political issue and want to move on.  In Georgia, I see the State GOP raising taxes and refusing to pass religious liberty legislation.  I see a party in the pocket of millionaires giving the middle finger to the middle class.  And I see a bunch of politicians prostituting themselves to billionaires and trying to repackage their policies as "conservative" when they are not.

The Founders Didn't Fail, We Are Failing the Founders.  Conservatives are understandably depressed in the wake of Speaker Boehner and the Republican-controlled Congress' predictable caving on executive amnesty.  Let me stop right there by emphasizing that I only said conservatives.  Were our republic healthy, every single American would be depressed that President Obama's amnesty — which on dozens of occasions he said he did not have the authority to enforce — will continue apace to the benefit of lawbreakers at the expense of American citizens.

The Parties of Crony Capitalism and Corruption.  Prior to the 2014 mid-term elections, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee [...] said:  "We will do everything we can to make sure it doesn't happen:  Defunding, going to court, injunction.  You name it.  It's wrong.  It's illegal.  And for so many reasons, and just the basic fabric of this country, we can't allow it to happen and we won't let it happen.  I don't know how to be any stronger than that.  I'm telling you, everything we can do to stop it we will."  Given what has transpired since the election, how eagerly the Republican leadership capitulated, if not enthusiastically facilitated the funding and implementation of Obama's "illegal" executive amnesty; one can easily conclude that Priebus must have known what he was saying was not true or he was completely out of touch with the plans of the Republican Congressional leadership.  I think he was lying to get votes.

Obama Wins Again: Republicans Done With Amnesty Challenges.  Last Tuesday [3/3/2015], when John Boehner used the big speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as cover for his surrender on fully funding the Department Homeland Security it was all but over. [...] The 2016 campaign season is getting revved up and outside of a few easily marginalized conservatives the rest of the GOP is moving on.  Score a huge win for Obama, the latest in a series over Boehner and his hapless Senate counterpart Mitch McConnell.

The GOP and Failure Theater.  After the 2013 shutdown we were told: give us the majority in Congress and then we can do something.  Something, apparently, has now been expanded to include "nothing."  We were promised that Obamacare would be repealed but will it?

Republican Leadership Wants Barack Obama to Run Congress.  This is truly unbelievable.  The Main Street Advocacy group, which is a group that was formed by Republican leadership and funded by Republican leadership and their allies, and run by leadership lapdog Steve LaTourette has issued a truly unbelievable ad.  The ad backs all the worst people in Congress like Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) and it attacks people who objected to the idea that Barack Obama could legally contravene Federal Law via Executive Order.

Why does the GOP have a problem with conservatives?.  Establishment Republicans want our votes, not our values.  That's the topic of Friday's [1/30/2015] "Todd's American Dispatch," as Todd Starnes reacted to the National Review accusing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee of trying to emulate Larry the Cable Guy.  "The fact is, the down-home values of the gun-toting, Bible-clinging, cast-iron skillet cooking crowd are just not welcome in the hoity-toity world of martini-sipping, country club Republican rubes," Starnes said. [Video clip]

Will the GOP Majority Ever Stand for Anything?  It is never the right time to do the right thing in Washington, D.C.  The phrase I heard most often from Republican leadership while serving in the House and Senate was, "This is not the right time to have this fight."  Whether the issue was balancing the budget, school choice, patient-driven healthcare, eliminating earmarks, raising the debt limit, ending big, crony handouts like the Export-Import Bank or any stand against the continued growth, favoritism and intrusion of big government, conservatives were always told to wait.  Wait until conservatives have the majority.  Wait until we have the White House.  Wait until we are reelected.

Republicans That are Unfit for Office in the House of Representatives.  The full list of House Republicans to voted for the "clean" DHS spending bill.

Why Vote Republican?  Every two years before the midterm elections, we hear Republican candidates promise that if elected they will rein in the Obama administration excesses — Obamacare, amnesty, trillion-dollar deficits, increasing government regulation, legislative transparency, and unlawful executive orders. [...] Immediately after the November midterms, the president announced his amnesty plan.  Republicans, fresh from landslide victories in congressional, state, and local elections, were well-positioned to flex their newfound muscle by re-establishing constitutional checks and balances on an overzealous executive branch.  Instead, Senate Majority Leader McConnell folded like a cheap suit, abandoning efforts to defund President Obama's amnesty efforts.

Republican't: learning to love losing to liberals.  Hillary Clinton is unraveling before her 2016 presidential campaign officially begins.  Not even The New York Times can stomach it.  Whatever you think of his foreign-policy recommendations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just made Barack Obama look like more petulant than presidential.  And the Republicans, after weeks of insisting they were going to huff and puff and blow the house that is Obama's executive amnesty down, promptly caved and passed funding for the Department of Homeland Security that leaves the amnesty untouched.

Mark Levin Takes on GOP Estab: 'In Order to Defeat Democrats, We Have to Defeat Republicans'.  After his riveting address at Saturday's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Mark Levin declared on Breitbart News Saturday [2/28/2015] that conservatives will never defeat Democrats without first defeating the Republican establishment.  The conservative icon, scholar, and talk radio host earlier told CPAC attendees that, "we're here today because we are losing our republic and we're the Sunshine Patriots who seek to restore it."

Are Washington Republicans Incompetent?  Four times, the Democrats filibustered the DHS funding bill.  As a result of the Democrats' filibuster, DHS was in danger of running out of money.  That put Republicans in a strong position.  All they had to do was... nothing.  If they didn't blink, pressure on the Democrats to fund DHS would prove irresistible.  It's not for nothing the voters gave the GOP a majority, right?  Instead, Mitch McConnell backed off.

McConnell, the Senate Yoda, bows to lawless Obama.  Routing Mr. Obama and his agenda, Republicans [in November, 2014] seized control of the U.S. Senate and made historic gains in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Voters clearly empowered the newly minted Republican Congress to halt the left-wing lunacy that even Democratic lightning rods House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada refused to attempt when they clearly had the power to get it done. [...] Now comes the great statesman and wise parliamentarian from the great state of Kentucky, Senate Majority "Leader" Mitch McConnell.

Mitch McConnell goes into fetal position. Harry Reid is the new leader of the Senate.  Sad and disappointing but not a surprise.  Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)67% has showed himself to be the gutless wimp that we've all known he is.  He has given the Democrats exactly what they have been demanding.  In other words, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)67%, as majority leader, has shown the same feckless, flaccidity that he showed while minority leader.  What he's done is pass the buck back to the House.

This month's poster child for term limits:
Eunuch Mitch McConnell Squeals Like a Pig.  I told you guys the Senate GOP would screw us over on DHS funding, but even I had no idea Mitch McConnell would capitulate so easily.  I assumed he'd do a major song and dance first, but instead he just went all Ned Beatty in Deliverance the moment Barack Obama looked at him funny.  Good grief.  Even CNN's website declared that the Democrats were the ones blocking Department of Homeland Security Funding.  McConnell behaved as if he needs testosterone injections.  His minion in the press want everyone to know the steel in his spine, but it is more silly putty.  His friends say other people call McConnell "Darth Vader."  Honestly, I've gotten on Lexis-Nexis.  The only people ever saying McConnell is Darth Vader are McConnell's friends.

Alabama Gov. Bentley Breaks "No New Taxes" Promise, Pushes for Higher Taxes.  Governor Robert Bentley has made it clear that he intends to break his WRITTEN pledge to voters to oppose and veto "any and all efforts to increase taxes."  Shortly after his re-election this past November, Gov. Bentley began making a push to increase taxes.

GOP retreats on bill to block unprecedented 'net neutrality' regulations.  With the Federal Communications Commission poised Thursday [2/26/2015] to impose unprecedented regulations on the Internet, congressional Republicans have quietly backed down on a plan to block the looming FCC rules ahead of time with their own legislation.  Republican lawmakers blamed Obama administration officials, who they say have interfered in bipartisan talks to produce legislation that would ban some of the onerous practices the FCC seeks to stop, but with far less government regulation than the pending agency rules proposed.

McConnell Caves, but Reid Wants Full Surrender from Boehner as Well.  Republican leadership in the Senate is fully caving to the demands of Democratic lawmakers calling for a so-called "clean" Department of Homeland Security funding bill that leaves President Obama's executive amnesty intact, but Democrats are still balking at the plan.

Goodbye, leverage.
Senate GOP ready to split DHS funding and blocking Obama's amnesty into separate bills?  We knew it would come to this.  Alternate headline:  "Party that promised to avoid shutdowns will avoid shutdown."  At least we'll get some entertainment over the next few days from GOP aides trying to convince the media this isn't a total cave. [...] You can tell your party's being run by master strategists when their grand plan for achieving an important goal involves doing the exact opposite of what they wanted to do as recently as six weeks ago.

A Perfect Storm of Republican Idiocy.  In 2010, Congress passed Obamacare. President Obama signed it into law.  To their credit, not a single Republican voted for Obamacare.  Since the day Obamacare became law, Republicans have campaigned non-stop against it.  There were elections in 2010, 2012 and 2014.  The centerpiece of the Republican message was get rid of Obamacare.  Now, the perfect storm is coming together to destroy Obamacare once and for all.  And what is the Republican Party doing?  The GOP in Washington is working on the Obamacare bailout.

Senate GOP Leaders Prepare to Cave on Amnesty.  Even as reports emerge demonstrating that President Obama's executive amnesty will precipitate voter fraud by granting driver's licenses and social security numbers to illegal immigrants, Republican leaders are already preparing to cave on the immigration issue.  The House of Representatives has passed a bill that would fund the Department of Homeland Security except for President Obama's executive amnesty program.  Now, the Senate is stonewalling, with Democrats voting repeatedly not to take up the bill, insisting instead that Republicans pass a bill funding the executive amnesty along with the rest of the DHS.

GOP Senate Leaders Take A Dive On Amnesty Fight.  Senate Democrat leaders are using every tool they've got to defend the president's top-priority November amnesty, including emotional threats to civil society, dire warnings of another 9/11 atrocity, and campaign-style hits against four wavering Republican senators.  But the Senate's GOP leadership has used only low-emotion floor speeches and low-drama press conferences with hostile political media to scratch at the Democrats' triple-filibuster of the Department of Homeland Security's 2015 budget.  The GOP's tearoom tactics haven't moved even one of the several Democrat senators who declared partial opposition last year to Obama's unpopular amnesty, which will add five million foreign workers to Americans' flooded labor market.

The Republican Party Is Not Your Friend.  [T]he Republican Party, while far preferable to the unchecked liberalism of the Democrats, is not all that conservative.  Sure, it has conservative members, important ones who cannot be ignored.  And it talks a good game about small government; just about every Republican candidate for every office is duty-bound to aver his fidelity to Ronald Reagan's brand of conservatism.  However, if we understand conservatism as advocating smaller government that treats people impartially, many in the party struggle mightily not to act on those principles.  Instead, the recent history of "conservative" governance has been one of ever-larger government, and an expansion of the cronyism and corruption built into the system.

Bobby Jindal: 'If all we are are Democrat-lite, we don't deserve to be the governing party!'  Bobby Jindal took pot-shots at President Barack Obama — and at his own Republican party — on Thursday [2/5/2015] during a speech to a conservative family-valies group in Washington, D.C.  In his remarks to the American Principles Project, the anti-abortion, anti-gay marraige Louisiana governor blasted his fellow GOPers, without naming them, for being 'cheaper Democrats.'  Jindal is on a tear this year, castigating proponents of 'Common Core,' the Obama administration's plan to nationalize education standards and take control away from local governments.

Boehner's Amnesty Advocate Becky Tallent Aims To Secretly Revive Dead Border Bill.  The once-thought-to-be-dead House GOP leadership vehicle for a series of immigration bills including, presumably, an amnesty bill is roaring back to life thanks to Speaker John Boehner's immigration adviser Becky Tallent's efforts, several key Capitol Hill sources tell Breitbart News.  Tallent is a former chief of staff to Senate "Gang of Eight" ringleader Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the 2008 GOP presidential nominee who lost to President Barack Obama.

Levin: 'Too Many Conservatives Like Centralized Government'.  Talk radio host and author of "The Liberty Amendments," Mark Levin argued that "too many conservatives like centralized government, even while they preach otherwise" on Monday [2/2/2015].  Levin took issue with Senator Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) declaration that he was in the "mainstream" of conservatism, saying Graham had "one radical judge and justice after another" and was "pro-amnesty."

GOP Senators to Obama: We're Totally with You on Cuba Policy.  While senators such as Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) have vehemently opposed the Obama administration's rapprochement and concessions toward Cuba, some Republicans have banded together to let President Obama know that they have an eye on lifting the decades-old embargo.

More about Cuba.

The Dangers of RINO presidents.  RINOs see themselves as practical men, pragmatists who assume that the left wants government and politics to work.  As a consequence, these RINO presidents appoint to the Supreme Court mushy men like Blackmun, Powell, Stevens, and Souter, whose "judicial qualification" instead of their instinct to engage the left in its war of judicial activism against the Constitution was considered paramount.  George W. Bush showed how tone-deaf he was to the battle for the Supreme Court that he initially nominated Harriet Miers, an ultimate nebbish, before conservative activism forced him to instead nominate Samuel Alito.

Congressional GOP Seeks to Achieve Success Through Cowardice.  Over at RealClearPolitics, liberal Bill Scher has some advice for the GOP for how they can grow their majority. Like most of these insipid pieces from liberals, it helpfully suggests that Republicans will have much more success if they ignore demands from their base about... well, basically everything.  It's always precious when a member of the party who just got trounced offers advice to the victors about what sorts of strategies and tactics they should adopt to not get trounced themselves.

Trouble in GOP ranks kills votes on border and abortion bills.  Facing a rebellion in their own ranks, House Republican leaders scrapped their plans to vote this week on their first border security bill of the new Congress, blaming the weather for the delay but buying themselves time to try to stiffen the bill and make it more palatable to conservatives.  It's the second bill in as many weeks that Republican leaders have had to pull after internal opposition.  Last week the GOP scrapped a bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, acting the night before the March for Life, after realizing that some female Republican House members had concerns.

Nine of House's Most-Conservative Lawmakers Start 'Freedom Caucus'.  Nine of the most conservative House Republicans are forming a caucus to push policy further to the right, the group announced Monday [1/26/2015].  The birth of the House Freedom Caucus reflects frustration among some that the Republican Study Committee, once the concentrated nerve center of the House GOP's right wing, has ballooned in size and taken a less confrontational approach with GOP leaders than some of its members would like.

New GOP "Border Security" Bill Removes Border Fences.  The new border bills drafted by Republican leaders require the actual removal of at least 66 miles of anti-pedestrian border fencing between laborers in Mexico and employers in the United States.  The border bills also require the construction of only 27 miles of effective double-layer fencing along the 2,000-mile border.  "It is a remarkable that the direction of our progress is going backwards, from a goal of building 700 miles of double-layer border fencing [in 2006] to only 27 miles [in 2015]," said a Hill staffer who opposes the leaders' bills.

The Fight Over Obama's Amnesty Decree as Nothing to Do With Homeland Security.  Within what seemed like the bat of an eye, Republicans crushed their supporters' spirits by following up their November triumph with a monstrous 1,774-page budget bill that forfeited Congress's major weapon against executive lawlessness, the power of the purse.  The CRomnibus underwrote the government through 2015, expending a staggering $1.1 trillion on such Obama priorities as the full funding of Obamacare — notwithstanding Republican campaign vows to work tirelessly to kill Obamacare.  The base became livid when GOP leaders teamed up with the White House to whip against conservative opposition to the CRomnibus bill.

New GOP Border Security Bill Removes Border Fences.  The new border bills drafted by Republican leaders require the actual removal of at least 66 miles of weak border fencing between laborers in Mexico and employers in the United States.  The border bills also only require for the construction of 27 miles of effective double-layer fencing along the 2,000-mile border.  "It is a remarkable that the direction of our progress is going backwards, from a goal of building 700 miles of double-layer border fencing [in 2006] to only 27 miles [in 2015]," said a Hill staffer who opposes the leaders' bills.

The Three Amigos of GOP Defeat in 2016.  After six difficult years under Barack Obama, the country is ready for a change in the White House.  The President has delivered a continual dose of no compromise liberalism that has divided the races and polarized the political climate.  This has led the presidential campaign to start earlier than ever.  Among Republicans there are a dozen hopefuls who may vie for the nomination.  It is a perfect opportunity for the Republican Party to take back the White House and implement conservative policies that will undue the disastrous Obama agenda.

The Jitt Rombush Mushy Middle GOP.  [Scroll down]  It is certainly amusing if nothing else as this Breitbart story, the nominal focus of which is immigration, comes amid all the sudden maneuvering between the Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney camps, with stories spilling out that there is no love lost between the two.  But in fact Romney and Bush are so closely aligned ideologically that they might as well be referred to as Governor Jitt Rombush.  Mr. Rombush being the endlessly ideal moderate GOP candidate of the Republican Establishment that has been regularly putting forth losing presidential nominees with names like Romney, McCain, Dole, and Ford for decades.  Even when they win — Bush 2000 — they managed to lose the popular vote to Al Gore — Al Gore! — and required the Supreme Court to get in the White House door.  Not to mention barely scraping by in 2004 with a skin-of-the-teeth, 100,000 votes or so in Ohio for a sitting president to defeat John Kerry.

The Republican Congress Has a Mandate.  November was all about Obama's liberty-strangling, crony-coddling, financially reckless agenda.  Voters emphatically defeated these policies.  The American people want them stopped.  That is what they sent Republicans to Washington to do.  That is the mandate from the midterms.

Conservative Lawmakers Prepare to Split From Republican Study Committee.  Move over Republican Study Committee.  There's about to be a new conservative group in town.  Just two months after the 172-member organization elected Rep. Bill Flores of Texas as its new chairman, a group of nine lawmakers decided to split from the RSC and form its own conservative caucus.

26 Republicans Vote Against Blackburn Amendment To Defund Obama's Executive Amnesty For Illegal Aliens.  A whopping 26 Republicans joined the Democrats in Congress to vote against an amendment to the DHS funding bill sponsored by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).  That amendment aims to block funds for President Obama's 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), largely believed to be the root cause of the border crisis last summer.

Republicans weren't elected to raise the gas tax.  This should really go without saying, but some Republicans are already discussing this as a real possibility.  Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., have all been quoted discussing a gas tax hike as a serious possibility.  In their defense, this tax is not like most others.  The government collects a fixed amount rather than a percentage of sales, so that over time the tax declines with inflation.  The 18.4 cents per gallon imposed does not go as far today as it did when it was set at that level more than two decades ago.  Even so, members of Congress would still be wrong to take the recent plunge in oil prices as an invitation to put a hand in drivers' pockets.

Ted Cruz: Republicans lose when they nominate candidates in 'mushy middle'.  Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, reiterated Tuesday that he believes the GOP has a track record of failure when the party nominates a presidential candidate from the "mushy middle."  "There are a lot of folks in Washington who argue that the way Republicans should win is that they should nominate a candidate from the mushy middle," Mr. Cruz said on "Fox and Friends."  "Someone who is right in the middle, who's near the Democrats so there's not much distinction. ... We've tried that."

If Palin and Levin Walk, the 2016 Nomination Is Not Worth Having.  It's all very simple:  the Republicans lost Florida in the 2012 presidential election by 0.88 [percent].  If conservatives stay at home in 2016 in the same numbers as they did in 2012, then there is no chance of the GOP winning.  If conservatives are advised by Governor Palin (unlike in 2012) and Mark Levin to either stay home or vote third-party, then it is impossible to see how Florida could be won by, for example, Jeb Bush. [...] What Ralph Nader did for Al Gore's hopes in 2000 would be a pinprick compared to the mountain a Republican nominee would face with a conservative base doing a de Blasio back-turn.

Say Hello to the New One-Party State.  Oligarchy is defined as a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.  The oligarchy is composed of the Democrat and Republican establishments, the media and the financiers, who every four years hire a President.  The political system they operate is known as "totalitarian democracy", one in which lawfully elected representatives rule a nation state whose citizens, although granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of government.  The main policy of the American oligarchy is malfeasance, the performance by a public official of an act that is legally unjustified, harmful, or contrary to law.

The Political Disaster of RINOs.  Precisely once has a conservative candidate done poorly in a presidential election.  That was Barry Goldwater in 1964, and it has been RINOs, not conservatives, who have proven political disasters in winning elections.  The Goldwater defeat in 1964 had less to do with Goldwater and more to do with a nation going to the polls 12 months after a shocking assassination.  The "fallout" from this election was not what the left would have expected at all.  Two years later, in 1966, Republicans won a sweeping midterm landslide, winning races up and down the ticket all across the nation.

It's absolutely unprecedented how the Republican Party is maltreating its base.  When you think about it, the Republican leadership's attitude toward its own base is pretty much unprecedented.  The Democrat Party never, at least publicly, rejects its base or impugns its base or makes fun of its base or wishes its base didn't exist.  The Democrat Party never, ever publicly does anything to diminish the image of their base, the reality, the existence of their base.  They never do anything to humiliate them, and yet the Republican Party thrives on it.  The Republican Party is doing everything it can to dismantle its own base, as identified by the Tea Party.  It's doing everything it can to impugn them, to join the Democrats in mocking and making fun and to render their base, their own base impotent...

Is Now the Time for a Second Party?  The cooperation afforded to that tall, slim fellow who lives in the White House by those who call themselves Republicans can hardly be viewed as the behavior of what one would normally be referred to as the "opposition party."  There are a lot of ordinary citizens who object strongly to the idea of a third political party, but these very same people are also complaining that there is little-to-no difference between today's Democrats and Republicans.  Perhaps it's time for these very same conservative voters to recognize (and admit publicly) that our nation is being controlled by what is in fact a single party of elitists who simply exchange their roles every few years to continue their joint efforts to maintain the illusion that we, the common voter, control our own destinies.

Obama Remakes Our Borders, Republicans Yawn.  In addition to the power of the purse, the legislative branch of government has another major check on a rogue administration.  The Senate has the power to block all executive and judicial nominees from the president as part of its responsibility to advice and consent on presidential appointees.  However, it would be hard for anyone looking at today's Senate to grasp this power when what we see is Republicans continuing to join Democrats in confirming these nominees.  It's as if Obama's executive amnesty never occurred.

The Hopeless Stupidity of the Republican National Committee.  Last year, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee announced plans for the RNC to spend millions of dollars and endless man-hours on "minority outreach" programs into black and Hispanic neighborhoods.  Other than endanger canvassers by sending them into dangerous "hoods" and barrios, this program has achieved nothing beyond confirming the RNC's practice of squandering funds donated by supporters.

Why Republicans Are Worthless.  There is a war being waged for the soul of the Republican Party.  It consists of a loose alliance of Tea Party groups and traditional conservatives, who are trying to wrest control from the politically moderate businessmen who have misguided the GOP for decades.

An Anonymous Commenter Predicts What Will Happen in 2015 Courtesy of the GOP Establishment.  First of all, when the time arrives to 'defund' homeland security it will FAIL.  The socialists will all scream in unison about national security and suddenly be worried about terrorism and disease entering the country (and anything bad that does happen will be blamed on the GOP naturally).  They will be everywhere talking up this now found appreciation for Homeland Security and it will be funded and thus Obama's Illegal Amnesty will be set in stone.  This will take place as millions of illegal invaders flood over the border causing all kinds of "serious crises" that will have to be addressed with, you guessed it — more government!  [BTW, did you know that upwards of 150 Million Adults Worldwide would like to 'migrate' to the US?]  And so that part of the budget will be funded as well, and by the time the next opportunity to defund the illegal amnesty it'll be too late — by then millions of illegal invaders will have crossed the border.

Mark Levin slams GOP: 'The Constitution is in tatters'.  Conservative talk radio icon Mark Levin blasted his fellow Republican Party members during his most recent show, slamming the leadership for caving on the budget and for, time after time, ignoring basic constitutional principles.  "The Constitution is in tatters," he said, adding that he was "one inch away" from breaking with the Republicans.

Obama hired ACORN as Obamacare navigators.  So Obama-Jarrett regime hired Acorn to be ObamaCARE navigators, even though Congress banned all federal funding to Acorn.  Unless Obama is paying Acorn out of his own pocket (which we know [he] would never do), that means federal funds are going to Acorn.  So what do Republicans do?  Nothing.

Cromnibus Betrayal.  Sixty-seven Republicans chose to vote against the $1.1 trillion CR-Omnibus budget bill on December 11, 2014.  Despite the refusal of the more conservative Republicans to support the bill, the Republican establishment was able to pull in enough Democrats, 57, to vote for the bill.  The bill passed 219 to 206, and the voters that gave the Republican Party a majority going into 2015 saw their leverage go up in smoke.

Republicans squander mandate won in November elections.  Once upon a time, when Congress functioned, the 12 spending bills came in one at a time and America's elected representatives deliberated long and hard over paragraphs, phrases — even single words.  No longer.  Congress doesn't pass appropriations bills anymore.  Instead, lawmakers pile all 12 bills into one catchall omnibus bill for a continuing resolution — or, as this one came to be known, a CRomnibus.

Would GOP Conference Chair Vote to Fund Obama's Amnesty? No Direct Answer.  Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the House Republican Conference Chairman, said today [12/10/2014] in response to the question of whether she would vote for a CR that funds Obama's unilateral amnesty for illegal aliens that "we are looking at every option to hold the president accountable."  Yesterday, the Republican leadership of which McMorris Rodgers is a part, released a 1,603-page omnibus spending bill that places no restrictions on Obama's implementation of his amnesty.  The bill would fund most of the government through the end of this fiscal year on Sept. 30 and the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 27.

An Open Letter To The Republican Leadership In Congress.  While it would certainly be cathartic to flog the GOP for the lousy omnibus bill House Republicans just passed, it seems more productive to tackle a bigger issue.  After a historic, yet unearned (Obama was the real GOP MVP) election victory, isn't it time for the Republican leadership to try to heal the rift with the base that's tearing the party apart?  Do Republican leaders REALLY want to spend the next two years of a presidential election cycle getting trashed the way they are right now by activists, Tea Party leaders and radio talk show hosts? Anyone who thinks the base is going to sit down and shut up or that the GOP can thrive over the long-term with this kind of intra-party feuding going on is kidding himself.

Hey, Republicans: Don't Hand Emperor Obama Your Purse!  It's hard to use the power of the purse without holding the purse.  Republicans are making a massive mistake by funding the federal government through September 30, 2015.  If the spending plan that barely passed the GOP House last night survives the Democratic Senate, Republicans lose most of their leverage to defund Emperor Obama's executive order on amnesty for illegal aliens until at least next October 1.  That will give Obama and legions of federal bureaucrats and lawyers nine months to sink the amnesty decree deeper and deeper into the American body politic and this country's socio-economic and cultural institutions.

Boehner Omnibus Spending Bill Funds Social Security Benefits for Obama's Amnesty Aliens.  I get the feeling that the Oligarchs in Washington can be segmented not as Democrats and Republicans, but as "Traitors" and "Quislings", respectively.

If Republicans Don't Fight Now, They Never Will.  Call it the mysterious case of the Incredible Shrinking GOP.  Barely one month ago, the party sailed to victory in one of the biggest rout election waves of the past century.  They ran the board and took control of the U.S. Senate.  They grew to historic levels in the U.S. House.  The Democratic Party was left in tatters in state, local, and governor races across the country.  But today, just a few weeks later, before GOPers even take hold of their new reins of power, the party is crying poverty.  They are stricken with paralysis.  House Speaker John A. Boehner, known for his weeping, begs powerlessness.

GOP Spending Bill Gives Nearly $1 Billion To Aid Border Migrants.  The GOP's draft 2015 "omnibus" spending bill reportedly includes $948 million to help poor and unskilled Central American migrants establish themselves in the United States, but includes no effective restrictions on President Barack Obama's plan to provide work permits and tax payments to millions of resident illegal immigrants.  That new spending works out to $16,928 for each of the 56,000 youths, young adults and children who crossed the border during the 12 months up to October 2014.  Prior to October, Obama's officials sent only 1,901 of the migrants back home to Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, according to a federal report.

The Republican Party is the Democrat Party minus abortion.
Boehner's Spending Deals Have Increased Debt $3.8T in 3.8 Years.  The federal debt has increased by $3.8 trillion in the 3.8 years that have passed since House Speaker John Boehner cut his first spending deal with Senate Democrats and President Obama.  That works out to $32,938.38 for every household in the United States — including those taking federal welfare benefits — and $42,783.20 for every full-time year-round private-sector worker in the United States.  In fact, the $42,783.20 that the federal government has borrowed per full-time year-round private-sector worker since Boehner cut his first federal spending deal exceeds the $41,916 that according to the Census Bureau was median annual earnings of full-time year-round private-sector wage and salary workers in 2013.

House GOP Leaders Trick 216 House Republicans into Accidentally Supporting Obama's Executive Amnesty.  In a lengthy interview on Friday afternoon [12/5/2014], Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) exposed how House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise strengthened President Barack Obama's executive amnesty with procedural trickery former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber would envy — and they did it all in the name of pushing a bill that they told Republicans would block Obama's executive amnesty.

Republicans Reject their Mandate.  Some used to call the Republicans the "stupid party," but what is going on now goes much farther than mere stupidity can account for. [...] Last Wednesday, House Rules Committee Chairman Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) — certainly not to be confused with anti-amnesty stalwart Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) — made a startling statement.  Pete Sessions said that Republican leaders intend to push an amnesty bill through in January that would subject only the most dangerous illegal alien criminals to deportation.  Let me say that again:  the Republican leaders of the House want to endorse Obama's action by passing a law to embrace it and call it their own.

An Open Letter to Republicans in Washington.  We have a president who has made it clear he will unilaterally change laws in a way that will harm America's economy for years to come — whether they pertain to labor, energy, health care, and of course, immigration.  He openly brags about his newfound ability to "change the law," and he is only emboldened to continue building on the lawlessness for the next two years.  This begs the deeply uncomfortable and inconvenient question of our time:  is there anything this president cannot get away with over the next two years?

Why We Need a Third Party.  The big-box monopoly parties have morphed into two sides of the same coin.  Today we choose between the Conservative Progressives' policies of tax and spend, infringe personal liberty, and outsource our sovereignty or the Liberal Progressives' policies of tax and spend, infringe personal liberty, and outsource our sovereignty.

Congressman Reveals GOP Leaders to Push Amnesty for All But Violent Criminals.  One of the top House Republican leaders, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), revealed this week that GOP leaders intend to push an amnesty bill in the next Congress that would subject only the most dangerous illegal immigrant criminals to deportation so that "not one person" who is in the country illegally and has not committed a violent crime is "thrown out."

Sessions: House GOP Is On the Verge Of Breaking 2014 Campaign Promises.  Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) suggested that House Republicans are on the verge of breaking their campaign promise to fight President Obama's administrative amnesty, judging by the legislative text currently being circulated.  Sessions said that the proposed language "fails to meet [the] test" established by Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus, who promised earlier this year that the GOP would do everything possible to thwart Obama's executive orders.

2016.  2016 is the Republicans' to lose.  That doesn't mean they won't.  They seem to be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with remarkable ease, especially in presidential years.  But they start this time with a big advantage.

The Truth.  Republicans will not stop Barack Obama's executive overreach.  In fact, while you were enjoying your Thanksgiving there were a number of stories out that the Republican leadership wants to give its members an opportunity to express their outrage and opposition.  Expression is not action.  They will take no action to stop the President.  In fact, a few days ago the House Appropriations Committee tried to convince everyone they do not even have the power to stop the President.  Congress's own research service disagrees.  But Republicans have no intention of stopping Barack Obama.  Why would they?  The House and Senate Republicans leaders favor precisely the measures he took.  They can huff and puff that he overreached, but they know they cannot get a similar measure passed in Congress.

'Open Rebellion': Chaos if Republicans Don't Withhold Funding for Obama Executive Amnesty.  Conservatives say that Republican leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, will be "complicit" in President Barack Obama's planned executive amnesty if they don't pull out all the stops to block him.  They warn that chaos is around the corner if that's how it goes down, even though they'd much rather have Republican leaders fight the president alongside them.

Michelle Bachmann: GOP Plans Not to Resist Obama Executive Amnesty.  Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) revealed on Saturday that Republican leadership, led by Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Oh), has no intention of resisting President Obama's executive amnesty that he ordered on Thursday [11/20/2014].

You Are Being Played.  Republicans are pushing forward with a plan to fund the government.  They claim they will then return next year and defund the President's plan.  But doing so would be subject to a Presidential veto.  The GOP does not have the votes to override that veto.  In effect, they'll be funding the President's plan while setting themselves up to claim they oppose it.  The GOP does not oppose the President's plan.  [Indeed], much of the GOP, including most of its Senate leadership, has previously voted for what the President did.  And these same Republicans have attacked their own base as racists and bigots for opposing comprehensive immigration reform.  You are being played.  The GOP wants this.

Republican Leaders Urge Restraint.  Restraint.  That's the attitude Republican leadership is urging the party's rank and file to adopt ahead of the president's issuance of an executive amnesty for approximately 5 million illegal immigrants tonight.  While Texas senator Ted Cruz is calling the president a monarch and urging Congress to respond to an amnesty by refusing to confirm any of the administration's nominees when the 115th Congress convenes in January, and Alabama senator Jeff Sessions and others are looking to withhold funding from various federal agencies, House and Senate leaders are showing little appetite for those sorts of fights.

Republicans Will Vote to Fund President Obama's Amnesty.  You people are being played by the GOP.  Remember when the GOP wanted to raise the debt ceiling, but claim they would oppose it.  They voted to raise it, but then Congress could vote to stop the raise.  The President could then veto the stoppage and the debt ceiling would raise.  But the GOP could claim they opposed him.  That is happening again.  This time it is with amnesty.  The House GOP is going to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government.  Then, in January, they will try to defund what they've already funded.  The President will veto it, but the GOP can say they tried.  They won in a historic wave election against the President with a majority of the public on their side on this issue and they are going to cave.

Republicans Will Not Block Barack Obama (Because They Want the Same Thing).  In 2011, Barack Obama said he did not have the constitutional authority to do what he is going to announce today. [...] The only thing to change between 2011 and now are two elections — one of which saw President Obama win after saying this.  The other saw both he and his party go down to defeat after suggesting he had changed his mind.  In other words, the status quo of public opposition (even among Hispanic voters) to a unilateral decision by fiat remains.

GOP can defund Obama's executive order, they just don't want to.  President Barack Obama's executive order on immigration hasn't even been issued yet, and already congressional Republicans are desperately trying to come up with reasons why they're powerless to do anything about it. [...] That is absolute nonsense.  The notion that Congress can turn on a money spigot but is banned from turning it off is nonsense.  And the worst part is that it's willful nonsense.

Sounds like a lot of chest-thumping and saber-rattling without any concrete action.
McConnell: 'Congress Will Act' if Obama Goes Through with Immigration Order.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vowed on the floor of the upper chamber this morning that "if President Obama acts in defiance of the people and imposes his will on the country, Congress will act."  "We're considering a variety of options.  But make no mistake.  When the newly elected representatives of the people take their seats, they will act," he said in reference to the GOP majority in the 114th Congress.

Shut It Down.  The GOP ran on absolutely nothing other than "we are not Obama" and "we will defund Obamacare."  Post-election polling shows most Americans want the GOP to set the course for the country.  That's not because the GOP's image is suddenly rebuilt, but because people are finally tired of Obama and the Democrats. [...] So set the course.  Defund Obamacare and block amnesty.  Obama can defy the will of the people and refuse to work with Congress.  Sure, the GOP may get blamed.  But so what?

Three Reasons why the GOP Establishment is as Dangerous as the Democrats.  Republican establishment types are just as likely as Democrats to support any and all measures that will transfer political and economic power from the people and the states and concentrate it in Washington.  While the Democrats and the GOP-E may appear superficially to differ in some details, when the rubber meets the road, these Republicans will be just as willing to take away YOUR liberty so that they can buy votes or grandstand on an issue as any Democrat.  Think about it.  The "elite" from both parties support the War on (Some) Drugs that has served only to expand the police powers of the state.  The "elite" in neither party has any serious plans to do anything about the out-of-control IRS, or to investigate the death of our personnel at Benghazi, or to rein in the unconstitutional spying done by the NSA.  The GOP establishment isn't any more interested in genuine repeal of ObamaCare than are the Democrats.  Our liberty must be sacrificed at the altar of their political power and influence.  Is there any area of life in America where the Republicans have had a serious positive impact in expanding, rather than contracting, liberty for the American people?

Wind credit could roil House GOP tensions.  Conservatives want House GOP leaders to abandon the production tax credit for renewable energy that lapsed last year.  The incentive primarily aids wind power through a 2.3-cent per kilowatt-hour credit awarded to power producers.  But Republican leaders in both chambers appear willing to extend a suite of tax credits that includes the wind incentive to "clear the deck" before the next Congress so that lawmakers can focus on overhauling the federal tax code.

The Editor says...
This, in my opinion, is an example of Establishment spinelessness.  Wind energy credits are synonymous with crony capitalism.  Reliance on wind energy is futile, as any conservative Republican (or sensible Democrat) should know already.  The permanent fixtures in Washington don't want to deal with this issue, for fear of backlash from the far left environmentalists.

GOP can only win presidency by nominating a real conservative.  It would be overly simplistic to state that candidates such as Romney, Bob Dole, and Sen. John McCain lose because their candidacies discourage conservatives.  The deeper issue is that when the Republican nominee is somebody who conservatives are suspicious of, the nominee has to spend the whole primary trying to convince conservatives that he or she agrees with them, and then the general election constantly reassuring them that he or she isn't going to abandon the right just because the nomination has been sewn up.  This leads to incoherent campaign messaging.

Here's How Conservatives Aim to Stop Obama's Action on Illegal Immigrants.  Aides to conservative members of the U.S. Senate say their bosses are rallying around a strategy to prevent President Obama from taking executive action to move illegal immigrants toward citizenship:  Use government funding bills to withhold the money the president needs to implement his plan.  At the same time, some of the Senate's most conservative members are worried that party leadership could try to strike a deal with Democrats in the lame duck session on a longer-term spending agreement that could limit lawmakers' ability to defund whatever Obama decides to do.

How the GOP Establishment Plans to Steal Your Election.  [Scroll down]  According to "multiple GOP sources," the National Journal reports, a new Republican proposal circulating in the House sets forth that "any Republican who votes on the House floor in January against the conference's nominee for House speaker — that is, the candidate chosen by a majority of the House GOP during the closed-door leadership elections in November — would be severely punished.  Specially, sources say, any dissenters would be "stripped of all committee assignments for that Congress."  "Severely punished"?  "Dissenters" will be "stripped"?  This sounds less like a U.S. Congress than an old Soviet Politburo with a hint of gulag.

Did Voters Really Choose Compromise And Conciliation?  [Scroll down]  Yet, though this was a referendum on Obama and his policies, and though both were repudiated, some pundits are claiming that America voted for an "end to gridlock" and a new era of compromise and conciliation.  How so?  If the American people were truly saying that, why did they vote to turn the Senate over to Mitch McConnell?  Why did they vote to send more Republicans to strengthen the hand of John Boehner and those in the House who had "shut down" the government?  Did America vote for the GOP to go back to Washington and work with Obama?  Or did America reward the GOP for promising to return and continue to oppose Obama's policies?  Is the answer not obvious?

A Warning for Boehner, McConnell, Priebus, Rove, the RNC, and (especially) the Chamber of Crony Capitalism.  The American people sent an unmistakable message to Washington:  Voters expect Republicans in Congress to listen and fight for the conservative agenda they ran on. [...] The Washington establishment is already calling on Republican leaders to capitulate to the Left in the Lame Duck.  This means that opportunities to pursue conservative reforms next year will be lost.

Rx for ObamaCare: Republicans must perform radical surgery.  GOP Senate candidates campaigning against the health-care law captured at least seven seats, giving their party control of the Senate.  These new senators better live up to their pledges and put bills on the president's desk to repeal the worst parts of ObamaCare.  Don't throw us mere crumbs, such as repeal of the medical-device tax.

Dear Republicans: No One Elected You to Work with Democrats.  As the reality of a Republican wave became imminent last night, a dangerous narrative began to take hold among the conservative talking heads on cable news and in the victory speeches of the victorious Republicans.  The narrative was that now that the Republicans have control of both chambers of Congress, it is incumbent upon them to work with Obama and the other Democrats in the service of "getting things done" and "fixing the broken system."  My hope is that Republicans reject this patent nonsense for the poppycock that it is.  Not only should Republicans not work closely with Democrats, they should instead keep them as far away as possible, [...]

A Proposed System for Classifying Republican Politicians.  If you're like me, you've probably seen about fifty different ways to describe politicians in the Republican Party (maybe a third of which are repeatable in polite company). [...] I have found that most of these terms don't really seem to be all that useful.  Let's take the term "RINO," for instance.  What exactly does it take for someone to be a "RINO"?  There are as many answers to that question as there are people being asked.

RINOs Threatening to Subvert Maryland's Most Conservative County.  Three years ago, five newly elected commissioners in Carroll County, Maryland set precedent by taking a bold stand against Agenda 21 in this dark blue state.  They abolished the county "Office of Sustainability" and began extricating Agenda 21 planning concepts from the county master plan.  They were also the first governmental organization to revoke membership in the U.N.'s International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) — the vehicle through which Agenda 21 is injected into local planning without our knowledge or consent.  The commissioners' leadership set an example that many local governments ultimately followed.  In 2011, ICLEI boasted 600 U.S. local governments as members.  Today there are 450, a decline of 25%.  Nine states have now considered or enacted laws against Agenda 21.  Once an obscure issue, it is now widely recognized for the Trojan Horse it is.

6 Reasons We Need To Help Republicans Take The Senate Even Though They Stink.  Ted Cruz is my favorite senator and I can't say enough good things about him.  But really, what makes Ted Cruz so special? [...] In a sense, the most remarkable thing about Ted Cruz is that he IS so remarkable despite doing little more than what the average Republican in the Senate should be doing in the first place.

Republican Barbarians at the Gates.  A pivotal mid-term election is upon us.  No matter the outcome, however, the Republican Establishment will rule. And the Republican Establishment is entirely hostile to Republican Conservatives.  Today's Establishment Republicans have grown even more odious than they were during the Reagan and Goldwater eras.  They control all conventional paths to power, money, and position.  They are comfortable in the presumption their rule is inviolable, their eventual sinecures assured.  They believe the Conservative rabble will either submit or perish.  They do not understand the rules have changed.  No longer will Conservatives accept battles only in the times and places of the Establishment's choosing.

If GOP blows November election, its anti-conservative strategy will be to blame.  The Republican Party needed only to choose any one of a number of national issues and campaign on them, offering the voters a clear conservative alternative.  But the tepid GOP leadership has not chosen not to do so, fearing any debate over their party's own policies.

Opposing viewpoint:
RINOs are not the Enemy.  I understand that people who take their conservative politics and values seriously wish every Republican did the same, and resent those who don't. [...] My defense of RINOs doesn't mean I share their views, it means I am enough of a realist to recognize that ours is not a conservative nation, and probably hasn't been one since the days of Calvin Coolidge, and that our real choice is between the zealots for socialism who infest the Democratic Party and those who constitute the only buffer we have against them.

Republicans against Amnesty.  What a difference a national immigration crisis makes.  Republicans across the country are defying the RNC's post-2012 dictum that GOP candidates must soften their tone on illegal immigration and line up behind comprehensive immigration reform in order to attract support from the Hispanic community.  And it's working for many of them.  It may even be the key ingredient in a Republican Senate takeover if the issue motivates turnout among the party's base.

Caddell: Republicans are [the] 'Stupid Party' for Not Running Against Amnesty.  Former Democratic pollster Pat Caddell blasted the Republican Party for not making the president's planned executive amnesty a national issue on Friday's [10/10/2014] "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on the Fox News Channel.  "The Republican Party, they're not called the stupid party for nothing.  These people are able to, are willing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory given the opportunity," he stated.

Reminder: The Republicans Who Voted to Confirm Eric Holder.  Given the disastrous reign of Eric Holder at the Department of Obstructing Justice — "the most partisan Attorney General in history" according to Sen. Ted Cruz — it's worth remembering the Republican nitwits, sycophants and dupes who voted to confirm him.

House Republicans' CR Funds Planned Parenthood and All Obamacare.  The continuing resolution that the House Appropriations Committee introduced yesterday [9/9/2014] and that the House Republican leadership is preparing to bring up for a vote on the House floor puts no limits on funding Planned Parenthood — the nation's largest abortion provider — or any provision of Obamacare, including the regulations that force Christian individuals and organizations to buy or provide health insurance that covers abortion-inducing drugs.  "The bill is 'clean' and does not contain highly controversial provisions," says a press release put out by the Appropriations Committee.

GOP Is Leaning Left.  So Even If It Wins The Senate, It's Still A Victory For Liberals.  Two recent pieces written by notable liberal pundits — Greg Sargent and Bill Scher — argue that we're seeing a abrupt leftward shift among Republican senatorial candidates.  If this is true, there are a couple things we could conclude.  First:  The GOP is more moderate and obliging than Democrats would have us believe.  Republicans are, evidently, capable of acting "political" and willing to compromise on issues when the electorate disagrees with their party or when policy is clearly working.  Two:  Candidates will nearly always temper their positions during a general election to broaden their appeal because they'll say whatever's necessary.  This is not unique to any party or any time or any place.

Third Parties Won't Save Our Country.  Thirty-six seats are up for grabs in the Senate and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives will be contested.  Of those 36 Senate seats, 15 are currently held by Republicans while 21 are held by Democrats.  Clearly, the math is on the Republican side, as is the fact that the incumbent party typically loses seats in mid-term elections.  This upcoming November 2014 election is crucial for America and voting for a third party candidate will not achieve the victory.  To end the Obama "Rule by Decree" power grab, we have to wrest control of the Senate from the Democrats.  The only possible way to do that is for us all to unite and vote GOP.

The NRSC's Remarkable Immigration Statement.  Capitol Hill insiders widely consider President Obama's rumored plan to unilaterally extend amnesty to as many as five million of illegal aliens to be political suicide, essentially ceding control of the Senate in a single act.  But a key question has been whether elite Republicans are willing to deploy the issue in weaponized form.  A statement from Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, suggests the answer is yes.  "Executive amnesty would not only subvert the law, but depress wages, and hurt the poorest Americans most of all — including legal immigrants looking to rise into the middle class.  Workers are hurting," Dayspring said.

Ann Coulter: We have no choice but to vote for these Republicans, including the [bad] ones.  No one in conservative media (with the possible exception of the boss emeritus) is as vociferously anti-amnesty as Coulter.  If Republicans signed off on a legalization deal, as is quite possible next spring or summer, would she consider that reason enough for conservatives to protest by staying home in 2016? [...] I'm reluctantly willing to boycott the next election if the GOP makes a bad deal on immigration in the name of showing them how steep the cost of future betrayals might be.  Is Coulter?

The Editor says...
A disgruntled voter doesn't send a message by staying home.  The best way to send a message is to vote for a third-party candidate.  That way, at least your vote is counted, whether or not it does any good.  The entrenched leaders of the two nearly-identical major parties want you to stay home if you don't vote for them.

It's Time for a GOP Establishment Mea Culpa on Immigration.  Immediately following Mitt Romney's defeat in 2012, the entire GOP consultant class fabricated a narrative that the biggest contributing factor to the loss was Romney's utterance of the word "self-deport" in one of the endless obscure debates during the Republican primaries.  Tantamount to the global warming debate in Congress, this issue in electoral politics became what every Republican consultant warned potential candidates about.  They argued that if they declined to immediately embrace Obama's comprehensive open borders policies, Republicans would be doomed forever.

RINOs Can't Figure Out Why Romney Lost.  The establishment believes that Romney lost because he went too far right in a country that is lurching left.  Both suppositions are wrong.  Romney lost because he represented everything conservatives (both Republican and Democratic) dislike in a candidate for President.  Romneycare was the biggest problem with Romney.  The consultants tried to appeal to conservatives by invoking the Tenth Amendment, but it failed because of numerous reasons, one, that it isn't a conservative approach for any governing authority to take control of the health care system, and two, that defending it made it impossible to use Obamacare against Obama.  Add to that the fact that Romney was a well-known flip-flopper on issues near and dear to conservatives including pro-life history, and the rise of big government.

House Republicans adding to debt as balanced budget commitment wavers.  After initial success in cutting federal spending and reducing deficits, House Republicans have drifted into the red with a series of tax measures and spending bills that are not offset — either adding to the pile of debt or hiding the costs with accounting gimmicks.  More than a dozen bills with costs that are not fully offset elsewhere in the budget have passed the Republican-controlled House and threaten to add nearly $1 trillion to federal debt over the next decade.

Behind All The Scandals Is A Lie So Big That It Could Utterly Destroy Obama.  [Scroll down]  I believe that Barack Obama did not register with the Selective Service in 1980 because he was attending Occidental College with a foreign student status and in 1981 traveled to Pakistan using an Indonesian passport.  According to the law, failure to register with the Selective Service would forever prevent Obama from working in the executive branch of the US government.  One could readily conclude that Obama lied and flouted the law to get elected.  It should come as no surprise then, that he would lie and flout the law to implement his policies.  I believe Obama succeeded in 2008 because the Republicans struck a deal with the Democrats not to question Obama's eligibility for office and his personal history.

GOP Lost at the Border.  As tens of thousands of foreign nationals overwhelm the border and render our sovereign boundary meaningless, Republicans in DC are tinkering with legislative fixes they say will address the situation.  As if the crisis at the border is the result of some drafting error or a failure to enact some specific law relevant to this precise set of circumstances.  It is a fool's errand.

Republican governors signal shift on gay marriage in bid to attract voters.  While the Republican Party's religious conservatives continue to fight against same-sex marriage, its governors appear to be backing off their opposition — in their rhetoric, at least.

Conservative donors stay the course against GOP establishment.  Conservative donors fueling the civil war within the Republican Party are showing no signs of surrender, despite recent losses in primaries and mounting criticism that the groups to which they are giving might damage the GOP's prospects at winning control of the Senate.  The top conservative groups — Club for Growth and Senate Conservatives Fund — have spent more than $10 million on ads and direct contributions to endorsed candidates in 2014 so far, but they've won only in races where establishment groups were largely on the sidelines or supported the same candidate.

Republicans briefly flirt with success.  For a brief, shining moment it appeared as though the Montana Republican Party was standing up to be counted.  At the party's state convention in Billings last weekend, delegates voted overwhelmingly against continuing to allow nonparty members to vote in their primary elections.  Whoa!  That would be revolutionary!  In order to help select Republican candidates, you would actually have to declare you were a Republican!  Outrageous, said the Democrats!  We often don't have anyone to vote for in our own primaries, and we don't want to be deprived of the opportunity to have a meaningful vote in June!  Meaningful?  The only meaning to be found in Democrats voting for Republican candidates in June is the opportunity for them to sabotage conservative candidates by nominating Republicans who will run like Democrats in November.

16 Reasons Why the United States is Going to Hell in a Handbasket.  [#7]  Many Americans think that they have a choice when they enter the voting booth.  Well guess what they don't — republicans and democrats, democrats and republicans what's the difference?  Neither represent the American people or [care] about defending individual rights or the Constitution.  In the U.S. we have a one party system masquerading as a two-party system, to give voters the illusion of having a choice and hope for change, but both parties are controlled by the same people who really run the country.

Steele Blasts Cruz, Perry for 'Playing Political Football' with Border Children.  Monday [6/23/2014] on MSNBC's "Ronan Farrow Daily," former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele attacked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) for in his view "playing political football" with the humanitarian crisis of thousands of illegal immigrant children flooding across the U.S. Mexico border.

Ted Cruz: Every time Republican Party moves left, 'we lose'.  Sen. Ted Cruz doubled down on his adherence to strict conservative principles, saying that the GOP's way to the White House is not paved with compromises and concessions to the Democrats.  "It is amazing that the wisdom of the chattering class to the Republicans is always, always, always, 'surrender your principles and agree with the Democrats," Mr. Cruz told the New Yorker.  "That's been true for my entire lifetime.  The chattering classes have consistently said, 'You crazy Republicans have to give up on what you believe and become more like Democrats.'  "And, I would note, every time Republicans do that, we lose," he said.

Palin: 'If Republicans Are Gonna Act Like Democrats, Then What's the Use?'.  Sarah Palin joined Sean Hannity to weigh in on the latest election news, and Palin told Hannity that it would be hard for her to stay with the Republicans and get excited about them if they continue acting like Democrats and rolling over.  She took a shot at the "status quo" politics of people like Senator Thad Cochran and said the Eric Cantor upset shows people want strong constitutionalists in power who don't represent "the man [or] the establishment" in Washington.  Hannity asked Palin if she would actually follow through on her previous hints she'd go third party.

The Straw that May Break the Establishment's Back.  It is only too obvious, media and politicians to the contrary notwithstanding, that Cantor's constituents unseated him because of his position in support of rewarding illegal immigrants with an imminent path to citizenship, while securing our borders seemed a far more distant priority.  In fact, this is so obvious that few would argue against the truth in that last statement.  The more fashionable tactic is to assert that this primary was just a microcosm that just cannot, in any way, represent the American people.

Chicago-Style Politics: Is Obama Running The RNC?  After the shellacking the RINO segment of the RNC took last week with Eric Cantor's defeat, one would think they might get the message that voters are sick to death of the business-as-usual tactics.  Sadly it seems — they have not.  From all indications, the RNC simply does not care if their anointed candidates are the most popular, most experienced, or best qualified.  All that seems to matter is picking the guy or gal who'll do the RNC's (mostly liberal) bidding, even if that means working to destroy a solid conservative in the process.

Senile, Doddering Beltway GOP Begs Democrats to Support Thad Cochran in MS Primary.  Today's news tells us that Senator John McCain is going to be stumping for Thad Cochran in Mississippi, in his Senate primary runoff with State Senator Chris McDaniel.  John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Haley Barbour, and Thad Cochran against Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Chris McDaniel, The Club For Growth, FreedomWorks, Senate Conservatives, talk radio's Constitutional Conservative Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, and throngs of teenage volunteers.  The Cochran campaign, beleaguered by his own words about doing indecent things to animals, not knowing what happened to Eric Cantor in Virginia, and testaments to nice guy Obama and from Harry Reid, are bringing in more examples of the problem in Washington to fight the liberty message of the people of the State of Mississippi.

The laughable lies of liberal Republicans.  Claudia Tenney is as rock-solid of a Republican as they come: pro-life, pro-limited government, pro-Second Amendment, pro-entrepreneur, pro-American worker. [...] Tenney is the insurgent challenger in the June 24 primary to unseat Hanna, who is the third most liberal GOP member of the House.  Hanna is also a member of the left-wing "Republican Main Street Partnership" — the pro-bailout, pro-debt, pro-amnesty, anti-drilling group infested with lobbyists and fronted by Beltway barnacle turned Tea Party-bashing lobbyist Steve LaTourette.

Rep. Peter King Attacks Sen. Ted Cruz — Again.  Rep. King recently called Cruz a fraud, joining Democrats in blaming the Texas senator for the government shutdown in 2013.  After Dave Brat's stunning defeat of Eric Cantor in Virginia last week, King again went after Cruz, warning on MSNBC, "We can't allow Eric's defeat last night to allow the Ted Cruzes and the Rand Pauls to take over the party, or their disciples to take over the party."  King said, "Because this is not conservatism to me.  Shutting down the government is not being conservative."

Fight For Gop Has Just Begun.  The defeat of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) last week was unparalleled in modern electoral history.  Dave Brat, a man with almost no campaign, yet a powerful message, crushed the sitting majority leader while being outspent 42 to 1. [...] House GOP leadership, anxious to return stability after Cantor's shocking defeat, ordered the election for the vacant Majority Leader slot about as quickly as feasible.  During the one week campaign, McCarthy was never forced to vouch for his position on immigration, especially in light of Cantor's defeat.

Kevin McCarthy's Elevation Would Show the GOP Has Learned Nothing.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, having definitively put itself out there as the anti-Tea Party, anti-Reagan leader, loves Kevin McCarthy.  Just as they loved Eric Cantor.  And the Chamber, for all its money, is rapidly on its way to becoming a serious political liability for any candidate who takes its big bucks.

DC Political Bubble Is Set to Burst.  House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's shocking loss in his primary last week left many observers wondering if the fallout would spark a GOP leadership shuffle.  Cantor's opponent, econ professor Dave Brat, with a shoe-string budget and zero support from national tea party "organizations," ran a classic grassroots campaign and bested the powerful incumbent by more than ten points. [...] Rather than reflect on whether Cantor's loss signaled a larger issue, Republicans circled the wagons to preserve the status quo.

Michael Steele: 'A lot of Interest in' Eric Cantor for RNC Chairman.  On Saturday's broadcast of MSNBC's "Up w/Steve Kornaki," former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said there was push for outgoing-Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) to head the Republican National Committee after he leaves office in January.

The Editor says...
The voters in Mr. Cantor's home state tossed him out, yet the Republican establishment wants him to stay in place.

Rep. Steve King: Majority Leader Election Is Rigged For Establishment.  Some conservative lawmakers are fuming that the short-time frame between Majority Leader Eric Cantor's announced resignation yesterday and the election of his successor next week is unfairly "stacking the deck" for the two establishment Republicans vying to replace him.  "At a time when Republicans in Congress are fighting the Obama Administration to oppose snap elections for unions on American employers, Republican Leadership is trying to do the same in the United States House of Representatives," Iowa Rep. Steve King said Thursday [6/12/2014].  "This snap election has the effect of stacking the deck," he said.

Mississippi voters stagger Thad Cochran — and K Street.  "I guess Mississippi doesn't want Federal money anymore," revolving-door K Streeter John Feehery posted on Twitter last week.  Republican primary voters had just declined to renominate Sen. Thad Cochran, the Republican pork king, and instead forced him into a runoff that he's likely to lose.  "I betcha there are 49 states that will gladly take it."  The tweet was perfect.  In less than 140 characters Feehery had not only summarized Cochran's reason for existence, he also helped reveal what the GOP's K Street wing has at stake in its primary battles against Tea Partiers like Mississippi's Chris McDaniel.

Report: GOP Establishment Ready To Wage War On Ted Cruz.  Having failed to co-opt Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the Republican permanent political class in Washington, D.C. may wage war on him after the midterm elections.  Wall Street donors may stop giving money to him and groups that support him. Party leaders may take committee assignments away from the Texas senator who is revered by the conservative grassroots that put GOP leaders back in power.

Why Are Establishment Republicans Supporting Thad Cochran?  Anyone that wants to know what is wrong with today's Republican Party need only look to the state of Mississippi.  A 76-year-old Republican Senator, Thad Cochran, who has been serving in the United States Congress for 42 years, is running yet again for another six-year term.  This, while his dementia-ridden wife has been sitting in a nursing home for the last 14 years.

Mississippi vote rattles Cochran, Republican country club.  Taking out an incumbent U.S. senator is not easy.  Nine of 10 senators up for re-election in the last congressional elections held their seats.  This kind of job security makes the Senate a bit of a country club, where the attitude of "going along to get along" ensures a life of relative ease and comfort.  Tea Party activists have been itching to cancel a few of those country club memberships and invite conservatives of a deeper shade of red to the club.  They have a shot now in Mississippi,

Boehner eyes mid-June immigration vote.  [#1]  Passing an immigration bill in the House means a conference committee with the Senate and their "comprehensive reform" bill.  No matter what the GOP passes, we are going to get the Senate version shoved down our throats.  [#2]  Passing immigration reform will not bring one single Hispanic voter to the GOP side, and will alienate a few million conservatives.  [#3]  The bill is likely to make the GOP a permanent minority.

Cruz: GOP can empower grassroots by ditching consultants, 'Soviet-style campaigns'.  Sen. Ted Cruz said Saturday that the GOP can bolster its appeal by sticking to its conservative principles and embracing a bottom-up campaign model that empowers grassroots voters.  Speaking at the Republican Leadership Conference, Mr. Cruz said the party must ditch the Washington-centric campaign model and stop listening to the political consultants.

GOP candidates show signs of retreat on full repeal of Obamacare as midterms approach.  Republican candidates have begun to retreat in recent weeks from their all-out assault on the Affordable Care Act in favor of a more piecemeal approach, suggesting they would preserve some aspects of the law while jettisoning others.  The changing tactics signal that the health-care law — while still unpopular with voters overall — may no longer be the lone rallying cry for Republicans seeking to defeat Democrats in this year's midterm elections.

GOP warms to climate change as voters embrace global warming believers.  Breaking from party orthodoxy, a majority of Republican voters now accept climate change, sparking a drive inside the GOP to find a middle ground to help candidates finesse the issue without sounding out of touch or in the tank for President Obama and Al Gore.  "There is a middle way where we can talk about this," said GOP pollster Alex Lundry of TargetPoint Consulting.  "Republicans are a lot more open to this than you might think."  He recently completed a poll on energy issues for Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions that found 51 percent of Republicans believe climate change is happening, will happen shortly or will occur in their lifetime.  Just 24 percent deny it.  The shift is particularly pronounced among younger party members.

The Editor says...
Of all the things to argue over and spend money on, global warming is the silliest.  Yes the climate is changing.  It is always changing.  It takes no great effort to conduct a poll that finds people willing to admit that climate always changes.  "Younger party members" are more likely to be concerned about climate issues because they have been exposed, more recently than older adults, to constant environmentalist brainwashing in the public schools.  By now the global warming hoax should have been buried, and this should have become a non-issue.

Enough With the Bipartisanship.  In 2001, newly elected president George W. Bush decided he wanted to work with Democrats in Congress to do something about education.  So backs were slapped and hands were shaken.  Sen. Ted Kennedy was invited to the White House for a movie screening.  The resulting No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was co-sponsored by Kennedy, and amounted to little more than a consolidation of federal education power.

Rise of the 'Obama Republicans'.  [Scroll down] What has altered the storyline in the past several years is not the emergence of the Tea Party but rather the permanent entrenchment of Big Government Republicans, aka Obama Republicans.  President Obama has had that much effect on the national debate, which has had a direct effect on the national Republicans.  The last gasp of principled conservatism may have come in 2010 with the rise of the Tea Party, but this also gave rise to the countervailing force of the Obama Republicans, resulting in the nomination of Mitt Romney in 2012.  In spite of losing five of the previous six presidential contests, it is the Obama Republicans who now rule the party apparatus of the GOP.

The GOP establishment eats the party's young to save its corporate welfare.  A few weeks ago, I noted in this space that the anti-Tea Party Main Street Partnership is openly appealing to conservative paranoia in a high-profile Idaho race.  The super PAC, run by former Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio, ran an ad hinting that the challenger to Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson is being backed by a liberal, pro-Nancy Pelosi group from outside Idaho — namely, the uber-conservative Club for Growth. [...] But to whatever extent this tactic succeeds, it only reinforces the very distrust that has turned primary voters against the "Main Street" model of Republican.

Poor Winners in the GOP Establishment.  The post-victory squawking among Washington's smart set was that the GOP establishment has vanquished the Tea Party, that the Karl Rove and Mitt Romney wing of the party is ascendant once more.  But this analysis, like most generated inside the Beltway, fundamentally misses the mark.  For Republicans, it isn't just wrong, but counterproductive.

GOP Suicide Watch.  This week, the House Armed Services Committee is poised to set in train a legislative process that could well translate into the suicide of the Republican Party.  The committee will consider — and, all other things being equal, may actually adopt — a controversial amendment to be offered by Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).  It would allow illegal aliens brought here as minors — so-called "Dreamers" — to serve in the U.S. military and, thereby, obtain American citizenship. [...] So, if Eric Cantor, Mike Coffman, Speaker John Boehner and other like-minded Republicans actually succeed in transforming the annual National Defense Authorization Bill into a vehicle for conferring an amnesty on illegal aliens, they will not only wind up harming the U.S. military and the nation as a whole.  They risk achieving in the process the astonishing feat of political suicide for their party.

GOP groups spend three times as much attacking fellow Republicans as Democrats.  Earlier this week, I reported on the absurdity of the open GOP Senate primary in Nebraska.  Currently, outside groups affiliated with prominent Republican leaders are flooding the state with dishonest attack ads on the leading Republican candidate in the race, apparently motivated by petty intraparty rivalries.

The Republican Establishment Would Rather Lose Nebraska Than Support Conservatives.  The Republican Establishment always says conservative purists would rather lose than compromise.  But the opposite is playing out in Nebraska.  The moment Ben Sasse got endorsed by the Senate Conservatives Fund, Mitch McConnell went all in for Shane Osborn.  Well, Osborn is now toast.  He has extremely high negatives, extreme negative poll numbers, and outside groups have just finished him off with an ad blasting his involvement in a made up military memo.  That leaves Sid Dinsdale who'd have you know he is a lifelong Republican despite years of significant giving to Democrats.  Dinsdale too, however, is behind in the polls.  Though he has poured a ton of personal money into the race, time is very short for him.

Republican senators turning against their own in 2016.  Fearful of a third successive Democratic triumph, concerned Senate Republicans are turning against 2016 presidential bids by upstart hopefuls within their own ranks.  In forceful comments to The Hill, GOP senators made it plain that they would much prefer their party nominate a current or former governor over Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Marco Rubio (Fla.) or Rand Paul (Ky.).  Those senators have created a buzz among conservative activists, but their colleagues in the upper chamber are eager to support a nominee from outside Washington with a record of attracting independents and centrist Democrats.

How the GOP establishment plans to defeat conservatives.  A long and revealing article in National Journal explains how the GOP establishment is focusing on its real enemy, tea partiers and other conservatives who have the temerity to offer primary voters and alternative to get-along-go-along candidates who will do the bidding of party elders and allow immigration amnesty, while not frightening big money donors from Wall Street.

The GOP Has Finally Found a Way to Defeat the Tea Party.  After being caught flat-footed by tea-party insurgents in 2010, allowing candidates like Delaware's Christine O'Donnell and Nevada's Sharron Angle to win the GOP nomination and then self-destruct — and then, for fear of alienating the newly empowered Right, copping a largely laissez-faire attitude in 2012 — the Republican establishment, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is taking a different approach this time around.

The establishment GOP is not the political home of conservatives, and that needs to change.  Make no mistake, the establishment GOP is not the political home of conservatives.  To understand today's battles, and the rise of the tea party movement, one must understand that the tea party is as much or more a rebellion against the entrenched leadership of the Republican Party as it is a reaction to specific policies of President Obama.  Conservatives have learned that establishment Republican leaders are not merely incapable of stopping the progressive agenda but have been complicit in its expansion.  GOP leaders have talked a good game when they are up for election, but they all too often vote for, or refuse to fight, the funding of most big-government programs.

Conservative activists fight back on immigration.  Activists opposed to immigration reform are urging congressional candidates to sign a pledge that they won't vote for immigration reform.  The move apparently began on Laura Ingrham's national radio show and is being pushed by Tea Party groups all across the country.

GOP Amnesty: The Final Last Straw.  The Republican Party is pushing immigration reform, and the GOP's new apparent political adviser, Chuck Schumer, gleefully approves.  Next, the Democrat senator will be advising the party on gun control, government spending, abortion and homosexual marriage.  We finally have a news cycle that exposes Obama and his socialist Democrats' biggest blunder, the absolute worst piece of legislation in the history of the nation — Obamacare.  And the GOP's response is to divert national attention to an illegal immigration reform plan that most Americans adamantly oppose.  Is the Republican leadership insane?

GOP Again The Stupid — And Self-Destructive — Party.  ObamaCare is failing and more unchecked immigration would ensure Republicans' demise, yet GOP leaders are surrendering on both issues.  Poised to win big in November, their best strategy may be to shut up.

The Establishment Republican-Leftist Alliance.  During the first weekend in April, Republican leaders in the House and Senate held a retreat with the Republican Main Street Partnership on Florida's Amelia Island.  No ordinary conservative political powwow, the meeting brought together establishment Republicans and leftist-supported advocacy groups, whose shared interests include neutralizing the conservative grassroots movement and passing legislative items on the Left's agenda.

The Republicans' Continued Public Relations Disaster.  Given the current state of the USA, Republicans should be winning every election from Seattle to Key West.  The economy hasn't moved for years with the labor participation rate at record lows — people have given up — and bankruptcy over entitlements looming.  The international situation is in free fall with China becoming the global power, Iran making a mockery of faux negotiations and Putin on the way to reconstituting the Soviet Union.  Al Qaeda is not only alive, it's growing. [...] More Americans feel threatened by their own government than proud of it.  Republicans should be winning by acclimation for every position from dog catcher to president.  But they're not.

America is an oligarchy, not a democracy or republic, university study finds.  America is no longer a democracy — never mind the democratic republic envisioned by Founding Fathers.  Rather, it has taken a turn down elitist lane and become a country led by a small dominant class comprised of powerful members who exert total control over the general population — an oligarchy, said a new study jointly conducted by Princeton and Northwestern universities.  One finding in the study:  The U.S. government now represents the rich and powerful, not the average citizen, United Press International reported.

Why the GOP Needs a Return to the Bush Leagues.  In presidential nominating contests, the Republican establishment has always won out — from the first Bush, to the tried but tired Dole, to W., then McCain, and most recently Romney, who nonetheless had to labor mightily to emerge from the weakest field of candidates in either party, ever.  Really, Rick Santorum?  Although casino mogul Sheldon Adelson's millions of misspent dollars propped him up, Romney, with even greater resources from the party's long-reigning plutocrats, ground Santorum down over time and along the way dispatched the unthinkable Newt Gingrich.  The journey was excruciatingly long for the establishmentarians and cost them more than they ever anticipated.  But in the end, they had their way.

Republicans Wimping-Out On Repeal Of ObamaCare?  ObamaCare is a Marxist/socialist/statist policy and I hate it.  Vladimir Lenin, himself, said:  "Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State."  Ole Vlad knew exactly what he was talking about.  ObamaCare warms the cockles of the hearts of all the Marxists in the Democratic Party and believe me, there are a host of them!  There is NOTHING good about ObamaCare.  It is a cancerous assault on the freedom of Americans and it needs to be gone and, frankly, all those who supported it and voted it through the Congress need to be gone along with it.  Here in North Carolina, we're doing our dead level best to rid ourselves of every Democrat who supported ObamaCare and/or Obama.  At the moment, our chances for success look very promising.

Facing Resignation Calls, Mississippi GOP Chairman Dubs Tea Party Leaders 'Fanatical'.  The chairman of the Mississippi GOP, Joe Nosef, reacted angrily to Tea Party groups calling for his resignation this week, accusing one local activist of secretly working to elect Democrats and saying some "fanatical" Tea Party groups could jeopardize the GOP's hold on a senate seat in one of the most Republican states in the nation, according to emails obtained by Breitbart News.

Meet the 2016 Republican Nominee.  This hypothesis is that America has reached a stage of progressive soft despotism in which the only important family feud in national politics is between the fundamentally allied factions of the Washington establishment itself.  The great advantage of despotism is its predictability.  In nations whose leaders have forsaken the manners and morals of representative government, the future can mean only two things:  the present, continued, or the present, escalated.

GOP Leaders Broke Their Pledge to America.  When House Republicans penned their Pledge to America in 2010, they convinced American voters they would advance a conservative agenda if they regained control of the House that year.  Four years later, what promises have they actually delivered?  ObamaCare is still intact, our national debt has grown by $3 trillion, and Republicans have capitulated to Democrats on every issue from the debt ceiling to the budget.  Republican leaders in both the House and the Senate have failed conservatives and have failed to keep their Pledge to America.

Gay marriage supporters eye Republican backing.  Are Republicans starting to change their position on same-sex marriage?  Some gay marriage supporters think so.  "A 55 percent majority support marriage equality," states a report accompanying a new TargetPoint-GQRR poll.  "While young people are at the vanguard of change, this survey also shows increased support among older voters, Catholics, non-college educated voters, and Republicans."  The poll results were presented at a Thursday [3/27/2014] kickoff event of Americans for Marriage Equality, a bipartisan group formed with the support of the Human Rights Campaign, a major gay rights organization.

Who told Republicans to not be Republicans?  Look, I was the first to say this Affordable Care Act wasn't affordable and the promises behind it were just an act.  But this Republican act of sitting on the ball and running out the clock, hoping it paves the way to an easy win in November?  Stupid.  Beyond stupid.  Leaving aside Republicans have consistently grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory.  What makes them think this is a winning strategy?  Seizing on 53 percent not liking a law, and then laying down the law for party members.

The two gentlemen from Kentucky.  It's easy to understand why Rand Paul, Kentucky's junior senator, is his state's breakout political star.  On Wednesday afternoon [3/19/2014], I was on hand to see the 51-year-old libertarian Republican at Berkeley — hardly a right-wing redoubt — bring a crowd of college students to their feet not once but twice with a speech assailing the federal surveillance regime.  It was a stunt that's becoming a Paul trademark:  Marching into the heart of what should be unfriendly territory to upend expectations, including by calling out his own party. [...] He said Republicans need to borrow a strategy from Domino's Pizza and acknowledge they're pushing an inferior product.

Barry Goldwater versus the RINOs.  It would have been hard to pick a more principled man.  Although excoriated for not supporting the 1964 Civil Rights Law, leftists conveniently ignored his sponsorships of civil rights bills for a decade before that bill, and his correct objection that government banning private decisions regarding race was fundamentally different from government banning state decisions based upon race.  These leftists also conveniently forgot that while Goldwater was founding the Arizona NAACP Chapter, LBJ was running in the Democratic Party's "whites only" primary for the Senate.  When Goldwater was nominated in 1964, the whole Republican Party establishment abandoned him.

The Tea Party Isn't Dying[,] The GOP Establishment Is.  The death of the conservative revolution, the Tea Party, or whatever you call it, has not merely been greatly exaggerated.  It's been flat-out lied about.  It isn't dead. It just changed, from a shoestring operation to one with real clout.  And it's well on its way to doing what it set out to do — arm-twist a flabby, comfortable GOP into fighting for conservative values instead of just talking about them at election time.

At long last...
GOP Begins To Fight Back Against Obama's Broad Executive Overreach.  After five years of his flouting the letter and spirit of the law in an increasingly brazen fashion, congressional Republicans have been starting to ramp up their rhetoric about Obama's lawlessness, their most concerted effort on the issue to date.  Several new reports from top Republicans underscore the breadth of Obama's executive overreach.  Viewed comprehensively, it involves laws ranging from healthcare to immigration to privacy to technology to social issues to national security matters and more.  Scandals like Benghazi, Operation Fast and Furious, the IRS targeting of conservative groups, NSA spying, CIA spying on Congress, the Delphi pensions scandal, the auto bailout and others have many unresolved questions — and unmet document and information demands.

The Editor says...
Rhetoric is easy; impeachment is not.

GOP donors join push for gay rights bill.  A deep-pocketed group of Republican donors and former GOP lawmakers is joining a gay rights coalition to push the U.S. House to vote on a bill banning workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.  "America is a place where the freedom to be who you are shouldn't be a barrier to your ability to get a job and provide for your family," said Paul Singer, a billionaire hedge fund founder and big Republican donor.

Poll: Growing Number of Young Republicans Support Gay Marriage.  A poll released Monday by the Pew Research Center has found that support for gay marriage is increasing in those who identify as Republicans under the age of 30.  61% of those polled who lean towards the party are in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage while only 35% oppose it.  This is in stark contrast to Republicans over the age of 50 — only 27% of that audience support it.  Pew also found a record high percentage of Americans — 54% — support allowing gays to marry.

The Editor says...
That's because "a record high percentage of Americans" watch too much television and never go to church.

Even Under GOP Control, Congress Signals Unwillingness to Stop Spending.  Actions speak louder than words, and Congress' actions over 113th session demonstrate a bipartisan unwillingness to get runaway federal spending under control.  An early indication was Congress's actions on the Hurricane Sandy bill, a bloated, $50 billion pork-barrel spending bill that was ostensibly intended to help northeastern states recover from the storm.  Due to its dubious emergency designation, spending in the bill didn't count against the spending caps put in place by the 2010 Budget Control Act.  Consequently, opportunistic Members of Congress from both political parties seized the chance to attach tens of billions of dollars in pet-project spending to the bill, using it as a vehicle to side-step the caps.

The Lois Lerner Defense.  The IRS is corrupt, and should be abolished, and replaced by an agency with far fewer powers.  Instead, Republicans dither ineffectually.

Conservatives frustrated by GOP's compromises, lack of leadership.  [Scroll down]  Limited-government warriors such as Helen Van Etten, chief audiologist for the Topeka, Kan., school district, strongly backs Mr. Cruz and his allies.  She said these conservatives are willing to risk losing legislative battles — and even their own re-election races — to mount high-profile challenges to what they see as big-government advocacy from the national news and entertainment media.

Transitioning to a New Political Party.  Conservatives, constituting the largest portion of the electorate, have no viable political party to represent them today at the national level.  The political establishments of the two major parties promote a Progressive, Big Government agenda, and actively oppose and undermine conservatives.  At the federal level, conservatives have minority status within a minority party.  The strategy of trying to reform the Republican Party has failed for more than 100 years. [...] The Republican Party today is divided into factions whose conflicting interests — a Big Government minority party versus a Limited Government majority party — are at an irreconcilable impasse.

CPAC Welcomes Gay-Rights Groups After Years of Exclusion.  New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, snubbed last year after palling around with President Obama, is coming.  So is GOProud, the gay-rights group that was banned for the past few years amid noisy boycotts from critics and supporters.  There's even a panel debating the merits of medical marijuana.  "CPAC is about finding conservative solutions to every challenge in America and not just saying 'no,'" said Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union, which runs the conference in Washington.  "We're determined to win the majority of American support."

Washington's Pack of Pretenders.  Many Republicans in the House and Senate pretend to be fiscal conservatives frightened by the approaching fiscal train wreck that becomes more of a foregone conclusion with each passing day.  But at crunch time last week, they weren't content merely to unconditionally approve an increase in the nation's debt ceiling.  They chose to go much further, removing the ceiling entirely, giving the administration a de facto blank check to run up as much debt as it can for the next 13 months.

Pat Caddell Says Establishment Republicans "Want the IRS to Go After" The Tea Party.  The civil war between the Tea Party and the GOP Establishment has been brutal.  But could it be the reason congressional Republicans aren't putting the heat on President Obama for the IRS scandal?  Democratic pollster Pat Caddell thinks so, and radio host Rush Limbaugh said it's plausible.  One historian even told Breitbart News the modern GOP resembles a "crime family."  "The establishment Republicans want the IRS to go after the Tea Parties," Caddell told Fox News on Sunday [2/16/2014].

National Security Heavyweights Allege Muslim Brotherhood Ties to GOP.  A heavyweight lineup of former national security officials banded together late Tuesday [2/11/2014] to accuse Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) president Grover Norquist and high-ranking GOP political operative Suhail Khan of connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.  The officials authored a 45-page dossier on the issue to Cleta Mitchell, the top lawyer for the American Conservatives' Union who in 2011 cleared Norquist of the allegations initially brought by former high-ranking Reagan official Frank Gaffney.

Is the GOP Already Dead?  The chances of meaningful Republican control at the federal level for the foreseeable future are dismal, at least as the term "Republican" has been traditionally understood.  This is not new; Republican irrelevancy has been growing for a long time.  ObamaCare's epic failure to launch may offer the Republicans a boost in 2014, but over the long term the dependency created by the healthcare program will only worsen Republican prospects.

GOP Will Bring Amnesty Back After Election.  They've lost what little trust I had in them.  The Establishment Republicans in the US House of Representatives, I mean. [...] I left the Republican Party after approximately 50 years as a registered Republican.  I left for two reasons — the GOP's swing to the left and the manner in which the establishment Republicans continued to treat conservative Republicans — to wit — as if conservatives were the red-headed step child.

Going Democrat-Lite will make GOP a permanent minority.  The future of the GOP is bright if it remains true to the republican principles that have resonated with the American people in the past.  And, contrary to what some would have us believe, there is no color line or demographic barrier included in those principles.  The only way Republicans become a permanent minority is if they choose to be, by abandoning those principles.

Obama's Praetorian Guards!  Acting as a criminal profiler, one can connect the dots to see why certain things occur and other things don't occur, to craft an understanding of what is truly happening beyond what we are allowed to see by the global elite puppeteers and their puppeteer-controlled media.  We have, what appears to be, a gutless GOP leadership that has become increasingly docile towards a renegade regime that has grown increasingly hostile against the U. S. citizen/taxpayer, our rights and freedoms, and our constitutional republic.

Moderate Republicans team up with labor unions to defeat the tea party in 2014.  A Republican super PAC committed to defeating the tea party in 2014 congressional primaries is mostly funded by labor unions.  The super PAC Defending Main Street, formed by moderate Republican and former congressman Steve LaTourette, has committed itself to destroying tea party challenges to establishment GOP candidates in the 2014 midterm elections.

Obamacare isn't a train wreck, it's a cancer.  With all the anti-Obamacare rhetoric coming out of Republican leadership, they funded it for another year in the budget agreement.  That's like thinking you can trash-talk your cancer into remission, while smoking three packs a day, and putting off that pesky surgery to remove the tumor until later.  Genius.

Memo to Conservatives: Republicans Aren't Your Friends.  Republicans are nice people.  Too many Republicans think it's wrong to criticize other Republicans.  This failure to be forthright has had consequences.  It has allowed the Republican Party to take up political space it has no business occupying as it embraces left-wing statist tyranny.  Much of the time, the GOP is merely Democrat-lite. [...] A political party isn't a club or a sacred religious order.  It isn't a brotherhood or fraternity.  The other people in the party aren't necessarily your friends, or even people you'd feel comfortable lending your lawnmower.

GOP Could Blow 2014 Election With Unwise Push For Amnesty.  When it comes to national elections, just what principles do the Republicans stand for?  It is hard to think of any, other than their hoping to win elections by converting themselves into Democrats Lite.

More than 6 in 10 Republicans oppose GOP's immigration plan.  A majority of Republicans oppose the party leadership's efforts to reform immigration, with 62 percent dead set against giving illegal immigrants U.S. citizenship, according to a new poll.  Although the nation overall leans in favor of immigration reform, the Republicans polled by YouGov.com are against most elements of the proposals being studied in the House, including some of those circulated by Speaker John Boehner at last week's party retreat on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

A Beat-up, Exhausted, and Terrified Republican Establishment.  Never has the liberal agenda been so vulnerable, a logical development when bad ideas have had five years to prove themselves as very bad ideas.  When Obama is all done he will have taken high presidential popularity ratings, a supermajority in the Senate, and a large margin in the House and lost them all — if only the Republicans can make an adequate case that they represent the middle class, the Democrats only the very wealthy and the very dependent.

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory ... Again?  The Republican Party is set to reap a virtual bumper crop of votes from the "Obamasick" electorate in November increasing their numbers in the US House of Representatives and securing control of the US Senate ... unless ... they push through an Amnesty for Illegal Aliens bill known as Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

GOP Establishment Secretly Pining for Mitt Romney in 2016?  Some Republican establishment operatives and their big donors want former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to run again in 2016 — but they won't go on record with their comments.

GOP insiders back Rubio in 2016.  Sen. Marco Rubio's (R-Fla.) political stock is rated a buy by major Republican fundraisers in Washington, who are bullish on Rubio's future as a 2016 presidential candidate.  A group of Republican fundraising heavyweights and wise men in Washington's business community are solidly behind Rubio, and see him not only as someone who could win the White House, but someone they can work with.

Five Major Problems with GOP's 'Immigration Principles'.  After the House Republican leadership unveiled its "immigration principles" on Thursday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who has staunchly and relentlessly defended American workers against amnesty, weighed in once again.  Sessions said it looked like the consultant-driven and "recycled talking points" offer a lot of promises that will not be matched by "legislation that, at bottom, ensures only the amnesty and not the enforcement."

Republican Fools Are About to Throw 2014 Away.  The alleged leader of the GOP in the House just tossed a land mine into the path of his party as it was set to march to victory this fall.  The immigration "principles" that Boehner backs are indistinguishable from the Senate Gang of Eight bill that Boehner rejected, according to Byron York.  He looks like an unprincipled fool, and a rube.

The Time To Stop John Boehner's Amnesty Plan Is Now.  Have you ever asked yourself why the GOP leadership wants to deal with immigration right now when we're on track to add seats in the House and take back the Senate?  Why take up a controversial issue that will cause months of vicious infighting when the public seems indifferent to it?

Sessions: Amnesty Is an Extraordinary Act of Self-Sabotage.  U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala), is a leading opponent of recent immigration reform plans, arguing that the GOP would commit "self-sabotage" by supporting the proposals of President Obama.  The Comprehensive Immigration Reform package put forth in the senate allows for extensive chain migration and threatens jobs and wages in the United States.  Sen. Sessions is speaking out against what will be a 'crushing hammer blow to the Middle Class.'

The Republican suicide strategy on immigration.  The Republicans are said to be looking for "something big" to smooth the rough places in the path to November, to make life easy and comfortable for incumbents, something to get that infernal racket of the guns out of their ears.  Politics can be so fatiguing. [...] Surrender and suicide comes easy for certain Republicans, particularly when it's surrender to greed and avarice.  If you can wrap avarice in a little piety, it's easier still.

Immigration Reform Will Send GOP Into Electoral Abyss.  Seeking Hispanic votes they'll never get, Republicans might well ruin what could be one of their greatest electoral triumphs ever.  Cheap labor now isn't worth a permanent socialist electorate tomorrow.

GOP Establishment Plan To Keep 2014 Election Focus on Obamacare: Let's Do Immigration!.  Now, with the Obamacare debacle getting worse by the day and teeing up as the defining issue of the 2014 midterm elections, Republican leadership has decided this is the perfect time to roll out an immigration-reform proposal [...] that has nothing to do with Obamacare and is certain to detract attention from its failure; [...]

Bracing for Amnesty.  Unbelievable as it may be to their core constituency, House Republicans are now embracing comprehensive immigration reform.  Late yesterday [1/31/2014], the Hill obtained a one-page document outlining the GOP's "statement of principals," that endorses a path to legal status, once "specific enforcement triggers" have been achieved.

House GOP wants legal status but no citizenship for illegal immigrants.  The brief document, circulated to House Republicans who are holding their annual policy retreat in Maryland, calls for giving young illegal immigrants — known as Dreamers — a chance at citizenship.  Republican leaders also said they will insist on a "zero tolerance policy" for future illegal immigrants and will revamp the system to make it easier for businesses to hire foreign workers legally but tougher for immigrants to bring their extended families into the U.S.  Behind the principles, though, are many unanswered questions, such as whether illegal immigrants would be granted any legal status before border security is improved and who exactly would be eligible.

Thin-skinned amateur Obama addresses Congress, our parliament of whores.  The only people who can get ahead in Barack Obama and the GOP establishment's Washington are those who already have the deep pockets buy off Congress and the president.  Neither party has a vested interest in changing it.  But at least the GOP, for what little good it does these days, will tap the brakes on the joy ride to Gomorrah.  I truly hope you people are ready to go on offense.  Instead of being defensive and hoping to get the GOP in control of the Senate, we need to go on offense and get control of the GOP itself.

House Immigration Reform Outline Looks Eerily Similar to Gang of Eight Amnesty Legislation.  Late yesterday the House released the framework for an immigration overhaul, which includes amnesty for people brought here illegally by their parents when they were children.  As usual, the outline (which will be used to develop legislation) is full of promises for border security first, with a fix in the immigration system second.

More about the infamous Gang of Eight.

Is the GOP deliberately trying to sabotage the 2014 midterms?  Take, for example, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers' response [to the State of the Union speech].  Mrs. McMorris Rodgers is well-liked and smart.  I had the pleasure of meeting her last year at an Independent Women's Forum event honoring her.  I found her dynamic, compelling and clearly a GOP star.  Then for the State of the Union response, some self-obsessed, cave dweller from the Land of the Clueless Consultants and Speech Coaches got their paws on her, and instead of the focused, interesting and compelling woman I met in Washington, D.C., we got a woman so overprepared and controlled that the powerful and smart Mrs. McMorris Rodgers had disappeared.  Criticism of the content of the GOP response has also been well-deserved.

Conservatives Must Break the Establishment's Rules.  Have you noticed how the Establishment invents a lot of special rules that only seem to apply to conservatives?  Have you noticed how these rules always involve preventing conservatives from winning?  And have you noticed how these rules never, ever seem to apply to our enemies?

The most dangerous years of the Obama presidency are upon us.  Holding the House and taking back the Senate in 2014, while extremely important, cannot stop someone who considers himself above it all.  A united front is needed for the next three years.  So what is Republican and Congressional leadership planning?  A war on the Tea Party.

Don't Do It.  The House Republican leadership has been confronted by devilishly difficult tactical choices over the years.  But what to do on the issue of immigration right now isn't one of them.  The correct course is easy and eminently achievable:  Do nothing. [...] Yet the House leadership is about to roll out a set of immigration principles reportedly including an amnesty for illegal aliens, and presumably will follow up with a push to pass them through the House.  This is legislative strategy as unforced error.

Are House Republicans planning to pull a fast one on immigration?  [T]he Wall Street Journal stirred a lot of interest this weekend when it reported that GOP leaders are hoping to put one over on voters who oppose reform.  The plan, the Journal said, is to delay a vote on a bill until after the deadline passes for primary challenges across the country.  That way, a GOP lawmaker whose constituents oppose reform could lay low until the coast was clear — no primary challenge! — and then vote against his voters' interest.

Willard Agonistes.  If Obamacare is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon the American body politic, then Romney's candidacy runs a close second.  (And here we thought that the wretched John McCain was the worst candidate we'd ever get.)  It's time that conservatives learn and absorb that lesson, and ensure that it never happens again.

Another Republican Step Backwards Will Motivate Tea Party And Grassroots In GOP Primaries.  The numbers don't lie:  the omnibus budget deal is a total spending surrender by the Old Republican Party (ORP), and it will be a motivating catalyst for upgrade opportunities in the 2014 Republican primaries.  There's a refrain we hear over and over again from the ORP in the long, slow race to nowhere:  Now is not the time to fight.  We'll stand on principle next time.  But when is this "next time"?  When do we get to the time when we join to fight for the principles we all talk about so much?

House GOP Plans To Save Obama With Immigration Reform.  Republicans should own the issue of immigration.  After all, the last time — 1986 — the nation took the "comprehensive" approach that Democrats now propose, nothing ended up being fixed in exchange for the amnesty for millions of illegals.  And today, insisting on securing the border before doing anything else is no-lose politically.  Yet the House GOP is poised to use a piecemeal strategy as cover to enact, more or less, the Democrats' agenda on immigration — giving the party millions of dependable Democratic votes as a consequence.  What political party in the history of the world has ever been this self-loathing?

K Street and Tea Party in Nebraska proxy war.  The GOP Senate primary in Nebraska will be a 2014 battlefield in the hot war between the Republican establishment and the Tea Party insurgents.  But at first glance, it's hard to see a casus belli.  State Treasurer Shane Osborn is a conservative Republican who rails against Washington insiders and criticizes the Republican leadership for the recent budget deal, but whose pedigree shows strong ties to the Republican establishment.  Former Bush administration official Ben Sasse is also a conservative Republican who rails against Washington insiders and criticizes the Republican leadership for the recent budget deal, but whose pedigree shows strong ties to the Republican establishment.

The Coming GOP Amnesty Sellout Push.  Legalizers will try to make the prequisites look tough when they aren't — certainly nothing that can't be easily dismantled once the undocumented get their documents.  Do not count on the press to correct this misimpression.  They're in the "fool the rubes" camp too.

Time for GOP to Listen to the American People.  It is clear that the House GOP leadership is preparing to take action on the immigration issue this year.  According to reports, the "principles" of immigration reform will be introduced next week and it will include a "pathway" to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country.  The bill will reportedly also mandate improved border security, provide additional visas for foreign workers and require those immigrants seeking legalization to learn English and pay certain fees.

GOProud Founder Officially Leaves Republican Party over 'Tolerance of Bigotry'.  Jimmy LaSalvia, the founder of the conservative gay advocacy group GOProud, has officially announced his departure from the Republican Party.  "Today, I joined the ranks of unaffiliated voters.  I am every bit as conservative as I've always been, but I just can't bring myself to carry the Republican label any longer," LaSalvia wrote.

Us vs. Them.  Friends, the battle lines are stark and clear.  Conservatives will beat the GOP or the GOP will go left.  It will go left toward amnesty, left toward common core, left toward Obamacare, left toward abortion rights, left toward gun control, and left toward tax increases and even bigger spending.

House Republicans About to Vote on Trillion-Dollar Spending Bill They Haven't Read.  Last month, the Paul Ryan-Patty Murray discretionary spending bill was unveiled.  Sort of unveiled, anyway:  it didn't actually exist, but was summarized in a series of bullet points.  Now the bill has taken tangible form. [...] The bill is advertised at $1.1 trillion, but in the brief time available, Republican Senate staffers have found that it actually spends $18 billion more than that.  The bill includes $18 billion in "CHIMPS," which are "reductions" in spending that never would have happened in any event, which are used to offset actual spending increases.

GOP AWOL As Obama Crushes Federalism.  Last week, after the attorney general and education secretary jointly announced an alarming new witch hunt against local school officials over allegedly racist disciplinary policies, we watched with keen interest Republican reaction.  Disappointingly, barely a whimper was registered from the opposition party. [...] By demanding schools suspend suspensions of school thugs, the administration's race-mongers are threatening the safety and security of classrooms across the nation.  They're also threatening learning for white and minority students alike.  You'd think this new policy, which ties compliance to education funding, would warrant endless debate on the airwaves.

Why is the GOP launching a new anti-poverty campaign.  This week many prominent Republicans are taking part in a new campaign to emphasize GOP solutions for poverty.  Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Reince Priebus and others are marking the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty by outlining conservative ideas for improving the lot of the poorest Americans.  And the effort is not just to commemorate an occasion; these leaders and others want the Republican Party to give anti-poverty policy a newly prominent place among GOP priorities.

The Editor says...
This is just another way the Republican Party is trying to be Democrat Lite.  Unemployment will drop like a stone when the government shrinks, environmental regulations are loosened, the minimum wage drops, coal-fired power plants are returned to service, ethanol is abandoned, global warming is forgotten, the Mexican border is patrolled by the Army, and politicians are limited to two or three terms in office.  Investors will put money back into the U.S. economy when the Marxists are out of the White House.  The Republican establishment is appealing to the poorly-educated masses who respond to emotional appeals rather than rational arguments.

GOP Establishment's War on Tea Party Comes to Texas.  The Republican establishment's war against the Tea Party has come to Texas.  According to a report in the Dallas Morning News, "Some of Texas' biggest business trade groups are moving to counter tea party and anti-government forces that have dominated recent Republican primaries."

GOP establishment gears up to destroy any chance at midterm success in 2014.  The establishment GOP in Washington hates the Tea Party and the conservative wing of the party more than they do the Democrats.  They will make very clear that instead of riding a conservative wave to a landslide victory in the 2014 midterms, they will do everything in their power to sabotage conservative and Tea Party candidates for their own personal benefit.

We're Not Mad, but We're Not Going to Take it Anymore!  Party politics has usurped principled politics, and the U. S. citizen who is patriotic, productive and a person of faith has become the prey of those who seek our total destruction.  With a few notable exceptions, voting Republican has become the equivalent of voting Democrat.  At some point, constitutional conservative Republican politicians need to realize that the stink of being associated with the establishment elites atop either party is affecting their credibility.  Staying within the GOP is part of the insanity that the electorate is no longer willing to take anymore.

The Republican National Committee's Stupid Kwanzaa Statement.  The Republican National Committee released a statement Friday [12/20/2013], commemorating Kwanzaa.  There's just one problem, the entire holiday is a fake and was invented out of thin air by a radical ex-con named Ron Karenga.  Karenga invented Kwanzaa in 1966 and fashioned the phony holiday as a black alternative to Christmas.  Karenga wanted a holiday that was less Eurocentric than Christmas which he considered the commercial exploitation of African Americans.  There's absolutely nothing authentic about the seven-day feast.  Even the name "Kwanzaa," which is Swahili for "matunda yakwanza," has next to no historical connection to African Americans.

War Begins: Slandering Conservatives has Started.  Oddly, the Republican establishment keeps coming up with the completely "new" idea of smearing conservatives.  Year after year, they keep announcing that "this time" the GOP needs to do a better job "vetting" candidates.  Yet the establishment has always attacked conservative candidates, pointing out weaknesses real or imagined.  What GOP insiders want to do "this time" — as a "new" idea — is the same thing they do every election cycle.

Levin: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Is About Cronyism, Not Capitalism.  Mark Levin said Monday [12/16/2013] on his syndicated radio program Monday that the United States Chamber of Commerce is "not about capitalism, they're about cronyism," continuing with the theme of the divide between "establishment Republicans" and "conservatives."

12 Republicans Vote to Advance Budget Deal That Boosts Spending.  The Senate voted 67-33 Tuesday [12/17/2013] to advance the Ryan-Murray budget compromise that conservatives oppose as fiscally irresponsible.  Helping Democrats get the votes they needed, 12 Republicans voted with all 55 Democrats to begin debate on the measure.  Republicans joining Democrats to invoke cloture include Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Susan Collins (Maine), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), John Hoeven (N.D.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), John McCain (Ariz.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Rob Portman (Ohio).

Former Secret Service Agent Dan Bongino Serves GOP Establishment "Divorce Papers".  Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, who is running for Congress as a Republican in Maryland's Sixth Congressional District, wants a divorce from the Republican establishment.  "Consider yourself served," he wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday after those in the GOP establishment, like House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), slammed conservatives for opposing the budget deal that would raise spending beyond the sequester levels.

Tea Party Patriots: Paul Teller Firing Act of War Against Conservatives.  On Wednesday [12/11/2013], the Tea Party Patriots said the firing of Paul Teller, the Executive Director of the House Republican Study Committee (RSC), was a declaration of war against conservatives by the Republican establishment.

And they'll probably do it, too.
Harry Reid Urges Republicans to Fix a Law They Opposed All Along.  Not a single Republican voted for the Affordable Care Act, but they must now help Democrats make the law work, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor Monday [12/9/2013].

Impeachment Lessons.  For the Republican establishment, it seems, history begins and ends in the 1990s:  No matter how times have perilously changed, any talk of shutdowns or impeachment is bad, bad, bad.  Yes, the Obama "uber-presidency," as left-of-center law professor Jonathan Turley called it, has enveloped the nation in what he conceded is "the most serious constitutional crisis ... of my lifetime," but GOP strategists would just as soon have us chattering about immigration "reform" and bravely balancing the federal budget by, oh, around 2040.

No Excuse For Republicans To Cave And Grant Amnesty.  Strong signs point to House Speaker John Boehner leading an amnesty cave-in that delivers millions of new Democratic votes.  Republicans should man up and put border security front and center.

GOP 3-D gun ban gives early Christmas to Obama, Democrats.  The House Republican leadership with its Dec. 3 vote to extend the ban on "undetectable" guns proved again it excels at political cowardice and betrayal of conservatives.  Do not bother looking for the roll call of the yeas and nays on the vote, the GOP leaders, working with Democrats, suspended the rules and passed the measure with a voice vote — with maybe 15 actual congressmen on the House floor.  In another profile in cowardice, Republicans put up Rep. J. Howard Coble (R.-N.C) to sponsor the bill, H.R. 3626.  The 82-year-old congressman announced his retirement a month ago, so let's just say he took one for the team, so one of his comrades, who will actually face the voters in 2014, would not have to defend the bill.

Why don't Republican leaders like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee?  Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are not popular with Senate Republican leaders.  Neither are the groups that strongly support them — the Senate Conservatives Fund and the Tea Party.  But why?  It certainly makes sense that Democrats oppose them, but why do they face strong opposition from some Republicans?

The Fall after the Pride.  The best Republican candidates — Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels — didn't seek the nomination; Mitt Romney won over the most improbable field of challengers in American history, and completely failed to hold Obama accountable for his record as the president successfully distracted the country with a pelagic inundation of claptrap about a Republican War on Women, on Hispanics, on gays, on the average person.  Not since George McGovern had there been such a feeble excuse presented by a major party for voting for it, but the electorate was steadfastly undeterred.

7 Ways That Republicans Fail Politics 101:  Hey, Chris Christie, when your state is hit by a hurricane near the close of a presidential election, you don't do everything humanly possible to make Barack Obama look good at the expense of Mitt Romney.  When there's a shutdown fight, Republicans like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Peter King shouldn't be publicly telling the world that the Republican Party is at fault.  When that sort of open sabotage is rewarded, it pumps rat poison into the veins of the GOP.

Getting Real Why Cuccinelli was Defeated.  It was not the Tea Party that stabbed Ken Cuccinelli in the back but the establishment of his own party.  Once a real conservative candidate gets nominated, the party loses interest.  And because they lose interest, they hold back funds, thus assuring their own prediction that this candidate can't win.

Finding the way out of the dark.  We should stop thinking of politicians as right or left, Democrat or Republican.  Modern-day politicians are, by and large, con men and con women, who have found the fast route to easy living on the backs of others.  Politicians belong to a special club that imbues them with a special club mentality.  In layman's language it works out to "You cover my back; I'll cover yours".  Have you ever pondered why no Republican has ever stepped forward to try to block Obama's Fundamental Transformation of America?

Cuccinelli [is] Only the Latest Conservative Candidate Targeted by G.O.P.  The G.O.P. establishment's unwillingness to aggressively back the candidacy of Ken Cuccinelli is just the latest example of the party's attempt to purge its more conservative wing by undercutting the candidacy of conservatives — before they're even elected.

The Sabotage Republicans.  Call them the Sabotage Republicans.  They have been busily at work in Virginia these last few weeks, sabotaging the gubernatorial campaign of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

Yes, Virginia, the GOP Establishment Did Stick a Shiv in Ken Cuccinelli.  Reagan conservative Ken Cuccinelli lost his bid for the Virginia governorship because the patrician, turf-protecting Republican Party establishment in his state wanted him to lose.  It's really that simple.  Cuccinelli campaign strategist Chris La Civita suggested on election night Tuesday [11/5/2013] that the federal government's partial shutdown last month may have hurt his candidate in parts of Virginia where many federal employees and contractors live.  He also suggested that Cuccinelli could have won if he had received more money from national GOP sources, which he said dried up as of Oct. 1.

Look in the Mirror, GOP Establishment... You Chose Poorly.  Conservatives will use what happened to Ken Cuccinelli this week as our "Remember the Alamo" moment.  The Republican establishment, fresh off a victory in New Jersey, was ready to dance on Ken Cuccinelli's political grave.  Little did they know that Terry McAuliffe would barely squeak out victory:  47.97 percent to 45.48 percent.  Some conservative leaders believe it looks as though they wanted Cuccinelli to lose big.

GOP's Losers Can Stop Offering Their Valueless Advice.  Romney '12, McCain '08, Dole '96 — these campaigns were failures.  The voters rejected the men who led them. [...] The media actually have little use for the opinions of Dole, McCain or Romney — except when they disparage Republicans who are in the driver's seat today.  And so, as Mitt Romney, he of RomneyCare infamy, visited NBC's "Meet the Press" to give President Obama advice on how to make ObamaCare work so "he can rebuild credibility," he also recommended New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as the 2016 presidential nominee to "save our party."

Gloves Off: GOP Establishment Goes After Tea Party.  The National Republican Senate Committee, the GOP campaign arm responsible for Senate elections, has decided to use its political power to block consulting firm Jamestown Associates from receiving political work from GOP candidates or incumbents.  Jamestown's "sin" is working with the Senate Conservative Fund, an organization that supports conservative candidates for the US Senate.

House Republican Circulating Petition to Push Immigration Reform.  The third House Republican to support the comprehensive immigration bill introduced by House Democrats is circulating a petition to House Republicans to pressure House Republican leaders to bring up comprehensive immigration reform legislation this year.  On Friday [11/1/2013], Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) said he was "hoping to get a decent number" of signatures, according to the Washington Post.

Toomey backs high-profile gay-rights bill.  Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) voted Monday night [11/4/2013] to advance a bill to ban workplace discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered individuals after an intense lobbying effort and only once the measure had received the 60 votes needed to clear a key procedural hurdle.

Why the Republican Party?  What purpose does the establishment-dominated GOP serve other than as doormats for Democrats, handy and durable ones? [...] Establishment Republicans are in their ways as invested in big government as are Democrats.  They gain status, incomes, privilege, and much else by being part of the problem — i.e., the system — than being against it.  Establishment Republicans aren't change agents; they're "tweak agents."  They tweak the system, if that, because they 1) don't really believe that real change is achievable and 2) why change a system that works for them?

Gay rights supporters wage a quiet campaign to push Republicans to the middle.  [A] powerful group of Republican donors, who see the GOP's staunch opposition to gay rights as a major problem, is trying to push the party toward a more welcoming middle ground — where candidates who oppose marriage rights can do so without seeming hateful.

Will a New Republican Party Please Stand Up?  It is indisputable that the Republican Party offers no united opposition to the tyrannical Left.  Indeed, in the recent government shutdown fiasco, Republican senators repudiated their fellow House Republicans and stood against them with the Democrats.  That action was a slap in the face to not just those Republicans trying to rein in the Left's disastrous fiscal policies, but to all Americans who are concerned about the socialist agenda that is destroying our nation.  The question before us is what to do about it.

Jeb Bush Joins the Cruz Bashers.  In opposing socialized medicine (as in other things) Ronald Reagan, too, was a model of civility, as is Sen. Cruz; yet for both rabid attacks were, and have been, the order of the day — coming from both the Left and the Republican establishment.  The press fawns over Democrats who demagogue conservatives as "terrorists" and "hostage-takers," and over Beltway Republicans who deride conservatives as "wacko-birds" and "tea party hobbits."

The Tea-Party Plan Was More Realistic.  Not only did the tea-party plan have a chance, it was far less cynical and far more compassionate than the Republican alternative.  The Republican alternative to the tea-party plan boils down to this:  Let the people suffer (also called "let Obamacare implode"), then they'll come to us, we'll win a buch of elections over several cycles, then we'll make it better.  Well, step one is working (if that's the right word to use).  People are suffering.

The 10 Rules In The Establishment Republican Handbook.  [#1]  There is nothing ever worth fighting for except Democrat policies:  If you're going to fight for something, make sure you're fighting your own base to help the Democrats achieve some policy goal that makes Tea Partiers want to stab themselves in their eyes.  This makes you appear reasonable to the mainstream media and the howls of outrage from your base make it more likely that the New York Times will say nice things about you.

Establishment GOPers assail tea party on shutdown.  From county chairmen to national party luminaries, veteran Republicans across the country are accusing tea party lawmakers of staining the GOP with their refusal to bend in the budget impasse in Washington.

GOP Establishment Lost All Credibility in Fiscal Fight.  To fully understand the state of play in the Republican party, look no further than Sens. Mike Enzi (WY) and Pat Roberts (KS).  Both are reliable, mainstream conservatives, yet neither have a record of seeking a fight or standing on principle.  Think Orrin Hatch, without the tab-collars.  Both, however, stood with Ted Cruz in the fight over ObamaCare.  Not coincidentally, both face serious primary challengers.

The Conservative War on the GOP.  Tired of feeling taken for granted by a party that alternately panders to them and sells them down the river, in their view, Tea Partiers and others on the right are in revolt.  The Republican Party itself is increasingly the focus of their anger, particularly after Wednesday's deal to reopen the government, which many on the right opposed.  Now, many are threatening to take their business elsewhere.

Tea Party Arose from GOP Establishment Failure to Restrain Govt. Spending.  Fox News political analyst Brit Hume conceded that Republicans that grew the federal government while they were in power the last decade may have ultimately been responsible for the recent standoff over the budget because their actions helped create the Tea Party that now stands fiercely opposed to their goals.

Rush Limbaugh: GOP 'so irrelevant'.  Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday [10/16/2013] blasted the Republican Party as "irrelevant" and responsible for "creating one of the greatest political disasters" he's ever seen.  "I was trying to think earlier today, if ever in my life I could remember any major political party being so irrelevant," the conservative radio host said on his show, according to a transcript.  "I have never seen it.  I have never seen a major political party simply occupy placeholders, as the Republican Party is doing."

The Third Party.  William Galston, writing in the Wall Street Journal warns that the institutional Republican Party — the political equivalent of the Washington Generals — may have lost its audience after the longest losing streak in history. [...] [W]ho's going to keep the gravy train running if people stop making gravy?  His immediate concern is that "defeating" John Boehner in the showdown over Obamacare may have put consensus out of reach.  'Persuading' the GOP establishment to turn on its base destroyed the mechanism the establishment used to bring skeptical parts of the electorate into the fold.  Those skeptics are now out the door, having finally figured out the game is fixed.

Thanks to the RINOs...
There's no actual debt ceiling right now.  The fiscal deal passed by Congress on Wednesday evening to re-open the government and get around the $16.4 trillion limit on borrowing doesn't actually increase the debt limit.  It just temporarily suspends enforcement of it.  That means Americans have no idea how much debt their government is going to rack up between now and Feb. 7, when the limits are supposed to go back into place and will have to be raised.  There is no dollar amount set for how much debt the government can accumulate between now and then.

Minutes After Debt Ceiling Is Raised, Obama Shows Up With List Of Things To Spend Money On.  Aided by centrist Republicans who are more interested in DC social status than the future of the republic, Obama and the Democrats are now encouraged to continue profligate spending habits.  And thanks to the John McCain/Pete King wing of the GOP, they can do it virtually unchecked.

Loophole will allow government to spend without limit until February.
Surprise! Debt-ceiling deal gives Obama a blank check.  It's the ultimate sweetheart deal for a free-spending federal government:  Wednesday night's [10/16/2013] debt deal didn't actually raise the limit on America's credit card, but instead removed it entirely until February 7, 2014.  Whether through legislative sleight-of-hand or something less sinister, the law of the land now permits the U.S. to run up new debts for 16 weeks without consequences, and forbids the Treasury Department from enforcing the debt limit that ordinarily keeps spending from spiraling out of control.

The Tea Party's coming vindication.  The mainstream media — and their parrots in the Republican establishment — are claiming that President Obama decisively won the government shutdown battle.  In fact, the narrative being peddled is that the GOP brand has been badly damaged, paving the way for a possible Democratic Party takeover of the House of Representatives in the 2014 elections.  This is puerile nonsense.  Tea Party Republicans, led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, may have lost the battle, but they are poised for a major victory in the larger Obamacare war.

American taxpayers betrayed by chicken-hearted RINOs.  American taxpayers have once again been trampled by establishment Republicans — a thundering herd of chicken-hearted Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) galloping to the Left.  The debt ceiling deal struck between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is a victory for President Obama and Democrats.  ObamaCare is still the law of the land.  The government is still spending money it does not have.  And thousands of government workers just got a two-week vacation courtesy of the taxpayers.

List: Republican House, Senate Votes on Debt, Shutdown Deal.  Twenty-seven Republican senators voted for Wednesday's bill passed by the upper chamber to fund the U.S. government in a continuing resolution and extend the nation's debt limit.  Eighteen voted against the measure, and one was not present.

The Dire Problem of Republican Leadership.  Let's start with national chair Reince Priebus.  All four campaign debates were moderated by partisan Democrats.  One of them, Candy Crowley, knocked Romney off his balance with an ambush that stalled momentum he had developed in the first debate.  Priebus stood passively by as the debates were rigged against his party's candidates.

Anti-ObamaCare Republicans Should Have No Apologies.  The outmaneuvering of the House by the White House and Senate finds the media and their Democrat puppeteers pronouncing the demise of the Republican Party.  Since when is spine a political liability?  The real villains of the battle of the budget and debt ceiling are John McCain, Susan Collins and Bob Corker in the Senate and Peter King in the House, not Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and not the House's Tea Party Republicans.

Fight Worth Having.  American taxpayers have once again been trampled by establishment Republicans — a thundering herd of chicken-hearted Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) galloping to the Left.  The debt ceiling deal struck between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is a victory for President Obama and Democrats.  ObamaCare is still the law of the land.  The government is still spending money it does not have.  And thousands of government workers just got a two-week vacation courtesy of the taxpayers.

The New Nexus: Media Left And Republican Moderates.  The government shutdown has made it abundantly clear that the anti-conservative news media and the anti-conservative Republican establishment have joined together to the point where it's almost impossible to see where one ends and the other begins.

5 Republicans Who Deserve To Lose Their Jobs Over Their Shutdown Behavior.  If these mediocrities are so desperate to get in the good graces of the media that they're willing to try to sabotage their own party, then they should change teams and become Democrats.  If they want to become commentators so they can say what they want without it hurting the GOP, they should quit and go to work for MSNBC.  If they just don't like it because there are actually conservatives who expect them to get [up] and fight for conservatism for the first time in their entire political careers instead of just talking a good game when it doesn't matter, then they're in the wrong business.

Why Immigration Reform Could Spell Doom for the GOP.  The recent Senate debate over immigration reform focused mostly on three issues:  1) the economic effects of legalizing millions of currently illegal immigrants while also increasing the rate of future immigration, 2) the possibility of achieving real border security and 3) the ethical question of offering the reward of citizenship to those who entered the country illegally.  Beneath it all was another factor, never far from lawmakers' minds, but much less discussed:  the electoral effects of reform.

Republican's Secret Ally Against Obamacare.  For all its flaws, the GOP remains the only vehicle for advancing conservative ideas in practice, and it is the only possible vehicle for saving this country from the truly awful consequences of Democratic governance.  If the Republican party loses all purchase with voters, Democrats will do to America what they've done to Detroit, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

The Editor says...
Yeah, but "for all its flaws" covers a lot of ground.  Yes, the GOP would be on the right track, in the absence of all those flaws, but the flaws cannot be ignored.

Levin: Something Wrong With GOP When Cruz, Lee, Paul Are Attacked By Party.  Conservative talk radio host Mark Levin blasted the Republican establishment at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. on Friday [10/11/2013], calling the way the federal government is currently operating a "soft tyranny."  Levin accused them of spending more time attacking conservatives who are fighting a federal government rife with crony capitalism than in becoming more accountable to the American people.

In U.S., Perceived Need for Third Party Reaches New High.  Amid the government shutdown, 60% of Americans say the Democratic and Republicans parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that a third major party is needed.  That is the highest Gallup has measured in the 10-year history of this question.  A new low of 26% believe the two major parties adequately represent Americans.

Both Parties Agree: Taxpayers Foot Bill for Vacationing Bureaucrats.  Over the weekend, the House held a vote and agreed — without a single exception — that when this government shutdown is all over, all these "non-essential" government bureaucrats who have been loafing around at home all this time will all be given back pay for work they did not perform.  So instead of getting a little taste of the furloughs, layoffs, and firings private American workers have been suffering for years in this nasty economy, these federal bureaucrats would be granted extended paid vacations.

Country Club Republicans Must Go.  Country club Republicans seem to be clueless about Democrats.  Although country-club Republicans are reluctant to criticize Democrats of any stripe, they don't mind attacking other Republicans, like Ted Cruz.  Some Republicans provided Chris Wallace with opposition research against Cruz.  As Sarah Palin noted, country club Republicans eat other Republicans.  John McCain's assault on Ted Cruz in the Senate after Cruz's filibuster against Obamacare shows just how far "moderate" Republicans will go to eat other Republicans.

84 House Republicans Support Legalizing Undocumented Workers.  One group may have collapsed, but 84 House Republicans have publicly voiced support for granting some type of legal status to the 11 million immigrants here in the country illegally, and 20 others have said they would be willing to consider it — many more than what most media reports suggest.

Divide and Conquer: Politico Cites Unnamed Republican Senator to Blast Cruz.  The narrative over the past two days has shifted dramatically from the danger of a government shutdown to the Obama administration's cynical manipulation of the shutdown, closing down war memorials to vets and insisting on zero negotiations.  The continuing collapse of the Obamacare exchanges also provides a secondarily difficult front for the Obama media to fight.  And on Wednesday [10/2/2013], Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) created yet a third front for Democrats to fight against, asking "Why would we want" to help one child with cancer.

Thoughts on the Government Shutdown.  House Republicans had six months to strategize since the last budget battle, so why did they leave it until the last minute to figure out what to do?  They seem to have been unified in recent votes to defund and delay Obamacare.  So why didn't they announce their strategy months ago, draw a hard line, and then spend the summer building public support for their plan?  The Democrats have a stronger hand because they have been giving a consistent message.  The lack of leadership from the House created a void that Senator Cruz filled.  Some House members didn't like Cruz getting the spotlight and telling them what to do, but they should have had their act together.

Lindsey Graham thinks you're stupid.  Yesterday, 25 Senate Republicans stood shoulder to shoulder with their Democrat counterparts and helped the Continuing Budget Resolution pass cloture.  Despite Ted Cruz's efforts, and his warning that "a vote for cloture was a vote for Obamacare," Lindsey Graham was eager to join hands and sing Cumbaya with his alleged Dem opponents.  With the help of people like Graham, the CR easily passed cloture, allowing Harry Reid to introduce an amendment restoring funding for Obamacare.

The Torch Should Pass From The McCains To The Cruzes.  Sen. Ted Cruz's marathon filibuster against ObamaCare should be a turning point for the Republican Party.  If its younger, non-establishment leaders don't take over, it could — disastrously — spell third party.

Why the Republicans Always Cave.  With ObamaCare in place, death panels will be the least of America's worries.  If ever there was a time that mainstream America needed bold and principled representation, this is the time.  So why is the GOP — the current vehicle for the center-right mainstream in American politics — divided over whether to stand and fight or to simply step out of the way of the left's final steps toward socialism?  Or, to put it bluntly, why is it always the Republicans who cave and never the far left?

What We Just Saw.  Conservatives have finally realized that, as it's currently constituted, they have no home in the Republican party, which is the Washington Generals to the Democrats' Harlem Globetrotters, the designated losers who nevertheless are rewarded handsomely for their sham opposition.  To that end, conservatives understand that rather than form a third party, their only hope is to seize control of the corrupt, rotting hulk of the GOP, which they now can do with the help of a reinvigorated Tea Party — especially with Lois Lerner's IRS off its back.

Ted Cruz Reveals that the Republican Establishment Despise Their Own Base.  The battleground of the moment is ObamaCare.  But the first adversary that must be defeated is the Republican establishment.  Is it any wonder that the Republican leadership is working to make sure the defunding effort fails?  Ted Cruz is pinning his ambitions to the big reality the Tea Party represents:  conservatives really are fed up with both parties in Washington, D.C.

'Top' DC Republicans Sent Oppo Research to 'Hammer' Cruz.  On Sunday, Chris Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, said that Republicans in Washington were savaging Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) behind Cruz's back before Cruz's appearance on the program to discuss defunding Obamacare.  In an appearance on Washington D.C.'s Fox 5 to preview his Sunday show, Wallace said, "I will tell you I have never in my time in Washington seen a party so upset with one of its own members."

Sarah Palin takes shot at Chris Wallace over anonymous Ted Cruz attacks.  Angry Republicans — not Democrats — sent Fox News opposition research on Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz before his appearance on a broadcast of "Fox News Sunday," according to host Chris Wallace. [...] "This has been one of the strangest weeks I've ever had in Washington," Wallace said.  "As soon as we listed Ted Cruz as our guest this week, I got unsolicited research and questions, not from Democrats, but from top Republicans to hammer Cruz.  Why are Republicans so angry at Ted Cruz?"

Mitch McConnell's Campaign Manager: We Had Nothing to Do with Ted Cruz Oppo Shopping.  Jesse Benton, the campaign manager for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's re-election campaign, told Breitbart News on Sunday that "of course not," neither McConnell, nor anyone on his Senate staff or campaign staff, shopped any opposition research on Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to any members of the media, including Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace.

Mr. Breitbart Goes to Washington.  Gloria Borger told Anderson Cooper on Thursday [9/19/2013] that she talked to a "senior Republican" who said Republican leaders were more angry with the defunders than with Obama.  More angry with Ted Cruz and Mike Lee than with President Obama who is tanking our economy and steering our foreign policy ship into dystopian, post-superpower waters?  If true, the comment is very instructional about the lack of contrast between the GOP establishment and the Democrats.

Terrorized by the Tea Party.  [T]he present establishment duopoly [...] constitutes, in reality, little more than a one-party state in which either party, if the other didn't exist, would have to invent it in order merely to preserve the illusion of a two-party state subject to substantive political opposition.  In political reality, there has in living memory been no conservative political party in the United States.  There is none now; and, absent reforming the Republican Party or creating a third party, there will be none in the future.

Rep. Gohmert: GOP Leadership Scared Taking Principled Stands Will Lose Elections.  Speaking to Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon on Breitbart News' broadcast of the "Exempt America" rally on Tuesday, [Rep. Louie] Gohmert said the Republican leadership does not understand that the GOP will lose the trust of the American people if they stop fighting for what they promised Americans they would fight for.  "They honestly believe that it may hurt the party if we stand too firm with what we believe in," Gohmert said.

Report: House GOP Leadership Plan Procedural Trick to Avoid Obamacare Funding Fight.  Sources close to House conservative leaders have confirmed to Breitbart News that House GOP leadership is planning to cave and fund Obamacare's implementation for at least the rest of 2013.

The Editor says...
I would think their goal would be to win fights, not avoid them.

Three-and-a-half More Years of Obama!  When the disasters come — and they will (most of them are on track at this moment and can't be turned around except through drastic action which Obama and all other visible Democrats are incapable of) — they will be dumped into the laps of the Republicans.  No other group in modern history has proven more adept at shifting blame than the liberal left, just as no other political party has proven more apt to stumble into the spotlight at the worst possible moment than the GOP.

Something is very wrong at the Republican National Committee.  Reports from activists who were at the RNC meeting clearly state that the leadership of the Party has little interest in either reform or leadership.  Their priority is not the unifying or growth of the party.  Instead the RNC establishment seeks further rules changes and restrictions on participation by grassroots members in order to maintain establishment control over the primary process and the management of the party.  Their top down control and neglect of grassroots voices has lead to disastrous results in recent elections.  They want to keep it a party of, by and for insiders and consultants and treat most of the membership of the party as outsiders with no voice at all.

A Test of GOP Resolve on ObamaCare.  The Office of Personnel Management announced — with no legal authority — that Congress could keep receiving its giant subsidies.  Oh, and the OPM also declared that each member of Congress also gets to define which of his staff is covered by the law.  Chances are many staffers will never have to deal with the exchanges at all.  This deal ought to have led to a wild GOP protest, both on philosophical and legal grounds.  Instead, there has been nary a peep of complaint.

A Third-Party Candidate on the Rise in 2016?  With the agitation in Tea Party circles and widespread displeasure at the GOP establishment's performance over the past few years, the pressure is clearly building in the conservative ranks.

The Grand Old Party is about to go 'Boom!'  In the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, the Republican Party will explode.  When the smoke clears, there will be four (four!) new parties.

The RNC's horrific open-borders pandering.  Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus had a message last week for outspoken conservatives who support strict immigration enforcement policies:  Shut up.  Yes, the head of the RNC is more concerned about protecting the party's Hispanic vote-pandering campaign than protecting law-abiding citizens from the devastating consequences of illegal immigration.

Saul Alinsky and the 2013 Budget Fight.  These days, Obama has Republicans in such fear that they unapologetically skip the fight and go straight to declaring defeat.  In their defense, Obama's string of successes has defied rationality.  In 2008, he was perhaps the least experienced candidate to ever win the presidency.  He came from a radical background, yet received practically no vetting whatsoever from the mainstream media.  The whole scene was unlike anything in modern American history, with the extraordinarily large, euphoric, and delusional masses under the spell of a demagogue.

The Editor says...
No, the delusional masses were under the spell of the news media.

"Hello, Suckers!"  The most depressing thing about having the GOP be, by default, the political party that ostensibly represents conservatives is its utter inability to actually do anything.  For decades, conservatives have been working for and voting for candidates who promise to cut back the size of government, stand up to the Left, reform the Ponzi Scheme known as Social Security, simplify the tax code, etc., and yet how many of these things actually have been accomplished?  Correct if you answered zero.

The August Amnesty End-Run Around the Conservative Base.  One difference between the two major parties is that Democrats harness the energy of their base to fight legislative battles; Republicans make end-runs around their base to obviate their energy.  Let's examine the GOP's strategy for dealing with immigration.  Instead of harnessing their energy to fight amnesty and hang it around the necks of Democrats in the red state electoral landscape next year, they are trying to outflank the conservative base with subterfuge in order to pass amnesty.

Kill ObamaCare Now Or Never.  Some Republicans and conservative pundits are in a lather lately, throwing brickbats like "the dumbest idea I've ever heard," "a fantasy," "the definition of insanity," "nuts" and something that will "deliver nothing other than pain."  Oh, wait.  Those aren't criticisms of ObamaCare.  They're complaints from the likes of GOP Sens. Richard Burr and Tom Coburn, and various conservative pundits and bloggers about a proposal to defund ObamaCare.

Rubio: If you're willing to fund Obamacare, you can't possibly say you're against it.  On Mark Levin's radio show on Monday, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio argued that Republicans should use Congress' budgetary powers to defund President Barack Obama's unpopular 2010 health care reform law.  Rubio, who seemed to have fallen out of favor with Levin after the immigration debate in the Senate earlier this summer, used his appearance on the conservative talk radio program to talk about an idea that has pitted newer Republican legislators against a GOP establishment that insists the defunding scheme can't work.

Are Republicans Representing Their Constituents?  [Scroll down]  Efforts to cut entitlements are non-existent; on the contrary, 11 plus million illegal immigrants will be added to the welfare rolls and to Social Security via blanket amnesty which Republicans cannot wait to pass if we are to judge by their constant radio and television ads in support of amnesty.  I am unsure if a balanced federal budget is possible any time soon since bill after bill is full of pork from both sides, most of which have little to do with the title of the bill.

Is the GOP self-destructing?  Take last week's unremarkable proposal by President Obama for a deal to combine corporate tax cuts (an idea Republicans love) with an increase in spending on roads and other public works (an idea only some Republicans love).  Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has emerged as Obama's chief partner in trying to negotiate bipartisan deals, praised the idea as "a good start."

Unknown Republican blocks bill requiring email search warrants.  An anonymous Republican senator has delayed a vote on legislation that would require police to obtain a warrant before accessing emails and other online messages.  Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) pushed for a vote on the bill before Congress left for its August recess.  He secured unanimous support from Democrats, but at least one Republican objected to the bill, according to a Democratic Senate aide.  Leahy had hoped to fast-track the bill to passage with unanimous support, but the opposition means a vote will be delayed until at least September.

Since 1988, we've been offered this choice in every presidential election:  A centrist versus a leftist.
2016: Clinton vs. Christie?  If there were any doubts that the former secretary of state plans to run for president, they were put to rest when she and Obama had lunch on the patio outside the Oval Office on Monday.  The White House photographer, Chuck Kennedy, took pictures of the tete-a-tete that were immediately beamed around the world, sending a clear message that the Clintons were gearing up to take back the presidency — and that maybe Obama was ready to help them do that.

Sarah Palin: "I Was Not Allowed" To Tell The Truth About Obama In 2008.  [... "]I was banned from talking about Jeremiah Wright and Obama's friend, Bill Ayers, the character that he befriended and kicked off his political campaign in the guy's living room.  Couldn't talk about that.  Couldn't talk about Obama's lack of knowledge and job experience and the things that he said like America had 57 states, things like that.  In the campaign, Greta, this is important for Americans to understand.  I was not allowed to talk about things like that because those elitists, those who are the brainiacs in the GOP machine running John McCain's campaign at the time said that the media would eat us alive if we brought up these things.["]

RNC Operatives Join Holder's Campaign Against Texas, Several Other States.  Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday [7/25/2013] that the Justice Department will seek to recapture Texas and return it to federal oversight for approval of all election law changes such as photo voter identification.  Holder's move comes after the Supreme Court in June freed Texas and other states from the requirement that all state election laws be approved in Washington, D.C.  Holder's move prompted outrage from Texas Senators Ted Cruz, John Cornyn and Governor Rick Perry.  The three should also be angry with the Republican National Committee.

How to Change One-Party Bifurcation into a Two-Party System.  One political debacle after another is signaling to responsible Americans that we no longer have a two-party system.  The time for change is now.

New study sheds light on why Republicans won't call themselves Republican.  This week, The Frontier Lab published the results of months of research into why some Republicans are refusing to go by the label "Republican," choosing to identify as anything but.  I was the Research Director for this study, which applied a research approach called "Behavioral Event Modeling," which essentially reverse engineers and maps all events that precede an individual's disaffiliation.  In the spring of 2013 the Republican National Committee released a report, the "Growth and Opportunity Project," providing an assessment of the state of their party that began by stating that it was "time for the Party to learn once again how to appeal to more people."

A Big RIP to the GOP.  Today I rescind all association with the Republican Party.  I will no longer allow my vote to be taken for granted by an entity whose interests have diverged so far from my own over the past quarter-century.  I will never again vote for a Republican candidate simply because he or she is less evil than his or her Democratic counterpart.  I'm tired of compromising my principles to support a party that has none.

Republican Party Won't Survive Amnesty Bill and Neither will America.  The Republican Party won't survive the passing of the Democrat's illegal immigration amnesty bill.  This shouldn't be too complex for the D.C. geniuses:  if you betray your party's base to pander to the opposition's base, they win, you lose.  If you screw the white working class to pander to the Hispanic vote, whites will stay home.  If you destroy your base's trust in government, by passing yet another 2000 page bill no one has read, Republicans will stay home.  Republicans are too busy working and raising a family to waste their time voting for a bunch of cynical, lying politicians.

Pass the Immigration Bill and Kiss Your Base Good-Bye, Republicans.  Democrats get this, some Republicans don't:  You have to satisfy your base.  In 2012 Obama built out from his base, satisfying them enough on ObamaCare and then using wedge issues to build out from the base and attract low-information voters. [...] Republicans haven't learned anything from 2012.  Passing the Rubio-Schumer bill is an excellent way for Republicans to throw the 2014 election and grant Barack Obama unchecked power during his last two years in office.

Grand Old Propaganda.  The "shoot-themselves-in-the-foot" party is stalking the irresistible "youth voter," or what purportedly has been learned about this elusive prototype. [...] If the GOP doesn't act rationally on this, it will soon be replaced by a national Tea Party movement or some other new option with foresight and guts.

The Planned Obsolescence of Incandescent Bulbs and Conservatives.  Back in 2010, the last major U.S. incandescent light bulb factory closed in Virginia and 200 workers lost their jobs.  And thanks to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, most incandescent light bulbs will be a thing of the past by 2014.

The Editor says...
Who signed that bill into law, and made incandescent bulbs illegal?  George W. Bush.

If the GOP is this stupid, it deserves to die.  It must be fun for liberals to manipulate Republicans into focusing on hopeless causes.

GOP should be 'Closed for repairs,' says Dole.  National Republicans have shifted so drastically in the past decade that the party's most vaunted figure — former President Ronald Reagan — would no longer find a home in the GOP, former Sen. Bob Dole claimed Sunday [5/26/2013].

Bob Dole: Paul, 'Extreme Right-Wing' Cruz Don't Have Experience to Run in 2016.  Former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole weighed in on his party's likely 2016 contenders recently, and concluded that some of the most talked-about names just aren't ready yet.  In a new interview with the Wichita Eagle, Dole calls out Ted Cruz and Rand Paul specifically to say they lack the experience to run in 2016.

The Grand Old Poseurs.  Last week, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell ostentatiously announced their intention to fight implementation of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).  They sent a letter to the President decrying the way IPAB will "impact America's seniors ... in the absence of the democratic process."  Sadly, the exercise was a charade.  McConnell and Boehner know perfectly well that Obama has no intention of setting up this controversial rationing board until after 2015.

No backbone.
Despite momentum, GOP leadership still against special Benghazi committee.  While momentum has been building inside the House Republican conference for a special congressional committee to investigate last year's terrorist attacks in Benghazi, the GOP leadership is making it clear they still have no enthusiasm for establishing such a committee.  About two-thirds of House Republicans — 153 in total — have signed on to the resolution offered by Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia to establish "a select committee to investigate and report on the attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, Libya."

Sen. Ted Cruz: 'I don't trust Republicans'.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Wednesday that he doesn't trust members of his own party to negotiate a budget conference report.  Cruz's remark came after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he thought it was "bizarre" that a member of his own party was objecting to forming a conference committee with the House to work out a budget.  McCain said the objections suggested Senate Republicans didn't trust House Republicans to hold the party line in negotiations.

The Republican Party's Road Back to Victory.  The GOP doesn't have a compelling, or even a particularly identifiable, governing vision.  That may be sufficient for a congressional party committed to blocking President Obama's agenda, but it's not sufficient for a national party that wants to once again win presidential elections.

Why the Immigration Bill Can't Be Fixed.  [Reason #4]  The bill puts vast discretion in the hands of Janet Napolitano and people like her.  The modern trend in legislation is for Congress to decide little of substance, but rather to set up an agency or commission to make findings, promulgate rules and essentially legislate within its sphere.  Such agencies inevitably promulgate liberal rules, so this system works well for Democrats, not so well for Republicans.  Why on Earth would Republicans agree to repose vast, unfettered discretion in the likes of Janet Napolitano, who have already publicly announced that they only intend to enforce the portions of federal law with which they agree?

Republican Politicians are the Most Stupid Beings on Earth.  Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and every [...] other DemonRat would love nothing more than to pass the so-called Immigration Reform Bill which will provide a path to vote forever for DemonRats while further destroying America.  No problem there ... it's what we've come to expect from the Dim Party. [...] Yet, we see the members of the Party of Stupid falling all over themselves in supporting a bill that will forever guarantee the country will never again see a Republican president or state legislature.  Why?  Hispanics vote for DemonRats.  Why?  DemonRats give them free [stuff] at the expense of the American taxpayer!

Carbon Tax: Are Republicans Really That Stupid?  As much as I admire former Secretary of State George Shultz, and because I do, I was totally flummoxed by a recent Wall Street Journal article he co-authored with economist Nobel laureate Gary Becker.  Incredulously, the two senior fellows at Stanford University's conservative Hoover Institution expressed support for a "revenue neutral" tax on carbon.

The Reactionary Republicans.  With all these miserably lost elections based on "moderation" you would think those who keep on keeping on with the idea of moderation that has repeatedly certified so many Republican presidential losers or closer-than-should be victories would have the decency to quietly slink off to re-think.  Re-think the idea that "moderation" has anything new to contribute beyond losing presidential campaigns [...]

Open Letter to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus.  First, your subject line.  Oddly enough, "Oh no, not again" is exactly what I always say every time I see one of your "Have Stupidity, Two Presidential Election Losses, Please Help" pleas in my inbox.  Even odder still, it's about the dumbest subject line you could use for an e-mail that despite the not-so-juicy tidbit of gossip and link to yet another useless petition, will ultimately send me to a page asking me to click on whatever amount of money you think I might deign to send you today.

Amnesty = Extinction.  On January 28, 2013, a group of Republicans in Congress decided to close down the Republican Party.  Their "going out of business sale" involves converting an estimated 12 to 20 million trespassing illegal aliens into solidly-Democrat voters.  Republicans will ensure Democrat control of Congress and the White House with millions of new voters for generations to come.  Will there really be 12 to 20 million new Democrat voters?  No.  Have you heard of "chain migration?"  Each new citizen can petition to bring their immediate and extended family with him.  So we are talking about perhaps an eventual 40 million new Democrat voters.

House GOP is dazed, lost and leaderless.  Down two touchdowns after the first quarter, the House Republicans think they are winning.  That's a big problem, and not only because they are losing the great positioning battle in the run-up to President Obama's last great campaign — the 2014 congressional elections — but also because the House GOP is destroying what's left of its already badly disfigured brand in the process.

Social conservatives warn Priebus they could abandon GOP.  A group of high-profile social conservatives warned Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus in a letter this week that their supporters could abandon the GOP if the party seeks to change its position on social issues, particularly same-sex marriage.

Why is a conservative group opposing spending cuts?  President Obama's budget this week proposed $50 billion in new infrastructure funding.  [...] Republicans have always been unreliable on reducing federal spending.  GOP politicians will crow about bloated budgets and dangerous deficits but then load spending bills with parochial pork.  Republican talk of spending cuts almost always leaves the defense budget sacrosanct, with highway spending also receiving special treatment.

Sources Report Senate Republicans Caving on Guns.  Sources inside the Senate tell me that the Republican Conference is scared to death of the tactics of Senators Lee, Cruz and Paul — that it is supposedly putting them in a tough spot.  Several of the Republicans are using the Manchin-Toomey compromise plan as an excuse to cave on the gun filibuster.  They claim that Senators Lee, Cruz, and Paul are running ahead of the conference in their insistence on a filibuster.  What they fail to see is that the cloture vote is the vote to stop the gun legislation from passage.

Is the U.S. becoming a sham democracy?  Eliana Johnson reports that four Republican members of the Senate Judiciary — Jeff Sessions, Chuck Grassley, Mike Lee, and Ted Cruz — are calling for transparency from their GOP colleagues in the "Gang of Eight" that is drafting immigration reform legislation. [...] They note that the Gang has "secretly met for months" without consulting with members of the Judiciary Committee about changes to the country's immigration laws.

Blue States Sinking.  Last week the national Republican Party issued a report on why it lost the 2012 presidential election.  The report belongs in the paper shredder.  Look at a map of the U.S. and you'll see why.  The Republican Party is already on the way to dominating presidential politics. [...] The biggest mistake the GOP could make is to change course and abandon its current policies.  It will soon control an electoral college majority.

Is the Republican Party America's Achilles Heel?  There is a war going on in the United States — as survivor of World War II I do not say that lightly.  It is being waged by the current incarnation of the Democratic Party in order to transform the most successful nation in the history of mankind into another secular socialist state permanently ruled by an oligarchy made up of the establishment in their party.

Copying Democrats' Identity Politics A Loser For GOP.  Republicans lost the election by failing to pin the Great Recession on Democratic housing policies mandating affirmative-action lending.  They'll lose even worse if they adopt Democratic racial politics.

Huckabee: Evangelicals Will Walk if GOP Backs Gay Marriage.  In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, former Arkansas Gov. Huckabee — and [sic] ordained Southern Baptist minister — was asked if he sees the GOP ever pivoting and backing gay marriage.  "They might.  And if they do, they're going to lose a large part of their base because evangelicals will take a walk," he responds.

Tony Perkins urges conservatives to halt GOP contributions, consider third party.  Angered by back-to-back presidential candidates who were squishy on social issues, some conservatives are warming to the idea of a third party while urging activists to stop funding GOP groups.  "I would not give my money to the national party, to the national Republican Party," said Tony Perkins, president of the influential Family Research Council.  "I would not give it to the RNC, I would not give it to the Republican Senatorial Committee nor to the Republican Congressional Committee," he added on his new radio show, "Washington Watch."

Time to Secede... From the GOP.  Every election cycle the Republican Party counts on its "conservative base" to dutifully turn out and mark their ballot for whatever candidate has been selected by the GOP leadership.  We are told ad infinitum that doing so will keep the Democrat liberal demons from furthering their agenda.  The inside-the-beltway establishment has been chanting this mantra for years and in the process we keep getting Republicans who stand for nothing except their own political gain.

Karl Rove and Republican Decline.  Not since 1984 and the landslide victory of Ronald Reagan have the Republicans had a more winnable election than the 2012 presidential election.  Yet the Republican Establishment managed to lose to the worst and most vulnerable President in modern history, with historically poor approval ratings, unemployment averaging over 8.7% during his entire first term, a stagnant economy and someone who ran the smallest and most absurd of all possible re-election campaigns.  Why and how did this happen?

How clueless is the RNC?  Psst!  Somebody tell Reince Priebus about the blogosphere.  Evidently, neither he nor anyone else at the RNC understands the new information order the internet has wrought.

Mark Levin: "The Republican Party Is Going To Split, And There's Going To Be Two Parties".  On the Monday night [3/18/2013] broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Mark Levin warned the Republican party will split unless RNC chairman Reince Priebus and House Speaker John Boehner are thrown out.

Schlafly: GOP Establishment Gave Us Losers Like Dole, McCain and Romney.  Conservative legend Phyllis Schlafly told the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday that the Republican establishment had given America a series of losers as presidential candidates over the last two decades — and the last time they picked a winner, George W. Bush, he was a bigger spender than the Democrats.  "Why is it that the establishment has given us this bunch of losers?"  Schlafly said.  "The establishment has given us a whole series of losers:  Bob Dole and John McCain and Mitt Romney.

Trouble Brewing in GOP.  For the first time, I am wondering about the long-term viability of the Republican Party.  I say this not as an advocate of its demise or restructuring but as an observer of troubling signs.

GOP Rolls Over for Obama and Recommends Brennan for CIA Post.  During a press conference in September 2010 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., respected experts, including officials from the Florida Security Council, told reporters that because of Brennan's adherence to the politically-correct orthodoxy that permeates the Obama administration, the U.S. government is being prevented from identifying, understanding and countering radical Muslims and their threat of imposing Shariah law.

The So Called Adults Within the GOP Are Stupid.  The ACU gave Mitch McConnell a 100% rating and gave Renee Elmers of North Carolina, one of the most worthless members of Congress to ever be elected as a tea party candidate, some award to prove her bona fides.  That basically means the award is her conservative bona fides because she doesn't have a record to show for it. [...] The number of notable Republicans critical of Rand Paul's filibuster is really amazing.  Rand Paul put serious points on the board against the Obama Administration and John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Bill Kristol, National Review, and others are out dismissing him.

House GOP Votes to APPROVE Obamacare.  According to the Constitution it is the House that controls spending, if Boehner really wanted to kill Obamacare he could refuse to fund it.  Today the house passed a resolution that will guarantee the funding of Obamacare and except for ten brave souls, every Republican Congressman Voted to Approve Obamacare Today, and they broke their own rules to do it.

The Unofficial Merger of the GOP and Democrat Party!  Here is a memo to both sides within the GOP; an increasing number of the core of the GOP electorate is talking with their registration.  They are registering as Independents because neither party represents them.  The only ones winning with this movement are the puppeteers and the hood rats within the Democrat Party who sold their souls long ago for worldly power and wealth.

Violence Against Women Act — Passed in GOP-Controlled House — Covers Transgenders.  Provisions in the recently passed Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that single-out gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders (LGBT) put domestic violence among those groups at the center of the federal effort to address such violence nationwide. [...] The new law does not provide a definition for transgender or bisexual.

Twenty Republicans Join Democrats To Confirm Jack Lew.  On Wednesday [2/27/2013], the U.S. Senate voted 71-26 to confirm Jack Lew as the next Treasury Secretary of the United States.  Twenty Republicans joined Democrats to confirm Lew by a greater margin than his predecessor, Timothy Geithner.

Can Obama Be Stopped?  The Republican defeats in 2008 and 2012 have convinced much of its leadership that the future lies with the left.  They are not debating whether to concede defeat, but which territories of principle to surrender. [...] If both sides get their way, the Republican Party will end up evolving into the Democratic Party.

Senate GOP ponders ceding power to President Obama.  The five- page document, which has the tacit support of Senate GOP leaders, represents a remarkable shift for the party.  Having railed against Senate Democrats for not passing a budget, Republicans are now proposing that Congress surrender an important piece of its Constitutional "power of the purse" for the last seven months of this fiscal year.

Mark Levin blasts Obama for smearing American people, and GOP for throwing in with Obama.  Mark Levin blasted Obama for going on Al Sharpton's radio show and smearing not just your representatives, but you.  And then he torched Republicans for being so weak that they end up throwing in with Obama's mindset.  [Audio clip]

How the Left Dupes Conservative Voters.  The results of the [2012] election were disheartening to the point of shock.  The campaign defied all historical precedent, all commonsense interpretation.  The Romney ticket should not have lost and did not deserve to lose.  The Democrats, fielding the least worthy ticket in the past century — and that's saying something — did not deserve to win.  The reasons they did are myriad and complex.  But before we get too far down the road, there is one lesson that has to be grasped:  the left has our number.

Resistance Is Not Futile.  If Republicans in Congress lack the nerve to stand up to President Obama, or the moxie to do so effectively, all other admirable efforts could end up being for naught.  The federal nanny state could be so expanded, its tentacles could become so much more deeply embedded in the fabric of American life, that it would prove almost impossible for the next administration, however well-intentioned, to extricate us from it.

You Don't Negotiate With Terrorists — or Democrats.  While some observers gave up on the leadership of the Republican Party long ago, it is now becoming apparent to rank-and-file Republicans that the GOP leadership and its prominent operatives are wholly complicit in the fundamental transformation of America.

The Proper Definition of Conservative.  Today's "conservative" movement is full of non-conservatives.  While Reagan's Big Tent theory for the Republican Party might have looked good on paper, it has been disastrous for the GOP.

Unite or Perish.  Americans who value the Constitution and the Founders' vision must set aside their differences and unite upon common ground or we all can continue to watch American freedom perish.  It is time to regroup, re-engage, and organize and, most importantly:  Unite or perish.

The Editor says...
I'm so sick of this "set aside your differences" nonsense.  "Americans who value the Constitution and the Founders' vision" don't have any major differences.  Differences exist between true conservatives and so-called "big tent" people — godless centrists who want to include abortion, same-sex marriage, open borders, women in combat, and global warming battles into the Republican platform.

Ideological commitment and the timidity of pragmatic politics.  Compromise is nothing more than losing more slowly, and with each salvo against our natural rights the Left is able to gain a measure of acquiescence, they just grow emboldened and prepare for the next salvo.  The current GOP establishment leadership, which the GOP just re-elected, has shown it wants nothing more than to live in its comfortable Beltway bubble, cutting deals, agreeing to compromises, and working in a "bi-partisan" way so as not to be labeled "obstructionists."  That is, they are willing to compromise away our rights for their comforts.  As such, we cannot look to them for protection, and instead must work even harder to replace them with pro-Constitution representatives.

NYT Report: Obama To Ram Through Immigration Legislation To Grant Amnesty To 11 Million Illegal Immigrants.  I can't be the only one with zero confidence in the GOP leadership to stop this.

The milk carton Republicans.  A disappearing speaker and supporting cast is new in American politics, and certainly has got to be signaling to the Democrats that they are in the driver's seat on any number of issues.

You Say You Want a Revolution?  ["]Yesterday, as the day before and the day before that, there was no sign of any GOP leader anywhere, on the nominations, on the "executive order" on guns, on the key nominations.  No appearances.  No statements.  Just crickets.["]  Those crickets would be the American people, just itching for a fight with Obama and the Democrats but finding no one to lead them.  If the conservative ranks seem dispirited in the wake of the last election, it's not because we lost — it's because we didn't fight.

Peter King: Halt donations to House GOP.  "These Republicans have no problem finding New York when they're out raising millions of dollars," King said on Fox News.  "They're in New York all the time filling their pockets with money from New Yorkers.  I'm saying right now, anyone from New York or New Jersey who contributes one penny to Congressional Republicans is out of their minds. [..."]

The Republicans didn't compromise: they surrendered .  There are some hidden tax rises that affect almost everyone.  Rates on capital gains and dividends go up and a 2 percent payroll tax cut is due to expire.  According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the ending of the payroll reduction will raise taxes on 77.1 percent of households.  The average cost will be $1,635.

America was never supposed to be this way.
A 2013 Conservative Call to Arms.  Inept GOP politicians have long served as perfect foils in the progressive movement's war against our Constitution, private property rights, and individual liberties.  The Republican Party's pathetic capitulation under pressure apparently stems from little more than fear of media influenced opinion polls and the threat those polls might hold for their continued participation in "the game."  As a result of miserable GOP leadership failures and misplaced voter trust, the voices of true conservatism have been virtually eradicated from politics at the federal level.

Republicans Deserved to Lose.  To me, the Republican establishment is the eighth wonder of the world.  How they can keep repeating the same mistakes for decades on end is beyond my ability to explain.  Bret Stephens said, back at the beginning of 2012, that Mitt Romney was one of the "hollow men," and that voters "usually prefer the man who stands for something."  Yet this is not just about Mitt Romney.  He is only the latest in a long series of presidential candidates backed by a Republican establishment that seems convinced that ad hoc "moderation" is where it's at — no matter how many of their ad hoc moderates get beaten by even vulnerable, unknown, or discredited Democrats.

GOP sets record for quickest surrender in history.  Yesterday [12/30/2012], the Republican leadership insisted there would be no fiscal cliff deal unless there was a cap on cost of living adjustments for social security.  They were adamant — a deal killer.  That was yesterday.  By last night, that strong stance had melted like a stick of butter at a midsummer Grant Park picnic.

The Republicans Have Failed the Nation.  Over the next couple of years, Barack Obama wants to raise the national debt to $18.9 trillion or so.  John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and the congressional Republicans want to raise the national debt to $18.4 trillion or so.  The present leadership of the Republican Party has gone from making the case that government is the problem and the American people are the solution to making the case that Democratic controlled government is the problem and Republican controlled government is the solution.

GOP Classic.  The [Coca-Cola] company learned that you just couldn't change who you are.  Yet, that's what many in the GOP want to do.  The experts, consultants and strategists are wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth trying to come up with the New GOP that can beat the Democrats in the next four years.  The problem is that we've allowed some of the same people tinker with GOP Classic for a decade; and there are not enough folks who remember the original formula.

Republican Party must remain for life, against abortion.  Now, more than ever, our party needs to hold onto our pro-life, pro-human-rights values.  In fact, the Republican Party should become more fiercely aligned to the pro-life position than ever.  Despite what you may have heard from the Democratic National Convention, it's not an unpopular position.

The Editor says...
One thing this country does not need is two Democrat parties.

Time for the Unthinkable: a Third-Party.  Far too many pundits on the right have ceased to think.  Irrationality saturates their minds regarding how to confront the political leprosy that Obama represents.  This is because they believe we must, now and forever, work within the statist establishment.  This is grievously in error.  The present political insanity in America mandates a new direction, a dramatic new strategy.  Dare I say it?  We need a THIRD-PARTY to provide an escape from the GOP's debilitating lack of chutzpah.

Time To Boycott The RNC.  Throughout the 2012 election, I kept receiving mail from the Republican National Committee urging me to send in a donation for what was probably the most important election of our lives.  I ignored the entreaties and instead gave what I could to individual campaigns and ignored the RNC because it is totally clueless when it comes to winning elections.

Conservatives vs. the GOP.  Conservative groups are sending written warnings to both congressional Republicans and the Republican National Committee.  If Republicans sign on to a deal that raises taxes, they risk an open break with large portions of their base.

A Republican Civil War.  Back when Romney was rammed through the establishment choice, I wrote that the establishment had its shot, but that if it blew it again, those responsible should be prepared to pay the price.  No price is being paid of course.  Instead, insanely enough, the GOP is trying to purge the Tea Party.

'We Knew Exactly Who We Had to Go Get'.  Merchants routinely send us lots of material about products they know will tempt us.  They know this because of the very detailed information they have about our buying habits, our peer groups, our tastes, and our beliefs.  The same methods apply to selling candidates, and the Obama organizations were far more effective than Romney's at exploiting their understanding of our habits and desires.

GOP loses its way on fiscal cliff.  In the war over the "fiscal cliff" of looming automatic spending cuts and increased tax rates, the GOP is reeling.  Republicans are playing right into the Democrats' hands, time and time again.

Bozell: Caving on Tax Hikes Would Be Suicide for GOP.  Republicans risk committing "suicide" and losing all support if they cave into higher taxes during eleventh-hour fiscal cliff negotiations, Brent Bozell, founder and president of the Media Research Center, says.

Jindal: GOP should change 'just about everything'.  "We do not need to change what we believe as conservatives — our principles are timeless," Jindal says.  "But we do need to re-orient our focus to the place where conservatism thrives:  in the real world beyond the Washington Beltway.