REPUBLICANS

AUGUST 2024

IDAHO CLAMPS DOWN ON ITS RINOS
By Molly Slag, June 23, 2024

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MAY 2024

WITH RNC SHAKEUP, MAGA BRINGS ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
GAVIN WAX, A NEW YORK-BASED CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTIVIST, COMMENTATOR, COLUMNIST, OPERATIVE, AND STRATEGIST.  March 23, 2024

An insidious institutional rot has long afflicted the Republican Party and the broader conservative movement. Historically, this has presented a vexing problem for grassroots activists desperate to change the status quo. Now, after Herculean efforts by players big and small, it appears that the rabble-rousing of the MAGA faithful is finally paying off.

New Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Whatley and Vice Chairwoman Lara Trump have brought immediate change to the institution, working with senior Trump campaign advisor Chris LaCivita to streamline this leviathan. Whereas former RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney-McDaniel did not make the systemic changes needed to support a modern campaign infrastructure, the new team has wasted no time taking a hatchet to overpriced, underworked, and misaligned elements of the organization.

“Every tool that the other side has used, we need to wield for ourselves,” Whatley said in an internal staffing memo to the RNC. “We will strive relentlessly towards historic accomplishments and fully modernizing the organization between now and Election Day,” he noted, adding that the RNC’s goal is to “cater to individual states, realizing that each state is different and that we must evolve to more neighbor-to-neighbor, precinct-level organizing.”

Previously, grassroots groups like Turning Point Action worked in opposition to the RNC, which cared more about providing lavish incentives for veteran operatives than doing the tedious and unglamorous work of chasing ballots and hunting down votes. Now, Whatley and Trump have demonstrated their commitment to build a broad coalition of organizations working in concert to win elections.

The embrace of early voting and absentee ballots, where Democrats have routed Republicans for years, may not be widespread among factions within Trump’s hardcore America First base, but it is necessary. These unfortunate practices have become the facts of life in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, where Democrats are in control and the genie cannot be put back in the bottle. The realpolitik of the situation dictates that Republicans must fight and win on whatever battlefields that exist, rather than accepting losses while harkening to election-integrity ideals that remain untenable in purple and blue states.

The immediate axing of dozens of RNC staffers sets an example of the culture of complacency that Whatley and Trump will not tolerate. Failed efforts at catering to minority voters, which have not yielded any tangible results, will no longer be subsidized by the RNC. Whereas the previous RNC leadership would have hesitated to make this change for fear of being labeled by the biased media as racist, the current leadership does not shy away from the necessary change. The RNC will instead work alongside individuals who bring tangible value, such as gay conservative Scott Presler, who does far more than collect a salary to check a diversity box.

The America First movement has long demanded this transformation, and the waiting game has been excruciating. It will be far from pretty as the America First movement remakes the machinery of the Republican Party; it is a gargantuan task that seemed impossible before the rise of President Donald J. Trump. The sheer force of Trump’s personality showed the power of a truly exceptional individual to overcome insurmountable odds in a victory for common sense and the virtuous principles shared by the patriots whose spirits animate our nation. (RELATED: GAVIN WAX: Republican Voters Won’t Settle For A Pale Imitation Of Donald Trump)

As Trump rose to power, conservative institutions refused to change with the times. They dug in their heels, hoping that things would eventually return to how they were if they bided their time. They believed that Trump would fall flat on his face and that his legacy would be a failed presidency. This is why they looked the other way as the Deep State took unprecedented actions to undermine Trump before he even won his election, figuring that Trump would not be able to overcome their tricks and tactics.

However, the blatant hurdles Trump faced and surmounted only made him stronger and his supporters more fervent. Trump is in a prime position to sweep back into the presidency. For many decades, Conservative Inc. had a fleet of attorneys, bureaucrats, academics, and media apparatchiks strategically placed to make the Republican Party weak and unresponsive to the needs of its constituents.

Those days are rapidly coming to an end, and the baggage of the Republican Party will be cast aside. With President Trump’s victory in November, the obsolescence of the reviled Conservative Inc. apparatus will be apparent to all. Then, the struggle to save our nation will kick into high gear.

When Trump said he would be our retribution, this is partly what he was referencing. Trump’s right-wing realignment is the saving grace for activists who have fought and endured many brutal battles but maintained their spirit and refused to quit despite tremendous obstacles. As the hardships of the Founding Fathers led to the forging of liberty, our hardships will result in the renewal of national greatness. We are seeing the fruits begin to emerge right now.

Gavin Wax is a New York-based conservative political activist, commentator, columnist, operative, and strategist. He also serves as 76th president of the New York Young Republican Club and as an ambassador for both Turning Point USA & Live Action. You can follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @GavinWax.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Reprinted with the permission of the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service. https://dailycaller.com/

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JANUARY 2023

A NON-FICTION BOOK FOR KIDS HELPS EXPLAIN 2022'S NON-EXISTENT RED WAVE
By Andrea Widburg, November 27, 2022

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. But one cannot get past the fact that the American population, after 60 years of leftist education, may be incapable of connecting cause and effect. That brainwashing is everywhere, including ostensibly non-fiction educational material for the 8-12-year-old set.

A friend of mine tutors people in reading and one of the books a student brought her was What is Congress?, a non-fiction book published in 2021 that promises to provide “an enthralling overview about the branch of our government closest to average Americans.” The book is marketed to the 8-12-year-old set and seems to do well. According to “best sellers” information on the book’s Amazon page, it’s “#9 in Children’s Government Books; #28 in Children’s Books on the U.S.; [and] #64 in Children’s American History.” It garnered four-and-a-half stars from those readers who reviewed it.

But is it teaching American political history as you and I remember it? Well, certainly not as I remember it. I learned about Congress in an admittedly rather dry fashion. Using the Constitution as the starting point, I was taught that it’s part of the tripartite American government, set up to maintain a system of checks and balances: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. I learned about the two bodies in Congress (House and Senate), how their members are elected, and how they work together to create legislation.

What is Congress? takes a different approach. Instead of being a civics book, it’s a hardcore political tract. The author is Jill Abramson, the former executive editor at The New York Times. That’s why, in addition to explaining what Congress does, the publisher’s blurb promises that “this book is peppered with fascinating stories, including the bloody beating in the Senate of a lawmaker in pre-Civil War days, the Watergate hearings, and Senator Joe McCarthy's shameful ‘witch hunt’ of Communists.”

Still, those are somewhat leftist-oriented, but they’re still ordinary educational tropes at this point. Any parent or librarian looking for a book for young political junkies, even if that person is not a leftist, could reasonably believe that Abramson is a good writer who knows her stuff. Her “fascinating stories” should engage children a lot more than the boring civics material earlier generations studied. The extended excerpt supports this belief, for it talks about the famous moment in 1856 when Andrew Butler beat Charles Sumner in the Senate after Sumner cruelly imitated Butler’s post-stroke affect; the decisions behind Congress’s creation; and the beautiful Capitol building.

What parents and educators won’t know is that the book is an open pro-Democrat, anti-Republican diatribe. Below is an image from a single page in the book which writes in easy-to-understand words the entire Trump impeachment and January 6 narrative right down to the lie that a police officer was beaten to death—even though it was known long before this book was published that Officer Sicknick was not beaten but died from a stroke. In other words, the content is pure Democrat-created narrative propaganda.

If this is what American kids are reading—and is representative of what they’ve been reading over the last 20 years—it’s no surprise that young voters saved the Democrats from getting drowned in a red wave during the mid-term election. Essentially, thanks to leftist control over what young people learn both in school and out of it, we’re watching devolution, as Americans progressively get dumber.

Hat tip: Mara Jacobowitz

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: https://www.americanthinker.com

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DECEMBER 2022

IF REPUBLICANS WIN, IT'S THE END OF DEMOCRACY
By M.B. Mathews, October 28, 2022

We should hope so. Democracy is mob rule. Democracy is rule by majority. We do not have a direct democracy. We never had one. America was never set up for that. We have a representative republic, where the representatives we voters choose make the decisions as to what legislation to approve or disapprove, according to what we want. That necessitates that our representatives actually ask us now and then what we want instead of voting how they want without our input. Elementary civics lesson over.

Hillary Clinton derided Republicans in a keynote address during the New York Democrat party convention in February: "the Republican Party officially embraces violent insurrection," and it "let Donald Trump trash our democracy."

She is lying, as always. We don't "officially embrace violent insurrection." We don't embrace it all, but Democrats do. When they send Kamala Harris to the cameras so she can encourage violence in the cities, they embrace violent insurrection. She claims she was talking about protesting, not violence, but all the protests were violent.

When Democrats tell protesters they can harass SCOTUS justices, they are the ones embracing violence.

Maxine Waters wants Democrats to "get in their faces" at restaurants.

Nice try at projection.

Democrats use violence all the time, whereas you would be hard pressed to find incidents of violence by Republicans. Democrats are so anxious to paint Republicans with violence that they will even send their own in, dressed in MAGA clothes and hats, to provoke where no provocation existed before they got there.

Republicans, as a rule, just don't do violence. January 6 was not violent until agitators came in to see if they could find a way to get protesters to skid out of control. It worked, and Republicans got the blame.

Last Thursday, Hillary said, "If I were a betting person, I'd say Trump is going to run again. ... If he's not held accountable and he gets to do it again, I think that could be the end of our democracy."

No — the first thing newly elected Republicans will do, probably right after reopening the Keystone pipeline and closing the border, will be to restore freedom and liberty to all the conservatives who were silenced, jailed, harassed, and closed down by Democrats.

It is the Democrats alone who censor, dox, cancel, and destroy. It's their agenda to silence conservatives by any means necessary.

Without even going into how Democrats destroyed our military, our schools, entertainment, the economy, small businesses, and everything else they touched, this November will be as important as 2024. If Trump runs, he will win. If DeSantis runs, he will win, even against Gruesome Newsom, who never met a dollar he didn't love so long as he could take it from someone else, and who cannot wait to rope in the entire population of California and feed them bugs, make them ride bicycles and E.V.s, and shut down their shops. Freedom is his enemy. Freedom is the enemy of all authoritarians, and you will find authoritarians only among Democrats, not Republicans.

If you want a resuscitated America in November, you must vote for representatives who will:

1. Open oil pipelines.
   Close the borders.
   Educate in our schools and remove drag queens and anti-white racist teachers.
   Secure elections by going back to paper ballots and one-day voting.
   Resuscitate the military as a fighting force, not a social experiment.
   Remove every vestige of CRT, SEL, DEI, ESG in government agencies.
   Clean out the FBI, CIA, FCC, NEA, IRS, and the EPA and strip them of all but the most innocuous powers. Better still, eliminate these agencies.
   Stop spending and printing money.
   Stop paying people not to work.
   Bar men in women's sports.
   Revoke Section 230 and make websites like Twitter and Facebook legally responsible for their unrepentant censorship against conservatives.

This is a no-excuses election. Everyone must vote. We have the choice in a few days to either keep a free America or acquiesce to the Great Resetters who want a one-party system.

If you want more of what we've been getting the last two years, vote Democrat. If you want your freedom back and want to stop self-censoring, vote Republican. First, we take control of Congress. Then we take the White House back. Perhaps then our representative republic can function as intended once again.

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: https://www.americanthinker.com

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OCTOBER 2022

SEVEN PRACTICAL WAYS TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
By M.B. Mathews, September 5, 2022

I am guilty, like many of my fellow conservatives, of complaining about everything that has gone wrong since COVID. That includes massive inflation, the loss of small businesses because of a messed up COVID response; supply chain problems; gas prices; the border sieve; the swallowing up of the mainstream media by Great Resetters and MASA Democrats (Make America S--- Again); the Afghanistan defeat and weaponry giveaway; the billions and trillions spent on Ukraine; the paying of people not to work; the Luciferian malignancy of CRT, DEI, and ESG infecting our institutions, schools, and businesses; and the litany of other complaints MAGA Americans get so justifiably indignant about.

But what can the average American do to actually take down this behemoth of leftism that is strangling liberty, free speech, and prosperity? It may take a while, but it is doable with small things to start with.

First, cut off the blood supply to all businesses and groups that hire any DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) personnel. Stop paying them, and stop using their services. You do have choices. These vengeful, hateful people have managed to convince producers of goods and services that they must right the wrongs of slavery in their business and private endeavors. This is wrong and wrong-headed. No U.S. person alive today owned slaves, nor did his parents. Would you hold your grandchild responsible for killing millions of Jews and Christians during the Holocaust? Nor should the living be responsible to pay for the sins of the dead. Say no to any business that thinks you should.

In some cases, this will cost you more money or may delay your deliveries a week or so. So what?

America is not systemically racist. The left uses racism as its cudgel, assuming we will back down and kiss their derrieres. The epithet "racist" long ago lost its effect, yet some white people still melt like snowflakes under its utterance. Refuse to accept racism no matter what color is doing it.

Second, write emails and letters and make phone calls demanding to know how your representative plans to vote on a given issue. If it's not how you want them to vote, tell them so. Strongly. Many people say this is a useless tactic, but I disagree. Do it often enough, and it will get through, but it takes persistence. You never know just when it will be your email or phone call that does what you want. Your reps may ignore a few dozen complaints, but yours may be the proverbial straw/camel situation.

Never think, "My one complaint won't matter." It does matter, because it may be your "one" that is one too many to ignore. In the same way, if your rep is sending you emails that say, "Contact me" or "What do you think?" on a given issue, do not hesitate to do it. Again, yours may be the decisive "one."

Third, attend school board meetings and political strategizing groups where possible. Give your input. Don't think, "I hate public speaking." It may be your public speaking that puts an agenda over the top to clean up CRT or drag queen perversity in your schools.

Fourth, vote and be certain your friends vote. There are too many destructive rumblings from Republicans who say they won't vote because "nothing ever gets done." If you don't vote, more nothing will get done. Not voting puts another Machiavellian Democrat in office. Just as your one email may be the one that matters, your one vote may be the one that tips an election in your favor. Not to vote is selfish; other conservatives may suffer from your refusal to vote. At this time in our history, with evil everywhere and few heroes stepping up, be the hero.

Fifth, don't be afraid to hurt someone's feelings or to get aggressive in the cause of making yourself heard. Democrats have for too long cornered the market on aggressiveness, never expecting Republicans to fight back. And we didn't because we're too nice. No more. The survival of liberty and free speech is on the line, and we can turn that paradigm of systemic meekness on its head.

If you are able, protest. If you can, show up and talk to attendees. Don't be afraid to use leftist tactics that are non-violent. Remember that they are mostly petty narcissists who can't take what they dish out. Take a lesson from Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Michael Knowles, and Charlie Kirk, all of whom go into hostile territory to spread the conservative word. These are our heroes, in part. Our microphones are not as big as theirs are, but our mouths can be. Be prepared to answer such accusations as, "Your presence here makes me feel unsafe." Ask how they would actually be "unsafe" by your words. They'd hear an opposing point of view, God forbid? Show up and show them up as the whinging, cringing, sniveling snowflakes they are.

If that's not your style, there is another way: employ the 1 Peter 3:15 biblical method of apologetics: "Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect."

Sixth, write letters to editors of local newspapers and websites. Express your opinion fairly, strongly, and with conviction. Never lapse into profanity or inanity; leave that to leftists, who reveal their shallowness by doing so. By contrast, you will always look measured, reasonable, and assured, thereby being more likely to be listened to. You don't have to be a sophisticated, refined writer to matter. It just requires honest passion and coherence.

Seventh, become informed so that when someone asks you your sources, you can cite something other than Breitbart, which will immediately elicit guffaws and incredulity from your leftist target. Recall how you react when a leftist cites NPR or the New York Times as his source. Breitbart is fine, but find an additional source that is somewhere in the middle or, ideally, on the left so as to defuse yet another leftist criticism and maybe get you listened to. Dan Bongino is particularly adept at this. All that said, getting any leftist to actually listen to a reasoned argument is almost futile, but you can make the attempt.

The main point is that you do have ways to increase the flood of conservative actions and arguments that may push someone with some power over the edge into your camp. Don't assume your one comment won't matter. It may just be the "one" to make someone in power say, "Enough. Maybe he's got a point." Be the final word and be the one to whom your liberal friends, if you have some, will come to get your side of the story.

Toxic liberalism wasn't built in a day. They had to start somewhere. So must we, and we will be victorious.

UPDATE FROM ANDREA: One of our readers sent in an eighth way you can fight back:

There is an eighth way to be added to this list: Any shareholder of individual stocks should make sure to note the time of a company's annual meeting and submit questions to the board via their online portals which is universally offered to shareholders and simple and convenient to use.

It's quite an effective way to get to the head of the snake.

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: https://www.americanthinker.com

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MAY 2022

THE HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY WILL CONTINUE
By J.B. Shurk, March 26, 2022

Being a Republican voter is no easy thing. Social media censor you. Companies fire you. The Department of Justice persecutes you. Democrats assault and harass you. And all the while, most Republican Party "leaders" stand back and do nothing as they watch. We've got the only political party in modern history controlled by a small group of elected officials who fundamentally disagree with the prevailing viewpoints of 90% of the voters who put them in office. Election after election, their unstated yet indisputable campaign slogan is simply, "Vote for us because we don't hate you quite as much as the other guys." (I'm not even sure that's true!)

This disconnect between Republican voters and Republican oligarchs has endured for decades, but I do not think it will survive much longer. The reason why is that the average Joe has figured out D.C.'s Uniparty game: take one "ruling class" dedicated to power and money and nothing more, divide that small class of swindlers into two nearly identical political parties, pretend those two criminal cabals hate each other when the opposite is true, and present the American people with a choice-in-name-only every election. You can vote for the Big Government socialists invested in totalitarianism or the Big Government socialists invested in empire and world domination. (Note: The parties may swap that small distinction depending on the decade.) That's American "democracy" in a nutshell — a hallowed ritual for electing criminals to positions of power from where they can commit even grander crimes with impunity in the name of the people. In exchange for their dedication to fleecing and betraying us, we christen streets, marble halls, and naval vessels after their worst offenders.

Name another profession whose whole business model is centered on creating problems where none exists, so that the same people who created them can spend enormous sums of money guaranteed to make things worse. Only politicians could declare a "war on poverty," waste tens of trillions of dollars, and get more poverty. Only criminal kingpins could declare a "war on drugs" while keeping America's unprotected borders open to narco-terrorists and subsidizing the pharmaceutical industry in its efforts to hook Americans on opiates. Only an unpatriotic Uniparty invested in making money, not achieving victory, could spend two decades at war, accomplish little, botch retreat, and then repopulate the homeland with nationals from the same countries we've been fighting. If poverty, drug use, and global threats to peace have never been worse, then the politicians are winning! Stealing taxpayers' wealth to create crises that require stealing more from taxpayers is the normal business cycle of the ruling class. Only policy failure can produce success!

Once people grasp this perverse incentive structure for elected criminals, then seemingly inscrutable problems become easy to understand. Is it true that the U.S. government was actually investing money in the same Chinese bio-weapons lab that may have unleashed COVID-19 upon the world? Why would the feds use taxpayer dollars to fund dangerous experiments in a communist country that is arguably America's most serious geopolitical foe? Those reasonable questions presume that officials infused with a bare modicum of ethics or morality represent us. Ask instead: has the "health emergency" given our gangster government more authority? Has it allowed congressional criminals to spend recklessly on an ever-mutating problem? Has it widened the divide between the powerful and the powerless? If so, then aiding our enemies in the development of bio-weapons has been a rousing success. Once you accept that the Uniparty produces for mass consumption both misery and misery's antidote, then any manner of duplicitous treachery against American citizens makes perfect sense.

Now try your hand at immigration and inflation. Thirty years ago, Americans had the strongest middle class in the world. That should have been a good thing, right? Not if your business model depends on voters being dependent on government checks! A robust middle class means economic self-sufficiency and independence. An impoverished population means an empowered government. Seen from the vantage point of our ruling criminals, they had no other choice than to offshore American jobs in exchange for lucrative trade "deals" (and boatloads of campaign donations) that turned a small number of millionaires into billionaires while hurting everyone else.

Fewer blue-collar jobs meant lower pay, but then government could swoop in, play hero, and hike the minimum wage. Hiking the minimum wage meant even fewer jobs, but then the government could hook up the new workless class to its sweet welfare drip for life. Increased government spending increases inflation, which increases the cost of living, which increases government-imposed minimum wages, which increases the cost of doing business in America, which produces even more off-shoring of blue-collar jobs, which leaves even more Americans dependent on government welfare. Eventually, irresponsible government spending increases inflation to such an extent that an American labor force is no longer economically viable for employers. So what is government's solution? Mass illegal immigration, of course! And that's a "solution" that only further reduces workers' historically low salaries, financially crushing Americans already struggling to survive rampant, runaway inflation.

For three decades, the Uniparty has promised Americans high-paying "service economy" jobs in exchange for exporting their old jobs overseas. Instead, Americans lost their savings, economic security, future prospects, and happiness. Cheap flat-screen televisions and laundry machines that break after sixteen months have been their only rewards. For those not hooked on the opiate of welfare, Big Pharma saw an opportunity in returning veterans struggling with pain to use actual opiates to hook the rest. In the process, the corrupt ruling class has imported so many foreign nationals that the bonds of American community and culture have been worn thin, and anyone who has had the temerity to object to this monumental transformation of society is accused of xenophobia or racism.

It's difficult to look at all this carnage and not ask, as El Salvador's president has, whether there is a "deliberate plan" to "destroy the U.S. from within." Seen from the globalist cartel's obvious goal of restoring a system of feudalism where a small number of lords can control a continent of serfs, the answer is clear: yes!

It's now been nearly fifteen years since Republican voters began rebelling against the criminal class in D.C. The Tea Party movement sent a slew of new members to Congress in 2010, but Old Guard Republicans converted some and undermined others. Undeterred, Republican voters found an outsider in Donald Trump and put him in the White House. Again, Old Guard Republicans worked with their Uniparty pals to sabotage the Trump presidency, subvert the 2020 election with mass mail-in balloting, and deflate the passions of his ardent supporters. Those efforts have not had their intended effect. After two impeachments, a fake insurrection, and several years of political persecution, Republican voters have never been more angry. They know that Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Mitt Romney are shills for an unelected Deep State, and they despise those political relics for their misplaced loyalties. They see how easily the Ben Sasses, Liz Cheneys, Adam Kinzingers, and Dan Crenshaws of the party have betrayed them, and they will not forget.

Either Republican voters will succeed in fundamentally changing the Republican Party so that it aligns with and represents their interests, or they will demolish that party and bury its remains deep in the desert. Any Republican officeholder unwilling or unable to accept this new reality is a politician with a short shelf life. The 2022 midterms may bring a "red wave," but until the Uniparty is defeated, there will be no peace.

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: https://www.americanthinker.com

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JANUARY 2022

HEY, RINOS! HOW'S ALL THIS WORKING FOR YOU?
By Rebecca Behrends, November 19, 2021

The thinking of fair-weather Republicans and NeverTrumps is hard to understand.  We are constantly reminded that far too many Republicans had to hold their noses if they agreed, under duress, to fill in the bubble for Trump.  Or they turned up their noses and bought into the noble lie that bumbling Biden was the acceptable alternative.  The question is, did they not see the leftist train coming full bore, flying down the tracks for the heart of America?
Many of these Republicans bristle at being labeled RINOs.  Can't the fly-over Midwest hayseeds understand that establishment Republicans rightfully deserve to be in charge of the party?  In shades of Father Knows Best, they preen as the moral and intellectual arbiters of disputes with Democrats.  They exude this message: "Stop embarrassing us with your unsophisticated, flag-waving rallies and rants at school board meetings.  Stop being so backward by looking back at the 2020 election and interfering with the 'noble coup' that hijacked our nation!"

We the people, of the conservative grassroots, would pose some simple questions.  Do these people know the difference between what the Trump administration accomplished and what the Biden bunglers are now doing?  Let's show a bit of comparison.

Energy Independence.  President Trump shifted the whole global energy landscape by opening up access to America's abundant energy resources.  He directed federal agencies to pare down obstructive regulations.  Opened federal lands and waters to energy exploration.  Created thousands of jobs and reduced the burden on low-income families in electricity and fuel costs.  He gave a green light to oil and natural gas development.

Biden?  Well, how does $4 a gallon for gas and higher grab you?  Okay with it?  Joe scrapped the Keystone XL pipeline, suspended oil and natural gas leases in Alaska, and now has embarrassingly begged for help from OPEC to increase their oil production to offset this foolishness.  They refused.  You made your "gas-less" bed; now you can sleep on it!  Democrats will say increased demand and COVID-induced tangled global supply chains have caused the rise in food and energy costs, but did they have to make it worse with their obeisance to the "green goddess"?  (And we are not talking about salad dressing!)  The leftist "Let's Go Green" campaign has been about as prevalent as "Let's go, Brandon."  And without much thought and substance to it, as noted by the Manhattan Institute.

Critical Race Theory.  President Trump issued an executive order banning federal funds from contractors who conduct Critical Race Theory (CRT) training.  He saw this theory for what it is: a race-based "pre-trial guilty verdict" of racism, which is itself, by definition, racism.  Boom, by a stroke of the pen, he declared it un-American and gone! 

Biden?  In a 180-degree turn, he reinstituted CRT and has promoted the metastasis of this divisive Marxist ideology all across the nation, angering millions of people, especially parents who do not want this racist nonsense taught to their children in K–12 education.

Southern Border.  President Trump wisely ended "catch and release," instituted the Remain in Mexico policy, and effected Asylum Cooperative Agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.  Results?  A steep decline in the flood of illegals across the southern border.

Biden?  Opened the floodgates with an unprecedented number of illegals crossing into the U.S. — to the cheers of the open borders crowd and the delight of narcotics smugglers and human traffickers.
And on it goes.  Under Biden, we see skyrocketing crime in American cities, increased taxes, reimposition of burdensome government regulations, high unemployment, cozying up to teachers' unions in opposition to school choice.  Just the opposite of what the Trump administration had accomplished.

So, when we use the term "RINO," we have to ask ourselves, what constitutes a true Republican?  What are their values and the foundation they stand for?  It used to be traditional, constitutionally based values.
When does a person enter the forbidden realm of "RINOhood"?  When those values get diluted to the point that you no longer recognize them.  The problem with "let's go along to get along" is that sooner or later, people drown in the swamp of negotiation and compromise.  They fail to double down on core principles and stand firm.  There are brave, well-meaning men and women who compromise to rise to positions of power where they can make a difference.  It is sometimes difficult for conservative Republicans to judge when their compromises are acceptable and when they are simply caving in.  Maybe a lot more firmness and less worry about looking at government positions as a permanent career path are in order.  Fight like heck for your principles, and then pass the baton on to the next warrior when necessary. 

To Republicans who disliked Trump's quirkiness, devil-may-care feistiness, and crudeness, how is Biden working out for you?  Are you seeing something that 74 million people failed to see?  Is your dislike of Trump so enormous that the ends justify the means?  And the election fraud necessary to achieve this is the acceptable flavor "du jour" of the elite crowd you seek acceptance from.

Elections have consequences.  Election integrity and security are paramount to ensure that we don't have the results we truly did not vote for.  Michigan Citizens for Election Integrity (MC4EI.com) seeks to shine a light on the fact that the 2020 election was the "least secure election in history."  Republicans would do well as they curry favor with grassroots conservatives in the next election to remember the words of Neal A. Maxwell: "Let us have integrity and not write checks with our tongues which our conduct cannot cash."

Rebecca Behrends, M.D. is a retired E.D. physician and is vice president of research for Michigan Citizens for Election Integrity at MC4EI.com.

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: https://www.americanthinker.com

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JUNE 2021

REPUBLICANS ARE GETTING THE JOB DONE
By Don Surber, May 08, 2021 https://donsurber.blogspot.com/

Republicans are getting the job done

The story is becoming routine. The Reload reported, "Kansas gun-rights advocates won a battle with governor Laura Kelly (D.) on Monday when a gun-carry bill passed over her veto.

"18 to 20-year-olds in the state, who were already legally allowed to openly carry guns, will now be allowed to apply for concealed carry permits. The state Senate passed the override vote 31-8 with two cross-over votes of support from Democrats. The House passed it 84-39 along party lines.
"Gun-rights advocates had been pursuing the change for the past four years. Republican majority whip Blake Carpenter celebrated the bill’s passage with a signing ceremony that featured a number of fellow Republicans and gun-rights activists."

Forget the Days of Our Liz soap opera in Washington. (Like sand in our gearbox, so go the Days of Our Liz.) Republicans are getting the job done on the state level.

Consider the Second Amendment for a moment. In the face of rising public bleats for more and more gun control over the past quarter-century, Republican legislators have slowly rolled back bans and restrictions on concealed weapons.

We have gone from changing "may" to "shall issue" permits to not requiring permits at all. Vermont never had such a law. Why should anyone else?

Then there is abortion. Republican lawmakers have rolled back abortion on demand to the point where states are double-dog daring the Supreme Court to re-visit Roe v. Wade.

Then there is school choice. Indiana is leading the way to attaching tax dollars for education to the student, not the school.

Then there are voting rights. Voter ID and ballot security laws are popping up all over.

Then there are cis rights. States are banning boys from competing in girls sports.

Then there is critical race theory. Republican state legislatures are resisting that racist revision of our great country's history.

Mind you, all this comes in the face of deafening protests by the media, Corporate America, and the cry bullies. You run for a part-time state legislator job to promote your law practice, and the next thing you know the left is doxxing you.

The courage of state legislatures and governors is becoming legend. Ron DeSantis is not alone in standing up to the mob.

No, they are not perfect. Kristi Noem caved on the transgendered bill. But she was there for us when everyone else was shutting down their state in the face of Communist Covid.

So let us hear it for Kansas. And Georgia. And even West Virginia.

The Liz Cheneys in Congress may bend over for Democrats, but there is a lot of spine in flyover country. The revolution is happening. Just not in the halls of Congress.

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APRIL 2021

RINOS FEAR WINNING
By Don Surber, March 03, 2021 https://donsurber.blogspot.com

Josh Kraushaar of National Journal gave an insight into RINO thinking about Donald John Trump in the coming 2022 midterm elections. They fear he will win.

Kraushaar wrote, "As president, he played the role of kingmaker in Republican primaries, tallying a near-undefeated record (109-2) while elevating underdog candidates like Ron DeSantis and Brian Kemp into office."

109-2?

Only the Harlem Globetrotters have a better record.

With his 98% winning record, the fear in Washington is our president emeritus will succeed in nominating people the Washington Establishment does not like.

My fear is he won't.

Kraushaar wrote, "Republicans are worried that he’ll anoint weak candidates in winnable races, hurting the party’s ability to mount a political comeback."

We heard this before. In 2010, the Tea Party gave Republicans their best midterm in 64 years. The Tea Party gave Republicans a net gain of 63 seats in the House and 7 in the Senate.

The spin was the Tea Party "cost" Republicans the Senate by nominating Christine O'Donnell for the Senate in Delaware.

No. Republicans cost her that seat by abandoning her Senate campaign because the media dragged up something she said 12 years earlier. It abandoned her just like it would Todd Akin in the Missouri Senate race 2 years later, and Donald Trump in 2016. In all 3 cases, the party's abandonment came because of what they said, and nothing they actually did.

Democrats would back Hannibal Lector.

But Republicans in Washington care more about what the media thinks than they care about the country.

Kraushaar is the RINO messenger.

He wrote, "Trump already issued his first endorsements of the 2022 cycle, supporting his former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in her bid for Arkansas governor and endorsing former aide Max Miller’s primary campaign against impeachment-supporting Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio. In both of these contests, Trump’s involvement is unlikely to impact the GOP’s chances to retain those seats. Both races are on conservative turf, where winning the primary is typically tantamount to general-election victory."

Why would Sanders be a bad candidate? Her father was governor and she has made a name for herself to the point where most people just call her Sarah Sanders.

Her crime, of course, was working in the Trump administration. Democrats continue to refuse defeat in 2016, and Republicans continue to refuse to accept that victory.

Kraushaar wrote, "But in two elections taking place this year, Trump’s engagement would be a lot more damaging. He is encouraging Ric Grenell, his former director of national intelligence, to run in the anticipated California gubernatorial recall election."

The other election is a special congressional race in Texas. Rumors had Katrina Pierson running. She declined.

How in the heck is the California governorship winnable?

Newsom got 62% of the vote in 2018. I get that Schwarzenegger won the 2003 recall but that was nearly 20 years ago. Since then, millions of Republicans have either died or moved away.

And what makes Grenell unfit for office? Is it because he is light in the loafers? You know, a friend of Dorothy. A confirmed bachelor.

RINOs do not fear defeat. They are used to that. They fear victory by those people. You know, people who wear boots. A friend of Donald. A confirmed American.

The last thing Dick Cheney's daughter wants in Congress is another Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert.

RINOs love to complain about what Democrats do but they hate to do anything that displeases Democrats. I offer Obamacare as my best example.

When he was president, Donald Trump was loyal to the party and endorsed the likes of Ben Sasse and Mitt Romney.

We won't be fooled again. Primary them all if we must. Send the people we need to Washington, not the people RINOs like.

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APRIL 2021

WAS RUSH LIMBAUGH DONE WITH CONSERVATISM?
By Rich Danker, 2/26/2021

In a trail of observations that began with Trump's campaign in 2015 and peaked during the last year of his life, the late Rush Limbaugh, as he was in and out of the studio battling cancer, was on a path to the previously unthinkable.  He was ready to let go of the ideology he'd spent three decades promoting — Reaganite conservatism — and replace it with right-wing populism. Specifically, the right-wing populism of the just-defeated Republican president. Why?

Limbaugh, the self-proclaimed "mayor of Realville," was constantly trying to see around corners.  What he saw was a political movement that offered more staying power and strength against the left than the ideological one he'd been associated with since 1988.  That calculus wasn't based on election outcomes.  It was informed by the first Republican voter realignment to occur since Reagan's election.  Here is how Limbaugh described it in the days after Trump's Republican convention speech on the White House South Lawn last year:

Now, what emerged was the new Trump Republican Party.  And it's a fascinating change.  It's the party of the little guy.  It's the party of working America, not politicians, not elitist think-tank denizens.  It is literally the party of working Americans.

Limbaugh never missed the chance to rib what might be called Cruise Ship Conservatism.  As an entertainer with a massive following, he found it ridiculous that other media personalities would cultivate the small-time celebrity role.  But "elitist think-tank denizens" was a stand-in for the country club set, too.  With a small-town upbringing and blue-collar audience, Limbaugh relished the idea of his being "the party of the little guy."

Limbaugh realized that right-wing populism was more appealing than conservatism to the little guy.  This was a counterintuitive conclusion for a movement conservative like him to reach.  The Reagan coalition was heavy on union members and other disillusioned Democrats.  But for all its success through the 1980s, it didn't survive the end of the Cold War, something Limbaugh would rue for the rest of his life.  He even took it personally.  This was his response just six weeks ago to one of the many listeners who called in to credit him with the listener's political conversion:

You know, I'm not gonna sit here and deny that.  But, folks, I gotta tell you, there's a large part of me that feels like I have failed in such a major way, in a political sense.  I've had 30 years here to try to convince people, to try to persuade people, to try to encourage people to think — critically think — on their own, to realize the difference between conservatism and liberalism, the difference between the Republican Party and the Democrat party as it relates to conservative versus liberal.

This was a lament not that conservatism has lost to liberalism, but that most people weren't voting by ideology in the first place.  He recognized over the Obama and Trump years that voters are situationally rather than ideologically oriented.  Along the way, in a conversation with me in April 2016 for his Limbaugh Letter, he recounted a lunch with Ted Cruz ahead of that year's Republican presidential race.  Limbaugh warned the conservative hopeful that most of his own 25-million-member audience didn't even identify with the conservative movement. 

My message in conversation with Limbaugh was that conservatives could use Trump's success to achieve big ideas, a thought that was considered unconventional at a moment when many Republican leaders dreamed of sabotaging Trump's nomination.  But even that prediction proved shortsighted.  Trump would remake the GOP.  By 2020, it had changed from a conservative party to a right-wing populist party.

Is the difference between conservatism and right-wing populism really more than just nuance, or the presence of Trump?  After all, conservatism won with a populist coalition under Reagan.  And much of Trump's agenda from tax cuts to deregulation to judicial nominations came straight from the conservative playbook.

A look under the surface of these outcomes shows fundamental differences.  Using my mentor the late Jeff Bell's definition of populism as "optimism about people's ability to make decisions about their lives" (from his 1992 book Populism and Elitism), it's clear that a reckoning was coming once the foundations of postwar American politics collapsed.

Conservatism demands an allegiance to institutions rather than to a public.  For powerful conservatives, it could be whatever institution they called home, whether that was the U.S. Senate or a magazine that took subscribers on cruises.  Limbaugh, like Trump, was never part of an institution that needed to be conserved.  Each owed his platform to massive consumer followings that presaged the rise of digital media.  Eventually, those and all the other followings that formed the public superseded institutions in politics. 

Until that happened, elitism, which Bell defined as essentially the opposite of populism — "optimism about the decision-making ability of one or more elites, acting on behalf of other people" — had not yet outlived its usefulness.  Cold War presidents were on average several years older and better credentialed than their predecessors.  Public trust in the media was strong.  White-collar bosses often lacked college degrees like their employees.  The economic power of any one set of elites was limited in pre-internet times by regional geography.  Elites and ordinary people related relatively well with one another.

Limbaugh came of age politically under the three-legged stool conservatism that Reagan had cultivated out of post–World War II America.  It was a challenge to the liberal-moderate consensus on economics, social issues, and foreign policy of the earlier Cold War years that was itself the reaction of both parties to the four presidential elections won by FDR.  Postwar conservatism called for an ideological change of American positions on various issues, not class-based change. 

Conservatism won the Cold War but struggled to find traction in peacetime.  The 1990s conservatism that Limbaugh is closely associated with is now most remembered as an effective check on Bill Clinton.  George W. Bush was re-elected during wartime in 2004 as a legacy conservative, but Reagan revivalism was finished off by the 2008 financial crisis.  So was the political momentum of elitism.

Bell lamented two decades after the publication of Populism and Elitism that the book had mainstreamed the concept of elitism in American politics but not populism.  He only had to wait a few more years for vindication in 2016.
What changed?  Was it when management jobs finally ran out for the uneducated?  Was it when the technology revolution consolidated corporate power after manufacturing jobs has been offshored?  Or was it when broadband internet allowed voters to instantly scrutinize politicians, and smartphones enabled them to become informed by one another rather than just by media elites?  Former CIA analyst Martin Gurri in his book's title calls this technologically-driven redistribution of elite and populist power The Revolt of the Public.

Suddenly, a Republican frontrunner was winning primaries in rich and poor ZIP codes alike by trampling on the reputation of every party leader who had come in Reagan's path.  A party that had a tradition of giving its presidential nomination to the previous runner-up and been respected for its conservative institutional pedigree was now up for grabs. 

What would Limbaugh do?

Contrary to popular framing, Limbaugh and Trump were not friends before 2016.  Limbaugh's decision to back Trump's hostile takeover was the result of methodical analysis.  His radio program in the Trump years became a search for the political movement that respected conservatism while acknowledging that it was essentially over as we knew it.  As Limbaugh said on that show after Trump's 2020 convention speech:

You know the old concept of conservatism might have gone into the chasm, too, 'cause it's time to maybe rethink how conservatism's existence is going to evolve and how conservatives mature into whatever this new party is.

Limbaugh had forever demanded, especially after Republicans lost presidential elections, that the party accommodate conservatives, not the other way around.  Yet there he was, saying conservatives had to "mature" into their party.  But it wasn't the party establishment he was referring to this time; it was a "new party" of the same name but changing voters — blue-collar but also multiracial, nationalist, and consumerist.

Unlike the white professional class that underpinned the post-Reagan Republican coalitions, these voters weren't deluged by left-wing programming in offices or college classrooms.  Their detachment from the four institutions most captured by the left — corporate America, academia, mainstream media, and mainline Protestantism — made them valuable holdouts to the critical theory version of liberalism sweeping the culture in 2020.  They were more likely to be anchored on the right wing of populist appeals than the left wing.

If this was true, it had the makings of a durable Republican realignment that could outlast even its standard-bearer president.

Limbaugh claimed that he knew the left better than anybody.  It seems likely he concluded that liberalism with its ambition to politicize everything could not be contained by conservatism.  It was not a fair fight.  Conservative critics have said Limbaugh became darker in the Obama and Trump years.  In the moments when that was actually true, it was a recognition of this reality that they didn't have.  

Limbaugh also knew there are many more conservative voters than liberal voters, even though conservatives sometimes voted for liberal candidates because they voted situationally rather than ideologically.  Right-wing populism held the potential to turn latent conservatism into reliable Republican voting.

The only way Limbaugh complained about his terminal illness during the last year was that it threatened doing what he loved every day — demystifying politics for his audience.  That role must fall to others now.  But Limbaugh left behind enough clarity to see beyond the horizon —  to see how far a realignment from conservatism to right-wing populism could take this new Republican Party.

Rich Danker is a former conservative operative.  Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: https://www.americanthinker.com

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SEPTEMBER 2018

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY: NOT MUCH OF A HORSE BUT THE ONLY ONE IN THE CORRAL
By Jared Peterson, July 30, 2018

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. They have a wealthy person’s distaste for excessive government regulation and high taxes -- hence, they are “Republicans” -- but, stem the flood of cheap labor immigrants? Why on earth would they want to do that?

The first economic consequence of mass immigration is lower labor costs across the economy, from lettuce pickers to computer programmers, and that pushes historic quantities of money up to America’s corporate owners and executives. The working and middle classes endure the economic downside in the form of fewer jobs and much lower wages.

This has all been discussed ad nauseam before. But it can’t be repeated too often: Mass immigration has been an economic bonanza for major owners and executives and an economic disaster for the other 80% of the population.

Looking away from the economic to the cultural consequences of mass immigration, the divergence between America’s wealthy decision makers and the other 80% is even greater. Put bluntly, the American upper classes have yet to see the those consequences, let alone to feel pressured by them. They are Peggy Noonan’s “protected classes.”

It has been said before but cannot be said too often: America’s upper class hypocrites who have brought the joys of mass third world immigration to middle and working class America are, as yet, absolutely immune from its baleful cultural concomitants.

They live in elegant neighborhoods, behind gates and walls, protected as often as not by private security; their children attend the finest private schools where a learning environment still exists and the risk of being beaten up or shaken down for lunch money is zero; their family members and friends don’t have to ride BART, or the subway, or the bus in the middle of the night to or from poorly paid jobs; the members of their swank clubs look like they did in 1980 and all speak English; and their mode of transport is the first class cabin or private jet.

I begrudge them none of this. My quarrel is that much of their wealth and ease comes from a globalism whose detriments are inflicted solely on the bottom 80% of Americans. But the cultural concomitants of mass third world immigration are well known to that bottom 80% of Americans.

All over urban America, parents struggle to scrape together the money to buy a house in a neighborhood where the public schools have not been destroyed. In small town America, parents warn their kids about drug pushers from South of the Border who have discovered and targeted the once-safe American countryside. Illegal immigrants commit crimes at rates hugely in excess of those legally present. For 2014 the Sentencing Commission of the US Justice Department reported that of all crimes for which convictions were obtained and sentences imposed, illegals made up 13% (if the 11.2 million figure for US illegals is correct, illegals constitute slightly more than 3% of the population)

And on and on.

None of this reaches the neighborhoods of those who brought it to us.

But It is the decision-making elites of these neighborhoods that fund the Republican Party. And therein lies the rub for this fall’s election:

The Democratic Party, in its lunatic, massively unpopular stands on illegal immigration and border protection, has been leading with its chin as perhaps never before. Abolishing ICE, opening America’s southern border, and supporting sanctuary cities that shelter criminals and drug dealers may be the most toxic brew of Democratic Party electoral poison that party has yet concocted. It begs for brutal, repeated, brass knuckle exposure. This well could be the issue that turns an off-year election into a historic Democratic wipeout.

Will the funders of the Republican party seize one of the most inviting opportunities in US electoral history to deliver a knock-out blow? Or will they wuss out?

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: https://www.americanthinker.com

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APRIL 2018

HOW A PATHETIC REPUBLICAN PARTY IS ALLOWING 'THE RESISTANCE' TO RUN THE SCORE -- AND THE GOVERNMENT
By Christopher Bedford, 03/04/2018

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. While three Republicans’ seats will be open elections, every one of the Democrats’ seats is defended by a working senator, or at least should be. Instead of working, however, these senators are clocking into the office late on Monday, generally starting the work week Tuesday morning, and heading back to the trail Thursday, often before lunchtime.

When you account for travel, that’s a full four days “working” from home: speaking with constituents, attending meetings, cutting ribbons, raising money. In other words, campaigning: making the case their Republican challenger should be defeated and they should be re-elected.

Executive governance is out of style. On Friday, while 26 Senate Democrats up for re-election went home to their states or elsewhere to speak and raise money with which to batter Republicans in November, 139 of the White House’s nominees languished in positions from undersecretary for arms control and international security affairs to director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center.

According to the Senate rules Democrats and their Republican enablers love to cite, they have to wait 30 hours after ending debate. This has turned into three or so nominees confirmed a week, averaging 79 days a nominee, with McConnell himself griping that at this rate, it will take 11 years to confirm Trump’s nominees. That’s nearly three weeks longer than the average for President Barack Obama, whose appointees, meanwhile, form the backbone of the “resistance” inside our federal government — “the deep state” that liberals in the media like to pretend is some type of hallucination, possibly caused by “swamp gas.”

There is, however, another way.

Senate rules — specifically, Rule XXII — dictate that during the maximum allowed 30-hours of debate, senators can speak no more than twice, and for no more than an hour total. Senate rules are rarely entertaining, but forcing 30 senators to the floor every single time they wanted to play cute would be good for their health, and put some much-need fire under the Trump-Republican agenda. If three senators show up, then, the 30 hours would turn into three.

With this level of ruthlessness, McConnell would have little difficulty replacing “the resistance” with the president’s nominees. “The rules say the majority leader can force a talking ‘filibuster’ and limit it to two speeches per senator, so, about an hour per senator if they come down to talk,” Wesley Denton of the Conservative Partnership Institute, which has repeatedly warned of Republican weakness, told The Daily Caller. “They could probably get 10 or more done a week, and instead they’re just gifting it to Democrats.”

It’s true, Mitch McConnell doesn’t have a 60-vote majority in the Senate. It’s true that this Senate has twice as many people over 80 than it’s ever had, and its members’ age and health have made it more difficult to vote more than a few times. But it’s also true that Mitch McConnell has the power to make “the resistance” do their jobs, instead of spending their days in the field campaigning, safe in the knowledge that Obama’s men are still hard at work in this new government of theirs.

Article reprinted with permission from The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com

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APRIL 2015

WHY VOTE REPUBLICAN?
By Brian C Joondeph, March 4, 2015

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.  Like Lucy promising Charlie Brown a shot at the football, Republicans promise each time that things will be different.  Yet Lucy continues to lift the football at the last minute, leaving the hapless Charlie Brown kicking at air.

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.
Tell me again why we need Republican majorities in Congress.

Sure, we get the usual excuses. Harry Reid and the minority control the Senate to such an extent that Reid can force Republicans to abandon an extremely popular position.  That pesky filibuster – the same one that Democrats eliminated a few years ago when they were in power and wanted to bypass Republican resistance for judicial and executive appointments.  Why can’t Senator McConnell trigger the same “nuclear option” now?
What about Obamacare?  It remains alive and well despite Republican promises to “repeal and replace.”  The truth about Benghazi remains elusive, now over two years after the fact, despite recent e-mails debunking then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s explanations.  Lois Lerner’s missing e-mails remain elusive, without explanation or accountability.  The deficits remain at the trillion-dollar level, with the national debt spiraling out of control.  And the government is now taking over the internet via a secret plan, without protest from Congress.

Republican voters wanted the opposite.  Would things really be different if Pelosi and Reid still ran Congress rather than Boehner and McConnell?  The left’s agenda marches merrily along, with little resistance other then a few words or excuses.

The latest excuse from Republican leadership is that they need the White House before they can accomplish anything.  Really?  What the Republicans need is backbone and leadership.  Ronald Reagan ushered in hugely effective income tax cuts while working with a Democrat Congress.  A Republican Congress enacted welfare reform despite initial opposition from Democrat President Bill Clinton.  A Democrat Congress was able to raise taxes despite Republican George “read my lips, no new taxes” Bush in the White House.  Legislation can and does move forward despite divided government.

Margaret Thatcher told us, “Consensus is the absence of leadership.”  If the Republican leadership is waiting for consensus with the Democrats, that will never happen.  Rather, they should be making their case, standing by their principles and promises, and fulfilling the mandate they were given last November.  Republican voters don’t expect victory with each issue, but they do expect a principled stand and a fight, not a concession at the end of the first quarter.

Let the president wield his veto pen.  Congress has given him next to nothing to veto.  In his six years as president, he has vetoed three bills, with two of those during his first two years in office, when the Democrats controlled Congress.  Republicans have controlled the House since 2010 and the House and Senate currently, yet we have only one veto in the last five years, and that within the last month.
There are still constitutional options for Republicans against the president bypassing Congress entirely.  Defunding and impeachment are both politically challenging, but legitimate nonetheless.  But the Republican leadership have taken these off the table, further limiting their options.

Giving in to Democrat opposition, as they have done with amnesty, debt ceilings, continuing spending resolutions, and other “line in the sand” issues leaves voters to scratch their heads, wondering what’s different having Congress under Republican control.

The 2016 elections will be pivotal for Republicans, with a chance to win the White House and maintain control of Congress.  Unless they make the case as to why this is important, voters will tune out and stay home, as they did in 2012. If Republican voters believe, to borrow from Mrs. Clinton, “What difference does it make?,” they will stay home again in 2016.  The Republican Congress, as evidenced by the amnesty capitulation, is doing little to help.

Brian C Joondeph, M.D., MPS, a Denver-based physician, is an advocate of smaller, more efficient government.  Twitter @retinaldoctor.

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/why_vote_republican.html

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JANUARY 2015

A CONSERVATIVE WATERLOO: JOHN BOEHNER MUST GO
By Layne Hansen, December 16, 2014

It is time to stop thinking of John Boehner and the rest of the Republican congressional leadership as being cowardly and recognize them for what they are: part of The Ruling Class that believes it has the right to tell the rest of us how to live.

Since conservative voters handed a majority in the House of Representatives to the Republican Party in 2010, there have been countless missteps and opportunities to stop Democrats. It began with that first lame duck session when Republicans gave Obama some victories that eventually boosted his popularity and washed away the memory of the landslide victory that had just occurred the month before. Among these “accomplishments” was the dubious START, a missile treaty that one could argue emboldened Vladimir Putin.

Four years later, after seemingly countless battles where Boehner and company caved to Democrat demands, the conventional wisdom has been that Boehner and the like are cowards who are unwilling to take on an African-American president out of fear that they will be called racists. Now, however, following revelations that Boehner and the rest of the leadership lied to GOP caucus members to secure passage of the so-called CRomnibus bill, it is now clear that Boehner and his ilk are not cowards. No, it’s much worse than that. They are complicit in this continual boondoggle. Perhaps the Republican congressional leadership agrees with Jonathan Gruber that Americans are just too stupid to stop what they’re doing.

In light of this latest betrayal, Angelo Codevilla’s analysis of American politics is even more relevant. In his book The Ruling Class, Codevilla claims that Democrats and Republicans are part of a ruling class that seeks to maintain and expand their power over the “Country Class.” Who is the Country Class? That would be you and I, dear reader. We’ve been had. However, at least we now know where John Boehner truly stands: with Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi.

This all reminds me of that fantastic Warner Brothers cartoon where “Ralph Wolf” and “Sam Sheepdog” meet up at a time clock. They speak congenially with one another, wishing one another a good day. Upon clocking in, however, the two assume their natural roles: Ralph tries to catch a sheep, while Sam tries to stop him. Sam basically beats the crap out of Ralph for the duration of the cartoon, but they eat lunch together, and when the two clock out at the end of their shift, they once again assume their cordial relationship.

The analogy is clear: GOP leaders appear to doggedly oppose Democrats’ agenda, but in reality, they are complicit in it. It is all political kabuki theater that is meant to assuage Tea Party anger and give the impression that Obama is being stopped. However, and it is not just clear – it’s right in our face with neon lights – that we are being duped.

For example, the national debt has continued to climb, even after the GOP took over the House, arguably the most powerful political body when it comes to spending. This is possible only because the House allowed for multiple raisings of the debt ceiling. And what did they get in return? Nothing. Nothing notable, that is. An average undergrad poli sci major could tell you that if you have political leverage, you should use it. However, this assumes that Boehner and the like want things to change. I am now convinced...finally...after giving them the benefit of the doubt for years, that they really want to turn this ship around. Instead, they want to slow the ship down so it doesn’t hit the iceberg as hard as the Democrats seem to want it to.

I recently had a very illustrative conversation with a colleague, who is a very ardent moderate Republican. He actually said that Republicans should seek to give citizens “more bang for their buck” in services. Not streamline and cut, but maximize the utility. This is the mentality that conservatives are up against. Meanwhile, employment and wages are stagnant, as are real economic growth and opportunity. However, I’m here to argue that this can change, and all it will take is the courage of 29 souls.

The current GOP leadership has got to go; this has ceased to be an arguable point. We cannot count on these people to do what is right. Conservatives did not give them majorities in both chambers for them to keep playing the same game.

To retain his position as speaker of the House, John Boehner must receive 218 votes, which is a simple majority. There will be 246 Republicans in the House in the 114th Congress. This means that 29 Republicans must state that under no circumstances will they vote for John Boehner for the speakership. Yes, there are stories of bribery and intimidation by the leadership, but this point in history has to be the conservative caucus’s Alamo. They must stand here. If they don’t...well...I don’t even want to think about what will happen.

Layne Hansen is a Ph.D. student in political science.

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/12/a_conservative_waterloo_john_boehner_must_go.html

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JUNE 2014

TEA PARTY CONTINUES WINNING
By Jonathon Moseley, May 22, 2014

Yes, you heard that right. The tea party is (still) winning, even during and after this year’s 2014 Republican primary season.

The tea party is not a political party. It never has been. The tea party never set as its goal defeating every single incumbent Republican officeholder. The fact that the tea party has taken the scalps of about 50 House Democrats in the 2010 election and several giants in the Republican establishment during 2010 and 2012 is a bonus. That is far in excess of what the tea party movement ever expected to accomplish.

The tea party movement was born in the Spring of 2009, out of Rick Santelli’s famous rant on CNBC on February 18, 2009, calling on citizens to gather and throw tea into Lake Michigan near Chicago as a tea party protest. A few activists claim credit for hatching precursor efforts earlier than that, mainly supporters of Ron Paul. But Rick Santelli’s nationwide television broadcast was the rocket’s blastoff.

The purpose of the tea party was to protest financial irresponsibility, excessive regulation strangling liberty and the economy, and business as usual in Washington (voting for bills no one has read, for example). The tea party was always about promoting issue positions for financial responsibility. The tea party was not primarily about running candidates.

The tea party continues to dominate the Republican Party. Although there are many enemies of the commonsense goals of the tea party, they mostly have to scheme behind closed doors. The few exceptions get pounded with criticism.

Yet in 2014, many candidates favored by the Republican establishment have survived primary challenges. Is this the test for whether the tea party is successful or is fading? No.

First, as Christine O’Donnell just tweeted, the winners of these primary candidates are (more or less) conservative Republicans. A notable exception is Dr. Monica Wehby in Oregon, who is pro-choice, and perhaps Mitch McConnell, who was never going to be unseated anyway.

This election cycle, establishment-backed candidates not only pretended to be tea-party friendly conservatives, but by and large actually are. The establishment did not try to ram through liberals like Olympia Snowe or Arlen Specter. For example, analysts are trying to portray conservative Rep. Jack Kingston (ACU life-time rating 95.6%, designated as an “ACU Conservative”) as “establishment” in the Georgia primary for U.S. Senate.

As a result, tea party conservatives were not motivated as strongly to oppose establishment candidates in 2014 as they were in 2010. The difference was not that great among the primary candidates.

Second, the tea party already knocked off some of the worst Republican incumbents in 2010 and 2012. That leads to the result that 2014’s incumbents did not draw as much fire from the tea party this time around.

Third, it is clear to everyone that the biggest obstacle to tea party objectives -- at the moment -- is Democrat control of the U.S. Senate. The Republican-led U.S House has in fact undertaken many strenuous efforts to advance tea-party objectives. Those efforts have crashed on the shores of Harry Reid’s U.S. Senate. Although there is great dissatisfaction with Republican leadership and its competence and devotion to conservative goals, there is a unity of purpose across the Republican coalition.

A consensus that Republicans must take control of the U.S. Senate is consistent with the tea party’s goals. But that is simply the biggest obstacle in our path at the moment.

Fourth, all Republicans seem to feel that 2014 is a "growing year” for the Republican majority in Congress. That is wholly consistent with the pruning that took place in 2010, and which will take place again in the future. You do not prune a tree constantly. You also let it grow.

But the tea party is still holding the pruning shears and won’t hesitate to use them in 2016 and beyond. Indeed, the tea party is gaining strength in expertise, training, organization, and infrastructure. Tea party activists are mastering skills on radio and the internet. The Northern Virginia Tea Party, for example, launched “Tea Party 2.0” almost two years ago.

Fifth, no one ever suggested that the tea party would get rid of bad Republicans all at once. That is an unrealistic expectation. It took us decades to get into the mess we are in, and it won’t be fixed overnight.

Sixth, in most of the primaries in which an establishment-favored candidate won, there were many other candidates in a divided field. There was no one clear tea party candidate. Tea party organizations were divided supporting different candidates. Many candidates divided the vote.

For example, businessman David Perdue in the Georgia primary Tuesday will face a July 22 runoff for the nomination. But Perdue only got 30% of the vote. There is little to make us fear David Perdue as a liberal, except just a lack of a record of actual votes. Perdue’s appeal as an outsider bringing “fresh blood” resonates with the tea party. Yet if supporters of other candidates unite behind conservative Jack Kingston, Perdue will lose the runoff.

So the tea party is here to stay. The fantasies of GOP insiders, who sold out the country to big business lobbyists as part of “K Street Project,” that they can return to the trough will fail.

Republican insiders keep announcing -- again and again, over and over -- their new plans (the same old plan every time) to “this time” overcome the tea party insurgency. The same ideas that didn’t work before won’t work now.

One of the biggest mistakes the establishment keeps making is imagining that spending lots of money on TV ads counts for much. Conservatives know that they are the ones who win elections pounding the pavement door to door. A second big mistake is thinking that the voters pay any attention to what the establishment has to say. Insiders keep saying that – this time – we need to “vet” candidates. But the establishment strongly attacked tea party candidates in 2010 and 2012 primaries. The voters simply ignore what the insiders have to say.

Instead, the way that the establishment has beat the tea party challenge this year is to join them. Running candidates more in harmony with tea party demands, who echo tea party themes and claim to be conservative, is what the establishment has done successfully this year. But the tea party will be waiting to pounce if Republicans stray from the path of financial responsibility.

Page reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/05/tea_party_continues_winning.html

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MARCH 2014

IS JOHN BOEHNER 'A MAN TAKING A WALK?'
Jeannie DeAngelis, January 26, 2014

Newfound understanding as to why America is in the dire straits it's in was gained when Speaker of the House John Boehner ('Beener,' 'Bonner,' 'Boner') Boehner (pronounced BAY-ner) finally appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

The guy with the perpetual cottonmouth took to Jay's couch to spout off on people like Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and Vladimir Putin. But the real revelations came when Boehner explained why he refuses to do anything to counterbalance Obama!

It started when Jay Leno leaned in and asked the Speaker, "Ever think of running for president?"

"No!" Boehner shot back.

Then came the big reveal, the peek into what Barack Obama has on Mr. Boehner that keeps John on the president's good side.

Boehner said this: "Listen, I like to play golf, I like to cut my own grass, I do drink red wine, I smoke cigarettes--and I'm not giving that up to be president of the United States."

Whoa Nellie! You mean that's all it takes to get 64-year-old Boehner to sell out America to tyranny - a golf cart, a riding mower, a case of Ripple, and a few cartons of Marlboros?

Boehner also explained that his "orange" tan was simply the result of spending time outdoors. Bike-riding Boehner, one of 12 children, said, "My mother's dark-complected so I'm a little dark. No tanning beds. No spray or anything. Not ever! Not once ever!"

Sorry John, we don't buy it. You either eat too many carrots, overdose on beta carotene, or you're dipping into the Coppertone, which means Obama the dealer may be funneling a membership to a tanning salon your way.

When Jay asked Boehner if he'd ever met Putin, "No!" he barked back, "And I don't want to meet him. I think he's a thug, and I think he's treated his neighbors in a disrespectful way and, frankly, I think the president ought to stand up to him."

Huh? Putin's a thug and the president should stand up to him?

The president is a thug too, John. However, if the guy in the mom jeans attempted to stand up to Putin (who swims in the freezing Siberian Lake Baikal), the Russian president would say "Boo" and make him cry like a little girl. As for Putin's neighbors, Obama's the one who said "Nyet" to missile defense in Poland.

Boehner called indicted whistleblower Edward Snowden "a traitor to the country," but didn't think to mention Benghazi, Fast & Furious, or the IRS.

On the NSA spying scandal, Boehner matter-of-factly advised, "Let's just get over it. It's been going on for thousands of years," which means the last bottle of red wine Obama sent over must have been a fine vintage indeed.

As for the anti-Constitutional ACA fiasco, John Boehner reminded America, "It's the law!"

Asked about the government shutdown over defunding Obamacare, the Speaker admitted that it was "tactically not the right way to do it." On the tactic-driven Tea Party members of Congress and the GOP infighting, "it's bad," he said.

Mr. Boehner explained that he had accepted Leno's invitation because in two weeks Jimmy Fallon takes over, and "I thought I ought to get here before it's too late," to which Jay replied, "I was gonna say the same thing for you!"

Speaking of "too late," maybe the Speaker should pay more attention to getting done what needs to be done in Washington DC "before it's too late," and less time golfing and scooting around the lawn on the John Deere with a cig dangling from his lips, drinking red wine out of a red plastic cup.

The Speaker revealed a lot about himself when he said, "you learn that a leader without followers is simply a man taking a walk." Here's a suggestion from a disappointed group of Americans who depended on you to represent our concerns: Walk on, Mr. Speaker, walk on!

Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com  Page reprinted from the American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/01/is_john_boehner_a_man_taking_a_walk.html

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FEBRUARY 2014

1.1 TRILLION REASONS TO DUMP BOEHNER AND McCONNELL
By J. Robert Smith, January 18, 2014

Late Thursday, on Jan. 17, in the afternoon, the Senate passed a $1.1 trillion spending measure that's best described as a fix -- fix, as in an act of Republican perfidy and chicanery.

The process was rigged by Speaker Boehner and Senate Minority Leader McConnell (doubtless with a wink and a nod from Harry Reid) to push through the gargantuan spending measure while giving House and Senate Republicans cover on ObamaCare funding. The bill was an incomprehensible 1,582 pages.

Here's how it worked. House Republicans passed the spending bill with a provision to strip funding from ObamaCare. In the Senate, Harry Reid used rules to see to it that measure wasn't subject to a filibuster, which would required 60 votes to overcome. That meant eight Republicans would have to have joined 52 Democrats to end a filibuster.

Not insurmountable for Reid and his Democrats, siphoning off GOP votes, given the plentiful supply of quislings among the Republicans. But why the headache, and politically, why give Senate conservatives a chance again to shine a harsh spotlight on the very unpopular fledgling ObamaCare health care grab? Why expose Democrats up for reelection this year to that sort of rigorous body-cavity search?

So Reid (this time doubtless with a wink and a nod from McConnell), maneuvered to strip the ObamaCare defunding provision by a majority vote, which split along party lines, 52-45 in favor. This happened quickly without any fanfare.

This analysis from Fox News:

The compromise-laden legislation reflects the realities of divided power in Washington and a desire by both Democrats and Republicans for an election-year respite after three years of budget wars that had Congress and the White House lurching from crisis to crisis. Both parties looked upon the measure as a way to ease automatic spending cuts that both the Pentagon and domestic agencies had to begin absorbing last year. [Italics added]

Simply astonishingly stupid and cowardly. In an election year, particularly one as critical as 2014, it's not time for a "respite," it's time to sharpen differences and up the conflict. The point is to provide voters with crystal clear contrasts to compel choices. What Boehner and McConnell did by greasing the skids for this mammoth spending bill was give Democrats a "Get out of Jail Free" card. It's what one would expect from RINOs, who'd rather accommodate than fight.

Ted Cruz, most notably, saw through this ruse and he, along with other key conservative senators, attempted to force Democrats' hands via an amendment that would have put Democrats in the awkward position of explaining and defending their support for ObamaCare funding. Not a real winning position for Democrats, huh? By offering the amendment (which plotting RINOs voted for knowing it would fail), Cruz and company thus demonstrated the courage and savvy that those feckless RINO leaders, Boehner and McConnell, lack.

"But, but, you just don't understand, Mr. Smith. We RINOs don't want another ugly budget fight that detracts from focusing on ObamaCare during this year's elections. A budget fight just hurts Republicans, Mr. Smith, don't you see, you dimwit?"

No, I don't. Congress is very much a political arena. Setting the table for this year's midterms through a fight over ObamaCare funding is very much an advantage to GOP congressional candidates. Americans are greatly unhappy with, and fearful of, ObamaCare. Voters need more than lip service; they need to see tangible action from congressional Republicans.

"But, but, Mr. Smith, we mustn't speak ill of RINOs. It's an election year. Such criticism will only divide us."

Sorry, Republicans are already divided into craven go-alongs and conservatives who want and appreciate the value of a bare-knuckled fight with Democrats over ObamaCare and a range of other key issues. In politics, winners are fighters with a taste for blood. The prez and his left-ideologue Democrats have demonstrated that fighter-instinct from January 2009 to present. They'll play patty-cake if it helps their causes, but will bring out the shivs, chains, and guns if required.

What use are GOP majorities in the House and Senate if establishment Republicans are in control and roll over for Democrat belly scratches? The nation needs conservative majorities and leadership in the House and Senate come 2014. For conservatives, the fight is within and without this year. That means "goodbye" to Harry Reid and to Boehner, McConnell, and their leadership teams.

Vote conservative in 2014, and insist that conservative candidates for Congress commit to new conservative leadership in the House and Senate come January 2015. Let's stop the 1.1 trillion games played by congressional RINOs.

Page reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2014/01/11trillion_reasons_to_dump_boehner_and_mcconnell.html

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NOVEMBER 2013

THE ROAD TO DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA
By Dave Agema, RNC National Committeeman

"Let's say somebody were [in the White House] and they wanted to destroy this nation. I would create division among the people, encourage a culture of ridicule for basic morality and the principles that made and sustained this country, undermine the financial stability of the nation, and weaken and destroy the military. It appears coincidentally that those are the very things that are happening right now." - Dr. Ben Carson

Now that we've all watched the media's feeding frenzy concerning the shutdown and the impending doom of America, we all must be made aware that the deal to "avert default" and reopen the government is simply a Band-Aid on a huge wound that's going to start bleeding once again in a few months. Nothing was settled. ObamaCare goes forward. The IRS has the authority to keep spending if Congress and the President can't solve their differences . . . and they won't. If they do, it will once again be more future debt, causing a bigger crash down the road.

China is already making plans to make their currency the international standard, because of our debt and printing of our dollars ($1 trillion a year) with nothing backing them other than the "full faith and credit" of the U. S. Government. If that happens, our standard of living will change for the worse - rapidly - and it'll be due to our government's inability to stop spending money they don't have. It's like a kid with an allowance that keeps borrowing from his buddies with no way to pay it back with his limited money.

Whatever happened to the Republican philosophy of shrinking government? The largest growth of government spending is "entitlements" (I hate the term), and they make the problem worse. Weakness (read: "surrender") with this president is not going to work. We need a clue-by-four approach to stop his insanity concerning fiscal, moral, military, and security issues. Personally, I believe we caved. You may disagree - this is America, but we just got sold a temporary easement in exchange for a catastrophe down the road.

On a different note, I attended the Tea Party Pow Wow in Mt. Pleasant, and was pleasantly surprised (no pun intended). The people prayed, respectfully listened, and got ideas on how to get involved. I spoke about the referendum I'm supporting concerning a part time legislature. The savings here is less law, regulations, and taxes. 46 states have some sort of a part time legislature, and some only meet every other year. The time has come. I would not doubt in the future that we could vote from home on a secure computer - now that would cause problems for the lobbyists.

While many blamed the Republicans for the shut down, Ted Cruz arrived home to a standing ovation . . . for nearly 8 minutes. Not all people are buying the liberal news media spin.

Keep the faith, pray for your government and leaders, and hold them responsible when they stray off the path of common sense and constitutional principles.

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FEBRUARY 2013

ELEPHANT HUNT

Many of you know that we have been looking to replace our elephant which has been used as a float since it was made by Dave and Dawn Nelsey in 2003 and was paper-machéd by a group of volunteers.  It was viciously attacked by a bunch of flying squirrels in Adam Hume's barn.  They decided they needed to live inside it and burrowed in and out, leaving it much worse for wear.  We looked into trying to repair it again, but the squirrels will attack it again.  We looked into coating it with fiberglass, but it is not sturdy enough to withstand the weight and wear from travel.

We were hoping to be able to buy a used elephant for about $1500, but were unable to locate one. 

We have found elephants for less than $1000 but they are "baby elephants" generally less than 4 feet tall.

We have been able to locate a gentleman who makes fiberglass elephants in Indiana and he happens to have one in stock.  It is built on a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood and will fit on our trailer.  It is about 10 1/2 feet tall at the top of the trunk with the back about 8' tall and 6 to 7 feet wide at the ears.  It will cost $3000 which means we will need to raise about $1000 to complete the purchase. 

If you would like to make a donation to this cause, feel free to do so.  You can send any donation to the cause to Iosco County Republicans at P.O. Box 283, Tawas City, MI 48730.

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JANUARY 2013

YOU THINK THE GOP HAS PROBLEMS?
By Christopher Chantrill, December 11, 2012

While everyone gathers around the water cooler Monday-morning quarterbacking Speaker Boehner on the execution of his game plan for the Cliff Bowl before it is even played, let us spare a thought for the hapless Democrats. After all, who would want to be a Democrat as we go into 2013?

Don't be fooled by that tough-guy act.

Yes, yes, we know that the Democrats own the future with the educated, the young, the black, and the Hispanic. And Republicans have just got to learn to speak Hispanic. Even Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan seem to agree.

But my suspicion is that the old song had it right. The new Democratic majority has gone about as far as it can go. You can tell that in the subtext of Democratic policy this holiday season, which seems to be: entitlements today, entitlements tomorrow, entitlements forever.

There is something vaguely familiar about that catchphrase.

Here is how I explain it.

Back in 1989, the Democrats panicked. They had just lost three presidential elections in a row, first to an amiable dunce and finally to a New England blue-blood. How bad can it get?

The new strategy, we can now see, was fiendishly clever. Democrats would feint towards the middle, as in New Democrats, while playing race politics with blacks and Hispanics. And they would use their cultural power to put the mark of Cain on the religious right and social conservatism. Remember how they demonized Pat Buchanan's speech at the 1992 National Republican Convention?

On winning the 1992 election by splitting the Republicans with Ross Perot and demonizing the Bush economy with "worst economy in the last 50 years," the Democrats gave it all back in 1994 with the first Republican Congress elected in 40 years.

The Dems kept the ship afloat in 1996 with the help of Dick Morris and welfare reform, but they failed to extinguish the Republican Congress. In 2000 they almost kept the presidency with an October Surprise on W's DUI.

Fortunately, the razor-thin loss in 2000 gave the Dems an opportunity. They decided not to concede the election but instead keep their partisans at white heat for the next eight years, railing against anything that would stick on the wall. It all finally came together in the 2006 and 2008 elections, with big Democratic majorities in Congress and America's first black president.

This is where things start to go wrong.

Despite the worst economy in the last 50 years, Democrats decided to run the old plays out of the old playbook, and they just went ahead and burdened the economy with more stimulus, more entitlements, more environmental regulation, and more crony capitalism/socialism. In consequence, the economy failed to thrive as it tried to rally from the depths of the Great Recession. What a surprise!

And get this: Just when the economy needed a superfluity of risk-taking businessmen creating new jobs from Maine to California, the Dems decide to run against businessmen, spending months demonizing Mitt Romney as a cruel plutocrat!

Today, President Obama is proposing that all we need to do going forward is to increase taxes on the rich by about $80 billion per year. In the face of a $1,200-billion deficit per year.

Why won't the president come up with a proposal on entitlements? Writes Fred Barnes: "The liberal base of the Democratic party--Obama's base--opposes [it], that's why." Apparently Nancy Pelosi thinks it would "harm the middle class."

Here's where I am left scratching my head. You would think that now would be the time, after the Dems have just won re-election, to take a few tough decisions; that's what politicians usually do right after the election. Apparently, this time, they won't.

Maybe there is a secret deal, known only to insiders, that "they" will spring on us in a couple of weeks after everyone has fed red meat to all their hungry partisans.

Maybe Democrats still think they have solved the Medicare problem with ObamaCare and its shadowy IPAB.

But maybe Democrats are simply afraid to cut any spending, ever, because if they do, then their coalition will start to melt away into the countryside. After all, what idiot sticks with a marauding band of predators after the word goes out that there is no more loot?

Or maybe the Democrats are like the Bourbons, who had "forgotten nothing and learned nothing" when they returned to rule France after the defeat of Napoleon. Sixty years ago, the only thing that a Southern politician needed to know was Segregation. Today the Democrats are more advanced, so their politicians know two things: Entitlements and Inequality.

In the end, dead-end ideas and their mindless promoters get thrown on the ash heap of history. The trick is to make sure that happens before the U.S. gets thrown on the ash heap.

Christopher Chantrill (mailto:chrischantrill@gmail.com) is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. See his usgovernmentspending.com and also usgovernmentdebt.us. At americanmanifesto.org he is blogging and writing An American Manifesto: Life After Liberalism.

Page reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/12/you_think_the_gop_has_problems.html

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MARCH 2012

IT'S NOT ABOUT NEWT
By Joseph M. Koenig, January 28, 2012

GOP voters are sending a clarion call to the party establishment, but it seems GOP leaders are not getting the message. The statement being sent to the GOP elite isn't about Newt, and it goes beyond even Romney. It is about a deep dissatisfaction that has been building for years within the Republican rank and file.

With the proclamations of Bob Dole and others against Newt Gingrich recently, it is clear the GOP establishment fears a Gingrich nomination. In truth, however, it is the GOP establishment's own ineffectual leadership that led to the recent surge of the former Speaker of the House.

The prevailing wisdom in Washington and the media is that Newt's re-birth in South Carolina is due to his fiery debate performances, which is true, but what happened in the polls goes far beyond clear articulation of conservative principles and debate prowess. Yes, the Republican voters want a fighter, someone who will take on President Obama, but Newt's boldness and passion resonated so well with the disaffected party base, they were willing to overlook his huge political and personal shortcomings. There is a larger lesson here.

According to Rasmussen Reports, just five days before the South Carolina vote, Mitt Romney held a 14 point lead over Gingrich. After two debate performances, the final primary results showed a nearly 27 percentage point swing in Newt's favor, with the Speaker finishing almost 13 points ahead of Romney. A shift that large, that fast, reveals a weakness not just in Romney's support, but in the establishment GOP's support as well.

Political debate-goers are not prone to giving standing ovations. Jumping to your feet and cheering is something enthusiastic fans watching a Super Bowl do, not conservative GOP loyalists watching their candidates in an intraparty debate. The fact that such an audience, and surely millions of viewers at home, felt such elation, such euphoric relief, that they were prompted to offer not one, but multiple standing ovations to a political candidate, demonstrates the utter paucity of spirit and lack of understanding so glaringly obvious in the GOP political elite.

Unfortunately, the GOP elite's failure to understand exactly why Gingrich did so well portends the sad prospect that Republican leadership isn't going to improve anytime soon. In election after election, and on issue after issue, the Republican base has felt increasingly frustrated and disappointed by their party's leadership, who have consistently underperformed, buckled under media and opposition pressure, and squandered any mandate provided them by the American people.

With a candidate like Newt, who brings with him loads of personal and political baggage, such reactions as those seen in the debates reveal sentiments that run much deeper, and that have been building far longer than any one campaign season. The Republican rank and file have been sending messages to their party leaders for years, but without avail. The GOP has touted itself as the party of fiscal responsibility and smaller government, but for too many years, their supporters have seen government and spending continue to spiral out of control, even when they put Republicans in charge.

In 2006, Republicans were sent a resounding rebuke, losing both the Senate and the House after 12 years of controlling majorities. After defeating an uninspiring establishment GOP candidate in the 2008 election, President Obama promptly showed the disaffected Republican voters what real spending was like, making the ousted Republicans look downright miserly.

Realizing just how much worse things could be under liberal Democrat control, the American people rose up. The Tea Party was born. In 2010, frustrated Tea Partiers sent Republicans back to congress in an attempt to stop the profligate spending. The mandate could hardly have been clearer. Even Obama admitted to taking a shellacking.

While it is true Republicans control only one chamber of one branch of the federal government, the change the American people sent them to Washington to effect has not happened. The frustration that led Tea Partiers to demonstrate in public squares and dominate town halls around the country has not been alleviated. The debt limit battle was lost, the economy continues to stagnate, and the GOP establishment is once again pushing a candidate that fails to inspire hope that he can actually make real change happen in Washington.

Unlike many of the Occupy Wall Street movement protestors, the Tea Party conservatives had businesses to run, and jobs to return to, but the frustration and anger they felt is still very real. They are tired of sending people to Washington, Republicans claiming to be the party of fiscal responsibility, only to see things continue to get worse.

Romney lost big in South Carolina against split opposition support. However, Mitt shouldn't take it personally. The "Anybody but Romney" vote, could well be renamed the "Anybody but What We've Already Tried" vote. The Republican voters have already tried the next-in-line, safe, establishment candidate, and lost--to Obama no less. As heroic as they have been in wars past, there are no more perfect examples of this kind of unexciting candidate as John McCain and Bob Dole, both of whom have now publicly endorsed Romney.

If they had a real understanding of why Newt surged, and why their preferred candidate has failed to connect with voters, they would have kept McCain and Dole as far from cameras and microphones as possible. To many, Romney is the best Republicans have in their current field of candidates, but to openly associate him with the same tired, uninspiring cast of characters of elections past is more than just bad political strategy. The tone-deafness of the Republican establishment could not be more astounding.

The voters want someone who understands their frustration, anger, and concern for the future of the country. They are tired of candidates too timid to say it like it is, candidates so afraid to offend the smallest of minorities with uncomfortable truths they instead exasperate the majority through monotonous political-speak, media-safe answers, and unfulfilled promises.

The stakes are higher than ever. The Republican base is ready. Their message is loud and clear. If the Republican establishment had the willingness to hear, and the courage to tap into and focus the dissatisfaction and passion so evident in the party base, the change we all would like to see would be possible. Until they get that message, however, it looks like it is going to be business as usual.

Contact Joseph M. Koenig

Page reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/01/its_not_about_newt.html

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SEPTEMBER 2011

"CLOSED" PRIMARY CHOSEN

The Republican State Committee released this announcement on the presidential primary.

Republicans Choose Closed Primary for President
August 13, 2011

Inclusiveness of process, access to polls for troops weighs on vote

LANSING – Michigan Republicans will participate in a closed primary next year to select the GOP Presidential nominee, state party chairman Bobby Schostak said, following the party’s vote at its State Committee meeting on Saturday.

“Saturday’s vote by our State Committee was the culmination of months of communication between our grassroots, activists, policy committee members, statewide GOP supporters, and everyone with an interest in ensuring that Michigan sends a Republican president to the White House in 2012,” Schostak said.

In May, the policy committee was tasked with researching facts and gathering opinions about which process Republicans should use to choose the nominee. On July 12, the policy committee recommended that the State Committee adopt a closed primary.

“President Barack Obama’s policies have done tremendous harm to the economy,” Schostak said. “Michigan voters have painfully endured the results of a federal government that tries to be all things to all people. We need jobs, not empty, feel-good rhetoric. And today’s vote finally gives Michigan voters the chance to send a Republican to the White House.”

Many of the grassroots activists were not happy with the choice since there is absolutely nothing to prevent Democrats from choosing our nominee by simply asking for a Republican ballot.  The primary will be moved to later in the calendar year, not be held in early February as it was in 2008.

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FEBRUARY 2011

NOT A GOOD BEGINNING FOR THE REPUBLICAN HOUSE

Limiting Term Limits
House plan would extend careers of most Lansing politicians from 6 to 14 years
By Tom Gantert, Jan. 17, 2011

The new Michigan Legislature was sworn into office Jan. 12. The next day, they were at work on a proposal that could greatly extend the years that most of them are able to spend in Lansing.

On Jan. 13, state Rep. Sharon Tyler, R-Niles, introduced House Joint Resolution C, a proposed amendment to the state constitution aimed at changing the term limits imposed on state officeholders.

It would benefit most those politicians who get elected to the House of Representatives, according to Jack McHugh, the Mackinac Center’s senior legislative analyst.

In 1992, Proposal B was passed by 58.7 percent of the voters. It stated that no person could be elected as a state representative more than three times (each term is two years) and that no person could be elected as a state senator more than two times (each term is four years). So under current constitutional law, a lawmaker elected to the Michigan House can serve six years and then be eligible to run for the Michigan Senate and add two more 4-year terms.

However, as McHugh points out, there are 110 seats in the House and just 38 seats in the Senate. Not enough offices to go around, so the majority of state representatives never get to extend their political careers beyond six years. For most of them, that would more than double if HJR-C becomes part of the constitution.

“You got a musical chairs going on but not everyone gets in,” McHugh said.

The proposed revision would allow politicians to “mix and match” their terms in both chambers, with a maximum limit of 14 years total. That means a state representative would be able to serve 14 years in the House, not the six that is term-limited under current law, but then would be ineligible to ever run for the Senate.

The advantages of incumbency mean that the vast majority of lawmakers are re-elected when able to run for the same office again. Stretching the maximum House terms from three to seven will mean that most state representatives will stay more than twice as long – 14 years rather than six.

“A lot of people would just spend 14 years in the House. It would totally change the whole idea of term limits,” McHugh said.

HJR C must be approved by two-thirds of the lawmakers serving in each chamber before it can be submitted to the voters for their approval. All changes to the state constitution must ultimately be ratified by a popular referendum.

The following state representatives have co-sponsored HJR-C. They are all Republicans:

Greg MacMaster, Peter MacGregor, Al Pscholka, Matt Lori, Kevin Cotter, Kenneth Kurtz, Mike Shirkey, Mike Callton, Ken Yonker, Gail Haines, Hugh D. Crawford, Kurt Damrow, Wayne A. Schmidt

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited. http://www.mackinac.org

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MARCH 2010

OH THOSE FECKLESS REPUBLICANS
January 21, 2010

I was watching Neil Cavuto for a couple of minutes the day after Scott Brown was elected a Senator for Massachusetts, and he had Tim Pawlenty on as a guest. Mr. Pawlenty is the Republican Governor of Minnesota, and touted by some on Fox and elsewhere as an attractive 2012 Republican Presidential candidate.

During his conversation with Cavuto, Pawlenty made it clear that he thinks the American "health care system is broken." He didn't say why he came to that radical conclusion, opining merely that health care is too expensive, and that Republicans and Democrats should work together to fix it.

No doubt there are some reforms that Congress can make affecting the cost of health care in America, like tort reform and competitive bidding across state lines. But the American health care system, as such, is the best in the world, and it is very far from broken.

I wonder when Republicans like Pawlenty are going to acquire sufficient discernment to realize that their conclusions are more in the nature of left-wing talking points than thoughtful social analysis. Adopting left-wing Democrat verbiage leads inevitably to being co-opted by left-wing Democrat policies.

The dictionary defines feckless as "incompetent, useless, spineless, feeble, weak and ineffective" - and that just about sums up the gutless Republican establishment's "let's all join hands and work together" attitude toward the Democrat tyrants in government.

Most of the American people don't want to "work together" with so-called progressives, whose real agenda is to deconstruct America and reconstruct it according to the dictates of cultural Marxism. They want the crypto-Marxists sidelined in America, and it is time that feckless Republicans shook off their bi-partisan stupor and came to that realization.

Reprinted by permission from the American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/01/oh_those_feckless_republicans.html

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FEBRUARY 2010