Now we know where Jim Jordan stands

 

The Freedom Caucus can now re-brand as the RINO Caucus.  Politico reports:

Jim Jordan and other key conservative firebrands have caused a fair share of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy‘s biggest headaches. But instead of leading the rebellion this time, they helped him quash it.

As the House Freedom Caucus was preparing to discuss whether to officially oppose the speaker’s bipartisan debt deal — a move that would potentially galvanize conservative opposition — Jordan (R-Ohio) phoned several fellow members with a request, according to a person familiar with the calls. The former chair of the group urged them to hold back, effectively giving conservatives who wanted to vote with McCarthy license to do so.

Jordan, a longtime McCarthy antagonist turned ally, almost got his wish. The group took no official position until hours before the vote, when most members had already made up their minds.

The beloved House Freedom Caucus co-founder — who gravitated toward McCarthy after the now-speaker tapped him for a senior spot on the Oversight Committee — helped out in other ways. The Ohio lawmaker spoke up in favor of the deal in private calls and meetings, including taking the mic at a closed-door huddle on Tuesday night, just hours after many of his fellow conservatives had spent the day trashing the deal.

This report concludes with this:

If most Republicans get on board, it means threats against his speakership won’t gain real traction. And with two-thirds of the GOP conference backing the deal Wednesday, it seemed to be working.

“We didn’t do it by taking the easy route,” McCarthy said in a celebratory post-vote press conference. “It wasn’t an easy fight, I had people on both sides upset.”

But he added: “I think we did pretty damn good for the American people.”

No debt ceiling.  No serious budget process.  J D Rucker considers this bill an existential threat.  His take is here.

# # #

Deliberately Fake News

 

At The Liberty Daily, J D Rucker calls out the LA Times:

In a story titled, Here’s one factor that might peel Trump’s diehard supporters away, [the LA Times] tested out fake news stories purportedly published by either leftist Politico or right-leaning Breitbart. The stories about Trump were manufactured to see how Trump supporters would react to reading propaganda that painted him in a negative light. [emphases added]

The LA Times is making it up and then shouting about it!  Mr Rucker liberally quotes the Times report and then comments:

Corporate media is very aware that despite the lack of trust Americans have in them, the people can still be swayed if they can get their anti-Trump propaganda in front of them. Perhaps the most important takeaway from this is that smaller corporate media outlets like Politico and Breitbart apparently have more credibility than legacy media. This makes sense, considering these sources are less concerned about pretending to be unbiased. Breitbart readers know the outlet leans right and Politico readers know the outlet leans left.

The powers-that-be will use whatever advantage they can find to manipulate people into doing what they want. This is why controlling the media has always been an important play for them. It’s also why more Americans need to wake up to the reality that if they want the truth, their best sources are going to be alternative, non-corporate media sites such as this one.

The full report is here.  So many liberals do not seem to be able to separate fact from fiction – or if what they are reading or seeing actually IS fiction.  Maybe this report would help.

# # #

Hillsdale College's 1776 curriculum

 

Mike LaChance at Legal Insurrection has a good report, even though it’s via Politico:

Note how the liberal site Politico frames Hillsdale College as “Christian” and cites its “deep ties” to the Trump administration. That aside, this curriculum looks pretty good, and it’s free.

Trump ally Hillsdale College pitches 1619 Project counterweight

A small Christian college with deep ties to the Trump administration released a “1776 curriculum” on Wednesday, the latest push to continue former President Donald Trump’s mission to create a “patriotic education.”

The nearly 2,400 pages of curriculum from Hillsdale College in Michigan includes lessons on the founding of the U.S., the Civil War and the American government. The college has long been in favor of a civics education that focuses on America’s strength rather than its ills and supported curriculum that is less critical of the U.S. Larry Arnn, the college’s president, led the Trump administration’s 1776 Commission, which Trump appointed members to during his last few weeks in office. It was later disbanded by the Biden administration but continued to meet.

The curriculum marks another turn in the national debate over teachings that focus on racism’s role in America’s past and present.

The left-leaning bias in this report is pretty obvious, but it still gets out the mission of the 1776 curriculum.  “Lessons on the founding of the U.S., the Civil War and the American government” – all good when not infected with Critical Race Theory and America-bashing.

For the Hillsdale 1776 curriculum website; click here. Share it with your local school boards, staff, family members ….

# # #

A heads up on GOP fund-raising

 

How many calls and emails a week do you get from various GOP entities asking for money?  Our household gets a lot.  However, we haven’t contributed to GOP groups for years. The GOP groups raised millions for over eight years on the specific promise of repealing Obamacare, and then … they didn't keep their promise.  

Now President Trump is taking steps to re-direct contributions that might go to various GOP groups to instead support the Save America Super PAC.  From Dennis Michael Lynch’s blog:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump has demanded that three main Republican groups stop using his name and likeness to help raise money, a Trump adviser said on Saturday.

The adviser, confirming a report in Politico, said that lawyers for Trump on Friday had sent cease-and-desist letters to the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Campaign and National Republican Senate Campaign, asking them to stop using his name and likeness on fundraising emails and merchandise.

The article goes on to state the following:

The adviser said Trump is sensitive to the use of his name and likeness for branding purposes and has been irked that the three groups have supported Republican lawmakers who had joined Democrats in voting to impeach him over the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump protesters.

Trump’s plan is to use the money raised from his Save America SuperPAC to help candidates of his choice win in the 2022 congressional elections.

For those patriots who are perpetually fed up with GOPe branch of the DC Uniparty, this may be a start. 

# # #

 

Mail-in ballots and voter fraud

Frank Bullitt’s Editorial today at Issues & Insights makes the case against mail-in ballots:

Democrats and their media scribes have spent more than three years glued to the narrative that President Donald Trump stole the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton by colluding with Russia to rig the outcome. But they don’t care about the legitimacy of elections. If they did, they wouldn’t be agitating for voting by mail this fall.

“House Democrats have sought to drastically overhaul the American electoral system in light of the pandemic, arguing dramatic change is needed to allow Americans to vote safely,” Politico reported last week.

It seems they have the public on their side. A recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found nearly 60% of voters “either strongly or somewhat support a federal law that would mandate that states ‘provide mail-in ballots to all voters for elections occurring during the coronavirus pandemic.’”

What they don’t have, though, is a good argument to defend their proposal for turning an entire election, or nearly all of one, into a contest of absentee ballots. 

Few elections, even in the U.S., are ever perfectly clean. But the potential for a dirty election sharply increases when ballots are scattered in the wind.

“Absentee ballots are the tools of choice of election fraudsters because they are voted outside the supervision of election officials, making it easier to steal, forge, or alter them, as well as to intimidate voters,” says Hans A. von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation.

The full editorial is here. And the integrity of Ohio’s elections is now at risk. See prior CTP blogs here and here.

# # #

ACTION ALERT: Senate looking at slipping in another immigration INCREASE. UPDATED

image credit: Insights.dice.com

UPDATE 5:08 on Thurs by Neil Munro on Breitbart:

Sen. Lindsey Graham is using the coronavirus recovery bills to dramatically expand the award of EB-5 green cards to wealthy Chinese if they lend money to U.S. real estate investors and other companies, according to several activists and Politico magazine.

“How can people pushing this not see how politically explosive this is?” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “An EB-5 increase would almost exclusively benefit Chinese: It is hard to imagine what they are thinking.”

The plan by Graham, (R-S.C.) was provided to Politico, which said it would “boost the number of [EB-5] visas offered to wealthy immigrants who invest money in the United States as it tries to boost a faltering economy amid the escalating coronavirus outbreak, according to four people familiar with the situation.” [Full update is here.]

[resuming from yesterday's blog] This just in from NumbersUSA:

Senators mulling immigration increases in emergency spending bills.

Tell your Senators to OPPOSE!

Our Capitol Hill team is learning of some troubling news. There are a handful of Senators, along with some in the White House, who are looking to slip an INCREASE of legal immigration into the emergency spending bills currently being drafted to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.

The provision being discussed would increase the number of EB-5 visas from 10,000 to 75,000. The EB-5 visa program provides foreign nationals with a green card in return for an investment in an American business that leads to the creation of at least 10 jobs for American workers. Currently, investors have to invest at least $900,000, but the provision could reduce that amount to $450,000.

Quite simply, the EB-5 visa program is the selling of U.S. citizenship. It's ridiculous to think that while Americans are concerned about their jobs and their health, that some Senators are looking for ways to benefit foreign nationals instead.

Please call your two U.S. Senators and urge them to oppose any efforts to slip an EB-5 increase into the economic stimulus package. Congress should not be burying bad immigration policy into emergency bills.

The talking point: tell your Senators to oppose an increase in EB-5 visas in the emergency bills.

Sen. Rob Portman:  202-224-3353 or by email here

Sen. Sherrod Brown: (202) 224-2315 (DC) or (216)  522 7272 (Cleveland)

# # #

Beware: Bogus fund-raising for Trump campaign

Mary Margaret Olohan at The Daily Caller reports:

Groups with no affiliation to President Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign are siphoning off funds from Trump supporters under the impression that the groups are using donations to support the president.

An examination by Politico found that dark money groups, pro-Trump PACs, and Facebook advertisers copy Trump’s brand to dupe Trump supporters into donating to them. But the groups spend very little of these funds to actually support Trump, Politico reports.

The groups use Trump’s voice in robocalls asking for “an emergency contribution to the campaign” and use POTUS’ Twitter avatar on Facebook pages. 

About 20 groups with names like “Latinos for the President” and “MAGA Coalition,” groups that are structured as PACs or political nonprofits, brought in $46.7 million between January 2017 and June 2019, Politico reports. The publication adds that most of the money comes from donors who give $200 or less.

Trump officials worry that the hundreds of unofficial pro-Trump boosters are sucking up funds that would otherwise contribute to Trump’s 2020 campaign. They also confuse the Trump campaign’s messaging to the public and make it harder to accumulate donors, Trump allies told Politico.

“There’s nothing we can do to stop them,” said America First spokeswoman Kelly Sadler to Politico. America First is the only super PAC authorized by Trump, Politico reports. “This is a problem for the campaign, as well as us, as well as for the RNC.”

Read the rest here.  If you are inclined to contribute to any campaign, best to be pro-active and access the legitimate online campaign sites yourself.

And Happy Boxing Day!

# # #

Do you donate to conservative PACs?

Some years ago, our household stopped contributing to conservative PACs that supported various conservative candidates in a particular election cycle. One reason was that we did not always agree on their choice of candidates. So now we contribute directly to candidates we like, whether at local, state, or federal level.

Today I read about even more reasons to pause before writing out your check or filling out your credit card details. Here’s part of a sobering report at National Review by Jim Geraghty (via Instapundit):

Back in 2013, Conservative StrikeForce PAC raised $2.2 million in funds vowing to support Ken Cuccinelli’s campaign for governor in Virginia. Court filings and FEC records showed that the PAC only contributed $10,000 to Cuccinelli’s effort.

Back in 2014, Politico researched 33 political action committees that claimed to be affiliated with the Tea Party and courted small donors with email and direct-mail appeals and found that they “raised $43 million — 74 percent of which came from small donors. The PACs spent only $3 million on ads and contributions to boost the long-shot candidates often touted in the appeals, compared to $39.5 million on operating expenses, including $6 million to firms owned or managed by the operatives who run the PACs.”

. . .

In the 2018 cycle, Tea Party Majority Fund raised $1.67 million and donated $35,000 to federal candidates. That cycle, Conservative Majority Fund raised just over $1 million and donated $7,500 to federal candidates. Conservative Strikeforce raised $258,376 and donated nothing to federal candidates.

Full report (“The Right’s Grifter Problem”) is here. Let the buyer contributor beware.

# # #

The Russians Are Coming and Fake News

“Whatcha doin’ up on the wall there, Muriel?”

Doro Merande in The Russians Are Coming at Great Big Canvas

Just got back from out-of-town, so blogging has been light. But I did some of my usual web-surfing en route, and one of my regular Sunday stops is at the American Thinker.  ICYMI, Clarice Feldman’s “Clarice’s Pieces” was a good way to sift through some of the Fake News in the MSM. including the seemingly endless obsession with The Russians Are Coming. She references Mr. Belmont Club (Richard Fernandez at PJ Media), Scott McKay at American Spectator, and PowerLine, among others, so if you’re short on time, check out her Sunday articles for quick links to good analyses of phony baloney reports:

the non-stop media promotion of some nefarious scheme between Russia and Trump does not pass even the most cursory forensic examination, proving once again in the age of fake news, you cannot remain a passive consumer of news. You have to bring to each story the good sense and diligence with which you handle your most important personal affairs. . .

Nothing so illustrates why the media has deservedly lost all credibility than its unending, overdone effort to fit any action on the part of the President or those around him into a narrative of Russia somehow colluding with him to defeat Hillary. This week’s take was the short meeting his son held with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower last summer. . . 

You’ll just have to work harder in the face of such ignorance and bias to find out what you need to know.  

Clarice makes it a little bit easier.

# # #

Gov. Kasich’s Medicaid Expansion again

art credit: KUT

Legal Insurrection reports [original links retained]

Full repeal or “roll back parts of ObamaCare”?

The ObamaCare Medicaid expansion is a horrible deal for low income Americans; it’s also where a large number of “newly covered” Americans get their new coverage.

Not only does the expansion include “automatic” enrollment in Medicaid through ObamaCare even if it’s not wanted, but expanding Medicaid to slightly higher income levels includes many who have managed to acquire a home or other assets.  Their home and assets, however, go to pay for their Medicaid bills after they die.  In essence, then, Medicaid functions as a loan from the federal government just as it always has, but because the income level has been raised, more Medicaid recipients than ever will have their assets seized to cover the cost of their Medicaid expenses.

Despite this, some GOP governors are fighting their own party to keep the Medicaid expansion in their states.

Politico reports:

Republican governors who reaped the benefits of Obamacare now find themselves in an untenable position — fighting GOP lawmakers in Washington to protect their states’ health coverage.

. . . .  President-elect Donald Trump heaped more pressure on lawmakers to find a resolution of the issue this week when he vowed to “repeal and replace Obamacare essentially simultaneously” after the Senate confirms Rep. Tom Price, his pick for Health and Human Services secretary.

But Trump’s push comes as at least five of the 16 Republican governors of states that took federal money to expand Medicaid are advocating to keep it or warning GOP leaders of disastrous consequences if the law is repealed without a replacement that keeps millions of people covered. They include Govs. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Rick Snyder of Michigan, John Kasich of Ohio, Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Brian Sandoval of Nevada.

The governors explain why they want to keep the Medicaid expansion in their states.

Politico continues:

“We are now able to provide health insurance to 700,000 people,” said Kasich, who circumvented his state Legislature to enact expansion in 2013 and who was the sole GOP presidential candidate in 2016 to defend that portion of Obamacare.

“Let’s just say they just got rid of it, didn’t replace it with anything,” he said. “What happens to the 700,000 people? What happens to drug treatment? What happens to mental health counseling? What happens to these people who have very high cholesterol and are victims from a heart attack? What happens to them?”

. . .

Part of Kasich’s argument is that the federal taxpayer dollars his state gets for Medicaid expansion is “our money,” that of Ohioans.

Hot Air explains this is not exactly the case:

Expanding Medicaid, Kasich has said, allowed him to “bring Ohio money back home,” preventing other states from getting $13 billion of “Ohioans’ federal tax dollars” in the first seven years. He circumvented a legislative ban on Obamacare expansion, waving off concerns about the cost with appeals to his experience in Congress in the ’90s.

In just three years, Kasich’s Obamacare expansion cost $11.3 billion, and not a penny of that new federal spending was “Ohio money” that would have otherwise gone to another state.

It’s not clear what President-elect Trump or the GOP Congress plan to do with or about the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion should they indeed succeed in repealing the entire law rather than picking and choosing what parts to to keep and what to “roll back.”

This report can remind voters why they should push Columbus legislators to pass the Ohio Health Care Compact, so that Ohio citizens can decide if they want to maintain or reject Obamacare. Recall that in 2011,

State Issue 3, a public vote on passage of the Healthcare Freedom Amendment in Ohio, passed overwhelmingly in all 88 Ohio counties.  In Cuyahoga County, the Amendment passed 202,010 votes (58.24%) to 144,908 votes (41.76%). [Source: Ohio GOP] 

# # #

Eric Holder named to lead effort to destroy GOP

art credit: OtterLimits

If this doesn’t scare you, nothing will. It's not a headline from The Onion, either. From Thomas Lifson at AmericanThinker:

Eric Holder named to lead effort to destroy GOP

after Hillary wins the presidency

This election is for keeps: plans are being implemented, with President Obama already signed on, staff hired, and money being raised.  Perhaps lulled into complacency by the MSM polls, the Democrats have already constructed and staffed their strategy to permanently disable the Republican Party.  Eric Holder is the perfect henchman, a man above nothing in his quest for political dominance, unbound by old-fashioned concepts of justice.

The GOP will remain in existence as the token opposition, useful for legitimizing the actual one-party regime, the essential element of the election rituals reminding us of the Republic we once enjoyed.

Edward Isaac-Dovere of Politico has the scoop:

As Democrats aim to capitalize on this year’s Republican turmoil and start building back their own decimated bench, former Attorney General Eric Holder will chair a new umbrella group focused on redistricting reform—with the aim of taking on the gerrymandering that’s left the party behind in statehouses and made winning a House majority far more difficult.

The new group, called the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, was developed in close consultation with the White House. President Barack Obama himself has now identified the group—which will coordinate campaign strategy, direct fundraising, organize ballot initiatives and put together legal challenges to state redistricting maps—as the main focus of his political activity once he leaves office.

The group is moving forward in a systematic way, assembling talent and money:

Though initial plans to be active in this year’s elections fell short, the group has been incorporated as a 527, with Democratic Governors Association executive director Elizabeth Pearson as its president and House Majority PAC executive director Ali Lapp as its vice president. They’ve been pitching donors and aiming to put together its first phase action plan for December, moving first in the Virginia and New Jersey state elections next year and with an eye toward coordination across gubernatorial, state legislative and House races going into the 2018 midterms.

Redistricting, aka Gerrymandering (depending on the eye of the beholder), is now a science, thanks to the data-mining capabilities of all the Silicon Valley Big Money corporatist allies of the Democrats.  Assembling masses of data from Google, Facebook, and others, they can put together districts micro-targeted with just enough Democrats to win and shove the GOP voters into 90% majority districts, shut out forever from control of state legislatures and the House of Representatives.

As Richard Baehr emailed me, "so long as there is an opposition, it must be destroyed."

It will be, if these well designed, politically connected, well financed efforts are implemented under a President Rodham.  

Combined with a Supreme Court committed to the living Constitution fantasy, the Uniparty will rule us all any way it desires.

The continuing avalanche of Wikileaks confirms just how corrupt the entire political and governmental structures are. Sharyl Attkisson (who quit her CBS job a couple of years ago amid concerns of media bias) has a long column focusing on the corrupt corporate media scandal she is calling “Newsgate.” It looks like it's merely the tip of the iceberg. 

# # #

The Politics of Personal Destruction. Again.

art credit: 123RF.com

Politico is reporting “an avalanche of revelations and allegations about Trump’s behavior toward women.” Just coming out now? Astonishing timing. With less than a month before the election.

We’ve seen this before. Remember Herman Cain’s accusers? (Here’s one of the reports.) As soon as Cain dropped out of the 2011-12 primary race, we heard nothing more. No cases went forward. The women dropped out of sight.  

And like clockwork, attorney Gloria Allred (who represented women accusing Cain) has stepped forward to help the alleged victims take legal action against Trump.

Trump’s speech today in West Palm Beach takes on this latest attack – head on. You can read the transcript here. Or you can watch the speech live streamed here (his speech at the rally starts at 1:21:38.

# # #

Obama's illegal Internet giveaway

photo credit: wnd.com

State AGs sue to stop Obama's internet transition

  

Politico’s Tony Romm reports:

Four Republican state Attorneys General [Mike DeWine is not one of them] are suing to stop the Obama administration from transferring oversight of the internet to an international body, arguing the transition would violate the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit — filed Wednesday in a Texas federal court — threatens to throw up a new roadblock to one of the White House’s top tech priorities, just days before the scheduled Oct. 1 transfer of the internet’s address system is set to take place.

In their lawsuit, the attorneys general for Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada and Texas contend that the transition, lacking congressional approval, amounts to an illegal giveaway of U.S. government property. They also express fear that the proposed new steward of the system, a nonprofit known as ICANN, would be so unchecked that it could “effectively enable or prohibit speech on the Internet.”

The four states further contend that ICANN could revoke the U.S. government’s exclusive use of .gov and .mil, the domains used by states, federal agencies and the U.S. military for their websites. And the four attorneys general argue that ICANN’s “current practices often foster a lack of transparency that, in turn, allows illegal activity to occur.”

“Trusting authoritarian regimes to ensure the continued freedom of the internet is lunacy,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a statement. “The president does not have the authority to simply give away America’s pioneering role in ensuring that the internet remains a place where free expression can flourish.”

Read the rest here. Ohio AG Mike DeWine’s website is here. 

# # #

Presidential debate on Sept. 26: Johnson and Stein not invited

art credit: wiltondems.org.

Assuming Hillary doesn’t have another collapse or some other health issue, there will be two candidates at the first Presidential debate on Sept. 26: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. From The Hill:

The Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Friday that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and their running mates are the only candidates who will participate in the upcoming debates.

This means Trump (R) and Clinton (D) will take part in the Sept. 26 debate at Hofstra University in New York and that Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein have not been invited. 

The Oct. 4 vice presidential debate will just include Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence. 

Some of the crystal balls got this one wrong. Politico ran a story on the possibility of third party candidate participation. Treehouse captured text of the recent full-page ad in The New York Times that gave every appearance of greasing the polling wheels to get Johnson onto the debate stage. Evidently, it didn’t work.

# # #

Disenfranchising the voters

photo credit:mishtalk.com

Both the Democrat and Republican parties have been actively trying to disenfranchise voters, especially primary voters. Their methods are different, but both parties (or perhaps more accurately, the so-called "Uniparty") can achieve the same result. That result is stripping the power of the vote away from the registered voter and shifting that power to the party committee and establishment elites. 

Politico reports on this issue within the Democratic party: 

A growing number of Democratic senators support reforming the party’s superdelegate system — a move that would dilute their own power in the presidential nominating process but satisfy Bernie Sanders and his millions of supporters as Democrats move to unify for the general election.

Politico interviewed nearly 20 of Sanders’ colleagues over the past week and found a surprisingly strong appetite for change, including among influential members of the party establishment such as Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a top prospect for vice president. More than half the senators surveyed support at least lowering the number of superdelegates, and all but two said the party should take up the matter at next month’s convention in Philadelphia, despite the potential for a high-profile intraparty feud at a critical moment in the campaign.

The findings point to growing momentum among Democrats for changing a system that’s been criticized for giving party bigwigs undue sway over the nominee at the expense of the grass roots. But powerful Democratic Party constituencies, including the Congressional Black Caucus, are firmly opposed. And lawmakers who are open to reform disagree over how far-reaching it should be.

. . .

Senator Sherrod Brown is on record on the subject of superdelegates. He just doesn’t care about the electorate:

“I want Bernie in the fold, I want him enthusiastic,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, another potential VP choice. “I’m fine with whatever they negotiate, I just don’t care about superdelegates. I don’t care about the whole thing.”

Then there is the GOP strategy. In this election cycle, it included rewriting the GOP primary rules, state by state, to implement what Sundance dubbed The Splitter Strategy, a plan that would ensure that no GOP candidate crossed the finish line before the July convention, so the selection process could go instead to a contested floor vote, and the GOP elite could anoint Jeb!, as in Jeb’ll Fix It. When Trump upset that apple cart, the GOP fractured further, with the emergence of the Never Trump bloc that still hopes to deprive Trump of the nomination in July. All this talk, especially from Speaker Ryan about letting Republicans vote their conscience, is intended to undermine the primary results that gave Trump more votes than any other Republican candidate in history. Haugland has been outspoken on his contempt for the grassroots voter (via another politico report):

North Dakota’s Curly Haugland, who is on the convention rules committee, has long argued that no rules change is necessary for delegates to vote their conscience. He contends that party rules require delegates to vote freely and that they can ignore any state laws and rules that purport to bind delegates to the results of primaries and caucuses. Haugland insists his effort is not meant to oppose Trump – he’s pushed it for years – but rather is about empowering the party’s elected delegates to choose the GOP nominee. [emphasis added]

What is the purpose of primary elections, if the party “leadership” and rules committees can disregard the voters and decide who the nominees are themselves?  

# # #

Trump wins Indiana

All the advance polls, including those on RealClearPolitics, showed lower numbers for Trump. All the website election HQs are calling Indiana for Trump. The Democrat race as of 8pm is too close to call.

Politico election results are regularly update here. Exit Question: Will Cruz bow out now?

# # #

Establishment candidates galore

cartoon credit: thecomicnews.com

Sundance reported:

Kasich won Ohio; therefore he has to stay in. 

Why?

Because if Kasich dropped out according to Ohio election law all of his 66 delegates become bound to the second place finisher, Donald Trump.

John Kasich cannot exit the race without helping Donald Trump.  Senator Ted Cruz knows this.  Senator Ted Cruz does not want Governor John Kasich to leave the race because of it. Yet Ted Cruz goes on TV demanding a Kasich exit.

When you accept these fundamental truths, you clearly see, yet again, the GOPe scheme involves Ted Cruz.

It sounds outrageous, but it would seem to be confirmed by a Politico story by Eli Stokols:

GOP elites line up behind Ted Cruz

Establishment is increasingly prepared to lose with Cruz

than hand the party to Trump

Republican elders, desperate to stop Donald Trump, are increasingly convinced they would rather forfeit the White House than hand their party to the divisive Manhattan billionaire.

That’s why the party’s establishment is suddenly rallying behind Ted Cruz, a man they’ve long despised and who has little chance, in the view of many GOP veterans, of defeating Hillary Clinton on Election Day.

Read the rest here.

# # #

GOP elites to Republican voters: Drop Dead

cartoon credit: niftyatheist.com

CNBC reports (h/t Gateway Pundit):

Political parties, not voters, choose their presidential nominees, a Republican convention rules member told CNBC, a day after GOP front-runner Donald Trump rolled up more big primary victories.

“The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That’s the conflict here,” Curly Haugland, an unbound GOP delegate from North Dakota [and a Republican convention rules member], told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. He even questioned why primaries and caucuses are held.

Haugland is one of 112 Republican delegates who are not required to cast their support for any one candidate because their states and territories don’t hold primaries or caucuses.

Even with Trump’s huge projected delegate haul in four state primaries Tuesday, the odds are increasing the billionaire businessman may not ultimately get the 1,237 delegates needed to claim the GOP nomination before the convention.

This could lead to a brokered convention, in which unbound delegates, like Haugland, could play a significant swing role on the first ballot to choose a nominee.

Most delegates bound by their state’s primary or caucus results are only committed on the first ballot. If subsequent ballots are needed, virtually all of the delegates can vote any way they want, said Gary Emineth, another unbound delegate from North Dakota.

“It could introduce Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, or it could be the other candidates that have already been in the race and are now out of the race [such as] Mike Huckabee [or] Rick Santorum. All those people could eventually become candidates on the floor,” Emineth said.

And at Politico we see that (h/t HotGas)

Former Speaker John Boehner said Paul Ryan should be the Republican nominee for president if the party fails to choose a candidate on the first ballot.

"If we don't have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I'm for none of the above," Boehner said at the Futures Industry Association conference here. "They all had a chance to win. None of them won. So I'm for none of the above. I'm for Paul Ryan to be our nominee."

Wading into the GOP nominating battle for the first time since leaving office last fall, Boehner said that "anybody can be nominated" at the convention in Cleveland this summer.

The GOP establishment / elite (GOPe) couldn’t breathe life into the Jeb! campaign. Then they tried to push Marco Rubio as the Jeb! surrogate and that maneuver failed. Gov. Kasich’s job in the race was to deprive any momentum candidate of the 66 Ohio winner-take-all delegates. Kasich succeeded, but otherwise it is now a two-candidate race. Neither Cruz nor Trump is acceptable to the GOPe. So we are seeing the GOPe preparing to force a brokered convention. And it's now out in the open.

# # #