US Enters Banana Republic Territory

 

Mark Wauck at Meaning in History has as succinct a take on the Trump indictment as any of the commentary I’ve read:

. . . For now I’ll simply state that Trump is correct. He IS an innocent man, innocent of any charges stemming from his possession of documents relating to his presidency. Make no mistake about this. It’s a joint, bipartisan, project of the Uniparty. The Republican participants—key among them Bluto Barr—retain the right to criticize Zhou, whom they helped put in the White House, but they will support the attempted lynching of Trump. The DC political establishment has closed ranks with the Deep State to assert its right—as against We The People—to select the POTUS and to punish anyone who transgresses against their Will to Power. This is a day that will live in infamy.

Mr. Wauck’s posting is here.

Moving to Substack: this blog now also appears here.

# # #

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.

# # #

Debt Ceiling: bad news

 

JD Rucker at The Discern Report saw it coming:

The debt ceiling battle may be over. We’ll know for sure Wednesday when the vote is scheduled, but it seems Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy may have come together. Considering the most basic and obvious elimination of fruitless spending — 87,000 IRS agents — was NOT addressed, this seems like a huge loss for patriots.

McCarthy will herald spending cuts, but they won’t be in the same ballpark as the absolute overhaul that is necessary to give this nation any hope for the future. Instead, we will continue down our path to unavoidable Modern Monetary Theory crushing the country into oblivion. . . .

McCarthy caved.  Another win for the Uniparty.

Read the rest of the report here. 

# # #

Crushing the enemy

 

Kurt Schlichter published a column on the expanding GOP field of presidential candidates.  And in the course of his run-down of the GOPe “festival of losers,” he sums up what’s at stake when commenting on Tim Scott

Tim Scott is a nice guy with a nice story and a nice demeanor who does not take pleasure in crushing his enemies, which means that he will not aggressively seek to crush his enemies, and the crushing of our enemies is the key requirement of a Republican nominee in 2024

The enemy hates us, and it is dead serious about converting its hatred into policy. From legalizing crime to weaponizing the government against us, from disenfranchising us at the ballot box to disarming us in our homes, to gagging us on social media and leveraging the regime media to hide the truth and amplify the lies, this is a cold war where we become serfs if we don’t win. It’s not the time for Team Use Your Inside Voice. The enemy holds every major institution; if you are worried about collateral damage to the institutions that seek to enslave us – or worse – then you don’t have the stones to flatten them and their current occupants. And that’s what we need to do.:

Read the full column at Townhall here.  And as always, Schlichter is entertaining even when he’s dead serious.  And even when I don't agree with everything he has to say (especially with respect to Ron DeSantis).

# # #

Relocate the DC swamp dwellers

 

 

Chip Bok cartoon via Townhall 

Roger Kimball published a fairly long column over the weekend, “Abandon the Swamp” at American Greatness.  Here are two paragraphs summarizing Mr Kimball’s solution to the ongoing progressives vs conservatives crisis:

The focus should be on eclipsing Washington, D.C. as the seat of government. It has long been obvious to candid observers that there is something deeply dysfunctional about that overwhelmingly Democratic, welfare-addicted city. It is a partisan sinkhole. Jefferson wanted the capital moved from New York to Washington in part to bring it closer to the South, but also to place it somewhere that was officially neutral. There is nothing neutral about Washington today. The city has some impressive architecture and urban vistas. They should be preserved and staffed as tourist attractions. But the reins of power should be relocated.

The more I think about our situation, the more I believe the only hope for the republic is to downgrade the place of Washington in our public life. The business of Washington is to make government bigger—forever. That is not what the people, who pay for it, want. Legitimacy is draining out of our governing institutions at an alarming rate. Stanching that debilitating flow requires that we redirect our attention away from the greedy puppet show in Washington to the true source of legitimacy, which is with the people.

“The greedy puppet show.”  Fits right in with Sundance’s scenario that all of the DC political construct is a “Potemkin Village”, maintained to provide us plebes with the “Illusion of Choice.”  Read Mr Kimball's column here.

# # #

The only way out is: out

 

Bob Maistros thinks America has passed the point of no return.  Here’s the opening of his essay at American Greatness:

Victor Davis Hanson has recently pondered in back-to-back essays whether there is any way out of America’s previously “fast-tracked” and now accelerating decline. 

Meanwhile, Julie Kelly appears to see no way out of the “near-certainty” that a “D.C. grand jury . . . will indict Trump on multiple counts” in ways that will cause him to be treated “[n]ot as a former president but as a traitor.” 

Columnist Josh Hammer, addressing both Trump’s judicial travails and the broader “decadent civilizational morass,” insists in his own consecutive submissions that “sometimes, the only way out is through”—tit-for-tat action from the Right. 

The depressing reality? This time, with the progressive Left’s assault on America, in Hammer’s words, having far passed the “point of no return,” the only way out is: out.  . . .

Read the full essay here.  Not for the faint of heart.

# # #

Washington DC: a Potemkin Village

Sundance at Conservative Treehouse has an excellent analysis of why things never seem to change and improve, and what We The People are up against in attempting to make our voices heard in DC.  It’s not a pretty picture, but at least we can be part of the community that helps others to open their eyes.  Here’s a significant extract:

We send politicians to stop the madness of government, but nothing changes.  Why?

Washington DC is a Potemkin village.  We focus on the visible but the constructs that impact us do not originate from the false façade.  There’s something behind that façade, and what we see is…. entirely… a façade.  That’s why sending the politicians doesn’t change the outcome.  To get to the core of the issue, we must first stop looking at the Potemkin village and instead look behind it.

Legislation, rules, regulations and laws are not written by congress.  The paperwork comes from the assembly of legal and lobbyist foot soldiers on K-Street.  That’s where the ink is put to the paper and the legislative outcomes first originate.  K-Street is where the corporations, multinationals and financial organizations control the process.

If the corporations behind the DC façade want to shift the money, they proactively write the rules, regulations and laws that steer the actual policy outcomes to their financial target or destination.  Their wealth expands and they reward the participants, the politicians.

Most of the entry level politicians are oblivious to where the corporations have proactively moved; however, a few of the politicians -- the leadership groups -- know exactly where the destination of the legislative intent is going.  The latter are tenured in the power structure behind the façade.

Two private domestic corporations, completely unaffiliated with the constructs of constitutional government, known as the RNC and DNC, require membership in order to participate in the pretense of American democracy.  The same financial entities that fund the K-Street operation, fund the private political clubs.

We The People, voters, are engaging in their construct to send ‘representatives’ into a political construct that is a façade.  The financial entities on K-Street, those who position wealth and generate the rules to maintain it, are the same financial entities that fund the mechanisms of the two private corporations (RNC/DNC).

The United States system of government is now operating to maintain this construct of common benefit. . . .

Read the entire posting here.  And I always learn something browsing through reader comments below the article.

# # #

The Illusion of Choice

Laurie T. Vass is co- author with Thomas E. Vass of Reclaiming the American Democratic Impulse (2017). I had not heard of the title, and there were no reader reviews at Amazon.  She recently posted a reader comment at Conservative Treehouse that fills in more of the blanks in Sundance’s ongoing Uniparty exposés and explanations:

. . .Sundance states that,  

“both the DNC and RNC are private corporations with no affiliation to government. [The differences between the two private corporations] is NOT primarily ideological. In the modern era, the corporate priority first begins with a battle over who controls [the internal power] in each corporation.”

. . .

Our historical analysis begins around 1985, with two political party developments in America.

During this early era, the Democrats slowly transformed from a political party that promoted the financial interests of working class citizens, to a more overtly Marxist party, that sought to implement a Marxist regime in America.

In the case of Democrats, they abandoned the working class, and embraced the class war rhetoric of Marx.

The election of Obama, in 2008, completed the transition of the Democrat Party to an ideological party, intent on the overthrow of the American government.

Beginning around 1985, with the opening of China as a trading partner, Republicans abandoned the national economic sovereignty interest of growing the economic pie, in favor of an open-border globalism that directed the benefits of global trade to themselves.

As Sundance correctly points out, when the Republican Party transitioned to an overtly global corporatist orientation, working and middle class MAGA citizens lost a political voice within the Vichy Republican Party.

As Sundance stated,

“The RNC want to give the illusion of support for MAGA conservatism because they need the base voter, and they need to maintain the illusion of choice.”

Sundance’s posting titled “Mid-Tier Donor Class Very Worried About Ron DeSantis 2024 Management Agenda” is here.  Scroll down for reader comments including the one quoted above, or search the comments pages for “Laurie Vass”.  The extract above is a brief one from a much longer comment.  I don't know if I agree with her conclusions, but then, I have not read either her 2017 or her forthcoming book.

# # #

Lizards vs MAGA

 

At American Thinker, J B Shurk has encouraging words for conservatives:

In So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (the fourth book in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy of six books"), Douglas Adams brutalizes "democracy" in a hilarious exchange:

"On its world, the people are people.  The leaders are lizards.  The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur.  "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said Ford.  "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford.  "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going in for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."

That is America's Uniparty system in a nutshell!  Republican, Democrat, whatever — they're all lizards.  Then someone who doesn't speak lizard comes along — Donald Trump — and the "democracy" loses its collective mind.  The Intelligence Community spies on his campaign.  The FBI insinuates that he's a Russian spy.  The press calls for his removal and incarceration.  Unethical prosecutors and judges go after anyone who might be called his friend.  The Uniparty harasses him with endless investigations.  The Pentagon and agency bureaucrats ignore his lawful orders and spread gossip and lies.  The Department of (in)Justice and left-leaning local tyrants persecute his supporters with spurious criminal charges that ruin lives but, more importantly, blare a warning to all Americans: if you dare to vote for a non-lizard, we will target you as extremists, lock you up as insurrectionists, threaten all you hold dear, and terrorize your lives!  All this calculated Uniparty and Deep State destruction because so many in Washington so despise the idea of making America great again that they choose to imbecilically slander that notion as racist!

When President Trump took the stage at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference and pledged to "totally obliterate the Deep State" if voters re-elected him, he made it crystal-clear that the war between the people and the lizards will be one for the ages.  "In 2016, I declared I am your voice.  Today, I add, I am your warrior.  I am your justice.  And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution."  If you didn't already know he was wearing his iconic navy suit, white shirt, and red tie, you'd have thought that Johnny Cash's "Man in Black" had just walked in announcing, "There's a man going around taking names / And he decides who to free and who to blame."  He might as well have just admitted to the crowd that he's Batman, looked through the cameras and directly into the watery eyes of the RINOs wobbling in front of their televisions, and roared, "I'm vengeance."  It was a great speech, but all I heard was, "Listen to the words long written down / When the man comes around."  Just like last year, he won the CPAC straw poll overwhelmingly. . . . .

For the full column, go here. 

RINOs in Cuyahoga County

Ralph King and President Trump

Ohio’s Ralph King: Establishment Republicans
are Trying to Take over Local GOP
to Help Matt Dolan in Primary

The “Ralph King” in the Breitbart headline is Cleveland Tea Party founder Ralph King :

Ralph King, the co-founder of Cleveland Tea Party Patriots, told Breitbart News Saturday that establishment Republicans with close ties to Democrats are trying to infiltrate the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County in order to help U.S. Senate candidate Matt Dolan early in the primary process and wrest control away from conservatives who have taken command in recent years.

King, who has been active in Cuyahoga County Republican politics since 2001, explained that the establishment Republicans are trying to infiltrate the local county party in an effort to help Dolan in the upcoming 2024 Senate race’s Republican primary after his failed attempt in 2022 when he came in third behind now-Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) in the GOP primary.

“The activists and the conservatives, you know, we’ve been fighting for a long time,” King acknowledged. “We just stopped a lobbyist from taking over the Ohio Republican Party. There’s a huge fight between the lobbyists and the conservatives in the Ohio House over the Ohio speaker. And in Cuyahoga County, which I’ve been on for many, many years, you know, we continually fought against the liberals, the establishment, the donor class, and until recently, we finally got a good chair to put a stop to all that. And the liberals and the RINOs in the establishment, you know, they are pushing back. And at this moment, what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to hold illegal meetings … to try to get rid of a new chairman that we have [who] has given voice to the members and has stopped putting their finger on the scale, to tip it towards the establishment, and they’re mad they no longer control the party.”

“Between [former] President [Donald] Trump coming out [in support] for J.D. Vance and us on the Cuyahoga County Republican Party, Matt Dolan tried to steal that endorsement,” King continued. “Cuyahoga County Republican Party is one of the largest GOP parties in the state of Ohio. Although we’re in the pit of the Democrat heart of Ohio, we do have the largest party. It is Matt Dolan’s home party. That’s the importance, so between President Trump and the Cuyahoga County Republican Party slapping Matt Dolan down in that last election — between the two — we ultimately killed his chances to win the primaries. That’s why Matt knows he needs control of the GOP in Cuyahoga County at this point. So what he did, he’s vowed revenge since that time.”

King ultimately said that the “illegal meeting” the establishment Republicans are trying to hold for the Cuyahoga County Republican Party is to remove the current chair, Lisa Stickan, halfway through her four-year term to put Lee Weingart in as chair to help Dolan be better placed in the 2024 Republican primary.

“So what [Dolan’s] done is we have a gentleman by the name of Lee Weingart,” King explained. “Lee Weingart is a lobbyist. Lee Weingart has a history of donating to [Rep.] Marcy Kaptur [(D-OH)], [Sen.] Sherrod Brown [(D-OH)], a long history of donating to [former Rep.] Tim Ryan [(D-OH)] — actually made $3,000 donations to Tim Ryan in 2021 and was actually campaigning for Tim Ryan in Iowa [during his failed presidential run] — which would be par for the course for Matt Dolan to team up with a guy and a lobbyist like Lee Weingart. Lee Weingart tried to hold an illegal meeting. He used Matt Dolan’s firm to give some outrageous legal opinion supporting this illegal meeting. And what people need to realize is there’s a key between Matt Dolan and Lee Weingart and the donations to the Democrats and supporting Democrats. Matt Dolan was originally a Democrat before he started calling himself a Republican. … We are in a fight for the life of the Cuyahoga County Republican Party against the establishment likes of Lee Weingart and Matt Dolan.” . . .

Ralph King: fighting the good fight.  Full report is here.

# # #

Republicans would rather lose

 

JD Rucker at The Liberty Daily reports: 

The UniParty Swamp scored a major victory yesterday by reelecting Ronna Romney McDaniel as Republican National Committee Chairwoman. This comes despite the fact that she has presided over the last three failed election cycles. Republicans haven’t performed up to expectations since BEFORE she took office.

So why would the 168-member body endorse further failure when they had America First patriot Mike Lindell and legal warrior Harmeet Dhillon as better options? There was one interesting data point in a survey conducted by the NY Times of the RNC members that points to the likely reason. According to poll results, “just four offered an unabashed endorsement of Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign.”

It’s actually more insidious than that.  Harmeet Dhillon is not really a better option.  Here's Sundance at Conservative Treehouse on the continuing Kabuki Theater:

Mike Lindell announced he was going to challenge Ronna McDaniel for the RNC chair.  This sent a shockwave through the Big Club because the potential for support from President Trump loomed over the Lindell announcement.  America-First Mike Lindell is not controlled by corporate money, Wall Street, the multinationals or billionaire Big Donors who ultimately control the RNC as a big private club.

So, what happened?…  Facing the possibility that Ronna McDaniel might be unseated, a week after Lindell’s announcement, Harmeet Dhillon steps into the picture.

Dhillon is a tenured Big Club member and voice for the billionaire class who fund her.  Remember, Dhillon was paid over $1 million by the RNC, separate and above any costs connected to the Trump legal defense fund.   Dhillon makes her money from the RNC, and if Lindell won the chairmanship, in addition to her friend losing the seat, Dhillon was financially at risk.  Dhillon enters the race as an insurance policy, on behalf of the Big Club donors.

. . .

It’s not organic.  All of this is scripted.  All of it.  Every bit of it.  Harmeet Dhillon is already part of the DeSantis Big Club operation.  The RNC roadmap in 2008 was for John McCain. The RNC roadmap for 2012 was for Mitt Romney.   The RNC roadmap for 2016 was for Jeb Bush, and the RNC, Big Club, Wall Street, Billionaire and multinational corporate roadmap in 2024 is for Ron DeSantis.  None of this is organic.  All of this is scripted.

The RNC raises a lot of money.  Whether they win or lose.  More at Liberty Daily here and at Conservative Treehouse here.   

JD Rucker concludes:

If you are an America First patriot, the RNC hates you. They’ll use you for your donations and beg you for your votes, but in the end they despise everything you represent. You shouldn’t give them a penny.

# # #

RINO Kevin McCarthy: Speaker of the House

This blog linked the other day to Paula Bolyard’s column at PJ Media about the House debate over RINO Kevin McCarthy’s run for Speaker of The House.  She was encouraged to see open debate between Freedom Caucus members and establishment Republicans.  This blog agreed that the open debate was a good thing.  And to the extent that the maneuvering of the Uniparty was exposed to and in plain sight for anyone watching, it was a good thing.

BUT it turns out it was all Kabuki theater.  Again.  Kevin McCarthy is now Speaker of the House. 

Most of the Freedom Caucus, including Chairman Scott Perry, caved, and it will be business as usual.  All the talk about changing the system – was just talk.  As one reader commented elsewhere, the only tactic available to the House now is obstruction.  No constructive bill will get past the Senate and the pResident’s desk.  There will be no reversal of the Omnibus porkalooza. 

# # #

Legislation 101: Who is writing the legislation?

 

Who is writing the legislation? It’s not your Congress critter. At Conservative Treehouse, Sundance explains, and his entire posting is essentially Legislation 101 for voters:

. . . Recap: Corporations (special interest group) write the legislation. Lobbyists [K Street] take the law and go find politician(s) to support it. Politicians get support from their peers using tenure and status etc. Eventually, if things go according to norm, the legislation gets a vote.

Within every step of the process there are expense account lunches, dinners, trips, venue tickets and a host of other customary financial waypoints to generate/leverage a successful outcome. The amount of money spent is proportional to the benefit derived from the outcome.

The important part to remember is that the origination of the entire process is EXTERNAL to congress.

Congress does not write laws or legislation; special interest groups do. Lobbyists are paid, some very well paid, to get politicians to go along with the need of the legislative group.

When you are voting for a Congressional Rep or a U.S. Senator you are not voting for a person who will write laws. Your rep only votes on legislation to approve or disapprove of constructs that are written by outside groups and sold to them through lobbyists who work for those outside groups.

While all of this is happening the same outside groups who write the laws are providing money for the campaigns of the politicians, they need to pass them. This construct sets up the quid-pro-quo of influence, although much of it is fraught with plausible deniability.

This is the way legislation is created.

If your frame of reference is not established in this basic understanding you can often fall into the trap of viewing a politician, or political vote, through a false prism. The modern origin of all legislative constructs is not within congress.

“we’ll have to pass the bill to, well, find out what is in the bill” etc. ~ Nancy Pelosi 2009

“We rely upon the stupidity of the American voter” ~ Johnathan Gruber 2011, 2012.

Once you understand this process, you can understand how politicians get rich.

Much more at the link here.

# # #

GOP vs GOPe : the Uniparty in plain sight

 

The curtain is pulled back.  Paula Bolyard is right about the GOP opposition to [R-establishment] Kevin McCarthy becoming Speaker of the House --- the floor fight visibly exposes the Uniparty’s concern for its own power and wealth – and it has nothing to do with the voters:

As of publishing time, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has lost five six votes in his bid to be House speaker and there seems to be no end in sight. There are around 20 Republican holdouts in the “never McCarthy” camp, and they’re showing no signs of budging.

. . .

Meanwhile, Republican establishment types are running around with their hair on fire, shouting about unity and warning that Republicans will pay a steep price unless they can show a united front in the early days of their House majority.

Hogwash.

One way or another, this will all be over in a few days and we’ll all go back to binge-watching mindless dramas on Netflix and planning our Super Bowl parties. A month from now, Rep. Jim Jordan will be holding hearings that won’t result in any Democrats paying a price for their treachery during Trump’s presidency, the House will once again be spending money like drunken sailors, and Congress will continue to get next to nothing useful done for the American people. Lather, rinse, repeat. Delaying the start of the congressional session by a few days, or even a month, won’t matter one iota. By the time the 2024 election rolls around, no one will care that there was a protracted fight for House speaker in early 2023.

. . .

What we’re witnessing now is the messy, glorious republican form of government our Founding Fathers laid out in the Constitution. Many Americans are tired of the Uniparty that exuberantly passes pork-laden omnibus spending bills in the dead of night and plays by Marquess of Queensberry Rules as our country plunges toward insolvency, immorality, and anarchy.

While establishment Republicans like Kevin McCarthy and Ronna McDaniel would like to keep the party’s dirty laundry hidden, the American people deserve to know how the sausage is being made. We need to know what’s being promised to Republicans who vote for McCarthy. There are rumors that he may try to bring Democrats over to his side, and Marcy Kaptur of Ohio is reportedly trying to cut a deal with him, which only increases distrust within the caucus.

And Ms Bolyard points out toward the end of the article:

But no matter what happens, the beauty is in the process. . . . enjoy the process, and thank God that you live in a country where we settle these things with words and not guns.

Read Ms. Bolyard’s PJ Media article here.

# # #

The Clown Show Continues

 

And the Babylon Bee is on it:

Republicans Gather In Congress To Vote On

Who Will Fail The Voters This Time

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Republicans in Congress are gathering to vote for their preferred politician who will let the voters down over the next two years.

"This is an honorable tradition, where we come together as team players to choose the one man who will most effectively preserve our power while doing the opposite of everything we promised our voters and spending trillions of dollars," said Rep. Dan Crenshaw. "Anyone who opposes our pick is anti-American!"

At publishing time, Republicans had considered just electing a Democrat Speaker of the House since there isn't much difference anyway.

Source link for the “report” is here.

# # #

Congress: a Confederacy of Traitors

   

Sad to wrap up the Christmas weekend with more bad news from Washington.  You will already be aware that Congress just passed another 4,000+ page Omnibus spending bill that does nothing for conservative Americans. Actually, it’s worse than nothing, as so much of your tax dollars will be funding progressive projects and agendas that will make your blood boil. 

So it is no surprise that Julie Kelly is beyond disgusted with Congress.  She’s furious at both (D) and (R) members of the Uniparty.  She closes her recent American Greatness column with outrage:

. . . No group of politicians has licked the boots of President Zelenskyy more than Republican senators. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is among Zelenskyy’s biggest supporters, insisting this week that “providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans. That’s how we see the challenges confronting the country at the moment.”

And there you have it. One of the most powerful—albeit most unpopular—leaders in Washington thinks lining Zelenskyy’s army-green pockets with more U.S. tax dollars is a greater need than tackling any number of ongoing crises roiling the country right now.

In a last bit of symbolism Wednesday night, Zelenskyy exited the House chambers carrying the case holding the folded American flag. A two-bit actor and international con man walked out with billions of American dollars and a cherished token of America’s sacrifice and in the real fight for freedom, justice, and security.

And the fiends in the hall systematically destroying that legacy for the people they are elected to represent cheered again.

Traitors.

She’s right.  Read her column here.   

# # #

“Trump Was A Mistake” – But Whose?

 

The headline on Dan Gelernter’s recent column at American Greatness  -- “Trump Was a Mistake” – is a bit misleading.  The mistake was that of the Uniparty.  Mr Gelernter compares the ascendency to the presidency in 1900 of Teddy Roosevelt (TR), who was much despised by the political establishment because it could not control him. The establishment’s mistake back then was nominating TR in the vice-presidency, thinking that they could rid New York of its governor and at the same time condemn TR to political obscurity as Vice President.  Didn’t work out that way.  Mr Gelernter concludes:

So remember: The GOP isn’t really our party. It never was. That is the central truth that the Trump phenomenon has exposed—or exposed anew. It’s a political machine, just like the Democratic Party, and it wants to run itself, not be run by “ordinary” people like you and me. Trump’s nomination the first time around, from the GOP’s perspective, was a huge mistake, just as TR’s had been. And they have no intention of repeating that kind of mistake.

The GOP and the Democrats and the media are all agreed on one, central point: Trump cannot become president again. All these power groups’ motivations are different, but their interests are aligned, and the stakes are practically existential.

Keep the story of the 1900 Republican Convention in mind, too, when you think of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: He’s a huge success in Florida, and is the only governor standing up to the federal government in any meaningful way. What could be better than to seduce him away from that role with the promise of the presidency? Kill two birds with one stone, and kill America, too, while you’re at it.

Trump was a huge mistake: He was the biggest mistake machine politicians had made in over a century. The success of Trump’s presidency dealt establishment politicians a heavy blow. A second Trump term might kill them, and they know it.

So, be prepared to hear nothing about Trump’s candidacy, nothing about his massive rallies, nothing about the unwavering enthusiasm of his supporters. Be prepared to hear only one thing: That the “people” don’t want him. But don’t believe it. Remember which people are doing the talking.

Read the full column here.

# # #

Most Republicans are Democrats

 

It’s the Uniparty.  At The Right Way on Substack, Emerald Robinson reports on “The GOP's Crack-Up Is Finally Here”:

American voters now understand: all the Democrats are Democrats,
and most Republicans are Democrats too.

A well-known senator appeared on TV recently to discuss the omnibus bill to fund the federal government, and delivered the following remarks: “Republicans are emasculated. They have no power, and they are unwilling to gain that power back. The Republicans do not have the intestinal fortitude. They always collapse, and they fear shutting government down — so no policy objectives ever get added.”

Now the question is: which liberal Senator pointed out that the GOP has completely collapsed as a party since the 2020 election?

The answer: Rand Paul.

A GOP senator was willing to state publicly — on Fox News no less! — that his own party has become a joke.

. . .

As Rand Paul said: the GOP is emasculated. They always collapse.

The only place that Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy and Ronna McDaniel have led the Republican Party is to a complete surrender to the Democrat Party. Naturally, they all want to be re-elected to leadership anyway — and they probably will get their wish.

That’s the GOP for you.

Read the entire sorry story here.

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Rebuild America First

 

J D Rucker is fired up.  Here’s an extract from “Rebuild the America First Movement or Die Trying” at America First Report:

Recognize the Enemies

We cannot fight an enemy if we do not recognize exactly who they are. It’s easy to say that the massive, widespread voter fraud as well as legal but dirty tactics used to sway elections are all the fault of Democrats, but this is inaccurate. It’s the Uniparty Swamp that’s truly behind the theft of the “red tsunami” in 2022 and the presidential election in 2020. Mitch McConnell was just as responsible (in fact, probably more so) for Republicans losing elections as Chuck Schumer.

The RINOs would rather the party lose than win with America First patriots. They despise Donald Trump, but more importantly they despise those of us who supported him. This is why they managed to lose a seat in the Senate despite the state of the nation being more abysmal than it has been in modern history. The party in charge of the House, Senate, and White House does NOT get rewarded with more seats under normal circumstances, but the Uniparty Swamp made it happen. The GOP may have won a razor-thin majority in the House, but that’s just because it’s too challenging for them to subvert so many elections across the country. The Uniparty Swamp is okay with a House led by Kevin McCarthy since he’s one of them.

. . .

Localize

This doesn’t just have to do with the America First movement. We should be striving to localize nearly every aspect of our lives with so many threats coming together around us. But the original plan of the Tea Party was to establish localized chapters. The America First movement should do something similar with one caveat. If we’re going to operate locally, we need to maintain that stance.

The Tea Party was killed by several groups of grifters who nationalized the movement. Some of the Tea Party groups were okay, but most were not. Unfortunately, being “okay” isn’t good enough for the long haul and being a grifter group is counterproductive. We cannot allow that to happen to the America First movement. If should form locally in areas across the country. It should stay local. It should operate locally [emphasis added]. Otherwise, it will be corrupted. . . .

Read the rest here.  Mr Rucker outlines some of the things patriots can DO to try to reverse course and undo some of the damage.   

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GOPe: Selling Out Your Own Side

 

Does anyone remember that the GOPe spent many years raising millions of dollars on the promise, the absolute promise to repeal Obamacare?  The GOP got the House, the Senate, and the White House, and Obamacare still stands.  It occurred to me then that the GOPe's strategy to raise lots and lots of money was/is to make promises that they do not intend to ever keep.  I figured that the GOPe did not WANT to be in the majority, lest it become obvious that they don’t mean what they say.  They just want your money.

Emerald Robinson’s latest column at The Right Way Substack has a take on this charming state of affairs:

. . . Right now, GOP leadership is working on a mass amnesty bill in the lame duck session that’s opposed by the overwhelming majority of GOP voters. To fully understand the depth of this treachery, you have to recall that GOP politicians spent the last two years complaining about the invasion on the Southern border. They did this every day — every hour! —on Fox News, and other corporate media outlets. It was the GOP’s daily drum beat. Kevin McCarthy even promised to impeach DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas over the border disaster.

In the midst of all those promises — and all that posturing — GOP Senate leadership is ready to deliver a mass amnesty bill? That’s either political malpractice of the highest order, or the ultimate sign that the GOP establishment stands for nothing and stands against nothing.

It’s the latter, of course. 

Read the rest here.  I would argue is that the collapse didn’t just happen in the past month or so.  It’s been in a state of collapse for years;  Unfortunately, it is only relatively recently that many conservatives have begun to recognize the collapse. 

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