I refuse to give one cent to the GOPe. I am an independent now, and will continue to be until there's enough of a purge of the GOP to separate themselves from the uniparty and show some actual action in supporting the causes we stand for. Most are absolute frauds.

They need to spend 90% of their time doing their actual job and 10% getting re-elected. Not the other way around as they do now.

Wind-bags, they are; just giving lip service.

Tony.

Can the GOP's Shotgun Marriage Be Saved?

Pat Buchanan

Wednesday morning, Nov. 9, 2016, Republicans awoke to learn they had won the lottery. Donald Trump had won the presidency by carrying Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. All three states had gone Democratic in the last six presidential elections.

The GOP had won both houses of Congress. Party control of governorships and state legislatures rivaled the halcyon years of the 1920s.

But not everyone was jubilant. Neocons and Never-Trumpers were appalled, and as morose as they had been since the primaries produced a populist slaughter of what GOP elites had boasted was the finest class of presidential candidates in memory.

And there was this sobering fact: Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote. Her margin would rise to near three million, making this the sixth in seven presidential elections that the GOP lost the popular vote. Trump had cracked the Democrats' "blue wall," but a shift of 70,000 votes would have meant a third straight GOP defeat.

Seven months into the Trump presidency, the promise of a new Republican era has receded. It is not because Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have proven to be such formidable adversaries, but because the GOP coalition has gone to battle stations -- against itself.

Trump has taken to disparaging Senate Leader Mitch McConnell for failing to pass health care reform, though the decisive vote to kill the bill came from John McCain, who, for his own motives and to media cheers, torpedoed McConnell's effort and humiliated his party

And as Allan Ryskind writes in The Washington Times, McConnell is responsible for Neil Gorsuch being on the Supreme Court. Had Mitch not kept his troops in line to block a Senate vote on President Obama's election-year nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, there would have been no vacancy for Trump to fill with Gorsuch.

McConnell is also indispensable to the Trump-GOP effort to repopulate federal appellate courts with disciples of Antonin Scalia.

What purpose is served by the coach trashing his quarterback -- in midseason?

Undeniably, Congress, which the voters empowered to repeal Obamacare, reduce tax rates and rebuild America's infrastructure, has thus far failed. And if Congress fails to produce on tax reform, the GOP will have some serious explaining to do in 2018.

As for Trump, while public approval of his performance is at record lows for a president in his first year, he has fulfilled some major commitments and has had some major achievements.

He put Gorsuch on the court. He pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Accord. He persuaded NATO allies to put up more for defense. He approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.

Border security is markedly better. The economic news has been excellent: Record run-ups in the stock market, near full employment, growth approaching the 3 percent he promised. The coal industry has been liberated, and the Trump folks are renegotiating NAFTA.

Yet the divisions over policy and the persona of the president are widening. Trump is disliked and disrespected by many in his own party on Capitol Hill, and much of the Republican media proudly despise him.

And that form of bribery so familiar to D.C. -- trashing one's president at the coaxing of the press, in return for plaudits to one's "courage" and "independence" -- is openly practiced.

More critically, there are disputes over policy that again seem irreconcilable.

Free-trade Republicans remain irredeemably hostile to economic nationalism, though countries like China continue to eat our lunch. In July, the U.S. trade deficit in goods was $65 billion, an annual rate of more than $780 billion.

Interventionists continue to push for confrontation with Russia in the Baltic States and Ukraine, for more U.S. troops in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, for scrapping the nuclear deal with Iran.

On social issues, the GOP seems split, with many willing to soft-peddle opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion and wait on a Supreme Court that ignited the culture wars to reverse course with new Trump appointees.

Even Cabinet members and Trump aides have let the media know they sharply dissent from Trump's stand in the Charlottesville brawl. And the coming clash over statues of Confederate soldiers and statesmen is likely to split Northern and Southern Republicans.

The white working class that provided Trump's his margins in the Middle West wonders why affirmative action, reverse discrimination at their expense, has not been abolished.

As for Speaker Paul Ryan and others committed to entitlement reform -- paring back Social Security and Medicare benefits, while raising the contributions of the well-to-do to ensure the long-term solvency of the programs -- they have not been heard from lately.

What seems apparent is that the historic opportunity the party had in January, to forge a coalition of conservatives and populists who might find common ground on immigration, trade, border security, spending, culture and foreign policy, is slipping away.

And the battle for the soul and future of the GOP, thought to have been suspended until 2020, is on once again.

https://townhall.com/columnist...ge-be-saved-n2374370

Just wait for Trump to do something that resonates well with the vast majority of the country. The R's will be lining up to kiss his ass.

If Republicans Don't Make a Move, They Deserve to Lose
Ben Shapiro

Politics is the art of shifting the playing field.

This is an art Republicans simply don't understand. Perhaps it's because they spend so much time attempting to stop the Democratic snowball from running downhill too quickly, but Republicans in power have an unfortunate tendency to conserve their political capital rather than invest it. That's unfortunate because political capital doesn't accrue when you save it; it degrades. Just as sticking your cash in a mattress is a bad strategy when it comes to investment, inaction in power is a bad strategy when it comes to politics.

Democrats understand that political capital must be used, not to pass popular legislation but to fundamentally change the nature of the political game itself. Democrats do not see Obamacare -- a piece of legislation that cost them the House, the Senate and, eventually, the presidency -- as a disaster area. They see it as an investment in a leftist future: By making Americans accustomed to the idea that the government is responsible for universal coverage, they understand that any future failures will be attributed to lack of government, not an excess of it. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, understood that in 2013 when he attempted to block Obamacare funding. He quite rightly explained that once Obamacare went into effect, it would be nearly impossible to dismantle it. That became obvious this year, just four years after its full implementation, when congressional Republicans obviously have no political will to get rid of Obamacare at all.

This is the difference between Republicans and Democrats: Democrats see their radical legislative moves as building blocks for the future. Republicans, afraid that their carefully crafted tower of electability will come crumbling down, make no radical legislative moves.

That basic formula is playing out yet again with regard to former President Obama's executive amnesty. Obama implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, knowing full well that a Republican president could get rid of it with the stroke of a pen. But he also knew that Republicans would not want to be responsible for changing the status quo -- they wouldn't want to own the political consequences of allowing the deportation of DACA recipients.

And Obama was completely right. Republicans promised for years that they would get rid of Obama's executive amnesty if given power. Finally, President Trump has pledged to get rid of it ... in six months. And everyone knows that he is willing to trade away DACA enforcement for border-wall funding. The Democratic status quo will win out, one way or another.

Now, quickly: Name the last transformational conservative change Republicans have made -- a change to the field of play; any change that would redound to the detriment of Democrats. It's pretty tough. That's despite Republican control of the legislature and the presidency from 2002 to 2006; that's a longer period of unified control than Democrats had from 2008 to 2010.

Republicans have unified control of government once again. But they seem less willing to use it than ever, afraid that their tenuous control will dissipate.

That must end. If Republicans hope to set a foundation for future victory, they'll need to do more than act as an impediment to bad Democratic ideas. They'll need to take political risks in order to shift the playing field itself. If they don't, they'll lose quickly. And they'll deserve to lose.

https://townhall.com/columnist...rve-to-lose-n2377328

^^^ Shapiro is as usual correct. Of course, the democrats have it easy in that when they spend political capital, they're ALWAYS giving, and I mean literally giving, something to their voters. They can be the grandparent that spoils the child, always leaving it to the republicans, or nobody, to impose some responsibility and discipline.

That's not an excuse for the myriad failures of republicans, but I don't think it as easy for republicans to make positive, lasting changes to government that, when the democrats are in power, dems can't easily erase with little to no negative blowback from the media and the public. Who's going to riot if a republican-backed law promoting fiscal responsibility is later repealed by a democratic congress?

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
They suck less than the Marxist Democrats.That is what I tell myself every time I vote.

No!! This is the thinking that keeps getting us stuck with these useless assholes. They do not suck less. They suck the same, they are on the same team, in the same boat, and share the same mission as the commie left. There is no difference in the two sides. To a true freedom loving conservative they are both the same enemy. The enemy of our enemy is NOT our friend.

As far as I'm concerned, the Repugnicons can GO TO HELL.

They said they needed the Senate to be able to have a filibuster; we gave them the Senate. They said they needed the House of Reps to be able to put budgets thru; we gave them the House. They said they needed the Presidency to be able to have veto power; we gave them the Presidency. We gave given them EVERYTHING that they asked for, and they still can't repeal Obamacare, and now they are waffling on DACA, and other such stuff.

I might as well vote for a Dimiecrap, as I know what they'll do; the same as a Repugnicon, as they all lie.

My senile Senator is the Mitch McConnell, and I'll NEVER vote for him again, that's assuming he seeks re-election in 2020 (he'll be 78 then).

So EFF'EM; EFF'EM ALL!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Vaalic:

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
They suck less than the Marxist Democrats.That is what I tell myself every time I vote.

No!! This is the thinking that keeps getting us stuck with these useless assholes. They do not suck less. They suck the same, they are on the same team, in the same boat, and share the same mission as the commie left. There is no difference in the two sides. To a true freedom loving conservative they are both the same enemy. The enemy of our enemy is NOT our friend.

At this point, I completely agree with you. We need to mobilize in the primaries and get rid of McConnell, Ryan and the whole truckload of Uniparty RINOs. They need to go.

quote:

Originally posted by justjoe:

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Vaalic:

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
They suck less than the Marxist Democrats.That is what I tell myself every time I vote.

No!! This is the thinking that keeps getting us stuck with these useless assholes. They do not suck less. They suck the same, they are on the same team, in the same boat, and share the same mission as the commie left. There is no difference in the two sides. To a true freedom loving conservative they are both the same enemy. The enemy of our enemy is NOT our friend.

At this point, I completely agree with you. We need to mobilize in the primaries and get rid of McConnell, Ryan and the whole truckload of Uniparty RINOs. They need to go.

Yep, these RINO maggots always count on folks who fear the Dem cockroaches to keep re-electing them. They need to be eliminated in the primaries. Perfect example is McStain who should have been gone long ago. Folks had chances to get rid of the asshole in the primary, but no, they keep re-electing him. WTF is wrong with these people?

as Bannon concluded:

“The Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election. That's a brutal fact we have to face."

But that might be changing as Axios reports that Steve Bannon might be courting House Freedom Caucus Leader Mark Meadows to get onboard with a new strategy to oust Ryan (and potentially more). Remember the Caucus represents about 40 ultra conservative members of the 435-seat of the House.

quote:

Yep, these RINO maggots always count on folks who fear the Dem cockroaches to keep re-electing them. They need to be eliminated in the primaries. Perfect example is McStain who should have been gone long ago. Folks had chances to get rid of the asshole in the primary, but no, they keep re-electing him. WTF is wrong with these people? Mad

the alternative to that treasonous piece of shit was worse

elections in this country are no longer about who is best for the job, its all about the lesser of who is worst for the job

if we want a better class of people in office we need to start electing a better class of people- rather than the low life chronically unemployable piles of dogshit we have now

quote:

At this point, I completely agree with you. We need to mobilize in the primaries and get rid of McConnell, Ryan and the whole truckload of Uniparty RINOs. They need to go.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:

quote:

Yep, these RINO maggots always count on folks who fear the Dem cockroaches to keep re-electing them. They need to be eliminated in the primaries. Perfect example is McStain who should have been gone long ago. Folks had chances to get rid of the asshole in the primary, but no, they keep re-electing him. WTF is wrong with these people? Mad

the alternative to that treasonous piece of shit was worse

elections in this country are no longer about who is best for the job, its all about the lesser of who is worst for the job

if we want a better class of people in office we need to start electing a better class of people- rather than the low life chronically unemployable piles of dogshit we have now

You missed the point about the primaries several of us have been making. Or, are you saying J. D. Hayworth and Dr. Kelli Ward are worse than that POS?

Mitch McConnell is up for re-election in 2020.
I'll predict it right now: He won't run for re-election. His own state of Kentucky has turned against him.

He's shown himself to be more concerned with being an insider than with being a leader.

By now he has enough filthy lucre socked away, and assurances of more to come when he is out of politics, that it doesn't matter at all to him that he will be out of DC.

These men are basically criminals operating under the guise of politicians, out completely for themselves, for their own power and money.