FTGOP

GIVE TIL IT HURTS!

Another GOPe “win”

Posted on May 29, 2023May 29, 2023 by Mike 3 Comments

Doesn’t even rise to the customary level of a Pyrrhic victory, so they’ve really outdone themselves this time.

McCarthy’s debt-ceiling deal with Biden comes up short on his vow to rein in IRS
Kevin McCarthy trumpeted a debt-ceiling deal Sunday, but increasing debt another $4 trillion with minimal concessions is nothing to boast about.

To be fair, the House speaker has a razor slim majority and Republicans don’t control the Senate, where Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his sidekick Lindsey Graham have announced that the only thing they care about is Ukraine.

But McCarthy’s one dealbreaker should have been his promise to defund President Biden’s massive $80 billion to turbocharge an already weaponized IRS.

This was the totemic centerpiece of his pitch to become speaker.

It was the most memorable promise of the Republicans’ midterm campaign to win back the House.

It struck a chord with voters, wary of funding a new “army” of armed IRS agents to harass middle-class families and small business owners and abuse their powers to target political dissidents, Soviet-style.

“Our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents,” McCarthy vowed.

“You see, we believe government should be to help you, not go after you.”

Actually, Kev, it’s my own belief that the government should just stick to its Constitutionally-prescribed remit, which consists entirely of:

Securing the national borders
Providing for the common defense
Regulating interstate commerce
And otherwise just leaving me the fuck alone, forget about all that “helping” bushwa

But that’s probably just me, I do admit. Anyhoo, guess what happened next. Go on, guess. I DARES ya.

“Promises made,” the newly minted speaker said Jan. 9, banging the gavel on the first bill of the Republican-controlled House.

What about promises kept?

In the debt-ceiling deal outlined Sunday and due to be inked later this week, McCarthy has allowed the lion’s share of that extra IRS funding to remain unmolested: preserving $78.1 billion of the $80 billion.

As rebel GOP Rep Dan Bishop put it: “So there will be 85,260 more IRS agents rather than 87,000 to eat you alive. Big win.”

A-yup, that’s about the size of it. Perfectly typical of the in-cahoots Vichy GOPe swine, though.

Overpromising and underdelivering is what turns voters off the GOP.

True enough, I suppose. What it also does, though, is expose beyond possibility of further debate just who exactly they really are, and what exactly it is they’re really doing.

You don’t mount a powerful six-month fear campaign about 87,000 new, armed IRS agents ready to break down people’s doors, and then meekly capitulate at the first sign of resistance.

Even if those fears were exaggerated, your credibility rests on delivering a lot more than 2% of what you promised.

Ahh, but that statement assumes some things that are decidedly NOT in evidence with the Vichy GOPe swine: one, that they have at least some integrity, and two, that they give a tinker’s damn about any perception of “credibillity” among an electorate that they assume won’t be paying attention to what they’re doing in the first place. Just, y’know, to name two of ‘em.

Much more yet to this fine if somewhat bitter-tasting article, of which you should read the all.

(Via Sefton)

Who owns what, anyway?

Posted on April 29, 2023April 30, 2023 by Mike

The right to repair.

John Deere Corporate Might Have Reason to Panic, But Farmers Will Love What’s Happening
Farmers have been battling the manufacturers of their high-tech farming machinery for years over the right to repair their equipment on their own.

Major companies in the space, including John Deere, began restricting products to manufacturer exclusive service contracts.

These contracts lock out the farmers who own tractors, for instance, from making even small repairs to their machines. Instead, when something breaks down, farmers have to call the manufacturer or dealer to schedule a repairman to come out and service the device, forcing the farmer to shut down his operations while waiting for the repairman to come out to the farm.

This is obviously a serious problem for farmers who are under strict time restrictions during planting and harvesting seasons.

Farmers have been contesting this situation for years, ever since some manufacturers of equipment have begun implementing such exclusionary practices. It has resulted in a campaign among farmers called the “right to repair” movement, where farmers are fighting for the right to make repairs to the tractors and other instruments they bought and own.

The farmers claim that they lose money and time while waiting for these repair men to show up. Not only that, but they contend that if a tractor maker holds the sole right to repair, then the farmers don’t really even own their tractors despite paying tens of thousands for the vehicles.

As the truck drivers always say, so it is for the farmers: if the wheels ain’t turning, they ain’t earning. Not that the corporate types at John Deere, in defense of their “right” to bleed hardworking farmers like a deer tick on a hound with those exorbitantly priced “maintenance contracts” of theirs, give a discernible damn about that.

Now, however, the state of Colorado has become the first to give farmers the legal right to repair their equipment without being forced to pay for a manufacturer’s repair teams. That law was passed on Tuesday.

For their part, companies such as John Deere say that farming equipment is now so highly technical and computer-driven that repairs are often beyond the skill of barn tinkerers. Even more importantly, manufacturers say that if just anyone can start tearing down and rebuilding their high-tech machinery, their proprietary technology will be all too easily open for corporate theft.

Well, which is it, then? Are those slackjawed yokels too stupid to comprehend all that tech, or are those sharpie-farmers looking to inflate their incomes via some sophisticated reverse-engineering and corporate espionage?

For what it may be worth, my Uncle Gene flatly refused to own anything his whole life but a Deere…right up until his last one, which he spent a lot more time cussing and spitting at than actually riding the piece of junk.

Manufacturers also say that allowing tractor owners to make any manner of repair also allows them to bypass emissions controls set by governments and to crank up horsepower or make other modifications that violate laws. This, they say, puts equipment operators at risk of injury, and in turn would unfairly place the manufacturers in a position to be sued for those injuries.

Ahhh, and there it is: the cold, dead hand of government. You knew it would figure into all this somehow. Now for a little compare-contrast.

“Forcing a business to disclose trade secrets, software, and jeopardize consumer safety is poor public policy,” said Colorado state Rep. Matt Soper, a Republican who opposed “right to repair” measures in the Centennial State.

The opposition was not enough to stall the legislation. Colorado’s Democrat Gov. Jared Polis happily signed the new bill into law last Tuesday, saying, “This bill will save farmers and ranchers time and money and support the free market in repair” before exclaiming, “first in the nation!’”

Against all odds and expectations, we’ve now reached the point where the GOPer argues for restricting the rights of hard-working American farmers to do what they wish with the property they nominally “own,” while the Democrat stands up for freedom, real ownership, independent repair shops, and non-interference with said rights. UNEXPECTED!™

Step 1: Open mouth; Step 2: Insert foot

Posted on March 30, 2023 by Mike

How the legislative sausage is made.

‘Garbage’: Jesse Watters Asks Sen. Lindsey Graham If He Actually ‘Read’ A Key Bill He Co-Sponsored

Fox News host Jesse Watters grilled Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina about his co-sponsorship of the RESTRICT Act Wednesday, asking if the senator read the bill he co-sponsored.

“Did the United States Senate just say we are going to protect you from China by spying on you? Let’s try to get some answers out of Sen. Lindsey Graham who supports this and is here now,” Watters said just prior to Graham appearing on the show. “You have got to be kidding me, Senator. Did you read this?”

The White House announced it would support the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology (RESTRICT) Act, which targets technology from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, China and Venezuela on March 7, NBC News reported. The legislation does not explicitly name TikTok, but senators supporting the legislation have cited the national-security concerns surrounding the Chinese-owned app.

“I don’t think I support the RESTRICT Act,” Graham told Watters.

“You don’t support this?” Watters asked, “Because you were named as one of the supporters, ‘cause this is garbage.”

Graham co-sponsored the RESTRICT Act, S 686, on Monday, according to congress.gov, joining 20 other senators. Many conservatives criticized the legislation over the potential to be used against American citizens.

Well, hey, isn’t that selfsame “potential” the barely-sub rosa intent of ALL legislation in Amerika v2.0?

A big fuckin’ deal

Posted on March 8, 2023March 8, 2023 by Mike

Tucker must be directly over the target, what with all the flack Establishment fucksticks like Shcrewmer and Mitch the Bitch are sending up trying to take him down.

(House Speaker Kevin) McCarthy seems to have a quaint notion that he should follow an agenda other than the one set by leftist media and other activists. He recently provided journalist Tucker Carlson access to Jan. 6 footage. When it was announced, CNN and other leftist groups got upset. But nothing compares to the angry reaction when Carlson showed some of the footage on his top-ranked Fox News program on Monday night. The program showed footage indicating that the Jan. 6 Committee had falsely conveyed the circumstances of Sen. Josh Hawley’s evacuation from the Capitol, had falsely added audio to clips, had not pursued evidence that mysterious protester Ray Epps had lied about his whereabouts, and had concealed evidence that Jan. 6 protesters who had entered the Capitol were not treated as threats.

The media and other partisans shrieked in horror that this footage was being shown to the American people. It burst through the media-enforced narratives about the day.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., took to the Senate floor to call for the censorship of Fox News, where this author is a contributor, and prevention of more footage being made available to Americans. He said Carlson exercising his freedom of the press was a threat to democracy.

As one former White House reporter put it, “It’s frightening to see Senate leaders demand a media company ‘stop’ reporting on the government, police, issues of law and justice.

Frightening indeed. Funny, innit, how this Shcrewmer boll weevil isn’t in the least embarrassed about standing barefaced in the well of the Upper Chamber, pounding the lectern in righteous fury, and demanding that, in order to preserve “democracy”—which, in this country, we AREN’T supposed to have—then SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!™ about denying Tucker Carlson’s God-given right to freedom of speech—which we ARE?

As no lesser a light than Thomas Jefferson reputedly forewarned, when the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Doesn’t take a professionally-trained meteorologist to figure out which way the wind is blowing here, now does it?

Surely this would be an opportunity for the otherwise weak and feckless Senate Republicans to show some backbone, right? Wrong.

Romney said that showing Americans footage from Jan. 6 meant Carlson had gone “off the rails,” and compared him to Alex Jones. He also went after McCarthy for being transparent with the American people. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., took a break from working on an amnesty bill to tell Raju that Carlson showing new footage of the protest that countered the left’s narrative was “bullsh-t.” South Dakota Sens. Mike Rounds and John Thune, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, and North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer also fell for the media campaign against Carlson.

Leading the group was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Raju invited him to bash McCarthy. It’s not saying much, but McConnell was at least smart enough to decline that opportunity. But he did take the opportunity to attack a media outlet for daring to say something different than what a police leader said. Really. He said, “It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that is completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks.”

Republicans, you have a serious problem.

In the middle of the midterm elections, McConnell went out of his way to sabotage candidates and their voters, once again pushing Democrat narratives about “candidate quality.” McConnell, the country’s least popular politician, did nothing to stop Romney from running a shadow campaign against a sitting GOP senator, fellow Utah Sen. Mike Lee. After he led the Republicans in the Senate to a loss, he responded by helping Democrats pass their $1.7 trillion omnibus bill, cheerleading for Biden’s Ukraine war, and campaigning with Joe Biden.

Instead of punishing Romney for his act of sabotage against fellow Republicans, he punished the victim by removing him from a powerful committee. Other Republican senators have also been punished by the famously vindictive and petty McConnell for not supporting his re-election as Republican leader.

Elon Musk, of all people, said it best when he tweeted of McConnell, “I keep forgetting which party he belongs to.”

Easy-peasy, Elon: the Deep State Uniparty, that’s which one. As for the purblind Pollyannas who still cling to the preposterous belief that anything at all is actually as it’s purported to be by TPTB anymore, they’re unlikely to ever figure it out. They’d like you to know, though, that they’re very interested in that beachfront property in Arizona that’s up for sale. The pig in the poke, too. Also, These Magic Beans.

As for the rest of the Shadow State malefactors, they’re quaking in manufactured outrage to mask the fear. Because, thanks to Tucker, everyone knows…ahem.

Caveat update! My post title above asserts that Tucker’s huge scoop is, to quote the finest senile corruptocrat we’ve ever had as “pResident,” a “big fuckin’ deal.” And that, it most certainly is. It has unleashed a political earthquake; Swamp rats can feel the very ground shifting under their feet from it, and they ain’t liking the sensation even a little bit.

While I do see it as a bona-fide game changer in the long run, though, nobody should be expecting these revelations to be the long-awaited Final Straw, the offense that will at last spark outright revolt and resistance against FederalGovCo. It gets us a big step farther along that road, yes, and it will serve to erase any lingering misplaced faith in the good intentions of their central Leviathan-state among Normals—particularly after they’ve been so blatantly, continously lied to over the last several years.

But it isn’t going to move anyone to start putting heads on pikes, taking up the trusty ol’ blunderbuss for a march on Mordor On The Potomac, or lighting up the torches, I don’t think. Yes, it’s a big fuckin’ deal for sure, but let’s not anyone get their hopes up too high quite yet. It’s a long, dark road we’re walking here, too dark and uncertain to be able see the end of it as of right now.

Just keep on keepin’ on

Posted on February 28, 2023February 28, 2023 by Mike

Gonna have to “excerpt” damned near all of this one, I’m afraid, since it expresses my own thoughts on DeSantis the Destroyer pretty precisely.

We Need to Talk About Mark Levin’s Interview With Ron DeSantis Last Night
On Sunday night, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared on “Life, Liberty, and Levin” on Fox News, purportedly to promote his new book, The Courage to Be Free, which comes out this week.

While DeSantis has not yet declared that he’s running for president, he certainly sounded like a man who’s making the case for his candidacy. Or, if not, he’s making a case for conservatism as the path to American success and prosperity— the subtitle of the book is “Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.”

As my colleague Stephen Green pointed out earlier today:

DeSantis isn’t traveling to early presidential primary states like Iowa or New Hamphire, at least not yet. Instead, his most recent tour was through three struggling Deep Blue cities to tout what he’s done differently in Florida… DeSantis is calmly but quite publicly holding up his state as a model for the nation, just like a governor running for president would do. Except that he has yet to announce that he’s running. He hasn’t even formed one of those exploratory committees that allows a not-yet candidate to fundraise.

I don’t see how it’s a bad thing for DeSantis to wait to announce, if he does indeed plan to run. Does anyone really think the primary season is too short and needs to be lengthened? The 2016 primary seemed like it would never end—and the personal attacks and circular firing squad did nothing to help spread the message about the benefits of conservatism.

To the best of my knowledge, contra the ceaseless nattering from Vichy GOPe blowflies seeking to play Da Guv off against Trump for their own purposes, the one and only thing DeSantis has said to date about running for Prexy in ’24 is that he ain’t gonna. He’s perfectly free to run if he wants, just as who even knows how many other ambitious governors have before him; there’s nothing especially sinister or shameful about that, really. That said, I still very much hope he won’t. For me, it all boils down to this:

Whether or not DeSantis decides to run for president, he’s demonstrated over and over again that it’s possible to stand up to the woke mob and The Swamp and win. He stood up to Disney and won—depriving the woke company of its special tax breaks and self-governing authority. He noted in the interview that on his first day in office, he sat down and read what authority the governor had and then went to work. He fired a George Soros-backed DA when he refused to enforce the law; remade a failing Florida university in the image of Hillsdale College; went after venues hosting perverts performing drag shows with little kids in the audience; and banned sexually explicit materials in the classrooms of children in grades K-2. He was one of the first governors to re-open his state during the covid pandemic and he ordered children and teachers back into their classrooms. He also refused to force vaccine mandates. Unlike Trump, who stood mutely next to Dr. Fauci while he stood at the podium and spewed his lies about the origins of the covid virus, masking, and the vaccine, DeSantis did his research and decided for himself what was best for his state.

And those are just some of the highlights.

There’s been an effort by some to portray DeSantis as a Swamp creature, beholden to Paul Ryan (who?) or something, but that’s laughable on its face. This guy is fighting the liberals and WINNING. Who cares if he ran into Kevin McCarthy in a men’s room once, or whatever it is the Twitter bots are saying this week? All I care about is winning and taking back the country. If the GOP elites want to pour money into his campaign, let them. You can’t win the presidency without money. There’s more than enough proof to indicate that DeSantis is his own man and not beholden to special interests.

Noticeably absent from the interview was any mention of Trump’s recent attacks on DeSantis. Levin mentioned that the book, which DeSantis actually wrote himself, doesn’t contain any of the gossip or attacks on other politicians that tend to be a staple in political books. Instead, it focuses on DeSantis’s biography and his policies and principles.

“It’s like if you and I would have had a private conversation three years ago, why should I regurgitate that and put that out there when you were talking to me in confidence?” the governor explained. “And so I try to focus on the policies. What does it mean to be a leader in this day and age because, as you know, Mark, when you’re standing for our values, you come under assault in American society.”

“If you’re standing for the right things, you’re going to have to show courage under fire if you ultimately want to bring this stuff in for a landing, and so we had to do that so many different times. And I just felt that’s something that people are gonna be more interested in than any kind of dishing about private conversations I may have had with somebody.”

If there’s one thing we all should have learned since 2016—the last two nightmarish years especially—it’s that the President is nothing but a figurehead, a dumbshow put on for the edification and/or entertainment of the flyover Great Unwashed rubes by the Men Behind The DC Curtain. Do yourself, your state, and your nation a solid, Ron: don’t fall for it. You’ve accomplished some truly worthwhile, significant things as governor, something no real outsider or reformer will ever be permitted to do in Mordor On The Potomac so long as the Barad-Dur still stands.

Let the Swamp players keep playing, the manipulators keep manipulating, the Beltway Bandits keep up their banditry; they’re going to, no matter what you or anybody else does or says. As we saw with the Agony of Trump, no one man can possibly fix all that’s wrong in the Garden of FederalGovCo. You’ll do much more good where you’re at than you will under siege in the White House—ineffectual, beset on all sides, while we look on in despair as the jackals strip yet another carcass clean to the bone.

Do not take this cup from them, no matter how passionately it’s urged on you. Stay the course. And for Christ’s sweet sake, stay right where you are.

RINOs not RINOs

Posted on February 25, 2023February 25, 2023 by Mike

“Our sacred democracy” is…neither.

Keep in mind who essentially founded the Republican Party and was its first president. That would be Abraham Lincoln. He loved war, especially when waged to put an end to “democracy.”

Unless, of course, you are a typical Republican – who believes the South had no right to depart from the “union.” No right to form a government of its people, by its people and for its people.

Spare us, please, the cant about “slavery.” Lincoln and his Republicans enslaved us all. What do you own, exactly? Is it your home? The one you must pay the government forever in order to be allowed to continue living in it? Your car? Which you must also pay the government in order to be allowed to use? On roads you must also obtain the government’s permission to use? Can you open a business – or do business – without the permission of your massa?

Lincoln waged war upon democracy without mercy, against civilians explicitly, sending the mid-19th century equivalents of SS-Obergruppenfuhrers marching into the South to literally scorch the earth, so as to teach the recalcitrant Southerners all about “democracy.” The same kind of “democracy” that the same blue-suited Obergruppenfuhrers – Sherman and Sheridan and Custer – brought to the Indians of the American plains, after they were done with the South. The same “democracy” that Biden – and Graham – seek to further in eastern Europe.

In everywhere.

For there is nowhere on this Earth that is to be left free to decide its own course. The only course is that of modern American “democracy,” which is a philosophy both the Left and the Republican “right” agree upon. It is a philosophy that says Our Way is the only way and if you do not like it, tough. And if you resist, we will destroy you.

Even if it means destroying the world, for their world is one of unassailable power that, if lost, costs them everything. And that is why they are willing to make sure no cost is spared to preserve it – and that all of us pay it.

The take-home point here is that Republicans such as Lindsey Graham are not Republicans in Name Only (RINOs). They are the most authentic and faithful Republicans. The truest expositors of the philosophy imposed at bayonet-point upon the United States (North as well as South) that “democracy shall not perish from this Earth.”

That’s why some of us refer to it as the Uniparty—and why we really could use a true second party alternative to it.

Who owns what

Posted on February 24, 2023February 24, 2023 by Mike

Ace steps in it, big-time.

Mike Lindell says he will sue Kevin McCarthy for sharing the January 6th video only with Tucker Carlson. He wants a peek too.

My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell says he plans to sue Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for providing Fox News host Tucker Carlson with exclusive access to footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.Lindell told Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast on Thursday that his streaming platform Lindell-TV plans to sue McCarthy, claiming the Speaker violated the First Amendment’s freedom of the press provision and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

The Trump ally said Lindell-TV is “injured by not having access” to the tapes and that the Speaker’s decision represented discrimination.

You know, there is some slight danger that the video could reveal something like camera placements which could, possibly, “compromise security.” It’s laughable to think that a professional journalist like Tucker Carlson wouldn’t be sensitive to that and redact frames that would expose that. Which makes the leftwing scaremongering about it — the claims that Tucker Carlson is going to, and they did claim this, actively assist “terrorists” to breach the Capitol “again” — completely risible.

But the possibility does exist. So you I can understand McCarthy wanting to restrict the release to someone who he can count on to avoid releasing anything that might be a security problem, and not just to anyone and everyone.

I can also understand McCarthy doing what every politician does: Delivering a friendly news outlet an exclusive scoop.

So what is Mike Lindell doing?

Doesn’t matter much what he might think he’s doing; “security,” my baggy white ass. “Camera placement,” forsooth? You MUST be joking. They’re on every damned street corner, hung from buildings, traffic signals, billboards, lampposts, and over dead-end alleyways not just throughout Mordor On The Potomac but in every half-assed urban hellscape across the blighted plain by now.

Bottom-line fact: those cameras were bought, installed, and maintained at whose expense again, now? Oh, that’s right: the taxpayers, that’s whose. Therefore, those cameras and anything captured by them of right ought to be the rightful property of said taxpayers, and Swamp Critter Kevin owes them a full and unrestricted public release of ALL the footage they paid for—full stop, end of fucking story.

Don’t anyone be holding their breath waiting for any such thing, of course; it ain’t gonna happen. There’s much too much ugly J6 evidence incriminating the Deep State there, and we all damned well know it.

Blinded by reality

Posted on January 23, 2023January 23, 2023 by Mike

Yet again, I say: TINVOWOOT.

We are approaching eight years since Trump descended the golden escalator of Trump Tower; in many ways the decline has accelerated. The Republican establishment, however, does not seem to have learned much in the intervening years, and still has very little to offer. This was most clearly on display during the midterm elections when, despite the smug predictions of an inevitable “red wave,” some were keen on the idea that some hollow “Commitment to America” would motivate voters to overwhelm the polls.

To the surprise of no one who has not been in the establishment or a coma, it failed. Perhaps for good reason, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blithely informed us following the GOP’s embarrassing midterm performance that providing military aid for the Ukraine should be our top priority, and a dozen more of our Grand Old Party elected officials voted in favor of codifying the redefinition of marriage.

Our elites ruthlessly trample upon the very foundations of America; they seek to destroy the good, deny beauty, and ultimately lead souls on the path to destruction. This unsustainable ideology has produced nothing but depression, confusion, and harm.

Yet, in a civilization at its breaking point, where one is reprimanded for espousing basic truths, this major party has nothing positive to offer. Have they been so deflated by the lies from our enemies’ tongues, that the absolute best we can look forward to is forbidding scandalizing sexual education policies until third grade? Once the child hits the age of 9, all bets are off?

A soft-spoken, low-energy politician with a “serious strategy,” simply clinging onto the toothless abstractions of freedom and individualism is insufficient. The summation of the Right’s worldview—should it provide a muscular alternative to the current course of decline—cannot simply be: but we’re not them!

As Peter Thiel reminded us at the 2022 National Conservatism conference, even Florida in 2022 fails to provide the foundation for a long-term alternative model to the one offered by California.

America needs a proven leader, and a visionary to capture the intangible—someone who will not merely motivate the masses to get to the polls but who can craft a meaningful vision in which Americans can place their hope. It needs a vision for American excellence: a sovereign nation under God that embraces Truth, not rejects it.

Any such person is doomed from the git-go by those very qualities, and has no more chance of becoming President in our entirely rigged system than I do. “But we’re not them”? Au contraire, mon frere: you absolutely, positively ARE them, which is the root of the whole problem.

Dear Vichy GOPe swine

Posted on January 10, 2023January 10, 2023 by Mike

It’s not us. It’s YOU.

In what may be the most misleading narrative not originating with a leftist source about House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s recent trials National Review Editor-in-Chief Rich Lowry argues the Republicans’ “Fight Reveals the Party of Self-Loathing.” Although this diatribe may please some of Lowry’s sponsors, it bears no connection to what went on in the House last week.

The fact that the GOP revealed disunity does not in any way prove that “it is a party that to some significant extent loathes itself.” There is no reason to assume this even if “the GOP lacks any coherent center of authority” and even if the “Democrats look like a well-oiled machine.” There is no basis for saying “self-loathing” led to the “Revolt of the 20.” Nor was this noisy disunity something that the obsessive NeverTrumper editor could plausibly pin on Donald Trump, who unequivocally supported McCarthy in his bid for the speakership. Lowry wishes us to believe that Trump’s “counter-establishment” and the “midterm debacle” that he supposedly caused, segued into this further sign of self-loathing disunity.

Despite the defiance of those conservatives who bolted from the party regulars, Lowry finds a bright spot in the GOP. There is after all the stalwart, principled figure of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), “who is the closest thing there is to the ballast of an establishment.” Unfortunately, this wise moderate can’t prevail. He is “hated by the MAGA base,” which may be Trump’s continued revenge on the GOP elders who reject his demagoguery. If I read Lowry properly, a saner Republican Party would turn thankfully to McConnell, not The Donald, and this fount of mature wisdom would warn them against their “act of defiance unburdened by a substantive agenda or a different candidate.”

What may have been driving the holdouts, beside their perception that McCarthy is not particularly conservative, are recent unsettling events. Let’s start with the omnibus bill, passed in December, which provides very little for border protection and lots of inflated money for green energy and woke indoctrination. This bill contained 4,155 densely typed pages, and Congress was required to vote on the text, before any human being could possibly have read it through. Why did McConnell cosponsor this highly partisan Democratic bill? Why did he and nine congressional Republicans tie the hands of the incoming Republican majority in budgetary matters until next fall? And why was McConnell recently on a tour with Joe Biden talking up a bloated infrastructure bill that was passed with the votes of other Republican defectors? McConnell couldn’t stop telling Biden about his intention of “working together” throughout that one-sided lovefest.

If we wish to talk about “self-loathing,” it would be more appropriate to address the obvious contempt in which McConnell, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and other “moderate” Republican politicians hold their conservative base. Unlike our political elites, this base has no interest in being invited to fashionable cocktail parties and doesn’t give a rip about what the Washington Post says about their insensitivity. These populist voters think very differently from Rich and Mitch.

Indeed they do. In the immortal words of the almighty Rudyard Kipling, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. Which is exactly how it should be.

You funny

Posted on January 7, 2023January 7, 2023 by Mike

Hope springs eternal, no matter how vain it be.

As Conservatives Shift From Opposing McCarthy to Holding His Feet to the Fire, Here are Five Promises He Needs to Keep
For America First patriots who opposed Kevin McCarthy’s ascension to Speaker of the House, Friday night was a loss. But to get there on the 15th vote, McCarthy had to make a lot of promises and concessions to the Freedom Caucus. Will he honor those commitments?

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. For the love of God, man, stop it, you’re killing me here.

Our role as patriots is to make certain he does and to call him out when he doesn’t. Unfortunately, the GOP failed miserably to stop the midterm steal in the Senate, so getting any legislation to Joe Biden’s desk will be very hard. Then, there’s the veto that the GOP cannot overcome. But they can still hold hearings. They can still use the power of the purse. McCarthy has moves that he and the GOP caucus can make.

To that end, here are five of the promises he made that need to be fulfilled.

Meh, didn’t read ’em. Not even slightly interested, plus I have many other more productive uses for my time, such as clipping my toenails or something.

A fundamental misperception

Posted on December 29, 2022December 29, 2022 by Mike

What we have heah is a failure to communicate.

Sebastian Gorka Shows the GOP the Way: ‘It’s Time for Us to Take the Gloves Off and Play Hardball’ [VIDEO]

Sebastian, dude, you know I love ya and all, but I think it’s just soooooo cute how you seem to believe that they haven’t been all along. Get a clue, pardner.

Gorka tells Huckabee it’s time for the GOP to “take the gloves off” and “play hardball” with the Democrats, while noting that the Biden-Harris Regime is holding hundreds of political prisoners in a DC Gulag, with no due process, for attending the mostly peaceful protest in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021.

“So the biggest challenge is for the GOP to grow a spine next year,” Gorka said.

Please, God, not THAT worn-out old trope again. Say it with me: not “spineless,” not “clueless,” not “cowards”—IN. CAHOOTS.

Gorka’s comments come in light of the House speakership position up in the air as establishment favorite, Kevin McCarthy, who many consider a RINO, actively campaigning for the post.

Beginning to get it now? The Repukes don’t “play hardball” with the DemonRats because they DON’T WANT TO. For them, the ‘Rats aren’t the Main Enemy, WE are. The more time you fritter away on blah-de-blah of somehow “taking over” the GOPe, of bending it to our will and bringing it back around to its supposed core principles, the longer it will be before something worthwhile can be done about the whole squalid mess.

Update! Dan Gelernter, fresh off his recent column comparing Trump to TR in certain regards (I posted on that here), closes things out for us.

What should we do when a majority of Republicans want Trump, but the Republican Party says we can’t have him? Do we knuckle under and vote for Ron DeSantis because he would be vastly better than any Democrat?

I say no, we don’t knuckle under. And I like DeSantis. I’d vote for him after Trump’s second term. But not before.

Here’s the thing: It is precisely the expedient view of “well, this person isn’t my first choice, but he’s the best available option who can win” which has allowed the uniparty to take over and ruin the country. We’re letting the Republicans get away with offering us a false dichotomy: A fake non-choice among candidates who are pre-selected for us. The Democrats did this themselves in 2016 when they stole the primary from Bernie Sanders.

You could go even further and say that the two-party system, in addition to preserving systemic stability, has prevented us from having any real say in our own government, except to the smallest extent. The Republicans and Democrats appear like the guard rails on either side of the road they’ve decided we should all be traveling on.

I’m sure I’ll be accused of being a shill for the Democrats here, and as far as I’m concerned that’s as credible as being accused of shilling for Russia these days. I’m not suggesting you have to do what I do, either. But I have no intention of supporting a Republican Party that manifestly contravenes the desires of its voters. The RNC can pretend Trump isn’t loved by the base anymore, that he doesn’t have packed rallies everywhere he goes. But I’m not buying it: Talk to Republican voters anywhere outside the Beltway, and it is obvious that he is admired and even loved by those who consider themselves “ordinary” Americans.

Our best talking-heads and pundits have argued for years that it’s better to win with a bad candidate than to lose with a good one. I used to believe it myself. But look at the results: Until Trump became president, it never even occurred to me that an elected politician could actually do what he’d promised. We’ve been acclimatized to failure, fraud, and theft by the politics of expediency. Year after year, our only choices are “Big Government A” (GOP) or “Big Government B” (Democrat). I used to think Republicans were at least a little more restrained in their spending than the Democrats. But now it’s just clear they spend our money on different things: Democrats give our money to welfare infrastructure (and the drug industry). Republicans give our money to the military-industrial complex (and the drug industry).

If you ask me, Trump’s presidency was much more “American” than it was “Republican.” That’s why it was such a success and why so many of us loved it. Now, if the Republican Party thinks it’s not big enough for Trump, it’s not going to be big enough for me either.

Do I think Trump can win as a third-party candidate? No. Would I vote for him as a third-party candidate? Yes. Because I’m not interested in propping up this corrupt gravy-train any longer. Mitch McConnell says that “providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now, according to most Republicans.” Most Republicans where? Inside his bank account?

There are not enough unprintable words in the dictionary to say everything that statements like McConnell’s conjure up in my mind. But here are a few he might understand: “I’m fed up. And I’m out.”

Yes indeedy. No matter how badly we might sometimes wish things were otherwise, the GOPe is a hopelessly lost cause at this point. That book is now fully and firmly closed, the ship has left the dock and is sailing over the far horizon. The Party is of no further use to Real Americans.

So be it, then. Let the fork-tongued rat bastards do as they will: formally merge with the Commiecrats, wither and die on the vine via total neglect from their former core constituency, attempt to drag out the scam for as long as they can, what the heck ever. They are what they are, and we know more than enough about what they are. Time to start acting on the facts as they’ve been made abundantly clear to us, and then some.

Americans need a for-real second party alternative, no doubt about it. That felicitous outcome cannot be realized so long as we insist on putting Vichy GOpe swine into office, expecting different results.

Romney rubs it in

Posted on December 23, 2022December 23, 2022 by Mike

A pluperfect example of GOPe “thinking.”

Mitt Romney Tries to Explain the Omnibus Vote, and It’ll Leave You Punching Walls

Far better to punch Romney, if you ask me. Certainly more productive, and easier on the hands too.

On Thursday, 18 Republican senators joined hands with Democrats to pass yet another massive Omnibus spending bill. This time, it cost US taxpayers $1.7 trillion, setting spending baselines that will now be used for the next two years via continuing resolutions. All of this happened mere weeks before the GOP was set to take over the House of Representatives, meaning that the power of the purse that was just won has been conceded without anything resembling a fight.

Luckily, we have Sen. Mitt Romney around to explain that this wasn’t actually a betrayal of what was promised during the last election. In fact, you are just too stupid to realize that this is actually a good thing.

Romney begins by saying that he’s “convinced that this will cost less money than if we kick the can down the road until next year.”

So let’s just kick the can down the road this year instead. Hey, makes perfect sense, I guess, for certain values of the word “sense.”

He then cites the fact that the House GOP hasn’t selected a speaker yet to bolster his argument, saying that he’s “not sure they’re going to be able to take on the budget for this as well as the next year.”

In other words, you absolute rubes who voted for Republicans during the last mid-terms can’t be trusted to have your votes actually mean anything. Instead, you must be protected from yourself by having GOP Senators nuke the power of the purse before Republicans even take control. And you should be thankful that Romney and the rest did that for you.

The Utah senator then goes on to point out that even if House Republicans put together a budget, Democrats wouldn’t vote for it. Well, yes Mitt, we know. We are all well aware that Democrats actually keep their promises and hold the line. Why can’t the GOP do the same thing? Why can’t they lead and dictate instead of constantly reacting and bending the knee?

Oh, they can, right enough. Trouble is, they don’t want to. They know their prescribed role in this putrid little charade, and are content to stick with it.

As if all that wasn’t bad enough, Romney then does what establishment Republicans always do, which is to suggest that military spending justifies all manner of domestic insanity. That’d be the same military currently instituting a preferred pronouns policy and that hasn’t won a war since the early ’90s. To end the video, he then lists out all the pork he’s bringing home to Utah.

To sum it up, the Republican Party deserves to lose, and parties that deserve to lose rarely win. There is no point in winning elections if the results are the same. The GOP had a chance to stand up here and at least demand the inclusion of funds to secure the border, and they couldn’t even get that done. And in the midst of being fed that turd sandwich, we are told it’s actually smoked brisket.

Heh. Brings to mind a bona fide classic from years ago, which featured now-irrelevant Milquetoast Conservative and bland Vichy GOPe shill Hugh Hewitt smacking his lips in gustatory delight and declaring, “My, this shit sandwich sure is tasty!” Can’t recall now who posted it originally—the Onion, maybe, back when they were still worth reading, which sorta tells you how long ago this was—nor which issue Hewitt had folded like a cheap accordion on, even. Trust me, though, it was a good ‘un.

WHOSE party?

Posted on December 23, 2022 by Mike

Not yours, not mine, not ours. THEIRS.

At their convention in 1900, the Republicans renominated William McKinley for president. They also had a problem on their hands: a boisterous trouble-maker with an exceptional ability to inspire crowds. His name was Teddy Roosevelt, a man more than one contemporary would describe as “the most remarkable man I ever met.” But the Republican Party had never liked Roosevelt, principally because he was impossible to control. He had a penchant for saying exactly what he thought and doing exactly what he wanted, no matter whether it was in line with the approved party platform.

In 1900, Roosevelt had been making a huge nuisance of himself as governor of New York, a position of massive importance in which, as he grew more and more popular, he became harder and harder to control. The Republicans, led by Thomas C. Platt (“Boss Platt”), wanted him out—out of New York, and out of power, period. So they hatched the perfect plan, nominating him for vice president, where he couldn’t do anything.

Roosevelt took the bait. The temptation of being a top man in Washington, D.C., was too great for him to resist, even though he knew he’d have no real power. And when McKinley won the election, the political bosses were doubly delighted: They had the White House, and they had managed to move TR from the vital role of New York governor to the totally impotent role of vice president.

The vice presidency at the turn of the century was a political graveyard, where politicians were sent to be gently eased out of power forever. We had not yet arrived at the modern tradition of having vice presidents generally rise to the presidency, or at least to the nomination. A vice president wasn’t even guaranteed to be nominated as the running mate for the second term of the president he had served. (McKinley’s first vice president was Garret Hobart, although he had a particularly good reason for not getting a second term—he died in office of a heart attack.)

Teddy Roosevelt’s political career was considered over when he went to Washington as vice president after the Republican victory of 1900. And it would have stayed that way if not for a freak twist of fate: In September 1901, McKinley became the third American president to be assassinated. Roosevelt was elevated from obscurity to the office he most desired and was best-suited to fill. The political bosses realized they had made a mistake, but it was too late: Their mistake haunted them through three presidential terms (two of TR’s and one of Taft’s). And then, after Taft’s first term, things got really bad.

TR wanted to be president again. He thought Taft was doing a mediocre job. And he argued (with a certain logic) that he’d never really had the two terms to which an American president was traditionally entitled because he’d only been elected president once—his first term, remember, had merely been the completion of McKinley’s.

But the Republican Party hated TR even more by 1912, even if the voters adored him. So they renominated Taft against the popular consensus. In response, TR founded a third party, the infamous “Bull Moose” party. This split the Republican vote, though in the process, TR got more votes than Taft, the only time in history that one of the two main parties finished in third place. This handed the presidency to Woodrow Wilson, one of the most destructive men of the 20th century (and the first academic to be elected president). Wilson never would have stood a chance had the Republican nomination gone to TR—he was elected with a mere 41 percent of the vote, an historic low.

But from the Republican perspective, it was better to lose the presidential race and have a Democrat in power with whom they could work—one who could play the game and be part of the machine—than it was to have someone who couldn’t be controlled. They never again made the mistake of nominating a man who wasn’t under their thumb. At least, not until 2016.

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.

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.

Nah, not a chance. They’ll kill HIM long before they ever let that happen, count on it. Don’t dare kid yourself that they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, or don’t dare to. As I keep saying, that leaves us with just the one option, and we all already know full well what that option is.

Situation Normal: All Fucked Up

Posted on December 22, 2022December 23, 2022 by Mike

Mollie Hemingway calls Yertle McTurtle “the single biggest obstacle to GOP success,” which statement is founded on a wholly erroneous premise: that what’s been going on with the Vichy GOPe for lo, these many years is somehow NOT something they consider to be “success.”

Au contraire, mon frere.

GOP Can’t Be Successful Until Mitch McConnell Is Gone
The Kentucky Republican claimed giving more money to Ukraine is “the No. 1 priority for the United States right now, according to most Republicans.” The new $1.7 trillion Democrat spending bill he enthusiastically supports would give Ukraine another roughly $45 billion in assistance, bringing the total over the past eight months to more than $100 billion, a staggering figure even if it weren’t happening during a time of inflation, looming recession, and other serious domestic problems.

The comment about Republican priorities is so false as to be completely delusional. Among the many concerns Republican voters have with Washington, D.C., a failure to give even more money to Ukraine simply does not rank.

Another comment from McConnell also shocked Republicans. Of the $1.7 trillion left-wing spending spree McConnell is working so hard to help Democrats pass, he said, unbelievably, that he was “pretty proud of the fact that with a Democratic president, Democratic House, and Democratic Senate, we were able to achieve through this omnibus spending bill essentially all of our priorities.” As an indication of how deeply sick and broken and unserious the Senate is, no one had even begun to read the lengthy bill, which was put forward just hours before votes began.

Senators don’t read ANY bill beforehand, nor do “Representatives”; for a long while now, that sort of lowly scut-work gets delegated to staff underlings, who then recommend a yea or nay vote to their bosses depending on certain factors—none of which includes whether it might be of help to the American people, or is something they actually desire to see implemented.

Update! Bill just comes right out and says it:

Sure, We’re Gonna Vote Our Way Out of This

Not this, nor anything else, actually.

Perhaps the biggest, most in-your-face insult of all regarding this latest act of Republicrat treachery and betrayal is, the omnibus smash ‘n’ grab “vote” wasn’t even close. Not by a long yard, it wasn’t. The number to forever remember, graven onto Real American memory until the end of days? The number which, to swipe a fine old phrase, shall live in infamy? Eighteen. Not one, not two or three, nor five or six, even. Eight. Fucking. Teen. Again, Bill just comes right out and says it.

Fuck. Them.

Fuck. Them. All.

Not one more vote. Not one more dime. Not one ounce of support in any way, shape, or form.

If we’re going to end up with a commie dictatorship no matter what we vote for, well, bring it on, the sooner, the better. Let’s drag the whole stinking, totalitarian mess onto the table and see how long it takes for the whole thing to collapse in a welter of fraternal blood.

Oh, I’d say the commie-dictator ship has long since sailed, Bill. Now we’re all just waiting around for the inevitable collapse. In fact, the former Assistant Sec of Housing for Bush 41, Catherine Fitts, says that ship has already sailed too.

CAF predicts, “If you look at FTX, my question is how much of the money sent to Ukraine got laundered right back for the (2022 midterm) election? So, to me, Ukraine is not a destination point, it is a through put point…At this point, and I hate to say it, but we are in full scale implosion. The corruption is that bad. That’s why I am telling you what we need is sovereignty. The federal government is not going to deliver…The financial coup has reached a point where if you want sovereignty, the only person who can deliver that is your state governor and your legislature…If you’ve got a great state AG, if you have great legislature, if you have a great governor, you better start supporting them. They are the people that can protect your sovereignty. You need governmental sovereignty if you are going to have individual sovereignty, and you better do it now. You have no time to be entertained by Joe Biden, Trump and Hunter Biden.”

The federal government corruption was turbocharged in 2019. CAF says, “While everyone was focusing on the teenage sex life of the Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh, the House, the Senate, the White House, Democrat and Republican, both sides of the aisle got together and approved Statement 56 of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) which said they could keep secret books. That was everybody—together. So, there is no Right vs Left. There is no Trump vs Biden. There is a machine in control of a spending machine that is financed with our taxes, and debt borrowed in our name, that is being sold into our pension funds and retirement accounts…That machine, to keep balancing the books, is implementing a depopulation plan. That is the reality that has to be faced and changing the President won’t matter…If you want to make real progress against the machine, you’ve got to talk turkey about where your money is going, who are the local leaders and who are your state legislators who are going to support you when this machine fails you completely. If it doesn’t fail you in 2023, it will fail you in 2024. So, you better be ready.”

Prognosis: GRIM.

Obscenity update! The great Julie Kelly joins Bill in just coming right out and saying it.

Traitors
The omnibus package itself is one insult after another to the American people. As Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) detailed in a December 20 tweet thread, generous funding to secure the borders of other countries is included in the bill with little more than crumbs to protect our southern border, now dangerously wide open to human smugglers and drug runners. Billions more will be spent to promote gender equity, fight “structural racism,” expand access to abortion, and construct buildings and parks named after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, retiring Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ark.) and former First Lady Michelle Obama among others.

Perhaps the most outrageous provision in the bill is a hefty budget hike for the Department of Justice. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who spends the majority of his time and resources targeting Donald Trump, his associates, and his supporters, will receive a nearly 10 percent raise next year, bringing the Justice Department’s annual budget to $38.7 billion. More than $212 million is earmarked to hire almost 100 temporary government lawyers to help prosecute January 6 protesters, a caseload now nearing 1,000 Americans with promises to add another 1,000 more.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations will get $569 million more next year as that agency’s budget exceeds $11 billion for the first time. Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray have made it clear by word and deed that the imaginary threat of “domestic violent extremists,” i.e., those who dare to criticize the regime will remain their top priority. This means more predawn FBI raids of Capitol “trespassers,” more indefinite incarceration for those awaiting trial, more prison sentences for nonviolent offenses, more misery, and more destruction of Constitutional rights.

And that’s just fine with the overwhelming majority of Republicans in Washington who’ve been silent in the face of this unprecedented form of government retaliation against Trump supporters. In fact, outgoing Senator Roy Blunt (R-Miss.) explained that the Justice Department really needed the big funding boost. “I’ve always been for prosecuting anybody who violated the law on January the 6th,” Blunt told NBC News this week. “And there are, like, 800 cases already. So I can’t imagine that they don’t need some extra money.”

Good riddance, you clown.

The FBI, particularly in light of recent revelations of the bureau’s collusion with Big Tech to suppress coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop and criticism of mail-in voting, should be dismantled and defunded, not rewarded for its interference in two presidential elections among other malfeasance. Nor should the agency receive $375 million in capital funding to build a shiny new headquarters in either Virginia or Maryland as the bill also provides.

But that didn’t stop 18 Republican senators, including McConnell and two-time presidential loser Mitt Romney, from voting to pass the omnibus bill on Thursday. Another “yes” vote was from Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the former chair of the Senate Judiciary who promised for years to “get to the bottom” of numerous Justice Department scandals.

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.

Because of course he does; after all, one of those things he cares deeply about; the other, meh, not so much.

Not to be jumping down the throat of a fine writer whose work I genuinely admire and enjoy or anything, but I noted the other day that Ace had (for the fourth or fifth time so far this year, or thereabouts) announced himself done forever with the Republican Uniparty wing—that never, ever again would he advocate for them, contribute to them, or *gag* vote for them. I’m not gonna go dig up a link, because as you all know, hey, I’m a slackass like that.

Now, Ace can say and/or do whatever he likes without reference to what I may think about it, natch. But unless and until enough of us awaken fully to the sordid facts about this sorry situation and resolve to act forcefully on that knowledge, we must expect that we’ll go right on being used as a sort of filthy, encrusted cum-rag by TPTB. They can only get away with this shit for as long as we allow them to, and not one moment longer. It’s high time we figured that out, I think; Lord knows, it’s been staring us right in the face for long enough by now.

Not “stupid,” not “weak,” not “clueless”—COMPLICIT

Posted on December 12, 2022December 12, 2022 by Mike

None so blind as those who will not see.

What Moves the Voters Republicans Lost?
Unless there is a major turnaround in the culture, the Republicans will have to deal with a strong and vocal opposition in future elections.

In “The Republican Struggle with Defeat,” Conrad Black lays out the situation that the Republican Party confronts after its unexpectedly disastrous midterm elections. Despite Joe Biden’s unpopularity and the range of problems he and his party have caused—from broken borders and inflation to the cultural radicalization of both the military and public education, and debacles abroad—the Democrats did unexpectedly well at the polls. Unlike during the Obama Administration, Biden’s party won the Senate, several governorships, a number of state legislatures, and held its defeats in the House to a minimum.

Black avoids exaggerating the Trump factor in the defeat of Republican candidates. One can point to some worthy Trump picks, including Kari Lake, Blake Masters, Adam Laxalt, Lee Zeldin, and J. D. Vance, even if other picks, such as Herschel Walker and Doug Mastriano, were duds. But there is no convincing evidence that Trump’s support for a candidate was the decisive factor in any person’s defeat. Other circumstances, as Black points out, led to those candidates’ losses. If the United States now “plods on with a one-and-one-half party system” and “veers harder to the left,” we should look elsewhere for the most decisive reasons.

A major cause for the midterm results, argues Black, “is the apparent inability of the Republicans to master the harvested ballot. Trump correctly warned in 2020 this would be used to rig the election, but he was completely inadequate in the counter-measures he took to prevent that.” In my view, one can’t stress enough the games that the Democrats have mastered in changing electoral procedures. From vote-harvesting and voting without personal identification to election outcomes being determined by insecure mail-in ballots sent in more than a month before scheduled in-person voting, these Democratic “reforms” should have met unrelenting Republican resistance.

Unfortunately, they didn’t, which raises the question: How would the elections in Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania have turned out if these states had the voting laws that are in force in Florida?

An utterly pointless debate, an exercise in abject futility, perhaps even outright misdirection, at least in some cases. Those laws are NOT in force; the Vichy GOPe did NOT resist, and only a delusional fool expects that they ever will. If they had any interest in such piffling bagatelles, they would have done so already. Get your head around it already, ferchrissakes, and deal with current reality at long, long last.

For obvious reasons, Republicans are hesitant about contesting questionable ballots.

“OBVIOUS reasons,” is it? Name three for me, please. Don’t strain yourself, I’ll wait.

They quake at the thought of being accused of election denial or suppressing minority votes. This hesitancy puts them at a disadvantage against a radical leftist party that shows no compunctions about cheating or election denial.

Not hardly, amigo. What actually makes them quake at the thought of it is the prospect of upending a comfy, too-familiar applecart, thereby disrupting a wholly rotten system in which they’ve long since accepted their assigned role—a system which has made them rich beyond the dreams of avarice, despite their demeaning status as junior partners therein.

This hesitancy puts them at a disadvantage against a radical leftist party that shows no compunctions about cheating or election denial. The fact that Democratic Party organizers and politicians can engage in their legerdemain with unfailing media protection makes them even more brazen.

That lack of compunction and brazenness is a very, very old story, told from deep within a very crowded memory hole.

Democrat Voter Fraud: A Brief History
This is a “brief history” because the complete history of Democrat electoral malfeasance reaching back to Tammany Hall and Tweed would require four volumes or more. (I’m running into the same problem with a new book I’m outlining analyzing the Democrats as a criminal organization, much like the Mafia or the Camorra.)

So a brief history it is, limited to the past thirty years or so. Believe you me, there’s no lack of cases even in that short span.

The Dinkins Magic Voting Machines

Just days before voting in the 1993 David Dinkins/Rudolf Giuliani election, the New York Times reported that a number of voting machines had been found in a closed Manhattan school. All the machines were loaded with votes for Democrat incumbent David Dinkins.

Voting proceeded without the help of those machines, and of course Rudy was elected. But that was the end of it. As far as I’ve been able to learn, there was no investigation, no inquiries, or, for that matter, any further reportage on it.

Votes from the 8^th Dimension

The 2004 Washington state gubernatorial contest between Republican Dino Rossi and Democrat Christine Gregoire ended with Rossi up by 261 votes. A machine recount left him still ahead by 42 votes. The state Democrats paid over $700,000 for a hand recount, and whaddaya know… Votes started appearing from any and all conceivable sources. A bag containing votes here… an electoral official’s car there… it’s surprising they didn’t start falling out of the sky like the frogs in Magnolia.

By the end of the year Gregoire was ahead by 130 votes and was inaugurated on January 12. Rossi, God love him, continued fighting, taking Gregoire to court over the blatantly illegitimate votes. A Pierce County judge tossed the votes out, only to be overruled by the Washington State Supreme Court. A final decision didn’t come for six months, when Judge John Bridges, a Democrat appointee, tossed aside the concept of “chain of custody” to find in favor of Gregoire. Rossi should have continued on to the U.S. Supreme Court – after all, a critical legal concept was being overthrown – but he does get an E for Effort, since he did more than any other Republican in recent memory.

The Washington case enshrined the concept that all Democrat votes, whether they emerged from a portal into hyperspace or were discovered in a 2000 B.C. Sumerian temple, had to be counted no matter what the circumstances. GOP votes… not so much.

Goshdarnit, People Liked Him

A similar chain of events occurred in the election of Al Franken in Minnesota in 2008. Incumbent Norm Coleman originally prevailed with over 700 votes, which were mysteriously whittled down to 200 in short order. Franken called for a recount, and begorrah, the votes suddenly started appearing. Some, anyway — an envelope of votes from one county simply disappeared, but were counted regardless, the totals evidently being read out from tea leaves. By the time it all ended, Franken was ahead by 312 votes. Coleman, a Republican gentleman of the old school, made perfunctory efforts at protest, but was undercut by the GOP itself, led by former governor Arne Carlson, a RINO to rule them all, who had refused to endorse Coleman during the campaign.

Shortly after the election, it was discovered that at least 1,099 illegal votes had been cast by felons, and this had been known during the vote count, but had been ignored. Franken exchanged his diapers for a suit and spent the better part of two terms voting the way he was told and embarrassing his party before being forced out during the “MeToo” craze.

Lots more where that come from, and remember, these are contemporary examples only. Back to the AG piece for the sad, sorry denouement.

The solution to these problems for Republicans is to ignore the righteous accusations and to challenge unwaveringly suspicious ballots.

It isn’t a “solution,” it’s their sworn and sacred duty, or would be in a better, less ruinously-crooked system than this one is.

It would make even more sense to get voting to take place on election day and in a precinct station under bipartisan surveillance. It is just plain dumb for conflict-averse Republican leaders to tell their constituency to learn to do mail-in voting months ahead of Election Day. Most Republican voters cast ballots, as they should, in the assigned places on Election Day.

Fine suggestions all, not a single one of which has a ghost of a chance of ever being implemented. The larger problem?

Even more problematic for the Republicans are the large voting blocs they are losing by ever larger numbers: 18-to 29-year-old voters, in which the proportion of college students is rising. In November, unmarried women voted 70 percent for the Democrats, and in Pennsylvania they helped significantly in electing the brain-injured radical John Fetterman. More than 70 percent of college students voted, and 63 percent of them broke for the Democrats. Although the Republicans have made modest inroads among black voters and while the Hispanic vote has increased for the GOP by 10 points since 2018, they are losing badly key constituencies. These blocs are mostly on the woke Left and not likely to be won over by appeals to “conservative values.”

Heh. “Not likely,” he says. Understate much, pal?

Further, there is no indication that the electorate cares about Democratic scandals and failures. Republican attempts to call attention to such issues or to the damaged brain of our new Pennsylvania senator or to Joe Biden’s obvious decrepitude fall on deaf ears with these voters. Unrestricted abortion rights count for them far more than broken borders or the venality of the Biden family.

That’s because more and more of us are being brought around to the grim realization of the uselessness, the hopelessness, of Voting Harderer!™ at them to provide a way out of this stinking bog for us. The cynicism and disgust at the wholesale, systemic corruption of “elections” in Amerika v2.0 is growing by leaps and bounds, which I take as a positive sign. The more of us who acknowledge the farcical nature of the whole shit-circus, however unpleasant a reality it might be to confront, the sooner something meaningful might actually be done about it, I believe.

kennycan on The Daily Donnybrook, and other fine thingsAnother incredible divergence between the two Empl…
SteveF on The Daily Donnybrook, and other fine thingsThat did it. Thanks.
Barry on The Daily Donnybrook, and other fine thingsI will not hold my breath...
Barry on The Daily Donnybrook, and other fine thingsI find Gab to be a bit obscure. When I send money…
kennycan on The Daily Donnybrook, and other fine thingsWe shall see.

Category: FTGOP

Another GOPe “win”

Who owns what, anyway?

Step 1: Open mouth; Step 2: Insert foot

A big fuckin’ deal

Just keep on keepin’ on

RINOs not RINOs

Who owns what

Blinded by reality

Dear Vichy GOPe swine

You funny

A fundamental misperception

Romney rubs it in

WHOSE party?

Situation Normal: All Fucked Up

Not “stupid,” not “weak,” not “clueless”—COMPLICIT

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