It appears that President Trump considers conservatives to be the deplorables. Millions and millions of conservatives have embraced the principles of federalism, limited government and the Constitution long before Trump became president. If Trump takes conservatives for granted he does so at his own risk, and if he embraces Paul Ryan and the RINOs then he will fail. If Trump tries to wipe out conservatives in the primary, we will not only defend them, but we will try and wipe out the liberal and more moderate elements in the Republican Party. The President sounds like Richard Nixon, and every other moderate, establishment Republican who has ever walked the Earth hating conservatives. ~ MLS, 3/30/17
I sat back throughout the week to see how this would play out, and I see my fears have come to fruition in regards to our new president's direction. I know those who've pledge allegiance to Trump won't like anything that I'm about to point out, but it nevertheless must be said...
First, with a valid question from Ben Shapiro: When does Trump become the Establishment? This is all prefaced on the pretense of what if Jeb Bush had won the presidency? How would Republicans feel if he'd pushed a bill that would supposedly repeal and replace Obamacare, but instead, while making significant changes to Medicaid, re-enshrined the central provisions of Obamacare, thus creating a new entitlement program? You wouldn't like it a damn bit!
… if Bush and his top surrogates had then spent the weekend talking about dumping the Freedom Caucus to work with Democrats, who thinks conservatives would have resignedly nodded along?
Of course not. But Bush isn't president. Donald Trump is.
And because Trump played an anti-establishment figure on TV, too many conservatives assume he is one. He isn't. President Trump is anti-establishment when it comes to persona, of course -- he thinks that every governmental Gordian knot can be cut, that he can simply bulldoze his opposition, that deals are for sissies and that tough guys finish first. But the deals he wants to cut look a lot more like former President George W. Bush's “compassionate conservatism” than they do like the Tea Party agenda.
And yet, many Americans keep treating Trump like an outsider. He isn't. He's the most powerful man on Earth, the head of the executive branch. He can't just keep yelling at Ryan and McConnell publicly while dealing with them on legislation that Jeb Bush would endorse in a heartbeat, and then rip conservatives who disagree. That doesn't make him anti-establishment. It just makes him a blowhard.
If Trump wants to represent the outsider, it's about time for him to represent those outside of government. And that means minimizing government power, not maximizing it. But that's the dirty little secret: Trump isn't anti-establishment; he's pro-establishment so long as he's the establishment.
Told you this won't be easy for Trump supporters to hear. But when you're tired and disgusted with the Establishment in D.C., and you supposedly voted for an outsider, you want him to act like an outsider...NOT like the establishment you thought you were draining!
A previously moderate-to-liberal politician calls himself a Republican, but spent most of his time in politics actually cozying up to or supporting Democrats instead. Up until prepping to run for higher office that is. Then, once the race begins, he instantly transforms himself into a tough talking campaign conservative. Finally, should he be fortunate enough to get elected, all that conservative talk suddenly goes out the window as he betrays the very people that got him where he’s at. This has been the plight of the conservative in the Republican Party for far too long.
However, Donald Trump was supposed to be a paradigm-shifter. He was supposed to be a populist, who would serve the people rather than serve the system. He was supposed to be anti-establishment; a threat to the traditional GOP power structure. He was supposed to be the alpha male, capable of getting results a generation of Republican girlie men lacked the testicular fortitude to achieve. “The time for talk is over,” Trump is fond of saying. “The time for action is at hand.”
Turns out talk is all Trump can do, and his talk is cheap at that. Because when you strip away his reality show shtick and fake bravado, all last week’s healthcare debacle proved is Trump ironically is the very embodiment of the derogatory term his cult coined last year for useless Republicans.
Back in 2013, Karl Rove and his allies in the Republican Establishment sought to destroy Tea Party conservatives. ...
Rove wanted to defeat conservative candidates in Republican primaries — candidates like Chris McDaniel in Mississippi. In 2013, Donald Trump was still a businessman, and back then he fought to defend the Tea Party.
If Karl Rove & @GOP Establishment continue to attack the Tea Party, who delivered in 2010, then there will be a 3rd Party in 2016.
Trump even went on “The Mark Levin Show” to discuss Rove’s mismanagement of the Republican Party.
“The Tea Party, these people are great,” Trump said. “When I see Karl Rove go and demean the Tea Party after what he did with his lousy record, I was just really angry.”
And Trump swore the Tea Party would fight on.
The Tea Party is filled with great Americans. Despite being mistreated by everyone, including @GOP, they will continue to fight on
There's still nearly a half dozen other tweets that recalled Trump's then seemingly staunch support for the Tea Party. The instances above as well as many others are the arguments he once used against Karl Rove. Now, in attacking the Freedom Caucus, in threatening to primary them, Trump has effectively become Rove!
The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!
In one swift stroke, President Donald Trump has become the establishment he ran against. The president is attacking the Freedom Caucus again, this time suggesting that they need to be fought in 2018 primary elections.
Mr. President, what is the Republican agenda? Is it a liberty agenda? Is it an agenda that will make life better for the American people? Is it an agenda that supports anything you stood for on the campaign trail?
In the first major test of “the Republican agenda,” Speaker Paul Ryan presented an horrendous health care bill that completely neglected to fulfill your promise to repeal Obamacare.
In its next test, the upcoming budget fight, Republicans in Congress are communicating that border wall funds will not be included in the continuing resolution. And those cuts to government spending you proposed, Mr. President? Republicans are attacking them to defend their favorite pet government programs.
The Freedom Caucus members are your allies. They are the anti-establishment lawmakers that actually want to change the way Washington D.C. works, just like you campaigned, Mr. President.
And you’re attacking them. In doing so, you are empowering the people you incessantly claimed were the problem. You are breaking your promise to drain the swamp.
You are becoming the establishment you said you would oppose.
“Well fellow conservatives, it appears that President Trump considers us to be the deplorables,” Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin said to open Thursday's radio program.
The president has launched an assault on conservative Republicans in the Freedom Caucus, and the Tea Party patriots they represent. Levin said that Trump sounds like Richard Nixon, and every other moderate, establishment Republican who has ever walked the Earth hating conservatives.
“Now Mr. President, if you go out and try and wipe out conservatives in the primary, I can tell you right now, sir, we’re not only going to defend them, but we’re going to try and wipe out the liberal and more moderate elements in the Republican Party,” Levin said.
“Let me be quite blunt about this,” Levin continued. “There are tens of millions of conservatives in this country, many of whom supported you in the Republican primary. They will turn on you in a second.”
“You take the conservatives for granted, you do so at your own risk. You play footsie with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, you’re liable to get burned. You embrace the RINOs like Paul Ryan, you will fail.”
The Freedom Caucus is NOT backing down. These patriotic Statesmen are standing strong amid attacks from their own president, who first suggested that the Freedom Caucus saved Planned Parenthood funding and Obamacare, and later announced that if conservatives don’t hop aboard the establishment Republican agenda they will be fought in 2018!
Though the Freedom Caucus is under assault from all sides, some of its members who have spoken to the media or made public statements are standing strong — insisting that they are willing to work with President Trump to keep the GOP’s promise to repeal Obamacare.
The media has used the failure of the American Health Care Act — Republican leadership’s phony repeal bill — as an excuse to attack conservatives in Congress.
It didn't take long for the swamp to drain @realDonaldTrump. No shame, Mr. President. Almost everyone succumbs to the D.C. Establishment. https://t.co/9bDo8yzH7I
If the president likes his agenda, he can keep his agenda; he simply needs to stop smearing the few people who are actually dedicated to a bold and robust agenda. ...
If you really want to pursue a bold and robust “America First” agenda, it might help not to carpet bomb the small group of people who are fighting to keep it bold and robust in the first place.
Didn't take two seconds for the post-RINOcare war on conservatives to commence...
CR: Seven years of campaign promises to repeal Obamacare were broken when the Republican Party rolled out the American Health Care Act. But somehow, the Freedom Caucus is now taking the brunt of the abuse for the bill’s failure to launch.
Everyone but House leadership seemed to recognize the bill was bad. The chief complaint of conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus was the bill’s failure to repeal mandated essential health benefits – those insurance regulations responsible for increasing premiums and high deductibles. Still, moderates thought the bill went too far and sought to protect Medicaid expansion in their states. Voters across the political spectrum were unhappy, with the AHCA polling at only 17 percent public approval.
When those concerns were brought to the president from the Freedom Caucus, he reportedly told them to “forget about the little shit.” What the president failed to understand was that the “little shit” would break this bill. House Conservatives were on the cusp of supporting the legislation if Speaker Paul Ryan and leadership agreed to repeal the fundamental insurance regulation problems. Moderates in the party balked at that proposition and the Speaker Ryan pulled the bill Friday.
And now the spin, begun by establishment Repubs and heartily advanced by progressive media, left and right alike, blames conservatives...
Now the spin has begun. Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., declared it was Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who “betrayed” the American people.
The media has latched on to that narrative. The Wall Street Journal lambasted the Freedom Caucus as “the Obamacare Republicans.” Politico published a hit piece over the weekend detailing insider frustrations with the “far-right” members who sunk the bill, insisting that if fulfill seven years of campaign promises.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., is running around insisting that the Freedom Caucus just saved Obamacare, and pledging to work with Democrats to overcome conservative opposition to future legislation.
Run and work with the Democrats before EVER attempting to work with conservatives of your own party?! Sheesh.
I'm reminded of the excellent points Dana Loesch made this morning in NAILING the problems with fixing health care...
"This compromise still funded Planned Parenthood. It was a one year bait and switch; we were still going to fund Planned Parenthood. The regulatory structure was still in place. The penalty was still in place. The subsidies were still in place. It was like Paul Ryan rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and telling America that the hole’s been fixed!"
...but it's interesting towards the end of that interview how even the host has bought into the 'but it never would've passed the Senate' argument, when Speaker Ryan explicitly told us back in 2016 that 'there is a path to repealing Obamacare without 60 votes in the Senate' multiple times!
What gives? Damn lies then? Or damn lies now? This thing could be financially ripped apart with reconciliation, but suddenly, that's no longer on the table? The path seemed pretty clear in 2016...why is that different now that Republicans own the House, Senate and Presidency in 2017? I thought that's what we needed to make this happen? Instead, we're not only presented with a bill produced in secret that doesn't explicitly dismantle Obamacare, but we're met with the unfeasible expectation of solving such a major landmark legislation in a mere 18 days? Nothing about this passes the smell test.
They're out there. Mo Brooks just proved it today! But it has to have a united Republican Party and President behind it to make honest repeal and market solutions a reality. So far, that's not been the case. They'd rather throw conservatives under the bus yet again, and lean leftward into Democratic statism.
If this is the direction of a new Republican Party, it won't end well. Principle needs to be recovered, and recovered quickly.
Why is it that the only Republicans interested in keeping their Obamacare repeal promises are “those eighteen brave patriots in the Freedom Caucus?”
CR: In hour two of Monday night’s radio program, Conservative Review Senior Editor Daniel Horowitz stopped by “The Mark Levin Show” to explain everything you’ll ever need to know about RINOcare and why its failure is great for America.
Horowitz answers Levin’s questions and shows how passing RINOcare would have been WORSE than doing nothing.
Horowitz also explained why President Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner is wrong when he says the government should be run like a company and the American people are its “customers.”
We’re not customers, we’re shareholders! We OWN the American government and they report to US!
Looks like conservatives are FIGHTING where RINOs are not. The Obamacare 2.0 vote has stalled out...THANK YOU, Freedom Caucus! Here's a pretty good tally of how this has all played out over the week:
And by Friday afternoon, Mark Levin had had enough of the RINOs' CRAP, particularly that of the Speaker's...
CR: Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief took to Facebook to share his immediate reaction to the demise of RINOCare. He put the blame squarely at the feet of Speaker Paul Ryan.
CR: “I want to congratulate the Freedom Caucus, the true constitutional conservatives, the true patriots, for stopping this disastrous bill from passing,” Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin said Friday evening on the radio.
The American Health Care Act, or RINOcare, was defeated today as Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. pulled the bill from the floor of the House of Representatives before it could go up for a vote. The Obamacare repeal-in-name-only bill didn’t have enough votes to pass, largely because of the Freedom Caucus’ refusal to break their promise to the American people.
The bill ultimately failed, Levin explained, because too many Republicans do not want to repeal Obamacare and conservatives won’t have it.
“The problem is, ladies and gentlemen, a big part of the Republican party is progressive. That is, they are utopian statists,” Levin said.
“This bill was written by cowards. Cowards who were afraid that if they dared to touch what Obama had built in any significant way, that they’d lose at the ballot box.”
Straw men & red herrings abound, cast towards conservatives for trying to save a party, a presidency, and most importantly a Populace from deeper entitlement bondage. I think the discerning reader can acknowledge who those are that apparently don't want to save themselves.
WashingtonExaminer: Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said on Wednesday that the Senate parliamentarian has told him that it may be possible for Republicans to push harder on repealing Obamacare's regulations than the current House bill, which contradicts the assertion by House leadership that the legislation goes after Obamacare as aggressively as possible under Senate rules.
"What I understood her to be saying is that there's no reason why an Obamacare repeal bill necessarily could not have provisions repealing the health insurance regulations," Lee said in an interview with the Washington Examiner, relating a conversation with parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough about reconciliation he had on Tuesday.
Lee also said that the parliamentarian told him it wasn't until very recently, after the unveiling of the House bill, that any Republican even asked her about the possibility of repealing regulations with a simple majority.
With a House vote currently expected on Thursday, Republican leadership is scrambling for votes, trying to stave off a backlash from conservatives that could sink the bill. One of the issues conservatives have raised is that the House bill leaves most of the regulations in place, thus not combatting one of the main complaints about Obamacare – its skyrocketing premiums and limited choice.
The rest is well worth the read, but just from Sen. Lee's pull quotes, it's even clearer who should be running point on such an important piece of legislation...
"One of the things we've been told over and over again is the bill was no more aggressive than it has been... in part because of Senate rules. And the Senate rules are something those defending the bill have repeatedly pointed to in defense of why they wrote it the way they wrote it. The parliamentarian said, there's not necessarily any reason that would categorically preclude you from doing more, both on the repeal front and the replacement front, all sorts of things are possible."
"What matters is how it's done, how it's written up. There are ways it's written up that perhaps make it not subject to passage through reconciliation, but there are other ways you could write it that might make it work."
"There's no reason categorically to conclude you couldn't."
"She was also saying until very recently, nobody had even asked her about it. And yet one of the arguments consistently used by those behind the bill is, 'This thing is the most aggressive we can pass and can get through Senate rules.' And it's just not true."
"That's one of the things that I find so stunning about this House bill. It still does include things that could be really problematic, and that some have suggested could even be fatal. So it's not as if they have crafted it in the most cautious manner possible relative to the reconciliation rules."
If the House does manage to pass this half-ass'd Obamacare 2.0 patch tomorrow, it'll be left to Lee and the handful of other conservatives in the Senate to not only force these regulatory matters under reconciliation, but also push for a corrective rewrite to send back to the House (one of which is the first related link below).
Here was a great interview that covers this & more from Wednesday's Mark Levin Show...
The purpose of the Constitution is to defend the individual and his or her liberty and create a government that supports that. The phrase, “living and breathing Constitution”, is always promoted by progressives. An activist court that upheld Plessy vs. Ferguson believed in a living and breathing Constitution, so did FDR with the internment of Japanese Americans and the court that upheld the Roe vs Wade decision. You want judges to apply the facts, not a living and breathing ideology. Having an originalist interpretation of the Constitution like Neil Gorsuch has nothing to do with supporting slavery, or being anti woman. ~ MLS, 3/20/17
Despite that it's more than likely Judge Gorsuch will be confirmed, Democrats continue to scheme on his nomination, lending one to better understand Jeffrey Lord's assessment that over the years Democrats have played games with the nomination process until finally rigging judicial confirmations for the Left's benefit.
Nevertheless, it's remains refreshing to clearly observe throughout this process their honest preference for judicial oligarchy (for the breadth of it leaning leftward, that is), as well as an abundant disdain for Americanism, constitutionality and the Rule of Law in general, in their own words! (H/t: TheDailyWire)
“Judge Gorsuch has also stated that he believes judges should look to the original public meaning of the Constitution when they decide what a provision of the Constitution means. This is personal, but I find this originalist judicial philosophy to be really troubling. In essence, it means that judges and courts should evaluate our constitutional rights and privileges as they were understood in 1789. However, to do so would so would not only ignore the intent of the Framers, that the Constitution would be a framework on which to build, but it severely limits the genius of what our Constitution upholds. I firmly believe the American Constitution is a living document intended to evolve as our country evolves. In 1789, the population of the United States was under four million. Today, we're 325 million and growing. At the time of our founding, African-Americans were enslaved. It was not so long after women had been burned at the stake for witchcraft, and the idea of an automobile, let alone the internet, was unfathomable. In fact, if we were to dogmatically adhere to originalist interpretations, then we would still have segregated schools, and bans on interracial marriage. Women wouldn’t be entitled to equal protection under the law, and government discrimination against LGBT Americans would be permitted. So I am concerned when I hear that Judge Gorsuch is an originalist and a strict constructionist.”
At no point did Feinstein articulate constitutionally codified rights as timeless. Also ignored were legal options for change via constitutional amendment or the passage of constitutionally-compatible legislation.
Leahy described originalism as a judicial philosophy “outside the mainstream” or contemporary jurisprudence
“Judge Gorsuch appears to have a comprehensive originalist philosophy. It’s the approach taken by jurists such as Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, or former Judge Bork. While it has gained some popularity within conservative circles, originalism, I believe, remains outside the mainstream of modern constitutional jurisprudence. It’s been twenty-five years since an originalist has been nominated to the Supreme Court. Given what we’ve seen from Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas, and Judge Gorsuch’s own record, I worry that it goes beyond being a philosophy and becomes an agenda.”
Feinstein, Leahy, and other Senate Democrats pushed Marxist themes of class warfare thoughout their monologues, framing the Supreme Court's primary role as being an avenue through which wealthy, powerful and elite individuals are to be punished for oppressing the proletariat.
Let's look at the word and its definition more closely:
In rejecting originalism, it's little doubt that they reject our founding, but unmistakable is their rejection of our Framers' clear intent for both then-present citizens and future generations ("to ourselves and our Posterity"). Their unrelenting pursuit of a 'living and breathing' redefining ultimately culminates in their desire for unlimited power (i.e., 'Rule of Men'), and if ever fully achieved, would spell the end for the Rule of Law. Tyranny much?
"Therefore, he who bids the law rule may be deemed to bid God and Reason alone rule, but he who bids man rule adds an element of the beast, and passion perverts the minds of rulers, even when they are the best of men. The law is reason unaffected by desire." ~ Aristotle (384-322 BC), “Politics.”
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." ~ James Madison (1788), "The Federalist No. 51"
ADDENDUM: A masterful rebuttal from Sen. Cruz addressing the Dem derangement...
"The voters had a direct choice. The voters understood the twenty-one men and women from whom the President would pick. And they had a very different vision of a Supreme Court justice that was put forth by Hillary Clinton. And in November, the People spoke. In what was essentially a referendum on the kind of justice that should replace Justice Scalia, the People chose originalism, textualism and rule of law. The People chose judicial humility. The People chose protecting the Bill of Rights, our free speech, our religious liberty, our Second Amendment, rather than handing policy making authority over to judges on the Supreme Court."
"A decade ago, Judge Gorsuch was confirmed by this committee for the Federal Court of Appeals by a voice vote. He was likewise confirmed by the entire United States Senate by a voice vote without a single Democrat speaking a word of opposition. Not a word of opposition from minority leader Chuck Schumer. Not from Harry Reid or Ted Kennedy or John Kerry. Not from Senators Feinstein, Leahy or Durbin, who still sit on this committee. Not even from Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. Not a one of them spoke a word against Judge Gorsuch's nomination a decade ago. And the question this hearing poses to our Democratic colleagues is what has changed? What has changed, ten years ago Judge Gorsuch was so unobjectionable he didn't merit even a whisper of disapproval? In the decades since, he has had an objectively exemplary record. By any measure, he has shown himself to be even more worthy of the bipartisan support he received back then. Unfortunately, modern reality suggests that's probably not something my Democratic colleagues feel they can do in today's political environment. Many probably believe they have no choice but to try to manufacture attacks against Judge Gorsuch, whether they want to or not, just to preserve their own political future..."
Sen. Cruz continued to dig into the baseless attacks (which can be heard above), but unquestionably put Dems on notice that the sideshow wasn’t gonna fly. Bravo, sir!
TheResurgent: Senator Ted Cruz revealed Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation that he and fellow conservative stalwarts Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Mark Meadows met with President Trump on Saturday to discuss Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, with a focus on legislation that would result in decreased premiums.
“The number one issue is premiums,” Cruz stated. “My biggest concern with the House bill is that it doesn’t lower premiums … If Republicans hold a big press conference and pat ourselves on the back that we’ve repealed Obamacare and everyone’s premiums keep going up, people will be ready to tar and feather us in the streets – and quite rightly.”
Cruz also stated that he’d been speaking around the clock with Congressional leaders about the need to completely repeal and replace Obamacare in one fell swoop as opposed to the three-step process currently being proposed by Paul Ryan and the Trump administration – a process which would require Democratic support in order to pass the Senate, a result of which the Texas firebrand said flatly, “that ain’t gonna happen.”
Conservative leaders are proposing a full repeal and replace via budget reconciliation, including the expansion of Health Savings Accounts and allowing the purchase of insurance across state lines as means of reducing premiums. Because it does not include such elements, Cruz says he cannot support the House bill in its current form.
“I cannot vote for any bill that keeps premiums rising.”
The effort is just the latest in a string of several by conservative leaders (including Cruz, Meadows, Lee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ben Sasse and others) to promote a full single-phase repeal and replace action.
Whether the meeting with Trump will result in substantive change to the repeal effort remains to be seen, but Cruz says he believes that the President is listening to the conservatives’ arguments. A strong grassroots campaign would no doubt help the cause. To share your thoughts, visit the White House contact page here.
The campaigns are over...let's get the promises right!
President Trump’s budget proposal is overall oustanding, however the one part of the bill you won’t hear discussed in the liberal media is the debt. The national debt is out of control, but the left-wing media doesn’t care. Instead they will act as the Praetorian guard of big government and viciously attack any attempt to reign in profligate, wasteful federal spending. This is unsustainable. ~ MLS, 3/16/17
President Trump's revealed his budget proposal Thursday, and immediately the headline hysterics commenced. Here's the skinny on perhaps a not-so-skinny budget, but the truth beyond the phony narratives nonetheless...
Critics are portraying these domestic cuts as shocking while Mr. Trump is advertising his defense increases as the largest in history. They’re both wrong. The annual federal budget is now more than $4 trillion, so the White House is proposing to shift a mere 1.35% of that to defense from other priorities. That’s it.
Yet, the feigned outrage of the Left (and unfortunately some of the status quo Righties) over shifting priorities from their incessant siphoning of taxpayer dollars through a grab-bag of supposed political 'untouchables' to some semblance of national sovereignty and defense, as well as budgetary maintenance that might eventually lead to fiscal responsibility one day (God forbid!), have sent a propaganda storm through the media that would have us frightened with grim tails and foreboding feelings that the end is nigh. But I would have to absolutely agree with Erick Erickson on this one: the hue and cry is tiring...
If President Trump blinks, protestors take to the street. If he yawns, a Starbucks goes up in flames by outraged anarchists. If he tweets, progressive activists burn trashcans and hurl them onto interstates blocking rush hour. There is nothing the president can do to avoid the leftwing outrage. It is exhausting just observing it.
The latest outrage is President Trump’s budget. He would like to see eighteen federal agencies abolished, saving over $3 billion. Among those agencies would be the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Immediately, progressive activists took up the cause of Big Bird. President Trump, according to the activists, would mount Big Bird’s head on a wall. Pay no attention to the fact that Big Bird is now on HBO, a for profit endeavor.
While President Trump’s budget could use entitlement reforms to help it balance, it is a step in the right direction. It increases military spending, which is badly needed. It decreases domestic spending and ends the duplication of federal services. But President Trump wants to curtail the Meals on Wheels program. The progressive outrage over this is to declare the budget “not Christian.”
Let us leave aside the humor of people who demand Christians bake cakes for same-sex weddings claiming a budget cut is anti-Christian. What is amazing is that the left thinks only the federal government can feed the elderly and poor and it is somehow an immoral act to suggest otherwise. When government becomes your religion, your arguments take on the character of religious zeal.
Meals on Wheels and other programs targeted for elimination are good programs that benefit people in need. But there is no evidence that such programs cannot be responsibly handled by non-profits and local communities. Christians, in fact, are admonished throughout the Bible to take care of widows, orphans, refugees and the poor. Thanks to an ever-expanding federal government, many Christians have abdicated personal responsibility for that care to the federal government. Churches were given a way out of needing strong social programs because the government took them over.
As a result, people became less dependent on local churches and their local community in general. Whether cause or correlation, there is no real dispute that as American society becomes increasingly secular, families break down, vitriol in the public square increases and society destabilizes. President Trump’s budget challenges the status quo, which voters in November clearly indicated they wanted challenged. His elimination of programs and eradication of duplicate services is not intended to write off the poor and needy, but to try something new and different. The vitriol has more to do with money than honest complaints. Favored programs are being cut. Planned Parenthood, the high priests of the secular left’s chief sacrament, abortion, cannot be deprived of money. We are not allowed to try anything different. The left will object no matter what. The substance of their objections amount to “we lost and we were convinced we would never lose again.” The real problems for Donald Trump and his budget are coming from congressional Republicans.
Some are outraged that he wants steep cuts to the State Department and United Nations. Others are upset he wants to cut the budget and mischief making abilities of the Environmental Protection Agency. Still others are upset he wants to increase the military’s budget. Republicans are pronouncing this budget dead on arrival.
If the framework of this budget cannot make it through a Republican congress, no balanced budget ever will. And if no balanced budget can make it through congress, we will one day soon face economic and financial catastrophe. For eight years, Washington politicians behaved like the debt and deficits do not matter. Now they have an Administration that believes both matter and the status quo does nothing but complain.
'If not now, when?' is the proverbial question that continues to be answered with 'NEVER!' by these forces who refuse restraint. Governmental self-control must be reinstated by and for the sake of its People. It's time.
"This is ass backwards! It embraces progressivism; it embraces centralism. All the talk to the contrary is BS. The Republicans have blown it, and they have blown it big time...and now the president is too." ~ Mark Levin, 3/9/17
This is the colossal cluster@#$% that happens when you put the cart before the horse (i.e., replace, or more accurately amend, before repeal)!
Sorry, not letting this one go, because it pains me to watch the new Republican-controlled administration of Trump, McConnell & Ryan FAILING LIBERTY in such a big way...
On Friday’s Mark Levin show, Full repeal of Obamacare through the budget reconciliation process in the Senate is possible and they can do it with 51 votes. Paul Ryan even said on the Mark Levin show in 2012 that 85% of Obamacare could be repealed through this process. But neither the House nor the Senate, have even attempted to pass a full repeal of the law through this process. So why won’t the Republicans do this? Because there are so many moderates and liberals in the Republican party that some of them want some aspects of Obamacare to stay.
...all they had were different listening sessions, then went behind closed doors and only allowed leaders and chairmen (most of whom you cannot label “conservative”) the ability to negotiate details.
...what the whole conservative movement really wanted on repeal is completely public and widely known for years. These are as follows:
Full repeal
Stop Medicaid expansion
Take out the regs that drive up costs
Interstate competition
Supersize HSA’s
Allow people to pay for premiums out of it so they can control their care
Equalize tax treatment (deductions preferred but tax credits could be considered if tightly structured)
This bill literally does none of those things except attempts the tax equalization component and botches even that part of it.
...we have one or two years of opportunity to get stuff done and we need to approach fights differently and drive the policy as close to conservative principles as possible.
...Obamacare repeal is a no brainer. It is literally what the GOP ran on (very successfully, I might add) for the last three election cycles. Mitch McConnell promised to “rip it out, root and branch.” President Trump said it would be one of the first things he did when he won.
The really interesting point about this moment is that it is the Ryan/McConnell leadership that has changed ZERO from their previous failed strategies. They are still head patting conservatives with rhetoric but catering to moderates with policy. They are still secretly negotiating deals without conservative input then daring conservatives in a “binary choice” to oppose “the best chance to fix health care/taxes/regulations/education” and if you oppose their crap sandwich, you are the problem.
Why can’t Ryan just simply say: 'I’m hearing some good ideas from our conservative colleagues and we’re going to work with them to address their concerns.' That's what they do with moderates. But no, instead they insist the bill is the most conservative thing ever and anyone who disagrees is a liberal who doesn’t understand conservative policy.
Take a look at Ryan’s interview with Tucker Carlson. He literally says the reason we can’t do repeal the way conservatives want is because of reconciliation, and conservatives just don’t understand how things work. Really?! We repealed MORE under reconciliation with Obama in the White House than we are with the GOP holding the majorities in the House, the Senate and our guy in the White House!
Sorry. We know for a fact more can be repealed because we did it already.
President Trump has said he wants to work with conservatives and fight for the people. Conservatives have openly said they are willing to take less than they want. GOP leaders say: you get nothing like always and we’ll just primary you like we did before.
...the conservative movement has grown up and understands the moment. GOP leadership has not and does not.
Equally dastardly was the news that came out late Friday afternoon concerning Trump's own threats towards conservatives in the GOP: Back the bill or get primaried!
President Trump has told Republican leaders that he's prepared to play hardball with congressional conservatives to pass the GOP healthcare bill, including by supporting the 2018 primary challengers of any Republican who votes against the bill.
Sources told the Washington Examiner that Trump made that threat in a White House meeting on Tuesday with House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and other members of the House GOP whip team that helps line up votes.
Since 2010, Republicans have repeatedly promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which is now universally referred to as Obamacare. Last week, Republicans finally unveiled their alternative to Obamacare and it is best described as swampcare. Far from repealing Obamacare or replacing Obamacare, it only tweaks the Affordable Care Act and does nothing to drain the swamp. ...
Swampcare violates core Republican promises going back to 2010. Republicans have taken to noting how many times they have voted to repeal Obamacare, but those times did not really count and they know it. In 2015, Republicans structured a comprehensive plan to roll back Obamacare. Every Republican supported that legislation. Now many of the same Republicans who supported the 2015 plan are refusing to support it again. They know that now it could become law. ... Republicans promised to repeal Obamacare and President Trump promised to drain the swamp. Swampcare makes the whole mess worse. Ironically, President Trump is President because his voters had enough of the Republican Party. They had enough of the leadership of the party and its pundit cheerleaders who supported every Republican expansion of government and every too clever by half compromise with Barack Obama. Now those very same establishment politicians and their pundit cheerleaders are rushing to claim swampcare is the best thing ever. President Trump’s supporters are outraged and recognize the breach of trust. But President Trump himself appears to be going along with the GOP plan.
Supporters may be hoping that this is just the opening salvo, another 'art of the deal'...but if this bill is rammed through in similar fashion as the one that started this chaos, the government take over of healthcare will escalate and costs will sore (thus ignoring our citizenry's genuine concerns yet again)...and that will all be on President Trump.
Since 2010, the GOP has pledged to repeal Obamacare and now, in the present, we know they have been lying the whole time.
Chris Pandolfo pointed out that there was a time when Trump once lambasted guys like Karl Rove for not supporting the Tea Party. Trump once loved the Tea Party. Now he’s declared war on it!
