The Self-Immolation of the Republican Party

[Bigun]

No the base doesn't understand that Congress cannot do much in the face of a veto.

GOP-e has their own issues.

That is just flat WRONG!  The house alone can completely defund the government if it chooses to do so! They DO NOT need either the president or the senate to do it!

[OldSaltUSN]

Okay, then aside from the snarky response of "And 47 pages of Ted Cruz saying Trump supporters will be held responsible isn't boring?", I'll go back to a point I made earlier.  How is that it that places like FR and this kept going in years other than those in which there was a Presidential election?  Don't we manage to read, post articles, and exchange information even when there isn't an ongoing primary campaign? 

Is it really only possible to have political discussions when the prospective nominee is controversial?  That's it??  Didn't most of us post articles or participate in conversations about Obama, terrorism, socialism, etc. etc. etc.?

This ain't "any other year".   The USA is heading to the shi... ah.. "commode", and we have no solution to Hitlary or Trump, either of which will send the country to hell faster than Obama.  That concern kind of dominates the conversation, when a bunch of people with the same get together.

But point taken, TBR needs to spread it's wings and become a more multi-dimensional site.   Anyone wanna talk about building houses?   

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

That is just flat WRONG!  The house alone can completely defund the government if it chooses to do so! They DO NOT need either the president or the senate to do it!

Actually no. Spending bills originate in the House. GOP lost every budget showdown it tried. Every one.

[Bigun]

Actually no. Spending bills originate in the House. GOP lost every budget showdown it tried. Every one.

The didn't try hard enough! EVERY SINGLE WORD of what I said above is true!

[OldSaltUSN]

The Gipper must be looking down at us from heaven, thinking to himself:

"But guys, I TOLD YOU about the eleventh commandment ..."

If ever there was a demonstration of why Reagan refused to attack other party candidates personally or morally, it's Trump, Trump, Trump!!

The results are clear for all to see.

[geronl]

No the base doesn't understand that Congress cannot do much in the face of a veto.

They need to do the right thing, even if it destined to fail. Make the fool veto them.

[EasyAce]

Trash Hillary because she directly threatens our principles.

Hilarious Rodent Clinton does a splendid job of trashing herself---every time she opens her mouth.

Argue those principles in the context of what the Dems in general -- not just Hillary -- are trying to do.  I've posted a bunch in the military thread about what this Administration is going to our military.

If you were to compile a list of the ten worst kept secrets in this year's politics, that would have to
be among the top five, at minimum.

Not casting a vote advances nothing.  It's simply silence.  Not voting for Trump and publicly focusing attention on how the Democrats are attacking our principles does advance those principles.

Oh, I'm casting a vote in November. Unless there's an unforeseen miracle at the Republican convention,
my November vote will be "none of the above" on the presidential line. Sorry,
but if the house is burning and this country was stupid enough to offer nothing more than
a choice between which arsonist will fight the fire, include me out.

(One very good reason to bother about Donaldus Minimus: the potential impact he might have
against down-ticket candidates. I agree with you that slapping his supporters around is a fool's
errand, and I have done my best not to do so here and elsewhere. I also urge you to ponder this:
we don't know the actual extent to which actual Republicans pushed Donaldus Minimus toward
the nomination, thanks to enough open primary states where you could also say it isn't really
knowable just how many actual Democrats pushed either Hilarious Rodent Clinton or Bernt Weenie
Sandwich. If nothing else is accomplished out of this year's electoral nightmare, perhaps it will
seed at long enough last the eventual dismantling of open primaries which ought never to have been
consecrated in the first place.)

[HonestJohn]

Self-immolation? No. This was a hostile takeover.   

The takeover could not have occurred without the votes. 

[HonestJohn]

I don't see it either.  If it were up to the FBI, she likely would be, but that's outside their authority.  If the AG would do it at all, it would be before the convention when some alternatives are available.  Even if the FBI concludes its investigation, the report may well be sealed until after the election, unless it clears her.

The FBI is subordinate to the DOJ.  The DOJ is led by the Attorney General.  The Attorney General is appointed by the President.  The President is campaigning in support of Hillary.

Ergo, the FBI can do nothing but investigate.

[HonestJohn]

That is just flat WRONG!  The house alone can completely defund the government if it chooses to do so! They DO NOT need either the president or the senate to do it!

Not until they get a funding bill passed into law.  Which either requires a Presidential signature or enough support to override the veto.

Otherwise, all they can do is let current spending lapse (aka: the government shutdown).

[HonestJohn]

Yes, but they also benefited greatly from the situation.  There were so many other candidates that the majority was split between many choices.  Trump and what I now call the GOPt only won a plurality of support.  They used insults and slander and absurdities to keep the conversation off issues.  So on the one hand, yes he won legitimately of sorts.  On the other hand, it was not exactly ethical and principled.

This is very true.  But it's also showing that there is a unified and significant plurality in the GOP that wants a nativist, authoritarian leader to take from the 'undeserving' and give the spoils to the 'right' people.

[OldSaltUSN]

The FBI is subordinate to the DOJ.  The DOJ is led by the Attorney General.  The Attorney General is appointed by the President.  The President is campaigning in support of Hillary.

Ergo, the FBI can do nothing but investigate.

The FBI can make an arrest based on probable cause, and dare the DOJ to decline to prosecute.  Then the FBI can release the evidence supporting probable cause, and the public can ask why Obama's DOJ declined to prosecute the perp.  Hillary can claim it's "all political", but the only politics show will be by Democrat appointees violating the oath of office, and a lawless President using the DOJ for partisan purposes.

Sure, the FBI would have to be professional enough to put their careers on the line.  However, they have sworn an oath.  I was a military officer.  I WOULD fall on my sword to keep my oath of office, just as many commissioned officer's have done at times throughout history.   One does not always get to pick his hill to die on, but when the cause is just, you have no choice.  We don't do coup's in America, but we also do not obey unlawful orders, or decline to honor our oaths for political or personal gain.

The FBI as an institution needs to do it's job, period.  Some FBI agents have serious, difficult, personal decisions to make vis-a-vis Obama and Clinton.    It's not easy for a senior FBI agent, or supervisor, to push an indictment on a Presidential candidate, when he knows that the DOJ will not presented it to a grand jury, and he'll be castigated by the country's press,  the President, half of Congress, and he very well may lose his job and pension.  However, if that's the call of duty, it's time to head out to that hill.

[OldSaltUSN]

Actually no. Spending bills originate in the House. GOP lost every budget showdown it tried. Every one.

You can't win a battle that your refuse to fight.

The ONLY time that the GOP tried to exercise the House's Constitutional power of the purse was with Gingrich's renegades in 1995, and the GOP House leadership caved almost as soon as it started, and the orchestrated MSM blowback kicked in.   A GOP House NEVER seriously tried it again.  Same with the impeachment of Clinton.  The House caved, and that was the end of any legislative brake on Executive power.  As much as Gingrich was a "lion" in leading both efforts, the GOP-e RINO's cut him off at his knees, and I'm not sure he had the courage to press the House's Constitutional advantage over the President in any case.

We are where we are with the Obama imperial Presidency, because multiple GOP Congresses valued the perks and cash that came with their office more than they cared about the Constitution.   The GOP-e tossed in the towel PREEMPTIVELY during Obama, allowing Obama to do anything he wanted, regardless of the law.  Either Clinton or Trump will do the same.  The ONLY thing that might restore the balance of power is both the successful impeachment AND imprisonment of a President - any President, to re-establish the Constitutional limits on the executive branch.

It's all too little too late.  What the GOP-e gave up for a pittance, the country will regain only through blood, if at all.

[DB]

No, once again, I'm not asking anyone to defend Trump.  He's indefensible.  But why let the MSM dictate that the only conversation we should be having is about Trump?  The stock response could just as easily be "I'm not going to defend Trump -- he made the comments, and should be the guy defending them.  But what I want to talk about is (insert latest screwed up thing Hillary or Obama has said or done)."

Hillary and Obama are getting a free pass because the only thing Republicans apparently want to talk about is Trump.  Now on a message board, that's only somewhat boring because we're an echo chamber.  But in the larger world, with GOP political figures who should be firing salvos against the Democrats, talking incessantly about Trump is handing a win on our principles to the Democrats, because almost nobody is taking the time/effort to challenge them.

I'd say Hillary doesn't get much time here because she's a known quantity. In addition there are few here that have much of differing opinion of her that would generate much debate. And the bottom line, Hillary isn't running as our party's representative. Trump on the other hand is all over the map and there are many differing opinions here of him and that leads to debate. And, this is a big and, Trump is supposed to represent our party and if he gets the final nod for the nomination, I lose my party of 36 years and that's no small thing to me. That makes me angry. I will not belong to a party that is lead by that man.

And last but not least, at least for me, I'm very busy trying to survive and I don't have time to follow the many other news stories posted here so I have to pick and choose what is most important to me. And Trump at the top of the Republican party is it for me.

[HonestJohn]

The FBI can make an arrest based on probable cause, and dare the DOJ to decline to prosecute.  Then the FBI can release the evidence supporting probable cause, and the public can ask why Obama's DOJ declined to prosecute the perp.  Hillary can claim it's "all political", but the only politics show will be by Democrat appointees violating the oath of office, and a lawless President using the DOJ for partisan purposes.

Sure, the FBI would have to be professional enough to put their careers on the line.  However, they have sworn an oath.  I was a military officer.  I WOULD fall on my sword to keep my oath of office, just as many commissioned officer's have done at times throughout history.   One does not always get to pick his hill to die on, but when the cause is just, you have no choice.  We don't do coup's in America, but we also do not obey unlawful orders, or decline to honor our oaths for political or personal gain.

The FBI as an institution needs to do it's job, period.  Some FBI agents have serious, difficult, personal decisions to make vis-a-vis Obama and Clinton.    It's not easy for a senior FBI agent, or supervisor, to push an indictment on a Presidential candidate, when he knows that the DOJ will not presented it to a grand jury, and he'll be castigated by the country's press,  the President, half of Congress, and he very well may lose his job and pension.  However, if that's the call of duty, it's time to head out to that hill.

The FBI cannot arrest without an arrest warrant, which must come from a judge within the DOJ.

[Chieftain]

The FBI can make an arrest based on probable cause, and dare the DOJ to decline to prosecute.  Then the FBI can release the evidence supporting probable cause, and the public can ask why Obama's DOJ declined to prosecute the perp.  Hillary can claim it's "all political", but the only politics show will be by Democrat appointees violating the oath of office, and a lawless President using the DOJ for partisan purposes.

Sure, the FBI would have to be professional enough to put their careers on the line.  However, they have sworn an oath.  I was a military officer.  I WOULD fall on my sword to keep my oath of office, just as many commissioned officer's have done at times throughout history.   One does not always get to pick his hill to die on, but when the cause is just, you have no choice.  We don't do coup's in America, but we also do not obey unlawful orders, or decline to honor our oaths for political or personal gain.

The FBI as an institution needs to do it's job, period.  Some FBI agents have serious, difficult, personal decisions to make vis-a-vis Obama and Clinton.    It's not easy for a senior FBI agent, or supervisor, to push an indictment on a Presidential candidate, when he knows that the DOJ will not presented it to a grand jury, and he'll be castigated by the country's press,  the President, half of Congress, and he very well may lose his job and pension.  However, if that's the call of duty, it's time to head out to that hill.

I read someplace that a large number of active FBI agents are prior service US Marine Corps Officers who take their oaths and political independence very seriously.

The FBI can also press the Attorney General to appoint a secret Grand Jury to hear evidence in large complex criminal investigations.  They can present evidence to that Grand Jury who can hand down a series of sealed indictments that will all be unsealed when it is time to make arrests and press charges based upon those indictments.

I believe James Comey has the guts and integrity to have pressed AG Lynch hard enough to agree to a Grand Jury, and to hold her feet to the fire to keep that fact confidential from even the White House, whose staff may very well be involved in this too.

I do not rule anything out.  There is a great deal of circumstantial evidence supporting a secret GJ and only time will tell if that is true or not.  The FBI knows full well that accusing a Clinton of anything will go nowhere, but unsealing indictments for multiple violations of the Espionage Act cannot be spun any longer.

Again, the FBI does not conduct "security reviews".  They are conducting a criminal investigation, likely supported by a sitting Grand Jury.

 

[OldSaltUSN]

There is a great deal of circumstantial evidence supporting a secret GJ and only time will tell if that is true or not.  The FBI knows full well that accusing a Clinton of anything will go nowhere, but unsealing indictments for multiple violations of the Espionage Act cannot be spun any longer.

Again, the FBI does not conduct "security reviews".  They are conducting a criminal investigation, likely supported by a sitting Grand Jury.

 

Well, wouldn't that be a pleasant "October surprise" for the butcher of Benghazi, and her "Billy the crook" husband.  Any conspiracy investigation related to the SOS selling influence (also on the table) is going to entangle Bill, and that would be pleasantly exciting.  It would be akin to O.J. beating the murder wrap for decapitating his wife (and the restaurant delivery guy), only to effectively receive life in prison for going over to a politically connected (remember, Vegas) scam artist hocking his stolen memorabilia, to set him straight on "ownership".  In this case, Bill escapes Whitewater, and 8 years of scandals in his administration, only to be nabbed on a "speeding ticket" of working the con with his wife to score a $100M payday from foreign interests.

Now, if only the GOP had an honest, conservative candidate waiting in the wings to take on "crooked Hillary".  Unfortunately, the GOP is fresh out, so we have the GOP crook against the Donkey's crook.