Free Republic

Link only: http://nation.com.pk/blogs/21-Sep-2015/just-when-you-needed-establishment-gop-candidates-to-do-well

When it comes to sneering contempt for ordinary people, it's hard to out-perform the left, with its long, bloody history of mass murders by tiny radical elites. But we are now being treated to conservative pundits' revolt against the base, a most revealing moment in these dangerous times. I won't name names (you already know them), but the punditocracy is ablaze with outrage that the voters might actually pick a candidate – in this case, Donald Trump. It doesn't matter if you're pro or contra Trump. What I find a little shocking is how the scribbler class is openly trying...

Donald Trump went on State of the Union Sunday with Jake Tapper. During the discussion Tapper questioned him on the Muslim problem. Trump reminded Tapper, “It wasn’t people from Sweden who blew up the World Trade Center, Jake.” The Examiner reported: After refusing to reprimand a supporter who talked about the “problem” with Muslims in the United States at a town hall this week, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump doubled down Sunday, saying there is a “very severe problem” with some Muslims. “It wasn’t people from Sweden who blew up the World Trade Center,” Trump told Jake Tapper on CNN’s...

"Yes, I believe American people are intelligent enough to make decisions," said FEC chairwoman Ann Ravel. The chairwoman of the federal agency responsible for overseeing the nation's campaign finance laws has suggested that federal authorities should help Americans to make "thoughtful" political contributions. The comment came during a Thursday meeting of the Federal Election Commission. The agency was considering whether to issue an advisory decision for an organization called "Democracy Rules" that created a game-like platform for making political contributions. According to the rules of the platform, participants vote for one of a few issues in a given category, like...

Two of the first, post-September 16 CNN debate polls have been released and they show Donald Trump with a commanding lead. Chuck Todd said on NBC’s Meet the Press, “Trump laps the field at 29%, more than double of Ben Carson, and here comes Carly Fiorina moving into third place into double digits at 11% followed by Jeb Bush, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 96% , and Marco Rubio.” In a statement to Breitbart News, Trump declared that these polls prove he was the clear winner of the CNN debate this week. “According to the latest NBC News poll, I continue...

For some years, below the surface, a quiet counter-revolution has been advancing in the base of the Republican Party and in the country in general, while the party’s establishment elites in Washington have continued on with business as usual, seemingly oblivious to the unrest of the rank and file, as if fly-over red state voters could be taken for granted. This counter-revolution was conceived and undertaken to change the trajectory of America’s departure from its founding principles -- to bring reform to the GOP rather than to overthrow the party. In short, the hope was to reverse Republican establishment diffidence...

President Obama and Pope Francis may be sympatico on climate change, capitalism, and other far-left issues, but when it comes to the teachings of the Catholic Church, they don't agree on much. The president will put this to the test, because he has invited a pro-abortion nun, a gay bishop, and a transgender female to the White House to meet the pontiff. Pope Francis has shown himself to be tolerant, but isn't this a slap in the face to so publicly challenge Catholic doctrine? Breitbart: President Obama will apparently test just how far Pope Francis’ notorious tolerance will go by...

If John Boehner survives this autumn as speaker, he may owe his job to Democrats. A group of House conservatives is threatening to try and topple Boehner if he does not risk a government shutdown by making an all-out fight to defund Planned Parenthood this month. Led by Representative Mark Meadows, the conservatives would bring up a rarely-used procedural motion calling for the election of a new speaker. If 30 or more Republicans opposed Boehner, he’d need Democratic votes to defeat the motion and retain the speakership. It’s a nearly unprecedented choice for Democrats, and one that the party is...

With a major conservative rebellion on their hands, the establishment controllers of the Republican Party have planned their most sophisticated manipulation of voters to date—to make sure public backlash against Obama accrues to an establishment controlled Republican and not a true conservative. Ever wonder why the GOP has promoted and allowed an unprecedented 17 Republican candidates to crowd the field for president? It was not by accident. By flooding the field with a variety of controlled candidates they can fracture and water down conservative support for the two or three candidates who aren’t controlled by the establishment, and then use...

Talk of deposing John A. Boehner has reached such a crescendo that one frustrated House Republican stood up in a closed-door meeting Wednesday night and said she was tired of would-be leadership candidates contacting her about supporting them. Rep. Kristi Noem of South Dakota told the GOP conference Wednesday she didn’t appreciate all the calls she’s received from potential leadership candidates asking for her vote, multiple members told CQ Roll Call. It’s that early jockeying that has a number of conservatives questioning whether the speaker can survive through the end of the year. Asked how the Ohio Republican’s foes could...

Via Sean Sullivan at Twitter Sean Sullivan ‏@WaPoSean · 29m29 minutes ago .@JebBush responds to Trump in Mackinac speech: "Barack Obama is a talented man -- and by the way he's an American. He's a Christian."

Setting aside personality clashes for a night, the Republican Party's 2016 contest shifted to substance as a slate of White House hopefuls vowed to steer the nation sharply to the right as they courted conservatives in battleground South Carolina.

WASHINGTON – The Empire strikes back? First, the Republican Party made Donald Trump sign an oath of loyalty by pledging to support its eventual presidential nominee and not run as a third-party candidate. Now, the establishment GOP may be planning to do the very thing it made Trump promise not to do: bolt from the Republican party and run a third-party campaign. Mark McKinnon, former President George W. Bush’s chief media strategist, suggested a scenario to NPR the GOP elite might follow if it looks like Trump will win the party’s presidential nomination. “The Republican establishment completely freaks out. They...

A fear is sweeping over official Washington. Like teenagers whose lenient parents have let them get away with way too much over the years, Washington's political class is afraid that this time the voters really mean to give the politicians what they deserve. Both Democratic and Republican voters are unhappy and have shown great reluctance to accept the supposed inevitability of a Clinton-Bush presidential election. Democratic voters don't have many ways to express their frustration, but Republicans have lots of choices. And that's what's scaring the politicians. The fear was expressed in a recent column by Chris Cillizza of The...

Mitch McConnell should have taken Harry Reid’s deal on Iran, GOP Sen. Jeff Flake said in an interview Thursday. The Arizonan said that it “does not make sense” to hold repeated procedural votes on Iran that are sure to fail, as the Senate is doing on Thursday with amendments that would require Iran to recognize Israel and release Americans held in Iran. Instead, Flake said Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) and his lieutenants should have reached an agreement with Minority Leader Reid (D-Nev.) to have a final vote on a resolution disapproving of the Iran nuclear deal at a 60-vote...

Republican congressional leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell have become a big, wide target on the 2016 campaign trail. Not just for Democrats, as you’d expect, but for presidential candidates of their own party who are calling out the House speaker and Senate majority leader for not doing more to advance a conservative agenda in Congress. Sen. Ted Cruz, one of the most anti-establishment candidates in the field, has taken the lead in criticizing the GOP leaders. Even some of the more establishment-oriented candidates like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have heaped blame on them. Those candidates are playing to...

There is one enduring observation about contemporary party politics that serves as a guide to those perplexed by the actions of our politicians: whereas Democrats harness their base to advance the party’s liberal agenda, the Republican establishment works to undermine, deceive, and disenfranchise its own base the minute they have pocketed their support in the general election. Everything else makes sense once you internalize this observation. The latest artifice from the GOP establishment is on display this week with their newest plan to make an end-run around the base and fund Planned Parenthood. This time they plan to highjack the...

John Boehner appears secure in his speakership -- for now. Senior House Republicans are beginning to close ranks behind Boehner, blunting conservatives who are trying to oust the speaker because they're frustrated he isn't more confrontational with President Barack Obama. The rapidly shifting developments are giving Boehner and his leadership team space to move forward this month with a complicated plan to fund the government through the fall without immediately restricting money to Planned Parenthood, something bound to prompt a sharp outcry from conservatives. House Republican leaders are expected to soon move forward with a short-term funding bill. Separately, they...

We have less than five months before the primary voting begins and, perhaps more to the point, less than 14 until the general election. The clock is ticking for the candidates, of course, but it’s also counting down for the infrastructure which will handle the tedious chore of counting all the votes. In many states, election officials are taking a very worried look at the no longer newfangled electronic voting machines which were put in place after the hanging chad debacle of the 2000 election and finding them unready for the task. (Politico) When Americans head to the polls...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged Wednesday that he and the House Speaker are discussing a short-term government funding bill to avoid a shutdown on Oct. 1. McConnell (R-Ky.) also warned his GOP colleagues that they are almost certainly going to have to accept spending levels above those in the 2011 Budget Control Act that introduced the sequester, the series of automatic cuts and ceilings meant to restrain federal spending. The GOP leader blamed Democrats for not allowing Republicans to move forward on any appropriations bills, which he said had delayed any progress. “And so we are inevitably going to...