The Senate GOP is bitterly split!

Just reading through the senators twitter feeds and there appears to be a MASSIVE split.

Some want to go all out and STOP the vaccine mandate including shutting down the government until the Demoncrats agree to stop funding it.

BIG move by Mitch because I'd say nearly half his members want to shut down the government including some reliable establishment types like Roger Marshall from Kansas (who is spearheading it, funnily enough).

Maybe they can oust him as Leader if they have the numbers and are upset enough at his surrender tactics.

Republicans are destined to win the house and probably the Senate in 2022 unless a major game changer intervenes. Shutting down the government could be that game changer.

Republicans are now confronted with the hard choice; Democrats have no other option. Democrats are destined to lose the election so they must force Republicans to shut down the government and, with the predictable aid of the mainstream media, so alienate the public that the Republicans lose.

Republicans are confronted with the choice: shut down the government and risk alienating the public or fail to shut down the government and surely alienate their base. But whose base, Donald Trump's or Mitch McConnell's? And that introduces a complicating factor for Republicans.

The problem is that Mitch McConnell's base overlaps the Democrat base insofar as both are fully committed to crony capitalism and, by extension, to personal and institutional corruption with China. Both, therefore, are quite prepared to deny the middle class providing they can mask that reality, Democrats by commitment to African-Americans and social issues and Mitch McConnell and his establishment Republicans by opposition to Democrat over the top commitment to social issues and whingeing about inflation. Shutting the government is in the political or personal interest of neither faction but to Mitch McConnell and his boys, shutting the government represents a real threat.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are betting that, with the reliable help of the media, they will be able to convince the public that the shutdown is a disaster liable to destroy the country and is wholly the fault of Republicans who are even now pushing grandma off the cliff. As noted, the Democrats must play this card or go down to certain defeat.

But the Republicans, divided as they are, must somehow convince the public that shutting down the government saves the country from certain destruction. Donald Trump's base is certain this is the case and is ready to revolt if McConnell torpedoes the effort which conservative see not just as an internecine party war, nor even a partisan conflict with Democrats but as critical to the survival of the country itself.

McConnells task, therefore, is to mask his opposition to the shutdown with some rationale that diverts attention from the real issue, which is not Covid mandate, but economic Armageddon. If McConnell chooses to condition his alleged support for shutting down the government upon a quid pro quo with Senate Democrats involving a corona mandate, the Democrats will happily make a deal, the courts are already doing that anyway, and give McConnell cover to kick the can down the road and avoid the shutdown.

The hill to die on is the economic survival of the country that forces McConnell to confront the reality of inflation, acknowledged seriousness and attach it to Democrat spending. That means that the Trump people must convince the country that they are not responsible for the shutdown, that profligate Democrats are and they must convince the country that whatever pain caused by shutdown is transitory and necessary-all this in the teeth of a corrupt media.

“Republicans have no principles to fight over and Mitch will be right back in his senate leadership position. “

100% true. What does the party stand for? In my lifetime I’ve only seen the party once conduct a Congressional campaign with a detailed platform and win (GOP gained 54 seats and the majority in Congress). That was 1994 and Newt Gingrich’s Contract for America. To their credit once they obtained the majority, in the first term they actually tried, and were successful, implementing much of that very specific agenda. Sadly though by 1996 they had been coopted by the inside the beltway establishment.

The 1994 class included Richard Burr of NC, Lindsay Graham of SC, Joe Scarborough of Florida. John Boehner, elected for the first time in 1991 was a principal architect of the Contract for America. They and most of the other 54 freshman class of 1994 ultimately repudiated limited government conservatism and became supporters of ever expanding the federal government.

In 2010 the GOP regained control of the House due to the excesses of the Obama administration, thanks to the populist Tea Party movement. Once GOP Speaker Boehner took control of the House in 2011, he distanced GOP from the Tea Party and worked with Mitch McConnell, minority leader in the Senate, and Democrats to destroy the Tea Party movement.

In the 2016 election the GOP had a sweep of the White House and both houses of Congress. President Trump would have signed any conservative and in fact implored the Republicans in Congress to fund a wall on the southern border, end Obamacare, and work to reduce the power of the entrenched bureaucracy. Instead of uniting as a party to reform the federal government with limited government conservative principles, the GOP Congress fought the GOP president and perpetuated the huge expansion of the federal government during the Obama years. The party that claimed to be “conservative” was actually the party on a mission to preserve the big government status quo.

Unless the GOP conducts the 2022 campaign with very specific legislative promises in a new “Contract with America” it will be business as usual if the party captures both houses of Congress. McConnell and McCarthy as leaders have no interest in reducing the size of government or reducing the interference of government in the lives of everyday citizens. They are fully invested in the alliance between big government and big business as well as the globalist view of the world. To them “Make America Great Again” is an anathema. Watching the Republican party for decades it is clear their behavior as legislators is frequently 180 degrees away from the positions they support while campaigning. It is easy to lie when you have no principles.

From what I can see, the party is gearing up to run another squishy campaign in 2022 based on the usual attacks against the Democrats rather than a very specific agenda of good governance.

To begin with, I think that this thread is based on Brandon's (Obama's?) experimental "vaccine" mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees.

My reservation about posting this material is this. Some states are as politically motivated with toxic (in my non-medical opinion) “vaccine” mandates as the very corrupt, unconstitutionally big federal government is imo. This is partly because the feds aren't doing their constitutionally enumerated duty to guarantee each state a republican form of government.

"Article IV, Section 4: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government [emphasis added], and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."

Please consider the following.

Why is the question of Congress's constitutional authority to do something seemingly always the last question to be considered when trying to stop the very corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification from doing something that the people don't want?

Regarding INTRAstate healthcare, consider that respected constitutional experts as early as President Thomas Jefferson, along with several Supreme Court justices in the 19th and 20th centuries, had all clarified that the states have never expressly given the feds the power to dictate peacetime INTRAstate healthcare policy, including no power to dictate quarantines, a vaccine-related issue. (Obamacare is unconstitutional imo.)

In fact, note 10th Amendment-protected state power to "quarantine" in three of the excerpts below.

"10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
"Many are the exercises of power reserved to the States wherein a uniformity of proceeding would be advantageous to all. Such are quarantines, health laws [emphasis added], regulations of the press, banking institutions, training militia, etc., etc." —Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan, 1807.
”State inspection laws, health laws [emphasis added], and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
"They form a portion of that immense mass of legislation, which embrace every thing in the territory of a state not surrendered to the general government. Inspection laws, quarantine laws, and health laws [emphasis added], as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a state, and others, which respect roads, fences, &c. are component parts of state legislation, resulting from the residuary powers of state sovereignty. No direct power over these is given to congress, and consequently they remain subject to state legislation, though they may be controlled by congress, when they interfere with their acknowledged powers." —Justice Joseph Story, Article I, Section 10, Clause 2, 1833.
“Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description [emphasis added], as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a state and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass.” —Justice Barbour, New York v. Miln., 1837.
”Simply this, that the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Constitution, is in the States and not in the federal government [emphases added]. I have sought to effect no change in that respect in the Constitution of the country.” —John Bingham, Congressional. Globe. 1866, page 1292 (see top half of third column)
“Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously [emphases added] beyond the power of Congress.” –Linder v. United States, 1925.
"From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]." —United States v. Butler, 1936.

The bottom line about corrupt lawmakers who support Brandon's “vaccine” mandate is this. They all need to lose their jobs under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment for open rebellion against the federal government's constitutionally limited powers imo. This is evidenced by their continual abuse of legislative powers, using those powers to scandalously unconstitutionally expand the powers of the already unconstitutionally big federal government.

"14th Amendment, Section 3: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same [emphases added], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."

Lawmakers who don't support Brandon's "vaccine" mandate but didn't speak up to challenge its constitutionality can find new jobs too.

The ultimate remedy for unconstitutionally big, alleged election-stealing, Democratic Party-pirated federal and state governments oppressing everybody under their boots...

Consider that all the states can effectively “secede” from the unconstitutionally big federal government by doing the following.

Patriots need to primary federal and state elected officials who don't send voters email ASAP that clearly promises to do the following.

Federal and state lawmakers need to promise in their emails to introduce resolutions no later than 100 days after start of new legislative sessions that proposes an amendment to the Constitution to the states, the amendment limited to repealing the 16th and ill-conceived 17th Amendments (16&17A).

In fact, I challenge the states to ram the repeal amendment for 16&17A through the ratification process faster than Nancy Pelosi irresponsibly rammed unconstitutional Obamacare through the House.

Insights welcome.

“But the Republicans, divided as they are, must somehow convince the public that shutting down the government saves the country from certain destruction.”

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln - A political party divided on its vision of good governance cannot lead a divided nation to unity. Republicans cannot lead because they cannot agree on core principles and a common vision of limited government as an alternative to socialism. Democrats are fully committed to socialism. Republicans are divided between a limited government faction and the corporate big government faction. These factions cannot coexist and the conflict within the party between the two factions allows the unified Democrats to enact their collectivist vision of governance and society whether in or out of power.

In effect the division in the party is also one between different types of thinkers. The limited government types are more visionary, desirous of significant change and willing to take on risk to effect a change in direction. The big government corporate alliance types are risk averse technicians and administrators seeking to improve the “system” through minor tweaks and modifications.

In the corporate world we have seen the same power struggle. Visionaries create, build and rapidly grow new businesses with new products and concepts for reaching customers. Once the visionaries pass on, the lawyers and financiers take over control focusing on personal financial gain and tight control of operations. Over time the company loses its strength in the market alienating customers, sustaining obsolete products and practices, and failing to innovate while those in the executive suite continue to be overcompensated for ever declining performance. In the business world the lethargic companies are either broken up or milked to death, usually by outsiders who take over and wipe out the existing management.

History shows that for nations there are two paths when a nation is in the downward spiral and government ceases to function to the benefit of the people:
1) Overthrow of the government from within, and replacement by an authoritarian dictatorship
2) War, defeat, and takeover by outside forces.

Whichever of the above scenarios play out, the losing side experiences complete loss of economic, social and political status/power, and often death for entire families in order to ensure there is no counterrevolution.

Nations in a downward spiral rarely build consensus for peaceful transition to a new vision. Such a transition almost always invariably results in loss of power and status for the existing elites, which is unacceptable to them as long as they hold power. Change must be imposed from within by the brutal use of power (American Civil War) or must come from the outside through use of power and brutal implementation of new governance.

We are seeing the struggle for #1 playing out in the domestic political sphere. It is not implausible to see a leftist regime suspend the “racist obsolete” Constitution, create a new one, and proceed with one party rule with the backing of the military, the bureaucracy, and elite institutions (academia, media, multinational corporations).

The potential for #2 also exists in the form of an alliance between Russia, China, North Korea and Iran provoking a conflict with the US which the rest of the world sits out. Such conflict does not have to go nuclear to be successful. These four enemies of the US are well down the road in developing and employing technologies which can quickly eliminate the high tech systems relied on by today’s military as well as defend against attacks by the US military. Cyber warfare and anti-satellite satellites are already deployed. The US military has admitted the US has no counter to the hypersonic missiles being deployed by Russia and China which have the potential to quickly destroy the US carrier task forces in a quick strike.

Take out the military observation and guidance satellites and the US military is blind. Take out the carrier task forces and the US military can no longer control the world’s oceans and project force globally. Take out US military communications, shut down the internet, and shut down key industrial and energy installations in the homeland through cyberattacks and the US transportation system and economy is severely damaged without firing a shot. It is very possible if such a preemptive non-nuclear strike took place, the Biden administration would negotiate a “peace” without retaliating with nuclear weapons. Such a peace would certainly involve the demilitarization of the United States and strict “oversight” of US governance by a UN or other international body including the imposition of a new Constitution. This international oversight would likely be welcomed by socialists and globalists in the United States.

Sadly the status quo faction of the GOP is focused on preserving governance that is proven to be ineffective, unaffordably costly to the economy, and oppressive to its own voter base. They are attempting to preserve what they perceive to be a “middle ground” which no longer has relevance. It is ironical the GOP RINO leadership supports the agenda of large corporations at a time when they have almost completely shifted their support to the leftist socialists. In doing so their behavior has alienated the limited government voter base of the party. It is a formula for suicide which the leadership either cannot see or is intentionally embracing. Could it be their current passive behavior is due to them having insight as to what is to come and they are attempting to protect themselves and their families?

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