Is the Republican Party Finished?

The American Thinker ^ | December 29, 2010 | Michael Filozof

[Scanian]

The lame-duck session of the 111th Congress proved one thing beyond a doubt: the Republican Party does not represent the interests of conservatives. Despite the midterm election tidal wave, in which the Republican Party gained 63 House seats (eclipsing its historic1994 success against Clinton), congressional Republicans failed to leverage their victory into political clout and collapsed like a house of cards in the lame-duck session.

The last two weeks ought to have sickened conservatives. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spectacularly failed to hold his caucus together to even delay ratification of the START treaty until the 112th Congress is seated in January. Republican leftists Olympia Snowe and Lisa Murkowski sided with Democrats to end the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, forcing the gay agenda from the streets of San Francisco right into the U.S. Marine Corps. Congressional Republicans agreed to cut FICA taxes for Social Security (which is underfunded already) and expand the Democratic Party's welfare state constituency by extending unemployment benefits -- in exchange for maintaining current tax rates for a paltry two years. The deal will add billions to the deficit. Tea Party darling Scott Brown, mocked by Obama for driving a truck in his insurgent 2009 campaign in which he stole "Ted Kennedy's seat" from the Democrats, voted for Obama's agenda on all of these issues.

Give the Democratic devils their due. They are astute students of Machiavelli.

[muawiyah]

Obama needs an appropriation for the purpose ~ they do this with LINE ITEMS.

START hasn't been funded yet.

[gogeo]

Obama needs an appropriation for the purpose ~ they do this with LINE ITEMS...

For a guy who sounds like he's familiar with the political process, you seem stunningly naive.

[muawiyah]

One does suppose the President could use discretionary funds ~ perhaps his hamburger budget, to rehabilitate a nuclear core reprocessing facility ~ but it's not likely.

You may be thinking of the CIA "black budget". It's not always that "black" ~ their printing costs used to show up in my own "printing budget".

What CIA does is scatter the expenditures. What I don't think you get away with so easy is any work that requires thousands of tons of concrete, hundreds of works, and public contracts with private companies.

[Jay Redhawk]

I think we keep pushing the same way we have over the last 18 months, and concentrate on electing individual conservatives. Hopefully, the Tea party will continue to gain strength and not fizzle out like other movements have. For many years I advocated a third party, but now, because of the Tea party’s example, I believe a less structured system is best for the conservative cause. In other words, if no one group of individuals is in charge then there will be no one to sell us out. I always thought that the all too common RINO stab in the back was the worst thing the GOP had to offer.

[gogeo]

This would probably be carried out under DOE. I suspect the funds would be transferred from some other DOE program.

You don't think Obama will be slowed down by a little matter like that, do you? Obamacare hasn't been funded yet, and they magically found funds to set up an office and hire staff.

[gogeo]

I believe that Plan A should be to take back the GOP. It will take at least another election cycle to do so, and another after that to clean house.

Plan B, if the GOP is beyond redemption, then I would support a third party supporting Tea Party principles. I think the GOP would die a quick death.

[muawiyah]

Obama had a billion dollars lined up in a bill to fund his ObamaKKKare set up operation.

The Dems thought they had it hidden. They didn't. But all of these offices, et al, require specific appropriations.