Posted on 03/25/2017 6:22:09 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Free Republic stands for God, family, country. We generally look to Judeo-Christian* guidance on issues of law, morality, justice, freedom, life, family and civil society. And we have a Christian self-governing, self-reliant, individual accountability & responsibility, you gotta work if able-bodied and want to eat attitude on cultural and societal issues. And a Christian pro-Constitution, original intent, pro-liberty, pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, restricted government, small government, states rights, individual rights, free enterprise position on political and civil matters.
*Note: I say Judeo-Christian because Jesus was a Jew and referred to the Ten Commandments, Jewish law, beliefs and customs and the scripture he quoted was from the Torah, ie, the Hebrew Bible and basically today's Old Testament. If you believe in the Bible (Old and New Testaments) and the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, etc, then you believe in our one true Judeo-Christian God.
We take the Bible, the Declaration, the Constitution and our Christian founding and heritage seriously, though we are sometimes backsliders. We the people formed our original Christian states (and they were indeed Christian as the original constitutions of all 13 states openly declared it so), and after the revolution we the people of the original Christian states established and ratified the Constitution and formed the new national government.
We the people of the original states through our ratifying representatives agreed to delegate certain enumerated powers to the new national government and limit it to just those delegated and enumerated powers, reserving all others to our existing Christian state and local governments and to we the people.
We the people of the original Christian states also included a Bill of Rights that prohibited our newly established limited national government from interfering into our God-given (per the Declaration and common understanding) inalienable rights to free speech, freedom of religion, right to keep and bear arms, right to speedy trial before our peers, etc, etc. We had just rebelled against a tyrannical king and there was no way we were going to sign on to or allow a newly formed central government to rule over us or interfere into our currently long established Christian governments and communities, or deny us our God-given rights or take our guns or lock us up on some trumped up federal charge, etc.
The God-given right to our individual freedoms (including the right to freely exercise our Christian religion) and to self-government was of paramount concern to the founders and to we the people and to our original states. We had no intent of signing away our rights to community and even state level Christian governments. The Constitution and Bill of Rights was intended to keep the newly established federal government OUT of our state and local and individual matters! It restricted the federal government not the states, ie, a community or even a state recognizing God as our Creator and source of all rights, and or communities celebrating Christmas or Easter is NOT a violation of the first amendment, nor is prayer offered from a public space.
The above is my understanding and is critical to the positions I take today. If I am proved wrong about any of the above then I may need to rethink my personal philosophy in regards to God, Christianity and the Constitution.
The primary and then the first dodged bullet.
I supported Cruz before and at the start of the primaries due to his obvious Christian constitutional conservative positions and track record of defending the Constitution. IMHO, he stood head and shoulders over Bush, Rubio, Kascich, Paul and other assorted GOPe RINOs, globalists, amnesty pushers, establishment hangers on and unknown newbies, etc. I didn't care much at all for Trump. Thought he was an untrustworthy chameleon and charlatan. Wrote him off completely.
And then I began watching his rallies and listening to him explain his positions. Build the wall, enforce the law, deport them all, end sanctuary cities, end anchor babies, slap a moratorium on Muslim immigration, cut taxes, cut spending, cut regulations, cut the government, make better trade deals, bring back manufacturing and jobs, dump the EPA and global warming, bring back coal, gas & oil, rebuild the military AND (as all the other Republican hopefuls pledged: REPEAL OBAMACARE!
Ok, so I'm impressed. The guy sounds like a Reagan conservative. But I'm still a Cruz guy. As I continue watching and listening to both and then start reading Trump's plans as he fleshes them out on his website, I get even more interested. His initial tax plan even out Reagan'd Reagan. He proposed cutting all taxes, but especially cutting the corporate tax to ZERO! Now that piqued my interest way up! What a boost to the economy and jobs that would be (unfortunately, cutting the corp tax rate to zero was later in the primary modified to 15%, I suspect after GOP bean counters got involved).
So now I have two favorites in the race. Cruz was my guy but I could be happy with Trump. If either of these guys won the primary, I'd back him to the hilt. Even thought it'd be great if they partnered up on the ticket.
And as the race progressed, it was impossible not to see that Trump was not only a great campaigner, and a great communicator, but he was also a great fighter and wasn't going to rollover for the establishment or the media. He takes his message straight to the people and does not apologize or back down.
One by one he knocks off anyone who attacks him, whether they be an opponent, a pundit, the GOP, the DEMs, the establishment or the media. We can't spare this man, he fights.
So it eventually gets down to Trump vs Cruz, but Trump is way ahead. Cruz has been holding off to this point, but now he has no choice. If he wants to win, Cruz has to take Trump head-on and the nasty battle begins. Again, Trump is the more aggressive campaigner and fighter and he pulls it out.
And the most aggressive campaigner and fighter is exactly what we needed to defeat Hillary and the democrats and the media AND the entire establishment ruling class of both major political parties.
His own party stood against him! Even FOX News and most of the so-called "conservative" media!
It was a miracle that Trump won. "He had no path to 270!" No one thought he could possibly make it. Coming down to the wire I think even Trump thought he'd lost. And then as the last handful of states were coming in, the network vote counters all agreed Trump had no path to a win. Then boom. Don't remember if it was Michigan or Wisconsin, but after Trump won whichever came in first, there was a long pregnant pause as the Network vote counters tried and tried, but couldn't calculate any clear path to 270 from the remaining states... for Hillary!
Trump won the presidency and America dodged a bullet!
And now at the risk of offending many of our dear readers and participants, I say yesterday we dodged another bullet.
We already know that the Democrat party absolutely hates our Christian founding & heritage and our Constitution and our constitutionally guaranteed God-given individual and states rights. And that they prefer a "living constitution" and an all powerful centralized Godless Marxist government with a globalized bent and a Godless Marxist judiciary unconstitutionally implementing their Godless Marxist agenda. This is a given and we also know this philosophy is infiltrating and making strong headway into our Republican party and establishment.
We all know that Obamacare is an unconstitutional, unsustainable socialist program rammed through our congress via questionable and unscrupulous processes without a single Republican vote and upheld by the opinion of an errant court doing the bidding of the aforementioned Godless Marxist government.
Why do we say Obamacare is unconstitutional?
Primarily because the power to legislate health care matters and or mandates on insurance matters to our states and or on we the people is NOT a power enumerated and delegated to the congress or the federal government by the Constitution and is therefore reserved to the states and the people.
Am I right or wrong about that?
If I am right then a health care or insurance law enacted by a Republican congress or government would be equally unconstitutional, regardless of whether it is better or worse than Obamacare.
Am I right or wrong about that?
If I am right in both cases then we dodged a second huge bullet.
If we God-fearing defenders of Constitution and Liberty join in with those who would knowingly pass unconstitutional laws for political expedience, ie, helping Trump move his agenda which is otherwise very good, then we've unwittingly shot ourselves in the foot and opened the doors to both political parties to destroy whatever is left of our Constitution and our Liberty. And they will do it if given the opportunity.
So we shot our toe off and delivered a defeat of his first legislative agenda item.
A lost toe to preserve foot and limb (or life and liberty, in this case) is much preferable to the alternative (don't ask me how I know).
If I'm confused or all wet on these matters I'm sure you will straighten me out.
(And yes, I know Trump's position evolved from repeal to repeal and replace during the primary. I supported him anyway because of the rest of his platform. I assumed cooler heads and the constitution would win out on the replace bit.)
Now we need to move on to REPEAL (along with the rest of his agenda)! Rules changes or whatever it takes, we must repeal Obamacare.
I’m a 100% trump supporter and will go down fighting tooth and nail as long as he fights. This was a setback, but is in no way a defeat. He will get this done!
If you remember, President Trump repeatedly said during the campaign that we were going to take care of all Americans vis a vis Health Care/Insurance. No Americans should be dying in the streets. He is correct.
My personal belief is that President Trump stood by Ryan’s crappy bill and let it twist in the wind. He gave the appearance of giving it his all despite its myriad of problems. It failed. Good. Time to move on to other things and return to Obamacare a bit later and do it right.
Remember though, Rand Paul has a bill in the Senate. While I do not know all the details, it is worth hearing it out. And maybe that was Trump’s plan all along. He and Rand get along and have talked recently. Trump had to let Ryan’s bill fail so that Paul’s bill can move forward without hinderance. SO maybe that was the plan. Who knows.
If Rahab the prostitute could be a heroine, why couldn’t the Weiner be a hero?
Well yeah I know that’s stretching it.
AMEN!
Agreed
The only toe shot off was the arrogant Paul Ryan. I don’t consider that a lose
None should die in the streets unless they really, truly, want to do that.
Ha! Ha! Good one ..
I think the Democrats were secretly BEGGING the GOP to pass Ryan’s bill.
I don’t think Trump was playing rope a dope with Ryan. I think he was talked into this as the “better way”.
I think Ryan was trying to preserve the power that Fedzilla derives from Obamacare in controlling all health care decisions and medical records.
The three step process set up a 2020 showdown that may have resulted in Trump not being re-elected, which would have delighted Ryan and his fellow Uniparty eunuchs.
Repeal the monster government over-reach that IS Obamacare!
Once THAT vampire is staked, dead, buried and beyond resurrection ... then and ONLY then should the GOP look at ANY sort of insurance reform. My personal preference is allow sales of policies across state lines and allow people to buy as little or as much medical services insurance as they want and can afford.
Anything else is government intervention in matters it has no business being involved in.
Just my two cents worth.
Well oh groan... no double entendre intended here.
Sex can imply so many things that are also commonplace in other contexts. Blame it on where sex has gone.
Yes, we dodged a bullet.
That part is all fine to the good for now.
The question what are the Freedom Caucus short and long term goals? Because they don’t seem to be leading, just reacting.
Trump's counter plan "give Ryan enough rope..."
Exactly.
A multi-phase fix might not be a bad idea as long as none of the phases are left to be utter vaporware. Something has to be there, if even a crude plan.
There will probably have to be a bug fix, ombudsman Federal department to oversee the transition out of Obamacare. In this case a necessary evil. Such departments became necessary to make ever more complex legislation work. At least this one would be identifiable and assigned a specific mission that would not be allowed to creep.
I totally agree on that. I believe that if Obamacare 2.0 did come to a vote, Democrats would vote for it. Why? So that Trump would own that terrible piece of legislation which would have doomed his presidency just as Obamacare doomed Obama’s.
Aria wrote:"That actually makes sense to me."
And one of my favorite authors, Frank Herbert once wrote:
“Knowing where the trap is—that's the first step in evading it.”
What we have just witnessed is Trump (once again) out foxing the foxes.
No one expected him to actually pack it up and move on - but he did.
In doing so he left Ryan much weaker, looking like he couldn't lead a one man parade, and with the onus of Obamacare firmly wrapped around *his* neck, instead of Trump.
Now it will either fail on its own, taking Ryan with it,
or it will fester until Trump gets a workable plan on *his* terms.
Now watch as The Donald once again does a bait and switch and nails everyone with his wiretapping proof.
~*God - I LOVE this stuff!*~
I was with Trump in wanting the bill to pass, because I believed that failing in his first major policy initiative will hurt his chances to get the rest of his agenda passed. I also recognize that Trump ran on the promise to “repeal and replace”, not just “repeal”. Obamacare resulted in millions people losing what they already had. Millions of those folks voted for Trump. And many are older with pre-existing conditions. Just dumping them without anything would violate Trump’s promise not to let that happen. I’ve also been critical of the Republicans being unwilling to move incrementally, which the Democrats are so successful doing.
Anyway, it didn’t pass, for good or ill. Trump isn’t letting it stop his agenda, and the important thing now is to move on and work on getting the rest of it passed, starting with getting Gorsuch confirmed.
I agree with Jim and hope you are correct that Ryan has been played.
Ryan was sure trying to play Trump and the American people.
The ugly ascension of shareholder driven, profit motivated insurance has destroyed the doctor patient relationship and medical care in general for the last 40 years.
Government collusion added a and it is, pray to God, imploding. A weak repeat from Trump and Republicans will doom us.
We MUST replace with a new model!
The Freedom Caucus deserves our thanks for stopping this nonsense. And yet, we have posters (that claim to favor repeal) that want Trump to “primary” the Freedom Caucus. They seem to hate the Freedom Caucus only slightly less than they do Ryan.
It’s a shame we don’t have a thinking and acting Conservative as President. We could have had Cruz.
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