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Make Them Take the Purge Pledge
Kevin McCarthy, who quietly colluded with Lyin’ Ryan to sabotage the first two years of President Trump’s administration, owns the actions of his caucus members. He owns the vote for the radical left assault on single-family home communities, the American dream for all ethnic groups, and clearing the biggest obstacle to Joe Manchin voting for the monstrous Build Back Better Act. McCarthy’s crew knew exactly what Manchin wrote and said the day before the Virginia election. For the sake of our republic, for our own states, our communities, our families, our lives, McCarthy must be expelled from Republican leadership, and all those who enable him from this day forth must have their political careers ended, without exception, in 2022. Voters can force this outcome by demanding every Republican primary candidate openly reject McCarthy before we consider any other campaign position or promise.
McCarthy’s motley crew knew the American people, across parties, socioeconomic circumstances, and ethnic identities, were rejecting Biden’s radical wrecking and remaking of America. Republican politicians expect to be given the majority in the House, and possibly the Senate, next November. McCarthy is the man who would be Speaker, and he let turncoats give aid and comfort to our domestic enemies, who loathe us. Our domestic enemies have declared open war on us, with the same hired guns that killed mothers and children in Idaho and Waco, Texas. Labeling parents who dare defy school board functionaries “domestic terrorists” means pointing men with automatic weapons at moms. It does not matter that the head of the American Stasi is a bespectacled bureaucrat. So was the last head of the German Stasi, Wolfgang Schwanitz.
Stasi sounds a bit extreme? My point is the current leadership in Congress and the Executive are lowering the barrier to official violence with their rhetoric about us, despite terrible past instances when government rhetoric, characterization of their target, led to deadly government violence. In that context, Republicans, squishy moderate to right of Attila the Hun, have no business giving any oxygen whatsoever to the fire, no matter the goodies slipped into a bill to their benefit.
Nor is the Department of Justice the only federal agency weaponized against the American people. Shortly before the vote, OSHA issued a fraudulent rule asserting the power to compel every private business with more than 100 employees to act as agents of the state, compelling Americans to submit proof of taking the jab as a condition of employment. It was in this context that McCarthy allowed 13 RepubliCAN’Ts to betray the American people without fear of any real and immediate punishment. As Jon Gabriel wrote at the time:
Despite Democrats not having the necessary support, the final vote was 228-206 thanks to these 13 Republicans. Each should be primaried, at least those who aren’t retiring. And it’s time for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R–CA) to be removed as House Minority Leader since he has demonstrated brutal incompetence.
Another Ricochet member wrote, “Kevin McCarthy and His Trash Leadership Should Not be Anywhere Near the Speakership.”
Not being able to wrangle your caucus into not giving this collapsing president and the odious witch Nancy Pelosi a lifeline a mere 72 hours after a massive rebuke of them should make the conversation on making this inept joke speaker a no go. McCarthy actively recruiting and developing people who made it happen should lose him his seat.
Attacking the Middle Class and Rural Americans
And why was this such a terrible fumble, at best, at worst a monstrous betrayal? Start with the direct effects. The neighborhood busting provisions were known to all House members, an Obama initiative, and 2020 Democratic Party platform plank.
This bill gives money to cities that abolish single-family zoning. The Republicans talk about family values and they just passed a bill that attacks families in American cities. They just betrayed their constituents. As if the family was not being attacked enough with critical race theory being fed to their kids in school, degenerate culture being pumped into their homes, their jobs being shipped to China, gas prices rising, inflation, supply line shortages, and the rest. The GOP spits in the face of their constituents by rewarding cities that will create woke zoning laws and destroy single families in their jurisdiction.
In addition, the infrastructure bill includes the gateway for a travel tracking tax, a tax on every mile you drive.
The infrastructure legislation does not include a mileage tax or another form of driving tax. What it does include is a pilot program to study and test the idea. The legislation authorizes $125 million in taxpayer funding for this test initiative. (A lot of taxpayer money for an experiment, no?)
Carrying Commies’ Water
The betrayal represented just in voting for the contents of the fraudulently styled “infrastructure” bill is bad enough. McCarthy’s motley crew of 13 reprehensible representatives were fully aware of the pressure they were placing on Senators Manchin and Sinema to now vote for the Build Back Broke Act. As I explained, stalking Sinema, menacing Manchin, and talking trillions is political theater, covering the radical left’s substantive agenda. The Build Back Better Act is an act of war against America and Americans.
Beyond the terrible assaults I described, from racist and sexual indoctrination of three- and four-year-olds, to permanent destruction of cheap American energy, there are more assaults on the poor and middle class, while transferring more wealth to the woke rich. There is a massive tax cut for the rich, who vote left, fund the left, and use their positions of power in the so-called private sector to force racist and sexual indoctrination on their employees and the public. There is a lethal subsidy to Big Tobacco, taxing vaping out of legal existence. The vape tax is designed to drive predominantly poor Americans back into smoking cigarettes, killing them off quicker. So, the left is busy rewarding penthouse progressives, while punishing all us bitter clinging deplorable hobbits.
Senator Manchin laid out a clear roadmap for the Republicans to prevail in protecting the American people against the worst intentions of the progressives right now. Manchin was crystal clear that he absolutely would not commit to support the reconciliation bill as a condition of the Congressional Progressive Caucus allowing final passage of the infrastructure bill.
As I have said before, holding [the infrastructure] bill hostage won’t work to get my support for reconciliation bill. I’m open to supporting a final bill that helps move our country forward, but I am equally open to voting against a bill that hurts our country and the American people.
In the face of all this, the House Progressive Caucus had six of its most prominent members vote NO on the Senate-passed version of the infrastructure bill. Democrats control the House by 222 to 213. We can all do the math:
- 222-6 = 216
- 213+6 = 219
So, if Republicans had simply done the decent thing and all voted “NO,” then both the infrastructure and the reconciliation bills would be dead. There would be political breathing room for supposedly moderate Democrats to get with Republicans and negotiate some more reasonable, perhaps even helpful, legislation. Maybe we could have a no-kidding, real shovel-ready roads and bridges bill! Maybe we could reinforce and build real infrastructure back better to mitigate effects of projected climate change. This is what McCarthy spoiled with his 13 saboteurs.
What Is To Be Done?
McCarthy expects to be a benefit for your misery, to be paid out of Americans’ pain. He is already measuring the Speaker’s office for drapes and carpets. He and his gang expect to do fabulously well out of a replay of the fake opposition and shake-down operation they ran on us during the Obama administration. All they want are their hands on the levers of power created by the Democrats. Every Republican member of the House is complicit. They made and are keeping McCarthy their leader. They can unmake him today.
1. Remove McCarthy Now
For current members, promises about what they will do after the 2022 election are empty. Republican House members endorsed Lyin’ Ryan’s collusion with the Democrats’ bureaucratic and lawfare insurrection against the 2016 election results, from voting him Speaker again after the 2016 election to keeping him Speaker after he repeatedly refused to issue subpoenas against James Comey and other collaborators in the Russia hoax. Indeed, Lyin’ Ryan and McCarthy blocked subpoenas, stalling the investigation into the real Russia collusion, the collusion between Democrats, intelligence bureaucrats, and foreign sources operating for the real benefit of Putin.
We need more than video clips and campaign promises. We need action now. We need a sign, a test of real resolve. The test is hard but simple. Each current Republican congressman and congresswoman must clearly call for the immediate resignation of McCarthy as House Minority Leader. If McCarthy’s gang resists, they must be cut off by all other Republicans standing together and saying: “Kevin McCarthy is no longer our leader. He does not speak for us, and we will not be part of any caucus that thinks he represents them well.”
For all those 2022 candidates not currently in Congress, demand the purge pledge: “I swear/affirm I will vote to remove McCarthy from leadership and will withdraw from the Republican caucus if others collude in making McCarthy Speaker. He will not be Speaker if you elect me.
2. Build a Better Bill
The real Republicans, not the RepubliCAN’Ts, must immediately develop and promote positive, better alternative programs for Americans. It was not enough to put up repeated fake “repeal” votes on Obamacare. It will not be enough to send Build Back Better repeal bills to the Xiden White House. The Ethics & Public Policy Center has a good analysis and recommendations addressing the Build Back Better Act family programs.
There is a non-zero chance that these interventions cause the childcare market to go haywire, and poor implementation could lead to an Obamacare-like political backlash. But as the health care example shows, government programs, once begun, are very hard to unravel. Democrats in Congress are not in the mood to hear constructive ideas from Republicans on how to make the childcare market work better. So Republicans should begin preparing for a world in which rolling back the Build Back Better childcare provisions requires a fight, and lay the groundwork for their own ideas of how to improve the market for parents.
Make them take the pledge and make them show you their homework, not speeches and oversight hearing clips where they own the libs. Let them show new leadership putting together shadow legislation, bills signed onto by all the Republicans that want to be reelected. Let them show us draft bills, introduced on the floor, not bullet point charts.
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I prefer the old McCarthyism to the new McCarthyism. What is this, diet soda?
New Coke.
I would like a GOP leader that vows that the federal government should not do things in the purview of states (zoning, local projects,…).
Also, my kid tells me vaping is super popular and “nobody” smokes anymore. I don’t know why this is not a state issue.
Money. Money changes everything. Expect Mitch McConnell, senator from the heart of cigarette tobacco country, to collude with Democrats in driving kids back to Marlboros, Camels, and Kools.
Primary challenges: check.
Removal from leadership positions: check.
Blunt outspoken criticism of specific members and their actions: check.
This is how to work within the party to make it better.
Personally, I’d nix the Stazi stuff, and perhaps the Waco and Ruby Ridge bit too, but that’s more a matter of taste than substance. Good post.
I am willing to admit that true infrastructure expenditures may be needed above and beyond the present provisions, but can’t we once, just once, see the Republicans force the issue? The Dems are willing to cripple the country to get their way. That has been demonstrated in virtually every action since Biden was “elected”. (And before that)
Without the Republicans caving, we would have probably seen a manufactured crisis of valuable infrastructure projects shutting down in mid-course, but can’t we make them own it? This “Infrastructure Bill ” seems to be only about half infrastructure.
There was never any danger of real infrastructure projects shutting down in mid-course. This was all about new project spending:
So, allowing for massive diversion into pet projects, there is up to $190 billion in real infrastructure. Then stuff gets squirrelly:
If this was loosely still called infrastructure, that is only another $248 billion.
So, $190 billion in real infrastructure, plus $248 billion in pet/lefty projects that still might produce some real work, totals up to $438 billion in real/sorta real infrastructure, out of $1,000 billion authorized. These authorizations stretch out over 5 years, but the dollars are subject to annual budget bills, actually cutting the checks.
Nah. Waco and Ruby Ridge cannot be ignored.
I agree. But they were extraordinary excesses, not typical of government misconduct. In the same way that the Oklahoma City atrocity, which was a response to it, was not typical of patriotic push back.
They are 100% typical of the FBI being used against people. These are the ones we know about. This is exactly what the Left wants to do to all of us.
I would be more inclined to believe that if I could think of any similar events to the Waco massacre and the butchery at Ruby Ridge. Last I looked, Lon Horiuchi was still in witness protection (or whatever) for killing Mrs. Weaver. The Weaver family was awarded millions of dollars in damages.
The government behavior was deplorable. But this isn’t a picture of government acting with impunity, as say the Stazi or KGB.
As long as Horiuchi is a free man, the government has acted with impunity. So what if they gave the Weavers some taxpayer money – that is not punishment. I recommend a dictionary.
My point is the current leadership in Congress and the Executive are lowering the barrier to official violence with their rhetoric about us, with terrible past instances when government rhetoric/ characterization of their target led to deadly government violence. In that context, Republicans, squishy moderate to Attila the Hun, have no business giving any oxygen whatsoever to the fire, no matter the goodies slipped into a bill to their benefit.
[In fact, I think this discussion matters enough to add my comment here back into the body of the post.]
Janet Reno did not go to prison.
The government did it and got away with it.
We need to hold the GOP accountable for not holding the Democrats accountable.
Weren’t Bill Barr and Rob’t Mueller both involved in Ruby Rudge and wasn’t Mueller involved in Waco? And more recently they’re part of how we got where we are today.
Same as the old boss…
No, I know what the word means.
I also know that Lon Horiuchi is still living in hiding, for his own safety, 30 years after killing Vicky Weaver. He was charged with manslaughter; the charges were dropped, reinstated, and finally dropped again. The family survivors received more than three million dollars in compensation. There was an investigation of the departments involved, the Senate held extensive hearings, and changes were recommended to prevent a similar miscarriage of justice in the future. As far as I know, there has been no similar event in the 30 years since then.
People who act with impunity don’t end up losing in court, paying out, going into hiding, and getting reined in by Congressional oversight. They keep doing what they’re doing, because they can and there’s no one there to stop them.
Janet Reno
Sure seems like impunity fits them.
Okay, okay. Relative impunity.
Also, glad the man lives in hiding.
I am sorry he did not face execution. If it were my wife, I’d give up 3 million to see him dead. Meaning I’d rather him be dead than me compensated.
Yes, I also would have liked to see Lon Horiuchi face a harsher consequence.
The Weaver family wasn’t innocent. The FBI exceeded its authority. Lon Horiuchi made a bad shooting and killed someone at whom he wasn’t aiming. Randy Weaver committed weapons-related and other crimes. I think the ATF or FBI was engaged in entrapment. Three people were killed, including one federal agent and two members of the Weaver family. The fact that no one on either side languishes in jail today suggests that it was a mess.
I’m perfectly willing to admit that Ruby Ridge was an awful miscarriage of justice — though not on the scale and severity of Waco, in my opinion.
But I think it’s not realistic or productive to pretend that this is business as usual for the FBI. They’re more into faking court documents and lying to Congress than they are into massacring civilians. That’s bad enough.
We know what it looks like when the federal government is serious about prosecuting someone. We see a sitting U.S. Senator, Ted Stevens, near the top of Senate leadership, taken down by wrongful prosecution and not one attorney lost their job, let alone their license. The Hariuchi “prosecutions” smacked of extensive federal arm-twisting and obstruction in state court. The hearings were the usual empty posturing, conducted years after the fact, indeed conducted after Waco. Waco follows Ruby Ridge, and not one fed was truly punished for the barbecue of women and children, nor are any of them in some sort of hiding.
The FBI and DOJ lost nothing and did not go into hiding. Indeed, they have been given far greater latitude, much in the name of the “War on Terror” or “violent extremism.” The Stasi was not about spectacular public mass murder. They were about control of society. See the gross abuse of the FISA system. See the Garland memo, the ensuing regional Assistant Attorney General memo already read in open oversight hearing, and the extremely unsubtle show of force by federal law enforcement after a Virginia mom dared first speak out, then peacefully demonstrate in front of DHS, then show up at her next local school board meeting.
All of which is only a small piece of my argument in the OP.
The left used to complain all the time about a “chilling effect”. Now they make dry ice.
I know, and I don’t want to belabor it. I agree with the gist of your post.
The only reason I take exception is that I think there’s a lot of hyperbole — not in your post particularly, but in general — and I think it’s counter-productive. I think the left, including the institutionalized left in D.C., is weaker than both we and they think they are. That’s why they scramble to hide their agendas, and why they suffer dramatic losses when a bunch of parents get their backs up and decide they’ve had enough.
Yes, the Garland memo was grotesque. But I don’t think it worked out well for the administration. I think it cost them Virginia, and I think Virginia, with what it implies, will probably cost them the rest of the Brandon administration.
From your lips to God’s ears, etc, but that didn’t work out so well with the mutiny and coup. I think that Virginia, while responding to national events, was largely a Virginia thing. I do think that dissatisfaction with this Potemkin administration (Hello, Obama — I see you) is widespread, but the deep state has already demonstrated the only salient fact — they can do what they like and votes no longer matter.
Will votes no longer matter when they lose Congress next year, and get nothing done except a bunch of court-challenged executive orders?
Erick Erickson usually seems rather moderate, but he is very disappointed in Kevin McCarthy, saying the he should never be speaker. (Erickson has a terrible relationship with the Republican, power-hungry, non-conservative speaker in Georgia.) Erickson said that the budget-busting Republicans should be punished just like Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene were previously punished.
A caller asked who he thought should be speaker. I always that maybe Steve Scalise — as he was actually shot.
Erick Erickson said that Jim Jordan should probably be the next speaker.
Wait until Jonah Goldberg and all the guys at National Review who ridicule Jim Jordan for not having the correct shirt sleeves etiquette. It’s sort of the opposite David Brooks getting exciting about Obama’s pant legs, and Obama causing Chris Matthews to get excited about his own pant leg.
If. And show me evidence that Congressional Republicans have any intention of actually stopping and reversing the policies and programs enacted with their complicity now. See Obamacare. Do we really believe the Supreme Court will treat Democrat executive orders with the same hostility as they showed to some Trump executive orders?