Tag: RINO

Here a RINO, There A RINO

Another of my series of WTF Is Happening?

Now there is a popular term in the last few years….meaning those GOPers that do not hold the same radical beliefs of those little nuts in the party.

The GOP is a party running scared….afraid of minorities….afraid of women….afraid of education….afraid of science….afraid of fact checking…..afraid of the voter….and afraid of itself……hence the label RINO……

But what does it mean and where does it stop?

What do you know of the history of the term?

I can help with that lapses in your education……

Republican In Name Only (RINO) is a disparaging term that refers to a Republican candidate whose political views are seen as insufficiently conforming to the party line.

The phrase, without the RINO acronym, became first popularized during the Theodore Roosevelt presidency, as he was often labeled a “Republican in name only” by both critics and proponents, as his trust-busting policies were at odds with long-standing Republican Party ideologies.

By 1992, the acronym “RINO” had shown up in print, with an article in the New Hampshire Union Leader, written by John Distaso, being cited as the first instance of RINO in print.

The use of the term RINO arose as polarization increased in the political parties. Prior to the 1992 election of Bill Clinton, the Democratic and Republican parties had been in a long process of realignment where conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans were quite common. With the election of Bill Clinton, Republican ideological unity became increasingly fixed. This is exemplified by Grover Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which called upon signatories to reject and oppose all measures to increase tax rates. By 2012, nearly every Republican presidential candidate was a signatory to this pledge.

The increasing ideological unity of the Republican Party made holdovers from the previous political alignment look like outliers. Whereas historically liberal Republicans comprised a wing of the Republican Party, they had (by 1992, and especially by 2020) become incompatible with the Republican Party itself.

Therefore, in an age of party unity, the term RINO was often used as a political weapon. It could be used as a threat: vote how your party wants or be branded a RINO. It could also be used as an effective tool in a primary campaign: the incumbent is a RINO, vote for the challenger. Indeed, in the 2010 Congressional Elections, the Tea Party effectively used the term RINO as a way to “primary” Republican Incumbents whose policies were not conservative enough.

I know you have heard the term used….you may have even used it yourself…..but what is a RINO in the Republican world?

Donald Trump went to Wyoming to campaign against Republican Rep. Liz Cheney. He repeatedly called her a “RINO” and urged the state’s voters to elect her challenger, Harriet Hageman. But Trump’s speech exposed how the meaning of “RINO” has changed. It used to refer to people who weren’t Reagan conservatives. Now it refers to people who are.

The substantive positions for which Trump praised Hageman—on oil drilling, guns, crime, and border enforcement—were no different from Cheney’s. In fact, according to the American Conservative Union, Cheney’s voting record is far more conservative than the record of Rep. Elise Stefanik, who, at Trump’s behest, replaced her last year as chair of the House Republican Conference.

In his speech, Trump called Cheney a “lapdog” for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But that accusation, too, is bogus: Cheney has voted against Pelosi’s positions more consistently than have the top three officials in the House Republican Conference.

So Trump’s beef with Cheney isn’t about conservatism. Unless, that is, he finds her too conservative. And in many respects, he does: On several major issues, Cheney respects longstanding Republican principles, while Trump flouts them.

You can disagree with Cheney or her father about their positions on these conflicts. But you can’t argue that Trump’s position, compared to theirs, is more “Republican.” For 15 years, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the global struggle against terrorism defined the GOP. The 2012 Republican platform—the last platform before Trump seized control of the party—resolved to “employ the full range of military and intelligence options to defeat Al Qaeda and its affiliates.” The platform opposed troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and pledged that “future decisions by a Republican President will never subordinate military necessity to domestic politics or an artificial timetable.”

What Makes a Republican a “RINO”?

Don’t get me started on DINOs!

Your history lesson is done…..now don’t you feel smarter?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

R.I.N.O.

I have been a political junkie since I was about 9 years old.  My grandfather was a GOPer and I helped him stuff envelopes and put out signs…he was a staunch Repub then….the year was 1956.

If the GOP had not gone off the rails I would probably be in the party today….well until 1980 that is……they lost me when they started going after culture as a way to win elections.

Take a long look at the platform from 1956…..everything in there is something I can support….but those days are gone….gone….gone.

 Now fast forward to the 2016 GOP platform…….

Some parts sound really noble…that is until to read the crap it really means.

Reagan came about and embraced religion as a basis of the party…..and the GOP are the ones that are concerned about another religion taking hold….but they have no problem forcing theirs on the society……
The GOP has become a party of hypocrisy.  They feed ignorance to win elections.  A shame they are not more like the party of 1956…then this would be a much better country.
Old school conservatism is long gone….replaced with divisive issues that does nothing to move the country forward…..
There is still a bit of the old conservatism left and some of the ideas can be found within the site “The American Conservative”….I may not agree with them all the time but I appreciate the fact that they are a site that has intellectual discourse on what it means to be conservative.
I especially agree with TAC when it comes to international relations….GOP would do well to embrace their policies…..and the world could be a better place.
An interesting take from TAC……
I had an interesting exchange this past weekend at Benedictine College with Prof. Susan Traffas, who argued that conservative Christians cannot abandon politics. In the Q&A, I pointed out that in The Benedict Option, I explicitly say that we cannot abandon politics entirely, mostly because we have to stay in the game to fight for religious liberty. But I also argue that we should reprioritize our approach to public engagement, and spend more time and effort trying to shore up the church and its internal culture — this, because our losses in politics on the issues that mean the most to us are the result of our having lost first the culture. My contention is that conditions have changed on the culture war battlefield, and that means we have to change the way we resist. That is very much not the same thing as surrender.
Source: Straussians Vs. The Benedict Option | The American Conservative
The GOP could do no better than to find itself in the sea of confusion that it created…..stop insisting on cultural changes and work for the country and society.

A brief history of the term RINO, from Roosevelt to Boehner – Vox

It is election time and the GOP field is as nutty as it has ever been…..and at anytime now someone will use the RINO taunt…..a painful insult to a conservative…….

One of my fave terms in all of politics, well American politics is….RINO (Republican In Name Only)…..when conservatives want to insult their colleagues they call them RINOs……

The latest attack by a Repub on his fellow Repubs is Ted Cruz…….

Cruz took to the Senate well on Monday–to speak before what was effectively an empty chamber–and criticized fellow Republicans Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and his Texas colleague in the Senate John Cornyn. Nominally, Cruz was slamming his colleagues–for an hour– because they did not back him in the fights over the Iran deal and Planned Parenthood.

Though Cruz did not specially use the term RINO….we all know what he was thinking…….RINO?…….A good term….but is there a history that we should know about the term?

Yes there is…..read on……learn the history (you guys knew that was coming, right?)

Source: A brief history of the term RINO, from Roosevelt to Boehner – Vox

Boehner has decided to cut and run…..now the GOP has its eyes on Senate leader……..

Several influential Republicans have called for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to resign. Pressure for the Kentucky congressman to step aside follows House Speaker John Boehner’s announcement that he is resigning at the end of October.

According to Business Insider, Republicans who are frustrated with McConnell’s leadership want him to change the Senate rules to enable conservative legislation to pass without needing the required 60-vote super-majority. McConnell’s refusal to use obstruction methods was also a source of Republican frustration, according to The Washington Times.

GOP is trying to rid itself of all RINOs……is this a purity thing?  If I were a conservative I would wear the title like a badge of courage….but that is me…..

See what we can learn by using history…….you will thank me later……

Where Have The Moderates Gone?

As I wrote the title I could hear the 60’s folk song playing in my head……I digress…..there has been a lot of talk about moderate Repubs and their ultra right brethren….but who are the moderates in the GOP?  (I will give you a time for thought)…..

Sorry…I can wait much longer…..Sen. Collins and Snowe…that is the story, but I doubt that they are that moderate….more like independent thinkers within the GOP….the Senate lost a great liberal Repub when Hagel bowed out….in the House about the only one I can think of right now is Mary Bono of California….there maybe some others but I am not aware of them…..

Okay, I know you are wondering why I am bringing up RINOs at this time?…..and a damn fine question it is……you do realize that taxes are the revenue of the government, right?  We cannot keep cutting taxes and think that revenue for programs will go up……

Since the days of yore and Reagan the term taxes has been a major no-no…for the GOP lives and dies on tax cuts, but even conservatives, not the extremists in conservative clothing,  see the need for the need of taxes at some point when handling the economy.  Unfortunately, it was the moderates or liberal repubs that actually saw the need at times.  But their voice of reason is usually drowned out by the clap trap from the far right, which is now the GOP.

Take health care …..please….in a piece written by Matt Miller for Fortune magazine:

suppose I told you there was a way to square this circle, courtesy of a $500 billion health-related tax hike that could save the economy? And suppose I added that conservative economists would actually be okay with the idea? Too good to be true, you say? Well, welcome to what I call the “opening of the capitalist mind.”

Start with the fact that business now spends a stunning $500 billion a year, or 4 percent of GDP, on health-care benefits. Let’s say we shifted that cost to government – that’s right, relieved business of it entirely – and, to make matters simple, combined it with other public funds to give citizens a voucher with which they could buy a private health plan.

To pay for this without boosting the deficit, we’d raise taxes by an identical amount – not on business, of course, but on taxpayers broadly, via various gas or carbon taxes that would have the salutary side effect of helping cure our energy and environmental woes.

And to seal the deal for skeptical capitalists, conservative economists declare that this brand of tax hike should have no impact on growth. “In one scenario we call health expenditures government, and in another we don’t. What does it matter?” says Kevin Hassett, head of economics at the American Enterprise Institute and an advisor to John McCain. “It’s hard to imagine that would have the negative growth effects” normally ascribed to tax increases in the economics literature.

If conservative economists do have objections to this health shift, Hassett explains, they will be based on ideological notions of what government should be doing, not on whether swapping a giant current business expense for a tax devoted to the same purpose has any economic consequence. When the dust cleared, though, taxes and spending as a share of GDP would officially rise in the U.S. by four or five percentage points.

The moral of the story? We have reached a moment in the history of American capitalism where business’s traditional Me-Tarzan-you- Jane-taxes-bad mindset is one of the biggest obstacles to pragmatically rethinking our health-care and pension systems.

And make no mistake: If business doesn’t help Washington fix these essentials before long, rising worker anxiety will produce a protectionist backlash that could wreck everything capitalists believe in. Instead of reflexively resisting the idea of government and taxes, therefore, business leaders must now do some constructive, nonideological thinking if they want to serve corporate America’s self-interest – and the country’s. As I said, welcome to the opening of the capitalist mind.

All in all, the article has a few good points and I think they are worth a look…

Now back to the original question…..where have the moderates gone?  The moderates in the GOP had good ideas and were a necessity to the two party system…but they were replaced with name calling, lying and ruthless individuals that wanted not what was best for the country, but rather what was best for them and their addiction to power.

The good thing about the way Repubs are acting now is that the moderates of the party will wake up and take back the Grand Old Party from the worthless ilk that now control it.  Well, I can only hope…….

RNC Goes RINO Hunting

The party is using its clout, as small as it is, to try and defeat fellow Repubs that they consider a RINO (Republican In Name Only).  Has it come to that?  The GOP is eating its own?

RINO?  What the hell is a RINO?  Thanx to wiki for the definition.

The term implies that, despite party affiliation, RINO politicians are not “authentic” Republicans. The label is usually acquired because a politician’s political actions, policies, positions on certain issues or voting records are considered to be at variance with core Republican beliefs. The term is pejorative and no Republican has ever self-identified as a RINO. It is used by those who believe that the party’s core beliefs are conservative and therefore that politicians are not true Republicans unless they adhere to conservative beliefs. The targets of the term argue that there is no litmus test for being a Republican, but rather a commitment to the party organization, especially support for party candidates. The targets argue that conservatives from outside the party who use the term are not true Republicans because they do not support the whole ticket.

The Party has set its sights on Rep. Inglis of South Carolina….apparently he was not in the same corner as everyone else on the Wilson shout heard around the world, and for that he will suffer the wrath of the Party.  All that is just crazy for he has been a loyal neo-con even themiddleclass.org gives him a 6% rating on legislation meaning he has played the GOP political game,  his only transgression was to call for Wilson to apologize to the House.

If the Conservatives do not play ball with the extreme of the Party then they will be a target in the primaries.

Does not bid well for Gov. Crist since he is considered a RINO by the hijackers of the GOP.  If he has any intention of running for national office then he will have to either become an independent or follow the leaders into the extreme right wing.

And is why the most accomplished Republican was been out of the national picture, Colin Powell, he is labeled by the nut jobs as a RINO and he could not get any backing from a party that has veered so right.

There is also some talk about the former governor of New York, Pataki, as a possible candidate for the national scene but once again he will most likely meet with opposition from the extremes of the party….he too will either have to change or become an independent.

There are female RINOs also, it will be interesting to see how the GOP handles the Senators from Maine, Snow and Collins in the future.  These ladies have also made the list of RINOs, they may be targeted in their next primary.

The RNC is at a new low as a party…they should be looking in all directions to find new blood to help regenerate the party, instead of going on these hunting trips that is doing NOTHING to strengthen their party for the next round of elections.  Instead of worrying about their party these dipsticks just want to oppose , not grow.  Several parties have died because of this type of BS.

The next primaries are speeding head long into the present and the way the RNC is traveling they should run into a wall before they arrive.  Do any of these mental midgets realize they are killing a proud conservative position and replacing it with innuendos, misinformation and outright LIES?  Oh, they KNOW….they just do not care as long as the extreme agenda is followed…no matter how wrong it is.