What will Rep. Kevin McCarthy say about racism, antisemitism and white supremacy?

House Republicans have a lot of explaining to do!

Where is Rep. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy? He has some explaining to do!

Echo opinion published in The Washington Post by Karen Tumulty:

HELLO? Ya'think? No one is buying the idea that Donald Trump’s dinner last week at Mar-a-Lago with antisemite and white nationalist Nick Fuentes was some sort of aberration — even if Trump’s claim is true that Fuentes showed up unannounced in the company of rapper (and fellow antisemite) Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.

That Trump would meet with bigots and conspiracy theorists was very much on brand for someone who sees loyalty to himself as the only character trait that matters. Trump, after all, claimed moral equivalence (“very fine people on both sides”) between the neo-Nazis who chanted in Charlottesville that Jews would not replace them and a group of counterprotesters, one of whom was murdered.

Which means things like the Mar-a-Lago dinner are surely going to continue to happen as Trump forges ahead with his bid for the GOP’s 2024, presidential nomination. 

And, with each instance, the far-right extremists who spew hate will continue nudging their way from the fringes into the mainstream of the (growing old!) Republican Party.

In the wake of the GOP’s disappointing performance in the midterm elections, it is plainly self evident that the party has a “Trump problem.” 

But, there is a deeper problem, and that is the (growing old and older.....!) Republican Party itself.

Republicans cannot move past Trump, as long as they cannot bring themselves to confront him and, by association, the element he attracts. This is not the party that had the fortitude to purge the hateful John Birch Society from its ranks in the mid-1960s. 

As former Republican National Committee spokesman Doug Heye put it to me, today’s Republicans still think they can “outrun the crocodile.”

(Can somebody cut and paste the statements made by Utah Senator Mitt Romney and former  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to give "dummy come alive" Rep. McCarthy as a rubric for his own statement?)

Since the dinner became public over the weekend, we have heard plenty of prominent Republicans denounce antisemitism, as though that is anything other than basic human decency. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who is reported to be considering a presidential bid of his own, tweeted that antisemitism is “a cancer” and declared: “We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry.”

Republicans cannot move past Trump, as long as they cannot bring themselves to confront him and, by association, the element he attracts. This is not the party that had the fortitude to purge the hateful John Birch Society from its ranks in the mid-1960s. 

As former Republican National Committee spokesman Doug Heye put it to me, today’s Republicans still think they can “outrun the crocodile.”

Since the dinner became public over the weekend, we have heard plenty of prominent Republicans denounce antisemitism, as though that is anything other than basic human decency. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who is reported to be considering a presidential bid of his own, tweeted that antisemitism is “a cancer” and declared: “We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry.”

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel issued a statement: “As I had repeatedly said, white supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican Party.”

But depressingly few were willing to even mention Trump himself.

One welcome exception was outgoing Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R). who told CNN: "I don’t think it’s a good idea for a leader that is setting an example for the country or the party to meet with an avowed racist or antisemite. 

And so it’s very troubling, and it shouldn’t happen. And we need to avoid those kinds of empowering the extremes. And when you meet with people, you empower.” 

Another was Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, who said on NewsNation: “President Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table, and I think he should apologize.”

Come January, there will be fewer Republicans left in Congress willing to speak out when Trump does what he keeps doing. That in itself is a testament to where the party has positioned itself with regard to the crocodile, given how many of those who did take issue with him were either wiped out in Republican primaries this year or chose to retire.

And those who have followed Trump’s example in associating themselves with extremists and their ideas will have more clout within the institution. Earlier this year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) spoke at a conference organized by Fuentes, later claiming (as Trump has about last week’s dinner) that she didn’t know who he was; House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has promised, if he becomes speaker, to restore her committee assignments, which the Democratic-controlled House stripped the Georgia congresswoman of in 2021 because of her incendiary comments.

Meanwhile, don’t expect much by way of correctives to be offered as the GOP gets ready to elect its next party chair in January. McDaniel, who was handpicked by Trump to run the party after the 2016 election and who has been a model of obeisance to him since, has indicated she plans to run for another term.

There is grumbling in the party about McDaniel’s win-loss record, with South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem telling Fox News: “I don’t know a party that can continue to lose like we have and keep their jobs.” But none of them talked-about alternatives — who include defeated 2022 New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin and MyPillow chief executive and leading election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell — represent a turn away from Trump.

So Republican leaders should quit deluding themselves about the possibility of moving on from the former president, who continues to bring the worst people into their fold. They are along for the ride — even as it takes them over a cliff.

Echo from Atlanta Constitution- Republicans radicalized

Something dangerous is happening to the GOP~ 

by Jay Bookman (from the Opinion page, an "echo".)

“We were not made great as a country by indulging or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorying in the things which divide us, and calling fake things true and true things fake.” ~ Senator Jeff Flake

WASHINGTON, DC- In a blistering speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona attacked the leadership, character and decency of the president with whom he shares a political party.

“Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as ‘telling it like it is,’ when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified,” Flake told his colleagues. “We were not made great as a country by indulging or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorying in the things which divide us, and calling fake things true and true things fake.”

“The notion that one should stay silent as the norms and values that keep America strong are undermined and as the alliances and agreements that ensure the stability of the entire world are routinely threatened by the level of thought that goes into 140 characters — the notion that one should say and do nothing in the face of such mercurial behavior is ahistoric and, I believe, profoundly misguided.”

“I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit,” Flake said. He then announced that he would not be seeking re-election. As he told his hometown newspaper, ‘The path that I would have to travel to get the Republican nomination is a path I’m not willing to take, and that I can’t in good conscience take.”

And of course, Flake is not alone. His fellow Republican senator from Arizona, John McCain, has been equally critical of Trump, as has Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee. Last week, former President George W. Bush added his own voice, condemning a politics of “conspiracy theories and outright fabrication” that “provides permission for cruelty and bigotry.”

Think about what we’re witnessing, because it is historic: 

Among them, Bush, Romney and McCain represent every previous Republican presidential nominee dating back to 2000, and you can add to their number former President George H.W. Bush, who has made clear that he voted for Hillary Clinton over Trump. 

As a reward for their candor, these elder statesmen of the Grand Old Party are being attacked by current leaders of their party as sellouts and traitors, as being “Republican In Name Only.”

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has also been highly critical of Trump. Like Flake, he too has chosen not to seek re-election. However, most of those in current Republican leadership either do not share the profound misgivings voiced by their party’s senior statesmen, which indicts their judgment, or they have been cowed into acquiescence and dare not speak up, which speaks to their patriotism and courage at a time when both are needed.

In most cases, I suspect the latter.

Shortly after Bush’s speech last week, former White House advisor Steve Bannon spoke to the California Republican Party, where he pitched his ongoing “revolt against the Republican establishment” and his attempt to remake the party in Trump’s image. He also attacked, by name, both McCain and Bush.

“President Bush, to me, embarrassed himself,” Bannon said dismissively. “Speechwriter wrote a highfalutin speech. It’s clear he didn’t understand anything that he was talking about.”

Those remarks, delivered to an all-Republican crowd, were greeted with standing ovations. It was yet another startling indication of how dramatically the party is radicalizing itself, right before our very eyes.

As the Trump Turns- it's time to talk income taxes

Income taxes will tell more than Ivana and Marla will reveal.

He should do the right thing and release the information about his taxes. I suspect the Trump taxes will be more salacious than anything past wives Ivana and Marla would ever reveal.

Donald Trump holds other people to standards he himself is reluctant to reveal.  He talks about the sex lives of others while, somehow, believing he's exampt from criticism. 

Trump's public policy is incoherent. He is a stand up conspiracy theorist who has mesmerized many right wing Republicans who think he is delusionally able to lead the free world. Now, Donald Trump is making up excuses about why he won't reveal his income tax information in advance of a potential nomination to run as the Republican candidate to be President of America.  

As a matter of fact, when Governor Mitt Romney seemed to balk about releasing his income taxes, the news media followed him like dust over the cartoon character Pigpen.

News Media followed Governor Mitt Romney in 2012, to reveal taxes, like dust followed Peanuts character "Pig Pen".

Now, Govenor Romney is challenging Donald Trump (aka "The Chump") to release his income taxes and the news media must hold this standard as a qualification to run for Presidentof the United States.  Everybody else running is expected to do this.

Donald Trump: I'll release tax returns after audit (it this like saying "the check is in the mail?") By Jeremy Diamond, CNN

(CNN) Donald Trump said Wednesday that he plans to release his taxes when an IRS audit is completed, despite telling the Associated Press the previous day before that he would not release his tax documents. "In interview I told @AP that my taxes are under routine audit and I would release my tax returns when audit is complete, not after election!" the real estate mogul (wanna bee political leader) tweeted Wednesday, after Trump's critics, including Mitt Romney and other Republicans, have urged Trump to make his tax returns available.

Trump's resistance to releasing his tax documents leaves major questions for voters weighing a candidate whose campaign is staked on his business acumen and the fact that he is "very, very rich" -- and would mark a major break with decades of precedent set by the nominees of the two major political parties.

The presumptive Republican nominee told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday "there's nothing to learn from them."

(Hello? He doesn't get it, if there's nothing there, then there's nothing to hide.)

Despite telling conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in February 2015 -- before he declared his candidacy -- he "would release tax returns," Trump has pivoted to say he would not do so while his income tax filings are still under audit by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 

Given that he says his tax returns since 2009 are still under audit, it is highly unlikely Trump will release anything before the November 2016. election if he sticks to that reasoning.

"He still leaves himself this out by saying if this audit wraps up before the November election, then, sure, he'll release his tax returns," said Julie Pace, one of the AP reporters who interviewed him, on CNN's "At This Hour." "We said, 'Will you push your lawyers on this, will you tell them that voters deserve to know this information regardless of the audit?' He said, 'No.' He said, 'One, the voters don't actually care about this, and two, there is no new information that would come out of the tax returns.'"

"Federal privacy rules prohibit the IRS from discussing individual tax matters. Nothing prevents individuals from sharing their own tax information."

The Trump campaign did not respond to CNN requests for comment.

Trump has resisted pressure from Democrats and forces within his own party -- most notably 2012 GOP nominee -- who have called on him to release tax returns.
Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican who has endorsed Trump, also told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday that the real estate mogul told him that he intends to release his taxes after the audit.

"I think he should and I think he will. There's no law, but there is a tradition," Issa said.

Romney reiterated that call to release the documents in a Facebook post Wednesday afternoon.

"It is disqualifying for a modern-day presidential nominee to refuse to release tax returns to the voters, especially one who has not been subject to public scrutiny in either military or public service," said Romney, long a vociferous critic of Trump's. "Tax returns provide the public with its sole confirmation of the veracity of a candidate's representations regarding charities, priorities, wealth, tax conformance, and conflicts of interest."

Romney also dismissed Trump's refusal to release the returns on the basis that he's being audited.

"There is only one logical explanation for Mr. Trump's refusal to release his returns: there is a bombshell in them. Given Mr. Trump's equanimity with other flaws in his history, we can only assume it's a bombshell of unusual size," Romney said.

An aide for Trump said that Romney did not volunteer his tax return but was instead pressured to do so.

"Mitt Romney got forced into it," Michael Cohen, Trump's counsel, said on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront." "He didn't have the backbone like Donald Trump does."

Issa brushed aside Romney's criticism, saying, "Mitt right now needs to get over the fact that somebody he didn't pick won."

The tax returns would give voters information about Trump's effective tax rate, his charitable contributions and his income -- all data points for which the billionaire has come under intense scrutiny.

Trump, in late March, released a letter from his tax attorneys confirming that the billionaire real estate mogul's tax filings from 2009 onward remain under review by the IRS.

Still, Trump has also refused to release his tax returns from previous years, which are no longer under IRS audit.

CNN's Tal Kopan and Julia Manchester contributed to this report.

Another bleak episode in the saga of "How the Trump Turns". 

Republican party implosion: "As the Trump Turns"

"I would vote for Marco Rubio in Florida, for John Kasich in Ohio and for Ted Cruz or whichever one of the other two contenders has the best chance of beating Mr. Trump in a given state,” Romney said."

Finally a "stop Trump" strategy has a measurable goal. As the LATimes reports- Texas Senator Cruz (aka "to loose") and Ohio's Governor John Kasich made a decision to support an open GOP convention, when the candidates will spar in Cleveland for the presidential nomination.

In fact, the"As the Trump Turns" campaign saga builds to support an open convention. Like a soap opera character who returns from the dead, the political activists, the Koch brothers (the rich guys who throw millions to conservative candidates), are actually hinting at how Secretary Hillary Clinton may be preferable to either Donald Trump or Senator Ted Cruz!  (This is like the time when the 60's personae of actress Jane Fonda became a Born Again Christian!)

Jane Fonda, a 60s anti-Vietnam war political activist, converted from being a cultural icon and award winning actress to a professed Born Again Christian - analogous to the Republican Koch brothers nearly endorsing Secretary Hillary Clinton for President, in the "As the Trump Turns" saga.

LATimes reports (by line - Seema Mehta): Cruz and Kasich team-up to stop Trump, saying they'll each sit out future primaries.

In the latest effort to upend Republican front-runner Donald Trump's bid for the presidential nomination, the campaigns of rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich announced Sunday night that they would join for a divide-and-conquer strategy in three states as they scramble to seize remaining delegates in a rapidly dwindling primary season.

Kasich will halt campaigning in Indiana, allowing Cruz to focus on the 57 delegates up for grabs in the state’s May 3 primary. Cruz will forgo Oregon later in May and and New Mexico in June. Those two states have a total of 52 delegates at stake.

The strategy underscores the unprecedented nature of the Republican presidential race, with GOP stalwarts refusing to line up behind the front-runner and instead embarking on an effort to stop Trump from securing the 1,237 delegates he needs for the nomination.

Though the campaigns did not say they were coordinating, the language in their announcements was practically identical and the statements were released within minutes of each other.

The prospect of Trump as the GOP nominee would doom Republicans both in this fall’s general election and the party’s long-term prospects, warned Jeff Roe, Cruz’s campaign manager.

"Having Donald Trump at the top of the ticket in November would be a sure disaster for Republicans. Not only would Trump get blown out by [Hillary] Clinton or [Bernie] Sanders, but having him as our nominee would set the party back a generation," Roe said in the statement.

Kasich's goal is to have no candidate win the 1,237 delegates required to clinch the nomination, leading to an open nominating contest at the Republican National Convention in July in Cleveland, said John Weaver, his top strategist.

“Donald Trump doesn’t have the support of a majority of Republicans – not even close, but he currently does have almost half the delegates because he’s benefited from the existing primary system," Weaver said.

The move marks a notable shift for Cruz, who has derided Kasich as a spoiler who was helping Trump’s chances of winning the GOP nomination.

"A vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump," Cruz said in late March in Utah. "I don't know if John Kasich is perhaps campaigning to be Donald Trump's vice president, but he has been eliminated mathematically from having any chance of being the nominee."

Both statements were aimed at super PACs supporting Kasich and Cruz, as well as groups formed with the express aim of stopping Trump from winning the nomination. Weaver even urged outside groups to “honor the commitments made by the Cruz and Kasich campaigns."

An official with a leading anti-Trump group, #NeverTrump, hailed the plans.

“We’ve seen from victories in places like Ohio and Wisconsin that when #NeverTrump forces unite behind the one alternative that’s better suited to that state that we can beat Trump decisively,” senior advisor Rory Cooper said. “… We're happy to see the Kasich and Cruz campaigns strategically using their resources to deny Donald Trump delegates where they are in the strongest position to do so."

Trump immediately dismissed the effort, though, tweeting that Cruz and Kasich were desperately colluding.

Cruz and Kasich believe they can win the GOP nomination if no candidate reaches a majority of delegates on the first ballot at the convention and they can secure votes on subsequent ballots when fewer delegates' votes are bound to their state's popular votes.

Their campaigns said they plan to compete vigorously in the remaining contests, though California, the biggest prize left, offers another opportunity for their strategy of detente. The vast majority of the state’s 172 delegates are awarded by congressional district, not statewide popular vote. Though Trump leads in early polls, Cruz shows strength in the Central Valley and Kasich has potential to pick up delegates in the Bay Area. They have a stronger chance of keeping delegates from Trump if both campaign in the state but cede some districts to each other.

But for Cruz or Kasich to nab the nomination, either must vanquish Trump.

Talk has long swirled on the campaign trail about the men forming a temporary alliance to allow each to compete where he is strongest and to avoid diluting the anti-Trump vote. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 nominee, suggested such a tactical agreement in a March speech excoriating Trump as unfit for the presidency.

“I would vote for Marco Rubio in Florida, for John Kasich in Ohio and for Ted Cruz or whichever one of the other two contenders has the best chance of beating Mr. Trump in a given state,” Romney said.

Rubio, the Florida senator, and his campaign suggested such an effort for the March 15, contests, which offered a bounty of delegates in several populous states. Rubio urged his supporters to back Kasich in the Ohio primary and Kasich’s and Cruz’s backers to vote for him in the Florida primary.

Kasich’s campaign did not return the sentiment; Kasich won Ohio, and Rubio lost Florida and dropped out of the race.

Just Sayin" - talk about a Mitt Romney presidential nomination

There's some not so secret talk about Governor Mitt Romney being nominated from the floor of the GOP convention to run for president again in 2016, even though he says "no" to this possibility. In other words, Governor Romney can be nominated in a brokered convention. Although he lost the 2012 election to President Obama, many find a Romney candidacy preferable to the line up of current presidential wanna-bees.

Obviously, Republicans are dissatisfied with their line up of candidates and Romney is understandably preferable to "all of the above". None in the current GOP line up are inspiring and most aren't even qualified to be in the line up, at all.

Nevertheless, it's hardly an honor to be nominated to run for President, just because Republican voters don't like the other guys. 

Certainly, a repeat Romney candidacy is at risk for loosing again, but there's a loftier reason to consider, beyond the win-loose probability. Consider the state of an American two party system if the Trump or Carson duo becomes the nominees, selected by the few who might vote for them to be on the 2016 presidential ballot. In fact, the two gentlemen (and let's add Carley Fiorina, for gender diversity) will tank the Republican party. American aren't going to go to the polls to vote for the unlikely trio of Trump-Carson-Fiorina. Moderate Republicans might vote for Governor John Kasich of Ohio, but right wingers will abdicate their voting rights before supporting him. It's difficult to understand their strident reasons, but he's just not a conservative Republican favorite. 

In my opinion, the Republican party will become irrelevant unless Governor Romney takes the risk and runs for President, assuming he'd be nominated in a brokered convention. 

I'm just sayin', although Republicans have used gerrymandering to squeeze their way into winning hundreds of local elections, they're continuing to loose credibility as a political party because they have been unable to demonstrate progressive leadership at any political level. Nevertheless, our democracy begs for a two political party system and Governor Romney may be the one candidate who can keep the Republicans' hopes alive. Otherwise, if any in the line up of GOP wanna-bees are nominated in 2016, the Republican party of Lincoln and Eisenhower will be an endangered species and should consider the possibility of applying for protection from extinction. That said, Romney will most likely loose against the experienced Secretary Hillary Clinton in a general election. Therefore, that's probably reason enough for him to let the 2016 Republican party crash and burn.

Republican Government Shutdown is a Nightmare - What Would President Romney Do?

It's obvious Republicans in Congress don't believe in Democracy because, otherwise, they would figure out, with basic arithmetic, how their party lost the 2012 Presidential election. 

In other words, there won't be a President Mitt Romney because he and the Republican Party lost the presidential election.  

One reason the Republicans lost is because Mr. Romney said the first thing he'd do would be to repeal the health care reform law called "Obamacare". 

It was one of Gov. Mitt Romney's favorite pledges on the campaign trail: "If elected, I will repeal Obamacare on day one."  However, even as Romney ranted on this theme, a range of analyses by political and healthcare think tanks suggested it would be difficult for Romney to erase the landmark Affordable Care Act.

Nevertheless, Tea Party Republicans don't pay attention to much of anything the experts say. Right wing zealots are so narcissistic they just love to listen to themselves. Now, they're frenzied in an obsessive-compulsive disorder about repealing Obamacare, regardless of whether or not they can really do it, or not.

Tea Party zealots are in a psychotic denial about their candidate Governor Romney losing the election to President Obama, whose signature legislation, of course, is Obamacare.

These Tea Party zealots are a minority of dangerously misguided miscreants who hold fast to their entrenched hostage taking approach to governing, because they don't like Obamacare.  

They're allowed to do this. In our Democracy, where protests are allowed, Tea Party zealots are determined to abuse their right to free speech, causing harm to the entire nation because of their terrorizing tactics. In their demented thinking, it's fine to abuse the right to free speech, even if a majority of the nation voted against conservative Romney. Their arithmetic is screwed up, because Tea Party zealots act like they've contracted a Napolean syndrome, whereby their minority position takes on visions of grandeur. 

Maybe, if Romney had received the most votes and won the 2012 Presidential election, our nation would conceivably be controlled by these zealots and, thereby, this current shutdown would be a non-issue. They would probably have selectively shut down government and repealed Obamacare immediately. No democratic government would have prevented them from a takeover of government, on day one, of a Romney administration.

It's likely a Romney presidency would have jump started a national shut down by simply closing the government, piece by piece, including repeal of Obamacare. In the current preventable shutdown, we see Romney's goals, including the repeal, being driven by a minority, who are doing what their candidate was unable to do in the Executive branch of government. 

It's absolutely frightening to consider how Romney would have governed. Imagine if Democrats in the Senate tried to obstruct a Romney agenda with a simply majority vote?  There's no way Republicans would have tolerated this behavior. 

It is obvious the Republicans are driving this government shutdown because they are miffed about the outcome of the 2012 election whereby President Obama won and Obamacare moved forward.
These same right wing Republicans would never tolerate similar bully behavior if Romney were president.

Tea Party zealots clearly use our Democracy to their advantage but they don't believe in it unless it serves their selfish ends.

A Tea Party run government would be like living under tyranny.
Therefore, the majority of people in our Democracy can't allow this take over of government to succeed, regardless of the consequences.

In a democracy, a majority sets the agenda. Tea Party zealots are the enemy within us and they must be removed from office for practicing sedition. 

Moreover, these zealots must never be voted into power because, frankly, their bully tactics are tyrannical and their approach to politics is to create fear rather than trust in government.

Republican Leadership Line Up

Republican leadership has splintered into the absurd, the paradoxical, the hypocritical and the people who believe in fanciful thinking. 

If they weren't so dangerous, the line up might even be funny. 

 Unfortunately, they're a scary group; all of them must be voted off the "political island" of Congress, where they misuse their positions, to grandstand about right wing extremist causes.

Who are among this GOP line-up of of quasi leaders?

1.  Governor Mitt Romney - Believes 47 percent of Americans are fundamentally free loaders, who want the government to take care of them.  This absurd statement has no merit whatsoever.  It's an embarrassment to Romney and to people who work for a living.  Meanwhile, Romney built a mega fortune on the backs of these stereotyped free loaders, especially those who worked for his Father George Romney, Chairman of American Motors, in Detroit's automobile industry.  Without the working class, who helped build American Motors' fortune, Governor Romney's father might still be living in his birthplace, in Mexico, and Mitt might be trying to figure out how to get through the immigration wall in Arizona. This 47 percent remark was recorded, it was wrong minded and it is counter intuitive, because American workers are the most productive in the world, and Romney knows it.  American workers get more done per hour than anybody, other than the Norwegians.

Romney's 47 percent comments were hypocritical.  His wealth was created on the backs of the working class; but he marginalizes working class people who created his wealth.

2.  Congresswoman Michelle Bachman (R- Minnesota) - She's a Congresswoman who lives in the home  state of American Democratic Leaders (both Vice-Presidents) Hubert Humphrey (1911-1978) and Walter Mondale (she's quite an embarrassment to both men, I'm pretty sure).  But, beyond Bachman's ideological differences with the two statesmen, she's a woman who engages in fanciful thinking.  In other words, she makes things up.  During her failed bid to gain the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination, Bachman told the national media how she believed the HPV vaccine, an effective prevention against cervical cancer, is a cause of mental retardation.  This ridiculous conclusion is based entirely on Bachman's fanciful thinking and without any medical evidence whatsoever.  After criticizing Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) for mandating a vaccine for school girls, Rep. Michele Bachmann added some scary charges: She claimed to have met a woman whose daughter suffered mental retardation from the vaccine, that it has "very dangerous consequences" and that it puts "little children's lives at risk."  This is ridiculous fanciful thinking was created so Bachman could capture headlines, but without any merit.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky -  This man is a master of paradox. Senator Paul knows the Republican Party is entering a "death spiral" if immigration reform is left undone, but he just won't vote for it, because he doesn't want to.  Paul's reason for not voting for the bipartisan immigration bill are completely nonsensical.  “Without some congressional authority and without border security first, I can’t support the final bill,” Paul said on CNN’s “State of  The Union.”   Maybe, Senator Paul wants to spend even more money to send Congress to police the nation's borders.  Let's remember, America has two international borders, let's not discriminate by only policing one of them.  Unfortunately, Senator Paul is blind to the expensive and enormous anti-immigration border security wall, erected in Arizona, more hideous than the Berlin Wall in Germany; neither does he experience the sadness of law abiding immigrant families, who deserve a path to citizenship, so they can be free of the ominous threat of deportation.

If Republicans, like Senator Paul, don't support the bipartisan immigration reform going through the Congress, the growing number of Hispanic voters will simply stop supporting the GOP. Classic paradox, yet Paul doesn't get it.  

Senator Marco Rubio, Republican from Florida - is the most hypocritical of all, because his family are Cuban refugees; but he won't lead his party out of  its "death spiral", anti immigration positions.  Rubio has no leadership skills. If Rubio were a leader,  he'd stop the GOP anti immigration rhetoric; rather, Rubio is an ethnic puppet for Republicans to dress up and show off in public, to seemingly display how (hypocritically) supportive they are of Hispanic voters.  Cuban voters might buy it, because of loyalty to one of their own, but Hispanic voters see through Rubio's hypocrisy.  Worse, he's ambitious and hypocritical.  

Pope Francis said hypocrites must be revealed.  “Be uncompromising against this spiritual illness (hypocrites). May the Lord not let us be hypocrites. Hypocrites don’t know the meaning of forgiveness, joy and the love of God," he said in a recent post on Twitter.

Republicans have no inspired leadership. Their self appointed leaders are partisan and ambitious zealots. 

Republicans like Party Chairman Reince Priebus must rebrand the party, absent the line up of hypocrites and fanciful thinkers, who pulled the party away from American working class values and ethical immigration policies.