Nothing frets my strings quicker than politicians who are dishonest so you can imagine how tightly I’m wired, given the propensity for politicians to be exactly that.

Democrats are pretty bad with their constant misrepresentation during election campaigns about how liberal they are but Republicans who aren’t really conservative are worse.  Not only are they more irritating, they’re more damaging to the cause of freedom because at least Democrats who advocate big government are clearly enemies.  Everybody knows how to deal with enemies.

Republicans who advocate big government are traitors who stab us in the back every election cycle.

Right now, nobody better represents the two-faced RINO (Republican In Name Only) better than the current front-runner among Republican presidential candidates, Mitt Romney.  Romney is no more conservative and no more honestly Republican than the big toe on Bernie Sanders’ left foot.  Every time somebody tells me they like Mitt, I wince, groan, and then ask them one simple question: “Can you name one issue where Romney differs from Obama?”  When I ask that question, people generally get a glazed look on their face, fumble around in their mind looking for something—anything—and then admit, “Gee, let me think about that.”

He passed Obamacare in Massachusetts before Obama was even president and refuses to distance himself from the mess it’s become (or admit it’s a giant failure), as governor he unilaterally ordered that homosexual marriage be instituted in defiance of the state constitution (now he claims to be against gay marriage), he insists that man-made global warming is an issue that requires limits on carbon output (which is plain stupid), and he thinks the government can solve unemployment by training workers—“give workers the resources and responsibility to develop valuable skills and make the transition to new types of work” is how he puts it.

Just what we need, right?  Another guy in the Oval Office who thinks government can solve unemployment by training homeless people to write software for super-computers.  Sheesh.

Romney is the Grand Poobah of flip-floppers (here is his history on gay marriage, here is his history on abortion, judge for yourself whether this man ever held a firm grip on a principle) and it just kills me that he’s raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations which he can use to inflict his phony bullshit brand of conservatism on Americans who are scared, angry, and hungry for change.  I’d like to know who these people are who donate to Romney’s campaign.  Why are they supporting a Caucasian version of Barack Obama?

Even Obama recognizes the philosophical convergence: “I agree with Mitt Romney, who recently said he’s proud of what he accomplished on health care in Massachusetts,” said the president in February.

Nice endorsement there, Mitt.

A researcher named Steve Baldwin went back and counted: Romney changed his position on over thirty key issues when he ran for president four years ago, trying to make himself palatable to conservatives.  But he didn’t quite manage to fool enough people so the Republican Party nominated the other big-name big-money RINO, John McCain, instead.  Here’s what I said about McCain back on November 7, 2009, in part three of my “Democracy in the United States” series:

“Look at John McCain against Barack Obama in the presidential election—one guy wanted healthcare legislation, carbon taxes to fight global warming, international control of the American economy, censorship of free speech, and trillions of dollars of taxpayer money sent to rescue Wall Street crooks.  The other guy was Obama.  If you’re an American who believes in freedom, individual rights, and American exceptionalism, all you could do last November was stare at the ballot, scratch your head, and fight the urge to puke.”

There is a vast conspiracy, otherwise known as the Republican establishment, also known as the “good ol’ boy network,” which intersects and cooperates with its mirror image in the Democrat establishment.  These people do not want us to have choices.  They want us to think we have choices and think we have working democratic institutions while they force-feed us two-faced RINO candidates like McCain, and Romney, and Newt Gingrich, and Jon Huntsman.  Meanwhile, they hope the real honest-to-God conservative candidates, with actual honest-to-God American values, will have trouble getting traction and money and slowly fade into the mist.

“Oh, well,” the good ol’ boys will say, “the voters had a choice so they shouldn’t complain.”

But we haven’t had a choice, not for a long time.  Not in 2008, when it was McCain against Obama, not in 2004 when it was Bush 2 against Kerry, not in 2000 when it was Bush 2 against Gore, not in 1996 when it was Dole against Clinton, not in 1992 when it was Bush 1 against Clinton, and not in 1988 when it was Bush 1 against Dukakis.  Every single one of those guys was an establishment “good ol’ boy” politician, all of them except Dole and McCain educated at Harvard or Yale, and the Republicans were, each and every one of them, two-faced back-stabbing RINOs.

We haven’t had a choice since 1984 when Reagan was running for reelection against Mondale.  That was a clear choice—a man who believed in America and individual freedom against a leftwing Looney Tune—and look how it went: Reagan won 49 of 50 states and 525 out of 538 electoral votes, still (and probably forever) the record for margin of victory in a presidential election.  (Mondale won his own state, Minnesota, but barely; and I’m pretty sure they just didn’t want to hurt his feelings.)

To put Reagan’s victory margin in perspective, 525 out of 538 is almost 98% of the electoral votes which is only one percentage point less than Saddam Hussein got when he was dictator of Iraq and his name was the only name on the ballot.  In other words, Mondale polled pretty much the same as the Iraqi write-in candidate “not Hussein.”

That’s what happened the last time Americans had a choice.

What we all need to understand is that “good ol’ boys” are “good ol’ boys” no matter what party they belong to, and they make their money and accumulate their power by making government bigger and collecting more taxes from us to pay for it.  State power is their livelihood and their tool and the object of their lusts, and when push comes to shove they will support each other and attack outsiders, regardless of party affiliation.

That’s why Gingrich recently attacked the Republican budget proposals written by Paul Ryan, calling them “radical” and “right wing social engineering.”  There was such an outcry from angry conservatives about his traitorous words that he was forced to retract but his colors were clearly exposed: RINO grey.

That’s why Jon Huntsman’s family has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Harry Reid, and Huntsman himself, when he was governor of Utah, appointed Reid’s son to Utah’s Board of Regents.  If you’re wondering how a bona-fide conservative could ever support radical leftwing socialists like the Reid family, well, the quick answer is he couldn’t.  But a RINO could.

That’s why last year, when it looked like Sharron Angle was going to ruin Reid’s reelection bid, the RINO mayors of Reno and Sparks, Bob Cashell and Geno Martini, jumped into the fray by endorsing Reid over Angle.  To hell with political philosophy, to hell with principles, to hell with loyalty to voters who elected them as Republicans, and to hell with what’s right for America—Harry Reid is a good ol’ boy and two good ol’ boy RINOs backed one of their own.  Those endorsements, by two Republican mayors in a heavily Republican area of the state, may have made the difference for Reid, which means they may have made a difference for the nation because it’s hard to imagine Obamacare passing without Senate Majority Leader Reid’s reelection.

I had a chance to ask the Reno mayor about his endorsement on June 18, on the radio show I co-host:

Jay Davis: Okay, anymore political Reno questions for Bob?

Me: Can I ask him why he endorsed Harry Reid?

Jay Davis: Oh my gosh, I knew that was coming.

Me: Go for it.  Tell me.

Cashell: You know, I, I’ve known Harry... I was very instrumental in Harry and Michael Callahan getting elected governor and lieutenant governor.  I, uh, I’ve known Harry for a long time.  The times I’ve dealt with him, uh, he’s done a lot for our city and our state.  He’s gotten us a lot of money for the airport.  He’s gotten us a lot of money for... the railroad wouldn’t even talk to us on the train trench until he got ‘em to come to the table.  Uh, I’ve been a friend of Harry’s for a long time.  Do I like everything that Harry’s done in Washington?  No.  Do I like everything the president’s doing?  No.  But I blame the national Republican Party, and our own state party, for not picking a candidate that carried… and could do what they did.  I just felt his opponent was too radical and, uh, too far off base.

Summary: He’s known Harry Reid for a long time, Harry Reid is a friend, Harry Reid has brought a lot of money to Reno, and by supporting individual freedom and suggesting solutions for the dire financial crisis our nation faces, Sharron Angle was “too radical.”

One thing about RINOs: they scatter a lot of dung.

Under Harry Reid’s leadership since January of 2007 the nation has dive-bombed into bankruptcy and financial pandemonium but the mayors of Reno and Sparks value the good ol’ boy network higher than the future of America.  For guys like this, “Republican” is just a label to wear when they want to win elections, not an actual political philosophy in which they have sincere beliefs.

It’s easy to tell who the non-establishment, true-blue-conservative candidates are.  They’re the ones under constant, hysterical, dishonest, personal attack from the government/media establishment, which is scared to death that somebody like Reagan will win the Republican nomination and give us a choice again.

Look what they’ve done to Sarah Palin for the last three years.  They’ve accused her of lying about giving birth to her own child, moved into the house next door and spied on her, called her stupid so many times it’s… well, stupid, formed a giant nationwide open conspiracy to rifle through her emails looking for dirt (so far they haven’t found any), and even tried to blame her for the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords.

All that energy channeled into vitriol against a woman who so far isn’t even running!

Meanwhile, everything Palin says inevitably turns out to be correct at some point after the establishment makes fun of her for saying it.  (There are articles all over the Internet headlined with some version of the words, "Sarah Palin was right!"  Here, for instance, or here, or here… all this month.)  The hatred for Palin seems irrational until you realize what somebody like Sarah Palin means to these people: she threatens their livelihood and power.

Now they’re aiming at Michele Bachmann.  Just in the past week Bachmann, a former tax attorney, natural mother of five, foster mother of 23 teenagers, and founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, has been accused of being ignorant of American history, unaccomplished in her career, and a liar when it comes to her achievements as a mother.  In other words, she has the good ol’ boys scared to death.

She’s already caught Romney in Iowa.

We are not powerless.  As voters, we can ignore the personal attacks against the real conservatives and get out there and vote during the primaries and caucuses, to make sure we don’t end up with another McCain.

Take a good hard look at the shrill insiders and who they are attacking, remember who has betrayed us in the past, and choose, while you still can.


From Reno, Nevada, USA        Tweet

December 9, 2014 - Would you please, PLEASE skewer McCain after the travesty I just saw on the Senate floor? Screw Rep & Dem, does he even represent America any more? Thanks for letting me vent, but the old f... has to go. – Ghost, Ohio

J.P. replies: Wasn’t sure what you were talking about but a quick Google search brought me this: McCain makes passionate defense for torture report’s release.  I know I need to get back to writing columns—I know it, I know it, I know it—but in the meantime I thought maybe this column from 2011 would give you some satisfaction.

June 30, 2011 - I full heartedly disagree! - Mavis B., Utah

June 30, 2011 - Romney is just a pretty face. That's how shallow politics has become. - Petra F., Chicago