The Republican establishment has not used its powers, as the majority in both the House and the Senate, to stop President Obama from carrying out his sabotage of the country he was tragically elected to lead.

On the contrary, the Republican “opposition” has passively allowed, and even actively assisted, the destructive process.

And despite the YUGE message that is being sent to them by the millions of righteously wrathful Republican voters who support Donald Trump – with his anti-establishment message – for the presidency, they are still doing it!

Genevieve Wood, writing at the Daily Signal of the Heritage Foundation, gives some examples of their … what? Arrogance? Cluelessness? Corruption? Sloth? Deliberate defiance of their base? We’d say, all those things.

To watch the recent happenings on Capitol Hill, you would think this was just another typical presidential election year — a few bumps here and there, but no sign of a major shake-up, no indication voters were in revolt, nothing to suggest business as usual in Washington was perhaps falling out of fashion among the American public.

What else explains the lackluster, uninspiring, and I would suggest, “sell-out your base” agenda of GOP congressional leadership?

For example, the Senate GOP sold out its base on the issue of Common Core this week. Despite the fact Republicans have a majority in the Senate, seven members of the GOP joined a majority of Democrats to confirm President Barack Obama’s nominee, John B. King, Jr., education secretary. King is an avowed supporter of Common Core and other top-down, government knows best, education policies.

But at least the GOP is going to put up a fight on government spending, right? No, actually, they aren’t.

Apparently House and Senate leadership have decided the budget deal former House Speaker John Boehner and Obama agreed to last year is such a good one that they will keep it. That’s right, despite the fact Congress passed a Budget Control Act, supposedly to control the budget, [Speaker] Boehner and Obama blew through it, adding another $30 billion.

And despite the fact that Boehner’s compliance in this matter is one of the primary reasons he is no longer in Congress, the current leadership is taking the same path. Their reasoning? Obama will fight us if we try to “cut” spending.

Instead of fighting Obama, GOP leadership would rather fight its conservative members who refuse to go-along-spend-along based on promises of future reforms.

They apparently believe you’re supposed not to try and do what you told voters you would try and do. Ultimately, this means it’s unlikely the GOP will fulfill its promise to pass a budget this year and once again Congress will kick the problem further down the road.

Then there is the ongoing issue of judicial nominations. Republicans ran in 2014 on a platform promising to put a stop wherever possible to Obama’s executive overreach. One way of doing that is putting a halt on Obama’s judicial nominees—especially those for lifetime positions. … Obama nominees, including Wilhelmina Wright who once accused President Ronald Reagan of “bigotry,” were confirmed just last month, and four more are on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s schedule this week. …

A president who has repeatedly usurped the power of Congress, should not be rewarded by Congress with judges who will no doubt rubber stamp his reckless view of the separation of powers. …

Considering a recent survey by the American Perceptions Initiative found that 75 percent of Americans agree that “Congress has the responsibility to make sure the president does not skirt the law or overturn the will of the people as reflected in those laws”, a battle over judicial nominations seems like a very good [issue] for the GOP to remind people that Obama, from executive amnesty to rewriting parts of Obamacare, has been doing just that.

Perhaps they think the country isn’t paying attention to what’s happening on Capitol Hill because everyone is focused on the presidential race. What they should understand is that people have been paying attention all along and a presidential race no one in Washington expected is a direct result.

Guilty Men

Afterword: Mitch McConnell, Senate majority leader, has just said on Fox that he will support the Republican nominee the people vote for, whoever he is. Which makes him now a little less guilty than many of the other GOP leaders.

We think Senator Ted Cruz would be the best GOP candidate for the 2016 presidential election. We like what he says, what he stands for. He is strong, brilliant, confident – and right. And he has the presence, the personality, the manner a president should have. In fact we like everything about him – except of course his religiousness, but that doesn’t seem to be having any adverse effect on his political thinking. Here he is making his principles plain in an interview with Genevieve Wood of The Foundry (part of the Heritage network).  The principles he states are ours too.

We know that not all our regular readers agree with our opinion of Senator Cruz.

We hope those who do not agree will tell us why.