George Rebane
[This article, sans update, was published here in the 25oct23 issue of The Union.]
Recently I attended a luncheon sponsored by a local Republican club that featured as speaker one of the party’s eight candidates for US Senate. She gave a barnburner talk outlining all the familiar iniquities of the Democrats both in Sacramento and Washington. Specifically, she reprised the Democrats’ work in
- Always raising taxes;
- Issuing more stifling regulations;
- Mismanaging the economy;
- Indoctrinating Neo-Marxism in the media, education, and entertainment;
- Watering down critical curricula in our schools – dumbing down students;
- Rewarding criminals and punishing victims;
- Promoting trans-gendering in schools, denying parental rights to raise their children;
- Maintaining wide open borders for illegal alien entry;
- Projecting foreign policy weakness, inviting bad actors to make war;
- Etc, etc.
The problem with her enthusiastic rhetoric was that her Republican audience knew all that stuff, and most could have given that speech themselves. What was sorely missing, and has been missing for years at such gatherings, is recognition of the dire straits the party is in, and what would be required for its resurgence in California.
Recounting the above list yet one more time is nothing but imitating a long-playing echo chamber which might be of interest to those conservatives who don’t pay attention to what is going on in the country and the world. The problem is that most of those folks don’t show up at such luncheons and meetings.
So, the Republican Party, irrelevant statewide and nationally chaotic, continues to ignore the fact that it can right none of the liberal and woke wrongs without first regaining its stature as a recognized can-do political force in the country. Endlessly repeating and pointing out the passing signposts to socialism has done nothing to change the direction of the country, and doing the same thing over and over again only confirms the definition of ignorance.
If Republicans are not putting their energies into planning and making progress on the party’s road to resurgence, then the rest of it will only be an ongoing stream of empty rhetoric growing weaker with the passing years.
[27oct23 update] An added thought. Given how other states are adopting our public policy insanities, California’s cancer has been aggressively metastasizing across the land. The reason is clear and hangs on ‘other people’s money’ that can best be understood in light of what Garrett Hardin (q.v.) taught us about the behavior of commons (more here and here). California has been very successful in taxing ‘the rich’, regulating the bejeezus out of everyone, and getting the feds to pony up every time we get our tit in a wringer, that it seems like a good idea for the folks in Ohio and Nebraska to copy. As our snowballing national debt attests, with everyone piling on, this commons awaits its inevitable fate.
rebanesruminations.com 
376 responses to “The Reprobate Republicans (updated 27oct23)”
The Repubs could start by dumping Trump and Jordan who are both massive losers. As long as they cling to them they don’t have a chance. Ironically they are the best things the Dems have going for them which is an sad indication of the state of the Democratic party.
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/betting-odds/2024/president/
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Gregory
What odds do the Libertarians have for winning the Presidency?
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What would you guess, Punch?
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Ooopsy….!
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/20/us-wraps-up-fiscal-year-with-a-budget-deficit-near-1point7-trillion.html
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re fishy 5:19 – And remember, that’s with a “great” economy (according to Biden and Paul).
Combine the sinking economy with investors demanding an ever-higher return to finance our nation’s debt AND a heaping helping of fed govt “investing” in the green (scam) economy, will give us quite a ride next year.
It’s for the children.
Enjoy.
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re George’s lament:
I can barely see the point of the Rs trying to re-take any kind of control in CA. The best they can do is represent the few rural conservative districts in the east and the north east of the state. Look at the electorate in CA state-wide. CA continues to slide downhill and the voters continue to vote for more.
Nation-wide, it doesn’t get much better. 3 generations or more of children run through the left-wing controlled govt school system has produced quite a crop of completely uneducated dolts who have no understanding of history beyond “the white man is bad and has caused nothing but trouble in the world”.
How does a conservative Republican speak to such people or try to obtain their vote?
On top of all that, we have the long-running wing of the Rs called the Country-Club Republicans. They are content to be a bunch of Dem-Lites and really have no love of the working blue collar class of voters. Think of folks like George Will, the Bush family and Romney.
Our nation is no longer united on basic common ideas and understandings of what a proper federal govt is for. This divide was not caused by Limbaugh or Trump or any one person. It was caused by what the founders of this nation warned us about. It was a govt set up for a people that would rely on the govt to provide them with physical protection from foreign enemies and criminals. To provide a fair and impartial system of justice. To give folks an opportunity to risk and dare and struggle to provide for themselves.
We are now a nation with a probable majority that expect the govt to provide them with the material things they want as a “right”. These kinds of citizens do not like a Republic, they want mob rule. These kinds of citizens do not like a free market of commerce or ideas. They don’t like that sort of thing because they know the free market rewards only those who will avail to make themselves useful to others in society and are willing to work hard at that task. They don’t like the free market place of ideas because it only rewards those who have spent their lives learning about reality and have developed and formed their own opinions they can back up with arguments and facts.
I would ask how a politician running as a true conservative can appeal to that probable national majority by telling them the govt is going to give them freedom and justice but no free goodies? How can they run on a platform of telling the populace the SS system is a big Ponzi scheme run by the govt with forced participation and nothing to show for all of the money poured in but a huge pile of IOUs? How is our honest, conservative pol going to appeal to the modern crowd by telling them life is not fair and you might end up working hard and end up in the mud because the purpose of the govt is not to make everything end up equal for everyone? Good luck with that.
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Here’s a great example of why the Rs are having trouble coalescing around a united front:
“John James won’t support Jim Jordan for speaker because he’s open to cutting spending”
The Dems all love endless spending with seemingly no limit and are glad to support each other’s appropriations.
The Rs are actually the diverse party and have many who want to act like Dem-lite. They treat the fed budget as a piggy bank to bolster their standing amongst their constituents. It’s been going on for so long, most Americans think it natural and want more of it all the time. We are a nation addicted to debt and it will be our ruin.
https://www.themidwesterner.news/2023/10/john-james-wont-support-jim-jordan-for-speaker-because-hes-open-to-cutting-spending/
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Here’s another great example of the Rs problem:
“Mitt Romney Admits He Didn’t Know Anything About Burisma During Trump’s Ukraine Impeachment”
With friends like this, who needs enemies?
This was the R’s candidate to run as president against Obama. He just wanted to be one of the cool kids accepted by the DC mob and actually has no conservative principles he will stick to. He voted for Trump’s impeachment because he personally didn’t like Trump and had no understanding of what the case was about.
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/20/mitt-romney-admits-he-didnt-know-anything-about-burisma-during-trumps-ukraine-impeachment/
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Lol! Scotto still cannot bring himself to respond to George’s comment about how screwed up the Republican party is without blaming the Libs. His screeds continue to blame everyone who is not a Matt Gaetz.
…but what about Burisma, Lol!, and Hunter’s laptop, and what about the Dems?
Right-e-o Scotto, Burisma, and Hunter Biden are way more important subjects to be concerned with even though they are ancient history and Republicans have failed to make a case.
Release the Kraken!
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Lonely Juanita 8:30 – Dude – you really should read my posts before you comment on them. I pointed out there are folks that run as Rs just so they can occasionally get elected. They would never get elected as Dems so they pretend to be conservative Rs. I have no idea how this is the fault of any Dem.
I’m sure you would like the subject of the Biden crime family to go away, but the bank records are starting to reveal the details, although it will take time.
“Zlochevsky responded he did not send any funds directly to the ‘Big Guy’ (which [the FBI source] understood was a reference to Joe Biden). [The source] asked Zlochevsky how many companies/bank accounts Zlochevsky controls; Zlochevsky responded it would take them (Investigators) 10 years to find the records (i.e. illicit payments to Joe Biden).”
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like I said, scotto, obsessed with the Biden’s, while the Republican clown show continues in the courts and in the House of Congress.
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“…while the Republican clown show continues”
Republicans eschew the Democratic clown gags like Drag queens for kids and gender choice for everybody. So?
Gavin Newsom is becoming the biggest gag line in the country.
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Lonely Juanita – “like I said, scotto, obsessed with the Biden’s”
No, that’s not what you said.
You alleged that I was blaming the Dems for discord among the Rs.
And I pointed out you were wrong, so you then decided to lie and claim you said something else.
Juanita is the one that brought up the nonsense that there is nothing on the Biden crime family and I was responding to that. Not my obsession, dude – you brought it up.
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Gregory – “Gavin Newsom is becoming the biggest gag line in the country”
Just wait until he’s president, then he’ll really provide us with a clown show.
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Some of our readers cannot separate the affairs of the Biden crime family and the travails of the Republican Party as completely separate issues roiling our capital. Under this post we should focus our comments on the current problems of the GOP, which would not reveal anything about the commenters’ attitudes toward the multitude of other issues we discuss here. This notion may escape some readers.
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from the WSJ –
“Matt Gaetz Tore the House GOP Apart”
This is laughably idiotic. Gaetz may have been the shout that triggered the avalanche, but the buildup of snow had been a long time coming. It took very little to set off the schism in the House and the split was festering from decades ago. I’m thinking about the time Newt had power and conservatives had high hopes some basic things would change.
The Dems have been hell-bent for years to lead us into mob rule and full socialism, and it seems a large number of Rs in office have been content to do nothing more than to softly play a game of simply trying to slow them down a bit.
Our fed govt has been growing for quite some time now in ways that are beyond simply matching the growth in population. The turmoil in the GOP is the turmoil of a person coming to grips with the realization that he has become addicted to something bad and must give it up and return to sobriety. And it is not easy and it sets off a time of inner struggle and pain and uncertainty. The idea that this turmoil is a problem for our fed govt is silly. The sun will rise and set and the IRS will sail on unperturbed.
In physical fitness regimes the slogan is apt – “no pain – no gain”.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/matt-gaetz-tore-the-house-gop-apart-he-isnt-sorry-c7a7646d
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Golly!
Half the state budget is spent on education, and 100% of teacher training and certification is controlled by Democrats. How did that happen?
We need an alternative path towards teacher certification… I’d suggest a minimum SAT (above the current averages) and a MA/MS in one of a few solid courses (say English Lit, not a Grievance Study, or math, physics, chemistry, engineering…).
This could never get passed through Sacramento. A proposition perhaps?
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Reps. in the running for Speaker now are Jack Bergman (Mich.), Byron Donalds (Fla.), Tom Emmer (Minn.), Kevin Hern (Okla.), Mike Johnson (La.), Dan Meuser (Pa.), Gary Palmer (Ala.), Austin Scott (Ga.) and Pete Sessions (Texas). In 2020, all nine supported efforts to disenfranchise millions of Americans and inhibit the peaceful transfer of power.
So that is part of the problem.
I think that any election denier should be disqualified as speaker of the House.
Since Emmer has been called out by Trump for not being on the Trump crazy clown show train, I would say he might have potential for speaker of the House.
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Then you have Republican front runner, thought leader and guiding light, Trump who thinks he’s running against Obama, thinks Biden started the latest Hamas Israeli conflict, and thinks Victor Orban is the president of Turkey and who he refers to, in glowing terms, as a one of the strongest leaders in the world 😂
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iJuan 654a
Mind reading again? Very silly to base one’s politics on knowing what others are thinking.
ps power out a’gin
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Power restored.
“I think that any election denier should be disqualified as speaker of the House.”
If any one of these three events had not taken place:
1) the censoring of the NY Post;
2) the letter signed by 51 former intelligence agents;
3) the pouring of 419million Zuckbucks to take over a number of public election offices,
Trump very probably would have won the election. Had all three been avoided…
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Gregory, what’s the story with your power? Do you have a generator?
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No generator. I’ve three AC “generators” with batteries, one for the TV in the living room, one for the Starlink and one for my bedroom (CPAP and clock radio) that kick in during power fails.
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Perfect! Mike Johnson should appeal to the wackydoodle 8 holding government hostage.
“An ideological member of the Christian right faction of the Republican Party, Johnson is known for his strong opposition to legal abortion access, medical marijuana, and same-sex marriage.[1] In December 2020, Johnson signed an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election. In January 2021, Johnson voted to overturn the election results in the state of Pennsylvania.[2] He has close ties to the fundamentalist Protestant groups Louisiana Family Forum, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Focus on the Family. Prior to his career as a politician, he worked with them to “represent churches, pastors and congregants whose vision of religious freedom conflicted with government regulations”.[1] Johnson supports an end of American military aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia.[1]” Wiki
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Johnson supports single issue spending bills too. As we head off the fiscal cliff and while most people not from the south totally disagree with Johnson on social issues, spending is our most important issue.
To address your points. In 2021, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the manner in which the 2020 election was conducted was unconstitutional. https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Commonwealth/out/244MD21_1-28-22.pdf
As far as his Chirstian faith, it is this very faith and spiritualism that is lacking in America and which is causing most of our problems. Any person advocating for faith and spirituality is all good in my book.
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Thought leader Trump torpedoed Emmer’s run for the speakership apparently because he’s too reasonable.
Based on what we know about Trump, his ideal candidate for speakership would be a mind-meld between Putin, Dutero, Orbán, Kim Jong Un, MBS and others he looks up to.
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So much concern and wringing of hands over the Republicans from the progressive left……!
You fancy lads need to buck up!
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Actually I think the decline of the Republican Party in California is clearly tied to the fact that Republicans have not responded to changing demographics, values, and priorities of California voters.
The demise began in earnest with Pete Wilson’s support for Prop 187, and not due to the content of the Proposition but due to the language of exclusion that was used to promote it.
The decline continued as factions within the Republican Party in California moved further and further to the right on social issues in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, most notably abortion rights and gay rights, taking critical components of their previous governing coalition, pro choice Republican women and gay conservatives and first alienating them, then eventually purging them.
The demise has been consistently underpinned by Republican opposition to Social Security and Medicare, if not in legislative votes then in the rhetoric they have used to attack these programs. The demise has also been underpinned by opposition to immigration reform, denying another core Republican constituency, business, with no place to go for labor.
Finally, although opportunists in the contemporary Republican Party have adopted a populist language of supporting working class voters, their policies have been consistently hostile to labor, labor rights, fair tax policy, and many working class priorities, such as access to health care, affordable housing, and education. On this front Republicans have adopted many policies and populist messengers that appear to be pro-working class, such as messengers Trump and Vance, and lower taxes, and lower energy prices, but not enough to actually capture the working class as a core constituency.
In short Republicans in California have alienated more than 60% of Hispanic voters, 20% of Republican women , 10% of Republican men, a substantial minority of seniors and business interests, and enough workers that they cannot achieve a governing majority in California.
Who did this to the Republican Party in California? The answer is here, you did it. The Republican constituency, like most of the posters here, did it. The group that demands increasingly anti immigration, anti Hispanic, anti gay, anti worker, anti women’s rights, and just generally negative anti everything messaging did it because no political party can gain widespread popular support in a multicultural society by attacking what clearly constitutes a majority of the electorate.
What is the answer? Grow the fuck up and change your ways.
Republicans will never regain any relative power in California until they realize that the demographics, values and priorities of the overwhelming majority of voters has passed them by. Most Californians are never going to buy the oft repeated here socialist\marxist, woke, critical theory, or globalist tropes you guys are pushing. You are an anachronism, a vestige of 1960s Cold War conservatism, a minority within a minority, irrelevant in the halls of power in California.
Ironically I know there are issues that California republicans could lead to build more power, but the fringe represented here will never let them.
Mea culpa in advance to that picayune excuse for an intellect Greg Goodnight in case I misspelled anything.
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What….no mention of Völkischer Beobachter?
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Had Fritsch actally managed to have children, he’d be more spooked about Transitioning kids in schools without parental approval.
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SteveF 840am – Thank you for that comprehensive critique of the Republican Party. May I then presume that your assessment of the Democratic Party’s contributions to California over the last decades should serve as a proper political template for the GOP?
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Oh thank Christ…..
It’s safe for you stalwart gentlemen of the left to come out from under your beds now!
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mike-johnson-elected-house-speaker-three-weeks-after-kevin-mccarthys-historic-ouster
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I don’t think the GOP or LIBs can replicate the Democratic Party takeover of California without a sluice for tax money into their coffers equivalent to the move of public employee unions into collective bargaining units.
Brilliant move by Jerry Brown v1.0 and completely ignored by Stephen Frischie in his latest mansplaining.
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Now that Stevie from Truckee is here, perhaps he’ll have a few words for the overturning of California’s assault weapons and the large capacity magazine ban by Judge Benitez.
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“What is the answer? Grow the fuck up and change your ways.”
-Stevie McFuckface 840a
Really?
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…and Gregory is triggered…😰😂
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Juanny McFuckface 227p, here’s one for you too.
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Comments by Gregory, true to his 4th grade emotional level.
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Individual Tranny 244p
Is that all you got?
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Barry@633am,
I found the following tidbit in a NY Times article. The reaction by Republicans/MAGAs exemplifies what extreme lengths Republicans will go to overthrow an election. They tried everything. And now they have elected an election denier to the speakership.
“Following the 2020 election, Representative Mike Kelly, a Republican from northwestern Pennsylvania, filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results in the federal races and claimed that Act 77 was unconstitutional.
But his effort was sternly rebuffed by the state’s Supreme Court, which ruled that the law had been in place for well over a year with no legal challenge until Mr. Trump lost Pennsylvania.
“Unsatisfied with the results of that wager, they would now flip over the table, scattering to the shadows the votes of millions of Pennsylvanians,” Justice David Wecht wrote following the election. “It is not our role to lend legitimacy to such transparent and untimely efforts to subvert the will of Pennsylvania voters. Courts should not decide elections when the will of the voters is clear.”
An appeal by Mr. Kelly to the United States Supreme Court was also denied.
Yet the Republican attempts to overturn the 2020 election based on challenges to Act 77 continued. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Republican, challenged the slate of electors from Pennsylvania on Jan. 6, 2021, claiming that the state’s lawmakers had passed Act 77 “irregardless of what the Pennsylvania Constitution said.”
Soon after, rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Later that night, Pennsylvania’s electors were seated.”
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Barry, It will be interesting to see if single issue spending bills become more bipartisan.
I imagine it depends on if they are written/formulated in a neutral, not partisan manner. That is, written to improve the lives of the American people and not to score partisan points.
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…oh, there Gregory goes again! He is like Trump, he just cannot help himself.
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There Juannie goes again.
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…and… Justice David Wecht is a partisan Democrat.
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A few years ago Frisch, on RL Crabb’s blog, did his best to rip me a new one.
My alma mater was portrayed as little more than a community college. Here is an alternative view:
https://www.niche.com/colleges/harvey-mudd-college/
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Posted by: Gregory | 25 October 2023 at 01:41 PM
Yeah, “grow the fuck up” might have been a little tongue in cheek, or triggering, but the point I am making is pretty solid, if the Republican party is going to stand rigidly on past demographics, values, and priorities they are going to get left behind.
62% of Americans support Roe (and that is before Dobbs), 70% support achieving carbon neutrality, 70% believe in stricter gun laws, 90% believe in mandatory universal background checks, and 66% support banning military style assault weapons, 60% believe in immigration reform that includes DACA and a path to citizenship for people already in the US, 66% of Americans say democracy is in danger due to the January 6th insurrection.
So if Republicans are that out of step with the American public they really can’t think that their party can do “what would be required for its resurgence in California,” without seriously reconsidering some of their positions.
Republicans are in the wilderness in California because their positions and their political philosophy is out of touch with the voters. It really is that simple.
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Gregory…
“…and… Justice David Wecht is a partisan Democrat.”
Yep looks like a real loser…
https://www.pacourts.us/courts/supreme-court/supreme-court-justices/justice-david-n-wecht
You know Gregory if you believe in the rule of law, the answer to every ruling you disagree with can’t be they are a partisan.
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It will be interesting to see how much the American people will be willing to pay to be colder and less well fed in the near future.
The 2A would need to be wiped off the books for you to have the gun laws you want.
And the public opinions you cite is after the censoring of opinions you hate.
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“You know Gregory if you believe in the rule of law, the answer to every ruling you disagree with can’t be they are a partisan.”
I believe in the rule of law and I disbelieve in your ability of sitting in judgement in partisan matters.
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