#ncpol: The votes that matter
It’s campaign time. Republican primary voters are getting bombarded with all kinds of propaganda about how Politician X is a ”conservative warrior” who has voted to repeal ObamaCare, cut taxes, cut spending, and pretty much save the world. (*C’mon, give ’em two / six more years.*)
These claims are a lot like those made by your friend who boasts of losing three pounds. They neglect to mention that during the same period they GAINED seven — for a net gain of FOUR POUNDS.
In that case, are you being told the truth? In a way, YES. But you are not getting THE FULL STORY. The meaningful part of the story is the gain of seven pounds that adds 
stress on your friend’s heart and negatively impacts their health and physical appearance.
It’s nice that Virginia Foxx cast a vote to repeal ObamaCare. She’ll trumpet said vote in a press release. But it was meaningless. It got buried in the Senate. The meaningful story is that she repeatedly voted for CRomnibus legislation that fully funded amnesty for illegals, sanctuary cities, Planned Parenthood, AND ObamaCare. The #1 power the House has is that of the pursestrings. They can choose to fund, or not to fund, something and dramatically impact its effects on the economy and the American people. You can preach all you want about opposing ObamaCare. You can cast all
the show votes you want about “repeal”-ing ObamaCare. But when you vote for CRomnibus-style travesties that give cash to all of these horribly destructive things, you’ve done real damage. All of our state’s House Republicans — except Walter Jones and Mark Meadows — have, at one time or another, voted for CRomnibus bills that fully fund ObamaCare, amnesty, or Planned Parenthood.
Over in the Senate, filibusters and cloture votes are the main weapons members of the minority have to protect themselves from the tyranny of the majority. A carefully-planned, 
well-executed filibuster can kill off, or at least cripple, some very bad bills. Senator Helms demonstrated that time and time gain.
Our current senators, Burr and Thillis, have been playing games with the whole filibuster and cloture process. With the confirmation of Obama’s horrible AG Loretta Lynch, they both voted FOR cloture — which allowed a vote on the Senate floor. Both men voted against her on the floor of the Senate, thereby winning publicity for opposing Lynch.
The Senate has a rule that — if at least one member of the nominee’s home state delegation has an issue with the nominee — a vote can be put off until things are resolved or indefinitely. If Burr or Thillis had stood firm, they could have derailed putting this evil woman in power.
With their cloture votes, they basically allowed for Lynch to be confirmed. 
On the CRomnibus, both Burr and Tillis voted to end a filibuster and allow for a vote. Burr voted against it — because he is up for reelection — and Thillis voted for it. (He doesn’t have to face us again at the polls until 2020.) Burr and Thillis are all over the place claiming they stood strong against amnesty, Planned Parenthood and ObamaCare. The problem? Their cloture votes allowed for full funding for ALL THREE.
Something similar happens in the General Assembly. They have votes on first, second, and third readings. You can vote YES on the first, NO on the second, and YES on the third. 
Then you can go out and boast about your YES or NO vote on the issue, depending on what the particular audience at the time wants to hear.
When evaluating a politicians’s performance, you need to look at their votes in terms of their effect. Did they ALLOW a horrible bill to go forward and pass? Voting to kill a filibuster, and then voting NO on the bill, STILL inflicts that horrible bill on us. Even though you voted NO on the floor or final reading.
If you vote for a bill that funds something really bad like ObamaCare, that makes you just as bad as the people who introduced and wrote the original travesty.
“Ye shall know them not by their lying words, but by their votes”.
Richard Burr and Thom Tillis would fail the most basic of lie detector tests. They are pathogenic LIARS, and False Prophets.
Hell, I’d even be willing to vote for a Democrat to replace either one of these two charlatans! At least the Democrat would keep their campaign promises (AKA: unadulterated worship of The Messiah, Barack Hussein Obama, an bending over and grabbing their ankles for his policies).
How are Burr and Tillis any different? Well, at least they smiled while they lied, before they slid the knife into out backs!
The sentiment I often hear is that it is worse to be stabbed in the back than stabbed in the front.
A vote for Burr is a vote to destroy this country. However, I fear that he will win the primary because the conservative vote will be split. If his challengers truly cared about this country, 2 need to drop out so that the vote will not be split. Same with district 2. Sadly hell will freeze over before this happens –and we will lose again. In addition, all of us need to open up our checkbooks and support the conservative candidates like Covil, Duncan, Foxx’s opponent, etc. They all need our help.
“A vote for Burr is a vote to destroy this country.”
Destroy the country? Isn’t that a little dramatic. I really don’t think one Senator from North Carolina has that much power. And I really do not think a man who played football for Wake Forest University would destroy the county.
The Surrender Caucus, led by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, is the threat. They are Vichy Republicans – collaborators with the Obama regime. Those who adhere to the Surrender Caucus, like Burr, Tillis, Ellmers, Rouzer, Foxx, McHenry, Pittenger, etc. are what create that problem.
Those who we need to get behind are the ones who fight to oppose Obama, like Walter Jones and Mark Meadows, and those who join with them to actually fight the left like Jim Duncan, Mark Otto, Pattie Currin, Greg Brannon, etc.
The key test is whether a candidate has the gonads to use the power of the purse or not. If they are afraid to do that, they are not worse a bucket of warm spit in Congress. The Surrender Caucus can also be called the Coward Caucus.
Mark Meadows is part of the problem. He started with good intentions only to be corrupted by power. He voted for open borders Paul Ryan — and that quite frankly says it all.
I agree Mark Meadows led the revolt to oust Boehner and stuck us with Paul Ryan. Unfortunately, Paul Ryan is Boehner on steroids. Paul Ryan is more pro illegal immigration than Boehner/ Cantor ever were. Mark Meadows is a disingenuous RINO just like the rest. And, the house freedom caucus is more smoke and mirrors used to dupe naive voters into thinking there is real opposition to the liberal agenda. The Republican Party has become a soap opera with bad actors. It’s just make-believe, made for television acting to say the least.
“He played football for Wake Forest” has to be the dumbest reason I’ve ever heard for defending a politician.
Look at Burr’s record. He is a rino. He votes with the Progressives. It’s long past time for him to come back to NC and quit pretending he’s a Conservative.
But each individual vote adds to the collective. BurRino and Tilli$ = destruction.
Positions matter, too, and particularly consistency on positions. I like a lot of what Trump has been saying in his campaign, but I look at many of his past positions on the same issues, and it causes me concerns. I like a leader who has been consistent like Ted Cruz much better.
Now comes Trumps comments in Las Vegas last night that if elected he would ”become a little bit establishment” so that he could do deals with Democrats. Isn’t this the very same problem we have been having with John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan? Even more worryingly, Trump alluded to the infamous 1986 amnesty deal as an example of the kinds of deals he would do with Democrats.
http://www.redstate.com/2016/01/23/donald-trump-just-praised-reagans-1986-amnesty/
Trump would still be the lesser of the evils compared to someone like Bush, Rubio, Kasich, Fiorina, or Christie, he has now become an evil not a positive in my view. He started to slide in my personal opinion when he came out for increasing the ethanol mandate / subsidy boondoggle in order to pander to a special interest that is concentrated in Iowa. That smacks of the sort of beltway log rolling we are trying to get away from.
The answer is to call 25 of your closest friends and coworkers and tell them why they should vote for your candidate. Seriously, this is the only way to make the change. Make sure they know about the transgressions of the incumbent.
Call them again on election day. Take the day off work and offer to drive them to the polls. Get involved, get messy, get serious. Will you be able to look back in 60 days and say you did everything within your power to make a difference?
This.
Well, The Donald has pulled off a coup d’état. He has refused to attend tonight’s Republican Debate because “Princess Megan” will be one of the interrogators…..errrr….”moderators”.
(Donald Trump is no fool, he’s not going to be a K-5 target for Megan Kelley’s “on the rag” attacks.
Of course, the MSM (and the rest of the RINO’s) are having a Cow! Bill O’Reilly essentially BEGGED Trump to show up!
THIS COULD BE THE END OF DONALD TRUMP, we’re told.
However, Trump will do what he always does: come out of this smelling like a rose!
Many of us are glad that someone finally has the cahones to tell the Main Stream Media to “pound salt”, and that they no longer control the agenda.
Conservatives need to be careful not to put form over substance. I like a lot of what Trump is saying now, and the way he is saying it, BUT he took opposite positions on many of those things not too long ago. I do not fully trust him. I am much more comfortable with someone who is a consistent conservative like Ted Cruz, who is incidentally also good at telling off the liberal media.