Colin Powell, remains Republican to annoy them

[Ladmo]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/30/politics/ ... f=obinsite

Colin Powell: I will 'continue to be a Republican because it annoys them'

Washington (CNN)Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who endorsed President Barack Obama twice and came out in favor of the Iran nuclear deal days before the Congressional vote, says that he is still a Republican.

When asked at the Washington Ideas Forum Wednesday if he still considers himself a Republican, Powell said, "Yes, I'm still a Republican," and highlighted his votes for "five presidents in a row who were Republican," as well as his work for President Ronald Reagan and former Sen. Howard Baker.

Colin Powell Fast Facts

"I want to continue to be a Republican because it annoys them," Powell said, prompting laughter from the audience.

"In Virginia, you don't have to declare a party ... but I'm still a Republican because I believe in a strong defense, because I believe in the entrepreneurial spirit that is so typical of the Republican Party in the past. But I'm having difficulty with the party now," he said.

Powell also criticized anti-immigrant rhetoric, calling himself "a child of immigrant parents" and America "an immigrant nation."

"We have been built on the backs of immigrants and we've always had difficulty with immigration policy throughout our history" Powell said, calling out Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump by name.

"If I were around Mr. Trump -- Donald -- who I know very well, I would say, 'You know, Donald, let's see what happens. Let's tell all the immigrants working at Trump Hotel to stay home tomorrow.' See what happens. Are you kidding me? ... Look who's serving you. Guess who's cooking in the back," Powell said. "Next time you walk through Dulles or Reagan, look who's manning the counter. Look who's cleaning things up. These are first generation American immigrants, who will raise children, who will grow up to higher things."

Powell said the Republican Party has "shifted much further right than the country is," and said that party leaders "cannot keep saying the things that they are saying ... and hope to be successful at national level elections int he future."

[Ladmo]

Perhaps similarly...

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... tting-gop/

Former Congressman: I’m Quitting GOP
By Tom Tancredo 30 Oct 2015

In a panel discussion at the University of Colorado after the recent Republican debate, I was asked by a student why she should be a Republican. The question forced me to ask myself the same thing.

I gave the young woman the standard talking points–that Republicans believe in smaller government, individual rights, fiscal responsibility, and free enterprise. But as I drove home, her question–and my inability to respond with any level of real conviction–got me thinking: Does the Republican Party leadership fight for these values and principles today?

After much thought, I reluctantly concluded that the answer is “no.” The proudly socialist Democrats are full of passionate intensity, while the Republican leadership is full of pathetic excuses. After this week’s House GOP “budget deal,” which betrays nearly every promise made to grassroots conservatives since 2010, I have decided it is time to end my affiliation with the Republican Party.

This decision has been incubating over the past 17 years, years of watching the downward spiral of the Party of Lincoln and Reagan into the Party of Democrat Lite.

As a Member of Congress for ten years (1998-2008), I was subjected to threats and pressures from the Congressional Leadership and President George W. Bush to support the creation of an expensive Medicare prescription drug program–even though creating a new government spending program financed by massive debt flies in the face of the Republican Party’s core principles.

Our most powerful and influential “leaders” were shoving this down our throats in a crass political effort to use taxpayer money to buy the votes of senior citizens–particularly in the state of Florida in the next presidential election.

I was incredulous about the fact that the most intense lobbying I had ever seen undertaken by our “leadership” was not an effort to limit government or the dollars it spends; it was to do just the opposite.

That incident came just months after I was told by President Bush’s top political operative, Karl Rove, “never to darken the door of the White House again” because of my criticism of the administration’s dangerously lax immigration policies in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

When I first arrived in the U.S. House of Representatives, I naively believed that it was primarily the Democrats who were committed to open borders. But I quickly learned the entire Republican establishment also supported a policy of immigration non-enforcement.

I was repeatedly pulled into the office of the then-Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, and threatened with dire consequences if I continued to speak out publicly for common-sense immigration policies and true border security – particularly if I was doing so in the districts of other Republican Members of Congress.

For most of those years after 2000, we had a Republican President and a Republican-controlled Congress, but the conservative agenda was largely ridiculed and abandoned.

Across America, in every state, countless hardworking Americans have taken time away from their families and their jobs to volunteer on political campaigns– knocking on doors, making phone calls and talking to neighbors – all to support the effort to beat back the Obama agenda. In 2010, that grassroots effort resulted in the Republican takeover in the House. In 2014, it resulted in Republicans sweeping to power in the U.S. Senate – and the largest House majority since Herbert Hoover was President.

Yet, despite these historic gains, nothing changed. The GOP neither advanced a conservative agenda nor checked the radical “transformative” agenda of Barack Obama. We got condescending lip service, and nothing more.

Promises have been broken and principles abandoned, while millions of American families watched their dreams slip further and further out of reach.

Republican congressional leaders maneuvered to deliver votes to fund President Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty order, and more recently, his unprecedented job-killing EPA rules.

They have voted twice in four years to violate the very modest, bipartisan caps on spending put in place with the laughably-named “Budget Control Act” in 2011 — and now have abandoned the caps completely.

They have voted to continue funding what is essentially a $500 million macabre earmark for abortion provider Planned Parenthood.

They have voted to fund Obamacare, and despite promises, have never passed a complete repeal of the PPACA.

No one has been held accountable for the outrageous IRS and VA scandals.

And now, as icing on the poisoned cake, House Republicans have elected a Speaker who was not asked to renounce his commitment to open borders and amnesty, policies which will betray the values of 75% of the party and give Democrats a permanent electoral majority within a decade.

Even in foreign policy the Republican Party leadership has deceived those who elected them by engineering passage of the pathetic Corker/Cardin amendment – which greased the skids for President Obama’s flawed Iran deal to clear Congress without having to meet 67 vote threshold for ratification that the constitution requires for binding international treaties. No one will be surprised if they do the same thing with the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Republicans are repeatedly asked to capitulate today in exchange for better options tomorrow.

After the next election, after we win one more office or a few more seats – then, after that next election conservative reforms will be considered.

Somehow, that brighter tomorrow never comes.

But times have changed. In 2010, the Republican rank and file stopped drinking the Kool Aid and started demanding accountability. And demanding results. The conservative electorate that elected Republican majorities is tired of capitulation.

The conservative majority in the Republican Party wants leaders who will stand and fight, leaders who will be as passionate about advancing an American agenda as President Obama and the Left are at advancing the global socialist agenda.

Grassroots Republicans want Republican leaders who are as assertive and consistent in pushing a policy agenda as Senator Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) was when Democrats controlled the Senate. They should use tools like Budget Reconciliation aggressively, adding conditions to spending bills and legislative initiatives that the White House wants.

That hardball approach is the only way to deal with an imperial President and make good on the many promises that Republican politicians have made to Americans.

Sadly, it has become obvious that the Republican establishment simply has no intention of ever fulfilling promises made in platforms and campaign speeches. To their mind, there are elections, and then there is “governing,” and governing to them means not messing with a gargantuan government on autopilot.

The Republican establishment does not want to control spending.
It does not want to secure the borders or enforce immigration laws.
It does not care about American sovereignty.
It has no interest in ending the unaccountable and corrupt culture that has become a hallmark of official Washington.

By insulting the grassroots, the GOP leadership has set upon a suicide mission. The problem is that failed leadership is allowing Obama to destroy the Constitution and take the whole country down the drain. Well, count me out.

The Boehner budget deal is the last straw, and enough is enough. I cannot any longer defend this transparently dishonest charade called the Republican Party.

What I will do instead is join the largest political group in the nation, unaffiliated Independents. In Colorado, they outnumber both “major” political parties.

The next day I will begin working my tail off for the next twelve months to organize Independents to help elect Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as President of the United States. Cruz is the only candidate who both understands the left’s agenda and has demonstrated the courage to fight for our liberties, our sovereignty, and the survival of constitutional government.

[Ladmo]

http://www.eater.com/2015/10/29/9638304 ... mmigration

Anthony Bourdain Hits Back at Donald Trump, Defends Immigrants

'Every restaurant in America would shut down.'

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's strong stance on illegal immigration has already drawn serious backlash from the restaurant industry, and celebrity chefs José Andrés and Geoffrey Zakarian have pulled restaurants from Trump's new Washington, D.C., hotel. Now ex-cook and current world-traveling TV host Anthony Bourdain is getting into the mix. Bourdain made an appearance on SiriusXM's StandUP With Pete Dominick and defended America's undocumented workers.

I grew up in the restaurant business — 30 years in the restaurant business. I came out of, like a lot of other white kids, I rolled out of a prestigious culinary institute and went to work in real restaurants. I walked into restaurants and always, the person who had been there the longest, who took the time to show me how it was done, was always Mexican or Central American. The backbone of the industry - meaning most of the people in my experience cooking, preparing your food. Twenty of those years in this business I was an employer, I was a manager employer. Never, in any of those years, not once, did anyone walk into my restaurant — any American-born kid — walk into my restaurant and say I'd like a job as a night porter or a dishwasher. Even a prep cook — few and far between. Just not willing to start at the bottom like that.

Bourdain went on to say that if Trump were to win the presidency and deport 11 million illegal immigrants, "every restaurant in America would shut down," and restaurant owners share his sentiment because "they'd be up the creek. ... It is really, really getting hard to find people to do the jobs."

It's not the first time Bourdain has commented on Trump. He previously said The Donald "offends me" and the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City is "the enemy of the human spirit." Bourdain hasn't given his coveted endorsement for the 2016 election, but he threw his support behind Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008.