Koch brothers

and the republican establishment find themselves in adrift in uncharted territory. I love it just as much as I love seeing the dems in disarray. That's one thing about Trump ,the establishment people who have ruled for generations are not involved, well not as much anyway, now. So love 'em or hate 'em he's done the thing that people have bitched about for years, broken typical DC biz as usual. I'd think more people would be behind him for it or at least give him some credit for it, instead he's being attacked left and right for doing exactly what he said he was going to do.

Anyway I find it great that both party's and their establishment support shaken up.

If the GOP is suffering an identity crisis, so are the Koch brothers

"When Republicans were out of power in the Obama era, the Republican National Committee often clashed with outside conservative groups who wanted to influence elections or legislation.

Some of the RNC’s biggest fights were with the political operation run by Charles and David Koch, whose independent database of Republican voters was seen as a potential threat by party officials, as Yahoo News exclusively reported two years ago. The RNC believed the Kochs were trying to take over the party. Koch officials denied that forcefully.

And yet in the 2016 election, the Kochs acted at times more like a political party than the RNC. They withheld voter data from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign during the Republican primary, and excluded him from events. The RNC, meanwhile, was not able to consolidate the field of Republicans around an alternative to Trump, and a man who was not the first choice of most Republicans ended up the party’s nominee, and then the president."

"Now, Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. The GOP is unsure of what it has become.

“Washington Republicans today find themselves at a strange moment in history: enjoying overwhelming political power, yet beset by strategic confusion,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said in a speech this week at the Heritage Foundation.

Trump, Lee noted, “trashed Republican orthodoxy on issues once thought beyond debate.”

The GOP, in other words, is in the midst of an identity crisis, after a hostile takeover by a president who campaigned against trade deals, against reducing the national debt, against much in the way of restraints on the presidency, and in favor of big government..."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/if-the-gop-is-in-an-identity-crisis-so-are-the-koch-brothers-203329852.html

I'll also add, I wasn't a DT fan when he got the nomination and I never really thought he could win but now that he's in and acting on his promises, he's definitely growing on me. It really looks like a good businessman just might give this country the shot in the arm it desperately needed.

"Throw 'em all out, put somebody in with no political background [i.e. clout]."

Haven't we all said that from time to time? So, now we have it, pretty much.

Patience, Grasshopper. It is early in the game.

Write your congressmen about the presidential travel budget (and who sets that, BTW?), and how far up and down the family tree must security be provided? Good concerns.

Trumps special-inrerest positions on the EPA, coal, and deregulation are more than the Cock-brothers could ever dream of. Trump may not follow the line of the GOP establishment put to suggest he is not influenced by specialn interests is beyond naive.

This must be how the guys on line felt when they learned it was a cookbook.
Serving America, indeed.

I don't think he's influenced nearly as much as you think PJ. The coal industry has been crushed by regulation (as I've mentioned my family had been in the industry) and jobs have been killed by them, many, many jobs. DT said all along he would bring jobs back to the industry by eliminating many reg.s, I doubt how many jobs will be brought back but some. There are so many towns that have been decimated by Obama, it's really sad to see. It's something he's promised and has acted on, so I doubt there's any outside influence on him.

Call me an optimist, but I think Trump truly has the country's best interest at heart. He's said for years when people asked him about running and he;s said he wasn't interested, not unless the country was in really bad shape. Well, the country is in really bad shape and he ran and is now the pres. One of the few things I did like about his candidacy is I figured he was fairly free of any outside influences, he already had all the money he'll ever need and was a pretty powerful man. How could he be bribed or influenced? I'm not naive enough to think his buddy';s don't have some influence and the first time I ever see evidence of it, I'll be calling him on it...just like you will PJ.

Like I said, I think he only ran because he thinks the country's in trouble, and it is. Here's a vid way back in '88 when Oprah asks him about running. He's claimed over the years the same thing, he would only run if the country was in trouble. Again, call me an optimist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEPs17_AkTI

BTW I tried to be optimistic when the O got elected, but I gave him more than two weeks, way more before doubting and criticizing him.