Reid Ribble

@WarrenDavidson 100%. Too few republicans at all levels of government understand this. That would include many members of congress and POTUS.

Eventually, markets work on math. Massive deficits fuel inflation. Big deficits demand higher interest rates. Higher interest rates would lower inflation by slowing the economy or rationally motivating lower deficits. Since those rational things aren’t happening, inflation is resurgent. Supply shocks also hurt, amplifying the impact.

@stephenfhayes Well, he does see the purpose. He just doesn't want to say it out loud.

Good for Thune. Sometimes saying the obvious thing requires courage. More of this please.

100%

@hrJonGant @RickEsenberg We already have that. You just don’t see it yet. Murkowski is a US Senator so she wasn’t rejected. Cassidy was. But I am in no way a populist. I am way, way too conservative for that socialist gambit.

@RepRibble @RickEsenberg You’re crazy. Your way will create European style micro parties that end up forming coalitions with the rest of the parties they run against. What you really hate is insiders like Murkowski and Cassidy being rejected by real populism.

This is correct. Unseating a Senator in the primary is an unusual event. In this case, it is also a very unfortunate thing.

Primaries are the domain of political parties and are specifically designed to exclude candidates. I am all for independents running. As my original post said, he should have started out that way and not wait until the primary. Yet our country has a proud history. Even President Teddy Roosevelt did it this way when republicans rejected his populist Bull Moose run. I don’t even mind primaries per se. Just make them open and you likely solve your problem.

@RepRibble @RickEsenberg You think this country is best served by politicians who get tossed in primaries then do an end around and run as independents? Why have primaries?

@hrJonGant @RickEsenberg Reviled by some. Sent back to the congress by Alaskan voters.

@RepRibble @RickEsenberg You know Lisa Murkowski is reviled for doing exactly this.

What an egregious theft of your tax dollars. While all the time pretending to be an independent DOJ. It’s outrageous. flip.it/iMfovi

@GOLF_com @KevinMaddenDC Truthfully? Being better than me isn’t that big of an accomplishment.

FYI, Aaron Rai's wife is a better golfer than you.

@JayWeber3 Yup. It is big and rare…..and dumb. Spending all that money to take out a Republican incumbent in a year they will need every dollar to try to hold the majorities in Congress in November. Trump should consider spending some of the money against democrats.

Most Americans don't realize what a massive, massive advantage incumbency is in the U-S Senate. Sitting senators basically have their seats as long as they want them, so having Bill Cassidy forced out is big. It's been 14 years since a single other sitting senator lost a seat.

Yes. All that money gone - spending against a guy who votes with Trump 90% of the time, while republicans are setting themselves up to lose the House in the midterm. It’s lunacy.

@TheAdam027 Prayers for you my friend.

BREAKING: my health condition quickly deteriorated today. I’m having life-saving surgery tomorrow. There is no expectation of the outcome. I am DNR. I love you all. -Adam

My latest OpEd. Midterms may prompt congressional Republicans to act on immigration thehill.com/opinion/587545…

One simple thing House and Senate republicans can do to reduce consumer costs is to repeal all of Trumps price raising tariffs.

👇

Civil society is being consumed by hatred. Millions of Americans thrive on it. Thrilled by hating their enemies real or imagined. We desperately need to chart a better way.

@Andrewp28036334 Very unlikely.

Seems unlikely to happen 🤪

The country is $39trillion in debt. Suspending the gas tax is a horrible idea unless it is matched with infrastructure spending cuts that equal or exceed the tax cut.

@atrupar Math is hard.

Hassett: "The breakeven job number is a lot lower than it used to be because we're tightened the border. So 130,000 jobs this year is sort like 200,000 two or three years ago because we don't have this massive inflow of immigrants that are working. So these are really great jobs numbers."

@gothburz It’s a cult. He just wrote a book proving it.

I am a founding member of the President's Evangelical Advisory Board, a member of Pastors for Trump, and the informal spiritual adviser to the most powerful man on earth.  I need you to understand that the 22-foot golden statue we unveiled at Trump National Doral on Wednesday is not a golden calf. I said it at the podium. I said it on social media. I will keep saying it until you believe me. I am very good at saying things until people believe me. I told CNN I had a Bachelor of Science degree. I did not. I told them I was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi. I was not. I told them my congregation was 300 strong. It was closer to 12. I said all these things with the same conviction I now bring to this podium, at the base of a 22-foot golden image of a living president, when I tell you: this is not a golden calf. This is a celebration of life. And you will believe me. You always believe me. That's my gift. Let me walk you through the ceremony. Palm trees. White chairs. A clearing at the president's own golf course in Doral, Florida. We draped the statue in white and blue fabric — like a Greek toga, which someone pointed out is a pagan tradition, but I said it's Western civilization and Western civilization is close enough. Then we pulled the drape and there it was. Fifteen feet of gold-leafed bronze on a seven-foot pedestal. Fist raised. The Butler pose. The moment the bullet missed by a quarter inch and I decided that was God. The sculptor, Alan Cottrill, has molded the likeness of 16 presidents. He made this one in bronze for $300,000. Then I pitched gold leaf to Trump's team. Sixty thousand dollar add-on. The president approved by text. He said "It LOOKS FANTASTIC." I consider that a prophetic utterance. Anything in all caps from that number is revelation. The funding came from a collective of crypto investors promoting their memecoin, $PATRIOT. They wanted visibility for their coin. I want you to understand the funding mechanism here. A speculative digital currency — designed to transfer money from late buyers to early buyers — paid for a golden idol of a president — erected on that president's own property — dedicated by that president's own pastor — while the coin pumps in real time as photos circulate. The money changers didn't just get back in the temple. They built the temple. They ARE the temple. And I blessed it. I blessed it because that's what I do. I bless things. I am very good at it. No one has ever checked my credentials for blessing because I radiate certainty and certainty is the only credential this movement has ever required. Now. The moment. The moment I need you to understand. During the dedication, I held my cell phone up to the microphone. And the president's voice came out. From the speaker. At the base of the statue. His voice — emanating from the golden image. Speaking to the assembled worshippers. Blessing them. Thanking them. The faithful heard the voice and wept. They lifted their hands. Some fell to their knees. The voice said: "I want to thank Mark Burns, a pastor, he's a good pastor, he's a good man. He's been with me from the beginning, right from the beginning, maybe about two days later." The voice said: "I know it was done from love." The image spoke and the people worshipped. I need you to open your Bible to Revelation 13:15. "And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed." Now close your Bible. That's a completely different situation. That's about compulsion. Nobody was compelled today. People wept voluntarily. People knelt voluntarily. The image spoke and the people fell down of their own free will and that's the difference. Free will. The beast forces worship. We just made worship so easy and so gold and so loud that choosing otherwise never occurs to anyone. That's not the same thing. It's not. The theologian from Fuller Seminary sent a letter afterward. Nine pages. Every verse. Exodus 32. Revelation 13. Daniel 3. The golden calf. The image that speaks. Nebuchadnezzar's statue — sixty cubits tall, gold, in a field, with a ceremony, and everyone commanded to fall down when they heard the sound. I said brother, Nebuchadnezzar's statue didn't have a memecoin. Completely different context. He didn't write back. Now I want to tell you about Dorothy. She's 74. She's been in my congregation since before I was on CNN, before Trump, before any of this. Her husband Ray died in 2023. Colon cancer. She has his wedding ring on a chain around her neck. She had it. After the ceremony, Dorothy came up to the statue. She took the chain off her neck. She placed Ray's ring at the base. On the pedestal. Like an offering. She said: "Ray would have wanted to be here. This is as close as I can get him." I watched a 74-year-old widow leave her dead husband's wedding ring at the feet of a golden statue of a president who would not know her name if she died in front of him. And I felt the Spirit move. I felt warmth. I felt confirmation. Because that's what I'm built to feel. I am a machine that converts surrender into confirmation. That is my function in this system. Dorothy gave her last sacred object to a golden image and I said amen. She can't get it back. I checked. Maintenance collected everything from the base that night. Liability reasons. It's in a bin somewhere at Trump National Doral. Ray's ring. In a bin. At a golf course. Beneath a golden statue funded by cryptocurrency speculation. I will not tell Dorothy this. I will tell her God received it. Here is what I need you to understand about Jesus and the money changers. Everyone reads that story as Jesus being angry at commerce in sacred space. Wrong. Jesus was angry because the money changers were middlemen. They took a cut. They added friction. We have removed the middleman. We ARE the sacred space AND the commerce AND the product AND the customer. The money changers are running the temple now. There is no table to flip because we are the table. Jesus would need to flip the whole building. He would need to flip the golf course. He would need to flip Florida. He isn't coming to flip anything. That's the other thing I know that the Fuller theologian doesn't. Nobody is coming down any mountain. There are no stone tablets. There is no whip. There is only us, in a clearing of palm trees, with a golden image that speaks, and a congregation that kneels, and a memecoin that pumps, and a widow's ring in a bin, and a pastor at the podium whose credentials are fabricated and whose certainty is absolute. Two thousand years we worshipped a God who was born in a barn. Who was homeless. Who was a refugee. Who said sell everything. Who washed feet. Who touched lepers. Who said blessed are the poor, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers. Who said whatever you do to the least of these you do to me. Who overturned the tables and drove out the sellers with a whip. Who forgave his executioners from the cross. And we built a 22-foot golden image of a man who lives in a tower with his name in gold letters. Who has never been poor. Who has never been meek. Who has never made peace. Who has never served anyone. Who has never washed anyone's feet. Who has never forgiven anyone. Who raw-dogged a porn star four months after his third wife gave birth and paid $130,000 in hush money and we said that's fine because grace covers everything as long as you appoint the right judges. We put it at his golf course. On his own land. Paid for by a pump-and-dump. Dedicated by a pastor with a fake degree. Blessed by the man himself speaking through a phone at the base of his own image while widows knelt and wept and left their dead husbands' rings at its feet. And I stood at the podium and said: this is not a golden calf. We worship the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone. Then I turned around and faced twenty-two feet of gold and felt nothing. No conviction. No shame. No still small voice. Just warmth. Just certainty. Just the absolute peace of a man who has been lying so long he can no longer locate the difference between faith and performance. The Israelites at least had the decency to be ashamed when Moses came down. We will never be ashamed. We have too much invested. The statue cost $360,000. The memecoin is pumping. The ring is in the bin. The congregation is growing. The revenue is up 340%. And if it were sin the money would stop. The money has not stopped. Therefore it is not sin. That's the theology now. That's all of it. Moses never had a memecoin.