Nikki Haley Troll’s Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live

Even though the New Hampshire Republican Presidential Primary took place almost two weeks ago, and Donald Trump won, his remaining rival former South Carolina Governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has continued to serve as a thorn in Trump’s side. She has (finally), started attacking Donald Trump’s mental fitness to be President.

In an unexpected move Governor Haley appeared as herself on the opening segment of Saturday Night Live. In the skit Haley pokes fun at Trump’s failure to carry his home state of New York, his spending $50 Million dollars of campaign contributions on his legal fees, and his delusional belief that she was in charge of security in the Capital on January 6th. Like some other Never Trumper’s we are not exactly fans of Haley’s, but we have to admit this appearance on SNL was pure genius and is quite funny!

Nikki might not win the nomination, but it’s extremely gratifying to see her taking some bites out of Donald Trump! 

Checkout the skit for yourselves:

UPDATE: Nikki Haley just posted the following on message on Twitter about her appearance tonight:

“I see dead people.” That’s exactly what voters will think if this race is between Trump and Biden in the fall.

Had a blast tonight on SNL! Know it was past Donald’s bedtime so looking forward to the stream of unhinged tweets in the a.m. pic.twitter.com/W43LlPOoi2

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 4, 2024

The always enlightening John Podhoretz, writer, host of “Commentary” podcast, and co founder of the late, great Weekly Standard, had this to say about Haley’s guest appearance: 

Nikki Haley showing she can play on SNL and Trump and his psycho followers can't exactly complain since he hosted the thing.

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) February 4, 2024

As much as it irks us to admit, we really like how Nikki is needling Donald! No doubt Trump will, if he hasn’t already go apeshit on Truth Social! 

Donate to Nikki Haley and Be Banned from MAGA World

We know we promised a follow up about the New Hampshire primary, but we wanted to bring you something more interesting and perhaps more important at the moment. 

Last night Nikki Haley did better than most pundits expected and came within 11% of Donald Trump.

Now instead of being magnanimous in his victory speech last night Trump proceeded as he is prone to doing to be a total ass and even threaten Haley to try to get her to leave the primary race. 

Showing that his stupidity knows no bounds, this evening he posted on Truth Social that anyone who donates to Nikki Haley would be permanently banned from the MAGA camp.

Checkout the insanity for yourselves:

Even though we will suffer the ignominy of being barred from Donald Trump’s presence we donated to Nikki Haley’s campaign:

Please whatever you don’t go to https://secure.winred.com/nikki-haley-for-president/home-debate?utm_medium=homepage and donate to Nikki Haley! Whatever you don’t also encourage everyone you know to donate to her! That would be wrong! It would absolutely drive Donald Trump and his supporters crazy! Please don’t do it!!!!

Indy Republican’s New Hampshire Primary Preview

In less than forty five minutes the final polls will close in the Granite State. Tonight former South Carolina Governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley squares off against former President Donald Trump. Trump is widely expected to win the primary tonight however in New Hampshire turnout has been reaching record highs, to the extent that the New Hampshire Secretary of State has had to issue extra paper ballots. 

MSNBC’s political reporter Steve Kornacki posted this map showing what numbers Nikki Haley would need to hit to make the primary competitive:

So far with only 2% in Haley is hitting her targets in several cities. Trump doing well in Laconia so far. The only prediction we feel comfortable making is that this primary will not be a blowout win for whoever winds up the winner tonight. We will try to post more tonight and hopefully have the results posted sometime tomorrow or the next few days. 

This is Darius saying we will be back later and we wish you all a good evening.

Indy Republicans Iowa Predictions

Good afternoon everyone! Darius from the IR newsroom here. The Iowa Caucuses are scheduled to end this evening and hopefully the results will come in quickly. Here’s our rough prediction for the Caucus results tonight:

Trump: 40-45%

Haley: 20-25%

DeSantis: 14-20%

Ramaswamy: 2-10%

The above predictions are a combination of observations and just pure guess work on our part. If Trump gets 45% or less of the vote that could be a danger signal to his campaign. If DeSantis doesn’t come in second tonight his campaign is over. We have been convinced it’s been over for awhile and he is just hoping to postpone dropping out until next week in New Hampshire. Nikki Haley should be able to make it to New Hampshire, if she gets 20% that would help, if she gets 25% or higher than she will get more momentum going to New Hampshire. As for Vivek Ramaswamy stick a fork in him he’s done! On Saturday Trump threw Vivek under the bus, but being the boot locker he is he just said to Trump: “Thanks for the beating, please give me another!” Would be funny if he drains enough from Donald to humiliate him!

As political strategist Mike Murphy has said on his “Hacks on Tap” podcast one factor tonight is since the Democrats for all practical purposes aren’t really having a caucus there will be a lot of democratic and independent voters in Iowa with nothing to do. Some will switch their voter registration to republican to vote in Iowa could have an impact. Question is will it be 5,000 or 35,000 crossover voters in Iowa?

We will wait and see. We will be back maybe later tonight, but hopefully in a day or two with some review and analysis on Iowa. Take care and be safe, and we will catch you all later!

A Surprise Reveal for 2024

     We are as always eternally grateful to all of our readers. Your support and encouragement these last seven years means the world to us and we look forward to many decades of writing and activism yet to come!

     You have known us mostly as Indy Republican or IR. And we love and will keep these designations. The time has come however to give our selves a more convenient name to be known by. We are now also known as Darius Kingsley. The time has come to tell you all more why we have taken it upon ourselves to be activists, agitators, and crusaders. We have shared some details of our general political and religious worldviews before and refer you to them here, here, and here. Now, we would like to share more about the people behind this blog. All of us here are proud, loyal and patriotic Americans. We all have family traditions stretching back many centuries of service to the ideals of these United States. Whether we have been in the USA since Jamestown, or if we are the first of our families to be born on American soil, we all have deep roots in promoting the ideals of America.

     Most of us currently writing for this blog came of age during the time of Reagan. And we have watched in disgust as today’s faux conservatives and republicans have gone from Reagan’s “Macho Men” to the weak willed wussies like Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. We also have had our stomachs turned at the Pro Sovietization of the historically anti-communist GOP. With its gushing over former KGB officer Vladimir Putin, and with Trump’s ass kissing of communist dictators Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un. Also the abandonment of strong opposition to terrorism has been replaced with Trumpian moral relativism and praising the Taliban as “Great Fighters”.

     Many of our ancestors fought and in many cases died to defend the Constitution and the Republic for which it stands. We will not allow the great sacrifice of our noble ancestors. In short we are determined to restore more sanity, rationality and honesty to American life. The task is sometimes daunting but it is rewarding. Seeing the small sparks and holy light of freedom and reason come into people’s lives is truly a wonderful sight, and a gift from God. We, Darius Kingsley promise to elaborate more on the problems that face us traditional conservatives and also the process by which we will defeat extremism and restore more common sense to this great land. Also we seek to offer sanctuary to political and religious refugees in these upside down times. Think of us as “Motel 6 Christian’s and “Motel 6 Republicans”, we are here to leave the light on and to make it brighter.

     We hope that you will join us in our holy cause. If you wish to contact us there is a contact form on the desktop version of this blog, you can email us at 6vwts@notsharingmy.info, or contact us on Twitter: @IndyRepublicanX. Have a Happy New Year, and God Bless You All!

Open Letter to the Traitor Peter Meijer

Former Congressman and Sell Out Peter Meijer of Michigan 

To: The Honorable Peter Meijer, Former Congressman from Michigan 

From: The people you stabbed in the back and will make you regret it.

Dear Congressman Meijer,

All of us here would first like to thank you for having the guts to cast a vote for the articles of impeachment against former President Trump. We are also grateful to you for saying you stand by that vote. However your recent actions have made it impossible for any of us to never support you again and to work towards your defeat in any and all future runs for an office of any kind whether it be state, local or federal.

Yesterday you gave in interview after having announced your run for the U.S. Senate in Michigan where you stated your horror at what happened on January 6th, 2021 as well as your defense of your vote to for Donald Trump’s impeachment. So far so good, you then proceeded to flush your reason, integrity and your balls down the drain by comparing President Biden’s conduct as President as being on par with Trump’s. Specifically you make note of the Afghanistan withdrawal last year. We have also criticized President Biden in that regard. It shouldn’t need to be pointed out that an error in judgment as President is not morally equivalent to causing a riot in our nation’s capital. It can also be pointed out that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was negotiated by Trump. Yes Biden could have decided not to go along with it, but it was Trump’s deal so you should blame him as well.

Congressman, May I call you Pete? Well, Pete we all know that you are aware of just how unsuited for office Donald Trump is. We also know that your ego is inflated to the point that you think that the nation needs you in office so badly that you will turn yourself into a submissive vasal to your Lord and Master Trump. We have news for you Petey, as Barry Goldwater said: “The sky will not fall on a congressman or the country if he is not re-elected.” But like too many in the Republican Party you have shredded your principles for power. And so far you have gained neither. You did state in your interview yesterday that your supporting Trump if he is the Republican nominee for President will make Never Trumper’s very unhappy. You at least showed a grasp of something obvious. You have failed to realize that you have awoken a sleeping giant Pete. 

Honestly you have almost no chance of winning the Republican nomination for Senate. That much should have been obvious to you when as reported by Politico earlier that the Trumpist establishment would rather slit there wrist than vote for you:

“Peter Meijer isn’t viable in a primary election, and there’s worry that if Meijer were nominated, the base would not be enthused in the general election,” NRSC Executive Director Jason Thielman said.

Pete you are a very wealthy man, and you could easily finance your own senate race. So why don’t you just be true to what you did when you stood up to Trump? Run in the primary as a real man, not some sissy girl little biatch trying to kiss up to Trump? Michiganders prize independence and courage in their elected officials. There’s Arthur Vandenburg, George Romney, Bill Milliken, Robert Griffin, John Engler, Fred Upton, Rick Snyder and many others. Yes you might lose but the odds aren’t exactly in your favor as it is. If you are going to lose at least have some pride man! You are a sad reflection of how far we Republicans have fallen! We have gone from being Reagan’s Macho Men, and George Bush’s cowboys to sycophantic enablers and ass kissers to a man whose physical ambition is to as close as possible resemble Chester Chetah! 

We could go on but we have made our points. We will let Heath Mayo and your former colleague and friend Adam Kinzinger explain to you just what an asshole you really are:

Good grief.

This is what it looks like when you run to be somebody—not do something. You talk yourself into the absurdity that it makes sense to both impeach Trump & to vote for him now that you’re running for Senate.

A pretzel. Not the leader we need. pic.twitter.com/MaV6vvvUQq

— Heath Mayo (@HeathMayo) November 7, 2023

https://t.co/dwhEoXaItj pic.twitter.com/hS7bRQC9Vz

— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) November 7, 2023

Mike Pence Hit’s the Eject Button on his Presidential Campaign

Former Vice President Mike Pence

On Saturday in Las Vegas at the Republican Jewish Coalition gathering, former Indiana Governor and Vice President Mike Pence announced that he is quitting the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Adam Wren a favorite of ours wrote about Pence’s announcement for Politico:

With donations sagging, the former vice president, who often made self-deprecating remarks about his middle-class finances, had recently ponied up $150,000 of his own relatively small, newly-acquired fortune, amassed from a two-book deal and speaking fees, to prop up his campaign.

It wasn’t anywhere close to enough. For months, virtually no pollster or political prognosticator saw his campaign gaining traction in a GOP that prized id over ideology, presentation over pedigree.

Just a little less than two weeks before on October 15th, Wren had written an article about how Pence’s campaign was having financial troubles Wren had reported at the time that: 

Mike Pence’s presidential campaign is running on fumes, reporting just $1.2 million cash on hand and more than $600,000 in debt.

The former vice president raised $3.3 million in the third quarter, he reported Sunday (October 15th). He has given himself $150,000 — a significant figure for a politician who has spent much of his life having never amassed much wealth, and one that far exceeds the less-than-six-figure salary he earned when he was Indiana governor less than a decade ago.

Given that Pence had failed to make much traction either in the polls and with fundraising we were not too surprised to hear that he decided to drop out of the race. We thought he would be either foolish enough or delusional enough to stay in until Iowa, obviously we were mistaken. It would appear that money and polling played a factor in Pence’s decision to quit, but we are fairly certain that he was pressured to do so. Probably by various GOP donors, officials, possibly close friends and family also helped make up his mind. Some of the Never Trump community expressed the belief that Pence’s inability to gain traction is a further sign of how badly the GOP has gotten under Donald Trump, and that Pence’s unwillingness to try to help Trump stay in office after losing the 2020 election doomed his chances.

We don’t deny there is some truth to that, but we don’t believe that was the primary reason his candidacy failed. His campaign went nowhere because Pence could not provide a rationale for why he should be President. He tried to say that the country needed to take a different direction than the one offered by Donald Trump, but at the same time kept saying how proud he was of the work he had done in the Trump-Pence administration. So if he was really proud of the work he had done in the Trump administration why was he running against Trump? Or if he wanted to offer an alternative to Trump why should voters pick him as opposed to one of the other candidates? Also having been Trump’s chief flunky as Vice President gave Anti-Trump Republicans no reason to trust Pence with being in the White House. Or as Reagan would have said Pence offered “Pale pastels instead of bold colors”. Meaning he failed to offer any significant distinction between himself and Trump.

Yes Pence did agree to certify the election results, but he had no legal choice but to do so, and he had spent the previous two months being evasive on what he would do. He tried to find ways to do what Trump wanted but failed. If Pence had just come out forcefully from the beginning and said clearly that he and Trump had lost a lot of what went on during January 6th could have been avoided. Instead Pence waffled and waited until the last possible minute before saying clearly that he was powerless to overturn the election results. Pence knew full well that he couldn’t change the results but he stupidly thought he could placate Trump, instead the Frankenstein monster he helped create almost got him killed. 

If God forbid that Trump gets the nomination we would be shocked if Pence doesn’t immediately endorse Trump. So to our fellow Never Trumper’s don’t shed any tears over o Pence’s withdrawal from the race. The man made his deal with the devil and now he must reap the consequences of his actions.

Don Bacon for House Speaker!

Congressman Don Bacon (R-NE)

Last year we wrote with great enthusiasm about the triumph of Congressman Don Bacon’s primary victory over a Trump supported knucklehead. As you probably know recently former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was fired from his post and the House has been unable function. And with Hamas raising hell in Israel, and Ukraine fighting against Russia, not to mention a looming government shutdown in less than 40 days, it would seem this is the worst possible time for the U.S. House to be unable to function. Try as they might we don’t have a new speaker yet, and it’s anyone’s guess as to who will get the job.

This is a long shot we admit, but it’s worth trying. We urge the election of Don Bacon as House Speaker. It would only take 5 Republicans to side with enough Democrats to work. Granted there is political risks in this approach mostly for republicans, but Bacon has shown himself to have real principles, he has a history of working across the aisle, and as a retired Brigadier General he has the military experience to help meet the challenges we and our allies are currently facing! So let’s give it the old college try, let’s call, email, and deluge members of Congress to pick Don Bacon for Speaker. Don’t just call or email your congressmen, call and email them every 15 minutes! Post about on social media! #DonBaconForSpeaker let’s get it trending! 

Ogden on Politics leaving the Blogsphere

It’s with a mix of emotions we report that our dear friend, fellow blogger and gadfly Paul Ogden has announced that he is leaving the world of blogging after 15 years. Paul’s blog posts will be dearly missed, but we are also happy for Paul to begin a new chapter in his life. 

We will quote from the master himself as he gives his thoughts on blogging and details some new developments in his life:

Sometime on Wednesday  the lights on the Ogden on Politics blog will go off.  I turned the auto renewal option off and on September 20, 2023 my annual subscription goes out.  Yes, I have backed up my blog in case I ever want to relive the past.

My blog was on line during the era of great Indianapolis blogs.  I think back fondly to reading Gary Welsh's Advance Indiana.  Yes, Gary liked his conspiracy theories, but he also wrote extensively researched articles and broke numerous stories, at least daily if not more.  Advance Indiana remains the gold standard when it comes to blogs.  Not sure where Gary found the time to do what he did.  He was a community resource who can never be replaced.

Here's the thing about blogging though...it is time consuming.  Even when you're only commenting on a news article, it still takes substantial time to write and edit that commentary.  If it is an investigative piece, then it could take a few hours to complete the research and write the article.  Finding the time to blog recently has been difficult.  I have a full-time job as manager of a title insurance agency as well as a part-time job.  I also occasionally write legal filings for attorney friends wanting help.  In addition to those jobs, I also help take care of my elderly mother who lives nearby.  I also try to get to the gym whenever I possibly can.

That's why I haven't been blogging much lately.  But there is another reason why I have decided to shut down the blog.  Come October, after some 17 years, I am extremely excited to be returning to government employment.  While nobody asked me to shut down my blog because of that job, having it active would be too tempting to offer political commentary on candidates and office holders.   I don't want to put myself or my bosses in an uncomfortable position because of some blog article I published.

So it is time to say goodbye.  As we older people say, "See you in the funny papers."   You younger people ... look it up.

I can speak for all of us here at the IR blog: Paul you have done well, and what you have done will live on, besides your far to young to be finished doing good in this world. Godspeed old friend and remember there are others of us who will keep up the good fight. Some of us might be rare, sometimes we are unknown but we help move the world! 

Hang Lose Paul!

P.S. Check out Paul’s blog here at the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20230920085121/http://www.ogdenonpolitics.com/