Speaker Paul Ryan's maniacs, the Freedom Caucus, have found yet another way to screw him over, and this one has really got to hurt. They're stiffing him, and their own party, refusing to pay their dues to the campaign committee that helped get them elected.
A bloc of conservatives is refusing to transfer cash to the National Republican Congressional Committee, convinced the committee is favoring moderate candidates over hard-line conservatives. Dozens of other Republican lawmakers also haven't paid their expected party "dues," including several in tough primaries or general election races who figure they need the money for themselves.
Several GOP sources told Politico that 3 in 10 members of the House Republican Conference are delinquent on their dues. And multiple senior Republicans said the shortfall exceeds $10 million.
"There's a group of us who associate the NRCC with the establishment wing of the party," said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who added that he has a "principled objection to paying dues to the NRCC." The Freedom Caucus member noted that a former top NRCC staffer helped outside groups unseat his friend, Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, in a Republican primary last month, and said the committee is partly to blame. (The NRCC doesn't spend money in Republican primaries and says it has no control over outside groups.)
But the voices in their heads tell them otherwise, and who are you going to believe? The conspiracy theory that everybody has it in for them—even the leadership who helped get them elected in the first place—makes much more sense to them. Because they are not normal people. Or they're just using paranoia as an excuse to hang on to their money and fever-dreams have nothing to do with it.
They're doing a real service to the nation, driving this GOP schism, what one Republican chief of staff calls a "brewing war." They're helping Donald Trump who the Republican party just what they've created. It's a monster that was destined to eat its creator, that's what monsters do. While Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and Reince Preibus and the Koch brothers and everybody else who let their party go to the dogs deserve this, the nation doesn't.
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