The RINO Seven: This Cycle's Version of an Old Establishment Mistake

Hello, all, and welcome to Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026 — hump day, for those still counting.

My calendar says it's Guacamole Day, Play-Doh Day, Mayflower Day, Working Parents Day, Stepfamily Day, Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day, Collect Rocks Day, and the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer. So mash some avocado, mold it into a Play-Doh sculpture of a rock you collected, feed it to your stepfamily on cinnamon raisin toast, and thank the ozone layer for not melting in the process.

Today in History:

1620: The Mayflower sails from Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers bound for the New World.
1672: Anne Bradstreet, the first published poet in colonial America, dies in Massachusetts.
1810: Miguel Hidalgo delivers the "Grito de Dolores," launching Mexico's war of independence from Spain.
1893: Roughly 100,000 settlers rush into Oklahoma's Cherokee Strip in the largest land run in U.S. history.
1908: William C. Durant incorporates General Motors in Flint, Mich.
1920: A bomb explodes on Wall Street, killing 38 people in the deadliest act of terrorism on American soil to that date.
1940: Congress passes the Selective Training and Service Act, establishing the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.
1975: Papua New Guinea gains independence from Australia.
1978: Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq formally becomes president of Pakistan.
1982: Lebanese Christian militiamen begin a three-day massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut.
1987: The Montreal Protocol opens for signature, becoming the only treaty in UN history to achieve universal ratification.

Birthdays Today include: Nick Jonas, singer and actor (Jonas Brothers); Amy Poehler, actress and comedian (Parks and Recreation); Mickey Rourke, actor (The Wrestler, Sin City); Alexis Bledel, actress (Gilmore Girls, The Handmaid's Tale); David Copperfield, magician; B.B. King, blues guitarist ("The Thrill Is Gone").

If today's your birthday, too, you're sharing it with a magician, a bluesman, and a Jonas — pick your patron saint accordingly.

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I've said it for years: The country faces two major issues — The Democrats and the establishment GOP. (Note, please, the distinction I place in Italics.) Of the two, the establishment GOP is the larger problem, and the more treacherous. The difference being that at least the Democrats have long since given up trying to convince the voters they're Republicans.

The establishment end of the GOP has never quite figured out that there was a serious reason why the GOP voters — the rank and file — sat on their hands for Romney and McCain, and why they completely rejected Jeb Bush before the primary season was halfway over.

It wasn't that those men were unqualified. We even would have survived Jeb. It's that primary and general-election voters looked at them and saw more of the same: managed decline dressed up as competence, capitulation as bipartisanship, defeat as dignity.

McCain lost to a freshman senator nobody had heard of eighteen months earlier. Romney forgot to fight and lost to the most beatable incumbent in a generation. And Jeb — a $150 million war chest, the whole family machine — got run out of the primary by a game-show host with no elected experience, because the base had stopped believing the Bush name meant strength.

The establishment's answer, every time, is to treat that rejection as a mystery instead of a message. They've never asked whether the voters might be right. They've asked how to manage the voters better next time.

Seven names, same disease:

Thomas Massie (RINO-Ky.)
Brian Fitzpatrick (RINO-Pa.)
Warren Davidson (RINO-Ohio)
Tom Barrett (RINO-Mich.)
Nancy Mace (RINO-S.C.)
Mariannette Miller-Meeks (RINO-Iowa)
Zach Nunn (RINO-Iowa)

These are the seven who crossed the line and voted with the Democrats on Iran Tuesday night, 220–204. Massie, Fitzpatrick, Davidson, and Barrett have voted for every version of this resolution since June. Mace, Miller-Meeks, and Nunn just joined them — the biggest defection yet, up from four in June and July.

Massie will tell you he's different — a Freedom Caucus purist, not a swing-district survivalist. Trump spent $32 million recruiting a primary challenger just to be rid of him, the most expensive House primary in history.

Fine. Now, explain why his impeachment fire is aimed at Hegseth and not at Trump. Our Dave Manney nailed it yesterday when he said:

Trump is commander in chief. Hegseth runs the Department of War under Trump's authority. Cabinet officers can certainly be impeached, and following an unlawful order doesn't magically erase personal responsibility. But the central argument in Massie's first three [impeachment] articles concerns who has constitutional authority to continue an American war.

Hegseth is the convenient target. Trump is the actual one. Massie knows the difference and picked the safer fight anyway. File him with the rest.

Five of the seven face voters in November; Massie and Mace don't — he was primaried out, and she's leaving office altogether. The other five are getting exactly the reception you'd expect: Barrett's underwater, Miller-Meeks is trailing, Fitzpatrick's tied. Voters are already grading the homework. And as an aside, I have to wonder why on earth Massie believes political safety is something he should be worried about, given he's already been primaried out of his seat. Is he bucking for a K Street gig?

Nunn is the whole thesis in one vote. Hegseth flew to Iowa and campaigned for him last month. Weeks later, Nunn voted to rein in his boss's war. That's not triangulation — that's a man deciding, in real time, that the administration's own Cabinet secretary isn't worth as much as the exit.

Romney, McCain, and Jeb Bush never saw their reckoning coming. The establishment end of the party's still not looking. Seven Republicans just handed Democrats a win while their own Cabinet secretary was out shaking hands for them, and these establishment types still can't read what that means. November's going to read it to them and, in some cases, voters already have.

The voters have been transmitting the message for a decade. They like the MAGA agenda. Yeah, I know the polling is weak. It was last time, too. Ignore the polls. They told us Trump had no chance. You may recall how that worked out. Instead, do this: Pay attention to what happened when the votes were finally counted.

The question is, who's listening?

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Thought for the Day: The Mayflower set sail not knowing what it would find, only that staying put wasn't an option — which is a fair description of most worthwhile decisions.

VIP members, wade into this one in the comment sections. Your voice matters.

Take care, Gang. Let's meet here tomorrow.

Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it's spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there's nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.

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