The Democrats ARe Becoming Desperate Over Health Care Reform

As I returned from vacation last weekend I became aware of the desperation of the Democrats and the White House over their socialist takeover of our health care system. After weeks of plummeting poll numbers and running scared at town hall meetings the administration and the Democratic leadership have resorted to the same tired tactics they have used for years. The politics of fear and race baiting has returned in full force in a feeble attempt to resurrect the health care power grab.

The Colorado Democrat Party headquarters in Denver was vandalized this week and immediately state party officials attempted to spin in into an attack by political opponents of the health care reform proposed by their party. Unfortunately the facts of the case tell a slightly different story. One of the two vandals was caught shortly after the attack and his name is Maurice Schwenkler. He worked in the 2008 elections for a Democrat running for the Colorado state house. He has a history of working for liberal 527 groups and was arrested for unlawful assembly outside of the Republican National Convention in 2008. Of course the Colorado Democrat Party Chairwoman was quick to back away from her initial statements accusing Republicans of the vandalism.

New York Governor David A. Paterson blames racism for his unpopularity in the sate of New York and added that President Obama will be the next victim of racism. They believe, or are at least trying to convince the public, that the reason for the disapproval among the voting public is that we are not comfortable with a black man in power. They want us to forget that the health care reform proposal is an unconstitutional power grab and will further drive our country into economic disaster. Governor Paterson is presiding over a state that is in dire economic straits, but he wants us to believe that it is not his fault but the fault of his racist political opponents. I have been called a racist more times in the past year than in my entire life; all because I have not supported Barack Obama. I have not and will not support any candidate or politician that I do not agree with on the issues. Was I a racist when I supported Michael Steele for Lt. Governor and Senator in Maryland? I supported Steele based on the issues, but because he is a Republican, the left believes that he has betrayed his race.

President Barack Obama said last week that there is a “right wing conspiracy” to defeat his health care reform proposal. It is interesting that he would use those words to describe the opponents of socialized medicine. It is interesting because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referenced a “vast right wing conspiracy” while she was the First Lady to explain the accusations of infidelity against her husband President Bill Clinton. Of course a few weeks later her husband had to admit his extra-curricular activities with a White House intern. I know the same is true in the current reference to a conspiracy. The facts are that the current health care reform will ration medical care, raise costs, reduce the quality of care, and will give the federal government unprecedented and unconstitutional power over our lives. I do think it is funny that they will try to pin this on the Republicans, but yet they do not need a single Republican to support it for it to pass either chamber of Congress.

The most disturbing, but not surprising ploy being used by the Democrats to force through this debacle is the death of Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. No more than 2 hours after his death, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was calling for the reform to be passed as a tribute to Kennedy. They are hoping that they can guilt the “Blue Dog Democrats” into supporting the legislation despite the growing dissatisfaction with the proposal. It is ironic that they would seek to tie this reform to Kennedy who sought out the best treatments and doctors available for his disease, but he would not have had that opportunity if the current proposal were passed into law. The attempt to capitalize on the Senator’s death does bring to mind a similar attempt in 2002 when the Democrats tried to turn a memorial service for Senator Paul Wellstone into a political pep rally. The result was a defeat for the Democrats. The early reports of the coverage of Kennedy’s death have shown that the ratings numbers are very low, which points to the public’s cynicism over the political class trying to push this albatross onto our backs.

A side note to the death of Senator Kennedy; in 2004 Kennedy sought to have Massachusetts law changed so that a vacant U.S. Senate seat would be filled by a special election to be held within 5 months of the vacancy. He fought to have it changed because he was worried that Senator John Kerry would win the presidency and Republican Governor Mitt Romney would fill the vacant seat with a Republican. Now that there is a Democrat in the Governor’s mansion, Kennedy wrote a letter state legislators before his death to have the law changed so that Governor Deval Patrick could fill the vacancy immediately. I believe the frenzy to change the law and name a replacement will be more entertaining than any of the mind-numbing reality TV shows currently on the air.
As the summer recess winds down, the race baiting and fear mongering from the administration will continue to heat up and the politicization of Senator Kennedy’s death will reach nauseating levels. I fully expect President Obama to turn the eulogy on Saturday into a campaign-style stump speech for health care reform in memoriam for the good Senator. I also believe that the American public has wised up to the empty promises of the President. They see the economic trouble in which the country finds itself. They hear the reports that the federal deficit has quadrupled since President Obama was sworn in as President. The heard the administration admit that their estimates of the federal deficit’s growth was off by $2 trillion to a total of $9 trillion. They are unable to understand why we need to rush this legislation through now, when it will not even take effect until 2013. The more the public learns about the health care reform proposal, the lower the approval numbers drop for the President and the Democrats. The problem for the White House and the Democratic leadership is that they have sold themselves for this reform to the point that they are unable to stop now. I believe that 2010 will be a very bad year to be a politician in D.C..

Quote Of The Day: Chappaquiddick & Immigration

"This morning’s New York Times publishes a moving tribute to Ted Kennedy’s efforts to save his sinking Oldsmobile of an immigration bill as it plunged to the ocean floor. If only liberalism’s last lion had shown such determination and interest in saving Mary Jo Kopechne." -- Dean Barnett

Go to Right Wing News to get Hawkins comments and the full article. Very good stuff.

Republican Backstabbing And Political Suicide

by Troy Stouffer

I am an opinionated conservative. Because I have strong opinions and I am not afraid to voice my opinion, I have developed a thick skin for name calling and personal attacks. I am not unique in that respect. Many of my friends on the opposite end of the political spectrum have become accustomed to the vitriolic attacks on their beliefs. Most of us that enjoy the political process realize that this is all part of the game, but normally the attacks come from the other party.

This latest feeble attempt at immigration reform has brought out some of the worst attacks from the leaders of the Republican party. In the past couple of weeks, anyone who is opposed to the bill has been called xenophobic, bigoted, racist, unpatriotic, and had our intelligence questioned. Linda Chavez wrote an article recently where she equated the opposition to the bill to racism and hatred for anyone from “south of the border”. When pressed on the issue, Chavez admitted that a minority of the opposition, roughly 10%, is made up of the xenophobes.

The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal recently released some audio of one of their editorial meetings. Their condescension for the conservatives that were opposed to the bill was loud and obnoxious. I am the first to admit that I am not a scholar or an intellectual. I do not have a Master’s degree or even a Bachelor’s degree. I think the only time I am the smartest person in the room, is when I am alone. Even though I am intellectually challenged, I can see that this is bad legislation. One aspect stands out though, the “Intellectuals” have been working on reforming immigration for over 40 years and not resolved the problem. Maybe it is time we listen to those of us who are the uninformed and less intelligent than the political elite.

Not all of the politicians in Washington D.C. have succumbed to the political pressure from their parties to back this bill. From the start of this debate over 2 weeks ago, the supporters of the bill warned that any changes to the bill would cause the legislation to be ineffective. Many proposals have been blocked by the once staunch supporters of the reform. One amendment that was defeated was to block the legal status of those illegal immigrants who have been ordered to be deported by a judge, but then failed to appear in court.

The Democrats are not without blame on this reform bill. Senator Edward Kennedy was a driving force in the writing of this bill. Kennedy has been a key player on every major immigration reform package since his political career began over 40 years ago. I have to ask the question, if Teddy has not been able to fix this problem in 40 years of trying the same tactics, why does he believe this will be any different? Can anyone tell me a simple definition of insanity? For my “intellectual” readers, doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently said that if this bill fails it will be seen as a failure for President Bush. I agree that it will be seen as a failure for Bush, but it should also be seen as a failure for Reid, McCain, Kennedy, and any other politician that backed this bill. They should also be held accountable if the bill passes as it is written now. Reid and the Democrats could not even muster the necessary 60 votes to end debate on Thursday and bring the measure to a full vote. They only managed to get 33 votes to end the debate. Hardly close to the slim majority that the Democrats hold in the Senate.

I am usually not prone to political predictions, but in this case I will go out on a limb and make a few predictions. If this bill passes as it is written now, the Republicans will lose more seats in both houses of Congress and have zero chance of a Republican candidate winning the White House in 2008. The conservatives will not suddenly vote for the Democrats. They will back challengers to the incumbents in the primaries and will stay home on election day rather than vote for any candidate that had a hand in passing this legislation into law. One other point that has conservatives up in arms is the wall to wall assault by the administration in support of this bill. Where has this energy been on other issues for which the conservative base was screaming?

Completely Worthless Immigration Reform

As the Senate continues to debate the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill, the American people are rapidly becoming aware of the details of the bill. As has been the case over the past several years, most Americans do not favor giving amnesty to over 12,000,000 illegal immigrants. The administration and the congressional proponents of the bill claim that it will not provide amnesty but it will give these hard working people a path to citizenship.

Carlos Gutierrez, Commerce Secretary, and Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security Secretary, were the administration’s representatives during the closed door negotiations with members of both political parties for the writing of the bill. Both Secretary’s met with the USA Today editorial board to discuss the new immigration bill. Chertoff asserts that it is impossible to deport all of the illegal immigrants and that if we do not pass something now that millions of families will be without any way of becoming legal. Gutierrez’ comments are a bit more telling. He stated that it was a way to bring more workers into the U.S. workforce.

Chertoff’s comments begs the question, When have we tried to enforce the existing immigration laws and allowed the border patrol to do their job? Why is now the only time to handle this problem? With the federal, state, and local governments’ past history of willingness of enforcing the existing laws, who really believes that the new laws will ever be enforced?

Gutierrez’ statements shed some sunshine on a new tactic to expand the size of government and increase the taxpayer rolls. Is this the new plan to “fix” Social Security? Most of these “undocumented” workers are using stolen social security numbers and are paying into social security. Wasn’t that one of the myriad of reasons why we needed to grant them all amnesty?

Senator Mel Martinez, the General Chair of the Republican National Committee, stated that the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill has the potential to save the GOP. Mr. Martinez fails to realize that the illegal immigration problem is not a republican or democratic problem, it is an American problem that needs to be addressed in a manner that will improve our homeland security and our border security.

Senator Ted Kennedy has been involved with immigration reform since 1965 when he managed that legislation on the Senate floor. He was a pivotal player in the 1986 version of reform. Once again, Teddy is heavily involved in the most recent version of immigration reform. Each time the debate heats up over immigration, Kennedy is first on the scene to handle the situation and solve the problem. The 1986 reform package led to amnesty for over 3,000,000 illegal immigrants and Kennedy and others led us to believe that this was necessary to stop illegal immigration. 20 years later and the numbers have grown four times and this time they are sure that they can fix the problem.

I believe the Republican support is coming from the business interest in cheap labor and the administration’s desire for more taxpaying workers. This thinking is flawed in that, the current illegal workers, work cheaply because of their illegal status. Once they are granted amnesty and become legal workers, they will immediately demand higher wages and benefits. The tax issue has already been covered. These illegal workers already have stolen social security numbers to pay into the system. I believe the Democrats support is based solely on the belief that these illegal immigrants will vote along the Democratic party line once they attain legal status.

Our elected representatives in Washington are playing a political game with the security of our border and our country. Where in this bill is the solution to border security? They have spent a great deal of time debating ways to enable the illegal immigrants to “come out of the shadows”, but how do they propose to prevent another 40,000,000 or 50,000,000 illegal immigrants from crossing into our country? I believe that if this legislation is passed, the $5000 fine will be waived or forgotten, and 20 years from now we will be debating what to do about the 50,000,000 illegal immigrants living and working in our country.