Tag Archives: Democrats

Number of Democrats in U.S. Reaches All Time Low

By Duane Lester - - 0 Comments

Breaks my heart:

During December, 35.4% of Americans considered themselves Republicans. That’s up from 34.3% in November and just below the high for the year of 35.6% reached in May.

At the same time, just 32.7% of adults said they were Democrats, down from 34.9% in November. The previous low for Democrats was 33.0% in August of this year.

The number of voters not affiliated with either of the major political parties rose to 32.0% in December from 30.8% the month before.

Ah, those wily independents. How many of them are conservatives who reject the moderation of the Republican party and how many of them are socialists who think the Dems aren’t radical enough? I know there are more conservatives than liberals in America, so why aren’t Republicans dominating the elections?

What do you think?

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Durbin: Dems Don’t Have Enough Votes in Senate to Pass Obama Jobs Bill (Audio)

By Duane Lester - - 1 Comment

Last night as I was driving home from work, I was listening to Mark Levin. In the third hour, he broadcast an interview with Sen Dick Durbin, where he explained why the Obama Jobs bill hadn’t been brought up for a vote yet in the Senate:

WLS Radio’s Bill Cameron reports his own party has delayed action in the Senate and talked with Senator Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, about the reason why.

“The oil-producing state senators don’t like eliminating or reducing the subsidy for oil companies, “ Durbin tells WLS Radio, “There are some senators who are up for election who say I’m never gonna vote for a tax increase while I’m up for election, even on the wealthiest people. So, we’re not gonna have 100% Democratic senators. That’s why it needs to be bi-partisan and I hope we can find some Republicans who will join us to make it happen.”

But so far, Durbin concedes Democrats don’t have the votes in the senate to pass it, “Not at the moment, I don’t think we do but, uh, we can work on it.”

Now, while I was listening to this audio, I thought to myself, “These Democrats are doing exactly what I hate about politicians. They are voting based on what is best for their reelection, not for what is best for the country.”

A caller to Mark’s show opened my eyes to another perspective. He said, and I paraphrase, “By not voting for the bill, are they saying they don’t have confidence in the President’s bill? Are they saying they don’t believe that the bill will create jobs? Because if they thought it would create jobs, there’s no reason not to vote for it.

“Or do they believe it will create jobs, but are voting against it because they think voting for it will hurt their chances of reelection because they raised taxes? If they have faith in the bill, but vote against it, aren’t they putting their own desires ahead of helping the American people?”

A very good point. You can’t have it both ways, Dems. You either preach the benefits of the bill and vote for it, or you say, “Screw the American people. I like being a Senator.”

Which is it?

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AIM: POLITICO buries Senate Democratic obstructionism on budget

By Accuracy in Media - - 0 Comments

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From Accuracy in Media‘s Michael Watson:

In a piece that asks if Congress is “worse than it’s ever been?,” POLITICO leads by saying that Congress “still can’t-or won’t-function.” Noting that the Congress has only passed 18 bills into law, POLITICO claims that “when Congress is in, all it does is bash Obama.”

In the sixth paragraph, POLITICO says that “Obama’s GOP critics on Capitol Hill countered that the president’s cool detachment from debt-limit negotiations until last week has been a problem.” POLITICO claims that “throughout the 112th Congress, lawmakers and the White House have cut deals only when pushed to the very edge of political or budgetary disaster, and neither side has walked away from those agreements with its supporters pleased by the results.”

POLITICO does not mention that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) “hasn’t passed, or even offered, a 2012 budget” until the 28th paragraph. Even then, POLITICO calls this “a strategy of nonengagement.” Conversely, POLITICO characterizes the debates between the Congress and the President thus: “It is governing while balanced on a knife’s edge.”

POLITICO frets that “many current and former lawmakers complain that the stalemate on the Hill is worse than ever, even going back to the bitter partisan wars of the 1990s and the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.”

POLITICO also characterizes the support of the two parties differently. POLITICO takes care to note that “House GOP leaders are working feverishly to appease a party base” whose policy preferences “will never be implemented with Democrats running the Senate and White House.” POLITICO adds no such recognition of GOP control of the House of Representatives as it notes that “Democrats, for their part, are trying to motivate their own base, which is unhappy with Obama and any moderates who want to cut deals with GOP leaders.”

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AIM: Democrats Counting on Media in Fiscal Showdown

By Accuracy in Media - - 0 Comments

From Accuracy in Media‘s Roger Aronoff:

As a deadline approaches that could mean shutting down the non-essential operations of the federal government, both sides are weighing the potential impact on their political fortunes. The Republicans are squabbling among themselves over how much to cut from the remainder of the 2011 Budget, the Democrats have crafted a policy of offering minimal savings, as well as a campaign to label the Republicans as Tea Party extremists.

A couple of recent comments by leading Democrats point to a dilemma faced by the Republicans. At the National Journal’s Insider’s Conference panel, Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was asked by Major Garrett, formerly of Fox News, now with National Journal, “Do you think there is anything to be said for a grand debate that is precipitated in part by a government shutdown?”

Dean replied, “From a partisan point of view, I think it would be the best thing in the world to have a shutdown.” He said as an aside that he is not rooting for a shutdown because of its harmful effect on the country. He then suggested that half of the Tea Party people are dependent on Social Security and Medicare checks, and will be upset when their checks stop coming. He then acknowledged, when pressed by Garrett, that those checks won’t actually stop, but he said that because of what happened in Wisconsin, and people talking about the checks stopping, that Republicans will fall in popularity even more than they already have.

“If I was head of DNC, I would be quietly rooting for it,” said Dean, “I know who’s going to get blamed—we’ve been down this road before.” When asked why the Republican’s would be blamed, he said, “because of Scott Walker,” the governor of Wisconsin, who Dean said had overreached. If he was candid, he would have admitted that the mainstream media support the Democrats almost reflexively, and they know they can count on that.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was caught on tape saying something equally as revealing. While on a conference call, thinking he was only talking to four fellow Democratic senators before members of the press joined in on the call, he said that “the only way we can avoid a shutdown is for Boehner to come up with a reasonable compromise and not just listen to what the Tea Party wants. Because the Tea Party wants to stick to HR1, with its draconian extreme, I always use the word ‘extreme,’ that’s what the caucus instructed me to do the other week, extreme cuts and all these riders, and Boehner’s in a box…”

Schumer’s statement, “that’s what the caucus instructed me to do,” reveals the use of the word “extreme” as a ploy, that the Democratic caucus has decided to use. They know the mainstream media will climb on board. But is it extreme to cut $61 billion from a nearly $3.7 trillion budget that the Democrats refused to pass when they had huge majorities in both the House and Senate? Inaction meant one less position to defend while running for re-election.

Part of the issue that Democrats are labeling as “extreme” are the so-called “riders,” such as de-funding Planned Parenthood and preventing the Environmental Protection Agency from doing certain things related to the regulation of carbon emissions that the EPA enacted after Congress failed to achieve it through legislation. Actually the Republicans have passed nine such riders, which are amendments that are that are unrelated or not specifically related to the main bill. Other budget riders have not received the same scrutiny. One defunds  the implementation of ObamaCare, another would eliminate funding for salaries and expenses of nine “czars” that Obama appointed without Senate confirmation.

As Investor’s Business Daily put it, “…over a lousy $60 billion. Never mind vitally needed reform of the entitlement programs hurtling us toward a fiscal train wreck. Forget repealing ObamaCare spending and reversing the stimulus that doesn’t stimulate, costing in the t-for-trillions. Democrats won’t embrace even the paltry first step back toward fiscal sanity that House Republicans are asking for. They’d rather shut down the government and cross their fingers that the GOP gets blamed, as during the Clinton presidency.”

The truth is that the Republicans will be blamed by the media for failing to compromise if the shutdown occurs. They must understand the double standard as it exists and do what they believe to be the right thing, rather than make compromises hoping the media will like them and give them credit. That won’t happen. The Republicans have said that in their soon-to-be-released 2012 Budget from Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) House Budget Committee, they will tackle the so-called entitlements—which account for some 63% of the total federal budget, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—and cut spending to 2008 levels.

But today conservative voices are heard much more so than in 1995 when the last shutdown occurred. With Fox News, the Internet and talk radio, at least they get to make their points.

The idea that the media will support the Democrats in their effort to paint the Republicans as extreme for trying to cut $61 billion out of a $3.7 trillion deficit is based on their support from media lackeys like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who said in February on the Tonight Show that “Politics has moved so far to the right over the decades… Politics shift every year, shift further and further to the right,” so far to the right that “if Ronald Reagan were running for president today, he would be drafting like, Dennis Kucinich, to be his running mate.”

I don’t know if she really believes that, but I suspect not. This shift “to the right” that she perceives over her lifetime has included legalizing abortion and gays in the military, the implementation of affirmative action, the election of Barack Obama as President, and a federal budget, which first reached $100 billion in the early 1960s, climbing to a current budget of $3.7 trillion, not to mention dozens of federal bureaucracies that were supposedly meant to make life better. This is what Rachel Maddow and others like her in the media see as politics moving “so far to the right over the decades.” Bizarre. What it actually reveals is how far to the left the media have shifted, and that MSNBC is leading the way in that direction.

With the priorities of the two political parties so divergent, it is hard to imagine a compromise that will satisfy either side. Perhaps a shutdown of non-essential government services is inevitable.

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165 Democrats Vote Against Spending Cuts

By Duane Lester - - 1 Comment

Remember the headline tonight when you hear President Obama talking about spending freezes and fiscal responsibility. When it came time to show their hands, the Democrats had theirs deep in your pockets:

Congressional Republicans on Tuesday sought to put President Barack Obama on the defensive ahead of his State of the Union speech as they pressed their plans to slash domestic spending.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a symbolic measure that touts their intention to slash domestic spending by at least 18 percent in the coming weeks.

The actual vote to cut spending will come during the same week that Obama is expected to unveil his budget proposal for the coming year, House Republican leader Eric Cantor said.
…

Republicans have announced plans to roll back domestic spending to 2008 levels to narrow trillion-dollar-plus budget deficits when current funding expires in March.

That would mean sharp, sudden cuts to programs like environmental enforcement, education funding and transit that Obama’s fellow Democrats have bolstered in the intervening years.

Look at that last sentence.

Where in the Constitution do you find the Federal government’s power to take your property and spend it on any of that?

Answer:  it’s not there.

But by all means, let’s not cut spending for transit.  After all, I need to keep paying taxes to support AmTrak.

We are $14 trillion in debt, and the Dems refuse to cut spending.  Remember that.

Hat Tip:  Gateway Pundit

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DADT: Why I don’t care

By Clyde Middleton - - 3 Comments

I could take several paths to reach my end point, but my end point stands: I don’t care if Congress repeals the DADT law and that enabled regulations and Code of Military Conduct sections are revised accordingly.

First, Israel has allowed gays to serve openly for many years, and they have the best fighting force in the world.

Second, I expected no less from the 111th Congress, which is (was … smile) dominated by liberals on both sides of the aisle.

Third, it doesn’t sever my arm, give me cancer, or clean out my bank account.

And, fourth, and, to me, the only point requiring further discussion, Congress cannot  legislate morals or societal mores.

I don’t invest any energy in addressing the folks that treat gays like vermin.  Neanderthals walk among us; not my problem.   But I do recognize and agree with the prevailing Christian view: Gays are living an active sinful life.  Yeah, I get it, so are all of us.  A gay lifestyle is not any more grave a sin than stealing, lying under oath, etc.  It is not, however, the gravity of the sin that provokes Christian condemnation – it is the repetitive nature of it.  Enough said.

The true value of the DADT-repeal legislation is that a gay cannot now be bounced from military duty based upon that sexual orientation.  (I mean nothing by using the word “value.”)  That said, the legislation is nothing more than a review of the existing bases for disqualification, and plucking one out.  It does nothing more.  Nor can it do anything more.

Will it change how heteros in the Armed Forces view gays?  Largely no, and to the extent any change occurs it will be sporadic.  I can envision a few more street brawls, however, as Robert asks Willard for a date.  The Armed Forces will simply become more like society, but even then only marginally so.

In American society, we have a split which will remain: Heteros and gays overlap in specific situations but not as a general rule.  It doesn’t matter why.  It doesn’t matter than one guy feels “awkward” around a gay man, or some gay man feels threatened by a nonexistent threat from a fictitious hetero man, or that large segments of the two groups simply view life through different lenses and accordingly would not be friends regardless of sexual orientation.  The reasons for the division in society are not because one group is more insightful or the other group is dominated by anthropological throwbacks. We divide into social subgroups based upon how we identify ourselves – period – end of story.

So Congress can legislate all they desire.  They can mandate that all mess halls have assigned seating: Boy, girl, gay, trannie, boy, girl, etc.  Who cares?  As long as “being gay” does not elevate someone in rank or responsibility, or excuse someone from certain duties, based upon the progressive view of this “immutable condition,” then I – Don’t – Care.  It will not change the societal mores of the Armed Forces because that is outside Congress or any legislature’s ability.

All the DADT repeal does is open a career path for gays.  Fine.  Now, my gay friends, shut up and go to work.  And do not ever ask for a single favor or special dispensation because of your sexual orientation.  You wanted equality, not superiority.

Clyde is a principal at Liberty Pundits dot net and dot com.

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Omnibus Bill Page 383: $8,000,000 for Ted Kennedy Institute of Blah, Blah, Blah

By Duane Lester - - 1 Comment

It’s essentially an $8 million shrine to the last person to see Mary Jo Kopechne alive:

"Just when Americans started to hope that the liberal leadership in the Senate had learned its lesson last November, they do something which is so blatantly hypocritical and offensive.

"Few legislators despised the U.S. military more than the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).

"So where does the Senate include funding for (take a deep breath here because this is going to make your blood boil!) the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate to the tune of $8 million?

"It’s right there on page 383.   It is part of a $41,400,000 appropriation for the Department of Defense!

"This is money, which could be spent on more flak jackets for the troops or better armor on the trucks they ride in through the streets of Afghanistan, is headed for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute.

"Money which could be spent to assist military families so that they are no longer required to rely on food stamps while one of their family members is risking his/her life to defend us.

"Money which should be spent to equip our sons and daughters who have sacrificed huge chunks of their lives to defend us is going to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute.

It’s being described as a “think-tank” and a “museum.”

Are there not enough bartending schools creating new drinks?  Why does there need to be a Ted Kennedy Institute of Drinkology?  And will the museum feature photos like this:

He wore that neck brace to Mary Jo’s funeral.

Classy.

But what’s $8 million between liberals?

Hat Tip:  Holy Coast

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DeMint to Dems: You Want a Trillion Dollar Omnibus Bill? We’re Gonna Read It First!

By Duane Lester - - 0 Comments

I used to be an advocate for Sen. Tom Coburn to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell as Senate Minority Leader, but now, I’m all in for Sen. Jim DeMint.

The Senate Democrats unloaded a trillion plus dollar omnibus bill and expect to see it pass with the usual “Meh” attitude of those who spend other people’s money.

DeMint isn’t having it:

Republicans will paralyze the Senate floor for 50 hours by forcing clerks to read every single paragraph of the 1,924-page, $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill.

Senate clerks are expected to read the massive bill in rotating shifts around the clock — taking breaks to drink water and pop throat lozenges  — to keep legislative business on track, according to a Democratic leadership aide.

The bill is so long that it took the Government Printing Office two days to print it.

…

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the Senate Republican Steering Committee chairman, vowed not to back down.

“If they bring this up, they’re going to read it. It’ll take them a day or two to read it,” DeMint said on Fox News. “Again, we’re trying to run out the clock. They should not be able to pass this kind of legislation in a lame-duck Congress.”

Recognize!

And furthermore, why do we have a lame duck Congress anyway?  These same people just got their hind ends handed to them in November and rather than giving them a week to find some boxes at the Piggly Wiggly so they can pack their crap up, we have them in there trying to pass every kind of wasteful bill they can think of.

Why?

You lost, now get out.

And good on DeMint.  Were that we had more members who fought for conservatism as hard as DeMint.  In fact, he fights members of his own party harder than many fight the Dems.  We need people who fight for liberty as hard as Pelosi, Reid and Obama fight for collectivism.

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Democrat on Negotiating with Republicans: “Do you negotiate with terrorists?”

By Duane Lester - - 5 Comments

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was asked whether the Democrats should work with Republicans in extending the current tax system or if they should allow it to expire and raise taxes on everyone.

He compared it to negotiating with terrorists.

No…really:


Asked if Democrats have a responsibility to move forward with a  bill that can become law – in other words, a bill Republicans will support and not block– here’s what Menendez said:

“Do you allow yourself to be held hostage and get something done for the sake of getting something done, when in fact it might be perverse in its ultimate results? It’s almost like the question of do you negotiate with terrorists.”

Republicans are crying foul.

Gee, you think?

Considering that the head of the Democrat party, President Obama, has been an advocate of negotiating with radical Muslims who throw acid in the faces of women and kill children, it’s very clear what the Democrats are willing to do and what they are not.

They are willing to allow real terrorists to regain power in the country where the 9/11 attacks were made, but refuse to negotiate with publicly elected representatives of the American people, especially those who dare to believe people have a right to personal property, regardless of how much personal property they own.

How do these cretins even have the offense in this battle?  Everything they have done since 2006 has been a complete disaster.

Is Congress more ethical?  Hardly, considering a Democrat was just censured, an action that hasn’t happened in 27 years.

Is the economy better than in 206?

No, it’s bad and getting worse.

Yet these guys have no problem saying that what is needed is further looting of the American taxpayer.

Another thing,  how were they allowed to describe what is going on as a tax break for the rich?  This is an extension of the current tax system.  If they just extend the current tax system, no one is getting a tax cut.

No one.

It’s simply a matter of continuing what is going on right now.  The Republicans are not saying, “Not only do we want this, but cut taxes on the ‘rich’ by eleventy billion percent.  Mwahahaha! Now, throw more children in the meat grinder for John Boehner’s tanning lotion!”

But the press doesn’t call them on this, just like they allow them to call this an extension of the Bush tax cuts.  By calling it the Bush tax cuts, they hope to get the people against it because in the Democrats little bubble world, everything Bush is bad.

It’s a way of selling the Democrat plan, which is Marxist.  That’s not hyperbole.  They advocate a progressive tax on income.  Here’s Marx:

…the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

(While you’re at it, look at that list and you can see all the things on it are things Democrats fight for.  Tells you something, doesn’t it?)

For Marx, the proletariat is the wage slave, while the bourgeois is the rich.  So, Marx wants a “heavy progressive or graduated income tax” in order for the wage slaves to “use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the [rich].”

Sound familiar?

It’s called the Democrat platform.

So there’s the current state of the Democrat party.  Willing to work with real monsters, unwilling to stray from the Marxist plan for communist revolution and still trying to use Bush to scare the people and sell their plans.

Is it any wonder they took such a beating last month?

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Dem Says You Can Choose Education or End of Life Care, But Not Both

By Duane Lester - - 3 Comments

Michigan Democrat candidate Gary McDowell laid it out very clearly.  If America is to have government involved in the health care world, there are going to be some tough choices.

You can have end of life care, but that’s expensive.  It’ll probably mean you can’t send your kids to school.  After all, there’s only so much money they can loot from the taxpayers and it can’t all be spent on keeping all the old folks alive:

The video makes it clear. You can choose to put someone on a respirator, or you can choose hospice, and hospice is cheaper.

theblogprof shows us how the government sees it:

From the bureaucrat’s point of view, why care for the elderly that 1) don’t pay taxes and 2) aren’t going to live much longer anyway? That’s liberal compassion, the same that a fetus gets at Planned Parenthood. This is the essence of comparative effectiveness that is at the heart of ObamaCare. Comparative effectiveness, as per Obama’s rationing czar ‘Dr.’ Ezekiel Emanuel, takes only 2 things into consideration when denying or approving treatment: 1) age, 2) cost. Simple as that. It yields this ghoulish chart:

This chart would be page 1 of the “how to” guide of any death panel.

There is another option that everyone seems to be missing.

Get government out of all these things.

Crazy, I know, but if government wasn’t involved in health care, they wouldn’t have to care about the cost.  Yeah, even Medicare and Medicaid.

And if they weren’t involved in education, they wouldn’t have to worry about the cost of tuition.

I can keep going, but you get the point.  Rather than looking at this as a matter of allocating taxpayer money and choosing to let granny die so Junior can have three meals a day at Indoctrinate High, you could just set things back to where they are supposed to be:  within the boundaries of the Constitution.

If you’re in Michigan’s 1st, that starts with a vote for Dan Benishek, who wrote regarding this video:

“End of life care decisions are incredibly personal. As a physician, I believe very strongly that these difficult choices should be made by patients and their families, in consultation with their doctors. New medical technology has given millions of Americans the chance to live longer and better lives. These ‘procedures’ should be made more available, not ‘allocated’ by the government.”

Contribute to Benishek here.

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