I’m Not Holding My Breath

During her reign as Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi established a number of precedents. Some of them were highly partisan should have been undone by the Republicans. However, they were not. So here we are, waiting for Karma.

On Wednesday PJ Media posted an article about some of the actions of Speaker Pelosi and some of the promises made by Kevin McCarthy.

The article notes:

Last year Pelosi and the Democrats stripped Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) of her committee assignments over past comments she made, and later censured and removed Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) from his committee assignments over a video he tweeted.

Republicans argued at the time that Democrats were establishing a “dangerous” precedent whereby the “majority party can punish a member of the minority party by removing their committee assignments.”

In a sense, they were warned that they would “rue the day” they established this precedent, and that day is hopefully coming soon. It took long enough, but the Republican Party finally secured the House Majority on Tuesday evening, which also means that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will be Speaker of the House.

McCarthy has repeatedly promised that he would remove Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from their respective committees. There are more legitimate reasons to remove all four of them from their committee assignments than there were to remove Greene and Gosar. Waters infamously incited violence by urging people to confront Trump officials in public, Omar has a habit of making blatantly anti-Semitic statements, Swalwell had an affair with a Chinese spy, and Schiff lied about seeing intelligence proving Trump colluded with Russia.

If the Republicans ever want to win another election, Kevin McCarthy needs to keep this promise. Many of us are tired of being perpetual wimps. I know it’s good to be the ‘nice guy,’ but sometimes you have to stand up for yourself. Mealy-mouthed Republicans who do nothing will not get re-elected. The MAGA crowd that the establishment fears will primary them and win.

 

Avoiding The Mistake Of The Wellstone Memorial

What happened to Paul Pelosi was awful. No one should be attacked by a person with a hammer in their own house. There are a lot of questions as to exactly what went on, but for the moment I am going to avoid them.

The media and many in the Democrat Party have used the attack to condemn the Republicans for ‘hate speech’ which they deem responsible for the attack. But let’s look at some of the recent statements and actions of Democrats.

In June 2018, CNN reported:

The California Democrat (Maxine Waters) and vehement critic of President Donald Trump made the comments on Saturday, first at a rally in Los Angeles and later in a television interview. The comments, which come after several Trump administration officials have been recently protested at restaurants, have raised fresh questions about the state of American political discourse and were seized on by Trump for political gain.

“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere. We’ve got to get the children connected to their parents,” Waters said at the Wilshire Federal Building, according to video of the event.

Was that hate speech? When Steve Scalise was shot by someone who worked on the Bernie Sanders campaign, was that hate speech?

Politicizing the Paul Pelosi attack is risky on many levels. There are too many unanswered questions about the attack–why were the security cameras turned off, how did the attacker get into a community with its own security force, why didn’t the security system react, why was the glass broken from the inside and the fact that the attacker was an illegal alien with no conservative political ties.

Democrats would do well to remember the Wellstone Memorial–not one of their finer moments.

In 2002, The New York Post reported:

WHAT possessed them? How could Minnesota’s Democrats have been so foolish as to turn a memorial meeting for eight people tragically killed in a plane crash into a campaign rally for the United States Senate?

The Paul Wellstone memorial pep rally will be recorded as one of the supreme mistakes in recent political history – an entirely avoidable and unnecessary fiasco.

Just how big a fiasco? Jesse Ventura, the state’s independent governor, said he felt “violated” by the four-hour event. Ventura said he was considering the appointment of a non-Democrat to fill out the remainder of Wellstone’s Senate term, which lasts until the beginning of the new year.

That’s very significant. Why? Because the U.S. Senate will be meeting again after Election Day in a lame-duck session that will last four weeks or so. If Ventura’s lame-duck appointment were to line up with the Republicans, he would throw them control of the Senate for the first time since 2001.

Turning a tragedy into a political event can easily backfire. The Democrats need to be very careful in handing the attack on Paul Pelosi. (Just as a side note–Ted Kennedy was supposed to be on the airplane with Paul Wellstone, but decided at the last minute not to take the plane.)

What Corruption?

On Thursday, The Conservative Review reported that according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, Democrat South Carolina Representative James Clyburn has distributed more than $200,000 in campaign funds to entities controlled by his relatives.

The article reports:

Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, has made 15 rental payments to a company controlled by a daughter and son-in-law, and 39 direct payments to another daughter and son-in-law. Clyburn’s grandson also appears to be a salaried employee, and has received twice-monthly payments from the Clyburn campaign since October 2021.

The article concludes:

Overall, Friends of Jim Clyburn has paid Clyburn’s family members and entities they control $236,412 since 2010.

Clyburn’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment on the matter.

Clyburn is one of several members of Congress who have funneled money to relatives through campaign accounts in recent years. Democratic Connecticut Rep. Jahana Hayes paid her adult children more than $35,000 out of campaign funds since entering Congress in 2021. Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters paid her daughter more than $100,000 during the 2018 election cycle.

Republican Idaho Rep. Russ Fulcher paid family members $69,000 during the 2020 election cycle.

Actually, this doesn’t bother me as much as some of the other corruption in Washington does. It shouldn’t be a problem for a candidate to do business with or hire family members. However, those business and family members should be paid according to the going rate for the services they provide. For instance, a family member who is not a ‘volunteer’ stuffing envelopes (do they still do that?) in an office should be paid what people stuffing envelopes are usually paid. For that person to receive a $100,000 a year salary is a problem. The bigger picture is that what we are seeing is how someone middle class can come to Washington to ‘serve’ and leave a few years later as a millionaire with millionaire family members. That is the problem.

Safety For Me, But Not For Thee

As Democrats call for a defunding of the police, they seem very willing to call on the police to insure their own safety. Breitbart is reporting today that Representative Maxine Waters requested a police escort to attend the riots in Minneapolis over the weekend where she encouraged more rioting. First of all, Minneapolis is a long way from her district. Why was she there? Secondly, exactly what did her presence there do to calm things and bring peace to that troubled city? Thirdly, was she acting as part of the problem or part of the solution?

The article reports:

Townhall obtained and published the document on Monday appearing to show the request with Waters’ name listed as the primary protectee and “Police escort In & Out” listed underneath special requests.

“Waters flew from Dulles International Airport to Minnesota-St. Paul International Airport on Saturday, April 17, just days ahead of a verdict in the George Floyd, Officer Derek Chauvin trial,” the report said.

Video footage showed Waters surrounded by protesters and reporters outside the police station in Brooklyn Center where she told citizens to hit the streets unless Chauvin was convicted for murder.

“We’re looking for a guilty verdict,” she said. “And we’re looking to see if all of the talk that took place and has been taking place after they saw what happened to George Floyd, if nothing does not happen, then we know that we’ve got to not only stay in the street, but we’ve got to fight for justice.”

However, Waters claimed Monday she is “nonviolent” in response to criticism after her call to protesters to “get more confrontational” if Chauvin is cleared in Floyd’s death, Breitbart News reported.

Was she in the courtroom? Has she reviewed all of the evidence? Why in the world was she there?

Pouring Gasoline On A Raging Fire

Yesterday Fox News reported that the Judge in the trial of Derek Chauvin was not pleased with the recent remarks made by Representative Maxine Waters.

The article reports:

A lawyer defending Derek Chauvin, who is on trial for the death of George Floyd, cited Rep. Maxine Waters’, D-Calif., comments to Minnesota protesters over the weekend in court on Monday.

“And now that we have [a] U.S. representative … threatening acts of violence in relation to this specific case, it’s it’s mind boggling…,” Attorney Eric Nelson said, as he attempted to argue that the jury may have been unduly influenced by external factors.

Judge Peter Cahill said that he wished elected officials would stop referencing the case “especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law” so as to let the judicial process play out as intended.

He added, however, that he did not believe the comments unduly influenced the jury as they had been told not to watch the news.

I hate to be cynical here, but does anyone actually believe that the jury followed the Judge’s orders not to watch the news? The jury in this trial should have been sequestered from the beginning (after the location of the trial was moved). There is no way this could ever be considered a fair trial–jurors know that if they return a not-guilty verdict there will be riots. There will probably be riots anyway, but I believe that the members of the jury fear for their safety if they produce a not-guilty verdict. Whatever the verdict is, it will probably be appealed and the country will go through more strife.

That being said, I have no idea what the correct verdict should be. I wasn’t in the courtroom. I would simply like to see rioters arrested and held in jail for a minimum of thirty days without bail so that they could cool off. That might discourage future riots. Meanwhile, I would like to know what stealing and burning buildings have to do with protesting.

When The Pot Calls The Kettle Black

Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about a recent tweet from Jim Acosta.

This is the tweet (without the video):

The sad scene he was referring to was probably not Americans at their best, but it was real–it was people protesting the false reporting of CNN. Mr. Acosta seems to have forgotten the actual incidents of Trump supporters being abused. The article at Power Line cites a number of these incidents. However, I believe the most egregious incident is a statement by Representative Maxine Waters to a group of supporters.

According to CNN, Ms. Waters said:

“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere…”

Again, I don’t necessarily approve of the way Mr. Acosta was treated, but it was tame compared to being confronted with an angry mob when you are taking your family out to dinner. Mr. Acosta needs to clean up his own back yard before he attacks anyone else.

Unacceptable Discourse

The following video was posted on YouTube today:

Representative Maxine Walters told a crowd:

“If you see anybody from (Trump’s) cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

This is bullying. In most circles it is unacceptable; however, I guess it is acceptable in today’s Democrat party. That is truly sad. When confronted with what she said, Representative Waters blamed President Trump for the lack of civil discourse. I would like to point out that it was not President Trump that made these statements–it was Representative Waters.

What A Democratic Victory In The Mid-Term Elections Would Look Like

It is no secret that the Democrats would like to overturn the 2016 election. Representative Maxine Waters has been running around the country yelling, “Impeach 45″ for a while now. There are also some very uneducated Americans who believe that if President Trump were to be impeached, Hillary Clinton would become President. The ignorance of Americans regarding the U.S. Constitution is a whole other article that would take more pages than I can imagine.

At any rate, what would happen if the Democrats were to take the House and the Senate in 2018.

A Forbes article from March 2018 lists the changes the Democrats want to make in the tax plan:

Increase the top marginal income tax rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent.

This is not only a tax on the wealthy, but it is a tax on small business–the main creator of jobs in America. This would begin to slow down the economic growth we have seen under President Trump.

Increase the corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 25 percent.

American corporations compete on the world market. Before this tax cut, America had the highest corporate tax rate in the world. The rate cut under President Trump puts us in the middle of the pack. To undo this would slow economic growth and job creation in America.

Bring back the alternative minimum tax (AMT) for 4 million families.

This is a tax that hits two-income families in states with a high cost of living–New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc. Oddly enough, these are the states that generally vote Democratic–these voters who vote Democratic in these states are voting against their own interests.

Cut the “death tax” standard deduction in half.

This is a tax that hits small business and family farms. Again, it hits those least likely to afford it and hurts the continuing growth of business.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  * * * * * * * * * *

The other part of the possible Democratic takeover of Congress would be the impeachment of President Trump. This would further divide the country. It would also set the precedent that political use of government agencies against the opposing party is acceptable and can be successful. That would not bode well for the future of America.

I can guarantee that a Democratic mid-term victory would be the end of America as we know it. Political speech that does not agree with those in power will be labeled ‘hate speech.’ Those who publicly voice unacceptable opinions will be subject to harassment by an out-of-control government. We will see censorship of alternative news sources, and the American public will only have access to the news those in power want them to have access to.

A cautionary note to Democrats planning impeachment–remember what happened to the Republican party majority after they attempted to impeach President Clinton. The American people still vote, and they have a sense of fairness. It is very hard to watch the continuing attacks on President Trump and believe that the way the media treats him is fair.

 

Sometimes The Internet Just Makes Politics Difficult

On Sunday, Lifezette posted an article about Senator Elizabeth Warren‘s plan to obstruct the firing of U.S. Attorneys. Evidently Senator Warren has a short memory. Yesterday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article quoting California Democrat Representative Maxine Waters complaining that Barack Obama did not get rid of Bush-era U.S. Attorneys fast enough in May of 2009.

The Gateway Pundit quotes Representative Waters:

Maxine Waters: “As we understand it, the protocol has been that U.S. attorneys hand in their resignations and would give the new administration an opportunity to make new appointments, we don’t see that happening quite fast enough.”

Lifezette posted some tweets from Senator Warren:

Lifezette further reminds us:

While it is true that the Senate confirms any U.S. attorney appointees that a president names, neither the act of firing nor the appointment of replacements is something unusual in the transfer of presidential power.

I guess Senator Warren has forgotten recent history. Please follow the link to read the entire Lifezette article. Senator Warren’s tweets are totally over the top.