Tag Archives: Filibuster

What A Difference A Few Days Make

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On Friday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the pre-election plans of Senator Chuck Schumer. Senator Schumer was looking forward to a Democrat White House, Senate and House of Representatives. Thankfully, he was overly optimistic.

The article reports:

Schumer’s top priority in the new Harris administration would have been to eliminate the legislative filibuster that has long protected minority rights in the Senate. That way, even if the Senate were tied between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, those 50 Democrats, with the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Tim Walz, could enact far-reaching legislation without any input at all from Republicans. Washington would have true one-party rule, and the minority party would have no say in things whatsoever.

…Schumer believed 2024 would be the year Democrats could finally erase any Republican power in the Senate. Manchin and Sinema were both leaving the Senate, Schumer explained at his talk in Chicago. Manchin’s seat would be won by a Republican, so it still would be unavailable for Democrats. But Sinema’s seat would be won by Democrat Ruben Gallego, Schumer said, and Gallego would go along with the party on the filibuster. That would give Democrats the 50 votes they needed, provided there was a Vice President Walz to break the tie.

Well, things didn’t go exactly as planned.

This is what hjappened last week:

So this week, Schumer went to the well of the Senate and addressed some remarks to his Republican colleagues. “Another closely contested election now comes to an end,” he said. “To my Republican colleagues, I offer a word of caution in good faith: Take care not to misread the will of the people, and do not abandon the need for bipartisanship. After winning an election, the temptation may be to go to the extreme. We’ve seen that happen over the decades, and it has consistently backfired on the party in power. So, instead of going to the extremes, I remind my colleagues that this body is most effective when it’s bipartisan. If we want the next four years in the Senate to be as productive as the last four, the only way that will happen is through bipartisan cooperation.”

The short version of that is: Please don’t do to us what we were going to do to you. Schumer is obviously concerned that Republicans might embrace a scheme to eliminate the filibuster and pass all sorts of consequential legislation with no Democratic input at all. That wouldn’t be bipartisan! Fortunately for Schumer, Republicans have been more principled than Democrats when it comes to the legislative filibuster, and to the filibuster in general. Republicans realize that even though they will have the majority for the next two years, they might be back in the minority at any time after that. So Schumer will not get it good and hard the way he planned to give it to Republicans.

It is amazing how quickly Senator Schumer changed his tune. However, if the Republicans are smart, they will quickly confirm ALL of President Trump’s nominees for Cabinet positions and department heads.

Changing The Rules

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On Friday, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at The New York Post detailing how the Democrat party has changed some of the basic rules of our Republic in recent years. It’s a long list.

Here are the highlights of the list:

1. When in control of the Senate, demand the end of the filibuster; when not, don’t.

2. Call for the end of the Electoral College — but only if it appears to recently favor the candidate of the opposition.

3. In an election year, change any state balloting laws deemed unhelpful through administrative fiat or court order to favor your political candidate.

4. Seek to flip electors from voting in accordance with the popular vote count in their states; indict as an insurrectionist any of the opposition who dare do the same.

5. Raid the home of any opposition ex-president who removed classified files; exempt any sitting president of your party who did the same.

6. Swarm the private homes of, and then bully and intimidate, any Supreme Court officials, politicians or citizens you oppose.

7. Appoint two special counsels: one to go after the current chief presidential opponent in an election year; the other to exempt and excuse the sitting president for the very crimes charged against his rival.

8. Lobby to remove any oppositional president through the 25th Amendment; smear anyone as ageist who suggests a cognitively challenged sitting resident of your party should be subject to similar invocations of the 25th Amendment.

9. Exempt thousands of arrested rioters from charges of 120 days of arson, looting, injuring 1,500 law enforcement officers, and assault — but only if they are radical supporters of your party.

10. Excuse any demonstrator or rioter for desecrating public monuments and cemeteries or shutting down bridges and freeways, or swarming and disrupting the Capitol Rotunda — but only if they agree with you and/or are pro-Hamas. Otherwise, ensure the charged face lengthy prison sentences.

That’s just the top ten. Please follow the link to the article to read the next ten. It’s amazing how far we have fallen in recent years. When you read the list of things that used to be considered out-of-bounds that have been done since 2016 or so, it is scary.

 

 

 

Why People Hate Politicians And Politics

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If I honestly believed that the majority of those sent to Congress to represent the American people had an ounce of principle, I would be happy. Unfortunately, principle seems to be something in short supply in Washington. The recent debate over ending the filibuster was a shining example of this. When the Democrats are in the minority, they want to keep the filibuster. When the Democrats are in the majority, they want to end the filibuster. The Republicans have maintained a consistent position, as has Senator Joe Manchin.

On Friday, Townhall posted an article about some of the more obvious flip-flops on the issue.

The article includes the following screenshot of a tweet:

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. There are many people who need to be voted out of office in November.

 

The Democrats Use The Filibuster Right After Trying To Get Rid Of It!

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On Thursday, The Daily Caller reported that the Democrats in the Senate used the filibuster to block a bi-partisan bill that would reimpose sanctions on the Russian pipeline Nord Stream 2 from being sent to the House for consideration. There were 55 votes for the bill, but the Democrats used the filibuster to block it. Aren’t these the same  people who earlier in the week were calling for the end of the filibuster?

The article reports:

Several Democrats, including Sens. Tammy Baldwin, Catherine Cortez Masto, Mark Kelly and Raphael Warnock, voted alongside Republicans.

“Today, the Senate rebuked Joe Biden’s surrender to Vladimir Putin on Nord Stream 2,” Cruz said in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Despite furious White House lobbying, a large bipartisan majority of senators (55-44) once again voted for immediate sanctions on Putin’s pipeline.”

“President Biden should listen to the Senate and to the people and government of Ukraine, and reverse his catastrophic decision to grant Russia waivers from congressionally mandated sanctions,” the statement continued. “Only immediately imposing sanctions can change Putin’s calculation, stop a Ukrainian invasion, and lift the existential threat posed by Nord Stream 2.”

Construction of the pipeline, which travels directly from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, was completed in September 2021, but the German government has yet to give the final green light for the project to come online.

The reason American energy independence is so important both for the national security of America and the well being of Europe is that Russia uses energy as a weapon against Europe during the winter months. If America is energy independent, we can help meet the needs of Europe and lessen the political sway of Moscow over the region. The pipeline needs to be sanctioned, but American needs to up its energy production to make sure Europe is warm this winter.

Taking Down The Guardrails

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As much as I have at times hated the Senate filibuster, I have come to regard it as a necessary evil. When the Senate is split between the two parties, the filibuster forces negotiations. Sometimes that does not end well–the pork flows–but other times a worthwhile compromise is reached or a radical piece of legislation is avoided. The filibuster does have some basic validity. However, there are those who would like to move it out of the way in order to pass a law that is obviously unconstitutional.

On January 3rd, One America News reported the following:

The U.S. Senate will vote this month on whether to change its rules to make it easier to pass a bill protecting voting rights, top Democrat Chuck Schumer said on Monday, days before the anniversary of the deadly Jan. 6 attack the Capitol building.

Schumer said the narrowly Democratic-controlled chamber needed to consider a change to its filibuster https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-is-us-senate-filibuster-why-is-everyone-talking-about-it-2021-10-06 rule after a wave of Republican-led states last year passed new restrictions on voting, inspired by Republican former President Donald Trump’s false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread fraud.

“Much like the violent insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol nearly one year ago, Republican officials in states across the country have seized on the former president’s Big Lie about widespread voter fraud to enact anti-democratic legislation,” Schumer said in a letter to Democratic senators on Monday. “We can and must take strong action to stop this anti-democratic march.”

First of all, voter id requirements do not restrict voting. In America, 99.9 percent of Americans have some form of photo identification, and photo identification is violable free in states where it is required. This is not a voting rights bill–this is a protect-the-Democrat-majority bill.

Article I Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution states:

SECTION. 4.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for
Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each
State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at
any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as
to the Places of chusing Senators.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and
such Meeting shall be [on the first Monday in December,]*
unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

The voting rights bill will protect voter fraud. I will be the end of our two-party system as mail in ballots will be universally used to create a Democrat majority whether it actually exists or not. This is a bad bill that needs to be stopped.

Hopefully This Won’t Work

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Yesterday PJ Media posted an article about President Biden’s plans to get his legislative agenda passed.

The article reports:

Joe Biden is telling Democratic leaders in the House and Senate that he will lean on moderate Democrats in order to force passage of change to the Senate’s filibuster. He will also lobby hard to pass the voting rights bill that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he wants to vote on this week.

Biden and the Democrats want a “carve-out” for the electoral power grab known as the “For the People Act.” It would allegedly be a one-time exception to the filibuster and allow for a straight up-or-down vote on the bill, which Democrats mischaracterize as a “voting rights” bill.

Both Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have publicly come out against altering the filibuster and both have expressed doubts about the voter bill without substantial changes. But Biden apparently believes his powers of persuasion will work on them and other centrist Democrats.

Manchin will be a tough nut for Biden to crack. The West Virginia senator has been adamant about opposing any “tweaks” to the filibuster.

Make no mistake–this is a serious threat to our Republic. The U.S. Constitution specifically states that election policies are left to the states–they are not under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Unfortunately at this time, we have no guarantee that the Supreme Court will uphold the Constitution.

Rolling Stone recently reported:

Winning over the two Democrats who’ve declared their opposition to filibuster reform, Sens. Manchin and Sinema, won’t be easy. In April, Manchin wrote in an op-ed that he would not support tweaking or abolishing the filibuster, which he described as a “critical tool” to protect the interests of small and rural states like his. Sinema, for her part, likes to point out how often Democrats used the filibuster when they were in the minority during Donald Trump’s presidency. The filibuster, she wrote in June, “compels moderation and helps protect the country from wild swings between opposing policy poles.”

Yet Sinema has broadly endorsed the need for voting-rights reforms, and Manchin says “inaction is not an option.” Congressional aides and anti-corruption activists who support the For the People Act say Schumer’s strategy has been to give Republicans every opportunity to work with Democrats on a compromise bill, and to allow Manchin the space to lead those negotiations, if only to show that Republicans won’t support any version of pro-democracy reform that Democrats come up with. “We continue to see that the Republicans are not willing to negotiate in good faith on these fundamental issues to protect our democracy,” says Tiffany Muller of End Citizens United.

First of all, we are not a democracy–we are a constitutional republic. If you really want to get to the root of our current political problems, you might want to take a look at the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This opened the door for the corruption we currently see–the illegal campaign money, the earmarks, the runaway spending, the power grabs, etc. The election reforms the Democrats want will make it even easier to cheat.

 

Something To Watch Very Closely

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Politico posted an article today about the election reform bill now making its way through the Senate.

The article reports:

Senate Republicans are set to block Democrats’ sweeping elections and ethics reform bill on Tuesday. Just hours before the vote, Sen. Joe Manchin, the last Democratic holdout, announced he would approve advancing the legislation.

The Senate will vote Tuesday afternoon on whether to consider the legislation, a top priority for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. With the bill guaranteed to fail, the path forward is murky at best on an issue that Democrats say they need to resolve before the 2022 midterms. While Manchin’s vote won’t save the bill, the unified Democratic vote will both help the party’s political messaging that the GOP is stonewalling them and likely intensify progressives’ push to end the filibuster.

As I have said before, Joe Manchin only votes against the Democrat agenda when his vote doesn’t count (article here). It is a mistake to rely on him to protect the filibuster or to protect states’ rights in the voting process.

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today stating:

Progressive leftists will want Chuck Schumer to get rid of the filibuster and use a simple majority vote in the Senate to pass the “Take Away The Right to Vote” legislation.  However, if the Democrats fail in cheating on a massive scale in 2022, they could lose the Senate and House, and SB1 could be reversed and leave Biden to stand alone vetoing the bill to undo the election takeover.

It’s a calculating game of political scheme and fraud, where the DC elites (both parties) are trying to determine their odds of pulling off the plan while simultaneously keeping the American electorate from seeing what they are doing.   Pelosi has the military defenses around the Capitol prepared to keep back any revolting peasants; but that security only works if the politicians don’t leave DC.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid famously sequestered the Senate in December of 2009 to block any senator from returning to his/her state where they would face the fury of their electorate and likely recant support for Obamacare.  Unfortunately, Senate Majority Chuck Schumer doesn’t have the benefit of the calendar to jail the senators from leaving DC, and simultaneously tensions at home in every state are unseasonably hot.

There will be a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the Senate this week. If the Democrats get what they want, the voters lose. I wouldn’t count on Joe Manchin to save the country,

 

What He Says To The Public vs. What He Says Privately

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Red State posted an article yesterday about a recently leaked telephone call by Joe Manchin.

The article reports:

A leaked phone call between Joe Manchin and a political advocacy group reveals the machinations being attempted by the West Virginian senator behind the scenes. Not only is Manchin signaling he’s open to abolishing the filibuster, but he’s also targeting specific Republicans to try to get the so-called January 6th commission passed.

…Regardless, the implications here are huge. If Manchin is now scheming to blow up the filibuster unless he gets Republican buy-in on Democrat priorities, that puts everything in a very precarious position, leaving Sinema as the last line of defense for Republicans. And while I generally like Sinema, she’s still a Democrat. Manchin’s position seems to be “let me cut your head off or I’ll cut your head off.” That’s not good news for a GOP that had been relying on him to hold the line given he’s from the reddest state in the union.

The article concludes:

Whoever leaked this probably did it precisely because they wanted to thwart Manchin’s plan. That’s the silver lining here for Republicans. Will Manchin walk all this back when asked? We’ll find out soon enough. Some reporter is going to be shoving a mic in his face the first chance they get.

Time will tell how reliable Joe Manchin’s statement that he would vote to keep the filiibuster is.

When Your Power Grab Gets Slowed

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Yesterday National Review posted an article about a recent ruling by the Senate parliamentarian that will put a crimp in the plans of Democrats to use the reconciliation process to pass their radical agenda without Republican support.

The article reports:

The Senate parliamentarian issued a new ruling that would effectively allow Democrats to use automatic budget reconciliation just one more time this year to bypass Republicans to advance President Biden’s progressive agenda. 

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that a revision to the 2021 budget resolution cannot be automatically discharged from the Senate Budget Committee, according to The Hill. This means that Democrats would need at least one Republican on the 11-11 panel to vote with them if they want to use reconciliation on more than one occasion before the legislative session ends in October.

The bi-partisan talk during the presidential campaign was simply talk. There never was any plan to work with Republicans unless the Republicans agreed to everything the Democrats wanted. To Democrats the definition of unity is “when everyone agrees with me.”

The article notes:

The ruling makes it more likely that Democrats will pursue a fresh fiscal 2022 budget to bypass Republicans if infrastructure negotiations fail, according to Bloomberg.

The news comes as Biden said on Tuesday that June “should be a month of action on Capitol Hill” and that while pundits on TV may ask why he has not done more to pass his legislative priorities that it is because he “only has a majority of effectively four votes in the house and a tie in the Senate with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends,” likely referring to Senators Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.).

During a press briefing on Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki attempted to rewrite Biden’s remarks, claiming that the president was only commenting on TV punditry.

“I can tell you that sometimes these conversations can be oversimplified. TV isn’t always made for complex conversations about policymaking,” she said. “What the president was simply conveying was that his threshold, his litmus test is not to see eye-to-eye on every single detail of every issue and he doesn’t with Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin.”

“He believes there’s an opportunity to work together to make progress to find areas of common ground even if you have areas of disagreement,” Psaki said.

However, Republicans have criticized Biden and his party for doing little to work with the GOP to find common ground. Democrats used budget reconciliation earlier this year to pass the president’s COVID-19 response package with a simple majority and without Republican support.

“He knows well having served 36 years in the Senate that sometimes it’s not a straight line to victory or success, sometimes it takes more time and he’s open to many paths forward,” she said. “I don’t think he was intending to convey anything more than a little bit of commentary on TV punditry.” 

Keep your eye on the filibuster. If the filibuster survives, we may get through the Biden administration without bankrupting the country.

Not Surprising

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On Saturday Newsmax posted an article about the ‘For The People Act,’ House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 1. The bill is not for the people–it’s for the Democrats to insure victories in upcoming elections. The bill federalizes and politicizes elections in favor of the Democrats who now essentially control Congress and the White House.

The article reports:

The Senate will vote on a bill that would dramatically change how elections are run next month.

According to a memo sent out by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the bill known as the “For the People Act,” or  H.R. 1 or S. 1, will be voted on in June.

Democrats view the sweeping reform bill as anti-corruption legislation that will combat “restrictive” voting bills from their Republican colleagues. The act would federalize parts of the election system, eliminating qualifications such as photo identification and allowing same-day registration on any day that voting is permitted.

“In my state in Oklahoma, we have great voting engagement. We want to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. S1 takes away a state’s ability to hold people accountable for cheating,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said, according to The Epoch Times.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., described the bill as a massive federal “takeover of elections.”

Democrats, however, largely support the legislation.

I have previously reported on H.R. 1 (article here). It truly is a nightmare for those who want honest elections in America. Among other things it forbids the use of voter id to insure that voters are who they say they are. It also changes the non-partisan Federal Election Commission into a partisan body by creating an uneven number of Commissioners.

The article at Newsmax concludes:

At a caucus lunch on Capitol Hill, Schumer told reporters, “it was made clear how important S1 is to the country, to our Democratic majority, and to individual senators, and those discussions are going and I have a lot of faith in them.”

The Senate is currently divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats. Passing the bill would require at least 60 votes.

Schumer plans to bring other pieces of legislation up for a vote in June, including the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would hold the Department of Labor to study pay disparities between men and women while making their results public. He also said he might force another vote on the riot that occurred on Jan. 6 at the Capitol.

If these bills do not pass (which I hope is the case), we can expect to see the Democrats move to end the legislative filibuster. That will be the end of our country as we know it. It will give the Democrats free reign and not require any sort of negotiations or compromises with the Republicans. That is not good for our Republic.

Let’s See If This Holds

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On Wednesday, The New York Post posted an article about a recent pledge by West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin.

The article reports:

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin has pledged that under “no circumstance” will he vote to eliminate the filibuster amid a push by his other members of his party to reform the rule.

“I have said it before and will say it again to remove any shred of doubt,” Manchin, a moderate, wrote in a op-ed published in The Washington Post on Wednesday.

“There is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster,” he wrote.

“The time has come to end these political games, and to usher a new era of bipartisanship where we find common ground on the major policy debates facing our nation.”

Removing the filibuster allows the majority party to pass legislation without bothering to consult or compromise with the minority party.

The thing to remember here is that Senators come up for re-election every six years. If the Democrats in the Senate ram through policies that hurt the average American, they will be in danger of losing their majority. Another thing to remember is that almost two-thirds of the voters in West Virginia voted for President Trump. They may not react too favorably to a Senator who participates in the undoing of the Trump administration policies that were successful.

 

 

I Know The Time Of This Is Just An Incredible Coincidence

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The majority that the Democrats hold in Washington, D.C., is not large. Particularly in the Senate, the Democrats are forced to attempt to get at least one Republican Senator to go along with their ideas. So far the filibuster has prevented some very bad laws from passing the Senate. That is the reason the Democrats are trying to make the filibuster go away. In order to do that, they would need every Democrat to vote for removal of the filibuster. The two suspected holdouts in the vote would probably be Senator Sinema of Arizona and Senator Manchin of West Virginia. Both have expressed negative opinions on ending the filibuster in the past. But Washington is a place where deals are made and things are traded.

Yesterday Fox News reported the following:

President Biden has picked the wife of an extremely influential U.S. senator for a federal commission post, the White House announced Friday. 

Biden nominated Gayle Conelly Manchin to co-chair the Appalachian Regional Commission, an economic development partnership with 13 states designed to boost investment in the Appalachian Region.

Manchin is an educator, past president of West Virginia’s State Board of Education and the former first lady of West Virginia.

The article notes:

With Democrats holding the slimmest of majorities with a 50-50 split and Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote, Manchin’s influence in the Senate has grown tremendously.

As a moderate from a red state, Manchin has openly pushed back on some of the Democrats’ boldest ideas, including the $15 minimum wage, eliminating the filibuster and far-reaching gun control legislation. His resistance has forced concessions.

It will be interesting to see if Senator Manchin continues to support keeping the filibuster in place.

Two Patriotic Democrat Senators Helped Save The Republic

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One America News is reporting today that at least for now, the filibuster will remain in the Senate.

The article reports:

Top senators from both sides of the aisle are laying down their arms and moving forward with talks over sharing power.

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled an end to the fight over the Senate filibuster. He credited the truce to Democrat lawmakers Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who McConnell said sided with the GOP.

“Senator Manchin, yesterday, made it clear he was not going to support getting rid of the legislative filibuster under any circumstances for the duration of this Congress,” McConnell stated. “I talked to Senator Sinema last night, she said the same thing, so the issue as far as I’m concerned is resolved.”

On Monday, McConnell said he would drop his push to get official confirmation that the upper chamber would keep the filibuster. He indicated the flipping of Sinema and Manchin waned Democrats’ power to kill the controversial practice.

There is another aspect to this. Historically Republicans are quite happy to be the minority in Congress. They don’t seem to know how to lead when they actually have power. Possibly because they don’t seem to be able to work as a team–even with each other. There were many opportunities for doing good things for the country while President Trump was in office that were lost because some Republicans didn’t like his tweets, or his hair, or his tie, or some other foolishness. The Republicans as they are currently in Congress do not deserve to be in leadership. They don’t know how to lead, and they have lost touch with the average American. There are a few exceptions to that, but only a few.

Why Not To Elect Joe Biden

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Dan Bongino shared an article on his website yesterday that lists 15 reasons not to vote for Joe Biden. Here is the list:

1) Joe Biden is 77 years old, seems to have difficulty working a full day, and has rather famously and significantly deteriorated mentally.

2) Joe Biden has been in politics since 1972. Do you think someone who has been in office that long without accomplishing much is going to sweep in and change everything for the better?

3) Biden has promised to halt all construction on a border wall, cancel the bilateral agreement with Mexico that stops many illegals from making it here, end deportations for anyone other than felons, and push through a massive amnesty for illegal aliens.

4) Joe Biden plans to ban the sale of new AR-15s and then demand that owners of AR-15s sell them to the government or sign up on a gun registry.

5) Biden has publicly said he no longer supports the Hyde Rule, which prevents federal money from being used for abortion.

6) Biden has noted that he is open to locking the country down again over Coronavirus.

7) Biden has said numerous times that he intends to ban fracking.

8) Biden is extremely liberal.

9) Joe Biden, who has a reputation for putting his hands all over women, was credibly accused of sexual assault by his former aide, Tara Reade.

10) Biden publicly admitted that he had advised Obama not to go through with the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.

11) Electing Joe Biden after months of rioting by liberals in liberal cities will send a message that Americans are okay with that kind of behavior.

12) Both Biden and his VP, Kamala Harris, refuse to say whether they will attempt to add more justices to the Supreme Court.

13) Joe Biden has signaled that he’s open to getting rid of the legislative filibuster in the Senate, which is extremely dangerous and has the potential to destabilize our Republic.

14) Kamala Harris was arguably the single most liberal member of the Senate and Joe Biden, who seems too feeble to finish his term, made her his vice-presidential running mate.

15) Barack Obama and Joe Biden presided over the slowest post-war economic recovery in American history. Is that the guy you want shepherding the economy after the economic damage caused by Corona and the lockdowns?

Obviously there are more reasons not to elect Joe Biden, but that is one person’s list.

What Does This Say About Our Values?

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I am strongly pro-life. I believe that the only time an abortion should be performed is when the pregnancy presents a physical threat to the mother. Those instances are rare and could easily be dealt with in a hospital. Those instances would also not result in a multi-million-dollar abortion industry.

Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported that the Democrats had blocked a vote on a bill called the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (S.311). Because of Senate rules, a bill needs 60 votes in order to be brought to the floor to be voted on (that is based on the idea of a filibuster except people no longer stand up and talk for hours). Republican Ben Sasse wanted a vote on S.311, but there were only 53 Senators in favor of voting for the measure (translated loosely that means that there were only 53 Senators willing to go on the record on treating infants who survive abortions). The bill was not perfect. There were some things I would have been very uncomfortable with–I don’t like the idea of doctors being sued or arrested for actions taken in the operating room. However, it seems strange to me that people would be more likely to help a puppy found on the side of the road than a baby who survived and abortion attempt. Most Republicans voted for a vote on the bill. A few Democrats voted for a vote.

In view of recent statements by the Governor of Virginia and the Governor of New York on abortion, some form of this bill is probably necessary. I hope we will see some form of the bill pass in the future. However, it is a sad commentary on our society that a stranded puppy would be more likely to receive care than an aborted baby.

I’m Not Sure What The Underlying Strategy Is On This

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John Hinderaker at Power Line is reporting this morning that the Democrats plan to filibuster the Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch.

The article reports:

It seems odd, too, that Schumer didn’t even wait until the hearing on Gursuch’s nomination has been concluded to announce the Democrats’ filibuster. This would appear to support the view that the decision is political and has little to do with the merits of Gorsuch’s nomination.

I don’t know how to explain Schumer’s announcement, except as evidence that 1) Senate Democrats perceive that they need to cater to the party’s hysterical base, and 2) they are convinced that the filibuster, as to Supreme Court nominees, is dead in any event.

This is an awkward decision–Judge Gorsuch was confirmed by voice vote by the U.S. Senate on July 20, 2006. In September 2016. He was respected by members of both parties. He has done nothing in his career since his 2006 confirmation that warrants any changed votes. It is unfortunate that the choosing of a Supreme Court Justice is now a political exercise rather than a judgement on qualifications. I would like to point out that the Republicans gave Democratic presidents most of their nominees (with the exception of following the Biden Rule, which the Democrats have now chosen to ignore). An elected President should be able to put his nominees on the Supreme Court. In this case, because President Trump released a list of potential nominees during the election campaign, the people who voted for him obviously approved on the list. The filibuster may please the base of the Democratic Party, but I suspect it will make moderate Democrats (if there are any left) very unhappy.

The Children Are Misbehaving Again

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John Hinderaker posted a article at Power Line yesterday about the Democrats latest antics in the Senate.

The article explains:

In a shocking move, Senate Democrats today filibustered all funding for the Department of Homeland Security. They refused to allow the DHS funding bill, which has already passed the House, to be brought up for a vote. This means that funding for DHS, including its many vital national security functions, will soon run out.

Why would Democrats vote unanimously to shut down DHS? Because the funding bill excludes the implementation of President Obama’s patently illegal and unconstitutional subversion of the nation’s immigration laws. The Democrats’ position is: either you go approve of and pay for the president’s illegal acts, or we will shut DHS down.

The Republicans need to develop some backbone and deal with this. I am sure (I hope) there are some Democrats who put national security over politics. Essentially the Democrats have shut down one part of the government.

It’s Been One Thousand Days

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John Hinderaker at Power LIne reminds us today that it has been 1,000 days since the United States Senate passed a budget. This is a violation of federal law.

The article reports:

Since the Democrats last passed a budget, just three months into the Obama administration, the federal government has spent $9.4 trillion and added $4.1 trillion to the national debt. The current fiscal year will be the fourth in a row in which the Obama administration racks up a $1 trillion-plus deficit.

If the Senate Democrats can’t do their job (as required by federal law), they need to be replaced. The claims that the Democrats have not passed a budget because the Republicans would filibuster it are false–under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, budgets pass the Senate by a simple majority and cannot be filibustered. As usual, yesterday President Obama announced that he will not meet the statutory deadline to submit his budget to Congress–again. The last budget he submitted to the Senate was voted down 97-0. I think he (and the Senate) can do better than that.

Meanwhile, the out-of-control spending continues.

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