Category Archives: Democrats

UPDATED: Congress: A Repository Of Contempt

Conservatism, Constitution, Democrats, Ethics, Government, GUNS, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, Nationhood, Republicans

A contemptible Congress finds an equally contemptible cabinet minister in contempt of its proceedings.

How significant are these findings for the cause of freedom and justice? Not very.

Republican representatives, as they demonstrated under Bush—who, as I’ve often said, would have wrestled a crocodile for a criminal alien—don’t care about the rights of private property on the US Southern border any more than their Democratic partners-in-crime do.

Farmers, their families, and their best friends are imperiled daily on that border; have been long before Operation Fast and Furious commenced.

The Democratic brand of statism won out in the healthcare confrontation. Since what’s underway in the world’s greatest “deliberative” body is no more than brute politicking—Democrats should delight in their victory and downplay a slap in the face from opponents every bit as contemptible as themselves. That’s the logic of the game.

In the unlikely event that the Republicans win a significant political battle, they should do the same.

Unlikely because, Republicans have betrayed every single important principle that might have prolonged the survival of the republic. This is the nature of the Republican beast, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa included.

…the unconstitutional campaign finance-reform bill and “Sarbanes-Oxley Act” (a preemptive assault on CEOs and CFOs, prior to the fact of a crime); the various trade tariffs and barriers; the Clintonian triumph of triangulation on affirmative-action; the collusion with Kennedy on education; the welfare wantonness that began with a prescription-drug benefit that would add trillions to the Medicare shortfall, and culminated in the Kennedy-countenanced “New New Deal” for New Orleans, for which there is no constitutional authority; the gold-embossed invitation to illegals to invade, and the “camouflaged amnesty” (where illegals are born-again as “guest workers” and then placed on a fast track to permanent residence)—you name it,

Republicans have promoted it to the detriment of liberty.

REMEMBER: “The Democratic and Republican parties each operates as a necessary counterweight in a partnership designed to keep the pendulum of power swinging in perpetuity from the one set of colluding quislings to the other, and back.”

UPDATE (June 30): In reply to WCO: Have you read Into the Cannibal’s Pot, WCO? My book, the sub-chapter titled “Civil Wrongs,” in particular, should give you some answers to your question. Civil Rights legislation—property-sundering and sweeping—created a system of patronage and spoils. This is one reason Dixicrat concerns are no longer.

UPDATE IV: What’s One More Extra-Constitutional Power Grab? (‘Meanwhile, At The Border . . .’)

Barack Obama, Bush, Constitution, Democrats, English, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, Private Property, Republicans, Welfare

As measured by the Flesch-Kincaid readability test, the president’s speeches are written at an eighth-grade level. (And we’re not talking simple as in straightforward, precise and concise; but simple as in laden with emotion, and full of hot air and appeals to feelings.)

Read his “Remarks on Immigration.”

As an example of Obama’s eighth-grade writing, take this run-on ramble—a paragraph with the most awful syntax. BHO just adds clauses as he goes. This man’s mind is every bit as disorganized as was Bush’s.

As I said in my speech on the economy yesterday, it makes no sense to expel talented young people, who, for all intents and purposes, are Americans — they’ve been raised as Americans; understand themselves to be part of this country — to expel these young people who want to staff our labs, or start new businesses, or defend our country simply because of the actions of their parents — or because of the inaction of politicians.

What a dreadful cur!

It is, of course, incongruous to profess libertarianism, while supporting free-for-all immigration, affirmative action, anti-private property Civil-Rights laws, and public education extended to all trespassers—these are policies that violate private property, which is the cornerstone of libertarianism.

Most illegal aliens do not come to the U.S. to wage war, but the reality is that, once in the country, almost all wage welfare. Would that the American Welfare State did not exist. But since it does and is, unfortunately, likely to persist for some time to come, it must stop at the Rio Grande.

UPDATE I: Van Esser at NumbersUSA writes the following:

Perhaps I’m missing something but I can’t find a provision of the US Constitution that authorizes a president to act because he/she just can’t wait for Congress. The Obama Administration must have found the language. Otherwise, the new administrative amnesty-in-place for illegal aliens under the age of 31 would be considered an extra-constitutional directive by fiat.

As far as his Orwellian overreach, Strongman Obama is no different than “The Decider” when it comes to flouting our Constitution. Republicans fuss a lot when Democrats sidestep a Constitution that has long been a dead-letter. Democrat do the same.

It’s a meaningless dance.

Big Man Obama gave the great, late, Democratic Senator, Robert Byrd, palpitations. Byrd, RIP, was “a stern constitutional scholar who always stood up for the legislative branch in its role in checking the power of the White House.” According to Politico.com, this old Southern gentleman, after whom Republicans were always chasing for his past indiscretions, warned about Obama’s executive-branch power grab. Chief Obama created a number of new, extra-constitutional White-House fiefdoms: one on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change.

AND now on immigration.

Ditto “The Decider.” He habitually sidestepped the chain of command in the military and winked at the Constitutional scheme. Under The Decider’s dictatorship, matters that ought to have been the business of the people or their representatives were routinely consigned to the executive branch.

So quit the posturing, Republicans. The Obama “Get-Out-Of-Deportation-Free-Card” is business as usual in the republic, RIP.

UPDATE II (June 17): BHO claimed that deportation of criminal aliens was up 80 percent. Bush did close to nothing to defend against the invasion from the south. Compared to that standard, it is probably true that Obama has bested Bush in enforcement. But when the numbers are so miniscule, percentage increases are huge. So, if Bush deported 50 illegal aliens, to exaggerate; then at 90, Obama can boast of kicking out 80 percent more.

UPDATE III: DAVID FRUM via VDARE.COM:

Every serious economic study of immigration has found that the net benefits of present policy are exceedingly small. But that small net is an aggregate of very large effects that cancel each other out. The immigrants get higher wages than they would have earned in their former country. The affluent gain lower prices for in-person services. Lower-skilled native-born Americans face downward wage pressure. In any other policy area, people who consider themselves progressive might be expected to revile a policy whose benefits went to foreigners and the rich, and whose costs were born by the American poor. Immigration policy baffles that expectation.

UPDATE IV (June 18): ‘Meanwhile, At The Border . . .’ via The Center for Immigration Studies:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency charged with guarding the U.S. borders, has written a secret draft policy that would let its agents catch and release low-priority illegal immigrants rather than bring them in for processing and prosecution. The policy, which has not been signed off on, would be the latest move by the Obama administration to set new priorities for the nation’s immigration services, and would bring CBP in line with other Homeland Security Department agencies that already use such “prosecutorial discretion.”
The policy was detailed in an internal memo obtained by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith and reviewed by The Washington Times, which confirmed the document.
According to the memo, the draft policy “provides circumstances when to pursue enforcement actions … and includes detailed discussion of several factors CBP personnel should consider when exercising discretion.”
Opponents say it amounts to another “backdoor amnesty” for illegal immigrants and could give the administration a tool to pressure Border Patrol agents not to pursue some people.

To continue the theme of this blog post, how is this different from policy under Bush? On this front it isn’t.

…the underlying reason why America’s deportation system remains inexplicably paralyzed by federal litigation and rigged in favor of relief from removal:
Internationalists in the Bush and Clinton Administrations have decided to confine immigration enforcement only to the U.S. borderlands…until there’s no enforcement at all, because the U.S., Mexico and Canada will have been merged into one unit behind a new “North American security perimeter.”
This shared Canada-U.S-Mexico “security perimeter” is exactly what the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America has in mind for America someday.

[VDARE.COM]

Minimum Wage, Maximum Economic Illiteracy

Democrats, Economy, Labor, Law, Regulation

The Bill to raise the minimum wage has three Democratic lawmakers — Reps. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), and Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.) — swelling with pride.

The “Catching Up to 1968 Act of 2012” … would spike the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10 while mandating that future increases be tied to inflation. Jackson and his Democratic colleagues proclaimed that the legislation would model the 1968 minimum wage rate for inflation in today’s dollars. “This legislation is long-overdue and sorely needed,” Conyers affirmed. “More than 30 million Americans would see their wages increased, which would provide an immediate boost to the economy.”

Today’s youth don’t have the economic smarts with which to understand why they are less likely to be hired under legislation that fixes the price of their labor above its productivity.

Those who claim to represent unemployed youngsters—whose labor-participation rate has been in decline—don’t much care that such legislation circumvents voluntary exchanges in the market. Because government has fixed the price of labor, economic actors are prevented from engaging in mutually beneficial, voluntary exchange.

Still less is the hike justified because it impoverishes. For government can bid wages above market value, but it cannot compel business to hire, the outcome of which is unemployment among the young and the poor.

The Pain In Bain

Business, Capitalism, Critique, Democrats, Economy, Elections, Ethics, Fascism, Free Markets, Hillary Clinton

According to Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, a defense of “Bain Capital, Mitt Romney’s former firm,” and “the paragon of capitalist evil,” must be rooted entirely in corrupt self-interest. So there’s not even a smidgen of truth in Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s condemnation of the Obama campaign’s attacks on Bain? How about the other two prominent Democrats to defend Romney and his work? (Read on.)

“Booker went on Meet the Press and angered hordes of Democrats when he condemned the Obama campaign’s attacks on Bain as ‘nauseating,’ equating the anti-Bain messaging to the GOP’s sleazy use of Jeremiah Wright, and then demanding: ‘stop the attacks on private equity’ (in response to the backlash, Booker then released a hostage-like video recanting his criticisms and pledging his loyalty to President Obama).”

Without explaining the mechanism by which the private equity firm achieved this feat, Greenwald asserts further that the likes of Bain Capital are “destroying the middle class in order to enrich greedy vulture oligarchs.” AND, “We also all know that the Democratic Party is the defender of the middle class and the bold adversary of corporate pillaging.”

Do we?

DITTO Deval Patrick. HuffPo uses the same “reasoning”—“a history of ethically questionable connections to financial firms”—to condemn the Massachusetts governor for his defense of the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney [05/31/2012] … during TV appearances.”

“The Democratic politician was supposed to be serving as a surrogate for President Barack Obama. Patrick, who has a history of ethically questionable connections to financial firms, applauded Boston-based Bain Capital, implicitly criticizing the Obama campaign’s attacks on Romney’s record at the private equity firm.”

Patrick is the second Obama surrogate with strong ties to the financial industry to defend Bain, following in the footsteps of Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, who ignited a week of outrage from Democratic Party strategists for describing the Obama campaign’s slams against Romney’s Bain work as “nauseating.”

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE. One other major Democrat has defended Romney and his job record. “This is good work.” “I don’t think we ought to get in a position where we say this is bad work,” said Bill Clinton.

The DC Decoder’s correspondent floats yet another crazy ad hominem: “Bill may be intentionally sabotaging President Obama in order to set Hillary up for a run in 2016,” which, to her credit, she doesn’t quite buy.

Others suggest the former president simply misspoke. But we don’t buy that either.
Here’s the thing: Clinton’s comments weren’t just “off message.” They were a declaration of war on the message. They underscore a fundamental split within the Democratic Party that’s less about Romney’s record at Bain than it is about whether the party as a whole is perceived as a friend or foe of Wall Street and the world of business and high finance.