Precedents and Progressive-Democrats

Progressive-Democrats in Congress are threatening President Donald Trump with “precedents” if he doesn’t withdraw his declaration of a national emergency over the crisis on our southern border.

Julian Castro:

I will come into office with a strong belief that climate change is a national emergency, that the fact that so many people in this country die because of gun violence, that is a national emergency….

Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris:

It’s time we address the actual emergencies plaguing our nation: gun violence, lack of access to health care, and climate change.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA):

The one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America. That’s a national emergency.

Senators and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and possible candidate Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown insist that

Gun violence is a real national emergency

and Senator Chris Murphy (D, CT) is threatening to use a national emergency declaration to ban “assault” weapons.

The thing is, the next Progressive-Democratic President will do these things, anyway; there’s no real concern for precedent here.  Ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) unprecedented Pen-and-Phone as substitute for Congress has already set that particular precedent, and the current Progressive-Democratic Party leadership, with their threats if they don’t get their way, are confirming that the precedent already exists.

As if they need a precedent to do their trick.

The Progressive-Democratic Party and Democracy

Party discipline is the only thing and everything for the Progressive-Democratic Party, and they’re taking steps to discipline those who misbehave.  And by misbehave, I mean supporting a policy on merit rather than on Party diktat.

After more than two dozen moderate Democrats broke from their party’s progressive wing and sided with Republicans on a legislative amendment Wednesday, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reportedly sounded the alarm in a closed-door meeting Thursday and said those Democrats were “putting themselves on a list.”

The amended bill expanded background checks for firearm purchasers.  The offending amendment, aside from having been a Republican offer?  It would have required the checkers to advise ICE of the attempted purchase if the buyer were an illegal immigrant.

That’s just the enforcer threatening.  Party leadership in the sole personage of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) in that same closed-door meeting, reportedly said

We are either a team or we’re not, and we have to make that decision.

Vote the Party’s line; there is no alternative.

Progressive-Democratic Party Congressmen are not beholden to their constituents back home in their separate districts.  On the contrary, they’re beholden to Party.

This is how we can expect to be ruled (not governed) by a Progressive-Democratic government.  Constituents won’t matter.  Democracy won’t matter.  Only Party will matter.

[Sh]e’s got ’em on the list—[s]he’s got ’em on the list;
And they’ll none of ’em be missed—they’ll none of ’em be missed.*

 

*Bonus points to those who can provide the citation.

Never Worked…Doesn’t

In Great Britain, unemployment is the lowest it’s been in over four decades, and employment is commensurately high.  But that’s a misleading datum.

[A]n astonishing 3.6 million adults have never been paid for work, official figures from the Office for National Statistics show.

That’s 10% of the (chronologically) adult population in Great Britain.  Of the “young adult” demographic—those in the 16-24 age range—a truly astonishing 71% have never worked for pay.  Not a single hour.

The British economy isn’t in the doldrums over Brexit or no-deal Brexit.  Not at all.

Running Left in the Primaries

Here is a short list of the far-left policies that memb5ers of the Progressive-Democratic Party are touting:

  • reparations
  • Medicare for all
  • legalize marijuana
  • Green New Deal
  • abolish ICE
  • wealth taxes
  • 70% income taxes
  • tear down existing border walls
  • peri-birth abortion

Here is a short list of the Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidates for the 2020 election cycle who have actively, enthusiastically endorsed one or more of these policies:

  • Corey Booker
  • Kamala Harris
  • Amy Klobuchar
  • Julián Castro
  • Elizabeth Warren
  • Bernie Sanders
  • Tulsi Gabbard
  • Kirsten Gillibrand

These candidates will have to prove, in competition with each other, to primary voters that they really mean their endorsement(s) in order to get those votes for Party nomination.  That’ll play well—it’s even a necessary play—in the Progressive-Democratic States on the two coasts and Illinois.

But in order to win in the rest of the country, including swing States like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, the Party nominee is going to have to ignore those policies—voters in the rest of the country, including those swing States, not only are more interested in the economy and in their own safety and security, they actively oppose those far-left policies.

Here’s the question that flows from all of that: how can a candidate who supports those policies in the primary season and who then turns his back on them in the immediately following Presidential election season be trusted?  What’s the value of the word of a candidate who says one thing when its convenient on one day and who says the opposite the next day when that opposite is convenient?

Work…Works

Sam Adolphsen, Foundation for Government Accountability’s Vice President of Executive Affairs, writing for Fox Business, commented on that in a piece about Medicaid’s work requirement in Arkansas—about which Progressive-Democrats in Congress are in an uproar.

Those Progressive-Democrats have complained that work requirements

“threaten[]” Americans…work [is] a “restrictive condition.”

These politicians of the Left ignore two things. One is the trivial one: no one is forcing anyone to work; the only “restriction” is that, in order to get any of Arkansas’ OPM, recipients must go to work in Arkansas or make a good faith effort to do so.

The other thing is the critical item in the affair.

Since the requirement was implemented, thousands of adults have left the welfare program.

…when people go back to work after work requirements are implemented, their incomes double or triple in just a year or two.

And this fallout from that second thing:

Getting these able-bodied adults back to work also frees up resources for the truly needy—the very people that the Medicaid program was designed to help.

It also increases Arkansas’ tax collections that go to the State’s Medicaid program.

Here’s where Adolphsen missed the mark, though.  He wrote

Why are Democrats so against work?

It’s an indication of how out of touch these progressive leaders are with everyday Americans.

No, Progressive-Democrats are the smartest kids on the block—just ask them.  They know what they’re doing with their objections to imposing a measure of personal responsibility on welfare recipients, personal responsibility that brings with it personal prosperity.

Those folks getting work and raising their standard of living aren’t actual human beings; they’re just votes spilling out of the Progressive-Democrats’ welfare box.