Tag Archives: political parties

Immigration and Elections

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Elections have consequences, a man said. Among those consequences is the shape of subsequent elections, I say.

Republicans in the new Congress are preparing their own immigration legislation, with the first batch centered on better border security and easing immigration requirements in technology, agriculture, and some other areas of interest to employers.

A question in too many minds, though, is whether President Barack Obama would veto such legislation, either because the bills might restrict his “executive actions” involving refusing to enforce existing immigration law or because, Republican.

The question is in too many minds because it might impact whether Republicans pass the legislation at all.

If the bills are good in their own right, pass them. Let Obama veto them. Shape the 2016 elections with those vetoes. Bring on the consequences of the 2014 mid-terms.

On Empathizing with Enemies

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Thomas Sowell had a Random Thought (not that very many of his thoughts actually are):

Hillary Clinton’s idea that we have to see the world from our adversaries’ point of view—and even “empathize” with it—is not new. Back in 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said, “I have realized vividly how Herr Hitler feels.” Ronald Reagan, however, made sure our adversaries understood how we felt. Reagan’s approach turned out a lot better than Chamberlain’s.

But Liberals think we’re insufferably arrogant to defend our own points of view. We always should subordinate ourselves to the other guy.

And this one on a different, yet sadly related, matter:

It tells us a lot about academia that the president of Smith College quickly apologized for saying, “All lives matter,” after being criticized by those who are pushing the slogan, “Black lives matter.” If science could cross breed a jellyfish with a parrot, it could create academic administrators.

Sometimes I think our Liberals are our modern-day Xanthippe, and their usefulness is limited to strengthening our own character.

Distractions

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House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R, LA) spoke, a dozen years ago, to a white supremacist group founded by KKK-er David Duke. He did this as a state legislator on the stump and speaking to any group willing to listen in an effort to push his then pending state tax legislation. There’s nothing in his record since, no behavior since, to indicate he agrees with the group’s or Duke’s “principles;” Scalise has, in fact, explicitly repudiated them.

Yet this speech is being touted as a serious distraction to the new Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.

On what basis, though, is it a distraction? How many Republican votes are lost to this “distraction” from the 247 about to appear in the House? How many Republican votes are lost from the 54 in the Senate?

What bills under consideration, what bills being readied for consideration in the next two years, will not be brought to votes because of this “distraction?” There’s no distraction here.

The “distraction” is entirely manufactured: the minority party Democrats are desperate to change the subject away from the conservative, nationally beneficial legislation that’s likely to be passed over these next two years, and away from the conservative, nationally beneficial reversal of Democrat damage done over the preceding six years. The NLMSM is desperate to not have to report on the successes of those legislative efforts or on the message being sent to Americans by President Barack Obama’s vetoes of those legislations.

The minority party is willing to be racist in its desperation to change that subject, just as it’s been willing to be racist all along in its blind opposition to anything Republican.

The Flexibility of No More Elections

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Some high points of President Barack Obama’s activities since the 2014 midterm elections—the last elections he’ll ever have to face, even vicariously through his party.

He’s chosen to give favor to Cuba’s Castro brothers, while receiving nothing of value to the US in return.

He’s chosen to extend favor to Iran and their nuclear weapons program while assuring all who can hear him that he’ll veto any Congressional move to extend sanctions.

He’s chosen to suspend enforcement of immigration law while assuring all who can hear him that he’ll veto any Congressional move to force enforcement.

He’s chosen to continue blocking Keystone XL while assuring all who….

He has 2,375 proposed rules now awaiting final publication without checking even their underlying principle with Congress first, in a complete, cynical bypassing of Congress.

In his latest move, he’s chosen to release from Guantanamo yet five more terrorists without any assurance that they’ll not rejoin the terrorists. Here, though, rather than threatening to block Congressional action, he’s assuring all who can hear him that he’s just going to go right on blithely turning loose the terrorists we’ve got locked up in Guantanamo.

Obama’s flexibility now that the elections are over—the outright insubordination and, worse, lawlessness—stems from our enforcement ability. We can’t fire him at the next election; he’s out the door, anyway. He can’t be impeached; there are too many Democrats who actually believe these…misbehaviors…are legitimate.

What we can do, though, and what we should do, is fire the Democratic Party at the next election for its complicity in Obama’s misbehavior. And keep them out until they show us they’ve mended their ways.

What we can do, and what we should do also, is keep a close eye on the Republican Party via primaries and the main elections, firing Republicans where necessary, in recognition of the dangers—demonstrated by that Democratic Party—of one-party rule.

In the meantime, these are going to be a very dangerous two years for the Republic.

Voter Suppression

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Critics of voter ID laws always cry, “Voter suppression!” and they especially cry, “Black voter suppression!”

Here are some actual facts from North Carolina’s 2014 mid-term elections—an especially stern test since voter turnout typically is lower than in Presidential elections:

  • the percentage of age-eligible, non-Hispanic black residents who turned out to vote in North Carolina rose to 41.1% in November 2014 from 38.5% in November 2010
  • [t]he percentage of black registrants voting increased to 42.2% from 40.3% in the same period
  • the black share of votes cast increased to 21.4% from 20.1%
  • [t]he absolute number of black voters increased 16%, to 628,004 from 539,646

And in another state, according to Census Bureau surveys

  • turnout among blacks of voting age in Tennessee in 2012 remained stable within the margin of error
  • [turnout] was around 4% higher than white turnout
  • [t]urnout among Hispanic voters rose.

With suppression like this, who needs get out the vote programs?