To Snowe and Maine

After the Republican Party left Sen. Olympia Snowe (R?-Maine) but before she voted FOR the ObamaCare bill, I wrote to beg her not to allow the Democrats to claim "bipartisan support" for the abomination by voting aye:

Senator Snowe,
I write to you as an American citizen whose future and the future of whose children and grandchildren your eventual vote in the Finance Committee will greatly affect.

I beg you to vote AGAINST the Health Reform bill regardless of the promises now being whispered in your ear by an increasingly desperate majority. I assure you they have no intention of honoring any commitments. They will take your vote and forget everything else.

Now, I have to beg you because I cannot vote against you should you seek yet another term. I am a resident of Maryland and thus have to deal with real Democrats representing me in Congress. I beg you to oppose your colleagues' misguided attempt to control an overwhelmingly complex enterprise; that which Congress and the Executive branch has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is incapable of doing.

I have sat up with you and your colleagues on the Finance Committee an observed how little control you have over the crafting of this massive folly. You are entirely dependent on an army of staffers, personal and committee staff, paperclips and post-it notes and an impressive command of jargon-filled nonsense. I have less than zero confidence in the quality of their work.

Do us all a favor and do yourself a favor. Save your energy and your breath, politely listen to the grinding goofiness of your colleagues, put down your glasses and your pen and your amendments and just vote NO when the time comes. Your questions and attempts to influence the number of inches east or west, north or south this comet will strike the Earth will be of little comfort to us Americans. We'll be just as dead if this thing hits.

We would applaud your efforts if we knew we could count on you to vote NO no matter what, but we fear this is not possible. We fear that it is entirely possible that you could vote yes. And Senator, if you think the GOP has left you as you declared in a recent interview, wait until you vote to approve this bag of garbage.

So I beg you again to use your vote to prevent this toxic sludge from leeching out of Committee and onto the Senate Floor.

After she voted to allow the Democrats to claim "bipartisan" support for the ObamanationCare bill I submitted the following letter to the editor of the Portland Press-Herald:

Dear citizens of Maine,
Is there anything else we here in Maryland (and the rest of America) can do for you? Now that your Senator has and will no doubt continue to vote to allow my family to subsidize the exorbitant health insurance premiums in your state, I was just wondering what other poor policy decisions made in Maine can we expect to be forced to help support with our federal taxes. You know, so we can begin putting away a little extra money to help you out when your state laws become just too expensive for you.

I know what you are thinking, other states' senators voted for the health reform bill, too. Why single out Maine? Well, call me crazy but since Olympia Snowe is a Republican, I just figured she would vote to not burden the rest of the states with Maine's problems. It's that pesky individual responsibility and small government claptrap the GOP is supposed to be about. I expected the Democrats to sell me and my family for generations to come down the river.

And I take no comfort in knowing that Maryland's Democrats will also vote to take your money, too. But I am voting against them every election. I am doing what I can to help. What are you doing? What are the "Republicans" in Maine doing to help?

Flash: Dems in Pocket of Big Labor

Just in case there was any doubt that the Democratic Party was but the political arm of the various labor unions in Maryland and the rest of the republic, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) decided yesterday to remove it. The union of public employees not otherwise represented in collective bargaining against their friends and neighbors (otherwise known as taxpayers) has issued orders to its employees in the General Assembly and in the Governor's Mansion to raise taxes so that the government may continue to pay its members' bloated salaries.

What's even more interesting is that the union has dropped all the pretenses normally used to cloak such moves as "investments in our future." The Kapital paper quotes union boss Patrick Moran as saying that Democrats need "to show that their true priority is to make the tough decisions necessary to keep our state running." Apparently the union bosses don't like the tough decisions pretty much made for them by the state's projected $2 billion FY 2011 budget deficit. A series of rolling furloughs has been keeping the state and county governments from being forced to make the even tougher decisions on the budget.

"We cannot cut our way out of this" budget crisis said Moran. Well, we can't tax our way out of it, either. We've tried that. But that's exactly what the union wants its politicians to do. They came right out and said it, too. Raise fees and taxes on everything, even income taxes (on the rich of course). And create new taxes where none yet exist. Curiously missing is any mention of property taxes. Do you think that's because property taxes are dedicated to local schools, the employees of which are represented by another union? Hmmmm. Yeah, let the teachers unions fight for their own tax increases!

But Kapital ace reporter Liam Farrell is nobody's fool. He hits the unions with the ol quid pro quo questions, too. The governor will keep taking the union's calls despite the easy decisions made to furlough the rank and file. And of course Boss Moran "would not speculate" on how the budget cuts will affect the union's political support during the next election cycle. I guess it could go either way. There may be some Republicans that the unionistas would consider financing...and there may even be Republicans out there who will take blood money, that is unless the money comes from fellow Republicans who put "Hitler" and "Obama" in the same e-mail message. I'm sure it would be OK taking money with long strings attached that Boss Moran can use to jerk you around.

Political Notes: Limbaugh, Gingrich

Well it has been a rip-snorting week for political geeks, hasn't it? Let's start with Friday's barn-burner: Juan Williams, standing in for Bill O on Fox News last night took the opportunity to fire back at his black critic, a radio talkshow host, who accused him of not being a "real black" by defending Rush Limbaugh against his recent attackers. Williams' professional journalistic instincts led him to question the motivations of Limbaugh's opponents to his attempts at buying into an NFL franchise since they were using quotations knowingly and falsely attributed to Limbaugh. The quotations were of a racial tone and have not been proven to be written or uttered by Limbaugh leading CNN and other "news" networks (as well as certain blogs) to grudgingly issue retractions.

This was just too much for black activists and advocates such as Warren Ballentine who, when confronted with the truth by Williams and Bill O'Reilly Thursday night, questioned Williams' blackness and then told Williams to "...go back to the porch."

For me, this was just another example of an idealistic liberal (Juan Williams) being rudely awaken with a sharp stick in the eye, to the realities of what it means to be a true liberal in American politics today. Neither your professional credentials nor your ethnicity will protect you when you dare to challenge the orthodoxy of the Liberal Agenda. The big question will be how Williams will react. Will he start asking the hard questions of the liberal elite? Judging from his performance last night, I think we can look forward to a time when we hear him say, as did his guest and radio talkshow host Tammy Bruce last night, "When I was on the left... ."

And Newt Gingrich. What more can I say about our erstwhile defender of the Constitution, liberty and The Bay? Heee's Baaack! That's right the former Speaker of the House is campaigning for "Republican" candidate Dede Scozzafava in a special election this fall to fill New York's 23rd District congressional seat vacated by the "Republican" who accepted an appoint to the Obama administration.

Scozzafava's liberal bonafides make Wayne Gilchrest look like Barry Goldwater. So she is a natural favorite of the former Speaker. Also backing the recent proud recipient of the Margaret Sanger Award by New York's eugenics advocates, Michael Steele and the RNC, the National Republican Campaign Committee, Minority Leader John Boehner, etc. So before you respond to the NRCC's or the RNC's latest attempt to win your money, please read the three or four posts on this travesty of Republican politics at Michelle Malkin's site. Start here.

After you get your fill, please make your way the Doug Hoffman's site and contribute to his Conservative Party campaign. Or use the links on my blog to contribute to The Club for Growth and or the House and Senate Conservatives Funds.

The Liberal Agenda: Hijackers and Wannabes

After witnessing the melee of martyrdom seize the sycophants of politically correct Annapolis following the Zina Pierre affair, I find I am able to express a few thoughts on the matter without becoming violently sick to my stomach.

The irony in this case, (and all cases involving the liberal agenda and its purported champions and constituency) that Annapolis society goes out of its way to avoid confronting, is that Pierre is just like any other political opportunist. What makes her different from other liberal Democratic political opportunists is her race.

Leaving aside, for the moment, the Annapolis Kapital's deviated septum when it comes to asking the hard questions, the paper's editorial news staff are sensory deprived. Unless it comes with a large flag, fireworks, or literally roaring through the newsroom the chances are pretty good that the newshounds at the Kapital will miss the story.

And if Zina Pierre was a white liberal Democrat, the chances are equally good that Greg Stiverson, Republican candidate for Ward 6 Alderman wouldn't have been overcome with the anguished "heartache" he felt compelled to share with Kapital readers following her final withdrawal from the race. If Pierre was a run-of-the-mill white liberal Democrat who does not know for sure where she lives or how much money her campaign collected and disbursed and to whom, I seriously doubt that Stiverson would have been blubbering with grief over the affair.

But Stiverson fought to be the first to drive a nail into the political coffin of Joyce Thomann, a white conservative member of his own Republican party. He made sure liberal bloggers were aware that he had returned Thomann's personal contributions to his campaign, only to be snubbed later in a Kapital editorial rounding up the Thomann affair.

So it's not the first time a Republican throws his own supposed ideology over in favor of the liberal theology of 'victim-ism.' Stiverson joins the long and growing line of Republican politicians who fall all over themselves trying to out 'empathize' his perceived rivals for the title of being the most unRepublican Republican. Even after watching his fellows go down one by one in flaming political death spirals while we conservatives watch with morbid curiosity and wonder why. Why don't they bail out and hit the silk, salvage some scrap of self-respect?

What is it about the liberal agenda that attracts the political suicides in the GOP? Do they see some electoral advantage in being a liberal Republican? Democrats, as a rule, will not vote for a Republican. So who do they think they are attracting? What cause do they think they are supporting when they vote against the conservative agenda and with the Democrats?

One of the eight Republican congressmen who voted for the Cap and Trade bill actually admitted that he voted for it in order to serve the narrow interests of his district. Otherwise he is totally against the concept embodied by the legislation! It's just too bad that the rest of America will have to suffer. He said this with a straight face as though there was no shame in saying he believes one way and voting to support the exact opposite of what he says he believes.

Democrats can do this because, for the most part, they are shameless vote mongers. Their positions are consistent and predictable and so give the appearance of having a principled base. Because they can be counted upon to do and say whatever it takes to get elected, the Democrats have developed over the generations a constituency that presents itself as victimized, deprived and exploited and in desperate need of this favor and that, laws that benefit those whose livelihoods depend on there being more and more victimized, deprived and exploited voters. This is a political ponzi scheme, opportunism if not outright corruption.

Hey, and that's OK by me if there are politicians without a shred of decency willing to propagate this scam. It's just a shame that their constituency is, in the words of ACORN's Bertha Lewis, "too stupid" to see they are being exploited by their own leaders. And it's a shame that the rest of us have to pay for their stupidity. But at least the Democratic politicians and their liberal task masters know full well they are running a scam.

That's more than I can say for Greg Stiverson (and Scott Bowling running in Ward 3, and Wayne Gilchrest, Michael Steele and Newt Gingrich, etc.). At least Arlen Specter knew he was just pandering for votes. What was Lindsay Graham of South Carolina thinking when he voted to confirm the "wise Latina woman," for a seat on the Supreme Court? You see, as a Republican supporting a liberal agenda item you can be regarded in only one of two ways:

1. As a cold and calculating political opportunist, or
2. As a mindless buffoon.

Arlen Specter fits neatly into Category #1. Into Category #2 fall the likes of Stiverson, Sens. Snowe and Collins of Maine, former Sen. Lincoln Chaffee, Soon-to-be-former Senator from Ohio George Voinovich, the "Cap and Trade 8" and, of course, Former Congressman Wayne Gilchrest.

So the next time, you Republicans out there, you get the urge to do or say something favorable to the liberal agenda, ask yourself how you will be regarded by Democrats and Republicans alike: As Number One or as Number Two.