Opportunism is alive and thriving among Democrat politicians

“Some things never change” is a comment we hear when something negative occurs, yet again. The onset of the coronavirus has turned the country upside down, put millions in jeopardy of one sort or another, and created a situation where national, state and local officials felt the need to enforce behavioral restrictions on citizens.

With that tumult, perhaps that phrase was brought to mind from the fact Congressional Democrats remain undeterred by the pandemic, and are dutifully pursuing their regressive goal of “progressivism.”

Senate Democrats on Thursday stalled the passage of a $250 billion relief package designed to aid small businesses. Trying to speed up the passage of the needed funding, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, called for a vote by unanimous consent.

But rather than pass a measure nearly all senators supported, Democrats requested protections for minority-owned businesses and additional aid to local health care providers, blocking the measure that was intended as an addition to the $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program, which gives forgivable loans to small businesses.

McConnell had said to the Senate Thursday morning, “Do not block emergency aid you do not oppose just because you want something more.” His words fell on deaf ears.

Following the failed vote, McConnell said he did not oppose the Democrats’ requests on principle, but that the Paycheck Protection Program needed urgent relief.

This effort to foul up the legislative process was not the first time Democrats had tried to force unrelated measures into a time-sensitive coronavirus support bill.

On Sunday, March 22, as the bipartisan agreement between the Democrat-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate reached over the weekend was about to come to a vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, showed up with a wish list of “progressive” goodies, among which were:

1. Union Giveaways:

• Nullifies the White House executive orders on federal collective bargaining and codifies taxpayer-funded union official time.

• Requires a labor union representative on every airline’s board of directors.

• Multiemployer pension bailout lacking needed reforms.

• Permanently raises the minimum wage to $15 for any business that receives federal aid for COVID-19.

• Cancels all debt owed by the U.S. Postal Service to the Treasury.

2. Green New Deal priorities:

• Requires all airlines that receive assistance to offset carbon emissions for domestic flights by 2025.

• Includes a $1 billion “cash for clunkers” airplane program where the Transportation Department buys fuel-inefficient planes from airlines in exchange for agreeing to buy new ones.

• Includes expansive new tax-credit for solar and wind energy.

3. Student Loan Forgiveness:

• $10,000 blanket loan forgiveness.

4. Federalizing Elections:

• Mandates how states must run elections, including the nationalization of ballot harvesting, requiring early voting, same day registration, and no-excuse vote by mail.

• Puts states at risk of costly litigation if they are unable to implement these stringent mandates ahead of the 2020 election.

Fearing they might again lose an election to Donald Trump, presented with the opportunity provided by the coronavirus crisis, and bringing back the elements that didn’t get through in the stimulus bill to change the existing election process, House Democrats have created a measure mis-labeled as the “Take Responsibility Act.”

This recipe for Democrat victory calls for legislative changes to remove the ability of states to manage the “Times, Places, and Manner” of elections as called for in the Constitution’s Article I provisions.

Changes include:

• states must allow 15 consecutive days of early voting

• makes absentee voting universal

• prohibits “requiring identification to obtain an absentee ballot”

• allows “another person” to drop off absentee ballots and removes limits on how many can be delivered by one person

• ensures provisional ballots are always counted (rendering them no longer “provisional”) and provides “blank” (no printed name) absentee ballots to citizens and service members overseas 

Anyone see opportunities for fraud here?

In signing gun control bills into law last week, Virginia’s Democrat Governor Ralph Northam said, “We lose too many Virginians to gun violence.” Notice he didn’t say we lose too many Virginians to “guns,” he said, we lose too many Virginians to gun “violence.”

It is violence that costs too many Virginians their lives, so instead of laws against guns, why doesn’t the General Assembly pass, and the governor sign, laws against violence?

Oh, that’s right. We already have laws against violence, but those laws don’t encroach on citizens’ Second Amendment rights. But the new laws do. And anything Virginia Democrats can do to interfere with the Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms, they will do.

And to make the fairy tale complete, still seeking the dreamt of, and so-far elusive coup de grace: yet another investigation into Trump.

Pelosi made it official last week: House Democrats are opening yet another inquisition against Trump. The last dismal failure actually did accomplish something, however. It distracted the Congress and administration from the developing crisis of the Wuhan virus, which they then could — and did — twist into the charge that Trump did not act swiftly enough to protect the country, and now by golly, that needs to be investigated.

You have to admire the Democrats’ devotion to bring Trump down, so strong as to eclipse any other consideration, like the welfare of the country and their constituents.