Posts Tagged ‘Bart Stupak’

Democrats Finally Face the Pelosi Question

Saturday, June 24th, 2017

Have Democrats finally, finally, finally gotten sick and tired of Nancy Pelosi?

It’s been a decade since Pelosi ascended to the speaker’s chair, and since Democrats lost control of the House in 2010, there have been mutterings that Pelosi is a drag on the party. Despite that, she’s continues to get elected as Minority Leader.

But following Jon Ossoff’s loss in the Georgia 6th Congressional District special election, that finally seems to be changing:

Democrats’ embarrassing special-election loss in Georgia, after the liberal media built up unrealistic expectations, has provoked a wave of bitter blowback that targets House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Snip.

On Wednesday, some Democratic members of Congress publicly voiced concerns about Pelosi, raising the specter of a leadership challenge.

“I think you’d have to be an idiot to think we could win the House with Pelosi at the top,” Rep. Filemon Vela, a Texas Democrat, told Politico.

“Nancy Pelosi is not the only reason that Ossoff lost, but she certainly is one of the reasons.

Representative Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, reportedly met Wednesday morning with a group of lawmakers who have been conferring about economic messaging, according to several people present who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Luján told the group that his committee would examine the Georgia results for lessons, but he urged the lawmakers to portray the race in positive terms in their public comments, stressing that Democrats have consistently exceeded their historical performance in a series of special elections fought in solidly Republican territory.

It was in the meeting with Mr. Luján that Mr. Cárdenas, a member of the Democratic leadership, brought up Ms. Pelosi’s role in the Georgia race, calling it “the elephant in the room.”

Ms. Pelosi was not present.

On the front page of liberal heartland Silicon Valley’s paper, The Mercury News of San Jose: “Question: Is Nancy Pelosi the problem?”

“Some of the toughest ads against the 30-year-old [Georgia Dem candidate Jon] Ossoff were those tying him to Pelosi, whose approval ratings are underwater outside California.”

Furthermore, as NYTimes reports, in a possible omen, the first Democratic candidate to announce his campaign after the Georgia defeat immediately vowed not to support Ms. Pelosi for leader.

Joe Cunningham, a South Carolina lawyer challenging Representative Mark Sanford, said Democrats needed “new leadership now.”

Even Democrats who are not openly antagonistic toward Ms. Pelosi acknowledged that a decade of Republican attacks had taken a toll: “It’s pretty difficult to undo the demonization of anyone,” said Representative Bill Pascrell Jr. of New Jersey.

So with all that said, we are left with one question, as The Economic Collapse blog’s Michael Snyder asks, are the ‘toxic’ Democrats destine to become a permanent minority party?

Every political generation needs a “designated hate object” on the other side. In the early 1990s, a joke went around Republican circles about a direct mail guy: “I had the most horrible dream! Jesse Jackson and Ted Kennedy went down in the same plane!”

But Jackson and Kennedy were clearly to the left of center in a Democratic Party that still included some conservatives and moderates, and neither had any formal leadership role in the party, Jackson never having held office and Kennedy having lost his role as Majority Whip to Robert Byrd in 1971).

By contrast, Pelosi is not an ideological outlier in her Party, but emblematic of it. As Minority Leader, Pelosi is arguably the highest ranking elected Democrat in the country right now.

The reason Pelosi was able to be elected Speaker in the first place is that Howard Dean’s “50 state strategy” helped empower a lot of moderate Democrats to run and win (at least during a wave election) in deep red states, the last gasp of the “Blue Dog Democrats.” Then Pelosi ruthlessly pushed the Stupak bloc flippers into betraying their pledges on the ObamaCare vote, and the aftermath of 2010 wiped most of them out. The congressional careers of Brad Ellsworth, Bart Stupak, James Oberstar, Steve Driehaus, Steve Chabot, Charles Wilson (the Ohio rep, not the Texas one), Kathy Dahlkemper, Paul Kanjorski and Solomon Ortiz died for Nancy Pelosi’s sins. Moreover, the uniformity of far left ideology in the current Democratic Party prevents anyone like them from running in and winning a Democratic primary.

Nancy Pelosi is toxic because her party is toxic.

As Rich Lowry notes:

Stopping Trump is imperative, so long as it doesn’t require the party rethinking its uncompromising stance on abortion, guns or immigration. Every old rule should be thrown out in the cause of the resistance—except the tried-and-true orthodoxies on social issues.

If Democrats had to choose between opposing an honest-to-goodness coup and endorsing a ban on abortion after 20 weeks, they’d probably have to think about it. And if they dared pick opposition to the coup, NARAL Pro Choice America would come after them hammer and tongs.

Those issues, and the unpopularity of ObamaCare, and the relentless Social Justice Warrior madness, etc., are what’s hurting the Democratic Party.

Pelosi has put down rebellions in her ranks before, but this one seems more widespread. Also, Pelosi is 77, and has recently started to have more senior moments than she used to.

Still, something tells me that House Democrats lack the guts to oust Pelosi mid-session. But if Democrats do badly in next year’s midterms, then the knives might really come out…

District Judge Strikes Down ObamaCare’s Contraceptive Mandate

Tuesday, December 17th, 2013

U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan struck down the ObamaCare contraceptive mandate. If you read the actual decision, it’s a smackdown of both the mandate itself and the Obama Administration’s position on same;

As for the self-certification requirement, the Court rejects the Government’s position that plaintiffs may be compelled to perform affirmative acts precluded by their religion if a court deems those acts merely “de minimis.” This argument – which essentially reduces to the claim that completing the self-certification places no burden on plaintiffs’ religion because “it’s just a form” – finds no support in the case law. As discussed, where a law places substantial pressure on a plaintiff to perform affirmative acts contrary to his religion, the Supreme Court has found a substantial burden without analyzing whether those acts are de minimis.”

Cogan ruled against some of the plantiff’s arguments on other technical issues, but on the central issues of the case he ruled “the Mandate burdens plaintiffs’ religion by coercing them into authorizing third parties to provide this coverage through the self-certification requirement, an act forbidden by plaintiffs’ religion.”

On his Facebook page, Ted Cruz hailed the ruling as a “Major victory for religious liberty.”

Gabriel Malor of Ace of Spades has analyzed the ruling in more detail.

Cogan’s ruling deals specifically with religious non-profits covered by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and as such does not directly affect the Hobby Lobby case the Supreme Court will be taking up (“none of these cases bear directly on the issue at hand”). However, his overall reasoning, if applied to that case, could very well lead to ruling that the contraceptive mandate is an unconstitutional burden on freedom of religious conscious as well.

Remember, the fervor with which Nancy Pelosi refused to remove the contraceptive mandate and taxpayer-funded abortion from ObamaCare, even when it cost most of Bart Stupak ostensibly “pro-life” Democrats their seats, indicated that liberals regarded those sections as one of act’s most important features. If Cogan’s ruling is upheld, this is not only a major victory for religious liberty, but also a huge blow to ongoing Democratic attempts to marginalize religion in American life.

Also remember that ObamaCare has no severability clause. If Judge Cogan’s ruling is upheld, there’s still a chance (though by no means a guarantee) that the rest of the act can be found unconstitutional as well.

Post Election Analysis: Bart Stupak’s Turncoats Go Down in Flames

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

One of the most satisfying results of last night’s election was just how many of Bart Stupak’s block of ObamaCare flippers went down in flames.

If you remember back to the ObamaCare debates, Stupak’s bloc of “Pro-Life Democrats” was never, ever, ever, ever going to vote for a bill that included government funding of abortions. That is, right up until they did.

As shown below, on November 2, the clear majority of them paid the price for betraying their principles as well as their constituents. Unless otherwise noted, the election margins below are taken from this CBS table. Since WordPress doesn’t let me set font colors to red, I’ve marked GOP pickups in bold.

  • Rep. Jerry Costello of Illinois’ 12th district defeated Republican Teri Newman
  • Rep. Joseph Donnelly of Indiana’ 2nd district edged Republican Jackie Walorski by less than 3,000 votes.
  • Rep. Brad Ellsworth left his Indiana’s 8th Congressional seat for an unsuccessful run for the Senate. Republican Larry Bucshon flipped the seat by defeating Trent Van Haaften by almost 40,000 votes.
  • Rep. Bart Stupak retired from Michigan’s 1st congressional district when it became apparent his ObamaCare betrayal doomed his electoral chances. Republican Dan Benishek flipped the seat by defeating Gary McDowell by 25,000 votes.
  • Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota lost to Republican Chip Cravaack. You may also remember Oberstar for racking up only a single in-district donation to his reelection campaign.
  • Rep. Steve Driehaus of Ohio’s 1st district lost to Republican Steve Chabot by 23,000 votes.
  • Rep. Charles Wilson of Ohio’s 6th district lost to Republican Bill Johnson by 10,000 votes.
  • Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio’s 9th district beat James Iott (AKA Nazi Costume Guy) by a wide margin.
  • Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania’s 3rd district lost to Republican Mike Kelly by over 20,000 votes.
  • Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania’s 11th district lost to Lou Barletta by over 15,000 votes.
  • Rep. Solomon Ortiz of Texas’ 27th district loses to Republican Blake Farenthold by less than 1,000 votes.

That’s eight out of eleven Stupak bloc flippers whose seats are now in the hands of the GOP. And of those eleven races, I correctly picked ten, missing only Donnelly’s narrow victory in Indiana’s second district (which I originally had down as a longshot).

A few lessons:

  1. Voters hate ObamaCare.
  2. They hate congressmen who break promises. (Republicans should take special note of this one anytime they contemplate letting a GOP-controlled congress slip back to the old free-spending ways of the Bush43 years.)
  3. They hate Blue Dog Democrats who vote like liberals when the really important issues are on the line.
  4. Voters may be wising up to the fact that it doesn’t matter how much a Democrat swears up and down how Pro-Life, fiscally conservative, pro-gun, etc. they are; when push comes to shove, they’ll always cave in and vote with their liberal leadership.

As a reward for laying down their careers in the cause of ObamaCare, at least Blue Dogs have the consolation of the respect and gratitude of liberal activists everywhere. Ha, just kidding. The Daily Kossacks are saying “we can do without their sabotage.”

Oh yes, I’m sure that running Democrats ideologically closer to Nancy Pelosi than Dan Boren in places like Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio is a great way to pick up seats. I encourage you to get started on that right away.

BattleSwarm Blog’s Election Prediction for 2010: GOP Gains 67 House Seats, 10 Senate Seats

Monday, November 1st, 2010

With the election tomorrow, I thought it was high time to offer up my own election predictions.

I have carefully and scientifically evaluated each and every House and Senate race, taking into account length of incumbency, previous voting trends for each district and state, fund-raising advantage, the most recent polls, and the fact that every preceding clause in this sentence prior to this one has been a complete and utter lie.

I have looked at a lot of polls and data but damn, there are only so many hours in the day. My predictions are based on general national mood, gut-feeling, and detailed looks at trends for select races.

This is going to be worse for the Democrats than 1994. The rise of the Netroots and the overwhelming support among the traditional news media dangerously blinded liberal insiders from how badly out-of-sync with the rest of the country they had become, and their insistence to push onward with ObamaCare despite widespread opposition and a lousy economy turned what was already going to be a bad year for them into a once-in-a-lifetime political slaughter.

I predict that the Democrats will lose 67 House seats.

As I admitted above, that’s not a wild-assed guess, but a guestimate based on current polling data and news on individual races. I don’t see Republicans gaining less than 50 seats, and there’s an outside possibility they could get 100. To my mind, it’s much more likely they’ll gain more than 67 than less than 50.

Among the individual House races, I predict all the Stupak-bloc flippers except Marcy Kaptur (who had the luck to draw Nazi Uniform Guy as her opponent) and Jerry Costello (much as I appreciate GOP candidate Teri Newman popping in to say the race is tied, I just don’t see any traction at all in a 54% Obama district; I’d love to be surprised) will lose, including:

  1. Rep. Joseph Donnelly of Indiana
  2. Indiana’s open 8th congressional district (formerly held by Brad Ellsworth)
  3. Michigan’s open 1st congressional seat (formerly held by Bart Stupak)
  4. James Oberstar of Minnesota
  5. Steve Driehaus of Ohio
  6. Charles Wilson of Ohio
  7. Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania
  8. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania
  9. Solomon Ortiz of Texas

Additionally, I’m predicting that all of the following Democrats representing districts that voted for McCain in 2008 lose their jobs:

  1. Bobby Bright of Alabama
  2. Arkansas’ open 1st congressional district (formerly held by Marion Barry (AKA “the other Marion Barry”))
  3. Arkansas’ open 2nd congressional district (formerly held by Vic Snyder)
  4. Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona
  5. Harry Mitchell of Arizona
  6. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona
  7. John Salazar of Colorado
  8. Betsy Markey of Colorado
  9. Allen Boyd of Florida
  10. Suzanne Kosmas of Florida
  11. Jim Marshall of Georgia
  12. Baron Hill of Indiana
  13. Ben Chandler of Kentucky
  14. Louisiana’s open 3rd congressional district (formerly held by Charlie Melancon)
  15. Frank Kratovil of Maryland
  16. Ike Skelton of Missouri
  17. Travis Childers of Mississippi
  18. Gene Taylor of Mississippi
  19. Mike McIntyre of North Carolina
  20. Heath Schuler of North Carolina
  21. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota
  22. Harry Teague of New Mexico
  23. Michael McMahon of New York
  24. New York’s open 29th congressional district (formerly held by Eric Massa)
  25. John Boccieri of Ohio
  26. Zack Space of Ohio
  27. Christopher Carney of Pennsylvania
  28. Mark Critz of Pennsylvania (serving the remainder of the late John P. Murtha’s term)
  29. John Spratt of South Carolina
  30. Stephanie Sandlin of South Dakota
  31. Lincoln Davis of Tennessee
  32. Tennessee’s open 6th congressional district (formerly held by Bart Gordon)
  33. Tennessee’s open 8th congressional district (formerly held by John Tanner)
  34. Chet Edwards of Texas
  35. Tom Perriello of Virginia
  36. Rick Boucher of Virginia
  37. West Virgina’s first district (held by Allan Mollohan, who was defeated in the Democratic primaries)

That’s 46 seats right there, and I think there’s easily another 21 seats to be had in districts that went narrowly for Obama in 2008 to provide the final margin of victory.

I predict that the Democrats will lose 10 Senate seats.

The Senate is a tougher nut to flip this year, and as I set down to gauge Republican chances, I was shocked to find that, despite insider predictions, I actually had them winning ten seats to take control of the Senate. Running down the Senate races that Real Clear Politics shows as tossups I was only getting nine seats, but then I remembered that Blanche Lincoln is losing so badly in Arkansas that they had that down as a safe Republican flip.

Republicans should take over the following ten Senate seats:

  1. Arkansas
  2. Colorado
  3. Illinois
  4. Indiana
  5. Kentucky
  6. Nevada
  7. Pennsylvania
  8. Washington
  9. West Virginia
  10. Wisconsin

Much as I’d like to see an upset in California, I don’t see Carly Fiorina getting any traction in an overwhelmingly blue state; I think the out-migration of California’s best and brightest due to the high tax rates, crummy economy, the overwhelmingly powerful public sector unions and a near-bankrupt government (all related phenomena) has, ironically, made Californian even bluer.

The two races of the ten that will be most difficult for Republicans to pull off are Washington and West Virginia. Washington may be the tightest, simply because the Left Coast is so blue, but Rossi has been steadily gaining on Murray, and actually pulled ahead in the latest PPP poll. And PPP usually has a Democratic bias, so in a wave election, you have to give it to the Republican if polling is within the margin of error.

In West Virginia, I’m going to go out on a limb and predict a victory for Republican John Raese even though Joe Manchin is up four points in the most recent poll, for the following reasons:

  • McCain won West Virginia by 13.1 points in 2008, which was four points above the poll RCP average. Asking Manchin to run 14 points better in 2010 than Obama did in 2008 is a pretty tall order.
  • The state has been trending Republican for years. It went for Clinton over both Bush41 and Dole, but for Bush43 over Gore by 6.3%, and Bush43 over Kerry by 12.9%.
  • West Virginia fits the classic demographic pattern for “Reagan Democrats”: It’s 94.4% white, and is relatively rural and blue collar, and with a household income significantly below the national average. Those are the very voters that are abandoning Democrats this year.
  • Along those same lines, Hillary Clinton beat Obama handily here in 2008, even though Obama had all but clinched the nomination at the time. West Virginia voters fit the classic “Jacksonian” profile, the portions of the Democratic base that has been most alienated by Obama’s policies.
  • Say what you will about the late Senator Robert Byrd, but he was extraordinarily popular in his home state right up to the end. But his name isn’t on the top of the ballot this time around, and without that reminder of their old “born and bred” Democratic allegiance to remind them, 2010 may finally be the year when remaining West Virginia conservative Democrats make the switch to the GOP.
  • The areas that have been most fruitful for Democratic fraud efforts in the past have been urban enclaves with strong Democratic minority machine politics, which are pretty much absent here.
  • Logic dictates that if that this truly is a nationalized “wave” election, it will show up strongly here.

Honestly, I think the Democrats taking the Washington senate seat is more likely that West Virginia.

So the Republicans take both House and Senate in an electoral slaughter unprecedented in modern times. So I have foretold, and so it shall be!

And if you disagree, post your own predictions below.

Here’s a Site Estimating Republicans Will Gain 57 Seats in the House

Monday, October 18th, 2010

According to Freedom’s Lighthouse. I don’t know much about them, so caveat lector.

Among the races BattleSwarm has previously covered, they show the following incumbent Democrats losing:

  • Suzanne Kosmas (FL 24)
  • Trent Van Haaften (IN 8 ) (not an incumbent, running for Brad Ellsworth’s open seat)
  • Gary McDowell (MI 1) (not an incumbent, running for Bart Stupak‘s open seat)
  • Steve Driehaus (OH 1)
  • Kathy Dahlkemper (PA 3)
  • Paul Kanjorski (PA 11)
  • Chet Edwards (TX 17)
  • Ciro Rodriguez (TX 23)

So, all eight of the vulnerable democrats I profiled here are currently down as GOP flips.

Further, Charles Wilson (OH 6) is rated as a tossup.

Again, I’m not that familiar with the source, so take this with a grain of salt, and just another data point on how high the tidal wave might reach.

Select Long-Shot House Campaigns

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

A few days ago I covered a handful of the most competitive House races. With tides moving so strongly against the Democrats, now would be a good time to look at some House races that Republicans might view as hopeless in any other year.

But this year, all bets are off.

So here are some long-shot campaigns for the seats of particularly egregious incumbent House Democrats that just might fall the GOP’s way in this election:

  • Jerry Costello of Illinois vs. Teri Newman for Illinois 12th Congressional District. (Teri, here’s a free hint: Auto-running movies with sound on your website isn’t going to win you any votes.) Costello is a Stupak bloc flip-flopper who voted for the Stimulus, but against TARP and Cap-and-Trade.
  • Joseph Donnelly vs. Jackie Walorski for Indiana’s second congressional district. Donnelly is another Stupak bloc flip-flopper, and also voted for TARP and the Stimulus, but against ObamaCare. Walorski has been endorsed by Sarah Palin, so she might well have more money and attention than others on this list.
  • Lloyd Doggett vs. Dr. Donna Campbell for the Texas 25th congressional district. Having endured having old liberal warhorse Lloyd Doggett as my Representative back when I still lived within the confines of The People’s Republic of Austin, I would be delighted to see a Republican take Doggett out. Doggett voted against TARP, but for the Stimulus, Cap-and-Trade, and ObamaCare. One issue in the campaign is Doggett’s writing language into federal law to deprive Texas of almost a billion dollars in federal education funds. In this Human Events piece on the race, Campbell notes that Doggett “voted 98% of the time with Nancy Pelosi. And him getting in again, is one more vote that keeps Pelosi in.”
  • Barney Frank vs. ex-Marine Sean Bielat for Massachusetts’ Fourth Congressional District. Frank is as much responsible as anyone in the House for helping create the current recession by his steadfast opposition to tightening regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac at the same time he was having an affair with Fannie Mae executive Herb Moses. Frank, as you would expect, has a perfect liberal record in voting for TARP, the Stimulus, Cap-and-Trade, and ObamaCare. Here’s a Wall Street Journal piece on the race.
  • Charlie Rangel vs. Michael Faulkner for New York’s 15th congressional district. Rangel is, of course, a corrupt scumbag. (The question of whether he’s the most corrupt scumbag in the House I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader.) Like Al Sharpton, he has a certain amount of venomous charm. Unlike Sharpton, he’s actually been elected. Like Frank, Rangel has a perfect liberal record in voting for TARP, the Stimulus, Cap-and-Trade, and ObamaCare. Faulkner has a good bit of name recognition from being a former New York Jets football player. The differences between Faulkner and Rangel are legion (not least of which is my working assumption that Faulkner isn’t a corrupt scumbag), but one of particular local interest may play a role if this race becomes the upset of all upsets: Rangel supports the Ground Zero Mosque while Faulkner opposes it. Polling for the race is non-existent (Democrats outnumber Republicans 15-1), but at least some observers think it might be more competitive than expected.

Remember, in 1994 no one expected Speaker of the House Tom Foley’s race to be even remotely competitive, but George Nethercutt still beat him, and there are some observers who say it could very well be much worse for Democrats this year than 1994. If that’s the case, then it’s a good bet one or more of the Republican candidates listed above will pull off an upset.

There’s No Such Thing as a “Pro-Gun Democrat” As Long As Nancy Pelosi is Speaker

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

All across the country, Democrats running for office “are embracing gun owners’ rights [and] winning favor from the National Rifle Association.”

Overall this is a good development, as it shows how unpopular gun control is outside of a few extremely liberal urban enclaves. However, voters should not mistake a politician taking the popular side of an issue with deeply held belief. As long as Nancy Pelosi remains Speaker of the House of Representatives, no House Democrat can be considered Pro-Second Amendment, stated positions and NRA endorsements not withstanding.

Every one of those “pro-gun Democrats” is probably just as committed to Second Amendment issues as Bart Stupak was to Pro-Life issues. Remember him? He was a hero to Pro-Life forces and was even going to receive a “Defender of Life Award” for refusing to cave in on including taxpayer-funded abortions for ObamaCare.

That is, right up until he folded-up like a three-card-monte table when Pelosi put the pressure on him. He was bought off for an empty promise and a handful of magic beans. But it wasn’t just Stupak who caved. There were ten other “staunch Pro-Life Democrats” who folded with him:

  • Rep. Jerry Costello of Illinois.
  • Rep. Joseph Donnelly of Indiana
  • Rep. Brad Ellsworth of Indiana
  • Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota
  • Rep. Steve Driehaus of Ohio
  • Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio
  • Rep. Charles Wilson of Ohio
  • Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania
  • Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania
  • Rep. Solomon Ortiz of Texas

(And all of whom just happened to have raked in huge earmarks after their vote.)

Look at all those “Pro-Life Democrats” willing to fund abortions with taxpayer money when Nancy Pelosi snapped her fingers. Now ask yourself: Were any of these Democrats any less “Pro-Life” than your Democratic congressman is “Pro-Second Amendment?”

Moreover, many of those “Pro-Gun Democrats” are the same “Pro-Life Democrats” who flipped for Pelosi. Take a look at their NRA ratings from 2008 (the NRA hasn’t released all their 2010 rankings yet):

  • Joseph Donnelly? A.
  • Brad Ellsworth? A.
  • Charles Wilson? A.
  • Paul Kanjorski? A.
  • Solomon Ortiz? A.

All of them betrayed their “deep beliefs” on abortion. There is absolutely no reason to believe they wouldn’t do the same thing on gun control.

The NRA can only rate votes and questionnaires, it can’t tell when someone is lying, or who will fold when enough pressure is applied. The Democratic nutroots, their funding sources, their staffers, and the entire media establishment is just as anti-gun as they are pro-abortion. That’s the “reality-based community” Democratic politicians live in. That’s the same community that will be lauding them for their “courage” when they betray voters’ trust to vote how Pelosi wants them to. It will also be the same community offering them cushy job opportunities should those same voters retire them in November. Democratic House members only have to face voters once every two years; they have to face liberal insiders every single working day.

If you don’t think Democrats would still love to ban guns, take a look at how Democratic Mayors like Richard Daley of Chicago and Michael Nutter of Philadelphia want to make an end-run around that whole pesky Constitution: “American gun manufacturers should be held responsible in the World Court, since American-made guns are used in violent crime elsewhere in the world.” I’m sure that a World Court ruling against gun ownership would provide Obama, Pelosi and Reid with just the political excuse they need to start “reluctantly” drafting gun control legislation. And Pelosi herself has made no secret of her own gun control agenda.

The only safe course of action is to assume that, should gun control make it back up to the top of the Democratic agenda, any “Pro-Gun Democrat” could flip their vote if that’s the one Pelosi needs to assure the bill’s passage. And they only way to prevent that from happening is to vote Pelosi’s Democrats out of power come November, no matter whether some of them have an “A” rating from the NRA or not.

NRA’s Sell-Out: It’s Official

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

The NRA officially announces they’re selling out to the Pelosi congress’ anti-free speech agenda.

This is a bad decision that will cause them to lose members. You don’t knife your friends in the back to make deals with your enemies, and you don’t make deals with the butcher to stand aside while he slaughters the other animals in exchange for being eaten last. And as long as Pelosi is Speaker, “pro-gun Democrats” can only be considered as pro-2nd Amendment as Bart Stupak was pro-life, i.e. right up to the point that it becomes a choice between their “principles” and the dictates of the Democratic leadership, and then their principles can be bought off with a empty promise.

Members should still contact the NRA at all levels to know this is unacceptable. You can also call them at 1-800-672-3888, or use the NRA PVF fund form.