Don's random thoughts: January 10, 2010

Conservatives and Libertarians such as I have consistently lamented the rising sentiment over the last 20 years among America’s far left as they labor to embrace the contemporary socialist ideology so prevalent in Europe.

Also, in light of the unfair and inaccurate rhetoric that has been directed at the Tea Party movement and its participants by high-profile liberals over the past 10 months, I have been unrelenting in linking media coverage, political commentary, and trends in White House policy that come together and paint a picture I find very disturbing.

As the push continues to extend ever expanding powers and authority to various federal entities (the FCC, Health and Human Services, and the EPA to name a few), I read yesterday morning of an agency that exists in the United Kingdom that should alarm anyone who worries as much as me about the ongoing push to make the United States more closely resemble our European counterparts. This British organization is titled the National Domestic Extremism Team.

You can read a very brief posting discussing it here.

Can you say MIAC report?

Of course as the word spreads about President Barack Obama’s recent Christmas present, the amendment of Executive Order 12425 signed on Dec. 17, the prospect of such a federal agency here doesn’t seem so farfetched.

Wait a minute. Are you puzzled as to what Obama’s amendment of E.O. 12425 is? In yet another bypass of Congress by the Executive Branch, our President has granted immunity from lawful search and seizure to the International Criminal Police Organization – better known as Interpol.

What does this mean? The answer: the protections associated with full diplomatic immunity have been bestowed upon all offices and facilities Interpol has here on American soil. In essence, all evidence, files, and any other documents collected by a foreign law enforcement agency is no longer subject to proper legal scrutiny of any kind – the door is open for them to operate like a secret police within the United States.

Don’t just raise your eyebrow at me. Do a Google search of “Obama amendment Executive Order 12425” and read it yourself.

The next item on my political radar is equally as disturbing, published yesterday by the Boston Herald.

News is surfacing that if Massachusetts State Senator Scott Brown can manage a political upset and defeat Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley – in the state’s upcoming special election on January 19 for the U.S. Senate seat previously held by the late Ted Kennedy – there are mechanisms in place that would delay validation of Brown’s Senate seat.

The holdup, evidently, would be intentionally long enough to allow interim Senator Paul Kirk to vote “yes” on the final health care reform bill currently being negotiated in conference by Democratic leaders of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

That article can be read in its entirety here.

This story is floating to the surface on the heels of Massachusetts’s state government leaders changing their election laws yet again in a scramble to ensure both of the state’s Senate seats are held by Democrats.

For some background with this news gem, the law for filling a vacated U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts was rewritten in 2004 during Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign. Before it was altered, state law there authorized the governor to hand-select a successor to either Senate seat should it suddenly be open – as a result of whoever holding it dying, retiring/resigning in midterm, or getting elected to another public office.

However, in 2004 Republican Mitt Romney was governor at the time. With the prospect of Kerry getting elected President being a very real possibility, Romney would have been in a position to install a fellow party member in Kerry’s place had he won, giving Massachusetts its first Republican senator in decades.

So in light of the fact residents in that state vote heavily Democrat, the Democratic majority in Massachusetts’ state legislature worked diligently to change the election law so that any Senate vacancies would have to be filled only by a specially scheduled public vote. Not surprisingly, they overturned Romney’s veto of the bill in the process.

This past year with the Tea Party movement’s rapid rise and the manner which public sentiment for it has grown, Democrats everywhere are experiencing a real fear of voter backlash. And so, the death of Kennedy in August sent Massachusetts Democrats scrambling to change the law back to allow the governor (now Deval Patrick, who just happens to be a Democrat) to select an interim Senator until a permanent replacement can be elected.

This also was done so the U.S. Senate could have the 60 votes from the left needed to ensure Democrats could both defeat any filibuster attempts and get a vote of cloture for all debates on proposed legislation.

Is this or is this not partisan politics at its truly best?

Finally, we have revelations of comments made by Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-Nevada) during the 2008 presidential campaign.

This can be verified here.

According to a book about the 2008 presidential race, Game Change by New York Times reporter Mark Halperin and New York magazine writer John Heilemann, Reid described then-Senator Obama as “light-skinned” and “with no negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

The book is set to be in stores Tuesday. Reid made his public apology yesterday.

Now lo-and-behold, liberals are tripping over themselves and each other to accept the senator’s act of contrition.

Reportedly also contained in Game Change, former President Bill Clinton paid a visit to Kennedy along the campaign trail seeking the senator’s endorsement for Hillary’s nomination. At one point during this occasion Mr. Clinton made the observation about Obama, “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.”

Can anyone else hear the absence of uproar? The hypocrisy is nauseating me beyond description.