What is at stake today

As they did last March, the Democrats are once again demonstrating the essentially criminal nature of their party, by trying to force nation-changing bills through the Congress on a weekend, when the public’s attention is elsewhere. And it’s much worse than last March, as this is a weekend before a major holiday, and this Congress is a lame duck Congress. Has it ever happened in American history that a Congress which has already been voted out and is about to leave office in a few days attempts to pass revolutionary legislation? As I said over and over during the Congressional debate on Obamacare, the Democrats—like criminals, like dictators, like the devil himself—want what they want, and will stop at nothing to get it.

“Evil, be thou my good.”

Investor’s Business Daily editorializes:

Despite [the defeat of the spending bill], as well as their futile fight against extending the Bush tax cuts for everyone, Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still want Congress’ lame ducks to pass a raft of new legislation as early as this weekend. These bills, passed in haste, would have far-reaching implications for the United States at a time when Americans have clearly said they want a new direction.

As this is written, Reid and his congressional allies are trying to force votes on the Dream Act; the New START treaty; “don’t ask, don’t tell”; and a massive environmental bill—all in the final days of the year if not this very weekend before Christmas.

As they did with the health care takeover, Democrats hope to jam these mostly unread bills through a distracted Congress over the holiday, with little if any input from the opposition.

On Friday, Reid filed for cloture on the Dream Act, which would end all further debate on a measure that legalizes millions of illegal alien youths and lets them file immediately for welfare and education benefits at a taxpayer cost of tens of billions of dollars.

He has also given the green light to a stand-alone vote to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which would alter the very nature of our military, allowing gays to serve openly in the military for the first time since … well, ever.

Worse, Reid wants a quick vote on the New START Treaty that President Obama negotiated with the Russians. It’s a bad deal, one that would essentially kill our right to modernize our nuclear arsenal or to build a comprehensive missile defense system. Much more debate is needed—along with amendments that would make the U.S. safer from nuclear strikes by rogue nations.

As a final insult to American voters, and virtually unnoticed by the media, Reid & Co. have rolled some 100 separate environmental bills into one—creating a giant land and private-property grab that again will have consequences well beyond the here and now.

Reid hasn’t even allowed this omnibus measure to be debated. And yet, as Landon Zida reported on the Heritage Foundation’s blog, the bill would “designate hundreds of thousands of acres of land under the control of federal government.” And all of it, as columnist Michelle Malkin has noted, with virtually no input.

GOP leaders must surely realize that this is merely a final, desperate attempt by Democrats to push through measures they know won’t see the light of day once the new, no-nonsense Congress is seated next month. As pleased as they must be with their victories on taxes and spending, Republicans must not allow these additional measures to advance before they are debated fully.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 18, 2010 08:10 AM | Send