Democrats Step In Excrement To Pander To Base (Rush Limbaugh On Democrats' Fear Of Kooks Alert)

I've got some audio sound bites that I want to share with you from yesterday. And to get into this, there's just a tremendous piece today in the Tallahassee news. I'm not sure what the name of the newspaper is, but I've got their website here. It's Tallahassee.com. It's by Bill Cotterell or Cotterell. He's the Capital Curmudgeon and this is a great fun little piece here that illustrates -- I don't know if he intends it to be fun -- but it illustrates the problems the Democrats have. The headline of his piece: "Democrats in Congress Must Walk a Fine Line to Survive -- Imagine a campaign commercial that starts with a grainy, shadowy image of a Nativity scene being ripped from the front lawn of city hall.

"A sad, weary announcer intones, 'President Bush appointed judges who know what made America great ... but Democrats in the Senate used stalling tactics to stifle the will of the people.' The shot dissolves to quick-cut scenes of same-sex couples in tuxedos and wedding dresses celebrating on the courthouse steps. 'Americans want judges who won't substitute their values for ours,' says the voice-over, 'but the Democrats listened to the radical activists.' Next we see some grinning convicts emerging from a prison's revolving door - then a shot of fat, cigar-chomping lawyers congratulating each other. 'The president appointed tough judges to protect our children from criminals and our jobs from frivolous lawsuits,' says the announcer, 'but our senator obeyed his Democrat bosses - he wouldn't even let those appointments come to a vote.' The TV spot suddenly goes full-color, with a confident-looking Republican on a beach, among a cluster of elderly people. Next, we see that candidate in earnest conversation with some cops and soldiers, then surrounded by upward-gazing young people in a church or university setting. 'Fortunately, we don't have to let the Democrats block the president's plans to keep us safe at home... to strengthen Social Security... and to get some judges with common sense,' says the announcer. The commercial closes with the candidate saying he or she approved the message, while shaking hands with Bush before a background of American flags. That's a little preview of the Florida Democratic Party's worst nightmare. It's the sort of thing we might see in 2006 as Sen. Bill Nelson, the party's sole survivor in statewide office, is one of at least six Democrats being targeted for defeat by the White House. How he votes on judicial nominees will, in part, determine how nasty his re-election challenge will be. Supporting a Democratic filibuster against Bush appointees will please only the voters Nelson already has on his side, while giving potential opponents buckets of mud to sling." Or truth I might add.

"James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, last month prepared a letter to about one million voters, urging them to watch how their senators act on fedearl court appointments. If the Democrats dismiss this as simply the ravings of the far right fringe of the Republican red states, it will mean that they learned nothing on Nov. 2. Nelson has not exactly turned into an ultra-liberal since his days as a Florida legislator, congressman and Cabinet officer. He has said his votes will depend on the merits of each appointee. Democrats in states Bush carried are in a bind. The party's most vocal constituencies get what they want - abortion, affirmative action, the hard line on church-state separation - from the courts, not the Congress or executive branch. If Bush gets his kind of judges, all of that could go away in the next several years. But if they join a filibuster to block a Senate vote, they could go away as early as 2006. Bush, spending some of the 'political capital' he said he earned in the past campaign, plans to renominate 20 appointees for federal judgeships - including seven were blocked by filibusters and three who were blackballed by Democratic senators from their home states. Some of the others would have been filibustered, or had a 'hold' put on them, but the White House didn't press for floor votes on them. The Democrats still have enough votes to prevent cloture but losing men like Daschle and former Sen. Max Cleland, ought to be educational for the Democrats."

It is the conclusion of Bill Cotterell that either of Bush's court appointees get confirmed this time. Because I guess his theory is that these Democrat senators would rather be reelected than go down to defeat, which they certainly will.

This is just a great illustration of what I told you yesterday: If there's a pile of excrement out there somewhere, Democrats will find it and step in it. They stepped in it big time yesterday. They continue to step in it. Here you have John Kerry on foreign soil in Iraq talking to U.S. troops about Bush bungling the war. Kerry lost the election. He's telling the troops Bush bungled the war. While he's in Iraq; he asks via an e-mail to three million of his supporters for them to flood the phone lines of Denny Hastert and Bill Frist so as to thwart any of Bush's judicial nominees and as well, to support this Ohio objection because there were voting irregularities in that state that Bush won by 118,000 votes. So not only did Kerry not have the guts to show up at the Senate and stand up for his own desires; he is in Iraq bashing our military and our military effort and the president to U.S. troops. The Democrats are never going to learn. Then we saw what happened yesterday at the Gonzales hearings and we saw what happened yesterday when Maxine Waters and Harriet Stubbs Tubman -- I know that's not her name. What is her name? Juliet Stubbs? (interruption) What? (interruption) Whatever. (interruption) Stephanie Tubbs Johnson? Stephanie Tubbs Jones from Cleveland. Kerry carried her district.

Stephanie Tubbs Jones from Cleveland convinced Barbara Boxer to join their objection, thereby sending the House and Senate to their respective chambers to vote on this irregularity and it went to a screeching defeat as everybody knew it would be, but they made themselves look like idiots because it's now been learned that they were following orders from Michael Moore. Let's go to the audio sound bites to get this all started. First a montage of all these senators, including Hillary, and I think Hillary might have even put a nail in her future coffin yesterday by joining this because she's been trying to position herself as a moderate, pro-war, not ultra left senator. But I'm telling you, her appearance with all these other senators denouncing what happened in Ohio yesterday is proof positive that the Democrats are scared to death of their base. They're doing what the base wants to keep the base happy because it is a political axiom that if you don't have your base you don't have anything. You build off the base. Their base is as far left and kooky fringe as it has ever been, and if they have to bow down and kiss the butts of these people, they're doomed. They are finished. And yesterday they made it known that that's what they have to do. Here's a montage. Barack Obama.

OBAMA: I am absolutely convinced that the president of the United States won this election. I also believe that he got more votes in Ohio.

LAUTENBERG: I want to make it clear, I'm not challenging President Bush's victory in the state of Ohio.

HARKIN: I want to be clear that I do not question the legitimacy or outcome of our 2004 presidential election, nor will I vote to overturn the result of the vote in Ohio.

KENNEDY: While we do not question the outcome, many of us remain deeply concerned that for the second time in a row in a closely contested election, there were so many complaints --

RUSH: It wasn't closely contested. It was over three million popular votes, 118,000 votes in the battleground state you claim you don't even oppose the outcome of. So here they all strode up there, every senator who strode up there made the point first, "Hey, hey, hey! We don't propose to change the outcome. We're not going on to vote against it. I want to make it clear I'm not challenging President Bush's victory in the state of Ohio." They had to say that so, you know, the mainstream Americans here understand, "Hey, don't hold me accountable. I got to do this because my kook fringe base is demanding that I do it," and by the way, I did some little investigation work yesterday, folks and I went to some of these kook left-wing websites, Democrat Underground. You know what they thought yesterday? They actually thought that Conyers had a ticking time bomb and that it was going to be announced and that Bush was going to lose the presidency yesterday.

They actually thought that's what this action meant. I kid you not. These kooks out there. I don't care wherever they are on the left, be it a website, be it a radio network, whatever, they actually thought that the only reason this happened yesterday was because there was something secret they had discovered that was going to throw this election upside down and put Kerry in the White House -- and there was nothing. All you had was a bunch of coward Democrat senators who refused to stand up to their base but, rather, pander to it. Here is a little exchange from Sheila Jackson-Lee. She replaced Mickey Leland from Houston. She's one of the leaders in the house. She wouldn't shut up after her allotted time. Denny Hastert had to try to gavel her to silence.

LEE: How would you like to be in Ohio and be told that the election was on November 3rd, 2004 instead of November 2nd, 2004? Mr. Speaker, the Constitution's due process clause requires fundamental fairness or that a state official not conduct an election or apply vote-counting procedures --

LEE: -- that the American people value the value of one vote, one person. All votes counted. Not counted --

RUSH: "I came here as a slave. I now want the right to vote." She didn't come here as a slave. Sheila Jackson-Lee has not been a slave. You find out when they get frustrated and their guards come down exactly where they are. They are stuck 30, 40, 50, sometimes 150 years ago. It's just utterly amazing. Maxine Waters on the Senate floor during the objection to Ohio's electoral vote.

WATERS: Mr. Speaker and members, I dedicate my objection to Ohio's electoral votes to Mr. Michael Moore, the producer of the documentary "9/11" [sic] and I thank him for educating the world on the threat to our democracy and the proceedings of this House on the acceptance of the electoral college votes for the 2000 presidential election. The judiciary -- democratic judiciary committee staff report clearly establishes that the state of Ohio has not met its obligation to conduct a fair election. Ohio's partisan Secretary of State, Mr. Kenneth Blackwell -- I'm ashamed to say an African-American man -- has failed even to follow Ohio's election procedures, let alone procedures that complied with federal law and constitutional requirements. Our ancestors who died for the right to vote, certainly must be turning over in their graves.

RUSH: It's your constituents that are turning over in their soon to be graves. The Democratic Party is in the middle of an implosion that frankly I have wanted to see my whole adult life. If Kenneth Blackwell, "a man you are embarrassed to say is an African American," if he has violated all these laws, then why don't you go to Ohio and charge him? Why are you messing around in the House and the Senate? Go to Ohio and get it straightened out. If all this chicanery happened there, it's waiting to be uncovered. You've got a lawsuit waiting to be won in Ohio. Why don't you go there instead of pontificating for your kooky, looney, utterly contemptible left-wing base, Ms. Waters. Sorry. She is part of that kooky, looney, wacko base. I just wanted you to hear this stuff, folks, because if you want to know what stepping in a pile of excrement is, you just heard a brief portion of it from yesterday.

Floor Statement during Challenge to Ohio Election January, 6, 2005

Don't be confused or misled. Today's objection is not about an election result, it's about an election system that's broken and needs fixing.

Today you're hearing the facts about voter irregularities in Ohio. In 2000 you saw a similar mess in Florida. There were serious voting problems in other states - for example, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida again.

As we try to spread democracy to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, it might be wise, first, to look in the mirror; to take a serious look at our own house; and to analyze our own democracy.

What's wrong with our democracy? What's wrong with our voting system? State-after-state, year-after-year, why do we keep on having these problems?

The fundamental reason is this: most Americans and many in this body will find it shocking and hard to believe, but we have these problems because Americans don't have the right to vote in their Constitution! In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore said in very plain language, "the INDIVIDUAL CITIZEN has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States." You say, "Congressman, I'm a registered voter and every time there's an election I'm entitled to vote - and I vote. What do you mean I don't have a 'right to vote'?"

I mean as an American you don't have a citizenship right to vote. Voting in the United States is a "state right" not "citizenship right."

We keep on having these problems because our voting system is built on the constitutional foundation of "states' rights" - 50 states, 3,067 counties and 13,000 different election jurisdictions, ALL SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL.

If you're an ex-felon in Illinois you can register and vote. If you're an ex-felon in eleven states, mostly in the South, you're barred from voting for life. There are nearly 5 million ex-felons who have paid their debt to society but are prohibited from ever voting again - including 1.5 million African American males. But in Maine and Vermont you can vote even if you're in jail. Like I said, we have a "states rights" separate and unequal voting system.

You ask, "What's the difference between a citizenship right and a state right?"

The First Amendment contains individual citizenship rights that go with you from state to state (that is, they are the same wherever you are in the U.S.); and they are protected and enforced by the federal government. You have equal protection under the law by the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government.

Therefore, as a result of the First Amendment, every American citizen has an individual right to free speech, freedom of assembly, and religious freedom (or to choose no religion at all), regardless of which state you're in - individual rights that are protected by the federal government. You don't have such a right when it comes to voting!

A state right is NOT an American citizenship right, but a right defined and protected by each state - and limited to that state. Therefore, when it comes to voting, each state, county and election jurisdiction is different.

One-hundred-and-eight of the 119 nations in the world that elect their public officials in some democratic manner have the right to vote in their Constitution - including the Afghan Constitution and the interim document in Iraq. The United States is one of the 11 that don't!

The Bible says if you build a house on sand, when it rains, the winds blow and the storms come it will not stand. Our voting system is built on the sand of "states' rights."

That's why every four years when the entire nation is focused on a presidential election, and the rain of politics, the winds of partisanship, and the storms of campaigning come, our democratic house cannot stand the unitary test of voting fairness - and it has come close to collapsing in 2000 and 2004.

The American people are gradually losing confidence in the credibility, fairness, effectiveness and efficiency of our voting system. We cannot export our current voting system or our form of democracy to other nations because our "separate and unequal" voting system, and our concept of an Electoral College, do not reflect the best of a representative democracy. We need to build our democracy and our voting system on a rock, the rock of adding a Voting Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that applies to all states and all citizens.

We need to provide the American people with a citizenship right to vote and provide Congress with the authority to craft a unitary voting system that is inclusive of all Americans and guarantees that all votes will be counted in a complete, fair and efficient manner.

It's the only foundation upon which we can build a more perfect Union.

Every two, four or six years every member of Congress wants the people in their district or state to stand up and vote for them. Today it's time for every member of Congress to stand up and vote for the right of the people to vote, and to have their vote fairly and fully counted.
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This is Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s last constitutional amendment scheme - national voting rights. He's a chip off old dad's block. One might take it seriously if it were not for the fact the same party now expressing such a touching concern for the right to vote has never expressed it with regards to protecting traditional marriage and the unborn from the overreach of an arrogant judiciary by amending the Constitution. The party's push for national voting rights and its repeatedly losing national elections must be purely coincidental. Like everything else that ain't broken, the Democrats have to reassure the kook fringe that's become their party's mainstream that they're back on track. Hardly.

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