A sure sign that the Dems are panicking about 2008

It's a given that the Dems are scared to death about the prospect of losing the House and Senate again in 2008--which they will undoubtedly do if they fail in their efforts to sabotage the war effort and convince the American public that the Republicans were really responsible. And nothing exemplifies their panic more than this article in today's Washington Post that touts their frantic efforts to ignore the laws laid down by our nation's founders in the Constitution and create a solid Democrat House seat for the District of Columbia. They are so desperate to pad their slim majority by creating a new seat that will assuredly be Democratically-controlled forever that they're openly defying the authors of the Constitution who decided that votes in Congress shall be cast be representatives of the states. Not the territories, not the federal possessions, and specifically not the federal enclave known as the District of Columbia that was created to be a neutral zone where the states would have equal representation.
When the District of Columbia was first parceled out from land given up by Maryland and Virginia, it was intended to be a place where the new federal government would reside free of local political pressure. The framers of the Constitution didn't want any one state to have an unfair advantage over the others and be able to win favors from the federal government by virtue of the fact that the Capitol and the lawmakers worked and resided in it. To that end, they decreed that the government would operate from an enclave set apart from the states and not part of any state. And for well over two centuries, it's worked just fine.

But enter the Democrats of the 109th Congress. They care more for power than they do for the Constitution or the rule of law and they want the District of Columbia to have a Congressman with voting rights, not so much because they care about Democracy or a voice for the residents (the residents of DC can already vote for the President, ballot questions, and local election issues) but because they want another solid Democrat seat. And with D.C. being almost 80% black and impoverished, and with many of the wealthy white residents proudly self-identifying as liberal Democrats, they know that it will result in a Congressional voice for their party and their party alone. They also know that this will probably never change no matter what the Democrats do or how poorly they govern. The Dems know that they can alienate the entire country but they'll never run a risk of losing the DC seat. And we all know that if D.C. was populated by hard-working loyal Americans who tended to vote overwhelmingly Republican, the Dems would be screaming and jumping trying to bar those people from ever getting a seat. Remember Dem efforts to suppress the votes of our troops overseas in the 2000 elections? These people will stop at nothing.

And you'd better believe that they won't stop here either. If they do get a House seat, they'll then start complaining that D.C. isn't represented in the Senate and calling for two senate seats. That would be the real prize for them; one House seat out of 435 isn't that big, but two solid Dem seats out of 52 in the Senate will go a long ways towards ensuring that even if the Dems do lose the Senate, they'll likely never lose to the point where they won't be able to obstruct and block every Republican attempt to pass anything.

This attempt to give D.C. a House vote is nothing short of the first step in a back-door plan to create a new state--a state that will always be a Democrat-controlled state. It's a power grab by an opportunistic political party that knows that it literally has to cheat to win elections because it doesn't appeal to a enough voters and it never will so long as it advocates robbing the productive citizens in order to subsidize the non-productive. To that end, the Dems push hard to create new voter bases by granting the vote to felons and illegal aliens and other people who are traditionally at odds with the law-abiding working American and this country's traditional American value system. Creating a whole new state that mirrors Democratic Party values and opposes those of decent Americans would be the ultimate political dirty trick and it needs to be stopped and stopped right here by preventing them from ignoring the Constitution and the National Plan created by our Founding Fathers and giving a House seat to a group of people who are not from one of the 50 states. I have to believe that luminaries such as Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison and George Washington who actually created the District of Columbia as a representative-free zone were a little smarter and a lot more loyal to America as a whole than are Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Eleanor Holmes Norton. It follows that America should not suddenly disregard the work of the former just because it benefits the latter politically.

And if that logic doesn't convince you, can you say: "Congressman Marion Barry"?

Democrats hate the Second Amendment so much that they sacrificed a House seat for Washington DC.

"Fearing that many in their party would support Second Amendment rights for District residents, the Democratic leadership shamefully exploited a rule to kill debate and postpone the vote indefinitely," Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.

Wow. This story from the Washington Post says a lot.

The Democratic Party-controlled House of Representatives was all set to vote today on a bill that would have given the District of Columbia a vote in Congress for the first time since DC was created in 1801. Never mind the fact that the Founding Fathers chose not to grant DC voting rights back then because DC was created as a federal enclave intended to be set apart from political decision-making. It's now a majority-black city--which means that the residents will consistently elect Democrats if given a chance (Congressman Marion Barry, anyone)--and the Dems are fixated on shoring up their power base regardless of that silly Constitution.

However the Democrats themselves scrapped the vote because Republican members of Congress inserted a provision that would have forbidden the District (remember--it's still a federal enclave) from banning any guns that are legal to possess under current federal law, including allowing citizens to possess semi-automatic "assault weapons" that almost everyone else in the country can currently own. It would also have eliminated the criminal penalties currently in place for owning a gun of any kind in one's home.

This made the Democrats furious, because even though they now hold a slim majority in Congress, the House leadership, led exclusively by gun-hating liberals, knew that many of the freshman Dems recently elected to Congress are relatively conservative and pro-gun and they would defy the leadership and vote in favor of the elimination of the gun control policy despite Speaker Nancy Pelosi's wishes. And of course if they did not, some of these new, relatively conservative "Blue Dog" Dems would face repercussions for an anti-gun vote in districts where they were elected in part by people opposed to gun control. So they quailed and shelved the vote until they could re-write the bill and eliminate the Republican amendment which would have tied the city's getting a Congressional vote (unconstitutional) with the permanent elimination of the city's current (unconstitutional) gun control laws.

Kudos to Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Tex.) for inserting this amendment and forcing the Dems to show their true colors on the gun issue so early in 2007. As a party, they still oppose gun rights even more than they desire voting rights for the mostly black residents of the District of Columbia that they pretend to champion.

So Marion Barry got robbed...

That's the big story coming out of the District of Columbia today. Ex-con, Mayor-for-Life and city councilman Marion Barry fell afoul of two teen thugs who robbed him at gunpoint after he paid them to carry groceries for him (if you believe that...) and after he let them back into his apartment when they came back again later.

For those of you who live in the civilized rest of the world, Marion Barry is practically a god in the District. He was mayor for a couple of terms and it was under his "leadership" that many of DC's businesses fled and it's neighborhoods slid down into practical anarchy. During his third term, he was arrested after being caught by the FBI smoking crack with a prostitute in a seed DC motel. Charged with 12 felonies, a DC jury only convicted him of one misdemeanor drug possession charge and he was booted from office and locked up for six months.

When he got out of prison, DC voters re-elected him right back onto the city council and then elected him mayor again. After his last term, he tried to run for another council seat but the US Park Police found him in a car with another hooker and cocaine and marijuana residue. This case was never taken forward by the US Attorney but it scuttled his political career for that election cycle. He ran for council again in 2000 and got elected in large part by courting ex-cons and working the jails and housing projects for votes. DC allows many criminals to vote and Barry's re-election proves why this is a bad idea. And frankly anyone who thinks that the District of Columbia deserves more voting rights should keep this in mind as well. If DC was allowed two senators or a voting congressman tomorrow, there's a good chance that those knuckleheads would elect Barry.

But fast-forward to this robbery. These kids stuck him up in his own apartment and his response was to call a press conference and promise not to allow them to be prosecuted if they'd just return his wallet. He then issued a statement that said that he felt "hurt and betrayed" by this robbery because as Barry said, "there is a sort of an unwritten code in Washington, among the underworld and the hustlers and these other guys, that I am their friend,"

Barry still sees himself as an underworld celebrity that the thugs automatically respect and leave alone. Come on, DC voters...pull your heads out of your asses and quit putting this guy up there as your champion.

It's ironic that Barry used this press conference to call for more gun control in the District even though he won't prosecute these particular thugs, and it's also noteworthy that the District has had a total ban on firearms of any sort for over 25 years now. I guess someone didn't tell Barry's little playmates about that.

This is even funnier than the time that Barry was down on his luck and without a car. The residents of the 8th Ward--DC's poorest section--pitched in and pooled their money and bought Barry a new Cadillac just because they didn't want to see their icon riding the bus. Barry drove the car for a few months and then someone stole it when he left it parked on a street in that same 8th Ward. This gave rise to the saying that "the Ward giveth and the Ward taketh away."

But congratulations, Mayor Barry. You ran the city into the ground and turned it into a slum and a third-world cesspool, and you finally reaped some of what you sowed.

One final note is that Barry recently pled guilty to not paying federal or District of Columbia taxes on any of his pay from his last council term. He's due to be sentenced in a couple of weeks, but I'm sure that whatever happens, DC's ignorant, thug-loving voters will be only too happy to retain him in office.

PS--if it later turns out that Barry was really ripped off during another drug deal, I for one won't be surprised one bit.