GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

The UKIP: Shades of the Tea Party

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First off, in the UK, a left-wing politician gets surprisingly candid about immigration’s importance:

Stella Creasy, the Labour & Co-operative MP for Walthamstow, said that Britain either needs immigration or a massive baby boom in order to support the growing number of pensioners, or else “our ability to sustain our economy” will collapse. She added that this would leave the NHS in crisis.

In an interview with Progress magazine, Ms Creasy said: “There are now more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 16 in Britain, so unless women like me have a lot of children very quickly, our ability to sustain our economy, to sustain our public services [will come under threat].”

Perhaps her horror at the thought of women “like her” needing to have children feeds into the horror that UK establishment parties feel about the rise of the UK Independence Party?

She said that this made UKIP leader Nigel Farage “deeply unpatriotic” as his party has campaigned for an end to mass immigration. UKIP are “basically talking about managing the decline of Britain” she said.

And it is true that UKIP voters believe that Britain needs tighter border controls. But does that make them “deeply unpatriotic”? Perhaps over-the-top name-calling is a tactic of the Left in the UK, as well as in America.

In reality, the UKIP stands in a libertarian-Thatcherite tradition; hardly unpatriotic, and not even very anti-immigrant. Its leader, Nigel Farage, has explicitly said “We’re not going to join in with extremist-nationalist groups” in the European Parliament. To the extent that Farage is required to ally with parties from other countries, he prefers Beppe Grillo, the comedian who leads Italy’s anti-establishment 5-Star movement.

“I met Beppe Grillo last week … I am hoping we can do a deal with him and our group will sit bang in the middle politically of that parliament with a strong Europsceptic agenda,” Farage told the BBC in an interview…

Farage repeated previous comments that he would not work with France’s National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who this week struck a deal with four other Eurosceptic parties. “They come from a different political family,” he said. “We want nothing to do with that party at all.”

Which brings us to the point. To its great shame, the UK’s Conservative Party *is* now going to work with parties that it calls “unacceptable”, against Farage and the UKIP. Because the Conservative establishment is that frightened of Farage’s upstart movement, or of any effective challenge to Big Government.

I am reminded of nothing so much as how the Republican establishment treats the Tea Party (i.e., stab them in the back whenever possible, and even if it means betraying principles). It’s a sad moment for the once-great party of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

Thoughts on Rubio’s Rationale for pushing the Schumer Bill

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Should the Senate immigration bill (or something similar) pass the House and be signed into law by President Obama, Marco Rubio’s political career will likely end with the 2016 elections. Conservatives in the party will be upset and will likely put up a candidate to oppose him the 2016 GOP primary (for the charismatic incumbent’s U.S. Senate seat).

Should Congress fail to pass comprehensive immigration reform, by the time the 2016 elections roll around, most people will have forgotten the past few months of negotiations and debate (on this issue) and will remember Senator Rubio for his conservative record and his Reaganesque manner of speaking.

My sense (and this is just a sense) is that Rubio is banking on the House to hold the line and not pass an immigration bill as sweeping as that he championed in the Senate.  (Watch him in the coming weeks; if he puts pressure on the House to move, then it will show that there is little substance to this sense.)

He championed this issue not so much because he wanted to see the Schumer bill pass, but to break ranks, on a major issue, with the conservatives who have embraced him  He wanted to present an image of a politician willing to work in a bipartisan manner, one who does not march in lockstep with his party.

And the man whom the Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media recently (ridiculously) derided for drinking water has now earned respect in their circles.  Oh, they’ll pull out the knives again as soon as the Floridian points out flaws in Obamcare or challegnes the administration on its foreign policy (or lack thereof).

But, for now these purveyors of public opinion see him as a principled reformer willing to buck his party.

And Marco, bear in mind, what happened to the media’s favorite Republican when he secured his party’s presidential nomination back in 2008. [Read more…]

Scandal central? Or a whole lot of talk that will amount to nothing?

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As the scandals engulfing the Obama Administration have proliferated and “gotten legs” this week, many of the conservatives I know or whom I hear on the radio have started drawing comparisons with what happened under Nixon, bringing up the word “impeachment,” and hoping that as  it becomes evident that these activities were not accidents but part of a coordinated strategy, Obama will eventually resign, or at least some of those who hold key posts of power in this administration–such as Eric Holder–will resign and that the Administration will be hopelessly tainted as the truth becomes known.

I hear that talk, and I think, it would be nice, but I can’t see it happening.  Maybe Holder will resign.  Maybe.

I can imagine the press starting to subject the Obama Administration to a little more scrutiny in the future, but “a little more” than none is still only a little bit of scrutiny, hardly enough to make a significant difference in public opinion.  While the outrage surrounding all of this may be enough for the Republicans to hold the House and to gain control in the Senate in 2014, there will still be formidable problems, and we’ll still have a very divided country.  The low-information voters in the electorate will still be willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt because most of them are either unwilling to see him for the cynical, partisan character he is, or they are unable to do so.

It is possible that after a year or two of scandals and after the outrage that is sure to follow the full implementation of Obamacare, Obama will end his second term with even lower approval ratings than George W. Bush ended his, but at this point, I think that’s about the most we can hope for, that, and maybe Holder’s resignation.  I’m not even sure any of this will derail the immigration bill, which is looking more and more like the next legislative disaster coming down the pike.

I’m not trying to be pessimistic, merely practical.  In the lead-up to the election in November, I knew that what happened  with the administration’s lies about Benghazi was an outrage, but after the election, it seemed evident to me that Obama, Hillary, and the entire administration were going to get away without any consequences.  The American voters had failed to demand answers and accountability and had just re-elected Obama.

Now that the scandals are starting to illustrate the kinds of things conservatives have been saying about Obama for years and years now, some liberals are upset with Obama, but others are busy trying to find more ways to blame conservatives for making an issue of the problems.   In one of the most ironic defenses of Obama I have encountered so far, David Axelrod offered the “incompetence” excuse, namely, that the government is just too big for Obama to really know what’s going on, an excuse we are sure to hear echoed in the days ahead.  Forgive me if I can’t forget that in November the American electorate rejected a man who was renowned for his management skills and his ability to lead large organizations successfully, all so they could re-elect the “community organizer.”

So what do our readers think?  Am I just being pessimistic about all this?  Is the investigation of these scandals likely to have real and significant consequences for our government, or are they a lot of talk that will amount to nothing, or at least nothing much?

Immigration Reform & NC Medicaid Proposal

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Two lip-smackingly fun issues that I have posted on today at my other locales.

  1. How About Immigration Reform That Makes America Smarter? – Ricochet
  2. NC Gov. McCrory Unveils Sweeping Medicaid Reform – WatchdogWire, NC

-Bruce (@GayPatriot)

Does McCain Think USA Is A “Nation Of Laws”?
Or Not?

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I’m telling you, I’m on the verge of not voting for President in November and just sticking with putting my energy into the NC Governor’s Race. 

Just when I’m starting to think that McCain is the better of two evils, he says something that completely disgusts me and, more importantly, concerns me about his willingness to sacrifice the fundamental principles of the United States of America.

QUESTIONER: Senator, you have been a leader on immigration reform in the Senate but unfortunately Congress has failed to make progress on this very critical issue. As the next President of the Unites States of America will comprehensive immigration reform, and not just enforcement, be one of your top policy priorities in you’re first 100 days in office?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: It will be my top priority yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

The first part is bad enough.   But it gets worse….

And my friends, thank you for the question, and let me just review for you again, we tried. I reached across the aisle to Senator Ted Kennedy, and by the way I know that he’s in your prayers, and we worked in bipartisan fashion. And we were defeated. And by the way, it wasn’t very popular, let’s have some straight talk, with some in my party, and so I did that and worked together so we could carry out a federal responsibility.

We have to secure our borders, that’s the message. But we also must proceed with a temporary worker program that is verifiable and truly temporary, we must also understand that there are 12 million people who are here and they are here illegally and they are God’s children, they are God’s children and they will be treated in a humane fashion based on the principle obviously that someone who comes here legally cannot have priority over someone who comes here illegally.

Although Byron York reports that “The McCain campaign says that in the answer above, McCain fumbled the words “legally” and “illegally” when he said that “someone who comes here legally cannot have priority over someone who comes here illegally,” and they want to assure readers he was not setting some bold new policy“…. it doesn’t much matter.

What McCain doesn’t seem to realize is that “God’s Children” do not have an “automatic divine right” to American citizenship.  Especially if they break the laws of this country in the process of getting here.  What the hell is wrong with him?

Since McCain thinks that anyone who enters the country illegally has automatic dibs on US citizenship, and since the Supreme Court believes that Constitutional legal protection should extend to non-US, foreign enemy combantants, then I say — let’s just go for the full monty.

No more immigration laws, dismantle the border crossings, no customs checks at airport.   Just open it all up and let chaos reign.

Oh and by the way, I’ll stop paying my US taxes immediately… become a citizen of Canada…. and then re-enter the USA illegally (along with some Al-Qaeda sleepers, I’m sure) to get all of the benefits of the US Constitution that I have now — but this time for free!!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)