The Patriot Post® · Leftists Seek to Guarantee Permanent Power

By Gary Bauer ·
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/78164-leftists-seek-to-guarantee-permanent-power-2021-03-04

The House of Representatives passed HR 1 last night. The bill is a top priority for the left, and it is a disaster on every level. It is a massive federal power grab that seeks to make permanent everything that was wrong with the 2020 elections.

  • It bans commonsense measures like state voter ID laws.

  • It mandates same-day voter registration, which increases the potential for voter fraud.

  • It mandates voter registration when individuals sign up for welfare benefits and other public services. This will result in many illegal aliens being registered to vote.

  • It mandates taxpayer funding of political campaigns.

  • It forces states to immediately register convicted felons to vote after they are released from prison.

  • It forces all states to conduct redistricting by commissions, rather than the elected legislature.

  • It dramatically expands the use of mail-in balloting.

As former Vice President Mike Pence warns, the legislation is “a brazen attempt to nationalize elections in blatant disregard of the U.S. Constitution.” Fortunately, the bill isn’t expected to pass the Senate.

And here’s more good news: Election reform is also a top priority for conservatives at the state level, where elections are supposed to be managed. There are more than 200 bills moving through state legislatures to roll back many of the “pandemic emergency” orders that caused so much chaos last year.

This is a top priority for me, and I know it is for you as well. Rest assured, we are working with allied organizations in the states to advance these necessary measures so we can restore ballot security and integrity to our elections.

Speaking of Elections…

A new Harvard-Harris poll on the 2024 election is out. If the 2024 primary were held today, 52% of Republicans would support President Trump for the GOP nomination. Vice President Mike Pence was second with 18%, followed by former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley at 7%.

If Trump passes on 2024, Pence leads with 41%, followed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz at 16%, and Nikki Haley again in third place at 10%.

Could there be a Trump/Biden rematch? Most voters don’t think so. Only 39% expect President Joe Biden to run for a second term.

Democrats Struggle With COVID Bill

Democrats are struggling with the COVID relief bill under debate in the Senate. To begin with, it is misnamed. They are calling it the American Rescue Plan. It should be called the “Democrat Bailout Bill.”

Very little of it has to do with COVID relief. As we have noted before, one-third of the entire $1.9 trillion bill doesn’t get spent until 2022 or later. That’s neither an emergency nor is it relief.

For everyone who has lost a job or is struggling to pay bills, I am glad you will be getting some help from the stimulus checks. But, again, those checks account for only $422 billion — less than a quarter of the spending in this monstrosity.

One conservative congressman suggested that all the pork and bailouts in the bill should be cut in order to increase the stimulus checks to $10,000. While that seems a bit excessive to me, I trust the American people more than Nancy Pelosi to better prioritize those resources.

Meanwhile, Democrats have been forced to trim some items. The $15 per hour minimum wage hike was rejected by the Senate parliamentarian. She also threw out Nancy Pelosi’s subway system ($141 million) and Chuck Schumer’s bridge to Canada ($1.5 million).

But in a bill that is supposedly meant to save lives, Democrats gave tens of millions of dollars to the biggest destroyer of innocent lives — Planned Parenthood.

How has Planned Parenthood been hurt? While liberal governors shut down our churches, they insisted that Planned Parenthood stay open!

Unfortunately, it gets worse. My good friend Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List warns that Democrats refused to include the Hyde Amendment in the COVID bill. That means tax dollars provided in this so-called “rescue plan” will be used to pay for abortions.

Any senator who claims to be pro-life should oppose this terrible bill.

Biden’s Border Blunders

Tuesday afternoon there was tragic news that a Ford SUV collided with a big rig truck in California. The SUV was packed with 25 illegal aliens, and at least 13 were killed in the crash. Incredibly, in the age of COVID, we still have human smugglers bringing in more than two dozen people in one vehicle.

They reportedly cut a hole in the border fence. Not in Trump’s wall, which is strong, but in the weak fencing Congress has reluctantly built over the years when the politicians pretended to secure our border.

While the truck crash made headlines, President Biden’s open-border policies are creating a slow-motion train wreck at the southern border. Of course, it’s being done in the name of compassion, but there’s no compassion for American workers and taxpayers.

Biden is putting downward pressure on wages by allowing more illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for jobs during the pandemic. And where’s the compassion for American taxpayers who pay for local schools, hospitals, and other social services?

Meanwhile, city officials in Brownsville, Texas, said the Biden administration has released 108 migrants who tested positive for COVID. If one kid in your school gets COVID, the whole school gets shut down. Way to go, Joe!

And to top it all off, Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of Homeland Security, said this week that the Biden administration’s message to illegal immigrants is this: “We are not saying, ‘Don’t come.’ We’re saying, ‘Don’t come now,’” because they don’t yet have a safe and orderly procedure to process illegal immigrants.

This is utter nonsense!

We already have a safe and orderly procedure — it’s called the legal immigration system. And the message to illegal immigrants should always be, “Don’t come illegally. Period.”

New polling shows that Biden’s open-border policies are extremely unpopular. While many Democrats don’t think that entering the country undocumented should be illegal, 65% of Americans disagree. And 67% oppose Biden’s catch-and-release policies.

Again, I want to stress that border security has nothing to do with race. America is one of the most diverse and welcoming countries in the world.

But, as we noted yesterday, Americans of every race are being hurt by open-border, quasi-amnesty policies. In fact, there is a strong argument to be made that minority communities are hurt the most. And it’s one reason why Donald Trump did so well among Hispanics. Wake up, GOP!