With Halloween creeping up on us, we must turn our attention to spooky stuff. Though it looks like Republicans are in good shape to take the Senate, in the horrific possibility that Democrats prevail, here are the three scariest scenarios:
Former Attorney General Eric Holder could become a Supreme Court Justice
That may be why he resigned his AG post. With five of the nine current justices 75 or over, Obama may have two or three SCOTUS appointees approved by a Democrat majority by term’s end. Only a simple Senate majority is required for confirmation and the House doesn’t have a voice.
And what are Eric Holder’s qualifications? Hard to say; he has distinguished himself in so many ways. Immediately after taking his vow to uphold the nation’s laws, he halted the prosecution of menacing New Black Panthers standing at the doors of a polling place with billy clubs, violating the Voting Rights Act by intimidating voters as well as election judges.
As Attorney General, Holder may hold the record for suing the very states that created the federal DOJ. He famously sued Arizona for attempting to stanch the flood of illegal immigrants and cartels smuggling people and drugs over the border. He has sued several states for laws requiring a voter to provide photo proof that he is who he says he is. His DOJ even sued the state of Pennsylvania because only 71 percent of women could pass its fitness requirements for state troopers.
Holder has showed his distaste for the First Amendment in a variety of creative ways that threaten a free press. He lied to Congress about personally signing documents that named Fox News reporter James Rosen a co-conspirator in alleged “leaks.” Always fair and balanced, he also approved the DOJ secretly seizing phone records of Associated Press reporters and even a New York Times writer.
But it’s in becoming the first attorney general in American history to be held in criminal contempt of Congress that Holder has really distinguished himself. It started when ATF agents under Justice Department orders allowed thousands of weapons to “walk” into the hands of Mexican cartel criminals in a transparent attempt to blame the U.S. for supplying arms to drug-runners. Hundreds of Mexicans, and at least one American, Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, were killed by these weapons.
Holder denied, but later admitted, that the operation known as Fast and Furious ever happened. His refusal to release documents about the scheme to Congress earned him the contempt citation, though the president instantly gave him protective cover in the form of a dubious “executive privilege.” Will the Fast and Furious documents be released October 22, as a federal judge recently ordered? Or will Holder suddenly discover a massive computer crash?
Obamacare would not be repealed
Obamacare has already wormed its relentless way into the vital organs of America, from job losses, to restriction of vital care and medication to cancer patients and other sufferers, to astronomical insurance bills. Instead of saving us $2,500 a year as the president promised, rates are going up as deductibles climb to $6,000 or even $10,000. Millions have had their plans canceled and are forced into costly coverage they don’t want or must pay fines instead.
Businesses have been reducing their workforce, workers’ hours and paychecks, in order to avoid the “Affordable Care Act’s” gold-plated mandates. According to the Congressional Budget Office about 2 million workers will lose their jobs as a result of the healthcare law, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024.
Obamacare along with Obama policies also depresses wages; in a Washington Post article, former chair of the FDIC Sheila Bair wrote that “real median household income …declined 4.4 percent since the ‘recovery’ began in 2009.” Despite Obama’s constant podium-pounding that his economic policies have helped Americans prosper, the Obama income drop is a devastating 10.9 percent for African-Americans, 9.6 percent for those under 26, and 7.5 percent for unmarried mothers.
It’s not too late to repeal this disaster. The law has already been chopped and diced by executive chef Obama as the administration delays and alters its convoluted provisions. Controlling the Senate, the Republicans could repeal and replace the Hydra-headed monster with a plan that allows insurance companies to compete across state lines thus lowering costs, while still providing help for those with pre-existing conditions.
Repeal must come soon or the future of American healthcare will look something like the one foreshadowed by an article, “Why I Hope to Die at 75,” in October’s Atlantic magazine. Its author: Dr. Zeke Emanuel, an Obamacare architect and influential medical advisor to the president and the bureaucrats who make the rules. This “healer” makes clear his view of a human being’s value: as we get older our abilities aren’t what they once were and we’re no longer very useful to society. How selfish for oldsters to hang around and suck up limited medical (but really financial) resources.
As director of the Clinical Bioethics Department (!) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Emanuel is the sort of person who would likely sit on the tribunal that decides who gets a knee or heart operation. I don’t relish that idea, but then I naively thought doctors were supposed to help keep us alive.
Obama’s threat to legalize 5 to 11 million illegal immigrants won’t be stopped
According to a new Rasmussen Report, 62 percent of likely voters oppose the president granting amnesty to illegal immigrants without congressional approval. But there will be nothing to stop him if Democrats retain the Senate.
This enormous amnesty would destroy the job-seeking chances of millions of Americans forced to compete with millions of newly-minted “legals” for similar lower-wage jobs. These are the very Americans suffering the most in this floundering economy. The unemployment rate hailed triumphantly by Obama was 5.9 percent in September but that only counts those seeking a job in the last four weeks. The “real” unemployment rate was nearly double that: 11.8 percent according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) which keeps track of both numbers.
Plus Pew research finds “the unemployment rate among blacks is about double that among whites, as it has been for most of the past six decades.” For Hispanics, it’s almost as bad. So those troubled groups’ “real” unemployment rate is approaching 20 percent — and Obama’s amnesty would make it even harder for them to find work.
If you don’t want Obama to keep punishing the very Americans he always says he wants to help with “more opportunity and prosperity,” we need a Republican Senate. And we need it now.
Joy Overbeck is a Colorado journalist and author published at The Washington Times, Townhall, The Daily Caller, American Thinker, Breakpoint.org, www.mycoloradoview.com and elsewhere. Twitter: @JoyOverbeck1