By DEXTER DUGGAN
Week after week, the exposure of Obamacare’s outrages continues to fuel the national fire against this grimly partisan, unpopular, anti-religious takeover of everyone’s medical care.
It would seem that installing a new head of the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs this death-panel dictatorship, would inspire fiery U.S. Senate hearings featuring demands that the new HHS secretary bring Obamacare to heel and also undo the anti-conscience reproductive “mandate.”
However, after Sylvia Burwell on June 5 easily was confirmed by senators to succeed Kathleen Sebelius at HHS, a Washington conservative activist noted how eager many Republican senators were to make things easy for Barack Obama.
Obama has richly earned his reputation as a lying, scandal-drenched lawbreaker determined to fight every inch of the way to continue imposing his immoral Obamacare and arbitrary edicts on an unwilling public. Obama wouldn’t have chosen anyone to head HHS who didn’t share his fervor.
As a longtime left-wing Democratic activist, Burwell fills his bill. Her predecessor, Sebelius, also chosen by Obama, was a radical pro-abortionist and corrupt political schemer.
There had been a strong expectation, conservative activist Mike Needham wrote at The Daily Signal website on June 6, that “replacing Sebelius would be almost impossible because Republicans would use the confirmation process as an opportunity to expose Obamacare’s many flaws.”
The Daily Signal is a new multimedia news platform from the Heritage Foundation. Needham is chief executive officer of Heritage Action for America.
Needham recalled that, among various clued-in observers, the National Journal’s Ron Brownstein “said it was a ‘virtual certainty’ Republicans would filibuster a proposed replacement ‘to leverage more concessions from the administration’,” while a Politico reporter thought confirmation hearings would be “torturous and difficult.”
However, even these observers were fooled. Burwell sailed through confirmation with a bipartisan 78-17 vote. Twenty-four GOP senators joined in the overwhelming majority and brushed off any rebellious Tea Party spirit against corrupt D.C. deal-making.
Reflecting on this GOP distaste for any fight, Needham recalled:
“Last month, one Republican senator called Obamacare ‘an example of an important effort by the federal government to help make health care available, accessible, and affordable.’ Of Burwell, one Republican said, ‘I wish her well.’ Another was hopeful she could ‘provide some of that new leadership from the top to ensure . . . accountability.’ The irony is that Burwell was remarkably unresponsive during her confirmation. There is no reason to think she will be more forthcoming now.”
As soon as Obama announced Burwell’s nomination in April, “maverick” Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) enthusiastically endorsed her as “an excellent choice.”
Pleased that Republican senators knuckled under to him, Obama on June 5 praised the “strong, bipartisan” vote to confirm Burwell.
However, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), still feeling the pressure from a recent Tea Party challenge for his seat, took a stand against Burwell. On June 5 The Washington Post reported McConnell said, “Her embrace of this disastrous law is reason enough to oppose her confirmation. . . . In my view, the Senate shouldn’t be focusing on a new captain for the Titanic. It should focus on steering away from the iceberg.”
Still, the national political establishment generally rejects the message from a restive nation. Things are just too cozy in the Washington, D.C., bubble of luxury for lawmakers and condescension toward the country.
Voters in 2010 — energized by the newly risen Tea Party’s activism even though Republicans snoozed — delivered what Obama himself acknowledged was “a shellacking” to Democrats.
Although voters are expected to repudiate Obamacare and Democratic extremism once again in this fall’s elections, McCain and his Senate GOP allies wouldn’t even take the trouble to seriously rebuke Burwell and Obama during her confirmation process.
Voters apparently will have to keep pummeling the establishment time after time after time before their message sinks in to stay.
In a June 7 telephone interview, a California political commentator told The Wanderer that Senate Republicans “sold out” on Burwell’s nomination.
“They’re not real Republicans” said Barbara Simpson, a veteran television and radio reporter and talk host in the Golden State who writes a weekly conservative commentary for World Net Daily (www.wnd.com/author/bsimpson/).
Simpson, who carefully follows events in neighboring Arizona from the San Francisco Bay area, referred to John McCain’s strong support for Burwell. “What he’s doing is no surprise,” Simpson told The Wanderer, adding, “. . . Maybe they’re not really conservative Republicans. And a liberal Republican is no different than a liberal Democrat.”
Encouraging Results
The California commentator also spoke about some recent primary-election results.
She said she didn’t care for the gubernatorial candidate in California’s June 3 primary who was regarded as the leading conservative Republican, Tim Donnelly, a member of that state’s lower legislative house, the Assembly. “I think Donnelly hurt himself badly by some of the things he said,” and by his media relations.
She recalled Donnelly drawing wide criticism for inaccurately saying his “moderate” GOP gubernatorial foe, banker Neel Kashkari, is a Muslim.
Also, Donnelly “gave us a really hard time scheduling him” to be on her San Francisco radio program, Simpson said, then he called in 25 minutes late, so she wouldn’t put him on the air. Simpson told The Wanderer that Donnelly’s staff told her radio crew, “Yeah, he does that a lot” about not following a schedule.
If he behaved this way while trying to become governor, Simpson said, she feared he could be as arrogant as Obama if he won the office.
“I was turned off on Donnelly. I wouldn’t vote for him. . . . I think he burned a lot of bridges,” she said, although the Tea Party “really liked him a lot.”
The California ProLife Council endorsed Donnelly.
Under the California system, the top two finishers in the primary face each other in the November general election, even if they belong to the same party.
Incumbent left-wing Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown received 54.4 percent of the primary vote, according to The Los Angeles Times, while the GOP’s Kashkari came in second, at 19.1 percent. Placing third, at 14.8 percent, Donnelly thereby was forced out of the race.
Kashkari “was regarded as this beginner nobody knew anything about…spending his own money, very rich,” who, once he won a spot for the general election, “came out fighting, challenged Brown to ten debates,” and said he’s fighting for the middle class, Simpson said.
Simpson was encouraged by GOP Senate primary results in Iowa and Mississippi. “I think it’s a reflection of people starting to pay attention” and taking more interest in events.
She noted that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin endorsed Iowa’s Joni Ernst, who went on to win the GOP nomination after making a widely noted commercial about her plans to cut pork in Washington after having learned to castrate hogs in the Hawkeye State.
“I loved the things that I read about her campaign,” Simpson said. “. . . I loved that attitude, right in their face. I think her winning was a very good reflection for Palin as well.”
Age is an important factor in the Mississippi race, Simpson said, with “someone with the guts to run against Cochran.”
Incumbent, 76-year-old GOP Sen. Thad Cochran used his long service as a selling point, but ended up virtually tied with assertive Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel in the June 3 primary, forcing them into a June 24 runoff because neither had a simple majority of the vote. A third candidate siphoned off a tiny fraction of the result.
Simpson said her California radio program had a regular caller from Mississippi who said, “There are a lot of conservatives here. They just don’t talk a lot,” but “are starting to make their voices heard.”
Taxation And Immigration
As for the issue of Latino young people surging across the U.S. border illegally, Simpson, a Catholic, told The Wanderer, “It’s a flood, it’s a scandal, it’s horrific.”
If they come into California while taxpaying companies flee the state because of heavy-handed Democratic policies, she said, it’ll be the people, not the companies, paying the taxes to support the illegal entrants.
Referring to the U.S. Catholic Church’s political stand of strong support for massive illegal immigration, Simpson said, “It makes me angry with the Church that this is allowed to happen.”
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