Is “moderate Democrat” a complete oxymoron? Take the case of Jeanne Shaheen
Jeanne Shaheen is a US senator from New Hampshire. New Hampshire is still considered to be a purple state, although it has gotten more blue in recent years. Shaheen is a Democrat and was a three-term governor of the state, who came to the Senate in 2008 and was re-elected in 2014. She was popular in New Hampshire as governor by positioning herself as a moderate who appealed to both sides, and although she did propose various taxes in a state which prides itself on not having a sales or income tax, her proposals were shot down by the legislature. For most of her ten years as senator she’s tended to keep a fairly low profile and has been a loyal Democrat voting the party line.
Today Shaheen tweeted the following:
I’m calling for a hearing with the U.S. interpreter who was present during President Trump’s meeting with Putin to uncover what they discussed privately. This interpreter can help determine what @POTUS shared/promised Putin on our behalf.
— Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (@SenatorShaheen) July 17, 2018
Extraordinary.
Or, it would have been extraordinary even a year or two ago, particularly from the “moderate” Shaheens of the political world. But now it’s apparently standard to openly suggest such an unprecedented level of distrust and overreach. That someone with Shaheen’s history would tweet this sort of thing shows what the Democratic Party has become.
One of the saddest things about this is how few people probably realize how dangerous these developments are. Apparently anything is now okay, because TRUMP. And so far I haven’t seen all that much discussion of Shaheen’s tweet, except for this post by Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff, who writes sarcastically:
But why stop with the translator? Meetings with Putin aren’t the only opportunity to sell out the U.S. Why not demand testimony about what is said at meetings of the National Security Council or during conversations between Trump and John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Gen. Mattis, etc?
Why not make Trump wear a microphone and a body camera at all times?
Back when Obama was caught on an open mike talking to Medvedev about his own increased “flexibility” post-election (when he no longer would have to answer to the public), and Medvedev said he’s convey the message to Putin, no Republican suggested increased oversight of Obama’s dealings with Russia. He was the president, after all, although he had said something incredibly suspicious there, thinking it was off the record.
Shaheen’s behavior is an indication that the Democratic Party must see this sort of behavior on their part as a winner with the public, because otherwise they wouldn’t be speaking (and tweeting) so freely about their intentions. If Shaheen of New Hampshire feels free to be this route—or even compelled to go this route—it’s a very bad sign.
The “flexibility” incident is, frankly, one of the most disturbing single instances of outrageous inconsistency on the left.
In March 2012, Obama – who obviously thought he had the upcoming election in the bag – said to Putin’s representative when he thought no one would hear: “This is my last election … After my election I have more flexibility.” “I will transmit this information to Vladimir,” was the answer.
Basically: “After this show election, which I cannot possibly lose, I no longer even need to pretend to answer to the American people and then we can negotiate something that suits us but would upset the American public.”
And the left didn’t care one tiny bit!
From the beginning of the “Russian collusion” madness, back in 2016, this incident is one of the reasons I have had such growing fury with the left. As a slap in the face to the half of the nation that is sick of their sh1t and voted for ANYTHING that had a chance of beating Hillary Clinton, they only possible way they can imagine losing a presidential election is … because Russians! And to support that fantasy, everything is “Russian this and Russian that” – from a group of people who were perfectly OK with the “flexibility” incident, which was real, and worse than anything Trump has done.
As myself, Neo, and many others have mentioned before, I don’t think the Dems understand the matches they are playing with can ignite a firestorm that no one wants, but it seems we are inching towards. Their hatred of Trump is so great, they seem willing to burn it all down.
And it’s not just the leaders. Everyday the hatred comes forth from people I know on facebook, whom I never expected such behavior. It’s like a switch turned on in their brains, and now they are stuck in some continuous software loop.
I don’t think she really wants to start down this road. What’s next, demanding the Secret Service report on what they’ve witnessed in private meetings?
If the voters need to know what Trump says
in private meetings with peers, then it’s reasonable to expect that Ms. Shaheen’s voters need to know what *she* is discussing in private meetings with her party leaders, top donors, etc., too. [insert Kurt Schlicter’s warning to these people about how they will not like living by their new rules]
I grew up on a farm. When we saw a rabid animal, we shot it.
” . . . no Republican suggested increased oversight of Obama’s dealings with Russia.” [Neo]
I don’t remember any Obama officials being harangued and goaded out of restaurants, either.
And just like the Dem candidate in NY 14 who was caught on a hot mike saying that she believed assault weapons should be banned but couldn’t say it in public.
If Progressives don’t lie, cheat, or steal they can’t get elected; that says all one needs to know about the programs and the people that they support.
I’m hoping for an absolute slaughter in the November elections, not because I think that Republicans are so good, but that the Democrats are clearly so bad. As Glenn Reynolds has noted, Trump’s super power is that his very existence reveals the rot in our bureaucrats and their bureaucracies.
“Their hatred of Trump is so great, they seem willing to burn it all down.” [Physicsguy @ 2:11]
I remember during the campaign in 2016 that several commenters on this blog were of the “Never-Trump, burn it all down and start over” persuasion.
Whooda thunk that they might see their wish granted by the election of the candidate they opposed?
T:
And in 2012, there were quite a few commenters here (and many elsewhere) who wouldn’t vote for Romney and were of the “burn it down and start over” persuasion. Those same people, for the most part, loved Trump in 2016. So there are varying “burn it down” crowds of different political persuasions.
Many thumbs up to KyndyllG’s comment up top.
That is in my opinion the greatest example of left and media hypocrisy of our time. How that is not considered a thousand times worse than this latest Trump kerfuffle is beyond me.
The Democrats have to keep the outrage pegged at 11 and it doesn’t matter what the topic or issue of the week is. Now that may work for their base but for the other 70%+ of the country, I doubt it.
‘
Regarding the Gene Shaheen outrage de jour (to be sophisticated) what does the concept of “executive privilege” mean? Ain’t going to happen Senator, to speak as a semi-deplorable (didn’t vote for Trump).
I think, rather, that they recognize that their base is getting very wobbly and they’re doubling down on the rhetoric to hang on to them. The trouble is that part of the base truly is backing away and the other part is gaining on the crazy. Sow the wind; reap the whirlwind.
If only we had devised our system with checks and balances such that the President couldn’t make agreements with foreign nations without approval from the people’s representatives in the Congress.
Opportunity missed.
Steve walsh:
If only those dead, white, slave-holding patriarchs had known! 🙂
Perhaps Shaheen sees it as a matter of survival.
‘Moderate’ democrats are being culled from the party. DNC Chairman Perez has proclaimed that radicals like Ocasio-Cortez are the party’s future. DNC funds are being denied to moderates and money funneled into radical opponents in the primaries.
“Ocasio-Cortez called on activists to hold all U.S. airports, the southern and northern border in the U.S., and every ICE office in occupation: “I believe the moral character of the United States is at stake. So for me, it wasn’t a question of whether I should go down [to the border]. We have to have a rapid response. And I think every day that we go on — especially a day when something that heinous happens — we have to occupy all of it. We need to occupy every airport, we need to occupy every border, we need to occupy every ICE office until those kids are back with their parents, period.”
18 U.S. Code § 2384 – Seditious conspiracy
“If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”
Sooner or later, people who play with fire get burnt.
As noted by others, the democrates are purging anyone with even remotely ‘moderate’ credentials. When Feinstein is on the blacklist you know it will not be long before the dems publically go full Bolshevik. This is a feature, not a bug, and a good thing.
Yeah, Shaheen and some other Democrats are nuts. But then maybe they don’t mean treason-treason, maybe more what the president talked about earlier this year:
Ann,
The difference between Trump and the Congressional democrats he criticized is this; Trump loves America as it is, warts and all. The democrats love what they imagine America should become but despise it otherwise. Trump supports the liberty to disagree, dems continually declare disagreement to be evil.
Given that Congressional Democrats have sworn an oath to support the Constitution but have and are doing all they can to eviscerate it, there’s simply no doubt where treason lies and no amount of projection and lies can change it.
It certainly is a peculiar situation that I have never seen – and I am older than Neo. I see it this way: Trump is a symptom, not the cause of the socio-political upheaval we are witnessing. Both Never Trumpers and Democrats apparently think that there is a normal that they can get back to. I think that world is gone, because it hasn’t existed for some time now. The Soviet Union won the Cold War in 1968 when the Red Diaper babies began their take over of the Democratic Party. That take over is nearing completion and also includes Hollywood and education from K through Hell. When the Soviet Union fell what did the left do? It rejected the centrists – Clinton and Blair – who attempted to answer the challenge of the neo-liberals Thatcher and Reagan. It has been busy driving home the 1968 Communist victory in the Cold War ever since. The Great Arc of History was plunging to its inevitable triumph, when a jeering madman appeared mirroring and mocking them from Des Moines to desperation. I have no idea where all this ends, but I know it isn’t going to be a return to normal anytime soon.
“But now it’s apparently standard to openly suggest such an **unprecedented level of distrust and overreach** … One of the saddest things about this is how few people probably realize **how dangerous these developments are** ” – Neo
Can come up with a half dozen statements from trump and “conservative” reaction that easily fit this.
Yep, conservatives largely didn’t go over the top in the Obama days.
Today, seems the roles are reversed.
Difference = trump is an escalation = dems become hysterical (isn’t that what many on “right” say they want and love about trump?)
Today’s reaction all “proves” dems are hysterical hypocrites. OK.
What does it say about the “conservatives” who have ignored or justified trump’s words wrt putin?
Better to look and point at the dems (and worry about “them”) than ask uncomfortable questions (and wonder about “us”).
“Why not make Trump wear a microphone and a body camera at all times?”
Indeed… why not make all politicians do this? If it is a good idea for policemen, it should be an even better idea for politicians who require even more accountability.
For security reasons, the recordings would be classified. But, when it gets to a “He said; she said.” there should be a record that can set things straight.