20 Examples of Government Hypocrisy to Make You Angry

UPDATE February 1, 2020:

#35: Looking for hypocrisy? It’s historic and you’ll find it along party lines.

Get ready. The weeping and moaning is about to begin. It’s going to be loud. It’s going to be nonstop. It’s going to continue for years, so sit back and train yourself to ignore it.

Years of buildup. Months of talk. Weeks of hearings. A few days of nonsense in the Senate. Now we’re waiting for the final, perfunctory vote to acquit.

What do they say about it not being over until the lady sings?

That’s where we’re at.

Impartial means what, precisely?

Where is the historic hypocrisy in this ridiculous liberal pageant? It’s hiding behind two words: party lines. It’s acceptable, even mandatory to remove a president because you have a partisan majority, but it’s absolutely, positively not OK to acquit him along party lines.

This won’t make any sense to you if you are a Republican. That’s a good sign. This is the kind of partisan hypocrisy that only makes sense to Democrats.

As of yesterday Nancy Pelosi is still trying to salvage a victory from the ashes of the same kind of partisan defeat she subjected House Republicans to:

The President was impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He is impeached forever. There can be no acquittal without a trial. And there is no trial without witnesses, documents and evidence.¹⁸

So Trump is impeached for time immemorial but he was never impeached because Democrats lost their gambit on the same terms they used to declare a victory.

That doesn’t make any sense, either.

Steny Hoyer tossed in his two cents in an even more hypocritical statement:

Senators cannot be faithful to their oaths of impartiality if they conspire with the President to prevent the testimony of witnesses with damning information against his case.¹⁹

Damning information is the only kind that matters to Pelosi, Hoyer, and company. Being impartial was the very least of their worries long ago when they declared Trump’s overwhelming guilt for something they had a very difficult time identifying until the Ukraine call opened a door.

Now they will discover how not being impartial works when the shoe is on someone else’s foot. I suggest you go out today and purchase some earplugs. It’s going to be a very long, very loud year.

Hypocrisy Update February 19, 2020:

#36: white collar criminals vs. drugs and guns

Rod Blagojevich was released to the media last night. It was a surreal moment, as if the clocks had been turned back eight years and he was still making the rounds pleading his case to the public.

This morning Trump is being praised by some, damned by others for yesterday’s commutations and pardons. A list of the lucky offenders is on WhiteHouse.gov.²⁰ The eleven grants of clemency were primarily for white collar crimes. Three were for drug offenses.

Cohen weighs in

It didn’t take long for long-time Trump hater Steve Cohen (D-TN) to get started:

President Trump has it completely wrong. The presidential pardon power was designed to right inequities in the justice system, as all should be equal before the law. Instead, Trump has used the pardon power to benefit the wealthy, famous and politically connected.²¹

Skin color is the defining factor for Cohen:

While 37.5 percent of the federal prison population is African American, Trump has offered only one commutation to a living African American, and that at the urging of Kim Kardashian.²²

I don’t recall the same vitriol we’re hearing over the Trump list when Barack Obama chose hypocrisy and pardoned those whose crimes included guns.
Obama prided himself on commutations in bulk:

Underscoring his commitment to reforming our criminal justice system, the President has commuted the sentences of more individuals than the past 7 presidents combined.²³

Drug crimes ranked high on Obama’s list, especially those involving cocaine and cocaine base, despite the fact that these drugs tear apart the communities Democrats pride themselves on standing behind.

Gun crimes were another popular item. “…possession of a firearm in furtherance” is a phrase that turns up routinely in a list of 64 pardons and 209 commutations announced by Obama on January 17, 2017. In fact, the list of offenses includes the word “firearm” 59 times.²⁴

Imagine the liberal outcry if that word was on Trump’s list even once and then ask yourself which subset of criminals you would fear less if they moved into your neighborhood?

UPDATE March 4, 2020:

#37: Which is it? Democrats defend ACA they want to destroy.

Democrats still can’t make up their minds about Obamacare. Do they want to keep their hero’s greatest accomplishment or do they want to kill it?

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is unhappy with the Supreme Court’s decision to hear Texas v. U.S., the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act. Schumer blames Republicans and the president instead of the party that created this very expensive disaster:

Make no mistake: a big reason that the fate of these vital health care protections is in the hands of the Supreme Court is because Congressional Republicans and President Trump support the lawsuit to take health care away and haven’t lifted a finger to stop it.²⁵

Schumer called the GOP lawsuit a “healthcare sabotage.”²⁶ Nancy Pelosi followed up by announcing that the ACA is essential during the epidemic “coronavirus crisis:”²⁷

The Affordable Care Act is an essential pillar of health and financial security for American families, and its protections are even more critical during a dangerous epidemic.²⁸

As much as Pelosi’s party wants to frighten Americans, we don’t have an epidemic quite yet. The virus is still a useful political tool for divisive Democrats. Still, it would be helpful for their base if the party would keep its story straight about the fate of the ACA.

Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All Bill will dismantle Obama’s legacy:

Health insurance exchanges and specified federal health programs terminate upon program implementation.²⁹

Private insurers can’t sell coverage that Medicare for All provides. That means a death blow to the health insurance industry and all the jobs it finances as an integral part of providing coverage through Obamacare.

132 Dems sign on to dump Obamacare

14 Senate and 118 House Democrats signed on as cosponsors of the House and Senate Medicare for All bills (Schumer did not cosponsor the Senate bill). It might be easier for Sanders, Warren, and other radical progressives if POTUS did say no to Obamacare. At least they’d have a better excuse why we need to replace what the party still vigorously defends with something designed to destroy it.

UPDATE March 18, 2020:

#39: do we still hate the pharmaceutical industry?

In a “Seniors Update 2019” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders talked about:

the harm the pharmaceutical industry inflicts on our communities.³⁰

He accuses the industry of corporate murder:

The pharmaceutical industry is killing Americans.³¹

Now a virus is killing Americans. We need drug companies to stop it.

Considering the House and Senate willingness to spend hundreds of billions that will likely turn into two or more trillion, the price tag for a cure first and then a vaccine for this doomsday bug should be whatever it costs.

My first guess was that we’ll be happy to pay it.

I wasn’t entirely right.

New York Congressman Max Rose and a long list of Democratic colleagues sent a letter to President Trump that disagrees:

The American taxpayer has already invested hundreds of millions of dollars into developing urgently needed Coronavirus vaccines and treatments,” Rose said. “We cannot then turn around and allow big drug manufactures to exploit this public health emergency to price gouge and rip off consumers.”³²

That was from Rose’s February 21, 2020 press release announcing the letter. Perhaps his attitude has changed by now?

One thing is certain. If and when we come out of this, members of Congress will fight over taking credit even if they provide no real value.

Pharmaceutical companies will be damned even if they come up with a miracle cure tomorrow.

It’s the height of government hypocrisy, but that’s how this works.

UPDATE March 29, 2020:

#40: illegal immigrants wanted, Americans keep out or else

So what, exactly, makes a person a refugee?

Rhode Island Democratic Rep. David Cicilline stood up for “some of the most hardworking and accomplished people I’ve met”³³ when he backed the House American Dream and Promise Act:

Cicilline has spoken out repeatedly about the importance of standing up for the Dreamers, individuals who were brought to the United States as children, and TPS holders, who came here after leaving behind violence, natural disasters, or desperate humanitarian conditions in their native countries.³⁴

According to FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, Rep. Cicilline’s state claimed sanctuary status in 2014. A May 7, 2017 press release from six state attorney generals, including Rhode Island AG Peter Kilmartin, defended these sanctuary policies and RI’s policy on ICE detainers.³⁵

COVID-19 appears to have changed how Rhode Island defines sanctuary. By any measure New Yorkers are caught in a desperate humanitarian condition, or at least they are if news reports are accurate. In response refugee citizens seeking a safe haven are faced with Rhode Island’s Executive Order 20-12. The document seems harmless enough at first glance and requires only a 14-day self-quarantine until you stumble across the warning that New Yorkers “may be heading for refuge.”³⁶ To that end, NY refugees will be profiled, targeted, rooted out by law enforcement, and subject to fines and jail time.

That’s a pretty big slice of Democratic hypocrisy the liberal left should choke on when this crisis is past, but no doubt the spin will make this a Trump problem and not a failure to stand by extremist immigration values that put citizens at risk.

UPDATE April 13, 2020:

#41: letting prisoners out and keeping law-abiding citizens in

Criminal justice reform and decarceration are issues popular with the left. Rep. Ayanna Pressley introduced H.Res. 702, the People’s Justice Guarantee, to deal with her party’s mass incarceration crisis:

Ultimately, the resolution calls to substantially reduce the number of people incarcerated and transform the purpose and experience of the criminal legal system.³⁷

That one never went anywhere. Now it doesn’t have to.

In a March 30, 2020 letter Reps. Karen Bass (D-CA) and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) appealed to Attorney General William Barr to release federal prisoners:

We call on you, in the most urgent of terms, to do the right thing and exercise this authority and immediately move to release medically-compromised, elderly, and pregnant prisoners in the custody of the BOP.

In addition, we urge that you use every tool at your disposal to release as many prisoners as possible, to protect them from COVID-19.³⁸

The Justice Department listened. The Federal Bureau of Prisons reports it has increased home confinement by “over 40%” since March and continues to screen to find acceptable candidates. State and local facilities have taken similar measures to avoid outbreaks in their prisons and jails.

Meanwhile, millions and millions of Americans are also assigned to home confinement. We didn’t break any laws. No crimes were committed. We don’t have a choice.

If we are safe confined to our homes, why aren’t prison inmates safe if they are confined to their cells?

Sources

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