- Samuel's Blog - https://samuelgordonstewart.com -

The Obama administration’s new trick: blackmail

The latest trick in the Obama Administration’s playbook appears to be a legalised version of blackmail.

New York based Democrat Senator Charles Schumer is blackmailing the states [1] with an “adopt my text-driving reforms, or lose your highway funding” approach.

Other speakers at the two-day conference in Washington, D.C., included Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who called upon the administration and auto and phone industry associations to endorse his ALERT driving bill — Avoiding Life Endangering and Reckless Texting — which he introduced in July along with colleagues.

Schumer said Ford Motors and Verizon are backing the bill, which asks for states to ban texting while driving or risk losing a quarter of their annual federal highway funding.

But it’s not just the states who are being blackmailed, it’s Republican Senators too. Jim DeMint, Republican Senator from South Carolina, and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was due to fly out in a few hours, leading a delegation on a fact-finding mission to Honduras, to find out the details of their political unrest ahead of their November election. Democrat Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, blocked the trip at the last moment [2].

Mr. DeMint spoke to Mark Levin [3] a short time after the news of Mr. Kerry’s decision broke, and made the startling revelation that he was blackmailed. A revelation which the media has ignored.

Mark Levin: Now Senator, if you had wanted to go to Copenhagen uh to lobby for the Olympics, would there have been any objection, yes or no?

Jim DeMint: Apparently not um, although I guess the President wants all the credit on that one but uh, no this Honduras thing has been something they’ve been trying to keep under wraps and, they’re telling me if I will just uh let a couple of their nominations go through without debate or vote, then they’ll let me go on the trip. But I have not…

Mark Levin: Wait a minute! Wait a minute, they’re blackmailing you!

Jim DeMint: Sure, I, I, uh…

Mark Levin: They’re insisting that you either vote for a couple more libs to go in to the state department or you can’t go. Is that what they’re saying?

Jim DeMint: That’s pretty much it. There are nominations for Latin America, deputy secretary there, as well ambassador to Bril…to Brazil. The both of these uh diplomats are, are on record agreeing with the Obama administration that this [the Honduras situation] is a military coup and we need to reinstate the President who was trying to overthrow the Constitution. I wish people in our country were as serious about the Constitution as the people of Honduras have tried to be.

Interview download:
[audio:http://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/LevinDeMintInterview20091001.mp3]
Download MP3 [4]
Audio courtesy Mark Levin Show and Citadel Radio Network.

Both cases are blackmail, pure and simple. In the former case, many states will cave either because they like the legislation or they want the money, while other states (and a smaller number) will resist, just like a handful of states rejected the stimulus money. As for the latter, good on Jim DeMint for not only not bowing to the pressure, but for having the guts to expose it on national radio. It’s good to see that some people in politics still have principles.

As for the Obama administration…can we really be surprised by any of their tactics any more?

Samuel