Carolina Politics Online

Appearing before Graham on ABC’s “This Week,” Axelrod had brushed off Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) criticism of healthcare reform, saying that Brown had voted for a very similar package for his home state of Massachusetts.

“Senator Brown comes from a state that has a healthcare plan that’s similar to the one we’re trying to enact here,” Axelrod said. “We’re just trying to give the rest of America the same opportunities that the people of Massachusetts have.”

That argument rubbed Graham the wrong way.

“The American people are getting tired of this crap,” Graham said of Axelrod’s comments. “No way in the world is what they did in Massachusetts like what we’re about to do in Washington.”

The Hill

While it is true that America has grown tired of the lies and deception of the Obama administration, it is ironic that Senator Graham is tuned into that frequency, yet he cannot see that many of us here in South Carolina are as equally tired of Senator Graham’s crap.

That will be a cold day in Hell.  This man is becoming more incredible by the day.

I can say with the utmost certainty right now that I will not be fingerprinted by the Federal government and treated like a common criminal just so I can have a job and if Lindsey Graham thinks that the people of this state are going to stand for this he is sorely mistaken.

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.

The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card.

“It’s the nub of solving the immigration dilemma politically speaking,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview. The card, he said, would directly answer concerns that after legislation is signed, another wave of illegal immigrants would arrive. “If you say they can’t get a job when they come here, you’ll stop it.”

The biggest objections to the biometric cards may come from privacy advocates, who fear they would become de facto national ID cards that enable the government to track citizens.

“It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people’s privacy,” said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. “We’re not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We’re also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification.”

The Wall Street Journal

Damn right it will. That’s the same thing that happened with Social Security. Your Social Security number was only supposed to be used within the parameters of that program and it ended up turning into a national identifier for just about every aspect of our lives, credit, employment, loans, etc. This proposal is a back door to the National ID that people have been pushing back against.

We don’t need an Orwellian government tracking program to stop illegal immigration. We just need to enforce the existing laws on the books.

Lindsey Graham needs to be stopped.  He is morphing into an oppressive fascist who no longer has any respect for our Constitution nor the freedom of the American people.

He’s at it again.

Reporting from Washington – Despite steep odds, the White House has discussed prospects for reviving a major overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, a commitment that President Obama has postponed once already.

Obama took up the issue privately with his staff Monday in a bid to advance a bill through Congress before lawmakers become too distracted by approaching midterm elections.

In the session, Obama and members of his Domestic Policy Council outlined ways to resuscitate the effort in a White House meeting with two senators — Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — who have spent months trying to craft a bill.

According to a person familiar with the meeting, the White House may ask Schumer and Graham to at least produce a blueprint that could be turned into legislative language.

The basis of a bill would include a path toward citizenship for the 10.8 million people living in the U.S. illegally. Citizenship would not be granted lightly, the White House said. Undocumented workers would need to register, pay taxes and pay a penalty for violating the law. Failure to comply might result in deportation.

Los Angeles Times

This sounds like the same stupid idea Bush trotted out a few years back.  Who is going to register and pay all of these penalties when they can just stay here under the radar and milk the system?  Notice that there is no definitive punishment for not complying.  It says who do not may get deported, not will.

With 16.8% unemployment nation wide and South Carolina’s unemployment rate over 12%, why in the hell is Lindsey Graham trying to legalize another 10 million people and bring them into the mainstream work force?  American citizens can’t even find a job right now.

Additionally, with all the problems the Obama administration has had with health care, Cap and Trade, spending, and everything else they’ve tried to do, why would Obama even want to go anywhere near this political hot potato?  Does he not remember the backlash that occurred around this country when Bush brought up his amnesty bill?  People are already seriously pissed off at this administration and the overall government in general.  The Democrats are already plenty damaged over the health care bill.  Can you imagine what is going to happen once they start pushing forward with amnesty again?  Sometimes I am convinced this man wants his party to get obliterated in November.  Is he really this obtuse?

But Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent working with Graham and Kerry, said a detailed outline of a bill could come within days and that it will have to include a ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions that drops in future years.

Last June, the House narrowly passed a climate change bill with cap-and-trade as its centerpiece and a carbon-reduction target of 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels.

But the initiative has stalled in the Senate, despite Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approval of a similar bill.

But, as a result of work in the past few months, Kerry said he was feeling “more confident” that a climate change bill could be presented to the Senate for passage this year.

“We’re looking at a new way of coming at this that we think can attract greater support,” Kerry said.

Environmentalists have speculated the bill the senators will produce could take a “sectoral approach” by imposing a new carbon-pricing mechanism on utilities, which account for about 40 percent of the emissions blamed for global warming.

Sources also have said there is talk of a transportation tax. Pollution controls on manufacturers could be put off for a few years to give time for more affordable alternative energy sources to come on line, they have said.

Reuters

I would really like to wonder exactly when it was that someone beat Lindsey Graham with the stupid stick because that guy has nothing but shit for brains.  A transportation tax?  It’s not clear as to what exactly that would entail, but one thing is for certain.  The result will not be good for South Carolina.  Any tax on transportation, but whether its an increase in the gas tax, a tax on transportation companies, on the airlines, etc is going to smack everyone in this state in their back pocket.  A tax on truckers transporting goods would be absolutely criminal because it would cause prices to rise in just about every sector, socking the poor and the middle class harder than anyone.

And yet Graham can’t figure out why he keeps getting booed when he speaks around his own state, oblivious to the fact he is alienating his own constituents in the name of junk science.

Winthrop University here in Rock Hill released the results of their latest political polling for the state.  The conclusion?  Most people really don’t much about the people running for governor on either side of the aisle.  I guess that’s not overly surprising.  Most people really don’t start paying attention until the last couple weeks before an election.  Over 75% of people polled knew very little about any of the Democrats running.  When it came to favorable ratings among all candidates of both parties, Lt Gov. Andre Bauer squeaked out through the top of the pack.

Regarding other questions that were asked, people in the state like Michelle Obama better than her husband.  Jenny Sanford is held in fairly high regard and Republicans are far more fond of Senator Jim DeMint than they are of Senator Lindsey Graham.

The organizers at Freedom Works, like most of us in South Carolina, are rightly peeved with Senator Grahamnesty over his support of Cap and Trade which would not be in the best interest of our state and which he is supposed to be representing first and foremost.  This rolls right along with what I wrote about just a few days ago.  They are organizing a protest this Saturday in Greenville.

South Carolinians are tired of Senator Lindsey Graham’s support for “cap and trade.” For some reason Sen. Graham thinks that imposing a massive tax increase on our energy supply is a good idea. He has been partnering with left-wing senators to come up with a plan that would be devastating to our economy and would increase the cost of energy for all consumers. If you are like us, you have had enough of Sen. Graham’s position on cap and trade.

Please join us as we gather together this Saturday, Feb. 27th to send a message to him that we dissapprove of his stance on this important issue. We will be gathering to write letters to Sen. Graham, and then we will hand deliver them to his district office in Greenville. After that, we will protest his support of cap and trade outside his office.

Here are the details of the events:

9:00am FreedomWorks breakfast and letter-writing at Soby’s restaurant
22 East Court St, Greenville, SC 29601
Map

10:30am Protest outside Sen. Graham’s downtown office
130 South Main St., 7th Floor, Greenville, SC 29601
Map

To rsvp for this event, please contact FreedomWorks regional director Allen Page at a.page@mindspring.com or 336-213-1167. You can also click here to rsvp online. We hope you can join us this weekend on the first anniversary of the tea party protests!

Will we ever be rid of this guy?

For those concerned about warming, it’s time for a shift in emphasis. Fortunately, one has already been provided to them by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has done more than any Democrat to keep climate legislation alive this year. His solution: skip the hurricanes and Himalayan glaciers and keep the argument on the hundreds of billions of dollars spent annually on foreign oil, some of that going to terrorists rather than to domestic job creation.

The Washington Post

There are people that claim they are sick and tired of the bipartisanship in D.C.  I personally see nothing necessarily wrong with partisanship in government because I tend to view reaching across the aisle as a selling out of your beliefs most of the time and what your constituents elected you for.  Graham has tried to play Mr. Uniter throughout his Senate career, but unfortunately keeps choosing the most inopportune times to do so.  First there was the big blow back on his support for McCain’s illegal immigration bill, the origin from whence came the nickname Grahamnesty.  Now he’s running around the country chapping his lips on the butt of Senator John Kerry (D-MA) over this climate change bill, much to the dismay of many South Carolinians.

Graham is correct that our heavy reliance on foreign oil is a serious issue, but we don’t need to cripple our economy through the Cap and Fraud bill to resolve that problem.  We just need to start drilling our own oil which we have plenty of.  We need to start building more nuclear power plants, which the Obama administration seems to be warming to.  Green energy investments in the private sector have been steadily growing as well.  We can do all of these things now without legislation.  None of them are illegal.

Instead of barking up the Cap and Fraud tree, Graham should simply be making a public push to pressure the administration to accept these other initiatives and move faster on them.  It’s highly unlikely that that the Waxman-Markey bill will ever become law at this point, but there has been talk of the Obama administration going around Congress and instead having the fascist EPA regulate green house gases.  This would essentially produce the same economic disastrous results on our nation by an unelected body, which in my opinion is unconstitutional.

A cap-and-trade system necessarily harms the economy because it is designed to raise the cost of energy. Given the current economic crisis, an expensive energy policy is a bad idea.

Almost all acts of economic production are powered by combusting fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), a process that emits greenhouse gases thought to cause global warming. A cap-and-trade system is simply a mechanism to put a price on emissions in order to compel businesses and consumers to emit less. That is, it’s essentially an emissions tax. But greenhouse gas emissions are virtually synonymous with energy use, so it’s actually a roundabout energy tax. In fact, economists agree that the simplest, most efficient way to reduce emissions is a direct tax. Politicians, however, are terrified of the “t-word,” which is why they have embraced a cap-and-trade system.

The numbers are staggering. President Barack Obama’s recently unveiled cap-and-trade plan would raise $645 billion in revenue from the government-run emissions auctions over eight years. Everyone would feel the pinch. Businesses would compensate for higher production costs and diminished markets by slashing jobs. Consumers would have to pay more for energy and energy intensive goods.

Expensive energy is bad enough, but the real danger of a cap-and-trade policy is a global trade war. A cap-and-trade system would give a competitive advantage to industries in countries that aren’t subject to a de facto energy tax. Jobs would flow overseas, but so would emissions, a dynamic known as “carbon leakage.” To prevent this, a broad coalition of industry, labor, and environmental groups have expressed interest in a tariff that would tax the emissions content of imports from countries without stringent climate policies. Naturally, these countries would retaliate if such a tariff were enacted. Protectionism deepened the Great Depression, just as climate protectionism would worsen the current recession.

William Yeatman – Council on Foreign Relations

First it was the Charleston County Republican Party that came out and publicly scolded Senator Graham for his Cap and Trade and illegal immigration support.  Now it’s the Lexington County GOP following in step.  They too have formally rebuked the Senator by passing a censure vote among the county committee.  A censure is really just a symbolic way of shaking their finger at Graham to show their disapproval.  It doesn’t actually have any effect on his ability to hold his office, but now that it’s happened to him twice he may consider taking his head out of his ass.

Of course, South Carolina could have had an excellent Senator in Democrat Bob Conley, but 58% of voters in 2008 decided to stick with Grahamnesty, but continue to complain about him.

According to the Baltimore Sun, the Obama administration has already begun laying the groundwork to accomplish something the Bush administration could not, sweeping immigration “reform.”  The president allegedly wants a bill to create a pathway for citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegals across the country.  New York Senator Schmuck Schumer (D) has already started working on a bill and according to his office has enlisted the help of Mr. Grahamnesty himself.

An immigration bill was introduced in the House earlier in the month and Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat who chairs a subcommittee on immigration, is heading the effort to cobble together a coalition in the Senate.

Bipartisan support is possible. Schumer’s office said he is working with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to develop a bill and wants Graham to sign on as a co-sponsor. Graham’s office did not return calls for comment.

So like the Bush immigration bill and his support for Cap and Trade, will Senator Graham again bend over us folks in South Carolina and give it to us up the wazoo?  You’d think with South Carolina counties suffering from unemployment rates in excess of 20% the last thing Graham would want to do is flood the market even more with additional job seekers.  Then again, Graham is usually more concerned with Beltway politics than the people he’s been elected to represent so I guess it’s not that crazy of a thought.

In a nutshell, yeah.  That’s a damn good description.  Not only are Americans going to be paying higher insurance premiums once this bill goes into effect, but we will also be footing the bill for Medicaid in Louisiana, Nebraska, and Vermont, a deal made by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in order to secure the necessary votes for passage.  In the private sector this would be considered bribery, yet in the Federal government it’s considered “compromise.”

A Republican senator who has opposed President Barack Obama’s health overhaul effort said Tuesday that the deals Democratic leaders have cut to round up the votes they need to push the measure through the Senate have been “sleazy.”

Speaking Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina cited concessions won by Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, whose support gave Democrats the 60th and final vote they need. Among other things, Nelson won an agreement that the federal government will pay to expand Medicaid services in Nebraska.

Said Graham: “That’s not change you can believe in. That’s sleazy.”

AP

The Charleston County Republican Party’s executive committee took the unusual step Monday night of censuring U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. because of several positions he has taken that clash with the GOP party line.

County Chairwoman Lin Bennett said the unanimous vote “is an effort to get his attention. They’re just fed up, and they want him to know they’re fed up.”

The resolution mentions Graham’s cooperation with U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., on energy legislation to his support for the $700 billion Troubled Assett Relief Program to his calling some opponents “bigots” when they opposed his immigration stance.

The Post and Courier

Personally, I wish we had a recall provision like in California where we could just recall Graham.  If Cap and Trade ends up getting through the Senate because of Graham’s support, the lives of the thousands of South Carolinians that will be destroyed will be all on his shoulders.  Cap and Trade will destroy jobs and do nothing to curb carbon emissions.  I have even read that there is a provision in the legislation that once the law goes into the effect you will have to make energy upgrades to your home if you go to sell it to the cost of several thousand dollars.

Homebuyers Beware. Trying to save up for a new home? You may have to save up a little longer for your purchase. The Democrats’ bill would dramatically increase new home costs by mandating California’s expensive new building codes for the entire nation. Immediately upon enactment, the Democrats’ bill would demand a 30 percent increase in energy efficiency for new construction. A couple of years later, the Democrats’ bill would require an additional 50 percent improvement. These numbers were chosen with no concern for cost to consumers or feasibility in implementation.

John Boehner

Is this what Lindsey Graham thinks the people of South Carolina support??  The Federal government nosing its way into our homes and telling us how to update it before we can sell it?  How about the increased costs in home building raising the price of homes putting them farther out of reach for many Americans, essentially killing the dream of home ownership?

Lindsey Graham is a an authoritarian thief of everyone’s freedom.  The man should be “hung from the Liberty Tree.”  A mere censure is being way too nice.

Haha. This is a good satire on Senator Graham from The Vitamin Press.

Charleston, SC- Doctors in South Carolina are reporting that all has gone well with Lindsay Graham’s recent surgery and that the long time Democrat Senator is resting comfortably and expected to make a full recovery. Graham, who early yesterday morning became the second person to undergo a complete personality transplant and the first individual to survive the procedure, is also reported to be in good spirits and eager to find out what it is like to make friends.

Graham is well known for his work in the Senate.  What is less well known is the fact that he suffered from a severe personality disorder that had rendered him incapable of being an actual human being for many years -if not all of his life.  According to press releases from the Senator’s Office the condition was the result of an accident during the early 1980’s when Graham valiantly threw himself in front of several Rino’s that angry villagers were attempting to chase out of Washington, DC with the Constitution.  Not everyone agrees with this assessment.  Dr. Baltimore, M.D. (the lead surgeon on the operation) believes that Graham was born with a serious genetic condition known as Chronic Reaction Against Personality and has likely never had a personality.  As he told The Vitamin Press, “Oh sure it’s Chronic Reaction Against Personality.  I tell you I’ve never met a man so full of C.R.A.P. in my entire life.”

Read more at The Vitamin Press

The Graham-Kerry alliance is a potent force for climate change bill supporters, who can push a cap-and-trade plan through the Senate only if they win over enough Republicans to make up for the handful of Democrats expected to vote against the legislation.

“There’s a way to grow Republican support, but it is a give and take,” Graham told reporters. “Republicans have to give in the area of recognizing that climate change is real, and a cap-and-trade system is part of the solution.”

Democrats, meanwhile, must “give on the idea that you can’t be serious about climate change solutions if you include nuclear power and energy independence,” Graham said.

But Graham’s Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill aren’t sold on his bipartisan pitch.

Houston Chronicle

This guy is really lucky that he was up for reelection last year and not next year because the faux climate change legislation is incredibly unpopular around South Carolina.  This is yet another example of Graham supporting D.C. interests instead of the people he is supposed to be representing.  Graham got quite a bit of heckling last week at a town hall in Greenville and I imagine there is going to be a lot more of that in the future.  He has ceased to recognize that he is a representative of the people rather than an authoritative aristocrat who seems to think he knows better how to manage our lives than we do.

I’ve had this discussion on here before.  Cap and Trade will obliterate the American economy and have a crippling effect on South Carolina.  The CBO has shown so as well as several other think tanks and organizations and yet jack asses like Graham think they are some kind of savior of the people.  He is saving us from absolutely nothing, but I guess it makes him feel good about himself to run around the state like Don Quixote engaging in asshattery.  There is no man made climate change and only 38 percent of Americans even believe in global warming anymore.  These people in D.C. need a swift kick in the ass.  They’ve done enough damage to our country already.

Lightning-rod talker Glenn Beck is taking a hit from an unexpected source.

The Fox News host isn’t aligned with any political party, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Thursday, Beck is “aligned with cynicism.” And, the South Carolina Republican added, America isn’t a nation of cynics.

Graham, who spoke at The First Draft of History conference sponsored by The Atlantic, also took at shot at “birthers.” He said those who question President Obama’s citizenship or claim he’s a secret Muslim are “crazy” — and he urged them to “knock this crap off.”

AOL News

Wow, I actually agree with Lindsey Graham on something.  I used to enjoy listening to Glenn Beck years ago back when he was just in the radio biz.  He was political, but he was also quite comedic.  Some of the skits he did on the radio during the 2004 presidential race were just hilarious.  When he got on the television, though, he started to get a little bit nutty.  Granted, he brought down Van Jones, one of Obama’s many radical nutcases that he’s been appointing to these “czar” positions, but Beck’s been over the top too.  His claim that Obama is racist is just absurd.  I have seen no evidence whatsoever that the man hates white people or people of any color or creed.  There was another clip I listened to a few months back where Beck just flipped out on this woman and started screaming at her because she was in support of government health care.  I think the guy is kind of headed towards going off the deep end.

Graham is right regarding the “birthers” too.  That is such an absurd argument.  Yes, I think it is odd that Obama had his birth certificate sealed.  There is no logical reason for him to do so unless he is trying to hide something on it, but that doesn’t mean he’s foreign born.  The State of Hawaii certified the certificate.  Hawaii is governed by a Republican.  If Obama could have been disqualified from running for President due to the place of his birth don’t you think that Governor Linda Lingle would have brought that out in the open?  Think about it.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham – himself a talk show guest – says Obama is doing his best to sell an overhaul that the public just isn’t buying.

Graham says the current plan has the same likelihood of passing as a “snowball’s chance in hell” of passing despite the media blitz. Obama also is set to visit David Letterman’s late-night show on Monday.

Graham joked that Obama has appeared everywhere except the Food Network.

The State

I can never recall a president behaving this way.  I’ve heard people say that it’s Obama reaching out to the public and trying to speak directly to the people in their forum.  I think it’s pure desperation.  His administration is already FUBAR.  As for this health care bill, nobody is buying his snake oil anymore.

An amendment was successfully passed today in the U.S. Senate defunding ACORN by an overwhelming margin.  ACORN has been a pariah on our political system, engaging in forms of election fraud by registering phony voters.  They were one of the groups putting pressure on banks and other lenders to engage in risky mortgages with lower income people, contributing to our current banking crisis.  They’ve been prosecuted in about a dozen states now and just a few days ago the Census Bureau severed ties with them.  In light of all of this, you’d think a vote in the Senate to disallow them from receiving Federal tax dollars going forward would be a rather important vote to cast.  Yet, for some reason Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) didn’t feel it was worth showing up for.

Graham said both parties should collaborate on ensuring that tort reform and insurance reform is a part of a future health care plan and that the private sector, rather than a government option, is included.

The Daily Journal

Tort reform?  Yeah, right.  Trial lawyers are some of the biggest donors to the Democrat Party so you can forget about tort reform being in any bill as long as the Democrats have the majority.  Hell, I’d like to know where the tort reform bills were when the Republicans held the majority and the Presidency.  As far as insurance reform involving the private sector, that might be possible.  There are enough moderate Democrats to go along with that, but the leadership of their party is bat shit crazy, so who knows if they’d even allow it in the end.

This little line of his also caught my eye.

Graham said he favors holding individuals more accountable for their health, such as raising the cigarette tax as a way to discourage smoking.

That’s because Graham is an authoritarian putz.  Taxes are for the purpose of raising revenue to provide for the basic Constitutional functions of government.  They don’t exist to shape people’s behavior in a way that government shmucks like Graham approve of.