“On the Holmes Front,” with Frank Holmes
The surviving Democratic presidential candidates like to tell the voters they got this far because of their deep principles.
But a look at the record shows the politicos have waffled and flip-flopped on important issues over the years, including…
- Michael Bloomberg now loves Obamacare
During his disastrous performance in Wednesday’s Democratic debate, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg said, “I am a fan of Obamacare.”
But in 2010, Bloomberg had a different description of the bill for a crowd at Dartmouth: disgrace.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “does absolutely nothing to fix the big health care problems in this country,” he said. “It is just a disgrace.”
Bloomberg said that President Obama “started out by pointing out what the big problems were, but then turned it over to” the Democrat-controlled Congress, which “just created another program that’s going to cost a lot of money.”
He said the only answer is to “fix immigration and let people who come here…stay here.”
Give him this: Bloomberg has stayed consistent on granting amnesty to tens of millions of illegal immigrants.
- Bernie Sanders used to back the Second Amendment. Now he supports gun control.
Bernie Sanders has been a socialist his entire life—but he only won elections in mostly rural Vermont by supporting the right to keep and bear arms.
The NRA quietly supported Sanders in his 1990 race for U.S. House. But Sanders took aim at the group in his campaign launch video, saying, “We need to take on the NRA, expand background checks, end the gun show loophole, and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons.”
Rival Joe Biden called Sanders on the carpet for his reversal on the issue at this week’s debate. “While I was pushing the Brady background bill – background checks! – Bernie voted five times against it when he was in the House,” Biden said.
“I certainly have changed on that issue,” Sanders admitted in an interview with the New York Times last month.
“Sen. Sanders has a complicated history on the gun issue,” said Christian Heyne, spokesman for the Brady Campaign, a gun control organization.
Heyne called Sanders’ new views “an evolution.” Another term might be a flip-flop.
- Pete Buttigieg used to love Bernie Sanders.
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg said on Wednesday night that Bernie Sanders is “a socialist” who “wants to burn this party down.” But before he was running for president, Buttigieg wrote a “Profiles in Courage” essay—and his hero was Sanders.
“Candidates have discovered that (it) is easier to be elected by not offending anyone rather than by impressing the voters. Politicians are rushing for the center,” wrote Buttigieg, who now calls himself a “moderate.”
Back then, Buttigieg wrote, “Sanders’ courage is evident in the first word he uses to describe himself: ‘Socialist.’”
He also wrote that Sanders’ “stance on gun control led to NRA-organized media campaigns against him.” (See above.)
“Cynical candidates have developed an ability to outgrow their convictions in order to win power,” Buttigieg wrote. But it seems for the grown-up Mayor Pete, when circumstances change, principles change.
- Amy Klobuchar’s flip-flop on English as the U.S. language
When it comes to the importance of the national language, Minnesota’s U.S. Senator, Amy Klobuchar, has talked out of both sides of her mouth.
In 2007, Klobuchar and 17 other Democrats voted to force the government to pass out materials in only the English language. The bill’s supporters said the country needed a common language to create a common culture.
But in the open borders party of 2020, Klobuchar has spun around on a dime.
She now says in “a country like ours that is so diverse…that is not a position I take. I did vote that way, but way back then.”
So much for straight talk from the Upper Midwest.
- Elizabeth Warren waffled on single-payer healthcare
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. has been known to stretch the truth about her heritage, being a victim of sex discrimination, and her children’s going to private school—and now, her position on the top issue for Democratic voters: socialized medicine.
Warren’s position on national healthcare has been described as a “flip-flop-flip.”
In her 2008 book Health at Risk, she was all in favor of it. “The most obvious solution would be universal single-payer health care,” she wrote. “This would allow people to get the care they need – without risking bankruptcy to pay for it.”
But four years later, when she was running for the Senate, she sounded like a moderate.
When a reporter asked if she’d support “single payer health care,” Warren said,“I think right now what we have to do – I’m serious about this – I think you’ve got to stay with what’s possible…We really need to consolidate our gains around what we’ve got on the table.”
But in 2017, she told the Wall Street Journal that “now it’s time for the next step. And the next step is single-payer.”
Maybe she changed her mind, twice. Maybe she lied, because she would say whatever it took to get elected.
Bonus: Joe Biden says he deported too many people
Vice President Joe Biden has tried to run as the keeper of Barack Obama’s flame—until angry protesters said Obama deported too many illegals.
Last week, Biden told Univision’s Jorge Ramos that Obama’s record on deporting illegals was “a big mistake…There was too many,” he said.
The backtracking didn’t help: A protester screamed, “You deported three million people!” during his closing statement.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”