Posted on 01/31/2013 12:35:00 AM PST by neverdem
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., defied the odds in November when she won the closest senate race in the country, and now that she's arrived in Washington, she's defiant as ever. But now, instead of defying the pollsters, she's defying the Democratic caucus by taking divergent opinions on issues central to the President Obama's second term agenda, ranging from gun control to the environment.
Heitkamp, who says growing the economy is her top priority, is concerned that the president is changing his focus to issues like climate change and gun control. "I think, you know the one thing that has gotten lost by everyone is one of the best ways that we can perform here is by getting people back to work, making sure that this economic recovery, slow as it is, gets amped up and moves forward," Heitkamp tells Politics Confidential. "It's one of the reasons why I've been such a big proponent of the Keystone Pipeline. There's a shovel ready, private sector jobs program, good paying jobs."
On the topic of gun control, Heitkamp does not hesitate when asked if she'll support an assault weapons ban; her answer is a definitive no.
"There's literally hundreds of thousands of guns already out there," says Heitkamp. "This isn't a solution to the problem, that's my first thing. And I think if you read the case, the Second Amendment case, you got some serious Second Amendment challenges in all of this, and my personal perspective is that you are ignoring what could actually work to prevent this from happening because you are following an agenda that you already had before this ever happened, instead of taking a look at this circumstance, these situations and how do we prevent this violence."
Heitkamp says mental health needs to be part of the conversation in...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
It would take a bushel of magic beans and a bag of love dust. A rat is a Rat.
"Defiant," my ass. This is empty posturing.
We heard all this crap from other "concerned" dems in both the Senate and House during the Obamacare debacle. Evidently, Heitkamp hasn't yet been visited by Reid's goons who will dangle a package of lucrative pork projects, laced with a dose of not-so-veiled threats of isolation if she doesn't get on the bus.
Unless there are enough votes to pass a ban, thereby allowing her a token "no" vote, she'll be casting an "aye" vote as directed.
Ever heard of George W. Bush?
Her role in the Senate, nay her life's work, is to make the other CA yenta senata look occasionally intelligent. No easy task that!
From that POV, you have to admit she has succeeded admirably.
What really really mystified me during my exile in the land of fruits and nuts was that no one in LALAland ever asked, "Where do Mr. Boxer and Baby Boxer get all that big money? How exactly does Daddy Feinstein come up with several hundred million bucks? Mr. Pelosi: half a billion in the bank, or I am buying the drinks."
O yeah, one other thing.BTW, I could never understand how your average illegal Mexican voters turn out for these two. Neither of these two stupid bimbo-senatrices speaks a word of Spanish, nor has a decent Hispanic staff member. Since they both turn over staff a lot more often than the Patel motel changes sheets, that's really odd. 0TOH, maybe the illegal Mexicans don't know they're turning out?
I don't think so because these "moderate" rats in the Senate understand political reality. Obamacare and Dodd-Frank were two bad laws too far. Even though they had 60 nominal rats in the Senate at the time, they refused to touch "card check" to expand union membership, "Cap & Trade" for "climate change" even though the House already passed their version of it and "comprehensive immigration reform" during Obama's first two years, much less think about renewing a so called "assault weapons" ban in the House where over 60 rat members wrote Holder to pound sand in early 2009. Hence, Fast and Furious was hatched.
They are politicians first and foremost. Chuck U Schumer recruited pro Second Amendment rats for the Senate starting in 2006. Believe it or not.
Gore would have been President absent very vocal Freepers and other patriots demanding an open process in the vote counting and recounting as events unfolded.
In Senate races we do not seem so fortunate.
You are correct. Jim Robinson saved the country for 8 years or more. Can you imagine where we would be at if Al Gore had been president when 911 happened?
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