by Rod D. Martin
October 2, 2006

In June of last year, Rep. John Conyers staged a mock hearing into impeachment charges against President Bush concerning Iraq.

According to Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank, Detroit’s loony-left congressman “banged a large…gavel and got the other lawmakers to call him ‘Mr. Chairman.”” Milbank wrote that Conyers was enjoying himself so much, he ignored his aides’ pleas to stop the session.

Conyers, the House Judiciary Committee’s senior Democrat, is among the rabid cast of characters ready to rule if conservatives don’t turn out to vote this fall.

All it takes is 15 House seats to go Democrat — and then the “fun” begins.

At the top: Nancy Pelosi, the radical San Francisco Democrat, would become House Speaker.

Pelosi supports gay marriage, taxpayer-funded abortions for women in the military and strict gun control laws.

She’s also apparently given Conyers the nod on impeachment hearings. If so, they will tear the country apart, with the full-throated support of the same media that saved Bill Clinton; they will make it impossibly dangerous for any country to be a U.S. ally; and they will give Osama bin Laden (and Ahmadinejad, and Chavez, and Kim Jong Il) the ultimate gift, all for the advancement of their party and their agenda of insane Bush hate.

And how about Maryland’s Steny Hoyer as House majority leader?  Even the liberal Washington Post deems him one of the top ten pork-barrel spenders. Are Republicans spending too much? No question about it. But you ain’t seen nothin’ like this.

And for House majority whip, try Chicago’s brass-knuckles pit bull Rahm Emanuel. The former Clinton finance director is one of the most radical pro-aborts in America; he was also one of the leading strategists behind Hillary Clinton’s failed plan to socialize health care.  Both issues are at the top of his agenda.

Then there’s Barney Frank, who will head the Financial Services Committee, from which he will do his best to strangle Wall Street and America’s banking sector. Frank founded the National Stonewall Democrats, his party’s homosexual advocacy group.   And he’d like to force America not just to tolerate but to embrace the gay lifestyle, censuring anyone who disagrees. Certainly any attempt to pass a Marriage Protection Amendment would be as out as Frank himself.

There’s also Charlie Rangel.  He wants to become Ways and Means Committee chairman and says he’ll leave Congress if the Democrats don’t make his dream real.

So if you vote this November, you’ll not only help keep Charlie away from the nation’s purse, but ensure his retirement from Capitol Hill.

Rangel has made clear he intends to repeal each and every Bush tax cut. That’s an almost $2 trillion tax hike, including the return of the marriage penalty and a real beating for the small businesses that have driven the current boom. And that’s just his warm-up act.

There’s more.  Stay home, and Henry Waxman gets to chair the Government Reform Committee, which is sort of like Libya or Iran chairing the UN panel on human rights (oh wait: these guys all support that too).

Besides backing HillaryCare, abortion on demand and draconian environmental rules, Waxman hopes to repeal the President’s pro-abstinence programs for schoolchildren. A condom in every locker, a scalpel in every womb!

Assisting Waxman will be New York’s appropriately-named Louise Slaughter, chairing the Rules Committee. She heads the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, and in her new position would single-handedly block all pro-life bills.

And we mustn’t forget John Murtha, who would chair the Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee. Murtha intends to cut off all funding to our forces in Iraq, and would have the power to do it. Fifteen House seats — which is to say, conservatives staying home — is all that stands between us and a public surrender to al Qaeda.

Now let’s be very clear:

Conservatives have a serious beef with Republicans who don’t act like Republicans: RINOs, or “Republicans in Name Only”.

But a large majority of congressional Republicans are fine conservatives who have more than earned our support.  Punishing them for the sins of their RINO colleagues is pointless.

Punishing America is even dumber.  The place to fight liberal Republicans is the Republican primary. We gain nothing — and lose what we’ve gained — by handing power to people who make Arlen Specter look like Ron Paul. And the fact is, conservatives have made serious gains indeed, from missile defense to gun rights to the partial birth abortion ban. We risk losing those gains and a great deal more.

Our fellow conservatives need our help. So do our country and our children. For the sake of everything we hold dear, we better turn out in force this November. This is not the time to take our toys and go home.

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Editor’s Note: This op-ed from Rod D. Martin was originally posted at Human Events.