“Democratic leaders should be asking themselves just how they have gotten to the point that their strategy is to amend a law that doesn’t exist yet by passing a bill without voting on it.”
Yuval Levin (National Review Online)
Lawyers Eat Their Young
Just in case it wasn’t already crystal clear to you before today, Nancy Pelosi has again reveals the dangerous mindset of the progressive liberal. They always know better and a federal government filled with them can manage your life far better than you can.
It took courage for Congress to pass Social Security and Medicare, which eventually became highly popular, she said, “and many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill.”
If the last year has taught the average American anything, it is the reality of just how well the federal government has managed the Ponzi scheme that is Social Security, and just how well the federal goverment has managed Medicare. The average American now understands that both of them were unsustainable ideas from the beginning and that today both are essentially broke. But that doesn’t stop progressives.
“We’re not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress,” she said. “We’re here to do the job for the American people.”
“Time is up. We really have to go forth.”
So even though the American people have clearly said, no, Madame, we don’t want some more, the Speaker of the Nuthouse thinks it’s time for all the Democrat to join hands, damn the reelections, and full-steam ahead shove socialized medicine down America’s throat. She and her ilk continue to live in a fantasy world where we, the people, are just a bunch of drooling imbeciles, unable to comprehend what we read and see and to then form our own opinions about it.
“The Republican Party directs a lot of what the Tea Party does, but not everybody in the Tea Party takes direction from the Republican Party. And so there was a lot of, shall we say, Astroturf, as opposed to grassroots.”
And Congress wonders why over 75% of Americans now disapprove of them? And why Obama’s job approval rating is now running neck-and-neck with the number who disapprove of the job he’s doing?
They remind me of a bumper sticker I once saw. It read, “Lawyers eat their young.”
The Third Rail Of Obamacare
We all knew the first big, fat, unread “stimulus” bill shoved through by the Democrats last year would be useless and some had noticed it contained frightening encroachments upon American liberties. And even though all the money from the first “stimulus” hasn’t even been spent, the Democrats are ramming another one through Congress under the wolfskin guise of “jobs”. But this one is not only going to be more more wasted money, it is, in fact, the death blow to the foundation of freedom upon which this country was founded.
A Stunning Week For American Liberties
It has been a rather incredible week. In a real “two fer”, the election of Republican Scott Brown to represent the state of Massachusetts as a United States Senator has sent both the ghost of Ded Ted and the unholy trinity’s health care “reform” back down to the hell hole from which they rose. And then the Supreme Court, voting on straight progressive vs. conservative ideological lines, struck down most of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance act as unconstitutional.
All of which finds the left staring bug-eyed and slack-jawed.
As the shock wears off, in their anger at being told that their attempts to create a socialist dictatorship out of the Republic of the United States is now seen clearly for what it is and that the American people want no part of it, the spin begins. His Transparency, in particular, is being, well, rather more transparent. And it’s not comforting. Attempting to capitalize on what is being labeled “populist” anger, he went on the stump this week and has started talking “tough”. But, frankly, it sounds more like stupid to me. He told George Stephanopoulos:
Outright Abortion Funding Surfaces From Reid’s Senate Health Care Bill
Obama said, “I see the polls. … I catch the occasional blog poster, cable clip that breathlessly declares what something means for a political party, without really talking about what it means for a country. But I also know what happens once we get this done, once we sign this … bill into law: The American people will suddenly learn that this bill does things they like and doesn’t do things people have been trying to say it does. The worst fears will prove groundless.”
Groundless? When nothing managed by this administration has accomplished anything that could be honestly determined as successful, I don’t think it is groundless that as the passage of time rightly allows for better understanding of what Senator Harry Reid hastily scribbled as pork & bribes into his “manager’s amendment” that became the Senate version of health care “reform” we find more and more reason to be very afraid.
Another report has been released about federal funding for abortion in the Senate bill. And clever bastards that they are, it was assumed no one would notice or, if they did, they wouldn’t really understand how such a thing would be allowed, smoked over by the ineffective language included to help buy Senator Ben Nelson’s 60th vote. It is yet more damning evidence that this entire effort cannot be allowed to be birthed behind closed doors nor in such insane haste.
Buried deep in the 383-page Manager’s Amendment was new language making a direct appropriation of funds for Community Health Centers or CHCs (which are also called Federally Qualified Health Centers, or FQHCs), totaling $7 billion ($7,000,000,000) over five years. (See Sec. 10503 on page 2355 of the Senate-passed bill, H.R. 3590.) Because this is a direct appropriation in the health care bill itself, these funds will not flow through the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services. Therefore, these funds would not be covered by the Hyde Amendment, which is a limitation provision that has been attached to the annual HHS appropriations bill in past years. Nor is there any other language in the Senate-passed bill that would prevent the use of the new funds to pay for abortions performed at Community Health Centers. (Note: Section 1303 of the bill contains certain language pertaining to abortion, but that language applies only to a proposed program of tax credits and cost sharing for health insurance for low-income individuals; it has no bearing at all on Section 10503, the CHC section.)
Also, there is no restriction in the current laws authorizing CHCs that restricts these centers from performing abortions. [See 42 U.S.C. 254b and Section 330 of the Public Health Services Act.]
CHCs can only use these so-called “Section 330 funds” for purposes within the scope of their grants, but one can assume that grant applications that included (for example) “reproductive
services” would not be deemed objectionable under the Obama Administration, and abortions could be subsumed under various other classifications as well.
This is not a merely hypothetical concern. There is already an organized effort underway by the Reproductive Health Access Project to encourage Community Health Centers to perform abortions, “as an integrated part of primary health care.” For evidence, see “Frequently Asked Questions About Integrating Abortion into Community Health Centers, Potential Obstacles and Possible Solutions” at http://www.reproductiveaccess.org/getting_started/faq.htm
Indeed, the Reproductive Health Access Project and the Abortion Access Project have produced an “administrative billing guide” to help CHCs integrate abortion into their practices within the confines of existing federal and state restrictions. See “Administrative Billing Guide for Medical Abortion at Facilities that Receive Title X, Section 330, and other Federal Funding,” at http://www.reproductiveaccess.org/med_ab/downloads/Admin_Billing_Guide.pdf.
I wonder if anyone in Nancy’s Nuthouse who supported the Stupak amendment will do the hypocritical Blue Dog roll over and swallow this one whole if those Democrat closed-door reconciliation meetings don’t pull it out?
Let Them Eat…Pizza?
The out-of-the-closet progressive liberal Democratic party is in well-deserved tatters and struggling to come up with a plan to lull voters into the complacency needed maintain their majority in the 2010 mid-term elections, as well as already planning His Transparency’s reelection bid. In their stereotypical stealth mode, behind closed doors, the White House is picking favorites in upcoming races across the country.
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that:
President Barack Obama’s aides are taking pains to operate out of public view to avoid repeating embarrassing miscues made last year, when efforts to pressure unpopular New York Gov. David Paterson into retirement hit front pages and proved unsuccessful.
Embarrassing, indeed. But to the Democrats, it’s just another speedbump.
The exit of Michigan Lt. Gov. John Cherry from that state’s gubernatorial contest came as party insiders grew increasingly concerned that Mr. Cherry faced an uphill struggle to win, putting a chill on potential donors, according to Democratic officials.
When Mr. Cherry dropped out, citing fund-raising problems, White House officials began discussions with a potential replacement, Denise Ilitch, whose family owns the Detroit Red Wings hockey team, Detroit Tigers baseball team and Little Caesars Pizza chain.
Ms. Ilitch is an elected member of the state Board of Regents. Strategists believe her personal wealth and image as a businesswoman and political outsider could give Democrats a boost in an economically ailing state where the party’s top official, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, is unpopular.
Now there’s a picture for you. A wealthy capitalist Democrat handing out $5 hot & ready Little Caesar’s pizzas to the great unwashed masses of Michigan’s unemployed Kool-Aid drinkers to buy their votes.
But, like those 10% unemployed across the country, it ain’t working. Despite the Demons howling in Massachusetts (“Martha Coakley is running to fill the rest of Ted Kennedy’s term, and her opponent is a far-right tea-bagger Republican,” Chuck Schumer wrote in a fundraising email) it’s just been reported by the Boston Globe that Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown has a 4 point lead in the polls. Though that’s within the poll’s margin of error, other details show just how fall the self-perceived mighty have fallen:
Brown’s popularity is solid. He enjoys a 57 percent favorability rating compared to just 19 percent unfavorable. Coakley’s favorability is 49 percent; her unfavorability, 41 percent.
In the race for U.S. Senate, who will you vote for?
Scott Brown: 50%
Martha Coakley: 46%
Joseph L. Kennedy: 3%
Undecided: 1%
In your opinion, who won the debates?
Scott Brown: 41%
Martha Coakley: 25%
Joseph L. Kennedy: 2%
Undecided: 31%
As a U.S. Senator, do you think Martha Coakley will be an independent voice or tow the Democratic Party line?
Independent voice: 24%
Tow the party line: 64%
Undecided: 11%
Do you support the proposed national near universal healthcare law?
Yes: 36%
No: 51%
Undecided: 13%
Can the federal government afford the proposed national healthcare law?
Yes: 32%
No: 61%
Undecided: 7%
And despite those words of the White House laying low with which we started this piece, like all those other words that have come out of the White House to date, there’s a strong push among some Democrats to get His Transparency to visit Massachusetts this weekend on behalf of Martha Coakley so he sent an “impassioned video plea” for Attorney General Martha Coakley to thousands of Bay State voters today. But Scott Brown’s called it right:
“He should stay away and let Martha and I discuss the issues one on one,” Brown said. “The machine is coming out of the woodwork to get her elected. They’re bringing in outsiders, and we don’t need them.”
Quote Of The Day
The new health care plan will be written by a committee whose Chairman says he doesn’t understand it,
passed by a Congress which hasn’t read it,
signed by a President who smokes,
funded by a Treasury Chief who did not pay his taxes,
overseen by a Surgeon General who is obese,
and financed by a country that is broke.
What could possibly go wrong?
Harry The Hypocrite
Harry does another Washington show-and-tell about how to win friends and influence people and properly represent your constituents. This one is titled: It’s only wrong when someone else does it.
“Of course, nobody can see the managers’ amendment. It is composed of over 40 amendments. How could anyone vote for a piece of legislation such as that — a managers’ amendment with 42 separate amendments?
“Now, these amendments were not put in in a conference committee. People complain about that. But at least in a conference committee, you have people working together, sticking things in. Sometimes Democrats complain and sometimes Republicans complain — whoever is in the minority here. Well, we didn’t get enough consultation; you cut us out of the process. But at least you had a group of Democrats and Republicans in the process. Here, you have one person making a decision as to what is going to be in the managers’ amendment. There is no way to know what is in it. How could anyone say: ‘OK’? You have taken care of me, but I don’t want to see the other 40 amendments — -because with this legislation, similar to all legislation, you put something in one spot, and you have to take something out someplace else.”
(Senator Harry Reid, 2/9/06)
Flash forward to October 2009:
But now, as a Senate vote on health-care legislation nears, those negotiations are occurring in a setting that is anything but revolutionary in Washington: Three senators are working on the bill behind closed doors.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) sits at the head of a wooden table at his office as he and Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) work to merge two competing versions of health-care legislation into one bill. The three men will be joined by top aides as well as by members of President Obama’s health-care team, led by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
…after weeks of Senate Finance Committee public hearings, the Senate negotiations are now an invitation-only affair in Reid’s office. The majority leader is unlikely to expand his group, even as some senators unhappy with parts of the legislation, such as John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), have asked to be in the room.
“Neither I nor any other senator has the luxury of passing a perfect bill — I wish we could — that conforms exactly to his or her beliefs. But we must act.”
(Harry Reid)
And again in December 2009:
Sen. Dick Durbin’s job as majority whip is to count votes, but don’t ask him for the current tally on the health care bill.
“I don’t know,” Durbin said earlier this week. “Sen. Reid is the one who has been keeping it pretty close.”
Early on in the process — when Reid was still trying to reconcile bills moving through two different Senate committees — Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked him about the progress he was making.
Reid pointed both of his index fingers to his head and said: “I got it all figured out how we’re going to do this.” And then he walked away.
The Unholy Trinity To Reconcile Health Bills
Why does it come as no surprise that the final version of health care “reform” legislation is going to be prepared by only Democrats? More specifically, in a revolting little three-way behind closed doors by that nauseatingly loathesome, unholy trinity of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid.
WASHINGTON — House and Senate Democrats intend to bypass traditional procedures when they negotiate a final compromise on health care legislation, officials said Monday, a move that will exclude Republican lawmakers and reduce their ability to delay or force politically troubling votes in both houses.
The unofficial timetable calls for final passage of the measure to remake the nation’s health care system by the time President Obama delivers his State of the Union address, probably in early February.
Democratic aides said the final compromise talks would essentially be a three-way negotiation involving top Democrats in the House and Senate and the White House, a structure that gives unusual latitude to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
These officials said there are no plans to appoint a formal House-Senate conference committee, the method Congress most often uses to reconcile differing bills. Under that customary format, a committee chairman is appointed to preside, and other senior lawmakers from both parties and houses participate in typically perfunctory public meetings while the meaningful negotiations occur behind closed doors.
It’s going to be another headlong rush into unconstitutional, crushing ruin.
Bypassing a formal conference committee enables Democrats to omit time-consuming procedural steps in the Senate and prevents Republicans from trying to delay the final negotiations.
Under Senate rules, three separate votes are required before negotiators for the two houses may hold a formal meeting. While the three normally are agreed to within seconds, each may be filibustered, and Democrats would then have to produce 60 votes to cut off debate.
Additionally, Republicans would have the right to demand votes on nonbinding proposals once negotiators for the two houses were appointed. That could, in turn, require Democrats to vote on political controversies such as wiping out the legislation’s proposed cuts in Medicare, the type of issue that could easily be turned into attack ads in next fall’s campaign.
Congress plans no formal sessions until Jan. 19, but Pelosi intends to meet this week with key committee chairmen and other leaders, and a separate meeting is also planned for members of the rank and file.
There are no words to describe the disgust I feel for the Democratic party this evening. But there are two words that may put a big monkey wrench in their plans.
Will Government Health Care Cover Spinal Reconstruction?
If what America has been forced to witness in Congress the last two months wasn’t enough to convince those still willing to give them even the slimmest benefit of the doubt, what’s going on during this holiday break should be enough to demonstrate once and for all that almost to a man (and to a woman), those we send to Washington to (not) represent us are nothing more than walking poster children for entitlement derangement-syndrome.
Everyone knows that the House had a huge fight over the Stupak amendent and that it finally passed and was included in their nasty little version of health care “reform” legislation. Blue Dog Democrats defied the Queen of the Nuthouse in support of the Stupak amendment; with much jumping up and down and great thumpings of their chests many claimed to agree with the vast majority of Americans that they could never, ever consider voting for any kind of health care “reform” that didn’t contain such proper constraints to prevent the use of taxpayer money to fund abortions.
Oh, it was quite a sight. Do you remember? Such weeping and wailing in defense of what is right in the face of so much angry Botox-enhanced “feminist” opposition, it almost brought a tear to my own cynical eyes.
Almost.
The Senate then rammed through their version of a health care “reform” bill on Christmas Eve. It most visibly differed from the House bill by counting alleged savings from cutting Medicare payments to doctors twice, by not including a so-called “public option”, and by adding in a very last-minute, very lame, very loopholed section that, effectively, will allow taxpayer monies to fund abortions through government health insurance premium subsidies so that Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska would, along with his 100% Medicare expansion subsidy-in-perpetuity, become Harry Reid’s 60th and deciding vote for the monstrosity. The Senate version also changes the standing rules in the Senate so that there may never be a repeal of the bill’s main unelected panel of bureaucrats. You know, those beancounters who will set regulations imposed on doctors and patients, the Independent Medicare Advisory Boards a/k/a the Death Panels. The Democrats want to keep them in unconstitutional control of your health care forever.
The next step is reconcilation of these two differing, green-be-damned-ceiling-high stacks of paper and then final passage of the same version of a bill in both the Nuthouse and the Senate. But word is already out on the street that principle, not to mention adherence to their oath to uphold the Constitution, remains a foreign paradigm to Nuthouse Democrats and reconciliation is not really going to happen. The Senate version, in all of its inalienable Rights-killing glory, is going to be swallowed basically its entirety by House Democrats. Some may hold their noses just for show, but it’s going down in one, basically unchanged gulp.
How do we know this? These Sunday morning talk show statements don’t exactly sound like statements made by anyone who’s had any recent contact with their spine, do they?
“We’re not going to rubber-stamp the Senate bill. On the other hand, we recognize the realities in the Senate.” Before the House was to give up the public option, we would want to be persuaded that there are other mechanisms in whatever bill comes out that will keep down premiums. We’ve got to make sure that the final product is affordable.” (Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee)
“Well, I’m sure the conference will yield some changes, but the reality is, having served in the House and its leadership, I understand sometimes its frustrations with the Senate, but if we are going to have a final law, it will look a lot more like the Senate version than the House version.” (Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J)
“We want a public option to do basically three things: Create more choice for insurers, create more competition for insurance companies, and to contain costs. So if we can come up with a process by which these three things can be done, then I’m all for it. Whether or not we label it a public option or not is of no consequence.” (House Democratic Whip James Clyburn; who had previously personally appealed to the President not to yield on a “public option”)
Since the most heated debate came over the Stupak amendment, which effectively replaced the House’s original lax verbiage with Hyde amendment assurance of no federal funding of abortions, let’s take a look at the Democrats that voted for it:
| Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania | Steve Driehaus of Ohio | James Oberstar of Minnesota |
| Joe Baca of California | Brad Ellsworth of Indiana | David Obey of Wisconsin |
| John Barrow of Georgia | Bobby Etheridge of North Carolina | Solomon Ortiz of Texas |
| Marion Berry of Arkansas | Bart Gordon of Tennessee | Tom Perriello of Virginia |
| Sanford Bishop of Georgia | Parker Griffith of Alabama | Collin Peterson of Minnesota |
| John Boccieri of Ohio | Baron Hill of Indiana | Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota |
| Dan Boren of Oklahoma | Tim Holden of Pennsylvania | Nick Rahall of West Virginia |
| Bobby Bright of Alabama | Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania | Silvestre Reyes of Texas |
| Dennis Cardoza of California | Marcy Kaptur of Ohio | Ciro Rodriguez of Texas |
| Christopher Carney of Pennsylvania | Dale Kildee of Michigan | Mike Ross of Arkansas |
| Ben Chandler of Kentucky | James Langevin of Rhode Island | Timothy Ryan of Ohio |
| Travis Childers of Mississippi | Dan Lipinski of Illinois | John Salazar of Colorado |
| Jim Cooper of Tennessee | Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts | Heath Shuler of North Carolina |
| Jim Costa of California | Jim Marshall of Georgia | Ike Skelton of Missouri |
| Jerry Costello of Illinois | James Matheson of Utah | Vic Snyder of Arkansas |
| Henry Cuellar of Texas | Mike McIntyre of North Carolina | Zack Space of Ohio |
| Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania | Charlie Melancon of Louisiana | John Spratt of South Carolina |
| Artur Davis of Alabama | Mike Michaud of Maine | Bart Stupak of Michigan |
| Lincoln Davis of Tennessee | Alan Mollohan of West Virginia | John Tanner of Tennessee |
| Joe Donnelly of Indiana | John Murtha of Pennsylvania | Gene Taylor of Mississippi |
| Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania | Richard Neal of Massachusetts | Harry Teague of New Mexico |
| Charlie Wilson of Ohio
|
One would rightly expect that if asked to vote on “reconciled” health care legislation that fails to include the proper ban on the use of taxpayer money to fund abortions, they will vote no. But the fate of the largest single federal usurpation of individual liberty is now at stake.
Cue the flying pigs.
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