| I have remained silent this week about the political cowardice of the 111th Congress. My disgust moved me away from the subject of politics. Like all the other bloggers who have pounded on their keyboards hour after hour and day after day in frustration over how the Demonrats are taking a sledge hammer to the pillars of our democracy, I am outraged. |
| So reviled is the public over the “Cornhusker Kickback”, the “Louisiana Purchase”, “Gator Aid” and the tax on high-cost “Cadillac” insurance plans that they came in droves that have yet to be tallied to Washington to have their voices heard as the cowards of the House Rules Committee met in the Capitol Building. |
One of my conservative friends (yes, there are other conservatives here in Marin) commented on the fact that Pelosi and Co. keep saying the health care vote will be “historic,” as if that’s automatically a good thing. Herewith a short list of historic events (in no particular order) that I’d prefer not to see replicated: |
2. The Spanish Inquisition |
7. Kennedy’s Assassination |
9. The Tiananmen Square Massacre |
10. The Armenian Genocide |
12. Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination |
13. The Battle of Antietam |
14. The Bataan Death March |
I’m sure you can readily think of other “historic” events that weren’t automatically good simply by virtue of being historic. |
Our country is being run by idiots. I hope Americans have memories long enough for a solid November backlash. In an MTV world, where so many people boast a 10 second attention span, I worry. Read more at www.bookwormroom.com |
| Here is the problem: The Senate has passed its HCR bill. |
| Congress can amend the law — it does so all the time — but can it amend something that isn’t law? |
| Which is where Democrats are tripping up. |
| So House Democrats will have two fig leaves: 1) they didn’t vote directly for the Senate bill, and 2) they voted to simultaneously amend — to “fix” — the Senate bill. |
| The problem is the sequence. Can the House vote to amend something that isn’t the law, as the Senate bill will not be law before the president’s signature? The Rules Committee meeting turned into mass confusion when Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman said, “We’re not going to ‘deem’ the bill passed. We’re going to pass the Senate bill…I would be against the idea of ‘deeming’ something — we either pass it or we don’t.” |
| To Republican ears, that sounded as if Waxman was speaking out in support of a direct vote on the Senate plan. |
This is from a couple of weeks ago, but it’s probably more resonant today. TalkPac put together this animated video in the manner of the old Dicky Goodman recordings, only using Barack Obama’s greatest pop(ulist) hits instead of songs. It’s not exactly a palate-cleanser, but more of gallows humor on Healthageddon weekend: |
The hard part is Medicare and Medicaid. In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing. |
Why do you think the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical “comparative effectiveness research”? It is the perfect setup for rationing. Once you establish what is “best practice” for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you’ve laid the premise for funding some and denying others. |
| It is estimated that a third to a half of one’s lifetime health costs are consumed in the last six months of life. Accordingly, Britain’s National Health Service can deny treatments it deems not cost-effective —Read more at www.chron.com |
No truer words have ever been spoken by the Democrats in Congress when it comes to making sure that Barack Obama’s agenda is more important than the will of the American People. US Constitution and We the People be damned. Democrat US Representative from Florida Alcee Hastings stated the following: |
“There Are No Rules Here … We Make Them Up As We Go Along” |
We are supposed to live in a Representative Democracy. Might some one tell us who the Democrats are representing these days? How can ever poll taken be against Obamacare, yet President Obama, Pelosi and Reid keep feeding us the line that they are doing this for the American people? Why, because they make that stuff up to as they go along. Read more at scaredmonkeys.com |
Key House Democrat: “There Are No Rules Here … We Make Them Up As We Go Along” |
From CBS News: The White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle has been feverishly sending out unsolicited email messages to federal employees in an effort to build support for President Barack Obama’s health reform package over the last several weeks[...] |
The Department of State employees, who receive hundreds of official government emails every day, have complained about the annoying and partisan emails but are nervous to go public for fear of retribution. The emails are addressed to the federal employees by name and use the official .gov address. |
| The unsolicited emails also request that the federal employees take action in order to ensure that Obama’s health reform package is passed and the federal budget isn’t at risk for bankruptcy. One federal employee was so concerned about DeParle’s language in one email that he questioned whether his department’s budget would be cut or eliminated without passage of Obama’s bill.Read more at anotherblackconservative.blogspot.com |
The Right Scoop catches Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) explaining some of the deficiencies of the CBO analysis of the House reconciliation package on Fox & Friends this morning. Not only does the CBO play along with the double-counting of Medicare cuts — which argues that the money will go both to shoring up Medicare while also funding the expansion of Medicaid — it fails to include the “doctor fix” that Democrats plan to pursue after ObamaCare passes: |
The double counting is pretty bad too, but the worst part is the fact that they delayed the benefits, but not the taxes, for 4 years to make it seem like it will save money. Are Americans really going to fall for such a blatant gimmick? 6 years of benefits for 10 years of taxes? |
| Just what we need - 15,000 more IRS agents tasked with making sure that as per Obama’s decree everyone buys a private product - insurance - to the government’s liking. From HotAir: |
| The House will likely adopt a “self-executing” rule that “deems” passage of the amendatory bill as enactment of the Senate bill, without an actual vote on the latter. |
This enables the House to enact the Senate bill while appearing only to approve changes to it. The underlying Senate bill would then go to the president for signature, and the amendatory bill would go to the Senate for consideration under reconciliation procedures (meaning no filibuster). |
Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.), chair of the House Rules Committee and prime mover behind this approach, has released a letter from Yale Law School’s Jack Balkin asserting that a “rule which consolidates a vote on a bill and accompanying amendments, or, as in this case, a reconciliation measure and an amended bill, is within the House’s powers under Article I, Section 5, Clause 2.” |
| But that does not actually address the point at issue. No one doubts that the House can consolidate two bills in a single measure; the question is whether,Read more at online.wsj.com |
House Democrats have released the text of their reconciliation
bill, which you can view here.
There’s a lot to go through, but it’s immediately worth noting
that one of the ways in which they will finance the increased
spending in the latest version of their bill is to hike the
Medicare payroll tax again — making that the fourth time the tax
has been hiked even before Obamacare becomes law.
|
| Back in November, Senate Democrats unveiled a plan that increased
the Medicare payroll tax by 0.5 percent for individuals earning
over $200,000 and couples earning over $250,000 (thus a marriage
penalty). The following month, to raise additional revenue for
the costlier version of the Senate health care bill that ended up
passing, the tax was raised to 0.9 percent. But in the White
House proposal released last month, President Obama decided to
keep this tax, and then impose an additional 2.9 percent tax on
income “from interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and
rents…”Read more at spectator.org |
The nasty car crash that is Obamacare is dragging down Barack Obama’s presidency. The cancellation of his visit to Indonesia and Australia to stay at home offering pork-barrel enticements to doubtful House Democrats is the kind of desperate expedient we expect from Third World dictators apprised of a potential coup at home. It advertised to the world the precarious nature of a presidency that has all but lost control. |
In his obsession with his healthcare fantasy, Obama is prepared even to allow the subversion of the US Constitution. For what else is the so-called Slaughter Solution? Leaving aside the grim irony of this name being associated with legislation that seeks to promote an explosion of abortions in America by injecting billions of dollars into state support of that abomination – and thereby making every taxpayer complicit in abortion – the fact remains that the fundamental purpose of the Slaughter Solution is to bypass the American Constitution. Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk |
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The Devil Has Come To Washington
