Democrats are considering using a complicated process to avoid a direct vote on the Senate-passed bill, which is unpopular with House Democrats. Instead, they would declare the Senate bill passed once the House votes to approve changes it wants.
Republicans said the strategy was designed to protect Democrats in November’s congressional elections by camouflaging their vote. “There is no way to hide from this vote,” House leader John Boehner said. “You can run but you can’t hide.”
Democrats noted Republicans used the process when they controlled the House and accused them of trying to change the subject. “If you don’t want to talk about substance, talk about process,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of Republicans.
Let me ask you something, Nance. Can I call you Nance? If the substance is so utterly, wildly, madly awesome, then why are you having to go through this process? Why not just call for an actual vote, as “deemed” by the Constitution? What’s that? You don’t have the votes, and you want attempt to protect elected Democrats from the backlash? Strange.
Representative Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic House campaign committee, said the procedure was “perfectly appropriate” and he was not concerned about a political backlash.
“At the end of the day, what the American people are going to look at is what this bill does to affect their daily lives,” he told reporters.
If that was the case, Chris, Democrat House leaders would just call for an up or down vote. But, you are correct: what the American People are going to do is look at how badly this legislation affects their lives. Sucks to be you.
Here are your St. Patrick’s Day Patriotic Pinups
I’m not sure who created the first one. There are about 5 different pinup painters it could be. The second is by Peter Dribben. For those not aware, every Sunday for years now I have been posting a Patriotic Pinup post, plus on special holidays, at my personal site, Pirate’s Cove.
No, that is not a typo in the headline. I seriously doubt that The Smartest Man In The World Ever!!!!!! meant to say 3,000. I Blame Bush. Or Secretary Teleprompter. Just image had Bush made this claim, even by accident
Now, so let me talk about the third thing, which is my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for families, for businesses, and for the federal government.
So Americans buying comparable coverage to what they have today — I already said this — would see premiums fall by 14 to 20 percent — that’s not my numbers, that’s what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says — for Americans who get their insurance through the workplace.
How many people are getting insurance through their jobs right now?
Raise your hands.
All right. Well, a lot of those folks, your employer it’s estimated would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent [sic], which means they could give you a raise.
(Applause.)
And probably quite a few people giving those types of tentative claps accompanied by the thought “WTF did he just say?”
Also, I wonder if The Smartest Man In The World Ever!!!!!! understands the difference in the cost of health care and health insurance. Based on that little exchange, I’d say not.
Socialism is coming to America. And it’s coming in the form of Obamacare. Democrats are intent on taking over 1/6th of our economy with their pitiful excuse for health care “reform”. Their reform is not to make health care more affordable or widespread. It’s to expand the government and to increase the amount of power Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have in DC. They certainly aren’t doing it to help all the little people who just “can’t afford” health care. This is a crisis of culture, according to Dr. Roger Starner Jones, a doctor who specializes in emergency medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Read on:
During my last night’s shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B; tune for a ring tone.
Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid.
She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer. And our President expects me to pay for this woman’s health care?
Our nation’s health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. It is a crisis of culture – a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one’s self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance.
A culture that thinks I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me.
Pretty much hits the nail on the head, doesn’t it? This is the problem with liberalism. If we go with Obama and Pelosi (and their third little stooge, Reid), then things like responsibility and accountability will become things of the past. Why bother? If the government takes care of you from cradle to grave then why does anyone need to take care of themselves? Liberalism seeks to completely reshape the American cultural and societal landscape. This country was founded on a frontier spirit. The people who moved here and settled on this land were risk-takers, adventure-seekers. They wanted the freedom to find better lives, to take chances. They understood and accepted the dangers and the risks that this involved. They wanted the responsibility of building their lives the way that they wanted them. They fled oppression from all over the world just to have the ability to make their own decisions. Liberalism would take all of that away. With a liberal, socialist, nanny-state government, you won’t ever have to worry about making any decisions yourself.
And Obamacare is one step in that direction.
Oh, sure, they’ll give you all kinds of examples of these poor, poor Americans who “can’t afford” health care. But are these people truly incapable of paying for their own health care? That’s one of the primary arguments being made on the left: that those who live in poverty can’t afford health care and health care is a right that all Americans deserve. Setting aside the fallacious argument that health care is a “right”, let’s examine the premise that America’s poor can’t afford health care.
Does anyone remember a study from Heritage done about six years ago examining poverty in America? It certainly gives you a different perspective on just what we consider “poor” to be.
Poverty is an important and emotional issue. Last year, the Census Bureau released its annual report on poverty in the United States declaring that there were nearly 35 million poor persons living in this country in 2002, a small increase from the preceding year. To understand poverty in America, it is important to look behind these numbers to look at the actual living conditions of the individuals the government deems to be poor.
For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. But only a small number of the 35 million persons classified as “poor” by the Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity. Most of America’s “poor” live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well off just a few generations ago. Today, the expenditures per person of the lowestincome onefifth (or quintile) of households equal those of the median American household in the early 1970s, after adjusting for inflation.1
The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:
Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three bedroom house with one and a half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
Only 6 percent of poor households are over crowded. More than two thirds have more than two rooms per person.
The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
Nearly three quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.
As a group, America’s poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle class children and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher income children and have average protein intakes 100 percent above recommended levels. Most poor children today are, in fact, supernourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier that the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.
So, those who live in poverty in the United States seem to have it pretty well off. They aren’t overcrowded, they’re reasonably well-fed. By most rational standards, that would be described as living comfortably. You own your own house, have a couple of cars, color TVs, DVD players… sounds like America’s poor have it made. If they can’t afford health care and really need it, is it possible that maybe they could afford it by selling one of their cars? Maybe a TV? Perhaps they could get rid of cable. Dr. Jones’ patient mentioned above could maybe quit smoking multiple packs of cigarettes a day, stop spending hundreds of dollars on tattoos, and maybe get Payless brand shoes instead of some expensive name brand. Maybe then she could afford to buy a private health insurance plan through, I don’t know, Blue Cross Blue Shield rather than making responsible taxpayers have to pay for her health care.
And Obamacare sums up the problem with this country in a nutshell. We went from a nation of people who wanted nothing more than to be in control of their own lives to a nation of people living off an entitlement mentality, desperate for nothing more than to get their slice of the government pie. Obamacare is just a symptom of the liberal socialist disease. As Dr. Jones said, this is a crisis of culture. Our culture is becoming rotted and we cannot survive it. Obamacare is just the beginning. If we value our country, if we want to keep that enterprising, entrepreneurial, frontier spirit alive — instead of an attitude of entitlement — then we must stop this bill.
Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!
Big payoffs to unions, free healthcare to illegal aliens, death panels for Americans, limits and rationing to Americans… it’s ALL in the bill (HR 3200).
And remember, folks. We get taxed immediately but none of these wonderful “benefits” actually kick in for FOUR YEARS! So even if you liked this communist paradise you won’t get it for almost half the decade. It makes you wonder… how many dead people will Democrats be responsible for since this bill doesn’t kick in for so long, eh?
These are the things that Democrats want in a nationalized healthcare bill. These are the things that WILL end up passed if ANY part of Obamacare is passed.
This will materially alter the relationship between citizen and government and will put a tombstone over what was the United States of America. If Obamcare passes, the U.S.A. is dead.
Brace yourself. If President Obama rams through health care with tactics that circumvent the Constitution, obliterates checks and balances and ignores the will of the majority of the American people, be prepared for the same bully tactics to be used in other critical upcoming legislation. If voters think the health care debacle is ugly, expect it to get uglier based on the President’s planned agenda. Health care reform is not the ultimate objective. Devising “the formula” needed to get it passed is. Unlocking the formula to open the floodgates to enact whatever future legislation Obama wants, is the goal. Once the formula is in place, then the Obama administration has the key to do to America and Americans whatever it wants. It won’t matter how Americans vote in the mid-term.
Senate leader Harry Reid revealed that legislative checks and balances were neutered when he said the reason he is pushing so hard for Obamacare is because, “the President wants it.” Democrats supporting a Democrat President is expected, but to do so to the point of rewriting rules and ignoring Constitutional guidelines in order for the President to get his way, eviscerates the legislative branch and empowers the executive branch with unchecked powers. It is dangerous. Our founding fathers warned of its dangers.
The President desperately needs to ram through health care to allow him to use the same tactics to ram through Cap-and-Trade, nationalizing illegal immigrants, education reform, takeover of the airwaves, and more, in a blitzkrieg of legislation. The President’s plan has been laid-out in his own words or in the words and actions by his administration.
Trial balloons were first sent up to gauge the sentiment of the American people so Obama’s team could refine its strategy. Upon receiving negative blowback after demeaning Town Hall attendees, describing returning military as a danger to society, suggesting Americans spy on their neighbors and report “fishy speech,” attacking conservative media, seeking to separate Americans on issues of “clinging to their guns and religion” (implying that doing either was a negative), devaluing the unborn and seniors as dispensable, team Obama stopped wasting their time with an unsupportive public and decided to play hard ball.
President Obama said that he believes the U.S. Constitution, that protects Americans from government tyranny “is fundamentally flawed,” and essentially said in a 2001 Chicago NPR interview that the Constitution should not so much “protect” people, but “provide” for them, thereby turning it into a wealth redistribution welfare document. Obama created a vast shadow-government of Czars, reporting only to him, effectively diminishing the relevance of both the Cabinet and Congress. Media Czar Mark Lloyd opted out of the Fairness Doctrine for the more effective idea of “a 100% tax on operating cost” that could, if implemented, tax private conservative and religious radio out of existence. President Obama diminishes the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage as laws are passed to legislate God out of society. The President is adamant that he wants control of the Internet during crisis and plans to establish a civilian militia as well funded and powerful as the U.S. military under the oversight of the White House. Some see it as an enforcement arm of the Presidency at the will of Obama to assure compliance to all of the above. Obama’s own words and actions have spurred the mistrust welling up in America.
The amount of damage that can be done to the country by executive order and “reformulated legislation” between now and the November elections may be insurmountable. Is that why Obama has said so cavalierly that the matter can be taken up at the ballot box — after the fact? Conscience is required for Congress to understand the ire of the American people and the cost of standing against this great nation. In this period of our nation’s history with leaders who have demonstrated a willingness to sell-out — the buck, this time, stops with the American people. The time is now, not tomorrow, to let Washington know there will be consequences for their actions.
Sharon Sebastian (DarwinsRacists.com) is an author, writer and contributor for various forms of media including broadcast, print and online websites. Her second book, Darwin’s Racists – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, addresses the global “evolution vs. creation” debate highlighting both the impact of Social Darwinism on America’s culture today and its influence on current policy coming out of Washington. Website: DarwinsRacists.com
