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Just so we’re clear…

This:

This two-votes-in-one gambit is a brazen affront to the plain language of the Constitution, which is intended to require democratic accountability. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a “Bill” to “become a Law,” it “shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate.” This is why the House and Senate typically have a conference committee to work out differences in what each body passes. While sometimes one house cedes entirely to another, the expectation is that its Members must re-vote on the exact language of the other body’s bill.

As Stanford law professor Michael McConnell pointed out in these pages yesterday, “The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote. The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill. But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form.” If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of Madison’s core checks and balances.

These are the stakes.

Otherwise: The New Deal + The Great Society + Health care “reform” = European soft socialism / Liberal Fascism.

The end.

epilogue: Did “conservatives” bring this on themselves?

And where’s the End of History now? China…?

(h/t Terry H)

94 Replies to “Just so we’re clear…”

  1. Darleen says:

    Having used the reconciliation process to achieve their own legislative goals 16 of the past 22 times, they’re now denouncing the fundamental unfairness of the procedure with purple-faced rage, and explaining that even though they, too, employed a version of the Slaughter Solution — known then as the Gephardt Rule — to raise the debt ceiling between 1995 and 2001, that was, somehow, different

    Jaysus Effing K on a Pony, can’t at least if someone is attempting a tu quoque can’t they at least try some honesty? Reconciliation was created for budget items not legislation and raising the debt ceiling is not equivalent to a 2700 page bill constituting a government take-over of 1/6 of the American economy!

  2. Hadlowe says:

    The Slaughter solution is really super obviously cheating. So much so that I wonder if it’s the distraction meant to draw attention away from the fact that reconciliation (a budgetary measure being contemplated for a social bill) is also cheating.

  3. Joe says:

    Democratic seeding to give a sense of inevitability or inside dope on what they have planned to get this “passed”? It is time to start freaking out, with a special emphasis on emails to members of congress who are waivering (and if your congresscritter is either a dope (supporting ObamaCare) or fighting this mess, you might give them appropriate criticism/encouragement too).

  4. Joe says:

    Email regardless of Slaughter or not. The more no votes the better, regardless of what happens.

  5. Joe says:

    Keep the emails simple and civil. Most congresscritters are not very good at nuiance and at this point the weak ones are just counting yeas and neas to guage public sentiment anyway.

  6. JHo says:

    I just tell ’em I’m a one-issue voter, Joe. Who will campaign against them and for their supporters if they dare vote in the affirmative.

    It earns some righteous boilerplate reply every single time.

  7. LBascom says:

    “crowds of peaceable protesters marched in a demand to be heard. They represented what appears to be a large segment of the American public that remains unconvinced” by the administration’s plan, began the piece entitled “A Stirring in the Nation.” […]

    “millions of Americans who did not march share the [same] concerns . . . .These protests are the tip of a far broader sense of concern and lack of confidence in the path . . . that seems to lie ahead.” […]

    A sympathetic portrait of the Tea Party activists who demonstrated in Washington on 9/12? A description of all the town-hall dissents against Obamacare? Not quite. That editorial appeared Monday, Jan. 20, 2003, and was written about protests against the war in Iraq that was then only looming.

    Funny how much a change of administration can change perspectives.

    Yeah, funny.

    Well, except Congress passed the authorization for Iraq with 58% of Senate Democrats and 98% of Republicans, and by February 2003, 74% of Americans supported taking military action to remove Hussein from power.

    Funny

  8. JHo says:

    Correct me if I’m wrong but the sentiment once-highly constitutional proggs use to defend this unconstitutional grab is that like the grab itself, the ends justify the means, even when the ends are a blind fucking hope.

    Can a progg be expected to debate when he can merely 1) wish, and 2) steal? Don’t thieves first covet what they then take be force?

    Is this why proggs cannot and will not present a coherent platform? Or a counter argument? Doesn’t the Constitution exist primarily to prevent theft?

  9. JHo says:

    Because, UNJUST WAR!

  10. LBascom says:

    Conservatives who just a couple of years ago thought the imperial presidency and the unitary executive were dandy ideas are now…

    A couple of years ago? Couple is two, right?

    Now lets see, who was in control of congress two years ago?

  11. Squid says:

    Darleen,

    The author also seems to have missed that the Republicans were punished for their embrace of such maneuvers. The war might have gotten the Dems to the polls, but it was the spending and the corruption that kept GOP voters at home.

    The only automatic, non-vote-based policy implementation I could ever support would be mandatory sunset provisions on all the other policy implementations. Other than that, I want to see votes on the record.

    I still think tu quoquesucker is a useful neologism.

  12. This needs a poison pill in the amended bill. We know that roughly %80 of the House won’t even read the bill, so all opponents need to do is to get one guy, say Ron Paul, to drop something bat-shit insane in the bill that covers the whole thing. Say, mandatory aids tests for everyone, and a footnote somewhere that requires circumcision for any male covered by private health insurance at birth or they would never be eligible for any future sex reassignment surgery covered under any future public option (it’s a cost cutting move, see?)and or see section 6-11.b area 4.62q “if not considered transgendered and no private health insurance at birth paid for a circumcision, circumcision is required for any future coverage of surgery as defined above except in the case of rape”

    No one would see it until it was too late and they’d have to start over after it got thrown out.

  13. McGehee says:

    New: Obama refusing to campaign for NO-voting Dems.

    I expect an avalanche of Dems announcing they plan to vote No.

  14. alppuccino says:

    You’re right. OK, we’ll put the debt ceiling back where we found it.

  15. geoffb says:

    You’re right. OK, we’ll put the debt ceiling back where we found it.

    I would suspect that this trick has never been judicially scrutinized because no one having standing brought a case. If this causes a case to be brought, and the trick thrown out, think about all the Treasury notes sold since well before 1995 being declared null and void unless an instant, huge, increase of the debt limit is rushed through the House.

  16. rrpjr says:

    A true Augean stables. But we lack a Hercules.

  17. Jeff G. says:

    We lack a Hercules. But we have plenty of the shit.

  18. LBascom says:

    OT (maybe), but this is hilarious.

    Michelle O. fighting Obesity the Marx way!

    Hey, it worked in the Ukraine, right?

  19. I sense a fire rekindling in Jeff’s belly.

  20. Jeff G. says:

    I notice that every time I post something negative about Obama on facebook, I lose at least one “friend.”

    Mustn’t stray from the reservation, Jeff… Tut tut.

  21. alppuccino says:

    Speaking of negative Obama material, with your permission, a shout out to all Clevelanders. OI, and the like: A lady just called Rush and told him that the so-called fainting spell at the the big Obama speech was really Obama siccing the local authoritahs on a guy who was popping off. “That guy needs a medic.” Says Obama. “Get that guy some special Obama health care.”

    Confirmations?

  22. corpex says:

    “Reconciliation was created for budget items not legislation and raising the debt ceiling is not equivalent to a 2700 page bill constituting a government take-over of 1/6 of the American economy!”

    Reconciliation is not being used to pass the 2700 pages or the “take-over of 1/6/ of the American economy.” It’s being used to pass changes, like you might pass in a budget bill. Any features of the bill effecting a “take-over” passed the senate by 60 votes.

  23. Danger says:

    Isn’t their a rule that requires an expiration date on any bill passed utilizing the reconciliation procedure?

    I believe that the bill would have to be passed again w/in one year.

  24. sdferr says:

    Hi meya! [Waves at the moron behind the corpex pseudonym] How’s tricks?

  25. JD says:

    Add corpex to the list of dirty filthy fucking liars.

  26. geoffb says:

    Deeming seems unclear to some here.

  27. alppuccino says:

    Cool name though. It’s like corpse, but not quite. Or corps but not quite. I think it’s an allegory for Obama’s not-quite-intelligence.

  28. JHo says:

    Pelosi is using this move to avoid her fellows incurring voter wrath, corpex. Probably that’s a clear admission of bucking the majority, no?

  29. Pablo says:

    Reconciliation is not being used to pass the 2700 pages or the “take-over of 1/6/ of the American economy.”

    Right, that’s going to be done (or not) with the magical self-passing bill. We deserve an up or down vote, or not.

    The score is Q14 to Blue. I like our chances.

  30. Morris Maynard says:

    “The Enemy still lacks one thing to give him strength and knowledge to beat down all resistance, break the last defences, and cover all the lands in a second darkness. He lacks the One Ring… So he is seeking it, seeking it, and all his thought is bent on it.”

    Tolkien, J.R.R., (1954), The Fellowship of the Ring, “The Shadow of the Past”

    As for Sauron’s “fair motives”, Tolkien emphasized that at this time he “was not indeed wholly evil, not unless all ‘reformers’ who want to hurry up with ‘reconstruction’ and ‘reorganization’ are wholly evil, even before pride and the lust to exert their will eat them up”. Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (1981), The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, p. 190, ISBN 0-395-31555-7

    “[T]hough the only real good in, or rational motive for, all this ordering and planning and organization was the good of all inhabitants of Arda (even admitting Sauron’s right to be their supreme lord), his ‘plans’, the idea coming from his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his will, and an end, the End, in itself. … [H]is capability of corrupting other minds, and even engaging their service, was a residue from the fact that his original desire for ‘order’ had really envisaged the good estate (especially physical well-being) of his ‘subjects’.” Tolkien, J. R. R. (1993), Christopher Tolkien, ed., Morgoth’s Ring, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, p. 397-398, ISBN 0-395-68092-1

    There was another weakness: if the One Ring was actually unmade, annihilated, then its power would be dissolved, Sauron’s own being would be diminished to vanishing point, and he would be reduced to a shadow, a mere memory of malicious will. – Letters (op. cit.)

  31. sdferr says:

    Steny shoves his chips.

    When asked why Democrats won’t just “play it straight” by ABC reporter Jon Karl, Hoyer got testy.

    “We’re playing it straight. I don’t accept your premise. We’re playing it straight,” Hoyer said.

    “We’re gonna vote on a bill and on a rule which will provide for the result that, if a majority are for it, will adopt a bill, the senate bill,” Hoyer said. “We will vote on it in one form or another.”

    See, it’s only a question of form. No reason to get all riled up.

  32. John Bradley says:

    So, if I’m reading you correctly, you’re suggesting we’ve got to throw Nancy Pelosi into a volcano?

    Works for me.

  33. JD says:

    Steny is not all that bright, is he, sdferr? Their contempt for the American people oozes from their pores.

  34. Mr. W says:

    From Drudge: “Obama refuses to campaign for Dems voting NO on healthcare…”

    It’s over, that threat alone guarantees another hundred in the NO column.

  35. DarthRove says:

    John Bradley, I’m all for that.

    Especially if we can dispense with Frodo and Sam mooning into each other’s eyes and swanning about Ithilien and Mordor. That was really hard to take.

  36. Mr. W says:

    Actually, now that I think about it, it’s not so much a threat as it is a promise.

    Let’s see…I get to vote ‘no’ and that gives me a chance to win, and as a bonus, Obama won’t campaign for me which gives me an even better chance to win.

  37. DarthRove says:

    Oops. Forgot the obligatory NTTAWWT.

  38. Reconciliation is a mistake. In politics, that’s worse than wrong.

  39. Mr. W says:

    Warning: Obama promises have expiration dates, Mr. Dem. Obama may still campaign for you sealing your defeat.

  40. dicentra says:

    Email?

    Yeah, they really read those. I doubt the staff even tallies them.

    Faxes is what I send. Several dozen went out last night with varying fonts and trenchant statements.

    NO MORE ENTITLEMENTS!
    NO MORE ENTITLEMENTS!
    NO MORE ENTITLEMENTS!

  41. JD says:

    TSI – And it is self-inflicted. That is what I do not get.

  42. dicentra says:

    Doesn’t the Constitution exist primarily to prevent theft?

    Yup. All that division of powers and checks and balances.

    Which are, now that Teh One has come to fulfill the law, as passé as sacrificing a heifer and making wave offerings.

  43. dicentra says:

    mandatory aids tests for everyone

    With the results posted on the Internet, next to your SSN.

    That oughta do it.

  44. dicentra says:

    passed the senate by 60 votes.

    But.
    Not.
    The.
    House.

    No matter how you slice it, they’re circumventing the Constitution itself, not to mention the will of the majority.

    It can’t be defended, meya. No matter how good you think it is, it simply cannot be defended. Not even with the biggest, baddest, tu quoque in the world.

  45. dicentra says:

    And it is self-inflicted. That is what I do not get.

    They are sacrificing themselves for a noble cause, dontcha know. As soon as they get their preciousssss (great metaphor, BTW!), nothing else matters.

  46. JD says:

    They are like Euro-socialist jihadis? Collectivist splodeydopes?

  47. Makewi says:

    If the Senate is supposedly amenable to passing an amendment to their bill that would satisfy the house, why don’t they just write that bill now and let the house vote on it? Why the need for all this nonsense? That is the question reporters need to be asking loudly.

  48. Obstreperous Infidel says:

    corpex, meya, the name makes no never mind. I’m still going to punch you in your face. I just need to know, man or woman?

    Al…That’s great. Unfortunatley, you know more than me. The Obamatarian might do something like that, though.

  49. McGehee says:

    34. Comment by Mr. W on 3/16 @ 12:13 pm

    I’m better off lurking, apparently.

  50. Bob Reed says:

    I realize that many here among the PW commentariat have nearly as much contempt for “team R” as for “team D”; that is to say they are generally in aggreement with Glenn Beck’s, in my opinion somewhat oversimlplified, synopsis “that both parties are equally as bad [paraphrase]”.

    While I’m not here to gain converts to “team R”, I’d like to point out a few things:

    When they controlled the White House and both houses of congress “team R” usurped the will of the voters as arrogantly and unabashedly as “team D” is right now…

    That’s why all of those knuckle-dragging wingnutz that Boooooooosh! appointed to the Federal bench are oppressing women and minorities and destroying our rights even as we speak.

    And, that’s why all of the illegal aliens undocumented workers now enjoy full citizenship in the entitlement society; because they jammed that one through regardless of the sentiment of the majority of the country.

    Oh, and that’s why Boooooooooosh! sent That’s-My-Dinner-Jacket straight to Allah when he nuked Iran for both his covert war against US soldiers in Iraq as well as Iran’s intransigence on giving up their quest to nuke-the-Jews.

    But, as Glenn himself might say; none of that stuff happened!

    So in spite of their poor decisions to be partisans and support Boooooooosh! when he blew waaaaayyyy too much money on expanding the Dept of Ed and the medicare prescription drug program, helped along by the statist Democrats of course, and possibly motivated by a misplaced loyalty and desire to support Boooooosh! across the board in his agenda, it seems that the two parties aren’t exactly the same.

    Maybe it’s just me, but regardless of the inherent risk in single party control of the three branches, I never lost any sleep worrying about “team R” fundamentally reshaping our government in a Eurosocialist mold. Now? 4 years of insomnia I guess…

    I will admit there are RINO elements in “team R” that are on board with the whole “compassionate conservative” euphamism for not-quite-as-big-big-government. And, I was pissed at Booooooooooooosh! for not reforming Social Security during his second term. And for not dealing more harshly with Iran.

    Just my two cents

  51. BJTex says:

    If only Democrats can deem a law into existence then the only law will be Democrats … and deemers.

    Uh … ZOMBIE REAGAN!

  52. sdferr says:

    Excessive focus on political parties is tantamount to ignoring the problems we face Bob. The parties and their transient stances are important in the analysis of the whole, I suppose, but in point of fact, aren’t they secondary (and rather far down the list of priorities) where it comes to deciding the order and manner of our Government?

    How else has the nation come to this pass? We here speak of Classical Liberalism because those ideas stand first. It is attention to the philosophical antecedents of our Constitution that is required, I believe, not a too narrow obsession on personalities and passing “solutions” to practical problems where said “solutions” ignore the principles of the nation or actively turn those principles on their heads.

    We the people of the United States have been unwise. We are at fault in the loss of our polity. If we propose to reform our union, we must first reform ourselves.

    The question is, what does that reform require? What is the wiser path to the good? I don’t think the path is to be found in political parties. They are not the issue.

  53. BJTex says:

    bob: i hear you but am not completely satisfied with the explanation that the Reps being better than the current iteration of Dems is enough.

    It isn’t.

    Id better be hearing some serious speechifying on fiscal restraint and spending cuts and debt reduction and reigning the growth of entitlements from conservative candidates with a healthy dollop of pro-active national defense all nicely wrapped in a plain talking. knowledgeable style with experience.

    So guess why Huckabee and Romney are living in the non starters’ shack and Sarah Palin is in the doubtful cottage … and why Paul Ryan has me looking and listening attentively.

  54. JD says:

    Just so we’re clear, the Dems can just deem all sorts of shit to be law.

  55. Bob Reed says:

    I don’t think I was obsessively focusing on political parties sdferr, and i certainly wasn’t criticizing the commentariat for wanting to embrace principle over any party; indeed I’ve based my votes on principle my entire life.

    Lately though I’ve been hearing a lot of rumblings from various sources, all of which seem to arrive at Beck’s conclusion that both parties are equally as bad. That disturbs me and seems to be a relativistic comparison. I just think that there is more respect for the US constitution and the founding principles of our nation on the starboard side of the spectrum, that’s all. As I said at the end, it was just my two cents.

    Personally, I wish it were as Washington had wished, that there were no parties, but simply citizens electing disinterested persons who would represent those constituents; not who would decide “what was good for them”. But that kind of high minded morality went out the door when Adams and Jefferson had their bitter campaign. In their quest to win the votes of the newly empowered populace, the seeds of bitter division over ideas, her in America, were sown.

    It was only an observation, my friend, not a pronouncement nor endorsement meant to sway alliegance.

  56. BJTex says:

    It’s really sad that Bart Stupak is getting all of this attention for his stand against the reform package simply because he’s pro-life. It feels a little like Arlen Spector should be whispering into Bart’s ear that Roe v. Wade is a “super-precedent” or something. that certainly wouldn’t be any goofier than what we have witnessed on this issue.

    I am so completely depressed with our government.

  57. Bob Reed says:

    Id better be hearing some serious speechifying on fiscal restraint and spending cuts and debt reduction and reigning the growth of entitlements from conservative candidates with a healthy dollop of pro-active national defense all nicely wrapped in a plain talking. knowledgeable style with experience.

    We’re ridin’ the same beam BJT. I want to hear about serious spending cuts, including entitlements, and serious reduction in the size of government.

    Some lefty flim-flam artists recently tried to defend the bloated Federal workforce by alleging it was smaller than in 1967. Of course, the disingeuous progg neglected to mention that their statistic included members of the US armed forces…

    The number of military personnel was on the order of 4 times what it is today in 1967. Not surprisingly, the same shift can be seen vis-a-vis the defense budget; regardless of the war on terror.

    We agree completely on the goals. And definitely no Huck or Mitt. For me, Palin is a wait-and-see, although I doubt she’ll be running anytime soon. I have great respect and affiniaty for Paul Ryan as well.

  58. sdferr says:

    I think of the question of parties as a distraction from attention to the whole, or in the modern parlance “the big picture” Bob. It isn’t the case that I’m opposed to the existence of political parties as such. My compliant here is rather that they are quite beside the point.

    As an aviator, you’ll know of the case-study of the crash of Eastern Flight 401 in the Everglades, due to a focus on a faulty indicator light, the bulb of which happened to have burned out.

    This is the problem, I’m thinking. All along the way from Lincoln’s time to ours, we people have not paid enough attention to what counts. And what counts? Turning ourselves back to the principles and asking simple questions, like, does what we are proposing to do at this moment comport with the intention of our politics? Or are we by adopting this position at the urging of one political team or the other, abandoning that guide, our Constitution? That’s all. Or do we crash and burn instead?

  59. geoffb says:

    Re: #50

    Me twofer.

  60. bh says:

    OT: but what’s the weather like over in Mich, Geoff? It’s almost sixty and sunny today on the west side of the lake. I feel like a kid staring out the window in class.

  61. Bob Reed says:

    I agree sdferr,
    Which is why I’ve never been a party line voter, but tended to, incredible as it sounds to a lot of low information voters, actually listen to what is being proposed, and to candidates espousing their ideology.

    Now along the way, I’ve been fooled. People lie. But that generally falls under the “fool me once…” category for me.

    And make no mistake, it started long before Mr. Lincoln’s time. And that’s precisely because there have always been the apathetic and low information voters that would rather put their trust in the “man: thanb bother to listen to and process what that person may be advocating. They’d rather look at the indicator light flash…

    This problem is exacerbated firther by the, what I consider almost criminal, neglect for a scrutiny of our history and courses like the one that was called “civics” in my day; classes that taught you how the government was supposed to work in theory as well as explanations of the motivations behind our entire system-both historic and philisophical…

    Now, if they study pre-civil war history, the focus is on “the horrors of the middle passage” and the eeeeevvololl hypocrisy of the founding white guys; although it may be said in a more “nuanced” fashion. Indeed, I recently heard that some “educators” feel that history needent be taught rpior to the last third of the twentieth century in high schools!

    I mean, if you don’t know where you came from, how can you figure out the prudent way to move forward…

    And people wonder why we keep revisiting the failed socialist experiments…

  62. sdferr says:

    “why we keep revisiting the failed socialist experiments…”

    See

  63. Bob Reed says:

    Thanks, I saw that link earlier. But, as they are ready to kick me out of the library for lurking too long, I’ll check it out later. As you are the referrant, I’m sure it’ll be good!

    Unfortunately, the elctricity is still out on western Long Island. Smart Grid…Progress…

    I’ll check back in later

    All the best!

  64. geoffb says:

    bh,

    Sunshine, at last, warm. Didn’t check temp, but t-shirt weather. Heard to expect snow by the weekend. March weather.

  65. bh says:

    Snow? Booo!

  66. Squid says:

    I’m definitely in the “pox on both their houses” camp, but it’s not because I see the two sides as equivalent. It’s because both sides are not good enough.

    People see one party that wants to grow government until it takes over our whole lives, pitted against a party that wants to grow government until it takes over those parts of our lives that it doesn’t think we should be allowed to indulge, and too many of these people think that’s a good balance between competing interests.

    The GOP will not get my support for merely slowing our acceleration toward the cliff. They will get it for reversing course. Even if they must do it at the point of a pitchfork.

  67. sdferr says:

    geez Bob, if it turns out to be boring don’t blame me, blame blowhard, man, it’s all his fault.

  68. steph says:

    Depressed with our government? You betcha.
    Last weekend some friends and I were playing a (drinking) game of “what would you do if were Pres? How would you fix this mess?”
    My response was “I don’t know how all of the numbers would work, but I’d start with a directive to ALL offices/departments under the Executive Branch that you will cut expenses no less than 25% in the coming fiscal year, and of that 25% at least 15% must come from an across the board reduction in personnel”.
    They’re response, “You’d be dead before morning”.
    Yup. Cheers mate. And pass us a bottle, will ya?

  69. DarthRove says:

    The GOP will not get my support for merely slowing our acceleration toward the cliff. They will get it for reversing course.

    Which is why they haven’t gotten Dime One from me in 6 years. And every begging letter they send me (with misspelled name, natch) gets returned with no check and a tersely worded explanation of why. At least the Tea Party seems to have made the Team R rat-bastids sit up and take notice. Whether they’ll listen and genuinely change or pay lip service until after November is yet to be seen.

    I’ll pay attention and support results, never again will I count on promises or respond to fear of “the other guy”.

  70. dicentra says:

    I never lost any sleep worrying about “team R” fundamentally reshaping our government in a Eurosocialist mold.

    Did you lose sleep over their slower, less-brazen creep toward that same end?

    Don’t misunderstand Glenn Beck the way Bennett did: Glenn doesn’t say that there is no difference between the two parties, nor does he say that they are equally bad. The idea that he can’t tell the difference between Pelosi and Bachmann or Reid and deMint is absurd on its face. Anyone who repeats that formulation either doesn’t listen to Glenn enough to know what they’re talking about or they do and they’re lying.

    I’m looking at you, Rush Limbaugh.

    Anyway, it is true that Team R is not as obscene or as arrogant as Team D, but remember what Prager says about the two parties we have: the dangerous party and the stupid party. The dangerous party is the abuser and the stupid party puts up with it, enables it. They’re also to blame for not fighting for what is right.

    We have to take back the stupid party and smarten up the lot of them. Out they go, all of them. Especially the ones who have been there so long they don’t have anywere to go home to.

  71. No One You Know says:

    Just so much smoke. If they pass the “two for one,” Obama signs the Senate Bill and it’s law. That will be all. There will not be any reconciliation, no second vote in the Senate. I guess the House Dems can go back to their districts and pretend that they were set up by Obama and Harry Reid. Maybe that’ll work for them……..

  72. sdferr says:

    Hermetically sealed bubbleboys? Don’t want to hear the questions? Disappear.

  73. Frontman says:

    #72 FTW. Once this gets to Obama’s desk and he signs it, that’s all she wrote. Then it will be time to move on to the next statist project.

  74. B Moe says:

    After the past couple of days I am growing more concerned with these fucking buffoons trying to out-Chamberlain one another in the Middle East. If that place explodes I don’t think health care is going to matter all that much.

  75. JHo says:

    Maybe, maybe not, B Moe.

  76. Bob Reed says:

    I have been busy with many things Dicentra, so I didn’t “hear” what Bennett said about Glenn Beck, nor have I lisened to Rush Limbaugh that much lately. But I do listen to Glenn Beck’s TV show many nights a week just prior to Fox news at 6 pm (est). I was simply repeating what I’ve heard him say many times; too many for my taste.

    Perhaps I wasn’t listening closely enough. You’re free to convince me otherwise.

    I was frustrated with Bush’s “compassionate conservatism”; like I said earlier, I opposed the enlargement of the Dept of Ed as well as the Medicare Prescription Drug act. And, as I also mentioned, I was not too happy that G.W. Bush didn’t follow through on his promise to reform Social Security. Cumulatively perhaps, these were a creeping kind of Eurosocialism as you suggest…

    But, I think that is as bad a comparison as it is to say that both parties are equally as bad.

    That said, I do agree with you that “team R” needs to get back to fundamental constitutional principles, concentrate on reducing the size and intrusion of the Federal government, fiscal austerity, and strong national defence. More like in Reagan’s day. And they do need to get rid of the RINO statist that belief in slightly smaller big government.

    I admire Beck’s zeal to get back to our Constitutional founding principle, as well as his study and embrace of his self-professed newfound knowledge of the historical and philisophical underpinnings of those principles. I’m just concerned sometimes by his resort to generalities and oversimplifications.

    I’ve rarely listened to Dennis Prager. He’s on very late in this time zone.

    Best Wishes

  77. bh says:

    CBO scoring problems for the Dems?

    They’ve already used every accounting gimmick under the sun and they still can’t get the bullshit answer they want/need?

  78. Bob Reed says:

    I saw that on zerohedge JHo. I’ll be posting on it at POWIP later tonight.

  79. JHo says:

    I wonder just what Obarky controls, Bob.

  80. Bob Reed says:

    It’s hard to say JHo, or what may “control” him. I do find it fascinating that this was reported in a Scottish newspaper alone, with no mention in the US, or other major European, outlets.

    It would seem to me that if this was meant to be “incentive”, then it would have been braodcast more widely…

    Maybe he doesn’t know it, but they are going to Israel via Diego Garcia; while he, slo-Joe, and Hillz put on a good show of scrappin’ in Telo-Aviv.

    Truthfully, I don’t have much confidence that he’s too on top of either domestic or foreign policy. He’s focused myopically on Obamacare, as the first step in his statist agenda, while the economy teeters, and the Chi-Coms, Japanese, and Social Security are selling their treasuries…

    It’s like fiddling while Rome burns!

  81. Mr. W says:

    Obama is a classic illustration of the ‘useful idiot’ so beloved by the Soviets. the Soviets weren’t dumb enough to buy the communist ideal since they had to live with the results, but they appreciated the the efforts of pampered red daiper babies like Obama that did so much for the cause.

    The question is, to whom is Barry useful? I believe that his usefulness lies in the fact that he is just enough of an idiot to utterly destroy the left, and George Soros now agrees with me. George used to think Barry was just useful, but now he knows better.

  82. newrouter says:

    honduras part ii:

    So here we have on record the Obama administration saying 1) that it is trying to topple the government of a democratic ally (if only we could try this in Tehran!) 2) that it believes it has such mastery of Israeli politics that publicly bludgeoning Bibi will result in such a shakeup, and that 3) even if the hoped-for new government is formed, the White House thinks it’s a good idea to go on record stating that the Prime Minister they will have to deal with is stupid.

    link

  83. B Moe says:

    Did you see this one, newrouter?

    When we follow this logic chain to its conclusion, we find that Obama’s only option for restraining an Israeli attack is the one that we’re seeing unfold before our eyes: a U.S. effort to methodically weaken the relationship; provoke crises; consume the Netanyahu government with managing this deterioration; and most important, create an ambiance of unpredictability by making the Israelis fear that an attack on Iran would not just be met with American disapproval but also a veto and perhaps active resistance.

    And never forget this:

    Remember what the president himself admitted to Joe Klein a few months ago about his management of the peace process?

    This is just really hard. … I think it is absolutely true that what we did this year didn’t produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted, and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high.

     How the hell did this retard wind up in the Oval Office.

  84. SDN says:

    JD, that does work in both directions. I might just deem anyone who dunked some Critters and bureaucrats in boiling tar followed by flesh-eating staph covered feathers innocent in the privacy of the jury box….

  85. geoffb says:

    privacy of the jury box….

    Card Check. Union made. Union tested. Union approved. Coming soonest to all voting situations in need of updating to ensure “fairness” and “justice” are socialized for all.

  86. dicentra says:

    Try this on for size:

    Perhaps taxpayers should “deem” their taxes to be considered paid without actually sending a check this year.

    h/t Insty

  87. The Lost Dog says:

    WARNING! TLD IS IN ANOTHER FOUL MOOD!

    I was just wondering…. Where in the Constitution does it say that a lying pack of ego-tripping, butt-licking hyenas (who would fuck their-own-selves if their tiny little dicks would only reach their own stinking assholes) could make the whole country eat a major ration of third world horseshit?

    Amendment what? 203?

    I am actually quite frightened right now. We can stick it right back down their M-Fing throats in November, but undoing this third world piece of bullshit, (if it “passes” – that’s a not-so funny joke, son) is not going to be easy…

    Goldberg, Steinberg, Iceberg – it’s all the same to me.

    Chavez, Castro, Obama – it’s also all the same to me…

    Thank God I won’t be around to see the new world government. With Mr. “Fuck you, you American assholes” in charge of the WOLE FUCKING WORLD!

    And I thought Clinton was a jerk! Whew! Bill Clinton can’t hold a candle to “Mr. Perfect”.

    This is some scary shit. The Constitution has been nibbled at before, but Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are the first “leaders” (HA! HA! HA!) to flush it straight down the toilet. They are the most totally, up-front, absolute pieces of arrogant shitheads ever seen in this country’s history.

    “FUCK THE LAW! I WANT IT! AND WE ARE SO MUCH SMARTER THAN YOU, YOU FUCKING STUPID, STUPID, STOOOOOPID MORONS! WEEEEE KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU, BUT YOU ARE TOOOOOO FUUUUCKING STOOOOOOPID TO UNDERSTAND!!!!

    WE fucked the law, and WE WON!

    Jimmah Cartah must be way pissed off at this devil’s brew of slime balls. I would be upset, too, if some arrogant little piece of shit stole my title of “Worst President EVER!!!…

    The Dems are committing suicide, but they know that if they sink the Yorktown, it will probably never be salvaged………………

    AAARRRRGH!!!!!!

  88. dicentra says:

    Perhaps I wasn’t listening closely enough. You’re free to convince me otherwise.

    Remember that Glenn spent several months pleading with members of Congress to sing up as “Refounders” so that they could expose and then clean up corruption. He got only eight volunteers, who, I imagine, told him things that curled his sparse hair.

    That would make it hard for him to be terribly generous with the GOP. You and I tend to see the two parties in terms of performance, but he’s seen behind the curtain more than we have, and I have no doubt that Republicans engage in some pretty skeezy shenanigans where nobody’s looking.

    I didn’t “hear” what Bennett said about Glenn Beck, nor have I listened to Rush Limbaugh

    After Glenn’s CPAC speech, he caught a lot of flack from folks on the right, starting with Bill Bennett, who stated:

    Does Glenn truly believe there is no difference between a Tom Coburn, for example, and a Harry Reid or a Charles Schumer or a Barbara Boxer? Between a Paul Ryan or Michele Bachmann and a Nancy Pelosi or Barney Frank?

    Others piled on. Rush has been known to toss out a pointed “but for those who don’t know the difference between X and Y” as a jab at Glenn.

    Both Bennett and Limbaugh are known GOP cheerleaders, and they were miffed that Glenn suggested that the GOP needs a 12-step program to purge itself of progressive assumptions (if not progressive members such as McCain). Bennett also interpreted Glenn’s remarks as “both parties are the same.”

    Because I’ve listened to his radio show for years (not TV: I don’t have cable), I know that he thinks that both parties suck, but that the GOP sucks less. Just that the suck differs more in degree than in kind.

    I have to agree with Glenn. Even though there are Republicans who get it, there are still far too many (especially among the entrenched) who do not, and the party as a whole gives more lip service to Founding principles than elbow grease.

    I’m just concerned sometimes by his resort to generalities and oversimplifications.

    More like elisions. He sometimes packs a lot of assumptions into a single phrase, but if you haven’t been following him for a long time — to gather all the pieces of his puzzle — you probably don’t know what all is packed into a particular statement.

    He’s not a detail-oriented person in the least, and he’s better at Big Picture stuff than precision.

    Goes with the territory. Glenn is Glenn. He’s getting people to read about progg history. Can’t argue with that.

  89. Yackums says:

    When we follow this logic chain to its conclusion, we find that Obama’s only option for restraining an Israeli attack is the one that we’re seeing unfold before our eyes: a U.S. effort to methodically weaken the relationship; provoke crises; consume the Netanyahu government with managing this deterioration; and most important, create an ambiance of unpredictability by making the Israelis fear that an attack on Iran would not just be met with American disapproval but also a veto and perhaps active resistance.

    What O doesn’t understand is that there really is only one way to make sure that Israel will not attack Iran:

    Attack Iran.

  90. geoffb says:

    Possibly two ways.

  91. Danger says:

    An excellent (although somewhat lengthy) discussion on the Health care bill:

    I found this part especially noteworthy:

    “If Democrats claim to have passed Obamacare through this Banana Republic methodology, the new Republican Congressional majorities elected this fall can and will “deem” Obamacare not to have passed. For no actual legislation with identical texts will then have passed both the House and the Senate, as the Constitution requires. The new Speaker of the House and the new Senate Majority Leader can and will instruct Congressional officers to remove the Obamacare provisions from the U.S. Code. The new House and Senate majorities can and will also refuse to fund any of the provisions of Obamacare, including the 100 new bureaucracies, boards, commissions and programs. Naturally, this will leave the state of the law unclear, and disputed, just like in a typical Banana Republic.”

    Read the rest when you have some extra time.

  92. Dave S. says:

    I wonder what it would take to “deem” a speaker, seniority leader or president treasonous, recalled, or impeached? At the very least, “deem” them unseated?

    The shear arrogance going against the public opinion shoving a bill up our collective asses just astounds me.

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