Touched With Fire

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Harry's Reid's Gift to America:
ObamaCare Passes the Senate with 60 Votes

Our government is broken; the procedure by which the health bill was passed in the Senate is almost as disturbing as the bill itself. The vote at 7:00 a.m. today was 60 to 39. No Republicans voted for the bill, so at least the Dems can't use one Republican vote for the bill to call this crap "bipartisan."

My friend at HotAir, Ed Morrissey, says it well: [Let's] call this what it was. Harry Reid bribed members of his caucus to support the Democrats’ highest priority domestic agenda item. Why? Because it was so radical that not even all of the Democrats could support it until he started using taxpayer money to buy their votes. That’s not “deftness,” it’s crude corruption of the kind that Reid and the Democrats ran against in 2006 and 2008.

The cynical Democrat plan all along has been to pass anything--and then rewrite it later when the spotlight is off. So not only do we not know what's in this bill, but what's in the bill doesn't even matter--because this thing will be amended, and they won't even have to work in the dead of night to do it.

Karl Rove says that the way Harry Reid reached unanimity in his caucus could hurt Democrats more than they realize. Rove expressed this view in yesterday's WSJ: "The Real Price of the Senate Health Bill." As he says, there are problems with getting short-term benefits for states (like Ben Nelson did for Nebraska) in exchange for long-term costs for the nation. Rove has a whole list of special deals that Reid and his cronies made to get this bill passed. Check out his article.

According to Rove, here's what the nation gets for Harry Reid's bought Democrat votes: Taxes start going up now, Medicare cuts begin after next fall's election, and spending for subsidies commences in five years. The price tag is not the first decade's announced $871 billion cost: It is $2.4 trillion. That's the cost of the tax credits in insurance exchanges, and the additional Medicaid costs the reform generates, over the first 10 years it's fully up and running, according to Congressional Budget Office numbers compiled by Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who is also a medical doctor, wrote a good piece in the Dec. 24 Real Clear Politics: "Voting Against Government-Run Health Care." Coburn says that if the bill becomes law, he will do everything in his power to work toward its repeal. Here are some exerpts.

This Congress will be remembered for its arrogance, corruption and stupidity. . . . This bill will ration care, cut Medicare, increase premiums, fund abortion and bury our children in debt.

This process was not compromise. This process was corruption. This bill passed because votes were bought and sold using the issue of abortion as a bargaining chip.

The experience of government-run health care in the United States and around the world shows that access to a government program is not access to health care. Forty percent of doctors restrict access to Medicaid patients. Medicare already rations care and denies medical claims at twice the rate of private insurers.

The backers of the Reid bill, in many cases, have been unwilling argue for what they believe in - a single-payer health care system controlled by Washington. Their hide the ball strategy led them to rush this process and ram the bill through on the eve of the most important Christian holiday when they hoped the American people wouldn't be watching.

The clear will of the public was not only ignored, but concerned citizens were personally attacked by politicians in power. The American people were derided as an angry mob, and were called evil-doers and unpatriotic by the leaders of the House and Senate.

I would contend this bill is Exhibit A in the American people's case against Washington. Soon enough, the American people will have the opportunity to ration the terms of the elected officials in Washington who sought to impose their will on the public.

Michelle Malkin is calling ObamaCare the "tipping point in the culture of corruption." [By the way, if you've never read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, you should ask Santa to put one in your stocking. Excellent read.] Courtesy of HotAir, here are two interviews with Malkin, one by Mark Steyn and then another one of Malkin being interviewed on Fox & Friends. Mark Steyn says that so far, seven attorney generals of seven states are looking into the legality of the Cash for Cloture to senators in Nebraska, Louisiana, and Connecticut, among others.

An article written by James Rosen has more information about state prosecutors mounting a legal challenge to the health care bill. Some are saying that the exemption, just one example, of Nebraska was done in a way that violates the Constitution because it's a tax on 49 other states that's being levied, with the other 49 states paying Nebraska's share. Attorneys general in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Utah are considering a lawsuit, bringing to ten the number of prosecutors joining the initiative. The states would not have legal standing to file suit until after the health-care bill gained final passage and was signed into law by President Obama.

And P.S. If you haven't read Malkin's book, Culture of Corruption, that's another good read. It's an excellent reference book for who's-who in the Obama administration. Malkin's research in this book is impressive.

Reid is seeking his fifth consecutive six-year term in 2010. His poll numbers with Nevada voters are at 38% favorable--anything under 50% indicates an incumbent who is in trouble. Nine Republican candidates are lining up to challenge Reid for his seat. The most viable in November were businesswoman and former GOP official Sue Lowden, attorney and businessman Danny Tarkanian, and former Nevada assemblywoman Sharron Angle. This is a seat the Republicans must win. Payback is hell, Harry. Unfortunately there's nothing we can do to this assclown that can approach the damage he's done to this country.

Sen. Chuck E. Schumer (D-NY) is also up for re-election in 2010. He's the Economic Committee chair, and here's his elitist, snotty take on this craptastik bill and the legislative process--that the American people don't care. What a cynical hack. I suppose it's too much to hope for that New Yorkers would vote him out, but his race is something to keep an eye on. A January 9, 2009 article in the New York Daily News asked the question, "Who in their right mind would oppose him?" I'm hoping that the political climate has changed a bit since that article ran.

Gateway Pundit is reporting on a national Joker outbreak. Evidently it began with our own esteemed Senator from Missouri, Claire McCaskill.

These posters are sprouting up on signs in small towns all over the place. Right, Chuck--voters don't care. Michelle Malkin says this jokerizing trend is just the beginning of the end for these log rollers and bribe takers.