This week, several State Attorney Generals reconvened with a conference call over the next step if Obamacare is passed.  Back in December 2009, was the last time a conference call between the offices of ten republican attorneys general ococcured.  I had the chance to speak to Utah AG Shurtleff this week about this new maneuver from the State level, to challenge Washington over the constitutional validity of Obamacare would impose over States rights.

Craig Edwards

 

 

Apparently the Rules committee is in Chaos over whether or not the house can vote on an amendment to non-existing law (the Senate bill). I have brought this point up a few times in comment threads, but I haven’t read any articles about what seems a very obvious point:

If the Senate can’t start reconciliation until the Senate bill is law (since reconciliation must amend existing law according to the parliamentarian) then how can the House start reconciliation on something that isn’t law? In fact, they are trying to start reconciliation on a bill that hasn’t even passed the house.

What they want to do is amend a bill and vote on an amended bill, which happens all the time. But doesn’t that require 2 votes: a vote on the amendment and then a vote on the final bill? And in that case doesn’t the amended bill have to go back to the Senate?

Where is the House parliamentarian and how can the house parliamentarian make a ruling that is inconsistent with the Senate parliamentarian?

AND HOW COME NO REPORTERS OR COMMENTATORS HAVE BROUGHT UP THIS PROBLEM YET?

According to Byron York’s linked post, it seems like the rules committee hasn’t even realized this problem until today.

BILL OF RIGHTS

1. Freedom of Religion/Free Speech
2. Right to Bear Arms
3. Freedom from Quartering
4. Freedom from Unreasonable Search & Seizure
5. Right to Due Process
6. Right to Speedy Trial
7. Right to Trial by Jury
8. Freedom from Cruel & Unusual Punishment
9. Enumeration of Rights
10. Powers Not Delegated

The Deem-o-crats will kill an least two and continue weakening and killing the other eight

Healthcare Reform Takeover

Details. Details. Details.

What the President and progressive liberals DON’T want you to know.

I have just finished reading the proposed Healthcare Reform Bill that will be “deemed” and “passed” into law after this weekend’s farce “vote”.

To say it is complex and difficult to understand is an understatement. I believe they wrote it this way so they (they=those voting Yea to this monstrosity bill) can fool the American public with “reform” versus what this bill will actually do. Case in point, did you know…

· Final decisions regarding your healthcare will NOT be made by you and your doctor; they will be made by a newly created position of Commissioner of the Health Benefits Advisory Committee (Page1062, Line17).

· The Health Benefits Advisory Committee will determine what is covered and what is not, they will decide what is covered under essential, enhanced and premium plans (Page 1062, Line17).

· The Bill states that the Health Benefits Advisory Committee and Commissioner will determine the essential benefits, general treatments, items, and services you need and get (Page 1066, Line16).

· So who makes up this Health Benefits Advisory Committee? Well, its 25 people; 9 who are APPOINTED BY THE PRESIDENT; 9 who are appointed by the Comptroller of the United States (the Finance Guy); and another 8 who are also APPOINTED by the President. Of these appointees, they will come from various groups representing YOU, including; “experts in racial and ethnics disparagements”, “labor” (think:unions) and ONE (1) “healthcare professional” (Page1064, Line11). Do you think they represent YOU?

· Why a Health Benefits Advisory Committee? Because they want to “protect” you (Page37, Line1)

· What about preventative medicine? Good question…well, for preventative healthcare the Health Benefits Advisory Committee will create a Task Force on Preventative Services (Page1992, Line8) to review and advise which preventative services you and your family will receive, including vaccines, treatments and care (Page 28, Line1). What else is listed under Preventative Services? Would you believe Maternity, Well baby, and Well Child Care (Page 1061, Line 3) are listed as preventative medicines? Yes, the Government will now tell you what care, vaccines, treatment your child will and will not receive. But not yet, you see those healthcare benefits are currently listed on the NO Cost-sharing List meaning the Health Benefits Advisory Committee and Task force still need to review and determine what services will be covered. Yeah like I said, takeover!

· As we have been told, “the government currently does not sponsor abortions” but ask yourself two questions; why is maternity listed as a preventative service? And, why does the term “abortion” not appear anywhere in this 2310 page document? If the federal government absolutely did not want your tax dollars going towards abortion wouldn’t they have stated that someplace within this document? I think “preventative services-maternity” might be government code for “preventative pregnancy”.

· Three more important items within this bill; first, each State can put demands on your coverage and those demands must also be met. So, this is really not universal healthcare for all. Each state can and probably will be different. BUT, the cost will be shared across the board. Remember the Health Benefits Advisory Committee and Commissioner will determine what is “best for all” (Page 1992, Line 8).

· The second item is enrollment. The President will establish community organizers (ACORN?) to enroll you and your family (Page 1144, Line 3 and Page 1149, Line 15). Can we trust community organizer with our healthcare information?

· And Finally, Your EMPLOYER can be fine $100 per day for each day they don’t provide you with this insurance. (Page 1212, Line 11) Do you think that will drive job creation?

So there you are folks, is this healthcare reform you want?

The progressive are hoping you will not take the time to research this bill but you need READ IT. Look up the page and line numbers I pointed out and see for yourself. Then call you state senator and representative and say NO! But you must act now because the progressives are about t make this law.

Tick, tick, tick, tick….the clock is running.

Dear Swing-Seat Democrats:

Hey. How are things? I see that you’re really busy trying to figure out just how much you’ll need to sell your vote for Obamacare. So I’ll make this quick.

Liberals got all angry when Jim DeMint said that if the president’s health care rationing bill was defeated, it would be his ‘Waterloo.’ DeMint meant that it would more or less put an end to Obama’s hopes of pushing his agenda of dramatic change, and he was right. If Obamacare is defeated, it’s hard to imagine that there’s any way he could turn and pursue card check, or the Freedom of Choice Act, or DADT, or (another) big tax increase, or anything else on the extreme left’s wish list.

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Oops. Sorry. It turns out that “man date” is just a homophone for what I really mean: mandates. Even though I despise the concept of a “man date” - that two males are so inept at making friends that they must be forced to go out as though they were attempting to court each other, leading to the inevitable awkward conversation about nothing - I will not devote my time to writing about this outrageous practice. Instead I’ll write about the concept of mandates, ever present in any health care bill that has passed through each chamber of Congress. I’ve already written my thoughts on where I believe this country will be headed should this health reform pass. Trust me, it ain’t pretty.

 

Congress and the President wish to impose upon the American people a particular restriction upon economic liberty with their version of health care reform. I use the term “restriction” because even though it’s not the case that this bill stops us from purchasing something – as is usually the case with laws passed by Congress – it strips away the choice that we have to not do something, which in and of itself is still a restriction. I realize that there’s a bit of dubiousness in the constitutionality of forcing someone to buy health insurance. The Democrats will claim that under the commerce clause, they have this power. After all, if states can require drivers to have car insurance, why would the government not have power to mandate the purchase of health insurance? I’d argue this by calling it an inappropriate generalization, but I usually find logic to be lost on Democrats.

 

And anyway, I’m not writing this to argue why a mandate is unconstitutional (I’m no lawyer), nor why all arguments in favor are logically invalid (I’m only a logician by hobby, and I simply do not have the patience). Instead, I’m going to speculate on what I see as the future of our economic liberty should this be considered perfectly allowable. After all, once Congress has gotten away with something once, there’s no doubt that they’ll try to get away with it again.

 

With that in mind, I’d like to propose a list of future economic mandates of which some, most or all will be imposed upon the American people. With each is the warped and twisted reasoning that will be used to maintain that these are for right and necessary.

 

-All Americans must purchase an American made automobile. By American made, I don’t simply mean manufactured here. I mean a car built by a company whose headquarters are firmly footed in the U.S. After all, (Union card carrying) Americans build these cars. Purchasing anything but will wreak an immense level of havoc on the economy. If the market share of GM, Ford and Chrysler are allowed to shrink, this could force people out of jobs. If they have no jobs, how will the purchase the medical insurance that’s mandated upon them?

 

-On second thought, let’s just change it to “buy American.” Completely. Everything. Why not?

 

-Require everyone to deposit a certain percentage of disposable income into a government run retirement account. Disposable income is defined as all money still remaining after the payment of all bills. I like to call it Social Security doubleplus. This will serve two purposes. First, it will allow Americans to save money for retirement, something at which we’ve proven terribly inept. It will stop people from wasting money that they should be saving up on things like going to Vegas for a weekend. Being in the government’s hands, the money is perfectly safe (trust me). Secondly, the mandate will make the tax forms so complex that companies which prepare tax returns will have to hire more employees to make up for the loss of efficiency. It’s a jobs bill!

 

-All Americans must own a dog or cat. There are so many stray animals wandering around, that this will save those poor creatures from a life of misery. It will also provide much needed stimulus to veterinarians and manufacturers of pet food and toys around the country. And since all purchased products must be American made, it’s a perfect fit.

 

-All utility bills must be paid immediately, before the money that should go towards them can be used for any other purchase. Gas, electric and oil suppliers are not the kindest people. It would be dangerous to allow a world to exist in which people have their heat or electricity turned off due to failure to pay.

 

-If people don’t pay their utility bills, companies cannot turn those services off. Just in case.

 

-All Americans must buy X number of books per year (with X to be redefined every year). Let’s face it, Americans are falling behind and getting dumber. Constantly. This will provide the people of this country with much needed mental stimulation, allowing us to retake our place in the world.

 

-All Americans must finish high school, in a publicly funded high school. See above about education.

 

-All Americans who finish high school must go to college. Ibid.

 

-No one may have a credit card. There’s a definite credit card crisis in this country. People are spending more than they have. The only way to curtail this is to completely eliminate the solitary cause: credit cards.

 

I have no doubt that there are many Democrats out there (well meaning? I can’t say) who would think that some of these ideas are perfectly reasonable and good for society. These are probably the same people who argue that health insurance mandates are based on sound, logical ground.

 

 I’m not one for slippery slope arguments. Generally, such concerns are not based on any particular evidence. Congress has shown, however, that often the slope is very slippery, and the only ones sliding down it are the American people.

People who have never faced an unpleasant unraveling walk around with a notion that danger would be exotic, fun and adventurous. You get to be Bilbo Baggins, and beat out Gollum at a game of riddles. The end of the world will unspool like those awesome Indiana Jones movies and everyone should get their popcorn and gun collections ready. This isn’t how it works. Bad history becomes tedious, painful, depressing and confusing instead.

Such is very much the case with the current Healthcare Debacle which, as Peggy Noonan has astutely pointed out, “he’s (President Obama) been promising for a year will be passed next week.” While we spent that year waiting for next week, we spent that year essentially paralyzed. The economy, the banks, the business leaders all held up on all but the most essential activities until The Scalpel of Damocles has either been withdrawn or has made its grievous cut. No knew risks were taken, no risky investments in high-tech start-ups got made. The animal spirits of Keynesian fame have all been taken to the pet shelter until we know what the rules will be next week.

Even absent passage, the current Healthcare Enigma has exacted a terrible toll on the US economy. As David “Spengler” Goldman shows, the lending of venture capital has become extremely selective and restrictive. In 2009, $17.5Bn were leant. This compares to $28Bn in 2008 and $30Bn in 2007. People don’t lend when they don’t know the rules. Spengler unleashes his trademark pessimism.

Pardon my gloom, but it’s not clear to me where an employment recovery will come from–at least in the United States. All the indicators we have show that employment is scraping along the bottom. With 20% of the United States working-age population un- or underemployed, according to the Gallup Poll’s massive survey of 20,000 households, and establishments running at bare-bones level, it would be hard to envision significant declines in payroll employment from already miserable levels. But the sort of things that generate jobs–venture capital investments, small business expansion, and so forth–are as dead as the Monty Python parrot.

Pardon me while I counter the Wagnerian Doomsing. American small business is aestivating, not dead. People don’t shovel billions into new projects in an uncertain environment. Financial investors like making decisions in environments where the signal can be easily tuned in from the noise. Like an engineer designing an experiment, they go big into variance reduction.

Thus, the current ambitious legislative agenda to completely change America becomes a bigger and bigger drag on our nation. The longer we stand on the precipice of epoch-making social change, the longer the big shots and big, swinging wiffle-bats of global finance will stay their hand before investing in American small capital stocks and bonds. Our economic future, like the governments of Australia and Indonesia, has been put on hold by President Barack Obama’s healthcare delusions.

Getting rid of Obamacare gets rid off this uncertainty overhang. People beat Americans at lots of different things. Other nations have more history, more culture, better cuisine, and better educational systems. Nobody beats America at inventiveness and reinvention. When the uncertainty goes away, the US economy will roar back like an emaciated Tarbosaur ready to gorge on steaming, red meat. Nobody can stop our entrepreneurial genius except for our own retarded government.

So, as we wind down the hours and fight for six more “Nays” athwart DespotCare in the House, this is what we have to bring to bear. As soon as the world feels it may trust our government, they will feel like they can make a killing by investing in the United States. When the investment rolls back in like the tides, the jobs will sweep ashore in synonymy.

So a vote against the healthcare reform chimera is a vote against fear. It is a vote to end the torturous torpor of not knowing whether or not the Louisiana Purchase, the Public Option or God knows what will distort the capital markets sometime next week, or the week after that, or the week after that, or…

Killing this bill kills the attendant uncertainty, and ends the stupid games. It restores the equipoise of reliable rule of law and brings peace to the land. The return of calmer times will lead to the return of happier and wealthier times. It’s simple. The romantic excitement of change soon leads to the traumatic and paralyzing fear of the unknown. Nobody invests in a climate of fear and the economy hides underground. The death of Obamacare will help power the reawakening of America’s entrepreneurial risk-taking.

X-Posted At: THE MINORITY REPORT

President Obama and Congressional Democrat leaders promised that they would use the reconciliation ‘fix’ to correct the inequities of the original House and Senate bills. Items like the Cornhusker Kickback and Louisiana Purchase would be eliminated, and all states would be treated fairly. But it turns out they didn’t mean it. According to the Associated Press, there are still special deals intended to buy the support of a number of wavering Representatives and Senators:

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No three letters strike fear in the hearts of Americans that I-R-S. According to a new report by the GOP members of the House Ways and Means committee, If the Senate Obamacare bill gets passed by the house, the IRS is going to gets a lot more intimidating because it is going to get a slew of new responsibilities. They will act as Barack Obama's not so secret health insurance police.

As they say in north Georgia, “Yi-Had!”  Strap ‘em on, boys! Listen

“They were 50 to our 10, they were easily outnumbered by a smaller force of men.” (Mike Batt)

I’m getting a sense of “We fought the good fight.” Well to be honest, we fight the good fight, (present tense) and that’s that. Obama cancelled his vacation. We didn’t ask him to stay. We caused him to stay. And he now has three screeching women nipping at his heels, with 50 grand’s worth of Louis Vuitton beach bags turning to mildew in the closet. That’s a little win.

I’m getting a sense that many think it will be over on Sunday. I doubt it. If they can’t get the votes…and that is the mission before us now, the only mission before us for the next 48 hours….denying the Dems those votes…they just kick the can down the road until they think they can. Postpone is also a win for us.

Based on what Dan Perrin writes, I get a sense that the Dem headshed is out of tune with their own members. While they only look at the “Slaughter deem” as a clever parliamentary maneuver, saner minds inside the Party just sit and stare and cannot believe they have to make a (political) life and death choice, not to mention finding their photo in every Rogue’s Gallery from now til the ending of time, in order to ratify into “law” a bill that still has less than a 50-50 chance of ever becoming law. Not only will they have to leave their districts, they’ll have to move into the witness protection program, just to make this happen. Future Congresses will have to pass special civil rights legislation just so they can get served at the lunch counter. Ben Nelson can’t already.

The oldest rule around, “When in doubt…if regret is in anyway a part of the equation…don’t” Just ask 95% of all the women who have ever had an abortion. Regret dogs you til the day you die, for the one person you can never run away from is yourself. This is that kind of vote for those members. I’m not sure they can be bought off on this one. Nor am I sure they can tell Lady Nan beforehand, which will make for a bunch of puckered tooshes come tally time. She may call the vote on Sunday never knowing that she actually has the votes. Great theater. Great drama. And possibly a lot of prayers answered.

If they do get the votes, we just move the line back a little, maybe a right wheel, and reload. So strap ‘em on tight. But speculations as to what we will do then…well, everyone already knows. It will be longest walk in American history for all 216 of those votes, trying to move that bill from the House, by-pass the Senate, onto the president’s desk and into law, and thence, onto the states and individual citizens. That ball has already begun to roll. Our chances are good. Just two words of caution: McCain-Feingold. Never assume.

But this is not the time to speak of those things. The task before us now, for 48 hours, is to prevent all that future from happening at all. Fax, phone, call, email, cajole, stomp your feet…and yes threaten…but be legal.

Just do not let them hide behind those false CBO numbers, no matter how cynical the media uses them to tout this plan now. The Speaker lied, the real CBO numbers on the actual plan relaesed yesterday are not even out. And the media will provide no cover once the vote is done.

And do not let them believe this “process of deeming” is ordinary or constitutional. It is un-constitutional. It is criminal. It is un-American. (It is French.) Most of all, it is fatal, and there is no pit in American hell deeper…and since we will win…this week, this year, 2012…it doesn’t matter, we have the absolute power to damn those 216 votes to the deepest hole.

Laisser les bons temps rouller! For God and St George (thanks, Nessa).

Now sit back and enjoy a song of Liberty.