The Health Care Bill No One Can See
There was an air of unreality in the United States Senate when I entered the Capitol building on Wednesday to record some PJTV interviews. I sat down with five U.S. senators to discuss the imminent future of the long-embattled health care bill.
We are approaching the eleventh hour for Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-NV) slowly dying health care legislation, which he insists will be passed before Christmas. This is the same bill that was to be enacted last summer, then by August, then after Labor Day, and then before Thanksgiving. Now it may be a Christmas present for the country.
The senators gave good information and offered sharp criticism of the bill. What I had not expected was to discover that, well … there is no bill.
What about the 2,074-page document we’ve been reading about that purports to be health care legislation? Oh, they replied, that bill was pulled by Reid more than a week ago along with the public option, which is now dead.
So Mr. Reid has no bill for senators or the public to read. No one knows what will be in the new bill. And the new, concealed bill still has to be “scored” by the Congressional Budget Office before the Senate can debate it and before an increasingly skeptical public can make their opinion known.
But Senator Reid was vowing to keep the U.S. Senate hostage while he and his allies worked behind closed doors to craft a bill he will eventually unveil to the public. He says he will give the senators 72 hours to digest it before a vote. And this bill probably will exceed 2,074 pages.
So there is no plan — neither a public option nor expanded Medicare. Then what is there?
It can be anything Mr. Reid and his pals want to dream up in their private, well-appointed Capitol Hill sitting rooms.
“The irony is,” said Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-MO), “the president campaigned on total transparency. … What kind of bill is this?”
Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) told me that the request for lawmakers to vote on such a massive bill sight unseen was unprecedented. “I haven’t seen anything like this on a bill of this magnitude,” he mused.
“Unbelievable,” Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) said. It is the “most closed process” he has seen in his lifetime.
Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) was pretty fired up. “I’ve been in elected office for 32 years. … Here we are with a 2,074-page bill and no one knows what’s in this bill.”
Senator Mike Johanns comes from Nebraska, the same state as wavering Democratic Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE). “About a week from now,” Johanns laments, “we’ll cast a final vote redesigning everyone’s health care and today we don’t know what’s in a final bill.”
Johanns observed that even Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), the second-ranking Democrat, confessed he was kind of clueless about what would be in the final bill. Durbin admitted on the Senate floor on December 10: “Most of us know the fundamentals, but we don’t know the important details.”
Two-thirds of a year into our intense national debate, and it’s pretty amazing that there are no details for the public to read, analyze, or debate on health care reform.
So without a real bill, senators have been reduced to shadowboxing over the complex 2,000-page bill that doesn’t exist. The process is such a non-process that it has produced a surreal environment.
In “normal” times, pulling a bill would spell its doom. But we do not live in normal times. The president and his party are determined to pass “something,” regardless of whether it is good or bad.
Look, I am an American expat living & working in Bulgaria with my family. We hail from the central valley of crumbling California. As much as it shames me, I can honestly say that the US Congress can teach this former Communist nation absolutely NOTHING about government or how to run a democracy and a republic.
In the current Bulgarian parliament, ANY bill voted on to be law must be read several times. The final version must be read in the entirity of the bill-not just bits & pieces. THEN, the politicians vote on it.
It is incredibly sad to me that a struggling former Communist nation, awash in corruption, actually far ahead of the fools running the Congress in DC concerning congressional transparency and honesty. May the good Lord help us all because if the politicans in the US Congress keep it up, we are dead, dead, dead!
I either have to laugh or cry, and I’m uncertain which is more appropriate.
How this type of behavior by elected officials is not considered criminal is beyond me. Every profession has some type of standards of conduct, ethical requirements, and a fiduciary responsibility EXCEPT that of politician. How did we ever let it come to this?
Yet.
Obama’s personal predilections were all too clearly revealed when he announced that if Congress wouldn’t legislate on “global warming,” the executive branch EPA would seize the power and do it by decree. Moreover, there are a staggering number of Democrat officeholders who approve of such techniques and would defend them on the grounds of “necessity,” using FDR’s government-by-decree as precedent.
Say, does anyone else remember “Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Pretty cool” (Paul Begala) — ?
The contemporary Democrat Party should rename itself the Fascist Party. Its methods and goals are straight out of Mussolini,, and their boosters in the ivory towers have already convinced themselves that we who resist them are evil and have no rights. Even the existence of a minority opposition is intolerable to them.
We’re looking down the barrels of a one-party, dictatorial state.
So much for Obama’s pretty talk about “bipartisanship” and “a new tone in Washington” — things George W. Bush actively tried to foster, but in which the Democrats have never taken an interest.
Just in case anyone needs more confirmation of Democrats’ fascistic tendencies, Florida’s Alan Grayson has provided it.
Unbelievable…but true.
Essentially, Reid is handing the Senate a blank check and asking them to sign it, saying, “you can trust me.”
Any Senator who signs (votes for the non-existent bill) should be voted out of office.
If we don’t get a good health care bill this time, people know that the Republicans have opposed everything by following the bribes and orders from the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. People will remember this in the following elections, unless their “Christian” conscience wakes up and become positive in the next few days.
The American voters are watching.
The gods want to destroy the world – they’ve succeeded with the first step in making it mad, mad, mad…
How the (expletive deleted)® can a document be signed in which one agrees to disallow a 2 degree Celsius global temperature rise???
I’d rather count dancing angels on the tip of a needle.
Oh where to begin. Some days it isn’t clear whether Obama thinks he’s the mayor of Chicago or a dictator of a South American country. What a shame that so many in Congress are ready to toady up and play along with his undemocratic, non-inclusive ways. I guess the constitution and openness are inconveniences he and the gang plan to ignore for as long as they can.
Save us all from the “self esteem generation”. It’s hard to know what Obama told himself about not being able to advance in the academic ranks and I suspect it never occurred to him that his work and ideas just weren’t good enough. If this round of health care reform fails, and I hope it will, it will be because there was a middle ground, there was almost universal agreement on tort reform and portability, and the statists went for the power grab instead. Members of the House and Senate would be wise to remember that with Obama, loyalty only goes one way. His.
It amazes me how much you can lie to democratic voters. You have to be on the take to vote for these creeps.
Oops, wrong forum.
Vivo I think is a typical Democrat,a follower not a thinker. I see now that they have bought off Sen Nelson, governing is not about morals anymore it is about greed,who can pay the most for their vote . He didn’t care about government paid abortion he was looking for money in his pocket. Everyone that is currently elected to the government should be sent home banished from ever running again . They are crooks and petty thieves. Have you ever noticed someone can go into congress,the presidency or the senate with no money and come out a millionaire ? Look at horny Bill he had nothing came out with lots of money.
I feel like I am living in the twilight zone. We are at ringside watching the destruction of our great country right before our eyes, impotent to change the outcome.With deficits soaring these idiots in congress are on the verge of passing another trillion dollar boondoggle. Since Obama’s election, I think many times that I would have been better off a KIA in Nam 40 yrs. ago.
People say we have faced worse situations, I don’t think so,our culture is malignent, that wasn’t the case in the past.
Senator Harry Reid is hiding the bill for a reason; if given the light of day, the bill would not pass. This also explains the rush to pass such a monstrosity. This will pass, but will have negative dramatic consequences for all the Democrats who have voted for this bill. It will haunt them for years to come.
11. It ain’t over yet. First of all, we don’t know what they bought off Nelson with, and I’ll lay odds that they gave him the abortion language he wanted, which will piss off a lot of leftists. Reid will support it because he has to, but what about Boxer? In any case, Washington is stuck in a snowstorm, and it’s six days until Christmas. The Senate has other business to address, and it still needs everybody to show up to get stuff done. To submit a cloture petition, one must get 16 Senators to sign off on it and give the Senate 24 hours notice before it can be voted on on the floor. I can only pray that Byrd is unable to arrive for the vote, or else Blanche Lincoln is unwilling to sign her name to this bill without any cover.
11. Freedom
Sen. Nelson has now been bought and the bill will pass,
a special gift for us to put under the Christmas tree.
I love it-
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot/head?
The democrat party will cease to exists in 2011.
vivo,
Just defend the opacity of this whole process. Address the broken promise to have the arguments on C-SPAN. Tell us how it’s good for the U.S. Senate to vote on a bill that it has not even read.
Expect a political shockwave to wipe out all Democrats up for reelection in 2010; they are toast. The shockwave with still have power in 2012, 2014, 2016…
The Democrats have just destroyed their party for their openly Communism ideals. Is it worth the price?
You may say that it is a velvet kind of totalitarianism, but to me it looks just bloody tyranny:
nobody is allowed to know WHAT they are going to vote on ?
This is a shame, an insult to the Republic, a violation of the basic rules of democracy.
Communists…
As soon as the communists have understood that the Net didn’t allow them to brainwash any longer the American People, they have started voting on SECRET BILLS.
Kick them out of Congress, the American Congress is not a (expletive omitted) soviet !
#15 Fearless Leader
employers would be required to pay a fine if they failed to offer affordable coverage and their workers sought federal subsidies to purchase insurance in the exchanges.
That should give us a good 3-35 % unemployment.
Together with the falling dollar and a stellar inflation, this is the dream of the communists coming true: the demise of America.
Soros mist be dancing, with his friends.
’twas the night before Christmas. . .
“Expect a political shockwave to wipe out all Democrats up for reelection in 2010″
Who you gonna blame then?
Republicans take back the Senate in 2010, and they gain filibuster, if not veto-proof majorities in 2012. Mike Huckabee sweeps into the Presidency in a 40-state landslide. As it is, there is still time to stop this bill- if we can win the Special Election in January to replace Ted Kennedy, it will give us enough votes to sustain a filibuster on the reconciled bill. This is not over; not by a long shot. They won’t actually be able to vote on final passage until January, and it will take over a month for the two bills to be read carefully by the conference committee, which they must do because the bills sent back to the chambers are required by law to be identical, or else they cannot be submitted to the President’s desk. It will be President’s Day by the time we can even talk about this actually being voted on to become law.
I have yet to be disappointed. Saddened yes, but disappointed no.
This is because I have always expected the worst. People who continue say we can win this fight yet are smoking some good stuff indeed. Their hearts may be in the right place but their heads are where the sun don’t never shine.
And I will say this for the Democrates….if they had done nothing the Republicans would have also said and done nothing. I hold the Republicans just as responsible as the Democarates, for it is they who have thrown way our Republic; the Demoacrates just do no know any better.
And as a special note to Senator Nelson….there will be one way to receive assured, first class medical care along with being moved to the head of the line: tell them you want an abortion.
Sherab Zangpo:
The hardware store called . . . your baby blue urinal mitt is in.
What is going on in Washington is an INSULT!!.. to every American!!
Obama is a very successful communist dictator/president and his minions are doing his biding.
Why are these people not being questioned? I don’t mean getting a little sound bite from their office!!!
where is the reporter in their face following them around? Asking the questions about the closed door hidden crap going on.
Where is that FOX reporter,The one with the dark hair and glasses, who makes people angry cause he finds them and actually asks relevant questions…
The conservatives, republicans, and independent in Washington should all be up in arms and yelling at the top of their lungs!!!!
Supposedly, none of this will go into effect for a couple of years, except the tax part..the damned people that vote for anything…should have to live by it. But, we don’t even know what they are voting on , neither do they. INSULTING!! I’m still amazed at the speed of this downfall.then I remember Bush “1″ talking about the “new world order”…Obama is merely the Manchurian.
We are doing our part here the best we can. Come 2010 I say burn em all an vote everyone we can out. Othewise…OUR America is going to be merely a memory very soon.
23. Now’s not the time to be defeatist. Never underestimate the ability of the Senate to stall, and never underestimate the ability of the Democrats to screw things up- even their own agenda. There’s no way to stop the bill at the current stage, but we can slow things down a lot. There are 318 days until Election Day, and the closer it gets, the more likely it is that one or more of the Democratic Senators will bail to save their own hide(s). Parliamentary procedure will buy us a few days, possibly preventing a vote on cloture until after Christmas. Furthermore, cloture doesn’t force an immediate vote on final passage; we are still entitled to 30 hours of debate after cloture has been invoked- that’s another 2-3 days. It will take well over a month to pass this bill out of conference committee, and from there we start the process over; only difference being that no amendments are allowed this time.
Meanwhile, there is other important business to be taken care of that will force periodic tablings of this bill. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is up for reconfirmation by the Senate early next year. As the election approaches and Democratic defeats become more obvious, expect aging liberal Supreme Court Justices to resign so that Obama can nominate replacements before filibustering his nominations becomes impossible.
While it is morbid to think about, Senator Byrd is 92 years old and his health is failing. His death or incapacitation would deny the Democrats a filibuster proof majority for several days, until the Governor of West Virginia could nominate a replacement.
Re: 6. vivo Charity is a individual choice. Charity is not a mandate given by some self-appointed elites.
Hopefully people will wake up and see what crooks these Democrats really are and throw them out. Unfortunately, the real damage this bill does won’t be fully know for several years. God help us all.
And Lieberman must go.
He has been elected by GOP votes and now sides with people who hate him. They even treat him like an underdog.Franken told him to shut up…and he shuts up.
The true problem of America today is not the communist administration, it’s the lack of gentlemen.
A few gentlemen would have already stopped this madness.
Maybe they will soon inaugurate the Stalin Lodge, who knows…dedicated to the great architect of the health-care (and death panels)…
Do I sound bitter ? Naaaaaaaa…
Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond (D-MO) should actually be Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-MO). He has already announced his retirement.
I suspect this bill will make me and other doctors leave this country or quit practicing in this country.
Phone, email and send letters. No threats – just a solemn promise to volunteer for and fund opponents to ensure the defeat of anyone who votes for this bill. We need to burn-up the phone lines and email servers – not to mention break the back of the mail carriers.
6. vivo:
You are so invested in your comfortable narrative about Republicans being the tools of big Pharma and health insurers, that could care less whether or not it’s true. At opensecrets.org you will see that those industries gave most of their money to Obama and democratic candidates.
Its not the best bill. The left is not happy, the right is not happy. But like my lawyer used to say…if both sides aint happy (he was talkin about divorce)..then its fair. The bill can be fixed later. Like social security, big insurance will go in kickin and screaming but then make the reforms “there own”. It is still a shame the right fought so hard against reform. This legislation was well overdue. Bless those that need medical care, it just might be coming soon…
For what it’s worth, Kit Bond is the Republican Senator from Missouri.
Judas is mentioned in the synoptic gospels.
The chief priests were looking for a “sly” way to arrest Jesus. They determine not to do so during the feast because they are afraid that the people would riot; instead, they choose the night before the feast to arrest him. In the Gospel of Luke, Satan enters Judas at this time.[8]
According to the account given in the Gospel of John, Judas carried the disciples’ money bag[9] and betrayed Jesus for a glittering bribe, and proceeded to identify him with a kiss—”the kiss of Judas” who then turned Jesus over to Pontius Pilate’s soldiers.
Now, though, the present.
The dye is cast. Ilia iacta est.
The betrayal is complete. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. The list doesn’t end there. The Democratic Party just sealed a dirty deal to gave one sixth of the economy to Harry Reid and his assassins. Their objective: Socialize Medicine. Bankrupt morals. Ditto the country. Spread dependency. Assassinate the ideals on which this nation was founded.
Behind closed doors they did their dirty work; agreeing in unprincipled principle to StealthCare. With transparency, they knew the people would riot. But with nothing more concrete than a blank sheet of paper, these miscreants have pledged their lives, their fortunes and their once sacred honor.
For Judus, the price for treason was thirty pieces of silver. Sen. Blanche Lincoln. Senator Mary Landrieu. Ben Nelson. In their hearts, I believe they know right from wrong. But something else in their inner selves proved stronger. Characters with no character? Integral figures in the passage of StealthCare without enough integrity to do what was right? Seems to me that’s about the size of it.
Let’s face it, though, the fence sitting Democrats were always there for the taking. The only question was the size of the price. And now that’s been set; selling their votes for socialized medicine; causing at the least a wounded country. At the worst, one forced to fight
for its life.
Vote numbers 58,59 and today, 60. Sealed and delivered.
These people who are savaging America, trying to rip its very fabric to shreds, often I wonder if they know what they’re doing. Is it as simple as a case of group think gone very wrong? Simple avarice? Picked on in high school?; never picked when sides were chosen for a pickup game of baseball? I wonder where the motivation to betray yourself and your country comes from.
Harry Reid.
Can you see him fitting that category? Easier to imagine than a piece of apple pie.
Nancy Pelosi? Does she have a poison well inside of her the size of Peoria?
Now.
Can I take you back for a moment to 1836?
When 189 Americans, for something invisible yet definable, gave up their lives in a small mission.
Now to 1944. 99 men at Malmedy were on a mission, too. Stop the onslaught of slaughtering Germans sweeping west in the early days of the battle of the bulge. 99 unarmed prisoners left the earth that fateful, murderous day.
To me, these Americans were the polar opposite of those Americans who succombed to Harry Reid’s bribes. Nelson. Lieberman, Landrieu and the other sorry examples of Congressional moral turpitude. The dictionary definition of cowardness.
The news of the treachery is so new that the Drudge Report has yet to blare it in a banner headline.
Regardless, the battle is joined. The fight for the soul of America is on. Maybe in the end it will be a case of who wants it most. Independence or dependence. America as we knew it or Americans who never before knew the Capitol building could be ground zero for domestic terrorism.
No longer can I give them the benefit of the doubt. For I feel in my gut they’re out to harm our children’s children. We cannot rely on people out of balance with freedom and liberty to guide this nation’s direction anymore. Maybe when Barack Obama put one too many avowed communists, one too many tax cheats, one too many domestic terrorists inside his inner sanctum; maybe that’s when my inner self drew my line in the sand. What drove me to type out this note of alarm, a battle worn soldier’s cry for help.
Like the locusts of 1932 wouldn’t stop no matter how much damage they did to the land, the Reids, Pelosi’s and Obama’s of the world, in alliance with the frail inner will of the last few Democrats that proved unable to resist temptation; they seem to have a PacMan like determination to destroy the land of the free. The home of the brave.
ObamaCare somewhere along the way turned into StealthCare. Nobody as yet has seen the final Bill. The trillion dollar bill. In truth, it’s yet to be written. Yet signed on by spineless excuses for elected officials.
Just hours ago it was tacitly passed by foes of freedom and foe enablers. Who are now in joyous celebration. Who as a group are this minute basking in the glow of evil triumph. Who have succeeded by bribe and lies to endanger our health like a new violent virus. Who couldn’t care less.
We know their names. And what they do; kill our most vulnerable, the unborn, the elderly. Spend our tax dollars and stuff them into each other’s bank accounts. It’s all a pitiable part of Harry Reid’s last gasp for complete socialistic control. And to end up living like kings.
Just like Bill Ayers literally did on the cover of Chicago magazine a few years back, these Democrats are figuratively stomping on our flag and the American Dream. In the process, desecrating the constitution; placing chains of enslavement on our system of free enterprise.
The StealthCare battle, it hurts me to say, they’ve won.
But how can they win the war when it’s the American people they’ve so totally lost. When it’s the American
people who fight any fight, bear any burden, right any wrong. Reid. Lieberman. Pelosi. Nelson. Obama. You haven’t just awoken a sleeping
giant. You’ve taken your political careers and sent them sailing into the trash heap of history, where only the silence of failure is there to comfort them.
Your train, our train wreck, stops in 2010. and in 2012 every one of you will be put off. Kicked out the door.
Where you may wonder is that final stop? Well, while you won’t find it on any schedule, we do have a name for it, one that all of you Democrats will become very familiar with.
It’s called the end of the line.
I used to think that Ayn Rand’s novels were silly. Too unrealistic…an American president forcing congress to pass laws that turned over the economy to special interests for their own use.
That could NEVER happen here.
No sireeee.
“Essentially, Reid is handing the Senate a blank check and asking them to sign it, saying, “you can trust me.”
Any Senator who signs (votes for the non-existent bill) should be voted out of office. Dec 19, 2009 – 5:25 am” (Conservative Wanderer)
Any Senator who signs (votes for the non-existent bill) should be
voted out of officebrought up on charges. [Shaving Leviathan]I respectfully submit my version is more appropriate.
These governing “elites” are in for a big surprise come Nov 2010.
I am so furious today as I read how Nelson was literally BRIBED to sign this bill!!!!! His state is going to get all this money. What about the other states?
This whole thing makes me so SICK and soooooo angry!!! I am absolutely disgusted with these people and this President.
WHAT DO WE DO???? It feels as if our nation is completely under a one party RULE and the motto is “Damn you all.” They don’t care about us, the average citizens, whose taxes will be raised, not only with this bill, but with all the other bills. We’ve elected a President who gets everything he wants, and it’s all about him and them and their agenda.
I can’t stand it!! I just pray that he is not reelected. That is our only hope. And that we get these ridiculous Democrats OUT OF OFFICE!!! But even if we do, it seems like it will be too late. Once this bill passes, it will be practically irreversible and we can just kiss our freedoms away, and say “too bad” to our parents and grandparents who will be denied care.
I just really feel like we are just screwed. Unless our Republicans step up and start being more vocal, more angry, and demand certain things, like the bill be read… well, I see no other hope. They’ve got Nelson’s vote now. Nothing can stop them and the press we are going to have to endure for days about this “historic” vote and bill. Not everything that is “historic” is good. After all, the Holocaust is “historic!”
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security
How strange/ironic that this will be voted on on Christmas. Christmas…. the day of true HOPE. While our false, mirage of “hope” (Obama) gives a “gift” to the nation… one unwanted by many, one that will destroy our nation, one that will lead to death. How ironic that it’s going to be done on Christmas.
How cruel. How selfish. How disgusting. How wrong.
We have got to vote these people out of office. We have got to make our voices heard. I am sickened by their motives. There are simply not enough words to adequately describe their unacceptable “leadership” and decisions.
“Any Senator who signs (votes for the non-existent bill) should be voted out of office.”
Any Senator who signs (votes for the non-existent bill) should be brought up on charges.
I respectfully submit that my version is more appropriate.
I found this comment disgustingly accurate, even coming from The Won:
The president said that “it now appears the American people will have the vote they deserve” on this important issue.
Maybe, I hope, we will know better next time.
vivo
If we don’t get a good health care bill this time, people know that the Republicans have opposed everything by following the bribes and orders from the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
The insurance and pharmaceutical are working hand in glove with the Democrats on this bill. I know you people have little interest in the facts, but come on! The only people who “know that” are mindless lefty partisans like you.
Guess we finally found a “shovel ready project,” burying the Democrat party in 2010.
Load…
Show us the bill, you creeps! Afraid to let us know what you’ll blindly vote for?
These cretins are effing evil.
Disgusting.
Despicable.
Deadly.
vivo, now we know how much it costs and whose money is used to buy Democrat senators. And, your totally ignorant and “dumb” comment about Republicans bought off by insurance companies is a demonstration of the total lack of intelligence possessed by you and your fellow trolls.
The insurance companies and Obama have been joined at the hip from day one and it is they who have provided 150 million to promote passage of this destructive piece of legislation that has no content, form, or substance.
We are now officially a third world country. Welcome comrade vivo to your worst nightmare.
So the plan is to pass a bill that promotes killing children on Christmas eve…that’s a shock!
From my website:
Harry Reid finds Nelson’s price. This reminds me of a joke I heard once…
Posted December 19th, 2009 by admin
—-
First Mary in Louisiana, then Bernie in Vermont, now Ben “I have my principles” Nelson. It is said that everybody has their price, and I guess the men and women in Congress are no exception. Kind of like Tiger’s women, some a little more expensive, some on the cheap, even his wife signed up for 20 million for ten years (sounds like a professional athlete contract doesn’t it?) But we hoped for better. They all know this bill is a monster that will destroy their nation, but they will still vote the party line, for a price. As Mary puts it, (I won’t call her Senator any longer, when I worked the street I didn’t call the street walkers by their last name either.) it was three hundred million not one hundred- so there!
Years ago I heard a joke that puts all of this in perspective. As I was working in my shop, I remembered it and though it was worth sharing. Here goes:
“Once there was a man who was rather crude but direct. One of his co-workers was a haughty-taughty female who found him somewhat repulsive. During one of their constant sharp tongued back and forths the man asks her a question. “Look, be honest. Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?” The woman paused, sizing the man up and down, thinking about her response. Finally she said, “For a million dollars, I would.” The man looks at her. “Would you sleep with me for twenty dollars?” The woman threw her head back and smirked. “Of course not, what do you think I am, a whore?” At which the man said coolly, “We have already established that. What we are doing is haggling over the price.”
If someone had asked me if I would witness a time where not only are the politicians we elected to protect us being bought off so easily, but that the same politicians would do it in the open with an arrogant disregard for us, I would have laughed out loud and said, “At least they would have the common sense to do it where we couldn’t see it. They can’t be suicidal!”
Boy was I wrong.
Humorous cartoon on “The Nightmare Before Christmas” Healthcare vote at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/
I think America is gone.It’s time to get out.Somewhere, and leave these animals to themselves.
Reid and Nelson are the lowest form of human life. Despicable, sleazy, disease-infected gutter rats that have slime reeking from every pore in their bodies.
It’s pathetic that voters keep reelecting them as they sell this nation to the lowest bidder. Talk about Chicago politics filling every precinct. It makes me puke.
Where are the Americans whose ancestors brought us liberty, freedom and a constitutional republic? They’re not represented in today’s Congress, and I will fight for all my ancestors worked to create.
Where are you?
The more I am reading what is going on in America during the presidency of comrade Obama, the more I like Lenin’s phrase “the worse, the better.” I started even thinking that it would be better in the long run if the democrats push through the Obamacare. After all, the taxes kick in instantly, while the free stuff comes much later. There will be a lot of pain – with no apparent gain. When this happens, GOP should be able to cleanse itself from the “moderates”, become a right-wing party and decisively win the 2010 and 2012 elections – and reverse majority of left-wing laws. Personally, I don’t see any other way to stop the creeping socialism. If we want a drastic turn from the path to hell, we may need a very loud wake up call. And Obama is pretty loud these days…
Back in November 2008 I expained why I welcomed Obama’s presidency. It seems like my predictions are coming true.
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-can-live-with-obama_02.html
Right now, conservatives must defend two things above all – freedom of the press and our electoral process. Everything else can wait.
A very sad Christmas indeed if this passes. Civil disobedience will turn to Civil War. It will begin at the ballot box.
The salvation of the state lies in the watchfulness of its citizens, to paraphrase the inscription on the Nebraska state capitol.
Quick and easy Google search by disgusted Nebraska citizen turns up the following article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR2009072003363_2.html?sid=ST2009072003679
“The [health care] sector gave nearly $170 million to federal lawmakers in 2007 and 2008, with 54 percent going to Democrats, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. The shift in parties was even more pronounced during the first three months of this year, when Democrats collected 60 percent of the $5.4 million donated by health-care companies and their employees, the data show. . . . Many former Baucus staff members, including two chiefs of staff, lobby on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry and other health-care players and have been closely involved in negotiations on the legislation.”
That would be Senator Baucus *(D)*, one of the chief drafters of the bill, who is quoted as saying “‘no one gets special treatment.’” (The girlfriend retort is just too easy.)
Any takers?
Lieberman cracked because of his wife, and he’s really a wiener at heart. The others got a poophouse full of money….where do they get the money? from the other states, your wallet!!!!
It is so degrading to America. How can anyone vote these people back into office?
I think they should be impeached for doing things behind closed doors and not letting America know/read what the are doing and then passing such bills as they are proposing.
They are supposed to do our bidding. What happened to that part?
dharc@52, America isn’t gone,not yet, but we are ‘gonna have to fight for it. Excercise your 2d Amendment rights and get ready!
out
Ballots in 2010, if that doesn’t work then BULLETS!!
This self appointed patrician class known as Congress MUST GO!!!
But if the so called war on terror is any evidence, Americans will cave and go on chewing their cud like contented bovines.
Oh there’ll be outrage from a few but it’ll fade in time.
Like our determination to exact retribution for 9/11. Once we didn’t feel threatened any longer we grew complacent and now worry about the fat lip of a terrorist and miranda rights on the battlefield.
In other words if it takes personal sacrifice, civil disobedience (refusing to pay taxes, for instance) the majority of Americans will leave it to the other guy.
Dear Lord, May I please be wrong.
This is far from over.
We MUST keep up the ground game.
In the end I think the senate is soft and the bill will fail.
No surrender….No retreat.
Kill the Bill
“Bless those that need medical care, it just might be coming soon…”
DenoRATS are such idiots. 25-30mil people won’t be covered! Big Pharma and the Insurance Companies are working hand and glove with the same RATS. DO SOME RESEARCH for heavens sake and quit exposing your ignorance! It just makes me madder that the RATS vote for something that they ZERO about… You’re being taken for a ride – wake up and help us stop this takeover of every aspect of our lives!If you own a gun they can take it from you because it injures people which is an added expense. They’ll base it on rotten data like they did with the socolled global warming scam.
I’m sorry how can any of you who are for this mess support the total stonewalling and hiding of the bill before the vote? Seriously how can you folks honestly think this is the way the government should run?
59. Complacency requires a sense of normalcy, which is not possible in a depression. People will not be complacent at 12, 15 or 20% unemployment, which is what’s coming our way if you hike taxes now. If the Democrats were smart, they’d lay low a bit, and try to lull the American people back to sleep; instead, they keep angering the people more. Right now, I don’t think they believe what’s going on, but they’re the ones in for a rude awakening real soon.
What is going on is hard to believe…kill the bill. Vote them out.
#44 SteveM comment – You’re speaking to a tween who has NO capacity, yet, in their psyche to fathom such a fact.
The insurnace, pharmaceutical companies are pleased as punch with Obama and his cronies with this ‘act de fatale’.
Folks like vivo remind me of the folks I’ve worked with in Antarctica.
Most of those ‘on the ice’ are seasonal workers: DEp’t of Forestry, carpenters, etc.,
Anywho, upon leaving the ice in mid February, these ‘anti-Government’ anti-capitalism (odd, considering that’s who employs them but I digress)’ folks are on vacation in many worldwide locations until May-June timeframe.. collecting the highest permitting amount of unemployment pay for 3 + months! yeah, ‘Government bad..’!
Also, these same ‘people of peace’ are more than likely employed by Raytheon Polar Services Corporation – one of the bigger contributors to DoD and weapons technology/ research in the world.
Ignorance is truly bliss for these useful idiots..
It is my belief that the current legislation going through the senate is unconstitutional. According to Section 8 of the constitution;
Section 8 – Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to
pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United
States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
It appears, although I can not tell explicitly since the bill hasn’t been published to the citizens of the country, that providing excise tax relief to citizens of one state and not to another is a direct violation of the constitution.
I submit that a senator who votes for the bill be held in contempt their oath of office and prosecuted accordingly.
I can see the health bill . . . see it as it flies by on the way to Obama’s desk . . . he-he-he. You know, I think what did you folks in was the lady who stood up and screamed, “Keep the government out of my Medicare!’ I think that did it. Kind of blew the whole tea party “thing.”
So tell me, how does it feel to have a government that does whatever the hell it wants to despite your heartfelt objections? (Yeah, I know.)
I really appreciated the way each and every Republican in the senate voted no. Great job guys, no to the mandate, no to socialism, no to tyranny. Keep up the good work.
68. Fred Beloit:
No to reform. No to progress. No to fairness. No to “the little brown ones.” No to America. Great job, guys. Keep up the mindless obstruction. JD Hayworth would be proud of you.
I loved your article – it was some great information. I think you and your readers might be interested in another article I found on Medical and Dry Eyes.
http://www.whatistheeye.wordpress.com
I don`t know why the republicans in congress go to work every day or to any meeting. What for? This is a one way ticket. They have no say,and can`t do anything right now except ,BEG. So stay home untill the next election.Now for the way the democratic congress is operating, I say FORCLOSE ON THE GOVERNMENT.One time I had a car reposessed for not making my payments.This party of idiots have not made their payments on their debts.So we must reposess the white house and our armed forces and every thing thats up for collateral,Includeing their jobs. Then we simly sell them to the highest bidder or make parking lots out of the property.
I am a natural born American Citizen and Yes I am proud to say that! I am tired of certain people running down the World I am proud to live in(or used to be!). I have not understood yet why the Democrats and the Republicans have not done everything they could do to stop this Politicains Evil Plan?! All I can come up with is they are in bed with the devil and have already sold out body and Soul! OH yeh and have sold Americans out to the Devil with them!!
We are a very Loving, Caring, Nation. People really need to wake up to what is going on around them and then Speak Up.. They might act like they do not care, but they do.. Stop letting the government speak for you.. (lying)
If it were not for the people Government could not do what it is trying to do.. I will not be participating in there health care.. So if there are a lot of people who think like I do the jails are going to be full with non-compliant Americans rejecting this Nightmare forced upon us.. Oh well one way to look at it we will have food, t.v., and many other perks along with Free Healthcare if they put us in Jail! Lets try to stop the maddness! Speak Up!! Do Not let the Government Speak for us or Run us Down any more. We are Smart, Loving, Caring people stop letting the Government lie to US! We can survive without there Control over us! Come on lets give it a try! God Bless America..