Tom Elia reminds us,

Barack Obama voted ‘present’ 129 times when he was in the Illinois State Senate

Once upon a time a fox was trying to cross a river. The river was deep, and the current was strong, but the fox desperately needed to get to the other side. As he pondered his plight, a scorpion approached him. The fox was fearful and backed away in apprehension, but the scorpion spoke to him in reassuring words.

“There is no need to be frightened of me, for we both face the same predicament. I too want to cross the river; but if I try, I will drown.
I have come to make a deal with you. If I take you to a place that is shallow enough for you to cross, will you carry me on your back, so that I too may cross?”

The fox was still suspicious of the scorpion, but he really wanted to cross the river. “What guarantee can you give me that you won’t sting me if I carry you across?”, the fox asked.

“On my life I promise that I won’t sting you”, the scorpion replied. “Besides, if I sting you, we both will drown”.

The fox mulled the proposal over and over, and despite being one of the smartest creatures in the land, could find no flaw in the scorpion’s reasoning.

“Alright, you have a deal”, the fox said. “Take me to the shallow spot, and I will carry you across.” So off the two traveled, side by side until they reached a bend in the river where the water slowed and shallowed considerably.

“Climb on my back, and I’ll carry you across”, the fox spoke cheerfully.

The scorpion hopped on the fox’s back, and they ventured out into the river. The scorpion had been right. The water was shallow enough to cross, and the fox happily hummed to himself as he easily swam the distance. But right as he reached the deepest point of the river, he felt a sharp pang in the back of his neck.. The scorpion had stung him. He struggled against the poison and the current, but it was too late. He knew he was going to drown. With his last breaths, he cried”

“Why did you sting me? now we will both drown!”

“Because I am a scorpion”, his rider replied matter of factly, “It is my nature”.

And with those words, they both perished.

Now flash forward to today. The House of Representatives is being asked to vote on reconciliation changes to Obamacare, even though the Senate has passed no such changes. Obama, Pelosi and Reid, all with long histories of unscrupulous behavior, are assuring them that the Senate will pass those “reconciliation” changes just as soon as Obama signs the legislation into law. But no changes may be forthcoming, for once Obama signs the Senate bill into law, the Senate Democrats could just meekly float a few trial balloons and then move onto other issues, as might Obama. . This way they would be able to claim that they tried, but the Republicans obstructed them. Once the legislation is signed into law, the Senate Democrats have little motivation to change the law that they themselves wrote and passed. The Senate version would be law of the land, and both the House and the Senate Democrats could suffer overwhelming defeat in November from the wrath of the American voters who wanted no part of Obamacare and have been loudly protesting against it.

Should the Democrats lose their seats, they will cry out, “Why did you do this to us? Now we’ve lost our seats!”, to which Obama, Pelosi and Reid would reply, “Because it is our nature”, or in the more profane parlance of the movie Animal House: ” Face it. You f—ked up. You trusted us!”

Another obvious culprit is technology and parents all too eager to provide it at younger and younger ages. The first time I saw a young girl, maybe 8, with a cell phone, I wanted to cry. I’ll bet by the time she’s 12 the constant texting will leave her devoid of any real grammar, verbal, or interpersonal skills. Her entire childhood, and all the non-electronic bliss that should go with it, will pass her by while she’s setting speed records with her thumbs. By 18, she’ll be a pro at tapping out her feelings and blasting them into cyberspace, but how will she fair in a job where her every thought and feeling is not needed and her painfully short attention span and over-developed self esteem will be a major liability? I could be wrong, but somehow I doubt it.

This all brings me to the most infuriating and easily avoidable cause for today’s glut of dependent twenty somethings: Government. The current crew infesting Washington with their progressive ideology is working weekends and holidays to make dependence bigger, freedom smaller, and the Constitution irrelevant. A fine example is a provision in the ridiculous monster of a health care bill. Sponsored by first-term Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA), the provision extends coverage of a young adult under a parent’s policy to age 27. Much to my surprise, 20 states already mandate this type of coverage for “adult dependents” to age 25. New Jersey goes one step further by allowing such coverage until the resident turns 30, so long as they do not claim any dependents. Like most well-intentioned government edicts, this one encourages dependency and delays personal responsibility. It endorses young adults to remain dependents of their parents, in some cases until age 30, well beyond the point when they should be living on their own and supporting their own lives with their own income. This type of government intervention in the 1960s resulted in countless fatherless households — don’t worry Mr. X, you don’t have to support your family anymore. Uncle Sam is here to help. Which makes me wonder: what will be the result for this new generation who have been denied maturity and discouraged from growing up? How disappointing it must be to learn that the finer things in life are earned through hard work, that sometimes 9 to 5 really means 8 to 7 plus Saturdays, and that sucking off of mom and dad well into your twenties is an insult to them and to yourself. You better check the meatloaf. I think it’s done.

To make the issue more confusing, the House released 2309 pgs of HR 4872 over the past weekend, which, according to news accounts in the past days, had grown to 2409 pages with amendments. (Here’s the link on GovTrack.)

In a similarly baffling move, little of which was noted by an asleep at the wheel media, another HR 4872 bill, titled AMENDMENT IN THE NATURE OF A SUBSTITUTE TO H.R. 4872, AS REPORTED, followed by the language to “…Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the following: was released. This “substitute” HR 4872 is now 153 pages.

The “substitute” amendment HR 4872 appears to “fix” what is called “the Senate bill”… which is actually an amended version of House bill HR 3590 - the bill originally penned by that icon of ethics, Charles Rangel and introduced into Congress September of last year.

This means that for any elected representative to actually read what they are voting for… in some fashion… they have to bounce back and forth between the original Senate passed 2409 (what is it about that number??) pages to the 153 page “substitute” amendment/fix bill to figure out what’s going on in legislative text…

…. and oh, BTW, all within 72 hours.

Then, of course, there’s procedure of the proceedings. Is the House going to first vote on the Senate bill, and then vote for the “substitute” amendment bill?

Or is the House going to offer a Resolution that creates a Special Rule, amending the House Rules that becomes a self-executing rule, *then* vote on some version of HR 4872?

Excerpts from a CRS Report from 2006 (linked above):

Definition of “Self-Executing” Rule. One of the newer types is called a “self executing” rule; it embodies a “two-for-one” procedure. This means that when the House adopts a rule it also simultaneously agrees to dispose of a separate matter, which is specified in the rule itself. For instance, self-executing rules may stipulate that a discrete policy proposal is deemed to have passed the House and been incorporated in the bill to be taken up. The effect: neither in the House nor in the Committee of the Whole will lawmakers have an opportunity to amend or to vote separately on the “self-executed” provision. It was automatically agreed to when the House passed the rule. Rules of this sort contain customary, or “boilerplate,” language, such as: “The amendment printed in [section 2 of this resolution or in part 1 of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution] shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole.”

Traditional Use. Originally, this type of rule was used to expedite House action in disposing of Senate amendments to House-passed bills. As mentioned in the precedents (House Practice by Wm. Holmes Brown and Charles W. Johnson), self executing rules for these purposes eliminate “the need for a motion to dispose of the [Senate] amendment.” Brown and Johnson further state that such resolutions are sometimes called “hereby” special orders “because the House, in adopting the resolution as drafted, ‘hereby’ agrees to the disposition of the [Senate] amendment as proposed by that resolution. If the House adopts a resolution, no further action by the House is required. The [Senate] amendment is never before the House for separate consideration.” “Hereby” or self-executing rules have also been used to adopt concurrent resolutions correcting the enrollment of measures or to make other technical changes to legislation.

Either process requires two votes. One to accept the Senate bill as is, or to first vote for a House Rule change, followed by voting on some version of HR 4872.

While it’s unlikely Pelosi is apt to tip her strategic hand, the only recourse she has is to strive for the Resolution-Substitute Amendment vote. Using this method, the House actually votes for accepting the Senate amended HR 3590 as written, and without a guarantee the Senate will also accept the “substitute amendment” bill unchanged…. but can then say “I didn’t vote for the Senate bill… I voted for a Rule Change”.

What is the reality left is the Senate bill becomes law, and… as CRS states…. “….neither in the House nor in the Committee of the Whole will lawmakers have an opportunity to amend or to vote separately on the “self-executed” [Added: Senate version of HR 3590] provision.”

Again, we return to a leap of faith by House Dems. That leap meaning that they suck it up and accept the Senate version as law – a bill that clearly they do not sanction – and “hope” for no “change” by the Senate in that fix it bill. Or worse yet, they reject the fixes.

Then there becomes the question… is any House Dem going to put their career on the line by dodging the vote on a bill they rejected by playing the House Rule game… hoping their constituents won’t notice? How many are willing to commit political seppuku with their party in order to pass health care they do not support? And if they do, what was their price?

It all depends upon the bribery, the payola offered, and the quality of spin designed to get them off the hook. One thing is certain… the population is paying attention. Passing off simple rule tricks is not going to be unnoticed.

Naturally the rallying cry of protest from Dem talking points is how often the GOP has used the procedure of “deemed passed”, or the self executing rule, before. But for what on these occasions?

Two sources should give the intellectually curious some perspective. The first being the same CRS Report linked above, listing “contemporary use” examples as of 2006.

Examples from the Congressional
Record will illustrate:

* On August 2, 1989, the House adopted a rule (H.Res. 221) that automatically incorporated into the text of the bill made in order for consideration a provision that prohibited smoking on domestic airline flights of two hours or less duration.

* On March 19, 1996, the House adopted a rule (H.Res. 384) thatincorporated a voluntary employee verification program — addressing the employment of illegal immigrants — into a committee substitute made in order as original text.

* H.Res. 239, agreed to on September 24, 1997, automatically incorporated into the base bill a provision to block the use of statistical sampling for the 2000 census until federal courts had an opportunity to rule on its constitutionality.

* A closed rule (H.Res. 303) on an IRS reform bill provided for automatic adoption of four amendments to the committee substitute made in order as original text. The rule was adopted on November 5, 1997, with bipartisan support.

* On May 7, 1998, an intelligence authorization bill was made in order by H.Res. 420. This self-executing rule dropped a section from the intelligence measure that would have permitted the CIA to offer their employees an early-out retirement program.

* On February 20, 2005, the House adopted H.Res. 75, which provided that a manager’s amendment dealing with immigration issues shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole and the bill (H.R. 418), as amended, shall be considered as the original bill for purposes of amendment.

On March 16th, James Dupree noted more precedents in his article, including incidents of both parties while in the majority dating back to 1933, 1948, as well as 17 incident between 2001 and this Congress.

None are tandamout to accepting such vast new, and expensive policy as this step process towards nationalized health care.

The most controversial was the self-executing rule used to correct errors between chamber bill texts on the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Since so many like Wiki here, you can take it for what you will. I suggest you give minimal consideration and primarily a quick overview of the events… ). In 2006, Henry Waxman wrote then minority leader, Pelosi, that the experts he consulted stated the passage of the law was unconstitutional, bypassing the Bicameral Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

My my how times change, yes? Those defending this process today sang a different tune just a few years ago. But what’s a political party to do when it’s your pet project at risk?

Several entities brought lawsuits challenging the law. Public Citizen, a legislative watchdog group, filed suit in US District Court for the District of Columbia. Attorney James Zeigler filed a similar suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. A case brought by an education finance company, OneSimpleLoan, is currently before the Supreme Court of the United States, Docket No. 07-492, on a petition for writ of certiorari to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Representative John Conyers, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and ten other members of the House of Representatives sued President Bush (see Conyers v. Bush), the Cabinet Secretaries, and others in an action in district court in Detroit; the case was dismissed on November 6, 2006, citing the representatives’ lack of standing.

Wiki is behind the times as the SCOTUS has ruled in the OneSimpleLoan case, part of which was challenging the constitutionality of the Deficit Reduction Act in 2005.

In all instances, the High Court upheld the circumstance of the bill’s passage using evidence that was officially printed and signed by the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, and the President as conclusive evidence that the bill passed. This observation is also referred to as the “Enrolled Bill Rule”.

Interestingly enough, during the DRA days, Columbia University’ David Sandler penned a paper advocating that it was time for the Enrolled Bill Rule options to go. Obviously were it as simple as just making sure there was a printed version, and having all three signatures, to enact law, the potential for legislative abuse in unquestionable.

But branches of power do not seek to usurp or intrude upon another branch’s power. And as Sandler notes the High Court observed the Constitution does not prescribe *how* to enact legislation, and that journal entries of yeas and nays were not a mandate of if a law was validly passed. In fact, in Marshall Field & Co. v Clark 143 U.S. 649 (1892), then Justice Harlan stated it was largely out of branch respect for such faith in the proceedings as being Constitutional.

As the president has no authority to approve a bill not passed by congress, an enrolled act . . . having the official attestations of the speaker of the house of representatives, of the president of the senate, and of the president of the
United States, carries on its face, a solemn assurance by the legislative and executive departments of the government, charged, respectively, with the duty of enacting and executing the laws, that it was passed by congress. The respect due to coequal and independent departments requires the judicial department to act upon that assurance, and to accept, as having passed congress, all bills authenticated in the manner stated; leaving the courts to determine, when the question properly arises, whether the [content of the] act . . . is in conformity with the constitution.42

But as with all things SCOTUS, their arguments and opinions address only the specifics before them, and not sweeping generalities.

So the more pertinent question would be, is the task of SCOTUS to examine the Constitutionality of legislative proceedings? Or not? If Pelosi takes the path I’m guessing she will – voting for a Specialty Rule vis a vis a Resolution, and then the Amendment-Substitution bill and firmly entrenching the Senate version of O’healthcare as law – we’ll certainly be finding out.

In addition to the myriad of lawsuits being prepped, as I posted on late December, a new one has emerged that specifically questions the proceedings of Congress, and it’s applicability to passage of such wide sweeping policy.

Landmark Legal Foundation and Constitutional attorney, Mark Levin, have a draft brief ready to file in event of passage via Special self-executing Rule. Titled a “Declaratory” and “Injunctive Relief”, it is a petition to the court to determine status of a matter involving the parties, without awarding damages, while the request for the “injunctive relief” is a request for the courts to require the parties to do, or not do action that may result in injustice. In this case, it would be a request to stay enactment of the bill until hearings and challenges are final.

Levin and his attorney on the brief, Arthur F. Fergenson of Ansa Assuncao, LLP in Maryland, are well aware that the “enrolled bill rule” is likely to be used as a defense. Saying, in essence, that their refusal to rule upon the constitutionality of such a procedure can allow Congress to basically use the Enrolled Bill Rule merely to shield themselves from judicial scrutiny… the antithesis to the Separation of Powers foundation.

31. The courts risk much in not acting in this case. For if the Enrolled Bill Rule were to block consideration of this deliberate adoption of a procedure to repeal the Bicameralism Clause, then the House and Senate will be free to adopt any such procedures in the future, assured that they will be immune from judicial review under any and all circumstances. After all, if the House can pass a rule that “deems approved” one measure on adoption of a separate measure and keep that maneuver from judicial scrutiny, then it, and its companion Chamber the Senate, can do anything. There can be no doubt that the day after a ruling in this case that no judicial review is permitted, the House and Senate would be free to adopt as procedures a lineitem veto through use of multiple enrollments of unitary appropriations bills, deeming every item in the bill as a separate bill. See, e.g., Gressman, Observation: Is the Item Veto Constitutional?, 64 N. Car. L. Rev. 819 (1986). Everything about the House’s action invites chaos: economic, political, and constitutional. Under the specific facts presented here, the Congress has forfeited any claim to judicial deference.

Landmark’s brief does cite Clinton v the City of New York, which struck down Clinton’s line item veto act from the middle 90s, and Marshall Field (linked above), as well as INS v Chadha in 1983, which questioned whether an Act of Congress to deport Chadha was a constitutional action.

Chadha was battling deportation demands. He applied for suspension of the deportation order and, after a hearing, an Immigration Judge acting on behalf of the AG granted the suspension. The House then passed a Resolution, vetoing the suspension. Then….

Chadha moved to terminate the proceedings on the ground that 244(c)(2) is unconstitutional, but the judge held that he had no authority to rule on its constitutionality and ordered Chadha deported pursuant to the House Resolution. Chadha’s appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals was dismissed, the Board also holding that it had no power to declare 244(c)(2) unconstitutional.

Chadha then filed a petition for review of the deportation order in the Court of Appeals, and the INS joined him in arguing that 244(c)(2) is unconstitutional. The Court of Appeals held that 244(c)(2) violates the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers, and accordingly directed the Attorney General to cease taking any steps to deport Chadha based upon the House Resolution. [462 U.S. 919, 920]

The Supreme’s agreed with the Appellate… saying:

1. This Court has jurisdiction to entertain the INS’s appeal in No. 80-1832 under 28 U.S.C. 1252, which provides that “[a]ny party” may appeal to the Supreme Court from a judgment of “any court of the United States” holding an Act of Congress unconstitutional in “any civil action, suit, or proceeding” to which the United States or any of its agencies is a party. A court of appeals is “a court of the United States” for purposes of 1252, the proceeding below was a “civil action, suit, or proceeding,” the INS is an agency of the United States and was a party to the proceeding below, and the judgment below held an Act of Congress unconstitutional. Moreover, for purposes of deciding whether the INS was “any party” within the grant of appellate jurisdiction in 1252, the INS was sufficiently aggrieved by the Court of Appeals’ decision prohibiting it from taking action it would otherwise take. An agency’s status as an aggrieved party under 1252 is not altered by the fact that the Executive may agree with the holding that the statute in question is unconstitutional. Pp. 929-931.

A suit not mentioned by the Landmark draft brief is an opinion when the High Court did use additional scrutiny to verify the validity of a bill’s passage by consulting the journal in US v Ballin 144 U.S. 1 (1892). From Justice Brewer writing the majority opinion:

Two questions only are presented: First, was the act of May 9, 1890, legally passed? and, second, what is its meaning? The first is the important question. The enrolled bill is found in the proper office, that of the secretary of state, authenticated and approved in the customary and legal form. There is nothing on the face of it to suggest any invalidity. Is there anything in the facts diselosed by the journal of the house, as found by the general appraisers, which vitiates it? We are not unmindful of the general observations found in Gardner v. Collector, 6 Wall. 499, 511, ‘that whenever a question arises in a court of law of the existence of a statute, or of the time when a statute took effect, or of the precise terms of a statute, the judges who are called upon to decide it have a right to resort to any source of information which in its nature is capable of conveying to the judicial nind a clear and satisfactory answer to such question; always seeking first for that which in its nature is most appropriate, unless the positive law has enacted a different rule.’ And we have at the present term, in the case of Field v. Clark, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 495, had occasion to consider the subject of an appeal to the [144 U.S. 1, 4] journal in a disputed matter of this nature. It is unnecessary to add anything here to that general discussion. The constitution (art. 1, 5) provides that ‘each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings;’ and that ‘the yeas and nays of the members of either house on any question shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.’ Assuming that by reason of this latter clause reference may be had to the journal, to see whether the yeas and nays were ordered, and, if so, what was the vote disclosed thereby; and assuming, though without deciding, that the facts which the constitution requires to be placed on the journal may be appealed to on the question whether a law has been legally enacted, yet, if reference may be had to such journal, it must be assumed to speak the truth. It cannot be that we can refer to the journal for the purpose of impeaching a statute properly authenticated and approved, and then supplement and strengthen that impeachment by parol evidence that the facts stated on the journal are not true, or that other facts existed which, if stated on the journal, would give force to the impeachment. If it be suggested that the speaker might have made a mistake as to some one or more of these 74 members, or that the clerk may have falsified the journal in entering therein a record of their presence, it is equally possible that in reference to a roll-call and the yeas and nays there should be a like mistake or falsification. The possibility of such inaccuracy or falsehood only suggests the unreliability of the evidence, and the danger of appealing to it to overthrow that furnished by the bill enrolled and authenticated by the signatures of the presiding officers of the two houses and the president of the United States. The facts, then, as appearing from this journal, are that at the time of the roll-call there were present 212 members of the house, more than a quorum; and that 138 voted in favor of the bill, which was a majority of those present. The constitution, in the same section, provides that ‘each house may determine the rules of its proceedings.’ It appears that in pursuance of this authority the house had, prior to that day, passed this as one of its rules: [144 U.S. 1, 5] ‘Rule 15. … (3) On the demand of any member, or at the suggestion of the speaker, the names of members sufficient to make a quorum in the hall of the house who do not vote shall be noted by the clerk and recorded in the journal, and reported to the speaker with the names of the members voting, and be counted and announced in determining the presence of a quorum to do business.’ H. J. 230, Feb. 14, 1890.

Note that, in this instance, they upheld the validity of the law’s passage, but it was by verifying that thru the journal.

If the House decides to pass the Senate version of HR 3590, SCOTUS will find no such journal entry on that bill since they never voted for it, but only for a rule change Resolution.

Will this pass muster in the courts? It’s hard to say. But there are some guarantees… if the House manages to bribe enough House Dems to take that leap of faith, enacting the Senate version of HR 3590… with or without changes… it will be met with a legal onslaught of lawsuits on many levels. From State’s Rights to procedure.

The push back by the states doesn’t escape the DLCC either. On March 17th, they sent out a call to action, citing that three states have already passed legislation to “gut” O’healthcare, and 35 more states have introduced legislation to do the same. This puts a windfall of opposition to the questionably legal, and certainly unethical procedure of it’s passage.

If such a bill passes – no matter what the method – the progressive leaders of this nation are in error if they think the battle is won. Their bigger battles have just begun.

It was the fourth outside-the-Beltway event Obama has held on health care in the past two weeks, and his last public push for the legislation that tops his domestic list. He postponed until summer an overseas trip to stay in Washington to help ensure passage and rolled his shirtsleeves up to wade into his delivery. With so much riding on the outcome – from the policy changes he wants to his own political standing – Obama spoke at top decibel levels and, rare for him, ad-libbed considerably from his prepared remarks, filling them in with folksier language and additional dire warnings.

The first-come-first-served crowd of 8,500 responded with vigor, punctuating Obama’s speech with loud cheers. A handful of people booed and interrupted, with one yelling “No socialism,” but the vast majority appeared supportive of his goal.

So many stupid, “wtf” lines in all his speeches….

I don’t believe we should give the government or the insurance companies more control over health care in America.
-President Obama, George Mason University today

And he says it with a straight face, folks. “I don’t believe in big government”, he says. Does he realize how foolish he sounds?! Does the man honestly believe the things coming out of his mouth? Or expect us to?

Then again, there still appears to be a significant number of my fellow citizens who are still enthralled under the rapture of the snake oil salesman prez.

Apparently, this received the loudest applause from the students at George Mason:

starting this year, if you don’t have insurance, all new plans will allow you to stay on your parents’ insurance policy until you’re 26 years old.

Selfish, selfish, selfish. Infantilizing….nanny-government.

“What we’re talking about is commonsense reform,” he said. “You’ve been hearing a whole bunch of nonsense.”

Yup…everytime you open your mouth, Mr. President. “A whole bunch of nonsense”….

Here’s the transcript of the “prepared speech”:

Hello, George Mason!

It is great to be back here with a group of real Patriots. I first visited this university three years ago. At the time, my campaign for the presidency was just a few weeks old. We didn’t have much money or staff. Our poll numbers were pretty low. A lot of people still couldn’t pronounce my name, and most pundits didn’t think it was worth trying.

But what we had even then was a group of students here at George Mason who believed that if we worked hard enough, and fought long enough, and organized enough supporters, we could finally bring change to that city across the river. We believed back then that we could make Washington work – not for the lobbyists, not for the special interests, not for politicians, but for the American people.

And that’s exactly what this health care vote is all about.

A few miles from here, Congress is in the final stages of a fateful debate about the future of health insurance in America. It is a debate that has raged not just for the past year, but for much of the past century. It’s a debate that is not only about the cost of our health care but the character of our country – about whether we can still meet the challenges of our time; about whether we’re still a nation that gives its citizens a chance to reach their dreams.

At the heart of this debate is the question of whether we will continue to accept a health care system that works better for the insurance companies than it does for the American people. Because if this vote fails, the insurance industry will continue to run wild in America. They will continue to deny people coverage. They will continue to deny people care. They will continue to jack up premiums 40% or 50% or 60% as they have in the last few weeks without any accountability whatsoever. They know this. That’s why their lobbyists are stalking the halls of Congress as we speak. That’s why they’re pouring millions of dollars into negative ads. That’s why they’re doing everything they can to kill this bill.

So the only question left is this:

Are we going to let the special interests win again? Or are we going to make this vote a victory for the American people?

George Mason, the time for reform is now.

After a year of debate, every proposal has been put on the table. Every argument has been made. And we have incorporated the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans into a final proposal that builds on the system of private insurance that we currently have. The insurance industry and its supporters in Congress have tried to portray this as radical change. But what we’re talking about here is common-sense reform.

If you like your doctor, you’ll be able to keep your doctor. If you like your plan, you’ll be able to keep your plan. Because I don’t believe we should give the government or the insurance companies more control over health care in America. I believe it’s time to give you – the American people – more control over your health insurance.

The proposal that Congress is about to vote on will do that in three ways:

First, we will finally end the worst practices of insurance companies. Starting this year, thousands of uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions will be able to purchase health insurance – some for the first time in their lives. This year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. This year, they will be banned from dropping your coverage when you get sick. Those practices will end.

If this reform becomes law, all new insurance plans will be required to offer free preventive care to their customers – starting this year. Starting this year, if you buy a new plan, there will be no more lifetime or restrictive annual limits on the amount of care you receive from your insurance companies. And here’s what reform will mean for so many of the students who are here today: starting this year, if you don’t have insurance, all new plans will allow you to stay on your parents’ insurance policy until you’re 26 years old. Because as you start your lives and your careers, the last thing you should worry about is whether you’ll go broke just because you get sick.

The second thing that would change about the current system is this: for the first time, small business owners and people who are being priced out of the insurance market will have the same kind of choice of private health insurance that Members of Congress get for themselves. For the first time, small business owners and middle-class families will be able to purchase affordable health insurance in a competitive marketplace. And if you still can’t afford the insurance in this new marketplace, we will offer you tax credits to do so – tax credits that add up to the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history.

Now, it’s true that all of this will cost money – about $100 billion per year. But most of the cost comes from money that America’s already spending in the health care system – it’s just not all going to health care. Instead, too much money is going toward waste, or fraud, or unwarranted subsidies for insurance companies. With this plan, we’re going to make sure the dollars we spend go toward making insurance more affordable. We’re going to eliminate wasteful taxpayer subsidies that currently go to insurance companies. And we will set a new fee on insurance companies that stand to gain as millions of Americans are able to buy insurance. Here’s the point: our proposal is paid for.

Finally, my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for families, businesses, and the federal government. Americans buying comparable coverage to what they have today in the individual market would see premiums fall by 14 to 20 percent. For Americans who get their insurance through the workplace, costs could be as much as $3,000 a person less than they would be if we do nothing. Altogether, our cost-cutting measures would reduce most people’s premiums and bring down our deficit by more than $1 trillion over the next two decades. And those aren’t my numbers; they are the savings determined by the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan, independent referee of Congress.

So this is our proposal. This is what the United States Congress is about to vote on this weekend. And of course, all that Washington can talk about is the politics of the vote. What does it mean for November? What does it mean for our poll numbers? What does it mean for the Democrats or the Republicans?

I’ll confess – I don’t know how this plays politically. Nobody really does. But what I do know what it will mean for America’s future. I don’t know what impact reform will have on our poll numbers. But I know the impact it will have on the millions of Americans who need our help.

I know what reform will mean for people like Leslie Banks, a single mom from Pennsylvania who’s trying to put her daughter through college. Her insurance company just sent her a letter saying they plan to double her premiums this year – double her premiums. Leslie Banks needs us to pass this bill.

I know what reform will mean for people like Laura Klitzka. Laura thought she had beaten her breast cancer but later discovered it spread to her bones. She and her husband had insurance but their medical bills still landed them in debt, and now she spends her time worrying about that debt when all she wants to do is spend time with her two children. Laura Klitzka needs us to pass this bill.

And I know what reform will mean for people like Natoma Canfield. When her insurance company raised her rates, Natoma was forced to give up her coverage, even though she was scared as anything that a sudden illness would lead to financial ruin. And now she’s lying in a hospital bed, faced with just such an illness, praying that she can somehow afford to get well. Natoma Canfield knows that the time for reform is now.

George Mason, the time for reform is now.

In just a few days, a century-long struggle will culminate in an historic vote. And when we have faced such decisions in our past, this nation has chosen time and again to extend its promise to more of its people.

When the naysayers argued that Social Security would lead to socialism, the men and women of Congress stood fast, and created a program that has lifted millions of poverty.

When the cynics warned that Medicare would lead to a government takeover of our entire health care system, and it didn’t have much support in the polls, Democrats and Republicans refused to back down, and made sure that all of us could enter our golden years with some basic peace of mind.

Generations ago, those who came before made the decision that our seniors and our poor should not be forced to go without health care just because they couldn’t afford it. Today, it falls to this generation to decide whether we will make the same promise to middle-class families, and small businesses, and young Americans like yourselves who are just starting out.

I know this has been a difficult journey. I know this will be a tough vote. I know that Washington has treated this debate like a sport. But I also remember a quote I saw on a plaque in the White House the other day. It’s hanging in the same room where I demanded answers from the insurance executives, and received only excuses. It’s a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, who first called for health care reform all those years ago. It says, “Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords.”

George Mason, I don’t know how passing health care will play politically. But I know it’s right. Teddy Roosevelt knew it was right. Harry Truman knew it was right. Our dear friend Ted Kennedy – he knew more than anyone that this is right.

And if you believe it’s right too, I need you to help us finish the fight that they started. I need you to stand with me. Just like I did when I came here three years ago at the beginning of our campaign, I need you to knock on doors, and talk to your neighbors, and pick up the phone, and make your voices heard so that they can hear you on the other side of the river. I still believe we can do what’s right. I still believe we can do what’s hard. The need is great. The opportunity is here. And the time for reform is now. Thank you.

Riehl World View:

Momentum and Inevitability: Don’t Be Fooled

Keep in mind that from the time the Democrats started the 72 hour clock, they have been working hard at creating an aura of momentum and inevitability around the passage of Obama Care. What they most want to do right now is undermine the spirit of the opposition to get you to begin backing off.

Don’t buy into it. Those people are always more about spin than substance. Stay engaged and don’t feed into what they want you to by getting this, or that headline linked and talked about in the blogosphere.

Also, see Dem Rescue, a Tea Party related effort. Make sure the Democrats who stand strong know they will still have friends if they continue to stand for freedom and the Constitution, as many of them have pledged.

A few years ago, HBO had a series about John Adams. It was a great illustration of how our country came to be. Citizens of the North American Continent went against England, one of the most powerful countries in the world. There were many disagreements amongst the American colonists on what to do about the overbearing English. But in the end they came to an agreement and joined forces to fight against the Redcoats. The Independence that the colonists fought so hard for was also independence for the individual, something unique for that time.

I am bringing this up because today we have infighting amongst ourselves on how to deal with a modern day threat – Socialism/Statism. Other labels we hear are the Progressives, the Left, Liberals, but we face the same threat. If those on the “Right” side of the aisle (Constitutional Conservatives as Vassar noted in a comment) do not unite, we will fail. As with the movie 300, we are fighting a Beast.

That Beast has been around for over 100 years and is trying to transform our country from what the Founding Fathers had laid out in our Constitution. We have been slowly, but incrementally moving away from the great experiment that is called the United States. For decades the Government has been taking away our freedoms, but we have also been guilty of giving them up. And now we struggle with a loss of faith in the America that our Founding Fathers established for us. The Government was founded to protect our liberty and freedoms, not to give out hand-outs, and have the citizens become dependent on the Government. A welfare state is being created from this dependency.

Too many in this country care more about who sleeps with whom in Hollywood, or who is the latest American Idol, than what is happening in DC. But there are many that are finally awakening from the sleep and joining the few that were standing guard. The Tea Parties and various other groups have made people look at what the Federal Government is doing. A phenomenal awareness has arisen among the people, more than I have ever witnessed before. The citizens are seeing incredible wasteful spending by their elected officials. When they cry for redress, they are ignored. It is almost as if Congress has forgotten they were elected by the people to work for the people.

The problem: there is much infighting among the groups that want to stop the behemoth in DC; people cannot hear what each has to say. Too much noise. We have fiscal Conservatives fighting the Social Conservatives. Libertarians fighting Conservatives and everything in between. We are all in this fight for the same reason, to stop the Statists from transforming the United States into something similar to a European Socialist state. We know we must work together, or separately we will fail. Common ground must be found; focus on the goals. What’s that saying, “Keep your eyes on the prize.” The prize is our nation, as we have known and loved her.

Seth Leibsohn:

It was a model of how not to be cowed by a strong and charismatic leader and a model of a truly independent anchor/reporter. President Obama knew he didn’t have Bret at the very end when his last effort at victimhood was to sarcastically hang his head to the side in response to Bret’s saying he didn’t mean to interrupt, as if Bret were being insincere — which he wasn’t. Anyone who watches the interview can see who was stalling, who was running the clock, who was refusing to answer the questions, and why polite interruption was exactly what was needed. It was a model. If any of the MSM can watch it and conclude anything it is that FNC deserves a) its ratings and b) kudos for being truly independent from the herd of faux independent minds, the likes of which Howell Raines seems to esteem. Bret showed the rest of the press how to do it from now on.

Watch as Obama gets frustrated because the reporter has the audacity to throw him some hard pitches:

Full transcript here.

And in the end Obama came out of the gate with his idealized fantasy land baloney. The classic part is when he tried to explain all the kickbacks he and his cohorts were throwing to those who vote his way.

Even better part? When he gave the most rambling and evasive answer possible to the question of how in the world he could claim that the cuts to Medicare can simultaneously be used to strengthen Medicare and expand cover to tens of millions of new people. (couple minutes into the below video)

Ace:

First, he claims that “nobody’s claiming” that this fixes the 38 trillion unfunded liability gap. But that’s not true at all — he’s claiming that, for one. He continuously says that Medicare is going bankrupt without his supposed reform, but with his reform, it apparently won’t.

Under pointed questioning, he walks his grand claims back to the is that his reform “doesn’t weaken Medicare.” Well! That’s a lot different than claims the reform “strengthens the finances of Medicare,” isn’t it?

He also changes the terms of argument by stating that some of his “Medicare savings” will be used to pay off current seniors by closing the donut hole in drug coverage. But that deliberately misses the point, as that too constitutes new spending, and if we’re plowing these alleged savings into new spending and new entitlements, it also can’t be used to firm up future finances of current obligations. He is claiming that if he spends some of his “savings” on current seniors — but new spending for current seniors — this somehow “counts” as fixing Medicare long-term.

Of course it doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t. But he continues lying about this, claiming his that his “reform” addresses the long-term problem. It doesn’t. It takes a big chunk of money and reassigns it to other spending — most of it is taken from seniors to be spent on other groups — and spends not a dollar to actually fix the financing for Medicare.

Here is a ten minute interview of Bret about the interview:

Bret Baier: What I wasn’t comfortable with Brian was that he went to, you know, talking points about the health care reform bill right away on the first question. And suddenly I looked at the clock I looked at…listening to him say what he had said on the stump just two days earlier in Cleveland and I said I gotta do something otherwise I’m gonna get rolled.

No wonder Obama and his friends are so scared of Fox News!

UPDATE

The New Editor:

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews just criticized Fox News’ Bret Baier for interrupting President Obama multiple times in his Wednesday night interview.

Chris Matthews. Criticizing someone else for interrupting an interview subject. Really.

Matthews then had Salon’s Joan Walsh and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker on to discuss the interview, both of whom criticized Fox for being a propaganda outlet. Walsh and Tucker criticizing someone else for spewing propaganda. Really.

Matthews, Walsh, and Tucker, giving a well-rounded view of the political world.

Do these people realize how ignorant and loony they appear?

Remember the weeping tale of Otto S. Raddatz? Or how about Robin Lynn Beaton? You just can’t make this stuff up…(or can you?)

Why do Democrats so love tugging on heartstrings? President Obama relentlessly push-peddles heartache anecdotes to persuade, even if these stories are highly selective and false. Even when pointed out to him, he has still repeated the same heartbreaking, inaccurate stories in stump-speeches, time and time again.

No, he’s not merely mistaken as the recipient of bad information. President Obama is deliberately deceiving the American public by knowingly telling falsehoods. Joe Wilson was right.

The latest tale, is that of Natoma Canfield (cue the violins):

The president spent almost a third of his lecture discussing her case, and he claims he’s been talking about her in meetings with insurance companies. Ms. Canfield is a self-employed cleaning lady who dropped her $500-per-month insurance plan because she felt she couldn’t afford the insurance premiums, only to discover she suffered from leukemia.

“She was very sick. She expects to face more than a month of aggressive chemotherapy,” the president said. “She is racked with worry not only about her illness, but about the costs of the tests and the treatment that she’s surely going to need to beat it.” Then came the whopper: Mr. Obama claimed he’s pushing for a government takeover of health care because of “the added burden of medical bills they can’t pay.”

Fortunately for Ms. Canfield, she is getting medical care at the famous Cleveland Clinic, one of the world’s top medical facilities. But despite Mr. Obama’s claims that she’s “racked with worry” and might lose her house because of her medical bills, it turns out that the existing system is working pretty well. At the time of Mr. Obama speech, Ms. Canfield already was being checked to see if she qualified for financial aid.

“She may be eligible for state Medicaid … and/or she will be eligible for charity [care] of some form or type. … In my personal opinion, she will be eligible for something,” said Lyman Sornberger, executive director of patient financial services at the Cleveland Clinic, to Fox News. “Cleveland Clinic will not put a lien on her home.”

This is not Ms. Canfield’s first bout with cancer. Given her history as a cancer survivor, $500 per month for insurance isn’t extreme. Cancer treatments and surgery routinely run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is beside the point, however, because Obamacare won’t help with insurance costs. In fact, the Democrats’ health care bill adds expensive mandates on medical procedures to be covered, such as unlimited lifetime insurance benefits and no limits on co-payments. Even some Democrats must understand that increasing benefits will raise insurance premiums.

Contrary to the bleak picture Mr. Obama is conjuring up, most Americans are happy with their own health care, including those with serious health problems. According to a study in Regulation magazine last summer, 92 percent of those with insurance who were suffering from chronic illness rated their health insurance as excellent or good. Even uninsured Americans are reasonably satisfied with their care – about as happy as Canadians who are covered by their government system.

Everyone would like cheaper insurance, but the notion that government will lower costs is absurd. Even if Mr. Obama’s stories were true, help for people such as Ms. Canfield could be much more targeted. There is no crisis of care that justifies undoing the entire U.S. health care system.

“And the truth is, what’s at stake in this debate, it’s not just our ability to solve this problem; it’s about our ability to solve any problem.”

Pondering this statement, I began to wonder who determines the problems needing to be solved? According to recent surveys it would most certainly not be the American People, as the most recent Gallup survey clearly illustrates both Unemployment and the Economy weigh heavier on the collective consciousness. So, why then is our President so singularly focused on the Healthcare initiative?

Being obvious now whom is deciding which hill to mount next, I began to wonder what is the rationale regarding importance of the destination. Clearly the primary issues of today pose little concern. So then Perhaps, being a true visionary, our fearless leader is focused on tomorrow, rather than today.

It would seem, here too the evidence is to the contrary,  given that we are currently already in debt to China alone for nearly $890 Billion. A debt, which I might add, is a growing concern to the world community as concern over the impending collapse of our economy mounts. Of course, if that wasn’t cause enough for concern, perhaps the recent revelation that we may need a further loan of $2 Trillion to help cover impending budget deficit and new debt should be? One can only assume though, that budget deficit cannot be front of mind with our President, as even the CBO has demonstrated that the current Healthcare initiative will have a net impact on the Federal Deficit of $1.043 Trillion. Surely, these facts have escaped his notice…

So what, then, is the truth? Is it that our President is not only unconcerned with both the current and future worries of the American People, but is actively working to make those burdens greater? Or could it simply be that this is not about “our ability to solve any problem”, but rather about one mans inability to solve a single one? The truth is we are watching a man struggling with all his might to justify his historical, yet unworthy appointment to the highest office in the land. One must wonder, at what cost comes a legacy?

The reality of Social Security is far different than the one perceived by many Americans.  Social Security was first passed into law in 1935.  The federal government began collecting taxes to fund social security in 1937.  They also paid out one lump sum payment in the same year.  Regular monthly Social Security payments began in January of 1940.  There is only a three year gap between the time they began collecting taxes for Social Security and the time that they began making regular monthly payments.  This short time period made it impossible for the amount of money being paid out to those collecting Social Security to have been properly backed by the money that the same individuals paid in.  As a result, the money that one generation pays in is immediately paid out to the older generation that is collecting Social Security, and on other government expenditures.  An interest baring IOU is put into a “fund” in place of the money that the younger generation is paying in.  The debt and interest from these IOU’s continually accumulate, and given that most if not all funds paid into social security is immediately spent, the debt and interest is never paid.  This debt has ballooned, and like all pyramid schemes it will eventually come crashing down; which will be a disaster for this country.  The US federal government has mislead many unwitting American’s into believing that they are putting away their own money for the future; but this is simply not true.  If something is not done, the Ponzi scheme that is Social Security will cause another and far more damaging economic meltdown in this country.

The major problem with weaning the country off of Social Security is that no one wants to give up the money that they have paid into the system over the course of their careers.  Many Americans have this sentiment:  ”I’m collecting Social Security when I retire, I’ve been paying into all this time.  I want my money back.”  This attitude is more than reasonable.  Who can blame them?  Who would want to give up money they have been saving all of their lives?

So lets try looking at Social Security in a different light.  Obviously, any money that you paid into social security was paid out to someone else.  So, essentially you have been stolen from all of your life.  Also, any money that you draw from social security will be money paid in by someone else.  So, essentially you are taking someone else’s money against his will.

Now, maybe drawing social security seems justified to you because you have been stolen from all of your life, and now it is your turn to be paid back.  Sounds reasonable doesn’t it?  But is it really?  Well, imagine that you are a bank owner, and everyday that your bank is open for business masked gunmen come in and rob it.  They don’t steal all of your money though.  They just take a little bit everyday. One day you decide to get out of the banking business, and you want to get back all of the money that was stolen from you.  Is it then justifiable for you to go and rob other banks in order to get your money back?

I would hope that you answered no.  In that same vain.  It is not justifiable for any man to steal from younger generations even if he has been stolen from by older generations.  Theft cannot be justified in any capacity.  The time has come for us to accept our duty to preserve liberty and prosperity for future generations.  We must not leave debt to be paid by our children and grandchildren.  American’s must make the difficult decisions now, so that future generations will have the same opportunities that we did.  This is the duty of every generation.

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
-Thomas Jefferson, 1816

Cross Posted From: libertyandpride.com

The shadow of the head of U.S. President Barack Obama falls upon a copy of the U.S. Constitution as he makes a speech on America’s national security at the National Archives in Washington, May 21, 2009.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

And in post-Bush Obama nation? How is that sunlight before signing and transparency-thingie going?

While there have been successes, there also have been some outrageous abuses of the public’s right to know, perhaps most notably in the Department of Justice’s refusal to disclose documents concerning the handling of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case. Two Panthers dressed in paramilitary clothes were videotaped maliciously blocking a Philadelphia polling place last November, making the criminal case against them open and shut. Last May, somebody under Attorney General Eric Holder dropped the three most serious charges against the menacing duo. Despite repeated inquiries by Reps. Frank Wolf of Virginia and Lamar Smith of Texas, as well as The Washington Times, the DOJ has refused to disclose key documents about the case.

Then yesterday, the Associated Press published the results of its in-depth study of how federal agencies have responded to Obama’s directive instructing them to comply with the FOIA more aggressively than was done under President George W. Bush. Unfortunately, according to the AP analysis, agencies have instead responded by being even more restrictive, using the law’s vague “deliberative process” exemption at least 70,779 times in nine months in 2009, compared to 47,395 times during Bush’s last full year in office. Eisen countered that there were “problems” with AP’s counting, which the news service denied. But one thing is crystal clear this week: Much more sunshine is needed in government at all levels.

And his latest has been thrown in the dumpster with all the rest of the anti-American Iraqi war movies:

“Green Zone” is the last drama set to be released by a major studio related to the Iraq war, and Hollywood is undoubtedly grateful for it after the picture, directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Matt Damon, opened to just $14.5 million domestically and $9.7 million overseas.

It’s the latest in a string of flops that include “Body of Lies,” “The Kingdom” and “Stop-Loss.” Even “The Hurt Locker,” while not a major disappointment given its low budget, is the lowest- grossing best picture Oscar winner in recent history.

Recognizing that worrisome history, Universal Pictures focused its marketing on Damon and Greengrass’ popular collaboration on “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum,” but was apparently unable to sell the movie based on its action elements.

“This picture has done better than most of today’s modern war stories,” said Nikki Rocco, Universal’s domestic distribution president. “But we were hoping for better.”
Universal and its financing partner, Relativity Media, spent about $100 million to produce “Green Zone” and tens of millions more to market the picture, meaning it will be a major money loser.

The conspiracy loving lefties will love the movie, you can count on that, but the blatant attempts in rewriting history does not go unnoticed:

It’s one thing to make a fantasy film laced with snarky jibes at the United States and its military. It’s of another order entirely for an American studio (Universal, a unit of GE) to perpetrate, during an ongoing war, such vicious anti-American lies disguised as cheap entertainment.

“Green Zone” tells US troops that all of their efforts have been based on a deliberate deception. Worse, it blames the insurgency that has killed so many of our fighting men and women on US treachery.

Movies like “In the Valley of Elah,” “Rendition” and “Redacted” have shown US forces doing nasty things — but none went anywhere near as far as this picture in suggesting original sin corrupted the entire Iraq war and that American officials are more blameworthy than the insurgents for the most violent years.

“Green Zone” isn’t cinema. It’s slander. It will go down in history as one of the most egregiously anti-American movies ever released by a major studio.

Released and on it’s way to utter failure.

Too much meat here for just a few pull quotes. Read the entire article.

Enjoy:

Obamacare: Cooked Books You Can Believe In

‘Not one dime’ will be added to the deficit? Not exactly.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could use a $100 bill to buy groceries and then deposit that same Benjamin in the bank to help pay your monthly credit-card statement? Regular Americans would call this either magic or fraud. Washington Democrats call this “health-care reform.”

Obamacare rests upon such double counting. It repeatedly shanghais taxpayer funds for Obama’s plan while simultaneously shielding that same money for Medicare, Social Security, and other programs. Such chicanery may explain why only 32 percent of adults support Obamacare, according to a new Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP survey.

“You can’t count a dollar twice,” Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) observed at President Obama’s February 25 reform summit. “Common sense tells you that. You don’t even have to have an accountant tell you that.”

Team Obama clearly ignored Grassley. They should not count a dollar twice. And yet they do.

The health-care-reform bill that Senate Democrats passed last Christmas Eve, for instance, would drain $464.6 billion from Medicare’s coffers to underwrite Obamacare.

However, if “these Medicare cuts are improving the solvency of Medicare,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) explained, “then you can’t use that money to spend on the creation of another government program.” Ryan, the House Budget Committee’s top Republican, said on February 28’s Fox News Sunday: “You can’t count it both for paying benefits and reducing the deficit.”

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office likewise warned last December 23 that Obamacare’s putative savings “would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs. . . . To describe the full amount of [Hospital Insurance] trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.”

Consequently, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) predicts: “Taxpayers will be left holding billions in debt bonds to the Medicare Trust Fund that must be repaid.”

The Senate’s Obamacare bill would take $52 billion in anticipated Social Security revenues and divert them to offset Obamacare’s overall net cost. But wait: Those who have been promised future Social Security payments expect that $52 billion to be available to prevent their pension checks from bouncing. These $104 billion in political pledges cost only $52 billion.

This bill also includes something called Community Living Services and Support. This “CLASS Act” would offer long-term-care insurance with premiums invoiced immediately, but with benefits commencing in 2016. In the interim, the CBO expects a $72 billion surplus to accumulate. Congressional Democrats already have dedicated that sum to counterbalance and thus lower Obamacare’s perceived cost. But the Treasury needs that same $72 billion to finance the CLASS Act’s medical services. So, which is it?

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) described this scam in the Washington Post as “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.”

Conrad is right. At its core, Obamacare relies on Madoff-style accounting. The convicted swindler routinely took cash belonging to one group of investors and used it to pay off a different set of stakeholders. When the investors requested their money, it already was gone.

Future retirees similarly will demand their Medicare benefits. But much of that money already will have been swiped for Obamacare. And that’s when this double counting will sparkle in all its crooked splendor.

So what would uncooking Obamacare’s books do to its price tag?

The CBO says the Senate bill would reduce the federal deficit by $132 billion in its first ten years. Congressman Ryan disputes this figure without blaming CBO. Like a scale that dutifully measures something as weighing twelve ounces, whether gold or lead, CBO loyally accepts the assumptions in the bills it analyzes, no matter their luster.

“If you take all the double counting out of the bill,” Ryan told Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace, “this thing has a $460 billion deficit in the first ten years, a $1.4 trillion deficit in the second ten years.”

President Obama claims his proposal “does not add one dime to the deficit.” In truth, Obamacare just keeps the red ink coming. And it does so as deviously as possible.

— Deroy Murdock is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.

Their blind persistence in the face of reality threatens to turn this political march of folly into an electoral rout in November. In the wake of the stinging loss in Massachusetts, there was a moment when the president and the Democratic leadership seemed to realize the reality of the health-care situation. Yet like some seductive siren of Greek mythology, the lure of health-care reform has arisen again.

As pollsters to the past two Democratic presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, respectively, we feel compelled to challenge the myths that seem to be prevailing in the political discourse and to once again urge a change in course before it is too late. At stake is the kind of mainstream, common-sense Democratic Party that we believe is crucial to the success of the American enterprise.

Bluntly put, this is the political reality:

First, the battle for public opinion has been lost. Comprehensive health care has been lost. If it fails, as appears possible, Democrats will face the brunt of the electorate’s reaction. If it passes, however, Democrats will face a far greater calamitous reaction at the polls. Wishing, praying or pretending will not change these outcomes.

Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats’ current health-care plan. Yes, most Americans believe, as we do, that real health-care reform is needed. And yes, certain proposals in the plan are supported by the public.

However, a solid majority of Americans opposes the massive health-reform plan. Four-fifths of those who oppose the plan strongly oppose it, according to Rasmussen polling this week, while only half of those who support the plan do so strongly. Many more Americans believe the legislation will worsen their health care, cost them more personally and add significantly to the national deficit. Never in our experience as pollsters can we recall such self-deluding misconstruction of survey data.

They describe the lastest Obama salvo as nothing more then fighting the last war…not the new one. The last one is lost already and they have so deluded themselves, so insulated themselves, they can’t even see the cliff approaching:

…the country is moving away from big government, with distrust growing more generally toward the role of government in our lives. Scott Rasmussen asked last month whose decisions people feared more in health care: that of the federal government or of insurance companies. By 51 percent to 39 percent, respondents feared the decisions of federal government more. This is astounding given the generally negative perception of insurance companies.

CNN found last month that 56 percent of Americans believe that the government has become so powerful it constitutes an immediate threat to the freedom and rights of citizens. When only 21 percent of Americans say that Washington operates with the consent of the governed, as was also reported last month, we face an alarming crisis.

Health care is no longer a debate about the merits of specific initiatives. Since the spectacle of Christmas dealmaking to ensure passage of the Senate bill, the issue, in voters’ minds, has become less about health care than about the government and a political majority that will neither hear nor heed the will of the people.

The authors also bring up that the only way to turn this failure around is to bring the best idea’s of both parties together “such as purchasing insurance across state lines, malpractice reform, incrementally increasing coverage, initiatives to hold down costs, covering preexisting conditions and ensuring portability” and leave all the backroom dealmaking, armtwisting, and the corrupt attempts at getting this bill passed (ie reconciliation or holding no vote at all) behind.

But Obama and his cronies have blinders on, and whether they know it yet or not, they WILL be falling off that cliff.

Advocating the use of budget reconciliation in order to get disputed portions of the reform package through the Senate on a simple-majority vote, President Obama stated, “I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health-care reform.”

Assuming that he was, in context, actually referring to the American people and not merely their duly elected doubles, it seems to me an odd statement to make. The fact of the matter is that, according to the most recent Gallup survey the majority of Americans do not want the proposed healthcare reform, at least, not as it stands today. Be that as it may, it has become painfully obvious that our President has designated this particular bill as the rock upon which he will build his legacy. Perhaps firmer footing should have been found.

As early as next week, could come a vote on this piece of legislation. This, in spite of the fact that the Congressional Budget Office has yet to determine what the “reform” will actually cost. The initial projection of “only” $985 Billion over the next 10 years failed to clarify the point that the vast majority of the costs will only begin when the program takes effect… in 4 years. So if we were to honestly review the costs over the first 10 operating years, the number will look more like $2.3 Trillion in increased government spending. Quite a tab to ask the American People to pick up, good thing no one is asking.

Though it would seem that the fire is full to the brim of irons already, Congress has decided to tag another bill onto the already ballooning healthcare monstrosity. Student loan reform. In a surprise move to some, Ms. Pelosi announced that a proposed Student loan overhaul would be attached to the package. This too, is obviously much needed legislation, according to our President. As one of the planks in his campaign platform, the American People are all too aware that this system too is need of government assistance. Despite this public outcry for help, most agree that this bill would be hard to pass in the Senate without riding the coattails of the fast-tracked healthcare train. This could be, in part due to the recent revelation that such reform will now increase deficits by approximately $5 Billion over the next decade, according to Democratic sources.

All of this action, perhaps not surprisingly, comes at a time when President Obama’s approval rating has fallen to 46%. Though his lowest number yet on a rapidly declining scale, he still garners an astounding 91% affirmative response among African Americans. This number has not gone unnoticed either, as the pro-Obama group Americans United for Change is spending in the neighborhood of $500,000 to encourage African Americans to support their House representatives who vote for healthcare reform. This too, comes on the heels of the recent polling showing that nearly 80% of the black adults are likely to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. The topic foremost in their minds? Healthcare reform. Though exploitation of a supporting group is hardly new to the game, this particular move is perhaps a bit more transparent than most. One can only hope that such trust will not lead ultimately to disenchantment with the system itself.

Our system of government was built upon the backs of great men attempting to do even greater things. They saw in our world a chance to begin again, to establish a new world order. In our system, every American has a voice and vote. Recently, those voices have all too often been silent. In a time of great change and uncertainty, the right words at the right time may, in fact, change the world. In the words of Dylan Thomas, let us not go gentle into that good night.