Atlas Shrugs

Catholic Church Sues Obama

Obama 's war on the church continues ...... I am glad that the church is fighting back and filing this historic lawsuit. Perhaps if these cardinals converted to islam, they would get the respect and deference they so richly deserve from Hussein.

BREAKING: Cardinal Dolan of NY, Cardinal Wuerl of D.C., Notre Dame--And 40 Other Catholic Dioceses and Organizations--Sue Obama Administration

By Terence P. Jeffrey May 21, 2012

    (CNSNews.com) - The Archdiocese of New York, headed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., headed by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the University of Notre Dame, and 40 other Catholic dioceses and organizations around the country announced on Monday that they are suing the Obama administration for violating their freedom of religion, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The dioceses and organizations, in different combinations, are filing 12 different lawsuits filed in federal courts around the country.

The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. has established a special website--preservereligiousfreedom.org--to explain its lawsuit and present news and developments concerning it.

"This lawsuit is about an unprecedented attack by the federal government on one of America’s most cherished freedoms: the freedom to practice one’s religion without government interference," the archdiocese says on the website. "It is not about whether people have access to certain services; it is about whether the government may force religious institutions and individuals to facilitate and fund services which violate their religious beliefs."

The suits filed by the Catholic organizations focus on the regulation that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced last August and finalized in January that requires virtually all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that can cause abortions.

More than three-quarters of Muslim med students feel right to refuse treatment

Not that you would want to be treated by such compassionate practitioners of medicine. How would the Obama administration, the same regime that would jail Americans for not buying health insurance, handle this?

More than three-quarters of Muslim med students feel right to refuse treatment

 July 23, 2011 by creeping

via Next generation of doctors vote on right to refuse treatment.

The next generation of doctors believe they should have the right to refuse to treat certain patients based on personal, moral and religious beliefs.

An anonymous survey of more than 700 British medical students found nearly half felt they should be entitled to make conscientious objections to carrying out procedures, including abortions and treating drunk patients.

Most of their objections were linked to non-religious reasons, but about one-fifth of students cited religion as the key factor.

Out of the 10 different religious groups the students belonged to, Muslims were the most likely to believe they had a right to conscientiously object.

“[The survey] is a litmus test for the future in that they didn’t survey doctors; they surveyed students,” Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton said.

“It may be that we need to focus some of those ethical issues in medical courses, given the increase in the number of female students and there being more of a mix of race and religion [among medical students].”

More than three-quarters of Muslim students and more than half of Jewish and Protestant students felt doctors had a right to make a conscientious objection.

Will training overcome religious ideologies? Sharia? Hospitals in the U.S. are becoming more sharia compliant.

Breaking: Obamacare Ruled Unconstitutional "Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void"

Florida Judge Vinson: "Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void"

We have a couple of Americans left in the judiciary, thank Gd.

US Judge in the state of Florida ruled that the Congress exceeded its authority. The judge in Florida issued the latest ruling on the constitutionality of President Obama’s signature health overhaul.

Utah and 25 other states sued to challenge the “individual mandate,” which requires that nearly all Americans carry health insurance or face a financial penalty. The states argued that mandate oversteps constitutional limits on federal authority.

Judge Vinson declared the law unconstitutional. His is the second such ruling. In two other cases, judges determined that the individual mandate was legal, setting up a showdown to be decided months, or years, from now by the U.S. Supreme Court.

But the Florida case marks the largest attack on the sweeping Affordable Care Act meant to extend health coverage to America’s uninsured.

“This litigation is important, and not just because it deals with health care,” said Swallow. “In essence, what we’re saying is Congress broke the rules by forcing Americans to buy a product they don’t want to buy.” (here)

Can someone tell O'Reilly to shut up?

It was bad enough when he took on the Ground Zero mosque -- yeesh. Yes, Bill, let's hear what the Hamas group CAIR has to say about the mosque again.

Now Bull O'Reilly is admonishing the Republicans for their initiative to repeal Obamacare, saying it is fruitless. That it cannot be done. Uh, what? What was all that tea party activity about? What were all those rallies about? Why did millions take to the streets? Why did hundreds of thousands march on their congressman's offices during the summer? Why did Republicans snag 600 legislative seats?

O'Reilly is out of touch. Out of tune. If the Republicans did not work on repealing Obamacare, you'd be looking at villagers with torches.

Key Provision of Obamacare Ruled Unconstitutional

It's a good day, folks. You gotta love this from the Constitutional Law Professor part time instructor in the White House. Bwahahahahahahaha

Take the gloves off, the fight has begun.

A Virginia judge on Monday determined that the law’s requirement that most Americans have health insurance (or pay to opt-out) is unconstitutional.

RICHMOND – A federal judge in Virginia ruled Monday that a key provision of the nation’s sweeping health-care overhaul is unconstitutional, the most significant legal setback so far for President Obama’s signature domestic initiative.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson found that Congress could not order individuals to buy health insurance.

In a 42-page opinion, Hudson said the provision of the law that requires most individuals to get insurance or pay a fine by 2014 is an unprecedented expansion of federal power that cannot be supported by Congress’s power to regulate interstate trade.

“Neither the Supreme Court nor any federal circuit court of appeals has extended Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market,” he wrote. “In doing so, enactment of the [individual mandate] exceeds the Commerce Clause powers vested in Congress under Article I [of the Constitution.]

read the rest: Key provision of health-care overhaul ruled unconstitutional.

UPDATE: Mark Levin had this in his Facebook post:

From Landmark Legal Foundation on ObamaCare

Today Federal District Judge Henry Hudson ruled against the Obama Administration on three essential points involving Obamacare:

1. Individuals who do not actively participate in commerce -- that is, who do not voluntarily purchase health insurance --  cannot be said to be participating in commerce under the United States Constitution's Commerce Clause, and there is no Supreme Court precedent providing otherwise;

2. The Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution cannot be used as a backdoor means to enforce a statute that is not otherwise constitutional under Congress's enumerated powers;

and 3. There is a difference between a tax and a penalty, there is much Supreme Court precedent in this regard, and the penalty provision in Obamacare is not a tax but a penalty and, therefore, is unconstitutional for it is applied to individuals who choose not to purchase health care.

Judge Hudson's ruling against the Obama Administration and for the Commonwealth of Virginia gives hope that the rule of law and the Constitution itself still having meaning.  Landmark Legal Foundation has filed several amicus briefs in this case, at the request of the Commonwealth, and will continue to provide support in the likely event the Commonwealth is required to defend this decision in the Fourth Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court.  Landmark would also like to congratulate Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and the excellent lawyers in his office for their superb legal skills. 

 

Landmark President Mark R. Levin declared:  "It is a great day for the rule of law and the citizenry.  Judge Hudson's ruling is ironclad, and General Cuccinelli deserves an enormous amount of credit for taking on this mater.  We look forward to continuing to work with him." 

Zero Administration's Zero Tolerance

It's painful to watch the destruction of the world's best health care system, the rout of the private health care sector, and the impossible burden foisted on the individual American wallet for this so-called privilege of serving "the common good."

Ayn Rand on the "Common Good":

The tribal notion of “the common good” has served as the moral justification of most social systems—and of all tyrannies—in history. The degree of a society’s enslavement or freedom corresponded to the degree to which that tribal slogan was invoked or ignored.

“The common good” (or “the public interest”) is an undefined and undefinable concept: there is no such entity as “the tribe” or “the public”; the tribe (or the public or society) is only a number of individual men. Nothing can be good for the tribe as such; “good” and “value” pertain only to a living organism—to an individual living organism—not to a disembodied aggregate of relationships.

“The common good” is a meaningless concept, unless taken literally, in which case its only possible meaning is: the sum of the good of all the individual men involved. But in that case, the concept is meaningless as a moral criterion: it leaves open the question of what is the good of individual men and how does one determine it?

It is not, however, in its literal meaning that that concept is generally used. It is accepted precisely for its elastic, undefinable, mystical character which serves, not as a moral guide, but as an escape from morality. Since the good is not applicable to the disembodied, it becomes a moral blank check for those who attempt to embody it.

When “the common good” of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals. It is tacitly assumed, in such cases, that “the common good” means “the good of the majority” as against the minority or the individual. Observe the significant fact that that assumption is tacit: even the most collectivized mentalities seem to sense the impossibility of justifying it morally. But “the good of the majority,” too, is only a pretense and a delusion: since, in fact, the violation of an individual’s rights means the abrogation of all rights, it delivers the helpless majority into the power of any gang that proclaims itself to be “the voice of society” and proceeds to rule by means of physical force, until deposed by another gang employing the same means.

Below is must-read commentary from Robert Tracinski, The Intellectual Activist (it's paid only, so subscribe):

I would be tempted to say that I told you so—again and again—except that there's no point in such a complaint, because the American public was listening when we warned them that ObamaCare would destroy private health insurance. The only people who weren't listening were the Democrats in Congress—who also knew that it was true, but who wanted that disastrous outcome.

And now the outcome is here—but faster and worse than we expected.

A group of health insurance companies just announced that the provisions of ObamaCare are already causing them to increase their insurance premiums.

In addition to pledging that the law would restrain increases in Americans' insurance premiums, Democrats front-loaded the legislation with early provisions they hoped would boost public support. Those include letting children stay on their parents' insurance policies until age 26, eliminating co-payments for preventive care, and barring insurers from denying policies to children with pre-existing conditions, plus the elimination of the coverage caps.

Weeks before the election, insurance companies began telling state regulators it is those very provisions that are forcing them to increase their rates.

Of course, all of this was predictable and was predicted by opponents of the legislation. But that's not the important part of the story.

The real news is the Obama administration's reaction, which has been to demand that insurers be denied permission to increase their premiums—and that they be punished even for communicating to the public about the cause of the rate increases. As Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius declared, "There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases."

An outraged Michael Barone—and Barone is a sober establishment type who doesn't often get angry—describes this as another instance of "gangster government."

[Sebelius] promises to issue regulations to require "state or federal review of all potentially unreasonable rate increases" (which would presumably mean all rate increases).

And there's a threat. "We will also keep track of insurers with a record of unjustified rate increases: those plans may be excluded from health insurance Exchanges in 2014."

That's a significant date, the first year in which state insurance exchanges are slated to get a monopoly on the issuance of individual health insurance policies. Sebelius is threatening to put health insurers out of business in a substantial portion of the market if they state that Obamacare is boosting their costs.

"Congress shall make no law," reads the First Amendment, "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."

Sebelius' approach is different: "zero tolerance" for dissent.

But Barone doesn't address the other part of this story. Jack Wakeland sent me a note reminding me of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's similar efforts under the reign of RomneyCare.

"Deval Patrick's arbitrary cap on rates for small group insurance plans was the starting point for a cascade of events that is rapidly destroying the private health insurance market in Massachusetts—beginning with small group health insurance plans used by independent contractors, self-employed businessmen, family-owned and operated businesses, and other small businesses.

"Last Thursday, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius began taking the nation down the road that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has been traveling: towards the end of private health insurance."

We had assumed that ObamaCare would not destroy private health insurance until it is fully implemented in 2014, giving us time to defund it, to slow it down, and then to repeal it. But Sebelius is putting us on notice that the Obama administration intends to use the vast and arbitrary regulatory powers granted in the law to shut down private insurance now.

That's why we're going to need a new crop of radicals in Congress. They won't just need to engage in parliamentary stalling tactics to gum up the legislative works. They will need to launch an all-out battle to restrain an administration that is fully committed to using its unchecked, tyrannical regulatory power to override the will of the people and destroy what is left of American liberty.

So we need a new group of legislators who will show zero tolerance.—RWT

Pamela Geller, Big Government: Deadly Obamacare Kills Businesses, Jobs

To the buzz, I love you right back.

In case you missed my column today at Big Government:

Deadly Obamacare Kills Businesses, Jobs

Notice how Obama bad news always drops on Friday nights. But the Democrats will not forever be able to keep quiet the reality and the consequences of Obama rule.

Meanwhile, as the health care putsch continues, the world goes to hell in handbasket. The sinking of the South Korean warship near the North Korean border Friday was almost certainly an act of war, even as South Korean officials played down that possibility. Nonetheless, it reeks of the North Koreans. North Korea never would have pulled something like this under Bush. Never. But they know Obama will do nothing and that South Korea is on her own. Barack Hussein Obama ain’t Harry S Truman.

With Obama at the helm, expect hell to break loose. Iranian nukes? Yawn. Pakistan jihadis with nukes? Crickets chirping. Abandonment of Israel? Check! Socializing healthcare? Job 1!

And as they take over seventeen percent of the American economy, how cocky the Democrats are — full of contempt for the hard-working American. In order to fund Obama’s counter-insurgency in America, the enemy must be cut off of supplies, succor and support. And who is the enemy? He is us. The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has ordered the closing of numerous fast-food outlets on bases. Command Sgt. Maj. Michael T. Hall explained that “some of the morale, welfare and recreation facilities throughout Afghanistan” for troops would be cut: “In the coming weeks and months, concessions such as Orange Julius, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen and Military Car Sales will close their doors.”

Trillions on the backs of our kids, but no cheezboigers for the troops. But there is plenty of money for Kobe steaks for King O. Date nights in Manhattan with Michelle for a million. $600 sneakers for her as well. And remember that taxpayers footed the $101,000 bill for in-flight parties on Air Force jets arranged by Nancy Pelosi: according to journalist Bob Unruh at WorldNetDaily, “it reads like a dream order for some wild frat party: Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewars scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey … and Corona beer.”

Read it and weep.

ATT, Verizon, Deere, Caterpillar Suffer Bloody Billion Dollar Bill -- Deadly Obamacare Kills Business, Jobs

You think Obama has been a nightmare? You ain't seen nothing yet. That was just the previews.

Have you seen the commercials yet for people who have maxed out their credit cards, have loans over ten thousand that they can't pay back, urging them to apply for stimulus dollars? It's enough to make you puke. For those who played by the rules, worked hard, did the right thing -- you're screwed, the man has you and your wallet and your kids' wallet by the throat. Welcome to the era of the degenerate -- they will be sucking your blood and your children's blood and your children's children's blood for decades to come, or however long America lasts.

American business, the motor of the global economy, was dealt a deathblow by the marxist putsch delivered by the Demo-rat party. The numbers are staggering. AT&T, the largest telephone company in the country, will take a one billion dollar hit in the current quarter as a result of this economic attack on America.

Verizon Communications, the second biggest U.S. phone company, told employees that tax burdens under the new law would likely filter down to employees.

Other companies that announced health care reform related charges include Deere, a maker of farm equipment, which sees a US$150-million charge for its current quarter, and Caterpillar, which warned of a US $100-million charge.

Who do you think will pay for this? We will pay. Business is not something in the abstract, or the evil force the leftists and the communists deceptively smear it to be -- business is work, business is people, it is jobs, it is production. When business pays, we pay. Jobs pay. Consumers pay.

Notice how Obama bad news always drops on Friday nights. You won't be able to keep the reality and the consequences of Obama rule.

Why wasn't this made public before the vote?

AT&T will take $1B non-cash charge for health care Forbes

AT&T Inc. will take a $1 billion non-cash accounting charge in the first quarter because of the health care overhaul and may cut benefits it offers to current and retired workers.

The charge is the largest disclosed so far. Earlier this week, AK Steel Corp., Caterpillar Inc., Deere & Co. and Valero Energy announced similar accounting charges, saying the health care law that President Barack Obama signed Tuesday will raise their expenses. On Friday, 3M Co. said it will also take a charge of $85 million to $90 million.

All five are smaller than AT&T, and their combined charges are less than half of the $1 billion that AT&T is planning. The $1 billion is a third of AT&T's most recent quarterly earnings. In the fourth quarter of 2009, the company earned $3 billion on revenue of $30.9 billion.

AT&T said Friday that the charge reflects changes to how Medicare subsidies are taxed. Companies say the health care overhaul will require them to start paying taxes next year on a subsidy they receive for retiree drug coverage.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the tax law closed a loophole.

Under the 2003 Medicare prescription drug program, companies that provide prescription drug benefits for retirees have been able to receive subsidies covering 28 percent of eligible costs. But they could deduct the entire amount they spent on these drug benefits - including the subsidies - from their taxable income.

The new law allows companies to only deduct the 72 percent they spent.

AT&T also said Friday that it is looking into changing the health care benefits it offers because of the new law. Analysts say retirees could lose the prescription drug coverage provided by their former employers as a result of the overhaul.

Hammering Healthcare

O'Reilly is a clown. But worth tolerating for Krauhammer's "big picture" on demcare.

UPDATE: More on O's rout:

(CNSNews.com) – As a candidate for president, Barack Obama decried the financial toll that the Iraq war was taking on the economy, but Obama’s proposed spending on welfare through 2010 will eclipse Bush’s war spending by more than $260 billion.

“Because of the Bush-McCain policies, our debt has ballooned,” then-Sen. Barack Obama told a Charleston, W.V., crowd in March 2008. “This is creating problems in our fragile economy. And that kind of debt also places an unfair burden on our children and grandchildren, who will have to repay it.”
 
During the entire administration of George W. Bush, the Iraq war cost a total of $622 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service.
 
President Obama’s welfare spending will reach $888 billion in a single fiscal year--2010--more than the Bush administration spent on war in Iraq from the first “shock and awe” attack in 2003 until Bush left office in January. 

Obama’s spending proposals call for the largest increases in welfare benefits in U.S. history, according to a report by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. This will lead to a spending total of $10.3 trillion over the next decade on various welfare programs. These include cash payments, food, housing, Medicaid and various social services for low-income Americans and those at 200 percent of the poverty level, or $44,000 for a family of four. Among that total, $7.5 trillion will be federal money and $2.8 trillion will be federally mandated state expenditures.
 
In that same West Virginia speech last year, Obama said, “When Iraq is costing each household about $100 a month, you’re paying a price for this war.”
 
The Heritage study says, “Applying that same standard to means-tested welfare spending reveals that welfare will cost each household $560 per month in 2009 and $638 per month in 2010.”
 
The welfare reform package of 1996 only targeted one program, which was Aid for Families with Dependent Children, pushing work requirements for recipients to encourage them to get off the rolls. There are still 70 different welfare programs spread across 14 different federal agencies, said Robert Rector, senior research fellow in domestic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, who co-wrote the study.
 
“The average person says I thought we ended welfare. Well, it’s a good thing we ended it, otherwise we’d be spending some real money,” Rector joked while speaking about the report on Tuesday. “Reform was grossly oversold by Clinton and the Republicans. It reformed one program out of 70. Medicaid, public housing, the Earned Income Tax Credit were not reformed.”
 
According to his White House budget proposal, President Barack Obama will increase annual federal welfare spending by one-third, from $522.4 billion to $697 billion in his first fiscal year. Adjusted for inflation, the combined two-year increase of $263 billion is greater than any increase in welfare spending in history.
 
By 2014, annual spending on welfare programs will reach $1 trillion for the fiscal year.
 
“One in seven in total federal and state dollars now goes to welfare. But this is a completely unknown story,” Rector said. “This is not being reported. No one knows Obama is spending $10 trillion on welfare.”
 
Welfare spending has taken its toll on the federal debt. Since the beginning of the “war on poverty,” $15.9 trillion has been spent on welfare programs. The total cost of every war in American history, starting with the American Revolution, is $6.4 trillion when adjusted for inflation.
 
Welfare has been the fastest growing part of the federal government’s spending, increasing by 292 percent from 1989 to 2008. That’s compared to Social Security and Medicare, which grew 213 percent, the study says.

Bye Bye Miss American Pie

Tonight we sit shiva for the nation.

FINAL Reconciliation vote: 220-211

Republicans attempt last ditch effort to stop it

House passes Senate health care Bill 219-212

UPDATE: 216 votes have been reached - HOUSE PASSES SENATE BILL. Not one Republican voted for it. Not one.

Boehner: "Shame on us. Shame on this body. Shame on each of u who subs ur will & desire above those of ur countrymen."

Pelosi propaganda: Demcare will unleash "entrepreneurial spirit".

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Tonight we are a different country ......... Obama will go down in history as the father of socialized medicine in America. Insurance companies are now utilities, agents of the federal government, so said Charles Krauthammer.

It's the first time since my father passed away that I am glad he is not here to see what the left has wrought on America.

The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America

Stupak caved on an Obama promise of an anti-abortion executive order from the most pro-abortion president in history -- that's as meaningful as Don Juan saying he'll respect you in the morning, Major Hasan pledging allegiance to the constitution, Nancy Pelousy speaking "for the American people," Palestinian Muslims saying they want "peace with Israel," Iranian nukes are for peaceful purposes, blah blah, blah ........words have become meaningless in the mouths of the snakes.

Stupak was voting for the bill from the git go - video.

UPDATE: PalinSarah added lyrics:

I held out hope they'd kill the plan
No patriot now long gone,
Could grasp how we've gone wrong
And as the votes climbed up to two sixteen
Government health care is their dream,
I saw debt forever for our teens
The day ... the na-tion... died.

UPDATE: Obama, the new Allende?

UPDATE: Demcare Bill to Cause U.S. Hyperinflation By 2015

UPDATE: ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: The House bill has not yet passed, and already we are seeing the reconciliation fight start in the Senate.

Senate Republicans say they can get the whole package of reconciliation fixes – the fix-its that make the Senate plan palatable to House Democrats - thrown out with a trump card procedural motion. And they say Democrats are slow-walking a decision from the parliamentarian until the House passes the Senate bill. 

That means the Senate bill, which everyone in the House seems to universally hate, will be the law of the land.

This afternoon Senate Republicans say Democrats won’t meet with them and the parliamentarian – a charge Democratic staffers call “absurd”. (The timing of the allegation also works as a last-minute, probably too-late message to wavering House Democrats).
Bottom line: Don’t expect the health reform debate to end tonight even though the health reform bill will become law as soon as Obama signs the Senate bill.

Should the House pass the Senate bill and the package of reconciliation fix-its tonight, Senators will take over the reconciliation fix-its as soon as Tuesday.

That will set in motion a week or longer parliamentary floor battle with points of order, references to the budget act, the Byrd Rule and more.

For an appetizer, take a look at Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Judd Gregg’s statement tonight.

“Immediately after receiving the final reconciliation bill language, Senate Republican staff was ready and willing to meet with Senate Democratic staff and the Senate Parliamentarian to discuss the fact that the House reconciliation bill may be brought down by the 310(g) point of order in the Senate. Senate Democrats are mysteriously unavailable until after the House votes on the health care bill tonight. The Senate Democrats appear to be pushing off this meeting so that House Democrats will remain in the dark about what is likely to happen to the reconciliation bill on which many have staked their careers in Congress. House Democrats should be alarmed by this latest development, since the survival of the reconciliation bill is clearly at risk in the Senate.”

If Republicans can get the parliamentarian to agree with them even once, whatever ultimately passes the Senate will have to go back to the House.
And Democrats in the House quietly admit that its very likely they will have to vote again on the reconciliation fixes at some point down the road.

UPDATE: Boehner's recrimination:

America's Day of Wreckoning

As America holds her breath, gripped by the mind-numbing realization that the government by the people, for the people, of the people, may very well be irrevocably broken, the focus is on libeling, slandering and destroying the millions of Americans who stand against this socialist putsch. The American people are overwhelmingly against this government takeover of 20% of the economy.

Tens of thousands took to the great lawn yesterday after a year of similar peaceful actions to right a government gone off the rails. The peaceful, patriotic millions who marched over the course of the year were virtually ignored by the media and certainly ignored by the President. Big media only deemed fit to cover the people's revolution to libel and sexually smear them ("tea baggers").

This campaign of destruction culminated yesterday when a specious charge was made that a protester shouted "ni**er" at the Congressional Black Caucus. Color me skeptical. I am not sure why the Black Congressional Caucus deliberately chose to walk through the crowd as they shouted "kill the bill," but it sure sounds like a set-up. And if someone shouted something so grotesque, it was either a plant, an infiltrator, or a freak who attached himself to a group that wants no part of him. It in no way reflects the millions of capitalist Americans standing up for their country. I have been to enough of these protests to know. These protesters are the salt of the earth. The best of America, our salvation, if it is to be had.

The Washington Post: “Members of the Congressional Black Caucus said that racial epithets were hurled at them Saturday by angry protesters who had gathered at the Capitol to protest health-care legislation, and one congressman said he was spit upon. The most high-profile openly gay congressman, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), was heckled with anti-gay chants.”

The media is frenzied, like vampires to human blood. And the lefty blogs like the Puff Ho (HQ for Jew-hating incitement to genocide) is epileptic with joy. We've been down this road before with the Puff Ho; they have concocted slander against the tea parties before (watch that Atlas vlog here).

What it is, is a degenerate tactic to drive the national dialogue away from what is really important (the rout)  to a mendacious  discussion about the "racist," "homophobic," "tea baggers." Janeane Garofalo laid out this strategy in April 2009 when she said that the tea partiers were "a bunch of teabagging rednecks," adding that "this is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up." 

Let's go to the videotape:

As for Barney Frank alleging that he was called a faggot -- I prefer to call him what he really is, a liar.  Where is his outrage at the term "tea bagger"?

Is it a coincidence that after a year of millions marching against this ugly leftist power grab, that on the day before the vote both racist and homophobic slurs were allegedly hurled? Hmmmmmmmmm.

Those of us battling the left are used to the libel and slander directed towards us as a means to eliminate the truth of our message, by destroying our credibility. The daily drumbeat of lies and smear is so relentless that it has lost its sting. It's like water off a duck's back. But for the first time, America is getting a taste of it. They are being smeared and slandered. And the silver lining here is that the American people will never trust the democrats or big media again. 

Big media will go down in flames as a result of this. Even when I went searching for a picture of the Capitol lawn yesterday, I could only find images on twitpic and the blogs. The only thing that came up for DC protest on yahoo was the anti-war protest (here). That's how corrupt and criminal the media is.

If the putsch is successful, we will remember:

Fox News reports:

Unlike the Democrats’ original plan, this rule will not utilize the “deem and pass” method on the Senate bill. While the rule handles BOTH packages, it provides for separate debate and votes on both measures.

Then there will be a procedural vote, called “Moving the Previous Question.” Ignore this. After that, there will be a vote on the rule. Probably not before 4 pm. If the House doesn’t approve the rule, it can’t advance to the underlying issues at hand.

UPDATE: Well said by a Lucianne blogger (hat tip Katherine)

Posted by: flatwater,

"America is now occupied by a hostile foreign power. This power rejects the freedoms and protections enumerated in our Constitution, and codified in the Bill of Rights. It rejects the laws, rules, customs and traditions of the United States. It rejects the very principles underlying our nation's founding. It assails our natural rights, while denying they exist. It rejects any need for the consent of the governed. It spits in the face of the will of the people. It recognizes no limitations on its authority to abuse the American citizen.

This is not representative government.

This is Tyranny. 

UPDATE: 2pm: Nancy Pelosi takes a page from the agitators of the Black Congressional Caucus and unnecessarily walks through the anti-demcare protesters with a giant gavel, trying to incite those great Americans. It was of course, without incident.

The Demo-rats are ugly, ugly demagogues. Video to follow.

Do the Math

The fifth column in power is taking over 1/6th of the economy and bankrupting the greatest nation in the history of man.

They reamed Bush for money spent going to war to protect this nation against jihad -- and then these moochers and destroyers rout the nation.

Healthcare by the Numbers

$1.2 trillion:  The total cost of the bill between 2010 and 2020 (though the real costs do not start until 2014), including $940 billion in coverage subsidies, $144.2 billion in additional mandatory spending, $70 billion in discretionary spending in the Senate bill, and $41.6 billion in unrelated education spending.
 
$208 billion:  The cost of a ten year patch for the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) to prevent reduction in Medicare physician payments.  This cost is hidden because it was included in the earlier Democrat bill, but was dropped to provide a better cost estimate.  It is expected to move separately and would bring the true cost of the takeover to $1.4 trillion.
 
$569.2 billion:  Tax increases in the legislation, including $48.9 billion in new tax increases in the reconciliation bill alone.
 
$52 billion:  The amount of new taxes on employers who cannot afford to pay their employees health care, imposed at a time when unemployment is 9.7 percent.
 
12:  The number of new tax increases in the bill that violate President Obama’s pledge that, “Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.”
 
46%:  The percentage of families making less than $66,150 who will be forced to pay the individual mandate tax.
 
16,500:  The estimated number of IRS auditors, agents and other employees that may be needed to collect the hundreds of billions in new taxes levied on the American people.
 
$20 billion:  The estimated amount of money that the IRS and HHS will need for the cost of additional regulations, bureaucracy, and red tape over the next ten years.  This spending is not included in CBO’s cost estimate of H.R. 4872.
 
$53 billion:  The amount of revenue this bill raids from Social Security to appear as if it actually reduces the deficit.
 
$202.3 billion:  The amount of money cut from the Medicare Advantage program for seniors to help offset the costs of a new entitlement.
 
$436 billion:  The amount of federal subsidies in the bill that will go directly to insurance companies to provide health care in the exchange.
 
1 out of 22:  The number of times the Senate has not somehow amended a reconciliation bill passed by the House, and thus required further House action.
 
63%:  The percentage of physicians surveyed who feel that health reform is needed, but are opposed to this sweeping overhaul legislation.
 
$9 billion:  The amount that the Ways and Means Committee estimated Medicare would spend annually after 25 years when it was passed in 1965.  In reality, Medicare spent $67 billion in 1990, or seven times the initial cost estimate.
 
$1.55 trillion:  The projected FY 2010 deficit—11 times the ten year “savings” Democrats claim the bill will produce by spending more than $1 trillion for this government takeover of health care.

Dems Stiff Soldiers: Health Care Will NOT Protect Military Health Plans

Trillions for his goons, the unions, the ACORNS, the AmericCorps that suck the lifeblood out of the hard-working American, the soul of America -- the ones who play by the rules .... and now the military.

Democrats' Plan Will NOT Protect Military Health Plans

From House Republican Policy:

*9.2 million military personnel, families and retirees don't deserve a back room deal? 

"Although the health care legislation passed by the House explicitly exempted TRICARE from being affected, the Senate bill did not. Unfortunately, the parliamentary rules of tof the reconciliation process did not allow for the inclusion of language that specficially protects these programs." -- Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO)

Background:  On March 18, 2010, just days before the House votes on the Democrats’ government takeover of health care, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) announced he would introduce legislation to preemptively state that TRICARE and the Department of Defense non-appropriated fund (NAF) health plans meet all of the health care requirements currently under consideration by Congress for individual health insurance.  TRICARE and the NAF health plans programs provide health coverage to members of the military and their families, military retirees and their families, and employees of U.S. military post/base exchanges.  Chairman Skelton even stated he would also insert this legislative language into the national defense authorization bill, reiterating the threat the health care bill currently poses to military health plans.  This is an explicit admission that the final Democrat health care bill does not protect these plans.

Military Protections Scrapped:  The Senate-passed health care bill, which the House is expected to “deem” passed on March 21, 2010, omitted protections for military health plans that were included in the House bill.  Specifically, the Senate language does not appear to give the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) health care system specific protection from interference by other government agencies administering the various authorities contained in the massive bill, as it pertains to “minimum essential coverage.”  The minimum essential coverage language in the Senate bill does cover “the veterans health care program under chapter 17 of title 38, United States Code,” but it is unclear whether that covers veterans’ survivors and dependents.

The final bill would leave it up to a bureaucrat at the Department of the Treasury to determine whether TRICARE meets the minimum standards under the Democrats’ individual health insurance mandate.  If that bureaucrat decides against TRICARE, service members and their families would have to buy some other health coverage or pay a penalty.

In an effort to bolster support for the House health care takeover back in August 2009, the White House advertised that bill’s exemption for 9.2 million military personnel, families, and retirees covered under TRICARE and the military health plan.  In August, the White House website stated that:

Health reform legislation that is being considered would enable those who are covered by TRICARE to meet the shared responsibility requirement for individuals to have insurance, thereby exempting such members of the uniformed services and dependants from being assessed penalties.  If enacted, the President will ensure that this exemption is implemented aggressively.

Of course, the final health care bill does not include this promised exemption for military plans.

According to Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Buck McKeon (R-CA), “We need to fix this problem immediately—before Congress passes and the President signs the legislation.  By forgoing the traditional legislative process, Democrat leaders in Congress—and the President who is pushing for immediate passage of the bill—have reneged on assurances that the Senate legislation would be fixed in a conference committee.  Our military personnel deserve to know they will continue to receive the same level of care they so rightly deserve.”

Veterans groups would seem to agree.  Thomas Tradewell Sr., the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars stated that, “I remain worried because a free press and an even freer Internet continue to fuel speculation that both systems could be lost and/or absorbed into a larger national healthcare plan.”

Perverse Priorities:  The Democrats’ government takeover of health care is chock-full of backroom deals for favored constituencies such as Louisiana, Connecticut, Nebraska and insurance companies.  In their desperate headlong rush to pass a bill, however, Democrats have neglected to protect the integrity and independence of the DoD and VA health care systems and protect all of their health care beneficiaries.  U.S. service members and veterans deserve better.

Obama's New Health Care Army - The IRS

New tax mandates and penalties included in Obamacare will cause the greatest expansion of the Internal Revenue Service since World War II, according to a release from Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas.

A new analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee minority staff estimates up to 16,500 new IRS personnel will be needed to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses in the ‘reconciliation’ bill being taken up by the U.S. House of Representatives this weekend. (more)

The new fascism, same as the old fascism.

Obamacare Grants IRS Perilous Power, GOP Says

The Internal Revenue Service would gain sweeping new powers under President Obama's healthcare reform proposals, in what Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are calling a "dangerous expansion" of IRS powers.

That's according to a nine-page Republican report from the Committee on Ways and Means on Thursday. It's titled "The Wrong Prescription" Democrats' Health Overhaul Dangerously Expands IRS Authority."

Among the new powers the IRS would assume, the report says: The authority to confiscate tax refunds, to impose fines of over $2,200 per taxpayer, and to verify whether taxpayers' health insurance coverage is "acceptable."

One measure of the scope of the IRS' new responsibilities under the healthcare overhaul: The agency might have to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents, and other employees in order to administer the program, according to Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee.

"It is a very dangerous expansion of the IRS' power and reach into the lives of virtually every American," Camp said in a statement released Thursday afternoon.

The Ways and Means report portrays healthcare reform as having a wide-ranging impact on how the IRS operates, including:
IRS agents would be tasked with determining whether Americans had obtained the insurance coverage required under the individual mandate.
Individuals could be fined $2,250 or 2 percent of income, whichever is greater, if you are unable to prove you have "minimum essential coverage."
The IRS would be empowered to confiscate tax refunds if necessary.
Audits probably would increase as a result of the legislation's new requirements.
The budget for IRS operations will balloon by $10 billion in the next decade in order to administrate the new program.
Nearly half of the new individual mandate taxes will be paid "by Americans earning less than 300 percent of poverty, $66150 for a family of four.
A statement that Democrats are sure to dispute, the report, which Camp and fellow GOP Rep. Charles Boustany of Louisiana prepared, says healthcare reform would "fundamentally alter the relationship between the IRS and taxpayers."

Essentially, the Republicans state, the reform bill makes the IRS responsible for "tracking the monthly health insurance status of roughly 300 million Americans."

"Democrats have a word for this evil. They call it 'compassion.'"

Jack Wheeler channels Rand here. The democrats are fascists and they will not give up. Props to Wheeler for this dead on balls piece.

EVIL NEVER SLEEPS Dr. Jack Wheeler

Was Nancy Pelosi always evil?  Was Harry Reid?  Was Barack Hussein Obama?  No, they didn't start out in life as bad people.  Somewhere along the line, most likely not as kids, teenagers, or young adults, but as they aged and acquired political power, something inside them metastasized into a monstrosity of their former selves.

And in the process, they became evil.

Yet it is not true that power corrupts necessarily.  Power did not corrupt Ronald Reagan.  It's not power in itself that is the avenue to evil, it's one's values and principles.   Valuing the founding American principle that every individual has a moral right to his or her own life, liberty, and the pursuit of their own personal happiness enables a politician to resist the temptation to use power to control other's lives.

It is disregarding that founding principle that provides the path to evil - which we could define as the compulsion to control the lives of others, the willingness to sacrifice the lives and happiness of others in order to achieve your own goals.

And yes, Democrats have a word for this evil.  They call it "compassion."

They have other words for their moral cannibalism, such as "fairness" and "social justice."

There are many lessons to be drawn from this, but the one to focus on right now is that the evil currently personified by Pelosi-Reid-Obama is compulsive.  It is relentless.  Liberals will never ever give up and leave us alone.  It is the purpose of their lives to control ours.  Evil never sleeps.

The individuals will come and go.  Today it's Pelosi Galore and Zero.  Tomorrow there'll be others in their place.  The specific issues, crises, and causes will come and go.  The chosen passion of the Left as a rationale for controlling people was Marxism until the fall of the Soviet Union.  Now in Marxism's place is Global Warming.  When that fails, they'll find something else.

This is not to preach pessimism.  Pessimism promotes surrender to evil.   It is to preach the appropriate antidote to pessimism in face of relentless evil - realistic optimism.

The natural benevolence of normal people makes them resistant to recognizing evil initially.  Folks in the 1930s couldn't believe Stalin was purposefully starving 10 million Ukrainians to death.  Even when we were at war with Hitler, no one could believe the reports of his murdering millions of Jews in concentration camps.  All of this was such hideous evil that it was literally inconceivable to normal people.

It took Pearl Harbor for us to recognize the evil of Tojo's Imperial Japan.  It took Hitler's idiotic mistake of declaring war on us after Pearl Harbor (as he was an Axis ally of Japan) to open our eyes to him.  Then we did what it took to rid the world of Nazism and Japan's Co-Prosperity Sphere, including firebombing Dresden and nuking Hiroshima/Nagasaki with no apologies whatever.

We couldn't do that to the Commies of the Soviet Union because they got nukes as well.  The Libs thus excused their evil and said we'd just have to accommodate it - until Ronald Reagan decided, "We win - they lose," and won the Cold War by engineering the implosion of the Soviet Empire from within.

Shortly thereafter, in a spasm of unrealistic pollyannic optimism, a bright guy named Frank Fukuyama wrote a stupid book, The End of History, which quickly became a runaway bestseller - because people wanted to be told they didn't have to fight evil anymore.

You'd have thought that the Atrocity of 9/11 would have disabused people of the no-more-evil lunacy - but what disarmed them morally from going after Jihadi Moslems like we went after the Nazis was that Islamic Totalitarianism disguised itself as a religion.

This disguise was so intimidating that the president of the United States went on national television a few days after 9/11 praising Islam as a "religion of peace."  Just how a criminally pathological ideology having the respect of a "religion" castrates our capacity to fight it is explained in What If Hitler Was God? (September 2005).

Very fortunately, we have no such inhibitions regarding Liberalism, Obamaism - more appropriately Zeroism - and Democrat Fascism.  What is a worry regarding these pathologies is the delusion that victory over them will come with one final Waterloo - the defeat of ObamaCare, a tsunami wipeout of Dems next November, Zero losing to Sarah Palin in 2012, et al.

Any of these will only be a temporary setback for the Fascist Left.  They will remain dormant for a time, short or long, then the battle resumes.  The battle is never over, it only waxes and wanes.  We will be fighting this battle - unless we surrender - all our lives.  Our children will fight this battle, and our grandchildren - unless they surrender.

Evil never sleeps.  So neither can we.  We must always plan for the next battle and devise strategies to win it.

[...]

The anti-Marxist, anti-Soviet guerrillas of RENAMO (Resistancia Nacional de Moçambicana) fighting the Communist seizure of their country of Mozambique in the 1980s, and with whom I spent some time, had as their rallying cry:

A Luta Continuá - The Struggle Continues.

The struggle for freedom and against the forces of fascism will always continue.  We have the morality of freedom, America's founding principles, and 300 million guns in private hands on our side.  That's a very good basis for realistic optimism.

An optimism tempered in the reality that the evil we face is in fact evil, that it means us and our country harm, that it is ruthless, that it is relentless, that it will never abandon its attempt to control our lives.

Only by facing this reality can we begin to not only hold Democrat Fascists at bay from further destruction of our freedom, but start to recapture the territory of freedom they have stolen from us. 

And this way, no matter what happens to ObamaCare, we can use its passage or failure to expand our freedom, and make Pelosi-Reid-Obama evil if not go to sleep, at least take a nice long nap.

Barack Insane Obama: Nationalized Medicine Will Result in a "3,000 Percent Decrease in Premiums"

If there is any justice, impeachment proceedings await Pelosi, Reid and Barry Obama if they putsch the health bill through. The American people don't want it. Period.

We are a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Who the hell do these power-mad clowns think they are?

Obama said this on TV last night: “and this health care plan will reduce your premiums up to 3,000 percent!” And the audience of idiot drones started cheering…

Atlas reader James wrote, "It’s like the game show Family Feud":

Host: “Name something that people do with their shoe laces”
Idiot Drone Contestant #1: “They eat them!”
Idiot Drone Family starts clapping and shouting out : “Yeah! Good answer! Good Answer!”

Yeah, when pigs fly.

I will give a hat tip to Brett Baier in his interview with the little O last night. He kicked his ass and Obama sounded like a bumbling thug.

Commentary by Robert Tracinski

1. Defeat and Dishonor

All eyes are on the "whip count" of yes and no votes for the health care bill in the House.

The latest news is the flip-flop of Dennis Kucinich, who will now vote "yes" after previously strongly opposing the bill because it didn't go far enough toward socialism—or rather, because it moved toward the wrong variant of socialism: the fascist model.

But my impression is that Kucinich doesn't really change the count. I don't remember seeing him on anyone's list of potential swing votes against the bill. Most vote counters have already factored in the likelihood that the far left will go along with the bill simply because it's a step toward a government takeover.

So the whip count now stands at about 205 "yes" votes, 11 votes short of passage, and it's not clear that the Democrats will be able to add much to that total. As Jack Wakeland noted to me: "The original House bill passed 220-215. The election of Republican Scott Brown to be the new Senator from Massachusetts, as well as continued tea party and other grassroots opposition, has cost at least 15 votes in the House—and possibly as many as 25."

If things go well, that could be the real significance of the vote: it will allow us to measure the exact political impact—so far—of the tea party movement.

What also gives me cause for hope is the general air of pathetic desperation in the House leadership's machination to get a health care bill rammed through somehow.

Since many House Democrats had problems with the Senate version of the bill, and they didn't trust the Senate to be able or willing to make those changes later, Democrats first proposed passage of the bill in the House simultaneously with the Senate's passage of revisions demanded by the House. But then the Senate parliamentarian shot that down, quite sensibly pointing out that the Senate can't vote on revisions to a law that doesn't exist yet.

So their latest attempt is a "self-executing rule," also called the "Slaughter Rule" after House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, in which the House would pass its preferred changes to the Senate bill, and in passing those changes would "deem" the Senate bill to be passed. But this doesn't actually change the outcome. Once the Senate bill is "deemed" to be passed, it would go on to the president to be signed—while the changes to the bill could still be forgotten and abandoned by the Senate.

So the whole idea of this parliamentary pretzel is to allow House Democrats to say that they never really voted for the Senate bill, that they just voted for the corrections—while actually having them vote for the Senate bill. Or rather, its goal is to have them vote for the Senate bill without actually voting for it.

This is pretty clearly unconstitutional, violating the procedure set out in Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution for the passage of a bill into law. The Constitution states that both Houses must have an official vote for a bill with the exact same wording—precisely the situation the House's "self-executing" maneuver is intended to avoid.

Such constitutional provisions are rarely enforced by the Supreme Court—though they did so in the case of this rule's most immediate precedent, the line-item veto, which was struck down for a similar reason. Still, the Supreme Court is generally very reluctant to insert itself into the procedural rules that Congress sets for itself. That is precisely why these constitutional rules must be internalized by Congress. It should be the rulebook they follow because they themselves believe it is the right thing to do—and not just because they are afraid of being slapped down by the Supreme Court.

But the left regards the Constitution as an irrelevant obstacle. As President Obama just put in an interview with Fox News, he doesn't "spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are." Or as the left used to say, in defending Communist dictatorships, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Except that it wasn't eggs they were breaking; it was skulls.

But I think the Democrats are deluding themselves if they think anyone is going to be fooled by any parliamentary maneuvers. Saying that they voted for the health care bill without voting for the health care bill is going to go over about as well as John Kerry saying that he voted for the bill before he voted against it. The American people have a lot of experience with dishonest politicians, and they can spot a cheap evasion when they see it.

The article below describes some of the controversy over the Slaughter Rule and describes some good Republican tactics to flush Democrats out into the open, including forcing them to hold a vote on whether they are going to vote on the Senate bill. Can you imagine having to defend voting "no" on that one?

This is going to be hair-raisingly close, but I still stand by my earlier prediction. In trying to shove this bill through, the left had to choose between legislative defeat and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will get defeat—and not just in this vote.

Legal blogger William Jacobson describes what the Democrats are doing as "slaughter by self-execution," meaning that this vote may be "self-executing" for the Democrats' political careers.

Or as TIA Daily reader Ron Chandler puts it: "Nancy Pelosi wants the House to say the Senate bill is 'deemed passed,' so they can pass the bill without voting on it. Can the American people then say that Obama, Biden, Pelosi, and Reid are 'deemed impeached'?"

"'Deem and pass': Democrats' New Tactic for Healthcare Reform Bill," Gail Russell Chaddock, Christian Science Monitor, March 16

With 178 seats in the House–and four of 13 seats on the powerful Rules Committee–Republicans don't have the votes to defeat this strategy, but they aim to make it as costly to Democrats as possible, especially those in tough races in 2010.

"Make no mistake, this will be a career-defining and a Congress-defining vote," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday. "Anyone who endorses this strategy will be forever remembered for trying to claim they didn't vote for something they did. It will go down as one of the most extraordinary legislative sleights of hand in history."

The procedure of one vote to both adopt a resolution and concur on a Senate amendment to a bill has been around since 1933…. But all sides agree that it's never been used on a measure this significant.

"It's a procedure typically used on very routine matters," says Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ….

GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio announced today that Republicans plan to force a vote on a resolution requiring an up-or-down vote on the Senate health care bill. Even if the resolution fails, it will put Democrats on record in a way that can be used in 2010 election campaigns….

Meanwhile, Rep. David Dreier (R) of California, the top Republican on the House Rules Committee, is calling for the Rules Committee debate on this issue to be televised. "With the Democratic majority poised to turn the rules of the House on their head just to get their government takeover of healthcare through, we need cameras there to record it," he said in a statement on Tuesday.

2. No Consent from the Governed

Why are House Democrats so suicidally focused on pushing through an unpopular bill? Because they believe that the Republicans will never be able to repeal it and that they will have established a permanent new government entitlement that will only grow in future decades, pushing this country permanently farther toward the left.

Mark Steyn makes this point and also concludes that the Democrats are probably right—that the history of the Republicans' response to the welfare state indicates that they don't have the backbone to roll it back.

But there is something different about this bill. Previous welfare-state expansions enjoyed public support and passed with bipartisan majorities—which served to demoralize any opposition. Never has a bill like this gone through on a strict one-party vote when the American people oppose it by nearly two to one. And that means that there is no reason for the Republicans to accept this bill.

And that's why a pledge to repeal the bill is gaining momentum, with 37 House and Senate members on board—including a number of rising stars in the party. Even more telling is the fact that 163 Republican congressional candidates have signed it.

CBO Denies Official Release of Obamacare Cost Estimate

The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America

UPDATE: Pence to the preliminary CBO score as given on ABC’s Top Line moments ago:

“Only in Washington, DC can you spend a trillion dollars and say you’re gonna save the taxpayer’s money.”

Nationalized Health Corps Workforce Army

Another Obama army. Americorps is not enough. The army of eight-year-old goosesteppers is not enough. Prisoner army, not enough. It is jawdropping and scary.

Lurking within the recently-released Reconciliation bill is a brand new corps of government workers.

Page 911 of the 2010 Reconciliation PDF. Section 2231.

‘‘Subpart XII-Public Health Workforce
‘‘SEC. 340L. PUBLIC HEALTH WORKFORCE CORPS.

3 ‘‘(a) ESTABLISHMENT.-There is established, within

4 the Service, theublic Health Workforce Corps (in this

5 subpart referred to as the ‘Corps'), for the purpose of en-

6 suring an adequate supply of public health professionals

7 throughout the Nation. The Corps shall consist of-

8 ‘‘(1) such officers of the Regular and Reserve

9 Corps of the Service as the Secretary may designate; ...."

It's not Nationalized Health Care. It's a Health Corps!

I'm probably embellishing, but given that Nancy Pelosi and her indefatigable army of legislative word processors would have to invert their language through the Scwarschild Radius of a black hole in reverse entropy just to approximate honesty, I figure I'm not far off labeling this "Health Corps" provision as approaching mandatory volunteerism.

It sounds like the tactics of Huey Long, who said -

"Them what comes in with me now, get a big piece of pie.

Them what come in with me later, get pie.

It speaks of regular and reserve Officers, scholarships, loans, obligated service, individual contracts, training centers, the traditional income redistribution scheme of grants and grant proposals, etc. The debt repayment provisions are especially attractive to certain sectors of our population. It appears to be an indentured servitude gig. You sign up, do your part for nationalizing health care and the Corps will get the American taxpayer to foot the bill for your training and educational costs and retire your debts. Of course, if pinned down, I'm sure this will be characterized as a draft, a proposal, need to modify, hasn't been reconciled yet or any of a number of ways to weasel the simple truth that until Nancy Pelosi votes on it she won't have any idea what's in this 'Bill'.

Read it all.

"I came out for my three children"

Hoping for change:

President Barack Obama's motorcade went past the lines of protesters about 12:30 p.m. today, and many of those lining the street started chanting, "Kill the bill," referring to Obama's health care proposal.

Among those shouting was Lara Culbertson, of Akron, who had never been to a protest before but felt compelled to come because she worries that the taxes from the health care plan it would stifle business creation and job growth.

She said she didn't want to look into her children's eyes and tell them she didn't do everything she could to stop the health care bill.

Some carried signs that said, "Hands off my health care," "Stop the wasteful spending" and "Enough is enough," and several people held signs that asked drivers to honk, such as "Honk to impeach Obama." Small American flags were plugged into the grass by the street.

"I came out for my three children," she said.