As we write this short essay, we are being promised by Nancy Pelosi that the health care bill will be posted online so that we and those who will “deem” it already to have been enacted can actually read it. This online posting has been repeatedly postponed so that the Congressional Budget Office could score it for its 10-year cost. That exercise, which went on behind closed doors, has been tainted by secret deals, and new stealth taxes slipped in at the last minute without disclosure or debate and are based on assumptions provided by the House leadership which the CBO is required to follow. Only this weekend will the 535 members of Congress and the American people be given an opportunity to see what is in the surprise package consisting of over 2700 pages of text. They will have 72 hours to read it before they “deem” it to be the law of the land. Presumably, they have completed the Evelyn Woods speed-reading course. We believe that millions of Americans will “deem” those Members of Congress who actually participate in this farce to be unworthy of further service. Of course, they, unlike their Congresspersons, will actually have to vote.

We make no secret about our negative view of this legislation as bad public policy. But something far more important is at work here. We would rather have the House pass the bill in normal fashion even if only by a tiny margin (as they did with their first version in November 2009) and have it properly enacted into law, than to use trickery and deceit to get their way.

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I wanted to let all my friends in Pittsburgh know about a great opportunity that will be happening TONIGHT!

Several members of congress will be appearing live via a video town hall at the Four Points By Sheraton Pittsburgh North, from 7pm – 9pm. I encourage everyone in the surrounding areas to show up and join us. We will be discussing the latest that is happening with the liberal takeover of health care.  I will be joined by some of the bravest members in the house, including Steve King of Iowa, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Todd Akin of Missouri.

Lets send a message to Washington, America does not want this legislation! This is the final push, and I hope you can join us tonight!

This event is sponsored by the NRCC and is not organized at the Governments Expense.

Dear Friends of Freedom Alliance:

This week, false and malicious allegations about Freedom Alliance were posted on the Internet and we want to address them with you. We don’t know the motivation for these vicious smears, but we will not allow them to go unanswered.

First, we want to thank you for your support and assure you that Freedom Alliance’s record of financial stewardship and programmatic achievements not only meets, but exceeds standards of program efficiency set by most charity evaluators. We are extraordinarily proud of our work at Freedom Alliance and stand by our efforts 100 percent.

False Accusations

1. The blog posting accuses our friend Sean Hannity of personally benefiting from Freedom Alliance. This is FALSE. Freedom Alliance has never provided planes, hotels, cars, limos, or anything else to Sean. Sean gets nothing from Freedom Alliance except our gratitude for his personal generosity and for all he has done to help the troops and our organization. We have never had to ask Sean for anything, he always generously offers his help before we have a chance to ask him. But to be clear Sean pays for all his own transportation, hotels, and all related expenses for himself and his family and friends and staff, which over the years has added up to tens of thousands of dollars. He does not use any Freedom Alliance Funds or Concert funds in any way, period. (more…)

This week, the vast majority of the American people have nominated a motley crew of elitists for the “Educated Idiots Award:”

The arrogant Democrats who will defy the American people and abet Obama’s nearly trillion dollar government takeover of Americans’ health care.

Embodying the arrogant intellectuals unacquainted with real life who foist their insane ideas on the rest of us, these ideologically addled Democrats:

1. Feel they are smarter than you;

2. Believe they can run your life better than you; and,

3. Consider themselves your masters not your servants.

Because of these self-anointed, educated idiots our nation’s revolutionary experiment in freedom and self-government teeters on the precipice of implosion.

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This is it. It seems that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is almost done twisting arms and leadership has just announced a vote in as little as 72 hours. That would make the final vote this Sunday.

I am abhorred that Pro-life democrats are asked to vote on a pro-abortion mandate this Sunday, the Sabbath. This is the Easter season for Christians, a period of time called lent. Speaker Pelosi is demanding pro-life Democrats profane the Sabbath with a vote that will force all Americans to pay for other people’s abortions. This is a first in American history and a new low for Speaker Pelosi and President Obama.

Making the rounds of Democrat Offices on Capitol Hill is a ‘messaging’ memo designed to help Democrat members navigate a politically dangerous environment where the public is united in opposition to their government take-over of health care. Key message:

“do not allow yourself (or your boss) to get into a discussion of the details of CBO scores and textual narrative. Instead, focus only on the deficit reduction and number of Americans covered.”

This goes to the heart of what has been so wrong about the entire health care debate. The whole episode has been legislating by talking points. The Dems make claim about what they intend to do, but never provide any actual legislative text to demonstrate that is, in fact, what they are doing. They say their proposal will ‘crack down’ on insurance companies, yet their legislation would require every American to buy the companies’ product. Every business should face such a ‘crack down.’

The entire memo is below, for your enjoyment/disgust. We doubt you’ll find a better example of the desperation and panic gripping Democrat offices than these two pages.

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All over the country, voters have been flooding their representatives with calls, letters and emails urging them to kill the current healthcare bill. Instead of killing the healthcare bill, Congress is now talking about the “Slaughter solution.”

Don’t be confused. The “Slaughter solution” has nothing to do with killing the bill. It is actually named after Democratic congresswoman Louise Slaughter, chair of the House Rules Committee. It is a backdoor, parliamentary procedure in which the House can pass the healthcare bill without even voting on it. Certain members of Congress think that the American people are so stupid that this backdoor trick will actually work in fooling them.

It won’t work.

In 1994, the Democrat controlled Congress tried to pass the same type of healthcare overhaul, except this time they called it “Hillarycare.” While Hillarycare didn’t pass, it led to the biggest overturn in power since President Truman. Voters were outraged that Congress even tried such a power grab. I can’t imagine they will react any differently if Congress actually goes through with this overhaul—let alone pass it through a cowardly backhanded technique.

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While America is distracted by Democrats’ attempts to unconstitutionally ram government-run healthcare down the throats of the American people, the Obama administration began preparing to resume funding to President Obama’s favorite community organizing group.

The fiscal floodgates are opening for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the president’s former employer and legal client, despite a congressional ban on funding the activist group that has long been a practitioner of election fraud.

In a March 16 memo Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Peter Orszag quietly ordered federal agencies to resume funding the group whose employees were caught on hidden camera videos last year condoning a variety of crimes including child prostitution and tax evasion.

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Yesterday, I decided to call Rep. John Garamendi’s (CA-10) office in Washington, D.C. He’s my representative and I wanted to voice my opposition to the Senate Health Care Bill. I spoke with a female staffer and politely told her that, while I support health care reform, I oppose the Senate Bill because it wasn’t true “reform.” She said the Congressman thinks it’s a good bill and that he campaigned on health care reform. I told her I knew that. I also mentioned that I voted for him. When I tried to give her specific reasons why the Senate Bill would harm our system rather than reform it, she refused to listen. She said she was very busy and hung up on me. Being the persistent person that I am, I kept calling back. Each time I tried to finish my point, she hung up.

I called one more time. This time she said, “If you call one more time, we will notify Capital Police.” I asked why my conduct warranted involving federal law enforcement agents. She said I was “harassing” her. I tried to explain that trying to convince a representative to change his or her vote didn’t constitute “harassment.” Before I could fully explain, she hung up again.

I called back. This time, I asked to speak to her supervisor in order to report her repeated hanging up as well as the threat she made. I was placed on hold. Thinking I was holding for her supervisor, I was shocked when a Federal Agent with the Capital Police picked-up the telephone.

At first, the Agent was curt with me. He claimed I was harassing Mr. Garamendi’s staff by continually calling after being told to stop calling. I asked him when it became a federal crime to lobby a congressman. He said that it wasn’t but it was a crime to “harass” congressional members and staff pursuant to 47 U.S.C. 223. I told him I was an attorney (which I am) and that I would research the statute he had cited.

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It’s great to be a prisoner in Obama’s America: you get stimulus dollars, preferential job placement, and a place in AmeriCorps. But if you’re a child in public school, watch out.

Obama said he was going to build a civilian army — and he is using our children. He is recruiting in public school classrooms: I exclusively broke the story about how his group Organizing for America is recruiting in the classroom. But AmeriCorps (can Obama pronounce the second syllable?) is the primary machinery for his youth army. And there is huge dough behind it — yours and mine. And that money is now being used to mandate service programs that indoctrinate our children to work for “the common good.”

America is the most beneficent nation in the world. We give the most to charity (though Republicans far out-give Democrats), and whenever there is a disaster in the world, we are there. On a local level, we donate a ton of money to community programs.

So why is service being mandated? Mandated service is slavery. Voluntary service is empathy. Empathy is the positive result of a moral value system, as taught in a proper educational curriculum.

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President Obama has been barnstorming the country saying that CBO scores his health care takeover plan as reducing the deficit by over $100 billion in the first 10 years, and by almost a trillion dollars over the second 10 years.  What is that based on?

Wading deep into documents available from CBO and the House and Senate Budget Committees reveals that the claim that Obamacare, in the form of the Senate health bill Democrats are now trying to deem through the House, would reduce the deficit is based on the assumption of an immediate 21% cut in payments to doctors and hospitals under Medicare.  But that is just the beginning.

The growth of these payments would be arbitrarily limited over time, so this cut would effectively become bigger and bigger.  For the second 10 years, the claim that Obamacare would reduce the deficit by close to a trillion dollars is based on assumed Medicare cuts over those years of over $2 trillion.

This would cause havoc and chaos in health care for America’s seniors.  They would often not be able to find doctors, specialists and hospitals to provide needed health care.  Most enjoying superior coverage from Medicare Advantage plans would lose that coverage, as indicated by the Chief Actuary for Medicare.  Investment in new health care technology, new breakthrough medical treatments and services, and new miracle cure drugs would dry up, which has already started.

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Yesterday, Howard Stern informed listeners that he would never again vote for a Democrat, saying they “are communists.” If you’ve lost Howard Stern…

In yet another admirable display of the right kind of Attorney General activism, Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli has put House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on notice that what she and the Democratic leadership are reportedly scheming to pass Health Care ‘reform’ is not only wrong — it’s unconstitutional.

3.18.10 KConPelosi

Amidst discussion and arguments surrounding health care reform, is the effect passage will have on the re-election of Democrats in the Fall. The health care reform legislation currently in front of Congress is so widely unpopular on both sides of the aisle that Democrats have taken up the idea for a process called, “deem and pass” to get health care reform passed through.

Deem and pass is a process by which House Democrats will be able to avoid taking recorded votes on the Senate health care bill. Given the political environment and discussion within the blogosphere and mainstream media, the motives behind enacting this process specifically for this bill are highly transparent.

In a letter to the Speaker, above, Cuccinelli wrote, “A bill of this magnitude should not be passed using this maneuver. As the President noted last week, the American people are entitled to an up or down vote.” (He’s not exaggerating when he talks of the “magnitude” of this bill. It’s said to project up 2.5 trillion dollars in new spending).

“Based upon media interviews and statements which I have seen, you are considering this approach because it might somehow shield members of Congress from taking a recorded vote on an overwhelmingly unpopular Senate bill.”

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I am calling to all of you freedom-loving Americans to come once again to Washington D.C. to gather at upper Senate Park, across from the Capitol on Saturday, at 12 o’clock noon.

We must come by the thousands.

Speaker Pelosi will stop at nothing to fulfill her corrupt conquests. She will bring all of the corrupt ACORN liars to try to bully all the Democrats that may be having pangs of guilt knowing quite surely what their votes can and will do. If they’re bullied into saying “yes,” it will destroy America.

Join me and Rep. Michele Bachmann in Washington DC at 12 noon EST so we can give all the Democrats who know what the end result will be the courage to say: “No, do not pass this destructive bill.” (more…)

Transcript:

SEN. TOM COBURN (R), OKLAHOMA: I want to send a couple of messages to my colleagues in the House.

If you voted no and you vote yes, and you lose your election, and you think any nomination to a federal position isn’t going to be held in the Senate, I’ve got news for you. It’s going to be held.

Number two is, if you get a deal, a parochial deal for you or your district, I’ve already instructed my staff and the staff of seven other senators that we will look at every appropriations bill, at every level, at every instance, and we will outline it by district, and we will associate that with the buying of your vote. So, if you think you can cut a deal now, and it not come out until after the election, I want to tell you that isn’t going to happen. And be prepared to defend selling your vote in the House.

Below is the just-released text of the House Reconciliation Bill. In the strange, ‘through the looking glass’ world that is the House Democrat Leadership, they will vote for these “fixes” to the Senate passed health care bill. In voting for these fixes, the House will ‘deem’ that the Senate Health Care bill is passed. See, the Democrats can vote for the fixes without having to vote for the bill that is being fixed.We already knew they don’t have to read bills to pass them. Now, they don’t have to vote for them either.

The Senate, then, will dutifully enact all of these “fixes,” by using elaborate procedural tricks and at least a couple votes to override the Senate Parliamentarian. Right, like that is going to happen.

111_hr4872_amndsub

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Somebody nominate Bret Baier for a Pulitzer!  There has never been a more revealing interview with Candidate or President Obama and after yesterday, there likely won’t be one again.

The president found his conversation with Baier “frustrating” because it focused too much on “process” for his taste.  The irony is, if Obama’s Democratic colleagues supported his health care take-over, process wouldn’t be an issue.  They don’t and thus it is.  So it is important because it shows the leadership will change the rules in order to get what they want.

But the president proved Glenn Beck’s argument that the fundamental transformation of America has begun.

“We’re not transforming one-sixth of the economy all in one fell swoop,” Obama told Baier.

This implies that what is being bandied about is only the beginning, not the end.    And that pattern of thought has emerged from Washington with similar statements from Sens. Tom Harkin and Sherrod Brown.

It is likely what persuaded Rep. Dennis Kucinich to flip from a ‘no’ to a ‘yes.’

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It’s not often that we can give credit to Barney Frank but when it comes to the issue of Financial Reform at least we can say is he was honest enough to put a price tag on the proposed permanent bailout fund.  Can’t say the same for Sen. Chris Dodd.

The Frank bill’s price tag for future bailouts was clear — $4 trillion.

Sen. Dodd’s bill proposes the same bailout authority but makes matters even worse — he leaves the check blank.  Taxpayers will be on the hook for any amount.

Dodd’s bill gives the Fed “emergency lending authority” to “any “ entity or market utility, program or facility that the Financial Stability Oversight Council determines is or is likely to become “systemically important.”

But don’t worry. They have to report back to Congress why they used this authority within seven days after they use it. But– they only have to disclose who they helped “within one year” and only if they deem that it won’t hurt the “effectiveness of the program”

Still thinking maybe this isn’t a bailout?  Well, on page 1306, one of the requirements is that the Fed has to report to Congress  “ the expected or final cost to the taxpayers of such assistance.”

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Here is an idea:  Greece is getting ready to sell some of its assets to pay for its gigantic debt (Corfu and the Parthenon are not on the auction block yet), and the US should do the same. According to the Financial Statement of the United States, there is about $2.6 trillion of stuff we could sell (See  Page 49 of the report, it’s page 69 of the whole document). A few items on my list:

Loans receivable and mortgage backed securities:  $540  billion
TARP direct loans and equity investments: $240 billion
Property, plant, and equipment: $784 billion
Freddie and Fannie preferred stocks: $65 billion

I would add California, New Jersey and maybe New York: $500 billion (The three states have a lot of debt and many  high maintenance people living there so I am not sure how much we can get for them).

What’s on your list?

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