Fortunately, he saved me the trouble of pulling the clips myself. I wonder how many of these people will be voted into retirement next year and regret this applause-worthy 'accomplishment'. I wonder how many of them will drop their own platinum-plated health care coverage to join the rest of us peons -- mere citizens -- in the plan they have just forced upon us. Oh wait, they've already addressed that - none.
Anyway, here's how it happened. Working all day Saturday, Pelosi managed to pull it off by throwing one of their most sacred cows under the bus: abortion. Kind of.
Pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak led a coalition of dozens of Dems who refused to sign on if there wasn't specific language to prevent federal dollars from being used to fund abortion. Without these Dems, Pelosi lacked the votes she needed to pass the overall bill. Stupak offered an amendment to lock things down, and it passed easily with wide bipartisan support. The problem is that this amendment gave enough Dems cover that they could say they were still pro-life while still allowing them to support ObamaKennedyDeathCare. It could end up being one of those things where they say, "I voted against taxpayer funding for abortion before I voted for it." Of course, the catch is that it is very likely that this provision will get stripped out by the Dem leadership while in committee, so it will not actually see the light of a real day. We'll see, but this could have been a very strategic blunder by those who seek real pro-life protections.
The only Republican to support this abomination is Louisiana Rep. Joseph Cao. Here's a note about what he was thinking:
The man never claimed to be a fully committed economic conservative. He represents a district that is about 75 percent Democrat and 62 percent black (or thereabouts). He SAID ALL ALONG, FOR MONTHS, that he would probably vote for health care reform if it included strong pro-life language such as the Stupak Amendment. He stuck to his guns, even though his district is not majority pro-life. He is a traditionalist Catholic, former Jesuit seminarian, and he stands up for the principles he holds dear, one of which is the sanctity of innocent life. He is willing to lose his office on behalf of that pro-life stance. ...Eh, maybe, maybe not. I still don't understand how anyone who values the American health care system or economy can support this dog of a bill, for any number of reasons. Cao's vote also offers the Dems their desperately wished-for label of 'bipartisan'. Thanks for that. Unfortunately, there won't be much about the bipartisan opposition to this thing, with 39 Dems voting no. Speaking of which, it's worth a look at those 39 Dems and draw some conclusions:
He also represents a district that is fundamentally liberal. Congressmen have two roles: they are delegates, meaning their voters delegate to them the ability to use their judgment on complicated policy matters; and they are representatives, meaning they are there, specifically, to represent the will of their constituents. Serving in Congress is often a balancing act: When your district slightly favors one course of action but you strongly favor the opposite, you do what you believe and try to explain to your constituents why you bucked their wishes. That is being a delegate. But when you are ambivalent about an issue, even slightly against a course of action but only slightly, and your constituents STRONGLY favor the course of action, then your responsibility is to accurately reflect -- to REPRESENT -- the will of your constituents and vote in favor.As Cao is no expert on things economic, and believes that something has to be done for the uninsured, and is neither convinced that the Pelosi bill is the right approach but ALSO not convinced that it is wrong, he then felt an obligation to act as a representative. There is no shame in that.
...all but five of them came from districts that either McCain won, or that had voted Republican up until 2008., Tellingly, six of the last were from former Republican districts and won their seats by less than five points – in several cases, by less than a point. Tuesday’s election results had to have had an extra impact there.Oh, yes, they are.All but 14 are classed as “Blue Dogs”.
Remember – this is a 39 vote swing in a chamber with a 75 vote Democrat majority. Passing Pelosicare should have been as simple as counting the votes.
Why the swing? Why did Nancy Pelosi come five votes from failing?
Because of you. You turned out at town halls and tea parties. You endured the insults and the mockery of the misbegotten “elites”. You flipped a big group bird at the “conventional wisdom”. And you almost pulled off the impossible – turning a near-supermajority against itself.
Don’t think the Senate – where we need two votes – is paying attention?
Philip Klein offers a very interesting analysis that this may not have been quite the tremendous victory that Pelosi and the Dems are boasting it is:
...tonight's victory of a mere five votes, came at a tremendous cost for the House leadership and may eventually help doom the entire effort. In order to get over the top, Democrats had to agree to pass an amendment that would bar taxpayer funding for abortion. The measure is strongly opposed by pro-choicers, and Planned Parenthood has vowed to fight it. While pro-choice Democrats voted for the bill tonight to keep the process moving forward, they did so under the assumption that they could strip it from the bill once the House goes into negotiations with the Senate. If the measure gets stripped, suddenly there's a risk of pro-life Democrats dropping their support of the final bill. And considering that the measure only passed by five votes, Nancy Pelosi cannot afford to shed more than a handful of members. Also keep in mind that because 64 Democrats voted in favor of the Stupak anti-abortion amendment, it means that should it get stripped from the bill, Republicans will be on firm ground arguing that the remaining legislation allows taxpayer funding for abortion. Yet if Pelosi maintains the pro-life language, it's hard to see how staunch pro-choicers support the final bill, and suddenly you could see defections of liberals.And that's where the last big battle will be fought. Get ready, because it's coming.
And of course, all of this assumes that some sort of bill passes the Senate. Yet if it was this heavy of a lift in the House -- where it's supposed to be easy for the majority party to ram things through -- it suddenly looks like a daunting task to get to 60 votes in the Senate.
So, let's take a look at the Senate. There's already a big problem or two:
Outstanding! Lindsey Graham is calling the House bill 'dead on arrival' already. Perhaps the biggest obstacle in the Senate is 'Dr. No', Tom Coburn (emphasis mine):
My only problem with this is: why is Coburn the only Senator thinking about doing this? I am ashamed of the Republican party that there aren't half a dozen conservative Senators out there saying point blank that this is what they're going to do. To me, it's a sign of just how far to the Left the Republican party has gone that only one guy is fighting something like this.Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn is an old-school conservative, and an old-school Senator. How traditional can Dr. Coburn get? Politico reports that Coburn wants to read Harry Reid’s ObamaCare bill before he casts a vote on it — and to make sure he has the time to do it, Coburn plans to force the bill to be read in its entirety on the Senate floor:
Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who developed a close friendship with President Obama when they served together in the Senate, is threatening to have the entire health care bill read on the Senate floor.
Senior Senate Democratic aides had heard Coburn was considering having potentially thousands of pages read aloud in effort to stall passage. “If he did this it would be even outrageous for a guy who’s become known as Dr. No around here,” one of them told POLITICO.
Coburn’s office confirmed that he is indeed thinking about having the bill read.
This could create even more problems for Harry Reid in getting the bill out the door. Unlike in the House, Reid hasn’t been able to do a jam-down on his version of ObamaCare. While a few Democrats still hold out hope for action on the bill by Christmas, some are now setting a target of the State of the Union address at the end of January as more realistic.
If Coburn and other Republicans force floor readings of the bill, that may drift into March or April. If Coburn insists on a floor reading every time the bill gets amended, it may be summertime before they can get around to it. The Senate has other business to conduct, which would interrupt floor readings that would take at least several straight days of floor time to complete for a bill that will run into the thousands of pages. And all it takes is one Senator to withhold the unanimous consent necessary to dispense with floor readings.
In effect, it would allow Coburn to have the bill filibuster itself.
Publicity stunt? Sure. But Coburn’s action would give people plenty of time to find the ridiculous aspects of a bill that would quasi-nationalize 1/6th of the American economy — its reach, its taxes, its mandates, and its intrusion onto the personal choices and freedoms of Americans. The more people have seen these bills, the less they have liked them. That’s why Pelosi’s trying to jam down her bill this weekend, and why Reid can’t afford to let anyone read his bill, let alone the Senate clerk doing it aloud.
I hope and pray that Coburn follows through, because it could be the only thing that punts this abomination down the road enough that the American people can get even more hopped up about it than they already are. I'd also like to see a return of his previous amendment that would force every Rep and Senator to join whatever the final legislation dictates to the rest of us. Pass that one provision, and I will bet you $3 trillion it will die a very quick death.
So, back to my theory from last fall - the radical Leftists who are now running the American government had three main legs in their takeover (i.e. 're-making') of this great nation:
1. financial industry
2. health care
3. energy
The first phase was largely completed with TARP, the 'stimulus' package, and historically unprecedented new spending. The House has now passed both of the other two measures, narrowly. The only hurdle left to preventing these anti-American radicals from completing their re-making project is the Senate. Two votes are all that stands between 230+ years of responsibility, limited government, and historically unmatched prosperity, and the destruction of the United States of America as we know it.
Oh sure, the country will still exist. But, it will mirror Europe - perpetually high unemployment, crippling taxation on the productive members of society, no will or ability to defend its people from attacks or aggressors, political correctness trumping common sense and justice, and government interference in every facet of life you can imagine.
We are at a turning point in the history of our nation, and the world. I hope and pray we turn the right direction.
There's my two cents.
Related Reading:
Democrats sold their party's reproductive soul
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