We Are, Apparently, Screwed

Shocker of all shockers, the supposedly 'pro-life' Democrats in the House have now caved and will apparently support DemCare -- which will enshrine taxpayer-funded abortions on demand -- thus giving SanFranNan her majority to pass DemCare.

Bart Stupak and his group appear to have made a deal with the White House, where they'll support DemCare if Obama writes an executive order declaring there will be no taxpayer funded abortions. Of course, that kind of a statement is literally not worth the paper it's printed upon, since it doesn't actually change any law at all, but hey, it'll give these theoretically 'pro-life' Dems some warm fuzzies, and isn't that what this debate is all about? Here's what the (genuinely) pro-life Susan B. Anthony List has to say:

“An executive order on abortion funding would do nothing to fix the problems presented by the current health care reform legislation that the House is considering today. The very idea is a slap in the face to the pro-life movement and should be offensive to all pro-life Members of Congress. An executive order can be rescinded at any time at the President’s whim. The courts could and have a history of trumping executive orders.

“If this was a sincere attempt to meet pro-life concerns then you would hear the cry of pro-choice Members and groups. Rather Rep. Diana Degette, co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus told The Huffington Post on Saturday that ‘If there was an executive order saying they weren’t going to use federal funds in the bill to pay for abortions that would be fine with me, because we’ve stipulated to that even though we don’t like it, That’s the compromise we came to way back in July.’

“In the end, no pro-life Member of Congress could, in good conscience, play politics with the lives of hundreds of unborn children. If they do, there will be a quick downhill slide to defeat on Election Day.”

Andy McCarthy elaborates a bit, not only helping to explain why this is a bald-faced scam, but also putting it into context in regard to the previous administration:

I know we tire of the hypocrisy, but I really think this is remarkable. We spent the eight years through January 19, 2009, listening to Democrats complain that President Bush had purportedly caused a constitutional crisis by issuing signing statements when he signed bills into law. Democrats and Arlen Specter (now a Democrat) complained that these unenforceable, non-binding expressions of the executive's interpretation of the laws Bush was signing were a usurpation Congress's power to enact legislation.

But now Democrats are going to abide not a mere signing statement but an executive order that purports to have the effect of legislation — in fact, has the effect of nullifying legislation that Congress is simultaneously enacting?

The Susan B. Anthony List observation that EOs can be rescinded at the president's whim is of course true. This particuar EO is also a nullity — presidents cannot enact laws, the Supreme Court has said they cannot impound funds that Congress allocates, and (as a friend points out) the line-item veto has been held unconstitutional, so they can't use executive orders to strike provisions in a bill. So this anti-abortion EO is blatant chicanery: if the pro-lifers purport to be satisfied by it, they are participating in a transparent fraud and selling out the pro-life cause.

But even if all that weren't true, how do we go from congressional Democrats claiming that signing statements were a shredding of the Constitution to congressional Democrats acquiescing in a claim that the president can enact or cancel out statutory law by diktat?

But hypocrisy seems to be the standard operating procedure for this batch of Democrats. Philip Klein observes this about the executive order:

Reading over the executive order myself, I'm not seeing what it does other than to affirm the administration's position that the Senate language is sufficient and that it will implement the legislation in accordance with current law. After months of haggling over the abortion language, who knew resolving the issue would be as easy as getting President Obama to sign a piece of paper essentially saying, "I promise"?

Tea partiers are meeting outside Russ Carnahan's home in St. Louis tonight to hold a prayer vigil for the future victims of DemCare, in particular the elderly and the unborn.

When you boil it all down, it's as I've always said: the only thing you can count on elected Democrats for is that they'll always -- ALWAYS -- cave on their so-called principles (in reality, this means they have no principles). While the actual vote takes place later tonight, it seems that we are destined for government control of health care in America now.

Unless the Republicans can come up with some way to stall or delay things until November, that is. They're going to try, and kudos to them for that...but elections have consequences, and it appears that the consequences of Hope-n-Change 2008 is the death of a free America. It appears that the Kool-Aid has once again been fatal, this time to the greatest, most free and prosperous nation on the face of the planet.

I hope you're one of those who doesn't pay any taxes, because if you do you're going to get hammered in the next few years. I also hope you don't ever get sick in the future, because then you'll really find out how wonderful government health care is as some faceless bureaucrat decides your life isn't worth the drugs or surgery that it would take to heal you.

Welcome to the Obama era, baby, where we are all completely screwed.


There's my two cents.