The public option was dead and had a stake through its heart but now, like Jason, it appears to be back. The Democrats have passed a shell bill and will insert items into it. Pam Geller of Atlas Shrugs reports that this language is now part of the bill:

Subtitle B—Public Health Insurance Option

SEC. 221. ESTABLISHMENT AND ADMINISTRATION OF A PUBLIC HEALTH INSURANCE OPTION AS AN EXCHANGE-QUALIFIED HEALTH BENEFITS PLAN.

(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—For years beginning with Y1, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (in this subtitle referred to as the ‘‘Secretary’’) shall provide for the offering of an Exchange-participating health benefits plan (in this subdivision referred to as the ‘‘public health insurance option’’) that ensures choice, competition, and stability of affordable, high quality coverage throughout the United States in accordance with this subtitle. In designing the option, the Secretary’s primary responsibility is to create a low-cost plan without compromising quality or access to care.

I have no idea if this was ever in the Senate Bill but I am pretty sure the title of Public Health Insurance Option and the the last sentence that states it is the Secretary’s PRIMARY responsibility to create a low-cost plan pretty much means that this is a public option.

The Democrats are using unconstitutional methods to pass the bill, are using sleight of hand to get things in the bill and are lying to the American public. This is how they roll and we cannot trust them. We cannot trust anyone who would usurp the Constitution in order to impose his will on us.

This bill must be defeated and it must be defeated badly.

I am not sure about all of this but I think tomorrow at 10 am we might have a better idea. Dennis Kucinich is scheduled to announce how he will vote on the bill. He has been a firm NO vote all along because there was NO public option. He has been courted and, at the same time, shamed by Obama and now the once adamant Congressman is silent about his plan.

If he announces that he will vote YES then we will know for sure that the public option is back in play.

Never, ever, trust a Democrat.

Big Dog Salute to Jasmine

Share on Facebook

Whenever there is a huge snowstorm (and we had quite a few of those this year) the sane part of the population (those who do not believe in man-made global warming) make comments about global warming and how it must not be real. When we discuss these things and other events we are quickly told by the global warming alarmists that these events are just weather and there is a difference between weather and climate.

The Holy Father of global warming did the exact same thing at a global warming conference when he said that recent weather events were consistent with global warming.

But Gore had a specific example in mind. He explained this recent soaking in the Northeastern United States was “consistent” with what global warming alarmists were projecting. Business and Media Institute

We had several blizzards this year and this is not consistent with what the alarmists have said. Some of them lamented about winters without snow blah blah.

The snow runs contrary to what they have told us even as they claim that the snow is a sign of global warming.

But are the alarmists who routinely mock people as ignorant for not knowing the difference between climate and weather going to call out Gore for his lack of understanding of the issue?

If the snowstorms are not evidence that global warming is not a problem because they are weather events then all the soaking rains we had are not evidence because they too are weather events.

Would one of you self righteous alarmists contact Mr. Gore and inform him of his egregious error?

Share on Facebook

The health care takeover the Democrats have been working on for over a year is coming down to the final hours and the majority party is pulling out all the stops. They are working on unconstitutional methods to pass the bill, circumventing the normal process and lying about the bill being bipartisan in that they incorporated some Republican ideas.

They have a shell bill which is what they will pass and then when it goes to committee they will remove the items and replace them with the things they really want.

Barack Obama discusses the idea of courage and says that the time for politics is over and Congress should do what is right and put politics aside. Obama does this while playing politics because he is a product of the Chicago thug machine and he does not know what courage is and he is unaware of how to do something without involving politics. Additionally, Obama has allowed politics to get in the way because his desire NOT to fail on this issue has led to his political power play to get it passed. As for courage, if Obama had that trait he would have scrapped the bill and started over in a bipartisan fashion.

Obama delayed his working vacation for a few days to go around the country and …wait for it…engage in a political campaign for the bill. He is out there pushing hard for the bill. In essence, he is now “all in”, a term that describes a card player who throws all his money in the pot.

Obama is now all in on this like he was with the Chicago Olympic bid, the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey and the Senate race in Massachusetts. His spin doctors worked hard to make each of these look as if they were not Obama failures but they were.

Now that he is all in on health care he has no place to hide. His spin masters will not be able to spin this in any way, shape, or form should the bill not pass.

If this bill does not pass then Obama will be seen as having failed, especially by his own party. It will look, and rightly so, as if he gave it all he had and could not get it done even with super majorities.

He will be a failure and he knows it.

Right now the votes are not there but that does not mean it will fail to pass. There are plenty of backroom deals being made and offers are flying about the halls of the Capitol to give members anything they want for a yes vote. Pelosi is twisting arms two at a time and doing everything to force people to fall in line and vote yes.

And yet she does not have the votes.

If they happen to pass this then America will be outraged with those who sold their votes, and that is the only way they change, just as they were with Ben Nelson. That anger will show on election day and despite what the pseudo intellectual pundits say, Democrats will lose big. The Democrats know this and it is a major reason that many are hesitant to vote yes.

This is a lose lose situation for the Democrats because they will lose if this fails and lose bigger if it passes.

Obama has put them between Barack and a hard place and now he too, is all in.

But he does not have to worry about being reelected this year.

He has three years to recover. His Democrats in the House do not have that luxury and they know they are being hung out to dry.

Share on Facebook

Two IRS agents showed up at a car wash in Sacramento to collect back taxes. The agents incurred travel expenses and were paid their salaries in order to collect a whopping 4 cents.

It was every businessperson’s nightmare.

Arriving at Harv’s Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. “They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending,” says Harv’s owner, Aaron Zeff.

The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff’s on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was … 4 cents.

Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv’s with an obligation of $202.35. The Sacramento Bee

OK, so with penalties the balance was a little over 200 dollars which begs the question, how much interest and penalties are levied to turn 4 cents into 200 dollars in just four years?

The troubling thing here is that the IRS would waste time and money to collect 4 cents (plus the penalties and interest) when it ignored Tim Geithner and Charlie Rangel along with who knows how many others who failed to pay their taxes. And to top it off, the IRS waived any penalties and interest for Geithner.

This is nothing more than an abuse of power and whoever authorized this should be fired. Let’s face it, the 4 cents that was originally owed would not make a dent in the budget deficit and the IRS does not require anyone to pay taxes owed if the amount due is less than one dollar (and it will not refund any amount overpaid if it is under a dollar unless a refund is requested).

This also means that the owner should not have had interest and penalties assessed.

From the IRS:
How To Pay

If you have an amount due on your tax return, you can pay by check, money order, credit or debit card. If you filed electronically, you also may be able to make your payment electronically.
You do not have to pay if the amount you owe is less than $1. [This emphasis mine]

I guess this is a sign of the times to come. The government is so anxious to spend our money that it will go to any length to squeeze out every last cent from us.

I don’t know how this happened but it is wrong no matter how one views it.

Share on Facebook

I imagine that US Embassies around the world require the finest dishes so that when they entertain people from around the world they do not look like a bunch of slackers serving wine in paper glasses. So I can certainly understand the need for the embassies to have fine crystal glasses in which to serve beverages.

I can’t understand why we need to spend 5.4 MILLION dollars on such glasses. It would seem to me that we could get some kind of bulk discount for buying that much crystal.

Secretary of State Clinton’s State Department has ordered the glasses and the kicker is that the order will not benefit any American business. The small business through which they were ordered turned around and subcontracted to get them from an overseas company.

There is a company in the US, right in Clinton’s “native” New York that makes glasses to the specifications required but they will not receive the money.

Instead 5.4 MILLION US taxpayer dollars will go to a company in another country.

Though this is not part of the stimulus it would seem that contracting an American company to provide them would help shore up the business and provide workers with job security.

It is obvious that people in government do not think when they do things.

How else can anyone explain such a boneheaded move? I guess no thinking is required when you are spending money that is not yours…

And Democrats accuse Republicans of outsourcing jobs overseas…

Source:
New York Post

Share on Facebook

People are free to use their homes for anything they desire so long as what they are doing is legal. Once law enforcement is aware of illegal activities then it is obligated to act. However, people are free to do anything in their own homes.

People can host Tupperware parties, scout meetings, Thanksgiving dinner, football parties, pool parties, wakes, bachelor parties, wedding receptions, Amway sales meetings, Homeowner’s Association meetings, socials and birthday parties.

Apparently, one can do all these in his home and have no problem (unless the activity disturbs the peace) but one thing that cannot be done, at least in Gilbert Arizona, is for church groups to meet in a private home. In Gilbert, members of the local church host Bible Study meetings in their homes on a rotating basis.

Those meetings have been put on hold as the legal system works out the process of what authority the town has to decide what legal things people can do in their own homes.

Good luck with that. People can do whatever they want in their homes including worshiping, holding Bible studies, and dying Easter Eggs and there is not a thing the government can do about it.

It is amazing that people are told what they can and cannot do in their own homes, the homes they are buying and paying for, and yet we as a society can’t tell people living in public housing to mow their own grass.

It is also a sure bet that if a group of Muslims were having meetings at a home they would not be bothered and if they were CAIR would be screaming about discrimination. After all, they have the right to build bomb vests in their own home and no one has the right to deny them that religious practice.

The folks in Gilbert AZ need to stand up to this and tell government to back off. What goes on in the home is none of government’s business.

Government is out of control…

SOurce:
WND

Share on Facebook

Attorney General and terrorist sympathizer Eric Holder seems to have neglected to include about seven legal briefs he signed in the packet of stuff he provided to the Senate when he went through the confirmation process.

I understand that a politician lawyer like Holder is busy and probably signs a lot of things but two of the briefs involved appeals to the Supreme Court. A lot of attorneys go through their entire career and do not submit stuff to the SCOTUS so one would think this is not the kind of stuff that would be forgotten. What else could make him neglect to send them?

Two of the briefs involved appeals to the Supreme Court for Jose Padilla, who sought release from a military prison in South Carolina where he was being held after then-President George W. Bush designated him an “enemy combatant.” al-Reuters

Oh, more on the terror support front, got it.

Holder is a little weasel. He has been involved in a number of pardons of bad people like Marc Rich, members of the FALN and of the Weather Underground (yes the Bill Ayers terrorist group). He is just a low life weasel who has little regard for the law and sees it more as a vehicle to enact social justice.

Yes, he has a sordid past and yes he deliberately withheld information from the Senate.

He is a pathetic little man who should resign his position and slither back under the rock he emerged from.

And he can save some room for that cretin Obama as well.

Other Holder hits:
OKC Bombing cover-up
Waco cover-up
Torture of US Citizen cover-up

How do we allow pieces of cow dung like this guy to be anywhere near our political system?

Share on Facebook

This cartoon is hilarious and absolutely true:

It accurately portrays what the health care takeover bill is doing to Democrats.

Be sure to click the link and see the cartoon. Obama Akbar…

Share on Facebook

By now anyone with a head and who is not trying to rewrite history over this issue knows that the Democrats are working full speed ahead to pass unpopular legislation in order to take control of our lives by controlling our health care. They want to vote for Obama’s signature legislative item but they are worried about the ramifications of passing unpopular legislation especially in an election year.

It is a double edged sword because they need to pass it now because they will lose too many seats to pass it next year. But if they pass it now they will lose even more seats and Obama will have no future agenda because Republicans will not allow anything he wants to pass. It won’t get considered. This will be the price for ramming legislation through without following the Constitution. I bet then we hear Democrats scream about being left out of the process and how ham handed the Republicans are.

Anyone who complains should be locked in the basement so we do not have to hear them again. This would include Obama.

The most recent idea coming from Democrats is to consider a bill voted on and passed if another piece of legislation is passed. This is a way to avoid voting on the unpopular bill but getting what they want passed.

In the Slaughter Solution, the rule would declare that the House “deems” the Senate version of Obamacare to have been passed by the House. House members would still have to vote on whether to accept the rule, but they would then be able to say they only voted for a rule, not for the bill itself.

Thus, Slaughter is preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill “passed” once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes. Democrats would thereby avoid a direct vote on the health care bill while allowing it to become law! Doug Ross

According to Constitutional Attorney Mark R Levin, this rule is unconstitutional. The House and Senate must vote on a bill and it must be sent to the president to be signed into law. So far, so good because they are voting on a bill but they are not voting on the bill that will become law and they are not voting in accordance with the Constitution:

U.S Constitution, Article I, Section VII, Clause II.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively… [emphasis added]

In ALL cases the bills shall be voted on by Yeahs and Nays. They cannot vote on one rule change and say it means they voted on another bill. Every BILL (singular) must be voted on with yeahs and nays. Our Founders set this up for a reason.

Of course the Constitutionality of something has never stopped Democrats from doing what they wanted but I am pretty sure there will be a lot of legal challenges to any process that does not follow the Constitution and the legal process in accordance with the law.

Note to Democrats, just because you change the rules does not mean the rules adopted are Constitutional.

Here is a link to the US Constitution for those who are challenged in this area. It would be particularly nice if Politicians read this.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out because the left is worried about the interpretation of the Senate Parliamentarian when it should be worried about the Constitution.

Can they use reconciliation to fix a bill that has not been agreed upon by both chambers? Don’t know but they cannot vote for a rule and say it counts as voting for a bill.

The other interesting thing that I see is Joe Biden has a big role in this as President of the Senate. This is the guy who scolded Dick Cheney and cited the wrong part of the Constitution when discussing the role of the VP. Seems that Biden was unaware that the VP has Executive and Legislative responsibility and that this is spelled out in the Constitution (it really helps to read it).

In any event, Biden might get a chance to learn what the VP is allowed to do.

Now it would be funny to see them do all of this only to have it nullified as unconstitutional, or declared not a law because they did not vote on a BILL. They would be back to square one and a lot closer to the election. They would never get another chance and that is a good thing.

Share on Facebook

The Democrats are moving along at full speed in order to ram the health care takeover down our throats (though it might be more appropriate to indicate they are ramming it in another body part considering what they are trying to do to us). Nancy Pelosi is busing tightening leashes and Barack Obama has postponed his mini vacation for a few days to help usher this thing along.

I told you before that this is not about health and it is not about care, it is about control. It is also something that Democrats must pass. They need this to secure a win on a signature issue for Obama. Democrats push forward at their own peril because, by and large, Americans do not want this. The reasons are many including those who do not want it because it is not liberal enough, those who do not like certain provisions and those who do not want any of it because they believe government does not belong in the health care business.

No matter what the reason, the opposition is too loud to ignore. The Democrats However, are good at doing just that. Last August Americans came out in force to town hall meetings and voiced their objections. The Democrat’s answer was to stop having town hall meetings.

Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen, two Democrat pollsters, are warning of Armageddon if the Democrats pass this monstrosity over the objections of the public. They freely admit that Democrats stand to lose seats in the midterm elections (a historical trend) but go on to say that Democrats will lose many more if they pass it.

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

~snip~

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

The writing is on the wall. Despite the claims that people like the bill when they know more about it, the reality is people do not like it and do not want it. Democrats proceed at their own peril.

The authors indicate that people agree that reform is needed and that some parts of the plan are appealing but that the plan in total is not liked. This has not stopped Democrats from moving on, full speed ahead. They continue to claim people will like it once they see what is in it (which we apparently cannot do until it is passed). This is untrue because people already know what is in it and they do not like it.

As Caddell and Schoen state; “…the battle for public opinion has been lost.”

But this will not stop Democrats from walking off a cliff.

And the bad thing for them is that if this does not pass, at this point in the game, those who voted for it will be in real trouble for backing a loser and against the wishes of those they are supposed to represent.

Share on Facebook