And tidings of comfort and joy from Harry Reid too. The Senate Majority Leader has decided that the last few days before Christmas are the opportune moment for a narrow majority of Democrats to stuff ObamaCare through the Senate to meet an arbitrary White House deadline. Barring some extraordinary reversal, it now seems as if they have the 60 votes they need to jump off this cliff, with one-seventh of the economy in tow. Mr. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world’s greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new “manager’s amendment” that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations. Democrats are barely even bothering to pretend to care what’s in it, not that any Senator had the chance to digest it in the 38 hours before the first cloture vote at 1 a.m. this morning. After procedural motions that allow for no amendments, the final vote could come at 9 p.m. on December 24. Even in World War I there was a Christmas truce. [“A bill so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve.” On a 60 Democrat ZERO Republican vote no less…ed]
Passing health reform could be a nightmare for Obama
Barack Obama’s quest for historic health-care legislation has turned into a parody of leadership. We usually associate presidential leadership with the pursuit of goals that, though initially unpopular, serve America’s long-term interests. Obama has reversed this. He’s championing increasingly unpopular legislation that threatens the country’s long-term interests. “This isn’t about me,” he likes to say, “I have great health insurance.” But of course, it is about him: about the legacy he covets as the president who achieved “universal” health insurance. He’ll be disappointed. Even if Congress passes legislation — a good bet — the finished product will fall far short of Obama’s extravagant promises. It will not cover everyone. [This ObamaCare crap never was about health insurance for everyone, it was ALL about the epitome of governmental control over every one of us…ed]
Health bill money for hospital sought by Dodd
A $100 million item for construction of a university hospital was inserted in the Senate health care bill at the request of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who faces a difficult re-election campaign, his office said Sunday night. The legislation leaves it up to the Health and Human Services Department to decide where the money should be spent, although spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said Dodd hopes to claim it for the University of Connecticut. The provision is included in a 383-page series of changes to the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., outlined Saturday. Scattered throughout are numerous items sought by individual [Democrat] lawmakers, many of them directing money explicitly to programs or projects in their home states. [There is more to this than meets the eye as I doubt 100 million bones would pay for the foundation of the building let alone the entire construction costs of this blatant attempt to buy the worthless scumbag Dodd, who should be sitting in prison for his part in the foreclosure mess this country is going through, votes in his upcoming reelection bid…ed]
Cash for Cloture: Demcare bribe list, Pt. II
A month ago, I compiled Part I of the Demcare bribe list as Harry Reid rushed before Thanksgiving to secure his first cloture vote on the government health care takeover. (Quick re-cap: $300 million Louisiana Purchase for Landrieu; $300 million California doctor payments; AARP goodies; abortion and union lobby concessions.) Here’s Part II of the Cash for Cloture bribe list all in one handy place (hat tip again to my friend ChristinaKB for the apt phrase she first coined on November 21 for the Demcare wheeling and dealing). GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell alluded to all this backroom dealing on the floor early this morning before the cloture vote, but lamely refused to name names on the Senate floor. Screw Senate collegiality. Let the sun shine in. [Michelle Malkin has a running list of the slimeball Democrats involving in the “Cash for Cloture” scam taking place up there in that legislative cesspool called Capitol hill…ed]
Democrats Pin 2010 Hopes on Bill
Slumping in the polls and struggling to pass climate and financial legislation, President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders are counting on an historic health care victory to buoy their electoral prospects in 2010. But Republicans argued Sunday that the issue is breaking their way, and liberal infighting indicates the party leadership has to win back its base along with the larger electorate. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been telling Democrats a win on the health issue will reverse the slide in public opinion, just as passage of another controversial proposal, the North American Free Trade Agreement, lifted President Bill Clinton in the polls. [Earth to Democrats. The American people are overwhelmingly opposed to every piece of socialist Utopian dream legislation you are trying to foist upon us. Passing your leftists agenda on a strictly party line vote time and again because you think you know what’s best for the people you are supposed to be representing is not going to help your chances in 2010, believe me…ed]
Nearly 60 percent Say President Obama’s Decisions ‘Bad for America’
A majority of Americans believe an increased government role in health care would lead to more government corruption, while a plurality of Americans think that scientific data supporting man-made global warming is “mostly falsified.” That is what a new poll by Survey USA reveals. The poll also shows that 58 percent of Americans believe that decisions by the Obama administration have been “bad for America,” as opposed to 37 percent who think Obama’s decisions have been “good for America.” [Lock and load folks, the second revolution is just around the corner…ed]
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In today’s Rasmussen presidential poll, only 26 percent of the nation’s voters strongly approve of Barack Obama’s performance as president, while 43 percent strongly disapprove — giving him a Presidential Approval Index rating, a sum calculated by subtracting the number of strong disapprovals from the number of strong approvals, of negative 17. His overall disapproval rating is 53 percent (it has been 50 percent or more for over a month). But it is the extraordinarily high proportion of those who strongly disapprove that bears noting. In January, George W. Bush left office with a “Strongly Disapprove” rating of … 43 percent. It took Bush eight years to achieve that level of strong disapproval, despite how the mainstream media pummeled him for years. Obama has reached that level in 11 months, despite a media that for months could not use his name in a sentence without also adding “Lincoln” and “FDR.” [Laughably, the tone deaf Obama and his fellow Democrats think that ramming legislation that the American people have resoundingly opposed down our throats will actually bring these numbers up…ed]
Obama gets an ‘A’ for effort from Schwarzenegger
Not every Republican is a critic of President Obama. At least one thinks the president is doing a fine job – at least when it comes to the effort involved in being the country’s chief executive. Asked to give Obama a grade as the end of the president’s first year in office approaches, Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s Republican governor, gave Obama high marks. “When it comes to effort, [Obama] should get a straight A,” Schwarzenegger told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King in an interview that aired Sunday on State of the Union. [Schwarzenegger’s a Republican like I’m an astronaut. Little wonder why California has gone to hell in a handbasket and 12 billion bucks in the hole under the governorship of this left wing European socialist…ed]
The Senate health care “reform” bill that now has 60 votes and could pass by the end of this week is 2,074 pages long. And President Obama claims to know what’s in it. Sort of. Urging hold-out Democrats to back the bill, on Dec. 15, the president said, “You talk to every health care economist out there and they will tell you that whatever ideas are — whatever ideas exist in terms of bending the cost curve and starting to reduce costs for families, businesses, and government, those elements are in this bill.” The ideas are in there. Whatever they are. Moments later, Obama urged senators to not sweat the details and just pass the bill. [History will show that for years after the First Black Guy As President Guilt Trip Experiment, we struggled to undo all the Democrat legislation that was rammed through without any concern for our country or future economic impacts on our children…ed]
Despite President Obama’s desperate last-minute attempts to transform the UN’s climate change conference into “Hopenhagen,” even this administration’s talented pool of spin-doctors will find it difficult to convince global warming alarmists that the two-week event was anything other than what is now being called: an ”abject failure.” Happily, any result that distresses the alarmists comes as a huge relief to anyone who values liberty and free markets. While Denmark is also the home to the World Santa Claus Congress, which meets every year just outside of Copenhagen, the climate change conference offered up its own version of a Christmas gift: a promise of $30 billion in goodies to various third-world countries. It’s a sad commentary on world affairs when the redistribution of $30 billion in wealth from industrialized nations to tin-pot dictators can be called a “victory,” but in an age of government bailouts and $787 billion stimulus packages, the latest climate accord is an absolute bargain. [It has been rather amusing watching the rising tide of desperation among the global warming hoaxsters. With much of the planet experiencing record cold and crippling snowstorms these fraudsters can see the money and power slipping away and they are now extremely worried they won’t be able to cram this scam down the throat of the producing productive countries around the world…ed]
Lawrence Solomon: Wikipedia’s climate doctor
The Climategate Emails describe how a small band of climatologists cooked the books to make the last century seem dangerously warm. The emails also describe how the band plotted to rewrite history as well as science, particularly by eliminating the Medieval Warm Period, a 400 year period that began around 1000 AD. The Climategate Emails reveal something else, too: the enlistment of the most widely read source of information in the world — Wikipedia — in the wholesale rewriting of this history. (SNIP) Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known – Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003, just when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel, Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site. He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm Period. [More proof wikipedia is nothing more than a silly joke when serious information is desired…ed]
Gas could be the cavalry in global warming fight
An unlikely source of energy has emerged to meet international demands that the United States do more to fight global warming: It’s cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and a 90-year supply is under our feet. It’s natural gas, the same fossil fuel that was in such short supply a decade ago that it was deemed unreliable. It’s now being uncovered at such a rapid pace that its price is near a seven-year low. Long used to heat half the nation’s homes, it’s becoming the fuel of choice when building new power plants. Someday, it may win wider acceptance as a replacement for gasoline in our cars and trucks. Natural gas’ abundance and low price come as governments around the world debate how to curtail carbon dioxide and other pollution that contribute to global warming. The likely outcome is a tax on companies that spew excessive greenhouse gases. Utilities and other companies see natural gas as a way to lower emissions — and their costs. Yet politicians aren’t stumping for it. [The fact that natural gas is abundant, releases less so called greenhouse gases than oil or coal when consumed and is plentiful will soon be attacked by the global warming whack jobs. You can bet on it…ed]
Cheap Natural Gas and Its Enemies
A vast reservoir of clean-burning natural gas could be available at reasonable cost in the coming years, freeing us from some of our dependence on imported energy. Yet there are those who consider such a development a threat. A small group of billionaires (and mere multimillionaires), formed under the aegis of the Democracy Alliance, has amassed a great deal of political influence in America on behalf of the Democratic Party and Democratic politicians. Among the more important members of this “club” are George Soros and his liberal allies, Herbert and Marion Sandler. The latter two are billionaire beneficiaries of the mortgage bubble who timed their exit from the savings and loan industry before the bubble popped. They went on to fund (with George Soros) the Center for American Progress — otherwise known as Obama’s “idea factory.” [AmericanThinker.com takes a look at this natural gas issue…ed]
Time for a Separation of Science and State
While many people take for granted the fact that it is dangerous to use articles of faith as the basis for public policy, we often fail to realize that science too represents an extremely dodgy justification for law. With a population that is often willing to unquestioningly defer to the “experts” on matters they feel are above their pay grade, the governed run the risk of empowering legislators to pass law that is just as much a product of faith as anything that can be found in your local church or synagogue. [The obvious fact that scientists are now deeply in the pocket of our government, instead of being a third part of the checks and balances, has now proven to be extremely dangerous to our liberty. The government has bought off scientists and is now working on buying off leaders in business as well. Think GE, Google and Apple for starters…ed]
D.C. policeman accused of pulling gun to quell snowball fight
A Washington, D.C. plainclothes police officer accused of pulling a gun after his car was pelted during a Twitter-inspired snowball fight in downtown Washington has been placed on desk duty pending an investigation, The Washington Post reports. Police initially denied any weapon had been displayed until video footage and witnesses indicated otherwise. [For the record it was the black guy in the hooded jacket who is the subject of this investigation…ed]
Man dressed in animal skin shot dead during hunt
Police said members of a shooting party made up of families opened fire when Christos Constantinou, 49, moved through the undergrowth. They are thought to have been confused by the fact the victim was disguised in dark goat skins, which are used to camouflage and to mislead their prey. The groups had fanned out in pairs of two to track down an animal for the traditional festive dinner when the accident happened. [A lesson on what not to wear while out hunting this evening’s dinner…ed]
Quote of the day.
I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had. An example is ObamaCare, which is now embattled in the Senate. If that goes through the way Obama wants, we will have something very much like the British system. If the American people have their health care paid for by the government, depending on their age and their condition, they will be subject to a health commission just like in England which will decide if their lives are worth living much longer.
-Nat Hentoff, 84 year old civil libertarian, free speech activist, anti-death penalty advocate and pro-lifer.