Last night’s cartoon was a bit grim though I drew exactly how I was feeling. However, as a child of the 80s I remember Reagan’s relentless optimism and so this morning I decided to gird up my proverbial loins and get back to work. November will be here sooner than we think!

Drawn to: “All the Rivers Run” by Bruce Rowlands
(Same guy who wrote Man from Snowy River. Yeah, I’m that kind of nerd.)

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While many in the right-o-sphere (including yours truly) have been using a clip from one of the lesser Star Wars movies (er, prequels) to describe what happened yesterday, one of our readers, Bruce W, who has a blog of his own offered a clip (albeit slightly altered) from the best Star Wars movie to describe Bart Stupak’s deal:

You can now contribute to the campaign of Dr. Dan Benishek, Stupak’s opponent via Paypal.

Criticizing the Boxer-Pelosi health care plan which squeaked through an overwhelmingly Democratic House yesterday after the majority party’s leadership crafted special deals in back room and offered payoffs to various wavering legislators to secure their votes, the woman whose chances of replacing Ma’am Barbara Boxer in the Senate increased dramatically last night had this to say:

While our nation’s health care system is in need of reform, the legislation passed today is an example of the ‘cure’ being worse than the disease. It is a patchwork of Washington insider deals, and it will cost California taxpayers millions, if not billions, of dollars we cannot afford.

Carly Fiorina then repeated the points she’s been making for some time about what real reform would look like:

• Building on programs that provide incentives for receiving preventative care and for healthy lifestyles.
• Reforming malpractice on a national level as has been done in California.
• Providing greater access to lower-cost community-based primary care clinics.
• Encouraging more transparency about pricing and quality of health care services.
• Allowing consumers to purchase any health plan from anywhere in the country.
• Creating more market-based competition for everything from health insurance to prescription drugs.

Unlike the schemes Senate Democrats unanimously backed last December and which a divided House Democratic caucus adopted last night, Fiorina’s reforms are based on ideas which have lowered the costs and increased the efficiency of services in health care and other industry.  By contrast, most provisions in the Democratic plan aren’t based on programs which work, indeed, many of them are based on programs which have seen huge cost overruns and led to a rationing of services.

Let us hope that in her first days as a United States Senator next January, this breast cancer survivor from California introduces a bill to effect these reforms in the debate Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell opens to repeal the bill just passed.

Yesterday we saw history made as the largest take-over by the United States government of a private industry was narrowly passed by the House of Representatives and will soon be signed by the president in the face of an overwhelming opposition from the population of the Nation and zero support from the opposing party whatsoever.

I wrote in my post right after that fateful vote that it was time for America to choose which sort of moment that was to signify. As I slept on it (and wished I hadn’t given up alcohol for Lent) last night, I started thinking about what we do next. And here’s what I’ve come up with:

Last spring we told them “No” at Tea Parties. They responded by calling us all racists.

Last summer we told them “No” at town hall meetings. They responded by calling us un-American.

Last fall, we told them “No” in voting booths in New Jersey and Virginia. And in January in Massachusetts of all places. Their response was not to reconsider their positions in the face of their clear unpopularity, but rather to redouble their efforts to find a way around us and our wishes.

And now it has come to this. We can no longer say, They’re not hearing us; we’ve been loud. We can no longer say, They’re not listening to us; we’ve been clear. The only conclusion we can come to is that they knowingly defied us, and this cannot stand. They must all be removed.

The time has come for action.

It is time now to remove these people from their offices. Every Congressman and Senator who voted in support of the Stalinization of Health Care Act of 2010 MUST lose his or her seat this November 2d. It is imparative for the survival of our Nation.

This is not about malice. It’s not about vengence. It’s not about “teaching them a lesson.” It is simply about caring for our Union. It is the (metaphoric, mind you) watering of the tree of Liberty. (more…)

Via TigerHawk’s Tea Party flickr page, via Instapundit.

This wonderful piece of “analysis” begins an AP piece which led Yahoo! as I was having my late-night yogurt snack before bed:

The initial blush of President Barack Obama’s health care triumph immediately gives way to a sober political reality — he must sell the landmark legislation to an angry and unpredictable electorate, still reeling from the recession.

Um, wasn’t he supposed to do that selling before pushing the bill through the House.  And didn’t the people turn against the bill as he was hawking his big-government package?

“Voters,” AP National Political Writer Liz Sidoti writes, “may not buy it.”

May not buy it? Liz, you seen the polls?  They haven’t bought it.  I mean, just a few paragraphs down, you do quote a poll:

Ahead of the vote, a Gallup poll showed more Americans believe the measure will make things worse rather than better for the country as a whole and for them personally. And most polls show most people don’t like the plan although some surveys showed Americans giving high marks to individual elements.

So, maybe that’s the reason, as you report that, “Voters are furious. They hate Washington. They also detest incumbents.”  I mean you might want to ask yourself something before penning a piece of analysis, if voters detest incumbents, why is it that only Democratic incumbents seem to be facing tough reelections when every Senate Republican running for re-election looks safe and the only House Republican looking vulnerable represents a district Obama carried by a margin of 3-to-1?

Some of my conservative friends are more glum than I was last night.  Now, to be sure, I’m upset.  As I watched House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the vote on the Senate bill she didn’t want to vote on, she reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West, only the latter had better make-up.  And her devilish smile looked real.

My conservative friends are glum because they have bought into the conventional wisdom (“wisdom” which surely animated the last-minute push for Obamacare despite the president’s January promise to focus on jobs) that you can’t repeal an entitlement.  But, let me remind the purveyors of that piece of “wisdom”:  never before has an entitlement been passed in the manner this one has,* with myriad backroom deals, strong popular disapproval and an organized and energetic grassroots opposition.   “Never before in American history has a measure of such importance been imposed on the country by the majority party over the unanimous opposition of the minority.”

The long national nightmare begun when Obama, in the face of declining popular support for his overhaul, forced the vote on the American people, has only just begun.  Now, we have a week, likely more, of debate in the Senate.  And repeal will certainly be the first item on House Speaker John Boehner’s agenda next January.

The “mother of all culture wars . . .[, the] showdown between Americans who want bigger government and those who want smaller government“, Michael Goodwin writes, “won’t be over anytime soon”:

Not only does it encompass and include other wedge issues, such as abortion, taxing and spending, but the war over the size of government goes to the heart of the concept of American exceptionalism. . . .

His health-care obsession, with industry tentacles reaching 17 percent of the economy, reveals his vision. There is little dispute the industry has big flaws, yet Obama passed up a bipartisan chance to fix most of them.

He opted for a sweeping expansion and takeover that would put Washington in charge of every aspect, from levels of care, to cost, to mandates, to jobs and taxes.

Ultimately, no American will be able to escape its centralizing impact, which is why opponents are so ferocious and frightened. (more…)

Drawn to: John Adams- HBO Miniseries by Joseph Vitarelle & Rob Lane

Well, we won’t know until November, but, I didn’t find the following names, some from districts where McCain ran ahead of Obama, on the list of Democrats voting, “No,”:

Suzanne Kosmas (Florida), Earl Pomeroy (ND), John Boccieri (OH), Steve Driehaus (OH), Mary Jo Kilroy (OH), Charlie Wilson (OH), Carol Shea-Porter (NH), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA).

Given popular outrage against this bill and the competitive nature of their districts, should these Democrats’ Republican opponents run decent campaigns, come November, these current Congressmen will all be looking for jobs in the Obama Administration.

To make their defeats ever more certain, I have already contributed to the campaigns of Republicans running against two of the Democrats listed above.  I encourage you to join me in supporting Rick Berg running against Pomeroy and Steve Chabot running against Driehaus.  You can also contribute to Steve Stivers running against Kilroy.

I also made a modest donation to fire Nancy Pelosi.

Drive down Wilshire Boulevard through Beverly Hill as I did today. Walk down Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood as I did last week. Take a jaunt down any major commercial thoroughfare in Los Angeles. You’ll notice something everywhere, empty store fronts and commercial space for rent.  ”For Lease” and “Available” signs seem to decorate more display windows in Hollywood and Beverly Hills than do manikins sporting the latest fashions.

And thanks to House Democrats, we’re likely to see even more such signs in the future.

Among the many distasteful provisions in the Democrats’ health care bill are those requiring businesses to provide health care or pay a penalty if they don’t, thus, increasing the costs of hiring a new employee.  With this increase–on top of the existing federal and state mandates and assorted regulations, creating new jobs becomes increasingly costly.  And thus, it will be less likely that employers will be bringing on new employees any time soon.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claims notwithstanding, this is not a jobs bill.  It won’t create jobs (well, except in the federal bureaucracy).  It will burden employers and make it more difficult for up-and-coming entrepreneurs to bring in new talent.  The costs of business are going up. And I wonder if Mrs. Pelosi and any in the Administration understand such costs.

This bill is not just bad or our health care system, it’s bad for business as well.  The pushback begins tonight.

ADDENDUM:  While watching the House vote today from my perch on the Stairmaster, I thought of this clip from Revenge of the Sith:

Guess I wasn’t the only one.  (H/t:  Instapundit.)

On June 3, 2008, history was made when the party that once defended slavery and stood in the way of equal rights for black Americans gave Barack Obama enough delegates to make him their nominee for President of the United States.

Never one to pass an opportunity to aggrandize himself, the completely unqualified, dearthly experienced Senator of all of four years from arguably the most corrupt political cesspool in our Nation’s history declared that that was, among other biblical things, “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”.

Rightly (in both senses of the word), he was castigated, but naturally and true to his form, he remained unrelenting in his own beatified view of himself.

Five months later, almost to the day, he was elected our 44th President. And we’ve had many moments since.

Just moments ago, I watched in despair on C-SPAN as the nominally representative body of our most democratic house of Congress openly and actively spited the will of the overwhelming majority of its constituents by passing a bill that will, in effect, federalize and seize control of over 15% of our economy.

Apparently on Tuesday, we can expect President Obama (likely to little fanfare, owing to his acknowledgment that what he is doing is so anathema to the will of those from whom he derives his current position, not to mention the Constitution to which he swore his defense) will sign this insult to liberty into law.

That, my friends, will be a moment to remember.

It will be the moment that our representative form of government will have ceased to exist. It will be the moment that those who deign to represent us in our Legislative and Executive Branches have chosen their own will over that which is clearly ours.

It will be the moment our Nation, whose Founders viewed legitimate government as “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” is now unquestionably ruled by a political class who exercises its power in spite of the governed.

It will be the moment we look back on, ten, twenty, forty years from now, when, in hundreds of trillions of dollars in debt, facing tens of trillions of dollars of costs due to this social experiment, we think: What the hell happened to America, anyway?

It will be the moment when, for the first time in our Nation’s history, the knowing and purposeful execution of innocent unborn human life was bankrolled by taxpayer dollars, a move, according to a November 2008 Zogby poll, opposed by 71% of Americans.

OR

It can be the moment our so-called “representatives” in government finally begin to hear from us.

It can be the moment they look back on in less than 8 months and see as the galvanizing moment when Americans decided to take back their Nation from them.

It can be the Rick Santelli moment times 100.

It can be the moment that people who have been involved in Tea Parties and town hall meetings begin to take real action by RUNNING FOR OFFICE to replace these scoundrels who currently entrench themselves in the ivory halls of OUR government.

It can be the moment that those who were elected by We The People begin to FEAR the People and what we will do to them come November 2, 2010.

It can be the moment we look back on in ten, twenty, forty years, and reflect on a new birth of American Independence and self-reliance. A new birth of a Nation governed by people who hold true to the ideals of our Founders that our government return to “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

It can be the beginning of the end of the “long train of abuses and usurpations” of our current unrepresentative elected officials, and the day Americans once again dedicated themselves to the prospect that “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

What say you, America?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

Via National Review’s the Corner, a comment by Jimmy Carter’s pollster Pat Caddell:

On Fox a few ago: “Look, the people who are opposing this are holding tea parties. The Daemocrats (sic) are holding a Kool-Aid party. This is political Jonestown.”

Last night David Muir, anchor of World News Saturday, breathlessly opened his broadcast with the fact (according to him) that John Lewis and Barney Frank were attacked verbally by conservative protestors.

ABC News had (and still has) no substantiation of the Lewis and Frank charges. Presumably the ABC News race & gay baiting shrillness rested on this flimsy report in yesterday’s Washington Post (an ABC News partner):

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said that he was walking into the Capitol to vote when a protester spat on him. Police quickly responded and detained the protester, Cleaver said in a statement, but the lawmaker declined to press charges.

Others hurled epithets at Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a former civil rights leader, and Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) as they left the Capitol after Obama’s speech.

“They were shouting the N-word,” Carson told reporters. “It was like a page out of a time machine.”

Observers also said that Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was heckled with anti-gay epithets inside the Longworth House Office Building.

“I have heard things today that I have not heard since March 15, 1960, when I was marching to get off the back of the bus,” said House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), the highest-ranking black official in Congress.

Who are these “observers”? Isn’t it very, very convenient that Barney Frank — the most well-known gay Congressman — and John Lewis — the most well-known civil rights leader in Congress — were THE Members that happened to be the ones insulted.

Why, pray tell, doesn’t Rep. Cleaver press charges?  I WANT to know who this alleged race-baiter was.  Aren’t Democrats always whining about “hate crimes”?  So come on, Cleaver, press charges.  If it was a Tea Party protestor — call them out.  I want to know.

This entire weekend has been a bunch of crap and public relations stunts by Democrats that were simply reported, without checking, by the Mainstream Media.  ABC News should be ashamed of itself for forwarding these outrageous and completely uncorroborated stories of hate mongering by protestors.  They are doing this nation a severe disservice which I believe we will all live to regret.

It is completely disheartening to this American who was raised to think that the media was independent, the Constitution was the law of the land, and that we live in a Republic form of government.

This weekend, our Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

FROM THE COMMENTS (via Dan):  Ellie writes:

Why did they walk through the group of protesters anyway? This sounds like it was done on purpose to drum up anti-protester sentiment. Anyone expecting there to not be some racists in that crowd would have to be woefully idealistic. I’m disappointed in whatever security the Congressman had that let him even consider traveling through a hostile crowd. If I’d walked proudly into that crowd with a dress on and my face unshaven and had insults and worse thrown at me, I’d only have myself to blame. Same applies to them.

Emphasis added. My thoughts exactly.  Everything the Democrats do is political theater.  But, it may rally their base, including the MSM, but it sure looked staged to me.

Sounds pretty solid.   I just became a fan of his campaign.  You can too.  Via Instapundit where a reader writes:

His membership is currently growing at a rate of about 20 new members every 30-60 seconds and incoming comments are fast and furious. People are begging him to set up his donation site so that they can start a money bomb.

UPDATE: When I signed up, his campaign has 1,001 members. Now it has 1,679 1,821 2,063 (more than doubling in the 37 minutes since I first posted this) 4,248, more than quadrupling in less than two hours, 10,000 as of 11:58 EST, a ten-fold increase in 6 hours and 10 minutes.

UP-UPDATE: Michael Barone looks into why Stupak caved:

Why did Bart Stupak agree to a deal which supposedly restricts abortion funding by an executive order, when it’s obvious, as Yuval Levin points out, that an executive order can’t trump a law and the Senate bill clearly authorizes abortion funding? The reason, I suspect, is that aside from the abortion language Stupak really wants this bill to pass and recognized that it wasn’t going to if he didn’t make the deal.

It’s Barone, read the whole thing!

UP-UP-UPDATE:  Since you cannot donate on line, one of Benishek’s fans tells us, please  send any contributions to

Benishek for Congress
802 Pentoga Trail
Crystal Falls, MI 49920

UP-UP-UP-UPDATE: I am writing check now for $25 to Benishek for Congress and sending it out tonight via snail mail. I encourage all GayPatriot readers to do the same. Seems ol’ Miss Nancy did indeed need those votes:

the Democratic leadership had to make a deal with Stupak in order to avoid defeat. As was the case in November. The large number of Democratic defections suggests how unpopular this bill is with the voting public. Without the abortion deal, the leadership was losing 40 of the 253 House Democrats.

Since the unhappy Democrat from Massachusetts is demanding that his Republican colleagues do more to “differentiate themselves” from the hateful speech spewed by a handful of anti-Obamacare protesters, I challenge defenders of Mr. Frank to provide examples of statements the Democrat made–while George W. Bush was in office–differentiating himself (and his party) from hateful insults leveled against that Republican president.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  Scott doesn’t rise to meet my challenge.  Instead, he offers a telling anecdote which, I’m sure, Barney (and his cheerleaders in the MSM) will ignore:

Of the accounts I’ve read, only one Tea Party protestor was arrested. There was a much smaller anti-war protest yesterday which resulted in 8 arrests, including Cindy Sheehan, who yelled “arrest that war criminal!!”, right before her arrest.

If, indeed, a “historic win” on health care is close as blares the headline on Politico, then the key question is not whether or not the Republicans will win back the House, but how close their margin will be to the 67th Congress, elected in 1920 in the wake of popular discontent over the Administration of Woodrow Wilson.

Then, there were 302 Republicans in the House, compared to 131 Democrats.  Now, I don’t think we’ll elect that many Republicans this fall, though, in the coming days, we’ll see some Democrats who voted “Yes” get opposition from irate physicians or others opposed to this legislation.  More races which looked safe to the Democrats, like Barbara Boxer’s race to stay in the Senate, will move from “Lean” or “Likely” Democratic into the “Tossup” category.

And many Democrats who voted “No” may get swept away in the anti-incumbent Democratic tide.

UPDATE:  Glenn Reynolds:  ”Like the protester said yesterday, if you vote yes on the bill, we’ll vote no on you in November.”

In the fall of 2008, riding the tide of hope and change, Barack Obama barely edged John McCain in Michigan’s first congressional district by 2 points (about 5 points behind his national percentage).  Bush had won the district by 7 points (that national percentage) in 2004.

Now that Bart Stupak has caved in backing the health care overhaul in exchange for an “executive order ensuring that no federal funding will go to pay for abortion under the health reform plans“, it looks like Republicans should take that seat this fall, both because of opposition to Obamacare and because pro-lifers, strong in that region, feeling betrayed.

Regrettably, Bart Stupak (D-I’ll Believe Anything Obama Says) has caved and is the last person in America to rely on the words of President Obama when he makes a promise.

This is the end of it, unfortunately, and here’s hoping some of the other pro-life Democrats aren’t quite as gullible as he is.

Stalinization of Health Care here or there, as a pro-life Catholic myself, I cannot even express in words my disappointment in this good man’s mistake.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

UPDATE: Congressman Stupak was just on Greta’s show and either could not or would not answer her direct question about the FACT that the president could just as easily rescind his Executive Order. I have watched him many times in the past several months, and have found him to be a man of great conviction and principle. I’m not a shrink, but what I see in him right now is a beaten man. I honestly do not think he believes himself that this is going to work, and that it is truly worth only the paper it’s written on (or worse, worth only the already-proven unreliable word of President Obama). I don’t know just what to think of this. I’ll go ahead and put it out there: Either I completely miscalculated the character of Stupak (least likely, I think), or his gullibility. Or, worst of all, there’s something else sinister going on. I guess we’ll see in time.

UP-UPDATE: Having just watched the spectacle of Congressman Bart Stupak disingenuously (the only word to describe it, given how much we’ve been through with him) demonizing the Republicans for having the temerity to expect him and others who voted for this pro-abortion to live up to their own votes, I owe our readers an apology.
I try to stay away from cynicism, but that’s no excuse for not having my eyes open. Congressman Stupak’s craven and dispicable words (and forthcoming spineless vote—they’re voting on the motion to reconsider as I’m typing this), combined with the below video, showing him declaring back in November that, at the end of the day, he’d still vote for Obamacare, even if he didn’t get his anti-taxpayer-funded-abortion language in the bill leads me to believe that I’ve been suckered by this man all along.
I should have made myself aware of this video long ago. Had I, I would never have used his possible hold-out position as a principled stand for life. I have let you down, and apologize.

If you follow the conservative and libertarian blogs and FoxNews, you’re familiar with the inordinate amount of Americans protesting the Democrat’s health care overhaul.  You’d think Washington, D.C. Democrats would have gotten the message when voters in three states that went for Obama in 2008, including one state considered the most liberal of jurisdictions, elected Republicans to state-wide office, while the the Republican tallies increased in counties surrounding New York City, where voters who, a year earlier, delivered majorities to Obama, tossed out incumbent Democratic county executives.

Rob Kleine, an Instapundit reader, wrote in to Glenn Reynolds:  “All the focus on the anti-Obamacare protests has me wondering: Are there any pro-Obamacare protesters? Or is the Emperor truly w/o clothes?”

The grassroots energy is entirely among opponents to this bill.  The energy for passage comes from the White House, the Democratic leadership and their allied special interests.  And like King Pyrrhus of Epirus so focused defeating the Romans in at Heraclea, they have put all their energy into winning this one battle, losing sight of the much broader contest.  For Pyrrhus, it was a war which he eventually lost.  For the Democrats, it’s the battle to remain the majority party.

As Mike Flynn put it:

The Democrats and the White House are lost in a legislative “fog of war” right now. They are focused on twisting enough arms, offering jobs and negotiating specific “deals” (bribes) to get them to 216 votes. Their attention and energy is focused exclusively on a final vote in the House tonight. No one is looking even one minute beyond that horizon. They are like a general who pours all his reserves into taking a symbolic bridge, never realizing that his lines have already collapsed and his flanks have been turned. They may take the bridge and get to 216 votes. (I’ve learned to never bet against Congressional leadership and an Administration united for a single legislative victory. ) But, they have already lost the war.

Via Instapundit.  Democrats have pushed this legislation for a vast overhaul of our nation’s health care system without achieving a popular consensus, without a House-Senate conference committee to work out a compromise of the two chambers’ competing bills, with deals forged in back rooms and with payoffs to wavering legislators.

In the course of the lengthy debate, the Democrats have lost the people and roused the opposition to an extent hardly imagined 14 months ago. (more…)

FoxNews is now reporting that the White House is still struggling to work out a deal with Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), as the Hill put it earlier today, “on abortion provisions.”  That these negotiations would be going on at this late hour suggests the Democratic leadership does not yet have the votes they need to pass this, so must flip Stupak and some of his pro-life allies.

UPDATE:  There are so many conflicting accounts of just how Stupak is voting on the web.  Some websites say he’s a confirmed “No,” others, “Yes.”

UP-UPDATE: The Hill, via Instapundit, confirms my hunch: Unless a deal is struck with Stupak, Dems appear to be short on votes:

Hours before a scheduled vote on healthcare reform, Democratic leaders don’t have the votes.

The decisions of two Tennessee Democrats, Reps. John Tanner and Lincoln Davis, to vote no has put President Barack Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her lieutenants in a major bind.

If every member votes, Democratic leaders can only afford 37 defections. According to The Hill’s whip list, there are 39 Democrats planning to vote no.