An ESPN News Release

In a shocking turn of events, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) reversed the results of the second round Kansas vs. Northern Iowa NCAA tournament game by deeming the Jayhawks to have passed to the next round.

“I like the procedure, because you don’t have to win the game,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi was reacting to Northern Iowa’s upset of the number one seed overall Kansas, which President Obama had picked to win March Madness.

“There will be no busted Barack-ets this year,” Pelosi said, as she made her way out of the Capital en route to a plastic surgery appointment.

“This kind of thing helps Barack get on with his legislative strategy when the Republican Party of No is just trying to defeat him and win the pick em game.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said that he was going to filibuster Kansas’ win.=

This is rich:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), called a “Homo Communist” on Saturday by protesters opposed to President Barack Obama’s health plan, says his GOP colleagues need to do more to “differentiate themselves” from the hateful speech spewed in the healthcare debate’s final hours.

So, did the unhappy Barney Frank and his Democratic colleagues do much (do anything?) to differentiate themselves from the hateful speech spewed at anti-Bush rallies during the last Administration?

Yeah, there are some nuts in the Tea Party movement, as there are nuts in any political movement.  And leftist politicians like the mean-spirited Democrat from Massachusetts want to define conservative movements by our extremists.  So, by Barney’s standard, if Democrats are silent when a left-winger spews hate, that hate speech defines their caucus.

In the middle of accusing Republicans of not doing enough to distinguish themselves, the self-righteous Democrat insulted one of his Republican colleagues–and by the tone of his remark the entire caucus.  Guess only Republicans can be mean and narrow.

There is already video debunking Congressman Lewis’ charges of racism.  So, please, Barney, if you want Republicans to differentiate themselves from nut bags on the fringes of the right, then first you make sure to differentiate yourself from nut bags on the left, including some elected members of your own caucus (including especially the junior Senator from the only state Walter Mondale won in 1984).

Seems a lot of people, including Speaker Pelosi have been thinking along the same lines.  Just yesterday, I wondered at all the ads Republicans and their allies could craft if Obamacare passes by one vote.  Well, if this report is correct, Speaker Pelosi has similar concerns:

ON DRUDGE: “OVERHEARD: Walking into Capitol this morning on phone, Speaker Pelosi tells Hoyer: ‘Steny, we have to get to 217. None of these members wants to be the deciding vote’… Developing…” It’s unsourced, but it’s easy to believe that nobody wants to be the deciding vote on this turkey.

Earlier this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the vote to increase government control over our nation’s health care system is just the beginning:

In a conference with left-wing bloggers Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that passing the current Democratic health care bill is the beginning, not the end, of the process of creating a national government health care system. “Once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow,” Pelosi said, according to an account by Washington Post reform advocate Ezra Klein.

Most likely, she spoke of kicking through this particular door in order to bring left-wingers on board who don’t think the current legislation goes far enough.  Others interpreted it to mean that there’d be more statist legislation to follow and not just in health care.  Now, to be sure, if this passes, Congress will still be working on health care for weeks, if not months to come, “fixing” the bill, then fixing the fixes, batting legislation back and forth across Capitol Hill while other problems fester.

And given just how unpopular this bill is, should it pass, there will be more legislating as the incoming Republican Congress in January moves to repeal it and enact real reforms which reduce the federal regulatory burden and promote private sector innovation.

But, I’m beginning to wonder now, given all the arm-twisting and deals top Democrats have been offering wavering members of their caucus, if come this afternoon’s vote, they will have spent their entire political capital and have nothing more to offer those representing swing districts–or even marginally Democratic ones as citizens, like those in Massachusetts, turn against the incumbent party for its indifference to their concerns.

Our representatives in Washington will be more wary of controversial legislation, including, alas, repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.  Pelosi may not be able to get them to walk the plank again on that or any issue.

Just look at the lengths to which the president and House Democratic leaders are traveling to try to squeeze our their majority.  If this passes, it will be by the barest of majorities.  And Democrats won’t be putting as much energy into future such issues.

Nancy may gloat if this passes, but its passage will diminish her power.  As will its defeat.

A reader sent me the statement Mike Rogers made at the opening on the debate on health care reform last summer. What he says still rings true, a nice enunciation of the broad conservative objections to increased government control over our health care system, ostensibly to provide health insurance for those currently lacking, but really to centralize power in our nation’s capital.

Well worth your time.

According to CNN, Representative John Lewis (D-Don’t they pay attention down there?) is accusing unnamed Tea Party protesters yesterday of calling him racial things. Alongside him, Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-Show Me) accuses likewise unnamed and unidentified people as having spat on him.

Let’s break this down: Two men from Congress (approval rating, 16%) make accusations that fulfill their fantasies about racism and incivility in a group they have caricatured as both racist and uncivil. However, there is no video or audio recording of the event, no photography of the event, and no corroboration from someone who doesn’t have a dog in the fight. Still, of course, the old-school media reports it as fact.

Now, I watched a bit of FoxNews yesterday and saw they had cameras down there most of the day. I flipped from time to time over to CNN and over to MSNBC and didn’t see any live footage of the rallies (there may have been some, but I just missed it). However, I only see reports of this from CNN and MSNBC, with zero evidence other than the testimony of already proven unreliable and scheming congressmen (one of whom was able to testify to the press that he heard a slur “15 times”. Really?) Naturally the Leftist press is breathless about all of this. (FoxNews, FWIW, actually has the condemnation of a “Tea Party leader”…something those who don’t believe Tea Party people exist wouldn’t be able to acquire.)

It’s a shame the old-school in-the-pocket press is so hell-bent on ignoring and downplaying the Tea Party movement. It seems that if they considered it real news and covered it, they’d probably have some sort of evidence (other than that of the words of these proven scoudrels). Unfortunately for them, it might mean actually getting the other side’s story out there. That would do two terrible things for them: First, it’d show these scurrilous accusations to be lies, and second, it’d actually allow our voice to get out and stop this steam-roller.

To the press and these congressmen, I say: Show us your evidence.

Naturally I don’t expect any. They’ve built their entire careers on mischaracterizations of their opponents and their own disdain for any opposition keeps them from ever hearing or paying attention to anybody but their own echo chamber. Truly disgusting.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

UPDATE (from Dan):  There is video: “Video Debunks Lib Accusations That Slurs were Shouted (and Thoughts on Identity Politics)“:

A CNN reporter, yes, CNN, the home of the infamous Susan Rosegen, claimed to have heard racist slurs and shouts; other bloggers picked it up. I mean, if you’re going to smear a group of people by claiming that they were shouting slurs, perhaps make sure you don’t post video that completely refutes your claim and makes you look like a race hustler. Just saying.

Once again, we have Democrats describing Republicans not as we are, but as their prejudices define us.

So we’re down to just a few hours now. In spite of yet another promise broken in the process, that lady with all the Botox has scheduled the vote for tomorrow.

I’m reminded of a great phrase from out West here: A Dios rogando, y con el mazo dando. It roughly translates to: Praise the Lord, and pass the gunpowder, and more idiomaitcally it means that God helps those who help themselves.

If tomorrow our House of Representatives passes the Stalinization of Health Care Act of 2010, it’ll be up to us to take action. It will be up to us to decide if we choose to allow the criminals who vote in support of this unonstitutional and destructive legislation to continue as our employees or to remove them.

The time for Hope will be over. The time for Action will have come. As of tomorrow, there are 227 days till November 2, 2010.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

Almost as soon as I, noting something that pundits, politicians and bloggers, had observed that the Democrats would attempt to pass Obamacare by any means necessary than a Democratic Congressman confirmed that that’s just what his fellow partisans were doing:

On the House floor a few moments after 5:00 p.m. Friday, Florida Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings, discussing Republican protests over the handling of the Democrat’s national health care bill, said that “Extreme times require extreme measures to ensure that we pass a health care bill that America deserves.“

Emphasis added.  And one such measure is to use the resources of the federal government to lobby federal employees.  The White House is using official government e-mail to get the message out:

The White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle has been feverishly sending out unsolicited email messages to federal employees in an effort to build support for President Barack Obama’s health reform package over the last several weeks.

DeParle’s unsolicited emails have been regularly coming to some federal employees’ official government email inboxes for weeks without permission or request, causing some federal employees to feel threatened by the overt political language. . . .

The unsolicited emails also request that the federal employees take action in order to ensure that Obama’s health reform package is passed and the federal budget isn’t at risk for bankruptcy.

First, as CBS’s Richard Grennell put it, “Turning the President’s partisan agenda into White House directives to the federal workforce has crossed the line and should be stopped immediately.”  Miss DeParle should be fired immediately.

Imagine the reaction if former President George W. Bush, as JammieWearingFool who alerted me to the story put it, inundated “federal employees with pitches to support the invasion of Iraq“.

Kudos to CBS News for covering this. This is a story that all even-handed media outlets should pick up as they would have had W done it, but according to Memeorandum, only CBS News has touched it.

Just one more example of the lengths to which Democrats will go to pass Obamacare.

I had been kicking around a number of posts about the latest health care endgame which, if the House Deem-and-Pass of the Senate bill plus amendments go through will not really be the endgame, but the end of the beginning of the first round of the endgame.  Because from there, it’ll go back to the Senate and then may end up bouncing between the Houses for a while until they come up with some kind of resolution, that is, if Harry Reid comes up with the 51 votes he needs to proceed in the Senate.  And so far he hasn’t.

And should any version of Obamacare pass, we’ll move into a new era, an era inaugurated by Obama, Pelosi and Reid on January 20, 2010 (or thereabouts) when they decided to proceed with this mess even though, by then, it was abundantly clear that the American people didn’t want to proceed with this mess.

Future Congresses will have to address the cost increases associated with this, perhaps even moving to repeal it.  Should that happen, animosity between a Republican Congress and Democratic President could keep the issue at the forefront of the national conversation for years to come.   And this is not the issue that the American people want at the forefront of our public debate at this moment.

Should, however, Obamacare pass, repeal may well soon join jobs and the deficit as a top national priority.

The divisions in the American body politic that have come out in the last few months of debate will only be increased and animosities intensified.   Obama may have been elected to heal a divided nation, but he has instead accomplished the opposite–rubbing salt into the wounds and ripping open new ones.

Peggy Noonan puts it better than I ever could:

And so it ends, with a health-care vote expected this weekend. I wonder at what point the administration will realize it wasn’t worth it—worth the discord, worth the diminution in popularity and prestige, worth the deepening of the great divide. What has been lost is so vivid, what has been gained so amorphous, blurry and likely illusory. Memo to future presidents: Never stake your entire survival on the painful passing of a bad bill. Never take the country down the road to Demon Pass.

And with anything by Peggy, read the whole thing, but I will say that this time (and not for the first time), I don’t agree with every word of the Athena of punditry.  Her first sentence is wrong.  It doesn’t end with the vote this weekend.  It only continues.

Over at FDL (hey, you’ve got to know what your enemies are up to), word is that all that activity around the office of that lady with all the Botox all day might have been a precursor to a deal on Bart Stupak’s anti-baby-killing wishes.

Seems Nancy may let him substitute his language disallowing federal funds (read: Your and My Tax Dollars) for abortions. Not sure why this would make a difference, there’s no way it’d pass in the Senate, but perhaps all the machinations are beyond me. Thought I was following it up till now.

Funny thing, though, is that it sure as hell has the pro-baby-killing Left in a tizzy. It’s even got my Congresswoman, Diana DeGette (D-Would be the best place in the world, but for her) threatening to scuttle the whole thing. Wow, what irony it’d be if she and her Infanticide Cabal were actually responsible for killing this thing after all this. I might even send her a fruit basket.

Either way, though…sure is interesting that Pelosi would even be bothering with Stupak. Seems to me that word was she’d written him off long ago. That she’s engaging with him suggests she’s not as close to 216 as we’d all thought?

This shit still ain’t over… Stay tuned.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

Proud to see no fewer than nine Economics professors, representing four of the Centennial State’s fine universities were among the 130 economists who signed on to this letter to Congress and President Obama arguing how the Stalinization of Health Care Act of 2010 will destroy the economy. A snipit:

In our view, the health care bill contains a number of provisions that will eliminate jobs, reduce hours and wages, and limit future job creation.
…
In addition to constricting economic growth and reducing employment, the health care bill will increase spending on health care and will increase the cost of health coverage. The new and higher taxes on America’s small businesses and workers included in the bill are detrimental to job creation and economic growth, especially now given the fragile state of the economy.

Given the lack of attention they’ve paid to us simple stupid constituents of theirs, what’s the chance they’ll take the word of experts?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

Wonder why that is.

In an article on the GOP’s successful efforts at recruiting congressional candidates, soon to be Members of Congress, Byron York notes the superabundance of doctors in the mix:

Talk to the new candidates, and they’re worried about the entire scope of Obama policy. But an indicator of the specific effect of Obamacare is the unusually large number of new recruits — 31 — who come from the medical profession. Twenty-four are doctors. The GOP already has a significant advantage in the number of physicians-turned-lawmakers — at the Obama health care summit, the Republicans brought three doctors to the table, while the Democrats brought none — and that advantage will probably be larger in 2011.

That gives them a special authority on what will surely be a continuing debate over Obamacare. “I think it will basically decimate the health care system in America,” says [Dr. Larry] Bucshon [heart surgeon in Evansville, Ind]. “The number of doctors who are going to retire, and the number of young people who are no longer going to go into medicine, will be massive.”

No wonder the Obama Administration is so fascinated with white coats.  The president hopes his little bit of political theater will obscure the overwhelming opposition to Obamacare among physicians.

Glenn Reynolds alerts us to the latest “Rasmussen [poll]: 43% now strongly disapprove of Obama, same as Bush when he left office: “Imagine how unpopular Obama would be if the press and the late night comedians (who are at least as important as the press) treated Obama as they treated Bush.”

And imagine how unpopular Obama will be should Obamacare pass the House and as we keeping learning about the bill’s myriad moving parts and its plethora of payoffs –not to mention the various inducements to get wavering Democrats to vote in favor of this legislation to limit our liberty.

His poll numbers will continue to decline in the coming days go down as the Senate is going to have to devote an inordinate amount of time to debating all those House fixes.  So, if the House package passes, we’re going to be at this for a while, a long while and the more wer’re at this, the lower Obama’s polls go.

The health care nightmare debate may well continue as will Obama’s polling agony.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, frm TML)

An unfair narrative has taken hold over the past year or so as the battle has raged on over health care reform. That insidious lie has been perpetrated by President Obama and his minions, pressed by Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid, and repeated endlessly by the Leftists of Obama’s Christian de Neuvillette media. Naturally, that narrative is that Republicans aren’t interested in health care reform and would be (all together now), “satisfied with the status quo”. (Of course, lost in that lie is that apparently, but for the buy-offs, the Democrats are similarly “satisfied” were it not for the quid pro quo. But I digress…)

But the fact is Republicans do have a plan (have for over a year), and have touted it. That the media and the rest of the Left purposely ignores it and continues to lie about our satisfaction with the current health care situation is just par for the course…it’s to be expected.

Procedurally speaking, hearing future Speaker Boehner yesterday threaten promise to repeal the Stalinization of Health Care Act of 2010 if it passes and Republicans as a result regain the House is heartening to the base for sure. (Its impracticality before 2013 notwithstanding.) On the other hand, that doesn’t address the overwhelming number of Americans who genuinely want health care legislation passed. To be sure, they don’t want this mess, and they would likely be much more amenable to the Republicans’ plan.

So consider how much more effective we’d have been in defeating this disaster for our Nation if, instead of promising things like repeal if it goes through, sounding a narrative like: Hey, how about instead of these socialists ramming through this plan that you clearly don’t like, you give us the reigns, and we’ll make OUR health care reform Agenda Item Number One starting in January 2011!

Americans want health care reform. With Obama’s plan, they don’t get it till 2014 anyway. Why haven’t Republicans made real reform of health care their number one issue? Touting it as a neo-Contract with America? If that’s what Americans want, why haven’t Republicans made it a bigger issue for their own campaigns? By chasing after the Democrats’ disastrous plan, we’re not even taking our own advice: To look to the polls and address Americans’ concerns.

Representative Boehner would do better to promise not (just) repeal, but an actual health care reform bill from the 112th Congress if he is “lucky enough” to become speaker.

Tell you what…promising another shot at actual reform that Americans want would probably win more undecided Democratic fence-sitters to the “no” camp on the current legislation than just threatening to boot them if they go the other way.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

In what has become a reliable pattern, the Vice President has tipped the hand of the Obama Administration (to those who didn’t already know) and inadvertently, in a moment of candor, told America (if they’ll hear it) what Teh One’s plan is.

In an interview for ABC News with Jake Tapper, the VP is asked how he’s working to gain votes of wavering Democrats in the House. As part of his answer, he reassures them:

And my response is, hey, man, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I’m telling you, you know, pre-existing, they’re going to be covered. You know we’re going to control the insurance companies.

Wow…with the master plot so laid out for the American people, shouldn’t it be obvious to us all what they’re after? Oh that’s right, it is obvious. That explains our continual and consistant disdain for it. Too bad nobody in Washington is listening.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

Amidst all the hullabaloo over health care, we can’t lose sight of the other outrages of this Administration.  Remember how Democrats and their allies in the MSM just couldn’t stop telling us how horrible, no good and very bad it was that Karl Rove and the Bush White House “outed” a cover CIA operative, only to find out that Rove hadn’t done the “outing” and that the operative wasn’t covert?

Well, now, “Attorney General Eric Holder is dragging his feet in investigating how CIA officials were recently outed by the defense attorneys of terrorists“:

In August 2009, senior Al Qaeda enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay were shown photographs taken of CIA officials leaving their homes, by their defense attorneys.  In addition, Bill Gertz recently reported in theWashington Times that more photographs were shown to the detainees.

So, where’s the outrage?

Elise Cooper, who alerted me to the story writes, “Former CIA agents and intelligence specialists cannot understand why there are no outcries from Congress.”  Well, why would there be an outcry?   This can’t be used to embarrass a Republican Administration.

As the 2008 campaign got underway and we started learning about Barack Obama’s real record, not many people on the right believed the Democrat’s bromides that he was, as he claimed, some new kind of politician.  We saw his record; he was just a regular ol’ Chicago pol who cut a far more impressive figure in public than most.  He spoke well.  He looked good. But, he always toed the party line.

Despite his claims about changing the way things were done in Washington, he had no record of changing the way things were done in Chicago or Springfield, his state’s capital.

And remember, the transparency he promised on health care?   You know, deals negotiated in front of C-SPAN cameras.  Some thought maybe he had turned a new leaf when he convened his summit last month in front of such cameras, but well, House Democrats just released a passel of fixes to the Senate bill–and none of them were crafted in front of C-SPAN cameras.

It seems that with each passing day, each hour really, we learn some new nugget about the arm-twisting, job-offering and deal-making still going on to squeeze out those last few votes in the House.  Not just that, we keep hearing about the strategies that Obama campaign, er, team has been using to shift public opinion, strategies torn out of the playbook of old school Chicago politics, updated for the Internet era.

In a piece over at Big Journalism, Morgen Richmond and John Sexton detail how the president’s Organizing for America (OFA) is promoting an Astroturf letters-to-the-editor campaign, duping 72 local papers around the country “into publishing OFA talking points (some more than once).” They’ve even plagiarized their talking points.

Wondering at the lengths to which the Obami are going to deceive the American people, Richmond and Sexont ask “Is there any level to which the President and his supporters won’t stoop for a win?”

Indeed.

In an odd bit of political analysis featured on AOL, Russell Berman says Senate Republicans are taking political risks in preparing to fight the legislative fixes that House Democrats have demanded:

As the House moves toward passing sweeping health care reform, the threats from Senate Republicans keep coming. The latest is a promise to force a battle royal in the Senate over legislative fixes that House Democrats have demanded in exchange for their vote.

But what will be left for the GOP to fight? The brewing showdown could turn the political tables upside down, forcing Republicans to defend backroom deals and tax hikes they have spent weeks criticizing.

Um, Russell, hate to break it to you, the Republicans won’t be defending backroom deals and tax hikes, they’ll be fighting the backroom details and tax hikes contained in the House “fixes”   Borrowing a Democratic National Committee talking point (I call it that because he’s just rephrasing what he quotes a DNC spokeswoman as saying (though without her language accusing the Republicans of doing exactly what her fellow partisans have been doing to get this passed), Berman says that “by preventing Democrats from changing the new law, Republicans could find themselves in the position of ensuring that the most disputed elements of health care reform remain intact.”

So, by Berman’s logic, Senate Republicans should support fixes cooked up in back rooms on the other side of the Hill? (more…)

Featured on Yahoo! last night was a piece by Yahoo! News national affairs writer Brett Michael Dykes:

As the House gears up for this weekend’s dramatic vote on health reform legislation, Democrats are taking flak from all sides. In southern Ohio, opponents of the bill have created a blowback effect by airing an ad targeting Rep. Steve Driehaus to stand firm as a “no” vote on the legislation. The ad prominently featured the congressman’s young daughters, in violation of the unwritten law that forbids dragging lawmakers’ family members – most especially their underage children – into the fray.

Emphasis added.

Wonder if Dykes showed any outrage about John Kerry and John Edwards’ injection of then-Vice President Cheney’s daughter into the 2004 campaign and David Letterman’s sexual commentary Sarah Palin’s underage daughter.   Did Yahoo! then discuss this unwritten rule?

Not to mention the media going overboard on Mrs. Palin’s children.   A Brett Michael Dykes did, however, wade into Andrew Sullivan’s favorite topic, you know, allegations about the former Alaska Governor’s youngest child.

I agree that that an ad featuring a Congressman’s children, Democrat or Republican, is outrageous, but the group which attacked Driehaus has already apologized to the Congressman.  Why, then, did Yahoo! feature it on its main page?  (And, as I post this, continues to feature it.)

Would it have done the same if a left-wing group supporting Obamacare had used the children of an Obamacre opponent in an ad attacking him?