Unbelievable!

The many nations helping Haiti recover from the devastating earthquake that struck there have set up their own military compounds and fly their flags at the entrances.

France’s tricolor, Britain’s Union Jack and even Croatia’s coat of arms flap in the breeze.

But the country whose contributions dwarf the rest of the world’s — the United States — has no flag at its main installation near the Port-au-Prince airport.

The lack of the Stars and Stripes does not sit well with some veterans and servicemembers who say the U.S. government should be proud to fly the flag in Haiti, given the amount of money and manpower the U.S. is donating to help the country recover from the Jan. 12 quake.

The Obama administration says flying the flag could give Haiti the wrong idea.

“We are not here as an occupation force, but as an international partner committed to supporting the government of Haiti on the road to recovery,” the U.S. government’s Haiti Joint Information Center said in response to a query about the flag.

The absence of the American flag bothers former Navy man Arthur Herriford, national president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.

“It’s very improper,” Herriford said. “Our military people always engage and function under the American colors — always have and always will.”

Haiti’s been a hell-hole for like, forever — and the U.S. military has gone in there a couple of times to restore order after coups. The question begged is: “Who ordered that Old Glory not be flown over our military-directed relief-operations there?”

Who do we know that isn’t very keen on America that has that kind of pull?

Hmmmmm . . . someone that knows how to do nothin’, and do it reeeaaal good?

OK — Let’s get crackin’! The House Dems are burnin’-down-the-house tryin’ to get Obamacare passed and made Law of the Land before the Congressional Easter break. Nancy Pelosi and Co. are terrified of the prospect of House members going home and facing the growing wrath of their constituents over this increasingly unpopular legislation. Good ol’ Nanny Nancy is pushing a plan to have the House pass the Senate bill — Without a single member of the House of Representatives Ever Casting A Vote!

After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate’s health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers “deem” the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic — known as a “self-executing rule” or a “deem and pass” — has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

“It’s more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know,” the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. “But I like it,” she said, “because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.”

This is the so-called Slaughter Solution dreamed up by NY Democrat Congresswoman Louise Slaughter of the “She had to wear her dead sister’s teeth” fame at that sham of a White House Health Care Summit. Gotta LUV them Dems — crafting a way to pass unpopular legislation with zero accountability involved! According to Michelle Malkin, the House Republicans are trying to force a vote on the Slaughter procedure hoping to stop it in its tracks and CA Republican David Dreier is Calling for Cameras in Rules Committee Hearing Room for Healthcare Debate. I won’t hold my breath on that last one — Okie don’t look so hot in blue.

The Anchoress is not very optimistic about this today . . . can’t say that I blame her either:

Barring something completely unforeseen -like California falling into the Pacific- this bill will be “passed”. A hundred rallies by thousands will not dissuade them, because none of this is about you, or what you want, or what you think. It is about the old thing, the same old thing: the illusion of power, and the pursuit of that illusion.

No matter how this vote works out, the Progressives in Congress won’t stop with the reconciled Senate bill. From Pelosi’s lips to our bleeding ears:

“My biggest fight has been between those who wanted to do something incremental and those who wanted to do something comprehensive,” Pelosi said, according to an account by Washington Post reform advocate Ezra Klein. “We won that fight, and once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow.”

As of right now, today, the Democrat House Whip says they don’t yet have the votes, and this fight may go past Easter. From his lips to our bleeding ears!

Remember when we found out last fall that Obama’s Safe Schools Czar had been promoting fisting to 14-year-olds in public schools? Looks like they’ve found yet another use for all those latex gloves!

Wow! Guess this is stirring up the Lefties for a lot o’ reasons. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air ‘splains it for all those loony Lucys out there:

No one can accuse two-time Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez of holding back — or of Investors Business Daily of a lack of courage in publishing him. His latest take on the Democrats’ headlong rush to electoral oblivion in the midterms, and perhaps beyond, is dead-on accurate. Backbenchers are being asked to blow up their political careers in order to save President Obama’s term in office. But expect people to strongly object to the imagery and the declaration Ramirez uses:

Provocative? Absolutely. But this isn’t insinuating that Obama is a secret Muslim or that Democrats are terrorists. It accuses Democrats of putting Obama the man ahead of their own Constitutional obligations, and their own careers. Perhaps that could also have been depicted as falling on a grenade or committing seppuku, but for this age, the image instantly communicates exactly what the artist intends.

Still . . . Wow!

[H/t: Obi's Sister -- who, BTW, just turned four -- Congrats!]

Chris Muir’s Day by Day Cartoon

After Speaker-of-the-House Nancy Pelosi’s comment the other day, “But we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what is in it”, the Democrats are now planning for the Big Jam Down to happen this coming week, and to keep us in the dark once again, Pelosi’s promise to release the reconciliation bill 72 hours before the vote so that the American People would have a chance to read and understand what the final legislation would contain is not-so-slowly becoming just another Dem-wit lie. To perform this slight of hand, Pelosi’ House plans to use what is now being referred to as the Slaughter Solution — Doug Ross explains:

The Washington Examiner reports that House Democrats appear poised to adopt a rule that would pass the Senate health care bill without actually voting on it.

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) is preparing to pass the health care overhaul through the House of Representatives without a vote, as was originally reported by the National Journal’s Congress Daily. Mark Tapscott observes that such a maneuver would be the penultimate refutation of the people’s will.

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!

Constitutional attorney Mark R. Levin asks, “They’re going to present a rule, issued by her committee as chairman, that says that the House already adopted the Senate bill when we know it didn’t?”

Go to the Ross piece to read more because he explains that this legislation-by-fiat plan from Louise “She had to wear her dead sister’s teeth!” Slaughter attacks the Constitutional core of how legislation was designed to be crafted and implemented into law. In a later update Ross includes this piece of conversation between Conservative Mark Levin and Constitutional expert Arthur Fergenson:

Levin: I wanted to bring additional firepower on this subject, my buddy Arthur Fergenson, who is a Constitutional expert and who has argued cases in front of the Supreme Court, including Buckley vs. Valeo…

What do you make of this unbelievable — that they’re even talking about, this chairman of the Rules Committee — acting as if members of the House voted on something when they didn’t actually vote on it?Fergenson: It’s preposterous. It’s ludicrous. But it’s also dangerous. It’s dangerous because, first, …because [the U.S. Constitution's] Article I Section VII says every bill — and it capitalized “bill” — …it is common sense that the bill is the same item, it can’t be multiple bills, it can’t be mashups of bills. And, in fact, in 1986, Gene Gressman, no conservative, and one of the experts — the expert — on Supreme Court practice… was writing an article that was dealing with a less problematic attempt to get around this section of the Constitution… [Ed: the line-item veto] and he wrote, “By long usage and plain meaning, ‘Bill’ means any singular and entire piece of legislation in the form it was approved by the two houses.”

…the bills have to be revoted until they are identical. Both chambers have to vote on the bill.

If this cockamamie proposal were to be followed by the House and there were to be a bill presented to the President for his signature, that was a bill that had not been voted on — identically by the two Houses of Congress — that bill would be a nullity. It is not law. That is chaos.

I cannot recall any circumstance in which that has happened.

…What we have here is a measure, that if Obama signed it, would immediately affect taxation, it would change rules of practice in the insurance industry, it would regulate 17% of the nation’s economy, and it would be done without any legal basis whatsoever!

Fergenson: It’s like, the closest I can think of is martial law! The President would have no authority — there would be no law! It’s not like it would be constitutional or not. There would be. No. Law.

Levin: What do you make of people who sit around and even think of things like this? To me, they are absolutely unfit to even be in high office!

Fergenson: You’re right, Mark. And I would go back to what caused Gressman to write this… he was asked for his comments by the Senate… because the Senate was trying to do the equivalent of a line-item veto. And, in 1986, you were in the Justice Department under Attorney General Meese… there was a proposal… to take a bill and divide it into little pieces and.. then the President would sign each one or veto each one. That was unconstitutional. A Senate Rules Committee reported it unfavorably.

Levin: You know what’s interesting about this… Attorney General Ed Meese considered it unconstitutional even though President Reagan had wanted a line-item veto. And President Reagan agreed that it was unconstitutional without an amendment to the Constitution…

…Speaking for myself, I would tell the people who listen to this program that you are under absolutely no obligation to comply with it [this health care bill] because it is not, in fact, law. Do you agree with me?

Fergenson: I agree with you. I believe it would be tested by the Supreme Court. I believe that, under these circumstances, chaos would reign. There is no obligation to obey an unconstitutional law. The courts are empowered to determine whether it’s unconstitutional… it’s not a law.

Under this scenario, the various arms of the federal government will be acting under a law that does not exist.

If that don’t get your blood up to a full-boil, you’re just not payin’ attention — or you’ve drunk the kool-aid and think that Obamacare is totally KOOL! If you’re ears are now smokin’ like a steam kettle on the high burner then hit Michelle Malkin’s piece for all the contact info for the Blue Dogs and on-the-fence Dems that Nancy Pelosi is tryin’ to turn from Nos to Yeses! Pretty cool PhotoShop of Pelosi and Slaughter butcherin’ the Constitution as well.

Lots more Stop Obamacare info and contacts at Hugh Hewit’s site.

It’s not lookin’ good, but it’s not yet too late — call, email, fax those potential wafflers — let them know that this will be the last term in office if they jam this crap sandwich of a health care bill down out throats!

Especially if you are on Medicare, or soon will be — this just might be the difference of whether you ever have decent health care again, or whether the government ignores you and like Scrooge, tells us all to go die already.

STOP. OBAMACARE. NOW.

When you begin giving up personal liberties and letting the nanny state dictate all of life’s moments, really stupid stuff happens. Like declaring the gas that all animals breathe out and that all green plants need to survive a pollutant. Like banning the use of salt in the preparation of food in any restaurant in the state of New York.

Say what?

“No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises,” the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.

The legislation, which Assemblyman Felix Ortiz , D-Brooklyn, introduced on March 5, would fine restaurants $1,000 for each violation.

What the . . .?

I’m droppin’ F-bombs here at Okie Manor, but I’ll spare you that tirade. But ya gotta admit, when the Left gets on a roll, they roll! Lame-ass bland food for everybody . . . oh, ya betcha.

What you got that they want to ban?

So easy, even babies can understand it — not sure about cavemen though . . .