We could sure use a lot less Jane Harmon out here on the westside . . . hmmmm, one never knows ’cause as Ace reminds us, “. . . the basic operating theory this election: Virtually no Democrat is safe.”

From his keyboard to . . .

Philly requiring bloggers to pay $300 for a business license — Wow! That’s not anything we like to hear — hope it doesn’t become a trend. Wonder if it’s really for revenue generation or just a new means to control freedom of speech?

Mark Tapscott presents a quick list of facts to help us ward off the Democrat meme of how terrible the cost of the Iraq war has been and sure — it’s all Bush’s fault. Yawn.

* Obama’s stimulus, passed in his first month in office, will cost more than the entire Iraq War — more than $100 billion (15%) more.

* Just the first two years of Obama’s stimulus cost more than the entire cost of the Iraq War under President Bush, or six years of that war.

* Iraq War spending accounted for just 3.2% of all federal spending while it lasted.

Plenty more facts there so go and read it. In another piece, Mark highlights this little piece of financial terror:

* By 2020, half of all income tax revenues will go toward paying interest on a $23 trillion national debt.

Over at the Telegraph, they are discussing whether Obama believes that he’s bigger than the Presidency.

They might also be a glimpse of the future. For Obama, the crowning moment of his presidency have been speeches abroad – the statement in Strasbourg that America had been “dismissive and arrogant”, the address to the Muslim world from Cairo, the acceptance in Oslo of the Nobel Peace Prize.

In Berlin in 2008, Obama cast himself as a “citizen of the world”. He has dismissed the bedrock notion of American exceptionalism by describing it, also in Strasbourg, as little more than narrow patriotism. Elite opinion among liberal Ivy League types – of which Obama is the embodiment – holds that we are already living in a post-American world.

There are few Americans who see themselves as bigger than the presidency but Obama could well be one of them.

Uh . . . oh goody, another speech coming. Bated breath, not.

At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey drops this bomb:

Remember in December when the White House said it would make a “hard pivot” from health care to jobs? That “hard pivot” didn’t materialize until months later, and in a completely different form than one might have assumed. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration’s moratorium on drilling in the Gulf cost Americans 23,000 jobs — and that Barack Obama knew it when he ordered it:

Michelle Malkin has more on that, along with this quote from the Chamber of Commerce about another one of Obama’s pet projects:

U.S. Chamber of Commerce economist Martin Regalia on Monday said the tax increases advocated by President Obama would essentially kill any chance for an economic rebound.

“That’s what you’re suggesting, is a corporate bullet in the head,” Regalia said. “That is going to be a bullet in the head for an awful lot of people that are going to be laid off and an awful lot of people who are hoping to get their jobs back.”

Hang on tight kiddies . . . it’s a gonna be a wild one!

[H/t: Patterico]

However, the tone-deaf folks on the Demmish side of the isle aren’t listening, don’t give a whit, or both! Paul Ryan (R-WI) schools the Prez on why double-counting and offset time frames don’t exactly give one a clear picture of reality.

You can almost see that Obama is playing that scene in The Untouchables where Robert De Niro as Al Capone beats one of his competitors to death with a baseball bat at the meeting’s round table in his mind as he sets his jaw and listens to Ryan score points.

Ha!

Still, bottom line was that Obama threw down the gauntlet and has given the Repubs 4 to 6 weeks to come around and embrace Obamacare or they’ll shove it up our ass via reconciliation! The way to stop this is to convince those Dems that are most vulnerable this Nov. that to vote for the Senate bill — the necessary first step toward that reconciliation process — is political suicide. Hugh Hewitt has the contact list.

Obamacare can be stopped — but it’s sure not dead yet . . . Let’s kill it!

Possibly this Isabel Melendez — the community activist from Lawrence?

Michelle Malkin is keeping a running link fest of voter fraud incidents and allegations.

Over at American Digest Vanderleun breaks down what he sees as the margin that Scott Brown needs to overcome the cheating that most certainly is happening, and the recount shenanigans that are certain if he doesn’t win by double digits.

Dems — if they don’t cheat . . . no way they can win!

[Update: Dems in good ol' California are gettin' . . . er, ah, nervous.]

An open letter to the Democrats in power in Washington D.C.

November 2, 2010 — the most important election in my lifetime!

Democratic Senator Max Baucus, author of the gargantuan health care bill, appears to be channeling his inner Teddy Kennedy with this incoherent speech on the Senate floor castigating Senate Republicans for not supporting this monster that the majority of the American people are now rejecting.

The MSM have ignored this — guess what would have been front page news if a Republican Senator had been this obviously impaired on the floor of the Senate. Instapundit highlights that the MSM hasn’t been doing much coverage of the shenanigans of Senator Baucus off the floor either.

Media bias?

Naw — couldn’t be, could it?

Just in time for Christmas, the Democrat-controlled Senate will pass Obamacare and then it will go into that secret sanctum of sickness — the House/Senate Compromise — let’s face it.

On health care, WE be screwed, blued and tattooed!

To quote some passages from the Monday morning column from Clark Judge posted at Hugh Hewitt’s blog:

As one early morning report puts it, the Senate is now “marching” to passage on Christmas Eve of its version of health overhaul.  Three motions preliminary to a cloture vote have passed 60-40, all Democrats for, all Republicans against.  What does this Democrats-only bill do? What are the consequences?

As it stands today, the health overhaul bill is a hoax. We all may know some part of the litany, but it is worth keeping in mind just how many forms this hoax takes.

The administration promised overhaul would come with not a penny of new taxes for Americans earning under $250,000 a year, later lowering that to $200,000 for individuals. Estimates now hold that 25 percent of Americans earning under $200,000 will see their taxes go up. ( http://tiny.cc/SSfFu).

The administration has said repeatedly that if you like your current plan the health overhaul will let you keep it. But the bill includes numerous definitions of care that will act as Federal mandates layered on top of the state mandates that have done so much to drive up health insurance costs. Insurance plans that don’t comply will have to change or close down. Those that change will be the New Coke of health care. Same label. Different formula. Different taste. Current plans in name only.

The administration insists that the bill will lower the deficit over the next decade. That’s because tax increases will kick in early, benefits much later (see http://tiny.cc/UYhLs). But after the government’s planning horizon has expired, the bill will take spending as a proportion of national income permanently beyond the levels reached only in a single year in our history to date – the peak year of spending in World War Two. This will mean not just higher deficits but a fundamental altering of the American economy, with the U.S. embracing the economics of Europe.

Gabriel Malor over at Ace provides the schedule for the destruction of health care in America as we now know it:

Yes, America, this is how laws get made now: written in secret, voted on in the dark of night.

Tonight will be the first of three procedural votes the Democrats need to pass in order to destroy America’s healthcare system.

Assuming they get 60 votes for cloture on the Manager’s Amendment, the Democrats must wait 30 hours for the next vote (roughly until 7am Tuesday) , which will be an up-or-down vote on the Manager’s Amendment. 50 votes required.

Immediately following the vote on the Manager’s Amendment there’s going to be a cloture vote on the Reid Substitute. It also requires 60 votes. Then Democrats must wait 30 more hours for an up-or-down vote on the Reid Substitute (until roughly 1pm Wednesday) . Only 50 votes required.

Immediately after the vote on the Reid Substitute, there will be a cloture vote on the final bill, ReidCare. 60 votes required. Then Democrats must wait 30 more hours for the final up-or-down vote on ReidCare. That requires only 50 votes and it should take place, if everything goes according to schedule, on Thursday, Christmas Eve around 7pm.

Merry F***ing Christmas.

Mark Steyn has been warning us all along that these Dems are willing to take a big hit in 2010, because they know that passing this bill is the GAME CHANGER!

I’ve been saying for a year now, in NR and NRO, that the object for savvy Dems is to get this thing passed in whatever form because, once you do, there’s no going back. Kim Strassel in yesterday’s Journal gets it:

So why the stubborn insistence on passing health reform? Think big. The liberal wing of the party — the Barney Franks, the David Obeys — are focused beyond November 2010, to the long-term political prize. They want a health-care program that inevitably leads to a value-added tax and a permanent welfare state. Big government then becomes fact, and another Ronald Reagan becomes impossible. See Continental Europe.

Just so. And that’s worth whatever hit they have to take in 2010. Every time I make the point, someone says, oh, Jim Webb this or Byron Dorgan that, or have you see Harry Reid’s numbers in Nevada? Oh, please. We’ve just seen what happens when you make Ben Nelson your Maginot Line. The Dems are thinking strategically; the Republicans are all tactics.

Michelle Malkin has updated her Democrat Bribe List that has made all this possible:

If you ever wondered what revolution actually looks like — this is it. And we, the American people, are on the losing side. Take a good long look at the malaise, chaos and moral decadence of today’s western Europe — ’cause that is gonna be us, sooner rather than later. My whole generation grew up on this revolution philosophy crap, perfectly captured by the Beatles song of the same name:

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
all right, all right

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We’re doing what we can
But when you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
all right, all right
Ah

ah, ah, ah, ah, ah…

You say you’ll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
all right, all right
all right, all right, all right
all right, all right, all right

Nope, Virginia — It ain’t gonna be all right, in fact, I’m feelin’ a lot more like this one at the moment . . .

. . . Hmmm, someone’s seeing an even bigger picture.

Yesterday the Senate’s cloture vote on its massive 2,000+ page Health Care Bill passed on a 60/39 straight party-line vote. Not one Republican supported this freedom-killing boondoggle. Michelle Malkin is keeping a list of how much bribe money is in the bill to keep a few potential DemWit stragglers onboard, calling it a Demcare bribe list. Michelle also notes that Sen. Olympia Snowe (RINO-Maine) has been pow wowing with the Dems on the final resolution of her vote.

Could someone please save us from all these folks that proclaim that they’re trying to save us? Of course, they really don’t give a flyin’ you-know-what about our health care — all they really want is for the government to take over 1/6th of the nation’s economy — to have a vast increase in Federal power and control over our lives. In his cartoon for today, Chris Muir deftly sums up that concept, showing what Obamacare will mean to all of us.

Chris Muir’s Day by Day Cartoon

As the Chosen One has been jetting around Asia mouthing platitudes about open information, transparency in government, and freedom, his party’s leaders and their minions have been beavering away to ensure that soon, we’ll all be greeting each other thus:

“Achtung comrade — welcome to the collective!”

Elections have consequences — election night 2010 is only 11-1/2 months away . . . if we can survive for that long!

The Bacchus Health-Care Bill was passed out of the Senate Finance Committee yesterday and even garnered the RINO vote of Olympia Snowe (R?—ME). Universally praised by Democrats and near-universally castigated by Republicans, the bill will now be integrated with the House bill, along with probably a zillion changes and additions — to be voted on by both houses of Congress in TWO WEEKS? So, even if this isn’t the final bill, just how much would Sen. Bacchus’ wet dream cost US? Douglas Holtz in today’s Wall Street Journal Online breaks it down:

Most astounding of all is what this Congress is willing to do to struggling middle-class families. The bill would impose nearly $400 billion in new taxes and fees. Nearly 90% of that burden will be shouldered by those making $200,000 or less.

It might not appear that way at first, because the dollars are collected via a 40% tax on sales by insurers of “Cadillac” policies, fees on health insurers, drug companies and device manufacturers, and an assortment of odds and ends.

But the economics are clear. These costs will be passed on to consumers by either directly raising insurance premiums, or by fueling higher health-care costs that inevitably lead to higher premiums. Consumers will pay the excise tax on high-cost plans. The Joint Committee on Taxation indicates that 87% of the burden would fall on Americans making less than $200,000, and more than half on those earning under $100,000.

Industry fees are even worse because Democrats chose to make these fees nondeductible. This means that insurance companies will have to raise premiums significantly just to break even. American families will bear a burden even greater than the $130 billion in fees that the bill intends to collect. According to my analysis, premiums will rise by as much as $200 billion over the next 10 years—and 90% will again fall on the middle class.

Senate Democrats are also erecting new barriers to middle-class ascent. A family of four making $54,000 would pay $4,800 for health insurance, with the remainder coming from subsidies. If they work harder and raise their income to $66,000, their cost of insurance rises by $2,800. In other words, earning another $12,000 raises their bill by $2,800—a marginal tax rate of 23%. Double-digit increases in effective tax rates will have detrimental effects on the incentives of millions of Americans.

Good ol’ so-called-Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe even presents a way for the combined bill to result in government-controlled health care:

Sen. Olympia Snowe, the only committee Republican who supported advancing the Finance panel bill, suggested Wednesday a scenario in which a government-run plan could eventually come into play.

Snowe told CBS’s “The Early Show” that she believes a public option would give the government “a disproportionate advantage” over private insurers, and said she still opposes the concept.

But at the same time, Snowe said that she wants “to make sure the insurance industry performs.” In a separate interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” she said that if the industry did not live up to congressional expectations for more widely affordable and accessible insurance, “you could have the public option kick in immediately.”

Just this last Monday the health insurance industry fought back a little and that has really tweaked the Dems, who now are seeking retribution in amendments to the combined bill.

Bolstering the claims that this bill would cost taxpayers via decreased income, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air examines a report by the Joint Congressional Committee On Taxation:

The problem with that is the definition of “high cost insurance products”. The JCT is not talking about the upper 5% of health-care plans, not even in the initial year. In the first year of the tax, the JCT predicts that 11% of all plans will be subject to the excise tax. By 2019, the JCT predicts that a third of all policies will carry that tax, increasing costs and depressing wages in one form or another.

And for those Liberals who still believe in the Tax-Business-To-Death-Tooth-Fairy Ed explains:

This should not be news to Hot Air readers. Most already understand that corporations don’t really pay taxes; they pass the costs to consumers in the form of higher prices or in lost jobs and economic opportunities. While populists love to see Congress stick it to corporate America, in essence this is nothing more than a form of economic masochism.

It’s totally safe to say that the combined bill will be even more expensive, have even more onerous taxation on the middle & upper classes, and if a public option gets signed into law, bring us a version of Canadian or British health care.

What could go wrong?

From BigGovernment.com:

“And I picked up the gun and said f— you. And I shot him. And he died right there.”

This is video of an ACORN employee in San Bernadino, a real LOON! Still, she admits to killing her husband, threatens the guy across the street, and tells the clandestine filmmakers how to open an underage brothel and then hide the money from the IRS.

Gee, what a great organization this ACORN. Nice how the Democrats like to protect them so much!

Sheesh!

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