Gotta LUV these folks — they sure know how to party! I can’t say it any better than Ace:

That image just gets people where they live. It’s not an intellectual thing — it’s just an emotional reaction to someone who just f**ked you over and then cavorts joyously about it on television, dancing on your grave.

President Obama signed the bill today.

13 states immediately filed suit against it!

The attorneys general of 13 states immediately filed lawsuits against the pro-abortion health care bill President Barack Obama signed Tuesday morning. They include 12 Republicans and one Democrat, of Louisiana, and a Rasmussen poll finds Americans supportive of their actions.

Just seven minutes after Obama signed the measure into law, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum took the lead and filed the suit for his colleagues in court in Florida.

“The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage,” the lawsuit says, according to an AP report.

McCollum, who is pro-life, is joined by attorneys general from South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Michigan, Utah, Pennsylvania, Alabama, South Dakota, Idaho, Washington, Colorado and Louisiana.

Some states are looking at other ways of getting out of participating in the pro-abortion health care bill as Virginia and Idaho have passed legislation to do that.

And, how about our super-classy Vice President, Joe Biden, tellin’ ol’ Barry at the signing ceremony, “This is a Big F*#cking Deal”.

Here’s the hit list for the upcoming election cycle.

In November we’ll be showing these jokers in the House what a real “‘Big F*#cking Deal” looks like!

I was going to the Farmer’s Market when I heard Bart Stupak (MI-D) give his lame-ass little speech about how he held out his YES vote on principle and how this forced the almighty Obama to grant him his little lame-ass Executive Order that would state that the currently-in-effect Hyde Amendment’s anti-abortion provisions would apply to the Senate Healthcare Bill which Obama will sign into law tonight, or first thing tomorrow — depending upon how the voting procedures go. Stupak was holding a cadre of 5-6 other supposedly pro-life votes and those will now most definitely change from NO to YES. Nanny Nancy will be crowin’ and poppin’ champagne ’til dawn — the dawn of a very different America from the one that we will go to sleep in.

[Send ol' Bart a message -- here's his opponent's FaceBook page. Send the guy a few bucks, hell, a lot o' bucks if you can!] Allahpundit has a message for Stupak: Pence to Stupak: You traded 30 years of pro-life law for a promise from the most pro-abortion president in history. As Bugs would say, “What a maroon!”

First of all, anyone that takes this President’s word for ANYTHING is an idiot! Obama has changed his mind lied out his ass repeatedly since taking the oath of office. He’s thrown dozens under the bus — Stupak will be just one of plenty more. Odds makers in Vegas are probably working on the probability that Obama won’t sign the EO once he signs the bill into law. Even if he does, settled case law already precludes a Presidential signing statement from overriding actual legislative LAWS — The Executive implements, not legislates! Gee, didn’t any of these high-level guv’ment knot heads ever take Civics?

I’m not the only one pissed. Patterico is venting big time:

With Stupak & Co. selling our their principles for an unenforceable executive order, revocable at will, it’s clear that ObamaCare is going to pass. I have said it time and time again: this legislation fundamentally changes the relationship between the government and the people.

And it’s not likely to go away. Expansion of government is historically a one-way ratchet. We’re still stuck with the New Deal, and we will never be rid of the impossible burdens it has placed on our government in the form of entitlements we can’t afford. We’re still stuck with the “Great Society” — the fabled “welfare reform” of the Clinton era being nothing but a tiny Band-aid on a gushing, cavernous chest wound — and we’ll never be rid of the culture of listlessness and criminality it spawned.

In truth, the American experiment began to end during the New Deal era, when the Supreme Court ruled that people couldn’t grow their own crops on their own land for their own purposes if Congress said they couldn’t. This is just the logical end-point.

I started this post wanting to talk about how to reverse this, because obviously that has to be the goal. But I’m just not in the mood. Like you, I’m just too angry to think constructively.

With Happy Dependence Day Mark Stein gives us a glimpse of what’s comin’ down the ol’ pike:

Well, it seems to be in the bag now. I try to be a sunny the-glass-is-one-sixteenth-full kinda guy, but it’s hard to overestimate the magnitude of what the Democrats have accomplished. Whatever is in the bill is an intermediate stage: As the graph posted earlier shows, the governmentalization of health care will accelerate, private insurers will no longer be free to be “insurers” in any meaningful sense of that term (ie, evaluators of risk), and once that’s clear we’ll be on the fast track to Obama’s desired destination of single payer as a fait accomplis.

If Barack Obama does nothing else in his term in office, this will make him one of the most consequential presidents in history. It’s a huge transformative event in Americans’ view of themselves and of the role of government. You can say, oh, well, the polls show most people opposed to it, but, if that mattered, the Dems wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. Their bet is that it can’t be undone, and that over time, as I’ve been saying for years now, governmentalized health care not only changes the relationship of the citizen to the state but the very character of the people. As I wrote in NR recently, there’s plenty of evidence to support that from Britain, Canada and elsewhere.

Stein goes on to elaborate on how the European countries have tried to deal with their ever rising social-program and entitlements costs — they have gut their militaries and are essentially powerless on the world stage. As China goes on to build a first-class blue-water navy, we’ll be dismantling ours. While Tehran gets and then stockpiles nuclear weapons, we’ll be decommissioning our own along with the forces that would have been charged with their care-taking and potential use.

As our national health care costs continue to rise — our status as the world’s only Superpower will evaporate — to the good of none and to the accent of evil over all.

Gotta go read Revelations again — this is all soundin’ a bit too familiar for comfort . . .

The Great Experiment that is America is being euthanized today by the party that believes in abortion and euthanization.

Long live the United States of America . . .

Below are some thoughts from a doctor about the inevitable consequences of the implementation of Obamacare left as a comment to a post by Deacon Greg Kandra.

We’ve had some fun here at Okie Manor with Photoshops of our President, all gloved up and ready to “give it to us real good”, as well as giving a call to arms for all of you, and me, to get off our lazy asses and participate in the democratic process, call/email those that claim to represent us and tell them to vote NO on this abomination of a bill. However, nowhere have I read a more reasoned, non-hyperbolic analysis of just what this legislation, if passed today, will do to our healthcare system. It sure ain’t pretty!

I have been a doctor for 19 years. 4 years in the Army and 15 years in private practice. I belong to a doctor owned group of approx 350 doctors in a multi-specialty practice. We employ 4000 people. In addition to being touted as one of the very best clinics in the nation (Acclaim Award winners) we have donated over a million dollars to the local city in grants, scholarships and charity. Regularly voted as top places to work by our employees. US healthcare at its very best. I am very proud of what we do and we provide tremendous care and value to our patients.

We seek to maintain a 3-5% profit margin annually. We operate in the very precarious business model of enormous volume, low margin. As any business owner knows, this is high-risk-low-margin of error model. Consequently any small changes to cash flow vectors, mandates widespread internal policy and practice corrections. Tiny changes = massive consequences.

As many people may know, Medicare and Medicaid, the current government paid ‘insurer’ – pays approximately 70% of the cost of care. ie its more expensive for doctors to care for these patients than we get reimbursed for. Say you are a contractor. Imagine the government mandating a significant number of your jobs whereby your out of pocket costs are ~ 30% + greater than your income. That is Medicare and Medicaid. In perspective, our group alone, year 2008 lost ~$12 million caring for our government patients. This is despite taking over 1 1/2 years to help move our fee-for-service traditional Medicare patients over to Medicare Advantage plans, which are privatized versions of Medicare that reimburse better…still not covering costs…but lessen our losses significantly.

Many people ask, why do private health insurance premiums continue to escalate? The liberals want you to believe its a combination of profiteering and waste. When in fact its due mainly to two other processes. The first is obvious: every year it costs more to care for patients and premiums are trying to keep up with this rising cost. But secondly, and less often discussed, is that every year private delivery systems lose more and more money caring for our government patients. Someone has to make up for these losses in order for your hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, pharmacies, group practices to remain solvent and profitable. Every year these delivery systems open their books to the private healthcare insurers – and the insurers must – they must in order for the entire system at large to stay functional, increase the amount they pay out to cover these losses. If they dont, both the delivery systems and the insurers die. So to keep the boat afloat, the payouts by private insurers MUST increase to subsidize the ever increasing losses doctors incur by taking care of our government patients. So, in a way, you could say that your increasing premiums are a tax that you are paying to cover the losses that are Medicare and Medicaid. It’s a clear and inarguable private subsidization of government cost. Enough said on that.

So to really feel the consequence and full impact of Obamacare, one must simply see the economic dominoes. Most people can see how this bill will rapidly reduce private insurance plans and rapidly expand government plan patients. And take whatever number that is being reported, and multiply that by 3. That has been the experience in both Mass and Hawaii. Both government plans were overwhelmed with the enrollees as they significantly underestimated the government migration.

Ok, so now- how can anyone not see the obvious outcome? Government patients = significant loss of profitability. Initally the private insurers will do their best to continue to subsidize this loss, and there will be a huge escalation of premiums. But within a few months this will be unsustainable. Its a cycle that cannot be stopped. Higher premiums = higher recidivism to government plans = higher premiums etc. Within months, every single hospital, every single doctor office, clinic, nursing home, pharmacy – every delivery system reliant on private insurers will no longer be profitable. ie they will go bankrupt. These will most certainly be the headlines to come: Hospital XYZ shockingly announces bankruptcy; Hospitals can no longer remain open; Clinics across the country file for bankruptcy; Loss of Pharmacy access shocks the Nation; Doctors going bankrupt en masse creating healthcare delivery and access to care crises; Where can you go to get care?; Loss of access reported Nationwide

Yes a crises. A crises of access due to widespread business failure. You will not be able to get care for as long as it takes for the government to devise their emergency bailout package and as long as it takes for those insufficient dollars to try and get those doors back open again. But it will be too late, and it will be too expensive. There is absolutely no way that our government can capitalize our entire healthcare system. Try as they might, only a percentage of what we have now will ultimately survive. And those that do survive will be a shell of what they once were. The conditions will be frightening, and the consequences will be dire. The degree of disarray will be unimaginable and the underlap in access to care will be gaping.

I will not expand this discussion to predict what this means to our economy at large because I am not an economist. But anyone can be close to predicting what I am suggesting. Factors such as loss of work hours due to illnesses not treated, pressure on all the other private business models; let alone the out and out loss of enormous capital via the bankruptcy of this entire healthcare industry can clearly be the death nail to our country and imo is a clear and present threat to our very sovereignty. This can make the housing collapse look like a speed bump. This will be massive and rapid and lethal and complete.

I am not certain why this very obvious outcome has not been openly discussed more often – ie the rapid and massive bankruptcy of all of your health care providers and their delivery systems. But this is the inevitable outcome should this bill ever become law and implemented.

Thanks for reading. Please ping, copy and email your friends and try and get this word out. I know it’s a very late hour – but I do think the implementation is not an inevitability as multiple lawsuits may keep it on hold for a while – so public opinion will still be vital for many more months to come.

Unbelievable times. Please do your part and email and make the phone calls. This plea comes an honest and heartfelt love of our country and its citizens, and an honest and heartfelt love of my profession, avocation and the welfare of my patients.

This [collapse of the U.S. Healthcare System] will be massive and rapid and lethal and complete.

The House votes in just a few hours — keep calling, keep emailing, keep praying . . .

Hat tip: The Anchoress

My cousin Joe L. commented on my previous post’s link on FaceBook — I thought it was worth its own post. Take it away, cous . . .

“Not Democrat, Not Republican, Not Independent — It’s called the “PISSED OFF PARTY” (or POP).

This party is dedicated to vote every incumbent out of office in the next elections.

If you’re Democrat, vote Democrat. Just don’t vote for the incumbent.

If you’re Republican, vote Republican.. Just don’t vote for the incumbent.

We need to send a message to all politicians, that we’re tired of their B.S.

If the country votes out all the incumbents, the new incoming politicians will get the message..

It’s pretty simple. Nobody needs to change parties and lets face it, there’s plenty of blame to spread around.

A few good politicians will lose their job but they probably have better retirement and insurance then 95% of the American public.

You’ve had to struggle for the last 5 years. Some of you have lost your job and may be working in some other sector just to feed your family.

I guarantee you, none of them will suffer like this country has.

If you like whats going on and think this is a bad idea, delete this.

But if you’re fed up and think this is a good idea, then pass this E-mail on.

To All 535 voting members of the Legislature; it is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:

a.. The U.S. Post Office was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.

b.. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.

c.. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.

d.. War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to “the poor” and they only want more.

e.. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.

f.. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.

g.. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.

You have FAILED in every “government service” you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars

AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM?

IT’S NOT ABOUT THE NEED FOR GOOD HEALTH CARE, IT’S ABOUT TRUSTING THE GOVERNMENT TO RUN IT.

Well said . . . !!!!

       From IowntheWorld.comCertainly not as photogenic as his co-party member in the House! Still, from the floor of the Senate today, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell warned:

“Americans are outraged at what’s going on here: a bill that aims to shift a major segment of our economy into the hands of the government, and which accomplishes that goal by imposing crushing burdens on already-struggling seniors, middle class families, and small businesses, is being rammed through Congress against the clear will of the public.

“No amount of spin will change the fact that Medicare will be deeply cut, insurance premiums and taxes will go up, the federal bureaucracy will grow, and as demand increases, the quality of care in this country will get worse and worse.

“Taking a bill that House Democrats are too embarrassed to vote on, adding more than $50 billion in new taxes and slashing $60 billion more from our seniors’ Medicare and keeping sweetheart deals may make some Washington Democrats ‘giddy,’ but it’s not reform.

“This bill isn’t an excuse to vote in favor of the Democrat plan for health care. It’s a reason to vote against it.

Nanny Nancy Pelosi and her trained congresscritters are wheeling/dealing/out-right-buying votes, even now getting some of the Stupak 12 anti-abortion members with a lame-ass promise from Senator Chucky Schumer that the Senate will pass a separate piece of legislation that will once again make federal funding of abortion illegal, which it is right now, but won’t be if/when the Obamessiah signs the Senate bill and it becomes the law-of-the-land.

If that happens, we can only hope that the Senate tells the House to piss off already on the Reconciliation bill, as that one is even worse! Hugh increase in taxes, and even larger (by $170 BILLION) cut in Medicare which would be almost seven-hundred-billion-dollars LESS to be spent on that program just at the time the Boomers hit their Medicare years — yeah, like that makes any sense whatsoever? On the provision for having an additional 15,000 IRS agents whose job will be to make sure ALL of us buy that guv’ment-approved Health Insurance Ed Morrissey at Hot Air asks:

Do we need the IRS checking on us every month to enforce the health-insurance mandate? Do Americans think hiring an additional 15,000 IRS agents to get even more involved in our lives is a great idea for reform?

Maybe this is what Nancy Pelosi meant when she called ObamaCare a “jobs bill” … it’s just another round of Democratic stimulus!

Obama is out on the stump trying to convince all of us that this is over and done. Same with Pelosi and the rest of the Dems — trying to demoralize the opposition — trying to get the on-the-fence House members to finally commit, or change their NO to YES. If they had the votes, they wouldn’t put out this much effort — But, they are CLOSE, too close. So it’s still important to eMail & call the last of the undecided/wafflers. Here’s the current list supplied by Hugh Hewitt:

Zack Space (OH-18)
D.C. Phone: (202) 225-6265
1-866-910-7577

Harry Teague (NM-2)
D.C. Phone: (202) 225-2365
Hobbs: (575) 393-0510
Las Cruces: (575)-522-3908

Michael McMahon (NY-13)
D.C. Phone: (202) 225-3371
Staten Island: (718) 351-1062
Brooklyn: (718) 630-5277

Brian Baird (WA-3)
D.C. Phone: (202) 225-3536
Olympia: (360) 352-9768

Marion Berry (Arkansas-1)
D.C. Phone: (202) 225-4076
Jonesboro: (800) 866-2701

Stephen Lynch (MA-9)
D.C. Phone: 202-225-8273
Boston: 617-428-2000

Jerry McNerney (CA-11)
D.C. Phone: (202) 225-1947
Pleasanton: (925) 737-0727

Jim Costa (CA-20)
D.C. Phone: 202-225-3341
Bakersfield: 661-869-1620
Fresno: 559-495-1620

Nick Rahall (W.VA-3) – Is now leaning ‘No’
D.C. Phone: (202) 225-3452
Huntington: (304) 522-6425

Jim Matheson (Utah-2)
D.C. Phone: (202) 225-3011
South Salt Lake: (801) 486-1236
St. George: (435) 627-0880

Suzanne Kosmas (Fla-23)
D.C. Phone: (202) 225-2706
Orlando: (407)-208-1106
1-877-956-7627

Enough readin’ this ol’ Okie cracker — just get crackin’ on those eMails — and on callin’!!!!!

Two days ago the New York Times was featuring the above “illustration” of Obama as a Christ-figure in their week in review section article: As Health Vote Awaits, Future of a Presidency Waits, Too. It’s all gone down the NYT memory hole now, but I borrowed this screen capture from Ed Morrissey’s Hot Air piece where Ed writes:

In other words, will the Obama presidency become a political martyr for the progressive agenda? It’s not terribly difficult to discern the subtext, if it can even really be called that, from the Times’ article. What’s rather amazing is that the Paper of Record puts this in its news section rather than Opinion.

Next time, use a photograph. Leave the Nola Lopez “illustrations” for the cartoon section, unless the Times wants to leave the impression that its entire paper is a cartoon … a strategy that, in this case, would be considered a success.

And from CentristNet:

This is nothing new for the NYT, their Obamaphile journalists like Peter Baker and other establishment media, as the cheerleading of the Obama candidacy and then Presidency has been continuous and systemic since the inception of Obama’s campaign for President in 2007. As the clock counts down on perhaps the most important vote in Congress in decades, the House vote on Obamacare, we can expect to see even more frantic Obama worship by the establishment media in the attempt to convince the American public to support the unpopular bill. Centrist, independent and non-ideological Americans are left to wonder what establishment media coverage of the Obama Administration would look like if the narrative-setting giant NYT reported in an objective, as opposed to supportive, manner regarding the Obama Presidency.

Indeed — if there had been any kind of objective press during the campaign we’d have a President Hillary or President McCain . . . instead, we have President Obamessiah — cross, halo, feet of clay and all.

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.

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

Victoria Jackson — gotta LUV her for tellin’ the truth.

With what’s going on today — the Dems deciding to use reconciliation to pass their onerous Health Care bill regardless of the will of the American People, Jackson’s little ditty takes on more gravitas than would normally be granted. November can’t get here fast enough!

Here’s a great Reconciliation PhotoShop from Maksim at The People’s Cube:

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!

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 House of Representative’s health care bill was presented yesterday and it’s a whopping 1,900-plus pages, 1,990 to be exact. Much of it’s in legalese, nearly unfathomable to the layman, let alone those Dem wits that passed this monster. Politico provides such a section:

And for those who cry “read the bill,” beware. There are plenty of paragraphs like this one:

“(a) Outpatient Hospitals – (1) In General – Section 1833(t)(3)(C)(iv) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395(t)(3)(C)(iv)) is amended – (A) in the first sentence – (i) by inserting “(which is subject to the productivity adjustment described in subclause (II) of such section)” after “1886(b)(3)(B)(iii); and (ii) by inserting “(but not below 0)” after “reduced”; and (B) in the second sentence, by inserting “and which is subject, beginning with 2010 to the productivity adjustment described in section 1886(b)(3)(B)(iii)(II)”.

The section deals with “incorporating productivity improvements into market basket updates that do not already incorporate such improvements,” if that helps.

Got that Okie? Yeah, clear as mud! The Democrats are also saying that this 1,990 page bill is virtually identical to the previous three 1,000-page versions so, not to worry. Shoot, what could they have possibly slipped in there in an extra 900 pages? A Jewish deli guy we used to know, recently deceased, once jokingly asked us, “How do you say f___ you in Jewish? Trust me.” I’m gettin’ that vibe here big time.

The Dems are also sayin’ that this bills $894 billion cost guesstimate is below the original $900-billion upper limit set by the Obama administration. They’re gettin’ that from the report by the Congressional Budget Office:

The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday a U.S. House health-care system re-write would extend health insurance to 96% of the nonelderly U.S. population by 2019, and spend $1.055 trillion to do so.

Penalties imposed on individuals who did not purchase insurance, and employers who did not offer coverage to their workers, would raise $161 billion over that time-frame. That brings the net cost of the bill to $894 billion through 2019, CBO said.

Achieving that number requires over $400-billion in cuts to existing programs and over $570-billion in new taxes — Trust Us!

The death panel end-of-life-counseling provision made it into those 1,990 pages:

The Medicare end-of-life planning provision that 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said was tantamount to “death panels” for seniors is staying in the latest Democratic health care bill unveiled Thursday.

The provision allows Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and painful decisions families face when a loved one is approaching death.

‘Naw, we’d never, ever tell ya when to pull the plug on grandma — Trust Us!”

Let’s wrap up: Good ol’ House Speaker Nanny Nancy wants a full House vote on this mother by the end of next week — 1,990 pages, around 400,000 words, a 10-year cost guesstimate of $894 billion buckaroos — gee, a bit over two bucks plus two bits a word. Cheap, huh? And she’s givin’ them a whole week to read and digest this pup. Didn’t know that your Congress person was a speed reader, did ya?

Nancy, she say — “Trust Us!”

Harry Reid is saying that the Senate version of Obamacare will have a public option but finding the votes looks like a tough gig. Joe Lieberman says that he’ll filibuster that bill! Good for Joe. Why? Check out this info on WSJ from the WellPoint study which is being trashed by the Dems, natch, ’cause a big-bad-ol’ insurance company has mined their own actuarial data and it shows Obamacare to be the debacle that we on the right have known all along:

In fact, what distinguishes the Wellpoint study is its detailed rigor. Take Ohio, where a young, healthy 25-year-old living in Columbus can purchase insurance from WellPoint today for about $52 per month in the individual market. WellPoint’s actuaries calculate the bill will rise to $79 because Democrats are going to require it to issue policies to anyone who applies, even if they’ve waited until they’re sick to buy insurance. Then they’ll also require the company to charge everyone nearly the same rate, bringing the premium to $134. Add in an extra $17, since Democrats will require higher benefit levels, and a share of the new health industry taxes ($6), and monthly premiums have risen to $157, a 199% boost.

Meanwhile, a 40-year-old husband and wife with two kids would see their premiums jump by 122%—to $737 from $332—while a small business with eight employees in Franklin County would see premiums climb by 86%. It’s true that the family or the individual might qualify for subsidies if their incomes are low enough, but the business wouldn’t qualify under the Senate Finance bill WellPoint examined. And even if there are subsidies, the new costs the bill creates don’t vaporize. They’re merely transferred to taxpayers nationwide—or financed with deficits, which will be financed eventually with higher taxes.

Yeah — the Dems are scared of this type of data getting out into the real world, not that Obama’s MSM lapdogs will put it out in mass. But now, you know!

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?

[Update: Evidently the original poster of this video removed it from YouTube to send it down the memory hole -- but, there's always another capture!]

The gauntlet has been thrown down on health care and the Obamessia’s toadies in the MSM aren’t even a little bit squeamish about using children to do their dirty work.

Love her little giggle at the beginning — not!

Dirty . . . dirty . . . DIRTY WORK!

Dr.s DONALD J. PALMISANO, WILLIAM G. PLESTED II AND DANIEL H. JOHNSON JR. (all former presidents of the American Medical Association) have a piece in the Wall Street Journal Opinion section today. Here’s a taste:

We aren’t among the doctors invited to a Rose Garden event today to “join the President in pushing for health insurance reform this year and [who] have offered their help and support,” as a White House press release put it. It’s unfortunate only supporters of the president’s plans will be there. Mr. Obama has missed an opportunity to learn more about the real issues facing patients and doctors and to formulate a plan that truly puts patients in control with doctors as trusted advisers.

The United States has the best health care in the world today, and thanks to the ever-expanding frontiers of science and medical innovation the brightest days are ahead. It is true that there are Americans who fall through the cracks of our medical system every day—and as a caring nation, we must do what we can to expand access to medical care to those who need it. But this can be accomplished without a costly and inefficient government overhaul of the entire system. One easy reform would be to enable individuals to buy policies offered in any state, not just where they live. This will enhance competition. But more government-run health insurance will only lead to disaster.

{…}

If the goal of reform is to provide the best possible patient care, let’s take the government-controlled “public option”—and any legislative trick that could lead to a public option—off the table. It will result in long waiting lines to see a doctor, substandard care, and an end to medical discovery.

As the saying goes . . . read it all!

And, the next time you hear the President or any of the Dem wits in Congress say that no one else has a plan for healthcare reform, read it all, again.

Yeah, the Liberals have a plan — a plan to turn the best health care system in the world into a socialists’ backwater where all have access to little — except for their exalted selves, natch.

Lowell Brown over at Truth North News & Commentary takes a look at Switzerland’s health care system and likes a lot of what he sees. Here are the bullet points of his analysis of the Swiss system.

1. There is an insurance mandate for all individuals.

2. The government defines a what the insurance benefit will be for all standard health insurers.

3. Insurance companies are not allowed to deny coverage to any individual.

4. Health insurance and medical procedure prices are made publicly available.

5. In exchange for providing health insurance to consumers, insurance companies receive premiums from consumers and risk-adjustment payments from the government in order that insurance companies are not punished if they decide to insure a sicker population.

6. Premiums are community rated, meaning that sick and healthy individuals pay the same price within each age group {…}

7. Individuals are allowed to purchase supplemental insurance as well (there is no regulated benefit for supplemental insurance).

8. There is significant cost sharing in all insurance plans (i.e.: deductibles, 10% coinsurance rates up to an annual ceiling).

9. Open enrollment occurs twice per year (June and December).

Could something like this work here for US? Lowell comments:

A Swiss model for the USA might even be great for us. No, it doesn’t follow free market principles strictly, but that’s not possible with healthcare — or, at least, in the USA we’ve made a decision as a society that we will not let the market alone decide whether people get medical care. {…} Switzerland has made the same decision, but has insisted on competiton among insurance companies, individual involvement in choosing insurance, and transparency of cost — all core free-market principles.

And “core free-market principles” are what’s missing from the Obama/Democrat’s plan. Speaking of the Congressional Demwits, now we’ve got Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, claiming that it’s too difficult to put the full text of the health care bill online for the other Congressfolks, let alone any of us that might be interested, to read.

If that sounds like the Senate Dems in the Finance Committee are hiding something, well —

If it looks like BS and smells like BS . . . it’s BS!

They’re hiding a lot of somethings. Call and write that load of blithering idiots whose salaries you are paying and tell them to READ THE BILL!

We’ve got lots of time and if there are going to be changes in the delivery of health care in America — we had better get this one right.

Hey, when he told Joe the Plumber the truth on the campaign trail, Obama’s redistribution of wealth game plan was cemented in, well, uh — cement! That was the point that the Bremerton blogger was making to Norm Dicks the other day with the Come and take my twenty if you’ve got the cojones, dude! approach. She blogs as Liberty Belle at Redistributing Knowledge and here is more from her:

Look folks, if we continue to only fight about the details of the legislation, we have already relented and compromised our most basic principles. We will have agreed on the basic premise and will only be ironing out the details. We’ve agreed on the house and now we’re just arguing over the drapes. The problem is, we DO NOT agree on the basic premise of government bureaucrats assessing the “needs” of the American people and then deciding who gets the freebies and who gets to pay. Uh uh. No way. THIS is the argument we need to be having. It is the intellectually honest debate and it is fun to make the lefties crawl out from under the “reform” rock and admit that it is not “reform” they are after, but rather a public option and eventually a single payer system.

Oh, and I am thoroughly refreshed for the battles ahead. One more thing – a message to the D.C. rats, lest they forget:

COME AND TAKE IT!!!

Liberty, they ain’t got the cojones to do that to your face!

With much apology to the O’jays:

(What they do)
(They smile in your face)
All the time they want to take your place money
The back stabbers (back stabbers)
(They smile in your face)
All the time they want to take your place money
The back stabbers (back stabbers)

All you fellows who have someone something
And you really care, yeah, yeah
Then it’s all of you fellows
Who better beware, yeah yeah
Somebody’s out to get your lady money
A few of your buddies they sure look shady funny
Blades Bills are long, clenched tight in their fist
Aimin’ straight at your back pocket
And I don’t think they’ll miss

(What they do)
(They smile in your face)
All the time they want to take your place money
The back stabbers (back stabbers)
I keep gettin’ all these visits
From my “elected” friends, yeah, what they doin to me
They come to my house
Again and again and again and again, yeah
So are they there to see my woman take my money
I don’t even be home but they just keep on comin’
What can I do to get on the right track
I wish they’d take some of these knives deficits off my back

(What they do)
(They smile in your face)
All the time they want to take your place money
The back stabbers
(Back stabbers)
Low down, dirty

(What they do)
(They smile in your face)
Smiling faces
Smiling faces sometimes always tell lies (back stabbers)
(They smile in your face)
I don’t need low down
Dirty bastards politicians (back stabbers)

Elections. Have. Consequences.