Rahm Emanuel: …President Obama was determined to get his healthcare bill passed. There were 14 votes that were holding up, and my job as chief-of-staff was to help the president get – after a hundred years of waiting for comprehensive reform of healthcare – to help him get that legislation.

Carol Moseley-Braun: And so you threw women under the bus?

Rahm Emanuel:   And it was hanging in balance by 14 votes. I came up with an idea for an executive order to allow the Stupak Amendment not to exist by law but by executive order, and it was good enough that Nancy Pelosi, Jan Schakowsky – here in Chicago, Rosa DeLauro, Anna Eshoo – a number of women who are held – Nita Lowey – who are held up as honors by people like NARAL and Planned Parenthood, who supported that bill and supported the way to make progress.

Jill Stanek has the video of the questioning on healthcare as well transcript of the relevant portion of Emanuel’s remarks.

So what happened?  Who is telling the truth?  Is Emanuel embellishing his role in Obamacare to aid his campaign for mayor?  According to Stupak, Obamacare was inevitable.  According to Emanuel, Stupak held the cards.  Jill Stanek remarks:

“Or one of them was out-bluffed. And that would have had to be Stupak. If pro-aborts really had the votes, they wouldn’t have needed the EO.

…Don’t forget after Obamacare’s passage, PP CEO Cecile Richards called the EO a “symbolic gesture.” Stupak was apparently hoodwinked here, too.”

In my opinion Stupak was not so much hoodwinked as looking for a rationale he thought would pass public muster and provide him with a façade to enable him to support Obamacare.  Unfortunately for Stupak, the public found Stupak’s words deceptive.  Unfortunately for America and her unborn citizens, they found Stupak’s principles deceptive.

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H/T:  Jill Stanek: Emanuel says Stupak bloc had them beat; says EO does “not exist by law”. Transcript & video at her site.

These lines from the poem are on a plaque at the location of Griffin’s Wharf , the site of the original Tea Party:

No! ne’er was mingled such a draught
In palace, hall, or arbor,
As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed
That night in Boston Harbor!

We’ve served up another draught that tyrants are having to choke down.

And, yes, I think now we can Party Like It’s 1773!

Remember where we were two years ago?

Who, then, would ever have predicted tonight?

And it didn’t happen because any D.C. national party operatives made plans to turn things around.

It came about because of We the People.

And that’s as it should be.

Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.

John Adams

1765 – A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law

In 2010, we still stand on 1776.

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H/T: Patriot Post, Founders Quote Data Base.

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures…

Into the devastation of our world came the God-man Jesus Christ. A man who outrageously said He was God; a man who ripped to verbal shreds those who lived in self-righteous piety as He spoke with compassion and forgiveness to those who knew they were crippled with the ravages of the guilt of sin. He came to nail to the cross the record of sin’s debt that stood against us with its moral, legal demands as He took upon Himself our punishment to die in our place.

We Christians know that our belief is grounded in a Person who lived, who died and who rose again. Because of Him we know what it is to be brand-new, forgiven and clean. Because of Him we know that death will not hold us, for the hold death had on us is forever gone.

In the glimmering dawn of the first Easter, the women who came to minister to a dead man found instead an empty tomb.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Easter morning is our Date-Time Stamp of Joy

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Scripture from 1 Corinthians 15; Easter Song, 2nd Chapter of Acts.

Of the remaining issues with the potential to bring down the entire health overhaul effort, the one that lawmakers fear most is abortion.

Abortion is such a politically hazardous issue that sponsors of both the House and Senate health bills have said their object was to maintain the status quo….

But keeping the health bills abortion-neutral has proved impossible. And now the abortion language in the Senate-passed bill in particular could threaten the strategy Democratic leaders hope to use to get a final measure to President Obama’s desk for a signature….

…the way they are hoping to finish work on their health overhaul is for the House to pass the Senate’s bill — abortion language and all. Then they plan to pass a second bill that will incorporate a number of compromises between the House and Senate. For that they’ll use the so-called budget reconciliation process that only requires 51 Senate votes.

But as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged Tuesday, those compromises probably won’t include a change in abortion language. “In order to be in part of the budget bill, it has to be central to the budget. That’s the rule. And it’s a very strict rule,” she said.

Which means anti-abortion House Democrats who originally voted for the House health bill will likely face this choice: Vote for a Senate bill that’s more lenient on abortion or vote against health overhaul. And it will make it that much harder for House leaders to get the majority they need to pass the bill.

This afternoon Jim Geraghty has posted on health care vote counts, The Weekly Standard makes conjectures, and AllahPundit has this on Pelosi scrambling for votes in the House:

And the status quo, thanks to the pro-life objections of Stupak et al., means she’s probably 10-12 votes in the hole at the moment.

Tomorrow the Susan B. Anthony List will release poll results from districts in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana that are represented in Congress by Democrats who voted for the Stupak Amendment last year.

Respondents were asked whether they would “be more likely or less likely to vote for Congressman if he votes for healthcare legislation that includes federal government funding of abortion.”

“Votes have consequences,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of Susan B. Anthony List, “and representatives in Congress who ignore the will of their constituents do so at their own peril. These poll results will drive our investment in the next wave of pro-life grassroots mobilization in the Midwest.”

Abortion’s impact on the health care bill has implications for certain Republicans as well.  In December, Jennifer Rubin made this observation:

…we have heard a lot in the last year from some snooty ostensibly-conservative pundits who would like to rearrange the conservative coalition and dump social conservatives overboard. However, the health-care bill is as good an example as we will find as to why this is politically idiotic. Here we see that it is social conservatives who remain the last men and women standing against liberal economic- and social-engineering projects. The numbers may just not be there for Stupak to disrupt the juggernaut, but it is instructive that the final battle is likely to be over abortion subsidies, not taxes or any other economic issue. Perhaps it’s not a good idea for conservatives to tell some of their most stalwart allies to get lost.

Principles and morality are not just matters for philosophical discussion; they are the foundation for actions that have consequences for the vigor or demise of a society.  The choices Congress makes on health care continue to reveal their beliefs about life and liberty.   In December, Ben Nelson revealed what he truly believes about the value of the life of an unborn child as well as his beliefs about integrity.  Through their manipulations the Democrats have written in large letters the manifesto of their beliefs about liberty.

In these final days of their determination to force our nation onto a path of unwanted government control of our health care, I am reminded of the ending of the book of Deuteronomy.  After setting forth His commands to Israel, God tells them,

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

Congress is faced with a literal choice of life or death, and their choice has consequences for our present citizenry and for those who are yet unborn.

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H/T:  Human Events, Hot Air, NPR, National Review, The Weekly Standard, Christian News Wire, Commentary Magazine, Bible Gateway.

Last year Robert P. George, J.D., D.Phil., McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, founder of the American Principles Project and member of the Drafting Committee of the Manhattan Declaration made these remarks in his speech, Our Struggle for the Soul of Our Nation:

…In the name of a generalized “right to privacy” allegedly implicit in the Due Process Clause of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, seven justices created a license to kill the unborn….

They were wrong about the Constitution. As William H. Rehnquist and Byron White, the two dissenting justices in the case, pointed out, it is absurd to claim that a right to feticide follows from the constitutional injunction that “no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” If the Constitution can be read to imply anything about abortion, it is that unborn human beings are, like everyone else, entitled to “the equal protection of the laws.” At a minimum, Roe and Doe were an outrageous usurpation of the constitutional authority of the people of the United States to shape law and policy through the institutions of representative government.

The Roe justices were also wrong to imagine that legal abortion would prove to be enlightened or in the slightest respect humane. On the contrary, the policy imposed by the Court has proven to be an unmitigated disaster. In the thirty-six years since Roe and Doe, abortion has taken the lives of more than fifty million unborn victims—each a distinct, unique, precious human being. It has done immeasurable moral, psychological, and sometimes physical harm to women who are so very often, and in so many respects, truly abortion’s “secondary victims.” It has corrupted physicians and nurses by turning healers into killers. It has undermined the moral authority of the law by its injustice. It has abetted irresponsible—even predatory—male sexual behavior. Far from reducing the rate of out-of-wedlock births, particularly to poor women, illegitimacy has skyrocketed in the age of abortion. Now the abortion license has metastasized into widespread elite support for deadly embryo experimentation and even, in my home state of New Jersey, to the express legalization of the horrific and grisly practice of fetal farming—the creation of human beings by cloning or other processes for the purpose of harvesting their tissues and organs at any point up to birth for experimentation and transplantation.

The justices were wrong, moreover, to suppose that America, as a nation, would learn to live with the abortion license. A notable effect of the Court’s rulings was to energize the grassroots pro-life movement that had come into being a few years earlier to resist legislative efforts to liberalize state abortion laws….

Pro-life groups have proliferated and branched out into many demographic niches over the years as pro-life advocates endeavored through protests, political action, counseling, education, clinics and provision for various needs to help those in a crisis pregnancy choose life, as well as to provide support for women dealing with the bitter aftermath of abortion. Tens of thousands of pro-life advocates will be in Washington, D.C. to March for Life today. The first march in 1974 drew some 20,000, and numbers have increased to 200,000 and more.

Abortion as an issue marks one of the greatest divides between political parties. In 1976, the first Republican National Convention held after Roe had in its platform an endorsement of the “efforts of those who seek a constitutional amendment to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children.” The Republican platform has remained pro-life while pro-life Democrats have been increasingly marginalized by their party, and today will be met with increasing skepticism by those in the pro-life movement after Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska’s vote for the Senate health care bill in December, 2009.

The contrast between parties in reflected in a stark contrast between presidents. Prior to the 2008 election, Robert George wrote regarding Obama’s Abortion Extremism, and Life News has compiled his record after the election in President Barack Obama’s Pro-Abortion Record: A Pro-Life Compilation. Jill Stanek, who as a nurse in the Labor & Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, discovered that babies who had survived abortion were being left to die without medical attention. She has given verbal and written testimony to the U.S. Congress and to several state legislatures. She knew Obama when he was in the Illinois legislature and has detailed Obama’s opposition to the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act at her website.

Compare Obama’s activities with those of another president.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan wrote Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation. I want to close with this excerpt from his work:

The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law — the same right we have….

The 1981 Senate hearings on the beginning of human life brought out the basic issue more clearly than ever before. The many medical and scientific witnesses who testified disagreed on many things, but not on the scientific evidence that the unborn child is alive, is a distinct individual, or is a member of the human species. They did disagree over the value question, whether to give value to a human life at its early and most vulnerable stages of existence….

I have often said we need to join in prayer to bring protection to the unborn. Prayer and action are needed to uphold the sanctity of human life. I believe it will not be possible to accomplish our work, the work of saving lives, “without being a soul of prayer.” The famous British Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, prayed with his small group of influential friends, the “Clapham Sect,” for decades to see an end to slavery in the British empire. Wilberforce led that struggle in Parliament, unflaggingly, because he believed in the sanctity of human life. He saw the fulfillment of his impossible dream when Parliament outlawed slavery just before his death.

Let his faith and perseverance be our guide. We will never recognize the true value of our own lives until we affirm the value in the life of others, a value of which Malcolm Muggeridge says:. . . however low it flickers or fiercely burns, it is still a Divine flame which no man dare presume to put out, be his motives ever so humane and enlightened.”

Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. My Administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.

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H/T: American Principles Project, Manhattan Declaration, March For Life, Republican National Coalition for Life, The Witherspoon Institute Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, Life News, Jill Stanek, National Review.

Crossposted to J’s Cafe Nette and Be John Galt.

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Longfellow’s night-wind of the Past blew into the Northeast yesterday as Massachusetts elected Scott Brown to be their new senator; the horror of the health care bill was providentially stopped. Last night I thought not only of Longfellow’s Paul Revere’s Ride, but also of the words of John Page to Thomas Jefferson on July 20, 1776:

“I am highly pleased with your Declaration.  God preserve the United States.  We know the Race is not to the Swift nor the Battle to the Strong. Do you not think an Angel rides in the Whirlwind and directs this Storm?”

This past year has been an hour of peril and storm for our country.  With increasing consternation we saw our Republic slipping away from us as we recognized the flagrant extension of power by the White House and Capitol Hill. Less than a month after Obama’s inauguration, on February 15, Keli Carender of Seattle organized the first grassroots protest against the stimulus bill, and on February 19, Rick Santelli shouted, “This is America!” and called for a Tea Party.  From winter to spring to summer to fall, we wrote, we called, we marched and we challenged: we are Americans and we will not give up our freedom.  The Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, became our ensign and the words of our Founders our inspiration.

Be it remembered, however, that liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.

John Adams
1765: A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law

Yesterday Michelle Malkin wrote regarding the Massachusetts special election:

The Tea Party comes full circle

How fitting that Massachusetts became the state whose election provided a resounding voice for us.

This year may not be easy, and it will have its own storms–Quin Hillyer foresees Obama’s reaction–

He will try to use executive orders, regulatory/bureaucratic edicts, and a corrupt Justice Department to force through leftist changes in all sorts of areas of daily life. In short, he will become more openly authoritarian. This means we are in for some rocky times. This man is playing for keeps, and he is not a small ‘r’ republican at heart. He is an Alinskyite. Power is everything to him. All who believe in limited government must gird up our loins, because (sorry for the cliches) Barack Obama will not go gentle into that good night.

–but the Massachusetts Miracle was an event underscored with significance for us.  Last week a volunteer for Scott Brown told Robert Stacy McCain:

“I feel like we’re here . . . not just voting for us,” she said. “We are casting our vote for the rest of America.”

America voted in Massachusetts yesterday.  In 2010, we still stand on 1776.

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Fawn McKay Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: an intimate history; (124), Michelle Malkin; TeachingAmericanHistory.org; AmSpecBlog.

Crossposted to J’s Cafe Nette and Be John Galt.
]]> http://www.redstate.com/inc/2010/01/20/voting-for-america/ On Thursday, President Obama said:

“We are open to any demonstrably good idea to supplement the steps we’ve already taken to put America back to work”

Well, someone is willing to take him at his word, and you betcha she’s ready with a demonstrably good idea!

Thank you, Washington, for Requesting a Demonstrably Good Idea

I commend the president for acknowledging today that “there are limits to what government can and should do” to ease our 10.2% unemployment rate – the highest it’s been since 1983. I also applaud his call for suggestions and expression of openness to considering “any demonstrably good idea.” Taking him at his word, I’d like to suggest this one: let’s learn from history and follow the example of the man who occupied the White House in 1983 and was able to transform an even worse recession than the one we’re currently experiencing into the largest peacetime economic expansion in American history.

When you realize the magnitude of President Reagan’s achievements, there is absolutely no reason why anyone would ignore his “demonstrably good” example. If you want real job growth, cut taxes – including capital gains taxes and small business payroll taxes – and slay the death tax once and for all. If you want to stimulate the economy and help poor and middle class families, cut payroll taxes so that more Americans can keep and invest more of what they earn.

If you want lasting economic expansion and prosperity, get the federal government’s budget under control. Instead of more pork-laden stimulus plans, let the free market correct itself. That’s what Reagan did, and history proves it worked….

More demonstrably good ideas at the link!

Perhaps Congress also needs to hear a few of these demonstrably good ideas!

Crossposted to Be John Galt and J’s Cafe Nette.
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H/T: Politico, Sarah Palin’s Facebook Notes (my emphasis, thanks to Clyde5445 for the link).

On November 10, 1942, Winston Churchill said of El Alamein,

I have never promised anything but blood, tears, toil, and sweat. Now, however,

The bright gleam has caught the helmets of our soldiers, and warmed and cheered all our hearts….

…General Alexander and General Montgomery fought it with one single idea. they meant to destroy the armed force of the enemy and to destroy it at the place where the disaster would be most far-reaching and irrecoverable….

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

This year began with the inauguration of a president who quickly began to extend the power and reach of the federal government as his programs and policies dealt severe blows to the economy. He developed a shadow cabinet of power-wielding czars without accountability, committed to radical leftist ideology.

Citizens slowly began to awake with concern about taxes and spending in the stimulus bill and growing consternation over the White House programs and personnel. On February 15, Keli Carender of Seattle organized a grassroots protest and on February 19, Rick Santelli in his rant cried, “This is America!” and called for a Tea Party! Momentum grew as Tea Party protests started taking place across the nation. A national Tax Day Tea Party was planned. As the government proceeded with the takeover of two of the big three auto makers and the bullying of banks, more citizens became outraged.

The Tea Party protesters were ridiculed and defamed, but they continued to make their signs and show up: veterans, grandparents, children, moms and dads, and students. 4th of July Tea Parties came with their emphasis of our heritage of liberty and the reminder that our nation was founded as a Constitutional Republic.

Then came the August Town Halls protesting the massive government debt and the proposed takeover of the health care industry. YouTube came into its own as video after video was posted of citizens confronting Congress, revealing the breadth and depth of concern and anger over the fiscal irresponsibility and political overreach of the Obama administration and the Democrats. On September 12th the Tea Party movement marched on Washington, D.C., and hundreds of thousands of Americans protested the programs and policies designed without regard to liberty and fiscal and moral responsibility.

Yet still Democrats moved ahead with arrogance, trying to bluff their way to the most massive government grab for power in the history of our country. On the other side of the aisle Republican party leaders also ignored the concerns of the grassroots, but this time in NY-23, citizens and conservative leaders were able to wrench the direction of a campaign and bring to national prominence the concerns of citizens who will consent to be governed, but who will not be ruled.

So here we are, with even NPR saying: Coming Tuesday: ‘A Referendum On The President’.

Today is the end of our beginning. May today be our El Alamein!

It may almost be said, “Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.”

Winston Churchill

In What men may do, we have done. Moe Lane wrote that today is a prologue to 2010:

…today is the day that we start to take back that which was ours.

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Crossposted to Be John Galt and J’s Cafe Nette.

H/T: BBC, The Churchill Society, Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, The Corner, NPR, Wikipedia, RedState.

CBS News had this report on Wednesday, October 21st (my emphasis):

Swine Flu Cases Overestimated?

CBS News Exclusive: Study Of State Results Finds H1N1 Not As Prevalent As Feared

If you’ve been diagnosed “probable” or “presumed” 2009 H1N1 or “swine flu” in recent months, you may be surprised to know this: odds are you didn’t have H1N1 flu….

In late July, the CDC abruptly advised states to stop testing for H1N1 flu, and stopped counting individual cases. The rationale given for the CDC guidance to forego testing and tracking individual cases was: why waste resources testing for H1N1 flu when the government has already confirmed there’s an epidemic?

Some public health officials privately disagreed with the decision to stop testing and counting, telling CBS News that continued tracking of this new and possibly changing virus was important because H1N1 has a different epidemiology, affects younger people more than seasonal flu and has been shown to have a higher case fatality rate than other flu virus strains.

CBS News learned that the decision to stop counting H1N1 flu cases was made so hastily that states weren’t given the opportunity to provide input….

…we asked all 50 states for their statistics on state lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in July. The results reveal a pattern that surprised a number of health care professionals we consulted. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors…

CDC continues to monitor flu in general and H1N1 through “sentinels,” which basically act as spot-checks to detect trends around the nation. But at least one state, California, has found value in tracking H1N1 flu in greater detail.

“What we are doing is much more detailed and expensive than what CDC wants,” said Dr. Bela Matyas, California’s Acting Chief of Emergency Preparedness and Response. “We’re gathering data better to answer how severe is the illness. With CDC’s fallback position, there are so many uncertainties with who’s being counted, it’s hard to know how much we’re seeing is due to H1N1 flu rather than a mix of influenza diseases generally. We can tell that apart but they can’t.“

This CBS article means we do not know exactly how prevalent H1N1 is.

With most cases diagnosed solely on symptoms and risk factors, the H1N1 flu epidemic may seem worse than it is.

CBS also discusses the problems unconfirmed cases cause with vaccination.  The vaccine is in short supply and it may be used unnecessarily with those who are already immune because they have actually had H1N1.  They are also needlessly put at risk to contract Guillain-Barre syndrome.

The CBS report is from Wednesday, October 21st.  CBS filed a Freedom of Information request over two months ago with the Department of Health and Human Services to discover why the CDC decided to no longer report H1N1 case counts.  As of last Wednesday, they had not received the information.

Fox News has a quote from the CDC on deaths and hospitalizations.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve seen more than 1,000 deaths and 20,000 hospitalizations,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the CDC. “We expect it to occur in waves, but we can’t predict when those waves will happen.”

While I assume the hospitalizations and deaths from swine flu were confirmed by state labs, I’m going to ignore the statements in the article about how prevalent the swine flu is, because the CBS report indicates the CDC doesn’t have statistics.

Here are statistics from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to compare with those above on the swine flu:

Every year in the United States, on average:

• 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu;
• more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications; and
• about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes.

So, is it really time to declare a national emergency?

Why did the CDC tell states to stop testing and stop counting individual H1N1 cases?  Is this incompetence?  playing politics?  Remember what CBS said above?

Some public health officials privately disagreed with the decision to stop testing and counting, telling CBS News that continued tracking of this new and possibly changing virus was important because H1N1 has a different epidemiology, affects younger people more than seasonal flu and has been shown to have a higher case fatality rate than other flu virus strains.

If the swine flu pandemic does become more serious, questions will be asked about the CDC decision, the HHS and the vaccine delivery delays. In Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf, no one believed the boy when the wolf actually did come.  With the swine flu, any genuine efforts made by the administration to combat problems would be lost in the storm of accusations of playing politics with lives.

Even when liars tell the truth, they are never believed.

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Crossposted to Be John Galt in a modified format.

H/T: CBS News, Fox News, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, SmartAboutHealth, Wikipedia.

The qualified applicant must have experience with recalcitrant children and have proven ability in the training and instilling of respectful behavior in all ages. Mothers and grandmothers between the ages of 45 to 65 who have successfully reared their children to mature adulthood will receive special consideration.

Late Tuesday afternoon, The Hill reported:

Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) locked Republicans out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee room to keep them from meeting when Democrats aren’t present.

Now why would he do such a thing?

Last Thursday Committee Republicans, led by Issa, were poised to force an open vote on the subpoenas [re: Countrywide Mortgage & VIP deals] at a Committee mark-up meeting. The mark-up was abruptly canceled. Only Republicans showed up while Democrats chairs remained empty….

Republicans charged that Towns cancelled the meeting to avoid the subpoena vote. Democrats first claimed the mark-up was canceled due to a conflict with the Financial Services Committee. Later they said it was abandoned after a disagreement among Democratic members on whether to subpoena records on the mortgage industry’s political contributions to Republicans.

A GOP committee staffer captured video of Democrats leaving their separate meeting in private chambers after the mark-up was supposed to have begun….

“It’s not surprising that they would choose to retaliate given the embarrassment we caused by catching them in a lie on tape,” said Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella.

Crossposted to Be John Galt and J’s Cafe Nette.
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H/T: Hot Air (link), The Hill, The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Republicans.

Government programs are frequently the lead domino in a row of cause and effect. Sometimes they’re implemented with less recognition of consequences than you plan for when you begin to set up dominoes on your dining room table.

With Saturday’s Facebook Note, Good Intentions Aren’t Enough with Health Care Reform, Governor Palin points out some of the dominoes that health care reform will topple. She first highlights a few of the problems with the non-Baucus bill of the Senate Finance Committee (Please remember as William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection wrote, THERE IS NO BAUCUS BILL. She is responding to the “concepts” of the Committee.) and warns:

Unintended consequences always result from top-down big government plans like the current health care proposals, and we can’t afford to ignore that fact again.

She outlines some of the consequences set up by the non-Baucus bill, mentioning higher health insurance costs and lower wages and states:

The Senate Finance bill is effectively a middle class tax increase, and as Holtz-Eakin points out, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation those making less than $200,000 will be hit hardest. [6]

She documents the numerous broken promises of President Obama regarding (1) the Stimulus Plan, (2) his pledge of no closed-door meetings with health care lobbyists and (3) his refusal to sign any non-emergency bills before they have been posted on the web for five days, providing opportunity for public review and comment.

Just in case they didn’t get the message the first time, she reminds the Senate Finance Committee that real money can be saved by tort reform before she wryly concludes:

Here’s a novel idea. Instead of working contrary to the free market, let’s embrace the free market. Instead of going to war with certain private sector companies, let’s embrace real private-sector competition and allow consumers to purchase plans across state lines. Instead of taxing the so-called “Cadillac” plans that people get through their employers, let’s give individuals who purchase their own health care the same tax benefits we currently give employer-provided health care recipients. Instead of crippling Medicare, let’s reform it by providing recipients with vouchers so that they can purchase their own coverage.

Now is the time to make your voices heard before it’s too late. If we don’t fight for the market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven reform plan that we deserve, we’ll be left with the disastrous unintended consequences of the plans currently being cooked up in Washington.

Sarah Palin is warning this is one domino row that shouldn’t be toppled.

Crossposted to Be John Galt and J’s Cafe Nette.

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H/T: Hot Air, Sarah Palin Facebook Notes, Legal Insurrection, Rogue Doe Cartoon: used by permission.

Analysis: Obama speech to Congress unlikely to be game changer

President Barack Obama’s address to Congress on healthcare reform was short on specifics and long on ideas he and his advisers had already floated this year.

The historic speech left some liberals wanting more details and conservatives emboldened to torpedo the president’s top domestic priority….

Still, while the speech once again illustrated the president’s extraordinary oratory skills, it was not a game changer and appears to leave the president with the same quandary: Healthcare has become the pinnacle legislative issue of his first term, but has divided his party in Congress and run into almost universal GOP opposition. Polls suggest Americans are not convinced reform will help their lives and it is unclear whether the legislation Obama seeks will reach his desk….

As he as done throughout 2009, Obama is largely deferring to lawmakers on the details. His address drew laughs from Republicans when he said some details still needed to be worked out.

I recommend the full article at The Hill as well as Ed Morrissey’s analysis at Hot Air as I only want to focus on a couple of things:

First of all, it is time to stop calling everything Obama does historic!  Bill Clinton gave a speech on health care when he was President.  Why was Obama’s speech historic?  The word is so overused it has become hackneyed and laughable.

Second, I am sick to death of the meme of lauding Obama’s oratory skills.  I had some telephone calls during the speech I had to take so I only saw some brief clips of him on mute–but here’s my opinion!

Obama’s facial expressions range from angry to nose-in-the-air to sly humor.  He is condescending to his audience and tells obvious lies and at times contradicts himself within a speech.  He does not connect with his audience–there is a remoteness as if TOTUS really is between you and him.  His real persona is hidden.

If, as Marshall McLuan wrote, The Medium Is The Message, I think the most important medium to consider is the speaker himself.

Who is he?  What does he think of his audience?  What does he think of himself?  What does he think of his message?

My answers:

If your integrity has been already shot to bits because of innumerable broken promises, then you really should quit talking and starting acting to rebuild it. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. If enough people are on to you, then you might as well not waste your time.

If you consistently condescend to your audience or berate them or lecture them, then you really should quit talking and start pointing that finger at yourself and ask yourself why you have such contempt for those to whom you speak.

If you continually indicate your commitment to yourself and your agenda over the well-being of anyone else and a belief in your inherent superiority, then you really should quit talking and get a clue that no one is really that impressed with you.

If your message is lengthy and tedious and full of lies designed to obscure reality, then you really should quit talking, and learn that truth is more important than power.

In the dictionary under The Inflated Style, it says See : Barack Obama.

George Orwell: “Politics and the English Language”.

The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.

As JustMary quoted in a comment this morning:

“The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.”

Proverbs 18:17

Crossposted in a modified format to Be John Galt.

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H/T: Hot Air, The Hill, WIkipedia, http://www.orwell.ru/, JustMary.

Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care

Writing in the New York Times last month, President Barack Obama asked that Americans “talk with one another, and not over one another” as our health-care debate moves forward.

I couldn’t agree more. Let’s engage the other side’s arguments, and let’s allow Americans to decide for themselves whether the Democrats’ health-care proposals should become governing law.

With those words she begins another exquisitely timed attack on Obama’s plans for a health care bill.

She discusses his plan to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council and reiterates her previous statement about death panels:

Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through “normal political channels,” they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats’ proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we’ve come to expect from this administration.

She next moves on to discuss the fiscal implications:

The CBO estimates that the current House proposal not only won’t reduce the deficit but will actually increase it by $239 billion over 10 years. Only in Washington could a plan that adds hundreds of billions to the deficit be hailed as a cost-cutting measure.

The economic effects won’t be limited to abstract deficit numbers; they’ll reach the wallets of everyday Americans. Should the Democrats’ proposals expand health-care coverage while failing to curb health-care inflation rates, smaller paychecks will result.

She next demolishes his argument that health care “reform” will give consumer protection by holding insurance companies accountable, by deftly turning his words and using it as an argument against Obama and the Democrats:

And it’s true that insurance companies can be unaccountable and unresponsive institutions—much like the federal government. That similarity makes this shift in focus seem like nothing more than an attempt to deflect attention away from the details of the Democrats’ proposals—proposals that will increase our deficit, decrease our paychecks, and increase the power of unaccountable government technocrats.

Finally, she calls for:

…real health-care reform: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven….giving all individuals the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage; reforming tort laws to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending; and changing costly state regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines.

Her conclusion:

Democrats have never seriously considered such ideas, instead rushing through their own controversial proposals….They will not improve our health care. They will not save us money. And, despite what the president says, they will not “provide more stability and security to every American.”

We often hear such overblown promises from Washington. With first principles in mind and with the facts in hand, tell them that this time we’re not buying it.

Once again her timing reveals her as a point guard who has mastered when and where and how to move on the court. The common sense suggestions she mentions will resonate with Americans.  She is driving the discussion.

Obama’s speech now becomes a response to her editorial!

Crossposted to J’s Cafe Nette.

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H/T: bc3b: WSJ link; Wall Street Journal.

I think Horowitz was born for this hour. This is his moment to help save our Republic. In a small way I can do my part. I realized some years ago that the prayer I’ve prayed for myself the most over the years has been asking for wisdom and discernment. I began doing this when I was in college as I was flooded with the books and ideas coming at me and I have continued to pray this prayer for myself. I have no problem pointing out the travesty of the moral self-image of the Left as Horowitz suggested. I fully agree with him that that in their political radicalism they seek redemption. Many are spiritually empty and are seeking hope, but in their pride they want to do it on their terms and believe they themselves in their ideology can change the world. They refuse to look at history to see the wretched and horrible consequences of the thinking to which they adhere and they are in denial about what they do to others.  The lyrics of the song, Easy to Be Hard, from the sixties rock musical Hair, that was later sung by Three Dog Night, has always typified for me their moral obtuseness and failing.

They can’t get back at me in a similar way because as a Christian I know I have been redeemed and that it has not been through my own efforts. I know I am imperfect and flawed and that I don’t live up to my standards, let alone God’s standards. I know I am forgiven and fully accepted in Christ. That’s my protection against slander.

This is also why I think Sarah Palin has been so effective. She has the moral clarity and understanding to realize what they are doing and to speak directly to it. She has the fortitude and perseverance to endure. This again, is something Christians learn along the way. In the midst of the fire and flood of the circumstances of our lives God enables us to go on and teaches us His care. The slander against her and her family is surely painful, but when she stands against her accusers, she knows the integrity of her own heart, she knows she is forgiven and those fiery darts cannot deter her.

The Alinsky rule of making others live up to their own standard just falls apart and will not work when they try to attack Christians with it, because we can say we already know this, but we’re forgiven and we go on. Humility and honesty before God are the best inner defense against their attacks.  This they cannot comprehend.

I think Horowitz is right on (to use a 60s term!) when he said:

The only way to defeat the left — and I have failed in twenty years of arguing this to persuade conservatives — is to turn the table around and attack their moral self-image. Leftists are in fact the enemies and oppressors of women, children, gays, minorities and the poor, and conservatives should never confront them without reminding them of this fact.

They have no defense against this turning of the table because it is the truth. They are guilty. It has been fascinating to me that Horowitz, who is an agnostic, recognizes the spiritual dimension to what is taking place in our country. I firmly believe this is not only a political war–it is a moral and spiritual war. That is why, whether or not you think she is fit for national office, Sarah Palin upsets and angers the Left. He said this of Sarah Palin the other night:

That’s what she did. That’s why they hate her. Because she’s very effective….And it shows you–they react, they squeal, they yell and suddenly the issue is in front of everybody. And that’s what you want to do.

Others have their own place in the battle going on at this time, but David Horowitz and Sarah Palin echo my thinking, my heart and the place at which I fight.

“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;”

Thomas Paine

1776 – The Crisis

Rush Limbaugh has a speech given by his father that he reads from time to time.  In it his dad traced the consequences to those men in 1776, who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.  Many lost family and land and livelihood.  We may not have a national audience to whom we can speak and our influence may be limited, but we must each, as we are able with the encouragement and help of one another, and, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, support liberty.

Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.

John Adams

1765 – A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law

Crossposted in a modified format to Be John Galt.

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H/T:  Front Page Magazine; Wikipedia; Glenn Beck/FOX News; ushistory.org; The Declaration of Independence; Patriot Post, Founders Quote Data Base.

“In my view we should take a page out of Alinsky’s book, Rules For Radicals. And he said what you do is you go outside the experience of your opponent and you disorient them and you make them react in a way that reveals who they are.”

David Horowitz emphasizes a point he wrote about in a column at Front Page Magazine, In How To Defeat The Left, regarding the Left’s pretense to be champions when in fact they are oppressors. This quote is from the column:

The only way to defeat the left — and I have failed in twenty years of arguing this to persuade conservatives — is to turn the table around and attack their moral self-image. Leftists are in fact the enemies and oppressors of women, children, gays, minorities and the poor, and conservatives should never confront them without reminding them of this fact.

Last night NewsReal Blog’s post, Horowitz Exposes Leftist Agenda On Glenn Beck, highlighted his emphasis:

This crucial point by Horowitz goes to the heart of what we see today not only in terms of what Obama is orchestrating for our nation domestically, but also in the Left’s contemporary unholy alliance with Radical Islam. Indeed, the so-called “progressive” Left is on the side of the most vicious and barbaric abuser of minorities, women and gays.

They aligned this with his previous statement from part one of the interview:

“And what’s wrong with the Left is its agenda. What it actually does. Not what it says, but what it does.”

In the interview, as Horowitz further discusses the Democrats as oppressors, he begins talking about health care and limiting medical treatment that would keep the elderly alive. Glenn Beck mentions Sarah Palin. It is easy to see that she attacked the moral self-image of the Democrats with her phrase “death panels.”

Horowitz:

That’s what she did. That’s why they hate her. Because she’s very effective….And it shows you–they react, they squeal, they yell and suddenly the issue is in front of everybody. And that’s what you want to do. And the Tea Parties are great….

His conclusion:

But it’s what they’re doing to real people–that’s their Achilles’ heel.

Glenn Beck Interviews David Horowitz Part One: How Radicals Operate and Achieve Their Agenda

Crossposted to Be John Galt in a modified format.

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H/T: Glenn Beck/FOX News; YouTube clip: 1776Philadelphia; Front Page Magazine; NewsReal Blog.

“…but it’s becoming increasingly dangerous with these people. You have to take them at their word.”

Horowitz: “They are still thinking to overthrow the system and to create a socialistic future.”

Beck: “Do you think the President of the United States, Barack Obama, has that agenda?”

Horowitz: “Absolutely. I have no doubt about it.”

On whether Obama has put his past associations behind him:

“You can always tell when a radical has changed. They tell you they’ve changed and they understand what is wrong with the Left. And what’s wrong with the Left is its agenda. What it actually does. Not what it says, but what it does.”

When Glenn Beck asks if anyone had thought about what the country would look like after four years of just the policies that have already been implemented:

“When you’re a radical, what you’re thinking of is power. It’s about power. You adopt this position or you take up that issue, but it’s all to advance the power. They never think about what it’s going to look like or how to put it together. I can tell you a radical never spends five seconds on thinking what makes a society work.”

Many of the things discussed in the interview have been mentioned in previous posts I have done here and at Be John Galt:   The Obama White House: Alinsky Reprise, David Horowitz On Saul Alinsky, A Mandate Misread Or Merely Immaterial? and An Extension of Power.

Glenn Beck Interviews David Horowitz Part Two: The Democrats’ Achilles’ Heel

Crossposted to Be John Galt in a modified format.  The video there is slightly longer.

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H/T: Glenn Beck/FOX News, YouTube clip: 1776Philadelphia.

“A rabble in arms, flushed with success and insolence.”

–General Burgoyne to Lord Rockfort describing American troops before Boston.

When we were living in New England some years ago, one day I visited a favorite used book store.   As I was talking  books and history with the husband of the store owner, when he asked if I’d read Kenneth Roberts.  I said, “No,” and he exclaimed, “You’ve never read Rabble in Arms!”  Again, I replied, no, but with the anticipation that all bibliophiles know when they realize they are about to be given a new author to read.

Kenneth Roberts opens Rabble in Arms with the above words of General Burgoyne and finishes with the Second Battle of Saratoga in which Burgoyne is defeated by the “rabble” he had so derisively described. The story begins in early 1776, and follows the American northern army during the retreat from Canada through the building of the first American Navy and the valiant delay of the British on Lake Champlain in the Battle of Valcour Island, to the turning point of the Revolutionary War: the Battles of Saratoga in 1777.

The story of the campaigns to stop Carleton and Burgoyne as they moved south is a story of perseverance when circumstances were grim and the odds offered no hope. It is a story of a frequently incompetent Congress that directed and interfered in matters with little understanding as it promoted and rewarded those who should have been ignored or disgraced. It is a story of petty jealousies and revenge among men who used their positions of authority in self-serving efforts and protection. It is also a story of a few leaders who sacrificially held to their course and inspired men to stand with them. It is a story to read in hard and difficult times.

“…I turned to see where the British were. The Inflexible was coming into the wind, preparatory to tacking, far out beyond the headland. She fell off slowly on the other tack, working her guns with grim persistence. The shot splashed astern of the beached vessels. All of them were burning, the smoke and flames rolling and crackling from cabins and hatches. At their mast-heads flew our red and white flags, each with its rattlesnake and the words “Don’t Tread On Me.”

There was satisfaction in the knowledge that in three days of fighting, the British hadn’t been able to make us haul them down. And there was something in the sight of them that seemed to half strangle me. I think the scores who lay behind such shelters as the beach afforded, waiting for the fire to take those flags, must have felt as I did; for when Arnold, standing alone in the bow of the Congress to watch the progress of the flames, turned and stepped up on the bulwarks, the men burst into a shrill and quavering cheer that sounded as choked as my throat felt.”

Kenneth Roberts was a Down Easter, who was born in Kennebunk, Maine, and his books reflect the seaport heritage of Maine.   At times you may disagree with the shades of his bias, but he was known for his historical accuracy and his books provide entrance into the early days of our Republic.   In 1957, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize: Special Awards and Citations, for his historical novels :  “…which have long contributed to the creation of greater interest in our early American history.”

Other Roberts books I’ve enjoyed:

Arundel (1929) – The American Revolution through the Battle of Quebec

The Lively Lady (1931) – War of 1812

Rabble in Arms (1933) – Sequel to Arundel; the American Revolution through the Battles of Saratoga

Captain Caution (1934) – War of 1812

Northwest Passage (1937) – French and Indian War and the Carver expedition

Oliver Wiswell (1940) – The American Revolution from a Loyalist’s perspective

Lydia Bailey (1947) – The Haitian Revolution and the First Barbary War

Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.

John Adams

1765 – A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law

Crossposted to Be John Galt and J’s Cafe Nette.

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H/T: Navy Jack:  NavyJack.info.; Wikipedia; Who’s who of Pulitzer Prize winners, Elizabeth A. Brennan, Elizabeth C. Clarage, (571); Patriot Post, Founders Quote Data Base.

Many times commenters quickly pick up and spread the latest news on threads. Today someone at Hot Air mentioned something, that while off topic on that thread, is going to be the topic of news this weekend!

Sarah Palin has another Facebook Note up today . She goes for the jugular with this one:

President Obama’s health care "reform" plan has met with significant criticism across the country. Many Americans want change and reform in our current health care system. We recognize that while we have the greatest medical care in the world, there are major problems that we must face, especially in terms of reining in costs and allowing care to be affordable for all. However, as we have seen, current plans being pushed by the Democratic leadership represent change that may not be what we had in mind — change which poses serious ethical concerns over the government having control over our families’ health care decisions. In addition, the current plans greatly increase costs of health care, while doing lip service toward controlling costs.

We need to address a REAL bipartisan reform proposition that will have REAL impacts on costs and quality of patient care. …

This is the silver bullet quote (my emphasis):

First, we cannot have health care reform
without tort reform. The two are intertwined.

She highlights the deceit of trying to use the cost of health care as a reason for socialized medicine as she hits the heart of Democrat hypocrisy:

For example, one supposed justification for socialized medicine is the high cost of health care. As Dr. Scott Gottlieb recently noted, “If Mr. Obama is serious about lowering costs, he’ll need to reform the economic structures in medicine—especially programs like Medicare.” [1] Two examples of these “economic structures” are high malpractice insurance premiums foisted on physicians (and ultimately passed on to consumers as “high health care costs”) and the billions wasted on defensive medicine.

Dr. Stuart Weinstein, with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, recently explained the problem:

”The medical liability crisis has had many unintended consequences, most notably a decrease in access to care in a growing number of states and an increase in healthcare costs.”…

Dr. Weinstein makes good points, points completely ignored by President Obama. Dr. Weinstein details the costs that our out-of-control tort system are causing the health care industry and notes research that “found that liability reforms could reduce defensive medicine practices, leading to a 5 percent to 9 percent reduction in medical expenditures without any effect on mortality or medical complications.”…

So I have new questions for the president: Why no legal reform? Why continue to encourage defensive medicine that wastes billions of dollars and does nothing for the patients? Do you want health care reform to benefit trial attorneys or patients?…

If you want to save health care, let’s listen to our doctors too. There should be no health care reform without legal reform. There can be no true health care reform without legal reform.

Game, Set, Match.

Hot Air commenter jp, mentioned an IBD Editorial, They’re Coming For Your Tonsils , which focuses on the role of lawyers and lawsuits on health care costs:

Trial lawyers helped create a medical crisis through malpractice suits that raise costs while driving doctors from their practices….

The accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers says about 10% of the cost of medical service is attributable to medical malpractice lawsuits. Roughly 2% is caused by direct costs of the lawsuits; an additional 5% to 9% is due to expenses run up by defensive medicine.

On Monday, Moe Lane said he’d been trying to figure out how to get Sarah Palin to discuss this.  Well, from his post to Sarah’s Facebook!

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H/T: Hot Air commenter deidre; Conservatives4Palin : Facebook link, Hot Air commenter jp, IBD.

Crossposted to J’s Cafe Nette and in a modified format to Be John Galt .