From the diaries, by Erick. Call 202-224-3121 right now.

People. Today should be a busy day since the Statists have once again scheduled a cowardly, nightime, weekend vote on healthcare.

Contact your Senators today urging them to vote ‘No’ tomorrow night to even begin debate. We can kill this thing tomorrow night if they can’t get 60 votes.

I just sent this to Senator Webb in Virginia, who being a veteran who fought for liberty and freedom I hope would still be open minded about this bill.

Senator Webb,

I am writing you to encourage you to vote ‘No’ on the Senate health care coming up for debate tomorrow night.

Vote ‘No’ so debate cannot proceed.

Vote ‘No’ to end debate should debate proceed.

Vote ‘No’ on the bill should it ever come up for a final vote.

You see, this bill is simply un-Constitutional. Nowhere in the founding document does it empower Congress to mandate the free (for now) citizens of this great country to purchase a product or service. Not the Commerce Clause. Not the ‘general welfare’ language. Nothing.

Not.A.Word.

I would encourage you and the junior Senator from our great Commonwealth to look back in time to 2 1/2 weeks ago, where the people of this great state overwhelmingly voted against the leftist policies of the junior Senator when he was Governor, and Gov. Kaine, and President Obama. The people of this country want MORE freedom not less. MORE opportunity not less and this health care bill robs the people who are the engine of this economy their ability and desire and means to produce and grow our economy. People want to be free and independent. You, of all people being a decorated veteran, should know this since you bravely fought for the very freedoms and liberties this bill would take away.

Resist the urge to vote with your leftist colleagues. Vote with the people you represent. Vote to kill this bill.

The people will not forget a ‘Yes’ vote in 2012.

Thank you.
Stephen Halsey

From the diaries by Erick

As you well know, Speaker Pelosi’s version of President Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul passed the House by a razor thin margin of 220-215 late Saturday night.  Seldom have more Americans been more aware of a piece of legislation passing Congress, as news of this historical occasion filled newspapers, blogs, and email and twitter accounts from coast-to-coast over the weekend.  Ironically, final passage was delivered largely by pro-life Democrats, who earlier in the evening got their wish on an up-or-down vote on an amendment that would prohibit federal funds from being used to pay for abortions or to pay part of the cost of any healthcare plan that covered abortions.  The amendment passed easily, by a vote of 240-194.

This vote was the culmination of six straight months – and many would argue years or decades – of negotiations, maneuvers, and secret deals.  Keep in mind, dear reader, that we are talking about a dream come true for most Democrats, and all liberal Democrats.  The House of Representatives actually passed fundamental and even transformational reform of the American healthcare system.  Never mind that H.R. 3962 creates at least 111 new federal boards, commissions, and bureaucracies, or that it raises taxes by $766 billion over 10 years, or represents a federal government takeover of 1/6th of the American economy – these are all considered good things by the Democrat leadership and most rank-and-file Democrat members.  Even better news for liberals, House passage of this bill comes at a time when Democrats fully control the U.S. Senate and have a White House unalterably committed to the same goal.  One would expect House Democrats and liberal sympathizers to be jubilant on their accomplishment. What could possibly stop them from signing healthcare reform into law in mere weeks?

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Patients First goes after President Obama’s broken promises of transparency in the health care reform process:

Presidential candidate Obama promised time and again not to negotiate health care reform behind closed doors, to bring all parties together and to broadcast health care reform negotiations on C-SPAN.

It is truly unfortunate that President Obama did not keep those promises, but instead, chose to meet privately with health care executives, cut a deal with drug firms in secret, and outsourced the drafting of the Obamacare legislation to the extremely partisan, Democrat-controlled Congress.

In the wake of the House vote for President Obama’s government takeover of health care, some conservative commentators are asking what may have been had House Republicans decided to follow Rep. John Shadegg’s (R-AZ) advice to vote present on the Stupak-Pitts amendment.  The amendment prohibits the federal government from spending any funds to provide abortion under the plan’s public option and prohibits anyone receiving a federal subsidy from purchasing a health insurance plan that covers abortion.

Sixty-four Democrats voted with Republicans in passing Stupak.  The argument says that had Republicans voted “present” or “no” on the amendment, it would have failed.  The theory is that those sixty-four Democrats would have abandoned the final bill without the prohibition included, effectively killing the overall effort to socialize the nation’s health care system.

But that thinking represents the triumph of hope over experience.  It supposes that Nancy Pelosi, who has shown herself to be nothing if not a cold-blooded and ruthless political operative, would not take any other necessary steps to find the votes necessary to pass the bill.  The only reason Stupak was allowed to come to a vote in the first place was because Pelosi was willing to shiv two-thirds of her caucus to get the bill passed.  Pelosi, and Obama, would have moved any obstacle, made any promise, and broken any number of arms to get the White House a “victory” on health care, however hollow that victory may ultimately turn out to be.

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If you live out in California’s 10th Congressional District, east of the Bay, remember there is a special election today for Congress.  Democratic nominee John Garamendi has run an all out, down the line liberal campaign, including a hearty embrace of the most liberal health care reforms.  The district has been reliably Democratic for over a decade, and voted over 60% for Obama, but Republicans do win some down ballot races and the GOP candidate, David Harmer, has run a good, well-financed campaign.  Harmer is a solid conservative who once worked at the Heritage Foundation and has published with the Cato Institute.  A Harmer win would be a big upset, but it’s not at all inconceivable.  A win by Harmer - or even a strong showing - might do more than anything in the East Coast races to send moderate Democrats fleeing the Pelosi/Obama agenda.  If you’re out there, be sure to vote, make some calls, send some emails, and drag some friends to the polls to vote for Harmer.

The House Republican Conference has compiled the following list of the 110 new Obamacare boards, bureaucracies, commissions, and programs created in H.R. 3962, Speaker Pelosi’s legislation for a government takeover of health care:

1.     Retiree Reserve Trust Fund (Section 111(d), p. 61)

2.     Grant program for wellness programs to small employers (Section 112, p. 62)

3.     Grant program for State health access programs (Section 114, p. 72)

4.     Program of administrative simplification (Section 115, p. 76)

5.     Health Benefits Advisory Committee (Section 223, p. 111)

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From the diaries by Erick

via The Right Scoop

Michelle Bachmann was interviewed by Hannity (not sure what date because the FNC Hannity site is a mess, but I assume Friday Oct. 30), during the interview Hannity describes the “Government Option” as a “funnel that’ll eventually suck everybody into it”.

Bachmann says the bill will “…collapse private insurance so that everyone will fold into a single-payer government system…”

I think of it more as a black hole who’s immense gravity will warp the very space around it, pulling people out of their orbits and sucking them into the doom that is Barney Frank, Pelosi, and the left’s concept of health care with only one choice in America; one run by a corrupt, inept group of leftist Democrats.

From Michelle Bachmann’s home page;

Come to Washington on November 5th and tell your Representative to keep their hands off your health care!

If you can’t make it to Washington, go to your Member’s district office. And, if you can’t do that, you need to call and email. We can defeat this!

The Time: 12:00 PM
The Place: The steps of the US Capitol
The Reason: Stop the insanity from spreading any further

Crossposted

CongressDaily is reporting that the House Leadership thinks they have 218 votes for ObamaCare. Speaker Pelosi herself said she “definitely” has 218 votes.

Call the vote on ObamaCare NOW Mrs. Speaker, if you have the votes, call the vote.

But you will not call the vote, because you don’t have the votes. And you will not call the vote anytime soon.

Here is one report from one source, who is as credible and well informed as they get, who wrote this after meeting with a Dem Chief of Staff (CoS):

Rep. Bart Stupak, leader of the pro-life Dems, has at least 50 votes in opposition to the bill. The CoS [Chief of Staff] also said there are lots of pro-choice Dems who don’t believe federal funding should be used for abortion. Ratchet the number up some more.

Then there are the Blue Dogs who don’t like it. And the CoS does not think they will roll. The BDs [Blue Dogs] took a licking at home after the Cap-and-Trade vote and then again during the August recess. They do not desire to repeat that.

Then you have Dems with Dem Governors back home telling them they can’t afford what the feds are about to throw at them via Medicaid.

Then you have the Dems in districts with large senior populations who are not happy with the Medicare cutbacks being proposed.

And Pelosi thinks she can get 218 out of this? “Ha!” laughed the CoS.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post is funny, in his rendition of Majority Leader Reid and his quest to put $250 billion in ObamaCare off-budget, adding it to the deficit. It really is worth the read, here are his first paragraphs:

“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future — period,” President Obama told Congress in a health-care address last month.

Well, that depends on what the meaning of “plan” is….So Democrats hatched a novel scheme: They would pass the legislation separately, so the $250 billion cost wouldn’t be part of the main reform “plan,” thereby allowing the president to claim that that bill wouldn’t increase the deficit.

Or this: “Finally we’re coming to the first vote on health-care reform, and what do the Democrats propose to do?” Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) asked at the microphones. “They propose to raise the national debt by . . . a quarter of a trillion dollars, plus $50 billion interest.”

There is plenty of good stuff in the piece, especially the quote by Senator Reid who essentially said — I did it because the White House told me to do it (he lost the cloture vote on the motion to proceed 47 to 53, Reid needs 60 votes to shut down a filibuster.)

OK, I cannot resist to quote Milbank’s Senator Stabenow stuff:

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We, RedState readers, have defeated Harry Reid today and delivered a significant blow to the potential passage of Obamacare. We held every Republican Senator including Olympia Snowe and Richard Burr.

Harry Reid just ran to the Senate floor and cried that he cannot get enough votes to pass the doctors’ bribe to support Obamacare. He blamed the AMA for misleading him.

He might actually want to look to RedState. Our readers have generated hundreds and hundreds of phone calls in 24 hours to pretty much every Republican Senator. Several who had considered voting for cloture backed down.

And now the end run around Obamacare costs has been defeated.

This makes it much more difficult for Obamacare to pass and virtually impossible for it to pass without significant deficit blowing cost additions.

Well done activists!

This is rather inside the baseball, but it is also very important.

The Senate is about to vote for cloture on S. 1776. This legislation is the first vote in the Obamacare battle on the floor of the Senate.

Basically, the bill would bribe the doctors’ lobby into supporting Obamacare to the tune of three-quarters of a trillion dollars. Importantly, the Democrats are claiming Obamacare will reduce the deficit because they are putting most of the deficit ballooning in this piece of legislation. This will add trillions of dollars to the deficit.

Unfortunately, some Republican Senators who say they will vote against S. 1776 do support calling for cloture, i.e. cutting off debate.

But the media is reporting the Democrats do not have the votes on their side for cloture. Any Republican who supports cloture is, in effect, assisting the Democrats in passing Obamacare.

CALL YOUR SENATOR RIGHT NOW. TELL HIM TO OPPOSE CLOTURE ON S. 1776.

IF WE LOSE THIS BATTLE, OBAMACARE WILL MORE LIKELY THAN NOT BECOME A REALITY

Bob Corker explains why opposition of S. 1776 is in the country’s best interests.

Connie Hair has the details:

House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) held a hearing this morning to certify that H.R. 3200 — the main House Obamacare bill which was the subject of all the town hall rage in August — has met all requirements to pass as a “budget reconciliation” measure.

Under reconciliation, the bill can be passed by a simple majority vote in the Senate — just 51 votes — and will be given preferential treatment on the House floor as well. The Dems have apparently invoked the “nuclear option” to shut out Republicans and ensure the bill is passed before the end of the year.

The bill certified for “reconciliation” is the Ways & Means version of H.R. 3200 that was passed out of committee before the August break, and before it was read aloud at town hall meetings across the country and blasted by voters across the country.

Read the rest here.

From the diaries by Erick

Yesterday, Americans United for Life’s legislative action arm, AUL Action gave America a much-needed reality check with a groundbreaking new online ad that dispels the deceptive rhetoric in Washington and gives clear evidence how your taxpayer dollars will go to funding abortions in health care reform.

Our new online video ad, “Don’t Be Fooled: Abortion is in Health Care Reform,” is a part of our “Real Health Care Respects Life” initiative to mobilize pro-life opposition nationwide to abortion in health care reform.

This ad cuts through the deceptive rhetoric of pro-abortion politicians and shows how American taxpayers will be forced to pay for abortions against their conscience. The ad highlights current health care reform proposals which would allow abortion in health care reform.

You can learn more about how your tax dollars could go to abortions in health care reform in my op-ed in The Wall Street Journal entitled “Tax Dollars Shouldn’t Fund Abortion” or you can go to www.RealHealthCareRespectsLife.com.

How sustainable a political position does this sound like: You can’t see the Senate ObamaCare legislative language and we will not tell you how much it costs.

Here is how the San Francisco Examiner put it in their editorial:

When then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama promised not to sign major legislation until it had been posted on the Internet for public reading at least five days, trusting voters took him at his word.

Now they know better. Not only is the actual language of what is likely to become the main legislative vehicle for Obama’s signature health care reform not available on the Internet, it hasn’t been given to members of the key Senate committees or the Congressional Budget Office.

Welcome to the Imperial Senate whose leaders view the public with contempt and the elitist attitude that you should not see the legislative language because you cannot understand it. You should not know how Medicare is being cut, or how you are going to taxed, or how the bill change every health plan in the nation.

We know, and we don’t want you to know — is the Democrats position in the Senate. They are shredding that trust, they are stomping it into the ground and burning it in public.

What are the Democrats hiding in that legislative language? What is in it they do not want the public to see? If the health care debate has taught the American public anything, then its the devil is in the details. But the Senate Democratic leadership says: you don’t get to see the details. We, instead have this new thing called the Vapor Bill: don’t read it (we won’t let you) just support it.

Perhaps this is why political analyst Charlie Cook recently said about the Independent voters: “they hate Congress something awful.” If you don’t believe Charlie Cook, then maybe you will believe this nine-month tracking chart by Gallup.

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The DailyKos is reporting that out of the 83 signatories to the we will vote no if there is no public option pledge, only 46 remain standing firm. The rest of the progressives have caved. For these 46 liberal Members, a robust public plan means a Medicare plus 5 percent reimbursement rate for providers. However, the Blue Dogs are pushing a rival “negotiated provider reimbursement rate” which the progressives say effectively kills the public option.

Progressives are being squeezed by two fronts, one is their dropping numbers of Members who will stand firm on the public plan or they will vote no pledge, and two, on the negotiated Medicare reimbursement rates which they believe will gut the public option. So, 46 Democrats signed a letter to the Speaker demanding no negotiated rates or we vote no because it will kill the public option.

The Progressives are losing the battle, however, according to the DailyKos, because the direction of the bill is clearly moving to negotiated rates.

But 46 liberals are still more than enough to kill the bill with their votes alone. These 46 votes likely does not account for the other Dem NO votes because of any of the following issues: taxes, spending, abortion, immigration or other bill-killing issues. According to pro-life Democrats, there are 40 NO Dem votes against ObamaCare solely on the issue of abortion, for example.

Curiouser and curiouser said Alice as she went down the rabbit hole…

The Hill reports that the Senate Finance Committee has authorized participation in Obamacare by illegal aliens.

Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed a requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for federal healthcare programs.

Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that current law and the healthcare bill under consideration are too lax and leave the door open to illegal immigrants defrauding the government using false or stolen identities to obtain benefits.

Grassley’s amendment was beaten back 10-13 on a party-line vote.

Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) says of Senator Grassley’s amendment, “The way I see the amendment, it’s a solution without a problem.”

This is simply another exercise in the Democrats attempting to not only nationalize the US health care system but use it as a magnet to attract a dedicated Democrat voting bloc, illegal aliens.

The mind boggles at what possible reason could exist to <b>not</b> require the possession of a photo ID to enroll in Obamacare when right now I have to present a photo ID when I visit my HMO.

Today’s New York Times essentially owns up to what conservatives have been saying, and what President Obama branded a lie during his joint address to Congress: federal funding for abortion is very much on the table in the health care debate. Let’s take a look:

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At times, like this one, a chart is better than a 1,000 words. (Scroll mouse over chart to enlarge it.)

This is the best version that I could upload, but here is a link to a .pdf version that is bigger and clearer.

As Congress focuses on the critical issue of health care, the US Senate is fortunate to have two actual Medical Doctors among its ranks: doctors Tom Coburn and John Barrasso. As you might imagine, these experts represent a crucial font of knowledge and experience, whom we should look to for guidance on how the health care overhaul will affect patients.

Regrettably, Coburn and Barrasso are both Republicans, so Senator Reid largely ignores their views, and instead pursues a course likely to destroy medical care as we know it. Nevertheless, the Senate Doctors do their best to make sure that the American people and the US Senate know the likely effect of their actions.

At 5:00, I will join the Senate Doctors for their latest episode: