41 Has Arrived!

While You Were Sleeping You Came Closer to Losing Some of Your Freedom

While you were sleeping last night you got a little closer to losing America as we know it. While you were sleeping, you came closer to losing some of your individual rights and freedoms. You're ever so much closer, for example, to no longer being able to say, "Why no! I don't believe I want to buy health insurance this year!"

Last night, while you were sleeping, the Senate voted for cloture on Obamacare. The vote was 60-40. No Republicans voted "Aye".

As Michelle Malkin says this morning, Cash for Cloture worked. See her report here.

The back room deals on this thing have been deplorable. The rhetoric has been worse. Now the bill goes to conference between the Senate and the House, but expectations are that the final bill will be very much like the one the Senate just passed, which, as I see it, is the worst of all of them. This should take place early next year.

There are some serious differences between the House bill and the Senate bill, primarily over the abortion language, so this isn't a done deal just yet. But, Politico reports Sen. Tom Coburn as saying, “This process is not legislation. This process is corruption, and it’s a shame that that’s the only way we can come to consensus in this country is to buy votes.”

Continue to fight until the last breath, and remember this in 2010 when you go to vote in your mid-term elections; now more than ever, elections have consequences.

(More at Memeorandum)

The Senate Sneaks Through the Dead of Night to Destroy Health Care

1:00 A.M. tonight. That's when the Senate will vote on cloture for the Reid-Baucus-Dodd-Harkin amendment #2376.”

What kind of Senate does business like this? Voting in the dead of night, conducting business behind closed doors, totally and completely corrupting and hijacking the legislative process, buying votes and trading favors...it smacks of corruption, lies, and dirt. One feels used, ignored and belittled as an observer in this whole process.

Cheap. Tawdry.

Harry Reid's version of Obamacare is the worst one yet. And it's about to pass the Senate. Michelle Malkin points out that illegals will be covered as federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, despite what Obama tells us. The American President is simply lying to the people.

Cheap. Tawdry. Insidious.

Mary Landrieu's vote was bought. Senator Nelson's vote was bought. No telling what else went on that we don't know about yet. Is it too much to ask that those we send to Congress actually stand up and represent what the people want? The majority of the American people don't want this health care bill. Reform, yes. This bill? No.

This bill will do nothing to reform the health care industry. It just won't. It will make it more expensive. Your own premiums, if you have insurance currently, will surely go up; meanwhile, your taxpayer dollars will be going to buy insurance for other people, some of whom don't even want coverage. They won't get a vote.

It will do nothing to lower costs of medical care. Care will be rationed and more difficult to get. You'll have to wait longer to see your doctor, that is, if he stays in practice. With the influx of millions into the system, Medicare and Medicaid will be overwhelmed.

Honestly, it's all bad. I can't find anything redeeming or good in this bill at all. I've tried. It's just not there. The pious can sit back now and say, "Oh we've done well! We're going to cover the poor and underprivileged so they, too, can have health care insurance! Equality and Coverage For All!" Bull hockey.

All you've done is degrade the system for everyone else.

You haven't improved one damn thing.

And in the dead of a cold winter's night, it's coming. Your cheap, bought-off representatives in Washington are sneaking the big one over on you. Destroying the American economy, capitalism and free enterprise. Making us like Europe, like someone we don't want to be.

If it's so great, why isn't Congress going to be covered by this abomination? Because they KNOW it's bad.

Cheap. Tawdry. Insidious. Filthy.

(H/T: Memeorandum)

An Eye on Obamacare

The debate on Obamacare in the Senate will be worth watching today. Over the weekend Obama gave yet another pep talk to Senators about the "historic" legislation before them.

What's likely up today is an abortion amendment by Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska which aims to "bring the Senate's bill in line with the much more restrictive abortion provisions included in the House bill, which passed last month."

The public option is looking pretty weak right now which is not likely to please Obama's liberal base which is already unhappy about his Afghanistan decision.

Allapundit at Hot Air sums it up nicely:

No wonder Obama’s meeting one-on-one with Queen Olympia in the Oval Office again. If Reid decides he can’t afford to piss off the left by dropping the public option, they’re likely going to need not one but two votes (at least) to get to 60: Lieberman’s a lost cause and Blanche Lincoln would be committing kamikaze by voting yes. Expect to see reports of Oval Office meetings with Susan Collins sometime soon too.

The entire process has been good theater, or would be if the consequences weren't so serious. The video of John McCain last week telling folks to cut up their AARP cards and send them back was priceless.

Robert Costa at NRO's The Corner was monitoring the debate yesterday and had this to say:

While President Obama meets behind closed doors with Democrats, the Senate GOP is on the floor and having a lively health-care discussion. Sen. Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.) calls the tone of the debate "excellent." He's right. The Senate GOP seems informed and united...Topics: malpractice reform, Medicare cuts, taxes, etc. Why this hour matters: Instead of the usual talking points, the GOP senators, if only for a moment, are having a bit of useful back and forth. If they want any chance of defeating Harry Reid's bill, they'll have to all be on the same page. Sometimes it's best to have such debates on the floor, and not in the cloakroom.

Should we start worrying if Olympia Snowe is getting a similar deal to what Mary Landrieu received? What kind of back room shenanigans are going on? We'll know soon enough.

Keep an eye on Memeorandum today for more.

Live Blogging the Senate Debate

And here we go, live-blogging the debate in the Senate today about whether to debate. Yes, this all-day rare Saturday session is for the vote tonight at 8 on whether or not to bring Obamacare up for formal debate.

Senator Cantewell is up now, taking Landrieu's spot. Landrieu is up soon, supposedly.

Stay tuned.

Update 11:40: Senator Cantwell seems to think that since Medicare and Medicaid are going broke, we should make it even worse by adding more people to it. She says we spend too much money on unnecessary tests. Yeah, we're seeing that week how that's going to work - fewer mammograms and cervical cancer screenings. NOT a good plan.

Update 11:45: Landrieu is up. She begins with praise for Harry Reid, Cantwell, and Blanche Lincoln. Blather.

"I have been in meetings with economists" and constituents for two days, she says. She says this bill is "the best work of the Senate to date" on the subject. She's voting to "move forward" with the vote. She says "it should not be construed as to how I might vote as this debate comes to an end. It is a debate to move forward...with the important work underway." She says she has conducted a thorough review of the bill, concluded that we should move forward, but that much more work needs to be done.

Landrieu says "Doing nothing is not an option. Nor is waiting any longer for this debate to come to an end."

Nobody is suggesting doing nothing - someone should tell her that.

Phillip Klein's write up of Landrieu's remarks are here.

Update 11:50: Still with Landrieu. She says "I'm going to stay focused like a laser" on bringing down costs. She expresses concern for small business owners. Does she know that small business doesn't support this bill?

Addressing what encouraged her to move forward, she says this bill prevents insurance companies from raising rates on people that get sick. She doesn't mention the $100 million payoff and how that encouraged her to move forward.

Update 12:00: Advocates a trigger option if private market reforms fail to work. Keyword there - FAIL.

Update 12:05: Addressing "very partisan Republican bloggers" now. She's addressing the payoff. She says in 2005 Louisiana experienced two of the worst national disasters in recent memory. Says Louisiana's per capita income was permanently inflated as a result of aid received and "as a result it made us seem as if we were CT" and not LA. It made Louisiana seem as if we had become rich overnight; "our state is still as poor as it ever was." Landrieu says she is not going to be defensive about asking for help in this matter and, for the record, it's not a $100 million fix, it's a $300 million fix. She says and "I'm proud of asking for it and for receiving it. It's not why I'm moving forward to debate."

Unicorns for everyone.

Update 1:10: I took a break after Landrieu to make the roux for my gumbo. And now it's Al Franken? Oh dear god. I'm going back to the hot oil for a few minutes. I'll be back when he's gone.

Update 1:20: Blanche Lincoln is now on the floor. Says America can achieve unprecedented health care reform. You got that right.

She says small businesses and working families are reaching the breaking point because of rising health care costs. Taxpayers are already bearing the cost of treatment for the uninsured, she says. She says only one insurance company in her state of Arkansas controls over half the insurance market. Wouldn't that make the case for selling insurance across state lines?

Update 1:26: Lincoln says she's not worried about re-election. It's a good thing. 64% of Arkansans are against the bill. She says she doesn't support the public plan and that it could lead to future bailouts. She supports reform that "changes the rules" of the private insurance system. Insurance companies should not be able to "cherry-pick" healthy patients. She wants to limit subsidies to insurance companies. Insurance executives should not receive excess tax breaks or personal windfalls.

In other words, profits are bad.

She's voting yes.

Update 1:35: Lincoln says she won't vote for a final bill with a public option. She also points to the huge growth of government "since the year 2000." How about since January 2009?"

Update 1:45: Taking a short "lacuna" to run do the daily check on mom. NRO's The Corner is keeping up with the Senate - check there, but come back here in about an hour! Gumbo for all.

Update 4:00: I think every Dem must have been given instructions to get up and tell a sad story from your district about someone with a terrible health condition who loses his job and can't get coverage. Bonus points if you mention "donut hole," "AARP," or "Ted Kennedy."

The "yes" vote of Blanche Lincoln seems to seal the yes vote for later. It's worth continuing to listen to see what blather they continue to spew, however. Lincoln was pretty adamant about the public option and so it seems this bill may go through some small changes between now and the actual vote which should occur sometime after the Thanksgiving recess.

I'm all for chasing these Senators down during the recess in their districts and letting them know how you feel. Don't let up.

Update 4:25: John McCain calls the bill a monstrosity and outlines more reasonable approaches such as portability across state lines, tort reform, health care savings accounts and wellness incentives. "Why can't we do that?" he asks. Good question.

Update 4:36: Sen. Hatch has numbers: 70 new programs in this bill. 1,697 times the HHS is given decision making powers. Number of times tort reform is mentioned? Zero. Number of provisions prohibiting rationing? Zero. Number of government run programs which are financially sound over time? Zero. $465 billion dollars in cuts to Medicare. $2.5 trillion is the cost of this bill over ten years. $12 trillion is our total national debt.

Update 4:45: McCain again. He slams the reward to Louisiana. Again slams the issue of no malpractice reform in the bill. Lamar Alexander supports the case for tort reform. Says they should "re-earn the trust of the American people" by working on tort reform. McCain then goes back to the mammogram recommendations; Sen. Barrasso says his wife would have died without a mammogram in her 40s. "It was a screening mammogram that saved her life...she is a survivor, six years later."

Barasso points to page 1150 which talks about the "preventive task force" which makes the recommendations. Page 1189-1190 talks about the preventative task force, says Senator Kyl. The task force makes the recommendations and the secretary of HHS can deny payment based on that. The Secretary of HHS may "modify coverage" based on the reccomendations of the task force, and they may also provide that "no payment may be made for preventative service performed" that has not been approved. That's rationing, says Kyl.

Update 4:55: Sen. Risch: "Americans are frightened, and they should be, that health care rationing is coming to America if this bill is passed."

Update 5:35: I took another "lacuna" to eat some gumbo and watch LSU try to give the game away. Now Chuck Grassley is on the floor who says this bill "is worse than doing nothing." It imposes half a trillion dollars in new fees and taxes, he says, which is worse than doing nothing. It will hurt small business and destroy job creation; in addition, it breaks Obama's campaign promise to not raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year.

Update 5:55: Sen. Enzi: "America is facing the worst crisis since the Great Depression..."...cites jobless and unemployment numbers and wonders why under this situation we're dealing with heath care, now. He says "this bill introduces a massive government intrusion into the health care of every American." He says "This bill gets it wrong." The majority leader, without Republican support and without the support of the majority of the American people, is trying to "jam through" a partisan bill.

Update 6:20: Enzi wraps up and Max Baucus comes up. *sighs*. Time for an Octoberfest. Anybody still here? The vote is coming up before long. No real suspense there,but you never know.

Update 6:30: Senator McConnell now. Very somber. "This bill costs 2.5 trillion dollars that America does not have and cannot afford. It imposes punishing taxes on almost everyone. It raises health insurance premiums on the 85%of Americans who already have health insurance. ...A vote in favor of proceeding with this bill is a vote in favor of adding to the tax burden of the American people in the midst of huge unemployment...it is a vote in favor of deep cuts to Medicare for tens of millions of seniors who depend on it...it is a vote to continue the out of control spending binge Congress has been on all year. "

"If there was one Democrat, just one...who would say no tonight, none of this would happen. The voices of the American people would be heard. We've all seen the surveys; we know how they feel."

"Then we could start over with a common sense, step by step approach..."

Update 6:40: Still with McConnell. "We've heard some Senators come to the floor today and say they oppose this bill but they don't want to stop the debate...nobody is suggesting we stop the debate...but if we don't stop this bill tonight the only debate we'll be having is about higher premiums, not saving for the American people, higher taxes...cuts to Medicare...that's what the debate will be about."

"What we want to do is change the debate. Not end it. Change it. Because once we get on this bill the basic dimensions will not change."

"Why should we consider a bill we already know the American people oppose?"

Update 6:45: McConnell: "After tonight's vote we'll all go home and face our constituents. We'll have to tell them how we voted on raising their premiums, raising their taxes, and cutting their Medicare. For some of us that won't be a very easy conversation. But it doesn't have to be that way....we can work together step by step and create the common sense reforms that the American people have been asking for all along."

The American people "are hoping we say NO to this bill."

"All it would take...is just one member from the other side of the aisle to give us an opportunity, not to end the debate, but to change the debate in the direction the American people want us to go."

and now Harry Reid who gets up and calls McConnell a liar. Scum.

Update 6:47: Oh bless me. I can't take Harry Reid. Smarmy is the word that comes to mind. Is that a real word? It should be. Okay so King Harry says this bill will afford every American the opportunity to live a healthy life. Thank goodness because we've never done that before without Congress telling us to.

Harry invites you to join "the right side of history."

And via Twitter - Senator Byrd has just arrived at the Capitol.

Update 6:50: Harry points out that tonight's vote is not the end of the debate but just the beginning. It's not the final bill "as any high school civics textbook will tell you."

Reid wraps up ... "Our country deserves this debate. Our country needs this debate."

Update 6:54: Reid, "I would ask that we start the vote five minutes early and act as if it started at 8:00. " Clerk reporting motion for cloture. The vote will begin.

Final Update: And ... we are one step closer to socialized medicine, heath care rationing, and crippling taxes and job loss. 60 to 39.

Don't give up. Don't quit fighting.

(More at Memeorandum)

97.6% of All Bills Are Approved When Lawmakers First Vote to Begin Debate

Erick Eriskson at Red State has a must read post this morning. I'm going to copy more of it than I usually like to do because I want to be sure everyone knows how important Saturday's vote on HarryCare is:

"This is important — a vote in favor of cloture on the motion to proceed (a parliamentary issue) is, in effect, a vote for the health care legislation. Why? Because Harry Reid has enough votes to pass the health care legislation by a simple majority, but he does not have the 60 votes necessary to proceed to debate, any Senator voting for cloture is voting for the health care plan."

And then this statistic, based on this report:

In fact, “since 1999 the Senate has approved 97.6 percent of all bills when lawmakers first voted to begin debate.”

We can NOT let this happen:

Some Senators, like Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, want the health care legislation to pass, but know politically she would lose if she voted for it. So unless pressure is brought to bear on her and others, she may vote “yes” on cloture for the motion to proceed and then try to hide behind a no vote later.

I second Erickson's call to action and urge everyone to call their Senator today. Tomorrow is too late - their offices will be closed. Go to their local offices, call, fax, protest, email, and voice your opinion.

One of our local Tea Party organizations is protesting Landrieu's Shreveport office today on Fannin Street at 4:00.

Call your Senator! In fact, call all of 'em! Find their contact information here.

Everyone should call Mary Landrieu:

Washington: (202)224-5824
New Orleans: (504) 589-2427
Baton Rouge: (225) 389-0395
Shreveport: (318) 676-3085
Lake Charles: (337) 436-6650

Melt the phones!

Meet Your Sixty Seat Majority

Just in time for the Waxman-Markey vote. Wonder which way Senator Franken will go?

Norm Coleman conceded and the deed is done:

"Sure I wanted to win," said Coleman, who called the ruling a surprise. "I thought we had a better case. But the court has spoken."

He declined to talk about his future plans, brushing aside a question about whether he would run for governor in 2010.

Franken's victory will give Democrats control over 60 Senate seats, the number needed to overcome any Republican filibusters to health care, energy, or other legislation they or the Obama administration is seeking.

The Senate is Just Like High School

I'm watching CSPAN coverage of the Senate vote on a couple of issues and I am reminded of my own high school classroom at times, especially when the call for order goes out: "Take your conversations outside!" And then the request has to be repeated because nobody listens or obeys.

I'm going to blame it on the time change but my kids were nuts today. That, and maybe the fact that we're in the State basketball playoffs and everyone is keyed up.

Our students are not supposed to have cell phones at school. Of course they all do (including my own child who attends there.) So at best, they are certainly not supposed to have them out in class. Today I busted two different kids in two different classes texting during class. Both refused to turn over their phones - a big "no no." They have to serve detention to get them back; when you refuse to turn it over, you get suspended. So WHY would you refuse to turn it over?

Craziness.

Then The Teenager sends me a text (from his Art class) to inform me that he is dying and needs to go home (to die in the comfort of his own bed, I presume.) He aches and has a sore throat. So on my planning block I took him home. Shortly after I get another text. "I'm dying. I threw up. Come home now."

I was in class and didn't respond right away. I get another text. "I'm still dying."

When I finally got home (and called him in sick to work, twenty minutes before his shift) I took him to the doctor; probably strep. He will live.

So now I'm watching CSPAN and thinking, "God, these Senators are like my high school students. They pay no attention to anybody and do exactly what they want to do."