Tell them to vote NO on cloture.

It’s going to be a really good panel tonight, so I hope you’ll tune in to it.

Consider this an open thread.

I just came from dinner and recognized the voices beside me. It was Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and three other Democrats. I knew the other faces but names escape me.

They were strategizing on how to raise the gas tax. Congressman Blumenauer said he knew a way to get at least 20 Republicans on board a gas tax increase. The place was loud and that’s about all I could make out. They talked about other times when they manages to split us. It was not fun nor easy to hold back.

Tell your Senator to vote NO on cloture for the motion to proceed to debate.

If the health care legislation goes to debate, Harry Reid will start offering amendments to pick off votes.

Call your Senator right now. Tell them both that a yes vote on cloture is a vote for the health care bill. The Congressional Research Service’s latest study proves that.

Though private fraud gets the bigger headline (think Bernie Madoff), fraud in federal government programs is now so pervasive that even the Obama press is taking notice. The scope of fraud in all federal programs dwarfs the corruption in the private sector the media loves to sensationalize.

Consider the fraud in the Wall Street bailout. Here’s just one example.

This past week, the Inspector General for the TARP $700 billion bailout reported that taxpayers will “almost certainly” lose money on their investments in the “too big to fail” financial institutions.  One reason, it’s safe to say, is contained in Neil Barofsky’s revelation that he is conducting 65 separate investigations of possible fraud involving TARP funds.

On Saturday, when constituents cannot contact their Senators’ offices because they’ll be closed, the United States Senate will vote on a cloture motion to debate the health care legislation.

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.

Roll Call reports that according to the Congressional Research Service, “[a] study of Senate voting patterns shows the chamber has approved more than 97 percent of all bills subject to a cloture motion to begin debate — a finding that could undercut Democratic efforts to paint a key health care vote on Saturday as procedural.”

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

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.

We cannot let that happen. Call your two Senators all day today and demand they vote no on the motion to proceed. The phone number to call is 202-224-3121.

As I’ve mentioned before, he is a terrible nominee who should be defeated.

Call 202-224-3121 and tell your Senator to vote NO on Hamilton.

It is now the House of Representatives’ turn to further enable Obamacare. Later today, the House will vote on a $210 billion “doc fix” that is not paid for and would dramatically add to the deficit. Similar legislation was blocked in the Senate by a vote of 47 to 53 after Redstate readers took to the phones to stop it. 13 Democrats joined with all Republicans in standing with taxpayers.

Here is a refresher. The bill is a payoff to a powerful lobbying group—a $210 billion package for the American Medical Association. The funding is not offset and would dramatically increase the deficit. Democrats are betting that the bill will prove politically impossible for most Congressmen, including Republicans, to oppose as it addresses the number one priority for most doctors over the years—the fact that Medicare doesn’t reimburse them enough. By considering the “doc fix” apart from overall healthcare reform, Democrats remove a major cost to that package. As Senator McConnell said when the bill was before the Senate, “This is so transparent. They’re taking this issue out of health care, suggesting that we spend a quarter of a trillion dollars, not pay for it, so that they can then argue, the very next week potentially, that this trillion-dollar health care bill is paid for.”

The strategy is simple. Payoff the docs, make your bill appear to cost less, and force Republicans to choose between their doctors and the fiscal health of the nation.

Now to be fair even many conservatives agree that Medicare’s physician reimbursements are set ridiculously low, amounting to a form of price controls on the system. And since doctors don’t have to participate in Medicare or take new seniors on as patients, if reimbursements are set too low, it creates access problems. That has led many to support short-term fixes that are often paid for with other spending reductions as stop-gaps until the overall system could be reformed. But let’s remember something folks. Medicare is a government-run healthcare program—the fact that it proves so costly that price controls are adopted is exactly what we’ve been arguing the future holds if Obamacare gets passed. Making it work right is not something that Republicans in Congress should sell their soul to fix and its certainly not something that should be allowed to enable a government takeover of the health care system.

Republicans need to fight this for what it is—nearly a quarter of a trillion dollar payoff to the AMA to get them to keep supporting Obamacare. This will be a great litmus test of whether Republican claims of fiscal responsibility have any merit whatsoever. It’s easy to oppose a nearly trillion dollar stimulus and a nearly trillion dollar health takeover. It’s hard to tell your doctors back home, in the words of the immortal Meatloaf, that you’d do anything for love but won’t you do that. But that is exactly how we activists will ever know that Republicans have gotten our message—when they learn to say no to their voters when it comes to spending.

A brief message to you doctors out there, many of you good Republicans. Seriously, chill out. Congress is not going to let your reimbursements get cut so stop believing your AMA spam—the same people who are no doubt enjoying their coffee and donuts over in Rahm Emmanuel’s office. These people (at least their lobbyists in DC) don’t want you to be free; they want you to be slaves to government in as much as many of you are already to Medicare. Don’t let that happen on your watch and with your dues and don’t be fooled by this shell game happening in the House of Representatives.

Call your Congressman—particularly those of you in Republican districts—and tell them to oppose a $210 billion doc fix that isn’t paid for and enables the passage of Obamacare.

The Senate bill does not have a price tag. The Democrats are touting a cost of $849 billion, but that number is a fabrication.

From Please click here for the rest of the post.Roll Call we learn that “one Senate Democratic leadership staffer acknowledged that the cost estimate did not even represent an official preliminary score from the CBO but was a representation of “preliminary feedback” that Reid has gotten from the nonpartisan Congressional agency.”

In other words, we do not know how much it will actually cost.

We also know that the Senate has severely weakened the pro-life language of the legislation. It comes no where close to the Stupak amendment language.

We also know that the legislation purports to cut the deficit. How? By massive and painful tax increases, including raising the payroll tax on medicare.

Finally, we know that now some Democrats are leaning against a vote on the “motion to proceed.” Any Senator who votes for the motion to proceed is, in effect, voting for the legislation. Harry Reid needs all sixty of the Democrats.

He’s an attractive choice to challenge Obama. I think a governor, not some congressman, is going to have to be our pick. Daniels fits the bill.

Here he is from the other night at the Indiana Republican Party’s Fall Dinner, using just notes, no prepared text or teleprompter:

Key bit in a transcript below the fold.

Now I want to close with just a few thoughts that fall outside our borders. Because around America tonight people are noticing Indiana. When I get down to Texas tomorrow, people will have questions. They’re writing about us in the press as Murray made mention. I’m personally getting some very strange phone calls, emails, and letters these days.

For some, it’s because their state’s in a wreck. Fiscally. Administratively. Economically. They want to know, what are you guys doing that we might emulate?

Some of them are partisan folks that are just tired of losing. They want to know, how is it you approach your fellow citizens in a way that seems to work even in years when things are going against our party?

Many of them are alarmed at the direction of our nation and they’re right to be. I am too. To the very great surprise of many Americans we are facing now a radical program. An extreme program that Americans did not vote for.

A friend, Judge Sarah Barker, swears this is a true story. She says she went to a parent-teacher night. First grade kids were there with their folks and the claim was on the first day of school the teacher gave some reading to be taken home and a little girl said, “This? All this? I have to read all this?” “Yes you have to read all this. This isn’t kindergarten anymore.” She says, “Well who the heck signed me up for that?”

Around America right now a lot of people are saying, “Who signed me up for that?” I don’t recall signing up for a takeover of the housing industry, the banking industry, the insurance industry, or the student loan industry. People say, “I didn’t understand my government was going to go into the automobile industry. Let alone it was going to steal money from the retired teachers and government workers of Indiana in order to pay for it.”

And right now people are asking, “Did I really sign up to see 17 or 18% of the American economy that is now wrapped up in health care taken over by the federal government? Did I really sign up to have utility rates double in Indiana, to undo so much of the economic progress we’ve made in pursuit of nothing? In pursuit of no environmental improvement through a cap-and-trade bill so called that by its own computer models will not budge the world thermometer. Will not save one polar bear. But will enrich undeserving states on the coast at the expense of Hoosiers. I didn’t sign up for that.”

I said I wasn’t surprised at much of this. If you watch the trajectory, the statements, the votes of our new president, you knew that he sincerely believes these things. I have been surprised, and I’m saddened to see all this abetted by some members of Indiana’s congressional delegation, who have voted in recent days for some of the worst of this. Jackie, you can’t get there in time. You can’t get there too soon.

I mean, the pose is over. I don’t know what color these dogs are, but friends, it ain’t blue, I’ll tell you that right now.

So people around America are looking for a different model. So our first concern is, and always will be, the good people of this state. The struggling people of this state, and especially the young people of this state toward whom we’ve always aimed everything we did. America may be determined, or some people, to hand over to the next generation an unsustainable set of bills and unaffordable debt. And entitlement programs that plunder the young to benefit those of us who are older. I hope we can turn away from that while there’s time.

But in Indiana we think about the next generation. We think about the future. We want this state to be better for our kids than it was for us. We don’t resign ourselves for a second to the idea of any decline. Any step back. And that’s the job that we have taken on as a party. That you have made possible. That you’re making possible by your attendence tonight. I cannot thank you enough for that.

I just want to tell you that we’re not going to default on the burden that falls on the party of hope. I read this great line. It’s been on my mind since I read it. In the book Lee’s Lieutenants, the classic study of Civil War generals under Robert E. Lee, there’s a great line. It’s about Gen. Beauregard, whose best battles were his first ones. Bull Run. Early days of the war. Then he gets cautious. Then he gets timid. Then he’s always looking at the newspapers to see how it’s all playing. Freman, the author, says, “A soldier is on the wane from the moment he begins to think more of reputation than opportunity.” A soldier is on the wane from the moment he begins to think more of reputation than opportunity. He meant if you start thinking more about yourself than the people you’re there to serve, the cause you’re there to serve, if you start worrying more about how it’ll look, how it’ll play, than about what’s the next challenge? What’s the next hill? What’s the next battle? What am I going to do for the benefit of the cause I’m a part of? Then you’re not the soldier you used to be. You’re not the soldier you ought to be.

We have to be soldiers who think always of opportunity, not of reputation. Who think always of the future and tomorrow. Not of things we already did. Not of preserving gains and any credit that might have come from it. I promise you tonight, on behalf of everybody who’s part of our team. On behalf of the Republican Senate majority that is and the Republican House majority that will be, we will think of opportunity, not reputation. We will think of tomorrow, not yesterday. We will think of yes, not no; hope, not memory. And we will create in this state a model of a party and a state that all of America looks to for greatness.

Thank you for your support and for being here tonight.

One of the most revealing things about liberals is their insistence that only they can define a “real” minority or a “real” woman. In the eyes of the left, Clarence Thomas, Ken Blackwell and J.C. Watts will never be “real” black men. Likewise, Michele Bachmann, the smiling firebrand conservative congresswoman from Minnesota, and Sarah Palin, the popular former governor of Alaska, will never be “real” women.

How can they be? After all, these women don’t support abortion. In fact, Palin actually had the audacity to give birth to a baby with Down Syndrome. As one embarrassed liberal wag put it during last year’s presidential campaign, “If abortion isn’t for that, what is it for?”

These female leaders believe that marriage is a sacred bond between one man and one woman and anything else is a counterfeit. In the case of Bachmann and Palin, they have lived out their values by staying married to the same men for decades.

He wants a “complaint free Wednesday.”

From: The Honorable Emanuel Cleaver
Bill: H.Con.Res. 155
Date: 11/17/2009

Dear Colleague:

Please join me in co-sponsorship of a resolution, H. Con. Res. 155, to designate the day prior to Thanksgiving as Complaint Free Wednesday.

From time to time, we all experience anxiety, frustration, stress, and regret. And often, we respond to these feelings with a criticism or a complaint. Regrettably, complaining keeps people stuck on current problems, inhibiting them from thinking constructively to find solutions. Research has also shown that complaining can be harmful to one’s emotional and physical health; relationships; and can limit professional career success.

In the spirit of hope, optimism, and postivity, and in honor of its efforts to encourage people to look forward, not backward, the group a Complaint Free World is to be recognized. A Complaint Free World’s goal, in fact, is to motivate 1% of the global population (about 60 million people) to become complaint free.

This timely and constructive (and revenue neutral) resolution would reaffirm the meaning of Thanksgiving by designating the Wednesday before as Complaint Free Wednesday. Surely Complaint Free Wednesday will be a meaningful and powerful reminder to prepare for a day of gratitude.

If you would like more information or would like to sign on as a co-sponsor, please contact Mary Petrovic of my staff. . . . I hope you have a pleasant and complaint-free day.

Warmest regards,

Emanuel Cleaver

Member of Congress

Up front, I asked Governor Palin what she wanted people to take away from her book. She said policy should be a take away. She wants people to read about what she thinks should be done to get the country back on its feet and help “everyday ordinary Americans,” a group she referred to repeatedly during our time together.

We spent a lot of the conversation talking about various policy issues.

Read to Lead

One of the criticisms leveled by the right when Palin was chosen as McCain’s nominee is that she had not shown she’d done the reading to lead, i.e. read the Hayek, Friedman, Goldwater, Bastiat, to form her thoughts. She admitted she is a gut level conservative, but also said that criticism comes mostly from “shallow people who have not delved into [her] record.”

I did not want to sound like Katie Couric and ask what she’s read, but I broached the subject and she went right into mentioning Thomas Sowell and Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism. She said she has read some of the foundational stuff, but she sees no need to focus on the old writings. She likes “the modern stuff too.” Her preference is policy and application, focusing on writers who are not just following up on foundational conservative ideas, but applying those ideas too.

Nation Building

One of the issues that has divided the right lately is nation building. I asked her view and she said “I really do think America is blessed. We have taken a voluntary responsibility to assist other nations,” but we have to do our part at home first to build ourselves up. She said it didn’t do us any good to help lift up other countries if we weren’t lifting up ourselves. She cited “cutting taxes, helping employers, and building up our military” as examples.

China

With China in the news, I thought I’d ask her about that. She said China is a rising super power and we should treat it as such, but recognize there is an unbalanced trade situation right now complicated by our reliance on foreign energy sources at a time China has a voracious appetite for more and more energy of its own. “We should be selling energy to China,” Gov. Palin said.

While she wants good relations with China, she said our primary obligation must be to our existing allies. We need to make sure everyone knows we will absolutely stand by our allies and need to show our spine is still made of steel.

Domestic Policy

Domestically, Governor Palin said a lot of everyday ordinary Americans are frustrated because we’ve been trying to show the government it should trust us to lead our lives as we want, but we have a government bureaucracy filled with bureaucrats who think they know better. She wants to change that and free up people and small businesses.

New York 23 & Its Aftermath

I shifted gears to New York 23. “It is encouraging to see the race tighten even more,” she said. She too agrees NY-23 was a “real victory for conservatives.” “An independent with common sense really can make a difference outside the party establishment,” she said. “It shows an underdog can make a difference.”

About what I’ve called the “Spirit of New York 23″ that is now becoming apparent — people of both parties picking off incumbents and insisting on change — Governor Palin said she neither expects nor needs any sort of title to play a role in the rising effort to fix the country, but she does intend to play a role. “I’m not gonna sit down and shut. That’s why I resigned,” she said referring to her resignation as Governor of Alaska. Groups inside and outside Alaska were making it too difficult on her as governor, wife, and mom to work for improvements in Alaska and the nation. By resigning, she said she could “throw off the shackles” groups were putting in place to restrain her ability.

Wrap Up

It was a delightful conversation. Governor Palin is very gracious and personable. I would have loved to delve into the book a bit more, but time constrains and its late arrival meant I couldn’t. Nonetheless, I was pleased she was willing to go with a free for all in the questions — really shifting back and forth on topics.

You can buy Governor Palin’s book here at Amazon if you don’t already have a copy. Just from my quick page turning, I suspect you’ll be surprised by a lot of it.

I’ve seen a lot from the left in the last twenty-four hours that I, and conservatives in general, do not want to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a fair trail and that I, and the right in general, do not believe in our system of due process.

Let me be crystal clear: it is precisely because I believe in our system of due process in a civil setting that I do not want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tried in such a setting. The left ignores this at its peril.

I have full faith in our system of justice. Criminal defendants are given every advantage and resource to ensure they do not get convicted of a crime they did not commit. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will get most of those advantages and resources. But that is all a distraction from one central fact — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not a criminal. He is a soldier in a war captured on a battlefield. That is not something our criminal justice system was designed to handle and should not handle.

I think Eric Holder is flat out lying when he said this past Sunday that Barack Obama had no knowledge whatsoever of the KSM decision until he was headed off to China. But, to be charitable, even were that true, it ignores the fact that Eric Holder, the Attorney General, should not have been the one to make the decision. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was picked up on a battlefield, not an American street.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not a gang member. Al Qaeda is not a gang. 9/11 was not a drive by shooting or even a gang land massacre. 9/11 was an act of war. Al Qaeda is the enemy. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a soldier in a war. Our system of justice is not set up to try soldiers captured on a battlefield.

It is willfully naive and damnably indifferent to civilian American lives and our system of civilian justice to think otherwise.

I also do not think Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will get a ‘fair’ trial. Neither Eric Holder nor Barack Obama are dumb enough to risk Obama’s Presidency on a not guilty verdict. Like with the GM bankruptcy that sailed through bankruptcy in record time getting everything Obama wanted, the government will grease the wheels of justice to ensure a desirable outcome. It will be a show trial fit for a totalitarian regime. It will teach no one nor convince anyone that we are fair, impartial, or capable of handling soldiers in a civil justice setting. Only fools on the left will be deluded into thinking otherwise.

Along the way, however, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will get all the parts of discovery that make it look like he is getting his day in court. He will get access to discovery material. He will get his opening statement. He will get a taxpayer provided lawyer. He has nothing to lose and will make a show of it — an intelligence gathering expedition courtesy of Barack Obama and Eric Holder.

It is an undisputed fact that when the Clinton administration tried, in civilian court, the World Trade Center bombers of 1993, the prosecution was compelled to turn over classified documents to the defense team, under seal, for their eyes only. In 2005, copies of those documents were found in Afghanistan.

I do not think there will be great acts of violence in New York. I am mindful of and remember Chenya and the schoolhouse hostages as terrorists sought the release of one of their own. But I think our security forces will keep New York safe. I also think, however, that inordinate amounts of money will be spent and resources consumed to do so. Along the way, we will loosen our grip elsewhere and the longterm consequences will be very bad.

Louis Pepe was a security guard at New York’s super max prison, the same one Attorney General Eric Holder intends to send KSM to. Ten months before 9/11, an Al Qaeda mastermind and his lieutenant housed together in that supermax prison plunged a sharpened comb through Mr. Pepe’s left eye, into his brain, causing Mr. Pepe serious injuries. They then attempted to commandeer Mr. Pepe’s cell phone and keys to unlock other cells. Unable to navigate the supermax internally, the terrorists returned to savagely beat and rape Mr. Pepe. It took an hour for other officers to make it through to Mr. Pepe and rescue him.

Lastly, let’s not forget New York attorney Lynn Stewart. She was convicted of helping Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind muslim cleric, pass secret messages to his supporters that urged the supporters to commit terrorist acts against the United States. Do we really want to put terrorists in a civilian courtroom?

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not a criminal. He is a solider in a war captured on a battlefield. That is not something our criminal justice system was designed to handle and should not handle.

UPDATE: One more point: Holder’s policy seems clear — if you attack military targets overseas, you go to a military tribunal. If you attack civilian targets here, we put you in a civilian court with a microphone and give you classified intelligence documents. What do you think the terrorists are going to choose?