It does not feel like it, but we are winning the war against ObamaCare.

You may feel like the political system is broken and the Democrats are not listening to the voters. You feel that way because it is true, the Democrats are not listening. But that does not mean the bill will not die — because it turns out that the two Independent Senators are listening.

Clearly, the Democratic Senate leadership and the White House put so much pressure on the so-called moderate Senators to win this one vote to proceed to the bill, they created a political mirage that the bill’s chances are strong. But they are not. The bill is very brittle, and when it implodes, it will shatter.

As the bill stands right now, the Democrats cannot pass it. They cannot get to 60 votes on the vote to end the filibuster of the bill.

If they try to take the public option out, Senator Sanders and others (Burris, Brown and Franken) are threatening to vote against ending the filibuster. If they keep the public option in, then Senator Lieberman has threatened to vote against ending the filibuster. Either way — public option in or out — the bill dies. And Senator Sanders is not going to agree to any co-oped-trigger-opt-out compromise on the public option.

Is it any surprise that the two Independent Senators have put the Senate in this position? They are listening to the public, and are playing a role that no single Democratic Senator has the courage to play — you know, listen to your voters.

Turns out the moderates like Senators Lincoln, Landrieu and Nelson are now viewed by their voters as servants of Senator Reid and the White House. They destroyed all their work to try and get their voters to see them as something other than liberal Democrats who will just spend and tax and spend. This was the highest price Senator Reid paid to win the vote to proceed to the bill: he has forced the so-called moderate Senators look like lap-dogs.

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Like robots programed to march until they find a cliff and can march no longer, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi have been forced into the most contorted public position on any legislation — perhaps ever.

Senator Durbin (D-IL), the U.S. Senate Majority Whip said yesterday that the left forced the Democrat’s hand, and we’ll “see where we come out.” (H/T Huffington Post.) Sen. Durbin did not say: we have the votes, we will win, but he said, we’ll see — read: we do not have the votes and don’t know if we will get the votes because we have not written the bill yet, nor have we scored it.

If either the Speaker or the Senate Majority Leader had the votes, they would be voting on the bill now.

Here is what Pelosi’s public-facing contortion looks like:

a) We must have a public option;

b) we will have a public option; and,

c) the royal we, have the votes for a public option.

But the reality for Speaker Pelosi, who tried the group-peer-pressure-routine on non-compliant House members on Friday in an emergency all-Dem House caucus meeting, is actually inverted:

a) the royal we, do not have the votes for a public option; and, therefore,

b) we may not have a public option; and,

c) the left will be disappointed but the votes are not there so we will just keep our base happy and tell them we tried.

This reality is too real, too hard, too unthinkable. But the unthinkable is being thunk (ok, so it’s a fun word): the auto-insistence that “we have the votes” masks a reality too difficult to thunk — so let’s all in the Leadership not think about it and insist that the night is day. Much better, don’t you think?

For the U.S. Majority Leader Harry Reid, his contortion looks like this, as described by the invaluable-bio-intel-collection-system known as Milbank (who writes for WaPo):

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The defenders of Association of Community Organizations (ACORN) are desperate and they have called upon their friends in Congress to deploy a last ditch effort to preserve the millions of your tax dollars given to ACORN every year.  Big Government web site broke the ACORN scandal showing video of two journalists posing as a prostitute and pimp requesting help to hide assets from the IRS in Baltimore, New York City and Washington, DC.  The Congress responded by passing legislation to stop federal monies from going to ACORN and, in response, liberal Members of Congress have called upon the research arm of Congress to declare that this attempt to defund ACORN as being unconstitutional.

Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE) and Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) have both passed separate Amendments in the House and the Senate to defund the ACORN with overwhelming bipartisan support in the wake of the scandal.  The left responded by requesting a report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), claiming that legislation defunding ACORN may be unconstitutional as a Bill of Attainder.  The goal of the left is to use this constitutional argument to stall legislation before it reaches President Obama’s desk.  Hans Von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation has written a response to the CRS report titled “Defunding ACORN: Necessary and Proper, and Certainly Constitutional” where he argues that defunding ACORN “certainly is not a bill of attainder.”

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In this report we get a nice one-two punch. Not only are we seeing Democrats once again refusing even a tiny compromise with Republicans on Obama’s takeover of nearly 20% of our economy with his healthcare plans, but we also get to see another example of why Huffington Post is not journalism. I like a nice one-two punch for a Wednesday.

For one thing, the HuffPo article hilariously calls Democrat pitbull Rahm Emanuel a “conservative Democrat.” But let’s start with the more important political point and deal with the HuffPo chicanery second.

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President Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, was beat up by the White House press corps over the “planted questioner” at Obama’s press conference.

At Wednesday’s White House briefing, Gibbs insisted over and over again that Nico Pitney from the Huffington Post was not a planted questioner. When it was suggested, as I did yesterday, that the Obama plant was similar to the Hillary campaign planting questions during the Democrats’ presidential primary, (at about the 5:53 mark in the following video), Mr. Gibbs went into a “no, no, no, no” rebuttal:

To borrow a famous line from Shakespeare, Gibbs doth protest too much.

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Remember last November, when, during the heat of the battle for the Democrats’ presidential nomination, the Hillary campaign created a scandal by planting a question at a campaign “town hall” meeting?

At yesterday’s press conference, President Obama, desperate to turn the tide on recent negative news coverage, reverted to the discredited and disreputable practice of planting questions.

Dana Milbank describes Obama’s plant in the clever, “Stay Tuned for More of ‘The Obama Show.’” You can read the details below. Most important is Milbank’s blowing the whistle on this latest Obama abuse:

The use of planted questioners is a no-no at presidential news conferences, because it sends a message to the world — Iran included — that the American press isn’t as free as advertised.

Planting questions is dishonest and inexcusable.

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Credit where credit is due: this is a nice piece of reporting on Dodd by the Huffington Post. The title (”Dodd Dinner With Online Payday Lenders Transforms Into Fundraiser“) explains a bit already, but the background is this: there’s a lobbying group called the Online Lenders Alliance. Fair enough. They’re throwing a conference this week. So far, so good. There’s a bunch of people from Congress involved or speaking, on both sides of the aisle. Fine*. Senator Dodd was one of the scheduled Senators for the event, except when asked about it first his staff, then Dodd himself flatly denied that he was there on OLA’s behalf at all; it was an independent fundraising dinner. Nothing unusu… wait, what?

Inside the restaurant, Dodd staffers said the dinner, which was not open to press, was not even sponsored by the Online Lenders Alliance.

The dinner “is not an OLA event,” OLA spokeswoman Lisa McGreevy said in a subsequent phone interview. But the OLA agenda lists a Dodd dinner — was there a mixup?

“I don’t think there was any mixup,” she said. “There is a fundraiser tonight for Senator Dodd.”

McGreevy added: “There may be some OLA people there.”

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It’s a Sarah Palin Twofer for Huffington Post today. We have already debunked a distortion made by one of that website’s diarists today.

Now another diarist, Shannyn Moore, who uses her personal blog and a two-hour weekly talk show on an Anchorage radio station mostly to kick Sarah Palin around, has shown that she never lets facts get in the way of a good Palin-bashing. Moore begins her HuffPo diary today with this:

“Writing is hard. I struggle…”

Then she goes on to show that she’s not up to the task. Speculating on Gov. Palin’s recent book deal, Moore cites Alaska law on outside employment, then adds:

“I’m not an attorney, but, after reading the details of the statutes, they seem specific and unambiguous; the governor can’t be paid for other employment.”

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Susan Crile proves that Huffington Post willfully distorts any fact that can be found about Sarah Palin. In a HuffPo post about the attempted hijacking of a State of Alaska web page (See Web Page Hijack FAIL), Crile says:

“Sarah Palin’s lawyers — already busy handling the dozen legal complaints that are pending against the Alaska governor — are now doing legal battle with a website called Crackho.com.”

The Crile/HuffPo parenthetical prevarication - that there were a dozen legal comlaints pending against Gov. Palin - is easily exposed as moose manure. The post is time-stamped 05/12/09 04:40 PM. At that point in time, only five of the bogus “ethics complaints” could have reasonably be said to still be pending, nine having been disposed of with no finding that any law had been broken by the governor or her aides.

Two more of the nuisance complaints were dismissed yesterday, bringing the number of pending baseless complaints down to just three. I haven’t bothered to check whether the last two were thrown out before Crile’s post went up, given the time zone difference between Alaska and whatever cukoo clock HuffPo uses, but it doesn’t really matter. A lie is a lie. Huffington Post and its posting prevaricators have been busted yet again.

- JP

SCROLL DOWN FOR LEFT-WING PROTEST PHOTOS/VIDEO

PROTESTING BUSH 2008

The Huffington Post, amid their thousands of column inches, hundreds of stories, and thousands of photos dedicated to discussing why the tea parties are stupid and unworthy of attention, recently and snarkily compiled their list of the Top Ten Most Offensive Tea Party Signs, the purpose of which, like that CNN hack what’s her name, is to mock the parties as stupid, fringe, lunatic or racist. (h/t Tommy Christopher)

A frequent complaint by those on the left who would make pretense that the tea parties are insignificant is the whiny “where were you when Bush was in office?” As if to say the parties aren’t genuine, because the participants didn’t hold them at earlier points in time. Jonah Goldberg handily wipes out that pathetic line of reasoning here, but I still have a remaining question for the HuffPo. Where was YOUR interest in offensive signage the last few years?

We already know the answer with regard to that CNN hack what’s her name. She was cheering it on. But hey, maybe the HuffPosers simply aren’t aware. Hmm? Maybe they missed out on the worst of the left? Well let’s not leave them in the dark shall we? In honor of the HuffPosers recently discovered sense of propriety, we herein generously offer, in a convenient and easy to reference guide, a sampling of the worst of the left protests of the last few years, which they may now happily denounce. You’re welcome, Huffers. (I call them Huffers, now. We’re tight like that.)

I’ll start with a charming, not safe for work video, and then we’ll go below the fold. I filmed this concerned citizen at the Democratic Convention in Denver this past fall. He was at the massive “Recreate 68/World Can’t Wait” protest, and his particular affiliation is a group called “USA Off The Planet”. Get those angry keyboards ready to denounce, Huffers:

The rest of that video featured me and the fat guy cursing at each other, so I clipped it for relevance. Note how the other protesters come to this speaker’s aid when he’s confronted. He wasn’t a fringe interloper, that sentiment is mainstream at leftwing protests. Do let’s go on …

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Dear Frank Schaeffer’s Open Letters: Hi, I’m Caleb Howe’s blog entries (hereafter referred to as “a blog”). Thanks for listening. I used to be an open letter (hereafter referred to as “the hacky crutch”) much like you. Eventually I had to change. Too many bad things happened over the years, and the hacky crutch was increasingly used for purposes I didn’t want to be a part of. Streams of senseless invective and uncommonly nasty hatred would coalesce across the internet, and in newspapers and magazines under the constant banner of the hacky crutch.

It seemed, in fact, that the hacky crutch was often cover for little more than “look at me,” self-important diatribes, wherein the author would make wild accusations at the object of their hatred. There was so much vanity, so much vitriol, so little to say. Eventually I had to become a blog.

People would do despicable things, Frank Schaeffer’s Open Letters. They might even demonize an entire segment of the population as worthless villains unworthy of the President’s consideration or reputation based, essentially, on their religious affiliation!

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Conservative-hating MSNBC host Keith Olbermann is known for attacking Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh (i.e. guys who crush Olbermann in the ratings) on a daily basis for a slip up or error these hosts may make from time to time.  Last night, Olbermann and Howard Dean were attacking five governors (there are actually six) who are considering rejecting stimulus money on Countdown with Keith Olbermann when they engaged in a discussion of Missouri politics.  The conversation was very instructive of the lack of depth of knowledge that Olberman and Dean have with regard to the day to day politics in America.

The two expert analysts evidenced a complete lack of knowledge about current events in a bizarre discussion (see below) where they slammed Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) for voting against the stimulus, yet taking credit for provisions he was able to insert in the bill while running for re-election.  The problem with this analysis is that Senator Kit Bond has announced that he is not running for re-election in 2010.  Keith Olbermann — you and Howard Dean are this weeks worst political analysts on national TV.

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[UPDATE]: HuffPo now regrets the error.  Full points for retracting it in the story itself; 75% off the total for blaming it on a third party and not their own shoddy fact-checking.

They’re playing the same behavior pattern of slovenly reporting. In this case, failing to confirm before they screamed and leaped. Via Hot Air Headlines, johnny dollar has the details: to summarize, a video used by the HuffPo that purported to have a Fox News host compare Eric Holder to a monkey turned out to been a cheesy overdub. One that would have been obvious to anybody who examined the original feed

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Much was made, during storied campaign 2008, of the notion that we are all one people, needlessly divided. That from the many would come the one. There is not a liberal America, and a conservative America, there is the United States of America, after all. Heal this nation, we heard. Make us one, they pleaded. A lovely sentimentality, that. And an utterly false affectation, of course, as we’ve come to see over the last few weeks.

Despite left-wing bloggers’ Ministry of Truth efforts at rewriting history, to even the most casual observer it should be clear that the vaunted promise of achieving common goals through compromise or "reaching out" was discarded by the new Democrat regime just as quickly as their suit coats and the "The President’s Own" Marine Band. "I Won," says the One. "So say we all," say his attendant masses.

What replaced the fiction was what was underneath it all along. The Democrat idea of becoming one nation is the Democrat idea of becoming one party, one mind. When they claim to want to heal the nation, the cure they fix their sights upon is neither stitch nor coagulant, but amputation. In campaign rhetoric this was always hidden behind the media-made veil of the Obama mythos, but in the wake of the stimulus tragedy that veil is lifted. Through with hiding, the totalitarian impulses of the Obama faithful are free to scurry into full view as they raise their voices to declare what is just and what is not, to determine which life is valuable and which is not; an entirely familiar calculus for Democrats, one might add.

From among the scurrilous, one particularly odious overture is enjoying acclaim on the front page of the Huffington Post this weekend. Frank Schaeffer, once an evangelical he’ll be sure to remind you every few seconds, has penned an open letter to the President urging him to drop his nonexistent overtures to the Republicans. Not, mind you, in terms regarding the cynicism any of us may have regarding politicians, particularly of the opposite party. No, in a much more sinister and chilling assault on the Republican voter, or "rabid core constituents" as Schaeffer, once an evangelical, puts it.

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