From the diaries, by Erick

The act of terrorism at Fort Hood reminds us all that regardless of what the Obama/Pelosi Team or the elite media call it we are at war with Islamic fascism. Americans must rise up and remind our elected officials, Republican and Democrat, that we will not sit idly by while they bow at the altar of political correctness. Americans must, because President Obama and Nancy Pelosi will not, demand that outrages such as the massacre at Fort Hood be labeled for what they are and treated for what they are—acts of terrorism in the war that radical Islam is waging on the United States.

The emerging facts of the Fort Hood case indicate that Major Hasan is a jihadist bent on killing Americans, particularly American service personnel, in the name of his religion. Reports have indicated that Hasan told colleagues at Walter Reed Hospital that non-Muslims are infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire. We know Hesan communicated many times with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki who is tied to Al-Qaeda, and repeatedly exclaimed “Allahu Akbar” as he carried out his brutal attacks.

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The debate over health care has reached a fevered pitch in our nation’s capital.  Over the last several months, millions of Americans have spoken out at town halls, have called and written in to the White House, and have even made personal visits to their members of Congress to express their strong opposition to government run health care.  Yet Speaker Pelosi has once again ignored their voices.

Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill H.R. 3962 was drafted without committee hearings or markups behind closed doors by Speaker Pelosi and a very limited number of her inner-circle.  Weighing in at more than 2,000 pages, Pelosi’s bill will cost the American taxpayers $1.2 trillion over the next ten years.

Real reform of our health care system is needed.  We must help those who want health insurance but cannot afford it.  We must expand access to health care in rural America.  We must fix our medical malpractice laws so that doctors can focus on saving patients rather than paying lawyers.  And we must expand our investments in preventative care.  However, that doesn’t mean we should throw out the car because it has a soft tire.  This country still has the best doctors, the best treatments, the best researches, and the best hospitals in the world.  Improvements need to be made, but not at the cost of potentially destroying our current health care system, saddling our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt, decreasing our standard of care, and burdening American families and small businesses with $729.5 billion in new taxes.

I will continue to oppose Speaker Pelosi’s government run health care legislation and any legislation that comes before Congress that includes a public option.

Congressman Frank Lucas represents Oklahoma’s Third Congressional District.  For more information, visit his website at www.house.gov/lucas.

The last column Camille Paglia did for Salon was highly controversial, but the course of events on health care since her column has her vindicated. Here is the link to this months treat from Salon that is Paglia’s column, and last months column is linked to below:

“What a difference a month makes! When my last controversial column posted on Salon in the second week of August, most Democrats seemed frozen in suspended animation, not daring to criticize the Obama administration’s bungling of healthcare reform lest it give aid and comfort to the GOP. Well, that ice dam sure broke with a roar. Dissident Democrats found their voices, and by late August even the liberal lemmings of the mainstream media, from CBS to CNN, had drastically altered their tone of reportage, from priggish disdain of the town hall insurgency to frank admission of serious problems in the healthcare bills as well as of Obama’s declining national support.”

“But this tonic dose of truth-telling may be too little too late. As an Obama supporter and contributor, I am outraged at the slowness with which the standing army of Democratic consultants and commentators publicly expressed discontent with the administration’s strategic missteps this year. I suspect there had been private grumbling all along, but the media warhorses failed to speak out when they should have — from week one after the inauguration, when Obama went flat as a rug in letting Congress pass that obscenely bloated stimulus package. Had more Democrats protested, the administration would have felt less arrogantly emboldened to jam through a cap-and-trade bill whose costs have made it virtually impossible for an alarmed public to accept the gargantuan expenses of national healthcare reform. (Who is naive enough to believe that Obama’s plan would be deficit-neutral? Or that major cuts could be achieved without drastic rationing?)”

“By foolishly trying to reduce all objections to healthcare reform to the malevolence of obstructionist Republicans, Democrats have managed to destroy the national coalition that elected Obama and that is unlikely to be repaired. If Obama fails to win reelection, let the blame be first laid at the door of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who at a pivotal point threw gasoline on the flames by comparing angry American citizens to Nazis. It is theoretically possible that Obama could turn the situation around with a strong speech on healthcare to Congress this week, but after a summer of grisly hemorrhaging, too much damage has been done…”

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The Hill newspaper is reporting that Speaker Pelosi is finding that the tough slog that the healthcare debate is having in the House of Representatives is the “price” she is paying for the arrogant rushing of the Cap and Trade bill that the Democratic leadership earlier forced through the House. The way that bill was rammed down the throats of Democrat moderates rankled them and they are getting payback by slowing progress, even opposing parts, of the healthcare bill.

Pelosi rushed the climate bill through without giving her own members time to read the bill and come to understand it. The result was a vote that has gotten moderates beaten up pretty well by constituents that were never given an opportunity to voice their opinions before their representatives voted.

Since the climate bill, moderates are “once bitten” on rushing to vote on an issue before they’ve had a chance to digest the thing and bring it back home to get a feel from their voters as to which way they should go. With that experience, they don’t want to rush into healthcare in the same way they did the climate bill that has caused so many of them so much heartburn.

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I’m sorry, I’m not much for name calling but this woman is an idiot. She is claiming that the oppressive surtax can “also” go to retire the Obama $1 trillion deficit if there is any “left over” after Obamacare is “paid for”!

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Democrats could use a proposed new tax on the wealthy to pay down the deficit, if there’s money left over after funding healthcare reform.

But, the CBO is claiming that Obamacare will cost in excess of $1 trillion and the surtax is “only” going to raise $544 billion. How, exactly, is there supposed to be anything “left over” after Obamacare is “paid for.”

I know, I just used a lot of quote marks, but they are deservedly derisory.

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Last week, Congressmen Joe Barton (R) and George Radanovich (R) sent a letter to Congressman Henry Waxman (D) requesting hearings into the rather badly misnamed Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. As you know, the CPSI was pushed through a Democrat-controlled Congress by Speaker Pelosi (D) without the usual Congressional oversight: as a result, it was not until after the law had been passed that it was noticed that provisions within it would effectively eliminate the thrift store industry, in a time where the economy is at a particularly precarious position. Government agencies are currently looking into what leeway that they might have in implementing the Democrats’ new regulatory scheme, but there was obviously a failure in the legislative process somewhere, and there is no guarantee that this particular (and presumably) unintended consequence will not be fully realized.

The two Congressmen are particularly concerned because their first request for hearings back on January 21st was apparently ignored, despite of the fact that this problem is a looming disaster for small business owners (including minority small business owners) across the country. Accordingly, they have resent their request, including the contact information of some of those business owners, in the hope that this might… I’m not sure. Trigger some spark of humanity within Waxmen’s breast? Or sense of shame? Or even a reflex of self-preservation? However you want to put it, they… and more importantly, we… deserve some sort of reply.

Letter text beyond the fold.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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(H/T: Don Surber) The two Democratic branches of Congress aren’t precisely happy with each other right now:

Reid, Pelosi Swearing Match Over Omnibus

After an angry, swearing late night meeting among top Democrats, Congress voted Friday to give itself another five days to try to complete a long-overdue omnibus spending bill that had become a growing embarrassment for party leaders and President Barack Obama.

Senate Democrats had abruptly pulled back Thursday night after finding themselves one vote short of the 60 needed to cut off debate. The action infuriated Speaker Nancy Pelosi so much that the California Democrat wanted to abandon the $409.6 billion measure and instead push through a stripped-down continuing resolution to keep the government operating through Sept. 30.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) and his deputy, Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D.-Ill.) were called to Pelosi’s office late Thursday night and ultimately prevailed in their argument that Democrats should try to salvage the bill, which includes critical spending increases for vital agencies. But the heated, sometimes profane, exchanges were described as “ugly” by Democrats on both sides of the Capitol. Staff, kicked out in the hall, could hear the yelling, and Pelosi herself seemed a little abashed the next day, joking that nothing her leadership could say to her now would match the night before.

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When did playing by the rules become a crime?

The housing legislation that the Democrat Congress is set to consider today includes something called “cramdown” It’s a provision of the bill that gives judges the power to rewrite someone’s home mortgage when they default and file for bankruptcy, reducing the principal balance on the loan. That is, if someone takes out a $150,000 mortgage on a $200,000 home and then defaults and files for bankruptcy, the judge can lower the mortgage to match the current, sunken value of the home – say $100,000.

It’s a good deal for the borrower. But, here’s the catch: lenders will no longer want to lend money for homes because a bankruptcy judge may use this “cramdown” power to, by the stroke of a pen, reduce the amount the borrower has to repay. Lenders will have to offset the risk of a “cramdown” by raising rates and tightening lending on the more than 90% of Americans paying their mortgages on time. In other words, if you acted responsibly – saved and sacrificed to buy a home you could afford – you now are being asked to give up a chunk of those savings for someone who was not as responsible.

Once again, if you lived within your means, played by the rules, worked extra hours, your reward is another loathsome bailout strapped to your back.

Washington should be lightening the load on responsible, hardworking Americans. Instead, they keep adding to your burden.

How much more out of touch can the Nancy Pelosi Congress possibly get?

(H/T: Glenn Reynolds) I know, I know, it’s a heck of a thing to contemplate on a Thursday morning, but check out this story on heavy Democratic donor (and current fugitive) R. Allen Stanford:

Accused Financier Under Federal Drug Investigation
Authorities: Stanford May Have Laundered Drug Money for Mexican Cartel

The SEC’s fraud charges may be the least of accused financial scammer R. Allen Stanford’s worries. Federal authorities tell ABC News that the FBI and others have been investigating whether Stanford was involved in laundering drug money for Mexico’s notorious Gulf Cartel.

[snip]

The federal investigation, however, did not stop Stanford from using corporate money to become a big man at last year’s Democratic convention in Denver.

A video posted on the firm’s web-site shows Stanford, now sought by U.S. Marshals, being hugged by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and praised by former President Bill Clinton for helping to finance a convention-related forum and party put on by the National Democratic Institute.

Can we show you video footage of said hug and praise? YES! WE! CAN!

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Contra Wizbang and Roger Kimball, this is actually the latest estimate of Mark Zandi, not the Obama administration itself. What the Obama administration is merely doing is trying to lower the expectations of their debt bill:

WASHINGTON (Reuters)- President Barack Obama’s aides warned Americans on Sunday not to expect instant miracles from the $787 billion economic stimulus bill he will sign this week, but said it would help eventually.

[I'm snipping the nonsense about how this was Obama's first major legislative victory. The sentence should more properly read: "It was the legislature's first major victory over his young presidency." - ML]

“There will be signs of activity very quickly,” David Axelrod, the White House senior adviser, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “But it’s going to take time for that to show up in the statistics. The president has said it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.”

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He was joking.

I’m certain of it. Iowahawk was joking.

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Today, the House of Representatives passed the Senate-amended reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, by a vote of 290-135.  This is a federally funded program that is supposed to provide health care to low-income children whose families cannot afford private health insurance.  While I believe that this is a good program and I support initiatives to bring health care to children who need it, I cannot support this reauthorization.

To begin with, applicants are not required to present proof of their identity, other than a verbal presentation of their Social Security number.  This weakens the standards to determine which children are eligible and opens the program up to abuse and fraud.  In addition, families making up to $88,000 per year will be deemed eligible for free healthcare at taxpayer expense.  Maybe in the Speaker’s hometown of San Francisco $88,000 a year is considered “low-income,” but I think most Americans would agree that is not true.  Before we expand this program to middle-class children and adults, we must ensure that proper health care is provided for low-income children.

Finally, under the reauthorization, the expansion of SCHIP will supposedly be funded by an increased tax on tobacco products, including cigarettes and cigars.  However, the use of tobacco products has dramatically dropped in the last few years and studies show that another increase in price will cause that number to drop even further.  This means that in order to fully fund SCHIP for the next ten years this country would need 22.4 million new smokers.  If that is not accomplished, then an additional tax will have to be levied on the American taxpayer making this bill a regressive tax in disguise.

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From the diaries by Erick.

David Freddoso at the Corner points out this gem in an article about the 11 House Dems who voted against the stimulus bill last week:

“The speaker has said many times that the members are representative of their district,” said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Many of the districts are more conservative, and they campaigned on fiscal responsibility, and we understand that.“