As the hours have passed today, it has become clear that Bart Stupak intends to sell his soul to Obamacare . As the leader of the pro-life Democrats in Congress, he held the fate of healthcare reform (and I used that word in the loosest possible sense) in his hands. Unfortunately, but probably unsurprisingly, he has chosen poorly, and he has sold America out to this horrid bill.

We must make him pay, and fortunately, there is a way to do so.

Meet Dan Benishek . He Stupak’s Republican challenger in Michigan’s first district. For those of you with a Twitter, you can follow him @Benishek .

He doesn’t have a contributions site yet, but until he does, you can send your donation to:

Benishek for Congress
802 Pentoga Trail
Crystal Falls, MI 49920

I’d like to close this by paraphrasing a famous quote by former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney that I think applies to Stupak’s situation:

You had an option, sir. You could have said, ‘I am not going to do it. This is wrong for America, and I am not going to ask Americans to pay the price.’ You had an option, sir — to say ‘no’ — and you chose to say ‘yes’ to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Democratic Party. That sir, if I may say respectfully, that is not good enough for Americans.

Bart Stupak had an option, and he sold us out. Let’s show him the consequences of his choice.

Gee, who would have thought Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) wasn’t going to do the big cave-in? Well, now he’s got the big “L” for loser stuck on his forehead. Here’s Stupak taking the word of the most pathological of liars, and the most pro-abortion and pro-infanticide politician, ever to sit in White House to get this done. So not only are Stupak and the other cowardly Obamabot flunkies doing their master’s bidding, they are going to help America turn into Greece faster than Greece did. At the same time, Democrats are all giddy and happy about their winning a vote, even though it means America loses.

Never in my life will I believe another Democrat about anything again. Ever. They have no honor. And any Democrat who claims to be for America had better switch parties before I believe it to be true.

Regardless of whether or not the reconciliation bill passes in either House, about the only thing I can see to immediately hope for is having the courts get rid of this completely unconstitutional travesty. I know I’ve already worked on getting registered to vote in Arkansas and will do anything I can to see every Democrat running for office in this state put on unemployment (so to speak).

Republicans are trying to inform Democrats who are expected to vote yes on the Senate bill language that a fatal provision of the “fix” package will not allow it to go through the reconciliation process. Since being posted on Drudge, the senate.gov site has been up and down, so i thought i would repost the text here for your reading pleasure. This is a big warning to Dems that they have now been well informed that they are voting on the Senate language only. There will be no fix. They vote on it, we live with it.

From senate.gov:

Breaking: “Fix” Bill May Not Advance In Senate

Senate Democrats Refuse Bi-partisan Meeting With Parliamentarian Until After House Votes

WASHINGTON DC – Senate Democrats have balked at a bi-partisan meeting with the Senate Parliamentarian to discuss a rule violation that could doom the entire House reconciliation proposal.

DON STEWART, McCONNELL SPOKESMAN: “Republicans have been trying to set up a meeting with Senate Democrats since yesterday to discuss this fatal point of order but have been met with nothing but silence. We suspect Democrats are slow walking us so as to have the House vote first. Since Senate Democrats refuse to meet with us and the Parliamentarian, we’ve informed our colleagues in the House that we believe the bill they’re now considering violates the clear language of Section 310g of the Congressional Budget Act, and the entire reconciliation bill is subject to a point of order and rejection in the Senate should it pass the House.”

BACKGROUND

DEMOCRAT LEADERSHIP RELEASE: “The Congressional Budget Office estimate of the health care legislation shows an increase in Social Security revenues… CBO projects that the resulting increase in wages will generate $29 billion in additional FICA contributions to the Social Security Trust Fund.” (“Health Care Reform Update,” Office of Rep. Steny Hoyer, 3/21/10)

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET ACT: “LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any reconciliation bill or reconciliation resolution reported pursuant to a concurrent resolution on the budget agreed to under section 301 or 304, or a joint resolution pursuant to section 258C of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, or any amendment thereto or conference report thereon, that contains recommendations with respect to the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance program established under title II of the Social Security Act.” (Congressional Budget Act Of 1974, Sec. 310g, P. 31)

###
SENATE REPUBLICAN COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

Barack Obama is telling Democrats that to ensure the success of his presidency, they must vote to pass health care deform. It is, after all, all about him despite his protests to the contrary.

This argument persuaded Dennis Kucinich — well that and there are allegations about a job for his wife though I’m not sure if that’s true. But given the pattern it is easy to believe.

In any event, Obama is telling the Democrats that if health care deform passes his presidency is successful and if it does not, his presidency fails.

What he means is that in order for Barack Obama to be successful, the Democrats in Congress must fail. All politicians are survivalists. Obama has convinced the Democrats in Congress that they’ll all survive if health care deform passes. But in reality, Obama knows if health care deform passes, the Republicans will take back Congress.

If the Republicans take back Congress, Obama will have someone to actually run against. It is very hard to run against the opposition when the opposition controls nothing. So Democrats will pass health care deform. They will be crushed at the polls. This will give Barack Obama a second term — at least that is his calculus.

It’s pretty smart of him. It is also amazing to watch the entire Democratic caucus lay day willingly in front of Obama’s unsatiated bus to ensure Obama a second term at their own expense — not that he’ll actually get one, mind you. But that is his plan. It worked for Clinton afterall.*

*Of course, Clinton then tacked to the right, going along with welfare reform and a host of other centrist to right of center ideas. How’d that work out for progressives?

(Crossposted at your flippant and irreverant Ohio source for politics and humor, Athens Runaway )

It’s not every day that Ohio shows up in the national news.

It’s even rarer when Ohio shows up in the news for anti-Semitism.

It’s even rarer than that when anti-Semitic, pro-holy war Ohio government officials show up in the news.

How rare is that?

Not very rare, apparently.

Testifying on Thursday, before a House Homeland Security Subcommittee, the Multicultural Affairs Director for the Ohio Department of Public Affairs, Omar Al-Omari’s lectured on how government law enforcement organizations can “[work] with Communities to Disrupt Terrorist Plots.” However, is Al-omari an expert on Islamic jihad?

Yes, but not in the way you’d think.

In 2008, Al-Omari (pictured at left) published—through the state Department of Public Safety—a pamphlet that claimed that terrorists attacked American targets because of, and I quote, “Israeli occupation and loss of [Palestinian] homeland [...] cruelty in Iraq”, as well as because “Israel can get away with everything from occupation to killing civilians to demolishing houses”.

According to Al-Omari, terrorists blow themselves up and crash airplanes full of civilians into buildings full of civilians because of “the aftermath of colonial experience” and the “pressure of imitating advanced countries.”

Aw, the poor widdle babies. It’s just too hard to maintain a basic level of civilization, and not lop off the head of people who disagree with you.

In 2006, Al-Omari’s first terrorist-sympathizing pamphlet was a 40 page-long “Culture Guide,” in which he wrote that jihad was nothing more than “the benign pursuit of personal betterment.”

The sympathizing part of “terrorist-sympathizing” comes in when he writes that jihad “may be applied to physical conflict for Muslims, but only in the arena of Muslims defending themselves when attacked or when attempting to overthrow oppression and occupation.”

However, he spins in the opposite direction, too. After writing that Muslims are allowed to blow up truckers and crash airplanes into buildings if they feel that they’re being threatened, Al-Omari assures us that us Anglos just made up the concept that a religious jihad is a holy war.

Ah, glad we cleared that one up.

As if the fact Governor Ted Strickland hired a rabidly pro-Caliphate loon wasn’t bad enough, Al-Omari is directly linked to the delivery of apostate Rifqa Bary back into the hands of her extremist parents, who both attended a mosque established by local Islamic nutball Salah Sultan.

Not only does Strickland have a jihadi in his regime, this jihadi got to testify before Congress with other jihadis. As blogger “Barbarossa” at The Jawa Report quips:

…having Omar Al-Omari speaking on preventing terrorism is a bit like asking Emperor Nero to speak on fire prevention. Not only is Ohio one of the most active areas of jihadist and terrorist efforts in the country, but Columbus, where Alomari lives and does most of his work, has been the home of the largest known Al-Qaeda cell since the 9/11 attacks and is the focus of an ongoing FBI investigation into radicalization and terrorist recruitment by the Somali terror organization, Al-Shabaab.

If disrupting terrorist plots is the aim of Congress (yes, an item still subject to debate), then from an empirical perspective Omar Al-Omari and his colleagues at Ohio Homeland Security are doing a seriously sh**ty job.

Bam.  Donezo.

This week, a memo leaked to Politico, by DNC pollster Joel Benenson, warned that Democrats risk facing a backlash on the way they have handled Obamacare. Specifically, the polling found that independent voters were most angry with “the stagnation and the backroom deal-cutting, particularly those that benefit the constituents of key swing senators or special interests.”

Democrats are facing the same political consequences as the Republicans in 2006: The loss of the valuable middle, and for precisely the same reasons.

This is dangerous territory for the majority. Voters have reason to be upset with Pelosi’s tricky maneuvering, and they have even more reason to be furious with what’s in the bill.  Unfortunately, while most of the pundits and news media are caught up in the legislative chess match and games of political chicken, almost everyone in official Washington has lost sight of the substance of the debate — the bill does nothing to truly reform health care. 

Our country is torn apart for a bill that covers only 4% of total health care expenditures — it raises costs, taxes and balloons the deficit, all while lowering the quality of care.

What is the real goal of this health care package — to control health care costs or control the market space?  The proof is in the legislation. The Senate-passed bill increases costs and taxes by putting a policy in place that ultimately leads to a government takeover: the regulations are structured in a way that makes it nearly impossible for free enterprise to flourish.

For example, if the goal of this bill was to control costs, why would the legislation penalize younger, healthy workers with a tax when they are precisely the group that diversifies the insurance risk pool for insurance providers, which concretely lowers everyday insurance premiums?    

Not all new proposals and regulations are bad. A good litmus test for any new government initiative is this — regulations should not punish an individual or family because they (or their employer or labor union) choose to pay for premium services. Nor should an individual be punished for choosing nothing. They should be forced to face the consequences of their risky decisions.

At a time when distrust in government is at an all-time high, it is no wonder why there’s such passionate resistance to the heavy hand of government being so involved in such a critically important and personal industry. But with all the focus on process (which the president and Democrats have already lost on), let’s focus on what really matters: lower health care costs for Americans. This bill is not the solution.

Oops. Sorry. It turns out that “man date” is just a homophone for what I really mean: mandates. Even though I despise the concept of a “man date” - that two males are so inept at making friends that they must be forced to go out as though they were attempting to court each other, leading to the inevitable awkward conversation about nothing - I will not devote my time to writing about this outrageous practice. Instead I’ll write about the concept of mandates, ever present in any health care bill that has passed through each chamber of Congress. I’ve already written my thoughts on where I believe this country will be headed should this health reform pass. Trust me, it ain’t pretty.

Congress and the President wish to impose upon the American people a particular restriction upon economic liberty with their version of health care reform. I use the term “restriction” because even though it’s not the case that this bill stops us from purchasing something – as is usually the case with laws passed by Congress – it strips away the choice that we have to not do something, which in and of itself is still a restriction. I realize that there’s a bit of dubiousness in the constitutionality of forcing someone to buy health insurance. The Democrats will claim that under the commerce clause, they have this power. After all, if states can require drivers to have car insurance, why would the government not have power to mandate the purchase of health insurance? I’d argue this by calling it an inappropriate generalization, but I usually find logic to be lost on Democrats.

And anyway, I’m not writing this to argue why a mandate is unconstitutional (I’m no lawyer), nor why all arguments in favor are logically invalid (I’m only a logician by hobby, and I simply do not have the patience). Instead, I’m going to speculate on what I see as the future of our economic liberty should this be considered perfectly allowable. After all, once Congress has gotten away with something once, there’s no doubt that they’ll try to get away with it again.

With that in mind, I’d like to propose a list of future economic mandates of which some, most or all will be imposed upon the American people. With each is the warped and twisted reasoning that will be used to maintain that these are for right and necessary.

-All Americans must purchase an American made automobile. By American made, I don’t simply mean manufactured here. I mean a car built by a company whose headquarters are firmly footed in the U.S. After all, (Union card carrying) Americans build these cars. Purchasing anything but will wreak an immense level of havoc on the economy. If the market share of GM, Ford and Chrysler are allowed to shrink, this could force people out of jobs. If they have no jobs, how will the purchase the medical insurance that’s mandated upon them?

-On second thought, let’s just change it to “buy American.” Completely. Everything. Why not?

-Require everyone to deposit a certain percentage of disposable income into a government run retirement account. Disposable income is defined as all money still remaining after the payment of all bills. I like to call it Social Security doubleplus. This will serve two purposes. First, it will allow Americans to save money for retirement, something at which we’ve proven terribly inept. It will stop people from wasting money that they should be saving up on things like going to Vegas for a weekend. Being in the government’s hands, the money is perfectly safe (trust me). Secondly, the mandate will make the tax forms so complex that companies which prepare tax returns will have to hire more employees to make up for the loss of efficiency. It’s a jobs bill!

-All Americans must own a dog or cat. There are so many stray animals wandering around, that this will save those poor creatures from a life of misery. It will also provide much needed stimulus to veterinarians and manufacturers of pet food and toys around the country. And since all purchased products must be American made, it’s a perfect fit.

-All utility bills must be paid immediately, before the money that should go towards them can be used for any other purchase. Gas, electric and oil suppliers are not the kindest people. It would be dangerous to allow a world to exist in which people have their heat or electricity turned off due to failure to pay.

-If people don’t pay their utility bills, companies cannot turn those services off. Just in case.

-All Americans must buy X number of books per year (with X to be redefined every year). Let’s face it, Americans are falling behind and getting dumber. Constantly. This will provide the people of this country with much needed mental stimulation, allowing us to retake our place in the world.

-All Americans must finish high school, in a publicly funded high school. See above about education.

-All Americans who finish high school must go to college. Ibid.

-No one may have a credit card. There’s a definite credit card crisis in this country. People are spending more than they have. The only way to curtail this is to completely eliminate the solitary cause: credit cards.

I have no doubt that there are many Democrats out there (well meaning? I can’t say) who would think that some of these ideas are perfectly reasonable and good for society. These are probably the same people who argue that health insurance mandates are based on sound, logical ground.

 I’m not one for slippery slope arguments. Generally, such concerns are not based on any particular evidence. Congress has shown, however, that often the slope is very slippery, and the only ones sliding down it are the American people.

The United States of America is great for a number of reasons. Its commitment to liberty, dedication to charity, defense of its friends and freedom around the globe, historical reliance on the individual and on free markets, and in my opinion, national reverence for the Almighty, are among those things that make our nation the greatest the world has ever known. But perhaps second only to our collective Faith in God – our commitment to the rule of law sets us apart and serves as the foundation for our strength and prosperity. One need not look any farther than our southern neighbors in Mexico to see what the world looks like when the rule of law is abandoned.

In America, the rule of law is under direct attack. And unfortunately the frontal assault comes primarily from the President of the United States, the Attorney General, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to name a few.

Example #1: The President and the Attorney General fraudulently and recklessly declare that terrorists can and should be convicted in civilian courts, yet will not say what will happen if these terrorists are found innocent - saying only that “this will not happen.” (see, e.g. Andy McCarthy here, and generally). By doing so, they make a mockery of the very rule of law they pretend to be protecting - and they weaken our national security in the process.

Example #2: The President and the Speaker of the House are on the verge of colluding to pass a bill that will effectively nationalize 1/6 of our economy, turn our personal healthcare decisions over to bureaucrats, spend trillions of dollars – and they will do so without actually having passed the bill in both Houses. Even if one doesn’t think this is unconstitutional in the sense one might get the Court to strike it down (though sue we should – and kudos to Mark Levin and Landmark Legal for preparing to do so) – it definitively, most assuredly, turns the Constitution and the rule of law on its head – and dangerously so.

Suffice it to say that President Obama and his minions arrogantly and callously barrel full steam ahead with total reckless disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law – and it’s not just our national security and healthcare that is at stake. It is our very way of life. The rule of law cannot be compartmentalized – when we weaken it in one respect, we weaken it in all respects – and thus property rights, faith in our system of justice, belief in our elected leaders and virtually every link between citizen and government is destroyed.

So what to do? We continue to fight and we fight harder. We fight this weekend (see gopcodered and call Congress). We fight in the Senate. We get our states to pass laws contrary to this unconstitutional intrusion by the national government (see: 30 states have taken or are taking action… do more). We sue – and sue in multiple places for multiple reasons (see, e.g. Levin above, VA AG Ken Cucinelli preparing to sue, and numerous other states as well). We crush democrats in the fall (give money to conservative candidates like Marco Rubio, Mike Lee in Utah over establishmentarian and pro-government healthcare Bob Bennett), we repeal it (see: www.repealit.org)– and most of all, we all simply say, “hell no.”

Like most Americans, I am committed to God, to liberty, to self-reliance and to taking care of my loved ones as I see fit. No one – and I really mean NO ONE – will ever get in the way of those things. I will fight with every ounce of my being to be able to give to my son his birthright – that of being an American – and to have that mean something. I will not allow a self-absorbed, narcissistic fool hell bent on creating a totalitarian state not even in the name of compassion, but rather, in the name of himself, to destroy the rule of law, and thus the nation. Game on.

I believe that I’ve finally figured out what it will take to make the liberal proponents of Government Healthcare see things from the conservative side of the argument.

Before I show you my idea though, we need to get one thing straight… conservatives are not opposed to fixing the issues that need to be fixed (i.e. helping those that truly need the help with healthcare).  What conservatives are opposed to is the eventual single payer, GOVERNMENT healthcare solution.  Conservatives don’t look to government as the first solution to every problem.

Liberals, you have a laser-like focus on passing this healthcare bill (by any means necessary). While you are focusing on that goal however, you are losing sight of something. It’s the thing that makes conservatives realize that government is not the answer to our problems.

You are not going to be in power forever - even if the current congress tries to “deem” it so. Eventually (probably starting this November) you lose your grasp of power, and the Republicans will hold the reigns. When that happens, guess who will be in charge of your healthcare decisions if the current bill is made into law.

You feel safe now, when your party is in charge.  Do you really think that the Democrats will always be in control of your day-to-day healthcare decisions?  How would you have liked government healthcare if George Bush were in charge? How about Karl Rove?  Dick Cheney?  How would you feel with a medical rationing panel made up of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter?

Better yet, think of the two people on the political right that just make your blood boil and your mouths foam in anger?  Now, think about this…

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