Posted on 12/23/2009 9:55:17 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
What's happening with ObamaCare this week in the Senate is raw, rank politics at its worst.
PASSING LAWS has been compared to making sausage.
But in the case of the mammoth health care bill expected to pass the Senate on Christmas Eve, that's an insult to employees at the Jimmy Dean plant.
It's also a slap at Americans who want Congress to take its time to make thoughtful changes that will affect one seventh of the U.S. economy.
President Obama campaigned on "change we can believe in." Most voters believed him. Yet many polls show that only a minority of Americans (only 38 percent in favor, according to the RealClearPolitics poll average) now support his signature legislation that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been muscling through the upper chamber .
What's happening this week on Capitol Hill right now is raw, rank politics at its worst.
What matters to Democratic leaders is stuffing ObamaCare down America's collective chimney before Santa leaves the North Pole late Thursday night. Except this exercise is worse than leaving lumps of coal in everyone's stockings. It's akin to putting a match to a live Christmas tree and potentially burning down the house.
First off, you must begrudgingly give credit to Mr. Reid. The increasingly unpopular ObamaCare was foundering before the top Democrat pulled rank, tossed out the 210-page bill that senators have been debating for several weeks and instituted a new "manager's amendment" over the weekend that was covertly assembled by Democrats. He then began twisting arms and cutting deals to get the 60 votes needed to thwart a Republican filibuster.
The way Mr. Reid worked over Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, the last Democratic hold out and critical 60th vote, was akin to watching a wreck in the final turn at a NASCAR race - horrifying, yet you couldn't take your eyes off it.
Governors like Georgia's Sonny Perdue and others screamed about unfunded mandates to states that are squirrelled away in ObamaCare. But Mr. Nelson essentially "sold" his vote for a concession that Congress (read: American taxpayers) will pay 100 percent of the cost to expand Medicaid in Nebraska, or roughly $47 million annually, from now until doomsday.
The proud Cornhusker State - the only state that got this goody - should be ashamed for their senator's sellout.
Other outrageous goodies were included to curry key Senate votes and pay off Democratic constituencies. They included exempting about 800,000 seniors in Florida from potential benefit cuts by private Medicare Advantage plans, exempting longshoremen from a 40 percent excise tax on high-cost insurance plans and carving out sweetheart tax deals for certain insurance providers and not others.
Reasonable people might ask: If this landmark legislation is supposed to be good for all Americans, then why the 11th hour switcheroo and "Price Is Right"-style dealmaking to benefit a relative few?
Answer: It's not about health reform. It's about letting Mr. Obama take a victory lap when he gives his State of the Union speech in January.
Georgia Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson and the remaining 40 Republicans who had been pushing for needed changes were rendered irrelevant. Mr. Reid didn't consult the GOP. This Christmas week, there's no room for minority viewpoints in the one-party congressional inn.
The House-approved bill is awful, too. Assuming that the Reid-Pelosi-Obama triumvirate can keep Democrats in line, American businesses and taxpayers will be saddled with extra burdens when the economy is struggling to break the chains of a job-destroying recession.
The sweet, temporary smell of political success may please Democratic leaders. But it will soon be overwhelmed by the odor of a plan most Americans don't believe in and their children and grandchildren will be paying for.
This is the nightmare before Christmas come true.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2409132/posts
“The Night Before Kwanzaa”
Feed Your ADHD ^ | 12/16/2009 | Ex-Parrot
Posted on December 16, 2009 3:44:19 PM PST by bloodmeridian
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2409132/posts?page=16#16
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WVCYvgGTUM
“On the 12th day kwaanza Obama gave to me”
(Added December 21, 2009)
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2409132/posts?page=19#19
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2413436/posts
“Albert the Green Nosed Reindeer”
Posted on December 22, 2009 5:25:30 PM PST by Halfmanhalfamazing
Is this bill going to pass Christmas Eve or is it just passing the Senate? I am confused. Aren’t there more steps?
If it passes the Senate, then the House and Senate bills must be reconciled - as there are significant differences (House bill, as passed, did NOT add to abortion funding - while the Senate bill does, and so on).
There ARE more steps. Hopefully our Marxist-Majority Congress will slip, fall and break their necks before it’s finished. (By the way, our Forefathers would do FAR WORSE TO THESE TRAITORS TO DEMOCRACY).
“We Pour Legislation into the Senatorial Saucer to Cool It”
Lying sacks of crap, every one.
Nam Vet
Call, email, fax (this is my favorite option), visit these senators:
Nelson
bennelson.senate.gov
Phone: (402) 441-4600
Fax: (202) 228-0012
Webb
http://webb.senate.gov
Phone: 202-224-4024
Fax: 202-228-6363
Landrieu
http://landrieu.senate.gov
Phone: (202)224-5824
Fax:(202) 224-9735
Lincoln
http://lincoln.senate.gov
(202) 224-4843
Fax (202) 228-1371
Bayh
http://bayh.senate.gov
Phone: (202) 224-5623
Fax: (202) 228-1377
Lieberman
http://lieberman.senate.gov
Phone: 202.224.4041
Fax: 202.224.9750
Will it help? Maybe not. But doing nothing will definitely not help. And hopefully they will have nightmares for prostituting themselves to Harry Reid. And will live in fear and dread, knowing that they will be booted from office at the next election.
Christmas party tonight in Grand Rapids MI. Over 15 couples and then the men and women all split off into the male only female only groups.
All of the men felt there will be blood in the street over this Senate vote and about 2/3 of us feel there will be a nasty type of uprising if the house ratifies the vote. The women became involved later in the evening.....they were more against a government taking our freedoms than the me. Tensions were high......I feel this same sentiment everywhere I travel each day.
History does repeat itself.
Thought you all might like the image above. Note the beams of light behind Mao, Hitler, Stalin, and Obama.
Of the many things in common these men share, one stands out in looking at these various posters: they reveal the almost god-like status they were (and are) given by the respective personality cults that empowered them, and are megalomaniacs who turned that cult of personality into support for policies that ultimately killed millions and destroyed (or are destroying, in the case of Obama) their countries.
Obama spoke of the "righteous wind at our backs." Hitler spoke of the divine providence that would drive the Fatherland on to greatness. You get the idea. Ironically, the apostle Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, cautioned us about false prophets and apostles:
"And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve."
II Cor. 11:14-15
Health care reform isn't about health care or cost-savings or "insurance reform" (how do you reform something you're trying to destroy?) It is - as the mainstream media keeps saying - about Obama and his legacy and why he needs to get this done "while he's still popular."
In conclusion, it's all about him. What else would you expect from a megalomaniacal leftist with delusions of god-hood?
Let's Roll!
Do not allow the GOP to co-opt the Tea Party Movement!!!
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