Obamacare's Hideous History, Recounted

Amid John Roberts' craven surrender to "the political branches" on Obamacare -- a bizarre capitulation, at that, since Roberts honored a statute that he hallucinated, but neither Congress nor the president authored nor authorized -- Americans should remember just how many rules, standards, and traditions had to be twisted or bulldozed in order for the [un]Affordable Care Act to become law.

For Obamacare to be enacted in the first place required each of more than a dozen, highly unlikely or even suspect, occurrences or actions. It then took some serious constitutional hocus pocus for it to survive in court. Consider the awful litany:

First, rogue prosecutors, drunk with bloodlust, had to break all sorts of rules in order to secure the conviction of Alaska's U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens. (Stevens, in his hubris, also had to insist on a speedy trial he thought would clear his name before the election of 2008, when in fact it resulted in the conviction that sealed his electoral fate.) Also, Judge Emmet Sullivan, a no-nonsense jurist, had to decide not to declare a mistrial before the verdict despite growing evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. (Sullivan didn't necessarily err; he just didn't have enough proof of misconduct yet. When it came, post-trial, he cracked down fairly hard on the scofflaws.) Had Stevens been re-elected, he presumably would never have voted for Obamacare, which therefore would have failed by one vote… even if none of the other, subsequent abominations (as we will discuss) were forestalled.

I posted the following to Facebook over the weekend...

Whether or not you agree with Obamacare as policy, can anyone honestly agree with the way we got it?

The bill began life as the "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act". It was passed by the House in Oct 2009 by a vote of 416-0. When the real Obamacare bill passed by the Democratic House received a negative reception in the Senate (and time was short as the Democrats were slated to lose a Senate seat in Massachusetts [and their filibuster-proof majority] by year-end), Harry Reid gutted the "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act" and replaced the language and title with Obamacare. Why? Because all revenue bills must originate in the House according to Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution. He had to have a revenue bill shell from the House to even have the semblance of Constitutionality.

Harry Reid chose a completely unrelated revenue bill to become the shell for the new law. This bill narrowly passed the Senate by a 60-39 vote along party lines at the end of 2009... and was rushed before the newly elected Senator, Scott Brown (in Ted Kennedy's old seat) could join the GOP filibuster to kill the bill in Jan of 2010. Yes, people were so incensed at what was happening that they voted a Republican into Ted Kennedy's "safe" Democrat seat in the Senate... but too late. It was Scott Brown's main campaign theme... he even signed autographs as "Scott 41" in reference to him becoming the 41st GOP vote.

Rather than revote the bill in the House (as they should have) the Democrats pulled a procedural vote to "deem" it passed as amended by the Senate. What did they "deem" passed? A completely unrelated bill to the one they had originally voted. Nancy Pelosi famously quipped, “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” There was no reconciliation of bills and no voice of the people's representatives in what has become one of the largest tax increases in history. Had they done it correctly, the House-revoted bill would have gone back to the Senate to die... so, they didn't do it the "normal" way.

This is the American legislative process? This is a Republican form of government as guaranteed by Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution? Can we truly have representation in the halls of government when they 1) lie about the legislation they are passing and 2) admit they don’t even read these abominations?

If this outrages you as much as it should, please do something about it. You can read about the history of the bill on Wikipedia to confirm what I've written. Below is a link to the Bill summary from the Library of Congress which shows its origins: http://thomas.loc.gov

I think you are exactly right. If we don’t make a stand here the Republic will be no more than a facade.

As I have said over and over again on FR and other sites: The Republic is failing because we the people have renounced our God and consequently lost our moral fibre. The average voter not only does not understand what you posted - he does not care - as long as he gets his turn at the trough.

We need to vote the majority of these ‘representatives of the people’ out. And we need to replace them with men of integrity; men who will not lie, cheat or steal regardless of provocation. Hard to find men such as these in a society where every man does what is right in his own eyes.

ping to article (last paragraph below):

“For now, though, it is worth studying the foregoing litany of injustices, committing it to memory, and letting its lessons burn with a cold fury in our brains and souls — a well-considered and purposeful fury that impels us all to do everything necessary to counteract the baleful effects of this abomination, and to make sure such a creature never raises its horrendous head again. This law is (figuratively speaking) the spawn of vile political beasts. It must be decapitated.”

“ping to article (last paragraph below):

We are just going to have to gut it out until Nov 6 when we have our last chance to save the Republic without a full blown revolution. The Rinos are the worst, they smile in your face then stab you in the back in the process of serving themselves.

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