After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate’s health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers “deem” the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic — known as a “self-executing rule” or a “deem and pass” — has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

More… Washington Post

The epitome of arrogance and a slap in the face to the American people and due process. We fought a revolution over 200 years ago to free our nation from tyranny like this. Here we are 200+ years later and we are facing down the same degree of “let them eat cake” arrogance from a bloated centralized government which will stop at nothing to pass this bill… flawed as it is…  just to satisfy the mega ego of an aloof progressive  President.  Not only did he throw his grandmother under the bus during his campaign, he is now throwing the entire Democratic House under that same bus!

Come November there will be hell to pay if she does this.  Just imagine … She (Pelosi) will pass an $875 Billion dollar bill WITHOUT having the House of Representatives vote on it !!!  Where is the outrage??

So much for the process of Representation in the House of Representatives.

This is a seemingly simple question with what was once an obvious answer. Congress represents the will of the people of course! Senators and House Members reflect the will of the people of their constituencies. Most high schoolers will explain this one of the key principles  and basis for the Separation of Powers that keeps the checks and balances between the 3 branches of government in check.  Preventing any one branch from dominating the will of the people. This basic principle seems lost this past year with the President practically COMMANDING that Congress do his bidding.  Well not so fast.   Seems like most Americans have not forgotten their history and civics classes so quickly that they don’t see what is going on under this administration.

Obama would now have his own Democrats turn their backs on the very voices of the people who voted them into office. Why? All in the name of his insatiable ego and pride of passing any kind of a Health Care bill, even a severely flawed one rip, shit or bust!  He apparently has no shame or concern even for the ethics of the members of his own party let alone any effort to respect the will of the vast majority of people in this country that wants them to slow down and make changes incrementally that make sense. (See any of the recent polls showing over 75% Americans are opposed to ramming this bill down their throats.) The back room promises are being made hot and heavy to the House Representatives this week.  That “trust me” the Senate will make the changes you want to the bill later just please vote for the bill as is even if you don’t like it.  We will fix it later… Trust me… says Obama.

This White House seems to have one insatiable agenda… to change the fundamental economic foundation of America and shift it from a free enterprise system to a system of strong centralized government power with strong socialistic big brother policy making overtones.  A system closely predicated on what were once considered flawed pseudo-Marxist and socialist economic principles but of course those words will never be used from the Presidential podium.

If Democrats have any common sense at all, they WON’T take a fall for this President, Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid and other radical progressives who are all turning a deaf ear on the people of America. Moderate Democrats will be left out to hang by this administration.  The elitism in Obama truly believes he know what’s best for all of us and that we are all too ignorant to make our own decisions and we need the U.S. Government to run our lives for us.

My prediction is that individual rights and liberties, the fundamental basis for social freedom, will become even more eroded with the appetite for passing more central government controls running rampant as the white stars and stripes begin to seem more like yellow stars on a red background.

We have been remiss on keeping up with the news lately.  I have been on sabbatical so to speak starting up a new company to help out the small business community locally.  In particular the contracting trade that has been hit hard by the recession. These folks, upon which most home owners depend for remodeling and home maintenance, are getting crushed right now.

I spoke to one contractor and he said he has not seen it this bad in the 20 years he has been doing residential remodeling in the Florida area.  The same story all across the nation… in fact probably world wide.

We will continue to post news here and political commentary, but I am also planning to set up a new look and feel for the site which has been active (up until rather recently) for more than 7 years.  We plan to occasionally give some air time to the plight of the very small business owners who are struggling right now under the weight of the State and Federal tax structure and of course the number of workers who are losing their jobs while the White House and Congress insist in driving a square peg into a round healthcare hole.

Look forward to getting back in the saddle again. I would like to thank a number for contributing authors for submitting posts during my absence from the scene…    ZZ Bachman

One has to wonder if there is any integrity at all left in our political leadership? Now we have learned that Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska was bought off behind closed doors to secure his “60th” vote for the passage of the now purely political Health Scare bill. So I ask you… Is the good Senator from Nebraska any better than the average street walking prostitute in D.C.? This revelation demonstrates once again just to what depths in the cloak of political desperation this present “leadership” in Congress has sunk. The bill being drafted behind closed doors. The blockage of the reading of the bill on the Senate floor by Harry Reid. The list is endless.

The Senate and the House, the once shining example and benchmark of democracy throughout the world, has now become a hypocritical embarrassment to all Americans, Democrat or Republican.

What started as Sen. Ben Nelson’s personal stand against covering abortion with taxpayer money translated, somehow, into millions of dollars in federal aid for his home state.

The Nebraska Democrat, following weeks of negotiations with his caucus, finally agreed to back the Senate’s health care reform bill this weekend after Democratic leaders made a series of concessions. Nelson’s support gives Democrats the 60 votes they need to overcome a filibuster, barring any last-minute defections.

But critics by Sunday were heavily questioning Nelson’s motivations, given that the abortion restrictions he sought and won did not satisfy several major anti-abortion lawmakers and groups and that it took a major federal payoff to his state to seal the deal.

Critics were calling it the “cornhusker kickback” and the “Nebraska windfall,” lobbing accusations of political deal-making at Nelson.

“It’s pretty obvious votes have been bought,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said.

Nelson did win restrictions on abortion coverage, which is what he sought for weeks. Under the compromise, states would be permitted to ban insurance coverage of abortions in policies sold in the exchanges, except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. In states where such coverage is permitted, consumers must notify their insurance company they want it, and pay for it separately.

There is a buzz that Harry Reid will try to ram the Health Care Bill through the Senate on Christmas Eve in an effort to get something, anything passed. Parliamentary procedures have also been violated today when motion to read the bill was by-passed by Harry Reid in an effort to ram the bill through the Senate before Christmas recess. He is really expecting Senators to vote on a bill without having time to read it! Many Democrats are smart enough to say NO to such an insane idea.

Moderate Democrats are also becoming more outraged at the tactics being taken by the far left in their party behind closed doors. Nancy Pelosi has also adjourned the House of Representatives until January of next year.

The President’s reaction? President Obama is reported to having said that America will go bankrupt if the Health Care Bill is not passed! This is one of the most deseperate irresponsible statements yet from the President. The impact that such a comment might have on the U.S. Dollar is likely to be impacted as a result of a shoot from the hip remark like that. The fact of the matter is that its the recent spend spend spend and borrow borrow borrow actions of the Congress and the Administration which are in fact the actions that is pushing the country even further into debt.

Rather than take practical steps like TORT REFORM (ending frivolous lawsuits which everyone knows drives costs up) this Congress is hell bent on turning our entire health care system into a socialized welfare program despite the vast disapproval of the American people. Most Americans (Rasmussen poll today) think that more effort should be focused on rising employment than Health Care. They are hell bent on driving a square peg into a round hell simply to drive a political agenda thumbing their noses at the American people in the process.

It is becoming very clear to moderate Americans that Obama is bitting off way more that our country can handle at a time when our economy can least afford it. A reflection of his lack of real executive leadership experience perhaps. A stronger leader would have cut his losses on Health Care if for nothing else to keep his own party from melting down!

Romney who has real world executive experience in reforming health-care in the State of Massachusetts has a few pointers for Obama. Probably made out of pity. Fundamentally Obama, reset, and get both sides of the aisle on board using a collaborative approach with a NON POLITICAL AGENDA when addressing this very personal program. His biggest mistake was punting this program’s design to Pelosi and Reid.

Romney on Obama’s Push for Health-Care Reform: Slow Down
Katie Connolly / Newsweek

In the last two weeks, political commentators have expressed doubts over President Obama’s time frame for health-care reform. Meanwhile, even some Democratic lawmakers appear to be getting cold feet. In response, Obama is relentlessly pitching his plan. He has spoken about health care on eight out of the last nine days, and he’s scheduled to hold a town-hall meeting on the topic this Thursday. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is one of the few politicians in the country with first-hand experience of steering major health-care reform through the legislative process. The reforms he enacted in Massachusetts have been criticized for being costly, but they’ve also managed to extend coverage to a significant number of uninsured people. By 2007, the proportion of uninsured people in Massachusetts was the lowest in the country.

I spoke to Romney about his experience with health-care reform this morning. His cautionary words for Obama? Slow down. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

What do you think needs to happen over the next couple of weeks if President Obama’s deadline for health-care reform is to be met?

I think the president ought to hit the reset button. I think it is critical that he have the participation, involvement, and support of people on both sides of the aisle, as well as people in various sectors of the health economy. If we are going to have a dramatic shift in the nature of so large a part of our economy, then it needs to be something that has been thoroughly vetted and has received great support. Out of a desire to move very quickly, while his support is highest, he has skipped the critical steps of educating, involving, and evolving his own plans to meet the perspectives of the great majority of our citizens.

It sounds like you are encouraging the president to slow down. Aren’t there risks in delaying?

He’s in a very difficult position. We faced a very similar question [in Massachusetts] as we began our process. We spent over two years putting together a health-care plan and then building support for it on both sides of the aisle—working with hospitals, providers, doctors, business groups, labor groups, advocates for the poor. We involved all of these parties, and it took a long time, but what we ended up with was a bill that passed the legislature— if you combine the House and the Senate—198 to 2.

Democrat leadership in Congress must take the American people to be fools. It took Sarah Palin all but one week to OUT the fact which many of us posted concerning language in pages 425 – 430 of the Health Care Bill that would have opened the door for what she mockingly termed a “Death Panel”. The White House has denied the existence of this language that was in fact removed by the Senate version of  “the Bill” this past week. Funny how you can remove something from a bill when in their own words it was never there!!   Hypocrites and liars.   (Let’s  not talk about how Senators and Congressmen will be exempt from signing up for the very health care plan they are ramning down everyone else’s throat.)

The issue at hand is NOT HEALTH CARE REFORM. If Congress really wanted that they would focus on Tort Reform in the Health Care Industry.  Its another more insidious left wing agenda.  The slow erosion, or on the Obama Administration’s watch the NOT so slow erosion, of capitalism and our individual freedoms and some of  most private liberties that the founding fathers of this nation sacrificed to protect for all citizens of this great country.   This is now about  a line in the sand to keep a power crazed Big Brother left leaning government mentality out of our private affairs — Including how we choose to die. Moderates, Independents and Libertarians are all united on this point. Obamanistas simply refuse to understand that socialized medicine has historically been the first step in establishing socialist state through the entire fabric of our lives.

If Obama wants to get back his credibility he should go to the American people and say… “I heard you.  Let’s see what we can do to IMPROVE what we already have without taking all this risk and potentially throwing the baby out with the bath water just to score a Political Victory in my first year in office”.  Somehow I doubt his ego would step aside to allow him to do that even if he does’nt say it in such a self incriminating way.

START WITH TORT REFORM IN HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY IF YOU WANT TO REALLY REDUCE COSTS !!   —   LEAVE THE REST OF THE SYSTEM ALONE !!

Frivilous lawsuits drive the cost up for doctors, insurance companies and both you and I.  Why is THAT not on the table?  Well because Congress is run by a bunch of lawyers that’s why.

What we have now needs some repair, yes, but not a major overhaul that puts in the hands of government powers that the framers would have cringed if they were alive today!!!

PALIN WINS — Wall Street Journal
Level-headed liberal commentators who favor more government in health care, including Slate’s Mickey Kaus and the Washington Post’s Charles Lane, have argued that the end-of-life provision in the bill is problematic–acknowledging in effect (and, in Kaus’s case, in so many words) that Palin had a point.

If you believe the media, Sarah Palin is a mediocre intellect, if even that, while President Obama is brilliant. So how did she manage to best him in this debate? Part of the explanation is that disdain for Palin reflects intellectual snobbery more than actual intellect. Still, Obama’s critics, in contrast with Palin’s, do not deny the president’s intellectual aptitude. Intelligence, however, does not make one immune from hubris.

For a wonderful example of such hubris, check out this post from David Kurtz of TalkingPointsMemo.com:

Is there anything quite as unsettling as when the nation’s political class (and I use that term broadly to encompass the occasionally political, like the tea partiers) turns its fleeting but intense focus to a new (for them) and complex topic, like end-of-life issues?

It seems like years of painstaking work to nudge our death-denying culture toward a more frank and humane approach to our own mortality and dying could be erased by one misguided national discussion set off by none other than Sarah Palin.

Except that Palin didn’t “set off” this discussion; President Obama did by trying to ram through legislation postalizing the medical system with no time for debate or reflection. How to care for dying patients is a serious, sensitive and complicated matter, one with which American families struggle every day. If you truly don’t want the “political class” involved, your quarrel is with the man who is pushing for more federal involvement in this most personal of matters. It’s entirely understandable that people would respond to such an effort by shouting, “Keep your laws off my grandma!” — — [Hat Tip: James Tarato / WSJ]

Good for you James Tarato!   This post is dedicated to: Kevin Callahan see post http://zardozz.com/zz/2009/07/page-425-of-health-care-bill-will-shock-you.html

If this don’t beat all. Here is an editorial in the Opinionator section of the New York Times from Eric Etheridge who maintains fundamentally that the present Congress leans too far to the Right and is TOO conservative!! Should anyone be surprised considering the source?

The Blue Dogs have been hogging the health care spotlight for the last week. Now they’re having to share with it with the Senate Finance Committee chairman, Max Baucus, and the rest of his small troupe.

The Gang of Six — Baucus and five committee colleagues — got their picture in The Times today, a snappily annotated photograph of a recent meeting. The six senators gather twice daily, according to the accompanying article, in hopes of hammering out a “bipartisan deal” on health care reform.

Though their efforts are ongoing, significant details of of their emerging agreement are now circulating. So far, says Brien Beutler at TPMDC, the gang’s plan seems to be one that the U. S. Chamber of Commerce can support. In a recent letter, the Chamber reminded the negotiators that it opposes any “new government-run insurance plan” as well an “any mandate” on employers to provide insurance to workers or pay a tax. “That’s basically the plan Max Baucus’ Senate Finance Committee is set to propose,” writes Beutler.

The synchronicity between the Chamber and Gang plans should not be surprising, says Ezra Klein at The Washington Post. All you have to do is look at the Gang’s group portrait in The Times.

Look at this picture. Study it. This is who is in the room helping Baucus put together his bill. Olympia Snowe, Mike Enzi, Chuck Grassley, Jeff Bingaman and Kent Conrad. In a Senate of 60 Democrats and 40 Republicans, the health care reform bill is being written by three centrist Democrats, one centrist Republican, and two conservative Republicans. And until last week, Orrin Hatch was in the room, too.

For Matt Yglesias, this lineup represents a structural problem that he is wont to harp on, the shortage of direct democracy in our current system… Read More — NYT

It seems clear that main stream media outlets like the New York Times are growing impatient with the Congressional leadership. The mutual agenda of driving out of America all vestiges of moderation and conservativism is not being driven fast enough by the “Browshirts” of the new left.  The very people who espouse freedom of speech, and first amendment rights are the first to seek the elimination of those rights from anoyone who does not agree with their point of view.  I hate to break it to this author, but all business on the hill is conducted in sub committes.  The idea of bipartian subcommittee should be welcomed in a free democracy not vilified !   The entier body of the House and Senate get to cast their vote on a bill.  Hopefull they all read it, but that is doubtful. (See post about “Page 425 of the House Healthcare Bill“)

The Sarah Palin story has it all over Michael Jackson celebrity prime time funeral fest in this author’s humble opinion. But that’s for another post when I can get my head around the almost obsessive media frenzy with the death of the music world’s number one weirdo pedophile. But I digress…

Sarah Palin is undergoing a funeral of sorts in her own right. She has now officially become the latest tragic figure in the Republican Party’s fallout from a failed McCain campaign. The GOP intelligencia seem to also be singing a funeral dirge over her future political career.  But read further for an alternate and interesting point of view.

Here is a reprint of an excellent analysis of the Sarah Palin story from John Fund of the Wall Street Journal. John makes some excellent points regarding the “Media” and soon to be former Gov. Palin and perhaps her taking a new road that may certainly be one less traveled in national politics. Who knos she might even have the last laugh over the funny man from Minnesota, Al Franken.

People close to Sarah Palin say national political reporters and pundits have missed the real reasons for her surprising decision to resign as Alaska governor. The national media have dismissed or downplayed her real motives, which had little to do with any plans to run for president in 2012.Contrary to most reports, her decision had been in the works for months, accelerating recently as it became clear that controversies and endless ethics investigations were threatening to overshadow her legislative agenda. “Attacks inside Alaska and largely invisible to the national media had paralyzed her administration,” someone close to the governor told me. “She was fully aware she would be branded a ‘quitter.’ She did not want to disappoint her constituents, but she was no longer able to do the job she had been elected to do. Essentially, the taxpayers were paying for Sarah to go to work every day and defend herself.”

This situation developed because Alaska’s transparency laws allow anyone to file Freedom of Information Act requests. While normally useful, in the hands of political opponents FOIA requests can become a means to bog down a target in a bureaucratic quagmire, thanks to the need to comb through records and respond by a strict timetable. Similarly, ethics investigations are easily triggered and can drag on for months even if the initial complaint is flimsy. Since Ms. Palin returned to Alaska after the 2008 campaign, some 150 FOIA requests have been filed and her office has been targeted for investigation by everyone from the FBI to the Alaska legislature. Most have centered on Ms. Palin’s use of government resources, and to date have turned up little save for a few state trips that she agreed to reimburse the state for because her children had accompanied her. In the process, though, she accumulated $500,000 in legal fees in just the last nine months, and knew the bill would grow ever larger in the future.

“The Alaska ethics elves had painted such a target on Sarah’s forehead that she had begun turning down pretty much every invitation she got — even though they were pouring in every day by the dozens,” a confidant of the governor’s told me. “It is not throwing in the towel. It is deciding that she was ineffective in fighting for her principles and could do more in another role.”

Family considerations also played a role. Ms. Palin gave birth to a baby with Down’s Syndrome in 2008, and also has a six-year old. Everyone in the family was weary of endless personal attacks, including mean-spirited suggestions on liberal blogs that all of her children should have been aborted and that she would run on a presidential platform promoting retardation.

Governor Palin tried hunkering down. She ignored offers of help from outside and kept media outlets at a distance. “Palin had become so suspicious of the media that she rejected hundreds of requests by even friendly reporters to interview her. Her press aides say that before considering interviews, she insists that they comb through reporters’ work, even if they write for a friendly, conservative publication,” writes Ron Kessler of NewsMax.com. I can also attest to the difficulty of reaching Governor Palin’s staff and getting simple requests answered — the problem is that such standoffishness can sometimes result in more negative coverage rather than less.

Karl Rove acknowledges the unusual battering Ms. Palin has endured in recent months, but told Fox News that GOP leaders are still puzzled by her decision. “If she wanted to escape the ethics investigations and save the taxpayers money, she’s now done that,” he said. Unfortunately, he added, her decision “sent a signal that if you do this kind of thing to a sitting governor like her, you can drive her out of office.”

But Palin friends say such commentary misses the real point. “The Beltway media can’t understand someone not consumed with presidential ambition,” one told me. “Maybe Sarah Palin won’t run for president and maybe her family situation made it tougher to handle the barrage of attacks that come with that territory. The real issue that should be asked is why a mean-spirited system has to treat people who run like that, instead of why someone may choose not to go through it.”

All good points, and they lead me to conclude that Ms. Palin mostly likely will not run for president — in 2012, at least. She made many mistakes after suddenly being thrust into the national spotlight last year, but hasn’t merited the sneering contempt visited upon her by national reporters. She simply was not their kind of feminist — and they disdained the politically incorrect life choices she had made.

In helping to convince Sarah Palin that her road forward in national politics would demand even more sacrifices and pain than exacted from most politicians, the media did nothing to encourage women or people of modest means to participate in politics. By sidestepping her critics, Sarah Palin is now moving to another playing field where she has more control over the rules of the game. Her friends say her critics may call her a “quitter” now, but they should wait and see what new role she decides to fill. She may wind up having the last laugh.

– John Fund / Wall Street Journal

Sarah Palin has confounded nearly every media political pundit on the left and the right alike! The verdict, from the pundits anyway, is that she has committed political suicide by casting herself as the proverbial “quitter” and leaving the citizens of Alaska high and dry. To what end? No one knows.

The following video are out takes from all the major TV media outlets. One theme rings clear regardless of the political spectrum: What is she trying to accomplish outside of destroying her political career?

It may be that Sarah Palin becomes one of those political footnotes, characterized in history as a bottle rocket figure in  Republican politics. John McCain’s naive, and most likely unilateral, decision to select her as VP, to add some “bling” factor to his ticket may have turned out to be, ironically, the swan song of her political career.  She should have avoided him like the plague!