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Forget Reconciliation -- Why the Real Fight Is In the House

Subject: txt 1st hcare 2010 bbro crpt sclm -
If the House passes the Christmas Eve version of the Senate health care reform bill, it goes to Obama for his signature - the game is up and the American people lose.

Opponents of Obama’s so-called health care reform are understandably up in arms at the president’s embrace of reconciliation as a way to force changes to his bill through the Senate. --It feels as if Scott Brown’s election had never happened. Reconciliation, part of the budget process designed to raise or lower revenues or spending, was never designed as a way to change the rules to pass controversial policy changes that otherwise would fail for lack of 60 votes needed to invoke cloture.

But as outrageous as reconciliation is, ultimately it’s a distraction, and free-market activists who focus on it may miss the real fight in the U.S. House of Representatives...

In his latest health care speech on Wednesday President Obama said this fight over health care is ultimately about what kind of country we want to be. He’s exactly right. But unlike President Obama and his extreme left-wing allies, most Americans prefer the American system of free markets and individual responsibility to the false security of a cradle-to-grave, European-style welfare state.

That’s what hangs in the balance on the biggest health care vote in decades, or maybe ever. And that vote will be in the House, not the Senate....

[And you can bet the bribes are flying...

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Then...>]


"REJECT SENATE HEALTH CARE BILL"


YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...

and as always, pass it on...

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The President’s Imaginary Health Plan

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
The president launched a last-ditch effort to pass a government takeover of American health care yesterday. To hear him tell it, his plan would let every American keep the health insurance he has today if he wants to. And it would reduce premiums, cut taxes for the middle class, slow the pace of rising costs, reduce the federal budget deficit, and keep bureaucrats out of health-care decisions too. This latest presidential health-care pitch might have left some Americans scratching their heads.

What plan is he talking about, they might ask themselves.

The Senate-passed bill, upon which the president’s latest offering is modeled, would not let Americans keep the insurance they have today. It would impose deep cuts in the private-insurance component of Medicare, called Medicare Advantage. Those cuts would force millions of seniors out of their current coverage, against their will. They would get much less by way of benefits to boot. And many millions of workers would lose their job-based plans as employers opted to pay the government’s fines instead of offering heavily regulated coverage themselves.

The Congressional Budget Office has also found that the Senate bill would increase, not decrease, premiums, as the president was forced to admit at the Blair House summit meeting last week. One-size-fits-all federal insurance requirements would force millions of Americans to buy more expensive coverage than they have selected in today’s marketplace. Research by a private actuarial firm shows that premiums would jump by more than 50 percent in the individual market and 20 percent for those in small employer plans.

The Senate bill would also impose massive middle-class tax increases, not cuts. There are new levies on insurers and device and drug makers in the Senate plan that would get passed on directly to middle-class consumers.

The president’s claims of cost control and fiscal responsibility are a complete illusion.

He omits from his accounting the $371 billion in additional ten-year spending he has proposed for Medicare physician fees, and double-counts premium collections from a separate program to pay for his health-care plan.

Moreover, the deep cuts in Medicare the president relies on to pay for his entitlement expansions would not come from waste and abuse, as he asserted. He would impose arbitrary reductions in payments for every hospital and nursing home in the country, without regard to assessment of quality or patient needs. His own chief actuary says these cuts would push one in five facilities into deep financial distress, which means they are completely unrealistic.

CBO says the president’s new entitlement spending would reach $200 billion by 2019, and then grow 8 percent every year thereafter. In other words, it would be another runaway entitlement program, piled on top of the unaffordable ones already on the books.

What the president repeatedly describes as 'his plan' does not exist.

What does exist is a bill the public has resoundingly rejected in every way it can. And for very good reasons.

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WSJ Editorial Calls Out Bunning Episode As Example of PayGo Hypocrisy

Subject: txt 1st crpt msm bias 2010 -
In the past 72 roughly 10 print and broadcast media items ripping into Jim Bunning for daring to stop a spending bill in the Senate.

Beyond that, it appears that no establishment media outlet has raised a few self-evident points made in a Wednesday Wall Street Journal editorial, proving yet again that the paper's editorials need serve as real news sources on topics the MSM simply refuses to cover.

The critical points of the editorial (link may require subscription, and will probably not be available in a few weeks) are these:

• Bunning was trying to do in practice what Nancy and Pelosi, Harry Reid and President Obama are fond of only talking about.
• The outrage is the result of substance-free political gamesmanship.
• (Tea Partiers take note) Many of Bunning's fellow party members headed for the tall grass when the media heat commenced.

What follows are the Journal excerpts that make those points:

Mr. Bunning has dared to put a hold on a $10 billion spending bill to extend jobless insurance and fund transportation projects. Mr. Bunning says he won't yield until the Senate finds a way to pay for the new spending with cuts somewhere else in the $3.5 trillion budget. For this perfectly reasonable stance, Mr. Bunning has become the Beltway and media villain of the hour. We'd call it his finest hour.

Every time Washington wants to spend money, the Senate Majority Leader asks for "unanimous consent" to authorize the funding, and in the collegial Senate everyone falls in line. But when Harry Reid wanted consent last week for that $10 billion, Mr. Bunning broke the old-boy rules by shouting: "I object."

The faux indignation has been something to behold.

... By the way, Democrats could end Mr. Bunning's stand by invoking cloture and getting the 60 votes they need to proceed. Mr. Reid won't do that because he thinks he's scoring points using Mr. Bunning to define Republicans as "obstructionists." So who's playing politics here?

Mr. Bunning is merely asking the Senate to live by the rules that President Obama said it should when he signed an executive order requiring "pay-as-you-go" budgeting. "Now, Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else," he said, only three weeks ago. But instead of backing Mr. Bunning's stand that new spending must be "paid for," the White House is attacking him.

The real story here is that Mr. Bunning is exposing pay-go as a fraud. When Mr. Obama and Democrats want to spend money on their priorities, they waive the rule by declaring an emergency. They only enforce pay-go to block tax cuts...

If any establishment media outlets have made the first two points raised by the Journal, I haven't seen it. Of course, they love to make the third.

Senator Bunning is already in one Hall of Fame recognizing his outstanding baseball pitching career. For this move and for his long record of fiscal conservatism, evidenced by a consistently strong Club for Growth record (the latest available being 93% in 2008, 82% in 2007, 94% in 2006, and 82% in 2005), the former Philadelphia and Detroit star he may deserve consideration for induction into a Taxpayers' Hall of Fame.

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House Republicans Introduce Constitutional Amendment to Limit Spending

Subject: txt 1st gdd mny 2010 -
Two House Republicans have introduced a spending limit amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

''With our nation facing a fiscal crisis, it is time to fundamentally change the way Washington spends the taxpayers’ money,''

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) said in a statement on Wednesday.

Pence and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) say their proposed amendment will give the American people a

''unique opportunity to define the size and scope of the federal government for future generations.''

The proposed amendment reads as follows:

They said the U.S. cannot tax its way out of the problem, nor can it “grow” or borrow its way out of the problem. The only alternatives, they said, are spending discipline or inflation.

“We cannot have both unlimited government and unlimited opportunity”...

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SEIU Boss Open to Serving on Obama Deficit Reduction Commission, Supports More Deficit Spending

Subject: txt crpt bdd mny -
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern said he was open to serving on President Barack Obama’s proposed deficit reduction commission, after it was reported that the White House was considering him for the post.

He was on Capitol Hill on Tuesday advocating for additional deficit spending to stimulate job creation...

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Texas Dems Nominate Woman Who Wants Obama Impeached

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Subject: txt 1st fnn 2010 libs -
Kesha Rogers won the Democratic nomination for Texas’ 22nd congressional district on Tuesday, meaning she’ll face freshman incumbent Pete Olson in the fall.

What makes this noteworthy is that Rogers’ campaign platform is unusually ambitious.

In addition to opposing Wall Street and bailouts, it includes impeaching President Obama...

[Call me an amateur, but I'm having trouble seeing the upside of this development, within the Democrat party, for Obama.

That's OK; I'll just wait for the 24/7 MSM coverage of this development to explain it to me.

Oops; Democrat, Woman, 'of color', impeach Obama, wins election - no story there - never mind.]

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Afghan Officials Say Former Gitmo Detainee Now a Taliban Commander

Subject: txt gwot -
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — A man freed from Guantanamo more than two years ago after he claimed he only wanted to go home and help his family is now a senior commander running Taliban resistance to the U.S.-led offensive in southern Afghanistan, two senior Afghan intelligence officials say.

Abdul Qayyum is also seen as a leading candidate to be the next No. 2 in the Afghan Taliban hierarchy, said the officials, interviewed last week by The Associated Press...

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Holder’s Justice Department Full of Terrorist Defenders

Subject: txt gwot nsec bbro - bdd -
At the rate the Obama Administration is going, it may rival the Nixon Administration in its cover-ups and dishonesty. The new revelation that at least nine attorneys in the Justice Department have previously defended accused jihad terrorist follows closely after another incident remarkably similar in broad outline: the Rashad Hussain debacle.

Both feature the Obama Administration apparently turning a blind eye to sympathy for jihad terrorists, followed by clumsy attempts to cover up its indifference once the whole thing came to light...

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Imam to face judge in NYC terrorism plot case

Subject: txt gwot islm bbro -
New York - An imam is facing a judge on charges that he lied to FBI agents investigating a foiled suicide bomb plot against New York City.

Authorities arrested Afzali last year during the investigation of an admitted al-Qaida associate.

Prosecutors and Afzali's attorney indicated this week that a plea deal was likely...

[GWOT - and our legal system is offering plea deals.]

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McCain, Lieberman Attempt to Ban Civilian Trials for 'Enemy Combatants'

Subject: txt gwot nsec -
Two senators from opposite sides of the political aisle are set to unveil sweeping legislation that will prevent "enemy combatants" from being Mirandized, Fox News has learned.

The legislation by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., would result in banning all civilian trials for terror suspects who have been classified as enemy combatants and forcing their cases into military commissions...

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"SUPPORT MCCAIN-LIEBERMAN ENEMY COMBATANT LEGISLATION"


Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Californians:
Barbara Boxer web mail http://boxer.senate.gov/en/contact/policycomments.cfm
Dianne Feinstein webmail
http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.EmailMe

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...

and as always, pass it on...

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Study: Global Warming Reduces Hurricanes, Will Media Notice?

Subject: txt grn msm -
A new study predicts that if global warming did occur as claimed by alarmists, it would actually reduce the number of hurricanes by as much as 34 percent by the year 2100.

The report just published in the journal Nature Geoscience also found that the increase in tropical storm activity the planet has seen since 1995 is part of a natural cycle completely unrelated to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

These revelations represent another serious crack in the claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and therefore seem quite unlikely to be reported by American media that have been largely ignoring all the errors that have been found recently in key IPCC documents.

As is typical, this bombshell was uncovered by a British publication, the Sunday Times...

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Media Failure: Global Warming Edition

Subject: txt msm bias grn bdd -
Will An Inconvenient Truth go down as one of the most ironically titled films in the history of American cinema? It just might, as the "consensus" that human activity is primarily responsible for global warming slowly falls apart under its own weight.

Ed Morrissey has a fantastic post where he notes that the

"Australian and British press have eaten the American media’s lunch on the collapse of credibility at the IPCC and in the anthropogenic global-warming (AGW) movement."

He then runs down a bunch of stories that have destroyed the IPCC report yet have been utterly ignored by American [professional] Media...

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Not expanding drilling may cost U.S. $2.4 trillion: study

Subject: txt engry -
The U.S. economy will lose $2.4 trillion over the next two decades if the federal government does not allow oil and natural gas drilling in restricted onshore lands and in offshore areas previously closed to energy companies, according to a new study released on Monday. The report, prepared for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, also said U.S. imports of crude oil, petroleum products and natural gas would increase by $1.6 trillion over the period without access to the energy resources...

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Two plans are on the way for coastal drilling leases

Subject: txt engry gdd action -
The Obama administration will announce its plans for coastal oil and gas drilling leases by the end of March, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday.

Salazar told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that he was preparing two plans to govern leases on the outer continental shelf — one with court-mandated changes that would apply through June 30, 2012, and another completely new blueprint for leasing from July 1, 2012, until 2017...

[Don't believe it - another ruse, but the Reps will fall for it]

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US 'Anubis' stealth assassin robo-missile nearly ready

Subject: txt nsec gdd -

The US military is continuing work on a portable, robotic drone/missile which could be used to kill individual human beings from afar. The weapon, codenamed ''Anubis'', has now moved into the final stages of development.

According to other US government budget documents unearthed by the Ares blog, Anubis is a ''Tactical MAV [Micro Air Vehicle] for Time-Sensitive Fleeting Targets''

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Subprime Mortgage Crisis Hits Brothels

Subject: txt fnn -
[ENOUGH - SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE! ]

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