Bloodthirsty Liberal

CBO says House health care bill hurts seniors

Elections have consequences, even for grandma and grandpa.

A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending — one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s health-care system — would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.

The report, requested by House Republicans, found that Medicare cuts contained in the health package approved by the House on Nov. 7 are likely to prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare altogether.

I am sure that the boomers who voted for this administration will happily pay for seniors to receive full Medicare benefits, as we know them today. And of course they will open their homes to aging seniors who cannot find placement in nursing homes. Why, either mom or dad will quit their job to care for the seniors in the home. And they will stop funding both their own retirements and their childrens’ college eduction, because, well, health care can suck up a lot of resources.

This is only fair and I am certain that all of us will gladly do it.

- Aggie

Michael Capuano: Any child you can kill I can kill better.

Martha Coakley: I can kill any child better than you.

After appearing to waver on her controversial health care position, Attorney General Martha Coakley went on the offensive yesterday and indirectly challenged US Representative Michael E. Capuano over his vote last week to advance a bill with a provision that would limit coverage of abortions.

The issue dominated the US Senate race much of the past week, but Coakley put forth her strongest argument yet on a day when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came to Boston to give a strong endorsement to Capuano and praise his health care stance.

“There are other matters where, of course, you would be involved in compromise,’’ Coakley said in an interview. “This is one, whether as a congresswoman or a senator, I wouldn’t have compromised on. This is an important issue for me; it always has been.’’

…

Capuano also scored the key backing yesterday of the person who negotiated the health care deal. Pelosi, the nation’s top female politician, said yesterday at the Omni Parker House in downtown Boston that Capuano was a strong congressional leader who cast a courageous vote on health care legislation.

“Any one of us could have found one reason or another not to vote for the bill,’’ Pelosi said. “But that was not any excuse for preventing this historic moment from taking place.’’

I don’t think Pelosi has any pull even here—but that’s not why Capuano supported the bill.

“Don’t you dare cross me, you goombah, or I swear I’ll cut your [bleeping] balls off and shove them down your throat.”

That’s why Capuano supported the bill.

A long, long time ago, I can still remember…

She’s railing against what she perceives of as Republican strong-arm tactics in the House and Senate, and she’s got a point. No time to read the bill, lack of transparency—the student has become the master.

And she’s gotten younger looking over the years.

The House of Representatives is sometimes called “the lower chamber”.

It’s easy to see why:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced the House version of health care reform legislation last week, but most voters are still opposed to the effort.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 42% now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down from 45% a week ago but unchanged from two weeks ago.

Fifty-four percent (54%) now oppose the legislative effort, up three points since last week.

…

Only 23% of all voters Strongly Support the plan while nearly twice as man (44%) are Strongly Opposed.

Voters finally saw the bill, and swerved away from it—yet the House, in its wisdom, passed it.

If I had to guess, I would say that the honorable members thought they could get away with voting yes, thereby getting Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama off their backs, safe in the knowledge this beast will never pass in the Senate and actually become law. They held up the White House and the House leadership for favors and perks, but won’t have to live with the consequences of their treachery.

I’m trying to decide how low the lower chamber really is: the 8th circle of Hell, reserved for fraudsters; or the 9th, reserved for traitors?

I think if Dante dug a little deeper in the fetid, fiery pits of hell, he might just have scraped the top of the Capitol dome.

Democrats celebrate passage of historic health care bill in the House chamber.

And if that image doesn’t chill your blood to the freezing point, this one might:

So sayeth Nancy Pelosi to her caucus:

Byron York and the Washington Post agree on Nancy Pelosi’s plan to vote on her health-care bill this Saturday — she can’t afford to let Democrats go home to their districts before the vote. In fact, as John McCormack notes, she can’t even afford to keep her promise to have the bill on line for 72 hours before the vote so that their constituents can know what they’re doing. If they went home to face their constituents, Pelosi knows that they would never vote for her massive spending:

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For party leaders, setting a weekend deadline for passage represented a calculated risk, one that could backfire if the vote — now expected late Saturday or Sunday — fails or must be delayed. But they feared that if members were given more time to consider the legislation, new issues could arise, particularly as lawmakers digest the results from Tuesday’s elections. Most ominous for Democrats were their losses in gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia, although the party did prevail in House special elections in New York and California.

This is your government in anti-democratic action, straight up. Which is fine, let ‘em try. But there will be unholy hell to pay.

For those not familiar with the quote that provides the title of the post, it’s from A Bronx Tale. Language and violence warning, and definitely NSFW—but once you get to the fight, the best stuff’s done.

And if you find that film analogy unconvincing, picture Nancy Pelosi as Ted Levine in Silence of the Lambs—and if you’ve never seen this scene, don’t start now. Don’t. Do not. It gave me the creeps just perusing it to see if it was the one I wanted.

It was. And don’t.

I’ve sold the Democrats short. I thought their whole “Celebrate Diversity” nonsense was just a bunch of hooey. Turns out, they are a “big tent” party (as in circus-comma-freak show)

Plumline’s Greg Sargent has posted the results of a highly confidential House Democratic Party Whip Count which shows 47 Democrats at No on a public option, with another 8 leaning No for a total of 56. A dozen Democratic House members are still undecided. The hard No votes, alone, are enough to kill the bill. The leaked document was produced by the U.S. House Majority Whip’s office.

In a major violation of whipping protocol, the document was shared with Progressive House members who refuse to vote for health reform unless it contains a robust public option. Plumline reports that the Progressive Members of Congress (hard core left-wingers) blamed everyone: the White House and the Democratic leadership for not putting enough pressure on members to vote for the public option, from Plumline:

“House progressives argue that the document should light a fire under Dem leaders. One House progressive tells me he’s convinced that most of the undecideds, and a number of the No votes, can be won over with the right mix of pressure and incentives — which only the House leadership and the White House can provide.”

“Only leadership and the White House can get this done,” this progressive says.

I don’t think even this president can promise enough rounds of golf to satisfy the old boy network.

That’s 68 Democratic congressmen less than enthused with the “robust” public option (though who has anything to say against an enfeebled one?), more than a quarter of the party. And as the excerpt above makes clear, the 47 hard nos alone are enough to defeat the bill if they are joined by all 177 Republicans.

And Reid in the Senate is no more secure.

I’ll believe this thing is dead when I see it buried and can piss on its grave. Not until. But at least I can crack a smile.

And who are you, worm, to argue?

Today, however, Nancy Pelosi tossed the moderates aside in her press conference. She insisted that the House would produce a bill that includes a public option without a trigger, and with a wealth surtax to pay for it:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday shot down a healthcare compromise that has been viewed as the best chance for getting a bipartisan bill through the Senate.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) rejected the idea of a “trigger” for a public option. That means that the government-run health care plan would be a fallback option, enacted only if other reforms didn’t make healthcare more accessible. …

“I don’t even want to talk about a trigger,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. She said the “attitude” of her fellow Democrats is that “a trigger is an excuse for not doing anything.”

…

This vastly complicates the ability of Congress to pass a bill. Clearly, a public option and a wealth surtax will not make it through the Senate. In fact, Pelosi’s hard-line attitude will make it even more difficult for Max Baucus to attempt to woo red-state Democrats, let alone Republicans, into a compromise. Even before it gets to the Senate, though, this bill has a good chance of failing in the House with Pelosi’s demands. Democrats may talk big about astroturfing, but the Blue Dogs know well that the reaction in the districts was genuine — and will mean a shortened career for those who support Pelosi’s idea of health-care reform.

Basically, in drawing this line in the sand, Pelosi has said “happy trails” to moderates. She wants to push through a radical agenda, and she thinks that her progressive caucus will be enough to make it happen. Pelosi may find out that she just marginalized herself as a party leader — and if she doesn’t realize that soon, she may wind up marginalizing her entire caucus in the midterm elections.

Well, don’t go telling her.

Doesn’t matter. These people can’t help themselves. If this were really about helping the sick and poor, they’d take other suggestions. But revolutionaries are never about helping the sick and poor, and seeking broad consensus. They are about lopping off heads.

Until they loose theirs.

I haven’t seen the Speaker of the House cry since Tip O’Neill, in his cups, harmonizing on “Wild Colonial Boy” with Ronald Reagan. (I made that up, I think.)

But Nancy Pelosi has sentimental memories of her own, no less lachrymatory—and no less fictional.

“I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw this myself in the late ’70s in San Francisco, this kind of rhetoric,” Pelosi said. “… It created a climate in which violence took place. … I wish we would all curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements and understand that some of the ears that it is falling on are not as balanced as the person making the statements may assume.”

She was referring, of course, to Sean Penn, who frenched everything in trousers in his portrayal of Harvey Milk.

What’s that? Sean Penn isn’t dead? I thought he took The Method to ridiculous extremes. Oh well, we all have out fantasies.

Let’s examine the Speaker’s:

It should be noted that Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were not killed by a constituent angry about unfair laws they passed.

They were assassinated by a fellow DEMOCRAT politician- city councilman Dan White, who resigned complaining about his low government salary and angry that Moscone wouldn’t reappoint him to his hack job.

If Pelosi is afraid … she must be afraid of her own fellow politicians in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.

All that and more. It would appear Pelosi has more to fear from Steny Hoyer—and President Obama from Hillary Clinton—than either does from Joe the Plumber.

But who didn’t know that already?

We can conclude only that Speaker Paleolosi is either: a) a dirty liar; b) delusional, a danger to herself and others; c) sky-high on Botox; d) all of the above.

To think that she is one pissed-off cabinet secretary from the Oval Office. That would widen my eyes, too.

That’s not a typo or a transliteration of Barney Frank-speak:

The reigning member of Congress’ top tax committee is apparently “wrangling” other politicos to get him out of his own financial and tax troubles.

Here’s a look at Charlie’s so-called “angels” involved in his ethics investigation.

Congressman Rangel has been arrogant in refusing to discuss how, as the man who writes this country’s tax laws, he failed to report over $1 million in outside income and $3 million in business transactions as required by the House, lapses under investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

…

There may be a reason for Rangel’s arrogance. CBS 2 HD has discovered that since ethics probes began last year the 79-year-old congressman has given campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him.

I’m sort of into old-fashioned punishments today. Tarring and feathering may have some unpleasant racial associations, so how about the stocks? Lock him up in Times Square next to a bushel of overripe field tomatoes bused in from Jersey and let the people have their say.

But he’s still aces with Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

For now:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to remove Rangel from his Ways & Means chairmanship.

He has long since lost the credibility necessary for a sensitive House position — and if Pelosi doesn’t move on Rangel soon, she’s going to be in the same boat.

Scoot over, Charles. Make room for a… a… well, a lady, I guess.

It’s been said (and proved) before, but it can’t be said enough. Nancy Pelosi is a liar.

NPL, for short:

Understandably, most of the media’s attention has been focused on the portion of the CIA IG’s report that deals with whether the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (”EITs”) caused suspected terrorists to provide information that they otherwise wouldn’t, i.e., whether the EITs “worked.”

But as today’s Wall Street Journal notes, the IG report also refutes the claim made by Nancy Pelosi in her infamous May press conference that she was never told about waterboarding by the CIA in fall 2002. (Pelosi went on to say that the CIA lies to Congress “all the time”). According to the IG report, the agency briefed the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committees — that includes Speaker Pelosi — in the fall of 2002, as well as in February and March of 2003, and continued to do so thereafter.

The IG report states that none of the congressional participants — that includes Speaker Pelosi — expressed any concerns about the EITs or the program itself.

Unless we’re resigned to the premise that it’s routine for the Speaker of the House to lie to the American people about matters of national security, this is pretty serious stuff. CIA interrogators are facing the prospect of financially ruinous legal fees while a special prosecutor investigates their actions. Eric Holder may prosecute these individuals for taking actions that members of congress — that includes Speaker Pelosi — not only knew about, but that didn’t concern them.

If the EITs didn’t bother members of congress then, why are they a problem now?

Will any reporter call Pelosi on this?

I hate rhetorical questions. Don’t you?

NPL QED.