I have worked with these guys in the past and this strategy is the best chance we have of stopping ObamaCare. The exact same type of strategy saved us from ObamaCare last year:

After weeks of refusing to embrace the “obstructionist” label as a virtue, Senate Republicans finally saw the light and late last week began to use the parliamentary tools at their disposal to delay a final vote on health care.

Until then, with the exception of South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, Republican lawmakers had refused to use Senate rules and procedures to obstruct the passage of the health care bill being pushed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and run out the clock on Obamacare. Some prominent Republican senators and members of their staffs had even let it be known they actually believed passage of the Reid health care bill and enactment of Obamacare would benefit GOP candidates in the November midterm elections.

This GOP strategy of expedient complicity enraged the conservative base, roused talk radio show hosts and bloggers and even provoked a backlash from the chairman of the Republican National Committee. The Social Security Institute and the National Tax Limitation Committee joined with…to convey this outrage to the Senate Republican leadership through letters, e-mails and telephone calls from the grass roots to GOP senators’ offices.

Pass this on. The Patient Opt Out team includes Dr. Larry Hunter, former policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan, current CEO of the Social Security Institute, and one of the authors of the Contract With America. The strategy involves an email buy and are quite costly – $10,000 or more for one million email addresses – with the email creative directing the viewer to a page where they can fax all members of Congress.

Last year, this same approach lead to GOP obstruction in the Senate. Without the dedication and work of the groups listed above, the Scott Brown victory last year would have occurred AFTER the passage of ObamaCare.

Help kill ObamaCare now.

Fred Barnes’ eye-opening op-ed in the Washington post is a wake-up call to wavering Democrats and even those leaning yes or committed yes. The Pandora’s Box that is the current health-care reform legislation best be left with the lid on, wrapped up in chains, and chucked into the deepest depths of the ocean:

America will be in a constant health-care war if ObamaCare is enacted. Passage wouldn’t end the health-care debate. Rather, it would perpetuate ObamaCare as the dominant issue for decades to come, reshape politics, create an annual funding crisis in Congress, and generate a spate of angry lawsuits. Yet few in Washington seem aware of what lies ahead.

We only have to look at Great Britain to get a glimpse of the future. The National Health Service—socialized medicine—was created in 1946 and touted as the envy of the world. It’s been a contentious issue ever since. Its cost and coverage are perennial subjects of debate. The press, especially England’s most popular newspaper, The Daily Mail, feasts on reports of long waiting periods, dirty hospitals, botched care and denied access to treatments.

And the people of this country, contrary to what our dear leader continues to spout, are very tied into the process, understand reconciliation and the “Slaughter Solution”, and not liking what they see:

Democratic leaders believe the public doesn’t focus on the process of how legislation is enacted. But in this case they’re wrong. I’ve been amazed at how many people understand “reconciliation”—a process that allows budget and spending bills to pass in the Senate with only 51 votes, instead of 60. Many voters are also now studying the details of the “Slaughter solution,” which would allow the House to “deem” the Senate health-care bill to have passed without actually voting on it and then to vote through changes to the Senate bill. These legislative shortcuts are already infuriating ObamaCare’s opponents.

Also contrary to the Democratic leadership’s position is that ObamaCare will not go away as an issue – not know, not next year and not in 2012. Lawsuits, party platforms and campaigns that run on repealing or de-funding enough aspects of ObamaCare to virtually kill it, will drag this out and make it the issue. Senate comity will be all but destroyed with dire consequences and partisanship in government will reach new unimaginable confrontational heights. This bill is absolute poison to the system, exposes the slimy “inside the Beltway” machinations, and indicates to the American people the fundamental lack of fairness when a small group of people can control the lives of 300 million others, while showing contempt not only for the Constitution, but the people of this country, and the will and best interests of a majority of the electorate.

Power and a complete lack of reason has gripped the Democratic party, heralding their demise and the ultimate demise of ObamaCare. The people will not rest nor sit idly by to be lorded over by a bunch of power-hungry elitists so disconnected to the reality outside their bubble that some actually believe they know what is good for us better than we and are willing to destroy the best healthcare system in the world in the process. Take a look at the NHS. Great Britain has 60 million people. You are about to try an experiment with 300 million people with 1/6 of the U.S. economy. The law of unintended consequences is the real law under consideration of passing. It is also called Murphy’s law.

I’d seriously consider what your doing. The consequences of your actions will not ultimately lead to the enactment of ObamaCare – we will see to that in one way or another – and you will have fallen on your sword for an President and a leader who, in the end, look at you as a pawn they are all too willing to sacrifice. Their contempt for you should anger you, not motivate you to vote yes.

Things are changing, and the old rules are out. Those who make decisions based on the now antiquated habits and culture that is DC politics are in for a shocking surprise. The electorate is awake and watching. We know what’s going on and the rules have changed.

Tread very lightly.

Last Wednesday, all 41 Senate’s Republicans signed a letter promising to hold Democrats to the letter of the Senate rules concerning reconciliation. These rules determine what items may be included in a package of alternations to the health bill Democrats intend to shove through Congress violating minority rights in an effort to take over 1/6 of the U.S. economy while simultaneously inserting themselves between you and your doctor.

Will it be enough to scare Democrats in the House? I have my doubts. I believe the GOP must shut down the entire Senate now on all legislation until ObamaCare is moved off the Senate and House calendar and both leaders promise to keep it off the calenders until the next Congress. However, I am hearing from inside sources the Senate GOP is skittish about this approach. Skittish about protecting our liberties? As one strategist put it who has created enough decision trees on the matter to wallpaper a house:

…the only viable strategy I can see is for the Republicans to begin the process of shutting down the U.S. Senate until the Democrats agree to MOVE ON — move off healthcare until the 112th Congress convenes.

I hope the Senate GOP knows what it is doing. I would not put it past VP Biden to overrule the parliamentarian and force this through. I have seen no evidence to the contrary that the entire Democratic party is in self-destruct mode and displaying outward signs of an obsessive-compulsive disorder bordering on seriously neurotic behavior when it comes to ObamaCare.

Related:

Constitution Butchers: Stop Pelosi’s Slaughter House; Update: Dems don’t have the votes

Obama flip-flops on dealmaking for ObamaCare

Reconciliation bill posted; Update: Shell bill

Great deeds are not accomplished by great men and women; great deeds are done by normal people facing extraordinary circumstances. It is through actions during troubling and trying times taken by those of us who are ordinary that mold and shape what will become a great and historical figure. Right now, in the Senate and the House, a single Democrat or group of Democrats have the chance to become great in the eyes of this nation. From broken promises of transparency to outright lies, the Obama administration and the leaders of the Democratic Party in the House and Senate have consistently taken this country down a path it does not want to travel.

Who among you is willing to remove the “for sale” sign on your vote? Who among you is willing to demand in a loud voice for the transparency promised eight times to televise health care negotiations? Who among you will stand up to the strong arm of Chicago style politics and stare down the administration with an icy glare? Do this for the country and we will forgive all past transgressions. Show us that greatness is still a quality that means something. Step up and protect us from this madness.

The profligate vote buying in the Senate has gotten out of hand. The special treatment granted and federal lucre handed out to the states of a few balking Senators has been disgraceful. This is not compromise, it is bribery pure and simple.

As neither party in the Senate truly understands what is in the health care bill, the law of unintended consequences demands a deliberative and transparent process. The purpose behind rushing through this bill is political and completely disconnected from serving the best interests of this country and the people who live in it.

It is time for a new style of politics, not one of obfuscation, hidden backroom deals, and broken promises. Yet lately it seems many politicians in the Democratic party are pitting themselves against the will of the American people, both liberals and conservatives. America needs someone of great quality to stop this madness—someone who understands the responsibility derived from freedom and position.

Someone once said, “The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.” The Democratic party appears deaf in this regard. We the American people implore Democrats in the Senate to stand on principle, to separate themselves from the pack, be the guardian of freedom and demand total and open transparency on our behalf. We urge you to vote against this bill. We urge you to lift the veil of deafness and hear our voices.

Related:

Pelosi: We’re “very close” to a deal with the Senate on ObamaCare. Perhaps Senator Blanche Lincoln will do the right thing.

Press corps grills Gibbs: Um, didn’t Obama totally shamelessly lie about C-SPAN?

Darkness reigns: Obama and the Vampire Congress

I find it interesting the Department of Homeland Security deems it necessary to warn of rightwing extremists, as they ignore the fact of leftwing extremism. As a point of fact, making its rounds within the United States is a little book titled The Coming Insurrection. From the product description on Amazon:

The Coming Insurrection is an eloquent call to arms arising from the recent waves of social contestation in France and Europe. Written by the anonymous Invisible Committee in the vein of Guy Debord—and with comparable elegance—it has been proclaimed a manual for terrorism by the French government (who recently arrested its alleged authors). One of its members more adequately described the group as “the name given to a collective voice bent on denouncing contemporary cynicism and reality.” The Coming Insurrection is a strategic prescription for an emergent war-machine to “spread anarchy and live communism.”

Written in the wake of the riots that erupted throughout the Paris suburbs in the fall of 2005 and presaging more recent riots and general strikes in France and Greece, The Coming Insurrection articulates a rejection of the official Left and its reformist agenda, aligning itself instead with the younger, wilder forms of resistance that have emerged in Europe around recent struggles against immigration control and the “war on terror.”

Hot-wired to the movement of ‘77 in Italy, its preferred historical reference point, The Coming Insurrection formulates an ethics that takes as its starting point theft, sabotage, the refusal to work, and the elaboration of collective, self-organized forms-of-life. It is a philosophical statement that addresses the growing number of those—in France, in the United States, and elsewhere—who refuse the idea that theory, politics, and life are separate realms.

I eagerly await the Department of Homeland Security’s admonitions of the dangers of leftwing extremism.

Our own Declaration of Independence – a bit more eloquent – was used as a preamble to describe the abuse of power by Great Britain and subsequent call-to-action for independence. The beginning is a generalization of the human condition under any form of tyrannical government:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.

Civilization is a thin veneer that separates us from the hardships of raw survival. While western civilization has provided us with the opportunity to enjoy the more heady pursuit of philosophy, our love affair with the mind and its capacity for abstract thought often precludes us from noting the ephemeral nature of civilized discourse. Such is the blessing and the curse of living in a society such as ours. In our ignorance of the transient nature of civilization we are freed from a constant anxiety visiting itself upon us, blinding us to a harsher reality that peeks from just around the corner – that mass violence can, and has, occurred in America.

The start of the Revolutionary War did not come about through “light and transient causes”, but through “a long train of abuses and usurpations”. Historians estimate that approximately 40-45% of the colonists actively supported the rebellion against England, 15-20% of the population of the thirteen colonies remained loyal to the British Crown, and the remaining 35-45% attempted to remain neutral. While hard to gauge how many males would support violence as a means to secure liberty from oppression, I believe the number not to be small. How many of these would consider it their duty “to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security”? I am of the impression, given my arguments below, that any such action taken by the citizenry of this country would quickly escalate, swelling the numbers of those opposed to a power grab by a centralized government and willing to take up arms to settle their grievances. If one believes I am a fear-monger, think of this: America has enjoyed one of the longest stretches of peace within our borders than almost every other nation on this planet. There were those who thought something like 9/11 could not happen here. They were wrong. Given the current supercharged political climate and the blistering pace at which standard pillars of American society are falling, I do not belong to the “it can’t happen here” crowd. I do, however, hope it does not happen here. Unfortunately, the signs I see do not point me in a direction of comfort concerning this matter. Many whom I have spoken to share the same sentiments. Unless the current administration changes course and desists in usurping the personal rights held dearly since the birth of this nation, it is my belief that a great violence shall overtake our nation.

In the struggle for the life and death of liberty there exists no greater potential for instigating revolution than trampling on the will of the majority in an attempt to steal away rights endeared to our hearts. As America watches treasured traditions and freedoms quickly vanish from the landscape, it is my fear that battles fought with words will morph into something far more nefarious.

White House spy programs, carbon taxes, the plunging value of the dollar, a stimulus package that is not stimulating, exploding deficits that saddle us and future generations with huge tax burdens, government takeovers of the private sector, and a slew of other offenses are beginning to build up a certain sort of pressure. Should health care be rammed down our throats, whether along with cap-and-trade or not, the result could very well be explosive.

Any society, particularly ours, is nothing more than a social contract among citizens to follow a basic set of precepts. As our individual survival is paramount, these group covenants typically address issues related to our own physical and mental well-being, allowing the parties to enjoy a certain level of freedom and to thrive. Don’t murder me; don’t steal from me; don’t cheat me; protect me. In our own peculiar American civilization, many of these intersect with the ideas of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are the most basic tenets of our civilization, and in reality apply to most Western civilizations. They lead to laws against killing and stealing; laws of fair-business practices, and the recruiting and training of a military. With these basic needs protected, remaining resources concentrate on agriculture, infrastructure, education, and a host of other higher functions: philosophy, mathematics, science, engineering, and the arts, to name a few.

In the advanced stages of civilization it becomes easy to forget just how close we are to savagery. If you take away the contract – or a centralized power continuously and unabatedly attacks our liberties, usurps our power, and abuses us – then like a cornered wild animal we will turn on those who commit such grievous insults, grab back our liberty and take back our power. At first, the attempts will be benign, including legal actions such as 10th Amendment assertion of states rights. However, should the courts rule for the centralized power, allowing the assaults on liberty to continue, then rebellion in some form or another may take place. Will it be the pursuit of legal resolution , civil disobedience, secession, domestic terrorism, or outright rebellion? While hard to quantify, qualitatively the list appears to progress from most likely to least likely, with the possibility of overlap. However, domestic terrorism is a real threat – from both leftwing and rightwing extremists. As the Irish Republican Army once told the Prime Minister of England – we only have to be right once, you have to get it right every time. Such actions would forever change the landscape of our country and I fear the current administration is on track to create such an explosive atmosphere. My fear is that any armed resistance from one side will quickly draw the opposing side into conflict. Whether the sphere of influence for either side widens, drawing in those more moderate to the conflict, remains to be seen. We have already witnessed leftwing SEIU members commit acts of violence against peaceful town hall protesters. This after what almost appears like a cloaked tacit approval to “hit them back twice as hard”. The source of the last statement – the President of the United States. Political language is often parsed for hidden meanings, which is why politicians must be very careful how they use the powerful weapon of speech. For some, it will be difficult to discern whether the leader of the free world, through either naivety or actual support, is recommending violent resistance through a form of passive aggressive use of speech. Combined with flagging spy programs, pre-screened audiences at Presidential town halls, plants at Congressional town halls masquerading as doctors to lend credibility to a health care reform plan which, at its very core, cannot be defended, the signs are troubling. Naturally, the natives are getting restless. Years of not trusting government, combined with the current political atmosphere, the level of engagement by those opposed to the path charted by a very liberal administration, buyer’s remorse by many who voted for “hope and change” and are getting more than they bargained for, and some Congressional members stating they will vote for health care reform in the face of majority disapproval by constituents, is setting the stage for a showdown. What shape the conflict will take remains to be seen.

The civic body can only take so much insult before rebellion. No other species on the planet possesses the savagery and cunning of homosapiens; there is a reason we rule the earth. Our higher functioning brain evolved for survival – civilization is a side effect, and is nothing more than another tool for survival. Take away this tool, and others quickly take its place. We may cherish our moral and ethical framework, but events in history prove over and over again that this framework has no power over our more basal instincts when the facade is ripped away – regardless of how we wish it to be. This is the human condition. Everyone will throw out the rules at one point or another if pushed over the brink.

In such a situation, instinct is now the driving force to reacquire principles and rights, and the sphere of influence for social contracts in such situations shrinks drastically. It is a blessing and a curse of our own civilization that we are unable – and unwilling – to see just how fragile all of this is. We spend so much time caressing our ideologies and cooing over how clever we are that we miss the point. To survive we must be pragmatic before we are ideologues, or at least a better balance must be struck between the two. There is so much more we need to do to ensure our own survival and the survival of our civilization, and it must start with those who, unbeknown to them, are stirring the pot by absconding with our liberties. That they do this with ideology is the real danger. Blinded by this very ideology, they are myopic to the consequences of their actions. There is nothing conducive whatsoever in any of the proposals coming from the liberal establishment of this country. An insurmountable intellectual gap separates reality from anything resembling utilitarian ideas. The reactionary forces will themselves be ideological, for it is principles and ideas which drive us towards and away from civilized behavior – they are our only point of reference. America’s leadership is setting America up for full-scale disillusionment. We sit on a social powder keg.

Take for example the complete lack of pragmatism regarding cap-and-trade. First, if one believes global warming is man-made, the current cap-and-trade bill only moves around the chess pieces as it were. In the process, a transfer of wealth from energy using states to states using less energy through the purchase of carbon credits on a market will have zero affect on the global climate as greenhouse gasses will not be reduced. Even if greenhouse emission reductions are mandated, as they are, if China and India do not participate, America is put at an economic disadvantage. Where is the pragmatism here?

Recently the Australian Senate rejected cap-and-trade due to a seismic shift in the public’s opinion concerning man-made global warming. It now appears that evidence is pointing to other sources of global warming and not industry as the cause. Yet we still suffer from global warming hysteria in this country. Read A Tax On Thin Air. Using what now amounts to shaky science, we are about to submit our economy and future generations to an oppressive centralized regime for reasons that appear more groundless by the day. Try to entertain an opposing opinion to the anthropocentric global warming meme and you are likely to be compared to a holocaust denier. It is this complete lack of imagination on the part of liberals that is so infuriating. And this is not the only subject matter of which liberals are guilty of such transgressions against simple logic. Their tendency towards the illogical on a host of issues and the subsequent sacrifice of our liberties in pursuit of a solution that places more control into the hands of a centralized behemoth defies common sense. Yet here we are.

Reihan Salam writes in Pelosi Is Wrong (emphasis mine):

If Obamacare eventually passes in some form, I’ll make you a guarantee: these ferocious protests will keep getting bigger and louder.

To get a glimpse of America’s future, consider France. The French have the health-care system that Americans desperately want [polls strongly repudiate this last point - I am not quite sure what the Mr. Salam was thinking when he wrote this rather obvious misrepresentation]: it combines private providers and patient choice with a large and generous public insurance system, one that keeps out-of-pocket costs extremely low for working families. The French system is also dramatically cheaper than our own. But whenever there’s a move to tweak the system in some way say, to gently nudge patients to get the approval of a general practitioner before seeing a specialist the French go absolutely mad with rage. Doctors go on strike, massive street protests ensue, the riot police come out: it’s a crazy scene.

And it makes perfect sense: as more life and death decisions are placed in the hands of democratically elected legislators, politics become more than an occasional nuisance. When your wages are stagnant or your health insurance premiums are zooming skyward, you don’t blame your boss or bad luck; instead, you blame the knuckleheads running, or rather ruining, the country. You come to feel as though you can’t just wait until the next election: You need to make your voice heard now even if that means taking to the streets or throwing a punch. We can call the protesters un-American. Yet America has gone through long periods of roiling unrest before and it can happen again.

As CNSNews points out:

Self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals in all 50 states of the union, according to the Gallup Poll.

At the same time, more Americans nationwide are saying this year that they are conservative than have made that claim in any of the last four years.

In 2009, 40% percent of respondents in Gallup surveys that have interviewed more than 160,000 Americans have said that they are either “conservative” (31%) or “very conservative” (9%). That is the highest percentage in any year since 2004.

Some may not wait for the next election. I plead with our leaders to tread lightly or I fear they may send us down a path none of us really wants. Whether from the left, right, or middle, things could get ugly out there.

Let us hope it is ideas and not violence that resolves our differences. In my humble opinion, the Obama administration is pushing the envelope and the buttons that could very well lead to the violence I and most of you would wish to avoid. The time for leadership is now. Obama, the time to listen to the American people is now.

The above essay, written August of last year, started me on a quest to understand if there is a constitutional non-violent way to take back our liberties from an oppressive centralized regime. When I came across the idea and constitutionality of nullification and the fact it has been used successfully in the past in a non-violent way as pointed out by Judge Napolitano, it became clear to me nullification is the path forward to regaining our liberty without resorting to violence. Failing that, our only option is to live under tyranny or resort to violence. I reject the last two options as necessary IF we are willing to do what is necessary to take our country back.

Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

This is more true today than ever before.

In other news and opinion:

Just say no to jihadi-dumping in your backyard

Cone of Shame Award: Democrat Rep. Melissa Bean

ACORN Watch: What happens in Vegas…

MSNBC: Guys Carrying Guns to Rallies Are Racists, Especially This Guy Whose Skin Color We Will Now Proceed to Hide from Your View

Detonating the narrative: MSNBC and the gun-guy at the Obama rally

McCain: You might be seeing the beginning of a peaceful revolt in America.

Update: The Nightmare That Is The Senate Finance Committee Healthcare Proposal – RINOCare Gone Wild. Are you ready for governement controlled health insurance cartels? Socialized healthcare vs. fascist healthcare, the dangerous bi-partisan compromise.

The endgame is here and the most important aspect that could kill the above linked post concerning the Senate Finance Committee healthcare bill and any other form of ObamaCare is being ignored by not only the media, but major bloggers everywhere. The only other reference I can find other than on the Social Security Institute website (see link below) is from FreedomWorks. Given that these two amendments kill any chance of reconciliation, I am at a loss to explain the complete lack of interest in this topic.

There were two amendments offered by Senator DeMint prior to the health bill conferences and debate in the Senate – a point-of-order amendment and instruction to conferees. The following is taken directly from an email Mr. Uhler received from Dr. Lawrence Hunter of the Social Security Institute that was forwarded to me and placed in the first link above. Dr. Hunter also has a very long and distinguished career and served as policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan during Reagan’s second term. He also served as a Member of the Board of Advisors for the NTLC:

During deliberations on the Senate Budget Resolution earlier this year, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) introduced a point-of-order amendment that would require a 60-vote majority to pass “any bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report that eliminates the ability of Americans to keep their health plan or their choice of doctor (as determined by the Congressional Budget Office).” The Senate approved the DeMint Amendment unanimously.

Subsequently, before the Senate Budget Resolution went to a Conference Committee where differences with the House Budget Resolution were to be worked out, DeMint offered a motion to instruct the Conferees not only to insist on retaining the 60-vote provision in the final Conference Report but also to widen the scope of the provision to cover any provision and so forth that decreases the number of Americans enrolled in private health insurance while increasing the number enrolled in government-managed, rationed health care. The Demint motion to instruct passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote of 79 to 14.

As a matter of congressional comity, the House ordinarily would have been expected to accede to the Senate provision since it affected Senate rules that applied only to the Senate. Remarkably, Senate Budget Committee Chairman, Kent Conrad, allowed the Demint 60-vote requirement to be removed from the Budget Resolution in Conference.

Prior to the above statements by Dr. Hunter is information of great importance:

However, with a united Republican front in the Senate, Democrats would be hard pressed to jam a bill as comprehensive and detested as ObamaCare down Americans’ throats. Current polls indicate that more people oppose ObamaCare than support it. Moreover, Senate Republicans stand on very strong procedural grounds for resisting a bum’s rush on government-run healthcare through the Reconciliation process. It would take an act of extraordinary arrogance and recklessness for the Democratic Leadership to use Reconciliation this way.

If agreed upon to be enforced, the Demint amendments would in effect kill the reconciliation process and force 60 votes to pass ObamaCare in its present form – even with the co-operative option, which is nothing more than a Trojan horse for what ultimately will become a single-payer system. Mr. Uhler has identified five Republican Senators that need to align themselves with the party and forgo their proclivity to reach across the aisle. If this story goes national and pressure is brought to bear on these five Republican’s to stand firm with their party, then it is reasonable to assume the above conclusion from Dr. Hunter to be correct. Under these circumstances I do not believe the Democrats in the Senate would have the votes to commit “an act of extraordinary arrogance and recklessness”. However, wide public knowledge of the amendments and the subsequent pressure on Senators to follow their own rules requires national exposure. The average American is completely unaware of the procedural hurdles that Senator Jim Demint placed to block the ramming of a very unpopular plan onto the American people.

One could reasonably ask themselves why the public must follow rules, where the Senate can choose to ignore them. It will focus attention on the contempt that some Senate elitists have for the public. However, to date no major conservative talk show, media outlet, or think tank has covered this tactic. Everyone is talking about Blue Dogs killing the legislation. While certainly one strategy to pursue, I personally believe Blue Dogs have a habit of growling but, at the end of the day, many of them will roll over. I prefer a multi-pronged strategy that would include the above approach outlined by Dr. Hunter. On the legislative front, what is called for is combining public pressure on the Blue Dogs in the House and placing pressure on five Senate Republican’s to stand firm with their party and not negotiate ObamaCare Lite with the cooperative option replacing nationalized health care. Instead the public should insist the Demint rules be followed. This could very well kill the bill as it exists today. We could then press the reset button and start talking about real reform.

Using Reconciliation to force feed ObamaCare to an unwilling nation would backfire in ways that Democrats will find difficult to imagine. That is the type of atmosphere some liberals, such as Chuck Schumer are willing to create now and for the foreseeable future.

Here is the link to the story on the Social Security Institute article from Dr. Hunter:

In other news and opinion:

As the Byrd Rule Flies: Why Dems Can’t Use Reconciliation to Pass Radical ObamaCare

Co-ops a federal-subsidy trough

From Moe Lane at Redstate: Howard Dean threatens primary challenges on public option ‘no’ votes.

Is ObamaCare Constitutional?

Blue Dog: Hey, maybe we should start over on ObamaCare. Won’t happen, but this can be killed in the Senate. I am still astounded nobody has picked up on this yet.

ObamaCare: Does the media matter?

That’s a question asked by Joe Gandleman at The Moderate Voice (whatever that means). Channeling Marc Ambler from the Atlantic, Mr. Gandleman asks:

The emerging narrative in a lot of the major press coverage of heatlh care reform is that President Barack Obama has lost control of his message, which is why he was out on the hustings today at a town hall meeting. But now The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder writes that he now senses a slight relief at the White House.

Why? Because, according to Ambinder, there’s a growing feeling that the Republicans may have lost control of their message and that GOPers at Town Halls have provided a picture of some of the party’s most extreme, angry elements — which won’t convince the Blue Dog Democrats to panic and not support the plan and could well scare off independent swing voters.

Here are key portions of what he says in a post titled “How Conservatives Are Blowing Their Chance.” He notes that the mood at the White House has changed from one week ago:

A week later, and the Atlantic’s tricorder readings are picking up much calmer electromagnetic energy from the White House. Getting Democrats to attend the town hall meetings was really an intermediate goal. But Democrats are beginning to notice that opponents of health care reform have discredited themselves. They ramped up much too quickly. When smaller, conservative groups Astroturfed, they inevitably brought to the meetings the type of Republican activist who was itching for a fight and who would use the format to vent frustrations at President Obama himself. There were plenty of activists who really wanted to know about health care, and some who were probably misinformed — scared out of their chairs — to some degree, but the loudest voices tended to be the craziest, the most extreme, the least sensible, and the most easy to mock.

Ambinder suggests that conservatives had a window of opportunity to make their case seriously which “required a certain restraint — and a willingness to traffic in at least approximate truths — and an ability to make distinctions within their own ranks about which tactics were valid and which tactics were venomous. It also required a sophistication about the media.”

And what about the media? Ambinder contends media reports were not helpful to the GOP because reports were done in either two ways: “they credulously reported the louder, angrier voices (inherently damaging to Republicans in this case) or they reported on the political architecture of the town hall meetings, which plays down the substance of the protests.”

The Blue Dog Democrats’ swing constitutes aren’t angry,” he writes, “and the Blue Dogs know this. They’re political independents for whom the sanctity of the process is important. These are the type of voters who like President Obama because he appears willing to bring people together even though they don’t agree with their policies.”

In short, he argues, the right has lost control of its message, much as the left did under Bush. Lawmakers of both parties:

…found their meetings full of engorged spleens. Unrestrained, these town hall meetings are going to turn off the type of voters Republicans most need to pressure Blue Dog Democrats — independents who don’t have red genes or blue genes.

This has been the problem with the GOP in recent years: most of its pitches, when the rubber meets the road, eventually boil down to arguments that seem aimed at wavering Republicans and the style and tone of the rhetoric is — as we have called it here — the confrontional, angry and demonizing talk radio political culture. That works fine with Republicans, but it can only cause a counter reaction in wavering liberal Democrats who began to sour on Obama and independent voters wanting to follow a debate don’t get much substance hearing people yell about socialism, Marxism, Nazi Germany or Obama death panels.

In the end, this may come down to which side discredits itself first. Getting media coverage isn’t always positive if the images that come out are unpleasing to others who are not just not on your side but on the fence deciding which is the side worth joining.

So does this mean that Obama is on the descent as Ambinder suggests due to the images the meetings are emitting?

Not necessarily. Political veteran David Gergen has a different take on it and can foresee health care reform being defanged or even derailed due to the angry protests, which he notes don’t just involve talk radio and special interest group types but other Americans who distrust the change:

In this week’s issue of the National Journal, correspondents Brian Friel and Richard E. Cohen provide a valuable insight into possible endgames. They report that there are four possible outcomes:

(1) A major bipartisan reform bill is passed;
(2) A major Democratic reform bill is passed over nearly united Republican opposition;
(3) The Democrats cannot agree among themselves and pass Health Care Lite, a very watered down version of reform;
(4) Failure

Looking at the chances today, in the midst of all this brouhaha, one would have to say that the odds for outcomes one and two are going down. It is hard to see how a lot of Republicans will sign up for a bipartisan bill in the teeth of this opposition; similarly, it may be tougher for moderate Democrats, especially new members from Republican-leaning districts, to sign on to a Democratic-only bill. That means the odds are going up for outcomes three and, yes, four.

Does this mean that reform is dying? Not at all. It is still possible that if the protests continue at a high decibel level, more people in the middle will grow disgusted and rally to the President. And given his political and rhetorical talents, it is more than possible that Barack Obama himself can turn this around. But for the moment, the raucous clips coming out of Senator Specter’s session with his constituents along with other clips from other town halls — as offensive as they are to many (including me) — are also presenting a growing threat to reform.

So pick the theory of your choice — and come September, see which proved to be correct.

I could not help myself and commented as follows (I add additional information below not found in the original comment):

The first theory ignores the real data – polls. Nothing is mentioned about the polls because the first theory fails on its merits if polling data is included int the analysis.

Polling indicates a growing dissatisfaction with ObamaCare that drops by the day. He is losing seniors big time – and they are the largest voting bloc in mid-term elections. He is also losing independent voters big time. Many independents are experiencing buyers remorse and know the bait and switch Obama pulled on them. If you attempt to argue that no independents are attending town halls and shouting angrily as politicians literally lie to their faces, then you present an opinion that is patently absurd. As the town halls became more vocal, support for ObamaCare eroded further – not something one would expect of a backlash. Blue Dogs and other Democrats are quite aware of this and it is the poll numbers that will dictate their voting behavior. Should they choose to ignore the polls and vote for ObamaCare, look for a real backlash in 2010. So theory one looks like Swiss cheese upon further scrutiny and is not worthy of additional discussion (the extra CO2 required would exacerbate global warming).

Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic is following the media script of “backlash, backlash, backlash!” in an effort to silence the town halls, because they are eroding support for ObamaCare. Of course, nobody is listening to such nonsense. Whatever does pass – if anything at all – will be a watered down version of reform. August 22nd is national recess rally day – look for some real fireworks by millions, not a few hundred at a town hall. It won’t be so easy to dismiss that level of protest. I can’t wait to see Nanny State Nancy try. She is the gift that keeps on giving.

Blue Dogs are also aware of the opt out amendments in Florida and Utah and up to ten other states that will be using the 10th amendment to fight ObamaCare. Throw that dynamic in the mix.

If you want real backlash, check out Little girl at Obama town hall has not-so-random political connections. Documented, proved and case closed. Obama lies once again, stating the members of his town hall were not screened. Of course, anyone with half a brain knew better. Look for further plunging poll numbers, the obvious dynamic described as: Obama opens his mouth on the subject the numbers drop. Marc’s sense of “relief” at the White House belongs in the same boat as Obama stating he was never for a single payer system – fabricated.

Obama’s coattails are becoming an anchor.

Update: Backed up by Mickey Kaus (via Glenn Reynolds)

In other news and opinion:

Democrats now taking refuge at SEIU offices

BUSTED!: “Obama As Hitler” Poster Was A Democrat/Union Plant At John Dingell Townhall! UPDATED with video interview!

If you are a liberal, how do you live with yourself? First, you have the tape where Obama admits he wants a single-payer system – exhibit A evidence. Then, his admission in yesterday’s town hall that he has never been for a single-payer system – exhibit B evidence. Conclusion: Obama Lies.

Now you have Obama claiming there were not plants or screening in his town hall – exhibit C evidence. Michelle Malkin dispels that myth – exhibit D evidence. Conclusion: Obama Lies.

Now a plant by Dingell at a Town Hall?

If one has to resort to lies and underhanded tactics to make a point or sell a product or piece of legislation, it stands to reason that a sane person would begin to question the peddled snake oil and become either cautious or outright distrustful of the whole thing.

Video: Nelson strikes back against ObamaCare

How much can we now trust this: GA congressman describes hate mail, Nazi graffiti after protests

Okay people, time to wake up. Gateway Pundit: Bus–ted… Obama Bussed In Supporters For New Hampshire Town Hall (Video).

Funny… During the meeting Barack Obama told his supporters:

“I don’t want people thinking I just have a bunch of plants in here.”

No, we sure wouldn’t want that to happen.

People might think it was all a staged dog and pony show.

One of the comments for the Gateway Pundit called it:

it was a pony and horseshit show, without the pony……..

Read about ObamaCare from Peter Ferrara at The Heatland Institute: Rationing, Higher Taxes, and Lower Quality Care. The pdf of the entire study can be found here. Print it out, read it, move it forward. The report is a scathing and frank overview of ObamaCare. Peter Ferrara’s bio can be found on Limit Taxes:

Peter Ferrara is Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation, and General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under the first President Bush. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

From The Heart Land Institute article introduction:

President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are rushing to enact legislation that would overhaul the way health care is financed and delivered in the United States. It would dramatically increase the role of government in virtually all aspects of health care. Such an initiative should be carefully studied to determine whether it actually solves problems in the health care arena or makes them worse.

National health plans similar to what President Obama is proposing have been adopted in other countries. They always start out promising universal access and free or reduced-price health care. But they end up with massive institutional bureaucracies whose purpose and function are to deny health care and medical services. Often they fail to control spending despite resorting to withholding care to politically weak groups.

President Obama insists that his plan to fundamentally restructure health care is needed to reduce costs. He has touted a report from his Council of Economic Advisors that specifies exactly how that would be done. That report, however, elaborates a policy of thorough government health care rationing achieved through government control of the financing and delivery of care.

This study will explain how the health policy changes President Obama and Congressional Democrats support would cause millions of Americans to lose their choice of doctors and insurance coverage, require that access to care be strictly rationed, and cause the quality of care to deteriorate. Despite all this sacrifice, nationalizing health insurance in America would require major tax increases, slow economic growth, and increase the national debt.

Part 2 of this study describes the Obama health plan as it is presented in legislation being debated in Congress. Part 3 explains how the Obama health plan would result in the loss of freedom of choice. In particular, it shows how you would not be free under President Obama’s plan to keep your current health insurance because employers would “dump”millions of people into a one-size-fits-all government-run program. Part 4 explains how the Obama plan would give government the power to ration health care, including the power to deny access to the elderly, who need it the most.

Part 5 explains how, despite rationing, the Obama health plan would increase health costs. Part 6 describes the intractable entitlement crisis America already faces based on the undeliverable promises made for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The Obama health plan would recklessly add yet another unfunded middle-class entitlement program, this one giving subsidies for families earning $88,000 per year and more.

Part 7 discusses the health policy reforms America should adopt, based on expanding patient power and choice in a market-based health care system. These reforms would provide a true health care safety net that would ensure no one suffers without essential health care while reducing costs and preserving those parts of the current health care system that work. Part 8 presents a brief summary and concluding remarks.

Today, Americans enjoy the best health care and medical services in the world, an important part of our high standard of living. President Obama has said “my view is that health care reform should be guided by a simple principle: fix what’s broken and build on what works.” But that is not what his plan would do. Instead, he would tear down what is good about the current system and replace it with old-fashioned and outdated socialized medicine policies adopted by other countries, reflecting their lower living standards. It would be a terrible mistake.

Move it forward.

Related: Read My Discussion With Lewis K. Uhler – How 5 Republican Senators May Hold The Future Of Healthcare In Their Hands. Lewis K. Uhler held many positions under Ronald Reagan and is the Founder and President of the Limit Taxes organization. I cannot express the importance of getting this information out there. Call Sean, Rush, or Glenn and get the message out not only of the information in the post concerning Mr. Uhler, but the above information from Peter Ferrara as well. Send it as a tip to your favorite mega-blogger.

Get. The. Word. Out.

In other news and opinion:

White House: You’re not un-American, but you are still corporate shills so just pipe down

Be careful: DOT inspector general challenges O’s stimulus spending.

Overflow crowd at Maryland town hall.

Obama Kabuki theater in Portsmouth; crowd chants “YES, WE CAN!;” little girl laments “mean things” on protest signs; O lies about single-payer supportin-portsmouth/

Correcting misinformation about ObamaCare

You have got to be kidding me. Obama: Government health care will be like, um, the post office.

More here (emphasis mine):

In a just-completed New Hampshire town hall meeting, President Obama stated that he never said he supported a single-payer health care system. But as clearly evidenced by this video, in 2003, he declared: “I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care plan.”

Meanwhile, at another point of today’s town hall meeting, Obama was pushing back against the idea that the creation of a new government-run plan would drive private insurers out of business, and he said that UPS and FedEx were doing fine, but “it’s the post office that’s always having problems.” Oops!

The gaffe arose from the inherent contradiction of those arguing for the introduction of a government government-run plan. On the one hand, Obama and other supporters of the idea argue that we need to have a strong government plan to create more efficiency, drive down prices, and “keep private insurers honest.” Yet at the same time, they have to make it appear weaker to push back against those of us who argue that it will threaten private insurance and move us toward a single-payer system. So then you get statements in which Obama, in the course of arguing for a government-run system, takes a shot at the government-run post office.

And Obama makes our case for us. Case closed and thanks Barry!

Another Obamian slip.

UPDATE 1: 9/9/2009 The Nightmare That Is The Senate Finance Committee Healthcare Proposal – RINOCare Gone Wild. Pay attention to what the Senate is doing right under our noses. It is important to understand what the Senate Finance Committee healthcare proposal means to you. Hint: it’s not good.

Update 2: Finally someone is talking about the constitutionality of ObamaCare. It is this very issue which strengthens the case made by Dr. Lawrence Hunter to use the two Jim Demint amendments and pressure five Senate Democrats on the Finance Committee to stand with their party. What Senator wants to stake their careers on a bill that may pass only to be repealed later? The real question comes down to how long can the states tie up this legislation in the courts. We only need three years. Is ObamaCare Constitutional?

Watch for more of this to come. Utah is looking into using its state constitution and the 10th Amendment protection of states rights from an encroaching federal government to opt out of ObamaCare should it pass Congress.

SALT LAKE CITY — Republican Utah lawmaker Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, wants Utahns to have the option not to take part in a federal health care program.

He says he’s drafting a proposed amendment to Utah’s Constitution; one he believes will get overwhelming approval.

“We’re going to pass a state Constitutional amendment stating that people will not be forced by the national government to purchase health care insurance and that small businesses will not be forced to provide them,” Wimmer said.

Voters, of course, would have to pass the amendment, and it would have to get at least two-thirds majority in the Utah House and Senate. But Wimmer says it’s worth it, no matter what comes out of the Federal health care reform effort.

He says it’s a state’s rights issue and that Utah has made good progress on its own reform plans. “We don’t need help from the Federal government figuring this thing out, we know how to do it and we’re able to do it far more efficiently than they are,” he says.

Such an amendment could lead to cuts in federal funding and to lawsuits, but Wimmer says it’s time states “wean themselves” from federal dollars and that lawsuits may be the only way to “turn the tables” on the Federal government.

The course for the ObamaCare ship is in uncharted waters, while ways to defeat it are not as difficult as one might think. First, Congress needs a bill for the President to sign. In this and the prevous post I outline the process whereby this can come to pass. These are not my ideas, but come from two very distinguished gentlemen, their biographies presented in my previous post. Keep reading.

Even if passed by Congress, expect strong resistance with a slew of state’s rights movements via the 10th amendment and subsequent lawsuits. There is plenty of time to tie this legislation up in the courts. Long enough, in fact, for the opportunity to derail the legislation by repealling it in a future Congress. However, if enough states fight Obama’s attempt to sieze control and increase the powers of federal government the fissures and fault lines created by this backlash would not favor ObamaCare. What vulnerable Senator or Representative really wants to stake their careers on legislation that may pass, only to possibly be killed later, or that would create such an outcry against federal powers as to start a movement of decentralizing power back to the states? In the end, polling and passion will win the day and minds will be changed. We are living through history, and many of us are actively a part of it. As Obama has shown us, we can no longer take liberty and freedom for granted. It is the duty of every American who cherishes liberty for themselves and future generations to take to the streets and town halls, to encourage state legislatures to resist the federal governement, and to call Senators and Representatives and make their voices heard. This is a beast that can be slaughtered.

Florida is also asserting 10th Amendment State’s Rights under the U.S. Consitution (emphasis mine):

On the heels of a successful state-level resistance to the 2005 Real ID Act, activists and state legislators alike are focusing their efforts on state governments as a way to resist new federal programs.

The latest? Health Care.

In response to what some opponents see as a Congress that doesn’t represent their interests, State Legislators are looking to the nearly-forgotten American political tradition of nullification as a way to reject any potential national health care program that may be coming from Washington.

The most recent effort comes from Florida State Senator Carey Baker and State Representative Scott Plakon, who this week filed a proposed State Constitutional Amendment (HJR37) as a means to prevent Floridians from being affected by any Federal Health Care Legislation. If approved by the legislature, Florida residents could be voting on it as early as 2010.

HJR37 would deny the ability of any new law to impose demands, restrictions or penalties on health care choices on Floridians. Versions of proposed federal health care reform legislation have included insurance coverage mandates, and certain penalties on employers who fail to provide employee health insurance.

It states, in part:

(1) A law or rule shall not compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system

(2) A person or employer may pay directly for lawful health care services and shall not be required to pay penalties or fines for paying directly for lawful health care services. A health care provider may accept direct payment for lawful health care services and shall not be required to pay penalties or fines for accepting direct payment from a person or employer for lawful health care services.

A similar measure, called the Health Care Freedom Act, has already passed in Arizona, and residents of that state will have the opportunity to vote on it in 2010. Sources close to the Tenth Amendment Center say that more than ten other states may see such proposals introduced in the coming session.

Of course, this may not even be necessary as outlined at the Social Security Insitute here by Dr. Larry Hunter:

While a constitutional amendment is a sound and desirable backup measure, and a powerful prophylactic against future over reach by Washington, Wimmer and his compatriots are strategically positioned to drastically reduce the chances of nationalized healthcare ever occurring in the first place. To do so, they need to prevail upon Republican U.S. Senator Bob Bennett to stop trying to negotiate a version of ObamaCare Lite with the White House and his Democratic Senate Colleagues.

Senator Bennett’s version of ObamaCare, which he has introduced with Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden as The Healthy Americans Act (S. 391), is really nothing more than ObamaCare in drag—a Trojan RHINO with ObamaCare hiding inside ready to be smuggled into the country disguised as a “bipartisan compromise.” Bennett’s “solution” to the problems afflicting the healthcare system is not a conservative, market-based solution that one would expect a conservative Republican Senator to promote; it is not a plan that encourages and promotes individual self-reliance; it is RHINOCare (Republican Healthcare In Name Only) that simply wraps ObamaCare in a Republican skin and does not reflect conservative principles and values.

The bill would end the employer tax exclusion for employer-based health-insurance benefits and replace it with a combination of direct federal subsidies and individual tax deductions. In other words, it would increase people’s dependency on Washington dramatically. Mandatory insurance premiums would be collected through automatic payroll deductions from workers’ paychecks, which would be enforced by the IRS. Employers also would be required to pay into the nationalized healthcare system on a payment schedule based on number of employees, employer revenue and an average-plan premium—clearly a tax on employers to fund universal heath coverage run by the federal government.

Senator Bennett’s bill would replace the employer as the tax wedge in the health-insurance market with a direct government tax-and-subsidy wedge designed to drive the after-tax price of healthcare below market-clearing levels—it’s called price controls and it will lead inevitably to healthcare rationing. Hence, the bill would replace one poison with another: Rather than having the employer make critical decisions about what kind of healthcare is available to workers, as the current system does, government would assume a much more direct and active role in making these determinations. For example, the Wyden-Bennett plan would replace the current health system with one that is heavily regulated by the federal government. Individuals would have access only to plans permitted by the government, and they would be required by federal law to purchase such a plan.

The federal government would standardize the entire insurance market through direct mandates and regulations. The federal government would determine which health plans people could buy. The bill would establish a standard benefits package.

The bill requires all individuals to purchase government-defined health coverage without any real choice for individuals to pick a plan that best suits their needs. Senator Bennett even requires that all health insurance policies pay for abortions.

The plan would use direct government regulation to “squeeze out inefficiencies” in the system. In other words, the system would rely upon a new federal bureaucracy to implement “cost-control” measures that would ration and delay care to reduce overall healthcare spending.

Let’s call a spade a spade: Wyden-Bennett represents a form of healthcare fascism in which government and private insurance companies work hand-in-glove (an insidious “public-private partnership”) to control who spends how much, on what medical goods and services, for whom, under what circumstances and on what schedule. While the bill would leave a private-insurance façade on the system, Senator Bennett is actually proposing to turn healthcare over to the government to run, making private insurance companies and healthcare providers essentially agents of the federal government.

Dr. Hunter continues to describe why there is an important political reason for Senator Bob Bennett to stop negotiating with the White House on health care, how the Democrats could ram through a version of health care reform via the reconciliation process, and how Senator Jim DeMint offered a point-of-order amdenment (passed unanimously) and motion to instruct the Conferees (79 yeah votes) that would all but kill the reconciliation process, only to have Senate Budget Committee Chairman, Kent Conrad, ignore the 60-vote requirement and allow it to be removed from the Budget Resolution in Conference. Everyone lives by the rules, unless you’re and Senator. It is elitist and dishonest, in the least, to ignore rules while expecting the rest of us to live by them. Call your Senator and Representative and ensure they commit themselves to the rules that, in one case, all of them voted for. Read My Discussion With Lewis K. Uhler – How 5 Republican Senators May Hold The Future Of Healthcare In Their Hands.

Dr. Hunter makes an excellent point that a constitutional amendment is a sound and desirable backup measure, and a powerful prophylactic against future over-reach by Washington. Even if ObamaCare passes, it is this my belief that states around the country draft resolutions and amendments that reassert state’s rights, putting the federal governement and the Obama administration on notice to tread lightly and expect one hell of a fight if they even attempt to tip-toe on our rights. Time to put the lot of them in thier place or throw the bums out. Many inside the beltway should thank their lucky stars that tar-and-feathering are out of fashion.

Stay out of our lives.

In othe news and opinion:

A must see video that should be passed on. The Public Plan Deception – It’s Not About Choice. Three public statements advocates of single-payer health insurance explain that a health care bill with the “government monopoly option” would move America toward a single-payer government health care system. In the video Professor Jacob Hacker admits, publicly, that:

Someone once said to me this is a Trojan Horse for single-payer. Well it’s not a Trojan Horse, its just right there (audience laughter). I’m telling you, we’re going to get there, over time, slowly, but we will move away from reliance on employment based health insurance as we should, but we’ll do it in a way that we won’t frighten people into believing they are going to lose their private insurance.

Watch the entire video. Email it. It is damning to the narrative of the Obama administration and its liberal allies – it pulls aside the curtain and allows us to peak behind the stage where we find the naked emperor.

The gift that keeps on giving. Dick Durbin, who as you remember compared America to Nazi Germany opens his pie hole and ticks off another segment of the public content until now with sitting on the sidelines. He accomplishes this task, free of charge, by stating the town hall meetings are clearly orchestrated and insulting a growing segment of the American public. I mean, you can’t buy that kind of motivation, the type of motivation that awakens a growing number of us to get out and make our voices heard. If any orchestration is going on, it’s people like Dick Durban and Nancy Pelosi, and Obama who are the wind in our sails, and I thank them for that. Keep up the good work and watch as more of us join the largest movement since Civil Rights. Note to self – liberals unable to follow simple logic. The more they open their mouths and accuse people like me and you of being automatons when it is clearly their side that is orchestrating violence at the town hall meetings, clearly liberal organizations such as the SEIU that are robots at the beck and call of Obama the citizen spy master, the more of us show up, the angrier we are, the more desperate they look, and the more the poll numbers for health care plummet. Anybody home in that brain there Dick? Obama? Rahm? Nancy? Any liberal?

Please, keep talking. Don’t ever stop. It’s like free advertisement when liberal leaders decide to bloviate ad nauseum and explain how good their version of health care is for us, yet refuse to back a resolution that would require them to “enjoy” the same benefits as their own constituents. An on August 22nd, when the recess rally occurs, liberals like Dick will look like fools and skulk back under their rocks. At that time, only a few brain dead liberals will buy the already lifeless meme of orchestrated resistance when they see millions of people taking to the streets. Ahhh, I love the smell of crybabies in the morning.

The Washington Times agrees, the polling data does not back up the protesters are scripted. Drooping polls undercut scripted protest claims

CRITICAL: White House continues spy campaign: White House Launches Health Tattle-Tale Site on another .gov website. The site is here. Don’t forget to turn yourself in by using the contact section of the page. Ask them to address this video. Amazing how many lies these people will attempt to propagate in a vain attempt to spread the meme of “ObamaCare” is good for you. Watch this one backfire and the polls to drop even lower. Perchance the older site was inundated with millions of emails? Let’s do it again. Melt the phone (202-501-0282) and email of Lee Ellis (lee.ellis@gsa.gov), policy administrator of the GSA Federal Acquisition Service which assign .Gov domains and creates the guidelines for the use of .Gov domains. Be courteous.

More protests in Austin. Some protests in Massachusetts. Did I just read that?

Death panels? What death panels? Oh, those death panels

Rep. Tsongas tries to explain why Congress is exempt from Obamacare. Fails.

“Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.”

Tsongas (D-MA): I won’t take ObamaCare because I have better options. Wow, the truth from a Democrat!? Quick, somebody turn her in to flag@whitehouse.gov. She’s spreading disinformation! It’s fishy I tell you!

It appears as if Obama’s coattails have become an anchor. Net approval for Dem Senators declining twice as fast as GOP counterparts

Dems Continue “Listening Tour”– Fists, Boots, Bullhorns, Stomping Heads, Smashing Faces, Assaults Included. I can’t wait for the 22nd. A little camera off in the background to document a few things, some thug(s) about to commit an act of stupidity their tiny brains can’t begin to comprehend, and then me. By the time I am done defending myself, said thug(s) will be spending so much time in the hospital they’ll name a wing after them. It will be called the Stupidity Wing – fully paid for by the SEIU.

I just got off the phone with Lewis K. Uhler, Founder and President of the National Tax-Limitation Committee (NTLC). Mr Uhler’s career is long and distinguished:

Lew Uhler is founder and President of the National Tax Limitation Committee, one of the Nation’s leading grass roots taxpayer lobbies.

With offices in the Sacramento Area (Roseville) and Washington, DC, NTLC works with the White House, Members of Congress, legislators in states across the Nation and grassroots organizations to limit state and federal spending through legal restrictions and constitutional change. Uhler has been at the forefront of the national movements for a Tax Limitation/Balanced Budget Amendment to the United States Constitution and for term limits.

In 1968, then-Governor Ronald Reagan selected Uhler to serve on the California Law Revision Commission. In 1970, Reagan designated Uhler as the Governor’s State Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Subsequently, Uhler served in Reagan’s cabinet as Assistant Secretary of the Health & Welfare Agency. In 1972, Governor Reagan asked Uhler to organize and serve as Chairman of the Governor’s Tax Reduction Task Force. With the assistance of a nationwide panel of advisors (including Nobel Laureates Milton Friedman and James Buchanan), the task force developed California’s landmark Revenue Control and Limitation Act, which became a model for tax-expenditure limitation measures in many states.

About three hours prior to my speaking with Mr. Uhler, I talked with him briefly during an American Liberty Alliance teleconference, where strategies for defeating ObamaCare were discussed at length. However, it was something Mr. Uhler said that caught my attention. After the teleconference, I called the NTLC to get additional clarification of what Mr. Uhler discussed. Three hours later, my cell phone rang and I found myself talking to man who used to know and work for Ronald Reagan. A rush to say the least.

When all was said and done, Mr. Uhler decided to send me an email from Lawrence Hunter, PhD of the Social Security Institute. Dr. Hunter also has a distinguished career, and served on the White House staff as a policy advisor to the president during Ronald Reagan’s second term. The email is titled: Building the Case Against Moving Healthcare Reform under Reconciliation in the Senate. I encourage readers to read the blog entry referenced at the beginning of the email which follows (emphasis mine):

I just posted a new blog (“Utah Op Out” — http://socialsecurityinstitute.com/blog_post/show/200) explaining why the Wyden-Bennett healthcare reform bill is another Trojan RHINO in which ObamaCare will be smuggled into the United States as a “bipartisan compromise.” I wrote the blog not only to alert people to the fatally flawed nature of Senator Bennett’s bill but also to emphasize how important it is for the Senate Republicans to maintain a united front in opposition to ObamaCare. Many Republicans are of the opinion that there is nothing that can be done to stop ObamaCare in the Senate because the Democrats will ram a bill through under Reconciliation. Therefore, their reasoning goes, it is better to negotiate a less-bad bill than get stiffed with a horrible bill. I do not believe the situation warrants this pessimism and defeatist attitude. If Republicans remain united in opposition to ObamaCare in all its variants and play it smart in the Senate, I believe the procedural situation can be played to make it very difficult for Democrats to ram a bill through under Reconciliation. Here is the last part of that blog, which addresses the procedural situation in the Senate. I urge all of you to rally behind the argument that the Senate already has TWICE adopted a 60-vote rule on healthcare committing the Senate NOT to pass ObamaCare under Reconciliation. Were it not for an extraordinary act by the Budget Committee Chairman that runs contrary to Senate tradition, custom and norms, Reconciliation would not even be a theoretical possibility now. The integrity of the Senate still means something to enough Democrats that if we play it right, I believe we can dissuade them from moving this bill under Reconciliation. It is certainly worth the fight.

. . .Beyond the fatally flawed nature of Senator Bennett’s bill, there is an important political reason for him to stop negotiating with the White House on healthcare. A united Republican front is required in the Senate to stop the Democrats from ramming ObamaCare through the Congress by a razor thin majority. True, a united Republican front in the U.S. Senate may not be sufficient to head nationalized healthcare off at the pass. Senate Democrats could ram it down the nation’s throat through a special provision called Reconciliation, which short circuits the Senate’s super-majority rules that ordinarily protect an intense minority from being run rough shod over by a bare majority. Under Reconciliation, which drastically limits debate and amendment opportunities, a mere 51 votes is all that is required to pass legislation. Ordinarily, 60 votes are required to cut off debate before bringing a measure to a vote.

However, with a united Republican front in the Senate, Democrats would be hard pressed to jam a bill as comprehensive and detested as ObamaCare down Americans’ throats. Current polls indicate that more people oppose ObamaCare than support it. Moreover, Senate Republicans stand on very strong procedural grounds for resisting a bum’s rush on government-run healthcare through the Reconciliation process. It would take an act of extraordinary arrogance and recklessness for the Democratic Leadership to use Reconciliation this way.

During deliberations on the Senate Budget Resolution earlier this year, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) introduced a point-of-order amendment that would require a 60-vote majority to pass “any bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report that eliminates the ability of Americans to keep their health plan or their choice of doctor (as determined by the Congressional Budget Office).” The Senate approved the DeMint Amendment unanimously.

Subsequently, before the Senate Budget Resolution went to a Conference Committee where differences with the House Budget Resolution were to be worked out, DeMint offered a motion to instruct the Conferees not only to insist on retaining the 60-vote provision in the final Conference Report but also to widen the scope of the provision to cover any provision and so forth that decreases the number of Americans enrolled in private health insurance while increasing the number enrolled in government-managed, rationed health care. The DeMint motion to instruct passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote of 79 to 14.

As a matter of congressional comity, the House ordinarily would have been expected to accede to the Senate provision since it affected Senate rules that applied only to the Senate. Remarkably, Senate Budget Committee Chairman, Kent Conrad, allowed the DeMint 60-vote requirement to be removed from the Budget Resolution in Conference.

It is time to bring some sanity to the healthcare debate. Let’s hit the reset button. There is no emergency and no necessity to pass health legislation this year. Senate Republicans must form a united front to insist that the Senate abide by the 60-vote rule it passed twice in recent months requiring that it not pass major health reform under Reconciliation. They owe it to the Senate in which they serve; they owe it to the American people whom they represent.

There are five Republican Senators in particular with a proclivity to reach across the aisle. Doing so in this case will result in usurping the will of the people of the United States and selling us out. The cooperative option being floated by the Senate Finance Committee is nothing more than the public option in disguise. The concern is that protesters are concentrated on Democrat Representatives and Senators, while it is quite possible that five Republican Senators hold the future of American health care in their hands.

From the Limit Taxes website:

Obama Care is on the ropes. It is fatally defective and must be killed. Later we can start over on the right track. There is no way we can fix Obama Care and should not be negotiating to do so.

Blue Dog Democrats know how bad Obama Care is, but the political pressure on them is enormous. They are hoping a few senate Republicans, who are currently negotiating with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, will come up with a compromise that will give them the cover to vote for a House Bill.

For the future of our nation it is essential that Obama Care self destruct. What better way than to have the Blue Dogs and other Democrats kill it themselves. So it is vital that you contact the following well intended Republican Senators and ask them to stop negotiating and to do everything possible to defeat Obama Care in the Senate!

To find out more about the identity of these five Republican Senators, which state they represent, and how to contact them, see here. Don’t forget to attend any town hall meetings called by any of these five Senators and tell them to just say no to cooperatives and health care reform as currently envisioned by the liberal spectrum of the Democrat party. Shock them by insisting they demand adherence to the 60-vote rules passed by Senate members regarding health care reform. Nothing like an informed citizenry. Be polite but assertive. I know the passion is high, but I believe these five Senators can be reasoned with. I doubt any Senator will ultimately want to stand against two amendments voted on unanimously in one case and overwhelmingly in another. The image projected to the public that we should follow the rules while the Senate can choose to ignore them would be like setting off a hydrogen bomb – imagine the backlash. Combine that with 10th amendment challenges already planned in two states and possibly followed up by ten additional states (see the update below) and it is quite possible the legislation would not survive a 10th amendment challenge, or that in 2010 or 2012 the entire legislation could be watered down procedurally or repealed altogether. With no real guarantee that ObamaCare will pass or survive passage in Congress, why risk a political future to begin with?

Also, don’t forget the August 25th Recess Rally. Go to the link and check your state for more information.

Of course, it won’t hurt to ensure that all Democrat and Republican Senators insist on the 60-vote rule they passed twice.

Pass this information on – use the Share This button at the bottom of this post. You can email the story to your friends and have them pass it on. You can also use social networks to get the word out. And don’t forget there are still a lot of Democratic Senators and Representatives who need to hear from you. I know it sounds like a great deal of work, but ask yourself – are your freedoms worth it? If you start to feel overwhelmed, just remember the countless souls who died so the greatest country this world has known could exist and thrive. Stop Obama now.

Update: Follow up on this story: Florida, Utah May Opt Out Of ObamaCare By Asserting State’s Rights Under The 10th Amedment. Ten Other States May Join.

In other news and opinion:

Culture of Corruption: Dodd/Conrad cleared in Countrywide probe

Sebelius calls her SEIU “brothers and sisters” to battle; Dennis Rivera decries “terrorist tactics”

SEIU’s new attack video on “Teabaggers”. If you can believe this, the SEIU, in a definite show of their complete lack of intelligence, actually use video of their members committing acts of violence by kicking some poor soul as he lays on the ground. I guess they hope the viewers will believe it is the evil teabaggers. I know hamsters with more brain power than this. While I never had any fear of these bozos before, I can now honestly say they are about the stupidest bunch I’ve ever witnessed.

Mel Martinez’s strange resignation

An Open Letter To The President

Why ObamaCare goons do not help ObamaCare

Grassley: Town halls could force senators to start over on healthcare. I say, it’s time to start over and do this right. No more rushing bills through Congress that nobody has read. Let’s get a bill that addresses the issues that need attention but leaves the fundamentals in place for the free-market, innovation driven system we have today. If we are to have competition to drive down costs, let it be among private insurers and leave the governments and cooperatives out. The cooperative approach is nothing less more than a Trojan horse for what will one day force a single payer system upon us. No more ObamaCare. It’s time for AmericaCare. Hit the reset button.

Is ObamaCare Constitutional?