Comments

The undead: the public option, rising from the grave? — 79 Comments

1. Neo, if the Dems are going for a strategic bluff “designed to get Republicans to say “NO”” I think this will be yet another example of their inability to accurately judge the situation. Saying ‘no’ in this climate is taking the Republicans closer and closer to a fall landslide. I say keep it up!

2. It does seem like having members of Congress who are corrupt/unethical/hopeless far Left ideologues, congressmen who are pretty sure that their actions have already assured they will be defeated come 2010 or 2012 (to retire and collect a handsome pension and/or land, via a golden parachute, in some plush, wired job), makes for a kamikaze-like madness in some. They have nothing to lose, there are no bad consequences for them, so they can try to drive as far toward the goal of a Socialist America as possible, with no regard for the wishes of their constituents, and moreover, many-—if their statements are to be believed, have apparently convinced themselves–by talking only to like-minded members and activists, reading their own propaganda in a captive MSM, and ignoring any contradictory information, thus reinforcing each other’s world view and beliefs–that they are doing something that will be good for the country.

   There is normal political disagreement and then there is deliberate sabotage and an attempt to overthrow the system, however covertly. Frankly, I do not think that the Founders envisioned that we would run up against this particular situation and, thus, they provided no remedy.

   There have to be some sanctions that can be applied for malfeasance, misfeasance and actual malice in office, or this sort of bad faith, covert revolution, and “setting fire to Rome” mentality will continue to plague us.

   Political trials are always seen as the hallmarks of totalitarian governments and something to avoid, but absent investigating their actions in office and punishing deliberate sabotage or wanton disregard of their constituent’s will, what can we do? If we were to, say, deny them their pensions, wouldn’t there have to be some sort of investigation or trial to confirm what they had done merited such a punishment?

   It just seems to me that there must be some very unpalatable consequences, other than just defeat in the next election, to deter this kind of destructive sabotage, covert revolution, and betrayal of the American people and our democracy.

3. I’ll have a serving of each menu item.

   I think we’ve reached the endgame for healthcare.

   The Democrats are hoping for a swindle while trying to cut their losses for the midterms and with their base as best as they can.

4. The Public is on to the Healthcare Scam. Nothing the Dems can do short of starting over will change Pulic Opinion.

5. P.S.–I suspect that in past eras, when our population was much smaller and much more geographically concentrated, when they were more religion centered and concerned with morality and ethics, and you had a “reputation” to guard, public disapproval and the toll taken on a person’s “reputation” and “honor” were some of the major ways that such bad faith and betrayal was curbed and, moreover, the MSM was then playing its’ role as protector of our Freedom and Democracy, by actually investigating those who wanted to run for office and publishing–not covering up–what they found, and what such legislators did once in office.

   Thanks to Antonio Gramsci’s Marxist tank corps that has attacked and burst through, torn apart and flattened our traditional culture, ethical structure, public institutions, values and the ideas of “honor” and “civic duty,” and also to our “progress,” geographic dispersal, and the increase in our numbers and in individual anonymity, such considerations as “public disapproval” and “honor” are, for the most part, as dead as the Dodo, and–while given lip service–no longer mean anything to most of our political class

6. Still another is that the whole thing is a strategic bluff

   Possibly, but when asking yourself, “Can they really be that stupid?!!” (in regard to actually going ahead with reconciliation and “To Hell with what voters may really want!”), I’m scared that the answer is YES.

   –

7. I suspect the Dems aren’t quite sure what to do next but feel this is their strongest play. Threaten reconciliation and hope the Repubs and Independents break. And all they need is one or two Republican defections and they have it. Push hard and threaten enough and they just might get away with it. At least for awhile.

   I argue with the people at work on this and even they can’t find a justification for the enormous spending Medicare/Medicaid has reached.

8. Susan Estrich, a feminist, a liberal, a Harvard JD, and the first woman to edit their Law Review, says about the failure of Obama’s healthcare:

   It’s not a communications problem. What’s gone wrong is that people see the country swimming in debt, see the jobs recovery lagging, see friends and neighbors who are not even hanging on, and they just don’t know how this administration is planning to pay for a massive health care reform effort.

   That’s refreshing. So many of Obama’s supporters can’t see the plain truth in front of them, or at least can’t admit it.

9. Who buys a car from a salesman that desperately tried to pawn a POS car off on them just recently? Let the democrats obssess and implode over this issue.

10. Lest you be tempted to believe that idealism is propelling this disaster, remember–o please remember–that this is a plan they’ve exempted themselves from repeatedly despite the Republicans’ best effort.

    If this dog food were any good, they’d eat it themselves. There is no point of compromise in this deal–they expect to enslave us and have us pay for their own, superior, helathcare at out personal expense–we have to reject it vehememtly and it toto.

    This is their Gotterdammerung “Blow Your Brains Our in the Bunker” moment. Step aside and let tham have at it.

11. I never assume anything with Obamalinsky, but I guardedly believe that the lip service he paid yesterday in Nevada at Feckless Harry’s doo was for the benefit of his snarling, insane Left Base. Vigilance is absolutely necessary, but the Health Ponzi is–for now–DEAD.

12. To Wolla Dalbo

    I think in some big ways, your analysis is incorrect. The MSM covered for Stalin in a big way – they thought he would be a progressive hero. They also covered for Pol Pot quite a bit, until the truth came out, and they quickly forgot.

    The press has been swimming pretty hard to the left since the 1930’s at least. I think some other explanation for the difference now is needed.

    James

13. You must remember that ObamaCare has nothing to do with health care, insuring the uninsured, or any other related issue. It is all about power and control! More power for the political elite and more control over our lives.

    Off topic, we all would like to drive a Rolls Royce, but most of us cannot afford one. In theory universal health care is a noble endeavor, but we just can’t afford the enormous price tag – especially added to the massive debt our gubmint has already saddled us with.

    The largest single employer in Great Britain is their health care system. Don’t think for a moment that this will not happen in the U.S. if ObamaCare is implemented. Between 30% to 50% of our health dollars will go to the government just for the administrative behemoth that will be devised. I think that is the real objective.

    We cannot relax for a minute. As soon as the progressive liberals think we aren’t looking, they will apply CPR and bring it back to life either overtly or covertly if necessary. This applies to both Democrats and Republicans.

    The only way to save this country now is to be very diligent in voting true conservatives, regardless of party affiliation, into office at the city, county, state, and national levels.

14. Wolla Dalbo: investigation by whom?
    After observing political circus for a few years I doubt there exist, even in theory, someone with hands clean enough to conduct such investigation. Of course, temporary alliances are possible , against as well as fo some groups – but wouldn’t that be the same traditional Washington back-kitchen cooking, over and over again?

15. Tatyana–there you have the rub. Who will watch the watchmen, and, more especially, who will judge them?

    I am convinced that Congress as it is now composed, and given its current culture, is utterly unable to do such vital housecleaning, and I certainly don’t see any other reasonable alternative.

    Another study commission or special committee? Hah! Give me a break.

    I wouldn’t want the currently infected and contagious Executive branch anywhere near this, and the Supreme Court would not touch this with a ten foot pole, even if such an effort wouldn’t violate the separation of powers doctrine, which it does big time.

    So, perhaps a good idea in theory but one which is impossible, it seems, to implement.

16. James–

    Conspiracy theories can be comforting, for they offer an explanation for a chaotic world where things often go awry and offend our view of the world, how it should run, and what the outcomes should be. Such theories also tie things up in a nice neat bundle, where cause and effect–no matter how buried and covert–rule, and you are in the know, as opposed to all the other deluded, sleep-walking schmucks.

    That being said, I do think that there is merit in the idea that many commenters give credence to, that the successful application of the ideas and techniques advocated by pre-WWII Italian Communist party member and Marxist theoretician, Antonio Gramsci, are to blame for much of the degeneration, weakness and perversity that infests today’s increasingly effete and clueless Western society.

    Gramsci advocated and wrote a play book for a generation’s long, mostly peaceful subversion of bourgeois societies and cultures–using propaganda spread by cultural elites and opinion makers via all forms of media, as its key subversive weapon–whose very successful application has had a profound and deleterious effect on all aspects of Western civilization, and have been employed in all the countries of the West to undermine and subvert their foundations and basic institutions–the primary building block of the family, and each country’s educational, social, cultural, ethical, religious, civil and political institutions–the entire fabric of Western societies–and have been wildly successful.

    Academics, as Marxists like Antonio Gramsci knew way back then, are key players in any culture war or in any major propaganda effort. Members of the professoriate educate, lecture, write, help formulate curriculums, sit on hiring and tenure committees, write entries in encyclopedias and chapters in textbooks that non-specialists rely on, and get consulted by government policy makers; get a few of your people in the right positions and pretty soon you have essentially captured the institution, and are in a position to both hire like-minded comrades and to deny access to anyone else who doesn’t have the “right” attitudes and beliefs. Once you have the professoriate, and capture the MSM, you can spread your message throughout a society; like a virus that penetrates cells and subverts them to churn out more and more deadly viruses. Postmodernism is one of the chief vehicles for this Gramscian subversion and conquest, this viral attack.

    An excellent summary of some of the main themes of Postmodernism can be found on pp. 14-18 of Stephen R C. Hicks book, “Explaining Postmodernism.” A few excerpts:

    “Postmodernism rejects the Enlightenment project in the most fundamental way possible–by attacking its essential philosophical themes. Postmodernism rejects the reason and individualism that the entire Enlightenment world depends on. And so it ends up attacking all the consequences of the Enlightenment philosophy, from capitalism and liberal forms of government to science and technology.”

    “Postmodernism’s essentials are the opposite of modernism’s. Instead of natural reality–anti-realism. Instead of experience and reason–linguistic social subjectivism. Instead of individual identity and autonomy–various race, sex and class group-isms. Instead of human interests as fundamentally harmonious and tending toward mutually beneficial interaction–conflict and oppression. Instead of valuing individualism in values, markets and politics–calls for communalism, solidarity and egalitarian restraints. Instead of prizing the achievements of science and technology–suspicion tending toward outright hostility.”

    Postmodern academic themes–

    “Postmodern literary criticism rejects the notion that literary texts have objective meanings and true interpretations. All such claims to objectivity and truth can be deconstructed”…”The task of the literary critic… is to deconstruct the author’s text to reveal the author’s race, sex or class interests. Authors and characters who least embody the correct attitudes are naturally subject to the greatest amount of deconstruction….”Herman Melville in Moby Dick may have thought that he was exploring universal themes of personal and social ambition, man and nature–but what Captain Ahab really represents is the exploitative authoritarianism of the imperialistic patriarchalism and the insane drive of technology to conquer nature.” (See Schultz, Elizabeth, “Moby Dick: The Little Lower Layers” North American Review, December 1988, pp.52-59.)

    “In law, versions of Legal Pragmatism and Critical Legal Theory embody the new wave. For the pragmatist version of postmodernism any, any abstract and universal theory of law is to be distrusted. Theories are worthwhile only to the extent that they provide the lawyer or judge with useful verbal tools.” Standards for usefulness, however, are subjective and variable, so the legal world becomes a postmodernist battleground. As there are no universally valid legal principles, arguments become rhetorical battles of wills…”

    “In education, postmodernism rejects the notion that the purpose of education is primarily to train a child’s cognitive capacity for reason in order to produce an adult capable of functioning independently in the world. That view of education is replaced with the view that education is to take an essentially indeterminate being and give it a social identity. Education’s method of molding is linguistic, and so the language to be used is that which will create a human being sensitive to its racial, sexual and class identity…”

    I could go on quoting from this excellent book but, you get the idea.

    This is no classic “conspiracy,” if by that you mean some ultimate “boss of bosses” or “central committee” somewhere in an underground hideout, carefully orchestrating this massive and wide-spread, generation’s long Marxist campaign to undermine, subvert and occupy the seats of power–philosophical, educational, cultural, social, ethical, financial, political–of the Western world.

    If, however, you are talking about what John A. Stormer, author of “None Dare Call It Treason,” called a “conspiracy of shared values,” in which people on the far Left found Gramsci’s ultimate aims and playbook attractive, and largely independently of each other, used the techniques he suggested in all sorts of fields for many decades, then I think something like this is what happened. The cumulative effects from this strategy and these Gramscian tactics, gathering and reinforcing each other over the decades since WWII, have brought us to the state we find ourselves in the West today, and can explain the wreckage of our traditional culture and way of life we see all around us.

17. An interesting thing with *some* “conspiracy theories” is that they do not really require a conspiracy. They do not require a central authority guiding things.

    In Artificial Intelligence theory there is an applicable set of solutions that fits here (too many years ago, I can’t recall the technical name for them). Basically you have little autonomous robots with a very simple AI – lets say one robot picks up everything round, randomly moves around, when it hits something square it drops it. Another little robot does the same thing except with round objects. Generally speaking you use more complex rules, but this gives the idea.

    There is no “hive mind”, no controlling interest, yet they will always create similar structures. You can get VERY complex (in fact the idea was taken from watching ants build VERY complex structures with really really minimal/simple communication).

    Basically with respect to what you talk about the communal aspect of leftyism lends itself well to these tactics. It does so so strongly that really all people like Marx and Gramscy did was codify a growing movement.

    Like the little robots there doesn’t *need* to be some play book – the type of person who tends towards leftyism wants to be edumacators, journalist, and all those positions that can move other people into their ideas. Like the little robots moving around, finding a person, and converting it *is* the core of their beliefs so they gravitate towards professions where they can do that. A very common thread amongst edumacators, journalist, and similar professions is a desire to “make a difference” within their belief structure and a belief structure of communal togetherness with those professions as the lead tends to gravitate towards those professions.

    Thus no conspiracy needed, the vast majority of people doing that know they are not given marching orders and roll their eyes at the conspiracy theorists. I think our fascination for them is that to move in that coordinated a method we need it and can’t fathom the other side.

18. WD: your comment above reminded me of this fairly recent exchange about Obama the Incompetent and conspiracy @Samizdata.

19. @ Huxley:

    Estrich is an old school liberal, who today would be considered a moderate conservative to some degree. When I want to feel the pulse of real liberals (as opposed to partisan Dems or Obamabots) I listen to what people like Pat Caddell, Estrich, Ferraro and Lanny Davis have to say. They know their policy and their honest.

    While watching the inauguration a year ago, i predicted that the more people got to know Obama, the more they would dislike him and his policies. The fact the Dems lost a senate seat, in Massacusettes of all places, that has been in the hands of a Democrat for 50+ years, speaks volumes about the real problem: Liberals, like most Americans of all stripes, like entitlements that don’t come directly out of their own pockets.

    If Obama signs a healthcare bill, that was passed through reconciliation, he is done as a President. The Republicans will make him pass every single bill, even the naming of a post office, through reconciliation. Reid will be finished. Pelosi will be finished as well. She will lose the House, and will likely retire. Of the 10 senate seats up for reelction in states McCain won/had close margins, the Republican will take 6-8. If the press reports on the mob ties with Obama’s buddy in Illinois, make that 7-9 wins.

    As more details of the bill trickle out, and people find out their tax dollars are being confiscated to pay for other people’s abortions, and when people get letters for the Dept of Health ordering them to purchase healthcare of face imprisonment, it will really hit the fan.

20. With most proposed and passed legislation there is a total disconnect between the legislation’s title and its contents. Decided to check what the House and Senate titles were:

    House:
    America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009

    Senate:
    Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

    Hate to think of what a combination of these two monstrosities would be called.

21. Wolla Dalbo,

    Your Post Script reminded me, for some reason, of C.S. Lewis’ “The Abolition of Man” :

    “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

22. strcpy . . .

    Great post re AI and the Hive Mind. This would help explain the behavior and groupthink of liberals. I’ve always called it “politics as fashion statement,” but AI and Hive Mind also explain fashion statements.

    One of my hobbies is watching fashionistas walk down the street decorated with various social symbols like raggedy jeans, tattoos, big purses, etc. My neighborhood isn’t “fashionable” in the New York City sense, but it definitely shows local trends and tribal symbols.

    Liberal politics is just one more example of this kind of symbolism. It’s always fun to find out which subjects are fixed (pro-abortion, pro gay marriage, Bush bad), and which ones are more flexible (local politics, local taxes).

    How does agreement come about in the Hive Mind? I’ve never figured this out.

23. How does agreement come about in the Hive Mind? I’ve never figured this out.

    The same way a school of fish or a flock of birds changes direction.

24. Oblio . . .

    A flock of pigeons! What’s not to love about this image.

25. Promethea: roll out a newspaper above your head!

26. If the Dems pull this off, we are stuck with it for a long time. It would take 60 Republicans in the Senate, a majority in the House, and a Republican president to repeal. That may not be doable for a long time.

    My reaction to this is one of anger. At some point the people use real pitchforks and torches.

27. I also think that Obama’s proposed health care conference is intended to capture a few RINOs into making a “reasonable compromise” in the interest of “bipartisanship”, sort of like the Gang of 14 a couple years ago.

    I agree with Rush Limbaugh: The Republicans should not be the Party of No, but the Party of HELL, NO!

28. Wolla Dalbo,

    I don’t disagree with your analysis.

    I only point out that the New York Times worship (and prize winning!) coverage of Stalin predated Gramsci. There was an embedded love of Progressivism/Marxism in American MSM by the early 1930’s. I don’t think your statement that the MSM used to be better is really true.

    Rather, I think that the internet and Fox news has thrown off the mask. The MSM is operating the same way as they always have, its just that in the last 10 years, its become obvious. And since then, the MSM has decided to stop the ruse, since we all found out anyway.

    Most propaganda is propagated through sins of omission. Its through what is not said that the lies are spread. What is actually said is usually true, as far as the minimal facts are concerned. The reason why the mask has come off the MSM, is because an alternative media has sprung up to start listing all of the unsaid facts.

    In a completely unrelated context, medical journals are great mediums of propaganda. That’s because doctors (who are experts), believe that anything not in a medical journal is not true. A medical journal only needs to not report on something, and poof, 600,000 doctors know its not true.

    By the way, if anyone wants a concise summary of Gramsci, this is a pretty good post:

    http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260

    James

29. Mr. Frank: see this discussion of whether the bill could be repealed.

30. james: your medical journal example is, alas, utter rubbish.

31. While we think about zombie politicians, have a look at this post at Power Line.

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/02/025646.php

    Have we talked about the Rules of Zombieland as they apply to bad political ideas?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombieland

    Double Tap comes to mind. Or Churchill’s “Embalm, cremate, bury at sea: take no chances.”

32. For those wondering how strange the waters may become should Democrats press forward on healthcare with Plan B “The Reconciliation” — here are a couple of informative links:

    * How Reconciliation Would Work
    * Romancing the Parliamentarian

    Aside from the big question of whether the Democrats can corral the votes to pull this trick off, it’s not clear whether Alan Frumin, the Senate Parliamentarian, will allow it, and if he does what sort of swiss cheese comes out the other end after the “non-budgetary” items are removed.

    But if the Democrats do embark upon this rash course and somehow succeed, they will be ratcheting up the red-blue war a solid two or three notches.

    And it will likely work against the Democrats, like all their finessing of the Massachusetts senate vacancy laws, when the Republicans return to power.

33. Estrich is an old school liberal, who today would be considered a moderate conservative to some degree.

    Cubs_Fan: I haven’t paid much attention to Susan Estrich other than to note she usually shows up as a Democrat, a liberal or a feminist. She was Michael Dukakis’s campaign manager after all.

    However, looking her up lately I discover that she appears on Fox News and has been critical of Obama even during the campaign. So it’s good to see that some of the sorta old-line Democrats still exist.

34. Well, having given my thoughts on group think I will move onto health care in general – and that from the congressional point view.

    The Democrats know the bill is bad, know it will fail, and know it will be universally hated.

    That is its own paragraph for emphasis – note that I rarely make such a sort statement a full paragraph. The reason? They have such majorities that if they truly thought it a good idea there is not a reason on this planet not to go ahead. Yea, they speak of the filibuster but so what? If it is The Golden Path then there is nothing but Win for the Republicans to oppose the Savior of Our World in such a way.

    Lets take what a filibuster is – it is a means for the minority group to express their extreme dislike of what is going on. A filibuster MUST have someone speak the entire time so a long term one is not realistic – it is *not* a way to block legislation. Best case is if some bill is time sensitive (say a budget or if some aid package also had an extreme rider in it) then it is a tool to remove those – but in this case we aren’t there. There is nothing any Republican (or even blue dog Dem) could do to stop this bill. Yet it hasn’t passed – why?

    It has been done in the past and is the desire now – this needs to be at worst a bi-partisan bill and at best hung on the necks of the Republicans. A filibuster puts it entirely on the necks of the Dems and that can not be. Either it is intended to fail or they figure failure is likely enough they do not want to take it. They hope is to have things like The Patriot Act happen (that is few recall that there was one dissenting senate vote yet nearly all hang it on the Repubs with the brave Dems opposing – in this case have it be a Dem bill hung on the Repubs neck).

    An unbreakable filibuster means they can not do it, they need at least enough republicans (lower case intentional) on board to blame it one them then swoop in with the “fix” of what they really wanted to begin with. With at least a handful of Repub votes it then become “Bipartisan” and they loose the full blame (indeed, with a compliant media they can often work out no blame).

    Jon Stewart had a nice monologue about this – George Bush woke up every morning for a number of years with a *minority* and did whatever he wanted. Democrats have a super majority and can’t do anything. Thing is Stewart believes what they are doing is good enough that the filibuster would kill the Repubs. Congressional Dems aren’t that dense – they wouldn’t be where they are if they were – and as such want to blame others. Until that happens Health Care is a dead issue.

    IMO they can’t do anything because they do not want to take the blame for what they are doing – they want to hang it on the Republicans. Their one saving grace is that a number of Repubs are enough in the Media Whore category to go that way (McCain, Snow, Etc) but this one is strong enough that most – if not all – see that this is a loosing battle even for them.

    Anytime you have an extended period of time with the majorities the Dems have and they can’t pass bills there is a reason. Stupidity, while a popular though, isn’t really a good one – no one gets to this level and is stupid (and is why Obama was often underestimated). There has to be another – is mine right? Dunno, I like it or otherwise I wouldn’t have.

    Anything that require some central authority and hundreds if not thousands be secret is wrong (indeed, anything that requires more than 5-10 is so). Anything that requires a level of incompetence even a 10 year old would not do is wrong (a filibuster majority for around a year is one), especially when the some enjoying the opposite got what they wanted (Bush). So something else must be true – am I correct? Dunno, there are other ideas that do not violate this.

    This is my take on the matter, I’m still stunned how little the Dems have done with their majority and no amount of talking will make me feel otherwise. I feel similar to Stewart (though in a different way – relived for me) – Bush did what he wanted, when he wanted, and how he wanted with a minority in Congress. Obama has majorities that 40+ would have liked and does … nothing and blames it on the other side.

35. Estrich and Ferraro were also unfair and mean to Palin.

    I had hopes for them given their moderation on some topics and critical nature of Democrats…..

    When I say unfair – I mean unfair. Think Alan Colmes with a female body. Yuck.

36. I think they will try for it. It’s fully imbedded in the logic of liberalism. They are as close as they are ever going to get, and they know it.

    There really is no reason to vote for liberals unless they do things of this sort.

    To retreat here is more than losing a battle. It’s close to giving up on a principle of community control over individual lives.

    I don’t think they’ll succeed, but they might, and I’m more and more sure they will try.

    The alternative for Obama is to do something he has no idea how to do: lead America and not a supportive group in his political party.

    He can’t lead America. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t even like America.

    He thinks he can lead a revolution overthrowing the part of America he hates. Not so far he can’t.

37. No, not so far. But he’s going to keep trying, is my guess. I’m with Rush on this one. The majority of the American people want this stuff stopped. They don’t want compromise, they don’t want bipartisanship, they don’t want everyone to all “just get along.”

    So we still don’t know whether these guys are going to succeed at what they’re attempting. But I don’t know how anyone can fail to see that they’re trying. Sometimes they seem more desperate, and sometimes they seem more determined–this is just how you fight a war–but they never give up. Even if we beat them this time, they’ll be back. No rest for the weary.

38. Very good Neo,
    Betsy is right, we must be ever vigilant, unlike our elected represenatives who evidently think since they are exempt…
    Never forget, never forgive. Pat-a-cake time is over. BTW, mark it with a “D”.

39. Neo,

    The discussion you link to in your 10:06pm post is very helpful. I agree with your assessment that the repeal of the health care bill would be very difficult. Conversely, after the 2010 elections, passage of such a bill would be extremely unlikely. As many posters have pointed out, that is why the liberal Dems are so desperate to pass something as to risk ending their career in Congress.

40. Jennifer Rubin writes:

    http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/241691

    excerpt:
    It seems the Los Angeles Times has let on that the health-care summit is one big setup.

41. From this John Fund WSJ posting it would appear that the already long-shot odds of “healthcare” passage are becoming longer — much longer.

    “Democratic incumbents are running scared and the fear factor is only intensifying.”

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703787304575075612524620220.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion#articleTabs%3Dcomments

42. effess: Mount Holyoke has somequick instruction on HTML on how you can embed a link so that it doesn’t take up two lines. Go down to “Creating Links.”Unfortunately Neo doesn’t have preview. I suggest using Volokh Conspiracy for preview.

43. it would appear that the already long-shot odds of “healthcare” passage are becoming longer – much longer.

    effess: That’s the way it appears to me too, but the Democratic leadership sure is trying to whistle a happy a tune in the face of understandable fear.

    OTOH if they know healthcare is doomed, what else can they do?

    As neo noted, this salvages some face for Democrats that they gave it their best shot and provides some ammunition against Republicans as the Party of No.

44. My view is that Health Care Reform is just one battle in one theater in what is, in effect, a world-wide war, a Blitzkrieg by Obama & Co. Obama & Co. are threatening us using all sorts of high visibility legislation/regulation that is at least somewhat out in the open (if the texts and the exact details are not)–like Health Care Reform, and Cap and Trade, the allied efforts by the EPA to regulate CO2 emissions–which would encompass essentially every aspect of our economy and our daily lives–and their intent to enact some form of Immigration Reform too, but I am sure that there is a bee hive of subverting and undermining activity going on under the surface; things that the pro-Left and pro-Obama MSM should be, but is not reporting to us and/or is actively covering up or ignoring; the same deception, dereliction, and selective, slanted “reporting” that gave us an Obama whose true background, biography and real history is still not known.

    Of the few examples we know of, we can see that the Czars are busily at work behind the scenes, proposing and changing approaches, rules, regulations and procedures in fundamental ways in communications, education, and health care, and we only get the occasional flash of what is behind that curtain–reporting, so far, on the activities of only four or five of the thirty five Czars, then there are the Executive Orders that Obama is busily signing, the various nationalizations, massive and unprecedented, economy crippling and dollar destroying spending, deficits and debt–that even Obama admits are “unsustainable,” the secretive operations of the Fed and the vast expansion and manipulation of our money supply and government debt, and there is Obama & Co.’s infiltration and subversion of the Executive agencies, such as their multiple attempts to takeover and influence the Census, their takeover of the EPA, and their attempts to use the NEA to churn out propaganda supporting Health Care Reform. Meanwhile, the key mechanisms of the Health Care Reform bureaucracy have already been “stood up” and are staffed and functioning, and are fully and lavishly funded, thanks to legislation concealed within the legislation enacting the “stimulus package” that no one bothered to read (and health care legislation that, of course, no Democrat pointed out). There is the little reported inclusion of perhaps four billion dollars in funding for ACORN in other pending legislation, and attempts by the openly and militantly homosexual and pro-NAMBLA “Safe School Czar” to change elementary school curriculums in ways that foster homosexuality, and reported attempts, sponsored by the Leftist teachers unions, to introduce elements of Obama worship and calls to “volunteer” to join various pro-Obama organizations in the schools.

    So, it would not do to get focused on just one hand, because I am sure Obama & Co. have deliberately designed things so that as many eye and attention catching distractions as they can dream up will keep us from noticing what the other hand–perhaps the more important one–is doing.

    Thus, any attempt to block Health Care Reform or Cap and Trade is just the first of many steps that need to be taken in what will resemble a gigantic mine clearing operation, should Conservatives/Republicans gain effective control of the House–which seems likely, or even of the Senate as well. Even if what appear to be Obama’s major agenda items are defeated, it may well be that more important regulatory gains have been made that we are not now or totally aware of, and that will either be impossible to fully reverse, or may take what amounts to a counter-intelligence operation lasting years to ferret out and blunt or reverse, even in part.

45. Gringo,
    Appreciate the link — need all the computer help I can get.

    Huxley, I believe that painting the GOP as the “Party of No” will only help, not hurt, the Republican Party in November.
    btw. re my need for computer help, I’m proud to say that I decoded “OTOH” in less than 15 seconds.

46. From the Jennifer Rubin post: “Obama is simply doing what he always does – substituting political tactics for smart policy and at all costs avoiding any rethinking of his agenda.” (emphasis mine)

    So–what is his agenda? It clearly doesn’t include admittance of its own defeat. Reminds me of that old WWII submarine movie, The Enemy Below, where the German sub captain leaves his course slightly for short periods to try to fool the American destroyer captain pursuing him, but then always returns determinedly to his original course. In a like manner, Obama diverts briefly, but always comes back. He has a course to follow, a mission to fulfill. What is it? What is worth this doggedness in pursuit? Health care? I doubt it–and so does pretty much everyone else here by now. He does not admit defeat, does not even consider the possibility. He has only been diverted briefly. But he always heads back to his initial course. Pace Huxley, I think he’s moving towards taking something over. Damn the torpedoes, so-to-speak. I noticed, with others, that he began to seem spent around Christmas, tired, but Christmas is over and I’m not seeing much of that left. He’s striking me as very energetic these days.

47. Wolla,

    I agree completely, and have thought for a long while now that the legislative activity is only one front, and the most visible front, in a very dynamic set of measures designed to take over this country. Not saying, again, that it’s going to work. But it’s being attempted, and Never Say Dieis its motto.

48. Another way to deal with loooooong URLs without having to remember any HTML is to go here:

    http://www.tinyurl.com

    Just copy and paste a long URL into the handy window and click “Tiny it” in order to convert, say, something like this

    http://neoneocon.com/2010/02/20/the-undead-the-public-option-rising-from-the-grave/#comments

    into this:

    http://tiny.cc/p0Gug

    I find it much easier to remember “tiny url” than to remember which way the pesky slashes go at the end of html commands and which initials stand for what. It’s a computer-literate means of avoiding computer literacy!

49. betsybound – you might want to view Glen Beck’s speach at CPAC. It was informative and inspirational both.

    Obamaism/Liberalism etc. has been tried before and they’ll keep trying. It’s a long war. The way to defeat it is also known.

    There were 10,000 people at CPAC. Many of the talks were fabulous. CPAC is NOT the RNC! It is much closer to the Tea Parties.

    The TPM is to me the single most inspiring grass roots org in my lifetime. It is a force. I hope as the Spring and Summer roll around that it gets bigger and louder.

    When Obama et al try to push through Health Care, the R’s will only hurt if they go along even a little bit. The Tea Partiers can actually stop them though – if they push ahrd enough.

50. If Wolla is right (which seems likely), it sounds like we need a Czar Watch communal blog. There is so much info from ordinary people on the net, but if it could organized by category at a single site, people could follow developments more easily and keep the big picture in mind. PJM would be a good place for this.

51. If Wolla is right (which seems likely), it sounds like we need a Czar Watch communal blog.

    Judging by all the stuff that has been caught — Van Jones, Climategate, etc. — I assume there are people watching.

    One might similarly assume that the Obami never let up on building their grassroots movement and that thronging crowds of young multi-cultis, marching and shouting “O-BA-MA!”, are about to be unloosed upon the national scene.

    Except, as it turns out, Obama forgot about those grassroots folks as soon as he was elected.

    The Obami aren’t the smartest, most organized or hardest-working people we’ve had in the White House.

52. P. S.–Another recent pernicious initiative is the joint Treasury/Labor proposal, reported this week, that some percentage of each IRA, or even all of each IRA, should be mandated to be a Treasury backed annuity, to give us a guaranteed rate of return, “to protect us from a volatile market.”

    This follows Obama & Co.’s pattern of inventing out of whole cloth, or inflating something to be a monumental “crisis,” and then intervening to “save” us from it, as a way of forcing otherwise unacceptable legislation/regulations through, all the while using this process as a vehicle for accruing more power and control–which was its real aim in the first place: thus the nationalizations in the auto, insurance and investment industries, Health Care Reform and Cap and Trade.

    Under this proposal we are screwed in several ways,
    since Democratic legislation–the Community Reinvestment Act–that forced banks to abandon traditional underwriting standards, and to give unrealistically bargain priced mortgages to un-creditworthy borrowers, including illegal aliens (but likely Democratic voters)–borrowers who often had no IDs, who had low incomes and shaky credit histories–coupled with resistance to Bush administration requests for investigation and reform of Freddie and Fannie by key Democratic Banking/Finance Committee Chairmen, Rep. Barney Frank, and Senator Chris Dodd, were responsible for the sub-prime mortgage crisis that was the first domino that fell, starting the meltdown of our financial system, and, moreover, Obama & Co.’s massive spending, deficits, debt, monitarization of that debt, and their massive increase in the “monetary base” are calling the soundness of the dollar (and if the dollar becomes worthless, so will dollar denominated Treasuries) and our creditworthiness into question, causing bond rating organizations like Moodys to talk of downgrading our formerly well regarded Treasuries from their current AAA rating.

    So, this proposal would, in essence, allow Obama & Co. to confiscate our money, and force us to take, in return, Treasuries that their actions have caused to be a shaky, devalued investment vehicle, enabling them to force us to buy the devalued Treasuries that foreign investors are increasingly wary of, and netting them trillions of dollars they can use to finance their runaway spending.

53. strcpy,

    I believe you are wrong on the procedural point of filibusters. Some time ago (I think when Republicans had a majoriy, and Democrats were blocking it), the silent filibuster was invented. Its now possible to block legislation, sometimes multiple pieces at once, without the continuous talking.

    James

54. Wow! That last link (to Open Left) went to a piece which ended:

    Will Leader Reid lead?

    Just try. 5 times. Fast

55. Oboy. They’ve been gearing up for this for a little while, and now they’re getting ready to try to actually eat Toyota: http://tinyurl.com/y8c9pwu

    H/T: Mrs. Whatsit for that swell tiny url!!

56. Mike,

    I like Glenn Beck in some ways, and he’s an excellent source of information. But I disagree strongly with his characterizations of Republicans. We need to be moving to take control of the Republican Party, not compete with it. I really believe that would be mad. NEVER divide to fight your enemy! I think he has ambitions to lead a new party, and that won’t do us any good at all.

57. Government motors doesn’t seem to understand how their reputation has been trashed for years to come.

    I’m betting Toyota will outflank these idiots, and do it with class and a helluva lot of American’s support.

58. There are many things that the founders never foresaw. The process began long ago.

    Lifetime holders of political office?
    Hereditary offices?
    Lifetime Congressional pensions equal to full salary?
    Lifetime Congressional gold-plated health care?
    Lifetime civil service (sic) positions resulting in non-elective, non-accountable government?
    Loss of checks and balances?
    Nine black-robed tyrants?
    Unlimited executive power (EPA, OSHA, EEOC, FCC, IRS, Army Corps. of Engrs., Homeland Security, Endangered Species Act, ad nauseum.)

    And so on and on. The rate at which the government has usurped the people’s authority has accelerated during last 30 years. I think the Dems will try to jam it through, and the people need to decide what the response should be.

    I would propose a general strike. If 60% really don’t want this, they are the people who work in wealth-producing jobs. The Obamabot mostly don’t. As Reagan said, we should starve the beast.

59. http://ginacobb.typepad.com/gina_cobb/2010/02/harry-reid-public-option-britain-national-health-care-disaster.html

    Yes I could’ve made the link tiny. 🙂

    But look at the information in this link anyway !

60. excerpt:
    In the United Kingdom, where health care has been provided by the government for years (the ultimate “public option”), the system is falling apart under its own bureaucratic weight. The lastest sign of serious distress is that more than 100 sick children at leading hospital had to wash in buckets for nearly four weeks because administrators failed to fix the hot water supply.

61. Baklava,

    This is the kind of thing I’ve been reading about for a long time now, with respect to Britain’s NHS. It’s the kind of thing by which one is unsurprised in a system where the government, not the customer (the patient), is the one who must be pleased. Theodore Dalrymple wrote about it in the WSJ a while back, in his typically insightful manner. He said that this is what happens; it’s not that the care is uniformly awful, because it isn’t. It’s that in the cases where it is awful–and their number is not trivial–you have no alternative. It reduces every citizen, and therefore by definition every patient, to the status of a pauper.

62. no alternative.

    🙁

63. No. None.

64. We’ve got to unelect the entrenched political class.

    Break the public employee unions.

    Institute flat taxes – maybe two tiers, but only two, and EVERYBODY pays.

    End the golden parachute congressional pension system. Make it pay as you go, make it a ROTH or 401K. Not government funded. And make it collectable at 55 1/2 minimum.

    Make Congress subject to every law it passes.

    Make deficit spending in time of peace illegal.

    Make “war” mean war – end the Powell Doctrine stupidity of “you break it, you buy it” and replace it with “fuck with us and die”.

    We have two elections to get the first part done. If we don’t do it, then we’ll probably be limited to lamp posts and rails as options.

65. Pingback:Follow Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Babs Boxer as They Head for Zombieland!

66. “I believe you are wrong on the procedural point of filibusters. Some time ago (I think when Republicans had a majoriy, and Democrats were blocking it), the silent filibuster was invented. Its now possible to block legislation, sometimes multiple pieces at once, without the continuous talking.”

    True, however that isn’t the whole thing.

    The senate majority leader has the choice to force debate. For whatever reason (some senatorial procedures are strange) filibusters became fairly common and were mostly just a bargaining idea. So they decided to allow “silent” ones in which 41 senators signed that they would do so and the majority leader allows that the bill is “filibustered”. It then remains off the floor until whatever was causing it is worked out (usually political favors swapped around).

    In this case if it truly meant to them what they say they would call for a traditional filibuster – they have the power to enforce that. It is solely up to the Senate majority leader to decide if a filibuster is going to require debate or not.

    Once again if they truly felt that the majority of Americans want this (There is a current poll running through some of the “progressive” blogs that indicates 77% of the US population wants the bill to pass), truly feel that people are dying, and truly feel that opposition to this would be the death rattle of the Republican party they have *all* the power in the world to do so. Heck if they thought it a key provision to locking up a takeover of the govt there is nothing that could be done either.

    Ultimately this is why Bush often did as he wanted – the Dems know the rules and knew that he didn’t really care what they thought. That he *would* drop all those options on them so they capitulated and attacked in the background and took a longer view.

    They aren’t doing anything other than rattle sabers for how long now? This could have been passed months ago if they had wanted yet it is in limbo. There has to be a reason.

    That doesn’t mean I do not think they will eventually invoke some of those options, but there is *some* reason why they haven’t done the straightforward method to getting their handful of core bills passed.

    I’ve always said that when these people pass through the point of no hope watch out. Right now they still think to get whatever else it is they want (and based on past watching them work I think it is pin this mess on Republicans) but when they realize they own it and they might as well do exactly what they want expect a strong public option and everything else go back in and the strong senate rules for the majority to be used (I think some are seeing that already – note that the public option is slowly rearing its head again).

    If they had truly wanted it the bill would be law now.

67. If they had truly wanted it the bill would be law now.

    strcpy: That’s the nub I keep coming back to.

    Mickey Kaus calls this the “id theory” — deep down the Democrats really don’t want to pass Obamacare.

    They keep getting close but never quite getting there.

    We shall know soon enough. Since the midterms are coming, Democrats can’t persist in this limbo much longer.

    As I make it, they do their work for the reconciliation trick this week, followed by the “bipartisan” summit on Thursday, and then they pull the trigger and vote next week.

68. Meanwhile according to Rasmussen, Obama reached a new low of 22% on “Strongly Approve” yesterday and his second lowest Presidential Approval Index of -19.

    Obama’s lowest numbers were on Dec. 23, when the Senate was doing its late night pre-Christmas dirty work on the Senate healthcare bill.

    Nothing like healthcare for healthy Obama polls!

69. Some political philosopher said–can’t recall who–that the purpose of government is to have a ready supply of crises with which to scare the citizenry into giving up money and power–to the government, of course.
    That’s why things that seemed reasonably okay, like health care, are suddenly “broken”, “critical”, a “catastrophe”, on the brink of complete collapse.
    Climate gate and health care come to mind.
    What happens if the citizenry reject the scare?

70. Hmm … Reid: Dems will use 50-vote tactic to finish healthcare in 60 days.

    Can the Democrats really afford to drag this out another couple months?

    Whether they can afford it or not, they seem intent on doing so.

71. What’s really going on here?

    the fullfillment of the list of goals as laid out by steve chase back when.

    Richard Aubrey:
    In the original i think your referring to Hoover
    in the remake, its cloward piven.

    who is copying a long line of others saying the same thing,

    plagiarism to the ignorant is as fresh as the first time it was written and a smash by someone else.

    “Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of ’emergency’. It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And ’emergency’ became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains.” — Herbert Hoover

    but dont think there is a common pattern copied from history… no no… 100s cant naturally fall into line by learning from the same source… and why they hide that source…

    nope… go back to sleep..

    there is nothing to learn from the time they were open and honest thinking everyone wanted what they wanted…

72. Drudge has The Bamalinsky sternly threatening a Reconciliation if the Repubs filibuster on the continuing Health Ponzi. Are a majority of senators really going to risk huge magnitude wrath for pulling such a thing? The little get-together TV meeting this week is looking more & more like a swamp sucking trap.

73. art.
    Seems the philosop I recall saying it preceded Hoover.
    But, anyway, what happens when the citizenry rejects the scare?

74. Why is he even pretending to conduct a “bipartisan summit” this week after laying down the law as to what’s going to be in the bill and announcing that he’ll use reconciliation to pass it if Republicans don’t roll over? Where does the “bipartisan” part come in? Does he think that we’ll believe it’s bipartisan just because he says it is?

    I keep thinking we’ve come to the limit of just how stupid this President thinks we are — and I keep discovering that I’m wrong.

75. Finally a smart question rather than a empty refutation!!!

    Richard Aubrey
    what happens when the citizenry rejects the scare?

    They are forced to start work and construct a new lie, a new group, take over another name of something people like, etc.

    what is the secret of herding those who would not be herded? an ignorance that allows each to construct a different reason to reach for the same others goals!

    normally, in freedom we each construct different goals and ideals and reasons, and they sum together to make a population of men (and women of course), who as a population have no purpose, but as individuals each having their own. ie… to those who think that governing is ruling, this is untenable.

    i can make it simple (not for you rich, i know you can handle it the tough way!)…

    if one was to try to govern kindergarten kids, one can let them loose and just move things out of their way. if one is to accept their autonomy, then one would also allow them to get hurt (something men allow mroe than women because of biology), but not killed without knowing. there is a give and take that keeps order, in that no one has to rebel, as there is nothing to rebel against, nothing to have a revolution against. those who are told no, are not ordered, but given information. and they are free to continue on their bad paths, and free to get more explanation and consequences.

    the point being is that to govern them, is to accept their individual purpoes and provide truth and honesty so they can make their own choices. yes the whole has no purpose, but each part does. and together makes all the things that we love and hate.

    but if govern is to rule, then how does that relationship change? the people wont follow orders, so they try to hide their orders in changing circumstances forgetting debate in favor of lying and manipulation. however humans are living beings and such behavior is antithetical to life, other than domesticated to the few doing so. and so we resist. we will take up a single task that is not our own for a crisis, but we wish to break apart on our own when it goes.

    the state to the population is just the organizer of the playground, and they dont want them to design a play ground, they want to let the play ground just happen and suprise them and exceed their collective imagination. so in essence when the citizenry learns and rejects the scare, the citizenry is rejecting being RULED by OTHER MEANS.

    that is, if they cant use a gun to order you. they need other means. they need circumstances to steer you (so the pretend that their politics are improving things when all they are doing is justifying their injustifyable tinkering in others lives)…

    if they cant march you into a camp and throw a lever, but they also refuse to accept defeat and abandon their goals, what then is left?

    and once you learn and figure this out, the rest of the game of arguing what something is, becomes clear. a way of establishing the same end through a manipulative means, vs a means of force (which is too counterproductive when force does not own everything internal and external to it).

    [edited for length by n-n]

76. n-n: Thank You !

77. anyone take the time to look at that goals list of steve chase?

78. The Milbank article about Emanuel is interesting in this context. If Emanuel is going public with a fight that will end with someone declaring that they wish to spend more time with their family, I think that means that 1) Obama has really decided to jam through health care using reconciliation; and 2) Emanuel believes that Obamacare is going to lose, and he is setting up Gibbs, Jarrett, and maybe Axelrod to take the fall.

79. Oblio: That’s a sweet bit of analysis!

    I’m down with (1) and hadn’t considered (2).

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