The Upton bill…
…passes in the House, with 39 Democrats voting “Aye.”
Bipartisan.
Will Obama veto it?
[ADDENDUM: And Ann Althouse completely eviscerates the NY Times for an absurd article comparing Obama and Obamacare to Bush and Hurricane Katrina.]
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Can it get through the Senate?
That’s iffy, right there.
Either way, it’s too late.
The industry is regulated by the states — not the Feds.
They can’t turn on a dime — and have every reason to play a pat hand. Insurance lobbyists will probably push for ‘principled resistance’ to Washington. To yield on this matter would make their OWN powers vastly weaker.
And the industry spreads a lot of cheddar around the fifty state capitols.
By staying the course, the Insurance Industry can’t lose its shirt. The key will be to have the various commissioners take the heat. They skew to the left — as most ran on a pledge of protecting consumers — and in many states it’s a ‘non-partisan’ position.
Video: Jon Stewart Destroys Obama and Toronto Mayor Rob Ford
http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2013/11/video-jon-stewart-destroys-obama-and.html
The Dims are getting on a war footing. Having multiple “town halls” via telephone, and now this comes in the mail from Barry.
“Friend —
I want to cut through the noise and talk with you directly about where we’re headed in the fight for change.
That’s why I’m getting on the phone with OFA [Organizing for [sic] America] supporters this Monday, November 18th.
Will you join me?
I have just over three years left as president — and there’s a lot left on my to-do list. [Uh-oh!]
That’s why I want to talk with you. You’re the ones putting in the time and effort to achieve real progress, and fighting to make the agenda Americans voted for last fall a reality.
I know we all care about what we can get done together these next few years, so let’s talk about how to make it happen.
Make sure you join Monday’s call:
http://my.barackobama.com/Join-the-Call-on-Monday
Thanks — I can’t wait to catch up.
Barack
P.S. — It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do something like this — I hope you can join the call.”
Evidently WA state said that their insurance companies were not going to offer the older canceled policies. Who will the people of WA blame? The blue official in charge of their insurance industry who insists on following the law, or DC?
You could argue that Obama is the victim of his own work habits and lack of concern with the business of governing. He let Pelosi and the lefties prepare a larded up bill that could never fly while Obama gave speeches and never studied the bill.
Obama won’t have to veto the bill, because it went straight into Harry Reid’s trashcan.
just to be absolutely clear on what that means: the bill will never be brought to the Senate floor for a vote.
RE: Obama Veto
He would if he could but he won’t because he can’t. It will never get to him, obviously.
Reid can shelve the House’s Upton bill and the Senate’s Landrieu bill but if he does, he’s going to upset a lot of red state democrats who are desperate to show voters that they did something to lessen the pain.
If Congress does nothing, the dems risk not only a larger Republican House but also losing the Senate.
Plus, if Reid shelves the bills he places everything on Obama because the insurance companies can credibly claim that they have to follow the law.
Obama, by unilaterally changing the law is implicitly declaring that a President can make laws. He is in effect abrogating the Constitution and if he can do that, what can’t he do? Where does his power end? And what lawful basis is there to declare that he can go no further? For knowingly or not, he has declared himself to be the law.
The man who would be king, sits upon the tiger’s back and reaps the whirlwind.
39 was the number of Dems that HAD to have cover in the House (red-staters, I would guess…I’d love to see the list). They had Pelosi’s blessing, I’m sure.
Their votes were fraudulent.
That vote was the House Dems’ equivalent of the 30+ repeal attempts by the establishment Repubes.
Reid doesn’t HAVE to do anything. It’s not like people follow the byzantine workings of the Senate on a daily basis. He has been playing out the same strategy as Obama for several years: refuse to govern so you can’t be held accountable.
Red-state Dems like Landrieu (praise be to Landru!) will be sacrificed if need be.
He can’t do anything. He has changed the term of the contract and it is null and void.
per National Review Online:
“Thirty-four of the 39 Democrats who voted for the bill, which will allow insurance companies to renew plans that had previously been canceled, won their most recent election by less than five points”
Damn, I’m good.
As blert says, the industry can’t turn on a dime. No large business can. It took them several years to get the new policy rates and plans in place. By the time they reverse course, their year granted by his a Royal Highness will be up. The impact to their bottom Line will probably be more than they can recover in 1 year. large corporations just aren’t structured in a way that they can adapt quickly to the whims of an ignoramus.
If nothing else, it should be clear by now that Obama is a world class ignoramus. Every time you think he could not be more arrogant or more ignorant, he out does himself. In the mind of Adolph Obama, all it takes to fix any problem is a speech – in this case to notify private companies and government officials that he’s ruled the law invalid, until it’s convenient for him to deem it valid again. Last I heard, he took an oath to uphold the laws of the United States. All we’re asking here is he uphold the one he bragged about, fought for, and signed into legislation himself. He truly is the biggest scumbag to ever hold the office. There have been bad presidents before him, but none has been a bigger criminal.
How on earth the media geniuses cannot see they are propping up a virtual dictator is beyond belief. He should be handcuffed and hauled off to jail.
I’ve always been a fan of post-presidential investigations. Those in power should know that they can be held accountable after they are out of office.
southpaw…
He’s not a “virtual” dictator.
He’s the REAL deal.
The Constitution is his anti-object.
Which is why he’s an ‘expert’ on it.
We have an American echo of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and whatnot…
I.E. a pure bread TYRANT. The kind of soul that utterly disregards tradition, the law — and all morality.
Again, I say, this is the spawn of anti-Eden, anti-America.
Straight from Frank Marshall Davis’s lips.
Of whom, I’ve already established, he is Barry’s true father.
We’re being perverted by a flaming anti-American of the First Water.
Did someone mention Katrina?
Here’s something patriots need to know about Katrina. Poke it in the LEft’s eye when you get a chance.
http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/new-orleans-gun-confiscation/
some articles are saying things like “the white house is soul searching”…
yes. cause you look for what you dont have…
i know as this is not unpopular (though most dont believe there is any such thing as hair color oppression)
The phrase “gingers have no soul” comes from the South Park episode “Ginger Kids” that first aired on November 9th, 2005. At the beginning of this episode, Eric Cartman gives a class presentation on the subject of red-headed children and “Gingervitis,” a made-up disease.
but oddness aside..
What Does it Mean to Have Soul?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-judith-rich/heart-soul_b_1463463.html
ok. putting more oddness aside (c’mon, huffington telling atheist liberals what it means to have a soul isnt more odd than southpark?sadly, yes, as no one mistakes southpark for something it isnt)
Based on a standardized answer of “no soul” it is a person of no compassion, cannot feel of the heart, everything is practical, there is no spiritual involvement, or a person who cannot connect with the rhythm of music as music is to be believed as the universal “song” of any human ethnic group and any species of animals.
they search for what they do not have…
they do not search to find the way
they have no soul, so seek to find one
they are not lost souls seeking an answer…
the differences are telling…
Bring on the soul train, soul food, and and…
they wont find it there either
they seek it here
they seek it there
they cannot find soul anywhere
is he up hill
is he down dale
is he laying outstretched with the scarlet pimpernel?
ever wondered why so many of them, especially the women end up looking all wizened? no soul inside to prop up their shell. kind of like no water inside a carved apple face on the window destined to be a kitchen witch…
Beverly, it does sound like they’ll be unleashing their Occupy rapists and SEIU thugs soon, doesn’t it.
I feel pity for the livestock stuck in Detroit and Chicago, New Orleans etc. They are going to get hammered by Authority one way or another.
Some time ago, I paraphrased Henry Kissinger’s comment about foreign policy (a chess game above the table that we see and one underneath that we do not see) as it might apply to congress and the Obamacare debacle.
Today (H/T Instapundit) Paul Rahe has at Ricochet an essay which notes:
Rahe further notes:
,blockquote cite=””>If [the Upton Bill] passes, Barack Obama will be between a rock and a hard place. If the Senate rejects it or he vetoes it (as he has now promised to do), the 2014 election will be a referendum on Obamacare. If he signs it, Obamacare will crash and burn.
Sorry, wrong button.
My last thought was that it will be interesting to watch just how this all progresses. As many commenters noted above, many people never expect the Upton Bill (or the Landreau Bill) to get to Obama’s desk, yet with them, or without them, it would appear that Obamacare and hopefully this presidency are finally circling the bowl.
The Paul Rahe link:
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/The-Great-Prevaricator
And one last thought:
Dems took great delight in calling Obamacare the equivalent of Social Security, Medicare, FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society all rolled into one.
It’s now beginning to look more like the Vollstead Act. A fitting end to an execrable Progressive exercise.
Blert- that’s a good point.
There’s a NY Times reporter on Bret Baer’s show who stated that it seems perfectly reasonable for the president to do this. I could not understand his reasoning, but the best I could make of the answer was it’s his law, and everyone agrees it’s a workable solution, and the insurance companies can make some money, and some people might benefit, and its motivation for insurance companies to make some money. And something about presidents can do these things if they want to.. ( unless they’re Republicans).
There’s not a lot that can be done to protect a democracy when the MSM encourages its leadership to ignore the law. It’s really amusing to listen to elitist Northeast liberals with Ivy League educations pontificating about these issues as if their statement should be taken as critical and objective thinking. seriously.
Advising the president not to enforce the laws he sought to enact, until a time when those laws don’t jeopardize the power they were designed to seize, is nothing but naked political partisanship. But these guys actually believe in their own bullshit and intellectual superiority.
Good for those 39. But when TENS of millions of peoples policies are canceled next year it’s going to be much, much more difficult for Dems to withstand the storm. We may well see the collapse of Obamacare, the US healthcare system, and our whole economy. Fun will be had by all.
But given the above I am not sure that the voting public will sweep in a large wave of Republican reps an Senators. I think the voting public has changed. We’ll see though.
Can he legally do this? An awful lot of smart people say he’s not following the Constitution. They’re probably right. But the question is, “Who’s going to stop him?” In the past the MSM was the people’s watchdog and Presidents were exposed in their unconstitutional/extra-constitutional doings by exposes read about in the press. Also, most past Presidents, (Roosevelt and Wilson were exceptions) felt bound by custom and ethics to follow the Constitution. This President realizes that, as long as the MSM runs interference for him and the democrats hold the Senate, there is no way anyone can stop him. He has decided to do things his way and the devil with the Constitution. So far, he’s getting away with it. But more people (even LIVS) are realizing what’s going on because Obamacare is a pocket book issue that affects millions. He can only be thwarted (short of a military coups) through a landslide defeat in the 2014 election. Given strong majorities in both houses, Congress can roll back this law, and even remove him from office. The House can continue to battle for time until the 2014 elections. Onward!
Harold: yes. Obama and the Democrats are all still lying as they continue to claim that these cancellations affect only the individual market, were made necessary by bad conditions in the individual market, etc. etc. Those lies have a sell-by date, coming up next year. One of two things will happen then: a whole lot of absolutely furious people realizing that their lying President and the lying Democrats are far, far, far bigger liars than they imagined; or changes in the law, made quickly by those lying Democrats before this happens, to keep it from happening and revealing what liars they are. .
And if it’s the second option — how can the law be changed that extensively without eviscerating it? As many of us understand by now, the “success” of the ACA depends on driving as many healthy, previously-insured people as possible out of their private insurance and into the exchanges and new, ACA-compliant policies. The whole structure has to collapse if that does not happen.
So, either they will choose to keep lying and be revealed as liars in order to prop up the structure, or they will choose to collapse the structure themselves. So far, they seem to be electing the first option — but I wonder how long that will last.
Also, I wonder what the insurers and state regulators are thinking right now as they try to write, price out and regulate next year’s group policies. Should they follow the law as it’s now written, and trust Obama and Congress not to pull the group-policy rug out from under them next year the way they just did with the individual-policy rug? This would seem like a very bad bet. But what else can they do?
Mrs. Whatsit,
Perhaos we could get a sequel:
(Democrat) Lies and the lying Liars who Tell Them
by the “Honorable” Al Franken
Kill the cancer
I saw the doctor yesterday
He had an army to win the war
His diagnois said don’t give way
His face and manner gave me more
than all the bores of today
I’d love to turn you on
Harold…
We’re in a two-party system.
Electoral ‘reforms’ have made it impossible to establish a third party, de facto by way of de jure.
Hence, a raging voter can only vote “Not Democrat” (GOP) or not at all. (Greens)
In 1932 the nation was massively Republican. The GOP owned the presidency since 1860. The only time a Democrat made it to the top, the GOP was internally split. (!)
Yet look what happened when Hoover screwed up. He, BTW, was the anti-Harding. If Hoover had followed the Harding solution, the American economy would’ve been in full recovery mode by late 1932!
The 18 month super recession of post WWI gets short shrift these days — because it teaches all of the ‘wrong’ lessons:
Massively cut Federal spending — come what may.
Massively cut taxation — come what may.
Release all of the Federalized productive assets to other uses.
The consequence of President Harding: The Roaring Twenties.
America established itself as the hyper-dominant economic power on the planet — a status she still holds — but which Barry is determined to end. It’s his PRIMARY ambit.
Every dominating feature of America turns on her efficient economy. So, Barry is making it inefficient — at breathtaking speed.
MSM types devote their entire careers to clunking up the economy — the dynamics of which they are as clueless as an infant. Consequently they march in lockstep with the Pied Barry — either into the mountain or over the cliff.
Witness the economic straits of their employers. The brainiacs at the Times have yet to figure out that a sputtering economy means zeroed out ad budgets.
The biggest ad spenders in America:
GM
Big Pharma
What they have in common:
The Federal teat.
During the looming Federal hyper-contraction those boys will HAVE to zero out their ad spending.
The impact of those two dropping out will be so vast as to shutter media properties all over the land. Countless institutions depend on them to carry them into the black.
(Most media properties carry a heavy debt burden however disguised. Feeding this vig is not a trivial matter. This can be seen in the bankruptcies of previously powerful newspapers — take your pick.)
Dems will continue to support Obamacare as long as possible. They will simply lie to make it seem as if it’s not their fault.
These lies will necessarily be “nuanced.” I don’t think the electorate will be in the mood for nuance in 2014.
The only way the GOP can blow it is if they listen to the Chamber of Commerce and try to pass comprehensive immigration reform. If that happens, voters will desert them en-masse.
blert:
Do you really mean “Harding”? Don’t you mean “Coolidge”?
I prefer no fixes. Let the shit hit the fan as soon as possible so people can start dealing with reality instead of whatever they are projecting on the “blank screen.” If the establishment GOP tries to wrest defeat from victory, I will heartily welcome a third party.
@Matthew M
–
You are correct. Also about a third party.
–
In addition to a FULL REPEAL …
The conservatives need to have at least two alternative / reform plans on the shelf ready for HEAVY PUBLIC DEBATE. And listen to input from the public!
–
Old Saying “Once Bitten, Twice Shy”
–
The LIVs may not go for the “pass it to find out what is in it” approach again.
–
A Shipwreck captained by a Hard Leftist Liar into a Catastrophe ALL meant to greatly diminish American Freedom.
So, another well known champion of socializing the medicine of our country—Hillary Baby Clinton—is expected to win the Dem presidential nomination in 2016 and, further, expected to win the election!!?? And, is a chronic SYA Liar, as well.
WTF has happened to my country?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_G._Harding
The 1920-1921 super recession occurred under the tail end of the Wilson years — and the early months of the HARDING presidency.
Coin collecting buffs could tell you that 1920 and 1921 dimes are brutally hard to find. There mintage was reflective of the commercial demand — which was zilch.
Harding died in office. His VP, Coolidge was famously silent.
Modern Americans would be astounded to find out how Hoover was THE man who changed the IDEA of how the Federal government ought to operate. He did this while operating out of the COMMERCE DEPARTMENT! He, functionally, ran the government from that post — long before he ran for office in his own right. He was THAT powerful of a personality. I’ve never seen anything on his IQ — but it must have been staggering. He over-awed everyone he met — while being absolutely charming.
FDR merely cribbed Hoover.
Hoover’s ideas utterly dominate the Democrat/ Progressive party of today. The whole idea that brilliant minds ought to rescue the hicks in the sticks… comes from Hoover.
In his particular case, he really did it. Unfortunately, players like Hoover, King Alexander, Caesar, … just don’t come around that often.
That Hoover didn’t see that HE, HIS ideas, were screwing up the economy… well such is hubris — isn’t it?
Hoover was far, far, more important than FDR.
FDR had NO ideas. He attained a gentleman’s C.
Hoover was a true brain, arguably the smartest president, coming and going.
EVERYTHING he touched turned gold. ( BTW he was into gold mining technology — big time. )
It’s of note that the GOP did not suffer much in 1930 — months after the NYSE collapse. Why?
Because the national economy was STILL rolling along. Massive job losses simply did not happen.
Then the December fiasco of the Bank of the United States unwound the ENTIRE national economic fabric.
There’s no small amount of anti-Jewish bias built into the tragedy. Ultimately, the whole fiasco proved to be a MISTAKE.
That bank was not in trouble, not at all. (Major financier of the rag trade, BTW.) Even in Chapter 7 it paid off every claimant! Do you realize how rare that is?
What happened next was well covered by Milton Friedman. The payments transfer system LOCKED UP. A cascade of insolvencies flew across the land. Paychecks were dis-honored.
Bam! The Great Depression was upon the land.
It’s THIS fiasco that caused Paulson to threaten Congress. He re-detailed this history. Everyone caved.
As for Hoover. Finance was beyond his keen. He’d never worked that end of the street. Had he done so, he’d jumped in with both feet. That’s the way he acted. Check his bio.
Instead he took the advice of Mellon, who was entirely behind the curve. The old fart did not appreciate that the interconnectedness of the new economy meant that what was true in 1912 was completely untrue by 1930.
We saw this taken to hyper speed immediately after 9-15-2008. The money fund market was being broken — and AIG was insolvent.
Unlike Mellon, Paulson (correctly) realized that this contagion HAD to be slapped down instantly.
At the time the very solvency of France and Germany were at risk. Naturally, this reality was kept hush, hush.
Over the last five years, MOST of the Fed’s efforts have been tuned to keeping Europe solvent, not America. They are in THAT much trouble. In simple English, they can’t make any money with free capital! So they threw their liquidity into the American RMBS market — by the trillion. Then they discovered they were buying fraudulent paper. America had to EAT that **** sandwich and bail them out.
It’s the primary driver of dropping interest rates. This move has given the European banks the opportunity to cash in on bond profits — which are then used to stanch the bleeding back home. (Basel) Then the Europeans can turn around and BUY American exports.
One hand is washing the other.
This whole sequence is EXACTLY why Paris has had a re-bonding with Washington. DC really saved their bacon.
Barry is unwinding the love, however, big time.