About Massachusetts and the HCR vote: I just realized…

The New Neo Posted on by

…that Democrats in Congress just gave a big FU to the people of Massachusetts, arguably the most liberal state in the union.

Think about it—it was Massachusetts that only two short months ago elected a Republican senator to fill what had long been Teddy Kennedy’s seat, for the express purpose of sending a message to Washington that it didn’t want this bill. It is Massachusetts that has a special burden and no need for this legislation because it already is being stressed to the fiscal max by Romneycare. And it is Massachusetts that has supported the Democratic Party perhaps more strongly than any other state, ever since the second half of the twentieth century—which included being the only state to have voted for George McGovern in 1972.

Some thanks Massachusetts gets. Under the bus with it!

Dog bites man once again: health care reform passes the House 219-212

The New Neo Posted on by

So the dirty deed is done. A sad day for this country, but now another fight—actually, series of fights—begins. We need to be energized and not discouraged.

Every single Republican in the House voted against this bill, and there were 34 Democrats joining them. I am not a Congressional historian, but it seems to me that this type of split has never occurred before—certainly not for any major transformative legislation. So it’s “historic” in that way as well.

That sort of vote breakdown is beyond non-bipartisan: passage without even a single opposition member’s vote to provide cover as well as over 13% of the members of the majority party against it! If I am correct about the unprecedented nature of such a split, there’s a reason it’s not happened before—we’ve never had a party with such huge majorities that was so ideologically extreme and out of step with the people, and therefore so committed to passing a widely unpopular bill and dragging Americans down a road they don’t want to traverse.

I hope it comes back to destroy them as a force in politics for a long long time to come.

[ADDENDUM: I didn’t see it because I could not bear to watch the proceedings, but I keep reading that Boehner made a great speech. I realize a great speech at this point is quite irrelevant—perhaps it always was, once the election results of 2008 came in. But I note it because it indicates to me the possibility that Republicans and conservatives, both in politics and on the street, will be energized as never before by the passage of this bill, joined by simpatico independents and even Democrats who don’t like it either. That’s the coalition that elected Scott Brown in Massachusetts.]

Pro-choice Democrat women…

The New Neo Posted on by

…are angry at Obama (see also this) because he threw them under the bus.

But why, why, why would they be the least bit surprised? Actually, here’s an answer from the comments section at Firedoglake:

They’re idiots if they didn’t see this coming a mile back down the road. NOW and the other women’s groups were duped by our photogenic fuhrer. He could care less about us and our stinking rights.

They are learning one of the first rules about getting into bed with a tyrant: his word means nothing, he could care less about anyone and their stinking rights, and he will betray allies if it seems expedient.

But they already knew that if they been been paying attention. Either they weren’t, or they must have thought it was okay because the crocodile would eat them last.

Inspirational quotations for the day

The New Neo Posted on by

Mark Twain time travels:

…Rome’s liberties were not auctioned off in a day, but were bought slowly, gradually, furtively, little by little; first with a little corn and oil for the exceedingly poor and wretched, later with corn and oil for voters who were not quite so poor, later still with corn and oil for pretty much every man that had a vote to sell””exactly our own history over again.

And here’s de Toqueville, from Democracy in America Part II:

I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives.
—
Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances—what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?…

The principle of equality has prepared men for these things: it has predisposed men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits.

And finish up with my favorite (I know, I know, you’ve seen it before)—Dostoevsky,from the “Grand Inquisitor” chapter of The Brothers Karamazov:

Oh, never, never can [people] feed themselves without us [the Inquisitors and controllers]! No science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, “Make us your slaves, but feed us.” They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious. Thou didst promise them the bread of Heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man?

Passing health care reform by hook and by crook

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I’m not planning to watch this thing live on TV; don’t want to start throwing heavy objects. But I will keep up with it periodically as the day wears on.]

By the title of this post you can see that I have virtually no doubt that health care reform will pass today (although I would dearly love to be wrong). For quite some time I have felt that, even if Pelosi/Obama didn’t quite have the votes yet, or know exactly how it would be accomplished, it would be done—if they had to use every trick in the book and invent a few besides. But once the vote was actually scheduled I became about as certain as a person can be of such a thing in this uncertain world.

And so it goes. And so they have. And so it will.

The details matter because they show us what the Democrats are capable of: even if ploys such as the Slaughter solution are not used in the end, it seems pretty clear that they would have been employed if needed. We are in a purely pragmatic and strategic world here.

Stupak will be placated one way or another (if he is needed, that is; if not needed he will be allowed to vote “no”). Right now it appears that Stupak may be in the process of changing his vote to “yes” by means of President Obama issuing an executive order that specifies there will be no federal funding for abortion in the HCR bill.

That strikes me as odd on two counts. First, why would Stupak believe that Obama wouldn’t just issue that order, and then another a day or two later that takes it back, once the vote is over? It’s not as though the President has shown a marked proclivity to stick to his word.

Of course, the answer to that may be that Stupak doesn’t much care—he just wants temporary cover to justify his own vote “yes,” no matter what ends up happening on the merits. If the deal ends up falling through, he can say he was duped but acted in good faith to protect his principles—and perhaps someone somewhere will actually believe him. I doubt the pro-life folks will swallow it, however (see this).

Second (and please forgive me for the quaint attention I’m about to pay to what is fast becoming an archaic and outdated concern—constitutionality and separation of powers) would this be legal? If so, I’m sure previous presidents would have loved to have known that they too could have overridden/re-interpreted any provision of an act of Congress merely by issuing an executive order saying voila! It does not exist! (And no, this executive order as described would not be the equivalent of a signing statement.)

What’s more, even if Obama could perform that particular magic trick, what would happen during reconciliation (assuming, of course, that there ever is a reconciliation process for this bill)? The Senate has a majority that seems to want federal funding for abortion, and at least does not want to forbid it outright. If Senators refuse to incorporate a provision banning federal abortion funding in the new Senate bill, does Obama then issue a new executive order banning it once again? And then what happens when the whole thing goes back to the House? Or does none of that happen, and this present bill gets signed into law, and those House members who think it will be amended just get thrown under a waiting fleet of buses in time-honored Pelosi/Obama tradition? Or will it all be “fixed” by subsequent bills?

And what of Obama’s and Pelosi’s far left supporters, who will be none too happy with this executive order? And what of all those right-to-life Representatives who told Pelosi a while back that they would refuse to vote for the present HCR bill if it contains Stupak language? Would they be likely to vote for it knowing about Obama’s contemplated executive order? Will the bill and the order occur simultaneously? If not, which will come first? And if the bill comes first, why would Stupak vote for it on a mere promise of Obama’s executive order, and why would the anti-Stupak faction vote for it with the threat of the same executive order hanging over their heads?

I must confess I have no idea how this would all wash, but in that respect I bet I’m not all that different from everyone else on the planet. We are in uncharted waters here—in fact, this entire administration and Congress represents uncharted and dangerous waters for America.

More House machinations: those pesky rules

The New Neo Posted on by

They seem to be going for a straight up or down vote in the House on the Senate bill. Perhaps this means they have the 216 necessary votes—or perhaps they just have more votes for a straight up-or-down than for Demon Pass (otherwise known as the Slaughter solution).

And here’s that noted statesman, Democrat Rules Committee member Representative Alcee Hastings, on the importance of rules:

I wish that I had been there when Thomas Edison made the remark that I think applies here: “There ain’t no rules around here, we’re trying to accomplish something.” And therefore, when the deal goes down, all this talk about rules, we make them up as we go along.

Of course, Edison wasn’t bound by constitutional oaths or his duty to the people he represented or anything as silly as that. Neither are the Democrats, apparently. Leftist ends justify means, don’t you know?

So after this can they pass everything through reconciliation or the Slaughter solution?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve noticed a lot of discussion in the comments section of various conservative blogs that goes like this: once the HCR vote is over and if the Democrats succeed, what’s to stop them from passing their entire agenda via reconciliation and/or the Slaughter route?

I’m not a parliamentarian, but a possible answer that comes to my mind is this: forty-one Republicans in the Senate.

Unless I’m sadly misunderstanding the way it works—or unless the Democrats decide to suspend the remaining pretense of following any rules—the reason reconciliation and/or the Slaughter solution have both been considered as methods to be used to pass HCR is that HCR legislation had already passed in both House and Senate, albeit in different versions.

The House only needs a simple majority to pass its bills, but the Senate needs sixty votes to force cloture and have a vote. Before the election of Scott Brown, the Democrats in the Senate had those sixty votes for cloture, and that cut off debate and enabled HCR to be passed by that legislative body.

Remember the Brown campaign, and how he promised to be the 41st vote against health care? That pledge was predicated on the idea that the Democrats would be so statesmanlike as to follow the usual rules, iron out the disagreements between the Senate and House versions of the HCR bills in conference, and then have both houses vote on a new combined bill that would again need sixty votes for cloture in the Senate.

But the election of Scott Brown, and his pledge to block cloture, threw a monkey wrench into that process. And so the Democrats have jettisoned the entire procedure in their attempt to pass HCR, proposing to use the reconciliation and/or Slaughter gambits. We don’t know whether either will ultimately work, but we do know that both are predicated on the fact that the original HCR bill passed the Senate in the first place. If (and it’s a big “if”) in the future all forty-one Republicans hang tough to block legislation on new issues, then there will be no Senate bills on these topics to “reconcile” with House bills, and no Senate bills for the House to subsequently “deem” to have passed in the House as well. So reconciliation and/or Slaughter would be moot.

Of course, it HCR passes, and so many Democrats realize they won’t be re-elected as a result of their “yes” votes, then we’ve got something we’ve never had before: a rogue Senate majority party whose days as a controlling majority are numbered, composed of leftists in safe seats combined with other party members who’ve lost all hope of re-election, all dancing to the tune of “when you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose.” They could have the deep desire to pass whatever suits their fancy in whatever fashion they “deem” acceptable, and stick it to the American people even further, since they are no longer answerable to those people.

Who knows what the results of such a situation will be? But you can best believe they’re not likely to be good.

What are Stupak and Pelosi cooking up?

The New Neo Posted on by

Bart Stupak and Nancy Pelosi have been discussing a plan by which the House can amend the Senate HCR bill and change the abortion language that has been such a sticking point for him:

The deal calls for Stupak to have a vote on his amendment either before or after the House votes to confirm the Senate bill on Sunday. Stupak is confident that he has the votes to pass the measure, and is happy to have the vote after the House passes the Senate bill. He believes that by using a “tie bar” approach, his amendment would be “tied” to the health care bill ”” which would require just 51 votes in the Senate.

I have no idea why—if the House is required to pass the Senate bill as is, and any subsequent changes need to be accomplished through reconciliation, which can only be used for budgetary items—this sort of maneuver would be acceptable. Of course, until recently, I’d never even heard of “reconciliation” (at least in the parliamentary sense), so I certainly could be wrong here.

It seems there are other problems with this approach as well, not the least of which is that the pro-choice forces in the House are reported to be livid with rage about the possibility of getting the rug pulled out from under them once again, and are threatening to withhold their votes.

So, would the Stupak stipulation (I’m trying to coin my own alliterative nicknames) really garner enough votes to pass? And would he trust the Senate to approve the language when the bill goes back to that body for a vote? He certainly shouldn’t trust the Senate, which refused to do so the first time round. And if you don’t already have a headache trying to figure this all out, try pondering the following:

To that end, one version of the resolution apparently being discussed between Pelosi and Stupak would say that the Senate bill won’t be considered as having passed in the House until the Senate sends a message to the House stating that it has also passed the Stupak resolution, according to a knowledgeable Democratic aide.

Sounds a bit like time-travel to me.

But I’m not at all sure it really matters to Stupak whether his anti-abortion-funding language is actually in any final HCR bill. I assume we’ll know more today at 11:00 AM, when he is due to give a news conference. But remember when Stupak said this:

The ideal outcome, Stupak said, might be for the House Democratic leadership to get the votes they need without him and for the bill to pass.

“You know, maybe for me that’s the best: I stay true to my principles and beliefs,” he said, and “vote no on this bill and then it passes anyways. Maybe for me is the best thing to do.”

That indicates to me that all Stupak really wants is to make the appearance of opposing abortion funding, but would like the bill to pass otherwise even if it does fund abortions. Since Pelosi seems to require his vote for passage (otherwise she wouldn’t be giving him the time of day), he might indeed be satisfied as long as he is on record as voting against abortion funding.

This “tie bar” bill might give him the cover to do just that, while allowing the bill to pass. In effect, Stupak would be voting for the bill with abortion funding at approximately the same time he’s voting for the bill without abortion funding, if you know what I mean. And while that may be good enough for what passes for Stupak’s conscience, I doubt it would be good enough for his pro-life constituents.

[UPDATE: Well, as of this writing (12:30 PM), no press conference for Stupak. It may be moot because they may not need him after all. But they may. There’s a lot of blah-blah-blah on cable news, but no one knows nothin’—although the Corner says it has inside info that the Stupak deal is off. If Pelosi rejected it, you can bet it’s because she was informed she would be losing votes rather than gaining them by allowing it.

It also appears that “deem-and-pass,” otherwise known as the Slaughter solution or Demon Pass, is still very much in the picture.]