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.]

The fix is in on the doc fix…

The New Neo Posted on by

[UPDATE: I used the words “Politco claims” and “If true” in the following short post because there was something about the Politco report that didn’t smell quite right to me (maybe that “textual narrative” part? Too good to be true?). Turns out that Politico has just announced that the authenticity of the report has been challenged, and they’ve withdrawn the story. But the quote from Axelrod, which appeared in a completely different and unrelated article, seems authentic enough.]

…and Politico claims it has the smoking gun.

If true, would anyone who’s been paying a particle of attention be surprised by this? My only surprise is that Politico, not an especially conservative-friendly site, is reporting it.

And my favorite part of it all is the use of the phrase “textual narrative.” How very post-modern of them!

[NOTE: And I love, love, love this quote from David Axelrod about the behind the scenes machinations around the HCR bill and its passage: “There’s not been one minute of talk around the White House about what this means for Barack Obama’s presidency.”

Are they stark raving mad? Or do they think we are? Or both?]

If HCR passes—the next step, states’ rights?

The New Neo Posted on by

I was just listening to the tail end of an interview on Fox between Megyn Kelly and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. Brewer was talking about the Tenth Amendment challenges planned by governors and attorney generals around the country if HCR passes. She sounded very determined, and said this was a bipartisan group.

One thing I noticed about Brewer was that she kept repeating that what we are seeing now in Congress is something she’s never seen or even imagined happening in her lifetime. She seemed stunned, as though she could not believe her eyes and ears.

Brewer is sixty-five years old (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), so she wasn’t exactly born yesterday. And yet she seems to think this is something sui generis in America. I happen to agree with her, and plan soon to write an article explaining why.

[ADDENDUM: A related and interesting idea.]

McArdle on the CBO score

The New Neo Posted on by

Shorter McArdle: the CBO scoring has become a joke, and the bill is a financial disaster. But nobody who wants to vote for it is listening or cares.

[NOTE: A while back, I made a similar point as McArdle on the uselessness of the CBO at this point. Congress has become like a virus that has figured out how to penetrate the defenses of the CBO scoring and overwhelm whatever truth it used to offer.]

Here are forty Representatives to pressure

The New Neo Posted on by

For what it’s worth, here are forty names judged to be on the HCR fence. You can call, write, and otherwise contact them in an attempt to increase the pressure. It’s especially important if you live in their districts, but anyone can join the fray.

I’m not sure whether the Pelosi smile and confidence right now are theater or not. I happen to think that she would not be scheduling a vote on Sunday if the thing weren’t already in the bag. But she’s certainly capable of that sort of bluff to increase the notion that it’s a done deal, and to discourage the opposition and encourage Democrats to get on that bandwagon and ride it.

So I think it’s still very worthwhile to make your voices heard in any way you can. By far the best thing would be to block this from happening, rather than to fight it afterward. But fight it afterward we will, if fight it afterward we must.

Working with Obama: Lindsey Graham on closing Guantanamo

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t know enough inside baseball to know exactly why Lindsey Graham is doing this. But I do know it’s the sort of thing that in the past earned him the rage of conservatives, and rightly so.

That Graham is willing at this point—even after the extreme hostility, demonizing, lack of cooperation, and utter disrespect displayed by Obama personally and this administration generally towards Republicans—to work with Obama on this matter is difficult to understand or justify. I’m with Andy McCarthy on the substantive problems with this agreement:

The good parts of the deal will be either things we’d have gotten anyway (like no civilian trial for KSM) or unenforceable (like promises that the Obama administration will be more open to using options other than the criminal justice system for top terrorists). The bad parts will be horrific, and no matter what Senator Graham says, he can’t do a thing about them: The place or places where the terrorists are held will become targets that we will have to spend tons of money to protect; the tons of money we have already spent to make Gitmo a first-rate, ideally secured facility, will be lost; and, most significantly, the physical presence in the U.S. of the detainees will mean they are unquestionably in the jurisdiction of the federal courts, where judges will be able to say the Constitution requires all sorts of remedies, including release.

And remember, all of this will be based on the fiction that Gitmo foments anti-U.S. terrorism ”” and to the extent the U.S. reputation in the world has been tarnished, much more of that has been done by the politicians who’ve attacked Gitmo than by the facility itself, which is a model.

And yet Graham forges on. His motivation is unknown to me, but here are some guesses:

(a) he really does believe that “bipartisanship” is some worthwhile goal in and of itself
(b) Obama has promised him something, and he’s naive enough to believe him
(c) he disagrees with McCarthy and believes that without an agreement Obama would be going the civilian justice route
(d) he likes the limelight and the power this gives him as the person to break an anti-cloture vote

The current situation in the post-Scott Brown election Senate is that, even though Brown gave the Republicans the magical 41st vote to stop cloture, it only works reliably when the Republican Party stands solidly and firmly and unanimously together (or if a Democrat or Democrats join them). Any Republican who goes against the group instantly becomes more spotlighted and more powerful than before—wooed and fawned over and catered to by the Democrats.

In the present case, Graham says he has two other Republicans ready to join him (wonder who they could be? My guess is a couple of women from Maine). So even if a few Democrats, or Joe Lieberman, vote with the Republicans against this, it’s a done deal, and Graham’s the “bipartisan” hero. However, I agree with McCarthy that Americans will be the losers. But hey, we’re getting used to that, aren’t we?