Killing ObamaCare is a Rational Act


One hour and forty minutes after the White House issued their Easter deadline for ObamaCare to pass Congress, Democratic House Leaders conceded “they may not meet President Barack Obama’s challenge for swift action.”

Whenever the House Leadership moves a vote, it means they don’t have the votes. In Spanish, that’s mañana.

With the White House issuing a deadline and the Dem House leaders immediately and publicly saying, not so much, the White House looks silly and limp and powerless. They look even more out of touch and desperate than they did when President Obama announced that he will not quit with his self-appointed Captain Ahab role of hunting the great-health-care-white-whale.

But the best news (finally) is that a group of Democrats are willing to have News at 11 film them shooting ObamaCare in the head.

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How to End the ObamaCare Nightmare


Ending this health care nightmare comes down to one thing, and one thing only: expend all remaining to defeat the Senate bill in the House.

The Speaker cannot pass the Senate bill now. She does not have the votes. She has never had the votes — ever, to pass the Senate bill. (The AP list of 9 Dems who voted No who may vote yes is a fantasyland list — as in, if you think they will switch to Yes, you are living in Fantasyland. If a member who did vote No, now, when the politics are so clearly against it, switches to a yes, they might as well just resign. Which some might. But, really, it is good-bye for No votes that switch to Yes.)

While No votes switching to Yes is not credible, here is something that is credible. Yes votes that switch to No.

There is one New York Dem Yes vote who announced today, is now a no:

“U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, said Tuesday he would vote against the Senate version of the health care bill that could soon go before the House of Representatives for approval.

“Arcuri, who voted in early November in favor of the House version of the health care bill, said he is against the Senate bill for three main reasons:

“He doesn’t want to see the bill passed as a “mega bill,” and he believes more success would be had by breaking the bill apart and passing aspects of it incrementally, he said.

“Arcuri also said he isn’t comfortable with the possible Democratic strategy of passing the bill through reconciliation.”

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Corrected: Dispatches from U.S. Representatives Experiencing the Pain of Forsaking — and the Pleasure of Defending — Their Principles


Correction: Since posting this I learned a lesson, do a Google search immediately before awarding any Member of Congress an award like — turns out that Rep. Anthony Weiner said last night he will vote against the Senate bill.

The award for the U.S. House Member most foresaking his principles goes to Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) — Mr. We-Must-Have-a-Public-Option-to-Medicare-Buy-In-is-better-to-I’ll-vote-for-a-bill-with-no-public-option-and-no-Medicare-buy-in-but-I’ll-whine-about-it:

“If you think about the three letters that almost all of us signed, we signed a Courtney letter saying we weren’t going to go along if it included the Cadillac tax, a [Rep. Diana] DeGette letter saying we weren’t going to go along if it included Stupak [restrictions on publicly funded abortions], and someone had a letter saying we we’re not going to go along unless the public option is in there,” [New York Rep. Anthony] Weiner said. “So we’re eating a lot of letters right now, [and] I think there’s got to be some nominal [emphasis added] movement on those things to let all of us who signed those things at least say, ‘All right, we got improvement in those three areas.’”

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Pelosi’s Problems Propogate, Probably Propelling Paralysis


Problems, or P to the sixth power, is what Speaker Pelosi faces.

She tells her caucus on a conference call not to believe reports that she has decided that the House will OK all the major positions of the Senate (read: cave to the Senate) — but in order to defeat the Senate position, she needs to show the White House and the Senate leadership, she does not have the votes in the House.

And she has no Dem Member of Congress who has corralled the votes with which she can point to as being the one who has them, while she does not. The Progressives are suffering from the fact they will not threaten to kill the bill if they do not get what they want. They have no Stupak, no DeMint, no Coburn.

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The Best Christmas Present Ever: Senator DeMint Objects to the Appointment of the Conferees


When Senator DeMint engineered, and Republican Leader McConnell actually objected to the appointment of the conferees, he was really handing the ball off to the left wingers — progressives if you will — and now they have their shot to either hold their own clan members who are against the Senate compromises and force them to vote No, or have their policy demands be ignored and take the crumbs from Senator Nelson’s and Senator Lieberman’s table.

Now, because of the Senator DeMint’s objection, unless the House votes for the Senate bill unchanged — which is highly unlikely (see below) — then the Senate ObamaCare bill must be amended on the House floor to gain the votes they need to pass it on the House floor. And because of Senator DeMint’s objection to the appointment of the conferees, there will be no conference, or conference report.

If the House amends the Senate bill, they then have to send the amended bill back to the Senate — where all the 60 vote margin cloture votes still apply — cloture on the motion to proceed, and cloture to end the filibuster and cloture on any amendment.

Do I believe that this objection to the appointment of the conferees will kill ObamaCare? Yes, if the progressives or those 64 House Democrats who voted for the Stupak amendment do not roll over and play dead.

This monkey wrench may explain why the White House is putting out the word that it wants the health care bill to pass the House after the State of the Union, in February.

You all can decide whether the DeMint objection could be the kiss of death to ObamaCare, but I offer the following to convince you that it is:

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