Who Is Dr. Donald Berwick?

Here's the guy that President Obama was so eager to put into place but didn't want subjected to any scrutiny:



This guy now has one of the most important jobs in the country, and yet the President was so scared of him being subject to scrutiny that he bypassed Senate confirmation without even bothering to attempt to schedule a hearing. The Democrats own the Senate. They could have scheduled a hearing for him at any time.

But they didn't. Will the media give this appointment any of the scrutiny that the Senate didn't?

Repeal the 17th Amendment and send people to Washington who will do the job that these corrupt demagogues won't do.

Senate To Overturn Ban On Abortions At Military Hospitals?

The nation's largest abortion business is applauding the vote last week in a Senate committee to turn U.S. military base hospitals into abortion centers. The amendment, sponsored by pro-abortion Sen. [Roland] Burris of Illinois, would have the military break with current longstanding policy.

...

In the Senate Armed Services Committee, Burris won approval to attach an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to allow abortions on both domestic and overseas military bases.

...

Current law prohibits the performance of abortion by Department of Defense medical personnel or in Department of Defense medical facilities except when the life of the mother is at risk or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. There is no distinction in this policy between military facilities within the United States and those overseas.

A separate provision prohibits the use of Department of Defense taxpayer funds for abortion except to save the life of the mother.

The issue of abortions done at military base medical centers has been around for two decades.

When ex-President Clinton allowed abortions in military facilities from 1993 to 1996, all military physicians (as well as many nurses and supporting personnel) refused to perform or assist in elective abortions. In response, the Clinton administration attempted to hire civilians to do abortions.

Unaccountable Panel To Ration Medical Care

According to President Obama's Budget Director:



It is literally unAmerican to give government authority to someone and make them virtually unaccountable. There is no way this could have happened if Senators were accountable to their state legislatures. As it is, Senators are only accountable to their political party.

Sen. Baucus: Health Bill Will Redistribute Income

Senator Baucus is the senator from Montana:

"Too often, much of late, the last couple three years the mal-distribution of income in America is gone up way too much, the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy, and the middle income class is left behind. Wages have not kept up with increased income of the highest income in America. This legislation will have the effect of addressing that mal-distribution of income in America."

Video here.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades

This Is What Nullification Looks Like

On Thursday, [Virginia] became the first state to enact legislation that prohibits the federal government from forcing its citizens to purchase government-approved health insurance. The measure was sponsored by two Northern Virginians - State Senator Jill Vogel, R-Warrenton, and Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas - who also co-signed a Feb. 24 letter to President Obama protesting state legislators’ exclusion from his recent health care summit. ...

Legislators in more than 30 other states are also considering similar bills based on the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Freedom of Choice in Health Care model.

The Tenth Amendment Center has a map of pending health care "nullification" bills that challenge the federal government’s jurisdiction based on its reading of the Constitution.

The REAL ID Act wasn't nullified, because states simply did not implement it (REAL ID was not mandatory). Nullification is an active rejection of federal authority. Virginia is the second state (after Montana) in recent memory to engage in nullification.

This is the week when we shall know whether the federal health care legislation will be signed or not. It all comes down to whether or not Speaker Pelosi can come up with enough votes.

Sen. Byrd in 1993: Reconciliation Never For Controversial Legislation

"Reconciliation was never, never, never intended to be a shield for controversial legislation."

As long as the Senate is filled with politicians, they will always engage in grandstanding and political shenanigans. The only way to get politics out of the Senate is to repeal the 17th Amendment.

Report: Health Care Bill Will Bypass Senate

The legislation the White House will post on its website is expected to reflect common ground negotiated over the past several weeks by House and Senate Democratic leaders.

Those agreements are likely to be combined as a privileged budget reconciliation bill, which only needs a simple 51-vote majority to pass the 100-member Senate instead of the 60-vote supermajority that has become routine in the Senate and gives Republicans power to block the healthcare bill.

"I believe that's the path we are going to take," a senior congressional Democratic aide said.

The Senate was created in order to prevent such centralization of power.

Rand Paul On Health Care Reform

He calls in to Fox Business's Happy Hour to discuss potential health care reform strategies, and other pending legislation:

Sen. Nelson Booed Out Of Pizza Parlor

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson and his wife were leaving dinner at a new pizza joint near their home in Omaha one night last week when a patron began complaining about Nelson’s decisive vote in favor of the Senate’s health care bill.

Other customers started booing. A woman yelled, “Get him the hell out of here!” And the Nelsons and their dining companions beat a hasty retreat.

Let's repeal the 17th Amendment and get all of them the hell out of there.

Sen. Dodd: Health Care Bill Hanging By A Thread

Dodd: Health Care Overhaul Bill Is 'Hanging by a Thread'
by burghnews

We can only hope.

Threat to Ignore Election to Pass ObamCare

The longtime aide and confidant of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who was handpicked by Gov. Deval Patrick after a controversial legal change to hold Kennedy’s seat, vowed to vote for the bill even if Republican state Sen. Scott Brown, who opposes the health-care reform legislation, prevails in a Jan. 19 special election.

“Absolutely,” Kirk said, when asked if he’d vote for the bill, even if Brown captures the seat. “It would be my responsibility as United States senator, representing the people and understanding Senator Kennedy’s agenda. . . . I think you’re asking me a hypothetical question but I’d be pleased to vote for the bill.”

The ridiculous claim that he's "representing the people" is demolished by the fact that the people don't support the legislation. But this shows why the Senate cannot perform the job of directly representing the people. The nature of the Senate, including six-year, staggered terms, allows them to engage in party politics, which means pretending to represent the people only until they can get away with supporting their party's agenda.

And it will continue to be this way until the 17th Amendment is repealed.

Here's another interesting tidbit I found from the senate.gov website:

Prevailing practice is for state governors to fill Senate vacancies by appointment, with the appointee serving until a special election has been held, at which time the appointment expires immediately.

Politicians will continue to ignore the rules, the Constitution, and the people they're supposed to represent until people start holding them accountable. The way to do that is to allow the people to be directly represented through the House, and indirectly represented through their state legislatures by the Senate, which will ensure that the Senate fights to keep Washington's power limited.

Continuing the route we're going will just ensure that Americans treat politics like a season of American Idol.

Hat tip: Hot Air

Update: As Cameron points out in the comments, "ObamCare" or ObamaCare" is the wrong way to refer to the Senate's health care legislation.

The Goal here is to repeal the 17th. That's it. Keep the stupid right and left wing politics out of it. United we stand, divided we fall. Remember this. I'm in the middle of writing a bill to Repeal the 17th. Here's where you can find it.

Thanks for the correction, Cameron.

Can Martha Coakley (D-MA) Lose?

Senator Coakley's Republican challenger Scott Brown is gaining massive online support:

Largely shunned by the Republican establishment, Brown has utilized an online strategy which has ignited a grassroots campaign to get Brown elected. Do a Google search of blogs, and you will see that Brown is the talk of the internet, and most posts about Coakley are negative. While the mainstream media still holds great sway, Brown is seen as rising and Coakley as more of the same. Brown is winning the online battle.

It's interesting that the national GOP refuses to assist Brown, despite that he promises to oppose Obamacare. I'm willing to bet that if Brown unseats Coakley, the GOP will find someone to vote in favor of Obamacare. That's how these politicians cover for each other while trying to take credit for opposing them too.

But it would be nice to see a senator elected without the support of the national party.

The "Public Option" Lie

Interestingly enough, Hugo Chavez just created a "public option" chain of stores that would sell everything from clothes to food to cars. These socialists call their subsidized option by a friendly name in order to disguise the fact that their subsidies allow them to undercut free market competition. It's all about creating dependence on the government.

Unprecedented Pork Bought Senate Votes

With the bill hanging in the balance, Nelson won a provision exempting his state from paying the usual share of costs for new Medicaid patients. The deal critics have dubbed the Cornhusker Kickback is expected to cost the federal government $100 million over 10 years.

Before a close vote last month, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) won an even larger break for her state — an estimated $300 million in extra federal spending, in a move opponents derided as the Louisiana Purchase.

Some critics branded the special deals as functionally equivalent to the kind of earmarks Obama crusaded against as a senator — and a quantum leap from eleventh-hour deals Obama’s predecessors have cut.

After Nelson and Landrieu, what will key congressional swing votes want from future White Houses?

“It’s a much bigger deal, a much larger piece of legislation than half-a-million dollars for a peanut museum in North Carolina,” said Thomas Schatz of Citizens Against Government Waste. “We’re now talking about programs worth hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. ... Sooner or later, other members are going to be saying: Why didn’t I think of this?”

“Once people see a leader willing to take these kinds of deals, people have a tendency to withhold their votes until they get a similar deal. ... If you hold out, you, too, can be Ben Nelson, perhaps,” said Diana Evans, a Trinity College political science professor who studies the greasing done to pass legislation.

The Senate will pass the bill on Christmas Eve, and from there it will go into conference to craft a single bill from the House and Senate bills.

Christmas ham, anyone?

Hat tip: Hot Air

Reason TV: Mission Creep

Hat tip: Reason TV

Senate Moves to Finalize Health Care Takeover

Just got word via Michelle Malkin that the Senate will clear the defense authorization bill tonight and make way for the health care bill.

The Senate needs 60 votes for cloture. Which Republican will take Senator Nelson's place? Snowe? Collins? Maybe both?

The Republicans will give up as many votes as needed to pass this and still try to take credit for opposing it.

Get rid of all of them. Repeal the 17th Amendment.

Senate Approves Abortion Subsidies for D.C.

The Senate approved an omnibus spending bill on Sunday that would lift the 13-year-long ban on directly paying for abortions in the nation’s capital. The legislation, which President Barack Obama is expected to sign, also contains funding for Planned Parenthood and the UNFPA.

This is just ridiculous. Politicians have a simple philosophy: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.

Most Americans don't want abortion completely banned or subsidized. There's absolutely nothing in the Constitution granting the federal government any say in the matter. But once the 17th Amendment was passed, the federal government had no more structural safeguards to prevent it from centralizing power and encroaching on every aspect of every individual's life.

Obama Admits That Single-Payer Has Been His Plan All Along

Just like Bill Clinton. It's times like this that I wish Obama were a Muslim. Unfortunately, he's just a typical liberal politician.

Abortion Lobby Gives Six Times As Much $$ to Senate As Antiabortion Lobby

Follow the money:

As the U.S. Senate weighs contentious changes to federal abortion policy, the Center for Responsive Politics has also found that pro-choice interests have given sitting senators roughly six times as much as pro-life interests have contributed to them.

Overall, individuals and political action committees classified by the Center as part of the abortion rights lobby have contributed about $3.4 million to current senators since 1989. By contrast, individuals and PACs classified by the Center as part of the anti-abortion lobby have contributed just $559,000 to current senators during the same period. (See methodology note below.)

This is just a really bad way to make decisions. Laws should not be based on who gives the most money to Congress. But there's so much power in D.C. that the rich give them all this money because they know there's going to be a return on their investment. Quite frankly, the federal government has no Constitutional authority to regulate abortion.

Repeal the 17th Amendment so that states can reclaim their power, and the federal government will become less corrupt because it will have less power to corrupt it.

Canadian Health Care

Hat tip: ReasonTV