Dear Dems… Thank You

It’s around 1900 hours, or 7:00 pm.  About the time that everyone sits down to eat dinner after a long day, and many people will have the news on while eating and get caught up on the day’s events.  Well, there is something that I wanted to break to any fellow conservative Republicans on this website:

Nancy Pelosi won Minority Leader today.

Yes, the woman that ruined the democratic control of the House, and took Congressional approval to levels where the members need a snorkel to breath (that’s 17% approval folks) has been placed back in charge of the Democrats in the House.  Ya can’t fix stupid!

Dear Democrats,

THANK YOU.

Sincerely,

-rj

Irreconcilable Differences-How Bad Politics Creates Bad Policy

An article published in this morning’s Wall Street Journal details the process some  house members are pursuing in order to pass the government-healthcare-industry-takeover bill proposed by the Senate.  “Under the “reconciliation” process that began yesterday afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate’s Christmas Eve bill and then use “sidecar” amendments to fix the things it doesn’t like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation.”  As the article explains “[t]his two-votes-in-one gambit is a brazen affront to the plain language of the Constitution, which is intended to require democratic accountability. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a ‘Bill’ to ‘become a Law,’ it ‘shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate.’ … As Stanford law professor Michael McConnell pointed out in these pages yesterday, ‘The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote. The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill. But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form …” thereby undermining senate rules, and flying in the face of the Constitution.  Of course, for the bill to become to become law, fifty one senators would still need to vote in favor of the amendments proposed by the House, which would require some to abandon both the Constitution and their ‘core beliefs’ in exchange for the Harry and Nancy’s good graces.

Destruction Among The Democrats

I was at my internship with Laura Ingraham earlier today, and as part of the job I had to look up information regarding the falling house of cards that is the Democratic Party and its domestic initiatives. Below is what I found:

1. President Obama’s Transportation Security Administration nominee has resigned after Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) and other Republicans held up his nomination due to his lying to Congress.

2. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) is calling for health care voting to halt until newly-elected Senator Brown (R-MA) is seated.

3. White House officials and House Democrats see things differently on health care and the ramifications of the Brown election.

4. Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) may very well have Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) as a challenger this year, despite his calling out the left today.

5. White House advisor David Axelrod and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs don’t get it.

Below is what I have found since:

6. Suddenly, deadlines aren’t so important to President Obama.

7. Moderate Scott Brown (R-MA) and conservative Jim DeMint (R-SC) are on the same page, it appears. Kind of makes Democrats look like the ones who are purging their own ranks.

8. Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) is kinda-sorta-not-really calling for health care reform to start over.

Update:

9. Representative Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) has been rumored to be prepared to resign from Congress if the health care debate keeps going, and is being courted by a large insurance organization.

10. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is being hammered by the liberal members of her caucus.

None of this is to take away from the fact that Republicans still have work to do in creating a big tent- though Ed Morrissey continues to do great work regarding that goal- and that the Tea Partiers and many other Americans are as angry at the Republican Party as they are at the Democratic Party. While I think the Republicans will win several Senate seats, and 20-30 House seats, I also think the divisions between conservative Republicans and moderate Republicans, and between social conservatives and fiscal/economic conservatives, will hand several House races and at least one or two Senate seats to the Democrats in 2010. Of course, if President Obama keeps using his waning political capital to help Democrats in tough elections, perhaps Republicans will be fortunate enough to have another two years to get their own house in order before the 2012 elections.

Democrats Lied- Kids May Die

According to LifeNews.com, pro-life Democrats and Republicans are unlikely to get a chance to vote on portions of the House bill currently being worked?on by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that will create a new method of funding. According to the Associated Press: “The main point of contention [among pro-life Democrats and pro-choice Democrats]?is the proposed new federal subsidies that would help lower-income people purchase health care coverage from private plans ? and potentially from a new government-sponsored plan ? within a new purchasing exchange.” Later in the article: “But the Democrats’ health overhaul bill would create a new stream of federal funding not covered by the restrictions….[Representative Bart] Stupak [D-Michigan]?says language specifying that someone obtaining an abortion must use her own money, not federal money from the subsidies, doesn’t go far enough because it’s impossible to clearly segregate funds in that way.”

I guess Nancy Pelosi and other pro-choice (read: pro-abortion) Democrats don’t get it- without a stipulation against abortions in the final health care bill coming out of the House, organizations like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops can’t support their bill.?Furthermore, representatives who would otherwise like to see more government involvement in health care but are against killing children?may not vote for the bill.?29 Democrats joined Stupak in sending a letter to Pelosi, and given how many Blue Dogs are joining with Republicans with regards to concerns over the cost of the bill and the public option…keeping abortion in the bill may just kill the House version of health care reform.

(One addendum: if President Obama really wants to be the “post-partisan” president he talked about on the campaign trail, and wants to find the “middle ground” on abortion as he said at Notre Dame…he could always pressure Pelosi and Co. into accepting Stupak’s bill. Then it would probably give the House the votes it needs to pass a health reform bill. The question, however, is will the president do that, or will he stick to his ideological belief that any unborn child is worth killing?)