Now that cheap whore Ben Nelson sold out, the progressive dream of hardcore socialism has been officially brought to America via health care. This should give you nightmares.
A bill so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve.
And tidings of comfort and joy from Harry Reid too. The Senate Majority Leader has decided that the last few days before Christmas are the opportune moment for a narrow majority of Democrats to stuff ObamaCare through the Senate to meet an arbitrary White House deadline. Barring some extraordinary reversal, it now seems as if they have the 60 votes they need to jump off this cliff, with one-seventh of the economy in tow.
Mr. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world's greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new "manager's amendment" that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations. Democrats are barely even bothering to pretend to care what's in it, not that any Senator had the chance to digest it in the 38 hours before the first cloture vote at 1 a.m. this morning. After procedural motions that allow for no amendments, the final vote could come at 9 p.m. on December 24.
Even in World War I there was a Christmas truce.
The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that "reform" has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state. An increasing roll of leaders in health care and business are looking on aghast at a bill that is so large and convoluted that no one can truly understand it, as Finance Chairman Max Baucus admitted on the floor last week. The only goal is to ram it into law while the political window is still open, and clean up the mess later.
Reason.tv: ObamaCare and Mission Creep—Why health care reform will end up covering much more than you think.
Ahhh, corporatism ...
A healthcare firm is seeking to silence a Danish academic from expressing doubts about one of its products by using England’s draconian libel laws
In a presentation to about 30 colleagues, Thomsen, one of Europe’s leading radiologists, revealed how patients treated at his hospital had subsequently contracted a rare and potentially fatal disease.
Thomsen and other doctors at his Copenhagen University hospital were baffled as to why 20 kidney patients who had been given routine scans were afflicted by a disorder — nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) — in which the skin gradually swells, thickens and tightens. Some sufferers were confined to wheelchairs. At least one died. There was no known cure.
Then, in March 2006, there was a breakthrough. It was confirmed that all those who had fallen ill with NSF had been given the same drug in advance of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan.
Thomsen, however, now refuses to speak anywhere in England on the possible risks of Omniscan. The reason is that he faces another kind of storm: GE Healthcare is suing him in the High Court for libel.
Democrats Play Psycho-Politics in the Health-Care Debate
Without any knowledge of history — the repeated failures of liberal policies that still haunt America like the Ghost of Christmas Past — it might be tempting to believe that ObamaCare will accomplish all the wonderful goals its advocates claim without any unintended harmful consequences. Yet to the careful student of history, the failure of liberal policies is as predictable as the dishonest rhetoric used to advocate such policies.
And here's how they "get things done" in Washington ... Chicago-style!
Cash for Cloture: Demcare bribe list, Pt. II
A month ago, I compiled Part I of the Demcare bribe list as Harry Reid rushed before Thanksgiving to secure his first cloture vote on the government health care takeover. (Quick re-cap: $300 million Louisiana Purchase for Landrieu; $300 million California doctor payments; AARP goodies; abortion and union lobby concessions.)
Here’s Part II of the Cash for Cloture bribe list all in one handy place (hat tip again to my friend ChristinaKB for the apt phrase she first coined on November 21 for the Demcare wheeling and dealing).
Is health care a right?
Who Needs Healthcare When You Can Have a Cheeseburger in Paradise
With all the cantankerous arguments filled with minutiae permeating the halls of Congress and the TV and radio talk shows, it’s hard to remember what the core issue of the healthcare debate is: Is there a natural right to healthcare?
Many of the arguments in favor and even against President Barack Obama’s healthcare plans do not challenge or question the premise that healthcare is a right. I’m having trouble remembering on which day God created healthcare: was it on the fourth or fifth day? Actually, men and women over the centuries have created and improved healthcare. So the right to healthcare is a human made right, right?
FAIR WARNING ...
Watch for some Republicans to defect now that the socialization of American medicine by the tyrants of the Democrat party is a “done deal.”
“Our votes wouldn’t have made any difference to the outcome, and it will help us in our home states,” they will whine.
Doesn’t matter. Destroy them, each and every one.
Linked to at: THESE DAYS