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.
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Updates:
1:55 pm EST, December 21st, 2009 — Health plans on collision course
December 24th, 2009. Truly another date in U.S. history that will live in infamy.
According to a Fox broadcast report and interview, while the first version of the 2,000 page bill was being read, the present version, also approx. 2,000 pages was written up and remains unread even as the Senate passed the bill 60-40. It was rammed through days prior to Christmas when folks are kind of busy. Obama is expected to sign on the dotted line sometime in late January coinciding with the completion of his first year in office.
The bill should have been allowed the several weeks required for reading, analyzing and include public discussions. Word’s circulating, well actually more than words on youtube videos now that the personal costs for health care will be out of reach for many American citizens.
The way it was voted on at 1 a.m. days prior to Christmas, without being read in full, is the sure sign that ‘dictatorship’ of sorts has arrived on American soil.
Have to email you Jack with videos you’ll figure out what to do with. Because they are nothing short of shocking in the extreme. They show how Americans aren’t taking this lying down. But, in my opinion, the ‘peace of Christmas’ eve and day must be respected. Then we follow hard on the business of what many citizens are proposing.
Will send the links via private mail.
After procedural motions that allow for no amendments, the final vote could come at 9 p.m. on December 24.
If passed as planned this bill could easily become known as ’The Nightmare Before Christmas’ to the American people.
“After procedural motions that allow for no amendments“ — I’m sure I don’t know if that’s a first ever, but if it is…??
Re: #2 — I have your message, Dora. I’ll review when I have time. Thanks and “Merry Christmas”.
Merry Christmas and enjoy, counting on your ever present persistence/stamina to deal with the ‘messages’ looks like multiplying by the day. It’s not to spoil Christmas though.