Flippers.
News that Boccieri has flipped to Yes points to more flipping and a final crawl to 216. News that Stupak seeks a compromise with the Senate is clever cover not for a flip but to back off the youth attack teams from OFA and etcetera. Note from Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, that the Boccieri flip makes her think that Mrs. Pelosi has her 216. No new word on Altmire or Dahlkemper or Ellsworth.
There will be Phoenicians.
The damage is deep and consistent. All Democrats are now on DefCon 3 going to 2 after the vote. The GOP is not a healthy party, but it is the default oppo and will enjoy the rage of the Babbits and and their pals. The deep blue CDs in urban heat islands are the only safe territory in the North and West. Any Democratic Yes or No vote who survives the swarms of B-24 Liberators launching on Washington will be news, will deserve a museum trophy case right next to other impossible treasures such as the gold coins of Phoenicians. There will be blood. What is the plan to withstand the wave of revenge? Masada-like Democrats? Is this the Rahm/Ax plan for permanent siege? Note that POTUS has just called for the entire Democratic Caucus to meet at the White House at 4 PM Eastern time Saturday 20. Why? Pep talk? Team spirit? Draw straws?
Nancy Pelosi Delivers.
The element that is most enjoyable to imagine is Delay or Hastert or Boehner, or even Gingrich back in the day, delivering a suggestively Disneyworld pitch about a totally partisan power play in the Joan Rivers fashion of Nancy Pelosi. That's entertainment.
I've redefined a flipper as someone who changes based on The Hill's whip count. So far, that count has been amazingly good. There have only been two changes all week to the all-important "No or Leaning No" list. It went from 36 to 37 and now back to 36. Given all the BS that's going on in DC you'd have to admit that's a record that Nostradamus would envy.
Boccieri was on the Yes or Leaning Yes list, so even though he may have voted No in November, he's still not a "flipper" by my more conservative definition.
By my definition, nothing has changed in the last 4 days, with the possible exception that the CHC (Gutierrez et al) caved in a bit more easily than one might have reasonably hoped.
Ellsworth, Altmire, and Stupak are the men to watch. Maybe Marcy Kaptur could be a dark horse.
For individual Democrat members of the House it doesn't really matter which way they vote on Sunday. Either way, their goose is cooked.
There is a difference however. If they vote 'no', they'll be using a gun to blow their brains out. If they vote 'yes', they'll be using a suicide belt - and take us along with them.
Kim Strassel's column in the WSJ today points out that even if the Democratic machine makes good on the threat to entirely cut off funding for the November re-election campaigns any No voters, it might not matter. If you look at Ellsworth's district, for example, if he votes NO I just can't imagine anyone defeating him in November. People's memories are short but they are not that short. And given how public all the arm-twisting's been, it's going to be quite transparent that any lies or smear campaings against him will be run by sour-grape progressive Democrats. People will view having withstood Pelosi's threats as a badge of honor, kind of the way that his 20 years in the Bastille gave Dickens' Dr. Mannette enough "street cred" to withstand at least some of the vicissitudes of the Revolution.
In short, I don't think Dems in swing districts are damned if they do and damned if they don't. I think they're only damned if they do. If they don't, OTOH, they'll be national heroes.
I like John's design of this web page by the way so as to make it look like the planes are dropping bombs on Pelosi's head. Would that it were the case!
Ellsworth to leave House to run against Dan Coats for open (Bayh) Senate seat IN. Ellsworth running in Red state that gave Obama plurality of 12,000 votes out of a million or more. No margin for Ellsworth. He runs pro-choice, anti-Stupak, he is laughable.
We don't know what anti-Stupak means yet! Anti-Stupak now, or anti-Stupak after he is bought?
Smithsonian Avaiable for antique pols:
House Democrats’ Meeting With Obama Moved to the Hill
March 19, 3:32 p.m.
President Barack Obama’s meeting with the House Democratic Caucus this weekend is now scheduled to take place on the Hill instead of at the White House, according to a senior House Democratic aide.
House Democratic Caucus Heading to Meet With Obama on Saturday
March 19, 1:54 p.m.
The entire House Democratic Caucus will meet with President Barack Obama at the White House on Saturday afternoon, one day before the chamber is set to vote on the health care overhaul, a White House aide said Friday.
All 250 of them? Where will they get all those chairs?
Better make it 260 to include all the party-crashers.
Jason Altmire announces he'll vote NO! First good news I've heard all week.
Ellsworth went over to the Dark Side.
All the Dems in one place on Saturday? Anyone got bin Laden's cell number?
Stupak to hold a "presser" tomorrow to announce the fate of the free world.
The progressives are ganging up on Stupak but I think Harry Reid engineered this whole thing. Reid refused to take the advice of Baucus back in November (?) and put some loose abortion language in their amendment. Stupak made it clear at the time he would not support the Senate language and Reid basically said, "Uff Da!" to the pro-lifers at that point. I have been puzzled ever since that moment why Reid would build an extra, perhaps extraneous hurdle into a bill that already had a rough road ahead of it. One could blame over-confidence. Back when they had 60 they could ram it through without reconciliation. But, why bother?
Other than knowing that if they pass it, it will never be reversed, I can't understand why the dems want this bill. It's going to kill them in the short term for sure and they'll deserve it. May be they think the GOP is worse off than they appear. Whatever the case, there will be a lot of redundancy come November.
Jim -
"Once they pass it it will never be repealed ".... you seem to be forgetting the year 2013. The year 2012 gets a lot of press but the real tipping point is going to be 2013. That's when the HI Trust Fund will go insolvent in a big way. Don't forget the $29T deficit (some estimates higher but that's the most recent Medicare Actuary's Report I recall seeing).
The repeal won't happen in a nice way. The repeal will happen because the Trust Fund will run out of money and the government will run out of credit and we'll have hyperinflation and nobody will be able to pay the doctors' bills and eventually, like a good case of the runs, this society will get the high colonic it so richly deserves.
It's already happening in California. CalPERS, so high and mighty just 3 years ago, is already listening to ways to cut pensions in the future and public unions are accepting furloughs and layoffs as a way of life. All this was unthinkable as recently as 3 years ago.
We, the actuaries, will have the last laugh. Let the Dems play all they want. Remember always that government cannot create wealth, only spend it. There's only a finite amount of wealth in this country. Once it's gone, all the King's horses will not be able to put this sham of an existence we're now living back together again.
We, the actuaries, will sweep up the carnage from the streets once this is all over.
All Representatives, including Pelosi are at risk. Anger on the right is higher than anger on the left after Iraq.
Not a done deal, many rules were bent, lawsuits probable if not inevitable.
For the first time in my life, since coming to the U.S. in 1960 (from Switzerland) I feel that America has no president. I am not alone. Tomorrow you will see masses of people converge on Washington to protest against this president. It is already the third time they have felt compelled to do so. These are ordinary citizens from all walks of life who are scared to death that they are losing their country. The press will downplay it. They will heap scorn and ridicule on the effort. Most major news outlets will not even mention it.
At issue is health care. It is something that nobody wants - not in this way. If the bill passes on Sunday, it will have been done through bribery, arm-twisting and legislative trickery. The truth be told, nobody is eager to vote for this turkey. It will compromise medical care and plunge the nation into insurmountable debt. The stakes could not be higher. And to think, it was all orchestrated by a cabal of outright Marxists who seek nothing less than to see this nation and its people destroyed. I know some of you think these remarks intemperate. They are not. Just wait and see what happens here. The nations of the world will only be affected to the degree that its leaders do not understand what Obama is up to.
This fight in congress is not about health care as the papers report. It is about Obama and the viability of his presidency. He has said as much. Right on the heels of health care, the push will be for immigration reform; then cap and trade. All this frantic activity on the part of the White House and the Democrat-controlled Congress is designed to tear the nation apart so that Obama may emerge from the ruins and declare himself king. If health care is stopped, we still have a chance. If it passes, do not look for America as she once was. Weep for her, for she will be no more. The majority of Americans today understand as much. The reason for our economy failing is two-fold: 1. Washington’s anti-private sector policies and, 2. the people sitting on their hands, deliberately refusing to participate in propping up what they see as a rogue government. For every one converging on Washington tomorrow, there will be 10,000 in their homes, sweating bullets, hoping against hope that the Republic can yet be saved.
"The press will downplay it" ... if all the tea partiers who gathered in the Capitol on September 12, 2009 were African-Americans, the press would have called it the "Million-Man March".
It's worse than downplaying. It's an absolute lock against any MSM being allowed to give out accurate crowd estimates.
Peter,
I've given a good deal of thought to whether it's true that we should "weep for (America), because she is no more." Whatever happens tomorrow, I would like my comments about it to withstand the test of time and not sound either overly blase or overly dramatic.
And, the best sort of perspective I can get on it is to imagine a Lou Filliger in 1935 commenting on the passage of the original Social Security bill. Doubtless I would have been every bit as upset then as I am now about HCR. I might have said, "Weep for America as we knew her, she is no more."
And, would I have been right? YES. America changed with the passage of Social Security. It changed with the passage of Medicare. It's changed with numerous other smaller incremental chips taken out of the granite block of our freedom.
But, the entire life I've lived has been post 1935, and I like my life. The America I remember in the early 60s, before Kennedy was shot, was a good place. Still lots of freedom, still lots of good people in it, still lots of fun for a child to explore the world around him and grow up in. So, would the putative 1935 Lou Filliger have been right to say "Weep for America, she is no more."? Right to say "she is no more"; wrong to say "weep for her."
The correct statement would have been (and still is): This is a serious setback against those of us who cherish freedom above all else. But there are still good things in this world worth living for. And we still have a wonderful Constitution worth fighting for. And the founding fathers who wrote that Constitution would not have wanted us to "weep" or even talk about weeping.
They would have wanted us to get up the next day and survey the damage and figure out exactly what to do to fix it.
To paraphrase the Beatles: "All our lives, we were only waiting for this moment to arrive".
Take heart my friend, the fight has just begun and we have all the good people on our side. Every last one of them.
Zack Space of Ohio reported as a NO vote.
Be still ah say BE STILL mah beating heart!
This one calls for the "Billy-beroo" .... This is a really ... BIG ... one Billy ... Oh, Billy, Billy, Billy.... Oh, Billy, Billy, Billy....
Nice post, Lou. You always make good points. And we mostly agree on things. Where we differ is as to the nature of the threat. (Read my post re Jerry Brown.) I believe that for the first time in our history we have a man who truly hates this country. And he is President of the United States. I believe he will do everything he can to destroy us. Every one of his policies is designed to drive us deeper into the ground.
As you point out, we've had presidents who have pursued socialist agendas before. This has hurt and weakened us. But, as you say, we’ve survived because our country was strong. And all past presidents were patriots. They loved their country and thought what they did was the right way to go. Not this current crop. They're working on upending us; they're looking to take us down. Whether or not they succeed will depend on us. Time is against us. It won't be easy to beat them.
It astounds me how many of us are still blind to the danger, even as Obama moves us ever closer to the edge. In fact, if I wanted to take a country down, I would do it exactly as Obama is doing. And I could likely accomplish it in less than one term. Look around you! All the fuses are lit.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
You may be right Lou, but there is no precedent for it.
That's not true! I've been right a few times!!! OH, you meant no precedent for our going bankrupt. LOL
"In the darkest hole,
You'd be well-advised
Not to plan my funeral
'fore the body dies....."
-Alice in Chains
What does a butchy-boy have to do to get a schedule posted 'round here?!?
Wait till Monday. Probably won't even get the podcasts up until then.
December 22, 2008
Dear Sir/Madam:
A few short weeks ago the United States marked a terrible milestone, Sixty-Seven years have passed since the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the moment the US pledged not only it’s treasure, but its blood in the war effort. My grandfather joined the Army Air Core soon after that date to be a fighter pilot. Knowing how tough my Grandfather was from that point forward Hitler, Mussolini and Togo should have surrendered. But that was not to be. By the end of WW2 my Grandfather, after spending two years at war would survive, after one year healing up; almost half of his bombing group and the army air core would lose their lives in a violent and lonely death - there were no medics or aid stations at 35,000 feet.
I’m writing you today to remember his and others sacrifice and to contrast that fight with the fight we face today. September 11, 2001, ought to have been a clarion call to fight Islamo based fascism, but it was perverted to fight yet another nebulous war on a concept (poverty, drugs, and now terrorism). My Grandfathers generation would have handled things a bit differently. Grandpa Sol only said three words to me about the war “It was tough . . .” while I was a young boy. It is blind luck that he maintained a daily diary of his experiences, training for, and fighting the war. We are not talking Mark Twain here, but every day he summed up a highlight of his day. I am unable to imagine Grandpa Sol scared in any situation, if there ever was a man who shot straight and spoke the truth, that was grandpa. But one day, only one day, he wrote how he feared he would never see his new borne son and wife again, then crossed the entry out upon rereading the thought. The rest of his diary reveals how he accepted the risk and did what he had to do, like the majority of men and women of that era.
Today we face the same threats we faced then. Our economic interests are threatened by malfeasance from within, and attack from without. Yet, we neither vote out those responsible for it, or the voices that are advocating for fixing it fall on deaf ears. In point of fact, the same people responsible for this nightmare are going to try to fix it. Our national security is threatened every day by a hardened enemy who attack us with AK-47’s and high explosives while we point lawyers and courts at them in an empty effort to alter their evil course. What if on December 8, 1941 FDR rose to the lectern in the well of the Congress and proclaimed “We are gonna sue the pants off Japan!” Our grandparents and parents would have thrown him out of office. FDR, and the people, knew it was time to fight, so we organized an insurmountable fighting force and went to work ending the war in victory.
Our standard of living and global growth permits the vast majority of us to maintain a safe distance from the current fight. As time passes this will not be the case. As happened before will happen again - we will just see it in color, not black and white. Mumbai and other less well known attacks on our Western way of life are having an affect on our behavior. Economically speaking the desire to produce has been crushed. In order to consume what has been produced - a market participant must be productive. They must strive to do something that others find value in whether it is a doctor, teacher, police officer, trash collector, or entrepreneur. That simple notion is about to go on vacation as governments small, and large, begin to shift into high gear and provide goods and services, to those who do not produce to a larger degree than has ever been done before in all of human history, supported by a President who has never run a private business. A horse can carry only so much weight until it is crushed under its burden. Whether what comes is the 70’s or the 30’s, I don’t know, but some amalgam of those days is unavoidable now. The taxpayer and the private economy is the horse, and the horse is about to crap out.
I’m blessed to have two hero’s in my life, my father and my grandfather. My grandfather was a hero who did what he had to do in the war, and a good man who worked hard every day to provide for his family while in great pain after the war; and every December Seventh I reflect on how that day changed the course of my family history. Grandpa Sol did not realize his dream of being a fighter pilot, the losses being suffered from daylight bombing were too great, and gunners were needed to protect the bombers. My grandfather did not glorify his bronze stars, or purple heart, or the ME-109 airplane he shot down, and the countless others he kept off the back, the side, and the belly of his B-24 so it could bomb its target. Or reveal the guilt he suffered from being the only survivor of a crash while on a mission, or complain about the Nazi-flak that caused his leg wounds, that never healed until the day he died. We all suffer when our leaders do not learn the lessons of the past, but it is the Soldier, Sailor, Airman and Marine that suffer most - never forget that. As the son of a violent alcoholic I’ll lay this one on you, “if you think yesterday was bad, try tomorrow.”
Thank you for this, Joe. It is something we all should re-read every day. Times sure have changed. But have no fear. Our nation is waking up. We will gather ourselves as we have done before. We will prevail. I do not doubt there'll still be rough times ahead. It may drag on for years. But we will win out over evil. Of this I'm certain.
By the way, I saw "Hurt Locker" today. It wasn't as bad as I expected. In fact it was quite good. I was only tempted to look at my watch one time.
No Lou, no precedent for repealing major social legislation. It's never happened.
Right, but the difference is that we've never run out of money before. I would say that it's a Black Swan .... maybe Taleb himself would post on the blog to tell us that it was foreseeable and therefore really wasn't one.
Lou, they'll just raise taxes. It's already happening. Look at the religion of global warming. With this, once it's fait accompli, they'll say we have to save it. JB, help me on this. The best I see the GOP doing if they win is cutting back on it somewhat to make it look like they are doing something. I have never seen any federal legislative body in this country repeal any social program. The GOP is a different side of the same coin. They all love the power that the money of taxation brings and they keep creating programs to keep them in the game. It's not going away unless someone burns the house down, and I don't mean the house of representatives. Remember, we have immigration and cap and tax next. After that, what's the difference between living here and the UK? Almost nothing except we have gun rights, and we'll see how long that lasts. If this goes, the contract is broken, and I am not talking about Newt's contract either. My ancestors from countries like Italy, England, Ireland, France and Denmark faced some of this BS and decided opportunity lay elsewhere. The problem with our shrinking world is, where to? May be it's easy when you live on 6 figures on the upper east or west side, but revolutions are never fought by such people anyway. Funded may be.
And for the record, I'd rather have B-17s.
B-17's look pretty, but B-24's flew farther faster and higher and carried a bigger bomb load, not to mention kept my grandfather alive.
"Lou, they'll just raise taxes".
Maybe, but socialists throughout history have failed to find a way to force people to work. That's the fatal flaw of socialism, in fact. When there's no incentive to work harder and/or take risks, nobody does.
Atlas will shrug. He is already shrugging, in fact.
I....will....be.... DAMNED if I work hard simply to support the indigent in this country.
My dad was a tail gunner in a B-17. 35 missions in the 364 Bombardment Squadron, 305 Bombardment Group, Triangle G as it were. The flying fortress kept him alive as well, in spite of what the germans tried.
They'll make you work, one way or another. Remember Solzhenitsyn's book? Even in places like the UK, the standard of living for not working isn't so good.
Jim, your statement is quite illogical, with all due respect. Any wealth transfer scheme involves givers and takers. I'll work just enough to put myself at the cusp. That looks to be about four times the federal poverty level (about $88K per year.) I'm already taking steps to be able to live on that amount.
The fact is that I have more talents than I've ever been able to use in my life. People can use their talents to make money, to help people, to enjoy life, to make new discoveries. I will use my talents to live as comfortably as possible without permitting the government to benefit from my talents. If they want to treat me like the enemy, I'll become a burden on them and see how they like it. Man, I'm shaking mad. Just shaking mad. No more leeching. The leeching is done. Finito, Benito.
I'm not someone you want to make an enemy of. I don't much care for the way of life in the U.S. these days anyway, I have a lot of time and energy, am vindictive as you can imagine, have a long memory, and like to see my enemies suffer in retribution.
Lou, that is unacceptable to me. Making less so as to not to accommodate them? I guess we're moving into Archibald "harry" tuttle territory. I'll be the illegal computer guy. THat's too passive aggressive for me. I'd rather walk away with scalps. I guess I was born 225 years too late.
As far as illogical goes, it depends on how serious the government wants to get. Remember, you can't opt out of this. Government by it's nature is at the end of a barrel of a gun. You can minimize, fight, or leave. The problem with leaving is, where to go? Entropy is starting to hit as more countries become more the same. At some point it won't matter here as we'll have to go off and find another planet to start our experiment over.
There's an exemption for conscientious objectors of religious organizations. I can join one of those, or I can pay the fine, which is $625 per year, I think. It's chickenfeed for me, either before or after my downsizing. Making less so as not to FUND them. And we're moving into John Galt territory.
Or you can create one. John Galt went to Colorado. I think it has changed since Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged. After John Denver wrote that song, half of Kalifornia moved there. So went Galt's Gulch. I won't pay it.