Executive Order.
Late in the day, POTUS issues an Executive Order that satisfies Bart Stupak of Michigan and the handful of votes that he can deliver to put Mrs. Pelosi over 216 for the first vote on reconciliation and the Senate bill. Schultz-Wasserman (above) correctly states why the EO is moot. The Senate bill becomes law of the land with POTUS signature. The reconciliation bill is weeks from getting through the obstacle course of points of order, if ever. The EO cannot change the law of the land. Stupak leased his vote for a fiction. The EO is a flimsy and well-identified ploy. Enter chaos.
Young Guns.
Speaking Sunday 21 with the young GOP House that I can round up, Thaddeus McCotter 11 -MI, Devin Nunes 21-CA and Tom Rooney 16-FL. The ground war begins with the vote. This has the feel of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Next is the caning of Sumner, and Bloody Kansas, and John Brown Rising. The Union is fractured. All is disunion.
ABC News is reporting that the Dems have the votes to pass the health care bill tonight. What I’m going to say next will likely be seen as controversial by some of you. I don’t care. I’m through ‘pussyfooting’ around. I think the reason we lost today is because we marched, because we jammed switchboards, because we wrote letters – in short, because we made our opposition known only by half measures. For the Left, what we have been (and are) engaged in is a war. For us it is just another in a long series of losing battles. We’re getting too used to losing. And with each loss, the Left grows stronger because we show our hand which continues to be wavering and weak.
The Left rejoices when it can showcase our weakness. For them, AQ and the Taliban deserve more respect than we do. How are we weak? Take our march on then Capitol yesterday. It never even made the news cycle. If mentioned at all, what was subsequently repeated (over and over again) was that some lawmaker had been spit on and another cursed out. Our ordinariness was pathetic; our helplessness, obvious; our demeanor sad-sack civil; impotent in the face of what they perceive to be their power: brand Obama at the helm.
We betray our weakness at every turn. We react. We don’t lead. At the same time we allow those who would lead us to be besmirched. We deny them. We belittle them. We compete amongst ourselves as to who can say the nastiest, most sarcastic things about them. This one’s just a talk show host; a burlesque queen. That one’s from Hicksville, somewhere up in hick Alaska. I never heard anyone on the left having a problem with Byrd, Franken, O’Donnell, Penn and the rest – or even with Obama himself who, truth be told, is just a two-bit, rabble-rousing hood out of Chicago. We never even got to see Obama’s papers because we were too busy digging through Sarah Palin’s trash.
I still hear quite frequently (from our side) Bush referred to as the worst there ever was – as if Obama is better. I hear from our side Palin labeled ‘stupid’ - as if Biden were a genius. We still deny that we listen to Rush, Beck, Savage, Levin, etc. when challenged. Though, honestly, has anything any one of these men ever said been untrue? You know yourselves that they’ve been right on target. Yet we constantly deny them and treat them as if they don’t really exist, other than in some attic crawl space in our uncommitted minds – like psycho’s mother. And the more we deny them, their views lose their impact. And all that’s left is a pitiful smattering of incoherent slogans on hand-painted signs on the National Mall.
We must come to realize that any leader who may be wanting to emerge to represent our side will become a target. We have shown time and time again that we will buckle and let them take him or her down. Hell, we’ll even assist! Numbers don’t help. We’ve got the numbers - and still we lose. Cull the herd. Get rid of the weak. Keep the strong. We’ve been killing off our strong. We cannot win without leaders. No army has ever won a war without a strong general. Limbaugh-Palin in 2012!
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
"Leftists and Democrats and liberals regard politics as war conducted by other means. Republicans regard politics as a management problem. Gingrich said, 'if we manage things right, the people will elect us.' The opposite is true. You get to be the victim of your own success." - David Horowitz, In Depth, Book-TV, Oct. 7, 2007.
Peter:
It's even worse than that. We elect these lesser of two evils butt holes that go to washington and set up shop. It's as if there is only one party, no matter what the differences they propose. We put the double talking mountebanks in power, and we expect different results? Since we've compromised our values, we get what we deserve. On the left, the get what they deserve as they do not corrupt their morals: They vote for those who they align with and the pols do their bidding.
FWIW, I don't deny who I listen to. By the same token, Rush Limbaugh is a water boy for the GOP, and in many ways has enabled what has happened by supporting a party that is dead. If you want the quote after the 2006 elections, I will get it, but Rush admits he carried water for the GOP. Well, he went back to it. At least Beck and Savage have intellectual honesty. With JB, I don't know where he falls on the spectrum at times. Sometimes I think if he were alive during the revolution, he would have been a tory, as he is against revolution. To that, I would refer him to Frederick Douglass:
--
The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters
-Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)
Managers and Leaders are two different types of people.
i differ I guess. what is needed now is to cultivate a new coalition.
lincoln held together the new republicans by getting them to focus on what they had in common, the whigs and the free land democrats and the abolitionists and the others, the two or three essential issues, not where they differed.
--------
stupak has been played for a sucker, or perhaps everyone else has been played and he has been given cover. either way i wouldn't trust him to make change let alone policy.
The whigs were dead when Lincoln got elected. In fact he got 39% of the vote, out of a field of four.
Don’t let them fool you. It’s over. All the marbles were released down the legislative chute back in 2008 when Barack Hussein Obama was elected. As the chute becomes increasingly tattered and torn, the Left will be able to just drop their marbles directly. The American people have been sidelined from any process and now the Congress has been sidelined as well. There is no longer anything that stands in their way. It’s over.
By the way, all those Soros-sponsored ED commercials on conservative talk radio work against us. It’s not easy to encourage decent people to listen.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
And honestly, Rush has enough money to go anywhere in the world and not be affected, yet still snipe at whoever is in power. Where to go now? I can actually see myself retiring somewhere other than america. Where, don't know yet. To me, the contract is broken.
Don't include me in the "we" when you say we voted for the lesser of two evils. I voted libertarian. Always have, always will. But I do admire the Republicans over the last year for sticking to their principles so steadfastly. I like John Boehner a lot - think he would be an excellent President, except would get tired of the left calling him "Boner" for 4 years.
Anyway, there's quite a bit here I disagree with, but I would like to end things on a more positive note. Nice knowing you all here. I'm going back to Kansas, at least for a while. Next time somebody says something inappropriate, like "Wow, I wouldn't mind giving Wasserman-Schultz her 'hard 216'", think of me. In Kansas I had a life outside of politics. Now I'm going to whack my hiking boots together three times and say "There's no place like home ... there's no place like home ... there's no place like home...." (starts spinning and fades out....)
Kansas? I didn't realize Obamacare wasn't enforce there. Then again, you live in California, or should I say Kalifornia...Now I am listening to JB, in his victory speech. Sfacime. The straw man is making his case against the evil insurance companies.
i read the 10k of well point to see that it is a 5% net margin business that had eroded to 3% due to the increasing cost of providing services under the policies. that means rates go up. duh.
but then facts are not the point. demagogues just press predictable buttons for predictable responses from ... people. if pols had to conform to the '33 and '34 acts, bho would be serving out the rest of his term in the slammer.
i did enjoy nunes and mccotter tonight. they helped me wind down. I wonder if they could use someone who can read 10k's and knows what a cds is? i quite want to help send the progressives back to their caves.
jbs coverage of this topic has been outstanding imho. thanks.
jim l-
well yeah - though lincoln was a whig, leading them into the new coalition.
and a 4 way race may be a prerequisite for launching a new party since in a three way the split party just gets killed.
but what i was straining for was not a new party, but building and holding together a new coalition rather than purging an old one.
the most disheartening thing to me in these weeks of maneuvering has been the apparent willingness to "destroy the village in order to save it". perhaps it just distills a greater erosion of commitment to the grand contract. demon pass and reconciliation are affronts to the bones of the union. it makes me want to mourn.
If that was the case we'd still be a commonwealth of England. The founders felt the contract was broken between them and England. It's not all that much different here. England abused their power with taxation and law. The difference is we do not have a Samuel Adams. The problem with the GOP was their premise for an argument against the bill. Saying it was too costly or needed changes is basically endorsing the idea of it. I would ask why would we trust a government that allows the killing of babies to run our health care system? Philosophically, paying someone's medical bill is not the job for the government. The fracture of this contract started under FDR. This is just a continuation. So basically, the GOP was doomed to failure as they didn't take the high ground and fight, but rather got embroiled in nuances that no one cares about and some do not understand. It comes down to whether it's right or wrong. The GOP didn't get that. It's time for real change on this side. How that happens I don't know, but I do know doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insane.