CORNHUSKERS KICKBACK FOR ALL

Public opinion does not seem to rank very high these days in the minds of our elected officials -- that is until re-election time. Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska may rue the day he pimped himself out for a critical vote that passed the ram-down-government-run health care in the Senate.

The new Rasmussen Poll has numbers tanking for Nelson, and lucky for him [not us], his re-election won't be until 2012:

If Governor Dave Heineman challenges Nelson for the Senate job, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows the Republican would get 61% of the vote while Nelson would get just 30%. Nelson was reelected to a second Senate term in 2006 with 64% of the vote.

Nelson's health care vote is clearly dragging his numbers down. Just 17% of Nebraska voters approve of the deal their senator made on Medicaid in exchange for his vote in support of the plan. Overall, 64% oppose the health care legislation, including 53% who are Strongly Opposed. In Nebraska, opposition is even stronger than it is nationally.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters in the state believe that passage of the legislation will hurt the quality of care, and 62% say it will raise costs.

You hear over and over that this is the way the sausage is made -- that this is just politics as usual. No .... it's not. This time the legislation is monumental, affects all of us, and takes over one-sixth of our economy.

What are we running here -- the Shady Lady Ranch? Michelle Malkin calls it "Cash for Cloture". From Mary Landrieu's Louisiana Purchase, Chris Dodd's $100 million hospital for Connecticut, the PA-NY-FLA promised protection for their Medicare Advantage programs while the other states lose theirs, Liebermen's "the Public Option is out" Lie, Bernie Sanders of Vermont multi BILLION dollar deal, Ben Nelson's Cornhusker Kickback, with pimp Harry Reid at the helm, we are looking a Articles of Impeachment time, which would include forcing Americans to purchase something they do not want.

Anybody interested?

The Heritage Foundation writes more on the Cornhusker Kickback:


Cornhusker Kickbacks for All
December 31, 2009

Last night the Nebraska Cornhuskers routed the Arizona Wildcats 33-0 in the Holiday Bowl. Most years college football bowl games do not have much to do with health care legislation in Washington. But last night, Husker fans throughout Nebraska were subjected to a 30-second television ad from Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE).

Politicians usually don’t run ads a month after November, and almost never more than two years before they are up for re-election. But after a new poll showed Nelson with a 55% unfavorable rating and down 30 points to a would-be 2012 challenger, Nelson decided to take to the air. The source of Nebraskans displeasure with Nelson is no secret. 64% of the state opposes the health care legislation Nelson recently voted for in the Senate, and only 17% approve of the special deal Nelson made for Nebraska’s Medicaid program, more commonly known as the Cornhusker Kickback, in order to secure his vote.

Nebraskans are not the only Americans disgusted by the tactics President Barack Obama and his allies are employing to pass their version of health reform. The attorneys general of 13 states have sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) demanding that the Nebraska deal be removed from the bill or they will challenge the legislation constitutionally in court.

Other states are taking a different tack, demanding that the entire Medicaid portion of the Senate bill be redone. The governors of the nation’s two largest Democratic states, New York and California, warn that the Medicaid expansion at the heart of the bill “could collapse the very safety net system it seeks to expand.” New York Governor David Patterson says the bill would leave his state $1 billion in the lurch and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says Obamacare will drain California’s General Fund an additional $3 billion to $4 billion annually.

The fight over the Medicaid portions of the bill expose one of the dirty little secrets of Obamacare: for all the talk of fundamental reform of the system, over half of the health insurance coverage additions in both the House and Senate bills come from the expansion of Medicaid.

Medicaid was chosen to do the bulk of the health insurance expansion under Obamacare because it is cheap. But as Americans instinctively know: cheaper does not mean better. The President’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have warned that the lower Medicaid reimbursements will mean those who gain insurance under Obamacare through Medicaid will have a very difficult time finding doctors to treat them.

There is a reason government-run single payer health care advocates rally under the slogan “Medicare for All.” Medicare is actually popular among those who use it. But Americans who think they are gaining real health insurance under Obamacare are going to be in for a rude awakening when they discover they ended up with “Medicaid for All” instead.

QUICK HITS

Rush Limbaugh was admitted to a Honolulu hospital today and is resting comfortably after suffering chest pains. Rush will keep his fans updated at RushLimbaugh.com.

A suicide bomber killed at least eight American civilians in Afghanistan Wednesday and the United Nations is temporarily pulling international staff from Pakistan because of the deteriorating security situation.

After $787 billion in stimulus spending and $700 billion in bank bailouts, the nation’s bulging debt is now $12.1 trillion.

The Obama administration’s latest $3.8 billion bail out of GMAC makes taxpayers the majority owners of the firm.

A LESSON FROM CHRISTMAS OF 1776

When all appears lost, perhaps we can take a lesson from our history. This has been a week where we have seen outrageous actions by Harry Reid and his minions. It was Reid who ignored 200 years of Senate precedents. It was Reid who locked out Republican Senators from discussion. It was Reid who determined that hundreds of years of accumulated Senate parliamentary rulings have no bearing on the health care vote. But, remember, it's not over til it's over.

The most egregious of all was Reid's amendment to this abominable legislation which states 'no repeal allowed'. This changes the rules of the United States Senate, and to do that you need a two-thirds vote (67). Does that matter to Reid? Apparently not.

Hogan has a very heart-warming piece in RedState about our magnificent history, and is so appropriate at this time of year -- so, take heart, Partriots, and have a wonderful Merry Christmas and a very Happy Hanukkah:


A Lesson From Christmas of 1776
Posted by hogan, December 21, 2009

The first key vote came in last night. The Democrats got their 60. But there will be several more votes.

Yes, this Christmas, the American people face a tyrannical Congress and narcissistic President hell bent on forcing upon them - over their clear opposition - a healthcare bill that will reduce the quality of American healthcare, cost trillions of dollars, increase taxes, empower the national government to mandate what the American people must or mustn’t buy, and that will, among many other immoral things, provide federal funding for abortions.

But this is not the first Christmas Americans have faced daunting odds. The Christmas of 1776 should serve as inspiration for us:

In the winter of 1776, General George Washington and his ragged army had experienced only defeat and despair. The War for Independence was going badly, with failure following failure. In the preceding months, Washington’s campaign in New York had not gone well; the Battle of Long Island ended in a loss when the British troops managed to out-maneuver the Continental Army. A series of defeats settled around Washington as he was forced to retreat across New Jersey to Pennsylvania on December 7th and 8th.

As the harsh Pennsylvania winter set in, the morale of the American troops was at an all time low. The soldiers were forced to deal with a lack of both food and warm clothing, while Washington watched his army shrink due to desertions and expiring enlistments. Now, more than ever, a victory was desperately needed.

The original plan called for the three divisions to cross the river under the cover of darkness. The boats to be used for the crossing were gathered earlier in the month in compliance with General Washington’s orders, primarily as a defensive measure. Various types of boats were collected; most notable were the large, heavy Durham boats used to carry pig iron down the Delaware.

Fully expecting to be supported by two divisions south of Trenton, Washington assembled his own troops near McConkey’s Ferry in preparation for the crossing. By 6 PM. 2,400 troops had begun crossing the ice-choked river. The operation was slow and difficult due to the condition of the river. There was an abrupt change in the weather forcing the men to fight their way through sleet and a blinding snowstorm. These obstacles proved to be too much for the supporting divisions led by Generals Cadwalader and Ewing, ultimately preventing their crossing at southern points along the Delaware.

Against all odds, Washington and his men successfully completed the crossing and marched into Trenton on the morning of December 26, achieving a resounding victory over the Hessians.

By moving ahead with his bold and daring plan, General George Washington re-ignited the cause of freedom and gave new life to the American Revolution.

- Text taken from the website of Washington Crossing Historic Park.

Perhaps you can take a moment away from football and the family to call a few Senators (not just your own)? Maybe organize a protest? Click Here for Senate contact information. Let Democrats - especially Senators like Nelson, Lincoln, Webb, Landrieu and other red state Senators - know you will fight them and donate to their opponent. Let Republicans know they should do everything they can to stop this bill or you will support their next primary opponent. There will be at least two more votes this week requiring 60 to prevail.

It’s not over til it’s over.

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW'S TYRANNY OF COMPLEXITY

Never before in our history have we seen such assaults on our Constitution. But, never in our history have the far left radicals had the power in all three branches of government, with the Executive Branch run in Chicago style fashion. They cannot push through new legislation fast enough, before they lose their power, but the damage may be irreparable.

An excellent explanation of how Congress is violating the Constitution, aided by the liberal radical left court system by Adam Graham in PajamasMedia.

Constitutional Law's Tyranny of Complexity
If we don’t stop rewriting our basic law into gobbledygook that the average person can’t understand, this country faces a dark future.
by Adam Graham, November 27, 2009

Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) recently said that, as he is not a constitutional scholar, he could not say whether it is constitutional or not to require an individual mandate to purchase health insurance. Nelson’s statement is problematic for many reasons.

The Constitution is a simple document. I read through it for the first time when I was eight. The Constitution is 4,400 words long and takes fifteen to twenty minutes to read through carefully. It was made so that it could be understood by a New England plow boy. This is important considering that Senator Nelson is a two-term United States senator and former two-term governor who four times has sworn to uphold this document he can’t quite understand. Not only that, but he is a University of Nebraska-trained lawyer.

Is the reason for Senator Nelson’s uncertainty merely that we’re not as bright as we once were? To a degree, this might be part of the problem. In The Truth Project video series, Del Tackett recounts the story of a law professor who assigned his constitutional law students the Federalist Papers. One student complained that the papers were hard to understand. The professor responded that this was understandable, as the Federalist Papers were written for the average 18th-century New York farmer and encouraged the law student that he might someday attain their level of understanding.

But there’s a greater problem that leads to a situation where a sitting senator can’t review the list of seventeen powers granted to Congress in the Constitution and see if forcing individuals to buy health insurance is on the list.

The problem is that complexity has been introduced over the past century. It has not come through the passage of constitutional amendments, but rather through those who have wanted to accomplish ends that the Constitution does not allow the federal government to do. To do so, they’ve come up with novel and complex theories to justify government interference that the Constitution never condoned.

This isn’t to say these efforts were malicious. Many were as well-intentioned as an elderly woman writing bad checks to give money to charity. Many meant well in backing things like Social Security, the war on drugs, or the New Deal. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

What all of these well-intentioned efforts have created is a labyrinth of a convoluted “constitutional law” that has nothing to do with the written text of the Constitution. Rather, it keeps score of all the ways in which courts have let Congress get away with violating the plain text of the Constitution. Those folks without specialized training in the legalese of “constitutional law” will find their plainspoken objection to a violation of the Constitution greeted with babbling legalese.

Fans of this redefinition of the Constitution claim the Constitution is a living document that changes to suit the times. While this may sound very progressive, it’s scary when you consider the purpose of the Constitution is to set boundaries for the government to protect the freedoms of the people.

The Constitution is like a wall. Who wants a living wall surrounding their home? One day, the wall protects your house, another it expands into the neighbor’s yard, and on yet another day it contracts and breaks through the wall of your extra bedroom. It sounds like a low-grade horror film, but it’s the reality of our constitutional law.

Complexity and uncertainty are the enemy of liberty. Those who play with the boundaries to make it so no one but the “experts” can understand what’s going on are akin to the clerics of the Middle Ages, who kept the Bible out of the mother tongue, so it could not be understood by the common man. Working to create incomprehensibility out of plainness in order to make yourself powerful goes back thousands of years. It was Christ who said to the scholars of his day, “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge.” (Luke 11:52a)

The key of knowledge has been taken away under this current speaker as bills are rushed to the floor with reckless abandon, with members herded to vote without even knowing what they’re voting on. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) scoffed at the idea of reading the bill and knowing what’s in it. Most disturbing about this is that Carper’s committee wrote one of the Senate bills.

Democrats complain that provisions being touted by opponents are misunderstood or, less charitably, misrepresented by opponents. I have to chuckle when people who haven’t read something criticize others for mischaracterizing it. If the bill has been misunderstood, it’s because it was not written to be understood.

Unlike the writers of the 2,000-page monstrosity making its way through Congress, the writers of our Constitution wanted to be understood. So the answer to the question asked of Senator Nelson as to whether individual mandates are constitutional is “no.” But then again, most of what Congress does is unconstitutional.

The danger to our republic is clear. If we don’t stop rewriting our basic law into gobbledygook that the average person can’t understand, let alone respond to, we face a dark Orwellian future. Like at the end of Animal Farm, we’ll discover that “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” The bulwark that once protected our liberties will become our prison wall.


Adam Graham is a contributor at Race42012.com and host of the Truth and Hope Report podcast. His personal site is Adam's Blog.