AN OPEN LETTER TO THE UNITED STATES SENATE

Dear Elected by the People Senators,

As my Grandfather, James Montgomery Flagg, wrote:

I Want You..... To Do What You Were Elected to Do

How can you, in good conscience, force a law upon the American people, that you, yourselves, do not want?  What makes you any different from the hard working, tax paying people who elect you to protect us?

Those questions by themselves are enough to defund this abominable legislation, but there are so many other reasons as well:

 

    - It's destroying the 40 hour work week.

    - It's dismantling the best health care system in the world.

    - It's removing people from their current health plans and pushing Americans into a government-run, single payer system.

    - It's destroying jobs across the nation.

    - If it's bad for Congress, then it's bad for the American people.

I want the same exemption that YOU have!

Stop ObamaCare now.

Like Social Security & Medicare, it will NOT dismantle itself.

Defund ObamaCare -- Fund the Government!

This is far too important for an up or down vote.  America does NOT want this, and America is watching you.  Republicans will not support those who vote against them, and the Republican Party is very close to 'dismantling'.

Your humble boss!

TN CANDIDATE FILES OBAMACARE CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT

As the number of states filing lawsuits against the obamination obamacare increases every day, a Tennessee congressional candidate, Van Irion, has filed a Class Action lawsuit against the unconstitutional bill. Americans watched with horror as this process played out in congress, and as the shock is wearing off, anger is now setting in. This highly unethical and unconstitutional process will be put to the test in our court system, and people are signing on in droves.

Mr. Irion was a guest of Greta Van Susteren on Fox News, and, at the time, there were roughly 10,000 plantiffs signed on. Since then, it has more than doubled. An interesting note, Texas was in the lead with over 2,000 signatures, and California was a close second. Amazing!! Currently Texas and California are neck and neck, but spreading the word has made an incredible difference -- so, pass this on.

Check out Obamacare Class Action.

Frequently Asked Questions

* Updated April 16, 2010

Q. Can anyone join the class action against Obamacare?

A. Any US citizen or company can join as a plaintiff to the action by filling out the form HERE.

Q. What is the goal of the lawsuit?

A. The goal is to reverse the incorrect interpretation by the Supreme Court of the Commerce and General Welfare clauses that allows Congress to regulate essentially every American enterprise. This will restore the 10th Amendment and reign in Congress. Without reversing this precedent, Congress will continue to believe they have the right to regulate our daily lives and will continue to produce onerous bills that do so.

Q. Will it cost me anything to join the class action against Obamacare?

A. No, I am litigating this case pro bono and am covering the court costs personally. Win or lose, the plaintiffs won't bear any costs or attorney's fees associated with this case.

Q. What do you do with the information you collect?

The email addresses are used to communicate with the plaintiffs when necessary. When we amend the complaint, there is a form that has to be filed with the court which states who the plaintiffs are. This form requires that I list each legal name and address including the county of residence.

Q. What will the plaintiffs get if we win the case?

We are not seeking monetary damages, but rather a declaration that the actions of the Defendants are unconstitutional, illegal, and void; a declaration that the Defendants violated the Plaintiffs' constitutional rights; and an order requiring the Defendants to halt enforcement of Obamacare.

Q. What happens next in the case?

A. The complaint will be amended to add all of the co-plaintiffs that have volunteered to join. The amended complaint will then be served on the defendants and they will be required to answer. They may do so by filing a counter motion or by filing an "Answer" to the claims in the complaint.

Q. What specifically is the case challenging?

A. Three claims are made in the complaint:

1.Abuse of Authority - The actions of the Defendants are not within the scope of authority granted them by the U.S. Constitution.
2.Violation of 10th Amendment - The actions of the Defendants violate the explicit limitations in the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
3.Breach of Oath of Office - The actions of the Defendants represent a breach of the Defendants' duties contained within their oaths of office to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.

Q. Are there other attorneys on the case?

A. Several constitutional attorneys have offered their assistance pro bono for this case. We have a well skilled team to make this challenge.

Q. How is this case different from the other lawsuits filed against Obamacare?

A. This case has unique causes of action, as outlined above, that directly challenge the erroneous "Commerce Clause" and "General Welfare Clause" precedents of the Supreme Court. The interpretation of past courts have essentially rendered moot any limitations on the Federal government established in the Constitution.

The Commerce clause argument and the 10th Amendment argument were intended to be complimentary, just like those two parts of the Constitution are complimentary. They are opposite sides of the same coin. The argument is also about Canons of Legal Interpretation: Any interpretation of a single clause that negates the overall purpose of a law, contract, or other document, must be wrong. Such a clause can be included to create exceptions to an overall rule, but in those cases, the clause must be very clear about its limitations in reference to the overall purpose of the document. The scope of such exceptions must be clear and the courts must interpret them as narrowly as possible. The actions of Congress over the past 70 years have become the illustration that the "Commerce Clause" and the "General Welfare Clause" were misinterpreted as many years ago.

Q. Is this one of Obama's infamous "enemies lists"?

No, this is not an "enemies list" for Obama. Tony Shreeve, the lead plaintiff, is a Tea Party leader in Tennessee. He has been interviewed numerous times by NPR, Fox News, Politico, etc. You can Google him and know he is for real. I am also for real, you can Google me too. I have been speaking everywhere I can possibly can to tell people about the Constitution and how America was intended to operate, and if we just did that, the vast majority of our social and economic problems would greatly improve.

Please keep sending in your questions. I am happy to answer them.
Van

The Official Complaint

Complaint filed 4/8/10 in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Tennessee

The complaint is a notice to the defendants, Barrack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the United States, of the nature of the claims. The complaint does not require or contain a full legal argument at this stage. A complete legal brief of the unconstitutionality of Obamacare will be made after the defendants answer the complaint.

Shreeve v Obama et al (click to download)

Van Irion Speaks About the Obamacare Class Action Lawsuit




Van Irion Speaks About the unconstitutionality of Obamacare

The VAT Cometh

The only way to pay for the behemoth government takeover health care bill is with taxes, taxes and more taxes. You conveniently won't hear much about the upcoming taxes until after the November 2010 mid-term elections, and of course the tax increases already implemented will not hit until early 2011 either. The big push will be the european-style socialized Value Added Tax, more commonly known as VAT.

Anyone who has traveled to Europe is familiar with this. It taxes everything, including labor and professional services, so in addition to paying the high cost of -- say -- a lawyer, their services will also be taxed! The difference between Europe and us, is VAT is their form of taxation. Obama will add VAT on top of what American tax paying citizens already pay.

Most of us talked about this coming months ago, but it's never too late to reiterate, especially since this government takeover has passed and reality will not hit right away. As more and more companies are coming out with horror stories about their new tax burdens, this must be one of the biggest parts of the November election campaigns.

Charles Krauthammer writes another brilliant and frightening piece on this Obamanation in National Review:


The VAT Cometh
This massive new entitlement needs a cash cow.
by Charles Krauthammer, March 26, 2010

As the night follows the day, the VAT cometh.

With the passage of Obamacare, which created a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind almost universal in Europe is inevitable.

We are now $8 trillion in debt. The Congressional Budget Office projects that another $12 trillion will be added over the next decade. Obamacare, when stripped of its budgetary gimmicks — the unfunded $200 billion­–plus doctor fix, the double-counting of Medicare cuts, the ten-six sleight-of-hand (counting ten years of revenue and only six years of outflows) — is, at minimum, a $2 trillion new entitlement.

It will vastly increase the debt. But even if it were deficit-neutral, Obamacare would still pre-empt and appropriate for itself the best and easiest means of reducing the existing deficit. Obamacare’s $500 billion of Medicare cuts and $600 billion in tax hikes are no longer available for deficit reduction. They are siphoned off for the new entitlement of insuring the uninsured.

This is fiscally disastrous because, as President Obama himself explained last year in unveiling his grand transformational policies, our unsustainable fiscal path requires control of entitlement spending, the most ruinous of which is out-of-control health-care costs.

Obamacare was sold on the premise that, as Nancy Pelosi put it, “Health-care reform is entitlement reform. Our budget cannot take this upward spiral of cost.” But the bill enacted on Tuesday accelerates the spiral: It radically expands Medicaid (adding 15 million new recipients/dependents) and shamelessly raids Medicare by spending the $500 billion in cuts and the yield from the Medicare tax hikes on a new entitlement.

Obama knows that the debt bomb is looming, that Moody’s has warned that the Treasury’s AAA rating is in jeopardy, and that we are headed for a run on the dollar and/or hyperinflation if nothing is done.

Hence his deficit-reduction commission. It will report (surprise!) after the November elections.

What will it recommend? What can it recommend? Sure, Social Security can be trimmed by raising the retirement age, introducing means testing, and changing the indexing formula from wage growth to price inflation.

But this won’t be nearly enough. As Obama has repeatedly insisted, the real money is in health-care costs — which are now locked in place by the new Obamacare mandates.

That’s where the value-added tax comes in. For the politician, it has the virtue of expediency: People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude — if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion).

It’s the ultimate cash cow. Obama will need it. By introducing universal health care, he has pulled off the largest expansion of the welfare state in four decades. And the most expensive. Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent.

American liberals have long complained that ours is the only advanced industrial country without universal health care. Well, now we shall have it. And as we approach European levels of entitlements, we will need European levels of taxation.

Obama set out to be a consequential president, one on the order of Ronald Reagan. With the VAT, Obama’s triumph will be complete. He will have succeeded in reversing Reaganism. Liberals have long complained that Reagan’s strategy was to starve the (governmental) beast in order to shrink it: First, cut taxes; then, ultimately, you have to reduce government spending.

Obama’s strategy is exactly the opposite: Expand the beast, and then feed it. Spend first — which then forces taxation. Now that, with the institution of universal health care, we are becoming the full entitlement state, the beast will have to be fed.

And the VAT is the only trough in creation large enough.

As a substitute for the income tax, the VAT would be a splendid idea. Taxing consumption makes infinitely more sense than taxing work. But to feed the liberal social-democratic project, the VAT must be added on top of the income tax.

Ultimately, even that won’t be enough. As the population ages and health care becomes increasingly expensive, the only way to avoid fiscal ruin (as Britain, for example, has discovered) is health-care rationing.

It will take a while to break the American populace to that idea. In the meantime, get ready for the VAT. Or start fighting it.


— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2010, The Washington Post Writers Group.

HERITAGE RESPONDS TO HEALTH CARE VOTE: REPEAL

Make no mistake, America is going through its second revolution. She has witnessed the full blown threat of government takeover, and this is not the foundation on which this country was based. This one is very different, because it's not blood in the street, but an awakened America engaged as never before at the polls, at TEA Party rallys, at town hall meetings, on the web, throwing their hat in the ring as a candidate, rounding up votes, holding meetings and seminars, sounding the alarm about backroom shenanigans, sounding off about losing education and freedom of religion in our schools, and becoming educated like never before in their lifetime. As Minority Speaker, John Boehner, said the other day, violence and threats are unacceptable.... channel it into positive change.

This is a Christian country. It was founded by Christians, founded on Christian principles. The founding documents, the Declaration of Independence were written by Christians. This country was founded explicitly on a belief in God. Ann Coulter

The passage of this horrific health care government takeover has knocked so many of us off our kilter, but we have many inspirations from which to get our strength. Many of them come from the words of our Founding Fathers, and personally, it also comes from the words of our greatest modern day president, Ronald Wilson Reagan. From wherever it comes, let it motivate you, give you peace, fight the good fight against tyranny, and never give up -- never give in.

Heritage Responds to Health Care Vote: Repeal
The Heritage Foundation, March 25, 2010

Fellow Americans,

Late Sunday night, in a narrow and partisan vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the most significant piece of social legislation in over seven decades. It did so in the face of overwhelming and principled opposition from the American people. Large majorities of Americans oppose this legislation because it offends the historic American dedication to the principle of self-government.

They understand that this new law will accelerate Washington's intrusion into our most personal and private decisions.

This is why opposition to this bill will only grow. Supporters of this bill argue that popular hostility will recede upon its passage. But, rather than cementing our descent into a European-style welfare state, last night’s passage of Obamacare is best seen as a historic turning point, a true catalyst for real change.

I write to reassure our supporters, the conservative movement, and the American people at large that The Heritage Foundation will do all within its power to keep this issue alive in the public square and make the intellectual case for the repeal of this act. We will bring all our resources to bear on behalf of those who believe America is and will always remain the Land of the Free.

This, rest assured, can be done. The American people are never permanently thwarted. President Obama's health care legislation can and will be repealed.

Those who supported this bill are our fellow Americans, and we do not question their good will or patriotism. In public policy, however, good intentions alone do not suffice. And let there be no mistake, our philosophical differences with supporters of this bill are profound. The reason government-run health care has been the holy grail of the left for decades is that liberals realize as much as we do that it is a giant step toward the creation of a European-style welfare state. This is an evolution Americans have always resisted because it is alien to our national character.

If there is one good thing about the past year—one in which we have witnessed unprecedented horse-trading, press stunts, midnight votes and political manipulation in both houses of the U.S. Congress—it is that the American people have come away educated as never before about the differences between these two visions for America. Americans are strongly opposed to this bill not because they have been hoodwinked but because they understand this bill both in its particulars and at an instinctive, gut level.

They understand this health care bill forces individuals and employers to buy insurance policies designed by government bureaucrats. This intrusion is intended to follow us from cradle to grave.

Instead of empowering families and individuals to make their own choices, Obamacare empowers the bureaucracy to make those decisions for them. It is this unelected bureaucracy, unanswerable to the electorate, that will determine the content of health benefits packages, including medical treatment and procedures, and how much will be paid for those services. Yesterday’s legislation brings us one step closer to fully government-run medicine, with expanded government power over the financing and delivery of medical services that is sure to ration care in the name of cost control.

You will hear the left say this new entitlement will be popular with the American people. Do not believe them for a second. Yes, 32 million people will gain the theoretical right to health insurance. But over half of that coverage comes from placing at least 16 million more Americans into Medicaid, an unpopular and overextended welfare program that already rations care.

Americans will not stand for it. The American love for liberty prevailed in our founding, and will prevail once again.

In December of 1773, to protest unjust taxation, a group of American colonists dumped tea in Boston Harbor. The punishment for that first Tea Party was a series of intrusive laws passed by Parliament that were so oppressive that they could only be described as the "Intolerable Acts."

Obamacare is today's Intolerable Act. And just as the colonists banded together to enact change after those acts were passed, so should America respond to Obamacare. This law must be repealed.

Much of the fight against this bill will be led by the individual states, a process we encourage. All told, 33 states have already taken steps to challenge various aspects of Obamacare, including its unprecedented mandate that every American purchase health insurance or face a steep penalty for noncompliance. Four additional states will have this question on the ballot in November.

On Capitol Hill, the initial battle over Obamacare will occur when Congress considers whether to fund the tens of thousands of new federal bureaucrats necessary to implement the new law. In the tradition of the Hyde amendment, which prevented federal funding for abortions through annual limitations appended to appropriations bills, conservatives should look to the appropriations process as our first line of defense. Straightforward funding limitations would prevent any Administration official or any bureaucrat from implementing the law.

Our health care system requires reform, and we have long advocated measures to improve our system. We can and should strengthen the ability of American families to choose the coverage they want, rather than giving that power to Congress and its agency bureaucrats. We can also spur competition and choice to bring efficiency and lower costs to the health system, in place of the bill’s deadening regulation and damaging price controls. And, above all, we should foster state innovation rather than Washington-based central planning.

But such reforms can only be considered once this tragedy of arrogance has been fully and completely repealed.

Fortunately, there are no permanent victories or defeats in Washington. For millions of Americans and for Heritage, Round One of this fight is over. Today, The Heritage Foundation is answering the bell for Round Two. Join our fight; become a part of our mission. Help us educate our lawmakers, as well as those who aspire to become tomorrow’s lawmakers. Together we can make the persuasive case for repeal of this Intolerable Act and thereby return us to our American destiny.

Onward!

Sincerely,
Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D., President, The Heritage Foundation

SHAME ON PELOSI'S "DEEM and PASS" TRICKERY

As Pelosi and Obama attempt to override our Constitution, we can let them know that's not okay. It seems they feel their word is the final word, and like it or not, they will do whatever it takes to make you their serf.

We fought to rid this country of dictatorial rule at the sacrifice of millions and millions of precious lives. It's Taxation Without Representation all over again. Let's keep up the fight to maintain our Constitution, and Eagle Forum has a "TAKE ACTION" helpful way. Phyllis Schlafly also writes on the shame of this administration:


Shame on Pelosi's "Deem and Pass" Trickery
by Phyllis Schlafly, March 17, 2010

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) shameful scheme to "deem" the Senate Obamacare bill into law without a vote violates Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution.

As we mentioned in our action alert two days ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is plotting to use a parliamentary procedure to prevent a recorded vote on the Senate Obamacare bill in the House because she lacks the necessary 216 votes needed to pass it. This shameful tactic to simply "deem" the Senate bill as passed by bringing the 2,309-page "fixer" bill to a House vote has been dubbed as the "Slaughter Solution," aptly named after liberal House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY).

The "Slaughter Solution" violates Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution which states:

"Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives
and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law,
be presented to the President of the United States."

• The Slaughter Solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote.
• The Senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill, but this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form.
• As the Supreme Court wrote in Clinton v. City of NY (1998), a bill containing the "exact text" must be approved by one house and the other house must approve "precisely the same text."
• What the House is aiming to do is attach a new bill to an existing bill in order to create the illusion that only half of this bill is receiving a vote.
• Arthur Fergenson, a constitutional law expert and the lawyer who litigated Buckley v. Valeo-the case which enshrined campaign spending as a form of constitutionally protected speech-attests that a bill must be the same item, not a collection of multiple bills.
• The bill receiving a vote in one chamber must be the identical piece of legislation that receives a vote in the other chamber in order to become law.
• If the Senate bill does not receive a direct vote in the House, then it is understood that the "fixer" bill is only being agreed to because it contains changes, adjustments, or fixes to an existing piece of legislation.
• The Senate has never voted on this exact package, or pairing of Obamacare bills. This means that if President Obama were to sign such a package, the presumed law would be a nullity.
• Thus, a vote for the Slaughter Solution rule is a vote for the Senate Obamacare bill.

Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) described this shameful tactic on the House floor:

"Democrats are trying to use a sneaky snake oil gimmick. Let's have an up-or-down vote on this bill and not hide behind some procedural mumbo jumbo!"

Rep. Poe described this stealth move perfectly-as an attempt to give vulnerable Democrats cover and the excuse that they did not actually vote in favor of Obamacare becoming the law of the land. Rather, they are trying to make the claim that they only voted for the "fixer" bill, not for the highly objectionable, corrupt, bribery, and extortion-ridden Senate bill.

The House Democrat Leadership is committed to using this underhanded approach in order to get the Senate health care bill to Obama's desk for signing and to become law before he leaves for his vacation to Indonesia at 1:00pm Eastern on Sunday, March 21st.

Tell your Representative that a vote for the Slaughter Solution rule is a vote for Obamacare--just vote NO!

TAKE ACTION!

1. The House GOP Leadership plans to force a vote on a resolution tomorrow, Thursday, March 18th, to block the Slaughter Solution. Recent convert to the Republican Party, Rep. Parker Griffith (R-AL), will introduce the resolution. Please continue to make your phone calls and urge the target Democrat representatives to support the GOP's resolution!
2. Continue targeting these 32 undecided Democrats. This is the most accurate and most frequently updated target list that exists in Washington, D.C. Be sure to refresh the page frequently for the most accurate tally. Your phone calls and emails are so important, and they ARE working! Your activism is the reason the floor vote has not yet been called! Keep up the good work-we need you in this fight to save America! And, don't forget about the district offices.

OBAMACARE AT ANY COST

As Americans watch the shenanigans of Democrats, the shock and awe of the latest cheap maneuver may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Imagine the horror of the Founding Fathers if they witnessed a Speaker of the House tell the American people she will "deem" a bill to have passed, because she can't get the votes. Hearing the outrage across the wires, it is mind boggling more people have not protested. Where is the press on this? The Constitution Be Damned, as Red State wrote. With the no votes piling up, tyranny is right at our doorstep.

What's being done by these radicals is worse than unconstitutional. If they get away with "deeming" a bill passed, where does it stop? Deeming Cap & Trade, deeming Illegal Amnesty, deeming youth camps, deeming the next president, deeming him King? God help us.

Here and here is a list of the 64 Congressmen who voted for the Stupak Amendment, the 30 potential swing votes, the ONE Republican yes vote, and a few other potential votes who originally voted yes.

The link to Washington Post's article by Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen is an excellent piece describing the fantasy in which the Democrats are living, as Obama continues to chase that big white whale. The Heritage Foundation writes about the blind ambition of these Democrats:

Obamacare at Any Cost
The Heritage Foundation, March 12, 2010

Yesterday the White House circulated a memo by pollster Joel Benenson. It was designed to create momentum for Obamacare by convincing wayward House Democrats that support for the President's plan has been building since the State of the Union. As with everything else that comes out of the White House on health care these days, the memo is nothing but pure fantasy.

This Tuesday, Gallup released its latest poll showing that by a 48%-45% margin Americans would tell their representative in Congress to vote against President Obama's health plan. Compare that to the last time Gallup asked the question in January, Americans supported the President's plan 49%-46%. That's a net six point loss in support for the President's plan since the State of the Union. That is momentum. Against Obamacare.

And Gallup isn't alone. The Associated Press released a poll this week showing that 68% of Americans believe the President and Congressional Democrats shouldn't pass their health care plan without Republican support. "Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats' current health-care plan," Democratic pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen add in today's Washington Post, "A solid majority of Americans opposes the massive health-reform plan."

Yesterday was particularly tough for the President's plan. First, the White House underwhelmed the Democratic Caucus in a presentation of the new (still unwritten) reconciliation bill. Then, the Senate Parliamentarian killed the Democrats favored procedural path for passage by signaling he would rule that President Obama must sign the original Senate bill into law before the Senate could act on the President's new reconciliation package. Finally, the Associated Press reported that House leaders have abandoned all hope of finding language to satisfy Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-MI) concerns that the Senate bill funds abortion. By the end of the day, the leftist firedoglake site had dropped its count of committed House Democrats for passage to 189 (Speaker Pelosi needs 216 for passage).

With the loss of Stupak and his 7-12 member caucus opposed to taxpayer-funded-abortions, Speaker Pelosi will have to find the remaining dozen plus votes from the ranks of cost conscious Blue Dog Democrats. For example, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) who voted against the House bill in the fall explained at the time: "According to the Congressional Budget Office, the House health care bill will actually increase federal health care spending over the long term, while proposals being considered by the Senate would have a net decrease." But according to a new CBO score of the Senate bill passed on Christmas Eve (the one with the Cornhusker Kickback), it actually increases health care spending. And the reconciliation bill only make things worse, since, among other increased spending measures, President Obama "fixed" the Cornhusker Kickback not by eliminating the new spending, but by extending it to all 50 states.

With no votes piling up, and "yes" votes materializing, the Democratic plans to shove Obamacare down the throats of the American people are becoming more and more desperate. This Monday, the House Budget Committee will begin markup on the new reconciliation bill even though actual legislative text does not exist for it yet. The Democrats plan to pass a shell of a bill through the appropriate committees so that the Rules Committee can then substitute the bill that is being drafted completely behind closed doors by the White House and Senate and Democrat leaders.

Politico reports that despite the Parliamentarian's initial verbal ruling, they will press on with their Slaughter Rule plan to pass the Senate bill without voting on it. NRO's Yuval Levin quips: "Democratic leaders should be asking themselves just how they have gotten to the point that their strategy is to amend a law that doesn’t exist yet by passing a bill without voting on it."

But President Obama's progressive base is way past rational thought when it comes to health care. They want it passed at any cost. And as George Will pointed out yesterday, the very essence of progressivism sublimates the democratic process to the rule of experts in Washington. No one can say if this bill will finally pass, but if it does, it is abundantly clear that our republican form of government will be permanently damaged by it.

OBAMACARE PASSAGE TIMELINE ANNOUNCED

Time to melt the phone/fax/emails on ObamaCare. He's counting on our silence. You can use their services, or use their template & phone numbers to send your own. From Grassfire:



From the Desk of:
Steve Elliott, Grassfire Nation

ObamaCare vote in the House on March 18... Final Senate vote on March 26... But that plan hinges on one thing. See below.

Today, President Obama launched his last-minute campaign-style push to get enough partisan phone calls and faxes flooding Capitol Hill.

Here's what the President said:

"We need to see where people stand. And we need all of you to help us win that vote. So I need you to knock on doors. Talk to your neighbors. Pick up the phone... [W]e need you to make your voices heard all the way in Washington, D.C."

That means President Obama's strategy depends on one thing...

...Our SILENCE!

Obama knows public opinion is against him (the polls consistently show that a majority of Americans oppose ObamaCare). If a representative sampling of Americans contacted members of Congress, then most phone calls,
faxes and emails would OPPOSE ObamaCare and their fast-track timeline would be derailed.

So he is counting on our silence while resorting to campaign-style efforts to rally his troops -- the far left ideologues from his presidential run and groups like MoveOn.

As I shared with you a few days ago, that strategy appears to be working. Here's what a trusted contact on Capitol Hill reported:

"We just left [a member of Congress'] office and while we were waiting, their phones were going crazy demanding... support for health care... Get everyone you can to call or fax or email."

This contact also said the odds of ObamaCare passing have risen dramatically in the past week. And now the targeted House vote is just 10 days away.

I know many in the Grassfire Nation have stepped forward and sent many, many faxes. If you can send faxes again, please consider doing so.

If you have never sent faxes to your members of Congress, NOW IS THE TIME.

You can use our FaxFire system to send this message right now to your two Senators, your Rep AND the President -- and MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD! Go here
to schedule your faxes.

(As always, we provide all the information for you to send your own faxes if you prefer. Just click the above link.)

The IRS Will Enforce the Pelosi-Baucus-Obama Health Plan

Congress is back from a long holiday weekend, and ready to pick up the speed to ram government run health care through, whether you like it or not. The speed that caused the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to make a $600 MILLION dollar error. The speed that will give no one time to read, review and dissect a government take-over of 1/6 of our economy, and destroy the private sector.

Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum lays out some critical points and actions we can take:


The IRS Will Enforce the Pelosi-Baucus-Obama Health Plan
Call the Senators on the Finance Committee and Tell Them to Say NO to the Radical Baucus bill!
September 29, 2009

TAKE ACTION NOW!

The Senate Finance Committee is set to resume its consideration of the health care plan outlined by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) today.

Those in the mainstream media and Senator Baucus himself have tried to market this supposedly "new" plan as a more moderate, bi-partisan compromise, however, no other members of the negotiating "Gang of Six," or any other U.S. Senator for that matter, was willing to stand beside Sen. Baucus when he unveiled his plan last week.

Rasmussen reported yesterday that 56% of Americans now oppose ObamaCare. Even worse, the increasing list of defeated amendments in the Senate Finance committee is revealing the true intentions of the Baucus plan to be just as radical as H.R. 3200.

Here are a few things you should know about the Baucus bill and what is developing in the Senate:

• The IRS will enforce the individual mandate. Like H.R. 3200, the Baucus bill requires every American (with the exception of a few groups, including illegal aliens and convicted felons) to purchase health insurance that complies with new federal standards by 2013. Those who fail to pay the penalty-which could be up to $1,900 for each individual-for not having health insurance will face legal action from the IRS and will be subject to the same financial penalties as those who evade paying their federal income taxes. Thanks to aggressive questioning by Sen. Ensign (R-NV) last week to inquire how these provisions would be enforced, the Joint Committee on Taxation confirmed via handwritten letter that the IRS would take you to court and undertake normal collection proceedings. The Committee made sure to bring Section 7203 of the U.S. tax code to Sen. Ensign's attention:

"If there is a willful failure to file, pay, or maintain appropriate records and the like [...] the taxpayer may be charged with a misdemeanor with a penalty of up to $25,000 and not more than one year in jail. Felony tax evasion provides for restitution and a fine of up to $100,000 for an individual and up to five years in jail."

• The public option is NOT off the table. This week, Senators Schumer (D-NY) and Rockefeller (D-WV) plan to offer amendments to replace the bill's "nonprofit health insurance cooperatives" with a public option. Currently, the Baucus bill provides for so-called "co-ops," a term which resulted from fierce grassroots opposition, as well as opposition from every Republican Senator and a handful of moderate Democrat Senators, to a purely government-run option.
• Explicitly provides for abortion funding. Currently, the Baucus plan would subsidize plans that cover all elective abortions. This goes far beyond that status quo of current law. Sen. Hatch is expected to offer an amendment to exclude government-subsidized abortion funding and protect conscience rights for health care workers. If you recall, the House Democrats approved the Lois Capps (D-CA) amendment in committee a few weeks ago to officially insert abortion into H.R. 3200. Calls are needed to pressure the moderate Democrats and liberal Republican on the committee in preparation for the Hatch amendment vote on Tuesday: Bingaman (D-MN), Carper (D-DE), Conrad (D-ND), Lincoln (D-AR), Nelson (D-FL), Snowe (R-ME).
• List of defeated amendments reveal the true nature of Baucus' plan. 564 amendments were filed in committee, but only a fraction will be offered and receive a vote. Among the defeated amendments thus far was Senator Jim Bunning's (R-KY) amendment to require that final legislative language and a final CBO (Congressional Budget Office) cost analysis be made publicly available on the committee's website for at least 72 hours prior to a final vote. The Bunning transparency amendment was defeated by a vote of 11 to 12, with all Republicans plus Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) voting in favor-all other Democrats voted NO.

This bill is moving through committee quickly, so your calls are needed to slow it down! Each day, we are learning that it is increasingly likely that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will maneuver to bypass the traditional 60 vote threshold needed to proceed with this bill in order to pass ObamaCare with a simple majority (51 votes) via the budget reconciliation process. Don't let Congress think the American people have cooled down the opposition. The time to light up the Capitol switchboard is now!

TAKE ACTION!

In addition to your own Senators, please call the Senators who sit on the Senate Finance Committee and tell them that the Baucus bill is just as radical and dangerous as H.R. 3200 and that you expect them to oppose it! Also, please be sure to urge support for the Hatch amendment while you are making your calls!

KILL OBAMACARE THROUGH A BACKDOOR

This is something to keep in mind in each and every state, county and district. It's done in little, but very crucial steps, and campaigning for conservative principles and against big government, deficit spending and open borders.

From the ever diligent Erick Erickson of RedState:


Kill Obamacare Through a Backdoor
by Erick Erickson, September 24, 2009

I went to a Virginia Conservative Campaign Fund party last night for Ken Cuccinelli, Bob McDonnell, and Bill Bolling.

If you will recall, in 1993 the Republicans took over Virginia. It was a clear signal to the nation that a backlash was coming against the Democrats. Consequently, the Democrats ran for cover and Bill Clinton’s liberal agenda was largely shut down.

If McDonnell, Bolling, and Cuccinelli sweep Virginia this year as Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General respectively, the same thing will happen. Democrats will run scared. Couple that with New Jersey and the willingness of Democrats to carry Barry O’s and Nancy’s water will greatly diminish.

Consider donating to the Virginia Conservative Campaign Fund by going here. They’ll target the money and help the candidates whose victories will mean the destruction of Obamacare.

It’s a backdoor defeat, but it is still a defeat.

OBAMACARE'S CRIPPLING DEFICITS

As people watch Obama's speech at the abrupt emergency Joint Session of Congress on Wednesday, these are facts we must face, should he succeed in ramming through government run healthcare along with his Cap & Trade. And the emergency is not war, but the financial destruction being forced upon us.

From the Wall Street Journal:


ObamaCare's Crippling Deficits
The higher taxes, debt payments and interest rates needed to pay for health reform mean lower living standards.
by Martin Feldstein, September 7, 2009

While the deficits caused by the fiscal stimulus package will end in 2011 and will help to sustain a fragile recovery in 2010, the deficits projected for the longer term are a threat to our economic future. The starting point for controlling those future deficits is for Congress to abandon the administration's health-care plan—a plan that will cost more than $1 trillion.

The deficits projected for the next decade and beyond are unprecedented. According to an assessment released in March by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the president's budget implies that deficits will average 5.2% of GDP over the next decade and will be 5.5% of GDP in 2019. Without the president's proposals, the budget office forecasts a 2019 deficit of only 2% of GDP.

The CBO's deficit projections are based on the optimistic assumptions that the economy will grow at a healthy 3% pace with no recessions during the next decade; that there will be no new spending programs after this year's budget; and that the rising national debt will increase the rate of interest on government bonds by less than 1%. More realistic assumptions would imply a 2019 deficit of more than 8% of GDP and a government debt of more than 100% of GDP.

Such enormous deficits would crowd out productivity-enhancing investments in new equipment and software as the government borrows funds otherwise available to private investors. The result would be slower economic growth and a lower standard of living.

In the nearer term, the projected deficits could cause interest rates on bonds and mortgages to rise sharply if bond investors fear that the government will not prevent inflation. This is a greater risk now that more than half of the U.S. government debt is held by the Chinese and other foreign investors. Such an interest rate rise could kill a recovery in 2010 or 2011 and depress growth in the years that follow.

Dropping the Obama health plan would significantly reduce fiscal deficits over the next decade and help restore public confidence in the ability of Congress to control spending. The CBO estimates that the House committee versions of the Obama health plan would add more than $1 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade. But the actual costs would be much higher.

For starters, $1 trillion of extra debt-financed spending would cause the government to pay about $300 billion of extra interest in the next decade. Moreover, the CBO's method of estimating the cost of such a program doesn't recognize the incentives it creates for households and firms to change their behavior.

The House health-care bill gives a large subsidy to millions of families with incomes up to three times the poverty level (i.e., up to $66,000 now for a family of four) if they buy their insurance through one of the newly created "insurance exchanges," but not if they get their insurance from their employer. The CBO's cost estimate understates the number who would receive the subsidy because it ignores the incentive for many firms to drop employer-provided coverage. It also ignores the strong incentive that individuals would have to reduce reportable cash incomes to qualify for higher subsidy rates. The total cost of ObamaCare over the next decade likely would be closer to $2 trillion than to $1 trillion.

The administration's claim that the health-care plan would be "self-financing" is both false and irrelevant. It is false because it would only be self-financing if one counts a variety of President Obama's proposed tax increases—and even those would produce much less revenue than is assumed in the budget calculations. The claim is irrelevant because those tax increases have nothing to do with health care and could be used instead to reduce other projected deficits.

For example, the administration and the congressional designers of ObamaCare say they would finance a substantial part of health reform with the revenue from new taxes on corporate foreign profits and on high-income individuals. The likely revenue from these tax changes would be much less than the official estimates because of the induced changes in taxpayer behavior that the estimators ignore.

Previous experience with changes in the marginal tax rates of high-income individuals implies that the current proposal to raise the marginal tax rate to about 50% from today's 40% would produce only about half of the official revenue estimates. No one knows how much of the estimated extra tax revenue on foreign profits would be lost as the resulting fall in international competitiveness reduces profits, and as businesses sell their overseas subsidiaries or shift their profits in other ways.

While abandoning health reform would be an important step, it would not be enough to limit the exploding level of future deficits and debt. That requires substantial reductions in existing spending programs, if large tax increases are to be avoided. Since Medicare is the largest contributor to the explosive growth in government spending, a good way to start shrinking government outlays would be by restructuring Medicare to shift more of its costs to supplementary private insurance, perhaps on an income-related basis.

Given the perceived need for significant additional tax revenue to shrink future fiscal deficits, there is now talk in Washington of introducing a value-added tax (VAT), the kind of national sales tax that European governments use to finance their welfare states. That would be a triply bad idea. Although it is a tax on spending, a VAT effectively raises marginal tax rates. Like the income tax, it reduces the reward for work and entrepreneurship by adding a tax to the prices of all goods and services. A VAT would also be grossly unfair to those whose lifetime savings would now be subject to a new tax when they start to spend those savings.

A VAT would open the door to an explosion of new spending programs. That's because, no matter how low the initial rate, the tax rate would be drawn inevitably to European rates of more than 15%—on top of existing income and payroll taxes.

The key to raising revenue without raising marginal tax rates or creating a new tax is to reduce or eliminate some of the "tax expenditures" that now lower tax revenue by special deductions and exclusions. Ending the current exclusion from taxable income of employer payments for health insurance would increase income tax revenue by more than $1 trillion over the next five years and nearly $3 trillion over the next decade. Eliminating this subsidy would also lead to a restructuring of private health insurance that would give patients the incentive to seek more cost-effective care and thereby bring down the overall cost of health care.

Restructuring Medicare and reforming tax rules would be politically difficult. But a failure by Congress to address the exploding path of fiscal deficits would be morally irresponsible.


Mr. Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan, is a professor at Harvard and a member of The Wall Street Journal's board of contributors.

ObamaCare, Born of 15 Untruths & Broken Promises

While Obama prepares to speak before the Joint Session of Congress, prepare yourself for the now known lies regarding the government run healthcare bill. Prepare yourself to be told he inherited this mess, and, best of all, prepare yourself to be told how Democrats and Republicans worked together on this bill.

RedState writes:


ObamaCare, Born of 15 Untruths and Broken Promises
by Dan Perrin, September 6, 2009

A few months ago, a Republican U.S. Senator told me that he pleaded with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to pressure the HELP Committee Democrats to let the Republicans negotiate and help shape the bill, since the Democrats were not listening or including the Republicans in any discussions. Senator Kennedy’s staff told the Republican Senator to take a hike. No one told Senator Kennedy’s staff otherwise. (Senator Dodd was torn between helping his dying friend and letting Kennedy’s legendary staff be his legendary staff.)

On the House side, Chairman Waxman gave the Blue Dogs on his own Committee, and Blue Dogs outside the Committee the closed mouth, no information treatment. Forget about influencing the bill, he did not tell them what was in it until it was too late. The Blue Dogs told Chairman Waxman what they wanted, he just ignored them.

All the while President Obama was publicly “reaching out” to Republicans — while his Leadership colleagues in Congress ignored Republicans, and ignored Democrats in their own party.

Thus was born ObamaCare, of a strategy to allow the far left (Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Waxman) to design the plan and ignore those who disagreed, while publicly and repeatedly the President said he wanted to work with Republicans.

In doing so, President Obama has managed to inflame the passions of every elected official — the Republicans who were left out, the center which was left out, and the liberals whose hopes were raised about having a public option, and now can’t understand why they have to compromise when the Dems control the White House, the House and the Senate.

The only Democratic Senator attempting to include the Republicans was Senator Baucus, who was pillared within his caucus and by the White House for taking the time to negotiate. All the while the liberals’ bill advanced into ever intensifying and withering fire.

Meanwhile, the public detecting the left wrote the bill lost faith and began to look at the bill, and the more they looked the less they liked. The net result is that the American public are polling at 52% for Congress to do nothing on health care. 55% want Congress to work on the economy. (Can you imagine?)

Lost faith is probably putting a happy face on what the public is feeling.

Plain and simple: the public has been repeatedly told the most outrageous and unbelievable things (as in they do not believe them when they hear them):

1. Cutting $500 billion from Medicare will not hurt care or cut benefits for seniors.
2. Spending $1 Trillion will save money.
3. Spending $1 Trillion will not increase the deficit.
4. If you like your plan you can keep it, except in five years every insurance plan design for everyone will be dictated by the federal government design requirements.
5. You can buy any insurance plan from any insurer you want. But you can only buy the government designed, government approved plans — its like saying you can buy the same house from any builder, but the builders all have the same set of plans and can only sell that house.
6. This is not a government take-over of the health care sector.
7. There will not be any rationing.
8. Campaign promises made explicitly by the President that he would not cut any deals with “the drug companies” only to do exactly that in return for Phrma spending million in ads to prop up the sagging ObamaCare this summer.
9. Abortion is not a covered benefit (despite the fact that the Democratic House pro-life leaders say it covers abortion, and more than 20 Democrats have told their leadership in writing that they will not vote for any bill that covers abortion.)
10. Seniors will not be steered in the direction of dying to save money — but most of the public knows that the most expense in health care is in the last six months of life — making seniors think Obama’s promises sound hollow. Seniors, it turns out, do not want the government to make the decision about when that last six months starts.
11. The President is against a single payer system and ending employer provided health care. All those videos of the President saying that he is for a single payer system and for ending employer provided health care, well, they are “misleading.”
12. Except that your employer may decide to put you in a government designed plan, so your employers will be taxed less than it costs to give you your insurance. Your employer will save money by putting you in the government-run Health Information Exchange — and you can never leave!
13. This bill’s purpose is insure the uninsured and do “insurance reform.”
14. President Obama promised no mandate in his health plan, but it has an individual mandate and an employer mandate.
15. If you don’t buy health insurance and you earn more than $19,000, you will be taxed 2.5 percent of your total income. The no tax increase pledge for families earning $250,000 or less does not apply, of course, to ObamaCare.

When President Obama keeps making promises and statements that cannot be true, you wonder, what does the President think of the public, that they will believe anything he says? Or (even more dangerous) does he really believe what he is saying?

So the President who insists untrue things are true is going to insist some more untrue things are true, before a joint session of Congress and this will change the politics of ObamaCare?

The heavens will open up, the sea will part and ObamaCare will pass. The President will have SPOKEN.

OMG! Did you hear?

The Air Force was tracking Santa Claus in his sled on Christmas Eve. They had Santa and his reindeer on radar. It true, we have the tapes and we can play them and everything.

Really?