He succeeded in making Bart Stupak look like a complete idiot. I’m not too sure that would be hard to do. As Moe Lane at Red State put it,

“Now, it’s like this. It’s one thing to be a prostitute. It’s another thing to be a cheap prostitute. It’s yet a third thing to be a cheap prostitute who accepts Monopoly money. But to be a cheap prostitute who gets stiffed on your Monopoly money? That takes skill.”

Almost ruined my keyboard with a mouthful of water when I read that.

So what I am getting to? The AP has released this story about Obama’s fulfillment of his promise to Bart Stupak that he would sign an Executive Order that would prohibit the use of federal funds for abortions in return for Stupak’s vote for the health care reform bill.

AP Special Correspondent David Espo writes,

WASHINGTON – Anything but jubilant, President Barack Obama awkwardly kept a promise Wednesday he made to ensure passage of historic health care legislation, pledging the administration would not allow federal funds to pay for elective abortions covered by private insurance.

Where’s the catch? It covers only those elective abortions covered by private insurance. According to the Guttmacher Institute, only 13% of all abortions in 2001 were billed to private insurance. Additionally, the vast majority of abortions are obtained by single women, living below the poverty line. The women in this demographic are the same group that are most likely to not have private insurance, but are on some kind of government assistance. They cannot pay for abortions through Medicaid, but they can use state funds in several states. In other words, the women most likely to have elective abortions are the very people that ObamaCare was designed to cover (that is, when those provisions finally do actually kick in, four years from now), because of a lack of private insurance.

Barack Obama’s magnanimous promise to Bart Stupak will likely prevent federal funds from being used for only about 15% of all abortions. And that might still be a generous percentage.

“Let me remind you this [Americans allegedly dying because of lack of universal health care] has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.”

If the Left were ever honest about their aims, they wouldn’t be enjoying the “success” they now are. The way to successfully deal with them is to stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. Wise Conservatives will be best served by thinking the worst of their Liberal and Progressive opponents–they always want control, they always will renege on deals, they always will be dishonest, they always will not care what Conservatives think, and they will never allow themselves to be constrained by laws, rules or agreements. Don’t believe me? Read “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky. If you have read it and you still don’t believe me, you haven’t been paying attention.

If Conservatives will consistently deal with Progressives with these assumptions in mind, they will be better able to proactively counter Progressive weaseling and prevent the damage caused by Progressive policies.

Sunday’s socialist uprising was only possible because of 100 years of steady Progressive plotting and conspiring. If the Republicans and Conservatives had recognized the truth about their opponents and acted on Reagan’s instincts 20 years ago, we would not now be looking at 10 years of repeal attempts just to get back 40 percent of what was lost on Sunday.

h/t Peter Barry Chowka at AmericanThinker

Louise Slaughter, a Pelosi minion and Chair of the powerful House Rules Committee, is considering a rule that would allow the House Democrats to pass a corrections bill that would automatically assume a majority vote on the Senate version of the health care reform bill, thus ensuring that ObamaCare becomes the law of the land without anyone in the House actually having voted on it!

Dave Schnittger, aide to House Minority Leader John Boehner, said:

“The Slaughter Solution is a plan by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and a key ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to get the health care legislation through the House without an actual vote on the Senate-passed health care bill. You see, Democratic leaders currently lack the votes needed to pass the Senate health care bill through the House. Under Slaughter’s scheme, Democratic leaders will overcome this problem by simply ‘deeming’ the Senate bill passed in the House — without an actual vote by members of the House.”

The Progressives are really showing their true colors now. They proved they could pass legislation without reading it. Now they are working on passing legislation without even voting on the actual bill. If this passes, what is to stop them from unilaterally declaring bills passed without ever even considering them? What will prevent them from passing raw ideas as legislation? Only their fear of the American Public. And, at the moment, that doesn’t seem to give them even a moment’s pause.

National Review’s Jim Geraghty wrote in Thursday’s Morning Jolt newsletter,

“Are they out of their minds? What, the town hall meetings of last summer were too genteel and conciliatory for House Democrats’ tastes? Trying some sort of stunt like this in order to pass a bill without actually making members vote for it — that’s the sort of thing that takes “armed insurrection” talk out of the realm of chat rooms. We’ve long suspected that the Constitution means nothing to our counterparts on the left, but the idea of working around the requirement that bills be passed by the House strikes a new and disturbing we’ve-lost-democracy note.”

This maneuver doesn’t just violate the Rule of Law. It goes way beyond that. This is an attack on the fundamental principles of our form of government. This is so foreign to our Constitution, the only word that truly fits is Sedition.

If the Progressives pull this off, you’ll find me at the nearest Militia recruiting station.

Fox News has video (see below) of Ms. Pelosi saying we have to pass the health care reform bill “so we can see what’s in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

First of all, that’s not what I would call “transparency,” Madam Speaker. Keeping from us the details of what this legislation will do until after it’s passed is somewhat like being asked to ingest the contents of an unlabeled bottle; for all you know, it might contain cyanide.

The lack of transparency brings me to my second point. The Speakers position, as enunciated in the video, conflicts with two of the five main principles of the Rule of Law.

The five principles are:

1. Generality: Laws must apply to everyone equally, and not single out groups or individuals.
2. Prospectivity: Laws must apply only to future behavior, not to past action (no ex-post facto laws).
3. Publicity: Laws must be publicized, so the people can be certain of their application.
4. Consent: Laws must be generally acceptable to the people who will live with them.
5. Due Process: Laws must impartially applied and enforced according to established laws.

Judging from Ms. Pelosi’s  comments, it appears that not only does this legislation violate the principle of Publicity (we can’t know what’s in it until it passes?), it violates the principle of Consent. How are we to give consent to being subject to legislation the application of which we can’t know until it becomes law?

Harry Reid flat-out lied when he said “nobody is talking about reconciliation” as a way to pass the health care reform bill. Here he is only days before the health care summit.

Speaker Gingrich writes,

The budget reconciliation process was created in 1974 as part of the law that created much of the modern rules and organizational structures used by Congress to pass the annual budget.

This new law required Congress to pass a budget resolution every year that would set the parameters by which the various congressional committees would write their specific parts of the total budget bill.

Within these budget resolutions, instructions can be given to specific congressional committees to create legislation that would alter current laws affecting spending and/or taxation in order to conform to the targets set out in the budget resolution.

To enhance Congress’ ability to meet budget resolution targets, these pieces of legislation are not passed under the normal rules of the Senate. Instead, they fall under the “budget reconciliation process” rules which prohibit unrelated amendments to the bills and set a maximum of 20 hours of debate on the floor. As a practical matter, this means only 51 votes are needed to pass a reconciliation bill because the limit on debate overrides the threat of a filibuster.

The Byrd Rule to Prevent Abuse of Reconciliation

While the budget reconciliation process was a success in its principal goal of giving Congress more power to meet the spending and revenue goals of the budget resolution, it quickly became prone to abuse.

Provisions that had nothing to do with meeting budget resolution requirements, even some that directly contradicted them, were passed using the reconciliation process.

To prevent this, the so-called “Byrd Rule,” named after Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, who introduced the legislation, was passed in 1985 and made permanent in 1990.

The Byrd Rule allows any senator to raise a point of order objection to provisions in a reconciliation bill that they consider extraneous to meeting budget resolutions requirements. Then, it is up to the chair – either the Vice President (as President of the Senate) or, more often, the presiding officer of the Senate if the Vice President is not present — whether that provision stays or is stricken.

However, the chair almost always relies on the advice of the Senate Parliamentarian to determine if that objection is legitimate. (Learn more about the parliamentarian here.)

This determination is made based on six tests created as part of the Byrd Rule used to weed out provisions that have nothing to do with raising or reducing taxes or spending. It takes a 3/5 majority vote to override the decision of the presiding officer if he or she finds that a provision violates one or more of these tests. (This Congressional Research Service report is a good primer on the Byrd rule if you want to learn more.)

Reconciliation in Action

Reconciliation has been used for 22 bills, of which, 14 were passed by Republican majorities. Nineteen of those bills were signed into law by the President. Three were vetoed. You can view a chart of these bills here.

Notice the similarity between them? All of these bills were obviously directly related to taxation and spending, and since 1985, have successfully met the Byrd rule tests.

Health Reform Is About More than Federal Spending

This is why passing the left’s big government, big bureaucracy health bill using the budget reconciliation process is so fundamentally dishonest and dangerous to Senate precedent.

Leaving aside the bill’s merits (which, to be clear, are abysmal), both its defenders and detractors would acknowledge that it is, for better or worse, a fundamental overhaul of the nation’s health system, both public and private. It sets new rules and regulations that span the entire healthcare sector. It is much larger in scope and more all encompassing in purpose than simply affecting federal spending and revenues.

This is not to say that the bill would not have some effect on the federal budget. Almost any piece of legislation could meet that meager standard.

The reconciliation process was only intended to be used for legislation directly related to meeting budget resolution spending and revenue goals.

The minor affect the left’s health bill would have on the deficit over 10 years (beyond that there is every reason to think it would increase the deficit substantially), even by charitable estimates, cannot be used to justify passing this sort of sweeping legislation using reconciliation.

This is one reason why a number of Democrats, including Sen. Robert Byrd, author of the Byrd Rule and who also helped create the budget reconciliation process in 1974, called the idea of using it to pass the health bill (and cap and trade) “an outrage that must be resisted.”

It’s also why Robert Byrd objected to President Clinton’s efforts to pass Hillarycare in 1993 using reconciliation.

Why should the left’s latest big government healthcare grab be held to any different standard?

Liberals and Progressive Democrats are already shouting that Republicans used reconciliation to pass welfare reform. Newt’s response:

Since welfare reform was passed while I was Speaker of the House, I am happy to compare the two cases.

First, welfare reform was an integral part of the Republican Congress’ efforts to balance the budget, producing immediate savings of over $50 billion dollars between 1997 and 2002. It was originally combined with the balanced budget act that President Clinton vetoed in 1995.

By contrast, for most of the debate over the health bill, the left has constantly boasted about how their bill was “deficit neutral”. President Obama repeatedly sought to assure the American people that he would not sign a bill that “added one dime” to the deficit. Medicare cuts were combined with new taxes to pay for the cost of new programs and bureaucracies.

So while real effective health reform would certainly have a positive effect on the deficit, it is clear that the left never intended for their health bill to be primarily a budget bill. Its focus was and still is on getting more people covered. It was only after Democratic leaders began setting the stage for passing the bill using reconciliation that they began emphasizing it as a way to reduce the deficit. (Paul Ryan explains here how their bill uses smoke and mirrors to create the illusion of savings).

Second, when we decided to roll welfare reform into the balanced budget bill in 1995, we never stopped the conference committee efforts to resolve the differences between the versions of the welfare reform legislation that passed in the House and Senate earlier in the year. This continuation of work, along with the active participation of the governors, allowed us to quickly produce the final bill in conference the next year, once it became clear that President Clinton was now finally ready to sign welfare reform.

In contrast, the Democrats have done an end run around the conference committee process that would resolve the differences between the House and Senate bills, instead trying to negotiate their final bill in secret at the White House. This process continues today, with President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid exploring different tricks they can use to ram a bill through their respective chambers without first producing a conference bill.

Third, welfare reform was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, with more Democrats voting for it in the House and Senate than opposing it. It was signed by a Democratic President. Bipartisanship was integral to the success of the bill.

Today, Democrats are turning to passing the bill using the reconciliation process precisely because they are rejecting bipartisanship. Republican Scott Brown’s stunning election in Massachusetts, thanks largely to opposition to the left’s health bill, has meant that the Democrats would need at least one Republican vote to break a filibuster in the Senate. And their bill is so bad they can’t get one.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, welfare reform was overwhelmingly popular with the American people. One poll showed that over 90 percent of Americans favored reform, including 88 percent of those on welfare.

As for the left’s health bill, after a year of debate and discussion, the American people have overwhelmingly rejected it. A poll we released at the Center for Health Transformation showed that it is opposed by a 2-1 margin. It is a fact that the more Americans learn about the left’s plan, both its substance and the corrupt manner in which it has been passed, the more they oppose it.

Keep in mind that as recently as 2005, even Barack Obama was complaining that the Republican threat to use the “nuclear option” to shut down Democratic filibusters holding up judicial appointments would have created a majoritarian government not intended by the founders. But now that the shoe’s on the other foot, Majoritarianism seems to be the preferred order of the day. Back then, Republicans called Democrats “obstructionists” for filibustering the appointments of Pres. Bush’s judicial nominees, which Bush had every right to make. Now Democrats call Republicans “obstructionists” because they object to the idea of “fundamentally transforming” the American health care system. Which is worse, seating a Republican President’s judicial nominations, or usurping control of a nation’s health care system in a massive power grab that has nothing to do with health care? I think we can all see which obstruction is justifiable.

Reid is correct that it has been done before, but never has it been used on legislation that would fundamentally transform 1/6^th of the American economy. Surely legislation of this magnitude should require more than just a simple majority to become the law of the land.

But that’s beside the point. In 2005, it was the Democrats who were “crying about” the use of measures to circumvent the filibuster, referred to then as the “Nuclear Option.” And Reid’s implicit accusation that Republicans did it first is disingenuous. The Republicans ended up not exercising the Nuclear Option in 2005, and Democrats have also used similar measures.

Watch the video below to see hypocrisy on parade. Joe Biden’s statement is particularly noteworthy.

The WHO Summary Document seems to be self-contradicting. The document states that Malaria causes 1 million deaths per year, and children are 3/4 of those cases. Malaria also imposes heavy economic burdens in terms of costs of treatment and prevention and lost productivity.

Then the WHO document says that spraying with DDT is “highly effective” at controlling Malaria. So if it is highly effective at controlling Malaria, why discontinue its use?

According to WHO, DDT “is potentially harmful to wildlife and to humans, if not applied in accordance with WHO guidelines and recommendations.” In other words, it isn’t harmful. The guidelines of the WHO for the use of DDT are basic common sense.

The document lists as potential effects of DDT as “childhood neurodevelopment, breast cancer in women, male reproductive health (reduced sperm counts and quality) and to diabetes.” At least some of these claims have already been debunked (e.g., sperm count and breast cancer claims).

Remember, these claims deal with potential harm–not documented, conclusive proof of harm. On the other hand, Malaria is a proven killer, and DDT is proven to control Malaria. Why is this even being debated?

I’ll address this question in a later post.

A few things stand out, though.

Obama still insists on pushing the blame for the recession back onto the Bush Administration. Never does he acknowledge that his policies have had a big hand in making this collapse possible. Like every other stereotypical liberal, he is never to be blamed; he is only a victim.

In all honesty, it isn’t just Obama’s problem, or just Bush’s problem, or even just Congress’ problem alone. They all contributed to it. The problem is big government. The idea that government can do all the things that people in government think it can do is demonstrably wrong. The hard part is getting these “useful idiots” to admit it. This is Obama’s administration now. He holds the reins, and no longer has the luxury of playing Bart Simpson, trying to get a laugh by repeating “I didn’t do it.”

Another hard-to-avoid fact is that the problem he supposedly inherited was initially created by the Democratic Congress. Bush signed the bills into law, probably because he felt the Democrats had enough votes to override any veto. Frankly, I have a hard time understanding why he wouldn’t veto them out of principle. Bush’s signature added to the problem.

There is also his assertion that he has helped to save 150,000 jobs. The fact that the US economy has lost 1.2 million jobs since he took office apparently isn’t an obstacle to taking credit for any positive economic news. One very astute observation by the AP is that Obama’s claim to save jobs requires “calculating a hypothetical: how many people would have lost their jobs without the stimulus.” I can imagine lots of things, but I can’t take credit for any of it unless it is actually measurable.

Obama says we are “laying a foundation of growth.” Growth seems to be a common theme for this administration. But the only measurable growth we’ve seen so far is the growth in the deficit, growth in the amount of taxes Americans will be required to pay to overcome the deficit, and growth in the level of distrust in the people toward the government. How can we be laying a foundation for growth, when we refuse to stop spending? Even if we were capable of finding a way to cover these enormous expenses, if we don’t stop spending we will never catch up. That isn’t growth.

Some things Obama said make me plain nervous. For example, he said “My hope is that working in a bipartisan fashion we are going to be able to get a health care reform bill on my desk before the end of the year that we’ll start seeing in the kinds of investments that will make everybody healthier.” What kind of  “investments” make people healthier? My thoughts are that he is talking about future legislation that would compel people into certain “healthier” lifestyles, as decided by government. The reasoning behind such legislation would be, of course, that it keeps health care costs down; a form of health care rationing–you qualify for health benefits from the government only if you meet certain government-set specifications. If that turns out to be the case, Obama will have found a way to include all races into his vision for the perfection of Humanity. That’s an aspect of socialized medicine not many have considered, and the implications are chilling.

A pattern has emerged from the first 100 days of the Obama Administration, one of high-minded, lofty goals, accompanied by a profound lack of responsibility. We can always hope the next 100 days bring real change.