I hope they have the spine or their electoral gains will evaporate. The GOP must shut down the Senate starting early next week. Not just on healthcare, but everything. Grind it to a halt. This is from Senate insiders with knowledge of the battle to come in the next couple of weeks. As one strategist emailed me:

…the only viable strategy I can see is for the Republicans to begin the process of shutting down the U.S. Senate until the Democrats agree to MOVE ON — move off healthcare until the 112th Congress convenes.

The Democrats are ready to rip off the band-aid:

The advice went out to freshman and sophomore House Democrats, blunt talk to help them through a tricky vote on health reform.

“At this point, we have to just rip the band-aid off and have a vote — up or down; yes or no?” the memo said. “Things like reconciliation and what the rules committee does is INSIDE BASEBALL.”

As Pelosi is now looking for Senate assurances before the House healthcare vote, it is clear that not only the House but the Senate as well requires our immediate attention:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday said she will need “certain assurances” from Senate Democrats before the House votes on healthcare reform as early as next week.

Pelosi did not say what those assurances would be, but acknowledged that extracting them would be necessary to counter lingering concerns from within her caucus that the Senate will not be able to pass a reconciliation bill.

“With reconciliation, a simple majority, a constitutional majority, I think members are much more comfortable with the fact that this reconciliation will happen,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. “Nonetheless, there are certain assurances that they want, and that we will get from [Senate Democrats] before I ask them to take the vote.”

The Democrats have lost the Mandate from Heaven they once enjoyed and are attempting to literally enact a bill that will destroy our healthcare system, raise taxes, stifle economic growth during a deep recession, and nationalize over 1/6 of our economy. We should not take this lying down. Neither should GOP members of Congress. This was never about Stupak or abortion. Any government takeover of healthcare will result in the use of taxpayer dollars at some point in the future to federally fund abortions. A vote to improve ObamaCare with any Stupak-like language is a vote for ObamaCare. But the real reality is at this time it just does not matter. What matters now is derailing this bill.

The Senate GOP should not make us go through a repeat of the embarrassing display of spineless behavior displayed last year. Next week shut down the Senate. We are counting on you.

It’s time to go into campaign mode and draw this out until the Easter recess. No more need to think about parliamentarian tricks. Such worries have no impact whatsoever on the current situation. After the Senate GOP began to obstruct is exactly the time when they began to win over the electorate.

Nobody wants this bill, so I repeat the GOP must stand up and shut down the Senate. Regardless of what the legislation is, shut down the Senate. Don’t wait for healthcare abortion side bills and reconciliation to come barreling down on your heads and then obstruct. Start doing it now and don’t stop until Senator Reid promises to drop ObamaCare until the following Congress. There is no excuse for waiting and the American people are counting on the Senate GOP to stand up for us.

The Democrats lack a mandate on healthcare. This issue must dominate every nook and cranny of network and cable news, in every blog, and in every opinion piece and editorial. Take the healthcare dominance of the news cycle now and increase it exponentially. Make this a referendum on the Democratic party and its contempt for the governed.

Obstruct. Obstruct. Obstruct.

It’s fairly obvious that Pelosi and crowd plan to cram this bill down next Friday or Saturday no matter what the polls or the Republican Leadership says.  There is no such thing as a moderate Democrat — only Democrats in conservative districts.  They will fold to the pressure.  Unless…. the American people can put on one more powerful display of their disapproval of this bill.

There is only one way I can think of to send the ultimate message.  It is too late to march on Washington.   I say we declare a General Strike this coming Friday, March 19 as a way of appealing to Congress for a redress of our grievances. We could make it a day of unity for the American People.  Non-violent, civil disobedience.  Don’t go to work.  Airplanes, trains, subways brought to a standstill.  Restaurants and other private businesses closed. Everything except police and firefighters.  If it were to happen, it would be the end to Obamacare and the Democrat majorities.

The Republicans
Washington, District of Columbia

3-13-2010

To the People of America & All Americans in the World
Fellow Citizens and Patriots:

We are besieged by some two hundred or more Democrats under
the dictator, Santa Pelosi. We have sustained continual bombast
& character assassination for months & have not lost the will
to resist. The Democrats have expected a surrender at discretion,
otherwise the whole of our caucus is to be overwhelmed by the
most extreme measures as Santa Pelosi may devise.

We have answered the demand with resolve and defiance and our
cause is not yet lost. We stand as one with the Constitution.

We shall never surrender or retreat.

Now, we call on all American citizens, in the name of Liberty, of
patriotism & of everything dear to the American character to
rally for the sake of the country as we know it. Shout from the
rooftops with all dispatch until the Democrats relent in fear of
your outcry.

Your assistance in all haste is vital as Santa Pelosi is receiving
reinforcements daily & may increase in number sufficient to overwhelm
us in a mere few days. If this call is neglected, it is our intent to
sustain our position as long as possible & struggle to the end in
defense of every citizen’s right to self determination. We pursue this
course as men who never forget what is due to our honor & that
of our country.

A Free Republic, not a Socialist State,

The Republican Congress (all of us)

P.S. The Lord is on our side. When the Democrats first appeared
invincible we knew not the means to resist. Through the spirit of
our countrymen and the rightness of our cause we have found a
renewed strength that emboldens and sustains us.

>>Apologies to William B. Travis

(cross-posted to Today’s Asbestos.

Hey Red Staters!

Please check out my new Conservative Blog Report Video in which I profile:

Powerline on The Slaughter Solution.

Gateway Pundit on ObamaCare protests in Missouri.

And the incredibly smart Erick Erickson. You probably already read this.

Finally, have you heard Sean Hannity’s new nickname for Rahm Emmanuel?

Cross posted at Mike LaChance.

President Obama is doing his level-headed best to force into law healthcare reform legislation that the American people have clearly proven they don’t want.  He has gone so far as to say openly that “if the American people don’t like it, that’s what elections are for”.

Nancy Pelosi has gone so far as to make statements indicating that if we want to know what’s in this legislation, we will have to pass it first.  Never mind this is all against the will of the American people.

Harry Reid has come out against the members of the Supreme Court stating that “I think we’ve had enough of them,” he said. “I think what we need are people on that bench who have been legislators, people who are lawyers, people who are academics. You look at our Supreme Court and all these people, all they know is working with people in black robes. We have got to change that.” 

If this doesn’t sound like the actions of an organized movement to take control of our government, with or without the approval of the remainder of Congress, and much less the people of America, I don’t know what does.

At this point, I fear for America.  2010 and 2012 may well be too late to stem the apparent takeover of our government and nation.

I am 43 years old with 25 stents in three major heart arteries; the American healthcare system saved my life. My stents are drug-eluting, the same state of art stents recently received by Bill Clinton. In Canada, my birth country, many are not so lucky. There, rationing, lack of innovation, and a shortage of expertise are real problems and no perversion of the truth changes this reality.

In the UK, my wife’s birth country, the National Health Service denied the life-saving breast cancer drug Herceptin to women on the basis of cost. It required a lawsuit to settle the matter. I often wonder how many women unnecessarily died in the interim. NICE decides which drugs and treatments are available on the NHS in England and Wales. Google the the two words “NICE denies” without the quotes. Clearly, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is anything but nice.

To put this in perspective, the population of Canada and the UK is 30 million and 60 million respectively. Obama, Pelosi, Reid and company are attempting to overhaul a system to address the needs of over 300 million people. Such an act is patently absurd and the approach is anything but sane.

Great deeds are not accomplished by great men and women; great deeds are done by normal people facing extraordinary circumstances. It is through actions during troubling and trying times taken by those of us who are ordinary that mold and shape what will become a great and historical figure. Right now, in the Senate and the House, a single Democrat or group of Democrats have the chance to become great in the eyes of this nation. From broken promises of transparency to outright lies, the Obama administration and the leaders of the Democratic Party in the House and Senate have consistently taken this country down a path it does not want to travel.

Who among you is willing to remove the “for sale” sign on your vote? Who among you will stand up to the strong arm of Chicago style politics and stare down the administration with an icy glare? Show us that greatness is still a quality that means something. Step up and protect us from this madness.

The profligate vote buying in the Congress has gotten out of hand. The special treatment granted and federal lucre handed out to the states of a few balking members of Congress has been disgraceful. This is not compromise, it is bribery pure and simple.

As neither party in the Congress truly understands what is in the health care bill, the law of unintended consequences demands a deliberative and transparent process. The purpose behind rushing through this bill is political and completely disconnected from serving the best interests of this country and the people who live in it.

It is time for a new style of politics, not one of obfuscation, hidden backroom deals, and broken promises. Yet lately it seems many politicians in the Democratic party are pitting themselves against the will of the American people - liberals, independents, and conservatives. America needs someone of great quality to stop this madness—someone who understands the responsibility derived from freedom and position.

It is said, “The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.” Many in the Democratic party appear deaf in this regard. We the American people implore rational Democrats in the Congress to stand on principle, to separate themselves from the pack, be the guardian of freedom and put an an end to the madness of what is obviously not healthcare reform, but rather a blatant attempt to grab and consolidate power. This so-called healthcare reform or health insurance reform or whatever it is called today, does nothing to address the real issues facing the American people, and the process itself will destroy the best healthcare system in the world.

We urge you to vote against this bill; stand up to leaders willing to abandon you to the political wilderness in an obsessive-compulsive neurotic pursuit of an ideological creed. Dire, unnecessary, and unforeseen consequences face this country if healthcare reform is enacted in any of its current instantiations. We all agree healthcare reform is necessary, however there is no doubt in the minds of a majority in this country the current approach is the wrong approach. The wholesale change of over 1/6 of our economy calls for a deliberative process, not the mad dash for the finish line advocated by leaders of your party whose palpable contempt for you and the majority of the electorate is both disgraceful to the legislative process and tyrannical in nature. We urge you to lift the veil of deafness and hear our voices.

Way back in Once-Upon-a-Time Time, Early November 2006 to be more explicit, Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer promised us all a New Direction. They all promised to seriously reform the House of Representatives, if the voters trusted them with control of that venerable institution. Pelosi declared with Oscar-Winning grandiloquence that yea, verily, they would drain the swamp. Who knew they would discover DDT and Kepone amongst the mire beneath the brackish flow?

The American electorate voted them in amongst promises of them running the most ethical Congress in history. This would occur under the steely, gimlet eye and steady gavel of Soon-to-be-Crowned House Speaker Pelosi. As the bong smoke now clears, and reality returns to the wretched early dawn of an unforgettable morning after, it appears increasingly obvious that only about ½ of the marshlands abutting the Potomac got cleared.

Nothing displays the utterly callous dishonesty of Nancy Pelosi’s politics in clearer bas-relief than the contrasting sagas of Congressman Massa and Congressman Rangel. Congressman Massa is now the poster child for Nancy Pelosi’s Photo-Op Ethical Puritanism. Charlie Rangel is on temporary vacation, until the sordid details get blown away like freshly-mowed grass in the wind. Eric Massa will no longer hold office. Rangel, upon his return, will still be the Good Time Charlie we all know and adore.

One of these two men has loyally voted President Obama’s preferred agenda during the entire first leg of his presidency. The other man balked at rubber-stamping the current health care reform package. One individual has used his chairmanship to deliver whatever laws were needed to set the desired White House economic policies into law. The other has literally had shouting matches with White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel in the shower. Which man is which should be obvious in light of the consequences each has suffered as a result of their behavior.

Congressman Massa has been put out to pasture for inappropriate sexual conduct towards one of his staff members. The alleged incident under investigation occurred at a wedding party that turned into something akin to the beer drink that occurs in the evening hours after a rugby match. The Politico offers Massa’s description of events.

“I said goodnight to the bridesmaid. I sat at down at the table where my whole staff was, all of them, by the way, bachelors. One of them looked at me and — as they would do after, I don’t know, 15 gin and tonics and goodness only knows how many bottles of champagne — a staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid. His points were clear, and his words were far more colorful than that.

“And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and I said, ‘What I really ought to be doing is frakking you,’ and then tossled the guy’s hair and left, went to my room, because I knew the party was getting to a point where I shouldn’t be there.”

“Was that inappropriate of me? Absolutely.” (HT: Tim Grieve)

It was immature, rakish, sophomoric and stupid. Actionable? Give me a break. When this first broke, I was hoping for something on the order of a decent Edward M. Kennedy waitress sandwich. Yet still, as of 5pm today, Congressman Massa will be forced into saying “No mas.”

Congressman Rangel, on the other hand, (perhaps the hand he uses when committing larceny) apparently lost Speaker Pelosi’s memorandum on good ethical conduct. He put it the same place he puts the IRS paperwork regarding his investment income. Something on the order of 50% of those types of papers seem to get lost in the Good Congressman’s filing system. At least that’s what he claims when some astonished CPA type pours over one of his tax returns.

Apparently, Congressman Rangel has rented out beach cottages down in The Caribbean for decades and only recently become aware that rental income earned abroad was a taxable category. He thought this category of income was covered by the Adam Clayton Powell Seat deduction. Peerage has its privileges.

This appears unseemly because it just happened to have occurred while he labored away as Chairman of The House Ways and Means Committee. You know them better as the dudes who write tax laws. It can’t be reassuring when the boss of this committee fills out a return that could earn him the nickname “H&R Blockhead.”

Maybe, during his hiatus, Congressman Rangel can talk to his property managers and figure out exactly where all those mysterious checks come from that mysteriously populate his money market accounts without his cognizance. We all hope he can learn from this experience and grow. He’ll unfortunately just grow more corrupt. He learn that as long as he has “President O’s” 6 O’ Clock, there is no statute of jurisprudence that he can possibly be found guilty of violating.

If you’ve read anything in the news for the past two years; you know well which man is still on the right side of Speaker Pelosi’s situational ethics machine. Congressman Massa, the benighted true believer he was, held out for nothing less than a health care reform bill that included a public option. He told his supporters he would do exactly that. The public option was not a choice on the menu in the House of Representatives Bill. Eric Massa, the idiot, kept his word and voted his “Neigh!”

Charlie Rangel, who has never authored a promise he couldn’t coin money on, remains submerged in the swamp. He waits for it all to just blow over. He waits for the cynics to knowingly nod. He’ll vote “Yeah,” and the boyoes will have his back.

Then Congressman Rangel can reenter the fray. He can tax us all into penury to pay for the health plan. He chug merrily along in consonant, amoral harmony with Nancy, Rahm and Steny Hoyer’s New Direction. A direction that Australian Rock band AC/DC would accurately describe as a Highway to Hell.