Urgent Agenda publishes 365 days a year.  However, we do modify our schedule on weekends and holidays.  On Christmas day we will publish starting about 10 a.m.  Our agenda will be limited, but we stay in touch with the world should some significant event suddenly erupt.

THURSDAY,  DECEMBER 24,  2009

REAPPORTIONMENT PROJECTION - AT 7:43 P.M. ET:  This is fascinating.  To our knowledge, it is the first informed projection of how the 2010 census will affect the makeup of Congress...assuming we get an honest count.  But, given the fact that, from small ACORNs mighty corruption grows, that is a major assumption.  From The Politico:

Texas stands to be the big winner after next year’s decennial reapportionment, with two political analysis firms projecting that the Lone Star State will gain at least three new congressional seats for the 2012 elections.

The big loser from the analysis is Ohio, which looks likely to lose two House seats in 2012 — the only state with that dubious distinction.

The analysis, from the political firms Polidata and Election Data Services, predicts eight states will gain an additional House seat: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington.

The states that would lose House seats are: Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio (2) and Pennsylvania.

Looks good to us:

The projections offer some long-term encouragement for Republicans. President Barack Obama won nine of the 10 states slated to lose seats, and Democrats hold congressional delegation majorities in all but one (Louisiana).

"Based upon the results of the 2008 election for president but with the electoral vote for the 2012 election, the Republicans would see a slight gain under the projected apportionment of 7 votes," Polidata's Clark Bensen told POLITICO on Thursday. "Twelve of the 18 states with shifts voted for Obama in 2008 while 6 voted for McCain. Nine of the 12 Obama states would lose seats, while five of the six McCain states would gain."

COMMENT:  Great.  Let's get those moving vans going. 

December 24, 2009   Permalink

YEAH, THE CAPTAIN OF THE TITANIC SAID THE SAME THING - AT 6:04 P.M. ET:  The liberal Dems are beyond Disney World in some of their thinking, and, especially, in their assessment of the American voter.  From The Politico:

Democrats today have repeatedly expressed a confidence that they won't face a backlash for their votes when they return home for the holidays, which would stand in marked contrast to the August recess.

Just ignore that iceberg ahead.

"This is a happy day. (Senate Republican Leader) Mitch McConnell said on the floor that we're going to go home and hear our constituents rail against this bill. I don't believe that. I believe that the negativity that Leader McConnell and others have continually displayed on the floor has peaked, and now when people learn what's actually in the bill—and all the good it does—it is going to become more and more popular because it is good for America, good for the American people, and a true symbol of what we can do if we all pull together," said Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer.

We're already making plans to dock in New York.

On the floor before the vote, Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "We're going to hear an earful, but it's going to be an earful of wonderment and happiness that people waited for for a long time."

What was that noise?  What's all that water?

December 24, 2009   Permalink

WARNING TO DEMOCRATS - AT 10:05 A.M. ET:  When the Daley family talks, Democrats listen, or at least they should.  William Daley, of Chicago, who was Bill Clinton's secretary of commerce, gives a firm warning to his party, a good part of which is out of control.  From the Washington Post:

The announcement by Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith that he is switching to the Republican Party is just the latest warning sign that the Democratic Party -- my lifelong political home -- has a critical decision to make: Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come.

Spot on.  Daley makes the point that Dem gains in 2006 and 2008 came mostly by attracting independents and even some Republicans, and by electing "moderate" Democrats to Congress, or at least those who were less to the left.

But now they face a grim political fate. On the one hand, centrist Democrats are being vilified by left-wing bloggers, pundits and partisan news outlets for not being sufficiently liberal, "true" Democrats. On the other, Republicans are pounding them for their association with a party that seems to be advancing an agenda far to the left of most voters.

The political dangers of this situation could not be clearer.

Witness the losses in New Jersey and Virginia in this year's off-year elections. In those gubernatorial contests, the margin of victory was provided to Republicans by independents -- many of whom had voted for Obama. Just one year later, they had crossed back to the Republicans by 2-to-1 margins.

True.  The Dem decline among independents has been dramatic, and that can sink them.

Witness the drumbeat of ominous poll results. Obama's approval rating has fallen below 49 percent overall and is even lower -- 41 percent -- among independents. On the question of which party is best suited to manage the economy, there has been a 30-point swing toward Republicans since November 2008, according to Ipsos. Gallup's generic congressional ballot shows Republicans leading Democrats. There is not a hint of silver lining in these numbers. They are the quantitative expression of the swing bloc of American politics slipping away.

That is the best expression of the Democratic dilemma that I've seen.

All that is required for the Democratic Party to recover its political footing is to acknowledge that the agenda of the party's most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans -- and, based on that recognition, to steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan.

The problem, of course, is that the left wing of the Democratic Party is fanatical.  (And we have our share of nut cases as well.)  Fanatics see nothing.  They have more contempt for their party's moderates than they do for the opposition.

The party's moment of choosing is drawing close. While it may be too late to avoid some losses in 2010, it is not too late to avoid the kind of rout that redraws the political map. The leaders of the Democratic Party need to move back toward the center -- and in doing so, set the stage for the many years' worth of leadership necessary to produce the sort of pragmatic change the American people actually want.

COMMENT:  That is excellent advice for either party.  American politics is played between the 40-yard lines, and no one understood that better than Ronald Reagan.  A devoted conservative, he understood that governing had to be practical, not ideological.  He was the author of the Republican Party's "11th Commandment" - "Thou shalt not speak ill of any other Republican."

Today there are attempts in both parties to purge the impure.  They are wrong.  It is true that a party cannot be an infinite tent.  It must have basic principles.  But those principles must be general, and presented in such a way as to avoid alienating the great center, where elections are won.

Daley's column is a great lesson in American politics.

December 24, 2009    Permalink

THE BATTLE GOES ON - AT 9:49 A.M. ET:  This isn't exactly in the Christmas spirit, but must be reported. 

SANAA (Reuters) – A radical Muslim preacher linked by U.S. intelligence to a gunman who killed 13 people at a U.S. Army base is believed to have died in a Yemen airstrike on al Qaeda militants, a security official said on Thursday.

"Anwar al Awlaki is suspected to be dead (in the air raid)," said the Yemeni official, who asked not to be identified. Yemen said 30 militants were killed in the strike in the eastern province of Shabwa.

The gunman in the November 5 shooting at the Fort Hood, Texas army base, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, had contacts with Awlaki late last year, U.S. authorities believe.

COMMENT:  If Obama ordered the attack, we back him.  We are at war with Al Qaeda, and must chase them all over the world.  The president's left wing will be appalled, and will have fainting spells, but we must commit these American fringe elements to the dustbin of history, where they have long belonged.

December 24, 2009   Permalink

A LARGELY UNTOLD CHRISTMAS STORY - AT 9:19 A.M. ET:  The politically correct media usually screens out stories like this, but the truth is coming through:  Christians are leaving Bethlehem, not because of "Israeli oppression made possible by the imperialist, capitalist Cheneyites in Washington," but because Muslims don't want them there.  From outstanding reporter Benny Avni, in the New York Post:

Christians are fleeing the town of Christ's birth, and the much-reported hardship that Israel inflicts on residents of the West Bank town has little to do with it. It's the same reality across the Arab world: rising Islamism pushes non-Muslims away.

Islamists frown on real-estate ownership by non-Muslims -- Christian, Jew or anything else. And though the secular Palestinian Authority still controls the West Bank, the clout of groups like Hamas is growing: Even in Bethlehem, where followers of history's most famous baby once thrived, Christians are ceding the land.

And...

Fifty years ago, Christians made up 70 percent of Bethlehem's population; today, about 15 percent...

...But, again, the story's the same in Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere in the Mideast. Practically the only place in the region where the Christian population is growing is in Israel.

Church groups appear to be silent on the matter:

Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh wrote recently that, before Pope Benedict visited the Holy Land in May, a Christian merchant told him jokingly, "The next time a pope comes to visit . . . he will have to bring his own priest with him [to] pray in a church because most Christians would have left by then."

A researcher of Arab and Muslim affairs, Jonathan Dahoah Halevy, says Islamists think that "soft" Christians around the world wouldn't intervene on behalf of their brethren in places like Bethlehem. Benedict's visit seems to bear that out: He criticized Israeli policies while ignoring the crucial role Islamists play in chasing Christians out of town.

Finally:

So there may or may not be room at the inn when you arrive at the little town of Bethlehem, but the innkeeper is unlikely to be a Christian.

COMMENT:  Why did I have to read about this in the New York Post?  Nothing about it in The Times, or on CNN.  I guess Christiane Amanpour didn't notice. 

And, of course, the National Council of Churches, which always does the job for whatever left-wing cause is around, has nothing to say.  That "council" is to religion what Hugo Chavez is to democracy.

So keep the Christians of Bethlehem in mind this season.  Our silence isn't helping them.

December 24, 2009   Permalink 

GUESS WHO'S COMING FOR DINNER? - AT 8:49 A.M. ET:  Our friend Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, guiding light of Planet Iran, alerts us to a possible pilgrimage by that prince of peacemaking, Mr. Excitement himself, John Kerry.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Kerry has suggested becoming the first high-level U.S. emissary to make a public visit to Tehran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, a move White House officials say they won't oppose.

Why would this White House oppose begging?

The offer comes as mass protests against Iran's regime are resurfacing and a U.S.-imposed deadline nears to broach international sanctions against Iran.

Oh, the inconvenience of all those democracy types. 

"This sounds like the kind of travel a chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee would -- and should -- undertake," said a White House official, adding it would be at Sen. Kerry's own behest.

Translated into the people's English:  Get your butt over there, John.  We'll give you something to offer them.  Get us out of this!

Many opponents of Tehran's regime oppose such a visit, fearing it would lend legitimacy to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a time when his government is under continuing pressure from protests and opposition figures. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets again this week to voice their opposition to the government following the death of a reformist cleric.

Amen.  Anything that needs to be said can be said in negotiations already underway.  And those negotiations are stalemated.

"The wrong message would be sent to the Iranian people by such a high-level visit: The U.S. loves dictatorial regimes," said Hossein Askari, a professor at George Washington University and former adviser to Iranian governments.

And...

Mr. Obama has given Iran until year-end to respond to international calls for direct negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program before facing new economic sanctions. Many U.S. and European officials believe the window for diplomacy with Iran is rapidly closing, as Tehran has largely balked.

COMMENT:  A Kerry trip would look like an act of desperation.  Not a good idea.  Tough sanctions are a good idea, although it's unlikely we'll get them.

The president will probably not be able to avoid a serious confrontation with Iran in 2010.  How he handles it, with or without John Kerry, will have a profound effect on the future of his presidency.

December 24, 2009   Permalink

DON'T YOU FEEL BETTER ALREADY? - AT 8:08 A.M. ET:  The United States Senate, sometimes called the world's greatest deliberative body, has passed the health "reform" bill, 60-39, with not a single Republican voting for it.  The bill now must be reconciled with the House version.  From The New York Times:

If the bill becomes law, it would be a milestone in social policy, comparable to the creation of Social Security in 1935 and Medicare in 1965. But unlike those programs, the new initiative lacks bipartisan support. Only one Republican voted for the House bill last month, and no Republicans voted for the Senate version.

Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, a moderate Republican who has spent years working with Democrats on health care and other issues, expressed despair.

“I was extremely disappointed,” Ms. Snowe said. After Senate Democrats locked up 60 votes within their caucus, she said, “there was zero opportunity to amend the bill or modify it, and Democrats had no incentive to reach across the aisle.”

David Broder, in the Washington Post, is pleased to see something passed, given the struggle, for decades, to introduce reforms into the health-care system.  But he notes, in sorrow:

But Lord, what a load of embarrassment accompanies this sense of satisfaction! What should have been a moment of proud accomplishment for the Senate, right up there with the passage of Social Security and the first civil rights bills, was instead a travesty of low-grade political theater -- angry rhetoric and backroom deals.

And...

The taint has rubbed off on the bill. This week's Quinnipiac University poll found a majority of Americans disapproving of the legislation by 53 to 36 percent and an overwhelming number -- 73 to 18 percent -- saying they do not believe it will, as promised, reduce future budget deficits. It now becomes President Obama's responsibility to strengthen the bill's cost-saving features and present them in a better way...

...It would help a lot if he reached out personally to those few Republicans who might still want to improve the bill rather than sink it. And it would help even more if he shamed the Democrats into rescinding some of the crasser bargains they made to buy votes along the way.

The country would welcome even a few signs that this legislation has bipartisan support.

Then we could applaud its final passage and take our thumbs from our noses.

COMMENT:  Broder is giving good advice.  Because the public doesn't like the bill doesn't mean that Americans are cheering the GOP for opposing it.  They want to see creative suggestions from the Republicans to improve the health-care system, even if those ideas are defeated by the majority.  There is still time for the GOP to prove that it isn't just the "party of no."

Remember, if this gets to the president's signature, the Dems will launch a major sales campaign to sell it to the American people, and it can be effective.  Opposition may weaken among the citizenry.  There will be a natural tendency for many Americans to want to "give the thing a chance."

Never assume we're out of the woods.  We're never out of the woods.

December 24,  2009   Permalink 

WEDNESDAY,  DECEMBER 23,  2009

HOUSE DEMS WON'T ROLL OVER - AT 8:51 P.M. ET:  Conventional wisdom has it that the House Democrats will eventually cave in and accept the Senate compromise on health "reform."  Not so fast.  The ultra-liberals aren't rolling over, as The Politico reports:

On the eve of a historic health care vote in the Senate, liberal Democrats in the House have launched a full-throated defense of the public option — a sign of battles to come when party leaders try to meld the two bills.

“Now that the Senate is poised to pass its version of a health care reform bill, it is time to turn to reconciling it with the House legislation," California Reps. Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey said in a joint statement Wednesday. “For Congress to achieve true health care reform we must have a meaningful conference process that integrates both bills into the best possible piece of legislation for the American people."

COMMENT:  True, Woolsey and Lee are fringe characters, members of the way-out-there California delegation, but they speak for an important bloc of votes in the House. 

This health-care fight is far from over.  It's being reported that President Obama expects the issue to linger until February, past the State of the Union message.  That gives Americans many weeks in which to make their voices heard.  I would not be shocked to see some "tea parties," even in the snow.

December 23, 2009   Permalink 

BREAKUP ON THE LEFT - AT 7:13 P.M. ET:  Apparently, there isn't total harmony in the precincts of the Hollywood left, as the Washington Post notes:

After two decades of togetherness and a reputation as one of the more stable relationships in Hollywood, a rep for Susan Sarandon this afternoon announced to People.com that not only has she split with partner of 23 years Tim Robbins, but that they actually broke up months ago:

"Actress Susan Sarandon and her partner of 23 years, actor Tim Robbins have announced that they separated over the summer," her rep Teal Cannaday tells PEOPLE in a statement. "No further comments will be made."

What happened and why the announcement now just in time to ruin the holiday season? Doubtless, details will emerge over the coming days.

COMMENT:  They were Hollywood's quintessential leftist couple.  Sarandon, in particular, almost outdistanced Jane Fonda. 

Now, a few questions:

1.  When Hollywood leftists split, do they fight over their millions, or does the fortune go to the workers?

2.  Will lawyers be involved, or will there be facilitators?

3.  Is there child custody on the left, or will the kids be shipped off to a commune?

4.  If one partner was found to be cheating with a person of a different race, does that partner get extra credit in any settlement?

5.  If one partner tried to hurt the other by cheating with a Republican, does that partner have to do penance by cutting Barbara Streisand's lawn for a year?

6.  Who keeps the bust of Che Guevara?  Who keeps the Hugo Chavez coffee mug? 

7.  Which one will get the note of regret from the White House?

Okay, okay, okay.

December 23, 2009   Permalink

WE WONDER WHY - AT 6:30 P.M. ET:  It's surprising to find this in a mainstream magazine like TIME, but I'm glad they ran it.  It seems 2009 was a frightening year in terms of terror:

You may not have noticed because most of the plots were foiled, but 2009 saw an unprecedented surge in terror "events" on U.S. soil. When analysts tally these events, they refer to anything from a disrupted plot to U.S. citizens traveling abroad to seek terror training or a lone gunman running amok in the U.S. And by the calculations of Rand Corporation expert Brian Jenkins, more terrorist threats were uncovered in the U.S. during 2009 than in any year since 2001.

"There appears to be an increase in [terrorist] activity in the U.S.," warns Jenkins, who calculates that there have been 32 terror-related "events" on these shores since 9/11, and that 12 of those occurred in 2009.

To its credit, TIME lists the Fort Hood shooting as a terrorist incident, deviating from the trendy line that the shooter was simply "stressed."

But then we get this:

Terrorism experts and Muslim community leaders caution that the spurt in such events doesn't necessarily add up to a trend. For one thing, the cases are unconnected. "Each case has its own special circumstances," says Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Garbage in, garbage out.  Of course they're connected.  They're connected by a common ideology.  Have you ever noticed how these jihadists always seem to use the same language?

The internet is being used widely as a recruiting tool:

Jihadist recruiters have grown increasingly sophisticated in their use of the Internet, and many of them specifically target American audiences. Extremist e-preachers such as Anwar al-Awlaki, an American living in Yemen who exchanged e-mails with Maj. Hasan, communicate in English, which makes them more accessible to American Muslims. Pakistani authorities believe the Virginia Five were recruited by a man known as Saifullah, who communicated mainly through e-mails.

And...

Jenkins suggests there may also be a generational conflict at work: He points out that many of the American Muslims accused of terrorism this year are young men, who "would have been at a very impressionable age when 9/11 happened." Although the majority of the community were repelled by the terrorist attacks on that day, he says, "some would have been inspired by it and caught up in the jihadist narrative."

If 2009 alerted Americans to the domestic terror threat, it's a safe bet that there will be more reminders of the danger in 2010.

COMMENT:  No doubt.  And no doubt we'll get the usual excuses and rationalizations.  But one factor not discussed in the piece, or in the mainstream media generally, is the signal of weakness being sent by the Obama administration.  Jihadists, like any other fighters, sense the power and resolve of the opposition.  And weakness encourages them.   

If you were a jihadist, would you rather face Barack Obama or Dick Cheney? 

Case closed.

December 23, 2009   Permalink

THAT SINKING FEELING - AT 10:20 A.M. ET:  There's a good reason why no one at the White House refers to Scott Rasmussen as "Santa Claus."  They'd like to send back every gift he brings.

This morning's Rasmussen report has still more bad news for the president, and his party:

Overall, 45% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. The President’s overall approval has stayed between 44% and 46% every day for twelve days. Prior to that, it had stayed between 46% and 50% every day for more than two months.

Fifty-five percent (55%) now disapprove of the President’s performance.

It is the trend that should worry the White House.  There was stability for a time, but the last 12 days (of Christmas?) have shown another downturn.

And there's this:

Republicans have opened their largest advantage yet on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

Rasmussen has the details:

Republican candidates now have an eight-point lead over Democrats, their biggest lead of the year, in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent.

Support for GOP candidates held steady over the past week, but support for Democrats slipped by a point.

COMMENT:  The Dems are reportedly hoping that the president's signing of the anticipated health "reform" bill will turn things around.  Well, that's possible.  Moments of triumph, well orchestrated, can have a bandwagon effect.  But I really wonder whether that will happen this time, with so much public opposition to the bill being signed.

Other than that, there isn't much coming down the road that looks good for the Dems...unless of course the Republicans really mess up their 2010 campaign.  Can't judge that just yet.

December 23, 2009   Permalink

THE SPIES AMONG US - AT 9:03 A.M. ET:  We are not supposed to talk about this.  Polite people don't, you know.  After all, it's so unintellectual.  But NRO went slumming a bit, and gave us this remarkable piece about a spy among us, and how he was accepted by the elites.  Revolting.

Now another case of spying has emerged from the halls of our government institutions. And this one may raise a sardonic chuckle over how casual liberal sympathies and knee-jerk Bush bashing made a Communist agent seem normal among the elites in academia and our nation’s capital.

Kendall Myers, who worked for the State Department for some 30 years starting in 1977, eventually earning Top Secret / Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) clearance, pled guilty and was convicted last month of spying for Cuban intelligence for virtually all that time. He has been sentenced to life imprisonment. His wife, Gwendolyn, was not employed by the State Department, but pled guilty as his accomplice and received a sentence of six to seven and a half years.

They will now officially be listed by the left as political prisoners, victims of imperialism, and martyrs in the battle against BUSH (!!).

Myers also taught part-time at Johns Hopkins.

David P. Calleo, director of European studies at Johns Hopkins, knew Myers for 40 years but was taken completely by surprise at the news of the arrest in June. “Anyone who knows him finds it baffling and finds this completely out of character,” Calleo said. “He has this amazing intellectual curiosity. He is open to all kinds of ideas.”

Why such traits would make spying “out of character” in Professor Calleo’s judgment is not clear, but being “open to all kinds of ideas” is probably the ultimate compliment in the liberal mind, at least on a theoretical level.

And...

...during the couple’s time in Washington, nothing about Mr. Myers seemed exceptional. He fit right in with his anti-American attitudes and bitter fury at U.S. policies — his “deep and long-standing anger toward his country,” as court documents put it. “To his liberal neighbors in Northwest D.C. it was nothing out of the ordinary,” according to the Washington Post. “We were all appalled by the Bush years,” volunteered a neighbor.

Finally...

A former colleague of Mrs. Myers during her time in a low-level Capitol Hill job observed, “She was not remarkably different than dozens and dozens of other people that you ran across in the 1970s who were McGovernites who got into politics for reasons other than to make a lot of money.”

Well, let’s hope she and her husband were at least a little different from all those other McGovernites. Certainly, not all ex-McGovernites receive the personal commendation of Fidel Castro himself for their “disinterested and courageous conduct on behalf of Cuba.”

COMMENT:  What is remarkable is that Kendall Myers was so open in his attitudes, and yet no one thought it unusual.  Maybe if he'd just come into the State Department one day wearing a hammer-and-sickle lapel pin, a few eyebrows might have been raised.  Then again, maybe not.  Just another narrative, you know.  Who are we to judge?

December 23, 2009   Permalink

ARE THESE PEOPLE SERIOUS? - AT 8:30 A.M.  Fox News gives us an insight into the kind of thinking surrounding health "reform."  Will someone please ask Obama about this?  Is this what he meant by "change we can believe in"?

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, after securing a sweetheart deal for his state as part of the health insurance reform bill, said Tuesday that three other senators have told him they want to bargain for the same kind of special treatment.

"Three senators came up to me just now on the (Senate) floor, and said, 'Now we understand what you did. We'll be seeking this funding too'," Nelson said.

But the Democratic senator, who has faced a heap of criticism for appearing to trade his vote on health care for millions in federal Medicaid money, said he's considering asking that the Nebraska deal be stripped from the bill.

What?  Now this is intriguing.

Though he defended the exemption as a "fair deal," he said he never asked for the full federal funding that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ended up granting his state. Nelson said he instead asked that states be allowed to refuse an expansion of Medicaid.

"This is the way Senate leadership chose to handle it. I never asked for 100 percent funding," he said.

Reportedly, there's actually a backlash in Nebraska among decent citizens who feel their state has stolen something.  That's heartland America.

Nelson has maintained that the only reason he even brought up Medicaid was that Nebraska Republican Gov. Dave Heineman put him up to it.

After Nelson sent a letter to the governor offering to kill the Medicaid deal, Heineman acknowledged that he and other governors had "expressed concern" about the state burden for Medicaid patients. But he rejected any suggestion from Nelson that he asked for the kind of deal Reid struck.

Public revulsion is building.  The question is whether it's great enough to block final passage of the bill.  The answer is, probably no.  The Democrats feel they're making history.  They're completing the sixties dream of a more socialist society, with greater control by the government.  They even seem prepared to lose Congressional seats, maybe even control of Congress, over this. 

Ideological fanaticism is having its day.

December 23, 2009   Permalink

'TIS THE SEASON FOR...LAWSUITS - AT 8:08 A.M. ET:  Of course, what season isn't for lawsuits these days? 

The Washington Examiner reports that the health "reform" bill about to be passed by the Senate is drawing the attention of lawyers, some of whom are ready to challenge the constitutionality of some provisions:

Looks like the steadily growing list of constitutional, ethical and political outrages that constitute the Harry Reid version of Obamacare is sparking a rebellion in the states, as AP reports South Carolina's attorney general plans to investigate the vote-buying that surrounded the proposal in the Senate majority leader's office.

According to AP, South Carolina's Henry McMaster is being joined by the attorneys general of Michigan and Washington state in a suit to determine the constitutionality of the Obamacare proposal. Their initiative was prompted by a request from South Carolina's two senators, Lindsay Graham and Jim DeMint, both Republicans.

Attorneys-general in at least four other states are also considering joining McMaster, according to AP. A move by a group of states to challenge the constitutionality of Obamacare could reinvigorate the efficacy of the 10th Amendment, which reserves to the states or the people all rights not specifically granted to the federal government.

COMMENT:  What hasn't been emphasized in the media is the fact that this legislation, if it finally passes both houses of Congress and is signed the president, will lead to a variety of legal actions and challenges.  You may be sure that whole law firms will be formed just dealing with Obamacare, and what it will do to patients and physicians. 

Further, the Dems will tell you that the legislation doesn't cover illegal immigrants.  No, not in its current form.  But you can be sure that a legal challenge will be mounted, on constitutional grounds, if an illegal immigrant is denied care.  Courts may have as much to do with the health services we receive as Congress. 

December 23,  2009   Permalink