The Senate reconvened at 10 AM today. The Senate will resume consideration of the tourism promotion bill, S. 1023. Later in the day, the Senate may vote on final passage of the bill. Following completion of work on the travel bill, a vote is expected on cloture on the nomination of Cass Sunstein to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at OMB. Since 1990, Cass Sunstein has written 35 books which advocate changes to U.S. law in the following issue areas:
- Expanding radical animal rights, specifically granting the right to legally sue to animals and banning hunting.
- Rationing medical care for the elderly as a major component of health care reform legislation.
- Increasing gun control legislation because he views "almost all gun control legislation as constitutionally fine."
- Advocating federal law to provide for 'presumed consent' rather than 'explicit consent' for human organ donation to science after death.
- Censoring freedom of speech, particularly on the internet to crack down on "falsehoods" and "rumors."
Around 12:15 today, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican Leader John Boehner will hold a news conference on health care reform.
At 8 PM, the Senate and the House will hold a joint session of Congress to listen to the President Obama’s message on health care reform. Obama is preparing to give a speech on his repackaged vision for health care reform to a joint session of Congress tonight, the first speech by a president to a joint session outside of a State of the Union address since President Bush’s speech in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Appears all the Tea Party protests and town hall meeting, have forced Obama to "re-package his vision." Regardless, of the following press comments, it is doubtful that freedom loving Americans are going to like his re-packaged vision of Obamacare.
Given the rarity of such an event, one might expect this to be the culmination of the White House’s efforts to sell Democrats’ health care reform plans, but it appears that the administration can’t even agree on what the takeaway from the speech is supposed to be. Various administration officials have been saying that Obama will lay out specifics about his vision for reform. Asked by a reporter yesterday if “the president [is] going to give new specifics in the speech tomorrow night that he has never publicly stated before,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “Yes.” According to The Washington Post, “Vice President Biden, in an appearance in Washington on Thursday, said the speech will map out ‘in understandable, clear terms what our administration wants to happen with regard to health care, and what we are going to push for specifically.’” But “a top official guiding speech preparation” told Politico the next day, “[Obama] has not made any final decisions about the ultimate form of his package . . . . Anyone that tells you that he has is misinformed . . .”
Other administration officials seemed to be saying different things about Obama’s message on a government-run insurance plan, often referred to as a “public option.” One aide said to Politico last week, “We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition. . . . There are lots of different ways to get there.” But The Wall Street Journal reports today that Obama “will press for a government-run insurance option in a proposed overhaul of the U.S. health-care system that has divided lawmakers and voters for months.”
Based on the rhetoric from fellow Democrats and Obama’s speech to union members on Monday it’s possible that tonight’s speech will feature the same arguments and the same exhortations that the president has been using since June. Yet we have a surfeit of polls showing that those arguments have been either ineffective or outright rejected by Americans. Consider yesterday’s Gallup poll, showing a 19 point drop in support for Congress passing “a major healthcare reform bill this year.” The latest poll shows only 37% want their member of Congress to vote for a health care reform bill, while the July poll showed 56% wanted a bill passed. Two weeks ago, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that a third of respondents said the Democrats’ health care proposals would make their own health worse, while only 19% believed it would make it better. Forty percent thought their insurance coverage would get worse under these proposals while only 14% thought it would improve. A plurality, 41%, thought their health care costs would get worse under these proposals while only 19% thought they would get better.
As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell explained yesterday, “[T]hese past few weeks have given all of us something valuable. They’ve given us real clarity about the direction Americans want us to take — and just as importantly, the direction they don’t want us to take.” If President Obama's repackaged vision continues to press Americans for reforms they don’t want, his speech is not likely to settle the health care debate. Regardless, Democrats will press the will of their leaders and we should expect backdoor triggers to implement everything objectionable in all future legislation.
It is time to forget bipartisanship. Forget the pork or what you think you need to do to get money for your constituents. It is time for conservatives in Congress to stand against socialized health care in any form or function. It is time to stand against cap and trade. It is time to vote against confirming the radicals put forward by President Obama. It is time to stand against all effort limiting or controlling any freedom or right of American citizens including efforts to limiting free speech on the airways and by individuals, the right to assemble, the right to bear without fear arms and to acquire and possess ammo without being tracked.
Failure to do so will not be seen as acting in a bipartisan way or working to get the best deal in a bad situation. It will be seen as cowardly. And in 2010, cowards need not apply but will be swept from our minds and hearts as useless. It is time to represent your constituents and not the constituents of someone else. And although representing does not mean having to be in agreement with all you constituents, it does mean preserving and protecting the constitutional rights of all citizens and not "stealing from some of them to give to others." Nor does it mean supporting the President of the United States. You represent your geographic constituents and no one else!
Tags: Cass Sunstein, nationalized health care, US Congress, US House, US Senate, Washington D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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