With a 60 to 39 vote, the Senate has passed the motion to proceed to move on with the debate over Obamacare. Again, it is important to note that this is only a vote to begin the floor debate on the bill. It is not a vote to pass Obamacare.

In the Washington Examiner, Byron York has an excellent point when he asks, “why was it so hard for Democrats even to start the healthcare debate?”

The extraordinary thing about the dramatic events surrounding the health care bill in the Senate is that there is any drama in it at all. Lawmakers are simply voting to begin debate on their version of health care reform. Just begin debate — not end it, and not move on to a final vote.

If Democrats, with a 60-vote majority in the Senate, were not able to begin debate on the top Democratic policy priority in a generation — well, that would be a devastating turn of events, both for the party and for President Obama. And yet just starting debate has proved difficult, and only today did the 60th Democratic vote fall in place in favor of beginning the process.

I have made this point myself as it happens. On Nov. 19, I was writing about the sly, underhanded tricks that Reid was using to advance the Senate debate on Obamacare but why, I wondered, are these tricks even necessary? If this bill has the wide-spread support that the Democrats keep claiming it has, why all the dirty tricks, obfuscations, and rules bending?

If this bill was a legitimate bill would all of these dirty tricks be necessary? Further, if this bill had such wide acceptance and agreement among Congress and the people alike, why are Democrats afraid to let everyone see the bill?

York is essentially echoing my point and adding that this bill does not have wide support in Congress or among the voters that Reid, Pelosi, and the President are pretending it has. The fact that Reid had to work so hard to get this thing even to a stage where further debate could be had is telling.

We still have a chance to kill this bill, people. We must keep the pressure on our Congressmen.

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CNS News did some investigating, and Ed Morrissey came up with this analysis:

At least ostensibly, this is an unfunded mandate on the states, which run the exchanges. What happens when no insurer in the state offers abortion coverage? At the moment, 87% of all abortions are purchased outside of third-party payers, so this is not an academic question. Do the feds intend to shut down an exchange that doesn’t offer an abortion plan? Or do they expect the states then to cover abortions instead?

… Once Congress stops re-enabling the Hyde Amendment, the mandates in Reid’s Section 1303 will force the federal government to supply the coverage for abortion where state exchanges have none. It will give the federal government an entree into broader health-insurance offerings, and that will have one ironic effect: it will crowd out those few private insurance plans that offer elective abortion coverage. Where Stupak’s opponents insisted that his language would create a “price signal” that would encourage private insurers to abandon abortion coverage, this would all but guarantee the same result, as private insurers would get undercut by the federal plan that would come into play.

This is nothing more than a mandate for federally-funded abortions. How long would it take a court to make that same determination? I suspect that Planned Parenthood and NARAL already have their legal counsel preparing for it.

It’s not exactly a surprise that the health care bill would include funding for abortion. Feminists have been howling about the Stupak amendment, the abortion lobby has been furious. Liberals were bound to cave in to their demands, and they were bound to try to hide it from the federal public. It is typical of liberals. And it’s infuriating to anyone with any kind of morals or respect for the sanctity of life. It’s bad enough that abortion is celebrated as some kind of right in this country, like it’s glorious for a woman to be able to go and kill her baby. Feminists in particular revel in it, like it’s some kind of sacred cow. Apparently, you have to be a member of the “I <3 Abortion" club in order to be a feminist in today's world. There are currently about 1.3 million abortions performed a year, and this isn't good enough for feminists. They not only want abortion to be free and legal, they want it to be paid for by Americans whether they like it or not. It has to be taxpayer-funded.

It's important that we all understand this. It's not good enough for feminists just to have abortion be legal and freely accessible. Any woman who wants to can get an abortion. And there is already $300 million a year in taxpayer subsidies for Planned Parenthood. There's plenty of federal funding for abortion, but feminists always want more. It isn't enough for abortion to be legal, it isn't enough for it to be federally subsidized. How much do they want? Does every single abortion performed need to be taxpayer funded so that any woman who wants one never has to pay for it out of her own pocket? It's a disgusting state of affairs. Half the country is morally opposed to abortion. But liberals are a special group of people. If they believe in something, then everyone must be for it and it must be federally mandated and subsidized. If they don't believe in something, then no one should believe in it and it must be totally banned. And so, thanks to this mental outlook and the carping of the feminist/abortion lobby, we are now looking at forcing half of the people in this country to fund something to which they are virulently opposed.

Burn up that switchboard today. You can find contact information for your senators here.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!

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Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

Emails such as this

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. (Watts Up With That? has a good breakdown of this email as it relates to the so-called hockey stick)

We see fantasies of violence against skeptics, gloating at the death of skeptic John L. Daly, suppression of evidence, and forcing dissenting views out of academia. Wouldn’t want people to actually practice science, you know.

The big media is covering it, and, in some cases, trying to spin it away, as the NY Times tries, along with the Guardian. Others get all sorts of “hey, let’s cover both sides of the issue fairly,” which only happens when they know their side is in deep doo doo.

Michelle Malkin calls it the climate scandal of the century, but, I’m not so sure about that. The entire issue of anthropogenic global warming is a scandal. A fake issue that originally started as a few scientists wondering if Mankind’s output of greenhouse gasses, in particular, CO2, were causing a warming trend. This was quickly hijacked by people who realized they could use it to make themselves some money, often mandated by Government, turn themselves into stars, and, oh, initiate a way to put people, companies, and economies, heck, even countries, under the control of Government, just as their 70’s and 80’s love of the repressive Soviet Union government told them to.

Don’t believe me? We’ve heard about it many times before. Lord Monckton stated that he had read the Copenhagen draft treaty, and it would be the death knell of American sovereignty and freedom. Oh, and here’s EU President Herman Van Rompuy, telling us what the point is

“The Climate Conference in Copenhagen is another step forward towards the global management of our planet…”

Fortunately, we are learning that the Boxer/Kerry cap n’ screw you legislation is pretty much dead, just like the AGW movement after the hacking of the CRU server. Of course, some Climahysterics would be happy when some of the bigger names in the anti-AGW movement kick the bucket and stop exposing the insanity and BS coming from Climahysterics.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

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Sen. Claire McCaskill on Thursday touted the Senate healthcare reform bill by taking a dig at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s new book.

McCaskill (D) said if the bill was printed in regular size font, it would be the same length as Palin’s (R) memoir Going Rogue: An American Life “but with more meat on the bone.” She tweeted:

If we printed the health care bill in regular size font it would be same legnth as Sarah Palin’s book, but with more meat on the bone.

The Senate healthcare bill is 2,074 pages long. Palin’s book is 413 pages long with 16 pages of photographs.

Best comment at the source

Senator McCaskill would do well to remember that no one is being asked to suffer under the yoke of the contents of Sarah Palin’s book. Nor will they be forced, against their will, and at perhaps great financial cost, to abide by the contents therein. Methinks Senator McCaskill should probably speak less, and listen, (to the American people), more. Dusan on 11/19/2009 at 22:32

Can’t add anything to that.

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Power-hungry TVs will be banned from store shelves in California after state regulators adopted a first-in-the nation mandate to lower electricity demand.

On a unanimous vote, the California Energy Commission on Wednesday required all new televisions up to 58 inches to be more energy efficient beginning in 2011. The requirement will be tougher in 2013, and only a quarter of all TVs on the market currently meet that standard.

And then I found out that Los Federales did the same thing.

There will be three consequences of the Nannyfornia law. 1st, the costs will skyrocket for those that meet the standards. 2nd, people will go out of state, or even down to Mexico, to purchase their TV’s. 3rd, there will be fewer choices. I witnessed something similar first hand in NJ back in the day when they jacked the taxes on automobiles. So, people went to Pa., NY, and Delaware to purchase. Cars in NJ were on short supply. Dealers were going out of business. NJ repealed those taxes quickly, though. Something like this will never go away.

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Reducing Greenhouse Gases May Not Be Enough to Slow Climate Change

Georgia Tech City and Regional Planning Professor Brian Stone publishes a paper in the December edition of Environmental Science and Technology that suggests policymakers need to address the influence of global deforestation and urbanization on climate change, in addition to greenhouse gas emissions.

According to Stone’s paper, as the international community meets in Copenhagen in December to develop a new framework for responding to climate change, policymakers need to give serious consideration to broadening the range of management strategies beyond greenhouse gas reductions alone.

“Across the U.S. as a whole, approximately 50 percent of the warming that has occurred since 1950 is due to land use changes (usually in the form of clearing forest for crops or cities) rather than to the emission of greenhouse gases,” said Stone. “Most large U.S. cities, including Atlanta, are warming at more than twice the rate of the planet as a whole – a rate that is mostly attributable to land use change. As a result, emissions reduction programs – like the cap and trade program under consideration by the U.S. Congress – may not sufficiently slow climate change in large cities where most people live and where land use change is the dominant driver of warming.”

According to Stone’s research, slowing the rate of forest loss around the world, and regenerating forests where lost, could significantly slow the pace of global warming.

“Treaty negotiators should formally recognize land use change as a key driver of warming,” said Stone. “The role of land use in global warming is the most important climate-related story that has not been widely covered in the media.”

Stone recommends slowing what he terms the “green loss effect” through the planting of millions of trees in urbanized areas and through the protection and regeneration of global forests outside of urbanized regions. Forested areas provide the combined benefits of directly cooling the atmosphere and of absorbing greenhouse gases, leading to additional cooling. Green architecture in cities, including green roofs and more highly reflective construction materials, would further contribute to a slowing of warming rates. Stone envisions local and state governments taking the lead in addressing the land use drivers of climate change, while the federal government takes the lead in implementing carbon reduction initiatives, like cap and trade programs.

“As we look to address the climate change issue from a land use perspective, there is a huge opportunity for local and state governments,” said Stone. “Presently, local government capacity is largely unharnessed in climate management structures under consideration by the U.S. Congress. Yet local governments possess extensive powers to manage the land use activities in both the urban and rural areas.”

The Environmental Science and Technology article is available at http://pubs.acs.org/journal/esthag.

SOURCE (See the original for links, graphics etc.)

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

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CNSNews is reporting that the Democratic leadership rejected 11 amendments to the healthcare bills that would have required Congress to suffer under the same onerous healthcare legislation they would force upon the rest of the country.

Republicans offered various schemes, some that would require only Congress to join Obamacare, some that would require even members of the Supreme Court, the president, the vice president and other federal employees to give up their generous Federal Employees Health Benefit Program.

“If Congress forces our constituents into a public option plan over time, then members of Congress should be expected to do the same,” Rep. Howard McKeon (R-Calif.) told CNSNews.com.

It is curious that Democrat members of Congress can sit there in Washington with a straight face and tell us lowly voters that Obamacare is best for us, yet steadfastly refuse to force themselves to exist under that same plan.

If Obamacare is so wonderful, why exactly are Democrat Congressmen so averse to suffering the same fate as the voters? It is obvious that they know the truth about Obamacare. It is a disaster and they know it. Otherwise, why would they fight so hard to stay out of it?

Lobo addendum:

“The House of Representatives … can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.” – James Madison

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As health care legislation moves toward a crucial airing in the Senate, the White House is facing a growing revolt from some Democrats and analysts who say the bills Congress is considering do not fulfill President Obama’s promise to slow the runaway rise in health care spending.

The bills that Democrats have submitted and have forced a vote on, were never about costs but about control of 1/6 of the economy, and control of you, the People.

Mr. Obama has made cost containment a centerpiece of his health reform agenda, and in May he stood up at the White House with industry groups who pledged voluntary efforts to trim the growth of health care spending by 1.5 percent, or $2 trillion, over the next decade.

Now, that might actually be Obama’s goal (how are we to know, he is all over the map when he yaps), yet, there is a whopper of a problem with that, namely, that Obama has really had nothing to do with crafting the House health monstrosity beyond some cajoling and pretty partisan speeches. Then again, Obama says quite a few things, makes lots of promises, and rarely fulfills any of them.

But health economists say it is impossible to know whether the bills, including one passed by the House on Saturday night, would meet that goal, and many are skeptical that they even come close.

That should be a big red flag for everyone, but, then, as stated time and time again, except in the liberal MSM, this legislation really has little to do with saving anyone money.

Experts — including some who have consulted closely with the White House, like Dr. Denis A. Cortese, chief executive of the Mayo Clinic — say the measures take only baby steps toward revamping the current fee-for-service system, which drives up costs by paying health providers for each visit or procedure performed. Some senators are also dissatisfied.

?????? Well, yes, health providers are paid for patients coming to see them and providing medical care. Shocking, eh? I guess the cost of birthday cakes goes up because people come and buy birthday cakes.

It couldn’t have anything to do with

There is quite a bit of difference, including cost, between a 1908 Model T and a 2101 Aston Martin, eh?

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For most of the last century, the West faced real enemies: totalitarian, aggressive, armed to the teeth. Between 1918 and 1989, it was possible to believe that liberal democracy was a parenthesis in history, destined to be undone by revolution, ground under by jackboots, or burned like chaff in the fire of the atom bomb.

Twenty years ago today, this threat disappeared. An East German functionary named Günther Schabowski threw open his country’s border crossings, and by nightfall the youth of Germany were dancing atop the Berlin Wall, taking hammers to its graffiti-scarred facade. It was Nov. 9, 1989. The cold war was finished.

Bark Bark Woof Woof actually has a pretty good summation of this

So perhaps the reason we’re not making a bigger deal out of the anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall is because it did not come after a brutal and bloody struggle. No shots were fired; after weeks of peaceful protests without repression from the state — a sign of impending capitulation itself — an East German bureaucrat mistakenly announced the lifting of visa requirements and the dreaded VoPos of East Germany stood meekly aside as the Trabants trundled through Checkpoint Charlie to the rhythm of rock music and dancing teenagers. What had been the stuff of James Bond and John Le Carre became Woodstock.

Still, BBWW failed to mention Reagan’s contribution to this. Without his economic war, disguised as a military one, we would not have seen what occurred on 11/9/89. Back to Ross

There will be speeches and celebrations to mark this anniversary, but not as many as the day deserves. (Barack Obama couldn’t even fit a visit to Berlin into his schedule.) By rights, the Ninth of November should be a holiday across the Western world, celebrated with the kind of pomp and spectacle reserved for our own Independence Day.

A nice little shot at Obama. I understand him not wanting to go. His writings showed that he had no clue what Reagan was doing, and, seriously, Obama has more in common with the Soviet leaders of that day than with strong American leaders willing to stand up for Freedom around the world at all costs. Plus, it would be difficult to turn the event into one about The One.

Never has liberation come to so many people all at once — to Eastern Europe’s millions, released from decades of bondage; to the world, freed from the shadow of nuclear Armageddon; and to the democratic West, victorious after a century of ideological struggle.

Thank you, Ronald Reagan!

Meanwhile, our domestic politics are shot through with antitotalitarian obsessions, even as real totalitarianism recedes in history’s rear-view mirror. Plenty of liberals were convinced that a vote for George W. Bush was a vote for theocracy or fascism. Too many conservatives are persuaded that Barack Obama’s liberalism is a step removed from Leninism.

Plenty? How about a majority of them, unhinged, constantly comparing Bush to Hitler, thinking that Bush was personally placing bugs in their homes and cars, spying on them, building detention centers for liberals, that he would not leave the White House on January 20th, 2009, but would stay as a dictator…..you know the whole thing.

Obama could never achieve Leninism, and doesn’t match up. He doesn’t have the leadership skills, nor the will power to make the tough decisions. He just floats from one PC to another, sprinkling campaign stops in between. But, he has way more in common with Lenin’s view points than with American viewpoints.

Problem being, totalitarianism is not dead and gone. Islamists exist, and their movement is growing. Is it as dangerous right now as the Soviet Union? Not even close. But, all it takes is people looking away, wishing the problem didn’t exist, treating it strictly like we can use RICO statues against it, for it to grow.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

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