Darkness reigns: Obama and the Vampire Congress
It’s official. The Hill reports this morning that the Dems have formally agreed to bypass the formal conference committee process to ram the government health care plan through for Barack Obama: “Aides said the agreement was reached during a Tuesday evening meeting at the White House with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and the top two Democrats from each chamber…After huddling among themselves at 10 a.m. Wednesday morning, House leaders will return to the White House for a 2:30 p.m. meeting with the president and Senate Democratic leaders.” Behind closed doors. It’s the Vampire Congress way.
Tell Washington and blinky Nancy: Let the cameras in. Take action and sign the petition here.
Via Naked Emperor News: Count the lies…
***
Obama and the Vampire Congress
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
Meet the Beltway bloodsuckers. They convene in the dead of night, when most ordinary mortals have left work, let their guard down, or are lying asleep in bed. Pale-faced and insatiable, the nocturnal thieves do their nefarious business in backrooms and secret chambers. Their primary victims? Taxpayers, the free market, and deliberative democracy.
Democrat leaders have been promising the most ethical, transparent, open, and engaged administration for years. Instead, they have delivered a bleak and creepy legislative environment that could double as a Twilight movie set. House Democrat leaders forbade debate on all but one amendment not authored by themselves. Skulking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rammed the government health care takeover package through under cover of darkness before Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Senate Finance Committee killed a GOP amendment that would have required Demcare to be available online for 72 hours before the committee voted. Reid and his Volterra–style henchmen cut last minute Cash-for-Cloture deals behind closed doors.
And now House and Senate Democrat leaders are reportedly preparing to cut dissenters out of the reconciliation process by bypassing the formal conference committee.
In Hill parlance, this legislative short-cut is called “ping-ponging.” A better game analogy: Dodgeball. With mounting opposition from both conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats, President Obama’s water-carriers must use every trick in the book to speed the final merging and passage of the bill before the end of the month.
The hypocrisy reeks stronger than rotting garlic. In 2006, House Democrats asserted that “House-Senate conferences are a critical part of the deliberative process because they produce the final legislative product that will become the law of the land.” That same year, Harry Reid railed on the Senate floor against informal deal-making that circumvented the conference committee process – and he attacked the use of manager’s amendments to avoid public scrutiny:
“Of course, nobody can see the managers’ amendment. It is composed of over 40 amendments. How could anyone vote for a piece of legislation such as that — a managers’ amendment with 42 separate amendments? Now, these amendments were not put in a conference committee. People complain about that. But at least in a conference committee, you have people working together, sticking things in…Here, you have one person making a decision as to what is going to be in the managers’ amendment. There is no way to know what is in it.”
But four years later, it was Reid who snuck his 383-page manager’s amendment – stuffed with payoffs, special breaks, and concessions on health care – into the Senate hopper on the Saturday before Christmas break. Four years later, it is Reid stifling the open, collaboratively conference committee process he so fiercely championed.
Where’s Barack Obama? As a candidate, he promised repeatedly to broadcast legislative negotiations on C-SPAN “so that the American people can see what the choices are” and “so that the public will be part of the conversation and will see the choices that are being made.” But the most transparent presidential administration ever is shrugging its shoulders. On Tuesday, White House spokesmen Robert Gibbs pooh-poohed C-SPAN’s request to allow electronic media coverage of the Demcare negotiations.
Instead, Gibbs thinks Americans should be grateful for what they got last month: “The Senate did a lot of their voting at 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning on C-SPAN.And I think if you watched that debate — I don’t know — I wasn’t up at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning for a lot of those votes, but I think if the American public had watched…you’d have seen quite a bit of public hearing and public airing.” And if you missed the middle-of-the-night broadcasts, tough noogies.
Team Obama’s contempt for meaningful transparency has been on display from Day One. A year ago this month, President Obama broke his vaunted open government pledge with the very first bill he signed into law. On January 29, 2009, the White House boasted that Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act had been posted online for review. Except: Obama had already signed it – in violation of his “sunlight before signing” pledge to post legislation for public comment on the White House website five days before he sealed any deal.
From the stimulus to the health care takeover to holiday bailouts for bankrupt financial behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it’s been all backrooms and blackouts ever since. The Prince of Darkness at 1600 Pennsylvania is perfectly happy with his Vampire Congress. Wraiths of a sunshine-evading feather flock together.
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Categories: Barack Obama,Harry Reid,Health care,Nancy Pelosi
Patterico
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» The Church of Obama
Vampire L’Etat.
RedPill, Mr.P; here’s an exerpt from an email I sent to Glenn Beck yesterday taking issue with his dissing of ‘birthers’:
I have no problem with conspiracy theory, but I am not a public figure. Obama did hide this stuff by himself. He had help. It is birth records and college records we need to see.
I know Hawaii pretty well. There are only 3 hospitals (I use to work at Queens). There is no record of his birth at any of the 3.
To get into Punahou, one must start with pre-school. How did he even get into the damn school?
Who paid for his schooling at Columbia?
Did he lie on his applications?
Did he claim to be Muslim?
Did he benefit from Affirmative Action, though his father was not even American, and his mother was white?
I want to see all of it, but you see. The Trilaterialists are not about to release any of it.
When, and where was Blackula born? Did Count Soros turn him to the undead Marxists?
A ray of light in the darkness:
Ann Coulter’s column re the best deal you’ll ever have.
Why exactly was he banned? He was provocative but I don’t understand the overreaction.
Heck, we had liberals trolling on here saying and insinuating things even more “objectionable” to what blindmule is accused of doing. I really wish Michelle would revisit this issue.
Let’s be honest: Obummer never meant anything he said on the campaign trail. All that nonsense about transparency and airing debate on C-SPAN was for the dupes who voted for him. For those who were and still are skeptical of him, they knew better. And still do.
All these Dems and RINO’s are interested in is propping up their taxpayer-supported careers and continuing to steal from American taxpayers because THEY CAN. It’s their right and to hell with what the citizens think.
Is this what a Constitutional Republic looks like? I think not.
Contrary to what all the Dem cheerleaders say of course.
He placed LGM’s head on the body of an SS officer and I do not mean Secret Service. If it had been a secret service officer, he would be in GITMO for sure. As it stands, he got the boot for offening a little (and I mean little) troll.
It seems that defacing a POTUS (no matter how offensive that POTUS is) is okay though!?! This seems to me to fall under the heading: Double standard.
I see. I don’t see the harm seeing as that I’ve seen far worse swipes by occasional liberal visitors to this blog. I would think that this would fall more under political speech which wouldn’t be a technical TOS violation. This is why I wish that Michelle would revisit this issue.
I also understand what you mean by “double standard.” See-dubya and other creative posters have come up with really awesome political graphic commentary that could be seen as “objectionable” and “provocative” by some quarters and yet they’re not banned. Perhaps, because these were devised with Michelle’s “permission.” I don’t know.
It’s a little bit disheartening “some” liberal posters have gotten away with far worse than what blindmule came up with. It’s rather odd really since the offended party in question seems to have stopped posting entirely. What purpose did booting blindmule serve? He could have just gotten a warning and that would have been fine.
Again… blindmule’s post doesn’t justify the result what with the flying personal invective between posters on here. There’s a lot of tolerance for hyperbole, monster threads, and salacious innuendo that never gets called on.
We’d all be banned if that were the case which makes what happened to blindmule a little bit bemusing. I’m sure he’s posting under some other pseudonym so I hope he’s not gone forever.
This the stake into the chest of the beast!
I don’t have any issues with you or Red Pill, Bob. I think it might be the way in which the BC issue has been brought up. For the record, I do think that Obummer is a “citizen,” of which country I’m not sure of. He did use to live in Indonesia which usually has people renounce their former citizenship to become Indonesian citizens (which is what I thought he did when he was there with his mother and stepfather). There seems to be some question of the whole citizenship trail so to speak.
My main concern really lies with this educational background and transcripts. Hell, we had the MSM and liberal bloggers openly compare the academic records of both presidential candidates during the 2004 campaign. Why is Obummer so off limits?
The real problem I have is when so many liberals point to Obummer’s supposed intellectual capacity. Where is their evidence? It’s not like we can actually dissect his academic transcripts to find out if he had any scholarly promise or if he was just an affirmative action dud. We don’t really know what he studied, how he did in those classes, and what his GPA was.
Another thing I wonder about is in what percentile did he graduate in his undergrad and law school classes? I haven’t seen any articles or research done on this. Where is his law license to practice law? What was his law career like?
This man is near untouchable and being protected while the likes of Kerry and Bush were easily dissected. What makes Obummer so special? The rest of us, especially if you’re applying to graduate school or applying for certain jobs such as in the fields of education, have to prove you have a certain amount of credits and academic prowess. What is Obummer’s excuse?
I honestly think that Michelle and other conservative bloggers look down on “truthers” or those who want more information on his citizenship, origins, and academic background. We didn’t have to take Bush’s or Kerry’s word for it so why do we have to do that with Obummer?
Suffice it to say, no one in the MSM or alternative media wants to touch this subject.
emjem24 said:
We didn’t have to take Bush’s or Kerry’s word for it so why do we have to do that with Obummer.
I just found this…
I’ll send Congressman Deal an e-mail congratulating him on his courage.
Haven’t heard about this, but I have noticed everything of this nature is kept very quiet. Even though it can be used by the left to ridicule and mock those who question Obama….they really prefer that everything remain quiet, because every time the subject is discussed it’s bad for them, and it reminds folks of Obama’s hidden records and long-form birth certificate.
And while you’re at it, click over to Sen. Crapo’s site and sign his petition:
http://mikecrapo.com/
We’re getting other like-minded Senators on board as I type to create similar sites. Sen. Crapo has been against this from day one. Show him you agree.
–Cosmo
If I recollect correctly, the only way to kill vampires is to shine the Light of truth on them, or a stake of Liberty through the heart, and/or kill their leader by voting him or her out of office. Sounds like we need some ‘vampire killers’ to step up and get to work. To the political version of Peter Vincent, where are you?
In more ways than one.
Petition signed…..I’m glad Senator Crap-o recognizes a pile of O-crap when he sees it.
Surfed over to the petition and would have signed it but for one statement: “We need reform”. Yeah, the gooberment will fix it.
Want reform? Get lawyers out of the system. Put professional jurors in the box not emotional people looking to hand out huge pay-outs. Trot reform.
We have Piper Aircraft here. Do you know over 50% of the cost of an airplane is insurance? Every time a plane goes down a truck load of lawyers show up and sue:
The spark plug company
The rivet company
The sheet metal company
The engine manufacturer
The guy who put the pin stripes on the paint
…
If you don’t think lawyers are the problem, check out THIS SITE: Who Can I Sue
Sure, I should sign a petition wanting the gooberment to fix health care. Sorry.
The DemCare bill is unconstitutional. I certainly hope the challenges to it are being prepared as we speak.
The audacity of of Reid and Pelosi is stunning. They included an section in the bill that say that Congress can not repeal or change this crap.
Lawsuits in the aviation industry, in particular the General Aviation industry, are a disgrace.
Real story (that you may already know).
The aircraft is a Beech Bonanza flown by a doctor. NTSB report says…He flies it into a thunderstorm in Eastern PA. A big one (as if there were another kind) and loses control of the aircraft. The plane exceed speed ratings Vne to be specific, and he rips the tail off, crashes somewhere along I78 as I recall, and of course kills himself.
His estate sues Beechcraft. I believe they won or settled. And as I recall, they also sued Slick (now Bendix) the magneto manufacturer, among others.
Beech was not at fault, nor were any of the component manufacturers. The person at fault was the dead doctor. This fool flew into a thunderstorm in a light aircraft. But the lawyers managed to bamboozle a judge, jury of both and forced an innocent party, Beechcraft, to have to choose the lesser of two evils if in fact they settled.
Very typical story in General Aviation. It is clear evidence that lawyers are a huge part of the problem. If not THE problem. But the ignorant judges and ignorant jurors are also at fault.
Last I read about it… 1/3 of new GA aircraft cost pays for a liability policy. These aircraft typically cost from $250K to $1 mill. The dollars involved are huge. And lawyers love it.
Want to fix healthcare? In the words of a famous author… Kill all the lawyers first.
To both:
Bingo!!
correct.
Good posts.
Except, NJ, I doubt a “judge” was bamboozled.
“Judges” – or, as they should more accurately be called, magistrates, since they usually don’t exercise judgment, at least not good judgment – are, after all, lawyers.
Yes indeed the DemCare bill is unconstitutional. Between Pelosi’s “you have to be kidding, right?-to Bambi’s “Bill of Negative Rights”-to Rep. James E. Clyburn’s “We do a lot of thing not in the Constitution” they really do not care.
Bambi and friends are just waiting for some more Supreme Court openings. Yes the audacity of of Reid and Pelosi is stunning-but not totally unexpected. The battle with the Fascist, the tyrant goes on.
Thanks granite.
I can’t believe I typed “Trot reform”
… Tort reform
NJ,
I sat on a mock jury for a day. Same problem as your plane crash story. People were killed due to the negligence of the driver and the person in charge of the group that CAUSED THE ACCIDENT. Since the vehicle was hit but a truck, lawyers jumped at the chance of a big pay-out.
After the evidence was given, we were sent into a room to elect a jury forman and then we were supposed to debate the evidence and settlement. What I learned:
The jury didn’t care who was at fault
They didn’t want to discuss the evidence
Some introduced opinions as evidence
They just wanted to get to the settlement process
They wanted the truck company to pay based on – they can afford it
I was the lone hold-out who wanted to deliberate the evidence.
I was the lone hold-out on no settlement above what the trucking company was willing to pay (out of compassion and not guilt as they were not guilty)
In the end, I pulled a lady aside and told her to tell the trucking company to settle because she was present and saw what was going to take place in real life.
There is a dire need for professional jurors who will not let emotion and hugh dollar signs sway them.
Alas, lawyers will admit the system is not perfect but they sure do not want to slit the throat of their holy cahh cow either.
Just my 2 cents worth.
“Trot reform”=teaching horses to trot better
“Trot reform”=trotting out CongressCritters for their morning beating
Good point Granite. I can picture the “wink and nod” in the courtroom.
Talk about a Vampire Congress. How about “Backdoor Bailout Geithner” who forced AIG and other participants in that deal not to disclose that they were forced to refund Goldman Sachs 100 cents on the dollar of toxic debt they held.
It isn’t that Goldman Sachs is a better bank than the others, it’s that they own the regulators.
Speaking of darkness: Drudge reports Obama allows only one hour for healthcare coverage. Now, there’s the marxist in chief we all know…he’s the boss and he can do this stuff because “he won.”
HAR! In that case, yeah, I meant to say that!
Why, what a splendid idea!
Can’t you just see it?
“Read the bill – you get 1 hour.”
You can bet it will be all politics and chest-thumping. Each politician will act like the good guy. Then the cameras are shut off and it’s back to the usual corruptness and power-grabbing routine.
I don’t know why they worry about the small stuff. They obviously are only voting on collecting the money for the “concept” of healthcare reform. Why don’t they just say so.
But wait…we are going to be shocked soon….
Oh more drama, smoke and mirros from the White House….now what are they trying to avert our attention from?
wait for it…
The “shock” will conclude that it’s all Bush and Cheney’s fault.
Giving away our sovereignty and jamming all that stuff back into the Healthcare bill that was taken out while they pass it behind closed Kremlim doors.
I disagree. You can not blame the victim of a CON-ARTIST! You blame the con man and put him in jail.
IOW, we need to put these lying, deceiving con artists that call themselves politicians in jail for willing deceiving the Taxpayer.
I call them criminals and I do not think anyone could find a better descriptive term.
I disagree with you here; I do blame the idiots that put these criminals into power.
But, I cannot disagree with your terminology, nor with your suggestion for what should be done with the criminals.
I can not blame the innocent that were lied to and led to believe they were voting for a “moderate”. However, I do blame those who were not innocent and knew they were voting for a “progressive”.
So, I do not blame ALL who voted the criminals into office, seeing that they are criminals who intentionally deceived the voter. Therefore, I put the bulk of the blame on the criminal and ask my fellow victims of their crimes to find a way to put them in jail so that justice may be served and this United Republic saved.