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Tea Party Kicks off Tour as 20,000+ Rally in Searchlight, Nevada as Reid Supporters Attack Throwing Eggs; UPDATE: AP Admits Huge Crowd, Omits Reports of Reid Supporters Attacks; Breitbart testimony added; UPDATE #2: Politico reports 20,000 in attendance, debunks Palin smear, reports claims of Reid supporter attacks; 2008 Obama Violent Quotes Added

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

Over 10,000 Tea Party supporters rally in Searchlight, Nevada

Building upon a tide of rising of discontent throughout America regarding the recent historical passage of the gigantic Democratic comprehensive health reform plan known as Obamacare, tea party activists held a rally in the hometown of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) today with at least 20,000 gathering to hear headline speaker Sarah Palin.  In what many are terming a “conservative Woodstock,” Sarah Palin spoke about the need for the federal government to cut its bloated budget and to rollback the massive Obamacare package, a desire held by many across America and perhaps everyone in the crowd today judging by the cheers. Palin’s key moment came when discussing Democratic control of Congress, when she stated that Americans should say in November 2010 that “You’re Fired”.

Many Supporters of Sarah Palin were amongst the tea party folks rallying in Searchlight, Nevada todayThe establishment media, of course, is working to delegitimize and smear the tea party movement in the wake of the passage of Obamacare, with the AP clearly putting out this narrative before today’s rally:

Organizers predict as many as 10,000 people could come to tiny Searchlight, the hardscrabble former mining town where the Senate Democratic leader grew up and owns a home. But a light turnout or disruptions could lead to questions about the emerging movements’ credibility and direction.
….
The rally that’s been called a conservative Woodstock takes place just days after the historic health care vote that ushered in near-universal medical coverage and divided Congress and the nation.

The vote was followed by reports of threats and vandalism aimed at some Washington lawmakers, mostly Democrats who supported the new law.

Police don’t expect problems but the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is sending dozens of uniformed and plainclothes officers to patrol the crowd.

The AP, of course, fails to mention that the senior Jewish politician in America, GOP House whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), had a bullet hit one of his Virginia offices (as confirmed by Richmond, VA police).  Considering the massive turnout today, clearly exceeding the estimates of organizers, Americans now know that the tea party is far from finished and perhaps still building strength after the passage of Obamacare. Live reporting from the scene on cable reports that the main highway into tiny Searchlight, Nevada is hopelessly jammed with other folks trying to make it to the rally while a mile long line to enter the rally area, as all available parking on the scene is occupied and folks are parking in town and having tour buses drop them off near the rally and heading in on foot.

Despite the establishment media’s claims that the tea partiers are an violent, angry mob, today’s event was marred only by attacks from supporters of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), as about 35 Reid supporters lined the street leading into the rally and threw eggs at the passing traffic, including the Tea Party Express buses. Such conduct is clearly a threat to the safety of those traveling on the street and a sign of the extremism rising on the left, despite what the media may report. Further, other Reid supporters actually attacked conservative media personality Andrew Breitbart, throwing eggs at him and threats of violence according to those on the scene:

Supporters of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid staged a counter-protest today in Searchlight, Nevada, the Senator’s hometown. Reid supporters gathered just down the road from the launching point of the Tea Party Express tour, and when Breitbart happened upon them, he was met with threats of violence. At least one protester threw an egg at Brietbart, missing him. Eggs were also thrown at the Tea Party Express bus.

We expect the establishment media to ignore these violent acts and threats of violence by Reid supporters directed at tea party activists, as such incidents do not fit into the establishment media’s narrative of tea party “extremism”.   At a minimum, the media should demand answers about what Reid campaign officials organized the 35 Reid supporters to show up on the side of the street and whether the highly dangerous tossing of eggs into a motorway was sanctioned by such officials, and if not sanctioned, what did Reid’s people do to stop it, if anything.

Indeed, the level of enthusiasm necessary to pack a town of only 500 registered voters like Searchlight with 10’s of thousands of people is unlike anything seen in America in many decades.   Considering that President Obama’s approval has again begun to decline, dipping back under 50% after a brief post-Obamacare bounce, the conventional wisdom of the establishment media and all Democratic politicians that the passage of Obamacare would lead to a substantial jump in Democratic fortunes appears to be collapsing, one rally and one poll at a time.

UPDATE: The Associated Press this evening filed a story about the tea party rally today in Searchlight, Nevada, and as expected, did not report the fact that Reid supporters pelted passing cars and tea party buses with eggs from the side of the motorway and threatened Andrew Breitbart, as documented by Breitbart’s radio appearance later in the day. Considering the AP’s reporting of the phantom racial slurs in DC that no one in America has any video or audio evidence actually occurred, despite the presence of many network cameras and folks’ video phones that day in DC, it is unsurprising that the AP refuses to report the Reid supporters’ conduct. Amazingly, the AP did report on the Reid supporters’ presence in the area, but did not report on their activities of throwing eggs at passing vehicles or their threats of violence towards conservative activist Andrew Breitbart:

Reid supporters set up a hospitality tent Saturday in the parking lot of a Searchlight casino, about a mile from the tea party rally. The Senate leader planned to spend part of the day at a new shooting range in Las Vegas with National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.

Luis Salvador, 55, an unemployed fire sprinkler fitter, drove down from Las Vegas to support Reid, who he said has done a lot for the state and doesn’t deserve the protest brought to his hometown.

“You don’t come to a man’s house and start creating a ruckus,” said Salvador, a registered independent. He and several others taped signs saying “Nevada Needs Harry Reid” to the side of a truck near the highway that runs through town.

Another Reid supporter, Judy Hill, 62, said she doesn’t understand the hatred of Reid. The longtime Democrat from Searchlight said she thinks people just don’t know the man she calls a friend.

“They listen to the rhetoric. I think he’s very misunderstood and under-appreciated,” she said.

It is beyond question that this AP reporter, Michael R. Blood, had access to the internet and could have, and probably did, read the release of the tea party organizers which reported the violent activities by the Reid supporters. The AP’s Blood could have easily talked to Breitbart or listened to his radio appearance, or talked to Levi Russell, who issued the release for the Tea Party Express describing the violent conduct of the Reid supporters, and then interviewed others who were on the tea party bus that was attacked. However, the AP’s Blood chose not to pursue this angle of the story, as it would have been damaging to the Democratic Party, which the AP has sworn undying fealty to in all of its reporting, apparently.

Sadly, this cover up of the violent activities and rhetoric of the Democratic Reid supporters, as testified to by Andrew Breitbart, is just another chapter in the biased and slanted reporting of the establishment media, explicitly demonstrating the double-standard employed by the establishment media of always downplaying or omitting any untoward activities by liberals while inventing or exaggerating any untoward activities by conservatives. Indeed, reporter Blood seems somewhat perplexed that there was no violence amongst the tea party’s 10,000+ crowd, saying that the event “appeared peaceful“.

Andrew Breitbart, seen here in a more relaxed setting, today was reportedly threatened with violence by Reid supporters near the tea party rally

Further, the AP’s Blood makes a curious point in reporting on Breitbart’s speech:

Conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart disputed accounts that tea party activists in Washington shouted racial epithets at black members of Congress amid the health care debate, although he didn’t provide any evidence.

“I know you’re not a racist group,” he told the crowd.

Unmentioned by the AP’s Blood is that the Democrats did not “provide any evidence” that any tea party protester “shouted racial epithets at black members of Congress” other than their own “testimony” in front of the cameras. Indeed, also unmentioned by AP’s Blood is the fact that Breitbart offered a $10,000.00 donation to the United Negro College Fund if anyone could produce any audio or video evidence of the use of any racial epithets:

If we let them get away with Saturday’s stunt — using the imagery of the Civil Rights era and hurtful lies to cast aspersions upon the tea party whole — then they really will have won the day.

It’s time for the allegedly pristine character of Rep. John Lewis to put up or shut up. Therefore, I am offering $10,000 of my own money to provide hard evidence that the N- word was hurled at him not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once. Surely one of those two cameras wielded by members of his entourage will prove his point.

And surely if those cameras did not capture such abhorrence, then someone from the mainstream media — those who printed and broadcast his assertions without any reasonable questioning or investigation — must themselves surely have it on camera. Of course we already know they don’t. If they did, you’d have seen it by now.

THOUSANDS OF TIMES.

Rep. Lewis, if you can’t do that, I’ll give him a backup plan: a lie detector test. If you provide verifiable video evidence showing that a single racist epithet was hurled as you walked among the tea partiers, or you pass a simple lie detector test, I will provide a $10K check to the United Negro College Fund.

Is James Carville, senior Democratic strategist, behind the recent campaign to smear tea party supporters as racists, despite the lack of any video or audio evidence of any slurs of any kind?

Of course, no such evidence has been forthcoming or produced because, in all likelihood, the claims of racial taunts by Democrats were simply spurious claims made to distract the American public from the content of the massive Obamacare package and to smear those who oppose it. Recall the story a few weeks ago that Democrats were planning ways to bring down the tea party movement, by perhaps turning one of its leaders into a “mole” and smearing the rest as extremists:

Big Government has learned that Clintonistas are plotting a “push/pull” strategy. They plan to identify 7-8 national figures active in the tea party movement and engage in deep opposition research on them. If possible, they will identify one or two they can perhaps ‘turn’, either with money or threats, to create a mole in the movement. The others will be subjected to a full-on smear campaign. (Has MSNBC already been notified?)

Big Government has also learned that James Carville will head up the effort.

Obviously, there is no love lost between Obama and the Clinton machine. It may at first seem odd that Clinton would rush to Obama’s defense, but the tea party movement poses a threat far beyond the immediate goals of the Obama Administration.

The tea party movement could evolve into a new political realignment, one founded on a belief in limited government and less government interference in the economy. The Progressive agenda, which has been painstakingly built up over the last three decades, could be left in tatters.

As the Clinton’s know, “politics ain’t beanbag.” Expect the counterattack soon. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

The avalanche of Democratic claims this week of racial slurs and hysteria about “threats” appear to be the very “counterattack” of the Democrats against the tea party that was predicted by Breitbart. Nancy Pelosi and company strolled down the middle of the tea party protest hoping to get a you-tube moment of a screamed slur or even a physical confrontation – but the tea party protesters simply didn’t provide any such video moment to the Democrats. Because of this lack of evidence, the Democrats have been forced to go out on a limb and, in our view, falsely assert that slurs were made that no one managed to get a recording of, despite the rolling cameras of multiple networks and hundreds of camera phones during the walk up to Capitol Hill. It is truly a sad day in America when the establishment media reports as fact claims made by Democrats about racial slurs for purely political reasons without any evidence whatsoever to back them up.

The AP did, however, grudgingly admit that a giant crowd of tea party supporters descended on tiny Searchlight, Nevada:

At least 9,000 people streamed into tiny Searchlight, a former mining town 60 miles south of Las Vegas, bringing American flags, “Don’t Tread on Me” signs and outspoken anger toward Reid, President Barack Obama and the health care overhaul.

Organizers had said up to 10,000 people might come; around 1 p.m., police estimated the crowd was between 9,000 and 11,000.

Note that the first paragraph excerpted above, near the top of the article, uses the low estimate, and only later in the article, near the end, does the AP’s Blood admit that “police estimated the crowd was between 9,000 and 11,000” which was what organizers had hoped for. Of course, earlier in the day, before the rally, AP’s Blood had this to say, trying to set up his ability to write a hit piece on the tea party after the rally:

Organizers predict as many as 10,000 people could come to tiny Searchlight, the hardscrabble former mining town where the Senate Democratic leader grew up and owns a home. But a light turnout or disruptions could lead to questions about the emerging movements’ credibility and direction.

Of course, as Blood reported, the turnout was heavy at the rally and the rally “appeared peaceful“. One might expect Blood to write a story reporting that the tea party showed its building “credibility and relevance” after the passage of Obamacare, considering the rousing success of the rally; one might also expect the AP’s Blood to report upon the press release of the Tea Party Express claimed Reid supporters were engaged in violent acts against the passing tea party buses from the side of the motorway, throwing eggs, or the threats of violence against Breitbart. Sadly, AP’s Blood was not there to report objectively on the facts of what happened, he was there to write a hit piece on the tea party – which, fortunately, he was unable to do because of the indisputable success of the rally today.

The violent acts and threats of Reid’s supporters will now fade into the memory hole of unreported facts, despite Breitbart’s testimony, as the AP story on the rally will likely be the only mainstream media reporting to emerge from today’s rally. If tea party supporters had been the ones tossing eggs into oncoming traffic on the side of the highway, or if tea party supporters had been the ones shouting threats of violence, we can be certain that the AP’s Blood would have started and ended his story reporting those facts. All told, the biased and slanted reporting of the AP today is yet another example of the partisan and ideological nature of America’s media in the 21st century.

UPDATE #2: Politico confirmed in their midnight report that the tea party turnout was indeed massive, as they estimated 20,000 supporters were there:

“When we talk about fighting for our country, let’s clear the air right now about what it is that we’re talking about,” she told a crowd estimated by organizers at 20,000 gathered for a rally in a windswept desert lot about four miles north of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s tiny hometown. “We’re not inciting violence. Don’t get sucked into the lame-stream media lies.”

Palin said “violence isn’t the answer.” She said “our vote is our arms” and encouraged activists not to be discouraged by the passage of the Democratic healthcare overhaul bill last week, but rather to channel their energies into defeating congressional Democrats who supported the legislation.

Democrats this week accused Palin of exacerbating the already tense atmosphere after last weekend’s House vote passing the overhaul by telling her followers via twitter “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” and by singling out 20 House Democrats who voted for the health care bill as targets on her website using a map with cross-hair gun sights on their districts.

The targeting phraseology is commonly used by political pros to indicate priority races, but Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) told a New York television station that Palin’s presentation was dangerous, given the context.

Even left-leaning Politico cannot stomach the Democratic strategy of claiming Sarah Palin is “inciting violence” by targeting vulnerable Democrats for electoral elimination, noting that such “targeting phraseology is commonly used by political pros to indicate priority races”. Perhaps today’s rally will be the turning point where the establishment media stops reporting the ridiculous smears of Palin and the tea partiers fed to them by Democratic strategists and instead begins to actually focus on the substance of the massive Obamacare passage the Democrats have just passed into law.

Amazingly, Politico actually reported the egg throwing at passing tea party buses by Reid supporters and the violent threats upon Breitbart:

Conservative talk show host Mark Williams, an official with the political action committee that sponsored the rally, rejected media reports of slurs directed at House Democrats during tea party rallies in Washington before Sunday’s vote, which were based on first-hand accounts from reporters and members of Congress.

“That’s a crock,” he said, alleging that when his group’s buses – emblazoned with “Tea Party Express” – drove down Searchlight’s main street, they were pelted with eggs by Reid supporters, who lined the sidewalks waving mass-produced placards saying “Welcome to Reid Country.”

Williams declared “Thuggery is a left-wing tactic. We denounce it. We will not stand for it.”

On the homepage of the Big Government site of Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, who spoke at the rally, a headline reads:  “Harry Reid Supporters Attack Tea Party Bus!… Update: Breitbart Attacked!”

Now that an establishment media source has actually reported the violent, unsafe actions by Reid supporters and their violent threats to Breitbart, perhaps the story will gain some traction. Finally, regarding the claims that the GOP engaged in the incitement of aggression or violence by tea party protesters over Obamacare, perhaps the media should take a trip into the way back machine and review these Obama quotes:

Barack Obama, June 2008: “‘If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun

Barack Obama, October 2008: “I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face.

Has any Republican or tea party leader told his or her supporters to “bring a gun” to a fight with political opponents, or told his or her supporters to “argue with them and get in their face” in reference to liberals? Of course not, because if that had happened, it would be front page news in the extraordinarily biased establishment media.

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Hilarious: Senate Dems to Oppose GOP Obamacare Amendment To Ban Viagra for Sex Offenders

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the other Senate Democrats Plan to Oppose the GOP's Obamacare Amendment to Ban the Provision of Viagra for Sex Offenders

Yes, you read the headline right: Senate Democrats are so concerned about maintaining the exact language of the House reconciliation package for Obamacare that, as reported by Sam Stein of Huffpo, that Senate Dems will vote in lockstep against GOP Senator Tom Coburn’s amendment to ban the funding of viagra for sex offenders:

Democrats in the Senate say they are so committed to passing the House’s version of health care reconciliation fixes verbatim, that they are willing to vote against even the most alluring and unobjectionable of amendments — from legislation banning Viagra for sex offenders to language adding the long-elusive public option.

In what is the final act of the health care reform saga, the Senate on Tuesday began debating reconciliation fixes that the House of Representatives passed two days prior. The process includes a period of what could be unlimited amendments, during which it is widely expected that Republicans will try their best to get the legislation changed.

The idea is that by securing even a slight adjustment in the language, the Senate will have to send the bill back to the House of Representatives for reconsideration. Drawing out the process makes it more likely for it to be tripped up.

On Tuesday, the GOP put its strategy into action, with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okl.) introducing an amendment beyond agreeable. Titled “No Erectile Dysfunction Drugs To Sex Offenders” it would literally prohibit convicted child molesters, rapists, and sex offenders from getting erectile dysfunction medication from their health care providers.

While it will undoubtedly be difficult for Democrats to vote against the measure (one can conjure up the campaign ads already), the party plans to do just that.

“Democrats in the Senate are very unified that this is not going back to the House,” Sen. Wyden (D-Ore.) told the Huffington Post on Tuesday, minutes before the Coburn amendment was introduced.

The coming votes in the Senate on the GOP’s many amendments, including the attempt to ban the provision of viagra to sex offenders, are sure to provide some entertaining political theater and perhaps form the basis for a campaign ad or two against Senate Democrats who are up for reelection in 2010.

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Democrats Complete Backroom Deal on Obamacare Legislative Language; Endgame Begins

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Democratic Congressional Leaders and the Obama Administration cut a final, closed door deal last night on the legislative language of Obamacare

House and Senate Congressional Democrats, and representatives of the Obama Administration, met late into the night on Wednesday behind closed doors in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and apparently have come up with yet another, and final,  Democratic version of Obamacare, to be read to the House Democratic Caucus today, reports the AP about a hour ago:

WASHINGTON – A final agreement nearly in hand, President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders are about to embark on one last sales job that will determine the outcome of the president’s signature health care overhaul.

It will come down to a phenomenal effort by congressional leaders and the White House to win over skittish lawmakers after a year of incendiary debate, even as Obama keeps up campaign-style appearances designed to fire up public support.

A closed-door meeting in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office Wednesday evening moved congressional leaders and administration officials close to agreement on such issues as additional subsidies to help lower-income families purchase health insurance and more aid for states under the Medicaid program for low-income Americans.

Democrats still need to see a final cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office — and want to ensure it stays around $950 billion over 10 years — but they made plans to begin to read the bill to rank-and-file Democrats at a caucus meeting Thursday.

“We’re going to get started,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said after her meeting with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other key officials. Some unanswered questions remain, Pelosi said, “but we’re hoping that we’ll get those answered over the course of the reading. It’s not much.”

It should be noted, as it was not by the AP, that this final dickering and deal making between Democrats done behind closed doors last night was  without any transparency, punctuating a process of over a year of such backroom, closed door negotiations between Democrats regarding Obamacare. The AP apparently sees this backroom dealing and efforts to twist arms of reluctant House Democrats as “a phenomenal effort”, essentially playing the role of Obama Administration cheerleader instead of objective news organization.

Regardless, it appears that in the next week or so the House of Representatives will hold a vote on Obamacare, and between now and then the House Democrats who have refused to agree will likely be submitted to extreme pressure, in unison, from Speaker Pelosi, progressive interest groups, the establishment media and the Obama Administration. Retired Democratic Rep. Eric Massa provided a preview of sorts by describing the strongarming efforts of Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel over a prior vote, with Massa relating that a naked Emanuel charged Massa in the showers of the Congressional gym and screamed about Massa’s voting preferences while jabbing Massa in the chest with his finger.

While a repetition of Rahm’s nude finger jam is unlikely, as the days count down to the House vote, deals with individual House Democrats will be attempted, with promises of favors on other legislation or of increased campaign support or Administration jobs and threats of retribution for voting against Obamacare sure to intensify in the lead up to the House vote. As for President Obama himself, he plans on continuing the campaign speeches in various parts of the county to demand the passage of Obamacare now, as he exclaimed to the Missouri crowd yesterday, “[t]he time for talk is over. It’s time to vote. It’s time to vote. Tired of talking about it.”  The Obama Administration apparently disapproved of the inclusion of Obama’s claim that he is “tired of talking about it” in the AP’s article, as it was almost immediately removed from the AP feed after this morning’s publication.

Considering that after Obama shouted these words in Missouri, Democrats continued to feverishly engage in closed door “talk” over the actual legislative language of Obamacare, only reaching a deal late last night, yesterday’s presidential demand for the “debate” or “talk” regarding health care reform to be “over” is somewhat jarring, especially considering the President made similar comments last week and at various times since July 2009. Apparently closed-door, backroom negotiations between Democrats, such as the final private deal-making last night, is acceptable “talk” for President Obama regarding health care reform, but “talk” consisting of actual substantive negotiations with the GOP or any public, transparent negotiations over the language of the bill between Democrats is verboten.  Sadly, the text agreed to last night amongst Democrats will be withheld from the public for the next few days as sweetheart provisions are inserted to buy the needed House Democratic votes.

After the AP cheer leads by praising the Democratic effort as “phenomenal“, AP continues to further frame Obama’s health care efforts as a valiant “rescue mission” and finally lays out the shape of the Obamacare endgame to unfold in the days to come:

The current plan is for the House to approve the Senate-passed bill from late last year, despite serious objections to numerous provisions. Both houses then would pass a second bill immediately, making changes in the first measure before both could take effect. The second bill would be debated under rules that bar a filibuster, meaning it could clear by majority vote in the Senate without Democrats needing the 60-vote supermajority now beyond their reach.

Republicans have vowed to do everything they can to thwart the plan, and for the Democrats, some policy questions remain unsettled.

Obama already has moved to eliminate a couple of special deals in the Senate bill that turned off voters when they became public, including extra Medicaid funding for Nebraska — derided by critics as the “Cornhusker kickback.” Late Wednesday the White House said the president was pushing to strip out a number of deals that remain, possibly including a provision sought by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., providing Medicare coverage for residents of Libby, Mont., who suffer from asbestos-related illnesses because of a now-closed mining operation.

Considering that Obama Administration officials were with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid every step of the way when the odious, unethical deals were made to buy the votes of Democratic Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE), Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and others for the prior Christmas Eve vote on Obamacare, AP is certainly taking a lot of artistic license to now claim, as they do above, that Obama “has moved to eliminate a couple of special deals in the Senate bill that turned off voters when they became public”. The AP’s praise of the Obama Administration for removing some of the backroom deals that the White House and Congressional Democrats created in the first place, and removing them only after such unethical deals became public knowledge, again demonstrates the lapdog status of the establishment media towards President Obama and highlights the nearly impossible task facing opponents of Obamacare in the days to come as the entire establishment media and DC establishment move in tandem to push Obamacare over the finish line.

UPDATE: Ed at Hotair notes that several Congressional Democrats from Missouri are declining to participate in President Obama’s health care reform campaign rally there later today. The Washington Times reports:

The Show Me State temporarily became the No-Show State on Wednesday as some prominent Missouri Democrats decided they’d rather be somewhere else when President Obama came to push his massive health care overhaul plan.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, the all-but-certain Democratic nominee for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Christopher S. “Kit” Bond, was “already locked in” to meetings in Washington, D.C., on Wall Street financial reforms, said her spokesman, Linden Zakula, who downplayed her absence for Mr. Obama’s visit to St. Charles, just outside St. Louis. …

Rep. Ike Skelton, one of 39 House Democrats who voted against the party’s health care overhaul bill in December, also skipped the presidential stop in his home state. Mr. Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, was taking part in a House floor debate on the future of the war in Afghanistan.

In addition, Rep. Russ Carnahan, a Democrat from St. Louis and Mrs. Carnahan’s brother, skipped the event, even though it was in his home district.

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Reid: It is “Really Good” that 36,000 Americans Lost Jobs in February

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Said "Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good."

Just when you thought Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could not make a more inappropriate statement (see “Negro dialect”, see also “the war is lost”), Leader Reid unleashed this doozy on the Senate floor today:

“Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.”

Perhaps Harry Reid should say that, in person, to each and every one of the 36,000 families who lost a breadwinner in the past month. This breathtakingly insensitive statement to such families by Harry Reid today is sure to disrupt the Obama Administration’s efforts to portray their economic policies as having saved the economy. The full video of Reid’s statement is here, expect the media to pick up on this shortly.

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CNN: 73% Say Start From Scratch (48%) or Stop Work Completely (25%) on Health Care Reform; UPDATE: 52% Oppose Use of Reconciliation

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid May Want to Review CNN's Finding that 73% of the American Public Oppose Passing the Health Care Reform Bills before Congress now or Something Similar

This afternoon CNN released some troubling findings for the Obama Administration: Just 25% of the American public wants Congress to follow the lead of the newly released Obama Health Plan and pass a health care reform plan similar to the plans now before Congress. An overwhelming majority of Americans, 73%, prefer that Congress either start from scratch (48%) or stop work completely on health care reform (25%). Obama’s Health Plan contains essentially the same policies as the bill passed by the Senate, with the addition of price controls for health insurance premiums.

CNN buries the lede in its article accompanying the release of its findings, never mentioning that an overwhelming majority (73%) of the American public disapprove of passing a bill similar to the one before Congress, including four in ten Democrats who want the President and Congress to start over. CNN does manage to state that “nearly three quarters” of Americans want some kind of reform, including in that figure the 48% who want Congress to start over in that grouping in a somewhat dishonest fashion:

Washington (CNN) – Although the overall health care reform bills passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate are unpopular, many of the provisions in the existing bills are extremely popular, even among Republicans, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday also indicates that only a quarter of the public want Congress to stop all work on health care, with nearly three quarters saying lawmakers should pass some kind of reform.

Twenty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chambers, with 48 percent saying lawmakers should work on an entirely new bill and a quarter saying Congress should stop all work on health care reform.

…..

The poll’s release comes one day before a critical televised health care summit hosted by President Obama that will include top Congressional Democrats and Republicans.

The survey indicates nearly half of all Democrats say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chambers, with nearly 4 in 10 Democrats saying Congress should start from scratch and just 1 in 10 saying lawmakers should stop all work on health care.

A majority of Republicans questioned, 54 percent, want Congress to start from scratch, with just under 4 in 10 saying lawmakers should halt work on health care reform and just 6 percent saying Congress should pass into law the current legislation.

Fifty-two percent of Independents want Congress to start work on a new bill, with 27 percent saying lawmakers should stop all work, and 18 percent saying that the current legislation should be passed into law.

The final finding noted above in the CNN excerpt is truly incredible: a full 79% of Independents reject passing the current bills before Congress or something similar and only 18% of Independents favor moving forward with the present bills as advocated by the Obama Health Plan. That’s a 61 point gap between approval and disapproval, running against the plan initiated by the release of the Obama Health Plan last Monday and subsequent advocacy of the reconciliation process to circumvent the filibuster and push through Obamacare by the President and his Democratic congressional allies. With the mood of the country so clearly opposed to moving forward with the present bills or something similar in Congress, Obama must provide an incredible performance tomorrow to move public opinion back his way to convince nervous Democrats in Congress that proceeding with pushing through Obamacare now is in their best electoral interest.

UPDATE: Hotair points out that a new USAToday/Gallup poll taken yesterday shows the public opposed to Obama’s possible use of reconciliation to pass Obamacare by a 52%/39% margin and that only 22% of the public thinks the health care summit will result in a bipartisan deal.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs indicated Monday that, if necessary, the White House was open to using a parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation to bypass a prospective filibuster in the Senate. That means a measure could pass the Senate with a 51-vote majority rather than the 60 votes needed to end debate.

Americans are opposed 52%-39% to using that device to get a bill through.

The poll of 1,009 adults nationwide, taken by landline and cellphone Tuesday, has a margin of error of +/—4 percentage points.

UPDATE: Ace at Ace of Spades and Allahpundit at Hotair link over, thank you guys. Readers of Ace and Hotair please take a look around and leave a comment or three.

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Obama 2005: Condemns Reconciliation Use as “Absolute Power” and “Not What the Founders Intended.”

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

President Barack Obama and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Had a Very Different View the Use of Reconciliation in 2005

Explosive new video has surfaced today that shows President Barack Obama, and many other prominent Democrats condemning the Bush Administration in 2005 for Bush’s attempt to use reconciliation to push through judicial nominees.  These 2005 quotes are particularly jarring when compared to the 2010 quotes from the same folks about Obama’s attempt to use reconciliation to pass Obamacare. Senator Barack Obama, on 4/26/05, in response to a question on the “nuclear option” (how Democrats in 2005 characterized then-President Bush’s attempts to use reconciliation):

“He hasn’t gotten his way…uh…and that is now prompting a change in the Senate rules that really I think would change the character of the Senate uh forever and uh what I worry about would be that you essentially have still two chambers the House and the Senate but you have simply majoritarian uh absolute power on on either side and that’s just not what the Founders intended.”

Present Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid weighs in as well back on 5/18/2005, noting that

“The right to extend a debate is never more important than when one party controls both Congress and the White House. The filibuster serves as a check, on power, preserve our limited government.”

Considering Leader Reid’s comments yesterday that the Republicans should “stop crying” about Obama’s planned use of reconciliation to push through Obamacare, Reid’s comments in 2005 are particularly explosive in terms of today’s health care debate. Present Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also chimed in with a verbal barrage on 5/23/2005 against then President Bush about controlling himself and calling upon her GOP collegues to go to Bush and tell him reconciliation is “a bridge to far” and that “you have to restrain yourself Mr. President.” One could argue, in aftermath of the shocking GOP upset win in the Massachusetts Senate race in January 2010 by a candidate, Scott Brown, who explicitly campaigned against passing Obamacare, that a Senator from the Democratic side should have the type of conversation with the President as suggested by Secretary Clinton back in 2005.

Vice President Joe Biden weighed in with his familiar bombastic rhetoric in 2005 as well, stating that “this nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power…it is a fundamental power grab” and further opining in prayer that “”I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.” Of course, Biden now supports the Obama Administration’s plan to use reconciliation to push Obamacare through the Senate with only 50 votes (and his tie breaking vote).

A common theme of all of the Democratic Senators remarks in 2005 revolves around the destruction of the “Republic” and the elimination of the “checks and balances” intended by the Founders that would ensue should President Bush succeed in his effort to use reconciliation. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who is now leading the Senate effort to pass a public option through reconciliation, had this to say on 5/18/2005 about Bush’s attempt to use reconciliation:

“We are on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis. The checks and balances which have been at the core of this Republic are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option. The checks and balances which say if you get 51% of the vote, you dont get your way 100% of the time. It is amazing its almost a temper tantrum.”

Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Ca.) also condemned Bush for attempting to use reconciliation, stating if used reconciliation would mean “the Senate becomes ipso facto, the House of Representatives” while also showing her more dire concern is the use of reconciliation for substantive legislation, not judicial nominees, by stating Bush will start with reconciliation for judicial nominees but then move on to its use in legislation. Perhaps most bombastic of all in 2005 regarding Bush’s attempted use of reconciliation is Democratic Senator Max Baucus (D-ND), who solemnly stated that “[t]his is the way that Democracy ends not with a bomb, but with a gavel”. Of course, Bush did not actually use reconciliation to get his nominees through the Senate as a bipartisan deal was reached.

Incredibly, each and every one of the above-quoted then-Democratic Senators, Obama, Reid, Biden, Clinton, Schumer, Baucus and Feinstein, are in favor of the use of reconciliation to pass Obamacare, with many of those same folks actively leading the effort, including now-President Obama. Perhaps an enterprising reporter could ask Harry Reid to explain if this comment also applies to Democratic Administrations like Obama’s: “No, we’re not going to follow the Senate rules…no…because of the arrogance of power of this Republican Administration.” Finally, Harry Reid posts in April 2005 on his Senate website an explanation as to why the improper use of reconciliation must be rejected and the claim to entitlement to an “up or down vote” is suspect:

For the past several months, the Senate has operated under a nuclear cloud. As a result of the Senate’s decision to reject a small number of President Bush’s judicial nominees, the Republican majority has threatened to break the Senate rules, violate over 200 years of Senate tradition and impair the ability of Democrats and Republicans to work together on issues of real concern to the American people.

It is astounding that Republicans would precipitate this destructive confrontation, especially since this President has a better confirmation rate than any of his recent predecessors. The Senate has confirmed 205 of President Bush’s judicial candidates and turned back only ten, a 95% confirmation rate. Ten rejected judges – only seven of whom are currently before the Senate – does not seem reason enough for Republicans to break the Senate rules.

My Republican colleagues claim that nominees are entitled to an up-down vote. That claim ignores history, including recent history.

UPDATE: ABC’s Jake Tapper adds another Obama 2005 quote on reconciliation and the Framers of the Constitution:

At the National Press Club on April 26, 2005, then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was asked about a move being discussed by Senate Republicans, then in control, to change the Senate rules so as to require a mere majority vote rather than the 60 votes necessary to end a potential filibuster.

“You know, the Founders designed this system, as frustrating it is, to make sure that there’s a broad consensus before the country moves forward,” then-Sen. Obama told the audience.

His remarks have garnered some attention in recent days given the current likelihood that Senate Democrats will next week use “reconciliation” rules, which require only a 51-vote majority, to pass health care reform legislation, bypassing the current Senate rules of requiring 60 votes to cut off a potential filibuster and proceed to a final vote.

The White House has been in recent days setting the table for use of reconciliation rules for health care reform.

UPDATE #2: American Spectator’s blog reprints the 2005 comments by the various Democratic Senators in full.

UPDATE #3: Thanks for the link, Memeorandum.com. Welcome to Memeorandum readers, please take a look around and stay a while. A quick flashback to early February 2010, when President Obama and the new media left were in full attack mode about the evils of the filibuster. This excerpt supplies a stark contrast to the comments made by the left-leaning Democratic Senators quoted above in 2005 when Bush was trying to circumvent the Senate filibuster with Obama’s comments in bold:

The Filibuster Was Never a Good Idea

Yesterday, talking to Democratic Senators, the president offered some thoughts on the filibuster:

So the problem here you’ve got is an institution that increasingly is not adapted to the demands of a hugely competitive 21st century economy. I think the Senate in particular, the challenge that I gave to Republicans and I will continue to issue to Republicans is if you want to govern then you can’t just say no. It can’t just be about scoring points. There are multiple examples during the course of this year in which that’s been the case.

Look, I mentioned the filibuster record. We’ve had scores of pieces of legislation in which there was a filibuster, cloture had to be invoked, and then ended up passing 90 to 10, or 80 to 15. And what that indicates is a degree to which we’re just trying to gum up the works instead of getting business done.

I appreciate what the President is trying to do here and I agree with the spirit of his comments, but the history here is bad. There was no point in time when supermajority voting in the Senate was well-suited to the challenges of the time. Indeed, as David Mayhew has demonstrated it’s simply not the case that there was routine supermajority voting until the recent past. When FDR’s opponents were seeking to block court-packing and when LBJ was lining up support for Medicare, vote-counters assumed that a majority was needed to block initiatives.

The authentic tradition is of using the filibuster as an extraordinary technique for the specific purpose of maintaining white supremacy in the South. A Harding administration anti-lynching initiative fell prey to the filibuster back in the 20s. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 both had to be largely gutted in order to surmount filibusters. And it was recollection of the filibuster’s specific role as a bastion of white supremacy that led to the bipartisan effort to reform the filibuster in 1975 when northern liberal Democrats teamed up with the Ford administration and many Republicans to cut the cloture threshold to 60.

The institution has always been pernicious, just as the malapportionment of the Senate has always been the result of a hardball political negotiation rather than expressing some underlying good idea about the design of political institutions. Part of what makes the filibuster a bad idea is that it’s viability depends on minority party restraint. But the nature of human psychology is to create a procedural downward spiral in which each time there’s a change of partisan control, the new minority steps-up its obstruction.

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Obama Proposes Passing Partisan Health Care Plan Via Reconciliation Despite Bipartisan Opposition

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Democratic President Barack Obama, and Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid, signaled this morning the pathway for the final Democratic push for the passage of Obamacare: the reconciliation process

Three days before the highly publicized health care summit, billed by President Obama and Democrats as an opportunity for bipartisan negotiations regarding the provisions of a potential health care overhaul, the White House signaled its intent to move forward with a $950 billion dollar Democrats-only bill that can garner, at most, a bare 51 vote majority in the United States Senate. Indeed, eight Democratic Senators (including Lieberman) have already gone on record opposing the use of reconciliation to ram through the Obamacare package.   Despite Obama’s prior pledges of bipartisan negotiations with the GOP and this morning’s bipartisan rhetoric from the White House, the fact is that the only bipartisanship associated with health care reform is the bipartisan opposition in the House to Obamacare (39 Democratic “no” votes) and the bipartisan opposition to the use of reconciliation to pass Obamacare through the Senate.

The substantive content of this morning’s latest White House version of Obamacare is essentially the same plan negotiated between the President, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the days leading up to Republican Scott Brown’s January 2010 election to the Senate from liberal Massachusetts and the White House roadmap contemplates the use of the reconciliation process in the Senate so as to avoid the need for a 60 vote majority:

“This is our take on the best way to merge the House and Senate bills,” a senior White House official told ABC News. The official said the proposal was “informed by our conversations from negotiations” before Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., was elected, thus depriving Democrats of their 60-vote supermajority, as well as from subsequent discussions.

“We thought it would be a more productive meeting if we brought one consolidated plan to use as jumping-off point,” the official said. “We hope the Republicans do the same.”

By posting their proposals in such a form, White House officials are providing a roadmap for how they think they can best pass health care reform in the new post-Massachusetts Senate race reality: have the House pass the Senate bill, then use reconciliation rules requiring only a majority Senate vote to pass the “fix” to make the bill more palatable.

In the conference call with reporters this morning accompanying the disclosure of the latest iteration of Obamacare, White House officials explicitly stated they intend to use reconciliation to pass Obamacare without any GOP Senate votes:

In the course of unveiling Obama’s new health reform proposal on a conference call with reporters this morning, White House advisers made it clearer than ever before: If the GOP filibusters health reform, Dems will move forward on their own and pass it via reconciliation.

The assertion, which is likely to spark an angry response from GOP leaders, ups the stakes in advance of the summit by essentially daring Republicans to try to block reform.

“The President expects and believes the American people deserve an up or down vote on health reform,” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said on the call.

Accordingly, it appears that the Obama Administration has settled on pursing the use of the Senate reconciliation process, instead of normal order which would require a 60 vote majority, to pass the most far-reaching reform of the health care system in our nation’s history. Indeed, the “package is designed to help us [use reconciliation] if the Republican party decides to filibuster health care reform,” stated White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer.

The new Obamacare policy summary
and the conference call with reporters strongly indicate that little, if any, substantive discussions will occur at Thursday’s health care summit as the Democrats have now settled on the use of reconciliation as the pathway to final passage of Obamacare. The GOP’s incremental ideas such as allowing the purchase of insurance across state lines, significant tort reform and the use of risk pools for uninsurable Americans with preexisting conditions are nowhere to be found in this morning’s announcement nor in the present Democratic bills in the Senate and House and are essentially inconsistent with the comprehensive, government-centered, Democratic health care reform plans. Furthermore, in a move apparently designed to paint the GOP as pro-insurance, Obama also proposed substantial new federal price controls over the cost of health insurance as part of this morning’s summary.

The above-described White House posture this morning stands in stark contrast to their posture just two weeks ago when the idea of a health care summit was first pitched by President Obama. At that time, Obama promised to engage in substantive negotiations with the GOP on all parts of health care reform plan during the summit:

“I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward” Mr. Obama said in the interview from the White House Library.

The 2/8/2010 NYT piece quoted above notes that it “remained an open question whether the meeting could lead to real consensus on health care, or whether it would serve only to allow Democrats to frame a political argument against the Republicans going into the midterm campaign.” Considering this morning’s developments, and the clearly stated intent to move forward with reconciliation passage of the intra-Democrat negotiated Obamacare, there no longer remains a “open question” and instead Obama intends the coming summit to “serve only to allow Democrats to frame a political argument against the Republicans going into the midterm campaign.”

For the ideological left, this morning’s White House summary and the coming health care summit represent “the last, best shot” to pass a comprehensive, government-centered health care reform plan. To a majority of Americans, including almost all conservatives, a strong majority of independents and even some liberals, the Obama Administration’s continued relentless focus on forcing a strongly partisan Obamacare package through Congress is an unfavorable development, as shown by public polling of Obama’s job approval and the approval of the Democratic health care reform packages in Congress.

At least eight Democratic Senators have already announced their opposition to the use of reconciliation to pass Obamacare, and those Democratic Senators will almost certainly be joined by the 41 GOP Senators in opposition to the President’s reconciliation plan as announced this morning. It appears from early GOP responses that the GOP intends to attempt to garner 10 Democratic Senator votes to block the use of reconciliation (with 10 Democratic votes, the GOP would have the 51 votes needed to block reconciliation).

Indeed, the irony of the health care reform debate and Obama’s continuous public pledges to engage in bipartisan negotiations with the GOP is the fact that the only bipartisanship associated with health care reform is the bipartisan opposition in the House and Senate to Obamacare, and the next few weeks will probably determine if the GOP is able to garner enough bipartisan support to block the passage of Obamacare through the 51-vote (50 votes plus VP Biden tiebreaker) reconciliation process.  Finally, should Obama succeed in finding 217 House votes and 50 Senate votes for Obamacare, the response of the electorate towards those Democrats in November 2010 may be an historic wave of GOP victories rivaling or even surpassing the 1994 GOP wave.

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