Category: Politics

Philip Klein points out this fact at The American Spectator. As an indicator of majoritarian sentiment, I’d say that’s a pretty good argument for Republicans to push for a vote in the Senate.

Also: Three House Democrats — Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Mike Ross of Arkansas and Mike McIntyre of North Carolina — joined all 242 Republicans in voting to repeal ObamaCare. We’re waiting for Steve Cohen to denounce these Democrats as Nazi stooges. Maybe DailyKos can target them in next year’s primaries.

Strangely enough, 10 Democrats who voted “no” on passage in 2009 also voted against repeal, which gives the GOP ammunition against them in the next election cycle: If you wouldn’t vote to pass it, why won’t you vote to repeal it?

Disagree with them and you’re a brownshirt:

In an extraordinary outburst on the House floor, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) invoked the Holocaust to attack Republicans on health care and compared rhetoric on the issue to the work of infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
“They say it’s a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels,” Cohen said. “You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That’s the same kind of thing. And Congressman Cohen didn’t stop there.
“The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it–believed it and you have the Holocaust. We heard on this floor, government takeover of health care. Politifact said the biggest lie of 2010 was a government takeover of health care because there is no government takeover,” Cohen said.

Meanwhile, it appears that Sheila Jackson-Lee has shared her “health-care-is-a-right” talking points with John Lewis:

“Well, when you start off with the Preamble of the Constitution, you talk about the pursuit of happiness,” said Lewis. “You go to the 14th Amendment–it’s equal protection under the law and we have not repealed the 14th Amendment. People have a right to have health care. It’s not a privilege but a right.”

 

In all sincerity, Congressman: To assert that some people have a “right” to goods and services that other people must work to produce — well, there is a phrase for that and indeed, it is mentioned in the Constitution.

Check the 13th Amendment, which abolished involuntary servitude.

UPDATE: Cohen wants to repeal Godwin’s Law or something. Kudos to CNN’s John King for calling him to account for that . . . uh, “blood libel.”

Sally Pipes in the New York Post:

Repeal of ObamaCare can’t come soon enough — as several damaging provisions are set to take effect this year.
For starters, it has effectively stopped the construction of physician-owned hospitals throughout the country.
Section 6001 of the health-care law required physician-owned hospitals to obtain their Medicare certification by the end of last year. Without it, they can’t treat Medicare patients. And the facilities needed to be open to get that certification.
So construction halted at 45 hospitals as the New Year arrived. Work on countless others will never start, having been effectively banned by ObamaCare. This will limit competition in the health-care marketplace, driving up costs for patients.

ObamaCare is causing a pandemic of political insanity and Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) is Patient Zero:

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, said on Tuesday afternoon that repealing the national health care law would violate the Constitution.
Arguing that the Commerce Clause provides the constitutional basis for ObamaCare, Jackson Lee said repealing the law by passing Republicans’ H.R. 2 violates both the Fifth Amendment’s right to due process and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.
“The Fifth Amendment speaks specifically to denying someone their life and liberty without due process,” she said in a speech on the House floor moments ago. “That is what H.R. 2 does and I rise in opposition to it. And I rise in opposition because it is important that we preserve lives and we recognize that 40 million-plus are uninsured.
She continued, “Can you tell me what’s more unconstitutional than taking away from the people of America their Fifth Amendment rights, their Fourteenth Amendment rights, and the right to equal protection under the law?”

Allahpundit has a link to the C-SPAN video. When you begin to think you have the “right” to goods and services that others must work to produce, clearly you have descended into hopeless madness.

Or you’re a liberal Democrat. Six of one, half-dozen of the other . . .

(Via Memeorandum.)