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nternal DOJ Email: Kagan Was Brought Into Loop on Mark Levin’s Obamacare Complaint By Terence P. Jeffrey December 9, 2011 (CNSNews.com) - Internal Justice Department email communications made just days before the House of Representatives passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act show that then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan was brought into the loop as DOJ began preparing to respond to an anticipated legal complaint that Mark Levin and the Landmark Legal Foundation were planning to file against the act if the House used a procedural rule to “deem” the bill passed even if members never directly voted on it....

*** Please Read Before Posting *** - Thread Protocol Rules - (Real Simple) This is a prototype idea for a FR Working Group: US Budget FY-2012 / Nat. Debt If the budget is approved before this is posted, it can be an idea for FR working groups on other subjects and issues. To improve our work and activism on FR, there are times when we need to have a specific type of information or instructions in one dedicated long channel or stream. On threads that have less than 30 posts or so, this is less important, as you can...

At one point in the negotiations, the 2012 budget was to be slashed by $36 billion. The final number of cuts: just $7 billion. And just to ensure we don’t have another bruising government shutdown fight over cuts in September, the deal deems and passes the 2012 budget. Yes, that’s right, the old Gephardt Rule or Slaughter Solution, is back. What’s deem and pass? It’s a legislative trick that essentially means that Congress will consider the budget passed without ever actually having to vote on it.

1. Debate reconciliation bill (the bill that amends the health care "law" -- which as of the time they debate and vote won't yet be law) *2 hour debate 2. Vote on reconciliation bill. 3. Then vote on Senate health bill without debate.

"BREAKING NEWS House Dems will not "deem" Senate health bill passed"

Democratic leaders have decided to abandon the plan to avoid a direct vote on the Senate health care bill, known as deem and pass. Instead, multiple Democratic sources told CNN that they will have three independent votes -- a vote on the rule, then a vote on the fix package, followed by a vote on the Senate bill. Previously, Democrats did not think they could pass the fixes before the bill. But they have been assured by the Senate parliamentarian that it is possible. The committee was expected to determine whether the House will vote Sunday on a rule that...

At the House Rules Committee meeting, Democrats desperate to pass their national health care plan are running into the barrier of basic civics. Here is the problem: The Senate has passed its HCR bill. If the House passes the same bill, it goes on to the president; once he signs it, the bill becomes law. But House Democrats, when they vote for the Senate bill using the "Deem & Pass" dodge, also want to simultaneously pass a package of amendments to the law. Except HCR will not, at that point, be law. It will only become law when the president...

Two SCOTUS cases are being bandied about as weak support for Deem and Pass:Clinton v. City of New York (1998)Field v. Clark (1892) Neither deal directly with the question of "Deem and Pass", but rather with Enrolled Bills that were not exactly the same when passed in both houses. In the 1892 case Field v. Clark :...in regard to certain matters, the constitution expressly requires that they shall be entered on the journal. To what extent the validity of legislative action may be affected by the failure to have those matters entered on the journal we need not inquire. No...

The House Rules Committee was gaveled into session Saturday morning, the next step in the legislative process that will lead to Sunday's debate on a landmark health-care bill. The Rules panel is likely to meet for several hours in a cramped room on the third floor of the Capitol. It will decide the terms under which the House will vote on the Senate version of the health legislation as well as a subsequent package of legislative "fixes." The committee -- on which Democrats have a 9 to 4 roster advantage -- is expected to approve a "deem-and-pass" strategy, under which...

Welcome to DeemocracyIf you’re sick of talking about health care, you’d better move to Tahiti now.  On Thursday, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted to set up a committee to examine whether condoms should be required on all pornographic film shoots within the Golden State. California has run out of money, but it hasn’t yet run out of things to regulate. For a government regulatory hearing, the testimony was livelier than usual. The porn star Madelyne Hernandez recalled an especially grueling scene in which she had been obliged to have sex with 75 men. The bureaucrats nodded...

WASHINGTON -- This will be one unholy Sunday for any American suckers left who still believe in the "Schoolhouse Rock" version of how a bill becomes a law. Yes, Democrats will finally enjoy the ugliest of victories when they force through their health-care overhaul on a "deem-and-pass" procedure, which is legislative jargon for pulling a fast one. The bill will get through not because it somehow got improved during the sausage-making process. No, it will pass because, in Washington, there is one unalterable truism. For so many of the most powerful people in this town, everyone and everything is up...

States' Rights: Idaho requires its attorney general to sue the feds if ObamaCare passes while Virginia, the cradle of liberty, heads the line of states in front of the federal courtroom. Somewhere Patrick Henry is smiling. As the second coming of King George III seeks to impose the leftist mandate of national health insurance on the unwilling American people, the states are once again in revolt. This time they're unwilling to be the colonies of an imperial federal government determined to spend and tax us into bankruptcy while treating the Constitution as if it were bird cage liner. Is this...

I hate to tell readers this, but Obamacare passed on Thursday at 2:22 PM. That was when the House approved the Slaughter solution 222-203. A vote for Slaughter was a vote for Obamacare. It did not “barely” pass because a few of those abstentions and maybe a couple of the Nos were green-lighted by the party’s leadership. The stories about the House votes all get the math wrong. It is not about how many votes Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco needs — it is about how many votes she can shed. Pelosi is going to pass it...

You've been hearing a lot this week about the Slaughter Solution, the rule devised by House Rules Committee Chairman Louise Slaughter of New York whereby the House would pass an Obamacare reconcilliation bill via a rule that "deems" the chamber to have voted for the Senate version of Obamacare even though no such recorded vote was actually taken. It's been dubbed the "Slaughter Solution in the media. I prefer to call the Alice in Wonderland way of passing Obamacare. But put aside the present for the moment and step into my time machine. Dial the date selector back to 2005...

SNIP Mr. Obama is imposing a leftist revolution. Since coming to office, he has behaved without any constitutional restraints. The power of the federal government has exploded. He has de facto nationalized key sectors of American life - the big banks, financial institutions, the automakers, large tracts of energy-rich land from Montana to New Mexico. His cap-and-trade proposal, along with a newly empowered Environmental Protection Agency, seeks to impose massive new taxes and regulations upon industry. It is a form of green socialism: Much of the economy would fall under a command-and-control bureaucratic corporatist state. Mr. Obama even wants the...

Did a search...did not see this one posted. Interesting and hopeful analysis from a guy who makes his living doing this kind of stuff.

If Congress passes the Senate health-care plan, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, American families will be required by federal law to buy a federally approved health insurance plan that will cost a minimum of $12,000 per year--and, on average, will cost $15,000 per year -- whether their employer or the government helps them with the premium or not. Beginning in 2014, the Senate plan would require all individuals to buy health insurance. Anyone who does not obtain insurance through an employer would be forced to buy it out of their own pocket. Families of four that...

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama has no constitutional concerns about signing a bill passed by controversial House rules that are being proposed by Democrats to pass healthcare. Obama, a former constitutional law professor, would sign a bill if it is passed by the controversial "Slaughter Solution," Gibbs said. The proposal would deem the Senate version of the bill passed after House approval without an actual vote in the House. House Republicans have cried foul, and many have questioned whether that process would be constitutional. But Obama has downplayed any controversy surrounding the procedure, telling Fox...

Just a joke. Not to be taken seriously.

Politics: The water spigots are back on, at least temporarily, in California's Central Valley. Turned off to protect a tiny fish, they happen to be in the districts of two congressmen "undecided" on health care reform. One could chalk it up to good fortune or just good constituent service. But in the middle of a contentious health care debate marked by Cornhusker Kickbacks and Louisiana Purchases, we may be forgiven if we find an announcement by the Department of the Interior regarding California's water supply a tad too coincidental. On Tuesday, the Department of the Interior announced it was increasing...