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RUSH: Now, I have been telling everybody -- I didn't miss this -- I've been telling everybody the action is in the House on this now, it's not the Senate, all this talk about reconciliation in the Senate only becomes valid if the House passes the Senate bill. And that's not an automatic. Bart Stupak says we got 12 votes against it because of abortion. Here's what Stupak said.
STUPAK: It's accurate to say there are at least 12 of us who voted for health care who have indicated to the leadership and others that unless you fix this abortion language, we can't vote for a final version of the bill.
RUSH: So the question, "If reconciliation requires people to vote up or down on the Senate version that the president has endorsed, that means it won't get your vote, does that mean that it won't pass?"
STUPAK: If it's the proposal that the Senate passed and nothing's changed in it, the Senate health care bill, if that's the one they're presenting in reconciliation to the members of the House of Representatives, I'll bet you that won't even come close to passing, it will be defeated soundly. Members do not want to vote for it. The process has been tainted and we're not going to attach our names to it.
RUSH: That's Bart Stupak. Now, I have a way for Obama to handle Stupak. Obama's narcissism is out of control on this. He doesn't care about anything other than getting this. And Gibbs is out there saying, "Whatever it takes." He doesn't care about the politics; he doesn't care about anything; he's just going to get this. So they've got an obstacle in the road out there. It's Bart Stupak. So here's what Obama ought to do. Call Stupak on the phone and say, "Bart, the AMA has scored my health care bill, and it will bend the abortion curve down. There will be fewer abortions in my bill." The second thing he should do to sell Stupak is to offer to carve out an abortion exemption for Michigan just like they carved out a Medicare exemption for Ben Nelson. So whatever abortion language is in the bill, it won't apply to Michigan. The third thing: Suggest a 0.1% tax on all abortions and claim bipartisan agreement because Republicans say if you tax something, you get less of it, so tax abortions at a very, very, very minimal rate and then offer to rename the bill the Stupak Anti-Abortion Right to Life bill.
This is the kind of stuff Obama is doing, folks, to try to get this passed. Number five: Offer Stupak's family ambassadorships and a dozen Greek islands, and let the State-Controlled Media pound away. (laughing) It actually isn't funny. Here's the thing. Steny Hoyer said yesterday that the first thing that's going to happen is the House would pass the Senate bill, and then that bill becomes the official House bill and then reconciliation can start. However, this is what I missed. If the House goes first -- and that's what everybody is talking about now -- that means the House would pass the Senate bill that passed on Christmas Eve. That's the bill that everybody's talking about. Obama does not have a bill. All he's done is endorsed the Senate bill. All this bipartisan addition, there's nothing in it. It's the Senate bill, and if the House passes that, guess what? Guess what? The Senate's already passed it. They sent it over to the House under the pretext of it going back to reconciliation. But, no, no, no, no. If the House passes this, it goes to Obama.
It goes to Obama. If the House passes the Senate bill, then he's got both houses who have signed off on it and he's got a health bill he can sign. And reconciliation is not going to happen. It is a feint, it is a distraction. It's not going to happen. Well, it might have to happen because they don't have the votes in the House. See, this is the key. If they had the votes in the House for this bill we would already have health care. She does not have the votes. You just heard Stupak say that there are 12 people that voted for it that are going to vote against it. There hasn't been any change in the Senate bill and there can't be a change in it, so all this talk of reconciliation is actually a bit of a, shall we say, lie to members of the House to say, "Okay, you pass our bill in the Senate here, we'll get reconciliation, we'll put back in it what you want." They don't have to do that. We would have Obamacare if the House passes the Senate bill. Everybody's looking at the Senate. Everybody's looking at Reid and reconciliation. The battle is in the House, and it has always been in the House, because she does not have the votes right now.
You know, this guy Massa, we told you yesterday that he's been accused of sexually harassing a male staffer. Guess what? Steny Hoyer knew it, knew it all along. This guy voted against the bill the last time, not because he disagrees with it but because he thought it was too expensive. So guess what? He's now going to retire. If they knew about it, how do you think it leaked? Also, Obama is gonna appoint to the federal bench a relative of a member of Congress who voted against the health care bill. That's why I said give Stupak some Greek islands. They're pulling out all the stops here. So forget the Senate, folks. The necessity here is to continue to focus on your member of the House of Representatives, and all of them. Snerdley, you're jumping out of your skin with a question, what's the question? Hm-hm. The changes that Obama says he wants are not gonna get in the bills right now, all that's a smoke screen. Let me tell you something. Any doctor that votes for Obama might be in line for a lobotomy. Are we still allowed to use that word when doing satire? I forget. Still okay? All right.
Has there ever been a more respected profession this maligned, this used, and this minimized? Obama uses doctors like Tiger Woods uses pancake house waitresses and pole dancers. If I'm a doctor and I turn on that propalooza thing yesterday, the propagandalooza, how do we even know those were doctors? Just put some white coats on these people, how do we know they're doctors and not from the DNC? How do we know they're not from MoveOn.org? How do we know they're doctors? If I'm a doctor and I watched that thing yesterday and if I have any self-respect whatsoever, I'm wearing a "Just Say Hell No to Obama" button today and every day while I treat my patients. I'm attending every tea party event that's held when I can. Obama is going to turn doctors into laborers for the state and they'll probably have to unionize just like every other public sector employee, and I speculated in today's Morning Update that there in fact would be a doctors union coming down the pike.
Scientists and doctors have a lot to think about today. Do they give a damn about their professions? Do they give a damn about their reputations? Or are they content to just be props for liberals? Are they the liars and cheats and butchers that Obama has said they are? Do they make their own decisions on what to charge, who to treat and how to treat them or do they take orders from a guy who doesn't know a belch from expelling gas through the anal cavity? What Obama did to doctors yesterday was absolutely humiliating and consistent with how he's mistreated them ever since he went on this rampage to get this monument to himself. What he did yesterday with these doctors was just perform his own version of political surgery, cut 'em off at the knees, remove their vocal cords at no charge. Did any of them say anything? No, they're just standing up there looking like a bunch of props, like a bunch of dupes. Oh, yeah, we support every lie this guy is telling, and nodding their heads and standing ovations and so forth, and how do we even know they were doctors? Well, I ask that because the last time they brought a bunch of doctors up there these clowns forgot to bring their lab coats and so somehow the White House had boxes of them to pass out in the Rose Garden. If you got a box of lab coats a year ago you still have them today. I doubt that you've given them to Goodwill, probably right there in the prop closet. I'm serious.
So what we're talking about, folks, is not reconciliation. We're talking about if the House passes the Senate bill, we got Obamacare. They don't have the votes in the House, we know that or they'd be passing it already. It woulda happened. They don't have the votes. I don't care what anybody tells you. David "Rodham" Gergen doesn't think they've got the votes. David "Rodham" Gergen thinks this is a mess getting set up here in a couple Rush See, I Told You So's coming. Yesterday I told you that the first place you should look to find out what really went on yesterday, and what's really going on is the Heritage Foundation.
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RUSH: Back to the Heritage Foundation Morning Bell and health care: "The doctors in lab coats surrounding President Barack Obama as he gave his latest health care speech yesterday were not there to give the President a physical; that happened Sunday. No, these doctors were props, dressed to impress for what the White House claims is their 'final push' for the President's government take-over of the health care industry. The President again repeated the same old tired claims" which are lies "he has been making for months: 'The proposal I've put forward gives Americans more control over their health care,' 'our proposal is paid for,' and 'my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions.'" All of that's lies. All of that is right out of Saul Alinsky. As the Heritage foundation says, "We, and plenty of others, have refuted all these claims before, but this time they are particularly easy to expose as patently false.
"President Obama gave away the game when he said: 'Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill, which reduces most people's premiums and brings down our deficit by up to $1 trillion over the next two decades. And those aren't my numbers -- they are the savings determined by the CBO, which is the Washington acronym for the nonpartisan, independent referee of Congress.' But there is one huge difference between the Senate bill and what the President kept referring to as my/our proposal: the Senate bill actually exists." We don't have an Obama bill! He made it sound like he's got a proposal yesterday, that he's incorporated all these Republican ideas. It doesn't exist! None of what he said yesterday exists, unless it's already in the Senate bill. "For all the talk in Washington about Democrats in the Senate using reconciliation to pass a final version of Obamacare, one key fact has been overlooked: no reconciliation bill exists.
"Not in the House. Not in the Senate. Nowhere. It simply has not yet been written, and there are plenty of reasons to believe it never will" be written. "The White House is telling the public they expect the House to pass the Senate bill, and then both the House and Senate would pass the yet-to-be-drafted reconciliation, all before Easter recess." What that means here is that the task for Nancy Pelosi is to convince her members of the House that they're going to get their changes -- that is, the "fixes" -- in the reconciliation bill from the Senate, and these that these fixes will be allowed under the Byrd rules. Now, we have suggested prior to this that any change in the abortion language would be a violation of the Byrd rules, since it has nothing to do with any budgetary things and that's where reconciliation can be used. So here comes a parliamentary objection, here comes a parliamentary ruling, and then the vice president gets to overrule the parliamentarian.
But all this is really smoke. "But Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) simply does not have the votes to pass the Senate bill. If she did, it would already be law. To convince her fellow wayward Democrats to vote for the Senate bill, the yet-to-be-drafted reconciliation bill is expected to: 1) scale back the tax on high-end health insurance policies (decreases revenue); 2) close the Medicare D loophole (costs money); 3) boost insurance subsidies (costs money); and 4) increase Medicaid payments (costs a ton of money). Where exactly do House and Senate aides writing this new bill expect to come up with the money to pay for all these new goodies? And they have to find that cash because all reconciliation bills must be certified by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to reduce the deficit by $1 billion over five years. And that CBO score will take at least a week, or possibly two to complete," and they cannot score it, as Obama said, that it will reduce the deficit because all of this -- these four items -- either cost money that's not now in the bill or decrease revenue, which is in the bill. They have an unfettered mess here. "So when will the public get to see this reconciliation bill? The Wall Street Journal reports that 'Democrats have started writing the formal reconciliation bill' and 'intend to send it to the Congressional Budget Office for evaluation by the end of the week.' But The Los Angeles Times reports that: 'Senior Democrats on Capitol Hill will not finish writing the reconciliation package until next week at the earliest.'" Heritage says: "Don't hold your breath."
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RUSH: Where is Obama's "laser-like focus on jobs"? Where did that go? What happened to that? All right. Before we get back to Heritage, Roll Call: "The assumption has been that the House would first need to pass the $871 billion" Christmas Eve Senate bill. It's actually more than that. It's a cheap score. Anyway, that bill would then be signed into law. Obama would then sign the bill. Now, folks, this is where Pelosi really has her work cut out for her. "The assumption has been that the House would first need to pass the $871 billion Senate bill, which would then be signed into law, and then followed by a package of fixes through the reconciliation process to appease House Democrats. [Steny] Hoyer said that while the House is constitutionally required to initiate reconciliation bills, that doesn't mean the House would have to pass the Senate bill first before passing a reconciliation bill to amend it."
It was Harkin yesterday who said the House would pass the Senate bill, but Hoyer said, "Whoa-ho-ho-ho. Wait a second, now. Yeah, we are "constitutionally required to initiate reconciliation bills, that doesn't mean the House would have to pass the Senate bill first." "'We could pass the reconciliation first, have the reconciliation passed by the Senate and then pass the Senate bill,' Hoyer said. From there, he said, the president would have to sign the Senate bill first and then the reconciliation package. Hoyer conceded that process would be 'more complicated,' however, since House lawmakers would effectively be reconciling a bill that hasn't been passed yet." Now, why...? (interruption) No, no, Snerdley. It's not a shell game. The key to understanding why all this is happening is Pelosi doesn't have the votes.
The House doesn't have the votes because they don't like the Senate bill and they are scared to death of being told to pass that bill, then the president signs it -- and what if Obama and Reid stiff 'em and there's no reconciliation? They're stuck, they have been screwed, and they know Obama is very oriented toward doing that kind of thing. That's why Hoyer is saying (paraphrased), "No, wait a minute. Let's do the reconciliation first. We don't have to pass the Senate bill first. Let's put our changes to the Senate bill first, send it over there and have them deal with it." I said yesterday: It's all about who's going to go first here. So another way of putting this is the House cannot reconcile anything until there's a bill to reconcile, okay? So at least technically they have to pass the Senate bill first, and probably the president even needs to sign it into law before they can get their fixes.
Then Obama and Senate Democrats could just stab 'em in the back, throw 'em overboard and not pass their fixes at all, which is why Steny Hoyer is trying to get 'em to pass the fixes first, which doesn't make sense, and is probably (technically at least) illegal, but it doesn't matter because Joe Biden would okay it because you have rules but you have Democrats, which means you've got no rules. It's fascinating, and it has nothing to do with the Republicans. It never has had to do with them. The Republicans have no say in this, because they can't fix the Senate bill with 60 votes now because of Scott Brown. So they've gotta deal with that bill, and the House doesn't like it, and Stupak says, "I've got 12 guys that are not going to vote for it that did last time, with me." Now back to Heritage: "In the meantime Speaker Pelosi is bleeding the votes she needs to first pass the Senate bill, by an up or down vote, in the House. Just 220 members of the House voted for their version of Obamacare in November.
"Since that time, Reps. Robert Wexler (D-FL) and Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) have left the House; Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) has passed away; and Joseph Cao (R-LA) has said he will vote against the bill. That leaves Pelosi 216 votes, which would be exactly enough to pass the Senate bill. But then there is Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) who will not vote for the Senate bill since it uses taxpayer money to fund abortion. And Stupak says he has a dozen other members that will switch from yes to no with him. And Rep. Michael Acuri (D-NY) now says he is likely to switch his vote from yes to no. And Rep. Shelly Berkley (D-NV), who voted yes the first time, says she is 'not inclined to support the Senate' bill. And Rep. Gerry Connolly says he could 'absolutely' switch his vote from yes to no. And now Congressional Progressive Caucus Rep. Raúl Grijalva, (D-AZ) says he's less likely to vote for the final health care reform bill if the reconciliation bill contains the ideas President Obama outlined yesterday.
"One House Democrat tells the LA Times why the White House is facing such a tough sell: 'It's a no-win situation for those of us in moderate districts. If you vote no, your base is upset. If you vote yes, everyone else is upset. You almost couldn't design a legislative vise more damaging to moderate Democrats -- or that puts our majority more at risk.'" He's exactly right. Obama is the one tightening the screws 'cause he doesn't care. The level, the degree of narcissism that we see in our president... We've not seen this radical a psychological profile in our nation's history. James Lewis has a great piece on that, by the way, at AmericanThinker.com. So here's Heritage again: "But don't worry House Democrats, the Senate is going to do everything it can to convince you that you aren't going to walk the plank alone again.
"Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) tells Politico that Senate Democrats are planning a gesture some time next week that will guarantee to House Democrats the Senate will act: 'I don't know what the gesture will be but it will be a convincing gesture.'" Really? If you have to have Dick Durbin go out there and promise Democrats in the House: "Hey, you know what? We are planning a significant gesture to convince you that we will reconcile the bill you pass to include more of what you want in it." Now, you and I know that trusting any Democrat these days is risky, and they know it, too. They know who they are. They know who they are better than we do. So if you're Bart Stupak and Dick Durbin says, "Hey, don't worry about it, Bart, baby! We're going to have a significant gesture next week, maybe. It'll convince you how serious we are."
In the meantime, what you have here is "Kabuki theater." So it's a fascinating thing here. I want to reemphasize here that the focus of attention is on the House of Representatives and the vise the Democrats are in. This moderate Democrat business is... (sigh) You know, we call 'em "Blue Dogs." There's a story out today (it's a distraction story) that moderate Democrats in the Senate all of a sudden now are more open to the possibility of reconciliation. Moderate Democrats in the Senate? Look, Blue Dogs? Blue poodles! Blue poodles, blue lapdogs, whatever you want to call 'em. There aren't any moderate Democrats. This is what we all have to learn and understand. Let's go to the audio sound bites. Here are a couple of See, I Told You So's. I pegged Obama's speech as a bunch of lies as soon as I read the excerpts.
RUSH ARCHIVE: He's going to lie, which he can't help. He's a liberal. He has to lie. He's gonna use this lie, this throwaway line, to paint the insurance companies as the villain here -- with not one word about how government intrusions have totally screwed up the market and driven up costs.
RUSH: So let's go to CNN's Anderson Cooper 180 last night. He spoke with David "Rodham" Gergen. He said, "What did you think of what Obama said today? What do you think of his chances here, moving forward?"
GERGEN: I think he mischaracterized the Republican opposition today. Basically he said today, "If you vote against my bill that's because you're voting for the insurance companies." This is not about the insurance companies from a Republican point of view. It's about... You know, it's about government intervention, a large cost, uhh, significant questions about it, and Democrats believe that we have a moral responsibility to provide coverage. That's a legitimate argument. The insurance argument, I think, is a side argument.
RUSH: One of many side arguments. It's a distraction. I mean, he's done the same thing to the doctors. "Yeah, they do tonsillectomies just for the big bucks, unnecessary tonsillectomies -- even amputations," Obama said. These clowns go up there and stand behind him? Here's the second See, I Told You So. I said this yesterday...
RUSH ARCHIVE: Well, we'll see. I still am not convinced they have the ability to get this done, 'cause if we adopt that attitude then there's a natural sense of finality that steps in and the passionate opposition to it recedes. That can't be allowed to happen. I don't think they're anywhere near actually getting it done.
RUSH: Last night on Anderson Cooper... Sorry. What the hell difference is the show? Last night on CNN, Wolf Blitzer talking to David Gergen: "David, I assume this White House and the Democrats are strong enough to know if they didn't have the votes, they wouldn't be going through this right now."
GERGEN: I don't think that's true. I think this is a gamble. They've doubled down on what they were betting before. This is his signature issue; he's going to push it through.
BLITZER: You think he could still fail?
GERGEN: A lot of people are not committed. The intensity is in the opposition and the grassroots movement. If the Republicans get the grassroots to really work on this, they could still keep that big opposition out there.
RUSH: Despite Wolf saying, "It's going to pass, right? (sobbing) David, it's going to pass? He's gonna get it, right? (crying)," Gergen says, "Well, I'm not so sure. A lot of people are not committed," and Gergen said the key is whether conservatives keep up the heat. Ha! They don't know what heat is. If they think what they've seen from conservatives, tea partiers and all that across this country up to this point is heat -- ha! -- they haven't the slightest clue what real heat they are about to feel.
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RUSH: None of the changes that Obama lied about yesterday are in a bill yet. They are not in a bill. He has not written a bill. There is no Obama bill. The only bill that exists is the Senate bill passed on Christmas Eve, and it has none of the reforms or changes, TORT reform, Medicare fraud and waste, none of that is in the bill. The only way it gets in the bill is if there is a reconciliation. And the House is scared to death that if they pass the Senate bill as is and Obama signs it, that that's it. It was a total lie. There is no Obama bill.
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Thank you so much!!