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Congress Goes for Rationing
Townhall.com ^ | September 9, 2010 | Ken Blackwell

Posted on 09/09/2010 8:18:29 AM PDT by Kaslin

“Democrats choose Death Panels…” announces the Comedy Channel’s Jon Stewart with mock horror, “…for themselves!” It’s a very funny bit. The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty plays it straight as she reports: “Ultimately, some candidates, including incumbents, will have to be left for dead so that the parties can spend where it might still make a difference.”

Then, there’s Michael Barone in the Washington Examiner. Mr. Barone has probably forgotten more about American politics than most political commentators will ever know. The editor for 40 years of the Almanac of American Politics knows political panic when he sees it. He nails the word “triage,” saying that leaders of the House majority party are prepared to effect “a brutal triage of their own members in hopes of saving enough seats to keep a slim grip on the majority.”

The current liberal majority in Congress assured its members that the 2,000-page health care legislation they were demanding would become more popular with voters after it was passed. That has not proven to be the case. The president’s health care legislation has become more unpopular the more voters focus on it.

Barone reports that no member of the majority who voted for the president’s signature legislation is running ads touting that fact. A significant number of majority party members who voted against Obama’s bill are running campaign ads stressing that opposition. This is clear indication that the votes they cast for nationalizing health care are not campaign pluses, are in fact anchors around their necks. And the waters are rising.

I’m struck by the fine irony here. This is the group that pooh-poohed Sarah Palin’s talk of “death panels.” Ridiculous. Never happen. This is America, after all.

Yet look what they resort to when some of their political bodies are on life support. What is this “triage” except a form of rationing? They are taking scarce resources, in this instance campaign cash, and they are giving it only to those who are showing signs of political health.

It is any wonder that town hall meetings last summer erupted into grassroots anger? Is it any surprise that Congress as an institution is saddled with a 71% disapproval rating? (Well, that’s better than it was in August. Last month, 72% of Americans disapproved of their lawmakers.)

Voters are taking a dim view of incumbents who try to convince them that they are now “anti-Washington.” These are the members who just months ago voted for the biggest power grabs by the federal government in our history. They did not just vote to take over health care, they gobbled up college student loans. They rubber stamped the Obama administration’s takeover of banks, insurance companies, and auto makers.

Many in the in the majority in the House of Representatives voted for so-called Cap and Trade legislation that will have the effect of letting the federal government run every industry in the country. If businesses have to clear every decision on energy consumption with federal bureaucrats, it’s the end of anything resembling free enterprise. It isn’t just a socialist bill; it establishes a socialist system for the first time in this country.

The Senate in this case performed well its constitutional role. George Washington once showed how the Senate would function by pouring some hot tea from his cup into his saucer. The Senate is the saucer and the Senate allowed this hot socialist measure to cool.

It is as a result of all these unwise and very likely unconstitutional measures that the congressional liberal majority finds itself in such trouble. The polls have never shown such lopsided numbers of disapproval and voters ready to vote the ins out.

Still, political rationing only mimics health care rationing. The members whose campaigns are flat lining will not suffer anything more than the loss of political office. As one who has held public office and who has suffered political defeat, I can assure the worried incumbents there are great days ahead of them. It is better for them to lose office than to continue pushing America toward real health care rationing. The losers in that game are not just “left for dead” politically. I personally would rather be voted out than participate in such a public disservice.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: barone; deathpanel; obamacare; triage

1 posted on 09/09/2010 8:18:30 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

The Democratic leadership is saying that if voters go against them they are stupid. What they decline to admit is that the stupid people vote.


2 posted on 09/09/2010 8:24:32 AM PDT by RC2 (Remember who we are. "I am America")
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To: Kaslin
Barone reports that no member of the majority who voted for the president’s signature legislation is running ads touting that fact. A significant number of majority party members who voted against Obama’s bill are running campaign ads stressing that opposition. This is clear indication that the votes they cast for nationalizing health care are not campaign pluses, are in fact anchors around their necks. And the waters are rising.
3 posted on 09/09/2010 8:26:55 AM PDT by WOBBLY BOB (drain the swamp! ( then napalm it and pave it over ))
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To: RC2

This is not possible, Democrats vote.


4 posted on 09/09/2010 8:28:50 AM PDT by hejahale (???)
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To: Kaslin

I don’t want Death Panels for Democrats, I want firing squads (metaphorically speaking, of course.)


5 posted on 09/09/2010 8:32:40 AM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: Kaslin

Zenith Press Association

August 15, 2017
Chicago, Illinois

Marian Shields Robinson, mother of former First Lady, Michelle Robinson Obama, died yesterday. In otherwise excellent health, an autopsy determined that the cause of death was a relatively simple to repair coronary artery blockage. She was 80 years old.

Unfortunately, under the 2010 Universal Health Care Act, passed in the last year of the truncated Obama Administration, the surgery necessary to clear the fatal blockage has been routinely ruled by the Dr. Jack Kevorkian led Federal Death Panel as prohibited on patients over 60 years of age.

The impeached Barack Obama could not be reached for comment. On death row at the Colorado Super-Max prison, he is awaiting execution for treason against the Constitution and the people of the United States and humanity.

The Republican breakaway New Freedom Party, which began winning congressional seats in the 2010 election and completed its sweep of conventional Republicans and Democrats from office in the 2016 election, has pledged to eliminate what President Palin called “…these unfortunate and unnecessary deaths of our older citizens who have, after all, done much to build this nation.” She went on to say “Of course, we all die. But this foolishly enacted legislation is consigning countless millions of otherwise healthy, capable, often wisdom-laden loved parents and grandparents to early graves for simply corrected problems. It’s just morally wrong.”

Senate Majority Leader Rand Paul (NFP, KY) has pledged to revisit the Universal Health Care Act as soon as he and his colleagues on Capitol Hill complete the pending treason trials of 58 Obama officials now taking up the bulk of their time.

When reached by phone for comment, former First Lady Michelle Obama, muttered a few unprintable scatological and profane terms and something about no longer being “…proud of this crappy country – not that I ever was.”

Before hanging up, she blurted that her mother died because “…those honky idiots Reid and Pelosi screwed up and forgot to insert the promised exemptions for us, the members of the ruling class and their families, from the legislation.”

Arrangements are pending but those close to the family have hinted that Mrs. Robinson will be taken to Kenya for burial. Mrs. Obama has declared that she and her daughters will remain in Kenya — eventually found to be the actual birthplace of the disgraced former usurper president — and never return to the United States.

-30-
(RAB/Zenith News Service Correspondent)

(Pregnant pause here…)

ROFLMAO – yeah, like THAT would ever happen to a member of Dear Leader’s entourage!!


6 posted on 09/09/2010 8:39:32 AM PDT by Dick Bachert (The upcoming election is the most important in our lifetimes!!! BE THERE!!!!!!!)
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To: A_perfect_lady

Why metaphorically? Isn’t that the traditional fate should one be fairly tried and convicted of treason?

All I ask is that they be treated fairly. Fair, honest and open trials, and if fairly and honestly convicted, and a expeditious, reasonable, honest and fair appeals process runs its course, a fair and appropriate punishment be meted out.

Of course, an open and transparent government would do no part of this process behind closed doors.

But, I’m a reasonable man, I’m willing to substitute public hangings for the more honorable firing squads...


7 posted on 09/09/2010 8:45:35 AM PDT by null and void (We are now in day 593 of our national holiday from reality. - 0bama really isn't one of US.)
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To: Kaslin

I can’t find it right now, but I believe it was either Plouffe, Chris Van Hollen, or Kaine that said over the weekend (IIRC a talk show) that the DNC wasn’t triaging races or rationing $s to some candidates, disputing an article in the NY Times about Dims ‘firewall’ and others regarding ‘triage’ (as you pointed out).


8 posted on 09/09/2010 8:50:38 AM PDT by Seattle Conservative (God Bless and protect our troops)
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To: Kaslin

The current liberal majority in Congress assured its members that the 2,000-page health care legislation they were demanding would become more popular with voters after it was passed.

Liberal logic no?.


9 posted on 09/09/2010 9:50:34 AM PDT by Vaduz
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To: Kaslin

Pelosi said some Ds would have to ‘take one for the team.’ Did they not believe her? They got their payoffs & promises for cushy jobs after the fact.


10 posted on 09/09/2010 11:29:45 AM PDT by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto.)
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To: Dick Bachert

I actually thought this happened recently! I had nothing against this lady, and was feeling sympathy for the first family. Then I read further and realized it was something that COULD happen down the road! It reads like the “Christmas Carol” by Dickens in that you have a scenario of the “Ghost of Christmas” future. Only in this case, you have the “Ghost of America future”!

I actually wish something like this would happen to the Pres. in that he would have a visitor come at night. This visitor could appear at night and show him what could happen to him, his family, his high-and-mighty radical friends/associates, and the country at large. I’d like to think that like Ebenezer Scrooge, he’d be so horrified, he’d have a change of heart and mind and undo much of the stuff he’s pushing on the nation. Hey, I can always hope, can I?


11 posted on 09/09/2010 11:58:13 AM PDT by dsutah
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