Bookworm Room

A brief history:  Obama promised that the health care debate was so important, it would be carried on C-SPAN.  That did not happen.  Obama promised that any proposed bill on health care would be placed on a website for public comment far in advance of the vote.  That did not happen.  Obama promised that he [...]

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Yes, you’ve already seen this video of Rep. Hank Johnson from Georgia (Cynthia McKinney’s old district), but I’m going to show it again, if for no other reason than to appreciate the Admiral’s incredible polite restraint.  An officer and a gentleman, that’s for sure: Many have noted that Rep. Johnson is ill, which may account, [...]

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As part of a longer rumination about the stability that the Cold War provided for our political system, James Taranto makes the following observations about yesterday’s House vote: Why did it happen? Last November voters sent what seemed to us a pretty clear message by rejecting Democratic candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, [...]

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The Atlantic is no hotbed of conservatism, but at least one Atlantic writer is smart enough to understand what yesterday’s vote meant: One cannot help but admire Nancy Pelosi’s skill as a legislator.  But it’s also pretty worrying.  Are we now in a world where there is absolutely no recourse to the tyranny of the [...]

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You’ve all heard by now about the 2300 “reconciliation” bill that the House won’t vote on but will simply deem passed, thereby, in a completely unconstitutional way, making the bill a law.  (Ahem.) But did you know that Pelosi has been busy sticking in more than just student loan relief so that we can have [...]

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Pride can make us do very stupid things.  Once we’ve committed to something (a job, a marriage, a principle, whatever), and once we’ve touted that commitment to the world as the most wonderful thing evah, it is extremely difficult to stand up to that same world and admit “I made a mistake.” I’ve been thinking [...]

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As everyone should know by now, House Democrats are contemplating doing away entirely with a vote on the Senate bill, and simply announcing that they’ve passed it.  After all, why shouldn’t the Constitution bow down before their overweening statism?  Steve Schippert, a veteran, has unloaded both cannons against this attack on core American values and [...]

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Nancy is boasting that she’s got the votes.  We thought last fall that this was an empty boast, but it wasn’t.  We should, therefore, be very concerned that she makes this boast.  The Tea Party Patriots have put together an action email, telling you what you can do to help.  Here is the email in [...]

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Perhaps it really is true that Pelosi doesn’t have the votes for Obama Care.  After all, if she did, why would the Democrats be considering the “Slaughter Option” something that involves bypassing votes altogether: The Slaughter Solution is a plan by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and [...]

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The American Thinker spells it out: Richard Baehr, ace political watcher, thinks the odds are that Nancy Pelosi, through brute force, will get Obama Care through.  Once that happens, of course, it’s the law, and “reconciliation,” which is ostensibly meant to smooth away any lingering roughness, will die a’bornin’ Christopher Chantrill explains what government will [...]

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As those who have been paying attention (that would be all of you) know, the presidential election was the first election in which Obama actually ended up going head to head with an opponent.  In previous (i.e., state) elections, ugly information mysteriously surfaced about Obama’s opponents, forcing them to withdraw from the fray, and leaving [...]

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Here’s what I see going on and, please, correct me if I’m wrong: Reconciliation is a red herring.  Right now, the House is being promised that, if it votes on the Senate bill, the Senate will fix differences between the two bills through reconciliation.  So everyone is focusing on whether the Senate will indeed have [...]

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I believe more and more strongly that reconciliation is a red herring, meant to induce the House to pass the Senate bill.  Once that’s done, this so called “reconciliation,” an alleged second bill that will smooth away the differences between the two chambers (especially the House’s demand that abortion, which is part of the Senate [...]

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Hear me out. Sure, the public is indignant about our current state of affairs, especially the mushrooming deficits that have pretty much sealed our national bankruptcy (in my humble opinion). What worries me, though, is what needs to be done to fix the problem. I personally don’t see any solution except to administer massive haircuts [...]

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As part of a longer post about the Democrats’ anti-democratic tendencies, Peter Wehner has this to say: If you wanted a sound bite that embodied much of what is wrong with contemporary liberalism, you could do worse than listen to the words of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on health care: We’ll go through the gate. [...]

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First, here is Scott Brown’s latest ad: Second, not only should conservatives and independents in Massachusetts vote for him, but so should progressives.  After all, the latter hate the proposed health care bill as much as the former do.  Conservatives and independents hate the bill because it vests power in the government; progressives hate it [...]

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I’ve got a matched set of posts for you today.  The first is an American Thinker article by John Gaski, in which he advances the argument that the Democrats are tuning out the American voters, not because they are blinded by ideology, but because they have a well-advanced system in place for permanent one party [...]

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Good ad: Massachusetts has drowned itself in the Kool-Aid since 1972, but maybe a strong Republican candidate, a strong message, and an insane Democratic party can make the difference. UPDATE:  If you’d like to contribute to Brown’s campaign, here’s his website.  As Kate said in the comments when she provided the link, the Dems are [...]

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Compare and contrast: No wonder our government functions like a bad comedy.  At least Foster Brooks was talented.  Baucus is just a hack — with your life in his hands.

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I know many of you enjoyed the video I uploaded of a speech by Col. Allen West (ret.).  Andrea Shea King is having him on her radio show tonight: Tonight we’ll talk with Col. Allen West (US Army Ret), Congressional House candidate for Florida’s District 22 (Jupiter, Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Delray, Ft. [...]

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Bryon York puts it in perspective: The extraordinary thing about the dramatic events surrounding the health care bill in the Senate is that there is any drama in it at all. Lawmakers are simply voting to begin debate on their version of health care reform. Just begin debate — not end it, and not move [...]

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In the wake of the 2008 election, Republicans and conservatives were paralyzed.  They’d been trounced, not so much by sweeper percentages (that is, the elections were all just over the slightly 50% mark), but by huge numbers of elections in which Democrats edged out Republicans by those few percentage marks.  If there are 100 races, [...]

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That Nancy Pelosi is a pistol.  Here she is, a terrible public speaker, but still arguing strongly that it’s absolutely unconscionable for Congress to sneak bills through committee, to vote on things they haven’t read and don’t know, to vote on bills that the American public hasn’t had to read, to have bills in the [...]

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It’s Sunday and there’s nothing I can do to change yesterday’s vote at this moment.  I need to relax. Jennifer Rubin is also sanguine, bless her heart. UPDATE:  The Anchoress urges us to be not afraid, even in the shadow of the jackboot.

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Maybe she got those Dems to vote yes because she assured them that, at the end of the day, the Senate will vote no.  Or, maybe, we’re screwed: The US House of Representatives has approved the broadest US health care overhaul in a half-century, handing President Barack Obama a major victory on his top domestic [...]

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