http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091120/ap_on_he_me/us_health_care_overhaul

The state-run media reports:

WASHINGTON – A wavering centrist Democrat said Friday he’d stand with Senate Democratic leaders on a crucial weekend test vote on their sweeping health care bill amid indications other moderates would fall in line.

See what they did there? The AP called this “centrist” Democrat wavering. He wasn’t morally opposed, or courageously opposed, or thoughtful, or independent-minded. Nay, he was wavering, timid, fearful, small, weak. For having doubts about the a plan that would bring about the ultimate corruption of the Republic.

At least Mary Landrieu got a $100 million Medicaid grant for Louisiana to buy her vote. That’s right. The bill is SO AWESOME that she required an extra $100 million in wealth redistribution from the rest of the country to convince her to vote for it. Ben Nelson isn’t gonna get squat.

I have some questions. Anyone is free to answer.

Last week, the Obama administration, specifically Attorney General Eric Holder, announced that several terrorists including the guy behind the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, will be brought from Guantanamo to New York City to face trial in a civilian court, with a civilian judge, with a civilian jury, about 6 blocks away from the former site of the towers.

My questions:

1. These terrorists were capture on the battlefield by uniformed soldiers, not law enforcement folks. They were not read their rights. Why won’t they or their lawyers be able to ask for the charges to be dismissed because of this?

2. The President has called what these men experienced in Guantanamo "torture." Why won’t they or their lawyers be able to claim that any confessions of guilt were obtained under threat of further torture, and therefore should be dismissed by the judge?

3. These terrorists did not have access to legal counsel during their interrogations. Why can’t they or their lawyers claim that their rights have been violated and thus request that the charges be dismissed?

4. In their defense, these men or their lawyers will presumably be given access to the same confidential or classified information that the prosecution will use to make their case. What will be done to protect this classified information from being publically released or leaked by participants in the trial?

5. Given the public outcry against the supposedly illegal treatment of these terrorists by the public, what’s the possibility that a jury could acquit them outright and set them loose on American soil?

6. What’s to prevent these men from representing themselves in court, giving themselves a spotlight to gloat over the success of the attacks and rage against the Great Satan in the most public forum possible, while gaining access to our country’s national security information and infrastructure?

7. Please refute the following conclusion:

Pres. Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, experienced litigators, fully realize that in civilian court, the Qaeda quintet can and will demand discovery of mountains of government intelligence. They will demand disclosures about investigative tactics; the methods and sources by which intelligence has been obtained; the witnesses from the intelligence community, the military, and law enforcement who interrogated witnesses, conducted searches, secretly intercepted enemy communications, and employed other investigative techniques. They will attempt to compel testimony from officials who formulated U.S. counterterrorism strategy, in addition to U.S. and foreign intelligence officers. As civilian “defendants,” these war criminals will put Bush-era counterterrorism tactics under the brightest public spotlight in American legal history.

8. Please refute the following conclusion:

By transferring this case to civilian court rather than leaving it to be handled by the military-commission system created by Congress, Obama and Holder have needlessly created a perilous dilemma. Do we deny KSM & Co. the right to represent themselves and thus risk reversal of any convictions on Sixth Amendment grounds? Do we grant them self-representation but withhold critical discovery and thus risk reversal on due process grounds? Or do we grant them self-representation and disclose directly to our wartime enemies the nation’s security secrets, which they can then pass on to confederates who are actively targeting us for mass-murder attacks?

This stuff, more than anything else Barack Obama has done, tells me that he doesn’t have the country’s best interests at heart. Closing Guantanamo was supposed to make us safer, but the alternative that the administration has come up with is appalling. The idea that we give these guys a voice in a civilian court is stupid and evil. Expecting to convict them under American civilian law when no constitutional due process has been extended to them up until now is stupid and evil. Giving access to our intelligence services to people who want to destroy us is stupid and evil. Attempting to use the American courts to embarrass the previous administration for their honest attempts to defend the country against this scum is stupid and evil.

When reality sets in and we see what this decision unleashes, this stuff, more than anything else, might be the undoing of Barack Obama.

http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/1109/clinton_we_are_winning_c3243bd1-33d6-42a7-ab70-5bae329fdc6e.html

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Clinton described the ongoing tea party protests against the Democratic agenda as a sign their party was making progress.

Whitehouse quoted Clinton arguing: "The reason the tea-baggers are so inflamed is because we are winning."

They reason they vote for tyranny at midnight on Saturdays is because they’re losing.

They mock and marginalize us because they’re losing.

They may get their health care bill, but their arrogance and dismissive attitude has cost them immeasurable mistrust and anger. As far as I’m concerned, it’s irreparable.

In one year, my attitude about my government has gone from wary skepticism to outright disgust and hopelessness. Unless we see something like a President DeMint in 3 years, I don’t see that ever changing.

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/lawmakers-detail-obamas-pitch/

“Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit” Democratic voters “and it will encourage the extremists.”

THAT JUST HAPPENED.

The President of the United States, the post-political savior and healer of souls, the smartest man who ever lived, called people who disagree with his oppressive, anti-freedom, bankruptcy-inducing health-care plan “extremists.” And he whipped out the “teabagger” thing to describe people who have legitimate anger and mistrust of the government’s willingness to represent them.

Most people don’t want this bill to pass. How can a majority of people be extremist?

People like me have been called extremists, Nazis, racists, shills for corporations, etc. for months, just for expecting the government to adhere to the Constitution. We are being forced against our will into tyranny by this administration and this Congress, but they’re calling US the extremists.

The truth is that WE JUST WANT YOU TO LEAVE US ALONE.

http://republicanleader.house.gov/blog/?p=666

The Democrat health care bill includes the public option, the public option requires payment of premiums into the federal treasury, and those funds can be used to pay for abortions.

Therefore, the health care reform bill would permit public money to be used to pay for abortions under the government health care plan. Yay.

As is customary, the byzantine language used in legislation is confusing as hell. Here’s how it works:

Currently, federal money can’t be used to pay for abortions. There is no law against it (as the Obama administration tries to claim). There’s simply an amendment to the federal budget that has to be renewed every year that disallows federal funding for abortions. So all that’s required for the federal government (and for the public option) to permit federal funding for elective abortions is for Congress to decide not to renew that budget amendment.

Can you imagine a possibility where Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack “4th Trimester” Obama might let that amendment lapse?