The Washington Examiner has chosen a rather odd analogy for the Democrat’s decision to ram health care legislation through in spite of overwhelming public opposition:  Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg.

It was Pickett’s Charge of the Confederates at Gettysburg in 1863, a horrendous, bloody carnage that could have been avoided, had not their commander, Gen. Robert E. Lee, been so determined to do it his way — a massed frontal assault against a nearly impregnable position.

It is to just such a political Pickett’s Charge that President Obama now summons congressional Democrats on behalf of his health care reform proposal, a last desperate gamble to overcome a sturdy, strengthening line of Republican opposition reinforced beyond measure in recent months by the knowledge they stand with a solid majority of their countrymen. Obama and Democratic brigade commanders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi know there will be terrible casualties among their troops come November, but still they urge them on, to sacrifice their jobs, careers and political futures for … 2,700 pages of new bureaucratic rules, mandates, directives and edicts that will surely destroy the finest health care system in the world.

So this would make Obama General Lee?  He’s gotta love that.  Teddy Kennedy, I suppose, would be the fallen Stonewall Jackson, who might have turned the tide had he not died before the decisive battle.  Harry Reid has the ponderous ego and glacial reactions of Longstreet.  Nancy Pelosi will have to serve as the fashionable, jetsetting Jeb Stuart (unfortunately, she’s not absent from the scene in the early stages).

Let’s get a regiment over to hold Little Round Top, the key to the whole battlefield.  I nominate Paul Ryan for the role of Chamberlain.

This whole Union thing is going to take some getting used to, but there’s something to be said for it.  Overwhelming numbers, a heady dose of moral superiority, imputed innocence.

How about Billy Yank as the new Ole Miss mascot?

President Obama’s health care plan requires that no one can be denied insurance coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Yet, the insured may be denied procedures for a variety of reasons determined by a government board. So, one may be excluded from “coverage” based on post-existing conditions?

Consequently, in order to determine the efficacy of the president’s universal coverage, one cannot compare the present lack of universal coverage with his plan’s proposal. Rather, one must compare the efficacy and accessibility of treatment and procedures in the present with the efficacy of accessibility of treatment and procedures under “universal coverage.” In other words, the scope of who is covered by insurance–whether it includes everyone, most, or some–must be measured by who gets what at the end, not whether someone is “insured” at the beginning.

Via DrewM. over at Ace of Spades, we are provided with another gleaming example of David Frum’s genius. David Frum is the self-styled intellectual leader of the conservative movement who regularly insults conservatives and conservative ideas.

In a recent article Mr. Frum attempts to correct the misguided idea among many on the right that Obamacare might be constitutionally defective. However, Mr. Frum’s period of instruction might have been more convincing had he actually read the Constitution first. Check out this example of keen constitutional analysis:

DeMint’s and Ensign’s argument against the constitutionality of the Obama-Reid health reform rests upon the ancient theory of enumerated powers. Under this theory, Congress may do only what the Constitution specifically authorizes Congress to do. Since (for example) the Constitution speaks only of a Supreme Court, Congress has no power to create lower federal courts. Since the Constitution does not mention a national bank, Congress may not charter banks.

Wow! According to Section 1, Article III of my Constitution Congress DOES have the enumerated power to create lower courts.

At any rate, the rest of the article mistakenly conflates Medicare and Social Security with Obamacare’s requirement that individual’s buy a product (insurance) from a private company.

I did find Frum’s equation of small government conservatives with the jurisprudence of Roger Taney more humorous than insulting. Taney was the author of the Dred Scott decision, a decision in which an arm of the federal government (the Supreme Court) stripped individual states of the power to define what was property within their borders or who could be a citizen. According to Taney, the citizens of Illinois, or any other state, lacked the authority to decide that a black man was more than just an article of private property. It is impossible to imagine a decision more antithetical to small government conservatism than Dred Scott. However, you would have to know something about both the constitution and conservatism to understand that point, something Mr. Frum apparently lacks.

If you want to read an intelligent constitutional take down of Obamacare then you should read this article from Richard Epstein.

Over at NRO’s Critical Condition, Jeffrey Anderson of the Benjamin Rush Society has a piece on the true costs of Obamacare.

Obamacare would require Americans to buy government-approved health insurance. It would make it illegal to offer choices in insurance plans beyond the handful of very similar ones that the government would allow. It would become illegal to offer new and innovative plans. Under any of the government-approved plans, it would become illegal to pay your doctor directly for more than a certain percentage of your care. Higher deductible, consumer-driven plans would be severely altered or eliminated. By law, a greater percentage of money would have to be paid in insurance premiums, rather than directly for care. Competition and choice would diminish tremendously. One-size-fits-all conformity would rule the day.

At its core, what Obamacare really means is a loss of freedom.

Obamacare would significantly diminish Americans’ freedom to control the fruits of their own labors and to spend them as they choose and as they think best. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that American taxpayers would be on the hook for approximately $2.5 trillion for Obamacare in its real first ten years in operation (2014 to 2023) — about triple the false number of $871 billion that the Democrats are spreading. As the CBO conveys, $871 billion only covers the cost of insurance coverage expansions, which is only a portion of the bill. Furthermore, less than 2 percent of the costs for what the Democrats are calling the bill’s “first-ten-year costs” would hit prior to the fifth year of that period.  So the Democrats are really giving the six-year costs — for insurance coverage expansions alone — and calling them the ten-year costs for the whole bill. Either the Democrats know this and are being deliberately deceitful, or else they don’t understand their own bill and are in over their heads even more than it appears.

In my last post decrying the shameless legislative prostitution of congressional call girls legislators Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson I was taken to task by one of our liberal readers for my naivete regarding run of the mill legislative “log rolling.” Apparently, only a uninformed boob would object to legislators who, having previously carved out a position based on a highly publicized moral position, cave on that self same position once they are offered enough money. Wow, I thought all this “log rolling” was to be a thing of the past in the new transparent age of Obama who, after lowering sea levels and global temperatures, would bring a new tone to Washington.

While our associates on the left may have made their peace with corruption I have not. I remain disgusted at the performance of our legislature regarding healthcare reform. If this issue is as important as they say then why the artificial deadline of getting this thing done before Christmas? Why not take the necessary time to get this thing done right? Why do we have to rush this thing through?

Reelection. Thats it. These high priced whores in D.C couldn’t care less about the welfare of the nation. Its all about them and the retention of political power. Their shameless self promotion at the cost of the fiscal health of the public purse disgusts me to no end. Apparently, certain liberal readers believe such thinking is hopelessly naive. For them I offer the following clip:

Absolutely right. “When statesmen abandon their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties they lead their country by a short route to chaos.”

I think Oliver Cromwell’s rebuke of the House of Commons is particularly applicable to our legislature today.

“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?

AMEN!!!!!!

Here’s a little Ann Coulter to help you fight off those health reform disaster holiday blues.  She begins with horror stories from Oregon cited by liberal columnists, reminding us that Oregon already has universal health care:

How can this be happening? Oregon already has “universal health care”! (Probably just a coincidence, but isn’t Oregon also the only state with physician-assisted suicide?)

Once again forgetting about the existence of the Internet, the Times neglects to mention its own erstwhile enthusiasm for Oregon’s universal health care plan, introduced back in 1990.

Back then, the Times published an editorial titled “Oregon’s Brave Medical Experiment,” hailing this technocratic monstrosity as an example of “hardheaded compassion” designed to make “health coverage available to many more families.”

In the wake of the massive failures of the experiments in Oregon and Massachusetts (thanks, Mitt), what’s a politician to do?  Extend the disaster nationwide:

Only Democrats could propose fixing one Bernie Madoff-style scam with an even bigger Bernie Madoff-style scam…. Eighty-five percent of Americans are happy with their health care, but Democrats have a plan to make it worse for more money. As a bonus, national health care will add trillions of dollars to the national debt, and your insurance rates will skyrocket.

ReasonTV editor Nick Gillespie (and his groovin sideburns) addresses the inevitabile mission creep with health care ‘reform.”  HT The Corner

The Senate passed its health care bill last night and in doing so did not exactly cover itself in glory. The numerous high-profile payoffs and shameless sellouts used to secure the bill’s passage were enough to make one lose all faith in representative government. Rep. Cantor hit the nail on the head when he stated, “They’re allocating taxpayer dollars as if those dollars belonged to the senators. It borders on immoral. Just look at the way Senator Landrieu put her vote up for sale. Senator Nelson did the same.”

Michelle Malkin breaks down who got what in “Cash for Cloture.”

As my fellow Alabamian pointed out below:

“But when  you express moral opposition to a bill and that moral opposition suddenly evaporates when your state gets enough money – that is a whole different matter.  In Alabama, we have a word for a person who sells his self for money – a whore.”

Sen. Nelson, Sen. Landrieu, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world, but for extra Medicare funding?

Senator Nelson has agreed to vote for the revised version of the “Health care” bill.  What it does as described by a Congressional aide:

The Manager’s Amendment does NOT contain language similar to the Stupak amendment approved by the House.  Instead the section on abortion (starting on page 38) adds a provision allowing states to opt out of providing abortion coverage through the exchange and adds further layers of accounting requirements.  The result remains the same, contrary to longstanding policy, the federal government will subsidize private health insurance plans that cover abortion, and Americans will facilitate abortion by making it more easily available.  The result will be more lives lost to abortion and more wounded mothers.

Why the sudden change? According to National Review:

The deal for Ben Nelson includes additional Medicaid funding for Nebraska and carve outs for physician owned hospitals in Nebraska — and Nebraska only. Uncle Sam will take the hit for 100% of the Medicaid expansion for Nebraska, forever. Nebraska is the only state to get this deal.

If the bill is good for America, then vote for it.  If not, then don’t.  Selling your vote in order to get special treatment for your state may be legal but it is morally bankrupt.  I have no problem with Congressmen trying to getting money for their state and even stating he will oppose the bill unless there is more for his state.  But when  you express moral opposition to a bill and that moral opposition suddenly evaporates when your state gets enough money – that is a whole different matter.  In Alabama, we have a word for a person who sells his self for money – a whore.

Another Mule was born to the world this week.  Mrs. Mule is doing fine after the c-section.  The new arrival has a v-shaped mark between his eyebrows that the nurses referred to as a ’stork bite.’  I had to point out that they were clearly mule’s ears.

What’s been interesting is the hospital chatter regarding ObamaCare.  During the surgery, the doctors were lamenting the new recommendations regarding mammograms and speculating about the next targets for rationing.  Once in our room, Mrs. Mule had sufficient morphine in her system to watch CNN.  Two of our nurses (one a native of Ireland) have started conversations about ObamaCare after hearing a commentator.  Both were opposed, and the Irish lass suggested we had better get used to ‘queueing up.’  Even the tech taking vitals had a few dire predictions.

This kind of anxiety is not a good thing when we need more nurses, more doctors, more techs.  If ObamaCare passes, that anxiety is going to worsen over the three or four years to full implementation.  A lot of decisions will be made in that time, and far too many of them will be against a career in health care.