Hot Air » Blog Archive » The $1.2 billion cloture vote in the dead of night

$1.2 Billion dollars in bribes.   I can’t wait until election time.

Harry Reid passed his cloture bill a few hours ago, forcing the Senate to remain in session while America slept in order to meet an arbitrary deadline for his version of ObamaCare.  As expected after the reversal of Ben Nelson (D-NE), Reid got his bill past its second procedural hurdle, thanks to some arm-twisting … and vote buying:

Landmark health care legislation backed by President Barack Obama passed its sternest Senate test in the pre-dawn hours early Monday, overcoming Republican delaying tactics on a 60-40 vote that all but assures its passage by Christmas. …

The atmosphere was intensely partisan, but the outcome preordained as senators cast their votes from their desks, a practice reserved for issues of particular importance. Administration officials who have worked intensely on the issue watched from the visitor’s gallery despite the hour. So, too, Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who championed health care across a Senate career that spanned more than 40 years.

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson’s announcement Saturday that he had decided to support the bill—in exchange for a variety of concessions—cemented the Democrats’ 60-vote majority behind a bill assembled at the direction of Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

A “varity of concessions”?  There really was no variety in the concessions at all.  Nelson changed his vote when Reid offered new language in his manager’s amendment that would send a boatload of money to Nebraska — and not just to the Cornhusker state, either:

Nebraska will receive $100 million in assistance for its state Medicaid program under provisions in the Senate’s healthcare reform bill negotiated by Sen. Ben Nelson (D).

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) informed lawmakers on Sunday night that the section of the manager’s amendment to the Senate’s health bill would cost $1.2 billion over 10 years.

Nelson managed to win a share of the section of the manager’s amendment on Equitable Support for Certain States, which will provide Nebraska, along with Massachusetts and Vermont, support in paying its share of additional costs to Medicaid in the health legislation.

Massachusetts?  Why would Massachusetts need extra help in paying its Medicaid obligations?  They already have a version of ObamaCare in place, which was supposed to contain and control health-care costs.  Apparently, it didn’t work as advertised — and neither will Reid’s version of ObamaCare either.

When that fails, who will bail out ObamaCare, as Massachusetts needs a bailout now?  Oh, right.  Us.

Hot Air » Blog Archive » The $1.2 billion cloture vote in the dead of night

OMG! All hell is about to break loose. Israel Harvested Organs Without Families’ Permission in the 90s.

I had always thought that this was just another of the crazy Muslim rumor, like “vaccines are really pig so we can’t go to heaven” or “Jews make matzos are made with Muslim blood”.  Wow, was I wrong.  Well, good job Israel.  In their primitive minds, no matter when, how, or whys, every blood libel they ever came up with has been vindicated.  I hope your military is on full alert.

JERUSALEM —  Israel admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without permission of their families.

The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel’s Abu Kabir forensic institute, Dr. Jehuda Hiss. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. Israel hotly denied the charge.

Parts of the interview were broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 TV over the weekend. In it, Hiss said, "We started to harvest corneas … Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family."

The Channel 2 report said that in the 1990s, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.

In a response to the TV report, the Israeli military confirmed that the practice took place. "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer," the military said in a statement quoted by Channel 2.

Israel Harvested Organs Without Families’ Permission – Health News | Current Health News | Medical News – FOXNews.com

Ok. Open question: Would Iran have invaded Iraq while Bush was President? What? You didn’t know that Iran invaded?

Did anyone know about this?  I never heard of it.

How far did our image of strength have to drop to allow this fiasco?

Dec. 18 (Bloomberg/) — Iranian forces yesterday entered Iraqi territory at dawn and occupied a well in the East Maysan oil field, Border Guard General Zafer Nazmi said.

The Iranian forces positioned tanks around well number 4, which is in the al-Fakah region, 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of Baghdad. The two neighbors have disputed the border of southeast Iraq for decades.

“They positioned tanks around it and dug trenches,” Nazmi said by phone from Basra. “They are still there, they raised the flag.”

Iran Forces Occupy Iraqi Oil Well, Border Guard Says (Update3) – Bloomberg.com

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Breaking: India, China walk out of Copenhagen

FoxNews doesn’t even have this one up yet.  Great jib, HotAir!

Go to their site, they have alot more.

Barack Obama came, he spoke, and no one concurred:

India and China have taken a united stand and walked out of the climate summit as Copenhagen talks fail.

Tensions prevailed at the climate talks at Copenhagen today, as Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh and China premier Wen Jiabao walked out of the summit along with their respective delegations, as talks failed.

Obama feted Singh just this month, saying that they should be impressed that India got first crack at Obama’s state dinner agenda.  Apparently, Singh was less impressed than Obama presumed.

Meanwhile, Obama is getting some pretty bad reviews for his intervention in Copenhagen … from his once-adoring admirers.  Since this comes from the Left’s major newspaper in the UK, where political biases are openly acknowledged in the media, this may seem like good news for those worried that Barack Obama would give away the store in Copenhagen.  We needn’t have worried; Obama turned out to be just as effective on the world stage as he has been in finding compromises here at home.  The Right has no illusions about Obama, but the disillusionment from the Left is rather amusing

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Breaking: India, China walk out of Copenhagen

Democratic Districts Won Twice as Much Stimulus as GOP Districts, Study Shows

Ok, is anyone surprised by this?  Anyone?  No?

Democratic districts have received nearly twice as much stimulus money as Republican districts and the cash has been awarded without regard to how badly an area was suffering from job losses, according to a new study.

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University reviewed the distribution of $157 billion in stimulus dollars based on publicly available reports and found that there was "no statistical correlation" between the amount of money a district got and its income or unemployment rate.

"You would think, right, that if the administration believes in its theory that government money can create jobs, they would spend a lot of money in districts that have high unemployment," study co-author Veronique de Rugy said. "We found absolutely no relationship. It just kind of shows that the money is spent kind of randomly."

Rather, the study found that Democratic congressional districts received 1.89 times more money than GOP districts. The average award for Democratic districts was $439 million, while the average award for Republican ones was $232 million.

On average, Democratic districts also got 152 awards, while Republican ones got 94.

FOXNews.com – Democratic Districts Won Twice as Much Stimulus as GOP Districts, Study Shows

Network Shows Ignore Copenhagen’s Warm Reception for Anti-Capitalist Rhetoric From Chavez | NewsBusters.org

What a surprise.

Earlier this week, NewsBusters Editor at Large Brent Baker noted how the broadcast networks seemed oblivious to communist protesters outside the Copenhagen global warming summit.

But the Red-friendly red meat slogans are not just being tossed about by violent demonstrators outside the conference. Today NewsBusters sister site CNSNews.com noted how dissent-oppressing, private-land seizing dictators Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe yesterday denounced capitalism and praised socialism to a warm and receptive crowd at the Copenhagen climate change summit.

Of course neither ABC’s "Good Morning America" nor CBS’s "Early Show" or NBC’s "Today" addressed that this morning in their brief updates on Copenhagen.

Network Shows Ignore Copenhagen’s Warm Reception for Anti-Capitalist Rhetoric From Chavez | NewsBusters.org

Anti-American Obama appoints Cuban spy as a US ambassador. Seriously.

  God, I wish this was a joke.

The potential damage to our security interests at home and abroad of putting left-wing extremists in charge of the country could hardly be overstated. As mentioned in the Morning Briefs, our Community Activist in Chief has actually appointed a known communist spy as Ambassador to El Salvador.

On Dec. 9, Obama nominated Mari Del Carmen Aponte to be ambassador to El Salvador, despite the fact that in the late 1990s, the FBI discovered that she was working with Cuban intelligence officers. According to Insight Magazine, "When the FBI eventually questioned her about her involvement with Cuban intelligence, she reportedly refused to cooperate."

It should be noted that the Cuban regime on whose behalf Aponte spied on America planned massive terror attacks in New York City and urged the Soviet Union to launch a nuclear strike against the USA. But let’s not assume that the appointment was motivated by unadulterated treason. Maybe it’s just another example of unsavory characters looking out for their own:

Moonbattery: Obama Appoints Cuban Spy Ambassador to El Salvador

Obama DOJ Tells Lawyers In New Black Panther Case To Not Cooperate. Hope and Change.

Its going to be fun watching all the Obama’s lawbreaking coming to light after we get rid of him in 2012. 

Hmmmm, just imagine George Bush was still president. How would this kind of news be received? Would it be splashed all over the leading U.S. papers, rather than pretty much in a sole outlet, the Washington Times? In fact, it seems that the Washington Times is the only one that is even following the story, the rest of the media is tending to ignore it in total. Anyhow

The Justice Department has told the federal attorneys who filed a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party for disrupting a Philadelphia polling place last year not to cooperate with an investigation of the incident by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
The commission last week subpoenaed at least two Justice Department lawyers and sought documents from the department to explain why the complaint was dismissed just as a federal judge was about to punish the New Black Panther Party and three of its members for intimidating voters.
Joseph H. Hunt, director of the Justice Department’s Federal Programs Branch, ordered the lawyers’ silence in a letter to the attorney for J. Christian Adams, the lead attorney for the department in the New Black Panther case. The letter said "well-established" and "lawful" Justice Department guidelines prohibited Mr. Adams’ cooperation in the commission probe.

Obama DOJ Tells Lawyers In New Black Panther Case To Not Cooperate | Right Wing News

Newt speaks the truth

Just watch it:

Does the bill specify what size box I have to be locked in or can I choose?

I love silly crap like this.

Because of a typo, President Obama signed a bill into law Wednesday that requires passengers who carry firearms aboard Amtrak be locked in boxes for their journey.

Harry Houdini made a career escaping from locked boxes. So did David Copperfield and Doug Henning.

And now, add to that list Amtrak passengers packing heat in their luggage?

It may sound absurd. But President Obama signed a bill into law Wednesday that requires passengers who carry firearms aboard Amtrak be locked in boxes for their journey.

It’s a mistake in the law’s wording. But for now, the clerical error is the law of the land.

Earlier this week, Congress sent the president a massive spending bill that funded dozens of federal departments. Tucked into the transportation section of the legislation are safety requirements for Amtrak customers who carry firearms on board the government-backed train system. The bill Congress passed mandates that passengers with firearms declare they have weapons with them in advance and stow them in locked boxes while on the train.

FOXNews.com – Typo in Law Establishes Mandate to Lock Gun-Toting Train Passengers in Boxes