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WASHINGTON: Robert Gibbs yesterday refused to answer the White House press corps’ questions regarding C-SPAN’s request to broadcast meetings between Democrats as they hammer out their wildly unpopular healthcare bill. On December 30th Brian Lamb, CEO of C-SPAN requested from House and Senate leadership access to their negotiations (his letter here).

The NIP has drawn some heat for yesterday’s comment in our post thanking Joe Wilson for his honesty. In it we opined regarding Nancy Pelosi’s deteriorating mental health. We supposed she may be suffering from the onset of senility because she apparently had forgotten how rude Congress was previously to George W. Bush. We stand by our analysis, because how else can you explain her statement yesterday when describing the healthcare bill, “There has never been a more open process for any legislation”? We can’t just chalk it up to simple prevarication, because surely any sane person wouldn’t think that anyone in America would swallow such nonsense.

Robert Gibbs appears to be catching some of the same disease as you can see in the following video. He completely sidesteps questions from the press requesting that Obama honor his commitment and open healthcare negotiations to C-SPAN. We think though that in this case Mr. Gibbs still has his faculties. His evasion underscores the basic lie that was told to the American people during the Obama campaign. He might as well have said, “It’s our lie, and we’re standing by it.” Read more…

WASHINGTON: There are many who are digging into H.R. 3200, “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.” (You can download entire bill here by right-clicking and save to disk. If you click directly on the link it may crash your browser.)

H.R. 3200 has a very interesting statement of purpose:

A BILL

To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF DIVISIONS, TITLES, AND SUBTITLES.

SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the ‘‘America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009’’.

We wonder what those “other purposes” are? Could those purposes have something to do with Congress establishing control not only over 1/6 of our economy but over the very lives of every American?

It looks to us like Joe Wilson was right that illegal aliens will be covered under the plan, according to section 152. Section 152 prohibits discrimination in health care, “without regard to personal characteristics.” By giving illegals health care would one of those “other purposes” be to gain support among illegal aliens for Democrats? Read more…

WASHINGTON: In an unprecedented move the Senate has add language to the healthcare bill that prohibits future changes or repeal. On page 1020 of Senate version HR3590 (full text available here) it states:

‘‘(B) LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THE 6 BOARD RECOMMENDATIONS IN OTHER LEGISLATION.—It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report (other than pursuant to this section) that would repeal or otherwise change the recommendations of the Board if that change would fail to satisfy the requirements of sub-paragraphs (A)(i) and (C) of subsection (c)(2). ‘‘(C) LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THIS SUBSECTION.—It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.

Senator Jim DeMint explains it a whole lot better than we can. Here is a transcript of the video below: Read more…

MIDNIGHT VOTE IN WASHINGTON: The cockroaches come out at night, along with this Congress apparently. Many people have looked to Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison as a defender of conservatism. However her midnight vote for cloture on the healthcare bill reveals a different side of her. Apparently at night she puts on a costume like catwoman, but not in a good way.

We have lots of bad apples in both parties. But in the GOP there are three that stand apart. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe sided with 60 Democrats to end a Republican filibuster to delay the passage of health care legislation.

Of interest to the NIP is Hutchison’s statement on Dec. 19, during an appearance on Fox News. Hutchison said, “By the time I got to the floor, they had the 60 votes.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYMqE at 2:32.)

Check the C-SPAN footage below. Prevarication caught in the act. The clip shows that when Hutchison arrived, the 60 votes were in doubt, they were not a given. Ms. Hutchison, you had better get used to being called “Ms.” as your “Senator” days are over.

Read more…

ATLANTA: 800,000 doses of the H1N1 vaccine were recalled today. Another example of fine government-supervised healthcare. First of all, H1N1 is a real catchy name for the flu. The government renamed the “swine” flu to H1N1 to protect the good name of pigs, presumably as a result of a lawsuit by pigs represented by Cass Sunstein, White House Regulatory Czar.

We here at the NIP object to the renaming of this flu in the first place. Being politically correct has no place in public policy when it comes to naming flu strains. Especially since now pigs are calling it “human” flu, since apparently now they are catching it from farmers. Yes, that’s true. According to ChoSun Korea News pigs have now caught the flu from humans: Read more…