The Presidential Planner
ABC News' Sunlen Miler reports:
Keeping good on the deal to stay in town while the Senate wraps up its final vote on health care, President Obama will take care of a little business before departing for his holiday vacation.
With Vice President Biden presiding, the Senate is to vote at 7 a.m. today on its version of the health care bill. Shortly after, the president will make a statement about the vote in the State Dining Room at the White House.
The Obama family then will depart for their nearly two-week vacation in Hawaii.
After the Obamas arrive, they’ll be staying in a luxurious $8.9 million rental property, a 7,000-square-foot home on the southeastern coast of Oahu, ABC News' Yunji de Nies and Karen Travers reported.
-Sunlen Miller
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And so the vote to ruin health care for all of us — except for Congress, of course — and a vote to destroy the American economy , off Obama jets to a luxury vacation.
Don’t hand me the “all presidents do this” nonsense. All presidents do NOT go on luxury vacations the way Obama has.
Posted by: liz | December 24, 2009, 7:27 am 7:27 am
On the list of the President….
Lie and screw over the American public
while showing how smug and arrogant
I can be. This equates to a lump of
coal to the American people and he
and those elected officials that went
along with this scam don’t give one
hoot in hell what the public wants.
Posted by: wis134 | December 24, 2009, 7:40 am 7:40 am
Now President Karzai can acuse Obama of having a corupt administration with all the bribes and sneaky midnight votes to give each other millions and millions of tax payer dollars to buy their votes for a bill that the majority of the people of this country DID NOT WANT. Now we will get more lies about how we will learn to like this TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.
Posted by: earl | December 24, 2009, 8:03 am 8:03 am
“Clearly exhausted, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid mistakenly voted no before changing his vote to yes, which got a laugh in the chamber, especially from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.”
Posted by: Live! From DC! It's Sat Night! | December 24, 2009, 9:16 am 9:16 am
Harry Reid: “I voted against the bill before I voted for it.”
/not an actual quote
Posted by: Live! From DC! It's Sat Night! | December 24, 2009, 9:18 am 9:18 am
i wonder how much that rental property is/week. just curious.
Posted by: kelli | December 24, 2009, 9:23 am 9:23 am
“which got a laugh in the chamber, especially from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.”
With Mitch there’s never any confusion since he always votes “No”.
Posted by: Skip | December 24, 2009, 9:26 am 9:26 am
“President Barack Obama’s commitment to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by next month may be delayed until 2011 because it will take months for the government to buy an Illinois prison and upgrade it to hold suspected terrorists.” – Associated Press
“We’re from the government and we’re here to help.” – Ronald Reagan
Posted by: Live! From DC! It's Sat Night! | December 24, 2009, 9:26 am 9:26 am
Time for the courts to “smackdown” the bribes and goodies doled out by Congress to Congress.
Posted by: The Audacity of Copenhagen | December 24, 2009, 9:38 am 9:38 am
“But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed … when the roar of the crowd fades away … when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot — what exactly is our opponent’s plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he’s done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger … take more of your money … give you more orders from Washington … and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy … our opponent is against producing it.” – Sarah Palin, 9/3/08
Posted by: Live! From DC! It's Sat Night! | December 24, 2009, 9:47 am 9:47 am
“Shortly after, the president will make a statement about the vote in the State Dining Room at the White House.”
.
During which time, all the liberal news media will have spontaneous orgasms. The rest of the taxpaying country will throw up their breakfast while wondering how this abomination of a bill ever saw the light of day.
.
Then on Christmas morning, these same taxpayers will find that Santa Maoboma and his merry Communist elves have left a big turd (the payment receipt for his health care scheme) in each their carefully hung stockings.
Posted by: gk | December 24, 2009, 9:48 am 9:48 am
“A leader who’s not looking for a fight, but is not afraid of one either. Harry Reid, the majority leader of the current do-nothing Senate, not long ago summed up his feelings about our nominee. He said, quote, “I can’t stand John McCain.” – Sarah Palin, 9/3/08
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had some harsh words for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Thursday, telling the Las Vegas Review Journal; “I can’t stand John McCain.
“In the interview, Reid also defended Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, after the former Democratic vice presidential nominee accepted a speaking slot at next month’s Republican convention in Minnesota.
“”He has a close personal relationship with John McCain. I don’t fully understand why he does,” Reid told the paper.
“”I told him last night, ‘You know, Joe, I can’t stand John McCain.’ He said, ‘I know you feel that way,’ ”
Reid said Lieberman called him Tuesday from the Republic of Georgia to tell him he would be speaking at the Republican convention.”" Politico, 8/28/08
Posted by: Live! From DC! It's Sat Night! | December 24, 2009, 9:53 am 9:53 am
Rasmussen Average for past 12 days:
Presidential Approval Index – 16
Total Approve 45%
Total Disapprove 54%
Strongly Approve 26%
Strongly Disapprove 42%
Posted by: Live! From DC! It's Sat Night! | December 24, 2009, 10:03 am 10:03 am
“A leader [McCain] who’s not looking for a fight, but is not afraid of one either.”
/clarify
Posted by: Live! From DC! It's Sat Night! | December 24, 2009, 10:05 am 10:05 am
Merry Christmas to Obama.
He finally has something all his own.
No one to blame if ObamaCare fails, but I’m sure he’ll find someone.
Probably Congress since he dumped it on them.
Obama’s health care bill stinks so bad he had to bribe his own party to vote for it.
With taxpayers money of course.
Obama/Dems own it!
Posted by: millie | December 24, 2009, 10:21 am 10:21 am
Obama/Dems own it!
Posted by: millie | Dec 24, 2009 10:21:12 AM
Obama, Reid and Pelosi have spent almost a year crafting health care that won’t take affect for the uninsured until 2013. And it still hasn’t been signed into law. That time could have been spent passing legislation that could have covered the uninsured immediately. The deaths of the thousands who die waiting for health care insurance will be on their watch.
Posted by: Live! From DC! It's Sat Night! | December 24, 2009, 10:33 am 10:33 am
Where is the outrage on this blog from all the supporters of this legislation who screamed that thousands, even tens of thousands, were dying from lack of affordable health care insurance?
Posted by: Live! From DC! It's Sat Night! | December 24, 2009, 10:36 am 10:36 am
Where is the outrage on this blog for the tens of millions who will still be uninsured for the next 1,095 plus days? How many will die waiting?
Posted by: Live! From DC! It's Sat Night! | December 24, 2009, 10:38 am 10:38 am
Obama got “95%” of what he wanted. I guess that includes the 30 million who will still be without insurance the day after he signs any H.C. legislation into law, and the day after that, and the day after that, and…
Posted by: Live! From DC! It's Sat Night! | December 24, 2009, 10:40 am 10:40 am
Well… Talking Points Memo (in February) said that around 55 people a day will die without health insurance but they think that number is too low. They think it’s more like 85 people a day. Another site says 122 Americans die each day for lack of health insurance.
Taking the lower number (best possible scenario…) the number who will die, possibly paying into but not getting healthcare for 1,095 days is 60,225.
Using the higher number, 133,590 Americans will die without health insurance before the first covered patient is seen by a government doc.
So, according to TPM, a minimum of 60,225 Americans will die before health care is rationed out by Congress. Even though we will begin paying when the bill becomes law.
Personally, I think one would die without “health care” not health insurance but that is another matter.
Posted by: The Audacity of Copenhagen | December 24, 2009, 10:59 am 10:59 am
Using the higher number, 133,590 Americans will die without health insurance before the first covered patient is seen by a government doc.
_______________________________
“a government doc”?
What are you talking about?
Posted by: tierra | December 24, 2009, 11:25 am 11:25 am
The Republican right is hilarious.
They whine and fight against health care reform – effectively fighting measures that will provide coverage to an additional 30 million Americans – and then when it looks like the legislation will pass they begin to whine it won’t happen fast enough.
Can you say ‘hypocrites’ boys and girls?
Posted by: tierra | December 24, 2009, 11:27 am 11:27 am
They whine and fight against health care reform – effectively fighting measures that will provide coverage to an additional 30 million Americans – and then when it looks like the legislation will pass they begin to whine it won’t happen fast enough.
Can you say ‘hypocrites’ boys and girls?
Posted by: tierra | Dec 24, 2009 11:27:48 AM
—
I try to see in the good in people but many Republicans and their tea party comrades were crying about how illegal immigrants might get health care, which I found heartless in its own regard. Now, they pull this trick out. The Republican proposal didn’t address coverage at all!
If they were really concerned, they’d write conservative and centrist representatives and senators (both Republican and Democrat) and push them hard to change their vote on the final bill so that in conference the public option can be put in and easily expanded within the next year or so– and the time frame can be moved up.
I agree with Ezra Klein and BooMan (Martin Longman) of BooMan Tribune. Ezra has a post up called “Winning ugly, but winning” and BooMan has many great posts up on all this.
Posted by: progressive mama | December 24, 2009, 12:52 pm 12:52 pm
The Republican right is hilarious.
They whine and fight against health care reform – effectively fighting measures that will provide coverage to an additional 30 million Americans – and then when it looks like the legislation will pass they begin to whine it won’t happen fast enough.
Can you say ‘hypocrites’ boys and girls?
Posted by: tierra | Dec 24, 2009 11:27:48 AM
How do you know where individuals stand on this bill? Perhaps this is the very reason someone opposed it: because of the delay and dirty tricks involved. You are just projecting your own prejudices.
Pointing out that 30 million people will remain uninsured for 3 plus years is simply pointing out the reality of the legislation. You should have thought about that before you supported it as is. It’s not my problem you were blinded, fooled or unconcerned about the thousands you will die in the next 3 years. You wanted it. You got it. You made your bed. Now you get to sleep in it.
Posted by: Live! From D.C.! It's Saturday Night! | December 24, 2009, 3:59 pm 3:59 pm
You are just projecting your own prejudices.
__________________________________
Not at all – simply pointing out the hypocrisy of the right.
They whine and fight against health care reform – effectively fighting measures that will provide coverage to an additional 30 million Americans – and then when it looks like the legislation will pass they begin to whine it won’t happen fast enough.
Are you looking for ways to protect the 30 million faster? I doubt it. Hyprocite.
Posted by: tierra | December 24, 2009, 4:32 pm 4:32 pm
People, calm down.
The law is not passed yet.
They still have to do their backroom deal, don’t forget, and then the House and Senate have to vote on the final backroom-deal version of the bill.
Then come the court challenges of the constitutionality of whatever they wind up with.
It’s not over yet, not by a long shot.
Posted by: tanarg | December 24, 2009, 4:35 pm 4:35 pm
“They whine and fight against health care reform – effectively fighting measures that will provide coverage to an additional 30 million Americans – and then when it looks like the legislation will pass they begin to whine it won’t happen fast enough.”
Posted by: tanarg | December 24, 2009, 4:52 pm 4:52 pm
Why the rush?
__________________________________
In case you’ve missed it, reforms to health care have been in the works for decades – and this particular legislation has been in the works since the inaguration, with summer town halls, counsultations and months of debate, ammendments and revisions in the senate and the house.
Posted by: tierra | December 24, 2009, 4:59 pm 4:59 pm
Are you looking for ways to protect the 30 million faster? I doubt it. Hyprocite.
Posted by: tierra | Dec 24, 2009 4:32:13 PM
Yes. I am, actually. I want to see the Democrats really run an insurance business the way it’s run in the real world. Instead of collecting premiums for 10 years and provide insurance for the last 5, I want to see them actually insure 30 million people, with no preconditions, from the start, charge them premiums and then make a 3-6% profit while covering these people. That’s what I want to see…
Posted by: Live! From D.C.! It's Saturday Night! | December 24, 2009, 10:56 pm 10:56 pm
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security
These words were penned by our founding fathers when it became clear that both Parliament and the King of England had no intention of protecting the rights of the American colonies. These institutions of government created to protect the rights of their people, instead chose to willfully and knowingly ignore them. The King, the protector and defender of the rights of the American colonists, chose to be a tyrant in his actions toward his loyal American colonies. The founding fathers protested this dereliction of duty, but to no avail. Various attempts to restore peaceful relations with Britain were attempted (The Olive Branch Petition). These too met with failure. Finally the founding fathers had only two options left available. They could submit themselves to the king’s tyranny; or they could take up arms and fight for independence in order to create a government which would protect their rights. The signers of the Declaration of Independence knew what the were committing themselves to. By signing that document they were sealing their own death warrant. Many lost all they had in the coming war and died debtors. A few paid the ultimate price and gave their lives for what they knew was right. These men knew how sweet freedom is, and they would rather taste the bitterness of death fighting for their freedom than live in peace under England’s tyrannical rule.
There was no middle ground with these men. You stood with them, or you had better stand out of their way. As Samuel Adams (known as the Father of the American Revolution) put it, “If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
This statement is quite clear and could be paraphrased by saying in today’s language, “If you are willing to compromise any part of your freedom for sake of wealth or comfort then get out of our way. Don’t claim to be part of us for we do not want you.”
We have the freedoms we take for granted of today thanks to the courage of those men who boldly sacrificed their comfort and security in order to fight and die for freedom. Freedom! To choose their own destinies! Freedom! To own their own land, elect their own representatives, have a voice in their own government! Freedom to choose what lives they would live. Freedom to gain their own wealth in a free market society. In the Constitution (which I will write about later), our founding fathers did NOT create a democracy, for in the words of John Adams (founding father and 2nd President of the United States), “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.” Our founding fathers created a republic “of the people, by the people, for the people” (The US Constitution Article 4 section4;The Gettysburg Address).
The founding father’s knew the true meaning of freedom. They bought it with their blood. They tasted it mixed with their tears for their dead sons and daughters in a war waged for freedom and freedom alone. The question now is this. Do we collectively today truly know what Freedom means? I am not talking about just voting or owning two cars etc. I’m talking about true freedom. The freedom to worship openly the one true God which our founding fathers gave thanks to and credited their victory and their freedoms to. I am talking about the freedom for a child to go to a public school and learn truth and not some alternative politically correct, amoral, compromised science and history. I am talking about the freedom of the people to see justice done in the court system today To see the murderers of their loved ones punished (as the founding fathers set up) with death and not with life imprisonment (if that) where society pays to keep them. I am talking about the freedom to pay a simple single flat tax where rich or poor doesn’t matter. I am talking about the freedom to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag in public schools. The right to carry a Bible in public. The freedom to call immorality sin without being labeled a hate crime. The right to own a gun and believe in the United States Constitution without being called a terrorist by your own government (which refuses to call terrorists by that name). I am talking about the freedom to choose your own heathcare plan instead of having to submit to the incompetence of a governmentally controlled healthcare system. We are allowing our freedoms to be taken away little by little, and we complain but do nothing about it. Did our Founding Fathers die for naught? God Forbid! Stand up for your freedom America! The freedom given to you by God and codified in the United States’ Constitution! Do not compromise your freedom to a pack of self serving, greedy politicians! Do not compromise your freedom to a tyrannical Federal Supreme Court which ignores the very Constitution it is sworn to uphold. States, Do not sell your rights as free, independent states to a Federal Government which ignores the tenth amendment in the Bill of Rights by unconstitutionally superseding the power of the states in a way which is not delegated to the Federal Government by the Constitution. I speak of regaining your national pride instead of submitting yourselves to nations which hate you in order to try to gain their love. I would rather have the respect of a nation than abase myself in order to win win their love (a dream which will never be fulfilled). I speak of a nation who is secure in there military might. Which, when threatened, seeks an alternative resolution to war but when that fails is not afraid to utterly destroy that threat. I speak of a national pride which cries with outrage and anger at their President bowing to a foreign dignitary. Where is your freedom and pride gone?
Americans! For the love of God and Freedom stand up for your rights and demand them. I am not advocating armed resistance. I am advocating the peaceful petitioning for the redress of grievances. Write your congressman. Keep aware of legislation that is being passed. Do not trust your government to do what is best for you for they have proven their ineptitude at that task. Remember it is “We the people” who give the government its power and authority. Do not be content to compromise your freedom for the sake of comfort. Learn what true freedom is and taste its sweetness!
Pass this note on to all you know for it affects all Americans.
To you politicians and judges. You took oaths to uphold the Constitution. Fulfill your oaths! Do not seek for your personal gain at the cost of our freedoms! Do not ignore the Constitution on which our nation was founded. I have seen your “vows in action” and I call you hypocrites and liars! (though a precious few of you hold true to your vow and for that I thank you). Be warned, America will wake up and is waking up to your failure already. They will not stand for your corruption much longer.
America. Do the harder right instead of the easy wrong. Regain your pride.
I will do my part with the talent God has given me to help to guide you in my writing.
America. You are in my prayers.
God Bless America.
-Publius-
(for more information contact me at voice_of_constitutional_freedom@yahoo.com)
Posted by: Publius | December 24, 2009, 11:04 pm 11:04 pm
Why would the President grant INTERPOL complete immunity from any of our laws? Why hasn’t ABC news reported this story?
Posted by: bc | December 25, 2009, 12:36 am 12:36 am
“Keeping good on the deal to stay in town …”
—
He’s real big on living up to his promises, isn’t he?
Posted by: tanarg | December 25, 2009, 6:20 am 6:20 am
well if this isn’t corruption,I don’t know what is?anyone that must be bought into signing this bill has sold out the very people who he promised to look out for,i hope when they get home their phones won’t stop ringing?because he has done the people he is suppose to respresent a big injustice and he shouldn’t be allowed to finish his term.Why isn’t there a senator who will charge these politicans with bribery and corruption charges that would set and example to all the others who would try this in the future?
These respresentives should be held accountable for the lack of listening to their constients who are still opposed to this outrageous bill they call Health Insurance?
When we start paying now and won’t be to be covered until 4 years from now.Al Franken is an Idiot and he should have stayed away from goverment ,because he couldn’t find his posterior end with both hands and a map.
Posted by: Runnibear | December 25, 2009, 10:33 am 10:33 am
I want to see them . . . charge them premiums and then make a 3-6% profit while covering these people.
_______________________________
This is what is in place now and it hasn’t worked. Hypocrisy showing again (I want to help the 30 million, but really I don’t), this time mixed in with ignorance.
Posted by: tierra | December 25, 2009, 1:28 pm 1:28 pm