From 1982-1984 the University Of Houston Cougars men’s basketball team was known as Phi Slama Jama, in an obvious take-off of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society. It featured such future NBA Hall of Fame players as Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler.
Whatever their level of intelligence, these stars weren’t recruited to play at Houston for their IQs, or even for their basketball ‘fundamentals’, but for their ability to slam dunk the ball into the basket and in the faces of their opponents.
They featured a free-wheeling style, disdained traditionalism, and were notoriously poor free-throw shooters.
Although they advanced to the NCAA Final Four all three years, they never won a championship.
Now comes President Barack Hussein Obama, or ‘Bama, as the New York and Chicago press are fond of calling him.
In the face of overwhelming opposition from the American people, whom he’s supposed to represent, he wants to nationalize, effectively, the U.S. healthcare system.
By his own admission, his plan would:
Cut $500 billion from Medicare, the insurance plan for the elderly, into which they have paid
premiums for the past forty years;
Force fifteen million people out of their health insurance plans and into Medicaid, the government- run program for the poor;
Increase health insurance premiums for everyone else, because Medicaid reimburses doctors and
hospitals at only sixty per cent of their normal rates, which means they’ll have to shift their
costs to paying patients (premiums have already risen in Massachusetts, which has state-run
healthcare);
Set up a government-run ‘Working Group’ which would, by law, be required to ration medical care by
determining which medical procedures could be performed on which patients and the amount that would
be paid to doctors and hospitals. The Working Group would consist of community organizers and unions
such as ACORN and SEIU, who would be empowered also to shift medical resources from one community to
another. Under this system, the doctor/patient relationship would be replaced by the
government/doctor relationship, and patients would lose control of their own medical care;
Provide federal funding for abortion;
Provide federally-funded health insurance to illegal aliens;
Tax workers for health insurance provided by their employers;
Levy a Medicare tax on capital gains. Although the taxes would be implemented immediately upon
passage, the healthcare benefits would not commence until four years later;
Add several trillion dollars to the national debt.
Mr. Obama’s plan is unpopular to the extent that the Democrat-controlled Congress has tried but failed to pass it for the past twelve months. The House has passed one version, the Senate another.
Senate rules require sixty votes to pass the House bill, but the Democrats have only fifty-nine.
House Democrats hate the Senate bill and refuse to pass it.
Public opinion polls indicate that Americans want the Democrats to start over from scratch and develop a bipartisan bill with the Republicans.
Mr. Obama and the Democrats refuse.
Instead, they plan on resorting to legislative tricks to circumvent the will of the American people and the rules of the U.S. Senate.
They’ll offer marginal concessions to the GOP in hopes of providing bipartisan ‘cover’ to House Democrats, but the central government control of the healthcare system will remain in their legislation.
As of this date, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s plan is to get the House to approve the Senate version with the promise that the Senate would then ‘reconcile’ its bill to the House version.
Pelosi has told her caucus that they should vote for Obamacare and trust the Senate to make the desired changes, even if it would cause them to lose their reelection bids in November. She’s an effective infighter and she may prevail.
The reconciliation process requires only fifty-one Senate votes, but is not designed for non-budgetary measures such as this bill.
The allegedly non-partisan Senate parliamentarian would have to rule on any attempts to circumvent the rules.
Vice President Joe Biden, in his role as President of the Senate, stands ready to overrule the parliamentarian on any decisions that counter the will of the Democrats.
The bottom line is that if Nancy Pelosi can twist enough arms and if Joe Biden is willing to flaunt Senate tradition and rules, Obama will get his healthcare bill.
In that event, America would unleash its fury on the Democrats at the polls in November, and the Republicans would take control of at least one house of Congress.
That’s a prospect that Mr. Obama might wish to contemplate.
The fact that one can do something doesn’t mean that one should do it.
As Mr. Obama’s doctors have told him, inhaling nicotine, tar and formaldehyde into his lungs several times per day is unwise and a form of slow-motion suicide.
Republican control of the House and/or the Senate would give control of Congressional committees to the GOP.
With committee control comes the power to investigate the Administration.
Democrats currently are stonewalling Republican attempts to investigate Obama’s bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. GOP control would crumble the stone wall and lead to a comprehensive investigation of former Fannie Mae CEO and Obama friend and fund raiser Franklin Raines, and the role he played in Fannie Mae’s collapse.
ACORN played a significant part in the near meltdown of the financial institutions, and they too would be targeted for investigation. Mr. Obama is a long-time supporter of ACORN and, in fact, trained their personnel on bank intimidation tactics.
Another area of investigation would be the financing activities of the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. Republicans suspect that foreigners contributed large sums of money, which is a violation of federal law.
Once the investigation goes down that path, it gets into the activities of Mr. Obama’s wealthy and powerful allies.
It’s amazing what happens when one’s ‘friends’ are called to testify under oath to a Congressional committee and suddenly are faced with the prospect of an independent counsel investigation and potential federal charges of fraud, conspiracy, market manipulation and selling technology to the enemy.
And then there’s the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
CIA is seething, literally seething about Mr. Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Attorney General Eric Holder.
Ms. Pelosi and her liberal House colleagues tried recently to enact a law targeting for prosecution CIA agents for interrogation tactics such as offending the religious sensibilities of Islamic terrorists. We’re not exaggerating. That was one of the proposed illegal activities.
Mr. Holder, with Mr. Obama’s assent, has been investigating several highly-regarded CIA agents for the use of enhanced interrogation methods during the administration of President George W. Bush.
The lives and careers of these patriots have been ruined by Obama’s witch hunt, even though their activities were legal and specifically pre-approved in writing by senior government officials.
You may think you’ve read the facts of these interrogations in the New York Times or elsewhere.
You haven’t.
For a factual account, we highly recommend “Courting Disaster”, by Marc A. Thiessen, who was there and knows what happened.
CIA, despite several highly-publicized failures, has a long record of success and superb timing.
They also have a vast intelligence network that may have information of interest to Congressional committees.
It might be information pertinent to the ‘past’ of high-ranking government officials, and of the financial dealings of their friends and allies.
One never knows where or when the information would surface.
It could happen during the public testimony of witnesses, immediately after they’ve perjured themselves.
One needn’t rely anymore on the New York Times.
Web sites are live and up-to-the minute. Information on them gets transmitted around the world (and the halls of Congress) via Facebook and Twitter in nanoseconds.
Imagine a Congressional committee lawyer receiving a CIA-leaked ‘tweet’ on his Blackberry while he’s questioning a witness.
It almost sounds like a book.
Perhaps we’ll ask our readers to suggest titles for it.
“All the President’s Men Part II” has a certain ring to it.
Mr. Obama was not a member of Phi Beta Kappa, but the liberal elite regale us constantly with tales of his brilliance.
Apparently, he’d like to be an honorary member of Phi Slama Jama.
Go ahead and slam dunk your healthcare bill, Einstein.
For Email Newsletters you can trust
Phi ‘Bama Jama Goes To Washington
From 1982-1984 the University Of Houston Cougars men’s basketball team was known as Phi Slama Jama, in an obvious take-off of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society. It featured such future NBA Hall of Fame players as Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler.
Whatever their level of intelligence, these stars weren’t recruited to play at Houston for their IQs, or even for their basketball ‘fundamentals’, but for their ability to slam dunk the ball into the basket and in the faces of their opponents.
They featured a free-wheeling style, disdained traditionalism, and were notoriously poor free-throw shooters.
Although they advanced to the NCAA Final Four all three years, they never won a championship.
Now comes President Barack Hussein Obama, or ‘Bama, as the New York and Chicago press are fond of calling him.
In the face of overwhelming opposition from the American people, whom he’s supposed to represent, he wants to nationalize, effectively, the U.S. healthcare system.
By his own admission, his plan would:
premiums for the past forty years;
hospitals at only sixty per cent of their normal rates, which means they’ll have to shift their
costs to paying patients (premiums have already risen in Massachusetts, which has state-run
healthcare);
determining which medical procedures could be performed on which patients and the amount that would
be paid to doctors and hospitals. The Working Group would consist of community organizers and unions
such as ACORN and SEIU, who would be empowered also to shift medical resources from one community to
another. Under this system, the doctor/patient relationship would be replaced by the
government/doctor relationship, and patients would lose control of their own medical care;
passage, the healthcare benefits would not commence until four years later;
Mr. Obama’s plan is unpopular to the extent that the Democrat-controlled Congress has tried but failed to pass it for the past twelve months. The House has passed one version, the Senate another.
Senate rules require sixty votes to pass the House bill, but the Democrats have only fifty-nine.
House Democrats hate the Senate bill and refuse to pass it.
Public opinion polls indicate that Americans want the Democrats to start over from scratch and develop a bipartisan bill with the Republicans.
Mr. Obama and the Democrats refuse.
Instead, they plan on resorting to legislative tricks to circumvent the will of the American people and the rules of the U.S. Senate.
They’ll offer marginal concessions to the GOP in hopes of providing bipartisan ‘cover’ to House Democrats, but the central government control of the healthcare system will remain in their legislation.
As of this date, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s plan is to get the House to approve the Senate version with the promise that the Senate would then ‘reconcile’ its bill to the House version.
Pelosi has told her caucus that they should vote for Obamacare and trust the Senate to make the desired changes, even if it would cause them to lose their reelection bids in November. She’s an effective infighter and she may prevail.
The reconciliation process requires only fifty-one Senate votes, but is not designed for non-budgetary measures such as this bill.
The allegedly non-partisan Senate parliamentarian would have to rule on any attempts to circumvent the rules.
Vice President Joe Biden, in his role as President of the Senate, stands ready to overrule the parliamentarian on any decisions that counter the will of the Democrats.
The bottom line is that if Nancy Pelosi can twist enough arms and if Joe Biden is willing to flaunt Senate tradition and rules, Obama will get his healthcare bill.
In that event, America would unleash its fury on the Democrats at the polls in November, and the Republicans would take control of at least one house of Congress.
That’s a prospect that Mr. Obama might wish to contemplate.
The fact that one can do something doesn’t mean that one should do it.
As Mr. Obama’s doctors have told him, inhaling nicotine, tar and formaldehyde into his lungs several times per day is unwise and a form of slow-motion suicide.
Republican control of the House and/or the Senate would give control of Congressional committees to the GOP.
With committee control comes the power to investigate the Administration.
Democrats currently are stonewalling Republican attempts to investigate Obama’s bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. GOP control would crumble the stone wall and lead to a comprehensive investigation of former Fannie Mae CEO and Obama friend and fund raiser Franklin Raines, and the role he played in Fannie Mae’s collapse.
ACORN played a significant part in the near meltdown of the financial institutions, and they too would be targeted for investigation. Mr. Obama is a long-time supporter of ACORN and, in fact, trained their personnel on bank intimidation tactics.
Another area of investigation would be the financing activities of the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. Republicans suspect that foreigners contributed large sums of money, which is a violation of federal law.
Once the investigation goes down that path, it gets into the activities of Mr. Obama’s wealthy and powerful allies.
It’s amazing what happens when one’s ‘friends’ are called to testify under oath to a Congressional committee and suddenly are faced with the prospect of an independent counsel investigation and potential federal charges of fraud, conspiracy, market manipulation and selling technology to the enemy.
And then there’s the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
CIA is seething, literally seething about Mr. Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Attorney General Eric Holder.
Ms. Pelosi and her liberal House colleagues tried recently to enact a law targeting for prosecution CIA agents for interrogation tactics such as offending the religious sensibilities of Islamic terrorists. We’re not exaggerating. That was one of the proposed illegal activities.
Mr. Holder, with Mr. Obama’s assent, has been investigating several highly-regarded CIA agents for the use of enhanced interrogation methods during the administration of President George W. Bush.
The lives and careers of these patriots have been ruined by Obama’s witch hunt, even though their activities were legal and specifically pre-approved in writing by senior government officials.
You may think you’ve read the facts of these interrogations in the New York Times or elsewhere.
You haven’t.
For a factual account, we highly recommend “Courting Disaster”, by Marc A. Thiessen, who was there and knows what happened.
CIA, despite several highly-publicized failures, has a long record of success and superb timing.
They also have a vast intelligence network that may have information of interest to Congressional committees.
It might be information pertinent to the ‘past’ of high-ranking government officials, and of the financial dealings of their friends and allies.
One never knows where or when the information would surface.
It could happen during the public testimony of witnesses, immediately after they’ve perjured themselves.
One needn’t rely anymore on the New York Times.
Web sites are live and up-to-the minute. Information on them gets transmitted around the world (and the halls of Congress) via Facebook and Twitter in nanoseconds.
Imagine a Congressional committee lawyer receiving a CIA-leaked ‘tweet’ on his Blackberry while he’s questioning a witness.
It almost sounds like a book.
Perhaps we’ll ask our readers to suggest titles for it.
“All the President’s Men Part II” has a certain ring to it.
Mr. Obama was not a member of Phi Beta Kappa, but the liberal elite regale us constantly with tales of his brilliance.
Apparently, he’d like to be an honorary member of Phi Slama Jama.
Go ahead and slam dunk your healthcare bill, Einstein.
Watch what happens next.