Seven Days 'Til Obamacare Deadline: Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Blue Dog Dems, Kyl, Boehner, Tea Parties

Americans are riveted on Obamacare. With just seven days until the March 18th White House deadline for a vote on the Senate health care bill arrives, eyes are glued on Blue Dog Democrats. We are witnessing nearly hourly positioning on Capitol Hill and can almost hear the chest-poking, arm-twisting, and head thumping going on behind locked doors as Obama, Pelosi, and Reid shove and kick to pass their 2700 page health care confiscation scheme.

Hold on to your hospital gowns! We’ll slog through what’s happened in the last three days…

As of yesterday, the latest left-jab to the American people is aptly dubbed the “Slaughter Solution.”

The Slaughter Solution is a plan by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and a key ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to get the health care legislation through the House without an actual vote on the Senate-passed health care bill. You see, Democratic leaders currently lack the votes needed to pass the Senate health care bill through the House. Under Slaughter’s scheme, Democratic leaders will overcome this problem by simply “deeming” the Senate bill passed in the House – without an actual vote by members of the House.

(emphasis mine)

Two days ago (March 9th), Nancy Pelosi tipped her neck-wringing hand: “But we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

Taking his health care punches on the road, President Obama traveled to suburban St. Louis, Missouri yesterday. Assured of muscling high schoolers (ticketed with closed doors) at St. Charles High into cheering for his socialized plan as cameras rolled (how hard is that?) he was met outside by 2300 fired-up Tea Party protestors:

Even Democrats shunned the Obama event in St. Louis (March 10th) and Pennsylvania (March 8th):

The Show Me State temporarily became the No-Show State on Wednesday as some prominent Missouri Democrats decided they’d rather be somewhere else when President Obama came to push his massive health care overhaul plan. […]

The same conspicuous absences occurred Monday [March 8th] in Pennsylvania, a state Mr. Obama won by 10 percentage points in 2008. While the president was accompanied by embattled Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter, Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Chaka Fattah aboard Air Force One, several other Pennsylvania Democrats didn’t elect to join him there, including Reps. Patrick J. Murphy, Christopher Carney and Tim Holden, three incumbents facing tough re-election battles.

Speculation is volatile on whether Representative Bart Stupak and supposed 11 other reps who oppose abortion funding in the Senate bill will succumb to threats of non-cooperation black eyes:

News broke early yesterday morning [March 9th] announcing that Representative Bart Stupak thinks a “compromise” can be reached on the issue of abortion funding in the Democrats’ Senate version of the health care bill. “I’m more optimistic than I was a week ago,” Stupak said in an interview between meetings with constituents in his northern Michigan district.[...]

Stupak had an interview with The Weekly Standard yesterday, where he clarified what was really going on. “Obviously they don’t know me,” Stupak said in his interview. “If I didn’t cave in November, why would I do it now after all the crap I’ve been through? Everyone’s going around saying there’s a compromise — there’s no such thing,” Stupak said. What’s changed between this week and last, Stupak went on, is that he had his first real conversation with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Congressman Henry Waxman about fixing the bill.

As if there isn’t enough padding in health care boxing gloves, we learned today that Democrat leadership is considering stuffing a student loan overhaul into the Obamacare bill:

Democratic leaders met for a second day Wednesday with administration officials, including White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), but reached no decision on the student loan measure. One participant said a consensus appeared to be emerging that it would be unwise to risk the health-care bill by including the education measure.

The projected cost of Obama’s plan to expand Pell Grants and diminish the role of the private sector in the student loan program has exploded over the past year as more people seek college loans in the weak economy. Meanwhile, the potential savings from knocking private lenders out of the system has diminished as one in five colleges has already turned to government lending.

Rather than saving $50 billion over the next decade, the student loan initiative is now projected to increase deficits by about $5 billion, according to preliminary estimates provided to Democratic lawmakers. Including it in the health-care package could wreck efforts to meet the deficit-reduction goals required under reconciliation, aides said.

Eyes glazed over yet? There’s more…

Meanwhile, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) is staying in the ring by declaring yesterday that he’s going to change filibuster laws:

“The filibuster has been abused,” Sen. Harry Reid said at a reporter’s briefing this afternoon. “But next Congress, we are going to take a look at it. And we’re going to make some changes in it.”

For now, the process seems to be proceeding from the premise that Senate Democrats are fed up with the filibuster. “In baseball,” Reid said in a clipped tone, “they used to have the spitball. It originally was used with discretion. But then the ball got wetter and wetter and wetter. So soon, they outlawed the spitball.” The same, he said, had happened to the four-corner offense in basketball. “And just the way the spitball was abused in baseball and the four-corner offense was abused in basketball,” Reid said, “Republicans have abused the filibuster.”

Republicans will meet the Democrat’s reconciliation onslaught with a combat strategy of their own. Greta Van Susteren and Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) ‘On The Record’ (FOX News) last night:

Senator Kyl: “If you [Dems] are going to use the reconciliation process, we’re going to hold you to the strict limits of reconciliation. And, if you go outside the lines and are not technically correct under reconciliation, we’re going to toss it out on a point of order. And, we have the votes to do that.”

Characterizing Obama’s latest health care sales pitch as ‘snake oil’ and URGING us to keep up the fight by contacting Blue Dog Democrats, House Minority Leader John Boehner released this statement yesterday:

“While the President is visiting America’s heartland today, I hope he will take the opportunity to finally listen to the American people, who are shouting, “stop” at the top of their lungs. They just don’t want out-of-touch Washington Democrats’ job-killing government takeover of health care. They don’t want more than $500 billion in tax hikes. They don’t want nearly $500 billion in Medicare cuts. They don’t want these outrageous kickbacks, payoffs, and sweetheart backroom deals.

The Tea Party Coalition is sounding the trumpet nationwide to take the battle to Washington D.C. this month. Here is video announcing the Take the Town Halls to Washington project. Michele Bachmann @ 1:49 :

We’ve got SEVEN days to put the squeeze on Blue Dog Democrats. Let’s not get trapped into the ‘knocked-out’ way of thinking that we can lounge around while someone else does our work for us. How much effort have you made to contact BDDs in the past week? Each of us must take personal responsibility to get a headlock on Obamacare NOW. For information on who to contact, click here.

Let’s get bustin’!