Nancy Pelosi may not be the swiftest gal in DC, but at least she has a well-defined sense of limits and morality, right? Yeah, right. As Ed Morrissey reports here, so wedded is the Squeaker to health care reform Obama-style that she wants anyone who disobeys the federal mandate to buy health insurance “tossed in the pokey.” (Her words, I swear.)
I kinda see her point. It’s the Chicago way, which she now has full access to thanks to TGL. It goes something like, “Cross me, and I’ll cut your ____ off.” Then again, as Morrissey notes, “[I]t reminds us that statism always comes with handcuffs, and those cuffs always get explained by either fairness or patriotism.”
Comments 27
Come and get me, Nancy!
We’ll see what happens when and if the Senate squares several circles – that fewer and fewer people want them to square.
Just heard Kristol saying he didn’t think a bill would pass the Senate, mainly because of j-o-b-s. Last I checked, Keith Hennessey had the odds at 60-40 in favor, but that was a few days ago. I’ll be curious to see his next update.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
CK, I heard Kristol say the thing, but frankly I think it’s more wishful thinking than anything else. In the end, Obama has to pass something he can call his own, or he’s toast.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Well, maybe he’s toast.
You of all people, HP, ought to be willing to consider the possibility that he and his fine feathered friends aren’t really very good at what they’re trying to do.
The Dems have wanted all along to create a sense of inevitability. It’s good to hear people pushing back on that point.
For the same reason, though I understand why opponents discuss it as virtually un-rescindable once passed, I’d like to think about a resistance/nullification/repeal movement anyway.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Neo-Nulls?
http://www.jamessmithnoelcollection.org/images/henry%20clay.jpg
November 12th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
I hear what you’re saying, Colin, but so much rides on getting something through that I think they’ll do whatever is necessary—in the backroom, of course—to make sure this happens.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
It would be up to the Supremes to nullify it.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Damn, you took my line! When I saw this comment in your email, I was going to ask whether they aren’t all dead, except for Diana Ross.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Pretty unlikely that they’ll draft faulty legislation.
I put up a pretty good link about that over at the JEDshed when she raised the question of Constitutionality of mandated insurance.
At first blush, I found the idea of mandated insurance to be pretty dubious, (and it still doesn’t sit all that well) but I figured the Commerce Clause ought to serve as a base.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
@ fuster:
I read that piece. I thought the strongest part was the suggestion that the current most conservative justices had already bought into the Commerce Clause argument, and that gaining a 5-vote majority for overturning precedent would be unlikely enough even without past decisions. I wasn’t entirely convinced, however, that the authors fully rendered the opponents’ arguments, and why the health insurance mandate might differ in essential ways from the precedent cases.
Maybe they’ll discover a conservative penumbra in there somewhere.
I don’t consider it unlikely that they’ll draft extremely faulty legislation, in every sense of the word “faulty.” I consider it almost certain that they will. Whether it will be faulty enough to inspire a successful SC challenge is another question.
“think it o-o-ver-er…”
November 12th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
@ Howard Portnoy:
Last picture of Diana showed her to be clearly amongst the Undead.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/dianaross1.html
November 12th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Looking pretty good for 65 and plastered, y’ask me.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Hooray for Pelosi. It’s about time congress got on board with enforcing a serious penalty for people who don’t obey mandates.
But I see a possible flaw in her plan. If we throw sick people who turn up without insurance into the pokey we’ll just have to provide them free health care anyway.
We should execute people who don’t buy health insurance. A clear win win.
Come to think of it we should execute people who don’t buy auto insurance as well. And ones who drive without licenses. And people who pirate youtube cartoon videos. And. . .
At the least we should implement an idea I had long ago but for which I’ve never been able to develop any traction.
Stop with the wimpy boot business for parking scofflaws. Instead, deploy a mobile car crusher in each city. Leave the scofflaw’s car as a neat cube on the sidewalk next to where he parked. Make him responsible for having the cube removed.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
@ Sully:
Nah, can’t execute the people who disobey the insurance mandate because that would be allowing them to cheat them there Death Panels that the loons imagine to loom.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
@ fuster:
“the singer could not accurately. . . tell officers the time or date.”
Heck, I couldn’t answer that question either, if they asked it of me away from the whiteboard and the big clock next to the nurses’ station.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
@ fuster:
You’re not back a few hours and already you start. I propose something that can get true bipartisan support and you cavil.
Liberals love death panels. Conservatives love executions. My proposal can be made to appeal to both with just a little PR work.
November 12th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
I smell a game show here!!!!
November 12th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
@ fuster:
fuster, I just looked back at my comment, and I see why you thought I was intimating she was pushing up daisies. It’s too easy to write ambiguously. Somebody should invent a science that looks into this—could call it linguistics.
November 13th, 2009 at 4:48 am
@ Sully:
Sully, is that a reference to a VERY funny Simpsons exchange between Mr. Burns and Homer when that series was still funny?
November 13th, 2009 at 4:49 am
@ Howard Portnoy:
I never watched the Simpsons much but anything is possible when I get to free associating, as I was at the time of that comment.
November 13th, 2009 at 6:05 am
@ Sully:
In the episode, Homer was filling in for Smithers, giving Burns his messages after lunch:
Homer: [Reading message 1] You have 30 minutes to move your car. [Message 2] You have ten minutes. [3] Your car has been impounded. [4] Your car has been crushed into a cube. [5] You have 30 minutes to move your cube.
[At this point, the phone rings and Homer answers.]
Burns: Is that about my cube?
November 13th, 2009 at 6:48 am
Hey I like it – why don’t we kill people for lots of things, then we won’t have to worry about the death panels – everyone will already be dead.
This could be kind of like a French Revolution II, with guillotines, and crazed old ladies in every major city. That whole enlightenment, US revolution stuff is for the birds. Lets go the French route – totalitarianism, Rousseau, Jacobins; hell the dems are more a party to that than to the writings of Jefferson they claim to hold as their own.
I like it. And then Obama can become Napoleon – a very tall version.
November 13th, 2009 at 7:43 am
@ JEM:
Did someone say Obama as Napoleon?
November 13th, 2009 at 8:18 am
You know – I’d never looked at Napoleonobama full-sized before. Magnifique!
November 13th, 2009 at 8:22 am
@ CK MacLeod:
Mercy bow cups, Czar.
November 13th, 2009 at 8:25 am
The cigarette makes it perfect.
November 13th, 2009 at 8:53 am
@ Sully:
I kinda like it, too.
November 13th, 2009 at 9:41 am
A stirring portrayal!
November 13th, 2009 at 11:05 am