The radio socialism in our future

MSNBC host and progressive radio talker Ed Schultz took to the airwaves earlier this week to call for radio socialism.

The fact is, look, it's not a level playing field when it comes to the audio culture of the country. Ownership has its privileges. When you own, I will be honest, if I owned 500 stations, the drugster wouldn't be on any of 'em. And that's just where it's at right now. But maybe we have reached the point where the Congress needs to equal it out. Equal out the audience.

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And so, I think that, you know, hell, if we're going to be socialist, let's be socialist all across the board.

Schultz works for the Obama-obsessed MSNBC, which is owned by General Electric. GE's president, Jeffrey Immelt, sits on the Federal Reserve and has secured several special deals for GE from the Obama Administration at the expense of competitors. Both MSNBC and Schultz are lagging behind conservative competitors in the ratings. How long until Immelt leans on Obama to right that wrong? Obama's diversity czar at the FCC is already trying to make Schultz's dream a reality by supporting an initiative to tax large radio companies and redistribute the wealth to smaller, minority-owned stations.

Radio socialism has support in Congress. Rep. Louise Slaughter, of recent health care fame, introduced a bill in 2004 that would reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Under Obama, the Democrats in Congress just nationalized the student loan industry and the health care industry in a single weekend. Does anyone doubt that they would do the same for the country's airwaves?

Pelosi ignores congressional rules and Constitution -- Founding Fathers spin in their graves

Last week we declared health care reform dead after the parliamentarian ruled that the president had to sign the Senate bill. This week, we're not so sure. The Democrats have wiggled their way around congressional rules and the Constitution, and may very well be able to ram this monstrosity through.

Despite the ruling of the Senate parliamentarian, House Democrats are still planning to vote on the reconciliation sidecar rather than the Senate bill itself, called the Slaughter Solution. This allows jittery Blue Dog Democrats to vote for health care without technically supporting the pork-laden Senate legislation. It's technically legal -- called a "self-executing rule" in Congress-speak -- but it's never been used to pass a bill this sweeping. All it needs to be approved is a majority vote in the House Rules Committee, which Democrats control 9-5. In 2005, Republicans used a self-executing rule to pass a national debt limit increase. Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and Louise Slaughter all filed briefs in court to have the vote ruled unconstitutional. Today Pelosi says of the Slaughter Solution, "I like it because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill." ObamaCare is so toxic at this point that the Speaker of the House is openly admitting she's happy her troops don't have to vote for it.

All this still doesn't mean that the bill will pass the House. Thanks to the parliamentarian, Congress can't pass the bill and the sidecar simultaneously. If the House does approve, the legislation will coast through another Senate vote and then land on the president's desk. After this, the Senate will have to take up the reconciliation sidecar. After the bruising legislative battle over the past year, many House Democrats are suspicious of the Senate's ability to get anything done. If the Senate doesn't make good on its promise to amend the bill with a sidecar, special deals like the Cornhusker Kickback will become law. That will mean many Blue Dogs will be toast (if they're not toast already).

But things are unquestionably worse than before. Perennial optimist Jim DeMint said he's less confident about ObamaCare dying than before. Rep. John Larson, vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said yesterday that Democrats have the votes (though that hasn't been confirmed by Pelosi or Clyburn).

If the bill passes, there will almost certainly be a court challenge. Yesterday a former appellate court judge wrote a scathing op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling the Slaughter Solution unconstitutional. But with plenty of progressive judges scattered across the judiciary, nothing is certain at this point.

Slaughter Solution opens doors for authoritarianism in America

Journalist Matthew Vadum reminds us just how much is at stake from the Democrats' ObamaCare blitz.

If the flagrantly unconstitutional Slaughter Solution is used and allowed to stand it amounts in a sense to a coup d’etat, that is, a fundamental structural change in our system of government without the consent of the governed. Nothing will stop the Democrats in the future from imposing their will on the American people without taking a vote. Hello cap-and-trade and card check. Anyone who supports the Slaughter Solution supports this supports a kind of treason against the Republic.

This is not a rhetorical flourish. Congress passes the laws of the land. If the laws of the land can be approved by Congress without a vote being taken in which lawmakers are forced to take a stand for or against, the whole idea of representative government is washed away.

Elsewhere, radio host Mark Levin has called for Slaughter to be expelled from Congress. Instead, Democrats have adopted her idea wholesale in order to force health care reform on the country.

Democrats defy Constitution on health care

Last week, the Senate parliamentarian, Alan Frumin, ruled that Democratic leaders couldn't amend the ObamaCare bill partway through the process with a reconciliation sidecar. The president would have to sign into law the wildly unpopular Senate bill before any changes could be made. This was a blow to the House where Democrats are divided against the Senate legislation for a number of reasons, including abortion and special deals like the Cornhusker Kickback. We predicted that the only route for success would be for Harry Reid to fire the parliamentarian. Instead Democrats have decided to just ignore the parliamentarian's ruling entirely.

[Congressional Democratic] Leaders appeared to be favoring a maneuver that would allow lawmakers to approve the reconciliation package without taking a separate vote on the politically dicey Senate bill. Under this scenario, the Senate bill would be deemed to have cleared the chamber once the House approved the package of fixes.

In other words, the House doesn't even have to vote on an actual bill. They can just approve a list of changes -- the reconciliation sidecar -- which will then amend a bill that, again, they haven't actually approved. It's called the Slaughter Solution (after Rep. Louise Slaughter) and the parliamentarian ruled it out. Another panel of experts would agree with Frumin: the Founding Fathers.

All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.

That's Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution. Under the Slaughter Solution, ObamaCare wouldn't originate in the House since the House won't have even voted on the actual legislation. Even then the bill still looks doomed to fail. With House Democrats lining up against the president on a variety of issues, Rep. James Clyburn admitted yesterday that ObamaCare still doesn't have the votes to pass. But if it does, Obama's signature piece of legislation will become law unconstitutionally and in defiance of Senate rules.

Obama's Democrats move to pass health care reform unconstitutionally

CongressDaily reports on congressional Democrats' latest scheme to push ObamaCare across the finish line.

House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter is prepping to help usher the healthcare overhaul through the House and potentially avoid a direct vote on the Senate overhaul bill, the chairwoman said Tuesday.

Slaughter is weighing preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill passed once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version.

The plan has been appropriately named the "Slaughter Solution" by John Boehner. Different groups of House Democrats are resentful of the Senate bill because it lacks restrictive abortion language and a public option. The Senate bill also contains controversial deals like the Cornhusker Kickback that House Democrats don't want to vote for. The Slaughter Solution would change congressional rules, magically considering the bill passed after the House voted to approve a series of corrections, rather than the actual bill itself.

The Slaughter Solution is also unconstitutional. The Constitution mandates that all revenue bills originate in the House. If Slaughter gets her way, the House will merely amend the current Senate bill, which means that the finalized ObamaCare legislation will have originated in the Senate. Obama's first major piece of legislation would become law unconstitutionally.