Nightly Ramble Friday

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere; The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

• THE OBAMACARE FALLOUT: The Politico’s David Rodgers scored an interview with Queen Nancy yesterday. It’s posted here. Says Rodgers:
  

  Even before her bill reaches the House floor, health care reform has been a lesson in the limits of power for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — and in the immense challenge of managing disappointment on the left.

  The bill rolled out Thursday is weaker than many progressives — including Pelosi — had once hoped for, but her advice is to “declare victory” and recognize that this is not the last word.

  “On any given day, success that upsets business as usual in Washington can be perishable. I don’t want to get too bogged down,” Pelosi told POLITICO in an interview Thursday afternoon. “We are not passing a bill, shutting the door, turning out the lights and walking away. We will have other legislation.”

  

  David Rodgers

  Nor is she much open to prolonging the public option insurance debate by allowing a floor debate on an amendment to insist on a more robust version than the one now in the House bill.

  “I’m not big on showing weakness. It’s not my thing,” she said in the interview. “I don’t like to have predictable losses.”

  “Predictable”? And, “showing weakness” ?
  If there’s one thing that has been remarkable about this entire process has been that the weakness as demonstrated by the Democrat leadership in both the House and Senate have been so eminently predictable.  The far left are now faced with reality, and their inability to deal with that reality is in fact, their weakness.

  That reality involves limitations on the power of both those individuals, and those positions. It’s not just a matter of Republican opposition to the agenda of the far left, in which I include Pelosi. The far left’s biggest problem is their fellow Democrats.
  However; notice please the intentions of Pelosi, here. She’s going to get what she can get on this round, and t then she’s going for more, once the dust settles on this particular scrimmage.  So that $894,000,000,000.00 price tag, already questionable at best as I mentioned yesterday in these pages,  is going to go up yet again, come around to if Queen Nancy has anything to say about it.  (As an aside, the CBO rates Pelosi’s monster at a bit over a trillion dollars.) The question is, will the voters wise up before she does have anything to say about it.

• FRAUD! Reports have fraud under Medicare at around $60 billion annually. Now, does anyone think that’s not going to get worse when government runs the whole thing? Please….
• DEATH PANELS AND TAXES:: Ryan Ellis has the list of new taxes. And it appears the Death Panel measures survived in Pelosi’s bill.
• Jon Allen at Politco has the totals figureed out. Hint: 2.2 million dollars per word.
• AND NO BLINKING WONDER: The Housing Crash has already resumed. Gee, does this have anything to do with leftists and their anti-business rethoric, do you suppose?
• THE RECOVERY MEASURES AREEN’T HELPING: Jobs created or saved are a White House Fantasy
• LIEBERMAN TO SWITCH? Not that it makes a great deal of difference, but an interesting wrinkle on the news today is word that Sen. Joe Lieberman claims he’ll back Republicans in 2010 congressional races…
• HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Birthday Wishes today to Chris Muir, author of “Day By Day” which is a strip available here at BitsBlog. (Look at the masthead to find the link) Also we send wishes on Sunday to Gary G. Howell who is a regular correspondent with BitsBlog via the mails.
• BITSBLOG BUMPER STICKER OF THE DAY: Speaking of Gary, he sends this one along. As usual, it’s not a bumper sticker at all, but could be very easily, and should be, really. The pics are from Mandeville, Louisiana. State Farm, by the way has lost my business, given their reaction to the sign. They demanded it be taken down. I will not do business  a company seemingly bent on silencing free speech.  That’s MY “Good Neighbor policy”.