Mary Katharine Ham notes that President Obama tells ABC:

“Let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals [on health care]. … There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked.”

But the Washington Post reported on December 20 that Obama’s top aides were involved in the negotiations with Nelson:

Schumer, who spent more than 13 hours in Reid’s office Friday, said the Medicaid issue was settled around lunchtime, and the final eight hours of the talks focused on the abortion language. Boxer estimated she spent seven hours in Reid’s offices — without ever once sitting in the same room, even though they were all of 25 steps apart.

Reid and Schumer kept up the “shuttle negotiation” between the leader’s conference room and his top aide’s office, Boxer said. Keenly aware how tense the talks were, the White House dispatched two aides who together have decades of experience in the Senate — Jim Messina and Peter Rouse — to work with Nelson. They relayed their intelligence to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who monitored the talks from a dinner in Georgetown.

Perhaps Messina and Rouse just showed up to provide the “Christmas cookies” that Reid and Schumer chowed down to sustain themselves during the tense negotiations, but it’s hard to believe that Obama’s aides didn’t sign off on both the abortion and Medicaid backroom deals.

Michelle Malkin sums it up:

The unmitigated chutzpah here is so blinding that I don’t just need sunglasses to protect my eyes. I need blackout curtains. Watch President Obama blame Congress for Demcare bribery and sabotage of transparency. As if Rahm and all the senior goons in the White House weren’t twisting arms and cracking heads to ensure that the deal met their boss’s timeline. As if the Cadillac tax break for unions hadn’t been hashed out at 1600 Pennsylvania.

For more on this story:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obama-pretends-he-didnt-sign-off-on-the-shady-health-care-deals-82699357.html

“Let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals [on health care]. … There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked.”  But the Washington Post reported on December 20 that Obama’s top aides were involved in the negotiations with Nelson.

Now that the House and Senate have both passed separate health care reform bills, the legislative process shifts to ironing out the differences. This typically involves having a formal conference committee containing members of both the House and the Senate. The goal is to reconcile the two bills, creating a final bill that both chambers will vote on. In a surprise turn, according to Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic, Democrats intend to employ an obscure tactic, informally known as “ping-pong,” to shut Republicans out of the final negotiations and speed the bills toward completion. In “ping-pong” the legislation is bounced back and forth between the House and the Senate, controlled by just the Democratic leadership in each chamber and the White House, until a final agreement can be reached.

It’s “almost certain,” according to a pair of senior congressional staffers Cohn spoke to, that the Democratic leadership will seek to avoid a formal conference committee and its procedural steps. The formal process and additional votes would have offered multiple additional opportunities for the Republicans to slow or obstruct the bill’s process, as they did throughout the fall.

As one might expect, Republicans in Congress are aghast over the move. Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority leader John Boehner, told Yahoo! News that such a tactic would break President Obama’s campaign promise of health care debate transparency. He labeled the strategy a “disgrace”.

For more on this subject read the following:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1044

http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2010/1/5/democrats-in-congress-aim-to-bypass-formal-conference-committee.aspx

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/01/04/congress-ping-pong-partisanship.aspx

http://www.redstate.com/brian_d/2010/01/05/obamacare-ping-pong/

Face Forward Comments:

Of course they are going to shut conservatives out of the negotiations.  Did anyone really expect the progressives to give any part of their march to wealth redistribution back?

There is fundamentally something wrong with any government that thinks of themselves as Robin Hood.   Do you really think that this government represents all of the people when they keep sending the message that they are robing from the rich to give to the poor?

To you liberals, let’s get something straight.  Robin Hood was a fictional character. Unfortunately, in this reality, the robbing from the poor tax payers is all too real.  Secondly, the thief (Robin) took from the government (Royal Politicians) to give back to the people that produced the goods and services (workers).  This time, the thief (Politicians) are taking from the producers (poor tax Payers)  to give to the non producers.  Sadly, the political Robin Hoods in government don’t have the same good (but misguided)  intentions as our fictional hero.  These thieves are not concerned about helping the poor but are concerned about keeping them impoverished so that they can keep themselves in power.  Robin Hood helped no one and this government is not helping either.

Consider this from Ayn Rands Book, “Atlas Shrugged”

 [Robin Hood] is not remembered as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became a symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don’t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, had demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors. It is this foulest of creatures – the double-parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich – whom men have come to regard as the moral idea.” “. . . Do you wonder why the world is collapsing around us? That is what I am fighting, Mr. Rearden. Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.

Dec. 6: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talks to the media after the Senate Democratic caucus that President Obama attended on Capitol Hill in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.

The Nevada Democrat, in a sweeping set of accusations on the Senate floor, also compared health care foes to those who opposed women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement – even though it was Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, who unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and it was Republicans who led the charge against slavery.

Senate Republicans on Monday called Reid’s comments “offensive” and “unbelievable.”

But Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era.

“Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ’slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right,” Reid said Monday. “When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ’slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough.’”

He continued: “When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn’t quite right.

For the rest of this article please go here:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/07/reid-compares-health-care-reform-foes-slavery-supporters/

Face Forward Comments:

I long ago gave up hope that politicians would hit the bottom of the mud pit and not fall any further into mire.  Once again, I can sleep in the knowledge that our political leadership will, when all else fails, resort to name calling and slinging mud.  I will have to give Harry Reid a thumbs up though, I would have never thought it possible that Opposing government owned health care could be equated to slavery.  Nice one, Harry.

I also find it amazing that the Democrats can point fingers at the Republicans with the words slavery on their lips.  As it was the democrats that tried to keep millions enslaved by trying to block civil rights legislation.  Welcome to American politics.

WASHINGTON — Digging in for a long struggle, Republican senators and governors assailed the majority Democrats’ newly minted health care legislation Thursday as a collection of tax increases, cuts in services for the elderly and heavy new burdens for deficit-ridden states.

Despite the criticism, indications were growing that Democrats would prevail on an initial Senate showdown set for Saturday night, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, the top Democrat, crisply rebutted the Republican charges. He said the bill “will save lives, save money and save Medicare,” the main health program for the elderly.

The legislation is designed to answer President Barack Obama’s demand to expand coverage, end insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions, and restrain the growth of health care spending.

Still, Republicans saw little to like Reid’s legislation awaiting the Saturday night Senate vote.

“It makes no sense at all and affronts common sense,” said Sen. Judd Gregg, one of several Republicans to criticize the measure. He added that a plan to expand Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, was a “bait and switch” with states as the victims.

Republican governors, meeting in Texas, agreed. “We all know a sucker play when we see one,” said Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana. The bill would expand the Medicaid program, which provides health care for the poor, and leave the states with part of the additional cost beginning after three years. Medicaid is administered by the states.

In the Capitol, Reid answered Republican delaying tactics with an initial vote set for Saturday evening to determine whether he has the 60 votes needed to move the legislation forward. That so-called “supermajority” in the 100-member Senate is required to advance the bill toward full debate, expected to begin after Thanksgiving.

For the rest of the article please go here:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/20/republicans-blast-bait-switch-health/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fpolitics+%2528FOXNews.com+-+Politics%2529

Face Forward Comments:

The health care bill vote is coming.   There are so many back door deals being cut it hard to keep track.  You can bet as each person that once opposed the bill now comes out in favor or you find out they have voted yes on it, they were bought and paid for. 

When Pelosi was pushing her version through the House, Rep. Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.) was among a group of lawmakers that got a package included in the bill to reduce a 2.5 percent tax on medical device manufacturers in his state. And remember the famous Blue Dog Democrats that were supposed to be so conservative?  Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA) was loud in his vocal opposition however,  Democratic leaders knew how to lock in his vote. They’d add a last-minute provision authorizing up to $500 million to create medical centers that could benefit a college in Cardoza’s California district. Dig deep enough and every person in the House that voted yes got something.