The text of the monstrosity that is the Obamacare bill will supposedly be released today (in about half an hour, according to rumor). I'll have it for you as soon as it's out. Here it is.

Source: House Committee on Rules

Click the graphic below; it's based on the previous version of the bill, but the general thrust is the same.

Any bets on how big a bribe John Boccieri will demand for his "yes" vote?

1:00 PM Update: The House Republicans are doing everything they can to delay this assault on America.

11:55 AM Update: Here's the preliminary CBO report in PDF format.

11:45 AM Update: The Congressional Budget Office has supposedly scored the bill, and it's a bunch of crap. Still waiting for the text of the bill.

A warning to John Boccieri, Steve Drehaus, Zack Space, Charlie Wilson, Marcy Kaptur, Tim Ryan, Betty Sutton, Dennis Kucinich, Marcia Fudge, and Mary Jo Kilroy:

Any special deal, job, earmark, or payment that comes your way in return for your "yes" vote on Obamacare will be dragged to center stage and spotlighted. Bank on it.

According to The Columbus Dispatch:

Rep. Charlie Wilson is one of a number of Democrats who is officially undecided about the final health care bill - but the St. Clairsville Democrat is giving off strong signals he is headed toward a "yes" vote.

Get on it, folks!

Washington Office
ph: (202) 225-5705
fx: (202) 225-5907

Canfield, OH
ph: (330) 533-7250
fx: (330) 533-7136

Marietta, OH
ph: (740) 376-0868
fx: (740) 376-0886

Bridgeport, OH
ph: (740) 633-5705
fx: (740) 633-5727

Ironton, OH
ph: (740) 533-9423
fx: (740) 533-9359

Wellsville, OH
ph: (330) 532-3740

Unless you've spent the last four years living in a cave, this is no surprise at all. In a statement e-mailed to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Betty Sutton said:

Every year more than 40,000 people die because they don't have health insurance coverage, and in this great nation it should not be that way. The legislation is not perfect and indeed contains provisions that I will continue to strive to improve, but I will vote for the bill. By passing this legislation we will take the long overdue step toward ending the egregious, discriminatory practices of insurance companies that deny care based on pre-existing conditions and impose outrageous premium increases. This legislation will also strengthen the solvency of Medicare, lower drug costs for our seniors, and make health insurance more affordable and accessible for small businesses and individuals.

The bosses of the big labor unions want this bill passed, and what union bosses want, Betty Sutton delivers.

By the way, Betty, that "40,000 deaths" statistic is a complete crock of poo:

So, how did these political doctors come up with the 44,000 figure? They used data from a health survey conducted between 1988 and 1994. The questionnaires asked a sample of 9,000 participants if they were insured and how they rated their own health. The federal Centers for Disease Control tracked the deaths of people in the sample group through the year 2000. Drs. Himmelstein, Woolhandler, and company then crunched the numbers and attributed deaths to lack of health insurance for all the participants who initially self-reported that they had no insurance and then died for any reason over the 12-year tracking period.

At no time did the original researchers or the single-payer activists who piggy-backed off their data ever verify whether the supposed casualties of America's callous health care system had insurance or not.

...

To boil it all down in plain English: The single-payer scientists had no way of assessing whether the survey participants received insurance coverage between the time they answered the questionnaires and the time they died. They had no way of assessing whether the deaths could have been averted with health insurance coverage. A significant portion of those classified as "uninsured" may not have even been uninsured, based on past studies that actually did verify insurance status. But the Himmelstein team just took the rate of uninsurance from the original study (3.3 percent), applied it to census data, and voila: more than 44,000 Americans are dying from lack of insurance.

At least do your constituents the favor of using honest data when you try to support your socialist initiatives, Betty.

Drew Carey and The Reason Foundation decided to look for ways to save Cleveland from its aggressively stupid political leaders and their refusal to heed the first rule of holes. The result is a video series called "Reason Saves Cleveland":

Keep checking back as new episodes premiere, because I'll add them to this playlist.

3/18 Update: Right on cue, Tim Russo (a standard-bearer for typical Cleveland progressives) posts a spittle-flecked screed that misses the points of the Reason video ... and indelibly beclowns its author. Statist hacks like Russo simply cannot admit (or even comprehend) that punitive taxation and suffocating bureaucracy are responsible for Cleveland's sorry decline.

Here I sit, trying to watch the premiere of "The Pacific" on HBO, and the signal from Time Warner Cable is hitching, pausing, and pixelated. I signed up for HBO on Thursday just for this. I've been calling customer support all day to demand assistance. The response?

Gee, sorry, our computers are down. Try rebooting your box. Besides, we're working on the "outage" and things should be fine by tomorrow.

Fail. This is what monopolies get you.

11:55 PM Update: This is almost exactly what it looks like. I'll try to record my own video soon.

Post urging reader to immediately click through to the funniest meta video and ensuing comment thread in ages.

Monosyllabic expression of hearty approval.

See more at Tom McMahon's excellent 4-Block World.

From John Bergstrom's Attack Cartoons:

It's as plausible as anything else!

I've been eagerly awaiting this miniseries since I saw the first trailer, despite my recent misgivings thanks to Tom Hanks' asshattery. Here's a little history that sets the stage for the first episode.

In partnership with HBO, The U.S. Naval Institute has collected a great wealth of historical information on the the Pacific Theater of World War II. For further reading, try any (or all) of these books:

Want more video?

There's a bunch more after the jump.

If Barack Obama's agenda isn't socialist, then what is it? For reference, please consult the Socialist Party USA's platform and the official program of the Communist Party USA

Just look northward to Canada for a death panel example that will give any honest person reason to doubt the wisdom of enacting Obamacare.

Since ACORN is re-branding its less-than-stellar image these days, they'll likely downplay or eliminate the name "ACORN" soon here in Ohio. Slapping a new label on a crooked organization might be easy, but selling property and changing leadership personnel is not. To make it harder for ACORN to crawl back under a rock somewhere, I'm linking to the Ohio Secretary of State's online records for ACORN's business filing information. Look for street addresses, agent names, etc.

As long as the name "Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now" is in use by an existing business or non-profit organization in Ohio, the Secretary of State's office will also have that information. To run that query, just push this button.

Ain't citizen journalism grand?

11:35 update: Wow. ACORN just agreed to surrender its business license in Ohio as settlement of that RICO lawsuit by the Buckeye Institute. That's good news, but let's be wary. Keep a close eye on what happens with these properties:

379 N. 20th
Lower Level
Columbus, OH 43203

2069 East 36th Street
Cleveland, OH 44115

1025 Central Ave Ste 3
Cincinnati, OH 45202

115 E. Market St.
RM 202
Akron, OH 44308

4945 Profit Way
Dayton, OH 45414

316 North Michigan
Toledo, OH 43624

12:20 Update: Apparently The Buckeye Institute recently split off the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law as an independent organization after the lawsuit was originally filed, so it's the new group that gets the scalp for defeating ACORN.

12:35 Update: Matt Naugle cheers the victory, but cautions everyone to keep an eye open for the same ACORN crooks returning with different front groups.

Good grief. Again with the moooooderate canard? Michael Medved writes:

Republicans may be the immediate beneficiaries of the Democrats' clumsy misinterpretation of the supposed mandate for change, but they run a very real risk of making similar mistakes. Polls show disillusionment and distrust regarding the Obama agenda, but that hardly signals an impassioned appetite for a conservative counterrevolution. If the GOP pledges massive, wrenching, systemic change -- cutting back, for instance, on cherished, widely popular government programs on which millions of Americans depend -- it will meet the same resistance and skepticism that confronts Obama and his liberal colleagues.

In other words, the people would welcome a concerted effort to "clean up the mess in Washington," but they don't want Washington cleaning up the mess in their private lives because they don't consider their personal status a mess.

Yes, the Democrats miscalculated by underestimating the deeply conservative nature of the American people, but the Republicans may yet miscalculate themselves by interpreting that conservatism as ideological rather than temperamental.

The public wants pragmatic, commonsense, problem-solving leadership more than purist dogmatism of the right or the left. Voters don't yearn for stirring 10-point programs, or radical readjustments of governmental institutions, or definitive demonization and defeat of opponents.

Ever since Medved sided with Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham on amnesty "comprehensive immigration reform" a few years back, and especially once Medved started pimping McCain's and Mike Huckabee's presidential campaigns, I've had a hard time listening to him.

Hey, Michael, we don't want "radical conservative change" anytime soon. Let's start by rolling back federal spending/taxation/regulation to August '08 levels. Then maybe we can shoot for Reagan-era levels. After that, we can aim further rightward. 'Kay?

These are the current top 100 non-classical tunes on my iPod ...

... playing in the background as I sip a beer. Year number thirty nine, evening number one. Underway as before.

A decent opening shot, but somehow I suspect my congresscritter Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) is not listening any more now than she usually does. When it comes to confronting the vast majority of Americans who don't want anything to do with Obamacare, she's been a bit, um, timid.

Any comment, Tom Ganley? Justin Wooden?

If you really, truly oppose Obamacare as you claim, and if you want to set yourself apart from Betty Sutton, click on this logo ...

... and sign the pledge. I did!

P.S. -- Justin Wooden, call your office!

Just got a 30-sec robocall from Americans United for Change, spouting class warfare talking points and urging me to tell my congresscritters to vote for Obamacare.

Please, progressive geniuses, spend more of George Soros' money on annoying robocalls. It's bound to help your side. Really.

Rep. Betty Sutton just introduced a warm-and-fuzzy-sounding piece of legislation. It's called the Foreclosure Mandatory Mediation Act of 2010:

Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH13) joined Ohio Reps. Marcia L. Fudge (D-OH11) and Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH15), as well as Reps. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Kendrick Meek (D-FL) to introduce H.R. 4635--a measure to combat foreclosures. Ohio has been particularly impacted by the foreclosure crisis and projections indicate no signs of change. In Ohio's 13th Congressional District alone, 17,555 homes are projected to be foreclosed upon over the next four years. This legislation will require lenders of Federal loans or guarantees to enter into mediation with homeowners prior to placing the property in foreclosure or a sheriff's sale.

Since anything advocated by Maxine Waters automatically gets my antennae twitching, I went to the bill's text, which contains this key nugget (the emphasis and links are mine):

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, before a qualified mortgagee may initiate a foreclosure proceeding or a sheriff sale, the qualified mortgagee shall conduct, consistent with any applicable State or local requirements, a one-time mediation with the affected mortgagor and a housing counseling agency, at the expense of the qualified mortgagee.

For purposes of this section the term 'housing counseling agency' means a housing counseling agency certified by the Secretary under section 106(e) of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 (12 U.S.C. 1701x(e)); or a neighborhood housing services program established by the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation under section 606 of the Housing and Community Development Amendments of 1978 (42 U.S.C. 8105);

The parties are forced into mediation (even if it's a slam-dunk case of delinquency by the borrower), and look who foots the entire bill for the mediator's fees: the lender trying to foreclose on the delinquent borrower. When the government keeps forcing a company to incur new costs, the company must eventually pass on those costs to its customers. Otherwise the company will go bankrupt.

If this law passes, it will end up costing you more to get a mortgage. Care to guess which legislators will then wail and gnash their teeth about "predatory lenders screwing the poor" and "fat cat bankers jacking up fees" when those inevitable effects occur? Now, this is par for the course among politicians who have no clue how a free market works. They think the solution to every government-imposed problem is more government regulation and spending. What's unusual is that this isn't the worst part of the bill.