Clyde Middleton of the Patriot Room sees ObamaCare failing miserably, and has written a humorous piece on the end of Queen Nancy’s reign.  I’m not as sure about the defeat of ObamaCare as I was a couple of days ago, though I am still optimistic, but I do believe that Clyde has it right that if ObamaCare does go down in flames, Queen Nancy is going with it.  If she can’t rally the votes for the President’s biggest domestic policy agenda, she’s finished, and I for one will not shed a tear.

First Jersey Shore, now Donna Simpson?  2010 is a bad year for Jersey, but I’m telling you, while Jersey girls have their own unique kind of baggage, they aren’t generally that bad!

Speaking of “baggage,” by now you’ve heard the buzz about Donna Simpson, that 600 lbs. woman who’s aiming to be the world’s fattest woman ever by reaching the 1000 lbs./half-ton barrier.

That’s when your fat’s fat has a fat* problem!

She can’t walk 20 feet without assistance, she eats about 12,000 calories a day, and somehow thinks she’s healthy.  Hey, her boyfriend’s totally supportive… after all, he’s a “belly man!”  Her daughter’s a sweet little girl who’s going to be motherless soon.  Simpson’s an entrepreneur, though — she hosts a website where people pay to watch her stuff-her-face.  Apparently, that’s sexy (barf!).

However, Donna Simpson is such a great analogy for America right now.  She’s already so fat that “obese” doesn’t do it justice — there needs to be another word for people like her.  While already on the verge of death at anytime, she’s willing to double down and engorge herself to be nearly twice as fat as she is now, into world-record status.  Isn’t that like a nation with a $12.5 trillion debt deciding to put 1/6th of that nation’s economy under government control which they cannot even remotely afford?

America… Congress is turning us into Donna Simpson!

*Don’t like me using the word “fat”?  Try to catch me, then!

As a Democrat, you know you’ve lost the argument when one Chris “I feel a tingle in my leg” Matthews argues aagainst your position.  Here’s Matthews’ putting forth a common-sense (for once) argument against the Slaughter Solution as a Democrat.  I guess even a liberal shrill like Matthews can be right every once in a while.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I am getting increasingly confident that ObamaCare as it is currently construed will not pass.  Despite the attempts of the state-run media claiming that Stupak’s supporters are caving (they’re not), despite Pelosi’s continued claim that she has the votes, this bill isn’t gaining momentum.  Both the state-run media and Pelosi are trying to create that momentum, or fauxmentum as Ace calls it, in order to try to win over more votes.  Let’s look at the evidence from the last 24 hours to try and see which way the wind is blowing.

First, the Senate.  As we’ve said before, the House is inherently distrustful of the Senate and they are distrustful of the Senate’s ability to pass a reconciliation bill.  It has been said all along that the Senate would write a letter to the House promising to pass the reconciliation fix.  I scoffed at that idea, as did most pundits, but it turns out that the Senate couldn’t even do that.  Instead, they sent a letter stating that they support health care reform in general, but made no promises regarding reconciliation.  On reconciliation, after a close-door meeting yesterday, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), chairman of the Senate Budget committee, noted that many of the provisions in the reconciliation fix were skirting the Byrd rule, and it was possible that many of them would be stripped.  Sending both these signals to the House will do nothing to bolster their confidence in the Senate.

Then there’s the CBO score leak.  The CBO score was originally supposed to be released yesterday.  Instead, it is supposedly being released today.  The original CBO score is rumored to have been in the neighborhood of $1 trillion, a deal breaker for many so-called blue dog Democrats.   The latest is that the Democrats are scrambling to mark up the bill to lower the cost, and may end up removing some of the pro-union fixes such as the delay of the Cadillac tax, which will anger some members of the House as well as the unions. With the delay of the CBO score, the vote has now likely been put off until at least Sunday.  We’ll see where it goes from here.

Finally, the whip counts are not in the Democrats favor.  Gabe Malor at Ace of Spades has the best whip count I’ve seen online.  Put it this way.  No Republicans are expected to vote for the bill, and Pelosi can only afford 37 defections from her caucus if she wants to pass the Senate bill (with the so-called reconciliation “fix” that the Senate can’t even commit to).  Thus far, there are 20 committed no-votes from people who voted no last time.  On top of that, you have the Stupak eleven, bringing the total likely no’s to 31.  Then, there are 3 prior “Yes” votes who have publicly stated that they are switching to “No”, bringing the likely “No” count to 34 (although one vote, Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) may just be posturing).  So Pelosi can only lose 3 more votes (or 4, if Gutierrez ends up switching back) if she wants to pass ObamaCare.

Here’s where the rub comes in.  There are 28 members who are undecided.  Of those, 12 voted “Yes” last time around, and 16 voted “No”.  Pelosi needs 25 of those 28 (or 24 if Gutierrez flips).  It is hard to believe that there will be too many prior no votes who will switch to yes at this point, when the bill is even more unpopular than it was back in November.  The fact that there are 12 “Yes” votes from last time who refuse to commit also can’t be too comforting for Pelosi and her crew.  It is going to be very difficult for her to whip up support, and the frustration is mounting.  There’s even speculation that a lot of the undecideds are remaining so in hope that the bill will just die on its own if Pelosi can’t get the votes secured, and they won’t be forced to vote on it.

My prediction:  with the distrust of the Senate, the CBO score, the problem of reconciliation, and the long odds in the whip count, I believe that ObamaCare is on life support, and it’s only a matter of time before the plug gets pulled.

Ah the perfect pint…

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

And to all those in Congress prepared to vote for that Obama Care monstrosity in the coming days, here’s some Gaelic:  pog ma hon! (pronounced pogue ma hone)  Pog ma hone indeed.

New Jersey’s non-comatose Democrat Senator, Bob Menendez, just got some bad news today.  As it turns out, NJ is one of 18 states which has a recall provision on elected representatives, so a Tea Party activist attempted to recall Bob Menendez.  Well, that effort just passed its first hurdle — a three-judge panel has allowed the petition process to move forward despite the typical Lib whining.

Now, Bob Menendez is just 1.3 million voter signatures short of having to face a recall election!  Recalling bad politicians, whether successful or not, is important.  I know it reeks of parliamentarism, but these are unusual times and Bob Menendez is an unusually loyal Obama sycophant not interested in the will of the people of the State of New Jersey.

From the makers of the infamous Demonsheep ad:  this isn’t Hot Air the blog, but a 7+ minute campaign video featuring Barbara Boxer as a blimp.  No, not a horrifically overweight person, but an actual, flying blimp.  I have to admit, I was glued to my screen for the full 7 minutes, wanting to see exactly what was going to happen to Babs the Blimp.  Some great imagery is used to describe Boxer – nails on a chalkboard, a hopelessly deflating blimp, and some of her speeches that just don’t make sense.

I don’t know if this video will have any effect (7-minute campaign ads rarely do) but you gotta give the Fiorina people credit for thinking outside the box.  Overall, a better effort than the Demonsheep ad, although not quite as memorable, and still a bit on the odd side, which makes me question exactly what the Fiorina people are smoking when they come up with these ads.

As it turns out, today was a busy news day regarding the ordinarily quiet SCOTUS.  Usually, without any major decisions coming down, we hardly hear anything from The Nine*.  Here are three recent stories:

First, Butler University is cool with Chief Justice John Roberts attending his niece’s graduation this May, but think Roberts is simply too controversial to actually speak at the commencement.  While Butler is not usually into political commencement speeches (unless you’re Evan Bayh or Mitch Daniels), I think they are blowing a unique opportunity to have a brilliant and classy Justice speak to their Leftist-leaning liberal arts graduates.

Secondly, Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni is going to be open about her support for the Tea Party Movement from her website and lobbying group, Liberty Central.  So, predictably, some Lefties are upset that this will create a conflict of interest for her husband, while at the same time take advantage of the latest SCOTUS decision regarding lobbyist groups.  I think Ginni can do whatever she likes and her husband can recuse himself if necessary.

Finally, it seems like Justice John Paul Stevens is likely to retire before Obama leaves office.  Here’s what he had to say about retiring during the Obama Adminstration:

“I have a great admiration for [Obama], and certainly think he’s capable of picking successfully, you know, doing a good job of filling vacancies…. You can say I will retire within the next three years. I’m sure of that.”

Well, couldn’t he have come to this conclusion to retire two years ago?  Jerk.  But at least he’s leaving, likely to be replaced by an equally liberal rube.  So, it’ll continue to be 5-4 most of the time after he leaves, but at least another old Lib dinosaur moves on.

* I couldn’t resist — ancient, sometimes creepy, can do a lot of damage, they scare people, you can’t seem to ever get rid of them, and all they wear black robes… it just seemed to fit!

The Democrats released a 2,300 page “shell” bill from the budget committee yesterday.  The bill is actually one of the House versions of ObamaCare that had come out of the Education and Labor as well as the Ways and Means committee last year.  It wasn’t the final bill used for passage by the house, but was set aside in favor of the bill that ultimately passed.  The shell bill was introduced in order to provide a “legislative vehicle” for reconciliation that could be done quickly without the usual committee input.  The bill now goes to the rules committee, headed by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) who will substitute the text with the reconciliation instructions to the Senate, and likely the “Slaughter” rule, which will deem HR 3590, the Senate health care bill, to have been passed.  This is to insert a contingency provision to try to circumvent the process of having House members cast a vote on the hated Senate bill.  One pesky problem for the Democrats, however, is the Constitution:

But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively.

Needless to say, if Pelosi thinks this is the best way to assure passage, it is what the House will try to do.  Even with this approach, there are no guarantees.  The Democrats still do not have the votes in the House, and even if it does pass in this fashion, the Senate may not be able to push it through reconciliation.  Regardless, they are playing with fire.  If they do somehow manage to push through ObamaCare this way, it opens up the door for the GOP to do the same thing.  The courts could very well overturn this, and even if they don’t, the GOP can “deem” ObamaCare to have been repealed once they retake congress, as part of any bill.  It will be very difficulty for Obama to veto every single bill if the GOP simply deems something to have been repealed.  In fact, the GOP could use this rule to undo a lot of failed Democrat policies.

That’s the problem with using wacky rule changes to push through your unpopular agenda, in that the other side will eventually use those same procedures against you.  I still believe that at the end of the day, this bill will not pass.  Yet even if it does, the high disapproval of the American people along with the breaking of the rules to ram this thing through will make it far easier to repeal than would have otherwise been possible.  The backlash from such a move alone will cause a major shifting of the electoral landscape in the Republicans favor, one that may take many years for the Democrats to recover from.

I heard a little buzz a few weeks back about some people who are upset with government who want to organize to get this country moving in the right direction by breaking the gridlock in Washington and get our representatives to be more representative.

Sounds great, right?  Kind of sounds like the Tea Party Movement, but you’d be wrong… it’s the fledgling “Coffee Party” movement, which seems to some in the MSM to potentially be “the next big thing.”

But I had to look into this myself.  I’m a Tea Party guy and would like to hear what the potential opposition has to say.

Here goes:  Annabel Park, the founder of the Coffee Party, was apparently upset at the pace of change in Washington due to Republican “obstructionism” (umm… until Scott Brown’s win less than two months ago, the Republicans could do virtually NOTHING to stop ANYTHING in Congress, but I digress) and upset at the angry libertarian tone of the Tea Party, so she set up a Facebook page and got lots of friends.  Of course, we all know that (most of the time) the amount of friends you have on social networking sites is inversely proportional to how cool you actually are, so being popular on Facebook doesn’t impress me.  I needed more to underpin my initial opinion.

Then I saw this: Park herself speaking about the origins of the Coffee Party.

My antennae went up immediately and numerous times during her soft-toned plea, as I’m sure yours did too.  So I dug a little deeper and discovered that (strangely enough) Park worked for BOTH the Jim Webb for Senate campaign and (you knew this was coming) the Obama campaign in 2008!  She’s even had an OpEd published in the Washington Post and has done research for the New York Times!  Uh oh.  That’s that I suppose.

So, is the Coffee Party an honest, open activist movement of a truly grassroots nature, or merely a trendy latte-sipping Leftist “astroturf” campaign from well-placed insurgents within the Obama Nation?  I looked for about ten minutes and got my impression pretty quick:  Coffee Party = Air America, the social movement.