Chicago Style $300 Billion Payoff Secures Obamacare Debate

Obamacare took another step toward passage this weekend with a party line vote to allow debate in the US Senate. It takes 60 votes to start debate and the 60 Democrats under the maniacal leadership of Harry Reid accomplished the task.

But the weekend should serve notice to the naïve amongst us that the Chicago style corruption of politics has captured Washington DC with the election of Barrack Hussein Obama. The corruption of the process was in full display as Reid brokered a deal in public to send 300 billion dollars of your tax money to Louisiana in exchange for the vote of Senator Mary Landrieu. Even the Washington Post was ashamed of the open corruption.

Mary Landrieu and Reid discuss Chicago style pay-off

Post political reporter Dana Milbank wrote about the details in Sunday’s edition of the paper saying:

“Staffers on Capitol Hill were calling it the Louisiana Purchase.
On the eve of Saturday’s showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn’t secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.

And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote — and to trumpet the financial "fix" she had arranged for Louisiana. "I am not going to be defensive," she declared. "And it’s not a $100 million fix. It’s a $300 million fix."

It was an awkward moment (not least because her figure is 20 times the original Louisiana Purchase price). But it was fairly representative of a Senate debate that seems to be scripted in the Southern Gothic style. The plot was gripping — the bill survived Saturday’s procedural test without a single vote to spare — and it brought out the rank partisanship, the self-absorption and all the other pathologies of modern politics. If that wasn’t enough of a Tennessee Williams story line, the debate even had, playing the lead role, a Southerner named Blanche with a flair for the dramatic.”

If you are not sick to your stomach about the level of open chicanery in DC and if this doesn’t concern you, then you are hopeless.

If the open corruption in the US Senate isn’t enough we learned from the National Right to Work that Hilda Solis and the other trade unionists running the Labor Department are thumbing their noses at the supposedly open government rules of boss Obama.

In a report at BigGovernment.com,  Don Loos writes:

On Friday, 20 November 2009, The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation (Foundation) decided enough was enough and filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court demanding that they compel the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to comply with the Foundation’s April 6th Freedom of information Act (FOIA) request.
The Foundation’s FOIA requested:

Records from communications and recorded events where specified Obama appointees and Big Labor official were present.

Lists of lawsuits involving the Department of Labor and Deborah Greenfield within the past eight years.

List of any gifts received by Solis in the past 5 years from Big Labor or its officials
Specifically provide in detail (a) notes, (b) agreements, (c) communications, and (d) agendas related to the regulations related to the labor union and officer disclosure rules

Copies of phone logs

Copies of any notes or documents related to any enforcement of any labor laws and any outside groups such as labor unions, American Rights at Work, or ACORN
Obama’s Labor Department Ignores His Transparency Guidance

Remember January 21, 2009, when President Barack Obama proclaimed the new era of more open and transparent government began? This U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy memorandum is a good reminder:

On his first full day in office, January 21, 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum to the heads of all departments and agencies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The President directed that FOIA “should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.”

Moreover, the President instructed agencies that information should not be withheld merely because “public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”

Agencies were directed to respond to requests “promptly and in a spirit of cooperation.”

So in different ways this weekend the corruption of our national leaders was on display. Corruption in the legislative branch, and corruption in the administrative branch is easy for all to see.

We can be thankful the Founding Fathers of our great nation gave the tool of impeachment to make corrections. Our impeachment is strong and vibrant. If you haven’t signed the petition or shared it with your friends maybe this weekend will motivate you.

Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/ygz4wfe