[Guest post by DRJ]

The Washington Post outlines how President Obama plans to sell the American people on health care and continued Democratic leadership:

“President Obama is set to begin an immediate public relations blitz aimed at turning around Americans’ opinion of the health-care bill, assuming the House passes it, White House officials said Sunday afternoon as they waited for the final votes.
***
Reshaping the legislation’s image will take place in three phases, aides said: the immediate aftermath; the seven months until the November midterm elections; and the several years that follow, during which many provisions in the measure will gradually take effect.

Driving the message during those periods is the belief among Obama’s top advisers that Republicans have boxed themselves into a corner with unanimous opposition to the legislation and talk of a repeal.

“We truly believe that Republicans have way overshot the runway in their criticism of it,” one top White House official said.”

Shorter WaPo: Obama 24/7 for the next 7 months.

Between now and November, American voters can mobilize to tell Washington what they think about the Democrats’ choices for health care and government. I don’t know what voters will decide but I hope their message is clear.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

As noted in previous posts, President Obama has agreed to an Executive Order that has turned Bart Stupak and other pro-life holdouts’ No votes to Yes. At NRO, Andy McCarthy thinks the Democrats’ use of an Executive Order is remarkable:

“I know we tire of the hypocrisy, but I really think this is remarkable. We spent the eight years through January 19, 2009, listening to Democrats complain that President Bush had purportedly caused a constitutional crisis by issuing signing statements when he signed bills into law. Democrats and Arlen Specter (now a Democrat) complained that these unenforceable, non-binding expressions of the executive’s interpretation of the laws Bush was signing were a usurpation Congress’s power to enact legislation.

But now Democrats are going to abide not a mere signing statement but an executive order that purports to have the effect of legislation — in fact, has the effect of nullifying legislation that Congress is simultaneously enacting?”

Alcee Hastings was right when he said Democrats are making up the rules as they go along, and pundits were right when they said Obama would be transformative. Now he even makes law.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

In his speeches and town hall meetings, President Obama has shared stories from Americans who hope ObamaCare is the answer to their health care problems. Jon Ward at The Daily Caller shares another perspective from Saturday’s anti-ObamaCare protest on the steps of Congress — Olga’s story:

“I happened to be standing by [Rep. Steve] King before he spoke to the crowd. He was approached by a 55-year old Russian immigrant named Olga Brenner, who had tears in her eyes as she told King she fears the U.S. is headed the wrong direction. I have video of her exchange with King from my phone and will get that up soon.

I asked Olga why she thought the bill was bad, she said “it’s not a cliche, it really is a government takeover of health care.”

“I thought I ran away from government dictatorship,” she said.

“When people have freedom it’s like air, you don’t remember, you don’t think about it. But when it’s not like air you begin to—you feel it … When there is lack of it, of freedom, it’s suffocating,” she said.

“I know what it is, and you won’t believe how recognizable it is. This is what I hear all my life, the same speeches, good intentions, it’s demagoguery but top-level propaganda. I’ve heard it all my life. And people live in misery.”

When I asked for Olga’s last name, she hesitated, explaining that she was conditioned by living in the former Soviet Union.

“I understand,” I said.

She responded: “You don’t understand. You don’t understand what it is and where it is going.”

Powerful words.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Tonight’s the night the White House plans to buy off the anti-abortion holdouts:

“Senior Dem staffer says abortion/executive order deliberations will take place tonight at the White House.

Stupak won’t be there… Dem staffer says “this still isn’t nailed down.”

Allahpundit says the pro-choice lobby is okay with this so I’m not optimistic.

EDIT: On the other hand, the House Rules Committee was still meeting at 7PM EST. The Daily Caller says the Committee’s deliberations were being interrupted by the noise of anti-health care protesters.

– DRJ

UPDATE — Interesting comments by Rep. Paul Ryan:

“I then talked to Paul Ryan, who looked exhausted. Ryan is one of the few Republican lawmakers still trying to make a case against the bill even though most people at this point are only focused on whether Democrats will have the votes to pass it. But Ryan got some of the Democrats on the Rules Committee pretty riled up today during debate.

I asked him if he was frustrated that the bill looked poised to pass Sunday.

“I think it’s a big, big mistake to put this into law. I mean I really do. So that’s frustrating. This is the biggest social policy in 40 years. I think it’s going to be a fiscal explosion and nightmare. I think it’s going to hurt the economy. And we could have done a better job. So yeah, that’s frustrating,” he said.

“Its ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ I just think people are living in a fantasy world if they think that this can be afforded, if they don’t think that this will lead to systematic rationing of health care,” Ryan said.

He mentioned that he was surprised that Democrats had managed to get this far, after looking down and out in January after the loss of Ted Kennedy’s senate seat in Massachusetts.

“I think they’ve just kept their Democrats in a cocoon in Washington and they’re just pounding them with reinforcing messages, and they’re not stepping outside of this town and just looking at the big picture, and just looking at reality. And I think they’re gonna really regret doing this,” he said.

And he added one shot at Blue Dog Democrats who voted against the bill in November but who have flipped to support it.

“Blue Dogs don’t exist any more, as far as I’m concerned. They don’t exist anymore,” he said. “Nobody who calls themselves a Blue Dog and votes for this can ever call themselves a Blue Dog Democrat ever again.”

In a 9:20 PM update, Jon Ward at the The Daily Caller confirms the House will vote on the Senate bill first and then the Reconciliation bill. Keep checking here for Ward’s updates as he reports from Congress.

[Guest post by DRJ]

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admits to a curious choice of basketball trash talk regarding President Obama:

“President Obama’s health secretary, who pressured her boss into choosing her hometown team to win it all at the NCAA tournament this year, admits she “talks trash all the time,” as the president put it in an ESPN interview this week.

“Well, I gave him a lot of grief,” Kathleen Sebelius said, of her chiding of then-Sen. Obama for his choice of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels to win the men’s national basketball championship in 2008, over her University of Kansas Jayhawks.

“I told him that I didn’t think it had anything to do with his basketball knowledge. I thought he was pandering to the North Carolina voters, because the primary had not yet occurred,” Sebelius said.”

Even one of his own Cabinet members thinks Obama panders, suggesting no one should believe what he says. That reinforces my belief that Obama wants Democrats to pass health care for him and not because it’s good for America.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

President Obama explains what America stands for in a message to Iran celebrating the Iranian New Year:

“I want the Iranian people to know what my country stands for. The United States believes in the dignity of every human being, and an international order that bends the arch of history in the direction of justice – a future where Iranians can exercise their rights, to participate fully in the global economy, and enrich the world through educational and cultural exchanges beyond Iran’s borders. That is the future that we seek. That is what America is for.”

What in the heck does “an international order that bends the arch of history in the direction of justice” mean, and how does that have anything to do with what America stands for?

The President also wants to have more exchange students “so that Iranian students can come to our colleges and universities.” However, he doesn’t mention sending Americans to Iran. That’s probably because of what happened to Esha Momeni and Shane Bauer, Sharon Shourd, and Joshua Fattal.

– DRJ

UPDATE — This is an Obama variation of a quote by Martin Luther King:

“In a speech delivered on August 16, 1967, Dr. King declared, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
***
Now President Obama developed a variation on Dr. King’s words. Speaking to thousands in Millennium Park on the night of November 4, and to millions around the world, the President said of his own election, “It’s the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.”

Dr. King’s version expresses hope in the future of mankind. Obama’s most recent version puts the “international order” in charge of mankind’s future.