All Arkansas Democrats in Congress Vote For Obamacare!

Oh not directly. But yesterday their "Yea" votes on House Resolution 1190 are, without a doubt, votes for Obamacare. And votes against the will of their constituents in Arkansas!

HR 1190 was a Republican attempt to block Democrats' "Slaughter Solution" (aka "Deem & Pass") that is being considered by Democrats as an end run around the Constitution's Article I, Section 5 requirement for an up or down vote on the Senate's version of Obamacare. Our Democrat Congressmen are so rash, narcissistic, and condescending they believe this unconstitutional tactic to avoid a direct vote on the bill will fool their constituents in Arkansas.

Pelosi and her Democrat allies (all the other 221 Democrats who voted for this resolution) think their constituents are stupid enough to believe yesterday's vote isn't a vote for Obamacare. But voting to avoid a direct vote and consider a bill passed without voting on it can't be considered anything but a "Yea" vote for the bill being avoided. (If that sentence seems a little confusing, it's because we want you to get the idea just how this Democrat play is designed to confound and confuse voters.)

In the last two days calls to Marion Berry's (AR-01)office yielded assurances that he will read the entire bill before voting on it, and no final bill was even out yet. Mike Ross (AR-04) outright lied when he declared his opposition to Obamacare. And Vic Snyder (AR-02) never made any bones about his disdain for his constituents' will. Now this.

Even President Obama admitted yesterday's vote IS a vote for the unpopular Obamacare in his contentious interview with Brett Baier on Wednesday. When asked by Baier if he supported the use of the "Slaughter Rule" he responded,

"What I can tell you is that the vote that's taken in the House will be a vote for health care reform. And if people vote yes, whatever form that takes, that is going to be a vote for health care reform. And I don't think we should pretend otherwise."

*emphasis added

This kind of Democrat shenanigan is exactly the reason we must send a conservative Republican to Congress from the 1st District in November. Doing so will guarantee a vote against Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House and put an end to this chicanery.

Rick Crawford, one of two GOP candidates for Berry's seat spoke out against this unconstitutional tactic in his blog post, "Crawford Speaks Out Against 'Deem and Pass'."

On a day where a Fox News poll shows only 35% of Americans favor the health care reform bill, Pelosi is attempting to use a tactic dubbed “deem and pass” to push through the Senate’s health care reform bill, without having members of Congress actually vote on the bill. FoxNews.com reports this plan is being considered because, “…many House Democrats don’t want to cast a vote in favor of the unaltered Senate bill, which they oppose for numerous reasons.”

Republican central Arkansas businessman Scott Wallace, running for Vic Snyder's 2nd District seat says it's time to "unequivocally say NO to government run health care" and put this issue to rest for good. Wallace's primary opponent Tim Griffin, a US Army reservist and former US attorney, called the vote against this "common sense resolution" a vote for Nancy Pelosi, and against the people of Arkansas. From Griffin's press release:

“It is clear Arkansans must elect a new conservative majority to Congress in 2010. More importantly, we need to elect conservative leaders who will represent our values, not Speaker Pelosi’s, and work for the people of Arkansas, not against them."

Garland County Tea Party President and GOP candidate for Mike Ross' seat in the 4th District, Glenn Gallas slammed all three Arkansas Democrat congressmen in his press release. Gallas says,

" [Ross] allowed the bill to go forward to the detriment of his constituents to please Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. When the Republicans moved to stop the “Slaughter Rule”, Mike Ross, Vic Snyder, and Marion Berry, voted along their party line as they often do, shooting down the chance of stopping the Slaughter rule, thereby permitting the Obama Health Care bill to move forward..."

These Arkansas turncoats can't hide behind the dishonest Democrats' devious tactics.

They voted for the bill, they voted for Obamacare, and they voted against the will of their constituents in Arkansas!

Help us remove Nancy Pelosi's gavel as Speaker of the House by electing conservative Republicans this fall!

1st District Candidates' Q & A with LCRC

On Monday, both GOP candidates for Arkansas' 1st Congressional District seat addressed members of the Lonoke County Republican Committee. Princella Smith and Rick Crawford were each allotted 15 minutes to address members and answer questions. Because Smith's address took 10 minutes, and Crawford's only 3, the time spent answering questions from members and guests differs. To meet YouTube's maximum video length of 10 minutes, Crawford's Q & A was split into two parts.

Here they are Lonoke County, your GOP candidates for Congress answering questions at this month's LCRC regular meeting.

1st District Candidates Address LCRC

On Monday, 3-8-2010, both GOP candidates for Arkansas' 1st Congressional District seat addressed the Lonoke County Republican Committee's regular monthly meeting. Each was allowed a total of 15 minutes for their speech followed by a question and answer period. A detailed written report on the content of their interaction will follow tomorrow in another post, along with video of each candidates' Q & A with the crowd. The following videos are the candidates' speeches.

Editorial Boards Weigh in on Democrats’ Decision to Break the President’s “C-SPAN Pledge”

From the Republican Leader's Blog
by Kevin Boland

Reports that President Obama and Democratic Congressional leaders have cut a deal to skip a formal Conference on their health care legislation - a flat violation of the President’s promise that such negations would be broadcast on C-SPAN for the American people to see - has provoked outrage across America.

Today, editorial boards from coast to coast weighed in, and - to say the least - they disagree with Speaker Pelosi’s assertion that “There has never been a more open process.”

A roundup of newspaper editorials from this morning’s papers follows:

Boston Herald: “Let Public in the Room”

"This administration - and Democratic leaders - talk a good game about transparency in government. Now they have an opportunity to practice it. If they’re going to throw the legislative rulebook out the window, at the very least they could give congressional Republicans a chance to watch the process on TV."

Investor’s Business Daily: “Let the Sun Shine”

"House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, has called the Democrats’ plan to bypass a conference committee a “shady backroom deal.” An overstatement? Hardly. One House Democratic aide told a blogger that “this process cuts out the Republicans.” The Democrats fear that if they follow the traditional route, the GOP could use the Senate filibuster rule to shut down the process of organizing the committee.

"Bypassing a conference committee also cuts out a public that will suffer losses from whatever monstrosity is produced by the cover of darkness. Americans stand to lose their power of choice over health care decisions and be stripped of a significant portion of their earnings to pay for a plan most don’t want. They deserve to see in an open forum what is being done to them. Instead, they’re likely to get whatever the Democrats want to force on them."

New York Daily News: “Ready for Prime Time”

"Candidate Barack Obama made a straightforward health care reform promise on the campaign trail in 2008: ‘We’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so the people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who is making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.’ At the time, he hit all the right notes. Populism. Transparency. Good government. But today, President Obama is not quite with the program."

Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Broken Promise”

"What Americans don’t know — and what they won’t get to see — is how far Sen. Reid and Rep. Pelosi will go to get what they want. Taxpaying voters will be cut off from the decisive debate on a monstrous increase in consumer costs and federal authority. Can senators and representatives defend the economically impossible concepts they embrace — more health care, lower costs — in spontaneous, free-flowing discussions? Or will they simply push forward a slip of paper with the dollar amount needed to secure their support, as Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., already has?"

New York Post: “Dems Against Democracy”

"As DC Democrats slink behind closed doors to craft a final health-care bill — thousands of pages long and sure to sap the nation’s economic future — Americans need to ask: Just what are Dems so ashamed of? ‘We will do what is necessary to pass the bill,’ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted, as she and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moved to forgo a panel to finalize legislation. Instead, they’ll build their Frankenstein’s monster of a bill in secret, mocking democratic principles all the way."

The Wall Street Journal: “The Tom DeLay Democrats”

"Evading conference has become standard operating procedure in this Congress, though you might think they’d allow for the more open and thoughtful process on what Mr. Obama has called ‘the most important piece of social legislation since the Social Security Act passed in the 1930s and the most important reform of our health-care system since Medicare passed in the 1960s’…Apparently this Congress knows no shame."

Where is Marion Berry?

from Boot Berry!

And why is his office not taking calls from concerned constituents today?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has scheduled a vote for 6:00 pm EST today! Not just any vote, but a vote on her 1,990 page "Government Takeover of the US Health Care System" bill, HR 3962. That's right. The bill that...

• Permits federal taxpayer funding of abortion services, above and beyond the status quo of current law.
• Provides for a "health care czar" called the Health Choices Commissioner, who could forcibly enroll individuals in government-run insurance and whose tasks include requiring random compliance audits on Americans' health benefits plans.
• Allows for "community organizations" like ACORN and Planned Parenthood to assist the Health Choices Commissioner in enrolling individuals in the Health Insurance Exchange.
• Encourages identity fraud for illegal immigrants seeking to gain taxpayer-subsidized health benefits through inadequate citizenship and legal status verification standards. Page 255, Section 345 of H.R. 3962 includes language requiring verification of income for individuals wishing to receive federal health care subsidies, and while the bill currently does include a requirement for applicants to verify their citizenship, it does not include a similar requirement to verify that person's identity, a key component of effective verification.
• Provides for 13 new and different tax increases, including an employer mandate excise tax.
• "Grandfathers" out of existence individual health insurance coverage.
• Retains the "death panels" by providing for bureaucrats working for a new comparative effectiveness institute funded by a tax on health benefits. The institute could publish the protocols needed to deny patients access to life-saving treatments on cost grounds.
• Contains NO ban on federal promotion of assisted suicide and/or health care rationing of treatments.
• Facilitates leftist, social engineering policies such as rewriting current tax law to allow domestic partners to be treated as "spouses."
• Retains both the individual and employer mandates to purchase health insurance or else face a financial penalty, and compliance to this mandate will be enforced by the IRS.
• Imposes a 2.5% tax on an individual's modified adjusted gross income if they fail to purchase "acceptable" health care coverage.
• Imposes a surtax, starting in 2011, on "high"-income people - that is, couples with adjusted gross income over $1 million and individuals over $500,000.
• Fails to hold Members of Congress to the same health care system requirements that Americans will have to live by under the public health insurance option.
• Prohibits states from using tort reform to reduce health care costs.
• Mandates that all health insurance companies accept all applicants, that they cannot deny anyone for pre-existing conditions, and that they cannot increase the monthly premiums for less healthy, more costly consumers.
• Accommodates "whistleblower" provisions for trial lawyers to bring suit against employers.
• Slashes Medicare payments to providers by more than $400 billion.
• Creates dozens of new bureaucracies (111 to be exact) including the Health Benefits Advisory Committee and the Health Choices Administration.
• Encourages people to drop their insurance in favor of the public option as it provides for underpaying medical providers, who will in turn jack up their rates for those patients who have private insurance, driving more people to the cheaper, government plan.
• Authorizes Medicare to pay doctors for providing advice to patients on end-of-life care.
• Grants the authority to negotiate drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
• Considers individuals to be treated as "children" up to the age of 26 for the purpose of remaining on their parents' insurance plan.
• Imposes an excise tax on medical devices.
• Cuts $170 billion from the Medicare Advantage program.
• Institutes $729.5 billion in job-killing tax increases on all Americans, fines those who can't afford to purchase government-forced insurance, and cripples businesses by taxing health benefits.

And calls to Marion Berry's DC office [(202) 225-4076] are routed to a full voice mail box! His Jonesboro phone [(870) 972-4600]is answered by a machine that not only explains they're closed, but that they're gone for a 3 day weekend to celebrate Columbus Day! The number [(501) 843-3043] for his Cabot office is also off for a 3 day weekend! The message on his Mountain Home office phone [(870) 425-3510] informs callers it will be closed from November 9 until November 18.

Not one person is available to hear from you, me, us, or any one of his constituents concerned with his position on a bill that will not only affect us all, but our descendants for generations as well. And he's not available. His taxpayer funded staff is off for a 3 day weekend!

Is he there? Will he vote yea, nay, or present? Who knows?

You can still email him, but who knows if he'll listen. We get nothing more than a canned response to every question we've asked over the past several months.

Is this what you expect of your Representative? If not, if you expect your Representative to make himself available and to be more responsive to constituent concerns, then help us Boot Berry next year!

In the meantime, let him know how you feel when he and his staff decide to pick up the phones.

Washington, DC Office--(202) 225-4076

Jonesboro, AR Office--(870) 972-4600

Cabot, AR Office--(501) 843-3043

Mountain Home, AR Office--(870) 425-3510