Garden State Patriot

Back in August, when town hall meetings were at a fever pitch, I attended three of Rothman’s ‘listening sessions.’ While Rothman deserved credit for taking the heat at that time, it was evident that he had no intention of ever changing his mind and voting the will of his constituents despite his rhetoric to the contrary. I said as much here.

Among the many things Rothman said at the time was that he would not vote for a bill that rationed care, included abortion or covered illegal immigrants. Mark Kalinowski of the North Jersey Tea Party Group details this in his Facebook post today:

At his August 10th town hall meeting in North Arlington, Democratic Congressman Steve Rothman told the citizens assembled that he would not vote for any bill that would lead to rationing of medical care. (Video of him saying so is located on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VradLPeiynQ) Last night, bill HR 3962 came up for vote. One of the core purposes of this bill — the remarks of the ignorant and the power-hungry notwithstanding — is to have the federal government take over medical care. Whenever this anti-free market approach has been tried by other governments around the world, it has always led to rationing. In fact, the people who wrote this bill understand this, because they removed the following sentence outlawing rationing from a similar bill (HR 3200) weeks ago: “In developing such recommendations, the Committee shall take into account innovation in health care and ensure that essential benefits coverage does not lead to rationing of health care.” (This language was not added back into HR 3962.) Unfortunately, there are a lot of horrible politicians out there, and firmly among them is the thoroughly dishonest Steve Rothman. Voters in his district have just found out in a most spectacular, obvious way that Rothman’s word is no good. (Politicians like Rothman who are so willing to lie to themselves should never be trusted.) For the harm Rothman has caused to our country and our Constitution, for his willingness to violate our unalienable moral rights (such as our right to refrain from paying for other people’s health insurance), and for his stunning betrayal of his constituents, Rothman must be voted out of office in 2010.

Note #1: The source for the quote of the June draft of HR 3200 comes from: http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2009/11/change-prohibition-against-rationing.html

Note #2: I predicted Rothman’s would go back on his word; for example see this from the August 16th Bergen County Record: http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/letters/The_debate_on_health_care_reform.html?c=y&page=3

Note #3: The final roll call for the November 7, 2009 vote on HR 3200 can be found here: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll887.xml. If your congressman or congresswoman voted for this move toward socialized medicine, let’s vote him or her out of office too!

Mark is correct. With yesterday’s vote, Rothman has now gone on record as holding his constituent’s in contempt as well as going back on his word. Like every other representative in Congress who voted for government-run healthcare, he has also violated the oath he took to uphold the constitution. 

Mr. Rothman is no longer worthy of the office he currently holds. As a resident in his district, I will personally do everything in my power to make sure that the vote he cast last night is one of his last. And I’m sure I will not be alone in that endeavor.

Cross-posted at Red County and Conservatives with Attitude!

[UPDATE] RE: Stupak Amendment – The Stupak Amendment will supposedly contain legislation preventing funding of abortion to make it more palatable to pro-life Dems. As such, we should be putting pressure on our Republican reps to vote AGAINST this amendment. It’s a dangerous move but will make it harder for the overall bill to pass. Act accordingly! [UPDATE] Michelle Malkin:

Rep. Stupak: Health care has the votes whether anti-abortion amendment passes or fails. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) told reporters that regardless of the outcome of the vote on his amendment, which would severely restrict coverage of reproductive health issues, the House health care bill is headed for passage. He is whipping support for the amendment and estimates he has 225 votes. If he’s right, the amendment will pass, and he predicted enough pro-life Democrats will vote yes on the final bill to put it over the top. But if it fails, he said, enough pro-lifers will have been satisfied to have had their vote on the floor that they’ll turn around and support the final bill anyway.

[UPDATE] More info on the undecideds: Politico

The President just met with Pelosi and other Dem House leaders. They are trying to twist arms to get the last votes. We need to pressure them to stop. Personally, I just got through to Rothman’s office and told them to make sure he votes NO or suffer the consequences next year.    

Here are the key Representatives to call:

• Allen Boyd (FL) at 202-225-5235 – UPDATE: Voting NO
• Collin Peterson (MN) at 202-225-2165 – UPDATE: Not picking up, mailbox full
• Kathy Dahlkemper (PA) at 202-225-5406 – UPDATE: Not picking up, mailbox full
• Tim Holden (PA) at 202-225-5546 – UPDATE: No answer, Hearing NO
• Jim Cooper (TN) at 202-225-4311 – UPDATE: Voting YES
• Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (SD) at 202-225-2801 – UPDATE: Not picking up, mailbox full
• Joe Donnelly (IN) at 202-225-3915 – UPDATE: Not picking up, mailbox full
• Ben Chandler (KY) at 202-225-4706 – UPDATE: Leaning NO
• Zack Space (OH) at 202-225-6265 – UPDATE: Not picking up, left message
• Charles Wilson (OH) at 202-225-5705 – UPDATE: Not picking up, mailbox full
• Gabrielle Giffords (AZ) at 202-225-2542 – UPDATE: Voting YES
• Harry Mitchell (AZ) at 202-225-2190 – UPDATE: Voting YES
• Henry Cuellar (TX) at 202-225-1640 – UPDATE: Not picking up, mailbox full
• Dennis Moore (KS) at 202-225-2865 – UPDATE: Not picking up, mailbox full
• Mike Ross (AK) at 202-225-3772 – UPDATE: Not picking up, left message

Call 202-224-3121 or go here to get the direct dial number of your Congressman.

Red State has more on the key Congressmen/women. But this is the 11th hour in the House. Call NOW to make your voice heard.

Following the rally and meeting with some of our representatives, Steve Lonegan gave his take on the day’s events. 

And here some more video of the rally from AFP.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

Yesterday, scores of New Jersey patriots – and patriots from all over the country – descended on the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Our message was clear: KILL THIS BILL!

We were greeted by several terrific addresses from Congressional Representatives like Michelle Bachmann, Mike Pence and Scott Garrett. Mark Levin, Jon Voigt and our own Steve Lonegan also joined the chorus of speakers.

Afterwards, our delegation fanned out - some meeting with Congressman Garrett and others with Reps. Rothman and Adler.

Here is the first of my videos from the rally. Unfortunately, I was much too far away to capture all the speakers but this will give you a sense of the size of the crowd and you can hear all the speeches in their entirety. I will upload more later (as it’s been a bit time-consuming!). So please look for more shortly.

And at the end of the day, a rainbow formed over the Capitol! A sign of good fortune? We can only hope!

Also, here is an article of interest on yesterday’s protest focusing on Steve Rothman.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

Well, after 10 town hall meetings in August, I think it’s safe to say the verdict is in: Steve Rothman didn’t listen.

Rothman appeared on Lou Dobbs Tonight, along with our favorite Congressman Scott Garrett, on September 10th to debate healthcare – and among other things, had this to say:

REP. STEVE ROTHMAN (D), NEW JERSEY: Well I think my colleague, Scott Garrett and I, the Democrats and Republicans in general in the House agree on about 80 percent of what’s already in H.R. 3200. I did 10 town haul(sp) meetings over the summer and we learned a lot about what language needs to be tightened up, what things concern people and those suggestions are going to be incorporated in the bill, but basically if you have insurance, we’re going to make sure it’s more affordable, bend the cost curve…

Honestly, I don’t know how Rothman could make the case that Republicans agree with 80% of what’s in the bill. But more importantly, the fact that he thinks the message from the town hall meetings was simply to ‘tighten up the language’ and ‘incorporate our concerns’ is insulting to everyone who went to those meetings to protest the Democrat’s proposal. The message of those meetings was clear as could be: We do not want this. Go back to Washington and start over!

Unfortunately, like Dear Leader, Rothman doesn’t really care what the American people had to say to him. After all, they think they know best.

The video of the segment can be seen here. The transcript here.

Residents of Englewood are taking a stand against the despicable leader of Libya. Qaddafi, who recently spit in the eye of every American – and in particular the families who lost loved ones – when he celebrated the release of Pan Am bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, as seen here…

…is being told to stay out of Englewood, where the nation actually owns an estate. Here’s the story.

ENGLEWOOD, N.J. — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi will set foot on U.S. soil for the first time next month when he comes to address the U.N. General Assembly. Now he wants to put down stakes in the middle of American suburbia.

Plans to set up a tent and allow him to stay at a Libyan-owned estate in this upscale community 12 miles north of Manhattan, were attacked Monday by neighborhood residents and public officials, particularly after the hero’s welcome extended by Libya last week to the lone man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103.

The attack over Lockerbie, Scotland, thought to be the work of Libyan intelligence, killed all 259 people on board the flight, including 33 from New Jersey. Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was freed from a life sentence in a Scottish jail and returned to Libya on compassionate grounds because he is dying of cancer.

“Gadhafi is a dangerous dictator whose hands are covered with the blood of Americans and our allies,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman, whose district includes Englewood. He promised there would be “hell to pay” if the U.S. State Department violates a long-standing deal barring the dictator from staying at the Libyan estate.

Susan Cohen, who lost her then 20-year old daughter in the bombing, said it best:

“This is what happens when you have the path of appeasement,” Susan Cohen, of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, said of the prospect of Gadhafi staying in Englewood. “He’s getting everything he wants, and I guess that includes a trip to the state of New Jersey, which certainly doesn’t need this.”

The mere fact alone that Qaddafi would even think of staying at the estate speaks to his incredible lack of shame – and should remind us all that some men in this world are purely evil.

Cross-posted at Red County and Conservatives with Attitude!

When I had the opportunity last week to question Congressman Rothman at the Wallington session, I felt it was important to address not just the specifics of the bill being pushed in the House but also to take issue with the concept that our national government was within its rights to even pass such a bill. As such, I challenged him on the matter; telling him that the Founders - who designed a national government of enumerated and limited powers - expressly forbade such profound government intervention in free enterprise.

Not surprisingly, Congressman Rothman contended that “he believed the power was there.” Of course, liberals tend to see a lot of powers that are not in the document that safeguards our rights and liberties for they simply reject the idea of a limited federal government. In this case, the Congressman (scary enough, a former constitutional law professor) would have us believe the Founders thought it OK for our elected officials to be de facto insurance salesman (Can you say ‘Senator Willie Loman,’ anyone?) Of course, this notion is absurd.

Interestingly enough, our friends at The Heritage Foundation have addressed this very question, debunking Congressman Rothman quite thoroughly.  

We have heard a great deal about the costs and benefits of a “public option” and “single-payer system.”  We have heard about the financial costs—and the other costs—of allowing the government to interfere with matters of life and death.  However, we haven’t heard whether the Constitution gives Congress the power to enact these plans. What does this say about the status of the Constitution in the minds our policymakers today?  If a concerned citizen asks a proponent of nationalized healthcare to point to the constitutional authority for such a law, he may hear that the “General Welfare” clause, the “Necessary and Proper” clause, or the “Interstate Commerce” clause enables Congress to create national public health insurance to act.

None of these clauses—or any others found in the Constitution—gives Congress the power to create a government healthcare system.

The “General Welfare” clause gives Congress the power “To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.”  This clause is not a grant of power to Congress (as constitutional law professor Gary Lawson has shown). It is a limit to a power given to Congress. It limits the purpose for which Congress can lay and collect taxes.

During the founding, some Anti-Federalists were concerned that this clause “amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defence or general welfare.” But James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” explained very clearly that it granted no power to Congress. If the “General Welfare” clause gives Congress the power to promote the general welfare, then why specifically list the other powers in Article I, such as the power to establish post offices and post roads, or to coin money? Wouldn’t it be redundant to list them?

In short, as Madison argued, Congress derives no power from the general welfare clause, which merely serves to limit Congress’s power to lay and collect taxes.  Congress can only do so for purposes of common defense or general welfare, in the service of the powers granted to it elsewhere in Article I.

Second, “Necessary and Proper” gives Congress the power “to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States.”  Like the general welfare clause, this clause was not a stand-alone grant of power to Congress.  Rather, it authorizes Congress to make laws that are necessary (and also proper) to make the other grants of authority in Article I effectual.

In other words, the necessary and proper clause cannot itself authorize national public health insurance.  One would have to show that national public health insurance is necessary and proper to execute some other power granted in the Constitution.This puts the proponents of nationalized healthcare back where they started.

Lastly, proponents might argue that national health insurance is part of Congress power “to regulate commerce…among the several states.”  While progressives have often used this clause to expand the federal government, it does not apply especially to the creation of a national health insurance, because to create and engage in commerce is not the same thing as regulating commerce among the several states.

Nobody during the framing generation expected the commerce clause to expand the federal government’s authority to anything relating to or resembling commerce.  James Madison wrote that it is a power “which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained.”  The clause was designed to prevent some states from taxing goods that passed through their boundaries as those goods proceeded to market.

In case proponents of government healthcare latch on to another clause, the three clauses above and rest of Constitution are explained in depth in the Heritage Guide to the Constitution .

Of course, most progressive advocates of national health insurance are unconcerned whether the Constitution authorizes such a law when a pseudo-constitutional reasoning to reach the desired result will suffice.  But constitutionalists should not allow such attempts to dismiss the Constitution go unanswered.

Not only should this question not go unanswered, but as we conservatives engage with others on healthcare, it is imperative that we address – not just the specifics of the bill being proposed - but the larger issue at hand: that the nationalization of healthcare represents a direct threat and attack on our individual liberties for it undermines the very document the Founders established to protect those rights. It is the only way we will gain the high ground in the debate and the only way to begin to re-establish the system of limited government the Founders desired and created.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

On Thursday evening I attended Congressman Rothman’s listening session in Hackensack (the last of 3 that I managed to get to). And for the second time I had the opportunity to question the Congressman, challenging him on 3 issues:

First, I challenged the Congressman on his desire for ”Medicare for all” Americans. Quite simply I said to him “the last time I checked Medicare was laden with waste, fraud and was going bankrupt.”

Secondly, I asked the Congressman how the same number of doctors would be able to care for 47M uninsured without rationing care.

And thirdly, I cited a provision of the bill on page 195 which allows the ‘Government Healthcare Bureaucracy’ to have access to everyone’s financial and personal records to determine eligibility (not just those looking to enter the public plan). On this matter I quipped: “Congressman, you seem like a nice guy. I might even want to have a beer with you. But I don’t want you looking at my finances!”

Upon reviewing Rothman’s response to my questions on whitehouse.com, it became more clear to me just how the Congressman could find an ‘answer’ for anything. He blamed the problems with Medicare on everything but government mismanagement.  

Although I don’t believe the 47M uninsured number (and have demonstrated how this number has been debunked here on CWA!), I wanted to see what the Congressman would say. He responded by saying that many of the uninsured already receive care and that provisions in the bill would allow nurses to have a greater role in administering care. This may well be, but the reality is the bill would not cover 47M uninsured (as Art Laffer showed in his WSJ column last week, also cited by me here). Laffer said 30M would remain uninsured. Moreover, once people are insured, they will then seek care more often. Ultimately, we can not cover more patients without rationing care.

Of course, on the privacy matter Rothman claimed he did not want to see my personal finances (although he’d be happy to have a beer with me!). He contended that the language in the bill might just be, well, fuzzy.

Such responses represent the pattern for most of these ‘listening sessions.’ Congressman Rothman ever on the defensive and always seeming to have a prepared response to anything hurled his way.

At the end of the day, though, I don’t think that the Congressman was really ‘listening.’ For, as I tuned in to his responses, what I heard was that he would go back to Washington to ‘change the bill’ when what he should have been hearing was ‘We don’t want this!’ 

So, I have little faith that Congressman Rothman will speak for his constituents on this issue when he returns to D.C. and reconvenes with his colleagues on the Hill. Ultimately, this will come down to those ‘blue dogs’ who are more likely to face the wrath of the voters next year should they vote on the wrong side of this issue.

In the meantime, we must remain vigilant and continue to put pressure on our senators and representatives. We can not let up.

Cross-posted at Red County and Conservatives with Attitude!

After the Rothman Listening Session in Wallington, I was interviewed by RNN-TV for their show ‘Richard French Live.’ Here is their report (which skews left in my humble opinion). I appear at the beginning of the second part.

I think the reporter’s comments that people were closed-minded about the debate were silly. Why on earth should we be open-minded about government intrusion in our lives? Should we also be open-minded about the 1st Amendment? Should we be open-minded about putting criminals in jail?

There are some things in this life where there is no gray area. Our Founding Fathers made it clear that the national government only held certain enumerated powers. The national government is supposed to protect our liberty – which includes our property; or that which we have created and/or earned. When the government takes away our hard-earned money to pay for someone else’s health care then we are losing our liberty and the national government is doing precisely what it should not be doing.

The RNN reporter needs some lessons in constitutional principles before making a statement that people ought to be open-minded about offering health insurance. The Founders didn’t intend senators and representatives to be insurance salesmen. They intended us to be free and for free enterprise to be just that – free of government intrusion.

By the way, I didn’t have a ’script.’ I went to the listening session with armed with facts in order to make my case as strongly as possible.

This afternoon, I was able to attend the 3rd listening session with Congressman Rothman and pose questions to the Congressman.

Like yesterday’s session in North Arlington, the majority of people attending were a) seniors and b) opposed to the plan. In fact, the latest Rasmussen polling on Obamacare shows that the majority of Americans are indeed opposed to the plan – with seniors being even more opposed.

Public support for the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats has fallen to a new low as just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. That’s down five points from two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that opposition to the plan has increased to 53%, up nine points since late June.

More significantly, 44% of voters strongly oppose the health care reform effort versus 26% who strongly favor it. Intensity has been stronger among opponents of the plan since the debate began.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of those under 30 favor the plan while 56% of those over 65 are opposed. Among senior citizens, 46% are strongly opposed.

Predictably, 69% of Democrats favor the plan, while 79% of Republicans oppose it. Yet while 44% of Democratic voters strongly favor the reform effort, 70% of GOP voters are strongly opposed to it.

Most notable, however, is the opposition among voters not affiliated with either party. Sixty-two percent (62%) of unaffiliated voters oppose the health care plan, and 51% are strongly opposed. This marks an uptick in strong opposition among both Republicans and unaffiliateds, while the number of strongly supportive Democrats is unchanged.

With seniors increasingly opposed to the idea of a public plan, this would seem to significantly decrease the prospects of the bill’s passage. Seniors represent a key voting bloc for Democrats and the possibility of losing their vote over this issue may well be enough to scare most Democrats in Congress from supporting it. Time, of course, will tell.

If you would like to see the Rothman listening session from today, it can be seen in its entirety here at whitehouse.com. My questions challenged the Congressman on the constitutionality of the public plan, as well as the idea that this is a Trojan Horse aimed at ultimately achieving a single-payer, government run system. My appearance occurs well into the session, however.

By the way, here is some video from yesterday’s session in North Arlington. My CWA! colleague Rich Zuendt appears at the very beginning.

Cross-posted at Red County and Conservatives with Attitude!