Congress' Secret Plan to Pass Obamacare; It will cover illegal immigrants; Garrison Keillor: Deny healthcare to GOP

1) Congress’s Secret Plan to Pass Obamacare (by next Thursday) President Obama and liberals in Congress seem intent on passing comprehensive health care reform, even though polls suggest it is unpopular with the American people. And despite the potential political risks to moderate Democrats, the President and left-wing leadership in Congress are determined to pass the measure using a rare parliamentary procedure.   The Senate plans to attach Obamacare to a House-passed non-healthcare bill. Ironically, nobody knows what that legislation looks like, because it has not yet been written. Yet many members plan to rubber-stamp Obamacare without reading or understanding the bill.   The Senate Finance Committee worked furiously last week to mark up a “conceptual framework” of health care reform. The committee actually rejected an amendment by Sen. Jim Bunning (R.-Ky.) to mandate that the bill text and a final cost analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) be publicly available at least 72 hours before the Finance Committee votes on final passage.   …Step 3: Now, Obamacare will be ready to hitch a ride on an unrelated bill from the House. Sen. Reid will move to proceed to H.R. 1586, a bill to impose a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients. This bill was passed by the House in the wake of the AIG bonus controversy and is currently sitting on the Senate Legislative Calendar.   The move to proceed needs 60 votes to start debate. After the motion is approved, Sen. Reid will offer Obamacare as a complete substitute to the unrelated House-passed bill. This means that the entire healthcare reform effort will be included as an amendment to a TARP bill that has been collecting dust in the Senate for months.   …Adopting this secret plan will not strike most Americans as a transparent, bipartisan, effective way to change how millions of Americans get their health care. Do ya’ think? See: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33740 RUSH: This is how Harry Reid's going to drive the whole legislation back to the House, and this is essentially what reconciliation is all about. In one move -- and they're targeting next week to get this done -- in one move the US Congress will take over hospitals, will take over laboratories, will take over the medical profession, will take over the insurance companies. What they are planning, let me point it out to you in an even more understandable fashion. What they are plotting and hope to pull off by next week will make the takeovers of General Motors and Chrysler look like a joke. See: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_093009/content/01125106.guest.html 1a) Senators turn back ID requirement for immigrant healthcare (Wilson was right) Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed a requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for federal healthcare programs. Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that current law and the healthcare bill under consideration are too lax and leave the door open to illegal immigrants defrauding the government using false or stolen identities to obtain benefits. Grassley's amendment was beaten back 10-13 on a party-line vote. See: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/60939-senators-turn-back-id-requirement-for-immigrant-healthcare 1b) Garrison Keillor says deny healthcare to Republicans …one starts to wonder if the country wouldn't be better off without them and if Republicans should be cut out of the health-care system entirely and simply provided with aspirin and hand sanitizer. Thirty-two percent of the population identifies with the GOP, and if we cut off health care to them, we could probably pay off the deficit in short order. Fine with me! We’ll set up our own system and you can have yours. Only don’t be disappointed when 45% of your doctors defect and come to the side of common sense.  See: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0930keillorsep30,0,1198390.column 2) Bad Dreams, the French Sting and the World’s Nuclear Realities You know something is amiss when the French take a harder line on national security than the United States. At the United Nations last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy chided President Obama for his “dream” of ridding the world of nuclear weapons, reminding him that “we live in a real world, not a virtual world.” Ouch. The French like to sting American presidents, but this is different. It’s not the normal Gallic jab at America for being a “hyper power,” but a French leader reminding an American president of his responsibilities as a world leader. The sting hurts because it rings so true—and because it comes from France, of all places. Sarkozy is right. We may want a nuclear free world, but we will no more eliminate all nuclear weapons in the world with arms control than we will all tanks, artillery or any other major weapon of war. We can control the spread of nuclear weapons, but it is downright foolish to pretend that we can free the world of all of them by signing agreements. …Why do I say this? Because Obama’s rhetorical fancy about disarmament comes on the heels of three very real and unfortunate decisions. One was to abandon the “third site” of missile defenses in Europe, which no matter what the excuse, was done to appease the Russians. Another was to reject the first draft of the Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review—a statement of U.S. nuclear strategy and policy issued by his own Secretary of Defense—because it didn’t go far enough in reducing American nuclear weapons. The third was to seek ratification of the Senate rejected and discredited Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). What will be the likely outcome of these policies and decisions? • The Russians (and Chinese) will continue to modernize their nuclear weapons while we stop or slow down. We will unilaterally disarm while they continue to build. …• Russia will continue to press the United States to give up defensive strategic programs (like the missile defense sites in Europe) in the name of arms control, while we leave ourselves more defenseless against their missiles and those of Iran and North Korea. See: http://blog.heritage.org/2009/09/29/bad-dreams-the-french-sting-and-the-worlds-nuclear-realities/ 3) Strong Indonesia quake kills hundreds, traps more PADANG, Indonesia – A powerful earthquake that struck western Indonesia trapped thousands of people under collapsed buildings — including hospitals, a hotel and a classroom, officials said. At least 200 bodies were found in one coastal city and the toll was expected to be far higher. The temblor Wednesday started fires, severed roads and cut off power and communications to Padang, a coastal city of 900,000 on Sumatra island. Thousands fled in panic, fearing a tsunami. The undersea quake of 7.6 magnitude was followed by a powerful, shallow inland earthquake on Thursday morning with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It hit about 150 miles (240 kilometers) south of Padang at a depth of just 24 kilometers (under 20 miles). See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_re_as/as_indonesia_earthquake 4) Democrat lesbian charged with embezzling $6 million Accused of stealing from insurance firm, donating to Obama, Clinton, MoveOn.org A lesbian political activist who donated thousands to Democrats and homosexual causes is suspected of embezzling nearly $6 million from one of the world's largest insurance firms.  Despite her $40,000 a year salary as an insurance compensation specialist, Phyllis Stevens purchased two homes valued at more than $550,000 and gave thousands of dollars in donations to Democratic Party political candidates and homosexual groups.  The 58-year-old chairs the Midwest Chapter of Marriage Equality USA, a homosexual "marriage" advocacy group. She is accused of embezzling the money from health insurer Aviva over a period of five years. A civil complaint filed in federal court accuses Stevens of manipulating a computer system intended to give commission to insurance agents. She allegedly made payments to non-existent agents and deposited the commission into a bank account she shared with her lesbian partner, Marla, policy director for LGBT Fairness PAC. …Stevens and her lesbian partner donated at least $82,000 to Democratic congressional candidates from Iowa; Democratic presidential candidates such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson; and groups such as ActBlue, MoveOn.org and the homosexual "marriage" advocacy group One Iowa. On the website eQualityGiving, Stevens wrote, "Marla and I are very careful about whom we give money to (especially when we decide to max out on a candidate.) As a couple, we refuse to max out on a candidate who doesn't support marriage equality." See: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=111512