You know, I have been an online user for some 20 years and have always used Nosferatu as my handle. But I do not think old Nos himself bit as many necks as the Democrats have drained wallets over just the last 96 hours.

Since I am up at this hour, I thought it would worthwhile to see what was going on, via The Rocky Horror Harry Show. Sure enough, the Senate was still kicking around at 2am or whatnot, chopping the heads off GOP amendments faster than Oprah Winfrey downing free samples at the local supermarket.

Fortunately for us, Michelle Malkin was doing the heavy lifting and suffered through the C-SPAN coverage of the Senate circus , so I shall let her describe the lowlights…

Among the more noteworthy votes taken so far:

Sen. Coburn’s attempt to bar Viagra for sex offenders was tabled by 57-42. Democrat Sens. Bayh and Nelson voted with the Republicans.

Sen. Vitter’s motion to repeal the Demcare takeover was tabled by 58-39.

I suppose they want to make sure that John Edwards and any future Kennedy male will have cheap, unfettered access to the little blue pill. While they suck up the nation’s little green dollars like Robert Downey, Jr. spending the weekend at Scarface’s house.

More comedy:

Update 2:10am Eastern. They are now voting on the Hutchison amendment to make permanent certain sales and marriage tax provisions that were set to expire. The amendment falls, 40-55.

Oh, dear. Al Franken has taken over as presiding officer.

Update 2:43am Eastern After tabling more GOP amendments, a pale, hoarse Harry Reid calls for adjournment. Befuddled Franken announces: “I guess we’re adjourned.” Official adjournment gaveled at 2:56am Eastern.

Andy Levy tweets in reply to my report on Reid’s grim appearance: “‘And I looked, and behold a pale hoarse Harry Reid.’ (Revelation 6:8)”

…And Hell followed with him.

After 10 hours, the Senate voted on 28 GOP amendments and rejected each and every one, including a Vitter amendment to spare mobile mammography units from punitive tax treatment.

Um, who’s the party of no now?

Also: Guess it’s the Dems now making womanhood a “pre-existing condition” again, eh, Nancy Pelosi?

I cannot help but wonder if there were a portable Ronco Botox Injection Kit (Shoot Up and Forget it) on the market, would No-Wrinkles Nancy want to tax the hell out of that, too? Or maybe just donate her skin leavings to the starving in Africa? Like the Tootsie Pop question, the world may never know.

On a more important note, a chink in the armor:

From FoxNews, re: a point of order deal with Pell Grant provisions that might potentially violate some budget rules:

It was initially unclear how much of a problem this posed for Democrats hoping to rush the bill to Obama and avoid further congressional votes on what has been a politically painful ordeal for the party. Democrats described the situation as a minor glitch, but did not rule out that Republicans might be able to remove additional sections of the bill.

The president, who signed the landmark legislation into law on Tuesday, was flying to Iowa later in the day for the first of many appearances he will make around the country before the fall congressional elections to sell his health care revamp.

The bloodletting is scheduled to resume around 9:45am or whenever Bloody Mary’s stopped being served at the Capitol Hill Club, whichever comes first.

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So much for the Dems “inevitability” strategy…

From CBS: (Hat Tip: Hot Air)

The poll finds that 62 percent want Congressional Republicans to keep challenging the bill, while 33 percent say they should not do so. Nearly nine in ten Republicans and two in three independents want the GOP to keep challenging. Even 41 percent of Democrats support continued challenges.

Americans are split about the fact that the bill largely lacked bipartisan support. Fifty percent said they were disappointed that the bill did not have support from both parties, while 44 percent said that it doesn’t matter…

Despite a Congressional Budget Office analysis finding that the bill will ultimately lower the budget deficit by $143 billion over the first ten years and $1.2 trillion dollars in the second ten years, 57 percent of those surveyed, including most Republicans and independents, say the bill will increase the deficit. Just 18 percent say it will decrease the deficit.

Seeing that this is a CBS poll, for God’s sake, the numbers are probably more like 82%, seeing that outlets like CNN, CBS and fellow Donkey Hooker networks generally oversample Dem respondents by a good 12%-20%. And they usually just sample “adults”, unlike professional pollsters like Rasmussen who only poll “likely voters”. However, seeing a 62% number under any circumstances shows a very, very deep-seated anger at the Democrat party as a whole and the leadership in particular.

Just more evidence of the political TNT that is coming the Dems way in less then 8 months.

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First Al Sharpton opened his big yap on Sunday by saying that Americans “voted for socialism”. Now another Political Upskirt Moment from another leftist blatherer.

Appearing on the Paul W. Smith show today, Dingell had the following to say: (Hat Tip – Red State and ASPF)

Just keep it up, Dems. You are writing the GOP’s campaign ads for them.

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Appearing on Bill O’Reilly’s show, columnist Charles Krauthammer warns that the health care bill is woefully underfunded and that after the elections, the president’s Deficit Reduction Commission (an oxymoron if there every was one) will recommend a national sales tax or VAT.

He also predicts that those eeeevil insurance companies will assume the role of the “public option” and will essentially play the role of revenue collector for the federal government and act much in the same way as public utilities.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Well, we can be assured of one thing. 95% of the American public will see their taxes and living costs rise and rise a hell of a lot if a VAT is ever adopted.

On the other hand, I think this will be a moot point, since there will probably not be enough Dems to fill a phone both after November.

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This is how you have to deal with the Left. Use their language, arguments and most of all, their policies, against them. In spades. No questions. No kidding.

I was reading this over at Legal Insurrection yesterday and was going to post on it, but got distracted by 100 other things. But, now that the (as my old social studies teacher used to say) Jell-O has hit the fan, it is too juicy and ironic to pass up.

From Michelle Malkin

Ann Coulter’s stirring up stuff in Canada!

Coulter is provocative, and she’s not afraid to say things–true things–she knows will generate a media backlash.

The “[i]nflammatory right-wing pundit” spoke at the University of Western Ontario yesterday. In a move that has to be tongue-in-cheek, Coulter said she will file a human rights complaint alleging that University of Ottawa vice-president academic and provost Francois Houle’s e-mail to her constituted “hate speech.”

Houle urged that Coulter exercise “restraint, respect and consideration” in her speech to the students. Houle added, “Our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or ‘free speech’) in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here…Promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges.”

To read the entire email, go over to Mark Steyn’s site. It is a hoot and a half.

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As The Great One has said many a time, the Statist will never be satisfied until the whole of the population are all shoulder to shoulder in the rice fields, begging their overlords for their daily ration of beans.

Example: From The Hill (Hat Tip: Sister Toldja)

A leader of the House liberals’ caucus said Monday she’ll introduce new legislation to revive the public option.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), the co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said she plans to unveil legislation to add the government-run option to the national healthcare exchange established by legislation President Barack Obama is to sign tomorrow.

“We will introduce a robust public option bill on the very day the president signs the reconciliation bill into law,” Woolsey said Monday during an interview on MSNBC.

The public insurance option had been a part of the healthcare legislation first approved by the House in November, but Senate Democratic leaders were forced to abandon the provision after it became clear that they wouldn’t be able to get all 60 Democrats (at the time) to sign onto legislation containing that provision.

Woolsey and her co-chairman of the caucus, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), had pushed for the public option throughout the different stages of the health debate, but still ended up voting in favor of the legislation in the end, despite some threats to do otherwise earlier in the process.

Courtesy of B-Cast: Woolsey appearing on MSLSD (Hat Tip – Freedom’s Lighthouse)

FDR having sake and sushi on December 8th would have been less offensive.

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One of the GOP rising stars, Rep. Paul Ryan, offers his thoughts on MengeleCare and how it’s implementation can be stopped and repealed. A good read.

From the NRO: (Hat Tip: Nice Deb)

What about the practical consequences of Obamacare? “Soon, we’ll see individual-market insurance companies go out of business and dump their people,” Ryan says. “Tax increases on capital are going to hurt the economy in 2011. These arbitrary Medicare cuts will adversely affect the providers and therefore their beneficiaries. You’ll have the Internal Revenue Service beefing up its enforcement of this new mandate, which people have no clue is coming. And you’re going to have employers dump employees in this exchange once it’s up and running — funneling everyone into a government-run rationing system. Then we’ll see a big spike in insurance rates, and the Democrats are going to wager that they can just blame the insurers for that, and therefore that means they will need to institute insurance price controls or have a public option. Our side is going to say, ‘Look at what you just did to ruin our health-care system,’ and focus on repeal.”

“Our offense will be hammering them for wrecking the health-care system, their demonization of the insurance companies, and their push for government control. That is the future fight,” Ryan predicts. “They’ve got a president here until 2013 and the votes in the Senate to support this for a few years, but it’s not over. As we work to repeal, we must recognize that we’re fighting a different and distorted progressivism. They want to hook people up to entitlements and delegate more power to unelected bureaucrats and technocrats to micromanage the economy — a government full of Peter Orzags. Yet their fatal conceit is also a rational gamble to establish a new culture of dependency.”

In an Obamacare world, what is the GOP’s message? “We need to become the party of liberty and freedom,” Ryan argues. “We’re not doing enough. We can do better, and we will — because we have no choice. If we’re going to offer the country a completely different vision, we can’t be Democratic-lite or resign ourselves to be slightly more efficient managers and tax-collectors for the welfare state. We have to break with that and give people a clear and distinct difference.”

That last paragraph is what we need to see and hear far more of in the GOP, especially as the stage is being set for the inevitable GOP sweep in the House and very possibly the Senate.

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