On December 18, 2009, Sarah Palin won the PolitiFacts.org Lie of the Year award for her comments concerning "death panels" in the Democrat's health care legislation.

Three days later, Senator Jim DeMint challenges the inclusion of a clause in the legislation making illegal any attempt by Congress to make changes to an organization called the Independent Medicare Advisory Board unless such changes shall by a supermajority of 67%.

Now, what is the purpose of the Independent Medicare Advisory Board?

Sounds like a death panel to me....

The letter that Peter Orszag sent to Nancy Pelosi explained how it would work:

This draft bill would establish an Independent Medicare Advisory Council (IMAC), which would have the authority to make recommendations to the President on annual Medicare payment rates as well as other reforms. Both the annual payment updates and the broader reforms would be prohibited from increasing the aggregate level of net Medicare expenditures. This proposed legislation would require the President to approve or disapprove each set of the IMAC?s recommendations as a package. If the President accepts the IMAC?s recommendations, Congress would then have 30 days to intervene with a joint resolution before the Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to implement them.

In a way, this seems small. But it's what cost control looks like in practice.It's Congress recognizing that it's a process, and a process for which it is ill-suited. It's an expert body able to continuously evaluate the data and make changes to Medicare that will increase the program's effectiveness and decrease its costs. There has been a theory, for many years now, that the health-care system's cost problems would eventually be solved all at once when some popular president and some large congressional majority finally got serious about the issue and made the big, hard decisions.

So, we would have not only a death panel, but a death panel on autopilot, which can be turned off only if 67% of the pilots agree.

I think PolitiFacts.org owes Mrs. Palin an apology. But, given that their website carries no mention of these latest developments, I doubt she'll get one.

Update 23 Dec 2009 11AM: Even before I posted the above, Sarah Palin had already thought it through and responded.:

No one is certain of what?s in the bill, but Senator Jim DeMint spotted one shocking revelation regarding the section in the bill describing the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (now called the Independent Payment Advisory Board), which is a panel of bureaucrats charged with cutting health care costs on the backs of patients ? also known as rationing. Apparently Reid and friends have changed the rules of the Senate so that the section of the bill dealing with this board can?t be repealed or amended without a 2/3 supermajority vote. Senator DeMint said:

?This is a rule change. It?s a pretty big deal. We will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law. I?m not even sure that it?s constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. I don?t see why the majority party wouldn?t put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates. I mean, we want to bind future congresses. This goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future congresses.?

In other words, Democrats are protecting this rationing ?death panel? from future change with a procedural hurdle. You have to ask why they?re so concerned about protecting this particular provision. Could it be because bureaucratic rationing is one important way Democrats want to ?bend the cost curve? and keep health care spending down?

Barack Obama has yet to have anything happen in Copenhagen which is entirely to his liking.

First, there was the bid for the Chicago Olympics, in which President and Michelle Obama made the ultimate sacrifice by showing up and speechfying (in a very condescending and Chicago-centric way) for an award of the Olympics to Chicago. Within hours of Mr. Obama's speech, the Games were awarded to the poorest of the poor -- the kids of Rio.

Now, we have just had President and Michelle Obama fly into Copenhagen a second time, attempting a last minute revival global warming summit which had devolved into a scratch fight between the "haves" and the "have-nots" -- a fight in which China tried assiduously to maintain its status as a "have-not" when its position in the global economy, it's seat on the UN Security Council, and its military spending certainly put it into the category of the "haves". Quiz: Did it work? Q2: Who gets blamed for the failure?

My anwers: Q1: Yes, it worked -- for the Chinese and the rest of us who think the whole man-made global warming scam is exactly that. The status quo of infinite fake carbon credits remains on China's ledger. By extension, our own leaders will have to work much harder for cap-and-trade, given both China and India's intransigence on it. Q2: The last guy to touch the corpse -- Barack Obama.

When Obama puts out his Christmas rag sheet describing all the fun the family had this year, will either visit to Copenhagen make the cut?

"Every Child A Wanted Child" comes to this:

A loophole in [Virginia] state law is preventing Campbell County investigators from charging a woman they say killed her newborn baby.

Deputies were called to a home in the 1200 block of Lone Jack Road in Rustburg around 11:00a.m. Friday. The caller said a woman in her early 20s was in labor. When deputies arrived, they discovered the baby had actually been born around 1:00a.m., about ten hours earlier. Investigators say the baby was already dead when deputies got there.

Investigators tell WSLS the baby?s airway was still blocked. They say the baby was under bedding and had been suffocated by her mother. Investigators say because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta, state law does not consider the baby to be a separate life. Therefore, the mother cannot be charged.

?In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it.?, says Investigator Tracy Emerson. ?She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it?s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it?s no crime in the state of Virginia.?

Why?

The Campbell County Sheriff?s Office and Commonwealth?s Attorney?s office worked unsuccessfully to get the law changed after another baby died in the county in a similar case. Emerson says they asked two delegates and one state senator to take the issue up in the General Assembly. He says the three lawmakers refused because they felt the issue was too close to the abortion issue.

It is the abortion issue. In this case the mother exercised her choice, and everyone else is upset:

The baby?s grandmother was home and was the one who called 911. Police say she will not be charged because the baby was born in the middle of the night and the grandmother did not know until late morning. Investigators tell us the baby?s father was upset when he showed up at the home after deputies.

?He was very upset. I think the grandparents were upset. I believe everyone was upset, except for the person who should have been upset, the mother.?, says Emerson.