RUSH: I love this sound bite. This is all the way from last Wednesday in Washington during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the constitutionality of the individual mandate in Obamacare, which they hate now, they don’t like that term, they want it called the Affordable Care Act. So they want the lie to be perpetual and never ending, in terms of what this is. Sheila Jackson Lee, fast becoming our all-time favorite, more favorite than Maxine Waters. Stepping in for Major Owens. Remember Major Owens claiming that the sharks are still swimming the slave route out there hoping for bodies thrown overboard, as was the case some 200 years ago. Sheila Jackson Lee, just to refresh your memory, and for some of you young people in the audience who are not in school today for whatever phony, fake excuse — (interruption) Well, they get outta school today more than I ever did, Snerdley, and, frankly, it ticks me off. Teachers conference here, teachers strike there, spring break. There was no such thing as spring break when we were in school. I mean there might have been for college but not for high school, junior high.
At any rate, Sheila Jackson Lee, this is the woman, you may not know this, but our little Mars rover was running around on the planet of Mars, and NASA is in Houston, it’s her district in Congress, so they brought her in there as a matter of respect, and in an attempt to show everybody how smart she was she asked NASA, while the cameras are rolling, if the Mars rover would go over to where the astronauts had planted the flag. The problem was nobody had been to Mars yet, folks, and they still haven’t been. The astronauts planted a flag on the moon. Sheila Jackson Lee, however, confused the moon and Mars. My guess is she spends a lot of time on both in many ways. So she has her credibility established as somewhat off the wall. So in this sound bite she’s attempting to explain that the individual mandate in Obamacare requiring Americans to buy health insurance, and if we don’t buy it, to face a penalty, or a fine or jail time, that’s what the law is, buy a health insurance policy or if you don’t, pay a fine. She’s trying to explain how this is not a penalty. She’s trying to explain how a penalty is punishment and this isn’t punishment. This is actually a good thing. Here’s Sheila Jackson Lee. Dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut.
LEE: I would make the argument, one, that instead it is an incentive to do right, that it is not penalizing because penalty is punishment. You’re not punished if you have health insurance, in fact. And so you are, in fact, incentivized to have health insurance, rather than take the negative, which is to suggest that because we have a penalty you are being punished.
RUSH: So in case you’re having trouble following that, since you are being forced to buy health insurance, which is a good thing, it’s a good thing to have health insurance, you’re being forced to, a penalty cannot possibly be punishment. A penalty is an incentive. Therefore this is totally constitutional. She’s arguing here, although she didn’t say it in this many words, she’s arguing that Judge Vinson in Pensacola had no idea what he’s talking about in ruling the commerce clause does not allow the Feds to make us buy things. The death penalty is an incentive. Every penalty is an incentive. It’s not a punishment. There’s no punishment here. Hockey players go to the incentive box. There’s no penalty box. For some of you in Houston, that’s your Congress babe, Sheila Jackson Lee. Our cameras and microphones are always there whenever she is.
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RUSH: A couple e-mails. ‘Why do you persist in making fun of Sheila Jackson Lee? You know, Rush, that she’s right. Ultimately, it is a good thing that you have health insurance. So therefore the penalty is not a penalty.’ Folks, you start to worry me out there, now, some of you. Twenty-two years and still! What do I have to do here? If you do not buy health insurance under the now-unconstitutional mandate, you pay a penalty, a fine enforced by the IRS, but you DO NOT get health insurance. If you choose not to buy it, and opt for the fine instead, you don’t have health insurance. Therefore Ms. Jackson Lee does not understand that when you pay the penalty, you don’t get any health insurance. There’s no incentive to the penalty. Plain and simple.