“[Rep.] Bart Stupak [D-Mich]” says he has twelve ‘no’ votes,” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who spoke at a 10 a.m. rally organized by multiple Tea Party groups. “I can count one — Bart Stupak. I can’t name number two. There’s eleven anonymous people and you can’t count anonymous votes. If you can’t count them, they’re not no votes. I think that’s something that should have been pressed much, much harder.”

At the rally, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) informed Tea Partiers they had “won every inning” of the health care fight and were in the “bottom of the ninth.” After her speech, she made it clear to reporters: “I think it’s a flip of a coin right now whether it will pass or not.”

Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) acknowledged — based on the history of such tough votes — that more Democrats might vote “aye” than were being counted in public “whip counts.” He was hopeful that pro-life Democratic holdouts would be convinced by the argument that “this will be the biggest expansion of abortion since Roe. v. Wade.” But he was also looking past the vote to his home state, where Republicans are looking at legislation to opt out of a health care mandate.

The most confidence I heard came from Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), who said that he’d “heard of” Democrats being fed false information about what could be fixed in reconciliation.

“I know they don’t have the votes right now,” said Broun. “As soon as Nancy Pelosi has 216 votes, we’ll have the vote, even if it’s in the middle of the night.”

King, however, expressed more nervousness.

“I’d rather serve in the minority,” said King, “however long they send me back here to do that, that I would live under this socialism that they’re trying to impose upon us. I can’t sleep at night.”

See a slideshow of the rally here.

In a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the Republicans argue that the Democrats’ plans to expand Medicaid, a program funded jointly by state and federal governments, would squeeze the state’s already strapped budget and threaten other vital programs.

Georgia has estimated that the cost of the House and Senate passed unfunded mandates, for just new enrollees, would cost a staggering $2.64 billion under the House version (not including the Stimulus extension or a Primary Care Reimbursement increase) and anywhere from $1.54 billion to $1.79 billion under the Senate version.

This raises many concerns since Georgia currently cannot afford the cost of expanding Medicaid under the House and Senate bills. Due to the crippled economy, Georgia is facing significant budget problems and has been forced to make cuts to current services including K-12 education, public assistance, corrections, transportation and others.

Signing the letter were Georgia GOP Reps. Tom Price, Phil Gingrey, Jack Kingston, Nathan Deal, Lynn Westmoreland, John Linder and Paul Broun.

They have a point. Democratic leaders have proposed a Medicaid expansion precisely because it’s one of the cheapest ways to extend coverage for the uninsured, who tend to be lower-income folks. But Medicaid also suffers periodic funding problems because, as a safety net program, enrollment tends to jump during economic crises when states are least able to afford the additional costs — a fundamental funding flaw that neither the House nor the Senate bill addresses. Indeed, this was exactly the concern that led Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) to insist that the federal government pick up the entire tab for the Medicaid expansion proposed in the Senate bill.

Recognizing that problem, Democrats included roughly $80 billion in federal Medicaid help in last year’s economic stimulus bill — a treatment of the symptoms, but not the root of the problem. If lawmakers want to avoid having to pass emergency Medicaid spending every time the economy turns south, they’d do well to tackle the underlying flaw in how the program is funded. The only other option, as the Georgia Republicans point out, is for states to slash other things.

So far, the resolution is lacking support. Only two other members, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) and Rep. Henry Brown (R-S.C.), have co-sponsored it. And yesterday Olson said, dryly, that he didn’t expect Democrats to let it come to the floor. Nevertheless, here is the resolution:

111th CONGRESS

Four of our colleagues, Reps. John Shadegg (AZ), Paul Broun (GA), Trent Franks (AZ) and Sue Myrick (NC) recently requested that the House Sergeant at Arms to launch an investigation of the civil rights group CAIR, or Council on American-Islamic Relations, to determine whether it was placing staff and interns in key Congressional offices who they fear are acting as “spies.”

This proposed investigation coincides with the launch of a book by Dave Gaubatz, an anti-Islamic activist and author of the book “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America.” It features an introduction by Rep. Myrick, and was written after Gaubatz posed as an intern at CAIR in an effort to “infiltrate” the group.

These charges smack of an America of sixty years ago where lists of “un-American” agitators were identified. We should be affirming the importance of diversity and tolerance for all interns and staff who serve in Congress without suspicion of being identified as “spies.”

The idea that we should investigate Muslim interns as spies is a blow to the very principle of religious freedom that our founding fathers cherished so dearly. If anything, we should be encouraging all Americans to engage in the U.S. political process; to take part in, and to contribute to, the great democratic experiment that is America.

We all have experienced the sting of discrimination and we know that there will be challenges ahead. But our message should be firm that the America we believe in welcomes people of all backgrounds to the U.S. Congress.

We ask these charges be disavowed and we issue a hearty welcome to interns and staff of all creeds, color, ethnicities and sexual orientation.

All of the members of Congress speaking at the presser characterized possible CAIR-linked interns as possible spies. “The American people need to know our enemy,” said Broun. “And our enemy are Islamic fascists that are utilizing their religion to foster their radical fascist agenda.”

Ironically, Franks used his remarks to link CAIR to terrorism and encourage Americans to look to “moderate” Muslim organizations like the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a tiny group launched in 2003 whose activity consists of things like this op-ed from its president M. Zuhdi Jasser.

We, as American Muslims, should be training and encouraging our Muslim-community youth to become the future Jack Bauers of America. What better way to dispel stereotypes than to create hundreds of new, real images of Muslims who are publicly leading this war on the battlefield and in the domestic and foreign media against the militant Islamists.

“I’m voting against it and I hope every Republican votes against it,” said Broun. Did he worry that the Democrats were setting a precedent by targeting Wilson. “They set the precedent by yelling at Bush and calling him a liar. They’re still calling him a liar.”

In his short remarks, Broun said that his town hall experiences convinced him that “a scared angry republic is a force that has to be reckoned with,” and that the Obama administration was not buckling from public pressure.

“They’re addicted to power, they’re addicted to control over America.”

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He has the three things that are necessary to establish an authoritarian government. And so we need to be ever-vigilant, because freedom is precious.

Broun’s a believer in the “Obama wants to create a civilian army” myth, which he goes on about at length.

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He also spoke of a “socialistic elite” – Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law.

“They’re trying to develop an environment where they can take over,” he said. “We’ve seen that historically.”

In Broun’s defense, he might be talking about some other, non-Germany nation that hurtled into fascism during a manufactured crisis.

Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.): Global warming is “one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated … it’s a hoax.”

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.): Compares Democratic leadership to “forces of darkness” trying to silence protesters in Iran.

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After the election, it took all of six days — a surprisingly long time, actually — before a Southern GOP Congressman said something crazy about President-elect Barack Obama.

The charge: Obama is a closet totalitarian Marxist and potential Hitler-in-waiting.

From The Associated Press:

“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force,” Rep. Paul Broun [R-Ga.] said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. “I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”

Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.

“That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun said. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”

Obama’s comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado in which he called for expanding the nation’s foreign service.

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” Obama said in July. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

You know when a politician prefaces what they’re about to say with “It may sound a bit crazy and off-base,” you’re in for a doozy.

According to The Associated Press, Obama transition spokesman Tommy Vietor said Obama “was referring in the speech to a proposal for a civilian reserve corps that could handle postwar reconstruction efforts such as rebuilding infrastructure — an idea endorsed by the Bush administration.”

Broun continued by suggesting Obama plans to ban gun ownership. He also said that, despite the fact that he was blatantly comparing Obama to Hitler, he’s “not comparing him” to Hitler.

“We can’t be lulled into complacency,” Broun said. “You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I’m not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I’m saying is there is the potential of going down that road.”

Right-wing looney tunes have already exhausted socialism, terrorism, Anti-Christ, and now Hitler. They had better start pacing themselves, or they’re going to run out of hyperbole before Obama even takes office.