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Georgia Politics Set to Explode Over Obamacare

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Victory in the Partisan Battle over Obamacare May Lead to Heighted Political Acrimony at a State Level in States Such as Georgia

While national politics continue to churn after the historic passage of Obamacare on Sunday and President Barack Obama’s signature on same yesterday, some states are showing signs of exploding into partisan warfare over Obamacare, notably including the State of Georgia.  In Georgia, Attorney General Thurbert Baker has tonight officially refused to join in with over a dozen other states that have filed federal lawsuits against President Obama regarding the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate in Obamacare:

ATLANTA – Georgia’s attorney general won’t sue the federal government over the controversial health care bill President Obama signed into law yesterday.

Attorney General Thurbert Baker, a Democrat, announced his decision in a letter to Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue, who had urged the state’s top lawyer to file the lawsuit. Nationally, more than a dozen states are questioning the Constitutionality of the law, which requires all citizens to have health insurance.

“While I understand that the new law is the subject of ongoing debate here in Georgia and around the nation, I do not believe that Georgia has a viable legal claim against the United States,” Baker said in his letter to Perdue. “Considering our state’s current severe budgetary crisis, with vital services like education and law enforcement being cut deeply, I cannot justify a decision to initiate expensive and time-consuming litigation that I believe has no legal merit.”

But, Baker’s decision not to sue doesn’t mean Georgia won’t file a lawsuit. Perdue could decide to proceed with a lawsuit without Baker’s cooperation, a number of media reports indicate.

“His refusal to participate doesn’t preclude us from moving forward,” Perdue’s spokesman Bert Brantley said, according to a report on WXIA-TV’s Web site. “We’ll make a decision on how to move forward and whether that means Georgia filing a lawsuit on its own, going by itself, or whether we join other states that have already filed.”

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue (R-GA) Is Examining His Options Tonight As Attorney General Thurbert Baker Officially Refuses Perdue's Request for Baker to File Suit on Behalf of the State of Georgia to Allege Obamacare is Unconstitutional

As noted above by the Atlanta Examiner, and a local TV station report, Governor Sonny Perdue (R-GA) is examining his options to override Baker’s decision to pass on a lawsuit against Obamacare.  The heightened GOP pressure on Attorney General Thurbert Baker may be the first major shot fired in a new GOP plan to strategically use Obamacare to “nationalize” state-level races in states where Obamacare is particularly unpopular, such as Georgia.

Most immediately, Perdue is planning on holding a news conference with former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich tomorrow morning to explain why Georgia Republicans feel it is important for the State of Georgia to join in the multi-state litigation challenging Obamacare’s constitutionality. Additionally, state House GOP members are looking at Articles of Impeachment for Baker as “there is a movement inside the House to suspend the rules and introduce Articles of Impeachment against Baker for failing to uphold his oath of office.” PeachPundit has the details late this evening of the hardball being played by the GOP over Baker’s defiance of Governor Perdue’s request:

The resolution had around 30 signatures and things were moving forward. Apparently, the sponsor agreed hold off until legislators meet with Gov. Perdue in the morning to further discuss options.

The basis of the Articles of Impeachment are that Baker has violated Article V, Section 3, Paragraph IV of the state Constitution and OCGA §45-15-35, both of which direct the Attorney General to take on matters of the state in court at the direction of the Governor.

Impeachment of a public official would take a simple majority in the House, but a 2/3 majority in the Senate.

Complicating matters somewhat is the fact that Thurbert Baker is also engaged in the contested Democratic primary for Governor with former Governor Roy Barnes.   Baker is presently a heavy underdog in the Democratic primary against Barnes, while GOP Gubernatorial candidates Karen Handel and Nathan Deal are slightly ahead of Barnes by 3 points each in recent polling while GOP Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine is tied with Barnes and GOP State Senate President Eric Johnson is behind Barnes by 2 points.  Baker trails all GOP candidates by a large margin and is far behind Barnes in the Democratic primary race.  Accordingly, Baker needs to shake things up to have any chance to become Georgia’s next governor, and he may have chosen Obamacare to make his move considering the dramatic rejection of Perdue’s request this evening.

Just resigned US Congressman and now full-time GOP Gubernatorial candidate Nathan Deal has been trying to take advantage of the situation, urging his supporters to contact Baker by email, phone and fax to urge Baker to file suit as noted in the Atlanta-Journal and Constitution:

Republican candidate for governor Nathan Deal, freed from his Washington job, has passed the office number, fax number, and e-mail address of Attorney General Thurbert Baker to supporters, urging them to call and demand that Baker join a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new health care law.

Baker, of course, is a Democratic candidate for governor. It’s fine sport to bait a rival.

Deal, of course, has recently come under an ethical cloud for his involvement in state contracts for his salvage business, and Deal also started a mini-firestorm in national GOP politics in early March by attempting to resign from the House of Representatives before the all-important House Obamacare vote on Sunday, with the Wall Street Journal suggesting that Deal was resigning to avoid further developments in the House Ethics Committee probe into his salvage company. After that, GOP House leader John Boehner (R-OH) personally appealed to Deal to stay on to cast a vote against Obamacare, and Deal quickly reversed himself and voted against Obamacare and then immediately resigned Sunday night. Accordingly, the aggressive push by Deal may be in part an attempt to exorcise those earlier missteps on the Obamacare issue.

Georgia Democratic Attorney General Thurbert Baker Tonight Rejected GOP Governor Sonny Perdue's Request For the Filing of Suit To Allege Obamacare is Unconstitutional

For his part, AG Baker told the AJC Monday night there is no Constitutional violation emanating from Obamacare as the supremacy clause clearly authorizes the statutory language, foreshadowing tonight’s formal rejection of Perdue’s request:

“We’re not interested in political gamesmanship in the office of the attorney general. We’re not interested in making political points. The role of the attorney general is to follow the law, and where we feel there have been violations, we need to address it….

“There’s a little thing called the supremacy clause. Federal law supercedes state law. And so I’m very interested in knowing, at least from those who think there’s a basis is, at least what they think the basis is.

Baker has also pointed to the money that would be expended by an Obamacare suit, money Baker claims would be wasted.  It appears that “every GOP candidate in Georgia” is pressing hard on Obamacare, attempting to “nationalize” every statewide race in November 2010 with the unpopular Obamacare, while former Governor Roy Barnes is staking out ground as critical of Obamacare in contrast to his opponent AG Baker, as notes the AJC:

And Democrats, just like in the old days, suddenly find themselves worrying about being tied too closely to a president and a ruling Washington regime.

Gov. Sonny Perdue has been eager to help. “It is imperative that current candidates for elected office publicly state their plans to either support the Obama-Pelosi legislation or fight for the people of Georgia,” the Republican governor declared, shortly after the Sunday night vote.

Perdue has loudly pressed Attorney General Thurbert Baker, a Democratic candidate for governor, to challenge the constitutionality of the health care law.

But so far, Baker and other Democrats haven’t risen to the bait.

Every GOP candidate in Georgia, down to your half-hearted handshaker for county land surveyor, has generated at least one press release vowing not to rest until the health care law is undone.

But Democrats — particularly those seeking a place on the November ballot — have been much more cautious. Many have been here before, and understand the game.

In health care, as Perdue recognizes, Republicans have an issue that could nationalize every statewide race in Georgia.
…
Baker, the attorney general, rejected the governor’s lawsuit challenge on Wednesday. “This litigation is likely to fail and will consume significant amounts of taxpayers’ hard-earned money in the process,” he wrote in reply.

Former Gov. Roy Barnes was the most critical. “This health care bill is a failure of leadership on both sides. It’s what’s wrong with Washington and it’s what’s wrong with the state Capitol,” Barnes said. “My greatest disappointment is that the insurance companies were not regulated further — which means the special interests won.”

It may be that Baker considers a highly publicized fight over Obamacare with Perdue the best move he can make in his effort to make up ground in the Democratic primary against heavy favorite Barnes, especially as Barnes is lukewarm at best regarding the Obamacare package. A high profile fight with Perdue over Obamacare would also surely please President Obama, and Baker may be counting on drawing Obama into the Democratic primary by eliciting a statement of support from Obama for Baker’s refusal to file suit, as well as perhaps garnering a surge in donations from Obama’s liberal base. Indeed, Baker may believe his expressions of public backing for Obamacare will move some of the liberal base of the Democratic Party in Georgia into his column in his contest against Barnes.

Beyond the politics, it is highly questionable, under the Georgia Supreme Court’s ruling of Perdue v. Baker, whether AG Baker as chief legal officer for the State of Georgia can legally ignore a direct command from the Governor, as occurred here over the requested Obamacare lawsuit.  Perdue v. Baker was decided by the Georgia Supreme Court in 2003 pursuant to a prior fight between the Attorney General and Governor related to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  Late Wednesday, in reaction of Baker’s official snub, Perdue’s spokesman noted that Perdue may find a way around Baker’s resistance “citing the voter ID law and the water wars with Florida and Alabama.”

The Republican Governor was out of town Wednesday, but spokesman Bert Brantley told us they will challenge the federal health care plan with or without Baker’s help.

“His refusal to participate doesn’t preclude us from moving forward and we’ve done that on a number of cases,” Brantley said, citing the voter ID law and the water wars with Florida and Alabama.

“We’ll make a decision on how to move forward and whether that means Georgia filing a lawsuit on its own, going by itself, or whether we join other states that have already filed,” he added.

As for the cost, Brantley says the governor has already heard from several lawyers willing to take the case for free.

Although the Georgia General Assembly did not pass a constitutional amendment “that would have declared Georgians immune from the reach of the federal health care law” as the Senate came just short of the 2/3 vote required, it is possible that the General Assembly could consider legislation to modify and/or clarify the powers of the Attorney General to prevent the Attorney General from abusing his authority, as the state House GOP clearly believes Baker is doing now by refusing to file suit.   Arguably, the Perdue v. Baker decision prohibits the Attorney General from ignoring lawful commands of the Governor such as the Obamacare lawsuit request, and new legislation may clarify the issue as the Obamacare debate intensifies.

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich Is Set to Appear with Governor Perdue Tomorrow Morning in Front of the Media to Argue that the State of Georgia Should Proceed to File Suit to Contest the Constitutionality of Obamacare

The Gingrich-Perdue press conference tomorrow morning on why the State of Georgia should challenge the constitutionality of Obamacare in federal court may be the start of the Georgia GOP’s “nationalizing”  strategy regarding Obamacare and state races.  Additionally, the presence of national political heavyweight Gingrich, who may be attempting to build support nationally for a possible 2012 campaign by becoming engaged in the Perdue-Baker fight over Obamacare, is sure to add to the focus on Georgia as perhaps the first state in the union to reflect the new hardened, partisan atmosphere existing nationally after the passage of Obamacare.   We may also be observing the first major state-level skirmish of many to come in the states where the GOP has decided to pursue a strategy to “nationalize” state-level races around the issue of Obamacare.

All told, it appears that the statewide political scene in Georgia is about to break out into all-out partisan battle over Obamacare. Talks between the state House GOP and Perdue before the press conference tomorrow morning with Gingrich and Perdue may determine whether impeachment proceedings move forward against AG Baker in the Georgia House of Representatives or other legislation related to the AG’s powers. Starting tomorrow, in the wake of tonight’s official rejection by AG Baker of Perdue’s request to sue, Georgia may become the first state to truly experience the same sort of brass-knuckles partisan warfare that has dominated national politics for over a year regarding the Obamacare initiative.

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Repudiation: 79% Think Obama Has Mishandled Financial Crisis

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

President Obama Faces a Repudiation of his Economic Policies by Large Majorities of Americans

Common sense in the United States of America in March of 2010 appears to be that the Obama Administration has mishandled the ongoing attempts to fix the root causes of September 2008’s meltdown. Only a rump 18% agree with Obama that he has taken “enough action” while 79% think Obama has failed to properly address the root causes of the meltdown, with 42% saying Obama “has gone too far and taken action that will be harmful down the road” and the other 37% saying Obama “has taken too little action”. Here’s the exact wording of the question and the results:

When President Obama took office, he said he was determined to address the roots of the financial crisis so that another meltdown would not happen. Do you believe the government has taken enough action to fix what was wrong in the financial industry, has taken too little action, or do you think the government has gone too far and taken action that will be harmful down the road?

18% Has taken enough action

37% Has taken too little action

42% Has gone too far and taken action that will be harmful down the road

The complete repudiation of the Obama economic program by the American public is further reinforced by the similar finding that Americans say by a 2-1 margin that the economy has worsened under the Obama Administration:

By an almost 2-to-1 margin Americans believe the economy has worsened rather than improved during the past year, according to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted March 19-22. Among those who own stocks, bonds or mutual funds, only three of 10 people say the value of their portfolio has risen since a year ago.

During that period, a bull market has driven up the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 Index more than 73 percent since its low on March 9, 2009. The economy grew at a 5.9 percent annual pace during last year’s fourth quarter.

“It’s very difficult to turn perceptions around once you’ve been through the proverbial economic wringer,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com. “Everything is colored by the fact that unemployment is near 10 percent. It doesn’t really matter what you ask, you’re going to get the same answer.”

Zandi says the poor performance people report on their investments “is very telling. It’s just a fact that everyone’s stock portfolio is up, or nearly everyone’s.”

Obama’s oft-repeated claim that increased government action is necessary to save the economy is also explicitly repudiated by most Americans, with an overwhelming 78% saying that the “expansion of the government’s role in the economy” is either a “high” or “medium” threat to “economic performance in the U.S. over the next two years” and only 19% saying government economic incursions are a “low” threat. Only 3% say they are not sure of the level of threat to the economy, showing the level of engagement by Americans in economic issues.

Such findings appear to be the end result of the Obama Administration’s 14 month long (and counting), obsessive focus on pushing through the 2407-page Obamacare package and the resultant lack of sustained, substantive focus on creating reasonable, bipartisan, centrist reforms to address the root causes of the September 2008 financial crisis. Indeed, 72% of Americans see economic issues (31% economy, 22% government spending/deficit, 19% unemployment) as the most important facing the country right now, while only 22% feel the that way about health care:

Which of the following do you see as the most important issue facing the country right now?

31% Economy

22% Health Care

22% Government spending / deficit

19% Unemployment

5% Afghanistan

These findings certainly explain why Obama’s strategists have attempted to wrap the Obamacare package in very questionable rhetoric regarding deficit reduction, job creation and general economic well-being. Americans also have little confidence in Obama’s Stimulus package, with just 37% thinking it has done any good at all:

The Obama Administration has made no progress over the past three months convincing the public that the $787 billion stimulus package passed last year either helped the economy or prevented greater deterioration. Only 37 percent of the public say they see positive effects, the same portion who said so in a December poll.

Despite the entire country’s demand for a more effective and sustained focus on economic issues by the Obama Administration, Americans also are so uncomfortable with the Obamacare package that 62% want the GOP to continue fighting Obama and the Democrats on Obamacare (see chart).

Taken together, the desire of Americans to both see the GOP keep fighting Obamacare while also wanting the Obama Administration to improve its performance and focus more on economic issues creates a truly “toxic” political environment for President Obama as we approach the 2010 elections. The GOP will clearly be emboldened by the large majority egging them on to keep fighting, and Obama will be forced to respond, and such continued health care infighting will in turn also disappoint Americans who want Obama to improve and increase his focus on economic policy. Finally, the newly-filed multistate litigation by State Attorneys General, which is sure to last for months at a minimum, may also act as a wildcard in the national political scene that carries the risk for Obama of incurring a crushing Supreme Court ruling finding Obamacare unconstitutional.

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Flash: Dems Reject GOP “No Viagra for Sex Offenders” Amendment to Obamacare

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

Senate Democrats, led by Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Have Just Now Rejected a Ban on Federal Funding of Viagra for Sex Offenders via Obamacare

In a Senate Obamacare vote that is certain to end up in 2010 GOP campaign commercials, Senate Democrats rejected a GOP amendment to Obamacare that would have banned the use of federal money to pay for Viagra for sex offenders:

Democrats killed an amendment by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn to prevent the newly created insurance exchanges from using federal money to cover Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs for rapists, pedophiles and other sex offenders. The amendment failed 57-42

“The vast majority of Americans don’t want their taxpayer dollars paying for this kind of drug for those kind of people,” Coburn said.

Democratic Sen. Max Baucus urged his colleagues to defeat the amendment.

“This is a serious bill. This is a serious debate. The amendment offered by the senator from Oklahoma makes a mockery of the Senate, the debate and the American people. It is not a serious amendment. It is a crass political stunt aimed at making 30-second commercials, not public policy,” he said.

The Democrats appear intent upon ramming through the entirety of the separate House reconciliation amendment to Obamacare without any changes, including the maintenance of the use of federal funds to pay for Viagra or other erectile dysfunction drugs for sex offenders.  Considering the fact that a substantial majority of Americans, at least 62%, agree that the GOP should continue to fight Obama and the Democrats to obtain changes to the Obamacare package, the present Democratic strategy of “no amendments” may end up backfiring.

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New Home Sales “Unexpectedly” Fall 2.2% To 302,000 Units, Lowest Since 1963

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

New Home Sales Fell to a Fresh Record Low of 302,000 Units in February 2010, a decrease of 2.2%

In another distressing example of the weakness of the US economy, Reuters just reported that “New Home Sales Unexpectedly Fell in February”, declining another 2.2% in February 2010 to 302,000 units, a fourth straight month of declines and a fresh all-time low since records began in 1963:

Sales of newly built U.S. single-family homes fell for a fourth straight month to a record low in February, a government report showed on Wednesday, heightening fears of renewed weakness in the housing market.

The Commerce Department said sales fell 2.2 percent to a 308,000 unit annual rate from an upwardly revised 315,000 units in January.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected new home sales to edge up to a 320,000 unit annual pace from January’s previously reported 309,000 units.

The data came on the heels of report on Tuesday showing existing home sales fell for a third straight month in February and a jump in the supply of houses on the market.

Sales have barely responded to the extension and expansion of a popular tax credit, which boosted purchases in the second half of 2009, raising concerns over the fragile housing market’s recovery just as a key pillar of support is being dismantled.

The vaunted crew of American “economists”, as polled by Reuters, “expected” a 3.6% increase, as noted by AP:

The Dow rallied to its highest level since September 2008 on Tuesday after the National Association of Realtors said a drop in sales of existing homes last month wasn’t as big as forecast. The housing market will be in focus again Wednesday when the Commerce Department reports on new home sales.

The housing report is expected to show that sales rose 3.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 320,000 last month, bouncing off a record low seen in January, according to economists polled by Thomson Reuters. The report is due out at 10 a.m. EDT.

A recovery in the sector has been slow and uneven. Reports showing improvement or stabilization in the housing market have regularly been met with buying on Wall Street, such as Tuesday’s big gains.

It appears the prognostication powers of the average American economist is falling fast and one could perhaps be better off guessing about the direction of the housing market than listening to the economists with the fancy PHD’s. One certainty is that the American housing market continues to spiral downward, despite the many interventions of the Obama Administration into the market, and the overall supply of housing on the market continues to rise because of foreclosures:

The number of new homes on the market last month increased 1.3 percent to 236,000 units. February’s weak sales pace left the supply of homes available for sale at 9.2 months’ worth, the highest since May, from 8.9 months in January.

All told, the housing market continues to look like a slow motion train wreck, with no end in sight.  With continued high unemployment leading to another surge in foreclosures, the housing market looks certain to continue to stumble until new job creation returns to the United States.  Considering the uncertainty and concern that many small and big business managers are feeling regarding the Democratic agenda in Washington, DC, the timing of any return of substantial job creation in this country is an open question.

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Shocker: AP: Obama Has Been Lying About Children’s Pre-Existing Conditions

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

One of President Obama's Primary Claims Regarding This Year's Benefits from Obamacare, a ban on denying coverage for children with pre-existing conditions, is actually False and Not In the Language of the Bill, according to Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee

In a story sure to do some damage to the planned Obama road show this week to gin up support for the newly passed Obamacare, the Associated Press reported late last night that President Barack Obama has been explicitly misstating the immediate benefits of the Obamacare statutory language regarding insurer coverage of children’s pre-existing conditions.   Specifically, Obama’s claim, as repeated many times over the past week and as recently as Saturday by the President, that insurance companies will immediately be forced to provide insurance to any child with a pre-existing condition is actually false:

Under the new law, insurance companies still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem, said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the main congressional panels that wrote the bill President Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday.

However, if a child is accepted for coverage, or is already covered, the insurer cannot exclude payment for treating a particular illness, as sometimes happens now. For example, if a child has asthma, the insurance company cannot write a policy that excludes that condition from coverage. The new safeguard will be in place later this year.

In recent speeches, Obama has given the impression that the immediate benefit for kids is much more robust.

Full protection for children would not come until 2014, said Kate Cyrul, a spokeswoman for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, another panel that authored the legislation. That’s the same year when insurance companies could no longer deny coverage to any person on account of health problems.

The AP continues to describe the false claims made by Obama in the past few days:

Obama’s public statements conveyed the impression that the new protections for kids were sweeping and straightforward.

“This is a patient’s bill of rights on steroids,” the president said Friday at George Mason University in Virginia. “Starting this year, thousands of uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions will be able to purchase health insurance, some for the very first time. Starting this year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.”

And Saturday, addressing House Democrats as they approached a make-or-break vote on the bill, Obama said: “This year … parents who are worried about getting coverage for their children with pre-existing conditions now are assured that insurance companies have to give them coverage – this year.”

While the AP is obviously sympathetic to the President, and attempts to avoid directly calling the President a liar, the fact that Obama has specifically claimed that “starting this year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions” while the actual language of the Obamacare bill he signed into law does not provide those new benefits until 2014 cannot be described in any other way than a lie.   This is especially so because the statutory language of the Senate bill has been set in stone since the Christmas Eve vote by the Senate. One can only imagine the ferocity of the establishment media’s coverage if the name of the misleading President was Bush instead of Obama.

As the establishment media is so wedded to supporting  the President, it is likely that the oft-repeated Obama lie about children’s pre-existing conditions will receive only limited coverage.  The fact that the White House staff and President were apparently so clueless as to the actual statutory language of their own signature initiative indicates a level of incompetence that should be troubling to every American. Moving forward, Americans are left to wonder what claims about the immediate benefits to the public from Obamacare made by the President, if any, are actually truthful and which ones are either incompetently or intentionally false.

UPDATE: Hotair catches up with this CentristNet post from last night, notes that we could see a Democratic amendment in the Senate to fix this “issue” of Obama overclaiming the language of his own bill.

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Senior Democrat Dingell: Obamacare Prepping “to Control the People” by 2014

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

Senior Democratic House Democrat John Dingell, seen here with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Former President Bill Clinton, Has Stirred Controversy with his comment that Obamacare will "control the people" by 2014

Senior Democratic House Congressman John Dingell (D-MI) made some incredible admissions on WJR 760AM, a local Michigan station, on Tuesday morning in response to a question from local radio host Paul W. Smith.   Smith asked, starting at about the 6:00 point on the tape, if the leftist rhetoric is correct that tens of thousands of Americans die per year because of a lack of health insurance, “are we are ready to let 72,000 more people die” between now and the implementation of Obamacare in 2014.  Dingell then shockingly responded as follows:

“We’re not ready to be doing it.  But let me remind you, this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.”

Basically Dingell is saying there is so much to do to prepare the massive new federal health care system that the Democrats are “not ready to be doing it” now and four years are needed to prepare to launch the new system by 2014. Indeed, Dingell explicitly states that the Democrats need the next four years to prepare the “necessary administrative steps” to bring Obamacare online “to control the people” of America. Such commentary by such a senior Democratic insider is truly discomforting to centrists and independents, as well as some ideologues on both sides.

Further, it is quite revealing to hear the senior Democratic member of Congress, someone who was a featured speaker at the Democratic House leadership press conference on Sunday night after the historic passage of Obamacare by a 219-212 margin, make these admissions as GOP critics have been condemned harshly by the establishment media and many Democratic politicians for making claims similar (if not less sweeping ) to what Dingell admits here. Dingell’s frank admissions may spur another round of political acrimony between the Democrats and Republicans regarding the “big government” aspects of the Obamacare legislation and the plans for implementation as the Senate reconciliation debate begins.

Dingell then goes on to condemn the GOP just after the quote above for “not helping“, “carping and delaying” and “contributing nothing to this.” Perhaps the GOP is happy to have nothing to do with the wacky Obamacare scheme, as described by Dingell, to “control the people” after four years of preparing the “necessary administrative steps”. Considering the legislation is now the law of the land, and the “necessary administrative steps” referred to by Dingell are unknown outside of the close-knit Democratic power structure, Americans now need full disclosure of what exactly the Democrats have planned “to control the people” via the federal government’s newly minted comprehensive health care reform law.

Dingell's Comments Regarding Obamacare's Goal to "Control the People" by 2014 Have Invoked Comparisons to the World Envisioned by George Orwell in his classic book, "1984"

Indeed, Dingell is part of a small group of Democratic politicians that are the insiders as to the true intent of the massive 2407 page long bill, receiving one of President Obama’s 20 signing pens he used to sign Obamacare today and further described by Obama-worshipping Newsweek as the biblical figure Aaron, who was the brother of Moses (Obama’s role as cast by Newsweek) and who played a critical role to get to the “promised land” of nationalized health care:

If Obama is the Moses of the new health-care law, Dingell is the Aaron—except that, unlike Aaron, he’s happily alive to reach the (incremental) promised land. “There is a certain satisfaction,” said Dingell as he kept an eye on the TV.

Dingell’s own father was a New Deal Democratic congressman and champion of a New Deal–style national health-care system, a bill he first introduced in 1943. When Dingell took over the seat from his late father in 1955, the old man’s bill was in the hopper—but never voted on. The son introduced a similar bill every year, starting in 1957. Every year, including this year. The new Obamacare law is far different from—and short of—that government-run New Deal vision.

But it’s fair to say that Obama and the Dems wouldn’t be where they are today (for good or ill, depending on your politics) had it not been for the efforts of Dingell over the years. In his youth and then heyday as a committee chairman and party leader, he helped pass Medicare in 1965—Nancy Pelosi used his ceremonial gavel on Sunday night—and every other expansion of health-care law and legislation.

Further, Dingell played a key part in pushing the winning block of anti-abortion swing votes, led by Bart Stupak (D-MI), to vote for Obamacare:


“Mr. Dingell had a piece of me (Saturday) for quite some time,” Stupak said.

Stupak said the dean of the House of Representatives was chief among a group of Democratic leaders who put pressure on him to reach a deal with the White House so he would switch to a “yea” vote on the bill.

Once it passed, Dingell’s Democratic colleagues acknowledged his long push for an overhaul of the nation’s health care with a standing ovation Sunday night.

Dingell called the final outcome “a long stride forward” in achieving his career-long goal of national health care coverage.

“I’m very, very happy,” said the beaming 83-year-old Dearborn Democrat, who got to bed well after 1 a.m. Monday but was up early to do his first TV interview at 6:45 a.m. A flood of TV, radio and newspaper interviews followed, underscoring how much credit he is given for helping the Democrats score the legislative victory.

Considering Dingell’s critical role in drafting and obtaining passage of Obamacare, as described by Newsweek and others, and the insider knowledge he must therefore hold regarding the “necessary administrative steps” planned by the Democrats to ramp up Obamacare so as “to control the people” starting in 2014, one can only hope that the establishment media awakens from its celebratory stupor and does a serious investigation as to what exactly the Democrats have planned for this country between now and 2014 so that the American people are fully informed and able to make appropriate decisions in November 2010 and 2012 at the ballot box. Should the Dingell interview end up disappearing from WJR 760AM, a copy can be found here on this site.

UPDATE: Ed at Hotair links over and wonders if Dingell’s crazy statements about Obamacare being designed to “control the people is a “Freudian” slip.

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Hilarious: Senate Dems to Oppose GOP Obamacare Amendment To Ban Viagra for Sex Offenders

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the other Senate Democrats Plan to Oppose the GOP's Obamacare Amendment to Ban the Provision of Viagra for Sex Offenders

Yes, you read the headline right: Senate Democrats are so concerned about maintaining the exact language of the House reconciliation package for Obamacare that, as reported by Sam Stein of Huffpo, that Senate Dems will vote in lockstep against GOP Senator Tom Coburn’s amendment to ban the funding of viagra for sex offenders:

Democrats in the Senate say they are so committed to passing the House’s version of health care reconciliation fixes verbatim, that they are willing to vote against even the most alluring and unobjectionable of amendments — from legislation banning Viagra for sex offenders to language adding the long-elusive public option.

In what is the final act of the health care reform saga, the Senate on Tuesday began debating reconciliation fixes that the House of Representatives passed two days prior. The process includes a period of what could be unlimited amendments, during which it is widely expected that Republicans will try their best to get the legislation changed.

The idea is that by securing even a slight adjustment in the language, the Senate will have to send the bill back to the House of Representatives for reconsideration. Drawing out the process makes it more likely for it to be tripped up.

On Tuesday, the GOP put its strategy into action, with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okl.) introducing an amendment beyond agreeable. Titled “No Erectile Dysfunction Drugs To Sex Offenders” it would literally prohibit convicted child molesters, rapists, and sex offenders from getting erectile dysfunction medication from their health care providers.

While it will undoubtedly be difficult for Democrats to vote against the measure (one can conjure up the campaign ads already), the party plans to do just that.

“Democrats in the Senate are very unified that this is not going back to the House,” Sen. Wyden (D-Ore.) told the Huffington Post on Tuesday, minutes before the Coburn amendment was introduced.

The coming votes in the Senate on the GOP’s many amendments, including the attempt to ban the provision of viagra to sex offenders, are sure to provide some entertaining political theater and perhaps form the basis for a campaign ad or two against Senate Democrats who are up for reelection in 2010.

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The Idiot Biden to Obama Today: “This is a Big Fucking Deal”; UPDATE: Gibbs Concurs, Withholds Apology

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

The Obama Administration disrespected the offices of the Vice Presidency and Presidency today as Biden audibly Told Obama "This is a Big Fucking Deal" at 11:37AM Today and Gibbs Later Sanctioned the Comment without Apology

Just as President Obama was set to take to the microphone today to discuss his historic signing of Obamacare,  at 11:37AM today the bumbling Vice President Joe Biden once again disgraced himself by audibly stating to the President that “this is a big fucking deal”, to which Obama giggled and responded “Thanks”.  Those statements are clearly audible when the video is turned up to a high volume, and are sure to provide fodder for late night comedians for weeks to come:

You Tube Video of VP Joe Biden to Obama at 11:37AM today: “This is a Big Fucking Deal” and President Obama’s giggle and response of “Thanks”

The fact that the top two federal officials in the American government consider it appropriate to share such course language just two feet away from an open microphone calls into question, once again, the competence of the present leadership of our country.  Apparently decorum and good manners have no place in the Obama Administration as at the ultimate moment of triumph, in front of the entire world, our Vice President feels it appropriate to use such course and inappropriate language and our President sanctions same with his approving response.

Many Americans will be offended by the use of such language, and questions are sure to arise in the coming days as to why Biden chose such offensive language at this historic moment and further why Obama did not immediately condemn Biden’s inapprpriate use of such language.   At a minimum, this incident shows an apparent lack of respect for the offices of the Vice Presidency and Presidency held by their current occupants.

UPDATE: Many media organizations have now confirmed the Vice President’s aforementioned use of offensive language in front of the entire world as he and the President stood before the microphones today. White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs even tweeted to weigh in, confirming Biden’s use of the inappropriate language and essentially concurring. It is indeed a sad day in America when the White House feels no need to apologize for the use of such language while the entire world is watching but instead sanctions its use after the fact:

Fox News was first to report that Vice President Joe Biden may have dropped an F-bomb during the signing of the Health Care bill in the White House today, and to be honest, we missed it. But upon closer inspection, yes, he did. After giving a short warm-up speech in advance of President Obama’s speech, Biden turned to embrace the President and said “this is a big f*cking deal!” (At about the 20 second mark.)

Update: Pres Secretary Robert Gibbs responds on Twitter: “And yes Mr. Vice President, you’re right…” So maybe they’re hoping to brush this off with a health dose of good humor.

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CBS News Defrauds America, Rigs Poll To Show Obama at 49% and Pelosi at 11%, Reid at 8%; CNN Shows Obama at 46%/51%, Proving CBS’s Fraud

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

CBS News Has Defrauded American by Manipulating its Polling Data to Show Much More Favorable Results for President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party

In a breathtaking display of journalistic and polling malpractice, CBS News tonight released a poll that substantially reversed its unweighted findings which showed an all-around collapse of Democratic poll ratings by manipulating the actual findings of its poll.   Amazingly, even with this untoward, obvious manipulation of the data obtained by the CBS News pollsters, the poll still showed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at 11% favorability/37% unfavorability [-26%], while Senate Leader Harry Reid clocked in at 8%/23% [-15%] and President Barack Obama at 49% approval/41% disapproval [+8%].    Here is the evidence of CBS News’s unforgivable manipulation of its polling data, with the unweighted numbers on the left and the “weighted” numbers on the right:

Total Respondents                     1059                                   1059
Total Republicans                      272 [25.7%]                     235   [-37, now  22.2%]
Total Democrats                         355 [33.5%]                    396   [+41, now 37.4%]
Total Independents                  432 [40.8%]                   428   [-4,  now 40.4%]

Incredibly, and in what must be the intentional placing of a thumb on the scales to avoid a shocking embarrassment of its favored President and Democratic Party, CBS News took its unweighted polling sample that had an 8% partisan ID edge for Democrats (which is a realistic finding compared to other polling, see below) and then “weighted” their data to show a completely fraudulent and unrealistic 15% partisan ID edge for Democratic voters over Republican ones – adding 7.4% to the partisan ID edge for Democratic voters.   Keep in mind that President Obama, at a time of record turnout for the Democratic base, a depressed GOP base and with independents breaking Obama’s way by double digits, won the 2008 election by only 7%.    Yet CBS is claiming tonight that the Democrats own a full 15.2% partisan ID edge over the Republicans amongst the American people, despite the indisputable slide in Obama’s popularity, as well as that of his party, since that historic election night.

No one in the polling community, other than CBS News, deigns to claim that this 15.2% partisan edge anything other than fantasy – even senior Democratic strategist James Carville’s left wing Democracy Corps polling shows only a 7% partisan ID edge for Democratic voters [38%-31%], while NBC/WSJ shows 9% partisan ID edge for Democratic voters [32%-23%] and Fox News’s polling shows just a 3% partisan ID edge for Democratic voters [40%-37%]. Based on those three, well-respected pollsters, CBS News’s unweighted data showing a 7.8% partisan ID edge for Democratic voters [33.5%-25.7%] appears to be a reasonable sample of the actual electorate in America.  For reasons known only to CBS News, they then decided to take that representative sample of the electorate and stand it on its head by essentially padding all the numbers in their polling by 7.4% in favor of President Obama and the Democratic Party by creating a fantasy-land 15.2% partisan ID edge for Democrats.

By doing this, CBS News was able to make the ridiculous claim that President Obama’s approval on the specific issue of health care is rising now:

Overall, Americans are critical of the President’s handling of health care, but his approval rating on this issue has risen in the last month. Now, 41% approve, up from 35% in February; but still more, 51%, disapprove. More people have disapproved than approved of the President’s handling of health care since November.

As shown above, CBS News claims that President Obama’s approval on health care policy has “risen” by 6% from 35% to 41% – yet their manipulation of the polling data via “weighting” actually shifted the numbers by 7.4% in President Obama’s favor, more than the alleged rise in President Obama’s health care approval. Regarding Obama’s overall approval, CBS News again claims that Obama is “up” from last month:

Americans’ rating of the overall job President Obama is up slightly from last month: 49% now approve, compared to 46% last month. President Obama’s approval rating has hovered at or slightly below 50% since December.

The 3% rise in Obama’s overall approval crowed about by CBS News, from 46% last month to 49% now, is also fully eviscerated by the intentional manipulation of the polling data engaged in by CBS News by “weighting” the partisan ID advantage to increase the Democratic advantage by 7.4%, from the unweighted 7.8% to the weighted 15.2%. Taking the unweighted data, President Obama actually lost a few points in approval this month, continuing his downward trend into the low to mid 40% range. By adding 7.4% to the partisan ID edge for Democrats, CBS News was able to obfuscate this continuing decline and actually claim that Obama’s approval was on the way “up”.

On the issue of health care reform, even with the manipulation of its data, CBS News reported that Americans oppose Obamacare by an 11 point margin, 37%-48%:

As the health care bill headed to its Sunday night vote in the House of Representatives, nearly half of Americans said they disapproved of it, while 37% approved. Among those opposed to the bill, a third strongly disapproved.

Of course, the results would look much worse if it were not for the addition of 7.4% to the Democratic partisan ID edge by CBS News’s disgraceful manipulation of its own polling data.

Did CBS News Anchor Katie Couric Trade Disgraceful Manipulation of CBS's Polling Data for Exclusive Access to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel over the weekend?

One possible explanation for this disgraceful behavior by the allegedly neutral CBS News is the access being provided to CBS News, and specifically to CBS anchor Katie Couric, by the leaders of the Democratic Party. Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, gave an exclusive interview to Couric over the weekend – a much sought-after interview that certainly helped CBS’s ratings. Trading access to prominent Democrats for intentional manipulation of polling data, as appears to be the case here, is serious journalistic malpractice and all objective, independent observers of American politics must immediately condemn CBS’s behavior.

One could possibly expect an avowed partisan like James Carville to engage in such misrepresentations of polling data, however, it is the allegedly neutral CBS News who has disgraced itself with its undeniable, and unforgivable, manipulation of its polling data. CBS News is trusted by millions of Americans to be an objective, neutral source for both the news of the day and polling data, and this disgraceful manipulation of its polling data, in exchange for exclusive access to Democratic leaders, surely undercuts any confidence Americans may have that CBS News is actually an objective source of information. The fact that the duty to expose CBS’s journalistic malpractice falls to a tiny centrist blog like this one is a sad commentary on the state of the American media today. Centrist and independent Americans can only hope that the rest of the establishment media investigates this undeniable manipulation of polling data by CBS News to determine if CBS did indeed rig its poll for access to White House officials.

UPDATE: CNN’s release of polling, over the same period as the CBS News sample, showing President Obama at 46%/51% approval conclusively proves that CBS News is guilty of intentional manipulation of its polling data to distort the actual preferences of the American electorate at this time.  Such behavior by CBS News calls into question its status as a news organization at all.   CNN’s polling:

For the first time, a CNN poll has found that a majority of Americans disapprove of President Obama’s job performance.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday, 51 percent of respondents disapprove of Obama’s job performance and 46 percent approve of it…

Obama’s approval rating has dropped steadily each month since December, when it was 54 percent. His highest approval rating in a CNN poll was 76 percent in February 2009 shortly after he took office.

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