Image 01

Posts Tagged ‘Establishment Media’

The Obama Brand: Tarnished by the Passage of Obamacare over Bipartisan Opposition and Special Interest Deals

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Has the Obama Brand Been Tarnished By the Ugly Partisan Process Surrounding the Passage of his Signature Initiative, Obamacare?

President Barack Obama and the Democrats deserve a night or two to celebrate their historic victory in ramming the Obamacare package through Congress against bipartisan opposition, although only Democrats voted for the bill last night (219) while both Democrats (34) and Republicans (all) opposed the bill. However, as the reality of passage sets in upon America, an analysis of the political effects upon the Obama Brand is an interesting subject to review. CentristNet takes on this subject as the establishment media is in full celebration mode, with absolutely no focus so far in any reporting about the meaning of the substantial Democratic defections in the House yesterday or the lack of a single Republican vote in Congress for the massive initiative that defines the Obama Administration.

President Barack Obama will sign the Senate bill, as passed by the House last night, into law sometime this week, making the Louisiana Purchase, Cornhusker Kickback and unfair exclusion of only Florida residents from the cuts to Medicare Advantage the law of the land while also sanctioning a very flawed process that led a bipartisan coalition of legislators to oppose the Democrats-only bill.

President Obama ran for election in 2008 as a bipartisan, pragmatic problem solver and has frequently claimed in 2009 and 2010 that he is running his Presidency in an open, transparent and bipartisan manner while fighting the “special interests” on behalf of the American people. Now, centrist and independent Americans, as well as ideologues on both sides, are confronted with the example of the signature initiative of the Obama Presidency – health care reform – being passed in the most partisan fashion possible, with absolutely no Republican support and substantial Democratic opposition.  Indeed, 34 of the 253 voting House Democrats voted against the young President’s signature initiative – a not insignificant 13.4% of the House Democratic Caucus.

Considering this, one must now ponder the effect of this entire year-long process upon the Obama Brand – a brand that was built upon the idea of a post-partisan, cooperative governance that would end the untoward “ways of Washington” that so many Americans roundly reject. For instance, consider these sentiments from then-candidate Obama in his speech announcing his candidacy in January 2007:

We all made this journey for a reason. It’s humbling, but in my heart I know you didn’t come here just for me, you came here because you believe in what this country can be. In the face of war, you believe there can be peace. In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope. In the face of a politics that’s shut you out, that’s told you to settle, that’s divided us for too long, you believe we can be one people, reaching for what’s possible, building that more perfect union.

It was here we learned to disagree without being disagreeable — that it’s possible to compromise so long as you know those principles that can never be compromised; and that so long as we’re willing to listen to each other, we can assume the best in people instead of the worst.

I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness — a certain audacity — to this announcement. I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.

What’s stopped us from meeting these challenges is not the absence of sound policies and sensible plans. What’s stopped us is the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics — the ease with which we’re distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our preference for scoring cheap political points instead of rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus to tackle big problems.

And as people have looked away in disillusionment and frustration, we know what’s filled the void. The cynics, and the lobbyists, and the special interests who’ve turned our government into a game only they can afford to play. They write the checks and you get stuck with the bills, they get the access while you get to write a letter, they think they own this government, but we’re here today to take it back. The time for that politics is over. It’s time to turn the page.

It is quite jarring to read the words of candidate Obama listed above considering that President Obama just forced his massive health care plan, which fundamentally remakes nearly 20% of the American economy, through Congress without a single Republican vote – hardly an example of “building a working consensus” as he promised America on that chilly day in January 2007.    As jarring is the derisive 2007 talk about “special interests who’ve turned our government into a game only they can afford to play” as the President cut backroom deals with essentially every special interest group in the health care industry during the Obamacare process.  As the Obama Administration has spent an overwhelming majority of its political capital to date on health care reform, the fact that the only bipartisan aspect of the Obamacare package in the final analysis is the bipartisan opposition to its passage is certainly not what the country expected when Obama was ushered into office with 53% of the vote in November 2008.

A Laughing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is Seen Here after the House's 219-212 Passage of Obamacare Via Solely Democratic Votes With 34 Democrats and All Republicans joining in Bipartisan Opposition

Most Americans, including many centrists and independents, believed that Obama would work with Republicans on major issues like health care reform to produce centrist, bipartisan solutions.  This early public confidence in Obama’s potential to be a post-partisan, centrist leader is  shown by the incredible levels of approval Obama received early in his Presidency – upwards of 65-70% support.  Obama’s approval had fallen steadily since March 2009 into a range between 45-50% before the passage of Obamacare today, no doubt in part due to the ugly, partisan acrimony surrounding the health care reform effort.  Now that his signature initiative has passed, incredibly, without a single Republican vote in either the House or the Senate and 13.4% of House Democrats voting against it, America now knows that Obama has chosen a partisan path on the historic legislation that defines his Presidency.  Historically speaking, this exclusively partisan passage of a major domestic reform is unprecedented in American history, as both parties voted in favor of Social Security and Medicare, as well as the Civil Rights Act – yet only Democrats voted for Obamacare.

Obama, of course, has chosen to push a different narrative immediately after the House passage of the Senate bill – one that focuses on the allegedly centrist nature of his bill that just passed without a single Republican vote and garnered 34 Democratic no votes.   Obama gave a speech right after the House vote claiming that Obamacare proves “change in this country comes not from the top down, but from the bottom up” and that “tonight’s vote is not a victory for any one party — it’s a victory for them. It’s a victory for the American people.  And it’s a victory for common sense.”    Obama here is clearly trying to take the focus off the fact that only Democrats voted for his bill, and he reinforces his point by stating that now America will have “a health care system that incorporates ideas from both parties.”  Oddly, Obama appears to see himself as apart from the American people, saying it is “a victory for them” as opposed to a victory for us.  Obama also tweeted out this:

Tonight’s vote is not a victory for any one party – it is a victory for the American people. Tonight, we answered the call of history.

Obama also sent out an email to the many millions on his “Organizing for America” list, which said in part:

Our journey began three years ago, driven by a shared belief that fundamental change is indeed still possible. We have worked hard together every day since to deliver on that belief.

We have shared moments of tremendous hope, and we’ve faced setbacks and doubt. We have all been forced to ask if our politics had simply become too polarized and too short-sighted to meet the pressing challenges of our time. This struggle became a test of whether the American people could still rally together when the cause was right — and actually create the change we believe in.

Tonight, thanks to your mighty efforts, the answer is indisputable: Yes we can.

In last night’s speech, tweets, and email, Obama is trying to take the focus off the fact that only Democrats voted for the signature initiative of this Presidency and avoid the subject of bipartisanship if possible, despite the fact that the Obama Brand is based in part on the image of Obama as a pragmatic bipartisan reformer. Both his speech and tweet make the claim that last night’s historic passage of Obamacare is “not a victory for any one party”, while the email to his campaign list removes this reference for obvious reasons. All three communications claim that the passage of the bill is a victory for the “American people” despite the fact that a majority of the American people oppose the bill in general and 6473% of Americans would have preferred the President and Democrats either start over or start from scratch than do as they have now done in passing the present enormous, partisan bill. All told, it is clear that Obama will try to avoid any discussion of the lack of any semblance of bipartisanship in his signature initiative while also asserting that Obamacare “runs straight down the center of American political thought“, and it remains to be seen if that dog will hunt.

The odious special interest deals and pork in the Senate bill that was passed on Christmas Eve by the Senate, and last night by the House, will now all become the law of the land upon Obama’s planned signature early this week. While Obama and the Democrats will attempt to ram through a new bill to make changes to Obamacare though the Senate, the hard reality of the situation is that President Obama will sanction and endorse each and every backroom deal and pork handout in the Senate bill when he affixes his signature to it. The Senate may never pass the “fixes” Obama wants to the bill, “fixes” that were made necessary by the untoward deal cutting to obtain the Christmas Eve Senate passage of Obamacare from the sixty Democratic Senators who voted for it, such as the Cornhusker Kickback, Louisiana Purchase and ridiculous provisions that allow Florida residents to retain Medicare Advantage benefits while all other states’ residents lose same.

The Backroom, Pork-Laden Deals Between President Barack Obama and Nearly Every Special Interest Group in the Health Care Industry Have Dented the Obama Brand

Additionally, the President referred to his fighting the “special interests” in his comments last night, as well as in his 2007 campaign kickoff speech and at many points in between, and the image of Obama as a tireless fighter of “special interests” in Washington is a critical component of the Obama Brand.   Here as well, the Obama Brand has taken a hit during the Obamacare process as Obama himself has made backroom deals with the large drug companies (“Big Pharma”), American Medical Association, the hospitals, the AARP, the unions, and even some insurance companies as the past year of as the process has unfolded.

Regardless, in the days to come, expect Obama and the Democrats to attack the Republicans for “delaying” the “fixes” to the bill the Democrats themselves assembled and passed through the Senate on Christmas Eve. For instance, Obama also had this to say last night:

“On Tuesday, the Senate will take up revisions to this legislation that the House has embraced and these are revisions that have strengthened this law and removed provisions that have no place it in. Some have predicted another siege of parliamentary maneuvering in order to delay adoption of these improvements. I hope that’s not the case. It’s time to bring this debate to a close and bring in the hard work of implementing this reform properly on behalf of the American people.”

President Barack Obama, here with VP Joe Biden, on December 24, 2009 Praising the Senate Obamacare Bill's Passage

Here Obama is already staking out the high ground in the next phase of the Obamacare legislative battle, asserting that the changes that are to pass via reconciliation will remove “provisions that have no place” in the legislation. However, Obama himself is set to sign that very legislation early this week, and Obama had nothing at all to say about “provisions that have no place” in the bill in his December 24, 2009 statement after the Senate passage of Obamacare, calling it a “tremendous step forward” as he “hailed Senate passage“.

It appears that Obama and the Democrats will attempt to demagogue the GOP for stalling the Democratic attempt to push through changes to Obamacare via reconciliation in Senate by claiming the GOP is stopping the Democrats from fixing the very fraudulent deals the Democrats themselves made in order to obtain the initial Senate passage of the bill. As with Obama’s attempt to frame Obamacare as a bipartisan piece of legislation despite the fact that only Democrats voted for it and 13.4% of the House Democratic Caucus joined a unified GOP in opposing it, it remains to be seen if this dog will hunt as well.

Indeed, the entire, high profile “sausage-making” process over the past year or so surrounding the passage of the President’s signature initiative, Obamacare, demonstrates all of the untoward “ways of Washington” that candidate Barack Obama condemned in 2007-8, and President Obama has condemned in 2009 and 2010. Indeed, last night Obama condemned the very bill he will sign this week as having “provisions that have no place” in it.  Further, the background story of the strong arming done by Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the past few weeks of reluctant House Democrats is sure to be more fully reported in the days to come, and such details are also destructive of the Obama Brand.

All told, the Obama Brand of pragmatic bipartisanship has been seriously dented by the facts surrounding the passage of his Presidency’s signature initiative, and the next few weeks could bring more highlighting of the odious parts of the bill as the battle over Senate reconciliation heats up next week. Few, if any, Americans who voted for President Obama in November 2008 could have forseen that he would end up forcing comprehensive health care reform through Congress with only Democratic votes over bipartisan opposition via an ugly backroom deal laden process, and those facts could indeed change the way many Americans view the young President. Finally, then-candidate Obama’s words in 2007 about the need to avoid “slash and burn” politics and how American cannot “pass universal health care with a 50-plus-one strategy” are especially jarring considering the process that has now ended in the wholly partisan passage of his signature initiative:

Obama was talking about the differences between himself and his then-opponent in the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton.

“I think it is legitimate at this point for me to explain very clearly to the American people why I think I will be a better president than Hillary Clinton, and to draw contrasts,” Obama said.

“But that’s very different from this sort of slash-and-burn politics that I think we’ve become accustomed to. Look, part of the reason I’m running is not just to be president, it’s to get things done. And what I believe that means is we’ve got to break out of what I call, sort of, the 50-plus-one pattern of presidential politics. Which is, you have nasty primaries where everybody’s disheartened. Then you divide the country 45 percent on one side, 45 percent on the other, 10 percent in the middle — all of them apparently live in Florida and Ohio — and battle it out. And maybe you eke out a victory of 50-plus-one, but you can’t govern. I mean, you get Air Force One, there are a lot of nice perks to being president, but you can’t deliver on health care. We’re not going to pass universal health care with a 50-plus-one strategy. We’re not going to have a serious bold energy policy of the sort I proposed yesterday unless you build a working majority. And part of the task of building that working majority is to get people to believe in our government, that it can work, that it’s based on common sense, that it’s not just sort of scoring political points.

The interviewer then asked, “So is your answer to ‘Why I will be a better president than Hillary Clinton,’ is your answer that she’ll be a 50-plus-one president and you won’t?”

“Yes,” Obama said.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

CBO: Obamacare = at least $109 Billion in Deficit Spending Over 10 Years; UPDATE: Former CBO Director: Obamacare Deficit will be $562 Billion over 10 years

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

The Establishment Media's Failure to Debunk or Even Question President Obama's False Claim of Deficit Savings from Obamacare Reminds Some of the Society Described by George Orwell in his Classic book, "1984"

In explicit contradiction to the establishment media’s reporting over the past two days, the CBO has in fact reported that the Obamacare bill will result in an increase in the deficit spending of the United States by at least $109 billion over the next 10 years. Instead of reporting this indisputable fact, the media has been pushing the Obama and Democrat line that Obamacare will “save” $138 billion over the next 10 years in deficit spending versus present projections as if it was the gospel truth.

The big problem with that reporting, and Obama’s claim that Obamacare will be “one of the biggest deficit-reduction plans in history” is that the CBO has explicitly reported that when the “doctor fix” is enacted, the $138 billion in paper “savings” disappear and a $59 billion dollar deficit over 10 years is created by Obamacare over 10 years:

You asked about the total budgetary impact of enacting the reconciliation proposal (the amendment to H.R. 4872), the Senate-passed health bill (H.R. 3590), and the Medicare Physicians Payment Reform Act of 2009 (H.R. 3961). CBO estimates that enacting all three pieces of legislation would add $59 billion to budget deficits over the 2010–2019 period.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Obama have promised to push through a “doctor fix” immediately after the passage of Obamacare. In fact, the promised “doctor fix” was used by President Obama and the Democrats to purchase the American Medical Association’s support for Obamacare as reported by Politico back in July 2009:

In the bill, Democrats provide $245 billion to eliminate an annual shortfall in payments to doctors under Medicare. Democrats resolved this annual headache, in large part, to win crucial support for the bill from the American Medical Association. That money currently counts against the overall costs of the bill, but Democrats have introduced legislation that would remove remove this obligation from federal deficit.

Obama and the Democrats then removed the “doctor fix” from Obamacare to game the CBO scoring shortly after the CBO released its initial scoring of the bill which  properly showed an increase in deficit spending. Removing the “doctor fix” meant that the present CBO scoring includes an unrealistic 21% immediate cut in doctor fees in its projections, hence resulting in the illusory CBO number of $138 billion in paper deficit “savings” that the establishment media and President Obama are so happy to falsely repeat ad nauseam. In reality, as noted by the CBO’s letter excerpted above, the real CBO score is a deficit of $59 Billion over 10 years.

In addition, the CBO also has explicitly stated that another $50 billion over 10 years in federal spending will be required to administer the massive new federal entitlement programs to be created by Obamacare:

In its March 11, 2010, cost estimate for H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), as passed by the Senate, CBO indicated that it has identified at least $50 billion in specified and estimated authorizations of discretionary spending that might be involved in implementing that legislation. The authority to undertake such spending is not provided in H.R. 3590; it would require future action in appropriation bills.

As noted by the CBO above, the legislative language does not include authority to “undertake such spending” so the CBO did not score it in the recent releases. However, the CBO does clearly state above that “at least $50 billion” in federal spending will be required to implement Obamacare, meaning that combined with the inevitable “doctor fix”, the CBO’s own reporting holds that Obamacare will result in at least $109 billion in new deficit spending over the next 10 years.

Somehow it takes a tiny centrist blog like this one to clearly report these publicly available facts, and the establishment media, including the AP, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, USAToday, NYT, WaPo, ABC, and Politico all completely failed to report these facts when reporting on the illusory $138 billion in paper deficit savings reported by the CBO. In fact, all of those “news” organizations explicitly report that Obamacare will reduce the deficit as if it is fact while failing to even mention the “doctor fix” (which results in a $59 billion deficit) or the administrative costs (an additional cost of $50 billion) that the CBO itself has explicitly reported on.  Sadly, this $109 billion deficit over 10 years is just the tip of the iceberg, as President Obama and Congressional Democrats have, according to Obamaphile NYT columnist David Brooks, stuffed the legislation with gimmicks and dodges designed to get a good score from the Congressional Budget Office but don’t genuinely control runaway spending.”

Here is a list, from the NYT Brooks column, of the “dodges and gimmicks” which were used by Obama and Congressional Democrats to create the illusory $138 Billion in paper deficit savings from Obamacare:

There is the doc fix dodge. The legislation pretends that Congress is about to cut Medicare reimbursements by 21 percent. Everyone knows that will never happen, so over the next decade actual spending will be $300 billion higher than paper projections.

There is the long-term care dodge. The bill creates a $72 billion trust fund to pay for a new long-term care program. The sponsors count that money as cost-saving, even though it will eventually be paid back out when the program comes on line.

There is the subsidy dodge. Workers making $60,000 and in the health exchanges would receive $4,500 more in subsidies in 2016 than workers making $60,000 and not in the exchanges. There is no way future Congresses will allow that disparity to persist. Soon, everybody will get the subsidy.

There is the excise tax dodge. The primary cost-control mechanism and long-term revenue source for the program is the tax on high-cost plans. But Democrats aren’t willing to levy this tax for eight years. The fiscal sustainability of the whole bill rests on the naïve hope that a future Congress will have the guts to accept a trillion-dollar tax when the current Congress wouldn’t accept an increase of a few billion.

There is the 10-6 dodge. One of the reasons the bill appears deficit-neutral in the first decade is that it begins collecting revenue right away but doesn’t have to pay for most benefits until 2014. That’s 10 years of revenues to pay for 6 years of benefits, something unlikely to happen again unless the country agrees to go without health care for four years every decade.

There is the Social Security dodge. The bill uses $52 billion in higher Social Security taxes to pay for health care expansion. But if Social Security taxes pay for health care, what pays for Social Security?

There is the pilot program dodge. Admirably, the bill includes pilot programs designed to help find ways to control costs. But it’s not clear that the bill includes mechanisms to actually implement the results. This is exactly what happened to undermine previous pilot program efforts.

Sadly, none of the above-listed “dodges and gimmicks” are referenced anywhere in any of the establishment media reporting over the past few days regarding the explicitly false Obama claim that Obamacare is “one of the biggest deficit-reduction plans in history.” Instead of reporting these facts and challenging the President’s clearly false claims of deficit reduction from Obamacare, the media has abdicated its traditional watchdog role as the 4th estate in American society and wholly endorsed the explicitly false claims of President Obama.

As it stands right now, the vote in the House tomorrow appears to be very close and could go either way. One can only wonder if wavering Democrats would be reacting differently if the media was actually doing its job and acting as a watchdog instead of a lapdog for the powerful politicians who run the federal government. Americans can only hope that their elected congresspeople who will vote tomorrow on perhaps the most important bill in decades have this public information for their consideration as they decide whether to vote to pass Obamacare into law.

UPDATE: Former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005, confirms CentristNet’s claims last night in his NYT column outlining the dodges and gimmicks included by the Democrats to obtain the explicitly false claim of $138 billion in paper deficit “savings” and concluding that Obamacare will actually result in over a half a trillion of increased deficit spending over the next 10 years:

ON Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that, if enacted, the latest health care reform legislation would, over the next 10 years, cost about $950 billion, but because it would raise some revenues and lower some costs, it would also lower federal deficits by $138 billion. In other words, a bill that would set up two new entitlement spending programs — health insurance subsidies and long-term health care benefits — would actually improve the nation’s bottom line.

Could this really be true? How can the budget office give a green light to a bill that commits the federal government to spending nearly $1 trillion more over the next 10 years?

The answer, unfortunately, is that the budget office is required to take written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of what it is handed. So fantasy in, fantasy out.

In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion.
….
Finally, in perhaps the most amazing bit of unrealistic accounting, the legislation proposes to trim $463 billion from Medicare spending and use it to finance insurance subsidies. But Medicare is already bleeding red ink, and the health care bill has no reforms that would enable the program to operate more cheaply in the future. Instead, Congress is likely to continue to regularly override scheduled cuts in payments to Medicare doctors and other providers.

Removing the unrealistic annual Medicare savings ($463 billion) and the stolen annual revenues from Social Security and long-term care insurance ($123 billion), and adding in the annual spending that so far is not accounted for ($114 billion) quickly generates additional deficits of $562 billion in the first 10 years. And the nation would be on the hook for two more entitlement programs rapidly expanding as far as the eye can see.

The bottom line is that Congress would spend a lot more; steal funds from education, Social Security and long-term care to cover the gap; and promise that future Congresses will make up for it by taxing more and spending less.

The stakes could not be higher. As documented in another recent budget office analysis, the federal deficit is already expected to exceed at least $700 billion every year over the next decade, doubling the national debt to more than $20 trillion. By 2020, the federal deficit — the amount the government must borrow to meet its expenses — is projected to be $1.2 trillion, $900 billion of which represents interest on previous debt.

The health care legislation would only increase this crushing debt. It is a clear indication that Congress does not realize the urgency of putting America’s fiscal house in order.

This is the sad truth of the Obamacare package that is due to be voted on by the House of Representatives just a few hours from now. Democrats continued to make the explicitly false claim that Obamacare will be a “historic” deficit reduction package on all the Sunday shows, and the establishment media continued to second their false claims and refuse to even mention any of the obvious gimmicks and dodges used to create the false paper deficit savings reported by the CBO last week. Should Obamacare pass, the intentional fraud engaged in by President Obama and Democrats regarding the deficit “savings” issue will be seen as one of the most egregious examples of explicit misrepresentations made by federal officials, and sanctioned by the American media, in the history of this country.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Obama Lies, Quotes Lincoln “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true”

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

President Barack Obama, pictured here at the House Democratic Caucus meeting today, implausibly claimed that after the passage of Obamacare, all Americans will keep their present health plans and doctors despite clear indications to the contrary

In his last speech before the historic vote on his Obamacare package in the House of Representatives set for tomorrow, President Barack Obama gave a speech to a members-only House Democratic caucus meeting today.   In his speech, the President sadly repeated many of the same lies and misrepresentations he made yesterday at George Mason, including his false claims that everyone can “keep their doctor” and “keep their plan” while also falsely asserting that Obamacare will be an “historic” deficit reduction bill.  Obama made these claims despite their debunking by even establishment media sources many months ago, and the CBO’s addendum to their scoring made public late yesterday that reports an addition to the deficit of $59 billion over the next 10 years from Obamacare once the “doctor fix” is factored in.

Despite making these misleading and explicitly false statements in his speech today, Obama recited an Abraham Lincoln quote about speaking the truth in his speech today, twice:

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true”

Apparently the establishment media has no interest in reporting on the explicit lies (you can keep your doctor, you can keep your health plan and Obamacare will be “historic” deficit reduction) repeated again by the President today, as the NYT, CNN, WaPo and the AP all focus on the rhetorical grandeur, the “history being made” and the “impassioned plea” in Obama’s speech to Democrats today while ignoring the substantively false claims made by the President.

Amazingly, none of the above-linked articles make any reference to the President’s claims that all Americans will be able to keep their doctor and keep their insurance after the passage of his reform plan; instead, the establishment media just completely ignores these explicitly false statements.

The Associated Press epitomizes the frenzied, wrongful efforts of the establishment media to cover for the explicit lies of the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats regarding Obamacare, printing this as if it is fact:

The sweeping legislation, affecting virtually every American and more than a year in the making, would extend coverage to an estimated 32 million uninsured Americans, forbid insurers to deny coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and cut federal deficits by an estimated $138 billion over a decade.

Congressional analysts estimate the cost of the two bills combined would be $940 billion over a decade.

In repeating the explicitly false claims above, as made by Obama and the Democrats, the AP fails to mention the fact that the CBO admitted last night that Obamacare will actually add $59 billion to the deficit over 10 years when the pending “doctor fix” is enacted and further fails to mention that the CBO has also stated that at least $50 billion in additional funds will be required to administer Obamacare over 10 years after its passage, meaning Obamacare will add at least $109 billion to the deficit over the next decade. Sadly, that $109 billion in deficit spending resultant from Obamacare does not account for the many additional budget gimmicks used by the Democrats to entrench the false perception that the bill that creates over $100 billion a year in new federal entitlement spending will actually be an “historical” deficit reduction bill. Even the NYT’s Obama-loving (literally) columnist David Brooks listed the many ways the CBO score is explicitly rendered false by no less than seven Democratic “dodges” designed to game the CBO scoring process:

They’ve stuffed the legislation with gimmicks and dodges designed to get a good score from the Congressional Budget Office but don’t genuinely control runaway spending.

There is the doc fix dodge. The legislation pretends that Congress is about to cut Medicare reimbursements by 21 percent. Everyone knows that will never happen, so over the next decade actual spending will be $300 billion higher than paper projections.

There is the long-term care dodge. The bill creates a $72 billion trust fund to pay for a new long-term care program. The sponsors count that money as cost-saving, even though it will eventually be paid back out when the program comes on line.

There is the subsidy dodge. Workers making $60,000 and in the health exchanges would receive $4,500 more in subsidies in 2016 than workers making $60,000 and not in the exchanges. There is no way future Congresses will allow that disparity to persist. Soon, everybody will get the subsidy.

There is the excise tax dodge. The primary cost-control mechanism and long-term revenue source for the program is the tax on high-cost plans. But Democrats aren’t willing to levy this tax for eight years. The fiscal sustainability of the whole bill rests on the naïve hope that a future Congress will have the guts to accept a trillion-dollar tax when the current Congress wouldn’t accept an increase of a few billion.

There is the 10-6 dodge. One of the reasons the bill appears deficit-neutral in the first decade is that it begins collecting revenue right away but doesn’t have to pay for most benefits until 2014. That’s 10 years of revenues to pay for 6 years of benefits, something unlikely to happen again unless the country agrees to go without health care for four years every decade.

There is the Social Security dodge. The bill uses $52 billion in higher Social Security taxes to pay for health care expansion. But if Social Security taxes pay for health care, what pays for Social Security?

There is the pilot program dodge. Admirably, the bill includes pilot programs designed to help find ways to control costs. But it’s not clear that the bill includes mechanisms to actually implement the results. This is exactly what happened to undermine previous pilot program efforts.

All of the above-referenced “dodges” and gimmicks to obtain a good CBO score are based on publicly available information, yet nowhere in the establishment media can you find this information actually reported to rebut the ridiculously false claims by Obama and Democrats over the past few days that Obamacare will actually reduce the deficit and be “one of the biggest deficit-reduction plans in history.” The NYT yesterday even manages to lionize the CBO scoring as unimpeachable and nonpartisan while attacking those who dared to note some of the above-referenced dodges and gimmicks listed by Brooks. In short, the establishment media is allowing the President and the Democratic Party to use an explicit lie (Obamacare reduces the deficit) to sell their comprehensive plan to the American public without informing the public in any way of illusory basis for such claims. Such conduct is a true abdication of the 4th Estate’s role as a watchdog of the American government.

The Misinformation and Lies on Obamacare Presented by President Obama and Deemed by the Media as Truthful Remind Some of the World Described by George Orwell in his classic work, "1984"

Further, Obama concludes by claiming that Democrats must pass this bill for “the American people”:

“Help us fix this system,” Obama said. “Don’t do it for me. Don’t do it for Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid — do it for all those people out there who are struggling. . . . Do it for the American people. They’re the ones who are looking for action right now.”

Amazingly, the Washington Post and the other establishment media articles fail to note that CNN’s latest poll found 73% of Americans want Obama and the Dems to either stop or start over from scratch and only 25% are “looking for action right now.” Similarly, Fox News’s latest poll found that 64% want Obama and the Dems to stop or start over from scratch and only 30% are “looking for action right now.” Even the highly left-wing Kaiser Foundation’s latest poll shows that 56% of Americans want Obama and the Democrats to stop or start over, while 42% want to proceed to a vote now. All of the establishment media reporting also omits any reference to the fact that a full 80% of the American public are satisfied “with the quality of medical care available to them” in the much-reviled “status quo”. Based on these polls, it is impossible to claim with a straight face that passing Obamacare now is what the American people are looking for “right now” – yet this is exactly what Obama is saying, and the media simply cheers without retort, notwithstanding the indisputable facts noted above.

Finally, Obama today made the equally ridiculous claim that Obamacare “runs straight down the center of American political thought” and “is a middle of the road bill” and, again, no one in the media even bothers to rebut this claim with the obvious fact that the only bipartisan thing about Obamacare is the opposition to Obamacare, as at least 31 House Democrats are joining a unified Republican opposition to the bill. Sadly, facts such as these go unmentioned by the establishment media reports as they scurry to defend their hero President Obama as the final hours tick away before the all-important House vote on Obamacare.

When the 4th Estate (media) work so strenuously to support both the President and the Congress in an effort such as Obamacare, avoiding the reporting of any facts which could possibly hinder the Democratic effort to “remake one-sixth of the U.S. economy” while cheerleading every step of the way, the continued viability of the American political system moving forward can reasonably be questioned by centrists and independents as such coordinated misinformation brings to mind the world described by George Orwell in his classic work “1984”.  Should Obamacare pass the House and become law, years from now historians will review Obama’s speeches from yesterday and today and likely designate them as some of the most misleading speeches by an American President in the history of our country.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

At Least 25,000 Protesters Descend on Congress to Protest Obamacare; UPDATE: More Pics Added From Rally

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Protesters stretch throughout the lawn in front of Congress today protesting Obamacare

10's of Thousands of Obamacare Protesters Rally in Washington, DC today

Part of the 10's of Thousands Protesting Obamacare In Front of Capitol Hill

So far today, at least 25,000 protesters have arrived in Washington DC to show disapproval of the pending Obamacare legislation

In a rally against Obamacare called for only twenty four hours ago, at least 25,000 Americans have now arrived in Washington, DC to protest the potential House passage of the comprehensive health care reform package known as Obamacare.   Right now, various speakers are talking to the growing crowd in front of Capitol Hill as every major highway into Washington DC remain jammed with cars, trucks and buses carrying yet more protesters to join the rally against Obamacare. Of course, the establishment media is ignoring this growing flash protest on Capitol Hill and instead only reporting on the claimed momentum of undecided votes turning in favor of Obama’s gigantic comprehensive health care plan. The President’s media allies, of course, are under-reporting the turnout for the Obamacare protest, with NBC claiming that only 2,000 are on the lawn in front of Capitol Hill, which is obviously false based on the few pictures we’ve posted here. We’ll be updating this post and creating new ones throughout the day as more Obamacare protesters arrive in DC.

Protesters Waive Flags today in front of Capitol Hill opposing Obamacare

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Slaughter Solution” Finally Reported By Establishment Media

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is attempting to use procedural trickery known as the "Slaughter Solution" to avoid an up or down vote in the House on the Senate health care bill

As noted a few days ago by CentristNet, the establishment media had been scrupulously avoiding any discussion of the Democratic plans to use the “Slaughter Solution” in the House of Representatives to completely avoid an up or down vote on the Senate bill and instead have the bill “deemed passed” by the rules of debate created by House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY).   Obamaphile “news” organizations like Newsweek even went so far as to condemn Republicans just days ago for even making this argument because it was unthinkable to Newsweek, apparently, that the Democrats would actually go down this “deemed passed” path.

On this final week of the Obamacare battle, the Democrats are actually attempting to defend the use of this procedural trickery to avoid an up or down vote in the House on the pork-filled, special interest deal laden Senate bill.   Today, after ignoring the entire issue of the “Slaughter Solution” since Chairwoman Slaughter’s announcement of her intent to use same about a week ago, the narrative-setting New York Times actually reported on it, noting that House Democrats intend to avoid an up or down vote via the use of yet more procedural trickery re Obamacare:

WASHINGTON — As lawmakers clashed fiercely over major health care legislation on the House floor, Democrats struggled Tuesday to defend procedural shortcuts they might use to win approval for their proposals in the next few days.

House Democrats are so skittish about the piece of legislation that is now the vehicle for overhauling the health care system — the bill passed by the Senate in December — that they are considering a maneuver that would allow them to pass it without explicitly voting for it.

Under that approach, House Democrats would approve a package of changes to the Senate bill in a budget reconciliation bill. The Senate bill would be “deemed passed” if and when the House adopts rules for debate on the reconciliation bill — or perhaps when the House passes that reconciliation bill.

The idea is to package the changes and the underlying bill together in a way that amounts to an amended bill in a single vote. Many House Democrats dislike some provisions of the Senate bill, including special treatment for a handful of states, like Medicaid money for Nebraska, and therefore want to avoid a direct vote on it.

Of course, the NYT “news” article goes on to condemn Repuoblicans for pointing out this odious procedural trickery by Democrats on a bill that will directly affect 16-17% of the US economy. Not to be outdone, the Washington Post also reports for the first time on the “Slaughter Solution” in much the same way as the New York Times, framing it as just another partisan battle as opposed to an attempt to avoid the very “up or down” vote clamored for by President Obama over the past few weeks:

An obscure parliamentary maneuver favored by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suddenly ignited Tuesday as the latest tinder in the year-long partisan strife over reshaping the nation’s health-care system, triggering debate over the strategy’s legitimacy and political wisdom.

Republicans condemned Pelosi’s idea — in which House members would make a final decision on broad health-care changes without voting directly on the Senate version of the bill — as an abuse of the legislative process.

Instead of focusing on the use of this procedure trickery by Democrats in relation to the enormity of the comprehensive health care reform package at issue, WaPo and the NYT misdirect their readers into believing this “Slaughter Solution” issue is just another vapid partisan battle. In fact, the “Slaughter Solution” explicitly rejects President Obama’s rhetoric about an “up or down vote” on the Senate bill by allowing the Senate bill to be “deemed passed” and signed by President Obama without an up or down vote:

The debate centers on a parliamentary technique that is a variant on the “rule” that the House adopts for every bill that comes to a floor vote. Rules define the ground rules for the vote, including amendments, length of the debate and other terms. Under a self-executing rule, the House essentially agrees that a vote on one measure is tantamount to, or “deemed” as, deciding on something related.

In this instance, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate’s version of health-care legislation would be deemed approved if House members adopt a set of changes to that bill. The Senate then would have to approve the changes, but the original bill could go directly to President Obama to be signed into law.

Sadly, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs explicitly lied about this issue on Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation”, claiming that the House would pass two separate bills, one in which the House would vote up or down on the “underlying Senate bill” and another, separate vote on the reconciliation “fix” package. The establishment media gave Gibbs a pass on these intentionally misleading claims made on national television of by senior federal official, and only today are they even reporting on Democratic plans to have only one vote on the “fixes” after the Senate bill is “deemed passed” by the “Slaughter Solution” without an actual up or down vote.

Regardless of which side of the Obamacare debate you fall on, fair-minded centrists and independents, as well as those on the right and left, should demand that the House hold an up or down vote on the Senate bill if the Democrats want to make the Senate bill the law of the land via President Obama’s signature. Passing a massive comprehensive health care reform bill into law without an up or down vote by the House of Representatives, as is now intended by the “Slaughter Solution”, poses grave risks to the future functioning of the American system of governance and such efforts must be resisted, strongly, by all Americans, regardless of their leanings on the bills themselves. If Obamacare is to become the law of the land, it must be passed constitutionally with an up or down vote, not via a procedural trick cooked up by Democrats desperate to avoid an up or down vote on the pork and special interest laden Senate health care bill.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Obama Administration FOIA Exemption Claims Rise 50% Over Bush

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

The Obama Administration has increased the use of so-called "exemptions" to the Freedom of Information Act about 50% over the Bush Administration

In a startling review issued today by the Associated Press regarding Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests, it was revealed that the Obama Administration substantially increased the  use of so-called “exemptions” to disclosure under FOIA, effectively undermining the many  rhetorical claims by President Barack Obama that his administration will be the “most open and transparent in history.” The AP explains the findings of its review:

WASHINGTON — The government’s use of legal exemptions to keep records secret rose during President Barack Obama’s first year in office, despite promises of increased openness, an Associated Press review found.

The review of annual Freedom of Information Act reports filed by 17 major agencies found that overall, the use of nearly every one of the open-records law’s nine exemptions to withhold information rose in fiscal year 2009, which ended last October.

Among the most frequently used exemptions: one that lets the government hold back records that detail its internal decision-making. Obama had directed agencies to stop using that exemption so frequently, but that directive appears to have been widely ignored.

Major agencies cited that exemption to refuse records at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, compared with 47,395 times during President George W. Bush’s final full budget year, according to annual FOIA reports filed by federal agencies.

An increase of 23,384, a nearly 50% (49.34%) increase, in the amount of FOIA exemption claims in the first fiscal year of the Obama Administration versus the final fiscal year of the Bush Administration clearly demonstrates that President Obama has failed in his asserted quest to create an “unprecedented level of openness in Government.” Indeed, most of the establishment media coverage of the Obama Administration regarding transparency has focused on praising the Administration based on such rhetorical pronouncements by Obama.  Now, with the actual FOIA exemption claim numbers for Obama’s first year as rising by 50% over Bush’s final full year, one can only hope that such misleading reporting is corrected by the establishment media.

Amazingly, the brazen Obama managed to issue a statement today crowing about how his Administration is the most transparent in history, despite the indisputable facts regarding the massive rise in FOIA exemption usage:

As Sunshine Week begins, I want to applaud everyone who has worked to increase transparency in government and recommit my administration to be the most open and transparent ever, an effort that will strengthen our democracy and ensure the public’s trust in their government.

We are proud of these accomplishments, but our work is not done. We will continue to work toward an unmatched level of transparency, participation and accountability across the entire Administration.

Perhaps the establishment media will report upon this clearly misleading Obama statement, especially in relation to the unmentioned 50% increase in FOIA exemption claims by his Administration, in the days to come and bring some level of honesty to the media’s reporting on the transparency issue. Obama’s statement, on his first full day in office as President, claiming that broadly granted FOIA requests are the key to an open government is a timely reminder of how far removed the first year of Obama’s government has been from the rhetoric used by President Obama on the issue of open and transparent government:

The prolific use of FOIA exemptions is one measure of how far the federal government has yet to go to carry out Obama’s promise of openness. His first full day in office, Obama told agencies the Freedom of Information Act, “which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open government.”

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

WH Insiders: Smoot in, Rogers Out as “Rallying Call” to Disgruntled DNC “Elite Donors”

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

The Establishment Media continues to deify President Obama with photoshopped pictures such as the NYT's altered picture shown above while President Obama acts to solidify his ties and contributions from the richest Americans in the leadup to the 2010 Election

Politico issued an interesting piece this morning regarding the departure of Obama family friend and former White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers which describes the “reason Desiree got pushed out” as elite donors who “rose up” against her:

Former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers took plenty of blame for the gate crashers at President Barack Obama’s first state dinner and for posing for fashion shoots in glossy magazines.

But a previously undisclosed gripe about her provides another explanation for her abrupt departure last month: Some of Obama’s biggest fundraisers, already chafing at not getting enough love from the administration, didn’t even get Christmas cards last year.

“The donors rose up, and that was another reason Desiree got pushed out,” said a source close to the White House.

Apparently the whole “party crashers” incident at the Indian State Dinner was not the only reason Rogers was quietly forced to resign last month; instead, some of the richest people in America, elite donors to the DNC, “rose up” to force her out because of what they perceived as a lack of appropriate glad handing and service by Rogers. Indeed, the hiring of Julianna Smoot, a longtime Democratic fundraising insider who had close ties to now-jailed Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu and who also ran the entire Obama 2008 record-breaking fundraising operation, was Obama’s “rallying call” to those rich, fat cat donors to pay up, ASAP:

The White House recently sent what could be a rallying call to its donors when it appointed Julianna Smoot, the president’s campaign finance director, to replace Rogers as social secretary.

Smoot brings a variety of strengths to the job: She’s detail-oriented, she’s a strong manager, and she knows both the political and the donor worlds.

President Obama apparently took this drastic action of installing his chief fundraiser for his Presidential campaign as social secretary, unprecedented in the history of the Presidency, because just 10% of the rich, elite donors who were assembled by Smoot to act as “bundlers” for the Obama presidential campaign in 2007 and 2008 have maxed out their contributions to the DNC this election cycle:

While such a slight may seem insignificant, it can carry major repercussions in a year when the Democratic National Committee is going to need every possible resource to help the party’s congressional committees stave off major losses in the midterm elections.

According to an analysis by POLITICO, only 15 — or just 10 percent — of the 150 biggest fundraisers for the Obama campaign gave the maximum $30,400 to the DNC last year.

Julianna Smoot, the new White House social secretary, has, of course, no substantive experience in managing a large executive offices’ day to day visitors and operations, as the White House social secretary is tasked with. This nakedly political power play by Obama, inserting his chief fundraiser into a position of control over every American’s access to the White House, could be construed as putting the proverbial fox in charge of access to the henhouse as Smoot’s main asset is her status as an “insider’s insider” and strong ties to rich Democratic donors and “bundlers”, i.e. those who find other maximum contributions to Democrats and “bundle” them to the candidate.

Smoot’s appointment as social secretary is another example of the disconnect between Obama’s actions (appointing his chief fundraiser and insider’s insider to control access to the White House) and Obama’s words (condemning “fat cat” bankers and “special interest” influence on Washington, DC). As the establishment media continues to deify and lionize Obama with every story they issue, very few in the media have bothered to even analyze these issues so far, and it appears the establishment media intends on giving the Obama Administration yet another pass regarding this transparent prioritization of some of the richest folks in America over access to the White House for the average American.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

NYT Accelerates Obama Worship With Cross and Halo Combo Photo

Monday, March 15th, 2010

The NYT Moves to a New Level of Obama Worship with this photo, clearly intended to draw comparisons of Obama to Christian Messiah Jesus Christ

At a time when the establishment media, led by the NYT, is ignoring the untoward Democratic procedure trickery regarding Obamacare (“Slaughter Solution”) and downplaying the substantive special interest pork Obama is using to purchase votes, the NYT truly sets the standard for Obama worship with the photo reproduced here, showing Obama as a messiah-like figure in front of large cross, with a halo around his head, clearly intended to draw comparisons to Christian savior Jesus Christ.

This is nothing new for the NYT, their Obamaphile journalists like Peter Baker and other establishment media, as the cheerleading of the Obama candidacy and then Presidency has been continuous and systemic since the inception of Obama’s campaign for President in 2007.   As the clock counts down on perhaps the most important vote in Congress in decades, the House vote on Obamacare, we can expect to see even more frantic Obama worship by the establishment media in the attempt to convince the American public to support the unpopular bill.  Centrist, independent and non-ideological Americans are left to wonder what establishment media coverage of the Obama Administration would look like if the narrative-setting giant NYT reported in an objective, as opposed to supportive, manner regarding the Obama Presidency.

A final note from this NYT article bears mentioning. Despite tons of rhetoric about how this week’s House Obamacare vote is so critical to Obama’s Presidency, the establishment media also sets a new narrative into action, claiming that if the House vote fails, Obama’s Presidency will be a-okay. Apparently the establishment media, as orchestrated by the Obama Administration, wants to have all its bases covered as this final week of the Obamacare battle begins.

Still, for all the potential consequences, it is probably too hyperbolic to suggest the presidency rides on this moment. If he fails this week, Mr. Obama could still recover. Even a weakened president has enormous capacity to set an agenda. For all the damage Mr. Clinton absorbed from the failure of his health care plan and the Republican takeover, he eventually found his footing again and won re-election handily.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Breaking: Sharif Mobley Tied To al-Queda Terrorist Leader Anwar al-Awlaki

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

American Jihadist Sharif Mobley Has Ties to Al-Queda Terrorist Leader and Yemeni Cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki

US authorities are now beginning to admit that Sharif Mobley, the American citizen from Buena, NJ who moved to Yemen in 2008 to pursue jihad, had strong ties to Al-Queda in Yemen, specifically Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical Islamic cleric who communicated with and inspired Ft. Hood terrorist killer and US Army Maj. Nadal Malik Hassan:

A New Jersey nuclear plant laborer arrested in Yemen with 10 other suspected al Qaeda members was in contact with the same radical Yemeni-American cleric tied to Fort Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, federal law enforcement officials told ABC News.

The New Jersey man, Sharif Mobley, was detained by Yemeni security forces earlier this month and taken to a hospital for medical treatment. He allegedly tried to escape from the hospital over the past weekend by grabbing a security guard’s gun and engaging in a gunfight that killed one of the guards.

As speculated by CentristNet a few days ago, it appears that the US government had knowledge of Sharif Mobley’s activities for “some time” before the public disclosure of his arrest by Yemeni authorities a few days ago:

U.S. on Mobley: ‘Reviewing His Past Activities’

U.S. law enforcement officials said they have been aware of Mobley for some time, and the FBI’s Baltimore field office currently is investigating him.

Did America Catch Another Lucky Break, like on Christmas Day, With the Yemeni Arrest of former US Nuclear plant worker and present al-Queda operative Sharif Mobley?

So far, the establishment media appears to be doing everything it can to downplay or otherwise dilute the importance of the Sharif Mobley story, as it very well could be that Yemeni authorities’ arrest of Mobley a few weeks ago (or months ago?) may have been yet another lucky break, similar to the Christmas Day al-Queda plot, for America in the War on Terror, disrupting a possible al-Queda plot against US nuclear facilities. The American media needs to do its job, and press the Obama Administration to explain exactly what its counterterrorism units were doing to track Mobley and ensure he could not return to the United States as a part of any possible al-Queda plot regarding nuclear facilities. For starters, was Mobley on a no-fly list, or was he in bureaucratic limbo and not on that list, like attempted Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.  ABC managed to obtain this quote from Yemeni authorities, but so far no on-the-record statements of any kind from the US government:

Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington, told ABC News that details of Mobley’s case “will be clearer in a couple of days.”

Asked about Mobley’s apparent connections with the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, Albasha said he was not surprised because radicals and extremists in Yemen seek Awlaki out.

“He is a fixture in jihad 101,” Albasha said of Awlaki.

The now-admitted Mobley link to Al-Awlaki, who is “a fixture in jihad 101”, is a giant red flag and should spur some intensive investigation by the US counterterrorism authorities and focus by the establishment media as to who knew what and when and further questioning of the US counterterrorism authorities as to what precautions are being taken now to ensure any Al-Queda plot on any of the six US nuclear facilities in which Mobley worked from 2002-2008 is quickly crushed by US and Yemeni authorities. Of course, the interrogation of Mobley could be a critical source of intelligence on any such plot or other activities planned by Al-Awlaki, and we can only hope that the Obama Administration’s HIG unit, or High Value Interrogations Group, has been activated and is handling the Mobley interrogation. As for now, the American establishment media is in dereliction of its duty to investigate and report on this issue and most others surrounding the Mobley case.

While the establishment media was quick to label American domestic killers Andrew Stack and John Bedell “right wing extremists”, despite their ties to left wing causes (Bedell was a registered Democrat, Stack’s suicide note praised Communism), no such labeling or discussion of any kind has occurred regarding Mobley, who was a Democratic activist in New Jersey who was actually paid by former Democratic Governor Jon Corzine’s (D-NY) campaign to turn out the Democratic vote in 2005. Instead, amazingly, the establishment media has managed to “blame Bush” for Mobley’s jihadist activities, claiming that Mobley’s terrorist moves are the result of the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

WASHINGTON — The arrest in Yemen of a New Jersey man accused of joining Al Qaeda is the latest in an alarming string of cases involving radicalized American Muslims, a trend some experts link to the duration of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

About a half hour ago the AP released details on how Mobley tricked his Yemeni guard into unshackling Mobley for prayers, allowing Mobley to use his apparent high level of terrorist training to quickly murder that Yemeni guard and seriously wound another before being taken back into Yemeni custody:

New details about the episode obtained by The Associated Press indicate Mobley had a level of training and cunning characteristic of the al-Qaida terror network.

Two senior Yemeni officials involved in Mobley’s case said he was being treated for complications from a metal rod implanted in his leg some time in the past. The prison doctor had asked to transfer him to the hospital where he stayed for a week.

The officials agreed to discuss details of Mobley’s attempted escape on condition of anonymity because the investigation has not finished.

At the hospital, Mobley befriended his guards and asked them to teach him Arabic. He performed prayers, read the Quran with them.

On the day of the incident, the officials said, Mobley asked his guard to unshackle him from his hospital bed at prayer time. The guard did, but went into a washroom ahead of Mobley to perform ritual ablutions required before the five daily prayers in Islam, leaving his gun lying unattended.

Mobley snatched the gun and shot the guard twice — first in the head and the second in the chest — as he walked out of the washroom.

When a second guard outside heard the shots, he rushed in. Mobley shot him in the kidney and abdomen, leaving him in serious condition.

Mobley was then chased around the hospital until he surrendered.

One of the senior officials said Mobley’s targeting indicates he is highly trained in the use of firearms.

With US authorities now confirming that Mobley was a “highly trained” Al-Queda operative, America needs to know the details of our government’s activities to monitor, track and disrupt any plots Mobley, Al-Awlaki were planning in Yemen and further needs to know if the Obama Administration’s much heralded August 2009 HIG detainee interrogation program (which replaced Bush’s program) is now in operation regarding Mobley, as it should be. It is important to recall that the HIG was not in operation in the aftermath of the Christmas Day terrorist incident, despite Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair’s claim in January 2010 that it was operational and should have been used in that instance.

As the health care debate nears its crescendo in Washington DC over the next week, it appears the establishment media would rather this Mobley story not be properly covered, and certainly the Obama Administration wants no part of a potential replay of the detailed digging done by the media in the aftermath of the prior lucky break America received when Al-Queda terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed in his mission to kill hundreds of Americans over Detroit on Christmas Day.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

All Out Media Assault on Eric Massa as Beck Interview Approaches

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Former Democratic House Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) Is Under All-Out Assault from the Establishment Media Today

As the hours count down until Glenn Beck uses his 3-4 million viewer platform today to amplify now-resigned Democratic House Rep. Eric Massa’s (D-NY) sensational claims that the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress forced him out of Congress over his opposition to Obamacare, the left-leaning establishment media is engaging in all-out effort to completely destroy Eric Massa in the eyes of the public.   A common beneficiary of Obama White House and Congressional Democratic leaks, the Washington Post, has just gone up with a new story alleging that Massa is under investigation for “groping” several male staffers:

Former Rep. Eric Massa has been under investigation for allegations that he groped multiple male staffers working in his office, according to three sources familiar with the probe.

The allegations surrounding the New York Democrat date back at least a year, and involve “a pattern of behavior and physical harassment,” according to one source. The new claims of alleged groping contradict statements by Massa, who resigned his office on Monday after it became public that he was the subject of a House ethics committee investigation for possible harassment.

Massa had said that the allegations were limited to his use of “salty language” with his staff. He apologized for making some inappropriate comments and argued he was being unfairly villified. Days later, Massa accused the White House and Democratic congressional leaders of trying to oust him from office to improve their chances of passing health care reform legislation. Massa could not be reached for comment Tuesday, and no one answered the phone at his home in New York or his campaign office. Staff at his former congressional offices declined to relay messages to him and said they did not know how to reach him.

CNN and MSNBC have been keeping up a steady hourly diet of attacks on Eric Massa all day long, at times asserting he is simply crazy, had “snapped” from the pressure, was “silly” or “ridiculous” or was just lying about the Obama Administration and Congressional Democratic leadership just to save his own skin. Considering Massa was fully embraced by such left-leaning media outlets in the recent past, the latest harsh, anonymously-sourced attacks are all the more jarring. The leaks from Democratic sources on the House Ethics Committee or perhaps the White House, published at 2:49PM today, up the ante somewhat as they attempt to paint Massa as a serial sexual harasser of male staffers based on anonymous sources. All told, the mainstream media appears to be reading directly from White House talking points on Massa, as repeated again by the Washington Post in today’s article:

Also on Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed Massa’s charges of a conspiracy to force him from office as “silly and ridiculous” in an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America. He urged looking at Massa’s erratic and changing statements about why he was resigning office.

“Last week, he, on Wednesday, was having a recurrence of cancer. On Thursday, he was guilty of using salty language. On Friday, we learned he’s before the Ethics Committee to be investigated on charges of sexual harassment,”Gibbs said. “So, look, I think, clearly, his actions appear to be in the appropriate venue in the Ethics Committees to look at, but we’re focused not on crazy allegations but instead on making this system work for the American people rather than work for insurance companies.”

It is unusual for specific details of Congressional ethics investigations to be leaked so widely, especially in seeming direct, immediate response to the member’s public comments, as the leaks to the Washington Post appear to be in response to Massa’s comments yesterday. Regardless, today’s interview on Glenn Beck’s show is certain to drive the news cycle this evening and perhaps into tomorrow as the Obama Administration and Congressional Democratic leadership struggle to find the votes to push Obamacare through Congress before the Easter recess.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,