Charlie Rangel Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
October 29, 2013 11:41 am

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D., NY) quoted some false history during Tuesday’s Ways and Means Committee hearing regarding Obamacare’s rocky rollout.

During his allotted time to question Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner, Rangel claimed that no Republican voted for the Social Security Act of 1935. When Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) informed Rangel that such information was inaccurate, Rangel responded:

“Maybe one or two. I don’t know. But they opposed Medicare. I spoke with President Johnson and he shared with me at the ranch the people that had signed off on Medicare.”

Politifact fact-checked similar claims made by Fmr. Governor Howard Dean (D., Vt.) in 2009, and noted that in 1935 the Social Security Act passed the House 372-33, with 81 Republicans in support of the bill. The Senate passed the bill 77-6 with 16 Republicans on board.

Medicare passed in 1965, and while no Republicans voted for the bill when it came out of the Ways and Means Committee, 70 House Republicans voted for final passage. In the Senate, the bill passed 70-24, with 13 Republicans voting aye.

Via: WFB

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Hill Democrats frustrated by Obamacare rollout

House Democrats voiced growing frustration and anger with the broken Obamacare enrollment site on Wednesday as administration officials tried to reassure them that HealthCare.gov will be repaired.

Democrats, who labored to get the Affordable Care Act through Congress in the first year of the Obama presidency, said they wanted the administration to share details of what’s wrong and when it will be fixed.

“It’s screwed up,” Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said, summing up the whole situation.

(Understanding Obamacare: A guide to the ACA)

The disastrous rollout three weeks ago of HealthCare.gov was obscured initially by the government shutdown, but now it’s Topic A on the Hill. Republicans are pouncing on ineptitude — and demanding delays. They had demanded a briefing too —and House Speaker John Boehner’s office said HHS had agreed and details were being worked out.

“It’s not clear why Republicans were excluded in the first place, but we look forward to getting answers to how the administration botched this enormous use of taxpayer dollars so badly,” a spokesman emailed reporters.

And Democrats are none too happy about all the problems of a program that they have a lot riding on. Expanding health care coverage is a longtime Democratic goal — but it’s also been politically costly and they need it to work.

Via: Politico

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DEM CONGRESSMEN, AMNESTY ACTIVISTS ARRESTED IN IMMIGRATION PROTEST

Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel, Luis Gutierrez, Keith Ellison, Joseph Crowley, Al Green, and John Lewis, along with several other pro-amnesty activists, union members, and other left-wing protesters, got themselves arrested on purpose on Tuesday afternoon in a statement made in support of comprehensive immigration reform.

Only a few hundred demonstrators participated in the part of the rally that led to the arrests, while several thousand rallied on the National Mall earlier in the day.

NBC's Washington, D.C. affiliate reports 200 were arrested on scene while a couple hundred activists cheered the demonstrators on from the sidewalks on both sides of First Street between Maryland Avenue Southwest and Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest. Officers broke out barricades to keep activists on the sidewalk, as AFL-CIO and other union organizers wearing orange vests with their organizations’ namesakes emblazoned on the back organized the crowd. 

Those lining the streets would cheer and chant things like “Yes we can!” and “Si Se Puede!” whenever another person volunteered to be arrested and whenever they were taken in groups into police transport units to be taken to the authorities for processing.

Via: Breitbart

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Black lawmakers lament flaring of racial tensions under Obama

When President Obama follows in Dr. Martin Luther King’s footsteps on Wednesday with an address at the Lincoln Memorial, he will face a nation where race remains the great divide.

Black lawmakers say the election of the nation’s first African America president has not been a salve for racial tensions, a view that the public has also voiced in recent polling.

While Democratic lawmakers place the lion’s share of the blame on Republicans for the state of affairs, they betray disappointment that more progress has not been made since the civil rights movement won its biggest victories.

Asked whether the overall trajectory of race relations has been positive or negative in recent years, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) paused for a moment.

“Right after the election of the president, I would have thought it was going in a positive direction, but I am not so sure anymore,” she said. 

“I think we have lost ground as it relates to our tolerance of people who are different or people who we believe have not worked hard enough. You hear the language all the time on talk radio — the buzzwords, often primarily directed at low-income people and communities of color.”

Fudge’s party colleague and fellow CBC member Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.) suggested that the presence of the first black president has sparked more open conversation about racial issues. This, she suggested, could be seen as a positive development overall, yet one that has also led to bruised feelings.

Via: The Hill

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