Obama using Obamacare meltdown to raise cash

President Barack Obama is using the disastrous crash of his Obamacare website to extract cash and volunteer hours from his supporters.

“By now, you’ve probably heard that the website has not worked as smoothly as it was supposed to,” Obama told his supporters in an email sent out late Tuesday.

“That’s why I need your help,” he said, in a video pitch that links to an online fundraiser.

“The other side has already spent a whopping $400 million in anti-Obamacare TV ads,” says the language on the fundraiser site. “We don’t have to beat that, but we need to have the resources to fight back. Make a donation to support OFA today.”

The video illustrates Obama’s eagerness and ability to convert even the most awkward policy setbacks into high-profile political campaigns that can help his progressive coalition. The money may be used to support Obamacare, but it likely will also be used to help Obama wage his next election campaign — the 2014 midterm election.

In the video, Obama also offers his supporters a psychological reward for joining “Team Obamacare.”

“I’m asking you to be part of Team Obamacare… I’m asking you to help tell you friends, families, coworkers, classmates, neighbors and anyone else what the Affordable Care Act can mean for them,” he said.

“Remember, nobody ever expected this would be easy — change never is… [but] I’m absolutely confident that we will finish the job of making health care in the country not just a privilege for a fortunate few, but a right for all Americans to enjoy,” he insisted.

Via: Daily Caller

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OFA plans Tuesday rally at Capitol

The tea party had its protest Sunday at the World War II Memorial, now President Barack Obama’s supporters are set to respond at the Capitol.

Organizing for Action is holding a “Budget shutdown Day of Action event” at noon Tuesday at the reflecting pool west of the Capitol.

“Tuesday is the start of the third week of the government shutdown,” OFA wrote in a message to supporters. “With every day that passes, these members of Congress need to feel more pressure from the constituents who sent them to Washington. Millions of Americans across the country are feeling the effects of the shutdown -- and it's only getting worse.”

OFA executive director Jon Carson tweeted Monday urging supporters to "Come join OFA at an event tomorrow to say #EnoughAlready to the #TeaPartyShutdown.” 

OFA, despite its fundraising success, has shown little results in moving public opinion or members of Congress to support Obama’s agenda. A planned climate change event in August in Georgetown drew zero attendees during a rainstorm.

Tuesday will mark OFA’s first attempt to stage a large rally at the Capitol.

OFA officials did not respond to requests for comment about the event

Via: Politico

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Only 2 People Attend 'Obamacare and You!' Event in South Carolina

Last night, the organization formerly known as President Obama's reelection campaign, Organizing for Action, held an Obamacare event in Greenville, South Carolina. The event was called "Obamacare and You!"

"Let's discuss what this Affordable Care Act means for you and your community. This session will help you understand the benefits and will equip you to spread the word about the benefits of Obamacare in your community. Come out and get the facts!!," the event advertisement said.

But it wasn't widely attended. Only two people, in addition to the two organizers, showed up. 

Here's a picture of the two participants:

It looks like, however, organizers had planned for many more:

Via: The Weekly Standard

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Wait a sec: The OFA volunteer who managed to sign up for ObamaCare hasn’t actually signed up yet?

So says his own father in an interview with Reason’s Peter Suderman.

A committed young Democrat and OFA volunteer wouldn’t fudge the facts to gin up some much-needed good press for The One’s pet program, would he?

Chad’s story was tweeted out by the official Obamacare Twitter feed. It was promoted to the media by Enroll America, a health-care activist group headed by a former White House communications staffer, as a sign of Obamacare’s success. Henderson told reporters at multiple news outlets that after a three-hour wait to sign up online, he enrolled around 3 a.m. Tuesday morning in an unsubsidized private insurance plan that would cost him about $175 a month. He also said that his father enrolled in separate coverage plan that would cost about $250 a month after factoring in the subsidies for which his father qualified on his approximately $24,000 annual income…

Bill Henderson told me that both he and his son were interested in getting coverage, but that they had not enrolled in any plan yet, and to his knowledge, neither had his son. He also said that when they do enroll, getting the most coverage for the least money would be the goal, and that he expects that he and his son will get coverage under the same plan…

Other details from Chad’s story were also difficult to verify. He said his premium was unsubsidized, and cost around $175 a month for the cheapest Bronze coverage plan available. He told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that he got his coverage through Blue Cross Blue Shield. But the cheapest unsubsidized Bronze exchange plan at Blue Cross Blue Shield’s online Quick Quote system offers for a 21-year-old in Flintstone, Georgia is $225.09 a month.

Additionally, Chad could not have purchased a separate plan for his father from his own login to HealthCare.gov, the website for the federal exchanges. A customer assistance representative on HealthCare.gov’s LiveChat system told me that purchasing separate plans for a son and a father in Georgia would require two separate logins. Which means that Chad would have had to successfully create two different accounts, and complete enrollment twice, at a time when almost no one was able to get through on the system.

Suderman notes, drily, that Chad Henderson told WaPo that he was sharing his story — which included cc’ing media outlets in his tweets about enrolling to make sure they paid attention — because “I’ve read a few articles about how young people are very critical to the law’s success. I really just wanted to do my part to help out with the entire process.” Could be, of course, that his old man is simply misinformed and that Chad really did sign up, but what are the odds of that given the extent of the media attention over the past 24 hours? At some point Henderson Jr would have dialed up Sr and said, “Hey, I got us enrolled!”, right? In fact, per Bill Henderson, Chad did tell him that “there’s different plans. And we haven’t decided which plans to enroll in yet.”

Via: Hot Air

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OFA ADMITS POLLS SHOW OBAMACARE UNPOPULAR

One of the featured speakers on an Organizing for Action (OFA) conference call Wednesday night designed to generate enthusiasm for President Obama's signature health care legislation among community organizers around the country, admitted on the call that Obamacare is unpopular in polls. The speaker, identified as David Cutler, advised those on the call to "help people" by banishing the term Obamacare and using the program's formal title, the Affordable Care Act, when encouraging friends and family to enroll. The Affordable Care Act, he explained, polls much better than Obamacare.

Cutler, a Harvard professor and former health care advisor to President Obama's campaign, predicted in 2010 that "Obamacare’s cost-control measures would create up to 400,000 jobs each year." So far that prediction has proven to be entirely wrong, as health care costs since the enactment of Obamacare have increased, while hospitals and health care companies around the country have laid off thousands of employees.

Ignoring reports that less that one percent of those who visited Obamacare sign up websites in some states on Tuesday, the first day under the law individuals could sign up for the new health care system, actually enrolled in the Obamacare exchanges, Cutler tried to persuade the conference call audience that the massive glitches on the websites indicated demand for Obamacare was "overwhelming."

One problem with the "overwhelming demand" narrative, however, is that according to revised updates about traffic, it simply isn't true. The Los Angeles Times, for instance,reported on Thursday that "California's health insurance exchange vastly overstated the number of online hits it received Tuesday during the rollout of Obamacare." According to spokespersons for the State of California, "the Covered California website got 645,000 hits during the first day of enrollment, far fewer than the 5 million it reported Tuesday."

Via: Brietbart

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Obama's lobbying organization: We will not engage in Syria debate

The director of President Obama's political arm, Organizing for Action, confirmed to supporters that the group will not lobby on the president's behalf in the debate over whether the U.S. should strike Syria.

OFA Executive Director Jon Carson acknowledged in a conference call Tuesday that many of the group's volunteers have raised the issue of Syria since Obama over the weekend announced that he would seek congressional authorization for the strike. But OFA, Obama's most potent lobbying apparatus, has decided to sit out the Syria debate, Carson said.

There was speculation that OFA, which has mobilized millions of supporters and volunteers on Obama's behalf on issues ranging from immigration to gun control, wasn't being used to lobby for an intervention in Syria because so many of Obama's liberal supporters object to his taking military action in another Middle Eastern country, as does most of the general public.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Organizing for Action Tries to Generate Amnesty Support in Ohio (Only 5 People Show Up)

The Ohio arm of Organizing for Action (OFA) made a failed attempt to generate excitement for “comprehensive immigration reform” at an August 30 Statehouse rally. A “nonpartisan” rebranding of President Obama’s presidential campaigns, OFA is backed by former Obama staffers as well as a website and Twitter handle bearing the president’s name.

5 of the 6 rally attendees pose for pictures outside the Ohio Statehouse, in Columbus

Seemingly unnoticed by the general public, the OFA rally was a call for amnesty for illegal aliens who entered – or claim to have entered – the country as children. Commonly referred to as “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors” (DREAM) Acts, similar measures have been championed by liberal legislators and activists for more than a decade.

Organized by OFA’s Kate Kight, the August 30 event was attended by 5 OFA interns participating in the organization’s “Summer Fellows” program. A press release indicated OFA Ohio is partnering with DREAMActivist Ohio, an illegal-immigrant advocacy group which has held a series of similar rallies making similar demands.

According to the OFA release, “comprehensive immigration reform” will “create jobs, grow our economy, strengthen our middle class, and reaffirm the American dream for this generation and generations to come.”

Despite advertising the event to local media and like-minded organizations, no local TV or newspaper reporters were present and the event was not monitored by local police for security or compliance purposes.

Via: Media Trackers

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OFA Accuses Sarah Palin of Pushing “Reckless Nonsense”…

Speaking of reckless, these guys work for Barack Obama.

Drew –

This is the last thing I wanted to talk about before Labor Day weekend, but you gotta hear this:

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin just joined the “Defund Obamacare” movement — a group of people, including 80 members of Congress, who are willing to sabotage the economy because they don’t like Obamacare.

This is the kind of reckless nonsense President Obama is up against in trying to pass a smart budget that actually grows the economy for the middle class.

OFA is here to fight back — because when it comes down to it, I doubt the American people are going to like hearing that people are threatening to shut down the government instead of passing a budget. [...]

We’ll be calling out the radical members of Congress for their recklessness — and asking John Boehner to be a leader and stand up to his colleagues.

Because if our representatives don’t know that there’s a price to pay for this kind of nonsense, it’s not ever going to stop.

Thanks,

Jon

Jon Carson
Executive Director
Organizing for Action

Via: Weasel Zippers
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Obama campaign blames Congress for school shootings...

Hope and change: Obama’s Organizing for Action drags out Columbine for gun control

Organizing for Action, the Obama-themed organization dedicated to promoting the administration’s agenda, has sent an email to its distribution list exploiting the 1999 Columbine High School Massacre.

The stated purpose of the email is to drum up support in Congress for new federal gun control measures.

“My son, Daniel, was a smart, quiet kid,” the missive signed by Littleton, Colo. resident Tom Mauser begins.

“On April 20th, 1999, my beautiful and bright 15-year-old son was killed by two teenagers with guns in the library of Columbine High School — one of 12 innocent kids who lost their lives for no reason at all.”

The email then goes on to argue that Congress is to blame for Columbine and other school shootings since 1999 because it “has failed to take common-sense action to stop them — even though nine in 10 Americans have agreed that expanding background checks would help close the loopholes that put guns in the hands of dangerous people and prevent future violence.”

The Columbine killers, seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, had formulated a complex plan involving a firefighter-diverting fire bomb, exploding propane bombs in the cafeteria and some 99 other bombs.

Harris and Klebold also had several guns, at least some of which they acquired illegally.

“Today, OFA and allied organizations are standing up for a national Day of Action to ask members of Congress: What will it take to finally act to prevent gun violence?” the Obama email continues.

Via: Daily Caller

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Van Hollen Denies Organizing for Action Engages in Campaign Activities

A top House Democrat filed a lawsuit on Wednesday to end 501(c)(4) tax treatment of groups that ostensibly engage in political activity, but said that Organizing for Action (OFA), the (c)(4) that evolved out of the president’s campaign apparatus, is not one of those groups.

“My understanding is that [OFA], as currently constituted, is not engaged in spending money to directly defeat or elect candidates,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.) in a conference call announcing the lawsuit.

“They are not therefore engaged in that kind of direct electoral campaign activity,” Van Hollen added.

The congressman is suing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over its treatment of (c)(4) groups, which he said are legally required to “exclusively” conduct activity classified as “social welfare.”

The IRS currently requires that groups be engaged primarily in social welfare activities, which has come to mean that a majority of their activities fall into that category.

 In practice, that means that (c)(4) groups must devote at least 51 percent of their resources to activities that the IRS deems in the service of “social welfare.” Van Hollen’s suit aims to establish a 100 percent social welfare requirement.

“When you’re spending money to directly elect or defeat candidates, that clearly is political activity that is in violation of the plain meaning of the statute,” Van Hollen insisted.

Via: WFB

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