Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Coverage of Dingell's Retirement Emphasizes Involvement in Obamacare, Omits His Post-Passage 'Control the People' Comment

Michigan Congressman John Dingell announced his retirement today. The Democrat's career as Congress's longest-serving member will end with this session.
With the help of a related statement by President Obama, press coverage predictably placed great emphasis on Dingell's decades-long advocacy of universal health care coverage and his involvement in the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act, which used to be the law governing the scope and implementation of state-controlled health care until the Obama administration's regime of pre-implementation waivers and post-passage changes turned it into the mush which should now and forever be called "Obamacare." That emphasis on Obamacare "somehow" overlooked an infamous but truthful statement Dingell made to WJR Radio's Paul W. Smith shortly after the original law's passage in March 2010. It's the kind of statement the press would have covered when Dingell originally made it (they didn't), and would never have forgotten if it had been made by a Republican or conservative.
Smith asked a perfectly logical question, namely why the law's implementation was being delayed for so long if the current healthcare system was supposedly leading to 18,000 deaths per year — a statistic Democrats threw around recklessly in the runup to the legislation's passage. 
Partial Transcript (bolds are mine):
 Paul W. Smith: Are we readly to let 72,000 more people die in our country, if 18,000 died, or whatever the number is, a figure that anyone comes up with, per year because of a lack of health insurance or health care, when this bill doesn’t basically take effect until 2014?
John Dingell: Paul W, we’re not ready to be doing it. But let me remind you that this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.”
Dingell was admitting that the left's drive for state-controlled health care has really been all about power and control from the very beginning.
With all that extra time, the Obama administration hasn't exactly done a stellar job of carrying out "the necessarly administrative steps," has it?
A Google News search on [Dingell "control the people"] (typed exactly as indicated between brackets) returns one PJ Media post and nothing else.
In a rare moment of clarity, John Bresnahan and Alex Isenstadt at Politico noted that Obamacare is not universal health care: "The list of legislative accomplishments for Dingell is extraordinarily long, although he was unsuccessful in his most personal quest — universal health care."
According to the Associated Press, it would appear that succession plans for Dingell's seat might continue an abhorrent congressional trend of keeping congressional seats in the family:
 He fueled speculation that his 60-year-old wife, Debbie Dingell, who was at the event, might run for his seat, saying she would have his vote if she does. She repeatedly deflected questions about whether she would run, saying she would only talk about her husband.
Also per AP, "Dingell said his 'single most important' vote was for the 1964 Civil Rights Act that eliminated unequal voter registration requirements and outlawed racial segregation in schools, workplaces and public areas - a move he said almost cost him his seat."
If it "almost cost him his seat," the general election results from that era don't show it. He won his November 1964 election contest with 73% of the vote, and his November 1966 race with 63%.

Republican State Attorneys General Slam “Inappropriate” Eric Holder

featured-imgRepublican state attorneys general on Tuesday slammed comments from Attorney General Eric Holder that state officials don’t have to defend their states’ same-sex marriage bans, calling them “inappropriate.”

The Republican Attorneys General Association seized on the comments, made by Holder in a New York Times interview published Monday, in which he said when it comes to defending same-sex marriage bans in court, “Engaging in that process and making that determination is something that’s appropriate for an attorney general to do.”

“The approach is as inappropriate as it is unprecedented, ” Montana Attorney General Tim Fox said in a statement put out by the RAGA. “What General Holder is asking state attorneys general to do is accept a gratuitously offered nonbinding legal opinion on an issue that has not been decided by a national court of competent jurisdiction at this time.”

STUDY: OBAMACARE MEDICAL DEVICE TAX KILLED 33,000 JOBS

A new study finds that the Obamacare tax on medical devices killed 33,000 jobs.

The study, conducted by the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), said the Obamacare tax slashed 14,000 industry worker jobs and quashed the hiring of 19,000 more. 
"During a time when there is bipartisan support for growing high-technology manufacturing jobs, these results should serve as a wake-up call," said AdvaMed CEO and President Stephen J. Ubl. "The findings of the report underscore the need to repeal this tax." 
Even some Democrats like Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) have conceded that the Obamacare medical device tax is a "job-killing tax." 
The study's findings are just the latest round of job-killing news for Obamacare. Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that Obamacare will reduce the U.S. workforce by 2.3 million full-time workers over the next seven years. 
However, embattled Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebeliusclaimed last week that "There is absolutely no evidence, and every economist will tell you this, that there is any job loss related to the Affordable Care Act."
According to the latest Investor's Business Daily Obamacare jobs scorecard, 401 employers have now slashed tens of thousands of worker hours and jobs due to Obamacare.

Destroying the GOP: How Immigration Turned California Blue

Republicans won California in every presidential election of the '50s, '60s, '70s, and '80s, except for the '64 Goldwater loss.  Now California has a third-world economy with one-party dominance.
The pro-amnesty Republicans should think clearly about what happened to the Golden State.
Today, California's GOP has withered to a small fraction of the state's registered voters.  Since the state began tracking party affiliation in 1922, Republicans have never had such a low share.  Republicans are now 29 percent of voters; Democrats are 44 percent.
But California did not go quietly.  In 1994, California voters, and governor Pete Wilson, tried to eliminate the incentives for illegal immigration with Proposition 187.  Prop 187 sought to prevent people from receiving social services or public education until they were verified as U.S. citizens.  Law enforcement agencies were to report illegals to state and federal authorities.
The proposition passed by a stunning 59%-to-41% margin in 1994.  However, by 1999, Prop 187 was invalidated by court rulings pushed by liberal organizations.  California is now known as Mexifornia.
How could the state that passed Prop 187 and had been a stalwart for Republican presidents have fallen so far?
As the graphs below show, demography was electoral destiny for California.  The top chart shows California's demographic changes (from 1960 to 2010), compared to the state's Electoral College votes.  The state's Electoral College votes went blue in tandem with the rising Hispanic population.
Sources: WSJ270towin.com

Via: American Thinker


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AZ Gov. Brewer Prevaricates on ‘Anti-LGBT’ Bill: ‘I’ll Do the Right Thing for Arizona’

CNN’s Dana Bash pressed Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Monday night as to her plans for SB 1062, a bill that would allow businesses to refuse service to members of the LGBT community, and one that many, including the state’s two Republicans senators and some of the lawmakers who voted for the bill, have urged the governor to veto.
“We have been following it,” Brewer said. “I will make my decision in the near future. I have until Friday or Saturday morning to determine that.”
Bash asked if the pressure from Arizona’s business community, concerned about the economic impact of the bill, would have any effect on her decision.
“I have a history of deliberating and having open dialogue on bills that are controversial, to listen to both sides of those issues,” Brewer said. “I welcome the input and information that they can provide to me. And certainly I am pro-business. That is what’s turning our economy around. So I appreciate their input, as I appreciate the other side.”
Bash tried another tack, asking if Brewer had any gut feeling, not as a governor but “as a person, as a woman,” what she would do about the bill.
“You know, I am a woman,” Brewer said. “I don’t rely a whole lot on my gut. I have to look at what it says and what the law says and take that information and do the right thing. I can assure you as always I will do the right thing for the state of Arizona.”

Tax Dodge: Panel Urges Public to Thwart IRS Effort to Torpedo Conservative Groups

The Internal Revenue Service has overstepped its legal boundaries and expertise to assault the free speech rights of nonprofit advocacy groups, but the public can put the IRS in its place by commenting in the next few days, campaign finance experts and journalists assembled at The Heritage Foundation said.
The IRS’s proposed rule changes to reclassify town hall meetings, legislative scorecards and other regular activities of such groups as “political,” the panel agreed, threaten the groups’ tax-exempt status and thus their existence.
“This is a scandal as bad as they get,” panelist Kimberley Strassel of The Wall Street Journalsaid of IRS actions at one point. “This is an agency that has abused its power grievously against the American people.”
Speaking at the February 21 event, dubbed “Taxing the First Amendment,” were Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer representing conservative groups targeted by the IRS in a scandal that erupted last spring; Bradley A. Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and a law professor who heads the Center for Competitive Politics in Alexandria, Va.; and two journalists who have covered the unfolding IRS story  – Eliana Johnson,  media editor for National Review, and Strassel, a Washington-based columnist and editorial writer for The Journal.
Mitchell said the secretly developed rule changes would stifle the free speech of organizations across the political spectrum, from the Sierra Club on the left to the National Rifle Association on the right. Johnson noted, however, that “Republicans have more to lose” because 20 of the 28 advocacy groups that recently spent more than $1 million lean to the right.

Sebelius: Administration Never Set 7 Million ACA Enrollment Goal – CBO Did

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius(CNSNews.com) – Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday dismissed the goal of 7 million Obamacare enrollees by the end of March as something that the Congressional Budget Office made up.

 “First of all, 7 million was not the administration. That was a CBO Congressional Budget Office prediction when the bill was first signed. I’m not quite sure where they even got their numbers. Their number’s all over the board, and the vice president has looked and said it may be closer to 5 to 6,” Sebelius told HuffPost Live host Marc Lamont Hill.

Hill asked if she agreed with Vice President Joe Biden’s statement that 5.6 million Americans enrolled by the end of March would be a good start.
“We may not get to seven million, we may get to five or six, but that's a hell of a start," Biden admitted last week on his way to a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Minneapolis, according to a pool report of his meeting, Reuters reported.
Despite her insistence that the CBO made up the 7 million enrollees number, as CNSNews.com previously reported, Sebelius told NBC News on Sept. 30, 2013, that "success," in her opinion, would be having 7 million Americans enrolled in the Obamacare exchanges by the end of March.
"I think success looks like at least 7 million people having signed up by the end of March 2014," Sebelius told NBC's Nancy Snyderman.
Meanwhile, the CBO predicted in May 2013 that by 2023, the Affordable Care Act will reduce the number of uninsured by 25 million, “leaving 31 million uninsured.”
“In our current projections for 2023, the ACA reduces the number of people without health insurance by 25 million, leaving 31 million uninsured (compared with 30 million in our February estimate),” the CBO reported.
Via: CNS News

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