Is The Health Care Fight Obscuring A Criminal Cover-Up In The Obama White House?

Great investigative journalism by The American Spectator’s Jeffrey Lord:

Even as the drama of health care carries the headlines, beneath the surface, visible now, the iceberg of scandal ripples.

First, the timeline on the blossoming scandal upon which we will now officially fix the dreaded “gate” descriptive. Jobsgate.

• September 27, 2009 — The Denver Post reports that Obama White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina allegedly offered a job in the Obama administration to ex-Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff if Romanoff dropped his planned primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Senator Michael Bennet. Romanoff refuses comment and runs anyway.

• February 18, 2010 — Philadelphia TV anchor Larry Kane reports that on his just taped Comcast show, he had asked Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak, who is challenging incumbent Senator Arlen Specter whether it was true that the Obama administration had offered Sestak a job if he would withdraw from his primary challenge to Specter. Sestak answers “yes,” specifically saying the offer came from someone in the White House and that he, Sestak, turned down the offer. Sestak refuses to name who it was that made the offer. Two hours later, Kane calls the White House, plays them the tape, and asks for comment. The White House never calls him back.

Lord continues…explaining why Holder’s Justice Department might not be investigating:

One former high-ranking Justice Department official, after telling me that there were indeed problems with the Department’s silence on this issue, said that in the current political climate at the Holder-run Justice Department, any Justice official who sought to go to Holder with thoughts of investigating Messina or his boss Rahm Emanuel or anyone else in the White House would have to have “brass balls.” A colorful way of saying that Justice Department officials are being intimidated from pursuing the truth, no matter where it leads. Let’s go back to Congressman Darrell Issa.

Issa has stepped up to the plate and sent his letter to White House Counsel Bauer, who now holds the job in the legal precincts of the White House one frequented by Nixon’s John Dean. Bauer, it should be noted, is the husband of now-departed Glenn Beck foil Anita Dunn, briefly the Obama White House Communications Director. Bauer and Dunn have been featured in Newsweek as one of ten “global power couples,” ranking them alongside — honest — Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Bill and Hillary, Beyonce and Jay Z, and Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina’s back-to-back presidents. All of which means, according to Newsweek, the Bauer/Dunn power-combo has power, lots of it. The Congressman has formally requested an answer to his letter — from Bauer — by March 18.

And here are the implications [I hope you'll go read the whole thing. The story is damning.]

If in fact Sestak is telling the truth, if in fact the Denver Post story about Andrew Romanoff is correct — and neither Sestak nor Romanoff reported these offers to federal authorities — Specter is saying both could in fact do jail time for committing a felony.

Even more remarkable is to comprehend why Robert Gibbs may now be standing at that White House podium five different times and refusing to answer questions from Jake Tapper and Major Garrett. If Sestak has told the truth, if the Denver Post got it right — then not only is the person or persons within the White House who made these job offers in big trouble, but anybody else on the Obama White House staff who currently knows this has happened and has not reported it to the proper authorities — the FBI, just for starters — is, according to Specter, a potential prosecution target for “misprision of a felony.” For which this person or persons could also go to jail along with whomever offered the jobs in the first place.

Quite possibly, that could include Robert Gibbs, if in fact he knows these job offers occurred.

So, keep an eye on this story guys. The President and his staff could be in big trouble. This administration is laughable on transparency. What a disgusting mess.

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EXCLUSIVE: Freedom Works Co-Chair Dick Armey Discusses His Controversial Remarks On Health Care and Immigration

Former House Leader and current FreedomWorks Co-Chairman Dick Armey discusses his National Press Club interview: Is health care doomed to pass? Does he support Amnesty? Should citizens bother going to DC this Saturday for another push on The Hill? He also talks about Michelle Malkin’s perspective and why he feels that America is at a pivotal point in history.

Listen here.

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Posted in America, Body, Corrupted Culture, Political Animals | 1 Comment »

The Greater Good Means Too Bad For The Children

Senator Lieberman tried yet again to save D.C.’s school children and it fell on the deaf progressive ears of President Obama. Why does President Obama hate children? Why does he treat his own girls one way and act with willful indifference to needy minority kids going to the same school as them?

Read this and be outraged:

Right now, today, some 1,900 Washington children are sitting in calm, safe, orderly classrooms in neighborhoods other than their own, because of this program. The cost, in the scheme of things, is laughably small.

Yet congressional Democrats and Obama are killing it. This week, Lieberman’s colleagues voted down his attempt to attach a voucher-saving amendment to a larger piece of legislation.
It is a scandal. That the children already enrolled in the scheme will be able to finish 12th grade with the scholarship is small comfort; why only them? Why not their younger brothers and sisters, who will not have the same chance? Why leave these children behind?

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Only-some-children-left-behind-88189257.html#ixzz0iXHrtiBQ

When you hear liberals talk about loving the little children, keep in mind that, as usual, they only love some children–mostly their own.

That’s what happens when decisions are made for the greater good. The ruling class gets one set of health care, education, tax break, government deal, home, car, etc. and then the regular folks get what the “greater good” gets–which is usually nothing.

Posted in Education, Racism | 3 Comments »

Obama Goes Belly Up

How much do people hate health care reform? They hate it so much they’re starting to hate President Obama because he won’t shut up about it. Gallup has the distressing news for President Obama: 47% disapprove. 46% approve.

Three more weeks of health care haggling? That should put President Obama over 50% disapproval or more.

I’ve heard people say that approval goes up as soon as it passes. Um, I doubt it.

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Health Care Reform: About Doctors

My last post focused on jobs generally. Now, what about Doctors? Everyone wants to know about doctors because it’s already tough to get a doctor if you’re on Medicaid or Medicare.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, it’s going to get worse:

Physician Support of Health Reform in General
• 62.7% of physicians feel that health reform is needed but should be implemented in a more targeted, gradual way, as opposed to the sweeping overhaul that is in legislation. [NOTE: I think this reflects the American public, too. No one is saying to do nothing. This bill is just not the "something" that needs to be done.]
• 28.7% of physicians are in favor of a public option.
• 3.6% of physicians prefer the “status quo” and feel that the U.S. health care system is best “as is.

Health Reform and Primary Care Physicians
• 46.3% of primary care physicians (family medicine and internal medicine) feel that the passing of health reform will either force them out of medicine or make them want to leave medicine.

Health Reform, Public Option, and Practice Revenue/Physician Income
• 41% of physicians feel that income and practice revenue will “decline or worsen dramatically” with a public option.
• 30% feel income will “decline or worsen somewhat” with a public option.
• 9% feel income will “improve somewhat” with a public option, and 0.8% feel income will “improve dramatically” with a public option.

Health Reform, Public Option, and Physician Supply
• 72% of physicians feel that a public option would have a negative impact on physician supply, with 45% feeling it will “decline or worsen dramatically” and 27% predicting it will “decline or worsen somewhat. [NOTE: This is the part that is most concerning. What will then happen is that the United States will recruit less-qualified drones to fill the jobs. As the role of physician becomes commoditized, the person seeking that job will change.]
• 24% of physicians think they will try to retire early if a public option is implemented.
• 21% of physicians would try to leave medicine if a public option is implemented, even if not near retirement age at the time.

Health Reform and Recommending Medicine to Others as a Career
• 36% of physicians would not recommend medicine as a career, regardless of health reform.
• 27% would recommend medicine as a career but not if health reform passes.
• 25% of physicians would recommend medicine as a career regardless of health reform.
• 12% would not recommend medicine as a career now but feel that they would recommend it as a career if health reform passes

Source: The Medicus Firm “Physician Survey: Health Reform’s Impact on Physician Supply and Quality of Medical Care,”
The Medicus Firm, www.TheMedicusFirm.com

This does NOT bode well for the future of American medicine. More importantly, it harms the care Americans will receive.

By the way, Democrats know this. This bill is NOT about health care. It’s about transitioning costs away from the unions and the ballooning aging Boomer population to the younger, healthier people.

Health care reform is a tax plan.

Posted in Barack Obama, Body, Economy | No Comments »

Up To 700,000 Lose Jobs Due To Health Care Reform

Health care reform will be a disaster for Americans. We already know this. What we are having trouble quantifying is HOW bad health care reform will be for the country.

Americans for Tax Reform the Beacon Hill Institute share a study using the assumptions of the CBO and Center for American Progress and the results are stunning. From ATR’s website:

From the Executive Summary:

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, has urged passage of the massive health reform plan moving through Congress as a way to create up to 400,000 jobs. Speaker Pelosi bases her claim on a report by the Center for American Progress (CAP) in which the Center estimates that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) would create 250,000 to 400,000 jobs per year over 10 years.

This estimate by CAP amounts to a hurried effort to add academic heft to the claim that national health care reform offers a collateral benefit in the form of an economic “stimulus.” It turns out, however, that its methodology, stripped of unsupportable claims about savings in health care costs, shows just the opposite of what CAP intended. PPACA is a job killer, not a job creator.

The result is a loss of between 119,000 and 698,000 jobs between enactment of the bill this year and 2019.

There is much more data at the link.

Far from being the job creator the left would like to imagine this bill being, the legislation is going to kill jobs overall.

And as extensive as this study is, it doesn’t include the losses, specifically from doctors leaving the profession.

A commenter on my site asked how this bill would affect innovation and growth in the American economy. He said this:

If a bill were passed, it would not create new and talented doctors.
It would not create more medical teachers, or degree-granting
institutions. These professions are already at or near full
employment. If the government did go through the effort of increasing
the number of doctors over a period of years, what professions do you
suppose would people not enter, and what would society lack? One
isn’t likely to be a practicing physician and invent an ipod and
design a water treatment plant and write software, etc. In a sense,
for the federal government to favor one profession with grants,
subsidies, etc., is to punish another.

Well, the problem here, again, is that with the government monkeying with business, the results are likely to be incentive based. That is, if doctors get reimbursed less, but work harder, but have more security, the person seeking this job will change. Ditto health related research and development, etc.

Where will incentives lay with health care reform? Well, government workers will increase to try to lower costs from the private sector.

And the incentives in private industry, during a time of economic stress, will be to cut workers. Workers will cost businesses more money, so head count will become increasingly important.

I can see many tiny businesses being set up, to keep the number of employees/business smaller. Also, more workers will be contract workers because businesses won’t want to take on the liability.

All in all, though, this bill will not help business. It will stifle business. It will make it harder to do business.

I’m guessing that 700,000 jobs lost is being generous. I suspect far more workers will lose employment.

More at HotAir.com

Posted in Economy | 2 Comments »

Podcast: Nathan Wurtzel and James Lileks On Pixar, Dan Riehl On Pulling The Plug On Reid’s Wife

Dr. Melissa Cloutheir discusses Pixar and the great success of a American company within a American industry. She is joined by Dan Riehl to discuss his current residence in the 7th level of hell.

James Lileks of The Bleat and Nathan Wurtzel of The Catalyst Group talk Pixar and other animated movies. I argue for The Iron Giant and Wall-E. Much disagreement ensues.

And then the Dan Riehl lobs more bombs–talking Christianity, God in government, the fall of the Republic and does America have hope?

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Podcast: Andrew Malcolm and I Talk About Meg Whitman, More Chicago Politics and Health Care

Andrew and Melissa talk about the “belly of the beast” Chicago, what’s up with Meg Whitman, and much more.

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America Would Never Be The Same & That’s Why The Democrats Fight To The Death

Even though, by now, you’re as disgusted and fed up with the topic of health care as I am, I write about health care. Again. Why? Because it ain’t over ’til it’s over and goodness knows Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama aren’t quitting. They will never give up until they have the power to control your life from before birth ’til you’re in the grave.

Government run health care is a defining moment in American history.

Today, in my first Daily Caller column, I talk about why this bill is evil:

Health care reform tears at fundamental threads holding our society together. Should it pass, it will reshape the American psyche from a risk-taking, freedom-loving open-mindedness to a self-protective, risk-averting, and provincial desire to protect the tiny piece of pie the citizen is granted.

Health care reform is immoral. It changes the equation from creating a legacy and gift to the next generation, to stealing from them. The debt load is such that our children are enslaved because of their parents greed and lack of restraint.

Health care reform redistributes wealth. The government bequeaths a win on irresponsible unions and businesses hoping to avoid commitments they made. The government decides. Instead of individuals and groups being forced to make the tough decisions, the government rescues them–sends them a lifeline that’s at the other end of a rope that is a noose around the necks of the very same American people.

There is much more at the link. Please go read it all.

We cannot give up. The Democrats never will.

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President Obama Again Challenged By A Citizen: Ingrid Martin Plays Joe the Plumber

Matt Lewis gets the exclusive story. Setting: Townhall, Somewhereville, America. Mood: Stacked crowd…except for this lady. Here’s what happened:

Martin said she opposes Obama’s health care plan for philosophical, not parochial reasons, and after his speech, she caught the president’s attention.

“I didn’t clap and I didn’t smile, and I just sort of held firm to my beliefs and held my tongue so I didn’t get into any trouble,” she recalled. “And I think that, being in the front row, he noticed that because when he came down off the stairs and started shaking hands, when he got to me, he said, ‘Thanks for coming,’ and he looked at me and said, ‘Are you okay?’ And I said, ‘Yes sir, I just don’t support your bill’.”

Ingrid Martin said she then entered into about a 2-minute-long debate reminiscent of Obama’s meeting with another Ohioan, Joe Wurzelbacher (a.k.a. “Joe the Plumber“), telling him she worries about the long-term implications of his sweeping legislation. She told the president he was focused on insurance reform, as opposed to the rising cost of health care, which she believes to be the fundamental problem. Martin stressed her view of the need for tort reform. She also noted: “He said things like, ‘Medicare is not going to be affected by this bill,’ which is not right.”

When Obama said that his bill addressed her concerns, “I just kind of shook my head and said, ‘I don’t believe it does’ — oh my gosh, I’m calling the president a liar,” she added with a nervous laugh. Obama then took Martin’s business card and promised to send her information on the bill. While she was not persuaded to change her mind and support Obama’s policy, she was impressed with him for engaging her. “He took the time to stop and listen, which I appreciated,” she said.

Matt has much more at the link.

Why is it that common citizens are the ones asking these tough questions and bringing up the obvious?

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