There you go.

To the undisputed reasons for Obamacare’s rocky rollout — a balky website, muddied White House messaging and sudden sticker shock for individuals forced to buy more expensive health insurance — add a less acknowledged cause: calculated sabotage by Republicans at every step.

That may sound like a left-wing conspiracy theory —

Nah, bro. Sounds perfectly reasonable.

-- and the Obama administration itself is so busy defending the indefensible early failings of its signature program that it has barely tried to make this case. But there is a strong factual basis for such a charge.

From the moment the bill was introduced, Republican leaders in both houses of Congress announced their intention to kill it. Republican troops pressed this cause all the way to the Supreme Court — which upheld the law, but weakened a key part of it by giving states the option to reject an expansion of Medicaid. The GOP faithful then kept up their crusade past the president’s reelection, in a pattern of “massive resistance” not seen since the Southern states’ defiance of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.

Did you just say "Brown v. Board of Education"?

The opposition was strategic from the start: Derail President Barack Obama’s biggest ambition, and derail Obama himself. Party leaders enforced discipline, withholding any support for the new law —

Usually called "opposing the law," which until now was not a conspiracy.

-- which passed with only Democratic votes, thus undermining its acceptance.

Yes. Undermining acceptance is what people opposed to a law do.

Partisan divisions also meant that Democrats could not pass legislation smoothing out some rough language in the draft bill that passed the Senate.

Yes, that's because Democrats passed it on a party-line vote, ignoring the Scott Brown 41st vote to stop it.

That left the administration forced to fill far more gaps through regulation than it otherwise would have had to do, because attempts — usually routine — to re-open the bill for small changes could have led to wholesale debate in the Senate all over again.

Yes, the Administration was forced to not compromise and declare unilateral executive power to change the law.

...

Then, in the months leading up to the programÂ’s debut, some states refused to do anything at all to educate the public about the law.

Okay, I'm not quoting anymore. Next time you see "Todd S. Purdum" in a byline, know that he wrote this insanely partisan conspiracy-theory-without-an-actual-conspiracy.

Posted by: Ace at 07:56 AM | Comments (410)
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On today's episode, Hot Air's Mary Katharine Ham joins Gabe, Drew, John and Rick Tempest to point fingers at Obamacare and drop a few dozen we-told-you-so's. MKH's Hot Air post "The best euphemisms for Obama’s giant 'if you like your plan you can keep it' lie" leads things off.

After throughly dissecting all things Obamacare, the crew moves on to Senator Mike Lee's speech at Heritage and a broader discussion of conservative/GOP politics and messaging.

[MP3 Download] | Subscribe: [RSS] | [iTunes]

Follow on Twitter:
AoSHQ Podcast (@AoSHQPodcast)
Rick Tempest (@RickTempest)
Drew M. (@DrewMTips)
Gabriel Malor (@GabrielMalor)
John E. (@JohnEkdahl)
Andy (@TheH2 and @AndyM1911)

Open thread in the comments.

Posted by: andy at 07:00 AM | Comments (169)
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Friday! And November!

Administration officials have simply been lying (surprise!) when when they said the Administration doesn't have Obamacare enrollment numbers. In fact, documents demonstrate they were keeping a daily tally of the low, low enrollment numbers.

Another day, another story about health care policies being cancelled by the thousands. Today's story comes from New York.

Big legal news yesterday in New York and Texas. The Second Circuit put a hold on the district court judge's ruling that NYC must halt its stop-and-frisk program, saying the judge had violated the code of conduct when she steered the case to herself and then gave media interviews about it.

The Fifth Circuit reinstated, with a slim exception, the provisions of Texas' anti-abortion law, HB2, that a district court judge blocked early in the week.

Have a good weekend.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:48 AM | Comments (323)
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Good evening and Happy Halloween fellow morons and moronettes. Tonight, a very special episode of Punky Brewster edition of Late Night Bedspins: Halloween Edition. Late night Bedspins is an occasional post at AoSHQ that features quirky, forgotten, lost, and talented bands and musicians showcasing their musical stylings.

Tonight's band is called "Here Come the Mummies". This band's trademark is that all members dress up as mummies while they perform. Some say they do this for aesthetic reasons as their natural appearances are more shocking than mummified corpses brought back to life. Others say they disguise themselves to elude certain pesky exclusivity clauses to contracts signed between member's "real" bands and record companies.

Here Come the Mummies first graced the pages of AoSHQ a couples years back during one of the several Anthony Wiener sex scandals. So sit back, turn the speakers up to 11 and enjoy the videos linked below!

(Special thanks to the Bob & Tom Show) more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:16 AM | Comments (25)
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