The "boy" is understood as always.

FACT CHECK: Coverage requirement enforced with tax

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer – 33 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Memo to President Barack Obama: It's a tax. Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance — and fining them if they don't — isn't the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation's health care system doesn't quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax.

And they note as conservatives did long ago that this isn't the first time he's lied on this pledge:

It wouldn't be the first asterisk added to Obama's campaign pledge on taxes. Earlier this year, he signed a tobacco tax increase to pay for children's health insurance. Even that can be read as a violation of his expansive campaign promise.

"I can make a firm pledge," he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12, 2008. "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."

He repeatedly promised "you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."

This entire post is racist and I condemn it.

I'm thinking about banning myself.

Thanks to Arthur "The Racist" K.

Posted by: Ace at 03:55 PM | Comments (1)
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Dissent is the highest form of shut your mouth or else.

The Humana mailer focused squarely on the Medicare Advantage program.

"While these programs need to be made more efficient, if the proposed funding cut levels become law, millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable," it said.

It urged seniors to sign up with Humana for regular updates on the health care legislation, and encouraged them to contact their lawmakers in Washington.

In a warning letter to Humana, HHS said the government is concerned that the mailer "is misleading and confusing" partly because the company's lobbying campaign could be mistaken for an official communication about Medicare benefits.

HHS ordered the company to immediately halt any such mailings, and remove any related materials from its Web site. In the letter, the government also said it may take other action against Humana.

Humana received a cease and desist letter from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which administers both programs.

CMS is concerned that, among other things, this information is misleading and confusing to beneficiaries, represents information to beneficiaries as official communications about the Medicare Advantage program, and is potentially contrary to federal regulations and guidance for the MA and Part D programs and other federal law, including HIPAA. As we continue our research into this issue, we are instructing you to end immediately all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your website.

As is pointed out at the EconLog link, CMS says the wording of the materials is only "potentially contrary" to regulations yet they are ordering it removed before any finding it is actually against any rules.

More of that full and open debate we've heard so much about.

h/t to Jonah Goldberg at The Corner for the EconLog link.

BTW...Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida) wants to preserve Medicare Advantage saying cutting money from the plan, "would be intolerable to ask the senior citizens who have (Medicare Advantage) to give up substantial health benefits that they're enjoying."

How does that square with this oft repeated promise from Obama?

“First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”

Below the fold, all you need to know about Obama.

more...

Posted by: DrewM at 02:10 PM | Comments (2)
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From Mad Magazine, of course

The most open, transparent, accountable, and honest president in the history of history says he's not really sure who this ACORN is you speak of.

A quick refresher.

Mr. Obama took great pains to act as if he barely knew about Acorn. In fact, his association goes back almost 20 years. In 1991, he took time off from his law firm to run a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an Acorn partner that was soon fully absorbed under the Acorn umbrella....

Mr. Obama's success made him a hot commodity on the community organizing circuit. He became a top trainer at Acorn's Chicago conferences. In 1995, he became Acorn's attorney, participating in a landmark case to force the state of Illinois to implement the federal Motor Voter Law. That law's loose voter registration requirements would later be exploited by Acorn employees in an effort to flood voter rolls with fake names.

In 1996, Mr. Obama filled out a questionnaire listing key supporters for his campaign for the Illinois Senate. He put Acorn first (it was not an alphabetical list). In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama became the leading critic of Voter ID laws, whose overturn was a top Acorn priority. In 2007, in a speech to Acorn's leaders prior to their political arm's endorsement of his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was effusive: "I've been fighting alongside of Acorn on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work."

But the Obama campaign didn't appear eager to discuss the candidate's ties to Acorn. Its press operation vividly denied Mr. Obama had been an Acorn trainer until the New York Times uncovered records demonstrating that he had been. The Obama campaign also gave Citizens Consulting, Inc., an Acorn subsidiary, $832,000 for get-out-the-vote activities in key primary states. In filings with the Federal Election Commission, the Obama campaign listed the payments as "staging, sound, lighting," only correcting the filings after the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review revealed their true nature.

Given his longstanding ties with Acorn, President Obama's protestations of ignorance or disinterest in the group's latest scandal seem preposterous. Here's hoping White House reporters will press the president to clarify just how much he really knows about Acorn and when he knew it.

Just so you know, Obama is "distancing" himself from ACORN, but it's not true, as I said for the purposes of a joke, that he's claiming he doesn't know what it is. He's just saying he hasn't been "following the story closely."

And basically acting as if he doesn't know what ACORN is.

Thanks to DanF.

Posted by: Ace at 01:08 PM | Comments (2)
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Ed Morrissey notes the strange new respect the media has for noting that, um, Obama's kind of lying and stuff.

Jake Tapper, who has been the lone non-Fox-employee willing to question the president, is fighting with some on-line critic about his reporting on Obama's false claim he's not raising taxes, he's just raising "fines."

Two tweets:

@JohnAmussen hey, it was POTUS who attacked then-Sen Clinton for the individual mandate she proposed. your outrage is quite selective.
about 6 hours ago from mobile web




@JohnAmussen Like politicians who promise they wont raise taxes on ppl who make less than $200K a yr? Is that who you mean?

AHFF Geoff, by the way, has been trying to get me to post on that -- Obama attacking Hilary for proposing individual mandates, just as he is now -- but I didn't. Seemed just kinda dog bites man -- politician is a hypocrite and poser, news at 11. But he has been pushing that.

Posted by: Ace at 12:42 PM | Add Comment
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That's what he and his buddy Hugo Chavez are saying.

"I'm here, in the capital," Mr. Zelaya told Caracas-based Telesur during a brief telephone conversation.

His statement comes after President Hugo Chavez interrupted a televised school event he was attending to have a telephone conversation with Mr. Zelaya, a regional ally who was ousted from power in late June.

"He's in Tegucigalpa, and now we'll see what the leaders of the coup will do," Mr. Chavez said after his telephone conversation with Mr. Zelaya.

Television images showed Roberto Micheletti, the interim Honduran leader who replaced Zelaya, telling reporters that "we have no evidence that he's inside."

"I cannot give details, but I'm here," Mr. Zelaya told the local TV channel. His voice, but not his image, were transmitted. He said he was at the United Nation's headquarters in his homeland. But a spokeswoman at the United Nation's offices in Tegucigalpa told The Associated Press he wasn't in the offices. "I have no idea where that story came from," said spokeswoman Ana Elsy Mendoza.

Just a reminder but the US government is aiding and abetting a criminal in his attempt to illegally regain the presidency of an allied country.

Now a report filed at the Library of Congress by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) provides what the administration has not offered, a serious legal review of the facts. "Available sources indicate that the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system," writes CRS senior foreign law specialist Norma C. Gutierrez in her report.

Do the facts matter? Fat chance. The administration is standing by its "coup" charge and 10 days ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went so far as to sanction the country's independent judiciary. The U.S. won't say why, but its clear the court's sin is rejecting a U.S.-backed proposal to restore Mr. Zelaya to power.

The upshot is that the U.S. is trying to force Honduras to violate its own constitution and is also using its international political heft to try to interfere with the country's independent judiciary.

Oh and Obama won't say whether he will recognize the results of the previously scheduled elections. You know, the ones Zelaya tried to circumvent.

h/t Krakatoa in the headlines

*I changed the pull quote from the second linked source. I made a mistake in the original quote I used. Read the whole thing, it's devastating to the US position.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:50 AM | Comments (2)
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And we now have proof of the lie on tape.

Naturally, the NEA and the Obama administration denied this. According to the Los Angeles Times (in a blog post, of course, and not an actual newsprint story), the NEA denied any purpose to further a legislative agenda:

The NEA issued a statement saying that it took part in the conference to help inform arts organizations about opportunities to sponsor volunteer service projects themselves, or have their members take part in other volunteer efforts. “This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda, and any suggestions to that end are simply false,” the statement said.

The White House similarly denied any desire to further a legislative agenda:

Responding by e-mail Wednesday, White House spokesman Shin Inouye said the Aug. 10 teleconference “was not meant to promote any legislative agenda — it was a discussion on the United We Serve effort and how all Americans can participate.”

Patterico quotes their own words to put lie to that.

Posted by: Ace at 10:50 AM | Comments (3)
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A bit of backstory.

Before the election, My Pet Jawa found that very-professional style supposedly "grassroots" nasty hit job videos on Sarah Palin were being posted on YouTube.

He discovered that these were created by a Democrat-connected California PR agency named Winner & Associates.

The suspicion was that the ads had been created, covertly, with Axelrod's connivance, to create a fake "grassroots viral video" that couldn't be traced to Obama.

But it couldn't be proven. In the end it was smoke but no fire. A lot of smoke, and yet no smoking gun.

Ethan Winner confessed to making the video, but claimed he hadn't had contact with David Axelrod for ten years, it was all just something he felt like spending thousands of dollars on himself. As a goof.

Well.

Okay.

What was a rep for Winner & Associates doing on that conference call?

You know, the one where White House official Buffy Wicks thanked everyone for helping them win the campaign?

I don't know about this yet -- I really do not know if I can say this significantly advances the case. Need to mull it.

But it sure seems... coincidental.

Thanks to ThomasM.

Actually... What the hell is a political PR agency doing on a conference call for artists in the first place?

Are we talking art, or are we talking professional political campaign ads?

I know the answer, of course. I'm being rhetorical.

I really want to know why Winner, who was supposedly incommunicado with fellow Democratic ad maker David Axelrod for ten years (already hard to believe), was doing with a representative (for "casting") on that call.

Who thought to invite his firm? And why, exactly?

They're not artists. So what the hell?

By the Way: Rusty just got into his email and just got this tip. He will, I imagine, bring his own expertise on this whole Winner situation to bear shortly.

Michelle Malkin on the Winner Controversy: An old clip of Michelle Malkin explaining it.

Via Treacher's archives on the subject.

Explanation of Why Winner Was on the Call: This press release from Winner explains that Winner was asked (um, hired, I think that means) to "launch" the White House's Office of Public Engagement -- where Buffy Wicks is the deputy director.

That explains, I guess, why they were on the call, despite not being artists. Sort of. Except for the fact Winner does not do art, they do PR and commercials.

It does not explain how this ad agency that had nothing at all to do with Axelrod or Obama got "asked" (um, hired, I think) to help "launch" an office.

Why Winner? How did Axelrod suddenly remember Winner?

Ironically, a Winner rep explains why the Office of Public Engagement needs a PR firm all of a sudden thusly:

President Obama expands OPE's role
During his inauguration, President Obama stated very clearly that "our commitment to openness means more than simply informing the American people about how decisions are made. It means recognizing that government does not have all the answers, and that public officials need to draw on what citizens know." To help fulfill this commitment, the Obama Administration sought to create an expanded role for its OPL, one that would allow it to function as the open front door to the White House, engaging meaningfully with a broad range of constituencies across the country. To help underscore this openness, the Office of Public liaison was re-launched and re-branded as the Office of Public Engagement.

Thanks to Professor Rusty Shackleford for that.

Correction: I referred to Winner as an "ad agency" twice in the post above. They are not. They are a PR firm, or "public consultants," as they call themselves. They do do political commercials, however, hence my mistake.

Posted by: Ace at 10:25 AM | Comments (25)
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Bumped from Last Night.

Oh boy. Watch the boldfaced text.

Obama has rejected the Pentagon's first draft of the "nuclear posture review" as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials.

...

The review is due to be completed by the end of this year, and European officials say the outcome is not yet clear. But one official said: "Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president's weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role."

Speechless. Speechless.

I Hate Saying the Obvious but... the president's weapons? Really? Really?

Thanks to TomB.

Posted by: Ace at 09:39 AM | Comments (1)
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A version of the report Gen. McChrystal made to the President has leaked and unsurprisingly it paints a grim picture. But not a hopeless one and it also outlines what we need to do to win there. Now we will see whether the President follows up his many statements about this war with the concrete actions and resolve required. McQ posts an excellent analysis of the report and the situation over at BLACKFIVE.
One thing to remember is that McChrystal was Commander of JSOC. That is where our Spec Ops pipe hitters live, and they are the ones who got Zarqawi. Plus we are bringing more dark-side, knuckle-draggers to A-Stan too.

Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 08:34 AM | Comments (5)
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Audio.

Transcript.

Rush has this and should be playing some "key elements" in the next hour.

Buffy Wicks, White House Deputy Director of Public Engagement and Aide to Valerie Jarret, Involved. Interestingly enough, Wicks used ACORN to protest Wal*Mart in the past. Not sure that really has anything to do with this scandal or is merely some incestuous background.

Mistakes Were Made: And perhaps laws were broken, as George Will opined a few weeks ago.

Slublog thinks maybe so:

Hmm. Guess what the Hatch Act prohibits?

(a) Subject to the provisions of subsection (b), an employee may take an active part in political management or in political campaigns, except an employee may not --

(4) knowingly solicit or discourage the participation in any political activity of any person who --

(A) has an application for any compensation, grant, contract, ruling, license, permit, or certificate pending before the employing office of such employee;

I haven't had a chance to listen to the long conference call yet. I think the news here is twofold.

1, the medium is the message. You will now get to hear a White House official and an Obama-appointed NEA flunky (who just happened to be Sheppard Fairley's manager, by the way -- you know, the HOPE poster guy) telling a somewhat captive audience of artists dependent on NEA grants to talk up health care and green energy.

2, I'm not sure if this was tipped or revealed before, but an actual official in the White House, Buffy Wicks, was part of this. And she doesn't make policy. She executes policy created above her pay grade.

The NEA flunky -- Yosi Sergeant -- was the designated fall-guy for his. He was reassigned. But it had not been revealed previously (I think) that someone actually in the White House was part of this.

Here's some of her statements:

“I just first of all want to thank everyone for being on the call and just a deep deep appreciation for all the work you all put into the campaign for the 2+ years we all worked together.”

“We won.”

“I’m actually in the White House and working towards furthering this agenda, this very aggressive agenda.”

“We’re going to come at you with some specific asks here.”

“I hope you guys are ready.”

Next Quote: "Obviously a big area is health care.... Second was energy and the environment...."

Breitbart's Twitter Page Targets Buffy Wicks: Interesting.

Posted by: Ace at 08:07 AM | Comments (5)
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