1 Now the, ahem, special relationship has been revealed

--Almost as "special" as the relationship between Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley

2 This is getting biblical. Lion shall lie with sheep or whatever. It's amazing to see the left realize what a Chicago politician is for the first time....

3 That guy Gruber's a fucking amateur.  We got millions!

4 C'mon ace , where's theYippie Kiyay Motherffucker ?

5

truly shocking Huffington Post allowed this expose,

so will  msm media Have to pick this up?

6 Look at how well all the new electronic medical records that are supposed to save gazillions are working out:  http://tinyurl.com/y98rl8c

7 One would think that they paid to verify specific results. That never happens.

8 Yes! They're turning on each other at last.

Excellent!

9 ..... or words to that effect .

10 So, what Orwell book are we living in, 1984 or Animal Farm? I'm getting confused here.

11 I am an uncommon thief!

12 Did Ace get McGuire's left overs? He is a posting fool this evening.

13

I never want to eat tapioca again.

Regardless, file this under the media doesn't give a rat's ass about, Shit

 

14 Some of the liberals actually are good government types (the hardcore leftists aren't, though). This kind of crap is something the left and right can agree shouldn't happen.

15 And by "The White House paid..." we of course mean 'Obama diverted some money from his stash.'

16 .

Transparency

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

17 Popcorn! Get your fresh popcorn here!! Talk about bending the curve jeeshe

18 Holy crap, up is down, black is white, dogs living with cats. Before you know it you'll be seeing a positive Sarah post on Huffpo.

19 I am Spartacus Charlie Gibson!

20 Welcome to the party asshole .

21

Thank goodness everyone else was thinking Die Hard too, I thought I had that movie too much on my brain.

I think Ms. Huffington may be souring on our awesome of awesomest President and his administration. Quick, they'd better invite her to spend the night at the White House or something.

22 The media is our enemy.

23 I'm holding my outrage for when the Chinese hackers post all the internal emails to megaupload.

24 If Teh Won had a jello orgy on the South Lawn with all 14 of Tiger's ho's and The Breck Girl's baby momma, the media would walk past, whistling, with their hands in their pockets, looking the other way....these 'disclosures' continue to prove the 'old media' is completely irrelevant

25

Also, I guess this puts to rest that rumor about Ace's three balls. The third nipple, though, that one's still true, right?

26

And now it's all exposed, and no one in the goddamn media has any questions about this at all.

^

heh heh, I guess not

27 When members of a society take to lying to each other as a matter of course, that society is doomed. We must turn the tide, before it is too late.

28 It wil be up to the bolgs and intranets to advance this story like climate gate

29
Now that a few years have gone by, doesn't the Plame-Scooter affair seem so manufactured and silly?

Of course it does, what am I saying. It seemed that way back in 2004.

30 This is the sort of post that makes me wish I had a third ball and a swimming pool full of tapioca.

Don't forget the three legged dog reading that quotes Nietzsche .

31 Is Hamsher's Useful Idiot Alarm sounding early? Cool.

32 And I'm not "superfluous" either.

33 The second comment down on the HP article some dude trots out Krugman and his 'Nobel Prize'....Hey, they don't just hand those goddamned things out to anybody!!!   Krugman sez it's deficit neutral, so it must be.

I swear there's a whole gob of people out there that would benefit from the 'Fist full of shirt/battered about the face and neck' approach to seeing things my way.

 

34

The New York Times gets scooped by Breitbart, Huffpo, hell, even the National Enquirer.  What are those clowns doing over there, anyway?  They're still a newspaper, aren't they?  Or did they quietly become a karaoke club months ago and just not tell anyone?

At some point, somebody's gotta put down the hookah pipe and protect their phoney-baloney jobs, gentlemen!  Immediately!  Immediately!  Harrrumph!  Harrrumph!!  Hey, I didn't hear a harrumph out of that guy. 

Watch your ass.

35 What planet am I on?

36
Not only are all of Obama's policies failing right in front of their faces, these 'journalists' completely ignore this scandal-ridden administration and Congress.

When they're not ignoring the scandals, they're spinning excuses for the scandals.

37 Krugman at the NYT was none too pleased with Hamsher calling out Obama's hired gun Gruber.

http://tinyurl.com/ydz9xl8

38

Now that a few years have gone by, doesn't the Plame-Scooter affair seem so manufactured and silly?

Except no one will be going to prison for this. BTW, how's Fitzgerald doing tracking down the real killer the real Chicago corruption?

39 Hey! Did you guys see that idiot Sarah Palin on Fox? That's the real news.

40
Hamster is on this scandal...

where are the Republicans?

41

I swear there's a whole gob of people out there that would benefit from the 'Fist full of shirt/battered about the face and neck' approach to seeing things my way.

Sounds good to me cause talking to or reasoning with them certainly does no good.....

42

What's the big deal.  It's only TAX MONEY paying for this.

43 Hey, looks like Janie has a headache! Hey, Janie, I got some aspirin for yez!

44 Oh, my, people,  Ms. Hamsher is fading fast! I need 500 cc of talking points administered intravenously STAT!

45 The corruption not only is cold, it's deep, too.

46 "Where are the Republicans?"

I'm busy selling books.

47

How the White House Used Gruber's Work to Create Appearance of Broad Consensus

What?!? Obama pays a hack to spin his political narrative?!? Say it ain't so.

The real surprise is that HuffPo actually published this.

48
andy, as you know, over a year ago in December Fitzgerald and his colleagues stood there and said they had never seen this type of widespread corruption in their careers with the Justice Dept.

Yet the case seemed to evaporate along with the M.I.A. Patrick Fitzgerald as soon as Rahm Emmanuel's name mentioned.

49 I don't see anything wrong here.....

50 Thank goodness everyone else was thinking Die Hard too, I thought I had that movie too much on my brain.

That's unpossible.

51

Gruber began negotiating a sole-source contract with the Department of Health and Human Services in February of 2009, for which he was ultimately paid $392,600 

I thought Democrats hated sole source contracts. Isn't that one of the reasons they went banshee on Halliburton? Oops! Sorry, there I go using logic again. I'm a bad conservative......baaaad conservative.

52 I am shocked, SHOCKED!!!1

53 It is a very bad sign when MIT is for sale.

54

Oy. I sort of missed the controversy over Jon Gruber and his contract with HHS. For those who haven’t been following this, Gruber — who is one of the three or four top health care economists in the nation —

turns out to have a large research grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, for modeling the consequences of various reform .

The truth is that this is no big deal. GruberÂ’s grant is from HHS, not the West Wing; itÂ’s basically the same kind of thing as, say, an epidemiologist receiving a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

 You wouldnÂ’t ordinarily say that this tarnishes the epidemiologistÂ’s credentials as an independent analyst on infectious diseases, unless you want to say that nobody receiving a research grant can be considered independent.

The only reasons you might see this differently would be if Gruber were either receiving a sweetheart deal, or seemed to have changed his views to accommodate his sponsors.

 Neither is remotely true. Gruber is very much the go-to guy on modeling reform: itÂ’s hard to think of who else could be doing the work better. And his position on reform has been entirely consistent.

Should Gruber have made a fuller disclosure? Yes — I think he was being too much of an academic, taking for granted that everyone understands the difference between being a political hired gun and receiving a research grant

krugmans response

55

This is the sort of post that makes me wish I had a third ball and a swimming pool full of tapioca.

Why do you need a special post to feel this way?  I've always wanted a third ball and a pool full of tapioca.

56 So when is the AoS/huff po meet and greet Let's lay off the cock knockin ans sword swirlin for now

57
10 So, what Orwell book are we living in, 1984 or Animal Farm? I'm getting confused here.

Neither.  It's Dante's Inferno.  I don't even think we've crossed the river Styx yet.

58 Walter Williams receives a fee (less than Gruber's) to talk up republicans (or something like that) and it's a BAD AWFUL THING!!!

But this Gruber crap - meh, move along, nothing to see here.

59 Hamsher's been seriously off the healthcare reservation, because she sees that the bill doesn't do anything for anybody, and doesn't even advance any lefty goals aside from Don't Embarrass Obama.  The union goons are making grumpy noises, too.  And now Jack Cafferty's beating on Pelosi.  Interesting times, gentlemen.

60 Sounds good to me cause talking to or reasoning with them certainly does no good.....

Well, I look at it this way...If yer dog keeps shitting on the carpet, you can yell at it all day long and it'll take a crap on your floor while yer doing it.  A good hoover maneuver in said shit accompanied with some serious 'I'm really pissed off right now' yelling does the trick.

61 I don't get it either, but good for Hamsher and HuffPo.

62

Remember a few years back when it was revealed the Pentagon was paying certain commentators/journalists to write positive stories about the war effort.  remember the absolute $h!t-storm the mainstream media kicked up about that?

This?  Nary a peep.  Figures...

63 I knew a stripper named Tapioca once.

64 This is O/T, but Teh Stoopid just can't wait:  Coakley disses Fenway fans

Holy balls, this bitch is dumb even for a Masshole libtard.

65

Armstrong Williams, no?

66 Huffpo ripping the media is not all that suprising.  Lefties perceive the media as a right wing corporate joooo conspiracy and hate it about as much as we do.

67

The truth is that this is no big deal. GruberÂ’s grant is from HHS, not the West Wing; itÂ’s basically the same kind of thing as, say, an epidemiologist receiving a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

When did Orszag join HHS? That would seem at least an appearance of impropriety.

68

wow...just wow

 

oh well, strange bedfellows and all that -- glad it got exposed; too bad it isn't going to get more exposure but the media is the media...the bastards

69 "Armstrong Williams, no?"

Err, yep.  Heh. 

70 Nothing to see here, proles. Keep moving. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

71
Having spent about five years doing computer work around HHS in the '90s, I didn't find anything at all shocking about what Gruber did.  Health economics and other social science disciplines that concentrate on public health administration are a cesspool of marxist nomenklatura-in-waiting  funded entirely by the taxpayer's dime.

These guys move freely from schools to government jobs to contracting jobs to consulting jobs to political appointments to medical industry.  The incest is epic, and there is no way in hell anyone could ever enumerate the conflicts of interest.

They run studies, they collect and crunch data, they model costs vs. outcomes, and they publish in the big circle-jerk of peer-reviewed public policy journals.

But they rarely do any of this to solve health problems in the real world.  They do this primarily to justify their jobs and whatever medical pork any given DC looter wants to grab.

Well, the joke is on them.  Obama, Reid, and Pelosi loot at will and don't need no steenkin' justification.  And, should single-payer ever come to be, the health economists won't have private industry to kick-around anymore, and that's about the only thing they know how to do.

72 That's OK, intrepid, after all, neither one is especially light skinned, but neither one really has much of a negro dialect, either.  It's a tough call.

73 Three balls come in handy. You can open a pawn shop.

74 65- Good.   That and witnessing the push down of the reporter, and saying she didn't.  The more dumbass moves, the better.

75

They hired an economist to serve as a publicist.  Before this, they tried to use the NEA to give grants to artists to serve as their publicists. 

 

76 BTW, whoever designed the RNC homepage should be electrocuted. Mildly. Forever and ever. We've got Bababooey and Michael Steele in full toothy idiocy, scarin' away the good people. Sheesh.

77 Clearly, this is an indication of how broken our healthcare system is after 8 years of Bush/Cheney.  Since my party is obviously without any ethical blemishes, only the most liberal of Democrats may be able to fix this problem.

78

Hamster's probably apeshit because

1. he's not sufficiently liberal and

2. didn't come over to her house for a sleepover and tell her all his secrets

79 THIS, my friends, is how science gets 'settled.'

80

72  DAyum, that almost makes me kinda sad for them -- stuck in dead end jobs that a self immolating, working for masters that slit their throats even as they do their utmost to remain loyal...

 

Ok, maybe that was all just a bunch of sarcastic horseshit on my part, and maybe I could give a rat's behind if these weasels are the mechanics who tune up the bus that eventually runs over them!

81

Besides this latest dishonesty and cover-up what I'd like to know is why is nobody trumpeting facts about the orders of magnitude under-estimates for similar programs in the past. Like Medicare, like Medicaid, like SSS. The numbers should be easy to find and better yet the comparison's would fit on a bumper sticker - which is as complex as the American people seem to be able to focus on anyway.

Show that Medicare was opriginally estimated to cost $50 billion and in reality costs $500 billion now, or whatever the real number is. And then compare it to $1 trillion estimated for Obamacare and inflate it by a factor of 10. That should get people's attention.

82 79 -- probably, but who cares as long as she keeps on doing this sort of stuff, right?

83 If I'm not mistaken, the scandal wasn't due to Gruber getting money, it's due to the fact that it wasn't disclosed to the public.

If you have nothing to hide, then why hide?

Bah, now I know what a TV dinner feels like.

84

Is Jane Hamsher falling to the darkside?

What got into this chick's skull full of mush.

 

85

What a sham. 

Is the Brown campaign paying attention to this stuff?  I hope they're working with their media people using their $1.3 million splicing together an ad that highlights this crap just to drive the point home down the stretch.

Step on their throats and don't let up.  The stakes are too high.

86 Hey anybody seen my hamster?

87 "Sole source"???? Crap, I woulda done it for half of that.

88 Good googgly-moogully.  We're living in thunderdome!

89 Cenk Yuger (sp?) of Young Turks? on FDL also did a post today inviting a teaparty unity sort of thing, he challenged us to go after bankers to prove our cred
I left a comment explaining why I am a tea party patriot and saying the WH is directing this op not the banks, the banks are doping what comes natural the problem is the WH and I will not be deterred...

I think some folks want to have leverage to improve the HCR bill and some want to use the Tea Party people to push for bank bonus taxes and add to their populist mvmt, and some just want to coopt it or derail it from within

we will not be distracted. we will do what we do since it is natural, lol, and they can move to our position or not, up to them

country first

90 "And now it's all exposed, and no one in the goddamn media has any questions about this at all."

Two reasons:
1) Health Care Reform is going to be Barry's "legacy".  MSM can't deny him that.  They created him.
2) The MSM isn't going to admit they've been used.  The public is already well aware they're Obama's whores.  Why rub the public's face in it?

91

It is a very bad sign when MIT is for sale.

But they will make up for it when they finally predict the massive solar flare that wipes out all life on earth, with the help of a 10 year old girl.

 

92 Boy those far lefties really hate this health care bill, but for the opposite reason that we do, but whatever strange bedfellows and all.

93

This is the sort of post that makes me wish I had a third ball and a swimming pool full of tapioca.

Welcome to the party, pal!

94

First Jane uses the word, horseshit, and then she uses the words, rat's behind, instead of the words, rat's ass. A woman's prerogative to be goofy, I suppose.

95

But they will make up for it when they finally predict the massive solar flare that wipes out all life on earth, with the help of a 10 year old girl.

Posted by: Vic at January 13, 2010 08:29 PM (QrA9E)

At least we have that to look forward to.

96 Willow @55:  You wouldnÂ’t ordinarily say that [getting $392,000 in government grants to do his study] tarnishes [the researcher's] credentials  as independent analyst...unless you want to say that nobody receiving a research grant can be considered independent.

Geez Louise.  Yes, that's exactly what I'm gonna say, Willow.  If you read what's been leaked about how grant-awarding committees work, the clear inference seems to be that nobody gets a *government* grant (for anything significant, at least) unless the approving authority knows what he expects to find *and approves that expected result.*  And every grant recipient knows that if they publish a result that isn't completely consistent with what they essentially promise, they sure as hell won't get any *more* grants.

Example:  The theory of anthropogenic global warming.

97

You'd think someone at MIT would take a dim view of this boob whoring himself to Ofucktard.

Wait, MIT is a University.

My bad.

98 I guess Jane's resigned herself to never sell another script to Hollywood in the foreseeable future, i.e., until entropy claims the entire universe.

99 Example:  The theory of anthropogenic global warming.

Posted by: sf at January 13, 2010 08:34 PM (xz5dP)

Yeah, something about one's research impacting pending super legislation, tends to move it into a category of its own.

100

This one is a case where we do not have to postulate a "what if" for the Republicans. Does everyone remember the hue and c ry raised by the Dems when it was discovered that Armstrong Williams had been paid to promote the BS No Child Legislation.

His was case of paying an opinion columnist to promote a bill, whereas eher we have a case of them paying an "economist" to gin up some phoney numbers. i.e. fraud.

 

101 Once we are at 100% of GDP in debt, won't all this be kind of moot, anyway? That should happen this year?

102

Vic.   Listen very carefully.  Obama is a CHICAGO POLITICIAN.  Chicago politicians get what they want by BRIBERY, by THUGGERY and by threats BIG and SMALL.  Rahm Emanuel is a CHICAGO POLITICIAN.

Have you ever seen Rahm Emanuel??  He is not a nice man.  
So here is the deal VIC.  They will buy you.  And if you cannot be bought, they will threaten you.     They know no other way. 

BTW. They don't mind BUYING you, because it's not their money.

103

I think that if this country survives this administration we will find in the end that the corruption will put the Teapot Dome scandle to shame.

We are seeing fraud and corruption in epic proportions noew and in some cases they are not even trying to hide it. I am simply astounded that they talk about accepting bribes for voting on a bill without even a blush.

 

104 This is the sort of post that makes me wish I had a third ball and a swimming pool full of tapioca.

That was totally unhelpful.  I mean, who the fuck doesn't?

105

ya know, i've only been following politics for 3 years, (i know, i know)

I cannot understand with all the lies, corruption, that more seasoned pundits have learned, how you guys stay sane, it's so disheartening to me.

106

Vic.   Listen very carefully.  Obama is a CHICAGO POLITICIAN.  Chicago politicians get what they want by BRIBERY, by THUGGERY and by threats BIG and SMALL.  Rahm Emanuel is a CHICAGO POLITICIAN.

Have you ever seen Rahm Emanuel??  He is not a nice man.  
So here is the deal VIC.  They will buy you.  And if you cannot be bought, they will threaten you.     They know no other way. 

BTW. They don't mind BUYING you, because it's not their money.

Posted by: gus at January 13, 2010 08:41 PM (Vqruj)

_{Trump is trump.}

107 103 Once we are at 100% of GDP in debt, won't all this be kind of moot, anyway? That should happen this year?

I think we'll only be 90% of GDP in debt this year, but 100% isn't too far away.

At least in the end, there will be only chaos.

108 "Gruber is very much the go-to guy on modelin"

Mmmmm.......modeling.

109 SUMMON THE METEORS

110 I am simply astounded that they talk about accepting bribes for voting on a bill without even a blush.

Hey, it's the Chicago way.

111 I simply can't follow up 108 .

112 Vic. Listen very carefully. Obama is a CHICAGO POLITICIAN. Chicago politicians get what they want by BRIBERY, by THUGGERY and by threats BIG and SMALL. Rahm Emanuel is a CHICAGO POLITICIAN.

Posted by: gus at January 13, 2010 08:41 PM (Vqruj)

Actually, The Precedent is more of an Indonesian politician, but they are as dirty as the Chicago thugs. The only difference is that Chicago politicans are greedy and corrupt and stupid while the Indonesian type are more anti-American and revenge-seeking, along with being greedy and corrupt and stupid.

113 You all go off to have a secret meeting and forget to tell me?

114

I am shocked and honest liberal. 

Surprised and happy to see it.  Maybe the rest of the MSM will start to stop sucking The One's dick and report facts.  I guess that will happen when his approvals get to 30%.

Shit next thing you know Al Gore will admit the hockey stick is bull shit.

Nah, I dreaming.

115

They are all cocksuckers.

Crucify them and confiscate what they have stolen.

116 Aw, is too bad, Jane. Just when the position of Chief Commissar for Glorious 5-Year Prosperity Plan for Hollywood was open! Not too late to publish lavish 'retraction', yes?

117 Maybe the rest of the MSM will start to stop sucking The One's dick and report facts.  I guess that will happen when his approvals get to 30%.

It'll never happen.  We will be hearing the continuing over-the-top ultra-positive coverage of Obama 40 years from now.  No matter how big of a disaster he obviously is.

118

Interesting, Krugman quotes firedoglake, guess he and the Times hacks read it.

Er, when was the last time this dickhead quoted a conservative blog? or read one?

And, he is pissed about it.  The cult all read the same shit.  His buddies are ragging his dishonest ass.

Go Jane Go! Your hits go up the more honest you are.

I mean honestly on a liberal blog, first time evah!

 

119 This isn't entirely surprising.

I've been loosely following Hamsher's scribblings for a couple of months and she's been "off the reservation" for a while now on this health care thing.  The HuffPo has also been dabbling with occasional heresy here and there for a few months too.

120 Taxpayers shouldnÂ’t be lobbied and propagandized with their own money.

ItÂ’s not that much money in the scheme of things, but it's enough to open a clinic in a poor neighborhood.

Which beats paying a guy $400k to tell us that we should open a clinic in a poor neighborhood.

121 O/T:  Need an excuse not to ever watch Hannity again, he just gave it to me.  He has Nicole Wallace on.  Hope Sarah Palin makes him wait forever for her to go on the show.

Wallace is fat.

122 What am I missing here? Who or what is Sort Of Mad Max? And what exactly was its contribution here? Or was that an insider's joke of some kind?

123 Anybody read The Manufacture of Consent lately? The irony is making me horny.

124 And by "$400k", I mean $400k borrowed from the Chinese with interest that some kids just now being born will have to get out of bed someday and earn by the sweat of their brows.

125 123 I'm with PA - this isn't really that much of a shocker. Hamish has been steamed about Skippycare for a while now, and yeah, it's because it doesn't go far enough. Not even really that surprised that it's at HuffPo - witness the tongue bath Arianna gave Daily Caller (with a side of reacharound for Andrew Breitbart) welcoming them along for the storming of the Old Media's Castle. And, with the combination of Muck, Marxism, and Moronity now in place at 1600 Pennsylvania, hey, the stench is starting to make just about everyone throw up in their mouths just a little bit. . .

126 Wallace is fat.

Posted by: curious at January 13, 2010 09:17 PM (p302b)

Is that irony?

127 This is an interesting piece written by Michael Totten back in 2004.  He's remarking about his journey from liberalish guy to independent. 

128 I would like to see Totten let 'er rip at AoSHQ

129 Totten's middle east reporting has always been well done.

130 So, when is Hamsher going to take the Moronette Oath?

131
Don't get me started on the grants.  While I was at HHS, somebody mistakenly dropped a pile of IT-related grant applications on my desk once for evaluation notes.  I started reading through them, and you will never believe how shitty these requests looked. 

These people needed editors and spell-check something fierce.  There were plenty of them written worse than some of the drunk comments on the ONT.  Many of the forms were hand-written with terrible penmanship.

These were applications for significant (to me) amounts of taxpayer money to do jack shit.  You'd think they'd at least make them look pretty.  When I gave my boss a WTF?, he told me that somebody screwed-up by giving them to me.  Not that anyone was hiding anything--just that it wasn't part of our shop's job.

I learned later that the grants for the smaller amounts (less than $25k at the time, IIRC) were pretty much automatically awarded, and higher amounts required sign-off from higher-level government employees and some documentation to cover people's asses. 

There was a lot of casual fraud such as applicants breaking their grant requests into multiple small ones spread across different HHS agencies.

The grants administration people I knew considered the applicants their "clients" and couldn't award-out taxpayer money fast enough for their tastes.

132 I know this is not news,but damn, Fred Thompson is one lucky guy

133 "And now it's all exposed, and no one in the goddamn media has any questions about this at all."

This is the most tiresome thing currently happening in America: the utter abdication of their duty and to the public trust, by the American press.  They are too arrogant and too out of touch to realize that it's past time for them to START ASKING THIS PRESIDENT SOME FUCKING QUESTIONS.

134 Sorry for my language.

135 51.27% OT: Scott Brown defends his vote for RomneyCare:
http://tinyurl.com/yep4dch

136 14 Some of the liberals actually are good government types

No they aren't. The lefties are in a snit because they're not getting their nationalized health care openly and as fast as they want it.

None of this would be coming out if they didn't feel all outrageously outraged about that.

It's got nothing to do with good government, honesty, ethics, citizenship or anything else some of you want to credit them with.

Their current temper tantrum happens to benefit our cause, that's all. Tomorrow they'll be right back to telling their lies. They aren't our friends, nor are they trustworthy. They never will be.

137 What's the story with the Huffington Post, anyway. They don't even make any pretense about trying to earn money. There are no ads or anything on their site. Have they ever offered a justification for their existence as a "business"? Just wondering.

138 /b+/tard's new Nom De Moron: A+

139 This is just more of the ol' Axlerod Astroturf, except paid for with your taxpayer dollars!  It's all about Alinsky and "Manufacturing Consensus" just as he manufactured Mr. Hope n' Change #1 Deval Patrick and #2 Barak Obama,

140 Is Coakley a Republican plant? She's not put a foot right since early December. If she wins this, I'd have to ask if a dead mouse with the (d) tag could lose in that state.

141 There was a lot of casual fraud such as applicants breaking their grant requests into multiple small ones spread across different HHS agencies.

When you read the Spendulus legislation carefully, you notice that the "mandatory" public web site reporting is waived for smaller amounts.  Obviously anyone with a few neurons firing will submit several grant proposals couched in fluffy language about "implementation phases" to avoid having any scrutiny.

This is apparently a pretty common ploy with grant proposals.

Meanwhile...Dept of Energy is sucking canal water and still cant get the Spendulus promised money for grants to hand out for useful scientific R&D.

142 Hamsher's been bitching about Rahm for months now. She's been saying he threatens her and the other nutroots. I think that's a big part of this. A lot of lefties are mad about the bill, but she's willing to go full turncoat because of the Al Capone crap the WH dishes out.  Some of the the other lefties call her the worst thing they can think of, that being "teabagger".

143

Didn't DoEnergy just award $7million to an empty store front?

144 A "respected" academic published a paper.  He was from MIT, after all, and you have to be havin' like, a 900 or sumfin on your SAT to get into that mofo. 

The underlying data and methods weren't made public.  The source of the funding turns out to have been questionable.

The media repeatedly referenced the conclusions of the paper, parroting the party line without questioning anything because the source couldn't possibly have been wrong.

Some questionable background about the study becomes public, and the mainstream media says nothing.

Nobody dares question the findings of the study, because, after all, the author was a respected scientist from a top flight academic institution.  Should questions arise later, that of course won't taint the findings, because the science is settled.

This is all a metaphor for something, but I can't quite put my finger on it...

145 Didn't DoEnergy just award $7million to an empty store front?

Maybe, but it wasn't MY freaking storefront, which would have been ummm OK ;->. 

For $7M in DoE bucks, we could have gotten a nice used SEM, some spectroscopy gear, had a bunch of fancy optics for our laser built, put to together a pilot manufacturing line and been cranking out product by the end of the year.  But no...we're still sipping air.

146 But no...we're still sipping air.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at January 13, 2010 11:57 PM (G9JvI)

Why not just tell them you are working on laser fusion?

147 Hamsher....could she be turning conservative? You know, nothing like realizing government by pols SUCKS to make you do some soul searching.

148 For years, I'd found Hamsher utterly unreadable. Recently, that's changed. Because on certain issues she agrees with me? Probably, but that's embarrassing to admit. I'd prefer to think it's because she's showing what appears to be real principle in the several matters I've noticed she's been chasing. I'm on her friggin mailing list, for cripe's sake. And I'm happy to be. I don't require her to become conservative in order for me to respect her - all I care about is that she be principled. And she seems to be just that these days.

149 MikeO

Thanks for the inside skinny. I have seen exactly the same shit in my neck of the woods. The entire fraking Federal Government works this way, I swear! The amount of waste and inside dealing is incomprehensible to the average taxpayer. The problem is that it is so endemic that you either join in or leave because it is intolerable to anyone with a modicum of moral fiber. This problem coupled with the trend of the Government evaporating the private sector poses the greatest danger to society. The Islamists threat palls in comparison to the damage that business as usual in Washington and it's attendant environs represents. You can kill or imprison the Islamisits (well up to now, anyway) but the Gov owns you and takes care of your mother.

150 The Media is not the Media.

The Media is the propaganda wing of the left.

151 I doubt Hamsher is going conservative.  But I'd bet she's having a real hard time right now trying to merge her support for single payer with the raw deal that will come if she supports growing the size of government.

The recycling of a single report is common in DC.  The majority usually uses it over and over.  Usually the White House will lead with it, but it's pretty rare to see them lead with a report from a guy on their payroll.  Furthermore, the HHS even used the report and never thought about mentioning how they paid the guy to write it.

I'm starting to wonder if the actual agency heads in the executive branch have any power at all.  It's starting to look like all the czars in the White House are running every fucking branch.

152 First it was Hans. Then Simon. Now this Jonathan Gruber. Yippie ki ya, motherfucker.

153 Here's a related Weekly World News cover parody featuring Jonathan Gruber: tinyurl.com/yb8taz9

154

"And now it's all exposed, and no one in the goddamn media has any questions about this at all."

I know, it's quite maddening...same damn thing happened with that Armstrong Williams thing...er...ohhhh....

 

155 Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho

156

Krugman at the NYT was none too pleased with Hamsher calling out Obama's hired gun Gruber.

Poll: Who is the bigger douche? Paul Krugman or Frank Rich? It's close. Some would add Maureen Dowd to make it a triumverate, but she's just a dried up twat, not quite douche worthy.

157 Curmudgeon - if I had a few spare billions to waste I'd buy the NYT just for the privilege of throwing the contents of those folks' offices into the street with my own hands. 

"Hey Paul, got something for you.  I've had the lawyers look over our contracts, and our rights to your work, and I've decided to carve it up and sell it all to Iowahawk and The Onion for a buck each.  No, you can't bid.  Yes, this is pure spite. Now, can you ask Frank to come in here?"

158 Didn't a journalist get reamed by the media for taking money from the Bush adminstration without disclosing it?  How much media did that get compared to this?

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