Backlash: Angry ObamaCare Victims Lash Out At Dingy Harry Reid (Video)

Earlier this week, in a desperate attempt to combat the bad press and devastating Republican campaign ads highlighting “ObamaCare horror stories”, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proclaimed on the Senate floor that all the stories we’ve been hearing about are untrue. “There’s plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue … Lies distorted by Republicans to grab headlines,” Reid said.

Dingy Harry walked back his comments a little while later, in response to the uproar he caused. He admitted that not every single one of the horror stories were a lie – just the vast majority of them – and by the way – the Koch brothers are un-American.

I can’t say that every one of the Koch brothers’ ads are a lie, but I’ll say this. Mr. President, the vast, vast majority of them are. And it’s time the American people spoke out against this terrible dishonesty of these two brothers who are about as un-American as anyone that I can imagine.

Yes, the Senate Majority Leader actually warbled that the philanthropic Koch brothers are “un-American” because they donate to conservative/libertarian causes unlike George Soros or most labor unions who donate (in much greater numbers) to left-wing causes. He has a source who gives him this information. It’s the same guy who told him that Mitt Romney hadn’t paid his taxes for 10 years, and the Iraq war was lost while we were in the process of adding troops.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Are you people in Nevada who voted for this senile gasbag proud of yourselves? Harry Reid has to be the absolute worst Senate Majority Leader we’ve ever had.

In response to his bizarre declaration, the National Republican Senatorial Committee put together a video that hits Reid with “the weapon every ObamaCare-defending Democrat fears most: the truth.”

This morning on Fox and Friends, Elisabeth Hasselbeck spoke to a mother whose family has been living an ObamaCare horror story since they lost their health insurance plan, last Fall.

Johanna Benthal, 17, was born with congenital malformations on her brain. She has undergone 89 surgeries. The most recent one was last night.

Johanna’s mom, Eileen Benthal, told Hasselbeck she was “offended” by Reid’s comments. “Here I was sitting at my daughter’s bedside, and I’ve spent the last three months – it’s been more than a part time job for me – to secure insurance after our termination happened in the fall.”

Eileen said they have lost one doctor and all out-of-state coverage. The family was left with three minor options that she described as “far less superior” to their previous coverage.

If Reid feels any regret for his offensive words, Eileen said to him, “I challenge you to make a donation to the Angioma Alliance in honor of Johanna Benthal.”

Last year, the Benthals’ insurance company paid the $27K needed for Johanna to have neurodiagnostic testing at a University of Chicago clinic. With no out-of-state coverage as of March 1, the family is looking to the grassroots organization to cover the cost.

“I’d like [Reid] to put his money where his mouth is,” Benthal said. “I’d like him to pay $30,000 dollars to the Angioma Alliance and make that donation, and apologize to me and to the American people.”

A second woman, Betsy Tadder,  who saw her family’s health insurance canceled under ObamaCare told Martha MacCallum what she thought of Reid’s comments.

“I agree that there are lies being told about ObamaCare – and they’re being told all over America. I agree that he knows who the liars are and her knows who the liars are – and the difference is – I can sleep at night,” she said.

Julie Boonstra, Michigan mother battling leukemia is becoming a household name thanks to Democrat attacks on her story. She told radio host John Gibson that she is DEMANDING an apology from Harry Reid.

 Julie says Reid is saying she “is a liar” but “being able to keep your plan..that was the lie”.

Ophthalmologist, Dr. Patricia McLaughlin joined Greta Van Susteren to set the record straight:  We Are Not Liars and Phonies.

VAN SUSTEREN: When you hear Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid say these horror stories are wrong and untrue, what do you think? What do you say to him?

MCLAUGHLIN: I would just certainly hope that he said that in haste and that perhaps the information that was given to him came from a source that wasn’t correct. This is not the case that we are seeing in our practices and with stories patients are telling us.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Well, let’s go specific. Let me go first to your patients. You have patients who have insurance and they go to you. But now you have been knocked off one of the insurance networks. Is that correct?

MCLAUGHLIN: Well, I have been not dismissed but have nothing offered participation status in some of the subsections of one of the insurance companies. And that was insurance that would be covering individuals taking out insurance through the Affordable Care Act or through small business plans outside the Affordable Care Act. It also included them.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, does that mean that these patients that some patients of yours can no longer go to you unless they pay out-of-pocket?

MCLAUGHLIN: That’s correct.

VAN SUSTEREN: Have any of your patients said anything to you? Are they distressed by this or are they happy to sort of move on to look for another doctor?

MCLAUGHLIN: You know, most patients are attached to their doctor. We have had long-standing relationships. We don’t just take care of an illness. We take care of the human spirit as well. So we know things about their spouse, their children, their parents. We have gone through their trials and tribulations. There’s a relationship. Of course, they are distressed. And they don’t enjoy the fact that they don’t have freedom of choice any longer. It’s very, very confusing to them. It’s very distressful. They don’t know where to turn. They still will call us and ask for help. And, of course, we are willing it do that.

SEE ALSO:

Dingy Harry’s Long, Sordid History of Verbal Diarrhea

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The Council Has Spoken!! This Weeks’ Watcher’s Council Results

Alea iacta est…the Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and we have the results  for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

“Alas! ye lordes, many a false flatterer
Is in your courts, and many a losenger,
That pleasen you well more, by my faith,
Than he that soothfastness unto you saith”.- Geoffrey Chaucer

” Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.” – Sir John Harrington

“Treachery is more often the effect of weakness than of a formed design”.-François La Rochefoucauld

This week’s winner, Joshuapundit’s  Obama Appoints Hamas Ally To Key National Security Post    is my examination of yet another questionable appointment by President Obama to an extremely sensitive national security post…and what it signifies. Here’s a slice:

The man pictured above is Robert Malley. Today, it was announced that President Obama has appointed him the senior director at the National Security Council (NSC).

The NSC is the key body that advises President Obama and helps make decisions on national security and foreign policy matters. Its members consist of,among others, the vice president, the Secretaries of State, Homeland Security and Defense, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of National Intelligence, the president’s National Security Advisor and the deputy Adviser, the Attorney General and the president’s UN Adviser.Other special assistants to the president also attend as required.

In other words, this is President Obama’s ‘inner cabinet’ on national security, so to speak. The members, the top level members of the Obama Administrations, are privy to all of America’s intelligence, planning and confidential data.

So who is Robert Malley?

Of Syrian descent,he was a Clinton-era National Security Council staffer known for his tirades against Israel and his championing of Yasser Arafat. He made waves by blaming the Israelis for the failure of the 2000 Camp David summit, thereby contradicting the words of President Bill Clinton and every other U.S. official present, and rationalizing and defending Arafat’s terrorist war on Israel’s civilians.

Malley was a close crony of then presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama and a foreign policy adviser to the campaign back in 2008. Way back then, Candidate Obama still saw the necessity of getting clueless American Jews to vote for him, so when it surfaced that Robert Malley was meeting actively with the genocidal terrorist group Hamas, Obama took the opportunity to remove him from the campaign in 2008 as a gesture to prove his pro-Israel bonifides.

According to 18 U.S. Code § 2339B, providing material assistance to a designated terrorist group (which includes advice) is supposedly a federal offense, But Robert Malley had powerful friends (including Clinton NSA adviser Sandy Berger and Senator Barack Obama, whom he was pals with at Harvard) so he simply drifted back into the world of think tanks, where he could be relied on to write articles and make speeches demonizing Israel.

And actually, according to he Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat, Malley never really left Obama’s circle. Al-Hayat reported that Hamas engaged in talks with Obama for months through Malley, which among other things resulted in their receiving almost a billion of your tax dollars from President Obama.

Robert Malley comes by this honestly. His father Simon was a very Marxist journalist who shilled for Algeria’s terrorist FLN, Egyptian dictator Gamel Abdul Nasser, African Marxist dictators like Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Sékou Touré, Fidel Castro, and of course, Yasser Arafat, of whom he was especially fond. Needless to say, Simon Malley also had an outspoken hatred towards Israel, and the apple definitely did not fall far from the tree.

Once Barack Obama became president, as we now know, he spent a great deal of time during his first term concentrating on bashing and attacking the Israel, giving the Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians more U.S. money than they’d ever seen in their lives and in general behaving like Mahmoud Abbas’ own special community organizer.

That moderated a bit in 2012 when the president needed to fool people again for his re-election, but now that President Obama has no need to dissemble any longer, Malley will join the other members of the Obama Administration who have a long time record of hostility towards Israel.And he will be privy to America’s most highly classified secrets.

Malley has some interesting ties with Islamists worth looking at. Among Malley’s close associates is Wadah Khanfar, a Hamas activist based in the Middle East and South Africa (where he headed the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations) and now a key figure with al-Jazeera, AKA Jihad TV. According to one of my sources, Malley also has a relationship with our old friend Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a foul genocidal maniac who is too dirty even to be allowed into the U.S.

Much more at the link

In our non-Council category, the winner was Victor Davis Hanson with Is The Country Unraveling?submitted by Joshuapundit. It’s a trenchant examination of the hype versus the reality of Barack Obama’s presidency..an dafter cataloging its multiple failures, actually ends on an up note. Do read it.

OK, here are this week’s full results. Only Nice Deb was unable to vite this week, but was not subject tothe usual 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 votes!–Joshuapundit–Obama Appoints Hamas Ally To Key National Security Post
• Second place with 2 votes –Bookworm Room – To achieve partisan political goals, the American media destroys the precious right and moral mandate given to it by the Constitution
• Third place with 1 2/3 votes –Ask Marion – Palin Derangement Syndrome Revisited
• Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Liberty’s Spirit – Freedom from Offense Channeling Fascism
• Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –The Right Planet – How Are Socialism, Communism and Fascism All the Same?
• Fifth place *t* with 1 vote –The Colossus of Rhodey – If I Didn’t Know Better, I’d Think There Was an Obama-Media Conspiracy Here
• Fifth place *t* with 1 vote –The Noisy Room – Ukraine – A Look Into America’s Possible Future
• Fifth place *t* with 1 vote –The Independent Sentinel – Attack on Our Power Grid: The Existential Threat No One Is Talking About
• Sixth place with 2/3 vote –Simply Jews – The water proof: the facts, the myths and other animals
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Razor – The Chill of Self-Censorship
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote –Nice Deb – Dinesh D’€™Souza: Obama’€™s Vindictive, His Kenyan Family Paranoid (Video)
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote –Rhymes With Right – Excess Campaign Contribution Kerfluffle Raises A Different Issue Than It First Appears

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 3 2/3 votes! –Mark Steyn – Hath not a Jew Eyes submitted by Liberty’s Spirit
• Second place with 3 1/3 votes –Sultan Knish –One Election Away from Losing Our Freedomsubmitted by The Noisy Room
• Third place with 2 votes – Gates Of Vienna – The Protocols of the Princes of Saudiasubmitted by Watcher
• Fourth place with 1 1/3 votes –Gulag Bound – EXCLUSIVE: Former NSA Employee Speaks Out About its Corruption submitted by Ask Marion
• Fifth place with 1 vote – Breaking Defense – The Army Force Cuts: 3 Truths, 4 Fallaciessubmitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 votes –The Sad Red Earth – A Misguided Argument About Anti-Semitism submitted by Simply Jews
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 votes –The Foundry – Blame America-First Crowd Ignores Terrorist Threats and Dictators submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 votes –WSJ/– Stephen Blackwood: ObamaCare and My Mother’s Cancer Medicine submitted by Bookworm Room
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote –Victor Davis Hanson –When Failure Is Success submitted by The Independent Sentinel
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote –Young Conservatives – These 20 “Only in America” ironies need to be read by every single American submitted by VA Right!

See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in…don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us onTwitter…..’cause we’re cool like that!

Trey Gowdy on Lois Lerner: ‘I Think She Connects this Scandal all the Way to Washington’ (Video)

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has recalled the Regime’s former IRS henchwoman, Lois Lerner to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the agency’s targeting and abuse of Tea Party and conservative groups.

As noted by PJ Media’s Bryan Preston, “she has since retired from the IRS and is receiving a six-figure retirement income, making more money per year after leaving her government job in disgrace than most Americans make working full-time.”

Last time America saw Lerner was last May, when she raised her hand and was sworn in to testify, then declared her innocence and took the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Committee member Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) pointed out at the time that Lerner is not allowed to declare innocence and then take the Fifth. The committee reserved the right to bring her back and compel her to testify.

When asked by Fox’s Bill Hemmer today if the Oversight Committee would consider giving Lerner immunity in order to get her to testify, he answered, no way.

“We’re not giving her immunity – period.”

Asked what it means that she would ask for immunity, he answered, “that she’s guilty and we should buy a used car over the telephone. Nobody does that. We don’t know what she’s done so why would you give someone immunity when you have no idea what criminal conduct they’ve engaged in.   I don’t know if she killed Jon Bonet Ramsey. He went on to explain the proper procedure, “you write out a proper, the prosecutors evaluate  it and then we decide if we would rather have you as a defendant or a witness.” He said right now, he would prefer for her to testify as a defendant because he doesn’t think she has any credibility.

But I’m thinking, if they gave her immunity, they might be able to wrangle out of her some valuable information they might otherwise not be able to get.

Gowdy went on to say, “I think she connects this scandal all the way to Washington and she’s holding out for a better deal. But it’s not going to be immunity until we know what your testimony would be. And you can’t sit there and say you’ve done nothing wrong, and nothing illegal, and then hide behind the Fifth Amendment and expect us to give you immunity. That is not going to happen.”

There are two things that could happen, next week, when she reappears before Congress, according to Gowdy. 1. She could plead the Fifth, again, in which case she would be held in Contempt of Court which he said “could include a visit from the Capitol police” or 2. “her lawyer smartens up and says, ‘let’s go in the back and discuss a resolution to this.”

SEE ALSO:

Bradley A. Smith, the WSJ: Connecting the Dots in the IRS Scandal – The ‘smoking gun’ in the targeting of conservative groups has been hiding in plain sight.

The mainstream press has justified its lack of coverage over the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups because there’s been no “smoking gun” tying President Obama to the scandal. This betrays a remarkable, if not willful, failure to understand abuse of power. The political pressure on the IRS to delay or deny tax-exempt status for conservative groups has been obvious to anyone who cares to open his eyes. It did not come from a direct order from the White House, but it didn’t have to.

First, some background: On Jan. 21, 2010, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Citizens Unitedv. FEC upholding the right of corporations and unions to make independent expenditures in political races. Then, on March 26, relying on Citizens United, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the rights of persons (including corporations) to pool resources for political purposes. This allowed the creation of “super PACs” as well as corporate contributions to groups organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code that spend in political races.

The reaction to Citizens United was no secret. Various news outlets such as CNN noted that “Democrats fear the decision has given the traditionally pro-business GOP a powerful new advantage.”

The 501(c)(4) groups in question are officially known as “social-welfare organizations.” They have for decades been permitted to engage in political activity under IRS rules, so long as their primary purpose (generally understood to be more than 50% of their activity) wasn’t political. They are permitted to lobby without limitation and are not required to disclose their donors. The groups span the political spectrum, from the National Rifle Association to Common Cause to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. If forced out of 501(c)(4) status, these nonprofit advocacy groups would have to reorganize as for-profit corporations and pay taxes on donations received, or reorganize as “political committees” under Section 527 of the IRS Code and be forced to disclose their donors.

Now consider the following events, all of which were either widely reported, publicly released by officeholders or revealed later in testimony to Congress. These are the dots the media refuse to connect:

Keep reading at the link…

The Conversation: Senate Democrats Vote Unanimously To Kill Amendments to Protect Americans From IRS Abuses:

This morning, Sen. Cruz offered two amendments in the Judiciary Committee to safeguard citizens’ free speech against unlawful and unjust targeting and designations by the Internal Revenue Service.

He brought to light the disturbing hypocrisy of Democrats who all objected to the IRS’s abuses when the scandal first broke, but are now playing defense for the IRS.

 “Nearly nine months ago, President Obama declared the IRS’s illegal targeting of conservative groups ‘intolerable and inexcusable,’ yet his administration has authored a new rule to specifically limit free speech for many of those groups, which are classified as ‘social welfare’ organizations,” Sen. Cruz stated.

“Free speech is not a partisan issue. The IRS has no business meddling with the First Amendment rights of Americans. Rather than further stifling free speech, the IRS and the Department of Justice should provide the American people with all the facts surrounding the IRS’s targeting of certain organizations based on their political activity. We should all agree the IRS should not be used as a tool for partisan warfare.”

***

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee unanimously defeated both of Cruz’s proposals.

“Do As I Say…” Obama’s Most Hypocritical Moments (Video)

Fox & Friends highlighted 3 of Obama’s hypocritical moments – executive orders, lobbyists, and lastly golfing while in California for the drought.

On the campaign trail Obama criticized Bush 43 for the use executive orders, yet Obama bragged about how he has a pen and phone and will take action unilaterally. On the issue of lobbysists, Obama said that they will not be able to use the revolving door at the White House to cash in. And yet there are 395 former lobbyists in the Obama Administration including 136 current ones. Oh yeah how about golfing in California on courses that are able to stay green with water while farmers are suffering the worst drought in decades.

As I’ve stated many times, before. It wasn’t hard to figure out that this man was a pathological liar. I started tracking the alarming number of bold-faced lies and flip flops coming from “the Obamessiah” in the Spring of 2008, as I also tracked the bizarre cult of personality that surrounded him. I kept it up until it became too burdensome a task to keep track of every one of the man’s ridiculous deceits. By mid September, it had become clear that the electorate was (very stupidly) going to blame the Democrat-caused financial crisis of 2007-2008 on Republicans. Obama is a narcissistic manipulator who tells tall tales because he has a compliant media who lets him get away with it. He is guilty of massive fraud on ObamaCare alone. Yes, media fact checkers (who want to retain some modicum of self-respect) will point on some of the more egregious lies. To be absolutely clear –  if a Republican president were guilty of even half of what this president has gotten away with – the media uproar would have led to his impeachment, a long time ago. It’s not surprising that corrupt congressional Democrats support a corrupt, dishonest Democrat President. And it’s not surprising that a corrupt Democrat media complex supports a corrupt, dishonest Democrat president. What is surprising and disappointing is that there are still so many Americans who continue to support a corrupt, dishonest president who is so obviously harming the country. Rusty Weiss, of the Mental Recession, asks: Is America In an Abusive Relationship With the President?

The President pushed through his healthcare agenda, despite strong opposition.  He promised us safety, but when we wanted our own security system by securing our borders, Obama and his friends fought to prevent it.  He was showering America with gifts … using her own money. When we questioned the wasteful spending, he told us it was for our long term benefit, and raided $787 billion of our savings.  And when the economy failed to recover in any manner during his first term, we started seeing classic signs of an abusive relationship. Psychology Today examines several signs that you’re dating an abuser – signs which America should have easily picked up on in 2008, and most certainly should have identified in 2012. Here are 5 of those warning signs…

Continue reading at the link.

House Committee Hearing: Is the Obama Administration Conducting a Serious Investigation of IRS Targeting?

Today, a subcommittee of Oversight and Reform, the Economic Growth, Job Creation and Regulatory Affairs Committee, held a  hearing examining the DOJ’s sham investigation of the IRS scandal  – Is the Obama Administration Conducting a Serious Investigation of IRS Targeting?

Panelists at the hearing: 

the Honorable George J. Terwilliger III, Partner Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

The Honorable Eileen J. O’Connor, Former Assistant Attorney General (2001-2007) Tax Division, U.S. Department of Justice

 The Honorable Hans von Spakovsky, Manager, Election Law Reform Initiative and Senior Legal Fellow, The Heritage Foundation

Mr. Glenn F. Ivey, Partner Leftwich and Ludaway LLC

Mr. Richard Painter S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law, University of Minnesota Law School, Hearing Documents

IRS Targeting Hearing Part One:

2-26-2014 IRS Targeting Hearing Part Two:

2-26-2014 IRS Targeting Hearing Part Three:

Fun fireworks in this one between the crazy lib from Virginia, Rep Connolly and Hans von Spakovsky.

Enjoy:

Law Prof To Congress: “If You Want to Stay Relevant, Don’t Stand Idly By And Let The President Take Your Power Away.”

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing, this morning to address Obama’s escalating abuses of power.

Entitled, ENFORCING THE PRESIDENT’S CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY TO FAITHFULLY EXECUTE THE LAWS the hearing’s witness panel included, Mr. Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School, Ms. Elizabeth Price Foley of Florida International University College of Law, and Mr. Christopher Schroeder of Duke University Law School.

Bob Goodlatte, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, asked the panel what to most would appear a rhetorical question, “Is unilateral decision making good for our Republican system of government?

Turley, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of Obama’s executive overreach, said, “the greatest danger that we have, really cannot be overstated, when he have the concentration of power in one branch. That is precisely the sort of power the framers were seeking  to avoid.”

“What people often miss, he continued  “is that the separation of powers was not about protecting Congress – -separation of powers was designed for the protection of liberty. It was to prevent the concentration of power in any of the branches that would threaten the individual citizen.”

Goodlatte asked Professor Foley what she thought the longterm institutional consequences would be if the current practice of “benevolent suspensions of the law” isn’t stopped.

She answered that people are going to continue to be cynical about government and the Constitution, and ultimately eroding respect for the rule of law.

She also brought up the point that it makes it less likely for Congress to tackle big issues like immigration reform,  “why would you go through the trouble of reaching a very delicate political compromise on an issue like that if you think that the president is going to just benevolently suspend those portions of the law he doesn’t like after you reach that compromise.” She concluded, “if you want to stay relevant as an institution, I would suggest that you not stand idly by and let the president take your power away.”

Goodlatte then asked about the principle of prosecutorial discretion which Obama’s “deferred actions” are based on. “Does prosecutorial discretion have such elasticity that a whole class of people could be recipients of deferred actions based simply on them being in the category…?

Foley said, “yeah, this is sort of a dangerous and scary moment – uh, that’s not discretion – that’s raw, lawmaking power.”