Whatever we do, let's not allow ourselves to be distracted from the continuing nightmare of Obamacare by the other nightmare of President Obama's latest abuse of power in furtherance of a terrible policy decision — this time on immigration.
I would be remiss if I didn't provide my periodic update on the Affordable Care Act, lest you grow complacent to its unspeakable egregiousness. So let's review some recent tidbits, shall we?
Some liberals like to pass Josh Barro off as a conservative, but not long ago the New York Times correspondent debunked that notion himself, tweeting that he was most easily understood as a "moderate." But after his appearance on MSNBC today, another term might more aptly apply: elitist liberal.
Speaking with Alex Wagner, Barro crammed a carload of condescension into thirty seconds. Barro claimed that health insurance is "weirdly complicated," and thus that Americans can't be permitted to choose it as they would other products. No, we can't let people use their "own judgment." The free market "doesn't work very well" with health insurance. Individuals can't be "trusted" with it, and thus government must be involved and we need people like . . . Jonathan Gruber.
While NBC Nightly News has failed to mention Jonathan Gruber's scandalous comments about ObamaCare for eleven days, Comedy Central's fake newsman Jon Stewart devoted eight minutes to the controversy on The Daily Show Tuesday night.
On Tuesday night, NBC Nightly News continued its streak of ignoring comments made by ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber into an 11th day while ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir finally brought up Gruber’s comments on the “stupidity of the American voter” and the "advantage" of having a “lack of transparency” in getting ObamaCare passed.
Anchor David Muir discussed the story for one minute and 16 seconds with ABC News chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl and described the situation as a “controversy” and labeled Gruber as “one of the architects of ObamaCare” two days after President Obama brushed off Gruber as merely “some adviser who never worked on our staff.”
The New York Times wants America to ignore Jonathan Gruber. Pay no attention to that architect behind the curtain!
Scott Whitlock at NewsBusters noted earlier today that a Times editorial on Jonathan "stupid voters" Gruber claims that the MIT economist was not an important player in the law's creation. The Times now insists that "In truth, his role was limited." The trouble is, Times reporters and columnists have paid quite a bit of attention to Gruber and the importance of his role in the creation, passage and defense of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, during the past five years.
Two cheers — and two cheers only — for the National Journal's Ron Fournier.
On Fox News's Special Report with Bret Baier last night, the former Associated Press Washington Bureau chief observed that the Jonathan Gruber videos about how the Affordable Care Act was dishonestly written and promoted, as well as President Barack Obama's reaction to those revelations, demonstrate that he (Obama) "has destroyed the credibility of his administration, himself, and government itself." Fine. But then, imitating the naive lover who won't give up despite constant betrayal in the hit song "I Can't Let Go," Fournier stated that he "would like to see this bill work."
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, host of the Last Word, stopped by Morning Joe on Tuesday, November 18 and did his best to defend ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber from criticism following video of him saying that the “stupidity of the American voter” was key to getting ObamaCare passed. Speaking to the Morning Joe panel, O’Donnell argued that “what Gruber did, specific language aside, the offensive language aside, what he did was tell the truth. Legislation always needs collective ignorance about many elements of it in order to move forward.”
On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of ObamaCare, made more than a dozen visits to visit the White House since “Democrats began drafting the law in 2009.” Despite the latest developments in the Gruber controversy, which contradicts President Obama’s line that Gruber was “some advisor who never worked on our staff,” CBS This Morning was the only network morning show to mention the report, giving it a mere 24 seconds during its Tuesday morning broadcast. ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today ignored the Journal’s report altogether.
During his MSNBC show All In on Monday night, Chris Hayes unleashed a nine-minute monologue in light of the Jonathan Gruber videos to defend what he saw as an assault on ObamaCare by Republicans and went as far as comparing ObamaCare’s passage to that of the Rosetta space probe that landed on a comet on November 12.
Hayes hailed what transpired in 2009 and 2010 as “a remarkable and improbable legislative success story, possible one of the greatest of our time” and “about as likely as landing a tiny rover on moving comet, hurdling through space hundreds of millions of miles away from Earth.”
On Monday, ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir and NBC Nightly News continued to ignore the news surrounding videos unearthed of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber praising “lack of transparency” as a “political advantage” and insulting voters as stupid regarding the law’s passage and contents. With tonight’s omissions, the blackout of coverage on Gruber from these two programs now stands at ten days.
Thus far, ABC has only mentioned Gruber once since the first video surfaced on November 7 and it was saved for its Sunday morning political talk show This Week with George Stephanopoulos. When it comes to NBC’s total number of mentions, they have only been able to muster two total mentions of Gruber with one on its Sunday morning talk show Meet the Press and another on Monday morning’s Today.
On Saturday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted the hypocritical fury of Linda Greenhouse at the New York Times that the Supreme Court has taken on the King v. Burwell case over the legality of Obamacare subsidies in states which don't have their own Obamacare exchanges.
I need to address another item of Greenhouse gas contained therein, namely her claim that the Affordable Care Act requires no one to "spend more than 8 percent of his or her income of health insurance." That's only true if one chooses not to get covered.
On Sunday, Governor Bobby Jindal (R-La.) sat down with Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd on Sunday, November 16 and was repeatedly hit from the left over his refusal to expand Medicaid as part of ObamaCare. Todd began the interview by asking Jindal “but obviously, expanding Medicaid coverage, you'd have more people off of the uninsured roles in Louisiana if you did it. Why aren't you doing it?”