Obama lies about his role in the Cornhusker Kickback

The president went on Fox News yesterday for a rare interview with a network his former communications director once described as not practicing news. Obama's interviewer was Bret Baier, who asked tenaciously about the special deals and procedural tricks that have been used to push ObamaCare through Congress. This is perhaps the first time Obama has ever been directly asked about the procedural details of the bill.

At one point, Baier pressed the president on the Cornhusker Kickback, the infamous deal that would have paid off Nebraska's Medicaid bills indefinitely and forever. The deal was struck to persuade Sen. Ben Nelson to vote for ObamaCare despite his hang-ups about abortion. Regarding the Cornhusker Kickback, Obama declared, "I have said that there's certain provisions, like this Nebraska one, that don't make sense and that needed to be out. And we have removed those."

This is simply untrue. The White House was almost certainly the architect of the Cornhusker Kickback. After Nelson announced his concerns over the abortion language in the bill, Obama began persistently meeting with the Nebraska senator at the White House. Nelson had a number of private one-on-one sessions with the president, with whom he was close friends. It was after these meetings that the Cornhusker Kickback was announced and Nelson switched from a no to yes vote. Of course, the idea could have been proposed by Harry Reid or another Senate Democrat, but it was certainly inserted in the bill with Obama's blessing. Obama's claim that he was above all this dealmaking is false. This is his Chicago politics.

The Cornhusker Kickback was never actually removed from the Senate bill, as the president claimed. The president toyed around with the idea of paying off all the states' Medicaid bills, but only after Nelson's deal became so politically toxic that even Nelson came out against it. The reconciliation sidecar does away with the Cornhusker Kickback, but only after the deal was conveniently used to bribe Nelson to help break the filibuster.

Baier's full interview with the president was riveting and contentious. Here's the video:

Blue Dogs' saving grace: Obama threatens not to campaign for Dems voting no!

With the fate of ObamaCare in the hands of nervous Blue Dog Democrats, Obama has decided to do what he does best: strongarm Chicago politics.

The president will refuse to make fund-raising visits during November elections to any district whose representative has not backed the bill.

...

Mr Obama's threat came as the year-long debate over his signature domestic policy entered its final week.

Mr Obama is personally telephoning congressmen who are still on the fence this week, in between several personal appearances devoted toward swinging public opinion.

It will be interesting to see if moderate Democrats actually vote no based on the president's threat. Most Blue Dog Democrats are from fiscally conservative districts where Obama's approval rating is in the toilet plumbing. Keeping the president away during election season, as Obama threatened, has to be a top priority. This isn't mockery or hyperbole: Last week vulnerable Democrats in Pennsylvania and Ohio skipped scheduled speeches by the president on health care. Every serious poll shows that voters will be far more likely to vote against a Democrat if he or she votes yes on health care reform, and Obama is the front-and-center face of health care reform. This is one arm-twist that might actually backfire.

Feds step in to save Obama crony's bank as Giannoulias heads for the White House

llinois Senate candidate and one-man corruption machine Alexi Giannoulias is furiously calling in favors to the feds. Giannoulias is a former creature of the Barack Obama-Rod Blagojevich-Tony Rezko Chicago cesspool. He's also the owner of Broadway Bank, which is currently failing miserably. Fortunately, Giannoulias knows how to get himself out of a sticky situation.

The family of Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias stands to collect more than $10 million in federal tax refunds even if its Broadway Bank fails, which Mr. Giannoulias said this week is likely.

A $75-million loss at the struggling lender last year generated tax benefits potentially worth between $12 million and $15 million to Mr. Giannoulias, his two brothers and his mother. As the sole owners of a subchapter S corporation that controls $1.2-billion-asset Broadway, they pay the taxes on the bank’s income and reap tax deductions on its losses.

The possibility of family members pocketing millions in tax refunds as Broadway slides toward insolvency and federal receivership is likely to fuel more controversy for Mr. Giannoulias, who is already under fire for his role in the bank’s downfall. In an interview this week, he took some responsibility for a disastrous expansion of real estate lending when he was senior lender at Broadway in the mid-2000s, before winning election as Illinois treasurer in 2006.

If the Giannoulias family's shambles of a bank collapses, the millions in losses would be absorbed by the FDIC insurance fund, much of which could be passed on to taxpayers. Meanwhile the Giannouliases would walk away with $10 million in tax benefits, despite their mismanagement. It's a pretty sweet deal. Obama and Giannoulias are old friends and used to play basketball together, although with Giannoulias it's impossible to know where the money is coming from. He's done business with countless shady Chicago characters, including mobsters.

Meanwhile, Giannoulias will be slinking off to the White House to hopefully call in another favor.

Embattled Illinois Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias -- an old Obama ally, but not his preferred candidate -- will be by the White House for Greek Independence Day tomorrow, and the local press has been asking the campaign what kind of welcome he'll receive.

I'm told he's likely to stop in and chat with political aides like Axelrod and Patrick Gaspard, part of a running effort to convince national Democrats not to write the race off.

So this Chicago corruption magnet somehow gets a sweetheart deal for his bank from the feds and now may get personal help for his Senate race from the White House.

Why we should believe Eric Massa

Eric Massa has proven himself to be a huge thorn in the Obama Administration's side lately and Robert Gibbs isn't happy. The pompous press flack went on Good Morning America today to open fire on the renegade congressman. "I think this whole story is ridiculous. I think the latest excuse is silly and ridiculous..." he said. "We’re focused not on crazy allegations, but instead of making this system work for the American people, rather than work for insurance companies.”

Other more serious people have also questioned whether Massa is telling the truth. Nobody likes to be seen promoting conspiracy theories after all. Massa may have handled the whole affair sloppily and his claims may seem outlandish, but his account of what happened definitely seems accurate. Here's why.

Massa was a key vote against ObamaCare. The New York congressman had pledged definitively to vote against health care reform because he wanted a single payer system. Obama and Rahm Emanuel don't have any wiggle room on this. Centrist Democrats are bailing off ObamaCare as fast as they can. Contrary to what is being written, ObamaCare isn't making a comeback, it's in its death throes. What we are witnessing is a final desperate attempt to pass a piece of wildly unpopular legislation. Obama is willing to do whatever needs to be done to get this passed and that includes sacrificing as many congressmen as necessary. Massa, who was already under Emanuel's skin, was especially expendable.

Massa's ethics complaint is small potatoes. The fact that Ted Kennedy had such a long career proves one thing: Politicians don't resign over remarks made when they're sloshed. The liberal wing of the House fought tooth and nail to defend Charlie Rangel against far more serious corruption. Rangel still hasn't resigned. Notoriously corrupt congressmen like John Murtha and Alan Mollohan never felt any pressure to leave. Most reps who appear before the Ethics Committee get away with a slap on the wrist. The Pelosi leadership doesn't give a damn about grand corruption, but we're supposed to believe that they took a principled stand against five minutes of drunken carousing?

Massa's district will almost certainly be picked up by a Republican now. Massa won in conservative western New York in 2006 because he was a tough, independent former Republican. The GOP is targeting Massa's district in 2010, according to the New York Times, which reported, "For months, Republican Party operatives have kept a close eye on Mr. Massa, the district’s freshman congressman, as he attempts to balance the conservative leanings of his district with the demands of his party’s liberal base." With Massa humiliated and gone, Republicans will almost certainly pick up his seat. Normally the House would have fought to protect such a vulnerable incumbent, but they didn't. Why? They needed him out of the way.

Massa's ethics complaint was leaked to the press. Steny Hoyer leaked the accusations against Massa to the press even though he'd already known about them for a month. As Massa himself wondered, since when do your political allies alert the media about your personal troubles? And why would Hoyer wait until the health care debate was back in full swing to attack Massa?

All of this smells too fishy to just be a coincidence. We already knows the Obama administration practices Chicago politics. These are the same people that tried to deny Jon Kyl's state stimulus funds after he spoke against the bill. They're the same bunch who tried to kneecap Fox News with a Mao Tse-tung apologist. Of course they would try to railroad Massa. With him out of the way, the number of votes Nancy Pelosi needs to swing a wrecking ball at our health care system is down to 216. Be sure to tune in to Fox News' Glenn Beck tonight for Massa's first televised interview since he announced his resignation.

White House bullies a Democrat out of office

Rep. Eric Massa is a left-wing kook, but he's a very principled left-wing kook. Massa has caused the White House several splitting headaches during the ObamaCare debate, arguing that the bill isn't progressive enough. Massa ultimately voted against the bill and planned to do so again, until last week when he announced his resignation. He has cancer, but that wasn't the only problem. Apparently the House Ethics Committee was investigating a complaint that Massa had made sexual advances on a male member of his staff. For some reason, House Majority Leader eagerly dispensed this information to the press.

Now we know why.

Roll Call reports this morning that on the local radio show he hosts in his district, Massa said he had not been informed of the sexual harassment allegations before they became public. He claimed that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., spoke falsely when he said he had brought the matter to him previously, Massa said. “Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me, at all, ever, not once," Massa said. "Not a word. This is a lie. It’s a blatant, false statement."

He also railed against Hoyer for discussing Ethics Committee business with the press. "Never before in the history of the House of Representatives has a sitting leader of the Democratic Party discussed allegations of House investigations publicly before findings of fact. Ever."

Massa, who voted against health care reform in November, accused Democratic leaders of driving him out of office in the cause of passing health care reform. "With the departure of Congressman Neil Abercrombie (D), who is running for the governorship of Hawaii, and with the tragic and very sad passing of my personal friend Jack Murtha (D-Pa.), mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill and this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill. And now they’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass. You connect the dots."

Massa said he made the sexual comments as a joke while drunk with several staffers at a wedding reception. That hardly rises to the level of resignation. If awkward drunken behavior was a career killer, no one in Washington, DC would have a job, and Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd would have been exiled to another country. Hoyer made the complaint public to get Massa out of the way, probably at the behest of Rahm Emanuel, whom Massa says hated him. It's the perfect message to other congressmen who are wavering on ObamaCare. Go ahead, vote against our bill. It'd just be a shame if your personal life ended up on the front page of the New York Times, wouldn't it? It's Chicago politics at its most desperate.

Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be working. Nancy Pelosi doesn't have the votes to push ObamaCare through and not a single "no" vote has resolved that they'll switch. Meanwhile, Bart Stupak's pro-life coalition of Democrat no votes is gaining new members. Finally, it seems, Washington has had enough of Obama's thuggery and intimidation.

Obama nominates no-vote rep's brother to a judgeship

Talk about Chicago politics at its worst. You're not going to vote for ObamaCare? I'll tell you what, I'm going to go ahead and make your brother a judge. Think about that, sleep on it, and tell me how you feel tomorrow.

Rep. Jim Matheson is one of ten Democrats who voted "no" on ObamaCare who the president is trying to woo. Yesterday evening, the ten were invited to meet with the president at the White House so he could make his case. Mere hours before the meeting, the White House fired off a press release nominating Matheson's brother, Scott, to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Scott Matheson has been a law professor for 25 years and is undoubtedly qualified for the position. But the timing of the nomination is completely shameless.

We'll see how many more legislators Obama and the Democratic leadership have to buy off before this massive travesty of a bill gets a final vote. To his enormous credit, Jim Matheson seemed unfazed by the nomination and said he wanted to see a more bipartisan bill. Hopefully he'll stick to his principles.

Is Obama going to start blackmailing banks again?

The lesson Democrats learned from Scott Brown's victory in the Massachusetts special election was not that Obama's health care plan is a failure. Somehow, it's that Barack Obama isn't doing enough taking on the banks. With his ears ever attuned to left-wing radicals, Obama is now shadowboxing American banking institutions, pledging to stop the excesses of big banks, many of which lined his pockets during the campaign.

So is Obama going to start blackmailing banks again? A few months back, Pierre Sutton, president of Inner City Broadcasting Corp which owns minority radio shows, was suddenly granted a loan by Goldman Sachs. This was done even though Inner City was in financial ruin. It was all courtesy of Obama, who knew Mr. Sutton, and his treasury secretary and former Goldman Sachs man Timothy Geithner.

This cronyism was similar to another incident when Obama was a senator. In 2008 a company called Republic Windows & Doors shuttered a plant and laid off workers after Bank of America refused a loan to the failing company. The workers went on strike and then-Governor Rod Blagojevich stepped in, threatening to cut off all Illinois government business with Bank of America unless the loan was made. BoA quickly conceded. Barack Obama supported this blackmail, saying, "They're absolutely right. These workers, if they have earned these benefits and their pay, then these companies need to follow through on those commitments."

For banks that are so powerful and dangerous, Obama sure seems like he's able to control them pretty easily. Keep an eye out for this sort of Chicago politics coming up.

Chicago politics even extends to the OMB

Under Barack Obama, brass-knuckled Chicago politics has pervaded the entire United States government. Now today comes word that the president's kneecapping tactics are in play even at the Office of Management and Budget, a relatively nonpartisan agency responsible for crafting the U.S. budget.

According to Office of Personnel Management Inspector General Patrick McFarland, on January 4, an official from the OPM was on the phone with a high-ranking OMB official. The OPM has the right to bring complaints and concerns about the budget to Congress. The official from the OMB warned the official from the OPM that, if he went to Congress about the 2011 budget, the OMB would "make life miserable" for the OPM. A House committee is now investigating the matter.

One can only imagine what sort of nefariousness in the president's 2011 budget has the OMB so worried.

Is there any department or agency that is safe from the president's Chicago brand of politics?