White House aides tried to stop ObamaCare

Barack Obama has previously declared himself a "pragmatist" rather than an "ideologue" and insisted that he listens to all points of view. Not so, according to a recent White House expose by Bloomberg. According to the article, several of Obama's closest advisors tried to talk him down from his health care dreams, worrying about the practical and electoral consequences. The president, a profile in stubbornness, refused to listen.

-- Rahm Emanuel, the most moderate of Obama's advisors, "suggested the president consider a scaled-back version and declare victory" after Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts. Obama refused. Earlier on, in a meeting shortly after Inauguration Day, Emanuel also warned the president about taking on health care reform.

-- Joe Biden is described as being "pessimistic" about health care reform from the very beginning. At the post-Inauguration Day meeting, Biden "said Americans didn’t care enough about health-care coverage to make it a priority".

-- David Axelrod "voiced caution" at the same meeting. Later on in the debate, he confronted the president and explained, "The polls are difficult and there’s a lot of grousing on the Hill about it, and this is going to cost a lot politically in the short run." Obama still refused to back down.

-- Even Ezekiel Emanuel, a rationing-obsessed budget advisor to the president, was skeptical. After Scott Brown emerged victorious in Massachusetts, he wrote in an e-mail that health care reform was "dead...F---ing dead."

In the end, Obama ignored all of them, along with countless Democrat legislators and a majority of the American people. He did have one key ally though. Politico has reported that the president was pushed hard by Nancy Pelosi to ignore Emanuel's concerns and still pass the bill. Ultimately he sided with her over virtually everyone else.

Rahm, Jarrett bully businesses

Last week, several businesses announced that they would sustain massive losses because of ObamaCare and would likely have to fire workers. These included giants like Caterpillar, Verizon, AT&T, and Deere & Co. Caterpillar announced they would lose $100 million in the first year alone. AT&T put its cost at $1 billion. With polls showing a solid majority of Americans think passage of ObamaCare was a bad thing, the White House can't take this lying down.

"These are Republican CEOs who are trying to embarrass the President and Democrats in general," says a White House legislative affairs staffer. "Where do you hear about this stuff? The Wall Street Journal editorial page and conservative websites. No one else picked up on this but you guys. It's BS."

On Friday White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett were calling the CEOs and Washington office heads of the companies that took the financial hits and attacked them for doing so. One Washington office head said that the White House calls were accusatory and "downright rude."

This is political intimidation in its finest form, both of journalists and businessmen. Emanuel is a master of the threatening hissy fit and Jarrett has played her share of hardball politics as well. Still, for a presidential administration to try to shut companies up for something as simple as reporting losses is unprecedented in our history.

And it's not just the White House.

Waxman of California, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak of Michigan released letters they wrote to the executives, saying their plans to record expenses against earnings as a result of the law contradict other estimates. The lawmakers requested the executives appear at hearing Stupak plans on April 21.

“The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs, so your assertions are a matter of concern,” Waxman and Stupak, both Democrats, wrote in the letters yesterday. “They also appear to conflict with independent analyses.”

In other words, Waxman is outraged because what his friends at the Center for American Progress said would happen with their "independent analyses" isn't actually going to happen.

The problem here is in Medicare Part D. Previously the government had offered tax subsidies for all companies that offered Part D to their retirees. Businesses like Caterpillar and AT&T quickly signed on, seeing it as a cost-effective way to take care of their retired employees. ObamaCare cuts these subsidies because the president wanted a way to make the bill appear deficit-neutral to the CBO. When Republicans warned that Medicare cuts could hurt seniors and companies, they were shouted down by Obama and company. Now that their warnings are playing out in real life, the White House is desperately trying to cover up the evidence.

House condemns Obama on Israel

Last week, Barack Obama kicked American-Israeli relations to their lowest point in decades by abandoning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House. An Israeli aide later said Netayahu had been treated in a way usually reserved for the president of Equatorial Guinea. Obama's actions were so offensive that a heavy majority in the House of Representatives condemned the president over the weekend.

Meanwhile, in Washington, 337 congressmen – three-quarters of the House of Representatives – signed a bipartisan letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing solid support for Israel and the expectation that differences between Jerusalem and Washington will be smoothed over quickly and in private.

“We are writing to reaffirm our commitment to the unbreakable bond that exists between our country and the State of Israel and to express to you our deep concern over recent tension,” the letter read. “A strong Israel is an asset to the national security of the United States and brings stability to the Middle East.

“We are concerned that the highly publicized tensions in the relationship will not advance the interests the US and Israel share. Above all, we must remain focused on the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear weapons program to Middle East peace and stability.”

The letter stated that the US’s unswerving commitment to Israel’s security has been essential in forging previous Israeli-Arab peace agreements, “both because it convinced those who sought Israel’s destruction to abandon any such hope and because it gave successive Israeli governments the confidence to take calculated risks for peace.”

"Deep concern" is fighting words in Capitol Hill's hyper-polite culture. Condemnation of his policy on Israel might be Obama's first, real, bipartisan achievement. The highest signatories were House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor. Blue Dog Democrats also signed en masse.

All this led to some spectacular backtracking by David Axelrod. The president's advisor had previously called Netanyahu's decision to build apartments in East Jerusalem "destructive" to peace and "an insult." Yesterday on CNN, he moderated his rhetoric, insisting that there had been "no snub intended" by the United States and that Israel is a "close, dear and valued friend of the United States, a great ally, and that is an unshakeable bond." All this should serve as a message to moderate Democrat congressmen: If you band together and stand firm, the president will be forced to listen.

Meanwhile, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has kept his lips sealed. He can't be happy about the administration's snub though. Emanuel is a former civilian volunteer with the Israeli Defense Forces and has strong connections to Israel. He's also a close friend of Axelrod's, with whom he's likely spoken since Netanyahu's visit.

Clash between two of Obama's czars

One of the downsides about appointing unelected and unaccountable officials is there's usually no one to reign them in. As Obama's treatment of Israel creates tremors throughout his administration, Central Region Czar Dennis Ross and Mideast Peace Czar George Mitchell are having at it.

Sources say within the inter-agency process, White House Middle East strategist Dennis Ross is staking out a position that Washington needs to be sensitive to Netanyahu’s domestic political constraints including over the issue of building in East Jerusalem in order to not raise new Arab demands, while other officials including some aligned with Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell are arguing Washington needs to hold firm in pressing Netanyahu for written commitments to avoid provocations that imperil Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and to preserve the Obama administration's credibility.

Ross is perhaps Obama's sanest czar. A product of the president's "team of rivals" thinking at the beginning of his term, Ross fervently supported the Iraq War and worked as a Fox News contributor. Mitchell is a former Democratic Senate Majority Leader and is widely respected throughout the Middle East. Nevertheless, his comment about staying tough on Israel so Obama doesn't lose "credibility" is very telling. In other words, the president has hurt feelings because Netanyahu announced the apartments' construction in East Jerusalem while Biden was in the country. But it's difficult to see how snubbing the leader of one of America's strongest allies in the White House boosts their credibility.

Either way, Ross will now have to be destroyed by the more radical elements of the Obama Administration. An unnamed official is leading the charge.

“He [Ross] seems to be far more sensitive to Netanyahu's coalition politics than to U.S. interests,” one U.S. official told POLITICO Saturday. “And he doesn't seem to understand that this has become bigger than Jerusalem but is rather about the credibility of this Administration."

So American-Israeli relations are in shambles, the president doesn't care, and the one czar who expresses concern is practically accused of treason.

Messina's history of primary meddling and bribery

As we've reported, Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, locked in a heated Democratic primary with White House tool Arlen Specter, has alleged that the Obama Administration tried to bribe him. According to Sestak, Obama's henchmen offered him a high-ranking post in the administration if he dropped his primary challenge to Specter. Many have speculated that the position was Secretary of the Navy, as Sestak is a former admiral. White House press flack Robert Gibbs has refused to deny the allegations on four separate occasions.

We've been wondering for weeks: Who made the bribe? Sestak is almost certainly telling the truth, so who's the culprit? Rahm Emanuel and Patrick Gaspard are likely suspects, but another name has emerged today: Jim Messina. Messina is Obama's deputy chief of staff -- and he has a history of this sort of corruption.

From the September 27, 2009 edition of the Denver Post:

Not long after news leaked last month that Andrew Romanoff was determined to make a Democratic primary run against Sen. Michael Bennet, Romanoff received an unexpected communication from one of the most powerful men in Washington.

Jim Messina, President Barack Obama's deputy chief of staff and a storied fixer in the White House political shop, suggested a place for Romanoff might be found in the administration and offered specific suggestions, according to several sources who described the communication to The Denver Post.

Romanoff turned down the overture, which included mention of a job at USAID, the foreign aid agency, sources said.

Then, the day after Romanoff formally announced his Senate bid, Obama endorsed Bennet.

Romanoff was the Colorado Speaker of the House at the time. The Denver Post spends the rest of the article arguing that such bribery is commonplace in Washington. But that's simply not the case. Even with political mastermind Karl Rove at the helm, George W. Bush's administration never offered anyone a job in exchange for dropping out of a race. Further, according to U.S. Code 18, Section 595, someone who “uses his official authority for the purpose of interfering with, or affecting, the nomination or the election of any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate of the District of Columbia or Resident Commissioner, shall be fined under the title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.” This is criminal activity.

Messina is essentially Rahm Jr. -- he shares his boss' love of profanity and Machiavellian political tactics. But he's also far less visible than Emanuel, shunning the press and preferring privacy. He seems like the perfect choice to bribe a bothersome Democrat politician.

Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican of California, is threatening to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Sestak flap. If he succeeds, one of Obama's top political henchmen could find himself facing criminal charges.

Secretary of Education under investigation for Chicago corruption

Yesterday it surfaced that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was under investigation for his days at the Chicago Public Schools. Duncan had maintained a list of well-connected Chicagoans who would get their children bumped to the front of the line to get into elite schools. The selection process was supposed to be based on merit, not social status.

Now Duncan may find himself in some serious hot water.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has been interviewed by the Chicago Public Schools' inspector general as part of an investigation into how kids won admission to the city's most competitive public high schools while Duncan ran the system here, the Chicago Sun-Times learned Tuesday.

Duncan's name surfaced about 10 times on a 2008 log, now in possession of federal investigators, that contained the names of elected officials and others who interceded on behalf of students trying to win admission to the system's elite schools, sources told the Sun-Times.

Mayor Daley insisted Tuesday that there was nothing wrong with Duncan's office maintaining such a log because "no favoritism" resulted from it.

Daley's defense doesn't pass the laugh test. The names on the list were socialites who knew Duncan well. And even if they weren't, it's impossible to argue that bumping someone to the front based on anything other than school performance isn't favoritism. If there was genuinely nothing wrong with what Duncan did, he wouldn't have kept the list under lock and key, as he did. If Duncan received anything in return for his special list (and it's hard to imagine he didn't), then he could be headed to prison for illegal lobbying. As Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass wrote about the incident, "And once again, the bright road that is the Chicago Way is paved with shiny bricks for all to see."

At this point, Daley may just be defending himself. The Chicago mayor was on the list, as was former White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers, and Attorney General Lisa Madigan, close ally of Obama and Rahm. Obama transplanted the well-connected circle of Chicagoans who benefited from Duncan's malfeasance into the White House. If the inspector general wants to really get to the bottom of this scandal, he's going to have to look through the highest levels of government.

The base corruption of Obama's Education Secretary

Breaking news out of Chicago this morning that should lead to the resignation of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, at the very least.

While many Chicago parents took formal routes to land their children in the best schools, the well-connected also sought help through a shadowy appeals system created in recent years under former schools chief Arne Duncan.

Whispers have long swirled that some children get spots in the city's premier schools based on whom their parents know. But a list maintained over several years in Duncan's office and obtained by the Tribune lends further evidence to those charges. Duncan is now secretary of education under President Barack Obama.

The log is a compilation of politicians and influential business people who interceded on behalf of children during Duncan's tenure. It includes 25 aldermen, Mayor Richard Daley's office, House Speaker Michael Madigan, his daughter Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers and former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun.

...

The list was maintained by a top Duncan aide, David Pickens, currently chief of staff to the president of the Chicago Board of Education. Pickens said he created the log at Duncan's behest to track the flood of calls pouring into district offices from parents, politicians and business leaders trying to navigate the system's mysterious and maligned application process.

...

The initials "AD" are listed 10 times as the sole person requesting help for a student, and as a co-requester about 40 times. Pickens said "AD" stood for Arne Duncan, though Duncan's involvement is unclear. Duncan's mother appears as a sponsor, as does "KD," whom Pickens identified as Karen Duncan, Arne's wife.

While Duncan was abusing his power to get his well-connected friends' children into good schools, other children were growing up educationally-stunted. Chicago's public schools are the second-worst in the nation. Many have criticized Obama in the past for rewarding failure by promoting Duncan to education secretary. Now we know he was also rewarding blatant corruption.

It's highly unlikely Obama himself didn't know about Duncan's list. Desiree Rogers, the White House's own former social secretary and close friend of the First Lady's, received preferential treatment. So did Lisa Madigan, a friend of Obama's and Rahm's who the White House favored to take over the president's former Senate seat. If there is a legitimate investigation into this (and in Chicago that's a huge "if"), it could find guilt at our highest levels of government.

Rahm using GPS to track major White House players

CBS aired a rare interview with Rahm Emanuel last night. Among the usual blather about how much Emanuel swears and his penchant for political hardball, Katie Couric was given a tour of Rahm's White House office. Next to Emanuel's desk computer was another device: a GPS tracking system.

According to Couric, Emanuel uses the device to track the major players at the White House, including the president, first lady, vice president, second lady, and their family members. The readout shows where each person is, right down to the very room they're in. Presumably the GPS is activated through its quarries' cell phones, which emit an electronic signal that can be pinpointed. For some reason, CBS was allowed to point a camera at the device's screen. If you look carefully, you'll notice two names at the bottom who are listed as being in Chicago -- "SAP David" and "SAP Valerie". That would be Senior Advisors to the President David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett.

Given what a ruthless and paranoid political operator Emanuel is, the fact that he's tracking the most powerful men in the world via GPS is concerning. This sort of cell phone stalking is usually reserved for the National Security Agency, which has often abused the power. The only way to stop a cell phone from emitting a traceable signal is to remove its battery -- something Republicans might want to consider next time they're at the White House.

Watch the full interview here:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Blago continues his revenge against Rahm

It hasn't been an easy month for Rahm Emanuel. Obama's brass-knuckled chief of staff has been taking punches of his own, first from angry progressives and then from shower buddy Eric Massa. But if Massa's revenge has worn its course, another Emanuel associate, Rod Blagojevich, is only getting started. It's been reported that Blago is furious that he was punished for trying to sell Obama's Senate seat while Obama, Emanuel, and Valerie Jarrett got off scot-free. Emanuel is his first target.

Said Blagojevich [in an interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News], "Yeah the deal on senate seat with me was, I was not selling a senate seat for financial gain, or money that's a lie. I wanted to make a political deal. The attorney general of Illinois, Lisa Madigan, her father is the Democratic house speaker, he was blocking a public works bill, he was blocking expanding health care, and he was pushing a tax increase.

"I wanted Rahm and sought Rahm out to be the middleman to make the deal happen. I would appoint her senator in exchange for the jobs bill, health care expansion, and written promise not to raise taxes on people. Rahm was prepared to do it and then everything changed when I was arrested 6:00 in the morning.

"In fact, the day before my arrest, I directed my chief of staff to work out the tactics, and that meant working with Rahm. I wanted Rahm, not Senator Durbin, who also offered to help because he's a lot tougher. And he's the kind of guy, if he sees a guy who if he sees a congressman in the locker room, whether clothed or not he's going to press you for what he thinks he wants to try to get done.

"And that story about him and the other congressman, is the reason why I wanted Rahm to make the deal on senate seat, because this is a guy who knows how to get it done," Blagojevich said.

It's well known that the White House favored Lisa Madigan for the seat over both Roland Burris and current contender Alexi Giannoulias. Blagojevich is certainly lying about not trying to sell Obama's Senate seat, but his accusations against Rahm ring true.

We already know that Rahm was part of a small council that burned the midnight oil getting Blago elected in 2002. We also know he's been wheeling and dealing with Blago for years, most notably when the governor secured a bill on bringing Ultimate Fighting to the state on behalf of Rahm's brother and Hollywood mega-agent Ari. Rahm is on the FBI tapes of phone conversations with Blago. Emanuel has been mixed up with Blago's Chicago crowd from the beginning and it seems impossible that he wasn't instrumental in carrying out the governor's plans. When the FBI finally releases the tapes, Emanuel could very well be implicated...and so could the president.

White House officials facing prison time over Sestak bribe?

Last week, Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak claimed that the White House had offered him a top position in the government if he would drop out of his Senate race. Sestak is locked in a brutal primary against White House ally Arlen Specter, who Obama coaxed over from the Republican Party. Now two members of Congress have expressed concern that the White House may have committed a crime.

[Senator Arlen] Specter said [on MSNBC], “There is a specific federal statute, which makes it a bribe to make an offer for a public office. When I was district attorney, if somebody came and told me that, I would say, well, name names. Name dates. Name places. That’s a very serious charge. It’s a big black smear without specification. I’m telling you there is a federal crime, punishable by jail. Anybody who wants to say that ought to back it up.

Congressman Sestak has gotten a lot of political mileage out of that. It’s really an attack on the administration.”

...

Meanwhile, Rep. [Darrell] Issa wrote a letter on Wednesday to White House Counsel Robert Bauer citing U.S. Code 18, Sections 211, 595, and 600 regarding the bribery of a public official. Section 595 says someone who “uses his official authority for the purpose of interfering with, or affecting, the nomination or the election of any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate of the District of Columbia or Resident Commissioner, shall be fined under the title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”

Whoever made this bribe, likely someone high up in the administration, could go to prison for a year if convicted. The guilty party was likely one of the president's political advisors. Patrick Gaspard seems too clever and elusive to stick his neck out like this. Rahm Emanuel is the main suspect, but Valerie Jarrett and David Plouffe are also possibilities. It's also improbable that the briber was acting without the express permission of Obama, although the president will undoubtedly claim ignorance and let someone else take the fall.

Should we believe Sestak? The only denial of his claims by the administration thus far have been from a single anonymous official. Robert Gibbs has ducked the question three times. If no one is willing to attach their name to this, it's hard to believe they have nothing to hide. It's also hard to believe Sestak, a former Navy admiral, would want to make enemies at the White House before he even entered the Senate.

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.

The Ice Man Cometh

Eric Massa's rollicking revenge on the White House continues! This video just surfaced of Massa on the campaign trail when he gets a little visit from America's most unlikeable political operative. If you don't have time to watch the entire thing, check out the last 45 seconds.

Henceforth, we're referring to Rahm as the Ice Man -- the guy who shows up and stands there coldly when you've done something wrong. (He'll make a nice complement to Patrick Gaspard, the Glue Man.) As in the video, Massa's attitude really does seem to be "fuck 'em", indeed he seems intent on destroying the entire Democrat apparatus during his fall from grace. This, my friends, is going to be fun.

Massa will also be chatting with Glenn Beck, the Obama Administration's archnemesis, for an entire hour on Fox News tomorrow.

Rahm Emanuel's naked thuggery

The most fun part about the White House's kneecapping of Rep. Eric Massa is watching Massa try to take out as many Democrats as possible on the way down. His latest target is Rahm Emanuel, about whom Massa told a very, um, revealing story on his radio show today.

That's a mental image nobody wants to live with. Rahm sounds like an LBJ-wannabe: President Johnson would often call meetings at the White House swimming pool and show up naked to intimidate his staff. In any case, if Massa has any more revealing or embarrassing stories about White House insiders, we enthusiastically encourage him to keep talking.

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.

Rahm strikes a nerve with David Axelrod

The recent speculation over whether Rahm Emanuel is splitting with the administration hasn't gone over well with David Axelrod.

“This is what Washington does — it gets itself into a tizzy,” White House senior adviser David Axelrod said, adding that the president’s team is determined to “stay tight.” “We dismiss it for what it is. There aren’t 10 people outside of Washington who give a rat’s ass about any of this. They’ve got bigger stuff to worry about, and we’re trying to worry about that. The same people who are all in a tizzy right now are the same people who called us idiots for the better part of two years.”

Except people outside Washington are concerned about this. Axelrod, who is one of the president's closest advisors, has been described as seeing the president as a political messiah. Two of the president's other three top dogs, Robert Gibbs and Valerie Jarrett, reportedly feel the same way. If the already-arrogant president is being advised by suck-ups who worship the ground he walks on, he can't be trusted to run the country.

Axelrod also said that Obama's administration is completely united, which we know is completely bogus. Emanuel has been trying to talk the president off his health care/KSM civilian trial suicide path for months now. Axelrod apparently still isn't listening.

Is Rahm playing CYA on health care?

For weeks, we've been wondering what Rahm Emanuel is up to. The fiery chief of staff has been leaking stories to the Washington Post arguing that he's the only one at the White House who has a clue. According to the articles, if Obama had listened to Emanuel's more moderate advice, he wouldn't be sinking in political quicksand today. In particular, Emanuel emphasized that he wants the administration to quietly abandon health care and start talking about job creation.

Previously, we've wondered if Emanuel is just trying to stave off the radical left, which hates Rahm right now for his pragmatism. Now, we have a different theory. Obama is mounting one last attempt to try to ram through his health care legislation, which the public overwhelmingly despises. He may as well lead congressional Blue Dog Democrats onto a plane and then fly them into the side of a mountain. Moderate Democrats, with their eyes on the election calendar, are starting to buck the president. A single ObamaCare bill needs another majority vote in both the House and the Senate to become law. It almost certainly won't happen.

Rahm, who wants to shift the focus to jobs, no doubt realizes how incredibly stupid this is. When ObamaCare fails again and Republicans clean up this November, Democrats are going to start looking for a scapegoat. Rahm's message? "It sure as hell wasn't my fault. I tried to stop this crazy thing."

It almost makes you pity Emanuel. We've noted before how the president's three other closest advisors -- Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett, and David Axelrod -- all see Obama's election as manifest destiny for radical progressives. Poor Rahm is a realist surrounded by left-wing whackjobs who think Obama is a secular Christ figure. He's also a moderate check on their extreme views, which means we should hope he keeps his job for as long as possible.

Rahm the only thing standing between Obama and total lunacy

Last week, ObamaWatchNews reported on some drama surrounding Rahm Emanuel. After Leslie Gelb wrote a piece calling for Rahm's resignation, a column appeared later in the Washington Post defending Emanuel. Gelb said he believed the report had been written thanks to a leak from Rahm, who wanted to defend himself.

Today the Post ran another pro-Rahm puff piece headlined "Hotheaded Emanuel may be White House voice of reason." The piece confirmed many of our worst fears: Rahm Emanuel is the only levelheaded person at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Sourced by many of Rahm's closest henchmen, the article describes a pragmatic Emanuel surrounded by crazed ideologues. Early on in the administration, for example, Rahm warned the president that trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian court would be a disaster. The president instead listened to his attorney general, Eric Holder, who was clamoring for a show trial in New York City. Emanuel also grew discouraged with the president's obsession with health care, wishing that he would shift focus to actually helping create jobs for people.

This is the situation in which America now finds itself: Rahm Emanuel, who once sent a dead fish to a political enemy, is the most sane person in the executive branch of government. What will become of Rahm? He's under attack by leftists to the point that he feels the need to stage newspaper articles defending himself. If he resigns, God only knows what will happen.

More on Rahm

Here's an update on our last post on Rahm Emanuel. Dana Milbank's piece, which defended Emanuel and attacked his critics like Leslie Gelb, got its information from a leak in the administration somewhere. Where else but from Emanuel himself? It looks like the famously combative Rahm is doing a little self defense.

ObamaWatchNews has previously reported that the president's brain trust consists of four people: David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett, and Emanuel. Interestingly, Milbank attacks all of them, except Rahm, as being "in love with the president" -- information that could have only come from the inside. It almost makes you wonder if Emanuel wrote the whole piece himself.

Emanuel must be very isolated in the administration right now. If he's going so far as to leak inside information to reporters in order to defend himself, resignation seems like the next logical step. Once he goes, there will be nothing standing between the president and his administration's radical leftists.

Rahm Emanuel: The sanest person in the White House?

Can it be so? Dana Milbank wrote a fascinating column in the Washington Post wondering if Emanuel is the only sane person in the west wing.

"Obama's problem is that his other confidants -- particularly Valerie Jarrett and Robert Gibbs, and, to a lesser extent, David Axelrod -- are part of the Cult of Obama. In love with the president, they believe he is a transformational figure who needn't dirty his hands in politics.

The president would have been better off heeding Emanuel's counsel. For example, Emanuel bitterly opposed former White House counsel Greg Craig's effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, arguing that it wasn't politically feasible. Obama overruled Emanuel, the deadline wasn't met, and Republicans pounced on the president and the Democrats for trying to bring terrorists to U.S. prisons. Likewise, Emanuel fought fiercely against Attorney General Eric Holder's plan to send Khalid Sheik Mohammed to New York for a trial. Emanuel lost, and the result was another political fiasco.

Obama's greatest mistake was failing to listen to Emanuel on health care. Early on, Emanuel argued for a smaller bill with popular items, such as expanding health coverage for children and young adults, that could win some Republican support. He opposed the public option as a needless distraction."

When Rahm is the only thing standing between Obama and his dreams of a left-wing fantasy land you know we're screwed.

And they're off! Obama's 2012 campaign to be run by devious Rahm clone

While most people are worrying about finding a job or paying their taxes in April, Obama is worried about getting reelected. Two years out, the president is already planning his 2012 campaign strategy. The man he's put in charge is someone you've probably never heard of before.

His name is Jim Messina and he's one of the president's most trusted cronies. He's a cross between Rahm Emanuel and Patrick Gaspard. Like Emanuel, Messina is a profane, hard-hitting politico who tolerates no disloyalty or incompetence. He and Rahm are good friends. But like Gaspard, Messina keeps an extremely low profile. He rarely does press interviews and is never seen giving his opinion on cable news. He's known around the White House as one of Barack Obama's "fixers".

One of his sneakiest attempted "fixes" was for Obama's health care reform. Last April, Messina and his former boss Sen. Max Baucus convened a meeting with PhRMA, the lobbying arm of pharmaceutical companies. The doors were shut so no one really knows what went on. But by the end of the gathering, Messina had worked out a deal in which PhRMA would spend $24 million on advertising campaigns in support of reform.

But despite his behind-the-scenes work, Messina goes for the jugulars of his political opponents. In 2005, he was responsible for the Democratic campaign against President Bush's proposed Social Security reform. Messina's main message was that Bush's plan would cut benefits. It was an egregious lie, but it worked and the whole initiative went up in smoke. Today, thanks to Messina, Social Security is slated to go bankrupt in 2037.

Messina will run a dirty campaign in 2012, but he won't be alone. Anita Dunn, former White House communications director and Mao Tse-Tung enthusiast, will reportedly be "intimately involved." So will political director Patrick Gaspard, and all his ACORN and SEIU friends. David Axelrod will be dispatched to Chicago to mastermind the "Reform" campaign (you can't do Change when you're the sitting President) and Valerie Jarrett will head up Special Ops at the White House.