Another radical to oversee Medicare

Even so-called sacred trusts like Medicare aren't safe from Obama's radicals. The New York Times has reported that Obama will appoint Dr. Donald Berwick, a pediatrician and Cambridge academic, to head up the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Both have been without an agency leader since 2006.

Berwick is a self-styled health care "revolutionary" who wants to "blow up" the system. His plan is to tear the existing health care system down and rebuild something new in its place. In other words, he's a perfect fit with our current president.

And then there's this, uncovered by World Net Daily.

At a 2008 Families USA conference speech documented by Health Beat, a healthcare industry blog, Berwick slammed the U.S. health-care system as "bloated" and "broken."

The blog points out Berwick noted, "There's a myth that American healthcare is the best in the world."

"It's not," he continued. "It's not even close."

"It's thought to be the best because we have the most health care," Berwick stated. However, he said, "40 percent of the care that Americans actually need is not received. ... Cost is the barrier.

"Here is a question I often ask my students," added Berwick. "When you meet a new patient, what is the one test that you could do that would tell you how long that patient is likely to live?

"Typically, students answer: 'Ask them if they smoke,' or 'Test their blood sugar.'

"No," Berwick said. "Just look at the color of their skin."

African-Americans may indeed be at greater health risks, but this is not related in any way to the American health care system.

Berwick has no bureaucratic or governmental experience whatsoever. He's more of an Ivory Tower health philosopher, dispensing edicts from on high about how there's too much money in the health care system. But when push comes to shove, it's difficult to figure out what his concrete solutions are. If Berwick survives his Senate confirmation, he'll have direct control over the lives of one-third of Americans, who depend on Medicare and Medicaid. He'll also help to implement ObamaCare, including moving 16 million new people onto Medicaid and extracting hundreds of billions in waste from Medicare.

Obama's abortion executive order is completely useless

Last night, ObamaCare passed the House of Representatives for the final time after the president persuaded Bart Stupak's pro-life Democrats to vote yes. Obama wooed Stupak with an executive order that will supposedly prevent taxpayer money from funding abortions. Unsurprisingly, the president hasn't signed the order yet, and it's just as well because it's total bunk. The text has been released already and the entire document is a big loophole.

The order would supposedly require insurance plans in the newly-created federal exchange to be segregated from private ones that provide abortions. This would prevent abortions from being funded by any public money. But the text never specifically establishes this segregation. Here's what it says instead:

"I hereby direct the Director of OMB and the Secretary of HHS to develop, within 180 days of the date of this Executive Order, a model set of segregation guidelines for state health insurance commissioners to use when determining whether exchange plans are complying with the Act's segregation requirements, established in Section 1303 of the Act, for enrollees receiving Federal financial assistance."

In other words, the executive order doesn't segregate the funds. It just asks OMB Director Peter Orszag and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to figure it out. Sebelius is stridently pro-choice and gained notoriety when she defended radical abortionist George Tiller in her home state of Kansas.

It would have been very easy for the president to simply type, "Under absolutely no circumstances shall federal funds be used for abortions except in the cases of rape and incest, and where the life of the mother is threatened." Instead we get this:

The Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to the newly-created health insurance exchanges.

In other words, if the Hyde Amendment is ever overturned -- certainly a possibility given how pro-abortion Obama is -- then this act enables federal funds galore to be used for abortions. When Massachusetts implemented its universal health care plan, abortions ultimately ended up being covered thanks to the bill's loose language. It will only be so long before the same thing happens here.

And of course, at the end of the document, we have the usual closing print that concludes all executive orders.

(c) This Executive Order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity against the United States, its departments, agencies, entities, officers, employees or agents, or any other person.

The executive order isn't the law of the land. No executive order ever has been the law of the land. Bart Stupak held out for months on the principle that siphoning federal funds to abortion doctors is wrong. He wanted specific legal protections in ObamaCare to this effect. Instead he got a loosely-worded executive order that becomes irrelevant if the law is changed or if the president decides he doesn't like it anymore. When Stupak's deal was struck yesterday, the House Pro-Choice Caucus stayed silent. Later every one of them voted in favor of the bill. They understand what eluded Bart Stupak: this ultimately means nothing.

Confirmed: ObamaCare will destroy jobs, raise premiums

Today we confirmed what most people have suspected for a long time: If passed, ObamaCare will take a wrecking ball to the economy. Two different studies came out today that show just how much economic wreckage there would be.

The first, conducted by Americans for Tax Reform and the Beacon Hill Institute of Suffolk University, technically hasn't been released yet, but the blog Hot Air got a sneak peek. Nancy Pelosi has been going around telling people that health care reform could create up to four million new jobs over the next ten years. That figure comes from a "study" done by the Center for American Progress. ATR and BHI went back and used the exact same methods that CAP used. They came to a very different conclusion: up to 700,000 jobs will be lost thanks to health care reform by 2019.

Using the CAP methodology, we find that the bill would destroy a total of 120,000 to 700,000 jobs by 2019, a far cry from the number suggested by leading advocates.

CAP’s claim about job creation rests on its assumption that various developments ensuing from passage of the bill – upgrades in medical technology, the promotion of preventive care and the reduction in administrative costs – would save $683 billion over ten‐years and thus set in motion new incentives for firms to create jobs. The trouble is that the claimed costs savings are at odds with estimates from both Congress and the Executive Branch, which, together, are responsible for considering and ultimately implementing the legislation.

There is no evidence that the projected savings proposed by the Obama administration, particularly in areas such as preventive care, would ever materialize. The literature cited by proponents is speculative at best. Also, there is no guarantee that the administration would be successful in lowering insurance premiums while expanding coverage, without limiting access to health care.

In other words, the Center for American Progress cooked the books. CAP is a progressive think tank founded by John Podesta that is often said to be in cahoots with the Obama Administration. According to Time magazine, "Just as candidate Obama depended on CAP during the campaign for opposition research and talking points, [then-] President-elect Obama has effectively contracted out the management of his own government's formation to [CAP President John] Podesta." CAP also employs former green jobs czar Van Jones.

The second bit of bad news involves premiums. Obama has been repeatedly declaring that his health care plan will bring premiums down. He's made two different claims: that rates will drop by as much as 20% and that employer-based insurance premiums for the employer would decrease by up to $3,000.

The Associated Press found both of these to be lies. The first claim is easily disproved by the Congressional Budget Office, which stated in its report that the average insurance-buyer would see premiums increase by 10% to 13% under ObamaCare. The second claim stems from a study by the Business Roundtable which found that health care reform in general could lower employer premiums by $3,000. But it didn't examine the current legislation being considered at all. According to the Congressional Budget Office -- arguably a more trustworthy source than the Business Roundtable -- employer premiums under ObamaCare would fall maybe 3%, an almost negligible amount. And that would do nothing to offset the far larger increases for the individual insurance purchaser.

Help us watch Obama

This week is do or die for Democrats on health care reform. As they try to ram ObamaCare through the House and Senate one last time, you can help us keep them in check. The action (or inaction) starts today in the House Budget Committee and will be broadcast live on C-SPAN and at c-span.org at 3 pm. If you spot any new back room dealing, backstabbing, arm twisting, kneecap whacking, or egregious left-wing bloviating, send us an e-mail at associateeditor@obamawatchnews.com.

And keep checking back regularly for updates on health care reform's last stand.

Obama: Actually I'm okay with all those Senate deals

The White House flip-flopped today on its insistence that special deals used to bribe senators into supporting ObamaCare be removed.

Taking a new position, Axelrod said the White House only objects to state-specific arrangements, such as an increase in Medicaid funding for Nebraska, ridiculed as the "Cornhusker Kickback." That's being cut, but provisions that could affect more than one state are OK, Axelrod said.

That means deals sought by senators from Montana and Connecticut would be fine — even though Gibbs last week singled them out as items Obama wanted removed. There was resistance, however, from two committee chairman, Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, and the White House has apparently backed down.

As long as more than one state is somehow touched by a proposed deal, the White House greenlights it. In other words, if Nebraska rewrites the Cornhusker Kickback so that one dollar of its Medicaid funds from the feds are donated to Iowa, it's presumably okay.

Since Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi furiously cut deals left and right to squeak ObamaCare through, the president's new position allows for a whole host of kickbacks. Here's the rundown of special deals that are or probably will be in the health care reform package.

-- Connecticut hospitals. Even though Chris Dodd was always a surefire vote for ObamaCare, he still secured $100 million in the bill for Connecticut hospitals. He's particularly enthusiastic about the University of Connecticut, whose teaching hospital he wants revamped. Technically other states can compete for some of the grant money, so Connecticut isn't the sole state affected.

-- Montana asbestos victims. Max Baucus secured another kickback in ObamaCare for victims of asbestos poisoning from a vermiculite mine in Libby, Montana. In order to avoid some of the negative attention that plagued Ben Nelson's Cornhusker Kickback, Baucus cleverly wrote the language as expanding Medicare to cover "environmental health hazards." That can technically apply to all states, so it stays in.

-- Western hospitals. Connecticut isn't the only state whose hospitals will be larded up with health care money. A provision in ObamaCare increases Medicaid funding for states with 50% or more "frontier counties" -- defined as a county with a population density less than six people per square mile. The Congressional Budget Office said this would include Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah. Three of the five are western swing states that Democrats are hoping will lean blue in future elections.

-- Student loans. House Democrats are moving to include a package in ObamaCare that would nationalize student loans. The House already passed the overhaul with 32 more supportive Democrats than ObamaCare. Nancy Pelosi is hoping that tying the two bills together will sweeten the pot for Democrats currently on the fence.

-- Black and Hispanic colleges. Included in the student lending bill is a kickback that would fund historically black and Hispanic colleges and universities. The provision, according to The Hill newspaper, is untouchable thanks to strong support from the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The CBC has expressed concern about ObamaCare diverting attention from creating jobs and the CHC is worried about restrictions for illegal immigrants in the bill.

With his announcement today, Obama finally woke up to reality: The only way he can ram his health care boondoggle through is if he buys off legislators. Note that all the deals in the bill are just to woo Democrats.

Democrats defy Constitution on health care

Last week, the Senate parliamentarian, Alan Frumin, ruled that Democratic leaders couldn't amend the ObamaCare bill partway through the process with a reconciliation sidecar. The president would have to sign into law the wildly unpopular Senate bill before any changes could be made. This was a blow to the House where Democrats are divided against the Senate legislation for a number of reasons, including abortion and special deals like the Cornhusker Kickback. We predicted that the only route for success would be for Harry Reid to fire the parliamentarian. Instead Democrats have decided to just ignore the parliamentarian's ruling entirely.

[Congressional Democratic] Leaders appeared to be favoring a maneuver that would allow lawmakers to approve the reconciliation package without taking a separate vote on the politically dicey Senate bill. Under this scenario, the Senate bill would be deemed to have cleared the chamber once the House approved the package of fixes.

In other words, the House doesn't even have to vote on an actual bill. They can just approve a list of changes -- the reconciliation sidecar -- which will then amend a bill that, again, they haven't actually approved. It's called the Slaughter Solution (after Rep. Louise Slaughter) and the parliamentarian ruled it out. Another panel of experts would agree with Frumin: the Founding Fathers.

All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.

That's Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution. Under the Slaughter Solution, ObamaCare wouldn't originate in the House since the House won't have even voted on the actual legislation. Even then the bill still looks doomed to fail. With House Democrats lining up against the president on a variety of issues, Rep. James Clyburn admitted yesterday that ObamaCare still doesn't have the votes to pass. But if it does, Obama's signature piece of legislation will become law unconstitutionally and in defiance of Senate rules.

Truth comes out about reconciliation on Obama's news network

Lawrence O'Donnell went on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning and shone some much needed light on Obama's reconciliation strategy. The occasionally unhinged O'Donnell served as a Democratic Senate aide during the health care fight in 1994 and knows his way around legislative process. Newsbusters caught this moment of frank honesty.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Will Democrats get health care passed?

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: I'm going to say what I've said all along in my humble approach to this subject. I, having worked on this kind of legislation on the Senate floor, trying to get it passed, and in committee. I do not see how they can do this. Now, and part of that is because it's never been done before. And they have moved into a legislative territory that has never previously existed. The Republicans have not been very smart about trying to describe this. It's difficult to describe. But this is unprecedented, using reconciliation this way. Because what they've done, is that they've abandoned a bill in mid-conference. The Senate passed a bill, the House passed a bill. They were in mid-conference negotiating this bill, in conference, and they said it's going to be impossible for us to pass it now because of Scott Brown, so we're going to abandon conferencing this bill and move over to another legislative vehicle, called reconciliation. To handle something you've already been legislating another way, now, that's never occurred before.

SCARBOROUGH: That's never happened?

O'DONNELL: Never, never, never.

Reconciliation is indeed unprecedented in this way. As O'Donnell pointed out, never before has a Congress tried to insert the reconciliation process into a bill mid-conference. Most bills that go through reconciliation are designed with the procedure in mind. The last use of reconciliation on a health care initiative, for example, was COBRA -- the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. In contrast, Obama's Democrats designed ObamaCare as a standard bill, then suddenly decided to switch to reconciliation after Scott Brown's upset.

This might not sit well with O'Donnell's MSNBC colleagues like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Both have been perpetuating the lie, lifted from Obama's talking points, that Republicans have used reconciliation before and this is no different. Thanks to O'Donnell, the truth has been exposed on MSNBC.

Health care's last battle

After months of debate and demagoguery by the president, it all comes down to next week.

What's going on? The final push for Obamacare is about to begin. It starts on Monday, when the House Budget Committee will insert reconciliation instructions into the November House health care bill. By late Monday/early Tuesday, Budget will pass this bill and send it to the House Rules Committee, where Pelosi will change the language so that it matches the Senate bill. This is the final compromise legislation that may come to a vote on the House floor within weeks. "They're creating the shell," says Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

Why move ahead when the votes aren't there? Pelosi hopes that launching the process will create enough momentum to flip Democrats her way. The clock is ticking. The speaker has two weeks before Congress breaks for Easter Recess. And the recess could kill off health care reform, since many of the wavering Democrats will get an earful from their constituents when they return home. Republicans expect Democrats to lose votes over the break.

This is health care harakiri and Pelosi has to know it. Yesterday the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the president must sign the Senate bill before any changes can be made. With their reconciliation sidecar derailed, dozens of Blue Dog House Democrats will have to vote on a bill larded up with wildly unpopular deals like the Cornhusker Kickback. The latest whip count by the progressive blog FireDogLake has 189 aye votes, 202 nay votes, and the rest undecided. With the public as outraged as they are, it's unlikely very many, if any, of those reps will swing yes. Pelosi is already facing an unlikely alliance of pro-choice Democrats, Hispanic Democrats, a couple of progressives, Blue Dogs, and unified Republicans. The only other solution is if Pelosi has one last procedural trick up her sleeve, but at this point it's hard to imagine what she could do.

Meanwhile Obama is barnstorming around the country trying to close the deal, but it isn't working. Last week Obama gave speeches in Pennsylvania and Missouri, but vulnerable Democratic congressmen refused to show up. This debate has raged for a year and the expenditure of political capital has been great. Next week the President will discover whether it was capital well spent.

Did this man just kill ObamaCare?

It's always hard to tell given how dense and arcane congressional procedure is, but right now it looks like ObamaCare is officially dead.

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.

The Senate Parliamentarian’s Office was responding to questions posed by the Republican leadership. The answers were provided verbally, sources said.

House Democratic leaders have been searching for a way to ensure that any move they make to approve the Senate-passed $871 billion health care reform bill is followed by Senate action on a reconciliation package of adjustments to the original bill. One idea is to have the House and Senate act on reconciliation prior to House action on the Senate’s original health care bill.

The House doesn't have enough votes to pass the Senate bill for a number of reasons. The Senate bill covers abortions, which has pro-life Democrats united behind Bart Stupak pledging to vote no. The Senate bill bars illegal immigrants from health care coverage, which has members of the House Hispanic Caucus threatening no votes as of this morning. The Senate bill doesn't include a public option, which has turned off a few progressives. And most damaging of all, the Senate bill is loaded with special deals for senators like the Cornhusker Kickback that spell political suicide for Blue Dog congressmen from fiscally conservative states.

The House and the Senate need to approve the same bill, since the Senate legislation differs from the House's. The idea was to use what's called a "reconciliation sidecar" -- a package of changes to the Senate bill passed with a simple majority vote -- to make the bill agreeable for House members. The sidecar was written by the White House and would have made several changes, most notably the elimination of the Cornhusker Kickback.

The parliamentarian's ruling means that the House can't pass the sidecar. Both houses must pass the Senate bill and the president must sign it before any changes can be made. Pelosi already doesn't have the votes to do that and is losing more every day.

The Senate parliamentarian's name is Alan Frumin. He was appointed in 2002 after Republicans fired the previous parliamentarian...for forbidding them from using reconciliation on a bill. Barring something completely unforeseen, another Saturday Night Massacre in which Frumin gets shown the door might be Obama's only remaining move.

Obama's Democrats move to pass health care reform unconstitutionally

CongressDaily reports on congressional Democrats' latest scheme to push ObamaCare across the finish line.

House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter is prepping to help usher the healthcare overhaul through the House and potentially avoid a direct vote on the Senate overhaul bill, the chairwoman said Tuesday.

Slaughter is weighing preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill passed once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version.

The plan has been appropriately named the "Slaughter Solution" by John Boehner. Different groups of House Democrats are resentful of the Senate bill because it lacks restrictive abortion language and a public option. The Senate bill also contains controversial deals like the Cornhusker Kickback that House Democrats don't want to vote for. The Slaughter Solution would change congressional rules, magically considering the bill passed after the House voted to approve a series of corrections, rather than the actual bill itself.

The Slaughter Solution is also unconstitutional. The Constitution mandates that all revenue bills originate in the House. If Slaughter gets her way, the House will merely amend the current Senate bill, which means that the finalized ObamaCare legislation will have originated in the Senate. Obama's first major piece of legislation would become law unconstitutionally.

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.

Obama admits his health care bill will lead to single payer, again

Even more evidence that ObamaCare is just a waystation on the twisted road to socialized health care. Obama met with progressive Democrats on Thursday who were worried that his bill wouldn't wreck the health care system fast enough. Obama gave particular attention to Rep. Dennis Kucinich, one of two House Dems who voted against ObamaCare because they wanted a more progressive bill. (The other is Eric Massa, who's getting treated a bit differently by the White House.) Kucinich, you see, supports a single payer system.

But, said one attendee, Obama pointed Kucinich toward single-payer language that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was able to get into the bill. Kucinich fought for an amendment that would allow states to adopt single-payer systems without getting sued by insurance companies. Obama told Kucinich that Sanders's measure was similar but doesn't kick in for several years. "He definitely wrote it down," said one member of Kucinich, suggesting that he'd look into it.

Kucinich specifically introduced his amendment in the hopes that states would start setting up single payer systems. Eventually, those would evolve into a single national insurance bureaucracy. Bernie Sanders, who introduced the Senate version, is a self-proclaimed socialist. Obama can't use words that direct now that he's been elected president, but he did hint at his real intentions while with the progressives.

Obama argued to the group of progressive members that his health care reform bill should be looked at as the foundation of reform, that can be built on in the future. He asked them to help gather votes for the final health care battle and promised that as soon as the bill was signed into law, he'd continue to push to make it stronger.

In other words, this is only the beginning. It might take years or even decades, but eventually ObamaCare will bloom into a nationalized health system.

In fact, that's exactly what Obama said on the campaign trail a few years ago. Once again speaking in front of savvy progressives, he admitted that a public option would ultimately lead to a single payer system, which he supports. Here's the video:

White House doctor's creepy remarks about fat people

The next logical step of ObamaCare is government regulation of bad health habits, since things like smoking and overeating will drive up socialized health costs. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm's brother and a budget advisor to the president, confirmed this in a bizarre radio interview.

“I mean, we’re all focused on health care, diabetes and heart disease,” Emanuel said on Feb. 25. “But, there’s all sorts of things like the simple that, you know – heavier people – transportation is more, so there’s more spent on gasoline, more on jet fuel.”

Emanuel, a bioethicist at the American National Institutes of Health, explained that it’s not just energy costs, but also infrastructure.

“People have had to change, ah you know, the size of doorways, the size of chairs on airplanes and at sports stadiums,” Emanuel said. “So there’s a lot of hidden costs as well to the increasing girth of Americans.”

Yes, the good doctor believes that obese Americans are a strain on the economy because they apparently weigh planes down more. Of course, most sentient Americans could tell you that fat people are actually better for the economy because they spend more on food. Consumption is a good thing. It doesn't take a Ph.D. in economics to add that up.

These comments would be amusing had they not come from Emanuel. Rahm's brother is obsessed with the idea of saving money by rationing health care. His entire philosophy is about putting cost above care. If Emanuel believes what we really need right now is a crusade against the obese, God only knows what advice he's whispering in Barack's ear. We now know where the idea for Michelle Obama's obesity commission came from, anyways.

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.

Your tax dollars at work: Fighting tobacco in other countries (but not at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue)

More creepy fascism from the science czar's office. Several flacks at the Office of Science and Technology Policy have a press release up on the White House web site. They're ready to take the fight to tobacco around the world!

Protecting kids and the public from tobacco is also important around the world. There are 1.2 billion smokers already worldwide, and tobacco use in developing countries is on the rise. Reversing this trend—through proven interventions such as monitoring tobacco data, protecting people from tobacco smoke, offering help to people who want to quit tobacco use, applying sensible limits on tobacco advertising, raising the price of tobacco, and warning the public about the dangers of tobacco—will save millions of lives.

...

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, a treaty to reduce tobacco's devastating health consequences around the world. We join with others across the world who are concerned about public health in their own countries and recognize the urgency of curbing the tobacco epidemic. All nations, including our own, should work to save lives by helping communities take on this most preventable cause of death.

Obama has already passed legislation banning certain types of cigarettes, including flavored smokes. (Although he hasn't managed to kick the smoking habit himself, we gather.) More broadly though, this is what we can expect in the coming years if health care reform passes. With socialized health care, the individual's health problems, such as tobacco addiction, will be subsidized by the entire country. If everyone's health is the government's business, then the government will necessarily take strong, even global, action to regulate individual health.

That's the vision of the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control. The treaty calls on signatory nations not to outlaw tobacco directly, but to tax the hell out of it and scare the public with bogus reports of secondhand smoke. Maybe Obama should have brought this up at his speech in Cairo? We can only imagine how the Muslim world, where smoking sheesa is extremely popular, would respond.

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.

McCain calls out Obama's corruption

At the health care summit today, Sen. John McCain hammered Obama for the corrupt deals that helped the health care bill pass.

You have to love Obama's condescending dismissal of McCain at the end. "The election's over." McCain must have struck a nerve.

Democrats confirm: Health care summit is a fraud

The health care summit is still going on and it's relatively uneventful so far. But it looks like none of that will matter anyways. Democratic strategists have confirmed that the health care summit was a sham to make Republicans look bad.

"A Democratic official said the six-hour summit was expected to 'give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans.'

Democrats plan to begin rhetorical, and perhaps legislative, steps toward the Democrats-only, or reconciliation, process early next week, the strategists said.

After the summit, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid planned to take the temperature of their caucuses.

'The point [of the summit] is to alter the political atmospherics, and it will take a day or two to sense if it succeeded,' the official said."

Obama is such a stubborn radical, he still plans to jam his bill through. Meanwhile unemployment has skyrocketed and the American people overwhelmingly oppose his health care remedies. Hopefully the bruising that the GOP gave Obama today will only hurt his plans even further. But this much is clear: Obama is hell-bent on passing a health care bill and doesn't care what it takes and who gets sacrificed in the process.

Obama getting taken to task at health care summit

The first half of the president's vaunted bipartisan health care summit is over and something unusual is happening. Obama is getting his ass handed to him. Many were worried that the summit would be a huge political boon for the president. Instead, Republicans are hammering Obama who seems flustered without his teleprompter.

Probably the best take down was done by Sen. Tom Coburn. Coburn explained that 15% of health care costs in America could be saved if the government prosecuted fraud in Medicare. He pointed out that one out of every three Medicare dollars doesn't go towards patient care but towards bureaucracy and corruption. He noted that only 1% of health care fraud is in the private sector. He asked the president why he was planning more government-run health care when the current government-run health care is so full of waste. Obama's response? He rushed to agree with Coburn even though his bill does nothing to address these problem. It isn't about actually cutting costs, after all. It's about a government takeover.

There was more. Rep. Paul Ryan nailed the president for creating more regulations when regulations hurt mostly small businesses. Sen. Jon Kyl hit Obama for lying about whether the health care bill would increase premiums. (It would, as the CBO pointed out.) Sen. John McCain took the president to task for the secret deals made in the health care bill.

Obama's response? He tried to interrupt Republicans constantly. He complained about the time limits, even though a Democratic senator pointed out that no one had been told there were time limits. He whined that Republicans should talk about things they agree about rather than attacking the bill.

We'll have the videos up as soon as possible. Obama only held this farce of a meeting to create the illusion of bipartisanship on health care. Instead the president is coming off as pompous while Republicans tear him to pieces.

DeParle is DeLimit

Health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle just finished a video question-and-answer session on the White House website. It was mostly the usual chatter about ObamaCare, but one thing really jumped out. When discussing the proposed excise tax on Cadillac health plans, DeParle said, "Do we really want to be spending that kind of money on our health care plans? ... Wouldn't you rather have that in your wages?"

DeParle sounds like a nanny scolding children. Her comment perfectly crystallizes Obama's attitude on pretty much everything. You don't really want to do that. We know that isn't good for you. People who buy expensive health care plans do so because the coverage is excellent, and they have plenty of other options. Obama is supposedly worried about the quality of care, yet he's slapping a huge tax on anyone who buys the best coverage in America.

DeParle also claimed that 47 million Americans don't have health care not because they opt out, but because they "can't afford it." As we have wearily explained over and over again, the Census Bureau says that isn't true. Of that 47 million, about 10 million are illegal immigrants. A further 17 million make more than $50,000 per year, but choose willingly not to carry health insurance. And an unknown third number qualify for Medicaid or some other government-funded health plan.

So the health czar is an Orwellian liar. Who would have guessed?