Sins and Slanders

Characters
President Barack Obama in 2014 said Mr. Gruber was “some adviser who never worked on our staff.” Mr. Gruber told Congress last year he disagreed with the widespread characterization of his role as the “architect” of Mr. Obama’s health-care plan.
....
“Thank you for being an integral part of getting us to this historic moment,” according to Sept. 9, 2009 email to Mr. Gruber from Jeanne Lambrew, a top Obama administration health adviser who worked at HHS and the White House. In a November 2009 email, she called Mr. Gruber “our hero.” (Wall Street Journal, 6/22/2015)

We already knew that Jonathan Gruber was a liar. Now we have confirmation that President Obama is also a liar. 


Battle Lines
Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina on Monday called for removal of a Confederate battle flag from the State Capitol grounds, taking sides on an emotional issue, after the white man accused of killing nine black people was seen brandishing that flag in widely circulated pictures. (New York Times, 6/22/2015)

We like Nikki Haley but she engages in Liberal logic here. So if the killer had posted Facebook pictures of himself with the American flag would Liberals call for a ban on that flag too?

Whosoever Dwells in Heaven

Up and Away
The odds that Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber may face charges for padding invoices are going up.

Vermont State Auditor Douglas Hoffer’s methodical investigation of Gruber’s undocumented billing practices shifted to a higher gear on Friday, when Hoffer called Gruber’s response to his inquiries to date “unsatisfactory.” (Breitbart.com, 1/23/2015)

Thankfully we have Breitbart to tell us what is happening in Vermont.


Consequential
Colorado’s decision to legalize marijuana was a bad idea, the state’s governor said Friday.

Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who opposed the 2012 decision by voters to make pot legal, said the state still doesn’t fully know what the unintended consequences of the move will be.

“If I could've waved a wand the day after the election, I would've reversed the election and said, 'This was a bad idea,’ ” Hickenlooper said Friday on CNBC's “Squawk Box.” (thehill.com, 1/23/2015)

So let's review. California's decision to legalize dope was an abject failure. Even the hippie politicians realized that things were out of control and forced a crackdown on the "medicinal" dope stores that had opened on every corner. (Patient to Doctor: I'm in pain! Doctor to Patient: Here is a prescription for weed. Smoke it twice a day and you will feel better.)

Then we had the stories of Colorado's dope-loving politicians being caught by surprise on the issue of how to regulate dope-infused cuisine. The old hash brownies thing...

And then - also in Colorado - we had the recent story of hash-extraction procedures going bad and blowing up the neighborhood. 

Not to worry, Vermont's Governor Peter Shumlin is still "all in" for legal dope. No doubt he is jealously looking at Colorado's marijuana tourism dollars and thinking: 'Hey, I can close the budget deficit I created if we can get some of that money.' 


Detachment
The president’s habit of detaching from what is actually happening—of declaring in fact that the opposite is happening—is a marvel to behold. History will speak of it. (Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, 1/24/2015)

Of course, Noonan is exactly correct. In Obama's world, Obamacare is a raging success, terrorism has been defeated, Russia did not invade the Ukraine, the economy is roaring, and Liberalism is triumphant. 

RedStateVT Presents the Worst of 2014

UPDATED  Here they are folks! The Worst of 2014! 

Dianne Feinstein – A true American traitor. Feinstein actually was respected by politicians on both sides and then for inexplicable reasons she went all in with the anti-American Liberals. Her report on the CIA ginned up controversies that had quieted down; failed to interview CIA officials involved; and, was signed off on by Democrats only. There will be blood… on her hands.

Jonathan Gruber – The MIT professor who was a chief architect of Obamacare….or maybe he wasn’t.  He sure had a lot to say about it though. Most of it disturbing. The term “pointy-headed Liberal” was coined with Gruber in mind.

Peter Shumlin - Vermont's governor had a rough year. Of course as with all Liberals his troubles were self-inflicted. When there are too few people to pay for Liberal social re-engineering, guess what? You run short of money! When you try to inflict government-run healthcare in a state already known as distinctly business-unfriendly, guess what? Existing businesses leave, other businesses decide not to add employees in Vermont, and others simply form elsewhere. Shumlin knew - there can be no doubt - that the Liberal dream of single-payer in Vermont would never work economically. Instead of standing up to Liberals he danced around the hard truth for years, all the while spending millions of taxpayer dollars. If a third party candidate had not siphoned votes away from Republican Scott Milne, Shumlin would now be sitting on a rocker on his porch in Montpelier scheming again about how to get his neighbor's property.  

Harry Reid – The outgoing majority leader continued to disgrace himself with his ridiculous attacks from the Senate floor on the private citizen Koch brothers. Reid never passed a budget, blocked all legislation and then watched while lap dogs in the media blamed the Republicans for obstructionism. 

Elizabeth Warren – The Indian princess and Left-wing darling railed endlessly about Wall Street. Of which she knows nothing. Warren specializes in telling low information Americans that they are getting screwed by the guys in suits. Bring charges or shut up.

Kaci Hickox, the Ebola Nurse – Ebola Nurse Kaci Hickox reportedly does not like to be called the Ebola Nurse. You will remember that Ebola Nurse Kaci Hickox refused to agree to a quarantine which would protect innocent Americans from a deadly disease. Too inconvenient for the Ebola Nurse, Kaci Hickox. Selfish, selfish, selfish that Ebola Nurse Kaci Hickox.

Bill Cosby – Say it ain’t so, Cos! We loved Cosby’s message to young black Americans: pull up your pants and speak English. Now that great advice is lost.

Mary Landrieu – It is always embarrassing to see a politician try so desperately to hold onto their job. Louisiana Landrieu is the poster girl. Particularly despicable was her race-pandering to black voters in a last ditch effort to avoid losing. Thankfully she lost.

Obama – Because the lies continued. First he said you could keep your health care plan. You couldn’t. Then he said that he never set a red line on Syria. He did. And then he said that he did not have the power to grant amnesty to illegals. He did anyway.  All captured quite clearly on video.

Kardashians – Every single one of them. You know why.

Dianne Feinstein: American Traitor

Candy-Colored Clown
Candy Crowley resigned from CNN last week. Crowley will be remembered for her many achievements, such as becoming the first woman to win a presidential debate.

Speaking of Crowley, she will remain at CNN until January for State of the Union Address, where she is expected to load all necessary talking points into President Obama’s teleprompter. (Jodi Miller, Newsbusted, quoted on Newsbusters.org, 12/9/2014)

Now that is funny!


Irresponsible
As a president who receives regular briefings on terrorist threats and is responsible for stopping them, Mr. Obama sees the situation differently than he did as a candidate denouncing the incumbent of the other party. (New York Times, 12/11/2014)

Ya think? Of course Obama's default is always to blame Bush. 


Head Bump
Maybe it’s easier to get tenure at MIT than we thought. At least that’s our reaction to the Forrest Gump routine put on Tuesday before Congress by MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who sounded for all the world as if he knew nothing more about politics and health care than the lovable bumpkin who always showed up when history was being made. (Wall Street Journal, 12/9/2014)

Why do you think that Dianne Feinstein and Democrat co-conspirators chose yesterday to release their treasonous report on the CIA? If you guessed: to deflect attention away from Gruber's Obamacare mea culpa, you would be exactly right!

Coming Soon from Democrats: The Republican War on Children!

Bernie Sanders: Keystone XL 'makes no sense to me' (Washington Examiner, 11/18/2014)

RedStateVT: Bernie Sanders 'makes no sense to us' (RedStateVT, 11/18/2014)


Currently
In the current Democratic-controlled Senate, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, has long refused to bring a Keystone bill to a vote for fear that it could hurt the re-election chances of environmental-minded Democrats who might have voted against a project that is popular with many voters. (New York Times, 11/18/2014)

So to fellow bloggers who write endlessly of Republican obstructionism we forward the passage above. Turns out Harry Reid's Senate (which never passed a budget either, by the way) may have doing some obstruction of their own! Also nice to hear that the Keystone pipeline is "popular with many voters." We are guessing that said voters like jobs and low gas prices. 


Starkly
President Obama is poised to ignore stark warnings that executive action on immigration would amount to “violating our laws” and would be “very difficult to defend legally.”

Those warnings came not from Republican lawmakers but from Mr. Obama himself.

For years, he has waved aside the demands of Latino activists and Democratic allies who begged him to act on his own, and he insisted publicly that a decision to shield millions of immigrants from deportation without an act of Congress would amount to nothing less than the dictates of a king, not a president. (New York Times, 11/18/2014)

For any of you cynics out there, remember: Republicans flip flop, Democrats evolve.


Mutually
But since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, the relationship between the Obama administration and insurers has evolved into a powerful, mutually beneficial partnership that has been a boon to the nation’s largest private health plans and led to a profitable surge in their Medicaid enrollment. (New York Times, 11/17/2014)

During the Obamacare debate, Charles Krauthammer once famously said: "I care not a whit about the insurance companies." We agree. They sold their souls to Obama for short term profits but given the opportunity Obama will sell them out in a heartbeat.


Surely
As headlines go, “ Obama Moves Close to Calling Russian Action in Ukraine an Invasion,” from a weekend story in the New York Times , must surely rank among the year’s most revealing. The Obama presidency has long been at odds with the obvious. Once this was called hope.

Now it is generally recognized as farce. (Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, 11/17/2014)

Bret Stephens picks up on RedStateVT's recent point!


Extensively
Mr. Gruber wrote a 2011 cartoon book called “Health Care Reform” that aimed to explain the federal law. A note about the author says Mr. Gruber “consulted extensively with the Obama administration and Congress during the development” of the law. (Wall Street Journal, 11/17/2014)

Of all the egregious sins that Gruber has perpetrated, surely this is the worst: he wrote a cartoon book on Obamacare. 


And Then This
Here comes the tea party of the left. (Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 11/17/2014)

Honest column from Milbank. Yes, the Dems have a tea party too.

War On Women Ends; Dems Lose

Charles M. Blow: Liar at the New York Times
Then came the signing of the Civil Rights Act by the Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson — although he wasn’t perfect on the issue of race, and the bill passed partly because of Republican support. (Charles M. Blow, New York Times, 11/13/2014)

Blow purports to write an objective history of race and politics in the U.S. Of course, he tilts the facts to fit his conclusion that Republicans are racists.  Oh, and he lies. Blow says Lyndon B. Johnson "wasn't perfect" neglecting to mention that Johnson is quoted as calling the Civil Rights Act a "n***r bill." In addition, Blow, like E.J. Dionne over at the Washington Post, lies about Republican support for the Civil Rights Act. Blow says it passed "partly because of Republican support" when, in fact, a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted in favor of it.

We will not be lectured by Democrats on race when they lie about the issue.

It is Democrats who perpetuate the myth of Republicans as the party of (racist) white men. Which is exactly why they must vilify Clarence Thomas, Herman Cain, Ben Carson, Tim Scott, J.C. Watts, Condi Rice, Mia Love, Sarah Palin, Nikki Haley, etc. etc.


You're Stupid!
"Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.” (Obamacare "architect" Jonathan Gruber)

What Gruber is really saying - and RedStateVT is the first to note this - is that Democrats who supported Obamacare are stupid. Consider that support for the bill has never been above 50%. So half of the country, let's call them Republicans, have ALWAYS been against the bill, seeing it for the dysfunctional government entitlement program which it has become. They were not then and are not now "stupid." From the beginning, they saw that Obamacare was an abomination. So those who did support the bill, call them Democrats, are the stupid ones. We are happy to provide this clarification.


Thumpity Dump
Although they do not present it this way, in some ways Mr. Obama and his aides are taking a page from President George W. Bush’s playbook after his own “thumping” in his final midterm elections. Instead of pulling out of the deteriorating war in Iraq, as Democrats interpreted Mr. Bush’s election mandate, he sent more troops. Democrats like Mr. Obama, then a senator, accused the president of defying the voters. In the end, the reinforcements and a strategy change helped turn around the war. (New York Times, 11/14/2014)

So helpfully, the Times tells us two things: once again Obama (how many times is that now?) said one thing as a senator only to do the opposite as president; and second, George Bush's surge secured success in Iraq. The Times omits, however, the follow-up: Obama then squandered this success which has led to the madness of ISIS.


Battered
Instead of simply being spun out from Procter & Gamble, Duracell will find a new corporate home — with Warren E. Buffett. The billionaire’s conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, said on Thursday that it would acquire the battery maker from P.&G. through an unusual transaction aimed at lowering the overall tax bill. (New York Times, 11/13/2014)

News flash! Liberal icon Warren Buffett doesn't like to pay taxes.

Payback Time

On Last Night's "Hannity"
"This man is a raging narcissist."
Former Democrat pollster Pat Caddell speaking about Barack Obama. 


Possibilities
First, it raised the possibility that the justices, who narrowly spared the law in 2012, will in June come out with a new ruling that would dismantle the law on different grounds. But even if the justices make no such ruling, the very act of taking up the challenge to the law will itself undermine the law. The justices announced their decision just a week before the open-enrollment period for 2015 begins — and the looming possibility that the high court will strike down the law will probably deter those who are considering signing up for its coverage. (Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 11/10/2014)

So WaPo's Milbank believes that 2015 Obamacare enrollment will be depressed because potential enrollees will not sign up because the Supreme Court is going to rule on a challenge to the law. How does Milbank come up with nonsense like this?


Regrets
Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said Tuesday that he regrets saying that aspects of Obamacare needed to be concealed from the public due to the “stupidity of the American voter.” (Dailycaller.com, 11/11/2014)

Guess who is likely to end up on RedStateVT's "Worst of 2014" List? If you guessed Jonathan Gruber, you might be right!