When is a Lie a Lie?

A journalist went through the archives and pulled out 26 occasions where President Obama said that if you’d like your health-care plan and your doctor, you could keep them. The main stream media jumped on the White House surrogates with gotcha questions. It was the same way for the IRS investigations and the latest NSA snooping allegations; “what did the president know and when did he know it?"

The president’s supporters should probably admit that his words should’ve been more precise and they should have included a disclaimer. Hindsight is always 20/20. The president should go around the country and apologize for his misleading statements but also use the opportunity to explain how the exchanges will be better than the junk policies they now have. The administration should drop a line that it will only affect 5% of the policy owners because that amounts to about 14 million people, so there’s no real way to sugarcoat it. The disastrous rollout of the website exacerbated the situation because the millions of people with canceled policies were are not able to choose a better plan.

The president’s detractors are overjoyed with the disastrous website roll out because they hated Obamacare all along. Where were the crocodile tears for people losing their healthcare prior to 2010? Where is the alternative plan that will keep the goodies in Obamacare and expand coverage to the millions of people who currently do not have health coverage? I heard one right wing pundit complaining about losing their freedom to have junk policies. Then he complained about how the subsidies are costing the taxpayer’s money. The lack of quality coverage (junk polices) and the use of the emergency room are costing taxpayers money. This group is getting all the political play they can out of the president’s words, which they deem lies. Rush Limbaugh said the president’s words were Nixonian.

I don’t think the private sector can afford to implement universal health care. We are one of the few industrialized countries to use the market place. If Obama care is going to work, the individual mandate is a must because insurance companies have to offset their costs from the people with preexisting conditions with those of young people who don’t normally get sick. As I recall the public option or single payer universal health care didn’t have a seat at the table during the negotiations.

I also think that health insurance companies don’t like the individual plans and are looking for ways to get out of them because they don’t produce the profits they want. It’s the same way for companies who are now weighing the difference between the penalty and providing health care coverage for their employees. You can blame Obamacare but that would be a lie.

The president’s enemies are using a narrative that Obama is out- of –the- loop or he’s lying when he says he did know anything about the IRS scandal that never materialized. Rather than to go into a lot of detail, it’s well known that the original charges did not have any basis because not one conservative group was denied a 501( c)(4) but several liberal groups were. The real story was the abuse of that particular code.

The recent NSA revelations brought out a new reason to think that the president was either lying was not inquisitive enough to know what’s going on and plausible deniability was never considered. I don’t know enough about what NSA is doing to come up with a reasonable explanation and that’s the way should be. I’ve known for decades that NSA was gathering information wherever it could. We started snooping on our allies in 2002; at least, that’s what’s on the record. I don’t know, but I believe it’s helpful to know why Germany did not join us when we were removed Omar Qaddafi or to what extent Israel might go in attacking Iran. I think it’s pretty naïve to presume they’re not spying on us. The NSA got caught, the president has egg on his face, and the rest is guesswork.

What IRS Scandal?

It’s another day and another misinformed letter submitted to our local newspaper.

Mr. Stokes, I will question your assertion that poor conservatives were the only ones singled out for special scrutiny. We have just found the initial report by the treasury inspector general omitted the fact that the word “progressive “was also listed on the “be on the lookout for” list but a lot more conservatives applied for the tax-exempt status. You do the math.

The only reason you don’t know who directed the illegal misguided effort to bring the 501(c) (4) tax-exempt status back into compliance is because Chairman Issa started his investigation by blaming the White House. If it wasn’t for the ranking minority member Rep.Elijah  Cummings, we still would not have known the contents of the transcript of the interviews that were conducted, where the office manager in Cincinnati said that he was a conservative republican. The office manager also said that the actions of the agents were not politically motivated..

The IG report led to the congressional hearing and it was appropriate  to ask for all the e- mails and phone calls that might be relevant. Yes, Democratic senators wrote to the IRS, asking why conservative groups like those associated with Karl Rowe were granted 501 (c) (4) statuses when they were not primarily involved in social welfare. Republican should have called for liberal groups who were also in violation of the tax-exempt status to be singled out for more scrutiny. Not one single application was ever denied. I take that back, a liberal group was rightfully denied.

“Almost all of the groups in question are organized under 501(c)(4) of the tax code, which regulates nonprofit groups engaged in promoting “social welfare.” At least 16 such organizations spent a million dollars or more on campaign advertising in the 2012 elections. (Crossroads GPS and Priorities USA also run “super PACs” with similar names that spent millions more.)
But because they purport to be engaged primarily in issue advocacy, not election advocacy, tax-exempt groups are not closely regulated by the Federal Election Commission. That task falls, instead, to the I.R.S., which can take years to investigate problems and is required to do so in strict secrecy. 

Some groups, like Crossroads, filed applications for I.R.S. tax-exempt status, claiming that they would be engaged primarily on research and educational activities but spending the bulk of their money on what appears to be political advertising. Others, like the American Tradition Partnership, operate for years at a stretch without filing federal tax returns, in seeming violation of the law. Many boast of their impact on political campaigns.”

http://tinyurl.com/lht7e53

If President Obama questioned the validity of the tax-exempt applications, well he was in good company and correct in doing so. If that’s your smoking gun for some kind of collusion, then why were some liberal groups targeted? Let’s go back to the original allegation where no applications were denied, so where’s the crime? So I guess it was a botched attempt to scrutinize applications from groups that probably weren’t entitled to tax-exempt status in the first place.

You said, “we know who directed the IRS campaign against perceived enemies.” I don’t know the “we” you represent but those applicants were customers not enemies. You also stated, “the president’s signature is on the purloined letter. Huh? That doesn’t even make sense.