OK. By now we all have heard the "off the cuff" comments by Obamacare "architect" MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber boasting about how he and a cabal of progressives, such as then Senator John Kerry, fooled the American people into buying Obamacare. The video recordings of him bragging about how the "economic illiteracy" of the American people helped get Obamacare through have gone viral. Even the Washington Post, yes, THAT newspaper, is now reporting on the hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars that Gruber made as a "consultant" on Obamacare, and that the media and others accepted his numbers and statements on Obamacare as objective.
But did he "fool" anybody? Hearing him talk reminded me so very much of staff meetings at State where the nation's "best and brightest" were devising ways to package a policy so that it would, in essence, fool everybody into thinking it was one thing when, in fact, it was another. Progressives end up fooling only themselves when they think that they are so clever and that the "great unwashed" will never catch on.
Nobody I know was fooled by the arguments in favor of Obamacare. Polls consistently showed a supermajority of the American people against Obamacare. The only ones for it were those who thought--maybe correctly--that they would get something for free for which "others" would pay.
The progressives arguing in favor of Obamacare, in fact, were either stupid or dishonest. That is the choice they have. The rest of us know and knew it as a scam. Had the American people been allowed to vote on Obamacare, and not just a cabal of dishonest and stupid politicians under the leadership of Reid and Pelosi, is there any doubt what would have happened to it?
It is imperative that the new Republican Congress keep quoting Gruber and launch a relentless effort to dismantle the Obamacare abomination.
Politicians who rob Peter to pay Paul, can count on the support of Paul. The apparent strategy of the left is to stack enough Paul's to hold power. The achilles heel of the plan: Paul gets lazy.
ReplyDeleteFor Dip and fellow readers:
ReplyDeleteWhere did I go wrong in life? Why am I not an MIT Professor of Economics as well as expert adviser to governors of Massachusetts and Presidents of nations?
Soundbites of Gruber, as heard on the net and talk radio, demonstrate with clarity that he is incapable of constructing complete, coherent sentences.
He speaks with that same, frenzied, 'pressure of speech' - as the clinicians describe it - and worse, in manner of a Valley Girl on bad methamphetamines, perhaps in combination with Freon.
"The president was like..."? The president goes...." What on earth was MIT thinking, if at all MIT was?
When they hired Gruber, MIT was no doubt thinking, "Here's a guy who can help us get lots of money from the government." Just like every other institute of "higher learning."
DeleteThworg
No, MIT has much higher standards. For example, a professor doesn't get tenure unless he's adequate at teaching (all classes are taught by tenured or tenure track professors, with a very few exceptions that prove the rule). However he comes across in these shindigs, he evidently does a better job in the classes he teaches.
DeleteThe most difficult requirement is being #1 or #2 in your subfield. Of course, in economics that's not be saying much.
"One wonders if the media, being scammed and shamed as whores, will at least rise from both knees to one knee on the way to standing up straight in order to save themselves?"
ReplyDeleteNo, they like Obama have decided to play for all it's worth, especially now that both have been exposed so completely. In their mind what do they have to lose?
I spend a lot of time among the country's "best and brightest." Since I know their uniforms and lingo, I even can "pass" for one of them, so they let their guard down around me. I am routinely disturbed by how often they refer to "the sheeple," and they do it with absolute contempt.
ReplyDeleteDisdain for the American people is the first step towards Progressivism.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I think his whole presidency is about revenge.
ReplyDeleteThe Ferguson, Mo grand jury, radicals on every corner, the staff of Eric Holder mixed up in rigging any outcome...all about an administration run by two Obamas, Valerie Jarrett, Eric Holder and a cadre of like minded radicals who are bent on revenge. Jeremiah Wright is surely smiling.
DeleteAdaptive Curmudgeon says:
ReplyDeleteNovember 14, 2014 at 8:54 pm
1. Any universe that lacks dogs is hell.
2. Nobody, man nor dog, should have to fill out forms.
Wot!?...
https://adaptivecurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/ebola/
leaperman
is that an eye...in the skye?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNiie_zmSr8
leaperman
Let's remember how Progressives came to power - by lying, repeatedly, about the War on Terror and the Iraq War. Day and day, night after night, Americans were fed frightful untruths about the war, all designed to politically weaken an administration working hard to keep America safe from a vicious enemy.
ReplyDeleteOnce power was in their hands, then deceitful legislation could be passed to KEEP power by creating more dependents.
It's as if Jeff Davis was elected president in Washington City in 1864.
It's not that awful. It's as if James Buchanan had been re-elected President in 1868.
DeletePhony numbers had to be schemed up to fool the CBO....
ReplyDeleteThat was Gruber's critical contribution. He developed a model that is very close to the CBO's, which allowed the drafters (evidently including himself) to tweak it until it "passed".
I'm never going to forgive the '90s Republican Congressional majorities for not seriously reforming the CBO when they had a chance.
CBO seems to be everybody's buddy if needed. Kind of like prostitutes in suits.
ReplyDeleteI think it's easier to make the claim that Obama *lied* to America about Obamacare, than it is to make the case that Bush *lied* to America about WMDs in Iraq.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that both were simply 'wrong', but that's pretty generous to Obama (specifically, claiming on the record that Obamacare is not a tax and then claiming that it is after passage).
Whatever... the latest scotus Obamacare case seems interesting.... I've yet to see a limit beyond which Roberts will not go in order to keep his court from making decisions which influence the political field. I suspect he'll have to perform *even more alarming* feats of logical invention to save this one.
- reader #1482
it turns out that since WMD covers sarin and other poisonous gasses, Bush 43 was right about Iraqi WMD capacity. Now, even the NYSlimes admits that Sodom Insane was trying to get nukes. it is clear that the O and his cohort are worse liars.
DeleteHow does Obamacare being considered a tax fly? Aren't all tax bills supposed to originate in the house, not the Senate, to be legit.
ReplyDeleteThis is illegitimately avoided by taking a House bill that includes taxation, completely gutting it, and replacing it with whatever the Senate wants. Per Wikipedia (and my memory that this trick was used), the Senate bill started out as "the 'Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009' (H.R. 3590)".
DeleteSounds like a similar approach was used to package Obama and make him Constitutionally eligible and experienced enough to be POTUS.
DeleteThought there was a lawsuit filed over the murky origins of the ACA.
The case against the ACA on this question is working its way through the courts:
Deletehttp://www.pacificlegal.org/cases/Sissel-3-1374
A bit off topic but I thought you might be interested in how well your President does diplomacy in Australia.
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_chinese_president_is_a_better_friend_than_this_us_one/
When he now has the right even suggesting that China is a better friend than US he has achieved something that I thought impossible. Some are even suggesting that his behavior will make Aus less likely to support what he is doing in Iraq, considering he made the mess.
If you folks in Oz back Obama, you will make a big mistake. He is not an ally. Careful.
DeleteSo Obomber is a guest in Australia and immediately attacks the Ozzie government. NOT the way to make friends.
Delete