‘Outrageous’: IRS Agent Stuns Members of Congress With Claim About Targeting Scandal
An unidentified IRS agent told members
Congress that the embattled tax agency is still targeting conservative
groups three months after the scandal came to light, according to testimony released Thursday by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.).
During closed-door testimony, the agent
reportedly told members of the committee that requests for tax-exempt
status by Tea Party groups are still being subjected to “secondary
screening,” at least in his office.
When asked what he would do with an
application from a Tea Party group even if there was no evidence of
political activity, the IRS agent replied: “At this point I would send
it to secondary screening, political advocacy.”
“So you would treat a Tea Party group
as a political advocacy case even if there was no evidence of political
activity on the application. Is that right?” a committee investigator
asked.
“Based on my current manager’s direction, uh-huh,” the agent repeated.
The IRS official said the so-called “be
on the lookout” or BOLO list has been suspended, but no further
direction on how to process applications from conservative groups has
been provided.
“If a political advocacy case came in
today, I would give it — or talk about it to my manager because right
now we really don’t have any direction or we haven’t had any for the
last month and a half,” he said, according to the testimony.
Camp called the allegations of continued political targeting by the IRS “outrageous.”
The Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard provides the transcript of the IRS agent’s testimony:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/08/irs-agents-stunning-admission-tea-party-groups-are-still-being-targeted/Wednesday, August 1, 2013Committee: Today, currently, how do you analyze advocacy cases. If, for example, Tea Party of Arkansas came in today, how would you handle it?IRS agent: Well, the BOLO list doesn’t exist anymore.Committee: Sure.IRS: If a political advocacy case came in today, I would give it — or talk about it to my manager because right now we really don’t have any direction or we haven’t had any for the last month and a half.——Committee: If you saw — I am asking this currently, if today if a Tea Party case, a group — a case from a Tea Party group came in to your desk, you reviewed the file and there was no evidence of political activity, would you potentially approve that case? Is that something you would do?IRS agent: At this point I would send it to secondary screening, political advocacy.Committee: So you would treat a Tea Party group as a political advocacy case even if there was no evidence of political activity on the application. Is that right?IRS agent: Based on my current manager’s direction, uh-huh.
Fox poll shows “phony scandal” line playing worse that you’d think
After an avalanche of scandals hit the White House this spring, the Obama administration adopted the public-relations strategy of calling IRS political targeting, NSA domestic snooping, and the deaths of four Americans in an utterly predictable terrorist attack on a diplomatic facility “phony scandals.” How’s that working? According to a new Fox poll, even worse than you’d think. The best response comes on the IRS story, where a whopping 33% agree that there’s nothing to worry about … but 59% disagree:Benghazi. Snooping on reporters. The IRS and NSA. The White House dismisses them as phony and fake scandals. Americans do not.
A Fox News national poll released Thursday finds that 78 percent of voters think the questions over the administration’s handling of the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi should be taken seriously. Just 17 percent call it a phony scandal. …
Meanwhile, 69 percent of voters say the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance of everyday Americans is serious, while 26 percent call that a fake scandal.
By a margin of 59-31 percent, voters are also more likely to view the seizure of reporters’ phone records by the Justice Department as serious rather than phony.
And while the White House sees a Congressional investigation of the IRS targeting of conservative groups as a “distraction,” 59 percent of voters take it seriously. Some 33 percent agree with the administration that it’s fake.Even Democrats aren’t buying the “phony scandal” line. The internals show that a near-majority of Democrats think that the IRS scandal should be taken seriously (49/42). The gap among Democrats is much wider on the DoJ’s pursuit of journalists’ phone records, 59/32, even though it’s mainly a case involving a Fox News reporter at the moment.
On the NSA, it’s a rout among Democrats, with 68/27 arguing it needs to be taken seriously, but the most damaging of all are the results on Benghazi. Leaders of the Democratic Party have suggested that the investigation is nothing more than a sly attempt to damage Hillary Clinton in advance of her presidential run in the 2016 cycle, but only 25% of Democrats believe that the deaths of four Americans constitute a “phony scandal.” Seventy percent believe it should be taken serious, and that’s the lowest rating among any of the demographics in the poll on that question. Furthermore, 56% of Democrats think the White House is covering up what happened in Benghazi, and that’s not a number that will damage Hillary alone.
There isn’t a lot of good news in the poll for Obama elsewhere, either. His job approval rating dropped from 46/47 two weeks ago to 42/52, although a shift in the partisan sample could account for that (40/34 Dem to 38/37 Dem). His new campaign to boost Obamanomics is a bust, even among his fellow Democrats. More than six in ten respondents overall believe Obama should be working with Republicans on a compromise rather than going on tour (63/24), including a plurality of Democrats (47/42). Wide majorities say they’re hearing nothing new from Obama in almost all demographics (71% overall), with a narrow plurality of Democrats agreeing (44/42). Who does Obama think is listening, anyway?
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/09/fox-poll-shows-phony-scandal-line-playing-worse-that-youd-think/
GAO opens investigation into Planned Parenthood's use of taxpayer money
The non-partisan Government Accountability Office confirmed Thursday it is launching an investigation into how the country’s largest abortion provider spent millions of taxpayer dollars.Planned Parenthood received more than a half billion dollars in federal funding last year. The GAO’s investigation is in response to a request made by more than 50 members of Congress in February who asked for a detailed report on how money is being used by Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers across the country.
Specifically, lawmakers want to know what procedures and services they provided and the number of people who were served and how much it cost.
The GAO’s investigation comes on the heels of a settlement involving a Texas affiliate of the organization, which paid $4.3 million in July to settle allegations of fraud in billing to a health program for the poor. The settlement was $3 million more than what had been announced earlier by the Texas Attorney General.
However, when finalizing the settlement, which included state and federal recovery money, Planned Parenthood strongly refuted claims it has frequently over-billed the system.
Casey Mattox, a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative organization that has filed lawsuits against Planned Parenthood and is providing free legal assistance to former workers-turned-whistleblowers at Planned Parenthood, told Fox News that the group is surprised at how little media attention the fraud story has received.
Mattox also said his organization has proof of falsified claims.
“What we’ve found is that there are at least $12.5 million worth of government waste abuse and potential fraud by Planned Parenthood affiliates,” he said.
Hillary: The Docudrama
By Peggy NoonanSo the controversy over NBC doing a drama about Hillary Clinton: How will they play it? How will they draw her? It’s hard to believe they’d do bald propaganda but hard to believe they won’t. NBC is a cultural entity of the left, or you might say the soft left. She is a political figure of the left, or you might say the soft left.
I sense synergy
Actually I sense botch. It will be a drama about Hillary’s wonderfulness and when it’s done they’ll privately screen it and an executive will say, “We’re going to be accused of liberal bias, we’d better balance it a little.” So they’ll reshoot some scenes and insert things that might make Hillary look bad, but they’ll choose the wrong things, stupid things, and it will make the whole effort look cheesy. Even with Diane Lane. Who’s a ridiculous choice, but so what?
Let’s amuse ourselves by imagining what the movie will look like.
I’ll go first.
The dramatic template they’ll use is the life of Eleanor Roosevelt: Ugly duckling suffers much, finds her voice, leads. By the end she has become a thing of beauty, a real presence in the national life, a voice for the forgotten.
Quick opening:
Born in solid-burgher Illinois, baby boomer, father a small-business owner, a harried bully. She is propelled and protected by her mother, who carries with her competence, gruff affection and a quiet sense of grievance: Her own potential has been unexplored. “You have to be strong,” Mrs. Rodham tells her daughter. She gives 7-year-old Hillary a children’s book about a little girl who faces down some local toughs and protects an abused dog. It all takes place in a little town called Whitehaven.
She is an awkward teenager, can’t seem to get right what the other girls get so easily—the right headband, how to flirt. Scene: suburban basement party, 1963. The other girls dance to the Shirelles. Hillary, in a sad little flowered cotton dress, sits on a folding chair to the side. Next to her is a shy boy with a shirt-pocket pen protector. They silently watch, then talk about homework.
She attempts to win her Republican father’s approval, becomes a Goldwater girl. It doesn’t work. He still criticizes her almost-perfect report cards. “Don’t they give A-pluses at your school?”
She leaves home, goes to Wellesley, begins to study politics more seriously. Reading great texts, taking notes. Scene: Hillary in flared jeans, book in hand, running breathlessly down a dormitory corridor. She comes upon another student. “Listen to this, listen,” she says. “The working poor, especially those who are members of minority groups, are discriminated during the mortgage loan process at banks—especially women, who can’t even get a loan unless a man co-signs for it.” The other student, a blank beauty, toothbrush in mouth, towel on freshly shampooed hair, stares at her, blankly. “Um, wow,” she says. Hillary insists, “We’ve got to do something about it!” and marches on. Another student pokes her head from a room, makes eye contact with towel girl, and they start to laugh. Rodham comes on a little strong.
Moment of triumph: senior class address on graduation day. Hillary challenges the establishment, the entrenched powers. “We need more ecstatic modes of being.” It doesn’t make complete sense, but it’s the ’60s and nothing has to. In the audience, a mortified U.S. senator who’d come to speak at commencement. Hillary sees him squirm. We see on her face this thought: This thing I’m part of has power. The young have more power than we know.
Yale Law school, long nights in the library. She meets Bill—charistmatic, friendly, ambitious. This one knows how to dance the mashed potato and the Loco-Motion too. “In Arkansas we grow watermelons the size of Saturnian moons!” Dates, movies, love. His mother, Virgina Kelley—antic, Southern white working class—doesn’t like her a bit. “She isn’t good enough, not your type—she doesn’t even wear mascara.” Bill holds firm: She is the partner I need for my journey.
Marriage. Elections. First lady of Arkansas. Awkward. What is the line between feminist seriousness and movement priggishness? Where is the line between getting power and staying human? She wants to be serious and she wants, as always, to fit in. Intermittent mascara use. Comic scene: Virginia gives her makeup lessons. Hillary walks out looking like a whore. But she’s learned something from their recently begun conversations: it’s a mistake to think you have nothing to learn from the Virginia Kelleys of the world. They know things they don’t teach in the Ivy League.
Thrown out of office, back in office, baby Chelsea, inexorable rise. Rumors about Bill and women, works through it. Growing friendships with Democratic activists, movers and shakers, moneymen, pollsters. A new interest in children’s issues. Lucrative board memberships. She will fight the power from the inside. The shoulders of her power suit get bigger.
They’re speaking of Bill for president in 1992. Why not? It will position him for the future. But no one can take down the mythic Republican machine—Lee Atwater, those killers.
Bumps along the way in the primary: a woman, a tape. Hillary: I’m trying to be serious about policy here, I don’t bake cookies! The blows keep coming. She toughs it out. Her husband’s enemies are worse than he is. She loves him, and she didn’t come this far to let some personal nonsense take them out.
The Clintons take the White House. Burst of hope. Hillary has new first-lady role, one that recognizes the importance of women. She is not some Christmas tree ornament in the East Room but a serious policy official in charge or remaking U.S. health care. She will get the poor, the minorities, and the women covered. America says: Whuh? Hearings. Anxious Hill Republicans awed by her, unsure how to play it. It is Pat Moynihan of her own party, in the Senate, who defeats her bill. The Clinton White House forgot not to disrespect the ol’ crocodile.
Defeat, retreat, mascara. Triangulation: Is this good? Does it mean we’ve become what we hated? Or does it mean we’ve become practical? The point is power. Preserve it at all costs. Lincoln bedroom good place to park donors. You have to compromise to win.
Triumph. Economy good. Rope-a-dope Newt and the Contract With America nuts. Good legislation. Finally, everything good. The future all sunrise.
But woven throughout a sense of . . . women. Scene: A beautiful blond gives a last lingering look back at the Oval Office as she hurries away in the morning light. Hillary, on her way to a breakfast celebrating funding for women and children in poverty, sees. On her face we see surprise, confusion—she thought this was all over—and fear.
Then: Monica. Tears, “How could you ruin what we’ve built?” Scandal, horror, rage, slap.
The silence at Martha’s Vineyard.
Repair. Reading. Eleanor Roosevelt biographies. Scene: Hillary is alone, looking out the window of the residence. In the background, Bill’s televised deposition. She stares at the tourists at the fence. They want in. She wants out. They’re freer than she is, locked up in this cage, locked in by her choices. Scene: She’s with girlfriends late at night in the residence. They’re telling stories, commiserating, drinking wine. “When Joe and I had our hard time we decided to stay in it, work it through. We had a life, a commitment, kids, a reasonable amount of love and a big sloppy dog. Looking back we did all right.” Another, a tough talking New Yorker: “Look, fall in love with a guy who can dance the Shirelles, ya gotta expect he’ll dance with a few shirelles!” Hillary laughs, hugs her. The conversation continues.
A Senate seat opens up. Moynihan, the ol’ crocodile, is leaving.
She runs in New York, where they love her. The poor, the marginalized, women: They too have been hurt by life.
U.S. Senator. On her own. Major book contract, bestselling memoir. Rich. A house so big it has a name: Whitehaven. Only she appreciates the resonance.
Heady. It’s the first time she’s really in charge, in control of decision making. She’s not at anyone’s mercy now. She works well with Republicans, a show horse who’s a work horse.
She runs for president and is done in by her staff, who make poor decisions. They let her down as much as Bill did. But there was that one moment in New Hampshire—”I’ve found my voice”—and there was at least that victory, before the end.
Obama is president. Future? Phone call. Secretary of State? Yes.
Travel, speeches, statements. She discerns a brutal truth: Everything’s changed. State doesn’t develop policy now, it’s all coming out of the White House. She is the face of US diplomacy but not its substance. But no one notices. She forges on, makes the most of it. Scene: A walk-on by a glamorous, willowy, exotic aid. At night, on the plane: “What do you really want, Huma?” “All I want is to be just like you.”
Hillary’s face turns reflective as she looks out the window at the moon and the clouds . . .
It ends with: now.
World fame, big speeches, huge audiences, an insider if ever there was one. A sense of expectation surrounds her, something lurking—destiny? She is alone, finally liberated, finally herself. No, she is alone but surrounded by those who adore her for the right reasons, not because she’s powerful but for her grit and fidelity to issues and independent accomplishments. Alone she is suddenly not alone. And here’s Bill, just in from Africa.
Scene: a meeting with old campaign aides, veterans of previous political wars. One brings a surprise: a poll. “You’ll not just win if you run, you’re going to be elected by a group that’s made a journey very much like your own. You’re going to be elected by Republican women.”
She’s older now, doesn’t jump at the information, just smiles. Another aid adds: “The Republican governor’s wife in the biggest state in the Midwest made people’s heads explode about an hour ago by saying if you run she’ll head up Women for Hillary.”
She’d already heard, but was courteous and looked surprise. She’d met the governor’s wife years ago, back at Wellesley. They had a talk once about housing discrimination—she had a toothbrush in her mouth and a towel on her head…
Scene: a sunny, crisp fall day. Off to a meeting, a speech. The great door opens at Whitehaven. She walks into the sunlight. TV crews. “Madame Secretary, are you running?” Finally she does not fear them. She smiles, parries one liners, glides into a shiny, smoky-windowed SUV. The car glides forward, down Mass Ave, toward Pennsylvania.
http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2013/08/07/hillary-the-docudrama/
In His Majesty's CIA
So, why did you join the CIA? To be mobster Henry Hill, shoved into an Agency witness protection program? Except, unlike Hill, it isn't you who's being protected. It's the president, higher-ups, and the Agency itself. You -- you're more a prisoner than a pampered witness. Remember the 60s' cult classic Brit TV series, The Prisoner? Once you're in the Agency, you're never out.
You being pressured into signing a nondisclosure agreement with the Agency about that awful night in Benghazi. What was the date? Oh, yes, September 11, 2012. The night U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was brutalized and killed by jihadists along with three other valiant Americans. We've learned since that, perhaps, seven of your comrades were also injured, some seriously enough to require hospitalization.
And you being given routine polygraph tests to make certain you're not leaking. That's the sort of leak that a Depend won't catch, but a lie detector test will.
And you shuttled to undisclosed locations regularly, lest snoopers find you, providing you the chance to spill the beans about CIA covert operations out of Benghazi to assist Syrian rebels.
Moreover, what's with changing your name, per the Agency's insistence? Seems you're being erased from the face of the earth. Are you allowed to bring your family with you while touring America? How about your beloved dog, or did the Agency see fit to dispatch Spot? Dogs aren't very convenient and make lots of noise.
Illegal, any arms-running scheme into Syria, and President Obama's fingerprints would have to be all over it. Should it be proved that the president end-ran the law, why, that's grist for the impeachment mill, of the high crimes variety. Impeachment isn't on His Majesty Barack Obama's agenda, though, so he and his lackeys have Agency satraps putting the screws to you.
As Jed Babbin recently wrote for the American Spectator:
[T]he president - whose approval had to have been obtained for any such operations - would be directly implicated [in the Syrian arms running]. He was either acting without congressional authority or in violation of laws on the books that are supposed to block those actions.
Either way Obama, [Hillary] Clinton, and Petraeus would be in the dock personally for having broken the law.
That's right. Hill Clinton -- ordained the nation's next savior come January 2017 by NBC Entertainment (more like "Leni Riefenstahl Entertainment") and CNN Internationale -- and General David Petraeus, your old boss, who flung discretion to the wind in an affair of the heart (or groin) while running the Agency, are up on criminal charges if intrepid investigators, congressional and otherwise, force their ways past the administration's and the Agency's stonewalls.
News about Petraeus' amour went public, pushing the laconic general to resign his Agency chiefdom in disgrace -- okay, not in disgrace. What public figure nowadays -- open to blackmail no less -- is disgraced? Unlike you, Petraeus isn't being schlepped around under an alias ("Pa Kettle" for Ol' Dave?) from one Motel 8 to another, from Bayonne to Meridian to Truth or Consequences (hilarious that one, huh?). Petraeus risked the Agency with his tryst, but no cover up ensued (at least one that worked), so the générale is on with his life and lucrative post-government career.
More greatly disturbing than you seeing the U.S.A. in a Chevrolet Volt (government fleet car, of course), are reports of intimidation, with threats, veiled or not, aimed squarely at your family. These reports aren't leg-tingling, but spine-chilling.
Per Frontpage Mag, August 5, 2013:
Another source described the frequency of [polygraph] testing as pure intimidation, noting that any unauthorized leak could cost someone his career. The source further noted that intimidation was not limited to the individual leaker. "You don't jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well," the source warned.
You doubtlessly learned of the Stasi and KBG in college history classes and through Agency training. The Mob, well, you need only have watched the Biography Channel or History Channel to learn about those goodfellas. None of those hombres messed around, let me tell you. When you bring a guy's family into the picture that's hardball, beyond anything the boobish Chris Matthews can imagine.
Such thuggery seems appropriate for Mother Russia, the GDR, and the Triangle Social Club (hangout of the late Vincent "The Chin" Gigante), but when the nation's premier intelligence and security agency begins threatening your wife and kids, old ma and pa, and bro and sis if you don't cooperate (to use the euphemism), then that's not America anymore. That's "What size jackboots do you want for Christmas?" fodder. That's dangerous slippery-slope stuff, too.
Today the Agency threatens you and your family; tomorrow, it's a shmuck in Des Moines who stumbled on something he shouldn't have stumbled on (maybe sightseeing around Area 51 wasn't such a swell idea).
So you're a CIA operative, sent to Benghazi on a cloak and dagger mission. You went as a patriot and professional, doing your duty to the best of your ability, regardless the suspect nature of the orders. You were on-the-ground in Benghazi when disaster struck, when playing sides in the Syrian civil war met with retaliation, lethal for some and possibly life-changing for you.
How can Americans help you, at least those Americans who care about liberty, the rule of law, and seeing to it that the nation's laws are abided and lawbreakers, low and high, are brought to justice? How to get the Agency's hooks out of you?
How about a legal defense fund on your behalf? Perhaps rewards for information leading to the truth about the CIA's Syrian civil war involvement? And rewards for information on the cover-up that followed, in the White House, at the Agency, and wherever else.
And for once, maybe -- just maybe -- Speaker John Boehner could do more than talk the talk. There's been a hue and cry for a Select Committee on the Benghazi scandal with full subpoena power granted. Subpoenas would shield you and your colleagues at the Agency who want to come forward to tell the truth about Benghazi.
Or congressional conservatives could end-run Boehner.
As Frontpage Mag reports from the aforementioned article:
Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) has taken it one step further. On July 27, he filed a "discharge petition" that would get around the scheduling process for bills, currently controlled by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), and force GOP leadership to allow a House vote. "If I can get 218 Congressional Republicans to back me, a majority of the House, we will break through the D.C. stonewall and there will finally be a vote on creating the Select Committee to investigate Benghazi," Stockman wrote at his website. He also explained his rationale for doing so. "You see, Congress just canceled a hearing in which we were supposed to hear from Benghazi survivors," he wrote. "Why? Because someone in a Democrat office leaked the names of the witnesses, who were then targeted for intimidation."
The first page of the CIA website is titled: "Welcome to..."
As The Prisoner's Number 6 could tell you, once you're welcomed to the "Village," escaping is an entirely different matter. But escape the Agency you must, for your sake and the nation's.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/in_his_majestys_cia.html#ixzz2bUtryW4W
John Roberts Was Wrong, and Here's Why
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) recently wrote a book, Why John Roberts Was Wrong About Healthcare, which is an excellent and compelling read. Besides providing a gripping argument as to why Justice Roberts was wrong on the ObamaCare ruling, Lee also gives an excellent history and background on the Court and the health care decision itself. American Thinker had the privilege of interviewing the Senator about his book and ObamaCare.His two main arguments in the book point out how ObamaCare has made federalism extravagant and that there appears to no longer be a separation of power among branches. Senator Lee explained to American Thinker, "Too much power is consolidated in Washington versus remaining with the states and the people. There is also too much legislative power being wielded by the Executive and Judicial branches."
In his book, Lee writes, "It undermines federalism inasmuch as it sets a precedent for the Court to 'cure' the constitutional defects in a law found to be unconstitutionally coercive of a state's sovereign powers ... that federal powers are indeed 'few and defined,' while those reserved to the states are 'numerous and indefinite.' My reluctance to embrace that characterization cannot be overstated." He also directly notes that ObamaCare is obviously a gross expansion of the federal government.
The senator is hoping that Americans take the time to become knowledgeable about this bill and its consequences: "that health care will get a lot more expensive, individuals will have burdens that will bring about penalties under federal law, there will be more part-time jobs without benefits, more massive layoffs, workforce reductions, and a creation of a class system of medicine. There is also going to be a cost to the American taxpayer: nearly $1.8 trillion over the next ten years."
Regarding the separation of powers, Lee explains in the book, "The court's job was not to ascertain whether Congress could have achieved the same ends by properly invoking its taxing power. Nor was it the Court's job to make any change to the statute that might be necessary to save it. Rather, the Court's job was to decide whether what Congress actually enacted was a valid exercise of Congress' power to tax."
Senator Lee explained to American Thinker, "I wanted to show in my book the Court was devious. In order to take jurisdiction of the case, it had to conclude [that ObamaCare] was a tax, not a penalty. Otherwise, they would not be able to review the case until after the 2014 implementation kicked in. People need to understand that this was initially written as a tax, but it could not get passed. Chief Justice John Roberts did a major disservice to the citizens of America, rewriting the law as Congress 'may have intended' instead of accepting what Congress did intend. He did this to 'save' the unconstitutional legislation by doing what he has no authority to do: rewriting a statute not once, but twice.
"He also changed the Medicaid expansion portion. The bill stated that if a state did not accept the new Medicaid expansion, it would forfeit all of its existing federal Medicaid payments, leaving the state to pay for everything that they had formerly shared with the federal government. That was clearly an unconstitutional portion of the law, so instead of striking it, the Court rewrote it, allowing states to opt out of expansion while keeping their current federal subsidy. The Court "fixed" the provision to make it constitutional. So we have a law, which, because the Court altered it, is a law that was not passed by Congress."
Senator Lee has been at the forefront of getting ObamaCare repealed. After the Supreme Court's ruling, he introduced the bill S.560, which makes it clear the mandate is a penalty, not a tax. "I came up with this bill because I was so frustrated with this administration and those in Congress who support the bill, yet still say it is a penalty, not a tax. How could members of Congress who voted for ACA [ObamaCare] in 2010, but now insist that they would never have voted to enforce the mandate through a tax, refuse to support S.560? If this bill passes, then from a constitutional standpoint, the whole ObamaCare bill will collapse. It would get challenged again and the Supreme Court could not uphold it, because of its own ruling."
He is also fighting ObamaCare on another front: to defund it. Senator Lee, along with Senator Rubio, Senator Cruz, Senator Paul, nine other senators, and seventy members in the House, have pledged to defund ObamaCare. "What I am saying is that we ought to fund government, just not ObamaCare. As I stated in my book, this law as it stands today is not the law passed by Congress. It has been amended twice by the Supreme Court and twice by the president. No one including myself wants a shutdown of the government. I am willing to fund everything, with one exception: ObamaCare."
Senator Lee seems to have a good point. It is now or never to eliminate ObamaCare. Waiting until the 2014 elections might not be an option, since the law will have been in place for a year and a half, with many insurers already out of business. So why are so many Republicans running scared? Senator Lee cannot explain the fact that "so many Republicans are overwhelmingly going in this direction. The good news is that the American people are going overwhelmingly in the direction of defunding ObamaCare. We are going to get the message out, which is why we started in July. I would encourage all my fellow Americans to contact their representatives in Congress and tell them to vote for defunding this law, especially if they purport to be against its implementation."
Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), author of ObamaCare, has said the law is a train wreck. Senator Lee points out that the Washington establishment is not happy with his efforts, yet many outside the Washington Beltway want action.
Anyone who wants to understand how this law has been changed four times should read Why John Roberts Was Wrong About Healthcare to get a complete and concise analysis. Interested parties should also contact their congressional figures and ask them to join with Senator Lee to defund ObamaCare.
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