Former Health Insurance Executive Explains How Companies Pocket Billions Through ‘Rescission’
ACORN-Gotcha Gal, Hannah Giles, Gets Pass From Hannity On Her Lies, Dubious Claims And Discredited Video
Despite the fact that Andrew Breitbart and young “investigator” Hannah Giles had been punked in their previous “undercover” expose of ACORN the night before, Breitbart and Giles were back on Hannity last night (9/16/09) with another gotcha video. There was no mention that Giles had failed to verify the outlandish and, as it turned out, made-up claim of ACORN worker Tresa Kaelke that she had killed her husband. In fact, Breitbart spoke of the "murder" as though it were true. As we previously posted, a local police report indicates otherwise. Furthermore, last night, Giles falsely told Hannity, who hinted he knew better, that in every visit to an ACORN office where Giles appeared, pretending to be a prostitute, the organization had been willing to assist her proposed illegal activities.
DC Madam Customer David Vitter Is Outraged By The ACORN Prostitution Scandal
Vitter’s outrage over the latest ACORN scandal seems extraordinarily hypocritical, in light of what he went through in 2007:
A woman accused of running a Washington prostitution ring placed five phone calls to David Vitter while he was a House member, including two while roll call votes were under way, according to telephone and congressional records.
Vitter, a Louisiana Republican now in the Senate, acknowledged Monday that his number was on the woman’s call list and apologized for a “very serious sin.”
Vitter, of course, kept his federal funding, and remains in the Senate.
Poll Finds Most Doctors Support Public Health Care Option
Democrats and the Great ‘Czar’ Panic
Manu Raju talks to Senate Democrats about the Glenn Beck-driven, almost entirely hysterical campaign against “czars.” The fuel: a letter written by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) about “czars.” I’ve reprinted the letter below the jump, but the key bit is this:
I respectfully urge you to disclose as much information as you can about these policy advisors and “czars.” Specifically, I ask that you identify these individuals’ roles and responsibilities, and provide the judgment(s) of your legal advisors as to whether and how these positions are consistent with the Appointments Clause.
Politico’s take here is — shockingly! — a bit misleading and over-wrought. In addition to Feingold’s letter, there’s Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) saying that “you need to have confirmation” for powerful advisers. There’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who wants more oversight but avers that the way “czars” are defined in the press is wildly misleading: “I don’t think it’s quite fair to call, for example, David Hayes at the Department of Interior a czar.” Somewhat surprisingly, conservative-leaning Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) dismisses the “czar” panic as “something that some talk show hosts have made a great deal out of.” And there’s an eight-month old letter about “czars” from Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). Politico packages this as evidence of Democrats “joining the czar wars.”
It’s hard to overstate what a fantastic issue this is for Republicans if it’s covered hysterically. The 40 Republican members of the Senate have filibustered or put holds on many of the president’s nominees, including Dawn Johnsen for the Office of Legal Counsel and Tom Perez at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. They subjected Cass Sunstein to an eight-month series of holds and filibusters which ended only last week — and they continue to include Sunstein in the roll calls of “unaccountable czars.”
Thanks to lazy and sensationalized journalism, Republicans are able to put the breaks on the president’s nominees while complaining, as Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) did yesterday, that President Obama’s appointees are “unaccountable to the American people through their elected representatives.” The fact that Republicans, instead of asking questions, are quietly placing “holds” on qualified nominees who have been submitted to the Senate, goes utterly unmentioned.
