EXCLUSIVE — Ted Cruz: ObamaTrade Enmeshed In Corrupt, Backroom Dealings

As a general matter, I agree (as did Ronald Reagan) that free trade is good for America; when we open up foreign markets, it helps American farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers. But TPA in this Congress has become enmeshed in corrupt Washington backroom deal-making, along with serious concerns that it would open up the potential for sweeping changes in our laws that trade agreements typically do not include. Since the Senate first voted on TPA, there have been two material changes. First, WikiLeaks subsequently revealed new troubling information regarding the Trade in Services Agreement, or TiSA, one of the trade deals being negotiated by Obama. Despite the administration’s public assurances that it was not negotiating on immigration, several chapters of the TiSA draft posted online explicitly contained potential changes in federal immigration law.

Read more at Breitbart.com
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Sowell: A crossroads election

ONENEWSNOW.com, 11/1/2010 by Thomas Sowell - "Most elections are about particular policies, particular scandals or particular personalities. But these issues don't mean as much this year-- not because they are not important, but because this election is a crossroads election, one that can decide what path this country will take for many years to come. ∴ Runaway "stimulus" spending, high unemployment and ObamaCare are all legitimate and important issues. It is just that freedom and survival are more important. ∴ For all its sweeping and scary provisions, ObamaCare is not nearly as important as the way it was passed. If legislation can become laws passed without either the public or the Congress knowing what is in those laws, then the fundamental principle of a free, self-governing people is completely undermined. Read more at One News Now... Read More......

Fury Over Backroom Deal

FOXNews.com, 1/15/2010 - Democrats Hammered for 'Back-Room' Deal With Unions on Health Care: In pushing a giant step closer to a health care reform deal, Democratic leaders are once again drawing fire from their critics for extending special treatment to an interest group in exchange for its support of the bill. [Snip] Under the deal, if it becomes law, union workers will be shielded from the 40 percent tax for five years -- until 2018. The threshold for the tax also was raised so that it will kick in for plans worth $24,000 instead of $23,000. And dental and vision coverage will not count toward that threshold. ∴ But what about everybody else? Read more at FOX...


AFP BLOG, 1/15/2010 by Tim Phillips - Last night in closed-door secret negotiations, President Obama cut a sweetheart deal with the big labor unions to exempt them from taxes that this health care takeover will levy on millions of Americans. ∴ In all the years I’ve been in the political world, I’ve never seen a deal this brazen, this outrageous – and of course they did it in secret. Read more at Americans for Prosperity... Read More......

Rove: The Real Price of the Senate Health Bill

WSJ/OPINION JOURNAL, 12/23/2009 by Karl Rove - Pushing health-care reform through the Senate will hurt Democrats. ∴ By now Majority Leader Harry Reid's explanation for how he is getting his health-care bill through the Senate has pinged its way across the country. "I don't know if there is a senator that doesn't have something in this bill that was important to them," he said this week. "And if they don't have something in it important to them, then it doesn't speak well of them." But take these comments two steps further and it becomes clear that how Mr. Reid reached unanimity in his caucus could hurt Democrats more than they realize. Rove attaches names to amounts in this barrel of backroom deals. Read more...

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ObamaCare Endorsements: WHAT THE BRIBE WAS

TheHill.com, 11/6/2009 By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN, (Printer-Friendly Version) - As the suicidal Democratic congressmen proceed to rubber-stamp the Obama healthcare reform despite the drubbing their party took in the '09 elections, the president trotted out the endorsements of the AMA and the AARP to stimulate support. But these -- and the other endorsements -- his package has received are all bought and paid for.

Here are the deals:

* The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians' reimbursements under the current law. Obama promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill. The cuts are the fruit of a law requiring annual 5-6 percent reductions in doctor reimbursements for treating Medicare patients. Bravely, each year Congress has rolled the cuts over, suspending them but not repealing them. So each year, the accumulated cuts threaten doctors. By now, they have risen to 21 percent. With this blackmail leverage, Obama compelled the AMA to support his bill...or else!

* The AARP got a financial windfall in return for its support of the healthcare bill.

Over the past decade, the AARP has morphed from an advocacy group to an insurance company (through its subsidiary company). It is one of the main suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, a high-cost, privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off. But President Bush-43 passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized, lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. Under Medicare Advantage, the elderly get all the extra coverage they need plus coordinated, well-managed care, usually by the same physician. So more than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues.

Presto! Obama solved their problem. He eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage. The elderly will have to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP -- which supposedly represents them -- will make more money. (If this galls you, join the American Seniors Association, the alternative group; contact sbarton@americanseniors.org. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

* The drug industry backed ObamaCare and, in return, got a 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs. (A drop in the bucket of their almost $3 trillion projected cost over the next decade.) They also got administration assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S. All it had to do was put its formidable advertising budget at the disposal of the administration.

* Insurance companies got access to 40 million potential new customers. But when the Senate Finance Committee lowered the fine that would be imposed on those who don't buy insurance from $3,500 to $1,500, the insurance companies jumped ship and now oppose the bill, albeit for the worst of motives.

The only industry that refused to knuckle under was the medical device makers. They stood for principle and wouldn't go along with Obama's blackmail. So the Senate Finance Committee retaliated by imposing a tax on medical devices such as automated wheelchairs, pacemakers, arterial stents, prosthetic limbs, artificial knees and hips and other necessary accoutrements of healthcare.

So these endorsements are not freely given, but bought and paid for by an administration that is intent on passing its program at any cost. Read More......

Change We Can't Believe In?

WASHINGTON POST, 8/12/2009 by Ruth Marcus - Candidate Barack Obama offered a lofty vision of how his White House would operate. When the details of health reform were being hammered out, he vowed, "We'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." ∴ The campaign even aired an ad singling out Billy Tauzin, the drug industry's chief lobbyist. "The pharmaceutical industry wrote into the prescription drug plan that Medicare could not negotiate with drug companies," Obama said in the ad. "And you know what? The chairman of the committee, who pushed the law through, went to work for the pharmaceutical industry making $2 million a year. Imagine that." ∴ Now, it turns out, the Obama White House has cut a backroom -- actually, Roosevelt Room -- deal with Tauzin: Drugmakers would ante up $80 billion in savings in return for a promise that Medicare wouldn't be allowed to negotiate drug prices. Read more at the Washington Post...

Hat tip: John H. Detweiler
John writes, "Change?" Read More......

Big business and organizations acting badly

ROBERT REICH: "How soon until big industries and their Washington lobbyists have become so politically powerful that secret White House-industry deals like this are prerequisites to any important legislation? When will it become standard practice that such deals come with hundreds of millions of dollars of industry-sponsored TV advertising designed to persuade the public that the legislation is in the public’s interest?" [Surprising, huh? Robert Reich is the former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, who stated earlier this year that jobs created by stimulus spending should not go to whites. He is right on the mark on this, however.]

NEW YORK TIMES, 8/8/2009 by David Kirkpatrick: WASHINGTON — The drug industry has authorized its lobbyists to spend as much as $150 million on television commercials supporting President Obama’s health care overhaul, beginning over the August Congressional recess, people briefed on the plans said Saturday. Read more at NYT...

Seniors! Looking for an alternative to AARP? Check out AmericanSeniors.org (this is a suggestion, not an advertisement). Read More......