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why are you pressing on the "is it a tax" issue years later? the SCOTUS already said it is, this is nothing new
...let's get to the real story from Tuesday.
Gruber Admits to Referring to Obamacare as a Tax
Jonathan Gruber’s Weak New Excuse for His Obamacare Exchange Subsidies “Speak-O”
Gruber won’t deny the White House wanted to trick Congress into passing the ACAFinally, Gruber admitted that he has come up with this explanation for what he must have been trying to say entirely after the fact. While "thinking about how I could have made that statement, I believe that’s what I had in mind," he said today. This is an explicit admission that he’s rationalizing his prior statement in order to fit with what he now believes.
Gruber's appearance before the committee came after numerous additional videos surfaced this fall in which Gruber suggested that the process leading to the passage of Obamacare was not transparent. In those videos he said that the law relied on a convoluted structure to confuse the public about how it worked, and was written in a "tortured" way to achieve a desirable score from the Congressional Budget Office. His appearance was a kind of penance and public shaming, and he repeatedly attempted to distance himself from those remarks. Instead what he ended up proving was that he could torture his own remarks too.
In an appearance on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Gruber was probed by Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) over his lamentation that the administration’s lack of honesty about the imposition of taxes both on those who do not purchase insurance and on those who do have insurance. Turner prodded Gruber over whether he had any conversations with members of the White House who perhaps shared his opinion that the ACA needed to be crafted in a “tortured” way to ensure its passage.
After much deliberation, Gruber finally answered: “I honestly do not recall.”
For those keeping track, that is not a “no.”
It defies logic, and insults just as much as did Gruber’s original comments about the “stupidity of the American voter,” to presume that the administration did not take some part in the “tortured” way in which Obamacare was crafted.
“Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don’t. How is that not a tax?” ABC host George Stephanopoulos probed Obama in 2009.
“No,” the president replied unequivocally, “but, George, you — you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase.”
“Now what I’ve said is that if you can’t afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn’t be punished for that,” Obama added. “That’s just piling on.”
In this statement, Obama conceded that the imposition of taxes on those who cannot afford health insurance was politically toxic. If these statements and others do not prove intent, they certainly show motive.
Gruber’s comment in this question is likely to come back to haunt both him and the Obama administration.
why are you pressing on the "is it a tax" issue years later? the SCOTUS already said it is, this is nothing new
lol the blogs sure do like the word "tortured" today.
Sorry, real CIA torture is the bigger story.
This is inside baseball nonpartisans aren't going to care about.
If they want to get rid of Obamacare, it's not because of this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah...
Obama argued it wasn't a tax to get the necessary Congressional votes.
Then, he argued it was a tax to get paid back for the blowjob he gave Justice Roberts.
The problem is Gruber was telling the truth before Obama was willing to admit it...that they had to lie about it being a tax in order to get it passed.
It's important now because, the Supreme Court is probably going to decide the fate of this POS legislation, one more time, and Gruber's recorded (video and audio) admissions to doing precisely what the law's critics were saying, might be instructive for the SCOTUS.
Taken in conjunction with his admissions on why subsidies weren't available to citizens of States not implementing their own exchange and, I believe, the Supreme Court will have a hard time not tossing it this time around.
If only it had occurred.
to paraphrase Jonathan Gruber, you're stupid.
What cons utional issues are in question according to your blogs?
It did. Or you're just a fan of assplay on men done in your name. I'd believe either.
Eh, you're praying for a SCOTUS ruling. Makes it even less relevant to people.to paraphrase Jonathan Gruber, you're stupid.
And why? What's the Republican alternative to the originally Republican health care plan that is Obamacare?
McCain calls it torture.
I believe him.
Why are you calling this war hero and torture victim a liar, yoni?
I think Roberts this time will vote with the other 4 Repug/Catholic SCOTUS assholes and gut ACA.
Then the Republicans will have to come up with their own plan.
I look forward to their new and innovative ideas.
it will be to kill medicare, medicaid, have the Feds no-accountability-strings-attached block grants to the states, the red ones of which know how to abuse such block grants to enrich their paymasters (and themselves)
seniors will be given totally inadequate vouchers to go buy their own health insurance (the exchanges will of course be killed) and be denied for medical conditions.
result: 10Ms of seniors will not be able to afford health insurance, will live in the ER
Repug Intellectual Ayn Rand would want it that way.
btw, McConnell and Boner aren't talking so much now about repealing ACA because they are counting on Roberts to kill it.
What the Issa wanted was to link him to the writing on the bill and they got nowhere. They settled for attacking his fee for his work and berating him for being mean to the public.
There is no story here other than Gruber charged the feds a lot of money to consult and said some mean things.
They are pretty specific and the CIA doesn't deny that they happened just that the DoJ said it was legal.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/09/politi...king-passages/1. The CIA conducted at least two mock executions -- among other techniques that went unreported in the agency's cables. Others included "nudity, dietary manipulation, exposure to cold temperatures, cold showers," and rough takedowns.
In another passage, the mock executions are included in a section that also mentions techniques like "placing pressure on a detainee's artery ... blowing cigarette or cigar smoke into a detainee's face, using cold water to interrogate detainees, and subjecting a detainee to a 'hard takedown.'"
2. Those "rough" or "hard" takedowns involved CIA officers rushing into a detainee's cell, stripping him naked and running him up and down a long hall while slapping and punching him. "As they ran him along the corridor, a couple of times he fell and they dragged him through the dirt," the report says.
3. The CIA often used sleep deprivation, which "involved keeping detainees awake for up to 180 hours, usually standing or in stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads."
4. The CIA decided that interrogating Abu Zubaydah would take precedence over his medical care. He almost died as a result of waterboarding. In at least one waterboarding session, Abu Zubaydah "became completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth." He remained unresponsive until medical intervention, when he regained consciousness and expelled "copious amounts of liquid."
5. The first prisoner at the COBALT detention facility, Redha al-Najar, was kept in "isolation in total darkness." The CIA gave him increasingly worse food, kept him in uncomfortably cold temperatures, kept him shackled and hooded and played music 24 hours a day. He wore a diaper and had no access to toilets. And he was described as being left hanging -- with one or both wrists handcuffed to an overhead bar so he couldn't lower his arms -- for 22 hours a day for two straight days in an attempt to "'break' his resistance."
6. The CIA threatened the families of detainees. It used that prisoner's "fear for the well-being of his family to our benefit," according to the report, by "using 'vague threats' to create a 'mind virus.'" In another section, the report says "CIA officers also threatened at least three detainees with harm to their families -- to include threats to harm the children of a detainee, threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee and a threat to 'cut [a detainee's] mother's throat.'"
7. One detainee faced particularly rough treatment in late 2005. Per the report: "According to CIA records, Abu Ja'far al-Iraqi was subjected to nudity, dietary manipulation, insult slaps, abdominal slaps, attention grasps, facial holds, walling, stress positions and water dousing with 44 degree Fahrenheit water for 18 minutes. He was shackled in the standing position for 54 hours as part of sleep deprivation, and experienced swelling in his lower legs requiring blood thinner and spiral ace bandages.
"He was moved to a sitting position, and his sleep deprivation was extended to 78 hours. After the swelling subsided, he was provided with more blood thinner and was returned to the standing position. The sleep deprivation was extended to 102 hours. After four hours of sleep, Abu Ja'far al-Iraqi was subjected to an additional 52 hours of sleep deprivation, after which CIA Headquarters informed interrogators that eight hours was the minimum rest period between sleep deprivation sessions exceeding 48 hours. In addition to the swelling, Abu Ja'far al-Iraqi also experienced an edema on his head due to walling, abrasions on his neck and blisters on his ankles from shackles."
8. "At least five CIA detainees were subjected to 'rectal rehydration' or rectal feeding without do ented medical necessity," the report said. More specifically, "Majid Khan's 'lunch tray' of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts and raisins was 'pureed' and rectally infused."
9. The CIA officers involved in the detention and interrogation program weren't the most savory bunch. The group "included individuals who, among other issues, had engaged in inappropriate detainee interrogations, had workplace anger management issues and had reportedly admitted to sexual assault," the report said.
But Gruber parroted the SCOTUS take on the mandate and said people were stupid. That is more important. GO RNC GOP!!!!!!!!
Shill is as shill does.
And, to date, who has been prosecuted for committing acts of torture?
Holder conducted a 2 year investigation looking for torturers and dropped the case for lack of evidence.
DOJ Attorneys Bybee and Yoo were investigated for their role in advising the President on the enhanced interrogation techniques and were exonerated.
Again, calling something torture doesn't make it so.
Whether or not the have legal cover because the DoJ signed off on it is besides the point. Those acts are deplorable and should not be allowed. Do you agree or do you support the ground up meal enema and other sexual abuse?
Actually, it's not. But, not only is that not beside the point, neither is the fact that NO jurisdiction has pursued charges against anyone involved in the program. Not one. All that has transpired is that a bunch of (mostly) Leftists have spent the past 10 years caterwauling about torture, war crimes, etc.. without actually taking any concrete action to pursue those charges.
Generally, I support what the Intelligence Community did, immediately after 9/11, that resulted in the disruption of terrorist plots and the saving of innocent lives.
To your specific point, I also know the six former CIA Directors have acknowledged there were excesses and that investigations took place and that, in one case, a criminal prosecution resulted in prison time. I don't know if the enema treatments were ones that were deemed legal by DoJ or if they resulted in disciplinary action. Care to provide some more context? I haven't read beyond the conclusions of the Senate report.
A Republican said it's not torture, so there is no possible way it could ever be torture. Go team!
So you will support the assplay if someone tells you to.
Nice.
Where are the criminal charges?
I just went and read the portion of the Senate report where anal rehydration and feeding is discussed. Yep; I'm okay with it.
Left or right, I don't know a single person who gives a about some terrorists getting hazed...I mean tortured. Left or right, I don't know a single person who approves of Obamacare. So yeah the CIA report is a HUGE story.
Do you read any news outside of the US?
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