Live Oversight hearing on ACA/Gruber testifying

[thoughtomator]

http://www.c-span.org/video/?323115-1/hearing-jonathan-gruber-marilyn-tavenner-health-care-enrollment&live

[surf]

i'm still waiting for someone to call him on the "stupid voters" quote because, well, it was congress that passed this thing.

why isn't "stupid voters" (or whatever the quote is) not seen as referencing congress?

[Lucille]

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=229647


It's not, in fact, that he stated that the point of how Obamacare was passed was to defraud the public.

And yes, that is what he said, as I pointed out previously.

No, the real problem is found here:


Now America is about to see Gruber in a new role: congressional witness. He’s going to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to testify before Darrell Issa’s committee, where he’ll be forced to answer a ton of questions, if he can, about all those things he said. For some Republicans, Gruber is a dream witness: All they have to do is play the videos that confirm their worst suspicions about President Barack Obama’s signature health care law—especially the one where Gruber boasts that “lack of transparency [about the law] is a huge political advantage”—and watch him squirm. Better yet, they can ask him about the video that presents the biggest danger of all to the White House: the one where he undermines the Obama administration’s case in the upcoming Supreme Court lawsuit that could bring a screeching halt to subsidies for millions of Obamacare customers.

It's amusing to see Politico come to Jesus on this, as I pointed that out too.

The Supreme Court, should they rule that the Obamacare law only permits subsidies in places where states set up their own exchanges, will result in the cessation (and possible retroactive clawback) of subsidies given to people in all the states without state-run exchanges -- including Florida.

Should that happen the system will instantly collapse, as with the removal of the subsidy will come the removal of the coverage requirement. In that event I and millions of other healthy people will immediately drop our give to the sick coverage and buy only what we actually need to cover only our actual persons. The resulting collapse of transfer payments will destroy Obamacare on an instant and irrevocable basis, and also likely destroy the state budgets of those states that decided to expand Medicaid!

The impact of this decision, should it go that way, will reach north of a trillion dollars in the first year alone.

It'll be the end of Obamacare, whether Obama likes it or not.

Given the Supreme Court's history in willfully ignoring both statutory construction and the Constitution when it suits the government, however, I have no way to handicap that outcome -- but certainly, Gruber's statements on legislative intent, never mind the actual language in the law itself, strongly urge the court to rule that such subsidies are not available in non-state-run exchange states.

Watch this one closely folks; it will come out of the Supremes sometime next year and promises to be the most-important decision they will issue -- by far -- in 2015.

Yeah, I won't be holding my breath.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-09/obamacare-architect-jonathan-gruber-testifies-stupid-america-live-webcast


[...] And while it is doubtful if Congress will actually try to get constructive answers out of the witnesses and will surely pander to political talking points thus assuing high entertainment - if not educational - value throwing mostly fluff questions, here, courtesy of Breitbart (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/12/08/16-Questions-Congress-should-ask-the-Obamacare-Architect-and-the-One-Question-they-need-to-ask-the-Obamacare-Implementer), are 15 questions that Congress should ask the MIT professor:

How did the big dog and pony show go? Saw a few clips.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6vrNyc_zjpI


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bMb3gn3YunE

[thoughtomator]

The saddest part is, if this were China, Gruber would already be hanging at the end of a rope as an example to others (and his family would be billed for the cost of the rope). But here, he'll get away scot-free, and keep the millions he defrauded the taxpayers out of.

[Dianne]

Gruber has been well prepared by Obama's henchmen. How nice of our Congress to give him a couple of months to prepare for the hearings, lol.

[tangent4ronpaul]

And the torture report had to come out today why?

Lift the corner of the carpet - The dustpan isn't big enough and the stench is too big!

-t

[Lucille]

How Much Did Taxpayers Pay for Jonathan Gruber's Obamacare Consulting Work? To Find Out, Congress Will Have to Talk to His Lawyer
http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/09/watch-jonathan-gruber-asked-to-turn-over


In testimony before the House Oversight Committee today, MIT economist and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber was asked repeatedly to provide the details of his contracts with states and the federal government, which, when combined, are reportedly worth millions of dollars.

Gruber was supposed to provide much of this information before his appearance via a standard disclosure form, but Gruber apparently did not file the committee’s standard form. When members of the Oversight Committee asked Gruber for information on the contracts and the work produced under them, however, Gruber repeatedly declined to immediately provide it, saying only that they could speak with his attorney.

You can watch one such exchange—not the first or only one—between Gruber and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), below.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cmixKPZA04o

Remember: This is work funded by taxpayers and ordered by and delivered to public officials in order to help them make significant policy decisions. And Gruber’s under-oath response when asked to share this work with a congressional committee is just to repeat some version of, “Talk to my lawyer.”

[Dr.3D]

Gruber has been well prepared by Obama's henchmen. How nice of our Congress to give him a couple of months to prepare for the hearings, lol.
I hope his coaching turns back into a pumpkin.

[thoughtomator]

Was feeling tired earlier, took a nap and had a dream about dousing Gruber with gasoline, lighting him on fire, and smashing a flask of acid in his face at the same time. Guess I know how my subconscious feels about what I saw in the testimony today.

[Occam's Banana]

Where's John McClane when you really need him?

He knows how to deal with these Gruber boys ...

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_le0zo9IfWm1qcig1w.gif

"Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!"

[otherone]

http://i50.tinypic.com/4sle82.jpg

[Lucille]

Obama’s Monica Lewinsky Moment
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/obamas-monica-lewinsky-moment/


No, there’s no stained cocktail dress (as far as I know). I refer to the fact that, on the day of Monica Lewinsky’s grand jury testimony, President Bill Clinton ordered a missile attack on an aspirin factory in Sudan that he claimed was a “terrorist training camp.” The U.S. government long ago admitted that it was, in fact, an aspirin factory. It worked like a charm. The lapdog media had a perfect excuse to ignore the Lewinsky testimony and focus exclusively on the bombing of yet another Third World country that cannot shoot back.

Fast forwarding almost two decades, I don’t think it is mere coincidence that the CIA Torture Report was released by the Democrats on the very day that one Jonathan Gruber, self-described “architect” of Obamacare, was scheduled to testify before a congressional committee. The subject of his testimony was his public proclamations, now all over YouTube, that: a) It was necessary to lie, lie, lie about Obamacare to dupe the American public; b) that the law was intentionally so convoluted and impossible to understand on purpose in order to fool the public into accepting socialized medicine; and c) the American public is, in his word, “stupid.” It worked like a charm; every news outlet in the U.S. front paged the CIA Torture report; only the neocons led with Gruber (before passionately defending CIA torture and murder).

The Democrats are scared to death of this guy because he foolishly revealed how ALL OF THEM think and act as communistic totalitarian ideologues.

[Lucille]

Bush Administration Paid Gruber $1,248,000 to be 'Expert Witness'
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/bush-administration-paid-gruber-1248000-be-expert-witness


(CNSNews.com) -- For the $2.2 million MIT economist Jonathan Gruber has been paid by the federal government since 2000, he collected $516,000 during Clinton’s presidency, $1,248,000 during the Bush administration, and $452,600 after President Barack Obama took office.

An assistant economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by 1992, Gruber’s career with the federal government started in 1997 when he took a leave of absence from MIT to serve as deputy assistant secretary of economic policy for the Department of the Treasury under former President Bill Clinton.

He only served in that position for a year, leaving to become a full professor at MIT in 1998.

Gruber then began a string of recurring taxpayer-paid stints as an “expert witness” in January 2000, when the Department of Justice paid him $102,000 for his “expert” testimony, according to USASpending.gov.

http://www.cnsnews.com/image/gruber-1
[...]
Between 2001 and 2005 during the Bush administration, Gruber received a total of $1, 248,000 in federal payments for expert testimony, primarily about restrictions and regulations on tobacco companies and cigarette manufactures, including Philip Morris.

Gruber also secured money from the State Department for his testimony during a NAFTA dispute between the U.S. government and a Canadian tobacco company.
[...]
In total, from the Clinton years, Bush years, and through the Obama years to date, the records available show that Gruber was paid $2,216,000 in taxpayer money from the federal government.

And that's only the fedgov. He raked in a lot of money from individual states too.

[Occam's Banana]

Bush Administration Paid Gruber $1,248,000 to be 'Expert Witness'
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/bush-administration-paid-gruber-1248000-be-expert-witness

So, lessee ... that's $968,600 from Democrat administrations and $1,248,000 from Republican administrations.

Well ... at least both factions of the Establishment duopoly are equal-opportunity oligarchs ...

[euphemia]

I can't see why people are so upset at what he *said*. This administration has nothing but contempt for the American voters. That should have been clear long before Obama was elected president.

People should be very upset with this, and other anti-Constitutional laws that have been passed. In that light, most voters really are stupid. Nobody bats an eye.