How Obama bought support for Obamacare from the big Pharmaceutical companies

Bloomberg reports (hat tip: Instapundit) that the House Energy and Commerce Committee released documents revealing the deal that the Obama administration made with pharmaceutical companies to secure their support for Obamacare.

In a gift to big Pharma, Obama agreed to block re-importation of drugs from Canada and other countries where some drugs are cheaper than in the US.

In return, the pharmaceutical companies promised a big ad campaign to support both Obamacare and the politicians who supported it:

“As part of our agreement, PhRMA needs to undertake a very significant public campaign in order to support policies of mutual interest to the industry and the Administration,” according to a July 14, 2009, memo from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. “We have included a significant amount for advertising to express appreciation for lawmakers’ positions on health care reform issues.”

The goal, the memo said, was to “create momentum for consensus health care reform, help it pass, and then acknowledge those senators and representatives who were instrumental in making it happen and who must remain vigilant during implementation.”

PREVIOUSLY on Obamacare:
•AstroTurf for Obamacare
•Preview of Obamacare: Medicare loses $375 million to fraudulent billings by a single physician
•Obama Admin defunds a piece of Obamacare
•Government health care is something to die for
•AP: Obamacare increasingly unpopular
•Obamacare forcing Boeing to cut back employee healthcare coverage
•Special privileges: McDonald's and 29 other companies get waivers from Obamacare
•Obamacare threatens health coverage for fast-food workers
•ObamaCare threatens child-only insurance
•Medical insurance prices rising due to ObamaCare
•Obamacare endangers student health
•Obama's health care and economic policies explained
•Obamacare may raise insurance costs by 54%
•Harvard economist explains why Obamacare will raise premiums
•HHS says Obamacare will cause costs to go up and cause employers to drop coverage
•The dawning of the reality of Obamacare
•Consumers outsmart Massachusetts' version of Obamacare
•Obamacare threatens high tech jobs
•Obamacare and trillions of dollars of unfunded mandates
•The fraud of Obamacare, as seen from the left
•Pelosi: Pass Obamacare so artists can quit their day jobs
•Britain's Obamacare: Hospital patient dies of thirst as nurses ignore his pleas for water
•Nobel Laureate economist explains why socialized medicine always fails
•Rep. Ryan explains the dishonesty of Obamacare economics

Fake Tea Party Scandal in Boston (Updated with video)

Liberals everywhere are outraged by what happened at a Boston Tea Party. ThinkProgress and DailyKos have stories on it. The Huffington Post has two stories (here and here) on it. They all report that the speaker at a Tea Party event shouted: "We will not be silenced by faggots."

There are two things you should know about this scandal:

1. The first is that it wasn't at a real tea party. Well before the event, the Greater Boston Tea Party issued a statement (hat tip: Boston Globe) recommending that its members avoid the rally organized by an "unfamiliar" group and reaffirming that real tea parties are focused on fiscal not social issues:

   In keeping with the Greater Boston Tea Party’s tradition of welcoming all that want to preserve our Constitutional freedoms, we will be neither endorsing nor attending the rally on the Boston Common scheduled for Sunday, April 15, 2012. In fact, we encourage tea party activists to avoid the event. Sponsored by an unfamiliar “Mass Tea Party Coalition”, the lack of communication and collaboration with established tea party organizations concerns us that this is an organization bent on damaging the good name of the tea party movement.

   For nearly three years, Greater Boston Tea Party has been strongly focused on the serious fiscal issues facing the Commonwealth and this country. Our organization does not take positions on social issues, such as gay marriage or abortion. While these issues are important to many people, including some of our members, they do not apply to our mission of advocating for personal responsibility and individual Liberty.

   The statement about the rogue group being "bent on damaging the good name of the tea party movement" was quite prescient.


2. The second is that each of the stories alleging this use of the word "faggot" is sourced from DailyKos and DailyKos seemingly has a single source: an anonymous twitter user with the handle tulasana whose motto is "keep calm and smash patriarchy." DailyKos also admits that they don't even which speaker is supposed to have said it. Despite the claimed crowds at the event, no one claims to have a video of the alleged statement.

So there you have it: the left-blogosphere fuss is about a statement that one twitter user alleges to have been said but doesn't even claim to know who said it at a rally organized by such an odious rogue group that the event had been condemned by the Greater Boston Tea Party well before it happened.

When you see a poorly-constructed left-wing hit piece like this, you have to ask: how long before it is printed in the New York Times?

UPDATE: DailyKos' source lied. Scott Lively actually said "we will not be silenced by fascists." You can hear him say it quite clearly in the video below at about the 11 minute mark:

Thanks to anonymous for the video link.

Also, at the 13:13 mark, there is a speaker who, while supporting Lively, admits that Boston area tea parties objected to their misuse of the tea party name. (The speaker goes on, of course, to try to attack and belittle those tea parties.)

Charges against spotted owl scientists may go Federal

In a case that has left environmentalists in shock, two "widely respected" environmental researchers are accused of fraudulent research on spotted owls and currently face state charges. The Times Standard reports that state proceedings have been temporarily postponed as the US Attorney's Office is now considering filing Federal charges. The two scientists specialized in endangered species studies and had been paid $870,00 by the Yurok Tribe using Federal funds for spotted owl research that is now alleged never to have been done. The Times Standard reports:

Mad River Biologists' senior biologist Ron LeValley, 65 [picture at right], and associate biologist Sean McAllister, 45, have pleaded not guilty to charges of embezzlement and conspiracy to commit a crime stemming from their alleged roles in a scheme carried out by former Yurok Tribe Forestry Director Roland Raymond, 49, to defraud the tribe of more than $870,000 over the course of more than one year by billing for surveying work that was never done.
Raymond remains at large, wanted on a $1 million arrest warrant. He was last seen the morning of Feb. 23, hours before law enforcement officials arrived at his home with search and arrest warrants, according to Del Norte County District Attorney Jon Alexander.

The case began as the tribe noticed that equipment was missing.

[Del Norte County District Attorney's Office investigator A.C.] Field said the investigation started in October when the Yurok Tribe came to the Del Norte County District Attorney's Office with information about Raymond. He said the district attorney's office has had the full cooperation of the tribe during the investigation.
”The Yurok Tribe discovered missing items during an inventory search, and it spilled out from there,” Field said. “They couldn't find the equipment (Raymond) supposedly bought.”
Alexander said the alleged embezzlement is related to spotted owl research by Mad River Biologists and other incidents, including charging the tribe for the cost of putting tires on a personal vehicle and paying for new shower doors. He said at least $870,000 of the embezzled funds are specifically related to the spotted owl project. [Emph. added]

The spotted owl has been in the news recently after the Obama administration decided to start killing barred owls in an attempt to favor the spotted owl. Previously, much of the Oregon lumber industry was shut down after the spotted owl was given endangered species status.

Windfarms have been killing endangered species of birds but that seems not to bother environmentalists very much.

This case comes in the wake of "respected" climate scientist Peter Gleick's admission of using identify theft against the Heartland Institute (Gleick still claims not to be the source of the fake document) as well as the investigation of Charles Monnett, the environmental scientist whose questionable work led to the classification of polar bears as "endangered." It makes one wonder how much of "environmental science" is actually real.

Hat tip: Leonard

PREVIOUSLY on the failures of environmental science:
•Whistleblower exposes Obama junk science •Politicized Science, the delta smelt, and California farmers
•EPA uses phony peer review
•Environmentalism inspires more murders •National Academy of Sciences warns EPA on junk science
•The failed science of environmentalism
•Federal Judge rejects Federal enviromental "science" as "arbititrary and capricious"
•2 more examples of politicized science: Gulf oiil spill and California's air regulations
•Bee colony collapse disorder: the cause is whatever your politics say it is
•Ozone hole and politics

Democrats embarrassed by fake "tea party" filings

In Oakland County, Michigan, three fake candidates filed to run under the Tea Party name. Investigation has traced the fake filings back to Democrats who chose to make the fake filings in what they anticipated to be three close races. Taking the unusual step of acknowledging the problem (rather than stonewalling), Democrats are embarrassed enough that they are now calling for the removal of one of their own:

Democrats on the Oakland County Board of Commissioners Saturday called for the removal of a county Democratic Party employee in the wake of allegations of fraud by Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson a day earlier.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

UPDATE (8-Oct-2010): There is also fake tea in New Jersey, as the Cherry Hill Courier Post reports:

Congressman John Adler's campaign and the Camden County Democratic Committee recruited "NJ Tea Party'' candidate Peter DeStefano to confuse conservative voters and hurt Adler's Republican challenger this fall, Democratic operatives say.

PREVIOUSLY on the Democrats response to the Tea Party movement:
•Democrats respond to Tea Party with smears and lies
•Democrats respond to Tea Party movement with "F*ck Tea"
•Yet another Tea Party infiltrator caught
•A Tea Party greets Obama in San Francisco and the left responds by chanting smears
•Infiltrators at a San Francisco Tea Party

Obama appoints scandal-ridden warmist to head NOAA's new Climate Service

Mr. Thomas R. Karl has been appointed "transitional director" of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's new Climate Service. Carol Browner, the assistant to the president for energy and climate change, hopes that the Climate Service will help us "confront climate change." If climate change were to be confronted honestly and scientifically, that would be good. Mr. Karl's history indicates that it will be otherwise. Fox News reports (Hat tip: Instapundit) that Karl "has been criticized for trying to suppress contradictory scientific data on climate change." Prof. Roger Pielke Sr. provides details:

I documented the process by which Tom Karl excluded other viewpoints in my Public Comment

Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2005: Public Comment on CCSP Report “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences“. 88 pp including appendices.

which I wrote after I resigned from the CCSP Committee (not the IPCC Committee as given in the article).

Excerpts from the Executive Summary of my report read

“The process for completing the CCSP Report excluded valid scientific perspectives under the charge of the Committee. The Editor of the Report [Tom Karl] systematically excluded a range of views on the issue of understanding and reconciling lower atmospheric temperature trends. The Executive Summary of the CCSP Report ignores critical scientific issues and makes unbalanced conclusions concerning our current understanding of temperature trends”

and

“The process that produced the report was highly political, with the Editor taking the lead in suppressing my perspectives, most egregiously demonstrated by the last-minute substitution of a new Chapter 6 for the one I had carefully led preparation of and on which I was close to reaching a final consensus. Anyone interested in the production of comprehensive assessments of climate science should be troubled by the process which I document below in great detail that led to the replacement of the Chapter that I was serving as Convening Lead Author.

Dr. Pielke is not the only person to reports problems with Mr. Karl. Meteorologist Anthony Watts remembers Karl's attempts at faking climate change in his "disastrous NCDC Climate Change Synthesis report with photoshopped images of floods that didn’t happen."

SEPARATELY: As a result of the numerous climategate scandals, Lord Rees, head of the [UK] Royal Society and Ralph Cicerone, president of the US National Academy of Sciences call for "fundamental changes" in the UN IPCC.

PREVIOUSLY on the global warming scandal:
•Climategate: U-turn
•Weather is not climate
•India rejects UN IPCC
•Climategate: laws were broken
•The collapse of the UN IPCC's credibility
•As the state of California goes bankrupt, it continues to spend on global warming
•Yet another UN IPCC Glacier-gate scandal
•UN IPCC claims of melting Himalayan glaciers exposed as fraud
•UN IPCC responds to Climategate with wild accusations
•Surprise: EU's carbon trading riddled with fraud
•Ma'am Sen. Boxer for and against climate whistleblowers.
•Climate alarmist Phil Jones to step down pending review
•Why Penn State's investigation of its global warmist will go nowhere
•Former boss calls James Hansen call an embarrassment to NASA
•NASA's global warming scientists caught hyping false data

Liberal treason

It seems that every day something new comes out about some amazingly scandalous Democratic activity: Today, we are told that Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) agreed to lobby for freedom for two spies in exchange for the foreign country helping her become chair of a house Intelligence Committee. The latter was to be accomplished via the foreign government's raising of money for Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) who controls committee assignments. Reportedly, Rep. Harman's conversations on this subject were caught on NSA wiretaps.

Reportedly, Attorney General Gonzales agreed to drop the investigation into Rep. Harman's alleged crimes in exchange for her agreeing to take the American side on some intelligence gathering issues. Should Gonzales be condemmed for that? Or, is such a trade merely an unfortunate necessity when the US congress is controlled by foreign powers?

RELATED: Bill Clinton was being blackmailed by a foreign power (also allegedly Israel) which had wiretaps of his phone sex conversations or at least that is what Bill told Monica.

Separately, a CodePink demonstrator recommends treason to the US.

Reportedly, there is another congressman, identity not yet revealed, caught by wiretaps, this time dealing with terrorists.

Another ex-ACORN worker pleads guilty

Another ex-ACORN, Ex-Pro-Vote worker has pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud, as AP reports:

A former get-out-the-vote worker accused of submitting false and forged voter registration cards pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal mail fraud charge.

Deidra Humphrey, 44, of East St. Louis, Ill., worked last year as a voter registration recruiter for Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition (Missouri Pro-Vote) and for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

GatewayPundit summarizes prior ACORN voter registration fraud cases here.

The left argues that systematic voter registration fraud does not mean systematic vote fraud.  Since poll workers are prohibited from asking for ID of any kind, this argument is very convenient.

With its record of repeated voter registration fraud, ACORN was a natural choice by the Obama to help with the 2010 census.

PREVIOUS posts on ACORN and vote registration fraud are here and here.  Although raising the minimum wage is liberal nirvana, ACORN fails to pay the minimum wage to its own workers.

The best and the brightest (and their tax problems)

It is hard to keep up with all of the tax problems of Obama nominees, so here is a quick summary, in no particular order:

1. Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius: $7,000 in back taxes.
2. Health and Human Services nominee (and former Senate Democratic leader) Tom Daschle: $140,000 in taxes and interest.  (Since it was disclosed that he failed to pay taxes on his limo and driver, it is fun to go watch this Tom Daschle campaign commercial.)
   
3. Treasury Secy. Timothy Geithner: $34,000 in back taxes.  Now confirmed and in office, he intends to pursue tax evaders.
   
4. Nancy Kelleher had been Obama's choice to oversee budget and spending reform:   failed, for nearly two years, to pay employment taxes on household help.
5. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis: her husband had tax liens against his business that had been outstanding for "as long as 16 years" that were settled (or partly settled?) for $6,400.
   

Does the IRS normally charge penalties in cases like these?  These Democrats didn't seem to have paid any.

Separately, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson "announced he no longer wanted the
Commerce Secretary job because he had become the focus of an ethics
probe looking involving state contracts."

PREVIOUSLY, tax problems of Rep. Rangel, former Sen. Wellstone, and possible senator Al Franken were discussed here.  Polls showing that Democrats think it is OK to cheat on taxes are discussed here.  Clinton Attorney General nominees Zoe Baird and KimbaM. Wood also had tax problems.

Democrats and ill-gotten gains

Bernie Madoff conned his victims into investing in his Ponzi scheme. He then transferred some of the victims money to Democrats and other liberal causes. Todd Zywicki asks: Should the Democrats return the money so Madoff's victims can receive some compensation?

Hat tip: Instapundit.

ALSO in Culture of Corruption news, the FBI arrests two people during a raid at an Obama appointee's office as part of an alleged government contracts/bribery scandal. Separately, the Wall Street Journal reports that Rep. Maxine Waters lobbied for special help for OneUnited Bank in which her husband had had a large investment. Michele Malkin has more.