Archive for the ‘Media’ Category
Last week, I spotted a headline that said the Obama administration didn’t want to make a Bush-like “Mission Accomplished” statement. I wish I would’ve copied that link because the Obama administration appears to have made their own “Mission Accomplished” statement:
HealthCare.gov team claims victory: ‘We have met the goal’
That’s a self-serving statement if ever I heard one. What goal was met? Was the goal a political goal? If yes, was it also a policy goal? More importantly, who set that goal? Most importantly, is it a goal that the American people are satisfied with?
Based on this document, I suspect that the answer to that last question will be an emphatic no:
The most telling statement is on the last page:
As the metrics detailed in this report reveal, dramatic progress has been made on improving HealthCare.gov. There is more work to be done to continue to improve and enhance the website and continue to improve the consumer experience in the weeks and months ahead. The new management system and instrumentation have helped improve site stability, lower the error rating below 1%, increase capacity to allow 50,000 concurrent users to simultaneously use the site and will help drive continuous improvement on the site. While we strive to innovate and improve our outreach and systems for reaching consumers, we believe we have met the goal of having a system that will work smoothly for the vast majority of users.
This sentence says everything about what a mess HealthCare.gov is:
There is more work to be done to continue to improve and enhance the website and continue to improve the consumer experience in the weeks and months ahead.
In other words, HealthCare.gov has improved but it’s still a gigantic mess. That isn’t what patients who’ve lost their insurance want to hear. Again, we return to question whose goals were met.
Having the administration say that HealthCare.gov has significantly improved in the first sentence, then admitting there’s months of of work still ahead on the last page of a document, won’t build the American people’s confidence.
This morning on Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume talked about visiting HealthCare.gov in Virginia where he lives. He said that there weren’t any platinum plans available through HealthCare.gov, though he later said that there was a platinum plan available through e-Surance.com. Mr. Hume later noted that HealthCare.gov was nothing like the experience one expects from Amazon.com or other similar sites. Mr. Hume finished by declaring that “this website is still a mess.”
The Obama administration might be satisfied with the progress made on HealthCare.gov but they don’t get to cast the deciding vote on what’s successful. The American people cast that vote and, based on recent polling, they aren’t impressed.
Technorati: HealthCare.gov, Obama Administration, Affordable Care Act, Health Insurance Exchanges, Platinum Plan, Mission Accomplished Moment, Progress Report, President Obama, Democrats, Brit Hume, We The People, Amazon.com
Last night, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emanuel’s brother and one of President Obama’s health insurance reform advisors, got caught spinning himself into the ground. About 3:15 into this video, Dr. Emanuel did some fancy tapdancing:
Here’s the confrontation between Megyn Kelly and Dr. Emanuel:
MEGYN KELLY: 5,000,000 people have already been cancelled so I’m not talking about the 7,000,000 people you guys are talking about.
DR. EMANUEL: That’s not a reliable number.
MEGYN KELLY: It’s at least 3,000,000 and the reports out tonight are that it’s closer to 5,000,0000.
DR. EMANUEL: Only on Fox is it 5,000,000.
It’s totally predictable that Dr. Emanuel would resort to that tactic when trapped. Dr. Emanuel was part of the original staff in the White House that insisted that Fox News wasn’t a real news station. With that bunch, which included Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, Anita Dunn and David Plouffe, their first mission was to totally discredit Fox News. They failed in that attempt. That isn’t the important part of the interview, though. This is:
DR. EMANUEL: No, that’s not right, Megyn. You’ve got the numbers wrong. 7,000,000 includes the people who were expected from the individual market…
President Obama stated emphatically and repeatedly that people could keep their health plans if they liked it and that they could keep their doctors if they liked them. Last week, he said that people could keep their health care plan if they liked their plan and it met the Obama administration standards. Those statements are opposites. If one is true, the other can’t be true. This quote seems appropriate here:
What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
At the Health Care Summit in Feb., 2010, Eric Cantor predicted that 7,000,000-8,000,000 people in the individual markets would lose their policies if the bill didn’t get changed. At the time, President Obama admitted that would happen, adding that people losing their policies would be able to replace those policies with better, less expensive policies.
One thing that’s been totally clear from the start has been Republicans’ contempt for the Affordable Care Act. George Will expressed it beautifully during last night’s SROnline show after the broadcast show. Here’s what Mr. Will said that I totally agree with:
This poor devil, like the other poor devils in 49 other states, is subject to a dumb law that prevents people from shopping for insurance across state lines. Turn on your TV tonight. You’re gonna see State Farm, GEICO, All State, Progressive. You don’t see that in health care because state legislatures want us captive so they can force us to buy things we don’t want to buy.
That’s one of the good things about this — well, there’s 2 good things — Juan regrets the loss of confidence. I’m for a loss of confidence in this type of government. What we need is far less of this type of government.
Here’s Juan Williams’ response to George Will, followed by Will’s response to Williams:
WILLIAMS: I know what you’re winning about. You’re trying to scuttle the whole thing.
WILL: Correct.
This is important. Republicans should learn from Mr. Will. First, don’t hesitate in stating your informed opinion why the Affordable Care Act should be scuttled. The key is having an informed opinion. Cookie cutter or tit-for-tat criticism of the ACA won’t suffice. Confidently explaining the different ways that the ACA is hurting families, especially middle class families, is a political winner because it’s a substantive winner. This isn’t about good politics or partisanship.
Opposing the ACA is the right thing to do because it isn’t delivering, indeed can’t deliver, on the major promises of insuring everyone and lowering health care costs.
Technorati: Ezekiel Emanuel, Obamacare, Affordable Care Act, Insurance Cancellations, Democrats, George Will, Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, Health Care Summit, Eric Cantor, Fred Upton, GOP
This video shows Megyn Kelly pulverizing Rep. Frank Pallone, (D-NJ), on what’s causing insurance companies to cancel millions of individual policies:
Saying that Rep. Pallone is a BSer is understatement. In fact, it’s quite possible that he isn’t a BSer. It’s possible that he’s just a liar. During the interview, Rep. Pallone continually insists that the reason why insurance companies are cancelling these policies is because they know that they can’t “sell inferior policies at higher prices.”
In the gospel according to Rep. Pallone, he and his Democratic allies alone are the only people qualified to determine which policies are superior and which are inferior.
It’s insulting to hear that bald-faced lie. CBS has run multiple reports on people who’ve lost their insurance because the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, makes it illegal for companies to sell the policies that people liked. CNN and Fox have run similar articles, too.
Further, we know that people aren’t fond of buying health insurance policies that cover neo-natal care, pregnancy coverage and substance abuse coverage. Millions of people don’t need those coverages. They shouldn’t have to purchase policies that include those coverages.
Let’s stipulate that the grandfathered in issue is a ruse. It isn’t a real issue. The federal government shouldn’t be telling people what coverages they must have. Under the Affordable Care Act, politicians and bureaucrats determine what coverages individuals and families must purchase. In a best practices world, families consulting with their primary care physicians would determine which coverages are needed.
Another absurdity of the Affordable Care Act is that it requires every health insurance policy sold in the United States cover the same types of things. The only difference between the bronze, silver and gold plans are the premiums, deductibles and co-pays. The smaller the co-pay or deductible, the higher the premium. The reason why that’s absurd is because the federal government thinks cookie-cutter policies fit each family’s needs perfectly.
Only a politician with an ego bigger than the Montana sky would think that identical policies fit each family perfectly. Rep. Pallone fits that description perfectly. He’s a dishonest politician. He knows the Affordable Care Act isn’t delivering health insurance policies that provide more coverage at lower prices.
In a post-Affordable Care Act world, people, acting on the advice of their primary care physicians, will buy policies that fit their families’ needs. There won’t be a need to grandfather policies in because the people, not government, will determine what they should buy.
Admitting that people have the ultimate authority for their decisions is a revolutionary concept. It’s why we fought the Revolutionary War.
Technorati: Frank Pallone, Minimum Essential Coverage, Insurance Cancellations, Individual Mandate, One Size Fits All, Affordable Care Act, Democrats
I just watched today’s panel for Fox News Sunday. Juan Williams, the unapologetic water-carrier for this administration, made a statement that Brit Hume and Chris Wallace utterly demolished. First, here’s the video of the panel, courtesy of Mediaite:
Here’s the transcript of the back-and-forth between Brit Hume and Juan Williams, then between Juan Williams, Brit Hume and Chris Wallace. It’s rather telling:
JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, I get this sense, but people — on the Republican side are enjoying this moment. But this is empty rhetoric. When you speak to the insurance executives in Florida, in California, they say they’re canceling those policies, Chris, because ObamaCare has requirements. Ten categories or mandates for levels of coverage. The current policies don’t meet them, so they have to cancel them, but they’re extending — they’re extending offers to the very people who are losing them for better packages at lower costs with more benefits.
WALLACE: No, no, that’s not true.
WILLIAMS: It is true. Let me just tell you something else that you said. You said oh, but, you know, January One, these people lose their coverage. In fact, the insurance companies are saying, we will make sure that on January One, you have coverage. This is not the apocalypse.
HUME: Juan, look, what about this — the president promised explicitly, we heard it on this program, if you like the coverage you have now, you can keep it, period.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
HUME: These hundreds of thousands of people evidently like the policies they had because they kept paying for it. They’re now being told they can’t have those policies any more, that they must have policies that involve coverage for things they may feel they don’t need.
WILLIAMS: They’re going to get better coverage, Brit, at potentially lower cost.
HUME: Whose idea of better coverage? Their idea or the government’s?
WILLIAMS: They — what they are offered, it may be their idea. Right now …
HUME: It may be their idea.
WILLIAMS: Right now all that insurance companies are saying is, we don’t meet the requirements under ObamaCare, but we’re going to offer you a better deal!
HUME: No, we’re going to offer you a government mandated deal that may or may not be a better deal for the people involved. There are people who are elderly people who’ve been required to pay for maternity coverage.
WALLACE: We have to end this segment, I just to want to point out that we had a couple of weeks ago, a letter that a 62-year-old couple who have their own business in Oregon — under the ObamaCare, they were losing their policy, the new policy, the cheapest policy they were being offered, the deductible was going to double to 5,000 a person. Visits to specialists, and one of them had to see a specialist, were going up from $35 a visit to $100 a visit and their premium was going up. So, the idea that they are going to get more for less.
Juan Williams is, in my opinion, the most gullible journalist on TV. First, he’s assumed that the coverages that the Affordable Care Act mandates are the coverages that everyone likes. That’s total foolishness. Second, the thought that insurance companies were going to offer cheaper-priced policies while covering more things is the epitome of gullibility. Why would anyone think that?
That’s like thinking that people can buy a Cadillac SUV for a cheaper price than Chevy’s full-sized SUV.
Third, it’s stunning to think that a reporter of Juan Williams’ experience hasn’t checked things out for himself. At minimum, he should talk with Kirsten Powers and Ezra Klein. They’ve actually compared prices people were paying before the Affordable Care Act’s minimum coverages took effect vs. the premiums for policies meeting the Affordable Care Act’s requirements.
What’s most stunning, though, is the thought that Juan Williams thinks that people automatically think that government, not them and their physician, knows best. Why would anyone reflexively think that? That’s breathtakingly foolish and gullible.
Brit Hume, then Chris Wallace, cited the statistics that disproved Williams’ statements. Despite that, Williams still didn’t accept their proof as fact. Apparently, verifiable facts aren’t part of settling Juan Williams’ disputes.
Finally, Williams isn’t noticing that young, healthy people aren’t buying government-mandated private health insurance. In fact, they’re staying away in droves.
Technorati: Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, Fox News Sunday, Media, Kaiser Permanente, Florida Blue, Insurance Cancellations, Insurance Premiums, Individual Mandate, Affordable Care Act, Juan Williams, Media Bias, Liberalism
This week, Charles Krauthammer’s book debuted at #1 for Amazon. Meanwhile, Kathleen Sebelius initially insisted that she didn’t work for the American people. Additionally, she got dumped from leading the team who put HealthCare.gov together. If that isn’t enough, most of the people signing up for health care are signing up for Medicaid:
CBS’s Jan Crawford reported on what’s happening. Here’s the key part of Ms. Crawford’s reporting:
JAN CRAWFORD: A CBS analysis shows that in many of the 15 states that have their own health insurance exchanges, more people are enrolling in Medicaid than are enrolling in private health insurance and there is concern that if that trend continues, there won’t be enough healthy people buying insurance for the system to work.
George Will explained this disaster-in-the-making in this video:
Here’s Mr. Will’s explanation of the disaster waiting to happen:
CHRIS WALLACE: George, is this just a contractor problem?
GEORGE WILL: No. It goes all the way to the top because it threatens the health care law itself and I’ll tell you why. First, this has produced some unintentional amusing moments. There was a headline I think we have that was in the New York Times this morning that contained a wonderful word.
WALLACE: “Republicans, Sensing Weakness in Health Law Rollout, Switch Tactics.”
WILL: Sensing weakness. That’s like saying the people of San Francisco sensed there had been an earthquake in 1906. And this is calamitous. Usually when we have a Washington debacle we recycle some form of the old Watergate question. What did the president know and when did he know it? The question here is what didn’t they know and why didn’t they know it? And the answer is almost everything because, in fact, they were not prepared for a massive social experiment. They don’t understand the complexity of what they’re doing.
The reason all this poses a mortal threat to the law itself is the problem of adverse selection, that is suppose too many signing up are sick. Now, young people, and they’re counting on 2.7 million healthy young people to sign up to have a good risk pool. Young people, who are technologically savvy, are going to go to the site and say this is disgusting, turn away and get a latte. Who’s apt to persist in this enterprise?
WALLACE: Sick people.
WILL: The sick people.
WALLACE: People who need it.
WILL: Exactly right. So this does pose an absolutely mortal threat of adverse selection.
Later, Will posed the cruelest of questions for Ms. Sebelius, asking “Who believes that this is going to be fine in the middle of March?” I certainly don’t think HealthCare.gov’s problems will be fixed by mid-March. The portal is still sending incorrect data to insurance companies. It isn’t accurately recording when people have successfully purchased health insurance.
That’s before talking about whether the software will accurately calculate whether a person/family is eligible for premium support and, if they’re eligible, how much premium support are they eligible for, then applying that to the actual price of the health insurance policy.
This thing is, at minimum, at least 6 months from being fully operational. Charles had a better week this week than Ms. Sebelius. It’s quite possible that she’ll be a former employee of the US government before Charles’ book isn’t part of Amazon’s best seller list.
Technorati: Kathleen Sebelius, Medicaid Expansion, Health Insurance Exchanges, Adverse Selection, Death Spiral, Affordable Care Act, Democrats, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Premium Support, Jan Crawford, Investigative Reporting
One of my favorite shows each week is the online version of Special Report With Bret Baier. It’s affectionately known amongst followers as SR-Online. Each Wednesday after the regular show, the panelists from the show to discuss various topics, with Bret Baier moderating the discussing much like he does during the regular roundtable. This week’s panelists were George Will, Julie Pace of the AP and Tucker Carlson of Fox & Friends Weekend. Here’s the first highlight from the show, courtesy of Mr. Will:
GEORGE WILL: Well, it is a solution a) to the immediate problem, which is, as Tucker said during the regular program, you can’t say that you’re going to get penalized for not buying X and b) we’ve made it impossible to buy X. That’s untenable.
Mr. Will says that position is untenable. I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Will. Shortly after that, Will said this:
This one, being the signature achievement, this focus over the struggle of the government shutdown, to end the government shutdown and then go immediately into this fiasco, actually sorta erases the government shutdown.
Immediately after that, Bret Baier brought Julie Pace into the conversation, asking her how ironic would it be if, after Republicans first tried defunding the Affordable Care Act, then delaying the individual mandate, the thing that delays the individual mandate was the Affordable Care Act. Here’s Ms. Pace’s reply:
JULIE PACE, AP WH CORRESPONDENT: Doesn’t it just feel like the government shutdown was a really long time ago? I mean, we just went through that and it feels like the conversation in Washington, especially on Capitol Hill and at the White House has turned very quickly.
I’ve written, along with others, that Republicans didn’t clothe themselves in glory during the shutdown. I, along with many others, essentially said that the end of the government shutdown would quickly turn into the White House’s worst nightmare. For the White House, the worst is yet to come. As Mr. Will highlighted during the regular show, the disastrous rollout will “seem like the good old days” because, as I and others have said, the disfunctionality of HealthCare.gov is preventing people from the worst nightmare, which is the product.
The term sticker shock is quickly becoming Washington’s newest favorite buzzword. Unfortunately, it’s becoming lots of families’ worst nightmare because they’re getting dropped from the plans they’d been enrolled in and liked. They’re getting dropped because the policies that they liked don’t live up to the federal government’s demandments in terms of coverages.
I wrote here about how the government is the predator to be protected from. If people want to purchase health insurance policies that don’t have coverage for neonatal care or other government-mandated coverages, they should have that option. The government shouldn’t be telling me and my physician what coverages I must purchase.
Now that Washington’s biggest battles are being fought on the Democrats’ turf, the government shutdown seems, like Ms. Pace and Mr. Will have said, to have happened in a prior century.
As more people get cancellation notices from their insurance companies and families see dramatic spikes in their health insurance premiums and they find out that they can’t keep their doctor, Democrats will increasingly come under attack for having voted for the law or for not voting to limit the damage to families. That’s hardly dealing from a position of strength.
Technorati: Government Shutdown, Individual Mandate, Affordable Care Act, Health Insurance Exchanges, Sticker Shock, Government Mandates, Democrats, Tucker Carlson, Julie Pace, George Will, Bret Baier, Media
When your opponents are destroying themselves, the best strategy is to step aside and let the destruction continue. Let their fingerprints be the only fingerprints found at the scene of the crime. That’s how I preface this video of Ted Cruz vowing to do anything he can to “stop the trainwreck that is Obamacare”:
Frankly, the best thing Ted Cruz, Jim DeMint and others can do to hasten the death of the Affordable Care Act is to step aside and let the exchanges destroy public confidence in the Affordable Care Act. With Democrats like Robert Gibbs saying that people should get fired for their incompetence in putting together the federal health insurance exchanges, the best strategy is to let them criticize it.
If the federal health insurance exchanges aren’t fixed by mid-December, when the next hostage-taking is scheduled, the GOP will have a compelling argument that the individual mandate should be postponed for a year. Tonight on the Special Report Roundtable, Juan Williams complained that “Republicans haven’t provided the monies that the administration asked for for this rollout.” Bret Baier, Howard Kurtz and Charles Krauthammer each criticized Juan, with Bret Baier gettin in the sharpest hit in this exchange:
JUAN WILLIAMS: Baucus was complaining that they didn’t have enough money to fully advertise and explain this complicated system.
BRET BAIER: I’m telling you, Juan, if you had all the advertising money in the world, the website still wouldn’t be working.
Bret Baier’s reply hit the heart of the matter. This isn’t just a PR nightmare. Putting lipstick on the Affordable Care Act pig won’t shift public opinion. As long as the exchanges don’t work, the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges won’t be popular. There’s no question that the rollout of the Affordable Care Act has been disastrous on multiple fronts. The HealthCare.gov website isn’t ready for primetime:
LUKE CHUNG: It wasn’t designed well. It wasn’t implemented well. It looks like nobody tested it.
JAN CRAWFORD: Luke Chung’s company builds online database programs. He supports the new health care law. He says it’s not demand that’s crashing HealthCare.gov. The entire website needs a complete overhaul.
LUKE CHUNG: It’s not close. It’s not even ready for beta testing from my book. I would be ashamed and embarassed if my organization delivered something like that.
The story shouldn’t include anything about Republicans. The story should be about people not being able to access the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges’ websites, the expensive health insurance premiums and high deductibles on the bronze level plans.
If a reporter asks for a Republican’s opinion, the response should be simple: “The facts speak for themselves. The exchanges don’t work. When people accessed the exchanges, people found that their health insurance premiums were high, the deductibles were expensive and they couldn’t keep their plan even though they liked it.”
Let everything point back to the disasters of the Affordable Care Act. Don’t bring politicians’ names into it. If it’s constantly about the policy provisions, Republicans sound like solutions-oriented public servants, not bitter politicians.
Howard Kurtz made the right observation when he said that it’s time to retire “the g-word — glitches.” He’s right. This isn’t about a few minor software adjustments that drive the website. It’s about a system that the government didn’t have the expertise to implement, much less run efficiently.
Health insurance policies bought through the exchanges are too expensive, even with the subsidies. The website doesn’t work. In too many instances, people can’t keep their existing plans. Finally, families’ health care costs will rise significantly thanks to the Not That Affordable Care Act.
Technorati: Ted Cruz, Jim Demint, TEA Party, Affordable Care Act, Health Insurance Exchanges, Health Insurance Premiums, Insurance Deductibles, HealthCare.gov, President Obama, Democrats, Juan Williams, Bret Baier
This morning, I was interviewed by KSTP’s Tom Hauser. Before going further, I’ll just state that Hauser was polite and professional during the interview. Tonight, KSTP ran this story highlighting the virtually empty ISELF building. They also included this video of the segment:
Here’s how LFR was mentioned:
A conservative blogger and frequent critic of spending at SCSU says taxpayers are getting “ripped off” after spending $45 million from the 2011 bonding bill to pay for ISELF. Gary Gross, writing in his “Let Freedom Ring” blog, features pictures of many empty spaces in the building he says were taken by an unidentified professor who questions the building’s use. Gross blames university leaders “for selling legislators a grand vision that they didn’t think through.”
I’ve been a frequent critic of the University’s spending because they’ve made some questionable financial decisions. Further, I’d add that I’m not alone in this thinking.
Most importantly, I’m skeptical of the timeline for filling ISELF because SCSU is facing some significant budget cuts. At the most recent Meet & Confer meeting, the administration announced that they’re cutting their budget for this year “by $2.9 million.” That’s the minimum they’ll cut, however. It’ll be significantly higher that $2.9 million.
It’s important to remember that the administration virtually admitted that they don’t have the money to finish the Hockey Center renovation. It’s imperative to remember that it’ll literally cost the university hundreds of thousands of dollars to properly equip ISELF. That’s before talking about how much money it’ll cost to install a topnotch security system. Without the right security, CEOs won’t have SCSU do their research. Speaking of which, some CEOs were interviewed for the article:
Ned Tabat, CEO of Semaphore Scientific, says his company is close to signing an agreement with the university. His business card already features the address of the ISELF building. “There are capabilities here for doing advance nano-fabrication which is the cornerstone of some of the devices we’re developing,” Tabat says. His company is also hiring interns from SCSU.
The CEO of another St. Cloud company, Brad Goskowicz of Microbiologics, says his company has been working with university professors and students for several years, even before ISELF. They’ll likely expand that relationship. “They have expertise in areas that we don’t have and that helps us grow a lot faster,” says Goskowicz.
Mr. Goskowicz just admitted that they were working with SCSU prior to the construction of ISELF, which raises the question of whether ISELF was needed. Would a less expensive option have been a better option?
Beyond what was in the interview, the administration hasn’t answered some troubling questions. First, during the video, they showed Dr. David DeGroote cutting the ribbon. He was relieved of his ISELF responsibilities in March, 2013. First, why was he removed from those responsibilities? Second, why did President Potter give him the prestigious responsibility of cutting the ribbon at their high-profile event?
It’s possible to properly equip ISELF while cutting the SCSU budget by $3,000,000-$5,000,000 this year. It just isn’t the wisest decision because it’d significantly hurt other departments. Robbing Peter to pay Paul might make Paul your ally but it comes with a steep price. In this instance, there’s reason to think Potter would have to rob Peter and Paul to pay to properly equip ISELF.
Technorati: ISELF, Earl Potter, David Degroote, St. Cloud State, Budget Cuts, Declining Enrollment, Research Universities, MnSCU, Bonding Bill
I’ll be appearing on Ox in the Afternoon at 2:20 on KNSI. That’s AM 1450 or 103.3 FM. We’ll be talking shutdown developments.
Amidst all the talk about Eric Holder’s semi-off-the-record meeting with news organizations, one thing is getting lost. I think that’s intentional. Holder’s only hope of hanging onto his job is to get the media to return to their lapdog posture. Eric Holder knows that the media doesn’t trust him, at least for the moment. He’s hoping that his charm offensive will give them the political cover they need to pretend he didn’t just violate their rights to do investigative journalism.
The American people, however, aren’t fooled. Neither is Fox News. It’s their responsibility to remind people that Holder didn’t hesitate in tossing the Constitution aside, especially the Bill of Rights. He didn’t respect the media’s First Amendment rights to report on the government’s actions.
That’s actually the lesser of the violations he made. When he signed a warrant application that accused James Rosen of being a criminal co-conspirator in order to rifle through Rosen’s private emails without his knowledge, he deprived Rosen and Fox News of their due process rights. That’s a clear violation of the Fifth Amendment.
Why should people trust Mr. Holder when he didn’t hesitate to ignore the highest laws governing the federal government? This isn’t an aberration, either. Mr. Holder lobbied President Clinton to pardon the biggest tax cheat, Marc Rich, in U.S. history. Mr. Holder dropped the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party after the Mukasey Justice Department had won the case.
The media shouldn’t be given the option to ignore Mr. Holder’s outrageous behavior. This isn’t about him ‘accepting responsibility’, whatever that means. It’s about him getting prosecuted for his wrongdoings. That includes prosecuting him for lying to Congress. It includes prosecuting him for lying to a judge, too.
Why should news organizations trust Mr. Holder when they don’t know how many times he signed off on looking through their reporters’ phone logs and reading their reporters’ emails? We know he signed off on more than just the Rosen warrant because he testified he didn’t know how many times he’d signed off on warrants that let authorities surreptitiously read Rosen’s emails and look at his phone records. When that application was approved, it also gave federal authorities permission to look at Mr. Rosen’s parents’ phone records.
We know from their statements the last week that they never intended to prosecute Rosen. If that’s true, why did the Justice Department need to prevent Rosen’s and Fox’s attorneys from arguing against the warrant in court?
Finally, it’s safe to conclude that Holder’s actions prove that his respect for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is selective at best.
Follow this link for more on this topic.