Archive for the ‘Congressional Oversight’ Category

For the first time in US history, a committee ordered the Attorney General of the United States to break the law. In voting to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt of Congress, House Democrats cited AG Barr’s unwillingness to hand over to them a totally unredacted copy of the Mueller report.

One of the reasons why AG Barr didn’t turn that type of report over to the Democrats is because grand jury testimony is confidential and can’t be turned over without a court order. Even then, there are only 5 exceptions for releasing grand jury testimony. Congressional oversight isn’t one of those exceptions.

Think about that. Democrats, led by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, have ordered the Attorney General to break the law. Talk about theater of the absurd! That’s simply stunning. Jim Jordan nails it with this statement during today’s hearing:

Today on Outnumbered OT, Rep. Tom McClintock, (R-Calif.) and a member of the House Judiciary Committee, stated something stunning. He said that only 6 lines were redacted from the 182-page report on obstruction of justice. Think about that! Just 6 lines out of almost 200 pages were redacted. This isn’t about oversight. It’s about Democrats doing whatever they can to destroy AG Barr’s reputation.

Rep. Doug Collins, the Ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, nailed it in this tweet:

Democrats have launched a proxy war smearing the attorney general when their anger actually lies with the president and the special counsel, who found neither conspiracy nor obstruction. Full statement below ? pic.twitter.com/BgCWMqRJW4

— Rep. Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) May 6, 2019

This tweet from Rep. Collins is pretty revealing, too:

Chairman Nadler: The intent of the subpoena is “to increase our clout in court.”

Does that mean the intent was never actually to get documents? How is this not an abuse of the process? #MuellerReport

— Rep. Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) May 8, 2019

Today’s ‘hearing’ was mostly about Democrats showboating for the 6:00 news. This wasn’t about seeking justice.

Democrat pundits have repeatedly said that they’re capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. I have 2 thoughts on that. It’s perhaps possible that they’re capable of walking and chewing gum simultaneously. The question is whether they’re interested in walking and chewing gum simultaneously. Next, I say perhaps because we haven’t seen proof that they can walk and chew gum simultaneously.

Finally, today’s clown show is proof that the Democrats’ priorities are totally screwed up. While Democrats were conducting this clown show, they weren’t addressing illegal immigration, which, the last I looked, is a full-blown crisis. I only know what I can prove. I can’t prove that Democrats give a damn about homeland security. I certainly can’t prove that they’ve investigated and legislated simultaneously.

It’s time to throw these idiots out in large numbers. Hate-America-first Democrats like Jerry Nadler, Ted Lieu and David Cicilline need to stripped of their authorities because they’ve created this clown show.

Democrats are foolish to argue against Bill Barr or former US Attorney Andy McCarthy. In this op-ed, Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse regurgitated the Democrats’ chanting points about Attorney General Bill Barr’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Whitehouse wrote “First, his testimony was an astonishing exercise in dissembling. Barr gave a head-spinning explanation of why he did not disclose in House testimony the letter in which Robert Mueller forcefully pushed back on Barr’s initial summary of the Mueller report. He quarreled over whether his summary was a ‘summary.’ He said Special Counsel Mueller’s concerns, expressed in the letter for everyone to see, were not concerns with Barr, but with the media.”

Democrats are hanging their hats on Charlie Crist’s questioning of Barr. McCarthy provided the transcript of the important part of the exchange in his article:

CRIST: Reports have emerged recently, General, that members of the special counsel’s team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your March 24th letter…that it does not adequately or accurately necessarily portray the report’s findings. Do you know what they’re referencing with that?
BARR: No, I don’t. I think — I think…I suspect that they probably wanted more put out, but, in my view, I was not interested in putting out summaries or trying to summarize because I think any summary, regardless of who prepares it, not only runs the risk of, you know, being under-inclusive or over-inclusive, but also, you know, would trigger a lot of discussion and analysis that really should await everything coming out at once. So I was not interested in a summary of the report…I felt that I should state the bottom line conclusions and I tried to use Special Counsel Mueller’s own language in doing that.

Here’s the video of that exchange:

It’s clear that Crist wanted Barr to attempt to speak for others. Barr refused to do that.

During the Senate hearing, Sen. Whitehouse tried conflating Mueller with “the special counsel’s team.” Then there’s this BS:

He said Justice Department policy against indicting a president wasn’t the reason Mueller didn’t conclude the President broke the law, when the report says the opposite.

Oh really?

Barr said Mueller’s report did not conclude if Trump obstructed justice because of “‘difficult issues’ of law and fact” about whether Trump’s actions and intent could amount to obstruction.

This is Mueller’s biggest failure. He was paid to make difficult decisions as well as routine decisions. Further, if Mueller objected to Barr’s letter, he should’ve read Barr’s letter, then told Barr what he objected to. Mueller rejected the opportunity to read, edit or object to Barr’s letter. Waiting 3 weeks to register his complaint stinks like sour grapes.

If Democrats keep hitching their wagon to the media’s clickbait articles, they soon won’t have any credibility left. It isn’t like Democrats have much left but they’re spending what little they have left on questionable reporting because they’re desperate. Andy McCarthy laid out the Democrats’ latest nothingburger bombshell in this article.

McCarthy, a former assistant US attorney, wrote “‘Mueller complained to Barr about memo on key findings.’ That’s the banner headline at the top of the Washington Post’s website Wednesday. But when you click your way to the actual story, it turns out that the headline is not true. Special Counsel Mueller’s complaint, which targeted Attorney General Barr’s March 24 letter explaining the report, is not about the ‘key findings.’ It’s about the narrative.”

Actually, it’s about the media’s attempt to stir controversy in the hope that it’ll lead to President Trump’s impeachment. If pots of gold were found at the bottom of rabbit holes, Democrats would have enough money to fund their campaigns for a generation or more.

On the other hand, if William Barr got a pot of gold each time he stood his ground against an airhead Democrat, he’d have at least 1 pot of gold. Check this out:

KABOOM!!! That’s as close to a pancake block as you’ll find in the legal profession. Usually, pancake blocks are found only on college football stadiums on Saturday afternoons. In another instance of standing his ground, watch how AG Barr stood his ground against Sen. Hirono, (D-HI), the Democrats’ corrupt pit bull from Hawaii:

Sen. Hirono is a disgusting human being. Chairman Graham was right in saying that she “slandered this man from top to bottom. So if you want more of this, you’re not going to get it. If you want to ask him more questions, you can.” Sen. Hirono is one of the most disgusting Democrats in the Senate. She made at least 4 inaccurate partisan statements. She accused Barr of a) protecting President Trump, b) lying to Senate Judiciary Democrats and c) being “no different from Rudy Giuliani or Kellyanne Conway or any of the other people who sacrifice their once decent reputation for the grifter and liar who sits in the Oval Office.”

Sen. Hirono, you’re a steaming pile of animal waste. You’re out of control, dishonest and, honestly, even worse than Adam Schiff.

Let’s be clear about something. A number of Democrat committee chairs are constitutional illiterates. Either that or they’re exceptionally corrupt or both. It’s something I’ve spent a big chunk of time thinking about. Here’s what finished things off for me.

When House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings issued subpoenas for President Trump’s private financial records when he was a private citizen, President Trump’s attorneys filed a lawsuit to prevent the production of those records.

The legal complaint from Trump’s legal team reads “Chairman Cummings has ignored the constitutional limits on Congress’ power to investigate. Article I of the Constitution does not contain an ‘Investigations Clause’ or an ‘Oversight Clause.’ It gives Congress the power to enact certain legislation. Accordingly, investigations are legitimate only insofar as they further some legitimate legislative purpose.”

That’s true as far as it goes but I’d add that they didn’t mention a separation of powers conflict, too. Congress isn’t tasked with investigating private citizens before they were part of the government. That’s the jurisdiction of the executive branch. Specifically, the Department of Justice has the statutory authority to investigate private citizens. The investigations of private citizens is the responsibility of the FBI or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The only people vested with the responsibility of convening grand juries are the DOJ attorneys, U.S. attorneys or a special counsel.

This won’t be a terribly difficult case to decide. The legislative branch has the constitutional authority to give advice and consent, pass legislation, provide legislative oversight and to ratify treaties.

House Democrats don’t have the authority to investigate the private activities of private citizens. That’s the job of the executive branch. Period. Mark Levin discussed another possible explanation with former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli on Sunday night’s Life, Liberty & Levin:

I don’t know if that’s what these Democrats are trying to do but I won’t rule it out. It’s pretty frightening when the People’s House is weaponized to torment private citizens. Though that precedent hasn’t been sent, Speaker Pelosi did say that subpoenas might be a way to negotiate with President Trump:

Apparently, Pelosi and other Democrats don’t think playing fair is required. That’s why they need to voted out of office in 2020. The bigger the landslide in the House and Senate, the better. It’s clear that Democrats don’t see limits on their investigative powers:

I suspect that they’ll be stopped cold by the Supreme Court. I can’t wait to hear about that ruling. What’s chilling is hearing E.J. Dionne say that going after a private citizen’s private financial records “is the right thing to do.”

Adam Schiff’s op-ed ignores lots of facts. That isn’t surprising. It’s just disappointing. For instance, Rep. Schiff said “In the run-up to the release of a deliberately misleading memo, some Republicans hyped the underlying scandal as ‘worse than Watergate.’ When it was published, however, it delivered none of the salacious evidence of systemic abuse that it promised—only a cherry-picking of information from a single FISA court application.”

Is Rep. Schiff suggesting that it isn’t a big deal that the FBI didn’t disclose the fact that the basis for their surveillance warrant was a piece of opposition research? Does Rep. Schiff think it’s ok for political campaigns to use government to spy on their opponent? Or is he ok with that only when Democrats use the FBI to spy on Republican campaigns?

As for the cherry-picking chanting point, I wish Rep. Schiff would drop it. What context is needed after Andrew McCabe testified to Congress that, without the fake Trump ‘dossier’, the FBI wouldn’t have even attempted to get a surveillance warrant on Carter Page?

Mr. Schiff can’t get his facts straight. For instance, he also wrote “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was established in 1978 to supervise and provide an additional check on highly-classified counterintelligence surveillance processes. The norms and institutions protecting the Department of Justice from political interference in the years since have been tested, but never before as they are under President Donald Trump.”

Actually, the Obama administration used an opposition research document paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. It was the Obama FBI that applied for the surveillance warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. What part of that sounds legitimate? Here’s a hint: there isn’t a part of that that sounds legitimate.

Weaponizing government, then using it against a political opponent, aka the Trump campaign, is about as corrupt as it gets. Rep. Schiff isn’t an honest man. In this interview, he can’t resist spinning about Russian collusion:

Early in the interview, Schiff said “Even this very flawed memo demonstrates what the origin of this investigation was and that origin involved collusion.” Here’s the definition of collusion:

a secret understanding between two or more persons to gain something illegally.

Rep. Schiff, what specific part of the US Statutes did the Trump campaign violate? Mr. Schiff, a lengthy explanation will prove that you aren’t being honest. A succinct answer is what’s needed. If you can’t cite the specific statute that Trump violated, then I’ll state that you’re a windbag who is up to political mischief. I’ll state that you aren’t worthy of my attention or anyone else’s.

Dana Milbank’s latest column doesn’t have a single bit of spin in it. It has lots of bits of spin in it.

For instance, Milbank wrote “Now, best of all, he gets to release a memo (possibly written with White House help) to exonerate Trump in the Russia probe by using cherry-picked information implying wrongdoing by the FBI — while at the same time blocking declassification of a memo from committee Democrats providing context and exculpatory information that Nunes omitted.”

Actually, Nunes favors declassification of the so-called Schiff Memo. It’s just that it hasn’t gone through the scrubbing protocol required to prepare the document for public consumption. It’s worth noting that Rep. Schiff accused Chairman Nunes of wanting to publish a memo that contained sources and methods. That accusation wasn’t accurate. It was Schiff-produced spin.

It’s worth noting that Chairman Nunes told Bret Baier that he didn’t “read the actual FISA applications.” Chairman Nunes told Baier that “this has been one of these bogus news stories that’s been put out. So the agreement that we made with the Justice Department was to create a reading room and allow one committee member and 2 investigators to go over and read the documents. I thought the best person on our committee would be the chairman of the Oversight Committee, Trey Gowdy, who has a long career as a federal prosecutor, to go and do this…”

In fact, Milbank could’ve written a much more fact-based article, if that was ever his intention, if he’d watched this interview:

Then there’s this:

And the FBI, which under its Trump-appointed director says it has “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy,” can’t defend itself because, well, the information is classified.

The FBI director can’t defend the agency’s actions because what they did is indefensible. He can’t say the FBI can’t defend itself because the information is classified because it’s been unclassified or is in the process of being prepared for declassification.

In essence, Nunes is free to allege whatever he wants, even if false, and nobody, by law, can contradict him.

That’s a wonderful bit of spin. Pretty much everything from the FISA warrant, including the application itself, is in the process of getting declassified. The applications have to get scrubbed so they don’t reveal sources and methods, which means they’ll be heavily redacted in parts.

Why didn’t Milbank admit that the FBI applied for a surveillance warrant “without telling the court the FBI itself had dismissed Christopher Steele, who generated the opposition research, for lying to the FBI and leaking his relationship with the agency to the press”? Is that because Milbank isn’t that worried about people’s civil liberties?

If I could pass a law or if I could mandate a particular type of behavior, I’d require every senator and every representative from both parties ask the types of probing, cut-through-the-BS questions that Trey Gowdy consistently asks.

Chairman Gowdy isn’t into grandstanding. He isn’t prone to making speeches for the purpose of scoring political points. He’s prone to doing his homework first so he’s a self-taught expert on whatever subject he’s addressing. He’s prone to asking questions that elicit informative, substantive answers that enlighten citizens and exposes politicians.

It isn’t difficult to think that Loretta Lynch was squirming while she was being questioned by Chairman Gowdy. Watch this video and tell me whether you think Chairman Gowdy is making Ms. Lynch squirm. I’m thinking Ms. Lynch’s answers made Mrs. Clinton squirm, too. One of the questions that likely made Mrs. Clinton squirm came when Chairman Gowdy asked Ms. Lynch “Why do you think it’s important to use official email to conduct official business”?

That likely didn’t make Mrs. Clinton squirm as much as when Chairman Gowdy said “I doubt that you even use your usdoj -dot- gov account to send classified information, do you?” Ms. Lynch replied that she didn’t use that account, noting that “we have separate systems. There would be a classified system for that.” That’s when Chairman Gowdy moved in for the kill against Mrs. Clinton:

GOWDY: So not only do you not use personal email. You don’t even use your usdoj -dot- gov account. You’ve got a separate, dedicated system to handle classified information. Why?
LYNCH: We have a separate system to handle security needs.
GOWDY: But my question is why. Why is it important to you to not use your personal email to conduct official business and to use a separate system, more safely-guarded system when you do handle classified information?
GOWDY: But it’s not just a personal preference, is it?
LYNCH: It allows for the protection of the information.

It’s painfully obvious that Hillary knew that was the system. It’s painfully obvious because she once was a US senator who had to obey the rules established by the committee chairs on viewing confidential information. Mrs. Clinton had been to Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, aka SCIFs. SCIFs are defined as “accredited area, room, group of rooms, or installation where sensitive compartmented information may be stored, used, discussed, or electronically processed.” Access is limited. Electronic devices aren’t allowed to be brought into a SCIF because of the sensitive information stored in SCIFs.

Knowing about the existence of and the purpose for SCIFs, why did Mrs. Clinton ignore that phalanx of security precautions and use a system that a high school kid could hack into? Was it because Mrs. Clinton didn’t care about protecting top secret information? Or was it because Mrs. Clinton wanted to hide her emails from the public at all costs? Or did she do it for both reasons?

Technorati: Hillary Clinton, National Security, SCIF Rooms, Private Email Account, Loretta Lynch, Attorney General, Trey Gowdy, US Attorney, Classified Information, Prosecutor

During her testimony Thursday at the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Hillary Clinton made some exotic statements that require follow-up questioning. During Rep. Adam Schiff’s, (D-CA), first round of questioning, Hillary testified that “I’ve thought more about what happened than all the rest of you put together. I’ve lost more sleep than all the rest of you put together. I have been racking my brain about what more could’ve been done or should’ve been done.”

Stephen Hayes’ article includes a quote from Charles Woods, the father of murdered American patriot Ty Woods, about what he was looking for at the hearing. In the quote, Mr. Woods said “The truth, hopefully.” One of the unasked questions from Thursday’s hearing relates to Mrs. Clinton’s statement that she’s racked her brain about what more could’ve been done. The proper follow-up questions should’ve been ‘Mrs. Clinton, while you were thinking about what more could’ve been done, did you think that you should’ve contacted Christopher Stevens directly? After all, you knew from your daily CIA briefings that the security situation in Benghazi was rapidly deteriorating. At minimum, shouldn’t you have directed your staff in charge of embassy security to contact Ambassador Stevens directly to see if his security was adequate?’

Another important question that didn’t get asked was with regards to the steep decline in email traffic between Mrs. Clinton and her staff about Libya. In 2011, there were sometimes hourly updates on Libya. The stack of printed out emails for 2011 was almost a foot high. The pile of emails for 2012 was 67 pages. Mrs. Clinton explained that little of her communications were via email. The proper follow-up question should’ve been ‘How do you explain the significant use of emails in 2011 to the virtual elimination of using emails to communicate in 2012? Mrs. Clinton, what caused you to virtually stop using emails in 2012 after using prolific amounts of emails in 2011?

During one of his outbursts, Elijah Cummings wondered aloud why people focused on Sid Blumenthal. The easy explanation is that Mrs. Clinton promptly replied to more than 180 of Mr. Blumenthal’s emails compared with Mrs. Clinton’s testimony that she never approved or rejected Christopher Stevens’ requests for additional security because they never got to her desk.

The logical question at that point should’ve been ‘Mrs. Clinton, how can you justify prompt responses, many of which happened while you were in the State Department Building, to an employee at the Clinton Foundation, especially considering the fact that you never responded to security requests from your ambassador serving in one of the biggest hot spots for terror in the world? Shouldn’t you have put a higher priority on making sure U.S. ambassadors are safe than you put on responding to Clinton Foundation employees?’

During questioning by Rep. Jim Jordan, (R-OH), the American people found out that Mrs. Clinton told daughter Chelsea that “two” people had been killed by al-Qa’ida-inspired terrorists less than an hour after she’d issued an official statement that suggested a video sparked an attack in Benghazi. Here’s part of Mrs. Clinton’s testimony:

And if you look at what I said, I referred to the video that night in a very specific way. I said, some have sought to justify the attack because of the video.

The logical question should be which people “have sought to justify the attack because of the video”?

Isn’t it reasonable to say that Mrs. Clinton’s priorities were badly wrong? Isn’t it reasonable to ask why she put a higher priority on taking time during a terrorist attack to tell her daughter about a terrorist attack while the terrorist attack was still being fought? In 2008, Mrs. Clinton ran a campaign ad about a phone call coming in at 3:00 am that suggested she, not Barack Obama, was the only one prepared to take that call.

The call from Libya came in at 5:00 pm ET. Mrs. Clinton and President Obama both failed to protect Christopher Stevens and 3 other American Patriots. Then they failed to tell the American people the truth about the terrorists’ coordinated attacks. Doesn’t that mean that the biggest unanswered question should be whether either of them was qualified to be commander-in-chief?

Here’s Hillary’s racking my brain video:

MNGOP Chairman Keith Downey’s op-ed mentions a statistic that needs to be expanded upon:

Most importantly, Schultz never once mentioned the most basic budget facts: State spending on autopilot is scheduled to grow 21 percent over four years, from $34 billion to $41 billion, without spending a dime of the surplus or raising any new taxes. And Democrats have proposed a budget that spends almost the entire surplus — and raises taxes, for an $8 billion, 24 percent increase in spending over four years, from $34 billion to well over $42 billion.

The DFL automatically calculates inflation into their budgets. That’s because, in their way of thinking, that every penny ever appropriated needs to be spent forevermore. It presumes that that money is being spent efficiently and that there isn’t a better way of providing the same service less expensively.

That’s assuming that each agency’s and department’s staffing must increase. The DFL wouldn’t think of eliminating the Met Council or the MnSCU Central Office. In the DFL’s mind, they’re pictures of efficiency and importance. In reality, they’re neither. They’re portraits of inefficiency, cronyism and corruption.

When MNsure was created, the legislature created an oversight committee. It met a couple times, then went silent for months while MNsure imploded. The committee didn’t meet again until after April Todd-Malmlov resigned after taking a 2-week vacation to Costa Rica while MNsure imploded.

The DFL doesn’t believe in oversight. They never have because they don’t think money is ever misspent. Either that or the DFL legislators that think there’s a need for change get bullied by the DFL machine into giving up their reform ideas.

That’s what happened with Gene Pelowski. Everyone knows Rep. Pelowski hates MnSCU. He initially talked a great reform/accountability game while he chaired the House Higher Ed Committee. That changed when it came time to put a budget together. Suddenly, Chairman Pelowski, the reformer, turned a blind eye towards MnSCU. He didn’t even know that Dr. Rosenstone had signed a contract extension that raised his pay by almost $50,000 a year.

If Minnesotans want to continue getting fleeced, all they have to do is keep voting for budget by autopilot. As a bonus, they’ll get a legislature that doesn’t believe in oversight or accountability.

Technorati: Keith Downey, Reforms, Accountability, MNGOP, David Schultz, Gene Pelowski, MnSCU, MNsure, Met Council, April Todd-Malmlov, Cronyism, Community Action, Corruption, DFL Culture of Corruption

Joe Atkins, one of the co-chairs of the MNsure Legislative Oversight Committee, insists that Tim O’Driscoll’s editorial was misleading. Actually, it’s Atkins’ editorial that’s misleading:

Republican Rep. Tim O’Driscoll’s recent op-ed (“Insurance premiums are going up,” Oct. 12) was very misleading and continues the practice of attacking MNsure, celebrating technical problems and distorting the facts about rate increases.

The fact is that Minnesota’s rates remain the lowest in the nation and our uninsured rate dropped by 40 percent, to the lowest level in state history.

Republicans ignore the $20 million in federal tax credits that Minnesotans received this year. When tax credits are accounted for in next year’s rates, many Minnesotans statewide will actually see a decrease in their premiums.

In Region 8, which includes Stearns, Sherburne and Benton counties, a 25-year-old selecting a silver plan, the most commonly selected plan, will see an average increase of 3 percent with tax credits. A 40-year-old on a silver plan will see an average increase of 1 percent, and a 60-year-old will see no increase.

Talk about misleading. That’s stunning. From Rep. Atkins’ perspective, premiums didn’t increase because taxpayers are footing the bill for MNsure’s premium increases.

Rep. Atkins, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Someone’s paying for those premium increases. When premiums increased by 22% in Benton, Stearns, Sherburne and Wright counties, the premiums really skyrocketed. When premiums increased by 43% in Meeker, Kandiyohi, Chippewa or Yellow Medicine counties, premiums really increased. When premiums increased by 34% in Cottonwood, Lyons, Nobles and Murray counties’, premiums really increased.

Let’s remember Chairman Atkins’ happy talk in Atkins’ interview with Julie Bartkey in mid-September, 2013. After that, let’s fast forward to January, when KSTP’s reporter Jay Kolls interviewed Jim Nobles, the Legislative Auditor. Here’s what Kolls reported:

KOLLS: There are all kinds of red flags popping up at MNsure and Jim Nobles tells me that MNsure has not delivered what it promised to taxpayers and the agency needs to be held accountable.

In the interview, Jim Nobles said this:

So I think everyone agrees that we simply have not delivered what we promised.

Watch this video of Atkins talking about whether the rollout would be smooth:

This interview happened a week before MNsure and HealthCare.gov went live.

BARTKEY: How are you feeling with everything? Are you feeling confident? Off camera, you said that the whole nation’s eyes are watching.
ATKINS: I’m actually feeling better about it every day. One of the best news days that we had was when we found out that this would have the best rates of any insurance marketplace in the country. My understanding is that tomorrow — I don’t know when this all gets shown — that the federal rates are going to be released for all 50 states and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Minnesota will lead the nation of having the lowest rates anywhere in the country.
BARTKEY: What about any of the technical aspects, any concerns that it will crash or that people won’t be as trained as they should be to make sure that consumers can pick the right plan?
ATKINS: When you’re as technically unsavvy as I am, anything like an iPad or a computer concerns me. But that’s why you hire the professionals that you do and I’m — from all that I hear — we’ve got the best folks involved both at the state level and externally coming in and taking a look at how we’re doing business to make sure that we’ve got those protections, to make sure that we’ve got the IT network in place to handle it.

That’s proof that Rep. Atkins is a king of happy talk, the point person to deliver sunny-sounding statements that everything’s just fine whether that’s true or not.

Having Atkins say that rates are really cheap because they’re heavily subsidized is like saying Northstar Rail is inexpensive because taxpayers, not riders, pay for most of the cost of transporting people. Rep. Atkins shouldn’t be trusted because his op-ed is spin:

Compare that with rate increases over the last decade as high as 19.5 percent. In Region 8, some carriers are offering plans that are 18 percent cheaper than they were last year. When was the last time you heard of health plans going down in price?

Let’s compare that with the truth:

From 2003 to 2010, individual market insurance premiums rose a total of 35 percent in Minnesota, compared with 47 percent in our first year under Obamacare.

Rep. Atkins’ spin and cherrypicking is anything but the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Rep. O’Driscoll’s advice is good advice:

Keep a copy of this article, and when open enrollment begins Nov. 15, take a look at your new premiums and compare my math to the 4.5 percent number being marketed by MNsure.

Rest assured that Chairman Atkins’ spin won’t withstand strict scrutiny.

Technorati: Joe Atkins, MNsure, Spin, Health Insurance Premiums, Premium Increases, Obamacare, MNsure Rollout, Data Security, Security Breeches, DFL, Tim O’Driscoll, Jim Nobles, Legislative Auditor, MNGOP, Election 2014