View Full Version : Obama Now Selling Judgeships for Health Care Votes?
"Obama Now Selling Judgeships for Health Care Votes?"
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-now-selling-appeals-court-judgeships-health-care-votes
"Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he's obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson's brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit......"
I'm sure this will the the lead story on the morning news shows.
It doesn’t get any more blatant than that; yes, it will be interesting how the press handles the announcement/news.!
King O wants this one really, really bad and I think he will do anything to get his way.
Pretty sad.
Ret10Echo
03-04-2010, 05:04
Rome didn't fall in a day either....
Corruption on a grand scale. Just hope the sheeple look up long enough from their iPod screens to notice........
I doubt it
Rome didn't fall in a day either....
Corruption on a grand scale. Just hope the sheeple look up long enough from their iPod screens to notice........
I doubt it
Found this in the comment section of atlas shrugs…
When Obama wrote a book and said he was mentored as a youth by Frank, (Frank Marshall Davis) an avowed Communist,
People said it didn’t matter.
When it was discovered that his grandparents, who were strong socialists, sent Obama’s mother to a socialist school, and introduced Frank Marshall Davis to young Obama,
People said it didn’t matter.
When people found out that he was enrolled as a Muslim child in school and his father and stepfather were both Muslims,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he wrote in another book he authored I will stand with them (Muslims) should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.
People said it didn’t matter.
When he admittedly, in his book, said he chose Marxist friends and professors in college,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he traveled to Pakistan , after college on an unknown national passport,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he sought the endorsement of the Marxist party in 1996 as he ran for the Illinois Senate,
People said it doesn’t matter.
When he sat in a Chicago Church for twenty years and listened to a preacher spew hatred for America and preach black liberation theology,
People said it didn’t matter.
When an independent Washington organization, that tracks senate voting records, gave him the distinctive title as the “most liberal senator”,
People said it didn’t matter.
When the Palestinians in Gaza , set up a fund raising telethon to raise money for his election campaign,
People said it didn’t matter.
When his voting record supported gun control,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he refused to disclose who donated money to his election campaign, as other candidates had done,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he received endorsements from people like Louis Farrakhan and Mummar Kaddafi and Hugo Chavez,
People said it didn’t matter.
When it was pointed out that he was a total, newcomer and had absolutely no experience at anything except community organizing,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he chose friends and acquaintances such as Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who were revolutionary radicals and domestic terrorists,
People said it didn’t matter.
When his voting record in the Illinois senate and in the U.S. Senate came into question,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he refused to wear a flag, lapel pin and did so only after a public outcry,
People said it didn’t matter.
When people started treating him as a Messiah and children in schools were taught to sing his praises,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he stood with his hands over his groin area for the playing of the National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he surrounded himself in the White house with advisors who were pro gun control, pro abortion, pro homosexual marriage and wanting to curtail freedom of speech to silence the opposition
People said it didn’t matter.
When he aired his views on abortion, homosexuality and a host of other issues,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he said he favors sex education in Kindergarten, including homosexual indoctrination,
People said it didn’t matter.
When his background was either scrubbed or hidden and nothing could be found about him,
People said it didn’t matter.
When the place of his birth was called into question, and he refused to produce a birth certificate,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he had an association in Chicago with Tony Rezco, a man of questionable character, who is now in prison, and had helped Obama to a sweet deal on the purchase of his home,
People said it didn’t matter.
When it became known that George Soros, a multi-billionaire Marxist, spent a ton of money to get him elected,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he started appointing czars that were radicals, revolutionaries, and even avowed Marxist/Communists,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he stood before the nation and told us that his intentions were to “fundamentally transform this nation” into something else,
People said it didn’t matter.
When it became known that he had trained ACORN workers in Chicago and served as an attorney for ACORN,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he appointed a cabinet member and several advisors who were tax cheats and socialists,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he appointed a science czar, John Holdren, who believes in forced abortions, mass sterilizations and seizing babies from teen mothers,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he appointed Cass Sunstein as regulatory czar and he believes in “Explicit Consent”, harvesting human organs without family consent, and to allow animals to be represented in court, while banning all hunting,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he appointed Kevin Jennings, a homosexual, and organizer of a group called gay, lesbian, straight, Education network, as safe school czar and it became known that he had a history of bad advice to teenagers,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he appointed Mark Lloyd as diversity czar and he believed in curtailing free speech, taking from one and giving to another to spread the wealth and admires Hugo Chavez,
People said it didn’t matter.
When Valerie Jarrett was selected as Obama’s senior White House advisor even though she is an avowed Socialist,
People said it didn’t matter.
When Anita Dunn, White House Communications director said Mao Tse Tung was her favorite philosopher and the person she turned to most for inspiration,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he appointed Carol Browner, a well known socialist, as global warming czar, who is working on Cap and Trade,
People said it doesn’t matter.
When he appointed Van Jones, an ex-con and avowed Communist as green energy czar, who since had to resign when this was made known,
People said it didn’t matter.
When Tom Daschle, Obama’s pick for health and human services secretary could not be confirmed, because he was a tax cheat,
People said it didn’t matter.
When as president of the United States , he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia ,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he traveled around the world criticizing America and never once talking of her greatness,
People said it didn’t matter.
When his actions concerning the middle-east seemed to support the Palestinians over Israel , our long time friend,
People said it doesn’t matter.
When he took American tax dollars to resettle thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to the United States ,
People said it doesn’t matter.
When he upset our Eastern European allies by removing plans for a missile defense system against the Russians,
People said it doesn’t matter.
When he played politics in Afghanistan by not sending troops the Field Commanders said we had to have to win,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he encouraged and engineered spending us into a debt that was so big we could not pay it off,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he took a huge spending bill under the guise of stimulus and used it to pay off organizations, unions and individuals that got him elected,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he took over insurance companies, car companies, banks, etc.,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he took away student loans from the banks and put them through the government,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he designed plans to take over the health care system and put it under government control,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he set into motion a plan to take over the control of all energy in the United States through Cap and Trade,
People said it didn’t matter.
When he finally completed his transformation of America into a Socialist State , people finally woke up……… but it was too late.
Snaquebite
03-04-2010, 10:08
Nobody reporting this yet...only other place I saw it was Drudge.
The Reaper
03-04-2010, 10:12
Nobody reporting this yet...only other place I saw it was Drudge.
FoxNews has it on.
TR
GratefulCitizen
03-04-2010, 14:56
King O wants this one really, really bad and I think he will do anything to get his way.
Pretty sad.
Someone's take on the matter:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/obamas_malignant_narcissism.html
Source is here (http://www.politico.com/livepulse/0310/Matheson_knocks_down_vote_trading_questions.html).
Matheson knocks down vote trading questions - Live Pulse: Matheson knocks down vote trading questions
March 03, 2010
Matheson knocks down vote trading questions
The Weekly Standard is up with an article asking if President Obama's nomination of Scott Matheson to the federal bench is being used to buy the health care vote of his brother, Rep. Jim Matheson. The report raises the question but doesn't answer it, relying instead on circumstantial evidence.
But Rep. Matheson's office gave Live Pulse an answer -- and it's a resounding N-O.
Rep. Matheson's spokeswoman, Alyson Heyrend called the question "patently ridiculous," saying there was no deal made between her boss and the president that guaranteed Scott Matheson's nomination in exchange for Rep. Matheson's vote.
"Can you spell NO?" Heyrend asked.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
In a statement today, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch praised Matheson's nomination calling him, "a bright attorney whose experience has prepared him for judicial service."
UPDATE: A White House official calls the charge "absurd."
"Scott Matheson is a leading law scholar and has served as a law school dean and U.S. Attorney. He’s respected across Utah and eminently qualified to serve on the federal bench,” the official said.
The Weekly Standard story:
<<SNIP>>Should a suggestion of the appearance of impropriety derail the nomination?:confused:
What floored me yesterday was in his speech he something to the extent that we need to pass Health care to get our economy going.
Now maybe I am don't understand the big picture, but I see no correlation in the two, unless you consider it a veiled threat or extortion....like I am either getting what you want or I will make you pay.
It time for a beer or two.
Ret10Echo
03-04-2010, 16:51
Should a suggestion of the appearance of impropriety derail the nomination?:confused:
A nomination for chief of the sanitary district....no. For a nomination for a judge I would suggest that appearances are much more significant or at least they should be.
Should a suggestion of the appearance of impropriety derail the nomination?:confused:
In this case, absolutely.
FWIW, Professor Matheson discussed his book Presidential Constitutionalism in Perilous Times at the Wilson Center last spring. A video and summary of the discussion are available here (http://www.wilsoncenter.org/ondemand/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.play&mediaid=EFC8B5D2-017E-1D0F-24D4CAC3FE3D69B7).Presidential Constitutionalism in Perilous Times
May 27, 2009
Scott M. Matheson, Jr., Professor of Law, S. J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, author; Harvey Rishikof, Professor of National Security Law, national Defense University, commentator.
Scott Matheson began by identifying the tension that lies at the heart of his book, namely, that between securing the nation and protecting the individual liberties guaranteed in the Constitution—a tension that comes to the fore when U.S. presidents face national crises. The protection of liberties depends upon the separation of powers and a president’s willingness to share power; at least two branches of government should be involved in all actions. Under George W. Bush, however, the executive branch pursued policies outside of that framework. Asserting his authority as Commander-in-Chief, President Bush conducted programs of surveillance, torture, and detention that violated the Geneva Conventions; he also established military courts without Congressional approval. It was these actions, Matheson noted, that prompted him to write his book.
Presidential Constitutionalism in Perilous Times examines a number of specific cases in which presidents impinged on individual rights in the name of national security: Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War; Woodrow Wilson’s violations of First Amendment rights during World War I; the internment of Japanese Americans under Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II; Harry S. Truman’s takeover of the steel mills during the Korean War; and Bush’s policies after 9/11. The book examines each of these historical cases through six different “prisms”: executive supremacy – to what extent did the president act unilaterally?; political branch partnership – did the executive branch forge a partnership with Congress?; judicial review – did the Supreme Court act as a check on presidential power?; retroactive judgment – did Congress approve the president’s actions after the fact?; extraconstitutionalism – did the president exceed his constitutional powers?; and executive constitutionalism – did the president consult actively with Congress and support and respect the judgment of an independent judiciary? This latter prism, Matheson argued, should become a criterion for appropriate presidential action in all instances in which constitutional rights are at risk.
In his commentary, Harvey Rishikof raised a number of questions. First, if, as Matheson notes, the global war on terrorism differs from other national emergencies, does this mean that different rules are needed to guide the use of presidential power? Second, has constitutional history created what Matheson refers to as a “Lockean Prerogative” – an established justification for infringing on individual liberties in the name of preserving the nation and protecting it from harm? Third, if, as the 9/11 Commission recommended, the President briefs Congress on his or her reasons for exerting extra-Constitutional powers, is this a sufficient safeguard? What is Congress supposed to do with this information? And fourth, given Matheson’s analysis, what are the responsibilities of attorneys working within the national security enterprise? Should they be held accountable for extra-constitutional actions taken at the behest of the President?
During the discussion, Matheson addressed these as well as other issues raised by members of the audience, including the role of the press and the public in influencing presidential actions; the extent to which extra-constitutional powers can be contained or retracted once they have been exerted; and the significance of signing statements. With regard to the latter, Matheson stated that as yet, the constitutional or legal status of signing statements has not been tested. Rishikof noted, however, that such statements do have practical effects, as they often determine the actions of government operatives.
Matheson concluded by reminding the audience that these issues persist under the Obama administration, as his recent speech at the National Archives indicated. The status of the prisoners at Guantanamo, for example, represents a particularly difficult quandary for the President. He has, however, indicated a desire for a broad public discussion and a decision made in consultation with others. To Matheson, this represents a significant step toward achieving executive constitutionalism. It would ironic if the president is, in fact, attempting to influence Mr. Matheson's vote but ends up not getting that vote and ends up a sitting judge with a skeptical view of the president's approach to the Constitution.
dadof18x'er
03-04-2010, 19:59
That is right - I will say it... THANK GOD FOR BARACK OBAMA
WHY?
He destroyed the Clinton Political Machine: Driving a stake through the heart of Hillary’s Presidential aspirations - something no Republican was ever able to do. Remember when a Hillary Presidency scared the daylights out of you!
He killed off the Kennedy Dynasty: No more Kennedy’s trolling Washington looking for booze and women wanting rides home. American women and Freedom are safer tonight!
He is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes!
Dennis Moore had never lost a race - quit
Evan Bayh had never lost a race - quit
Byron Dorgan - had never lost a race - quit
Harry Reed - in all probability - GONE
These are just a handful of the Democrats whose political careers Obama has destroyed! By the end of 2010 dozens more will follow!
In December of 2008 the Democrats were on the rise. In the last two election cycles they had picked up 14 senate seats and 52 house seats. The press was touting the death of the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party.
In one year Obama put a stop to all of this and will probably give the house, if not the senate, back to the Republicans.
He has completely exposed liberals and progressives (extremists) for what they are. Every generation seems to need to relearn the lesson of why they should never actually put liberals in charge. He is bringing home the lesson very well!
Liberals tax, borrow and spend - check
Liberals won’t bring themselves to protect America - check
Liberals want to take over the economy - check
Liberals think they know what is best for everyone - check
Liberals aren’t happy till they are running YOUR life - check
He has brought more Americans back to conservatism than anyone since Reagan
In One year he rejuvenated the Conservative movement and brought to the streets millions of Freedom Loving Americans
Name one other time in your life that you saw your friends and neighbors this interested in taking back America!
In all honesty one year ago I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life. Not of the economy but of the direction our country was going. I thought Americans had forgotten what this country was all about. Neighbors, friends, even strangers, proved to me that my lack of confidence of the Greatness and Wisdom of the American people was flat out wrong.
Barack Obama woke up these Great Americans!
Again I want to say - Thank you Barack Obama!:lifter
alright4u
03-04-2010, 21:48
Found this in the comment section of atlas shrugs…
You have just about covered it all.
robbo1959
03-05-2010, 09:31
Obama, and his policies, represent a "clear and present danger" to our liberty.
Bordercop
03-05-2010, 10:03
The link: http://article.nationalreview.com/427015/onward-he-said-regardless/charles-krauthammer
Charles Krauthammer
March 5, 2010 12:00 A.M.
Onward, He Said, Regardless
Obamacare is heading into its fifth act, and it’s looking like a tragedy.
So the yearlong production, set to close after Massachusetts’ devastatingly negative January 19 review, saw the curtain raised one last time. Obamacare lives.
After 34 speeches, three sharp electoral rebukes (Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts), and a seven-hour seminar, the president announced Wednesday his determination to make one last push to pass his health-care reform.
The final act was carefully choreographed. The rollout began a week earlier with a couple of shows of bipartisanship: a February 25 Blair House “summit” with Republicans, followed five days later with a few concessions tossed the Republicans’ way.
Show is the operative noun. Among the few Republican suggestions President Obama pretended to incorporate was tort reform. What did he suggest to address the plague of defensive medicine that a Massachusetts Medical Society study showed leads to about 25 percent of doctor referrals, tests, and procedures being done for no medical reason? A few ridiculously insignificant demonstration projects amounting to one-half of one-hundredth of 1 percent of the cost of Obama’s health-care bill.
As for the Blair House seminar, its theatrical quality was obvious even before it began. The Democrats had already decided to go for a purely partisan bill. Obama signaled precisely that intent at the end of the summit show — then dramatically spelled it out just six days later in his 35th health-care speech: He is going for the party-line vote.
Unfortunately for Democrats, that seven-hour televised exercise had the unintended consequence of showing the Republicans to be not only highly informed on the subject, but also, as even Obama was forced to admit, possessed of principled objections — contradicting the ubiquitous Democratic/media meme that Republican opposition was nothing but nihilistic partisanship.
Republicans did so well, in fact, that in his summation, Obama was reduced to suggesting that his health-care reform was indeed popular because when you ask people about individual items (for example, eliminating exclusions for pre-existing conditions or capping individual out-of-pocket payments), they are in favor.
Yet mystifyingly they oppose the whole package. How can that be?
Allow me to demystify. Imagine a bill granting every American a free federally delivered ice cream every Sunday morning. Provision 2: steak on Monday, also home delivered. Provision 3: A dozen red roses every Tuesday. You get the idea. Would each individual provision be popular in the polls? Of course.
However — life is a vale of howevers — suppose these provisions were bundled into a bill that also spelled out how the goodies are to be paid for and managed — say, half a trillion dollars in new taxes, half a trillion in Medicare cuts (cuts not to keep Medicare solvent but to pay for the ice cream, steak, and flowers), 118 new boards and commissions to administer the bounty-giving, and government regulation dictating, for example, how your steak was to be cooked. How do you think this would poll?
Perhaps something like three-to-one against, which is what the latest CNN poll shows is the citizenry’s feeling about the current Democratic health-care bills.
Late last year, Democrats were marveling at how close they were to historic health-care reform, noting how much agreement had been achieved among so many factions. The only remaining detail was how to pay for it.
Well, yes. That has generally been the problem with democratic governance: cost. The disagreeable absence of a free lunch.
Which is what drove even strong Obama supporter Warren Buffett to go public with his judgment that the current Senate bill, while better than nothing, is a failure because the country desperately needs to bend the cost curve down and the bill doesn’t do it. Buffett’s advice would be to start over and get it right.
Obama has chosen differently, however. The time for debate is over, declared the nation’s seminar-leader-in-chief. The man who vowed to undo Washington’s wicked ways has directed the Congress to ram Obamacare through, by one vote if necessary, under the parliamentary device of “budget reconciliation.” The man who ran as a post-partisan is determined to remake a sixth of the U.S. economy despite the absence of support from a single Republican in either house, the first time anything of this size and scope has been enacted by pure party-line vote.
Surprised? You can only be disillusioned if you were once illusioned.
GratefulCitizen
03-05-2010, 13:38
Krauthammer's analysis sounds like a familiar story.
The story ends something like this:
“That is all very well, but who is to bell the Cat?”
It would be nice to have actual grown-ups running the government.
Dozer523
03-05-2010, 13:54
Obama, and his policies, represent a "clear and present danger" to our liberty.Though we are always looking for members who advocate the violent overthrow of our Constitutionally elected officials . . .
How about posting your first post in the Introductions (Introduce yourself with your first post here) as requested?