Frustrated Incorporated
I just want something simple, like the TRUTH!

Brisbane, Australia, the G20 Summit, President Obama news conference:

 

 

OBAMA: We had a yearlong debate, Ed. I mean, go back and look at your stories. The one thing we can’t say is that we did not have a lengthy debate about health care in the United States of America or that it was not adequately covered. I mean, I would just advise all of… every press outlet here, go back and pull up every clip, every story, and I think it’ll — it’s fair to say that there was not a — a provision in the health care law that was not extensively debated, and was fully transparent.

Pelosi’s was out there saying, “You’ve got pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”  Nothing about this bill was transparent. Everything about the bill was hidden. The people that wrote the bill didn’t know what it said. It was 2,000 or 2,200 pages.

“I didn’t know about this! I just heard about this! I’m as mad about this as you are. I’m gonna get to the bottom of this,”

… blah, blah.

EXAMPLES:   March 2009 through November 2014.

OBAMA, GRUBER, 11/17/14: Uhhh, I just heard about this… [S]ome advisor who never worked on our staff, uhh, expressed an opinion that, uhh, I completely disagree with …

OBAMA, IRS SCANDAL, 05/13/13: I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this.

OBAMA, IRS SCANDAL, 05/15/13: Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it.

OBAMA, OBAMACARE ROLLOUT, 10/21/13: Nobody’s madder than me!

OBAMA, FAST & FURIOUS, 10/14/11: I heard on the news about this.

OBAMA, FAST & FURIOUS, 10/18/11: It’s very upsetting to me, that somebody showed such bad judgment.

OBAMA, SECRET SERVICE SCANDAL, 04/15/12: If it turns out some of the allegations that have been made in the press are confirmed, then of course I’ll be angry.

OBAMA, IRS SCANDAL, 05/13/13: I’ve got no patience with it! I will not tolerate it!

OBAMA BP GULF OIL DISASTER, 06/03/10: I am furious at this entire situation.

OBAMA IRS SCANDAL, 05/15/13: We’re going to hold the responsible parties accountable.

OBAMA, IRS SCANDAL, 05/16/13:I certainly did not know anything about the IG Report before the IG Report had been leaked through the press.

OBAMA, IRS SCANDAL, 05/16/13:  The minute I found out about it, then my main focus is making sure that we get the thing fixed.

OBAMA, WALL STREET BONUSES, 03/18/09:People are right to be angry. I’m angry!

OBAMA, AIR FORCE ONE BUZZING MANHATTAN, 04/28/09: It was something, we found out, about along with all of you.

OBAMA, VA SCANDAL, 05/21/2014: I will not stand for it, not as commander-in-chief! None of us should. It is dishonorable, it is disgraceful, and I will not tolerate it. Period.

 

All of those, Obama claimed he knew nothing about until you knew.

Gruber, MIT Professor, in all of the sound bites, is telling everybody else how to do this. He is teaching here! He’s not bragging how he did it, or not just bragging. That he is instructing. He’s telling other people how they can get this done in their own walks of life. So he is encouraging this kind of thing for everybody else, and using it as a teachable moment for like-minded people.

Progressive Liberal Education Mindset Exposed… if your shocked, you haven’t been paying attention.

Jonathan Gruber, MIT – professor of economics.

He wrote both Romneycare and he wrote Obamacare. Almost a year ago, in October of 2013, Jonathan Gruber was in Philadelphia speaking at the 24th Annual Health Economics Conference, and he spoke about Obamacare and how and what they had to do to make it a reality.

In other words, they had to lie to you, and they relied on your stupidity. They counted on your stupidity to believe their lies such as, “You get to keep your doctor and you get to keep your health insurance plan,” such as, “Your premiums are gonna come down,” such as, “No they’re not taxes! There’s no way they’re taxes. No, no, no. And you’re gonna get subsidies if you can’t afford it, so don’t sweat it. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

“Lack of transparency” was the key because “the stupidity of the American voter” would have killed Obamacare. Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor at MIT, and he said, “Lack of transparency,” meaning honesty. Lack of honesty was a major part of getting Obamacare passed because the stupidity of the American voter would have killed the law if more people knew what was in it.

There you go, America.

That is what the Democrat Party thinks of you.

This is not something new. He said this a year ago at a conference of economists, but it’s not new. This is how the Democrat Party thinks of most people, and it’s not hard to believe. They think most people are incapable of taking care of themselves, for example. Particularly women. They think most people are incompetent and will make the wrong decisions if living a life of self-reliance.

The Democrat Party thinks everybody’s a victim, primarily of America or of the Republican Party or of conservatives. They don’t dare be honest with you about what they believe. They know you wouldn’t vote for it, and that’s why you’re stupid. You don’t have the intelligence to see the brilliance of their ideas. What you have is the common sense to know they’re not good.

So this arrogant condescension is a commonplace point of view that is held by practical everybody, particularly at the top ranks of the Democrat Party. “The bill was written in a tortured way to make sure the CBO didn’t score the mandate as taxes.”

“If it was taxes, it would kill it,” meaning: You don’t want to pay higher taxes. Even though you’re paying higher premiums, higher everything, they had to lie to you about that, otherwise you would have resoundingly opposed it and it wouldn’t have happened.

They couldn’t dare be honest with you.

They still can’t.

 

A little background on Jonathan Gruber:

By MichaelJames
Jan 9, 2010 11:01am
The New York Times has an editor’s note today:

“On July 12, the Op-Ed page published an article by Jonathan Gruber, a professor of economics at M.I.T., on health insurance and taxation. On Friday, Professor Gruber confirmed reports that he is a paid consultant to the Department of Health and Human Services, and that his contract was in effect when he published his article. The article did not disclose this relationship to readers.

“Like other writers for the Op-Ed page, Professor Gruber signed a contract that obligated him to tell editors of such a relationship. Had editors been aware of Professor Gruber’s government ties, the Op-Ed page would have insisted on disclosure or not published his article.”

In November this blog, too, cited Gruber’s work with no disclosure (and no knowledge) that he had nearly $400,000 in lucrative contracts with the Department of Health and Human Services.

Gruber has been a go-to voice for reporters seeking a respected academic view on health care reform costs — and as far as I can tell, few if any knew that in March he was awarded a $95,000 contract with HHS and in June a $297,600 contract with HHS for providing “Technical Assistance in Evaluating Options for National Healthcare Reform.”

A Dec. 28, 2009 Washington Post op-ed by Gruber made no such disclosure. The piece, titled “‘Cadillac’ tax isn’t a tax — it’s a plan to finance real health reform” makes that case, strongly opposed by labor unions, that the Senate health care bill’s proposed “40 percent assessment on insurance plans with premiums of more than $8,500 for singles and $23,000 for families … would reduce the incentives for employers to provide excessively generous insurance, leading to more cost-conscious use of health care and, ultimately, lower spending.”

This is the same “Cadillac tax” proposal that President Obama is pushing House and Senate health care reform negotiators to include in the bill — and yes, it’s the same one he opposed on the campaign trail, noting in October 2008 in Newport News that some workers have “given up wage increases in exchange for a better health care.”

Gruber’s nearly $400,000 contract with the Obama administration seems to have first been noticed by a citizen-journalist-blogger, Mote Date at Daily Kos.
Ben Smith of Politico then jumped on the case.

Gruber told Smith:
“I do indeed have a contract with HHS. Throughout this year I have provided technical assistance to the administration and to Congress with my micro-simulation model, as well as based on my experience as a member of the Massachusetts health connector board. But NONE of the work I have done in public, or any public declarations I have made, has been in any way funded by the Administration. That funding was strictly for internal work that I did for the administration and, via the administration, for congress. All externally visible work and comments, such as my editorials or public reports, have been done on my own time.

“Moreover, at no time have I publicly advocated a position that I did not firmly believe — indeed, I have been completely consistent with my academic track record.

On the two issues this article raises:

“1) I am known in economics as one of the leading experts on the impact of health insurance costs on wages — indeed, I wrote my thesis on that topic and have written extensively since on the fact that health insurance costs are fully translated into wages. I was asked by the editors of the Handbook of Health Economics, a review of literature in this area, to write the review article on this topic.

“2) In my role as a member of the MA Health Connector board, I had to help decide what were affordable subsidies for our citizens. I was surprised to find how little work there was on this topic so I undertook a study to help lay out what might be considered affordable. I have since replicated that analysis at the federal level. Every position I have advocated on this topic is completely consistent with these reports.”

Gruber noted that in November he disclosed his relationship with the administration in an International Committee of Medical Journal Editors disclosure form he filled out before the New England Journal of Medicine published his story.

But the issue, as Smith and FireDogLake and others have noted, isn’t Gruber’s New England Journal of Medicine story, it’s that he’s been so frequently cited by members of the media as an expert — reporters who didn’t know the Obama administration was paying Gruber nearly $400,000.

Such as Ron Brownstein’s influential piece on health care reform in the Atlantic. Democratic senators such as John Kerry continue to push his work, likely just as oblivious as the rest of us as to Gruber’s HHS contract.

Comes down to “Follow the Money…”

If the Electorate wanted the Senate and the House to “Compromise” with the President, they would have voted for Democrats.

 

Governor Races 2014
Governor Races
Midterm 2014

Washington (CNN) — President Barack Obama’s home state of Illinois elected a Republican governor on Tuesday night. Massachusetts will have its first Republican governor since Mitt Romney.

Stunning Republican gubernatorial victories came in reliably Democratic states, including those won overwhelmingly by Obama in 2012. Illinois ousted Democrat Pat Quinn in favor of Republican Bruce Rauner, while Maryland voters opted for Republican Larry Hogan over Democrat Anthony Brown. Republican Charlie Baker won a Massachusetts match-up against Martha Coakley, the state attorney general who lost a special Senate election to Scott Brown in 2010.

Republicans also continued their dominance of governors’ mansions when a number of GOP leaders fought off stiff challenges from Democrats…

 

House of Representatives
House of Representatives Midterms 2014 Results

ABC — Republicans have strengthened their majority control of the House of Representatives. Now, the only question remaining is how big that majority will grow.

As of 12:30 a.m. ET, ABC News had projected that Republicans had won 239 seats in the House to 180 for Democrats, which already gives the GOP a stronger hold than they had in the previous Congress, when they had a 34-seat majority. ABC News projected that by the time the night is over, Republicans will have gained between 14 and 18 seats in the House.

 

Race for the Senate Midterms 2014 Results
Race for the Senate
Midterms 2014 Results

LA Times — Riding a surge of voter discontent, Republicans seized control of the Senate on Tuesday, giving the GOP full command of Congress
Washington (CNN) — South Carolina’s Tim Scott on Tuesday became the first African-American senator to win election in the South since Reconstruction…
Scott’s win also made him the first African-American in U.S. history to be elected to both the House and the Senate.

Image Source: 2014 Wall Street Journal 

Atlanta, Dr. Thomas Frieden’s press conference talking about the first case of Ebola virus found:

FRIEDEN: … Ebola is a scary disease because of the severity of illness it causes. At the same time, we’re stopping it in its tracks in this country. We can do that because of two things: Strong health care infection control that stops the spread of Ebola and strong core public health functions that trace contacts, track contacts, isolate them if they have any symptoms, and stop the chain of transmission. We’re stopping this in its tracks.

This is another example of just getting up there and saying it and hoping that it’s true, hoping that saying it makes it true. You know, this is not a world governed by the aggressive use of words, the aggressive use of speeches. There are powerful forces out there, and viruses and diseases are two of them, and you don’t stop them with words.

You don’t stop them with good intentions, and you don’t stop ’em with compassion. You don’t stop ’em by caring. You actually have to take steps.

Ebola, a virus that is affecting people thousands of miles away in West Africa, is now in America’s most populous city with the fourth diagnosis on American soil.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has sickened at least 9,936 people since March, killing at least 4,877 of them as of Oct. 22 — making it the worst outbreak of the virus in history, according to the World Health Organization.

Find out how the virus first arrived in the United States — via U.S. missionaries flown here for treatment this summer — and then how Ebola was unwittingly imported via Thomas Eric Duncan, who flew from Liberia to Texas with the virus and later died in Dallas.

Oct. 24, 2014 – Dallas nurse Nina Pham, 26, the first person to contract Ebola in the United States, is virus-free, the National Institutes of Health announces.

Oct. 23, 2014 – Dr. Craig Allen Spencer is diagnosed with Ebola the same day he went into isolation at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. According to the hospital, he had a fever and gastrointestinal symptoms when he was taken to Bellevue. Spencer recently returned from Guinea, where he was working with Doctors Without Borders. NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference that Spencer only had symptoms for “a very brief period of time” and only had contact with “very few” people. He described the patient as “in good shape.”

Oct. 22, 2014 – Ebola patient Amber Vinson, 29, a nurse who treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola on American soil, is declared virus-free at Emory University Hospital, where she was transferred after testing positive for the virus at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where she works. Her family said she tested negative for the virus and would be moved from isolation.

Oct. 19, 2014 – The unnamed American Ebola patient is discharged from Emory University Hospital, where the patient had been undergoing care since Sept. 9. This patient had been working for the WHO in Sierra Leone and chose to remain anonymous.

Oct. 17, 2014 – Spencer arrives back in the United States via Brussels after spending a month in Guinea with Doctors Without Borders treating Ebola patients. He lands in New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Oct. 17, 2014 – Officials announce that a Dallas health worker who handled clinical specimens from Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola on American soil, is quarantined aboard a Carnival cruise ship amid concerns the worker may have been exposed to the Ebola virus.

Oct. 16, 2014 – Pham is flown from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas to the National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. Pham treated Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where she works.

Oct. 15, 2014 – Vinson is diagnosed with Ebola shortly after midnight and flown to Emory University Hospital that evening.

Oct. 14, 2014 – Vinson is taken to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas with a fever.

Oct. 13, 2014 – Vinson flies from Cleveland to Dallas on Frontier Airlines Flight 1143, arriving at 8:16 p.m. She has no symptoms, but her temperature was 99.5 degrees that morning, according to health officials. She notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before boarding, and no one told her not to fly.

Oct. 12, 2014 – Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas says that Pham has tested positive for Ebola.

Oct. 12, 2014 – An unidentified Dallas health worker who handled Duncan’s clinical specimens at Texas Healthy Presbyterian Hospital boards a cruise ship. The CDC notified the worker about active monitoring after the cruise ship left the country, according to a government statement.

Oct. 10, 2014 – Vinson takes a commercial flight from Dallas to Cleveland, Ohio, to prepare for her upcoming wedding.

Oct. 9, 2014 – A Dallas County sheriff’s deputy who reported symptoms associated with Ebola after serving a quarantine order on the apartment where Duncan had been staying tests negative for the virus.

Oct. 8, 2014 – Duncan dies at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Oct. 6, 2014 – Ashoka Mukpo, 33, a freelance American cameraman who contracted Ebola in West Africa, arrives at Nebraska Medical Center for Ebola treatment.

Oct. 6, 2014 – Dr. Rick Sacra, 51, who contracted Ebola while treating patients in a Liberian maternity ward a month earlier, is released from his second hospitalization since returning to the United States. He had been hospitalized at UMass Memorial Medical Center on Worcester, Massachusetts, with what doctors initially thought was an Ebola relapse but soon diagnosed as a respiratory infection.

Oct. 5, 2014 – Sacra hospitalized in Massachusetts with what doctors fear is an Ebola relapse. They isolate him out of what they said was an abundance of caution.

Oct. 2, 2014 – Mukpo is diagnosed with Ebola in Liberia. He worked for Vice News, NBC News and other outlets.

Sept. 30, 2014 – The CDC confirms that a patient who would later be identified as Duncan has been diagnosed with Ebola on U.S. soil.

Sept. 28, 2014 – Duncan returns to the hospital in an ambulance and is isolated.

Sept. 26, 2014 – Duncan goes to Texas Presbyterian Health Hospital in Dallas with a fever and tells a nurse he has been to Liberia. But he is sent home with antibiotics and Tylenol.

Sept. 20, 2014 – Duncan arrives in the United States from Liberia to visit family.

Sept. 9, 2014 – An unnamed American Ebola patient arrives at Emory University Hospital for treatment. This patient had been working for the WHO in Sierra Leone.

Sept. 5, 2014 – Sacra arrives at Nebraska Medical Center for treatment. He eventually gets a blood transfusion from Dr. Kent Brantly, the American missionary who survived his bout with Ebola.

Sept. 3, 2014 – Sacra was diagnosed with Ebola even though he was treating patients in the maternity ward of the ELWA Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, not Ebola patients.

Aug. 21, 2014 – Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, is discharged from Emory University Hospital, where he was undergoing treatment for Ebola after contracting it in Africa. In a news conference, he hugs several members of the hospital staff.

Aug. 19, 2014 – Missionary Nancy Writebol, 59, is quietly discharged from Emory University Hospital, where she was undergoing treatment for Ebola. She also contracted the virus doing aid work in Liberia.

Aug. 5, 2014 – Writebol is flown from Liberia to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, for Ebola treatment in its isolation ward.

Aug. 2, 2014 – Brantly is flown from Liberia to Emory for treatment. He surprises everyone by walking out of the ambulance into the hospital in his protective suit.

July 31, 2013 – In Liberia, Brantly gets the first dose of an experimental drug called ZMapp, though it was unnamed at the time. Though doctors initially thought there was only enough for one person, Writebol was administered the drug as well.

July 27, 2014 – Missionary groups report that two Americans are sickened with Ebola while helping patients in Monrovia, Liberia. Brantly and Writebol were working for aid groups Samaritan’s Purse and SIM, respectively. Brantly later told reporters he held patients’ hands as they were dying.

March 19, 2014 – What would become the largest Ebola outbreak in history begins in March 2014 with 23 deaths from what is then called a “mystery” hemorrhagic fever.

SourceABC news

2014 Economic Facts…

Most people are still earning less, adjusted for inflation, than before the recession struck at the end of 2007. Even many who kept their jobs through the recession — or easily found work after being let go — are no better off. The typical family income in current dollars is $52,959, according to Sentier Research. Factoring in inflation, that’s $3,303 less than before the recession — a nearly 6 percent drop.

FEWER FULL-TIME JOBS

Finding a steady full-time job has become harder. There are 27.4 million part-time jobs, representing 18.8 percent of jobs in the U.S. economy, according to the Labor Department. Before the recession, 16.5 percent of all jobs were part time.

BEHIND ON MORTGAGES

Whatever wealth most Americans have is mainly tied up in their homes. But roughly seven years after the housing bust, owning a home has still been a bad investment for many.

Nearly 37 percent of mortgage holders were “effectively underwater” through the first three months of 2014, according to the real estate firm Zillow. That means they either owe more than their homes are worth or a sale wouldn’t generate enough money to cover the closing costs and down payment for a new home.

Just 39 percent of everyone surveyed in June said the economy was improving; 56 percent described it as getting worse. The consumer confidence reading for existing conditions was, negative 14.

CAUTIOUS SHOPPING

Most Americans are still being careful at cash registers and online checkouts. Consumer spending has risen at an average annual pace of just 2.2 percent since the recession ended in mid-2009. That’s far below the 3.4 percent average in the two decades preceding the recession.

Confidence in the economy is still relatively low, suggesting that people are buying what they need instead of what they want. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index was 85.2 in June. In the 20 years preceding the downturn, it averaged nearly 102. 1

So, how is Obama Economics working out for you?

The fundamental reason why all this is happening is the pie that everybody wants a piece of… That’s just the private sector. When the government comes in and absorbs one-sixth of it in the health care takeover called Obamacare, the pie gets smaller.

As government grows, how does it grow?

It has to take money from other people, allocate it to itself to spend it however it wishes. It’s called redistribution; it doesn’t produce anything. The private sector is getting smaller. The pie is all getting smaller, and that’s why there’s less of it to be had for people. You want to talk about why the gap between rich and poor is expanding? It’s because the pie’s getting smaller, and the pie can only get smaller as government grows.

That’s the argument against government expansion in its simplest form. The argument against government expansion is that it shrinks opportunity for everybody who doesn’t work or have anything to do with government.

Now… Lets take a look at President Obama’s view on our Economy:

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) July 9, 2014 — President Barack Obama took credit on Wednesday for the U.S. economic rebound after the financial crisis of 2008.

“Thanks to the hard work of you – and some actually smart policies by us, we have come further and recovered faster than almost any other advanced country on Earth,”

Obama said in a campaign-style speech in Denver. Obama trumpeted an agenda of “economic patriotism,” … 2

 Seriously, this man lies to the American Public on a regular basis about a multitude of topics, why should he – after 6 years – start letting facts get in the way??

1 Source: AP: AS US JOB MARKET STRENGTHENS, MANY DON’T FEEL IT
2 Source: MarketWatch: Obama: U.S. economic recovery among fastest on earth