Obama Admin Brushes Off Right Wing’s Outcry Over Government Health Care “Propaganda”
In case you didn’t catch it, Senator Chuck Grassley — aided and abetted by Lou Dobbs and Fox News — caused a stir this week by making an alarming claim: The Department of Health and Human Services’ official government Web site is encouraging citizens to spread “propaganda” in support of Obama’s health care plan!
The Obama administration has now officially hit back in a letter I’ve obtained that politely replies: Stuff it. It’s the latest sign of the administration’s determination, at least in some cases, not to be cowed by assaults from the right.
The battle started when Grassley penned a letter to HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius, pointing out that the HHS Web prominently displays a button that says, “State Your Support,” which takes you to a form email that you can fill out. Grassley blasted the use of an official site for “nothing more than government propaganda.”
Lou Dobbs pronounced Grassley’s concerns “serious.” Fox News and right wing blogs ran with the story, with one prominent blogger saying government resources were being used to encourage support for “Dear Leader.”
HHS has now sent a letter to Grassley, dismissing his concerns as baseless. It argues that one legal requirement Grassley cited prohibits the government from covertly spreading materials while hiding government involvement, and continues:
By contrast, the `State Your Support’ link appears prominently on a government Web site. There is nothing secretive, and therefore nothing improper about it.
HHS’ letter also argues that another legal requirement Grassley cites prohibits the use of government resources to encourage people to lobby Congress, and continues:
The “State your Support” link urges no one to contact Congress. Instead, it offers citizens the opportunity to tell the President whether they agree with his position. Thus, the “State your Support” link does not violate this aspect of the law, either.
One side note: The skirmish, at bottom, is a striking indication of how quickly Grassley has been relegated to a marginal player in the health care wars. Only a couple of months ago he seemed to hold the fate of health care reform in his hands; now he’s sounding the alarm about a button on a Web site.
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Shall we call the reply ” Pushing Grassley’s buttons!.”
Oh No! The government might help the American citizenry from being denied health coverage from corporate-medical profiteers!
What will Americans do when the corporate-medical-insurance industry can’t reap massive profits by rationing health care by denying coverage to millions of Americans and then using “recission” (rationing) to deny health coverage of millions of more Americans who had for years religiously paid their premiums?
Sure, government intrusion would save American lives, lengthen the life span of Americans and even reduce infant mortality, but what about the profiteering mammon worshipers?
Fortunately Republicans (with the help of a handful of right-wing Democrats) will protect the corporate-medical-industries ability to leech profits out of sick people!
Sure, that means that almost 45,000 Americans will die each year because the right wing chose to protect corporate profits over the lives of Americans.
But that’s what voting for right wingers gets: Mammon over lives.
I can’t wait to hear about Lieberman’s plan to hold a hearing on using government websites for propaganda….
“now he’s sounding the alarm about a button on a Web site.”
LOL, Greg, you’re cruel.
grossley was the stand on which Obama hung the coat of teh biprtisanship on and the stand simply collapsed.
Thank you, Senator Grassley, for calling my attention to the button. It was with great satisfaction that I pushed it.
“Instead, it offers citizens the opportunity to tell the President whether they agree with his position.”
This statement in the Sibelius letter appears to be untrue or misleading at best. As I understand it, the site gives the public the option only of “telling” Obama it supports him.
It is also at best an evasion for Sibelius to defend the site on the ground that it doesn’t directly ask the public to lobby Congress. First, of course, they obviously hope and expect it will lead people to lobby Congress, and the site was set up in conjunction with the astro-turfing effort of the Obama political operation which expressly is asking people to call Congress. Second, the obvious goal is to have Obama supporters express their support to the White House, which will then cite the number of supporting replies to Congress. Unless someone is going to suggest Obama is actually doing this to see what the public actually thinks. Who wants to suggest that is what he is doing? Why, then, is the only option to reply with one’s support?
The skirmish, at bottom, is a striking indication of how quickly Grassley has been relegated to a marginal player in the health care wars.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
The war criminal wannabe belches again.
qb, boohoo, cry me a river. You wingnuts shot your wad early by your stoopid tea-bagging antics and now are getting kicked in the nuts (pun intended) in the end game.
Grayson kicking a repug’s sorry ignorant a$$.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/22/8752/6770
Watch the wonderful vid.
Ha ha, you guys are too much — again you have no answer to the factual points I made so you carry on like juvenile delinquents. Obama is a manipulative Chicago thug politician, and Sibelius’s defense of this grubby little project is a perfectly dishonest example. And you can’t even try to deny it. How does it feel to be shills for this shyster and fraud?
Another great vid of Franken smacking an anti-HCR woman
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/22/795842/-Watch-Franken-slice-and-dice-the-nice-wingnut-lady-
Look for her stunned face at the end of the smackdown.
This President has instilled some backbone into the dems. For that alone, he deserves a Nobel.
qb, nutjobs deserve only derision.
In right wing teabaggers world, nickleback’s repeated ad hominem attacks are “factual points”.
So, responding with the same kind of “factual points”: nickleback is a dishonest, manipulative thug and he can’t even try to deny it.
Sounds like every right winger in politics going all the way back to at least Republican criminal Nixon.
As a troll, nickleback gets a D-.
He passes, but barely. His trolling isn’t original, just a boring regurgitation of the Fox Republican talking point du jour.
By the way, nickleback, the “Submit Comment” button at the bottom of this page is part of a giant, double secret conspiracy to entice you into revealing how venomous and ignorant you can be.
Every time you click the “Submit Comment” button, the curtain gets pulled back a little more on the true face of the right wing.
LOL, News Reference.
amk. Not sure if you saw THIS story but it explains why Republicans are getting pushed around more by dems.
Apparently, after the defeat in Nov, their testosterone levels went down and Dems went up.
See Republicans, you shoulda voted for Obama, now we strong like bull.
OT – re Zeigler’s confrontation with David Keene… a rather funny/sad/ironic comment from Digby…
“And it’s just too funny that those who turned St Ronnie into the second coming are offended that the Wingnut 3.0s believe Sarah Palin is their Reagan. What did they expect?”
Old News,
That’s really clever of you — turning around what I said about you and saying it back. Pee Wee Herman would be proud.
You’ve been here for about five minutes and it’s already obvious you’ve never had an original thought in your life. You are probably posting straight from OBFA offices from their talking/propoganda points.
Actually, I keep posting here mainly just to get you knuckleheads to keep saying idiotic things and reinforcing your derangement — and so anyone coming here will see just how deluded and pathetic, not to mention vicious and hateful, the left is. You are new but pitching right in to the effort, and I appreciate that. I’m also hoping, perhaps against hope, that even Greg will at some point be embarrassed at your ravings.
By the way, it happens to be a FACT that Sibelius’s letter mischaracterizes the web site, and a FACT that the only reason for its existence is for the WH to lobby Congress.
You thus join the other dolts here like ruk who don’t know the difference between a fact and an opinion. You think your own opinions and prejudices are facts, and you can’t even recognize an actual fact when you see one. Sorry to shatter your illusions like that. Life’s tough like that.
Yes, mike. I saw that via HuffPo. For the miserable repubs, when it rains it pours.
I’m sure viagra sales are up. bob dole must be happy.
qb, whenever you happen to get sober, you must read your own comments to see how stupid you are.
Oooo, I’m so afraid of the testosterone-pumping party of Harry Reid, Al Franken, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama.
Come to think of it, it seems like just yesterday when liberals here were calling me testosterone crazed. Ha ha ha.
In other news, strong-like-bull Obama’s approval ratings continue to sink at a record pace. Sorry.
Keep trying, amk. I read your pathetic comments strictly for entertainment value. You have yet to make a coherent one. I’m pretty sure you post from a crack house.
I’m so glad this crazy old coot is no longer at the table. Republicans are useless and anyone who votes for them is an IDIOT! Drop Dead Gramps!
Commenter nickleback perfectly illustrates the right wing’s double standards.
In a post where he calls falsehoods “facts” he complains that no one is adequately responding to the falsehoods he’s passing off as facts.
And simultaneously while he’s passing off falsehoods as facts he’s making obscene personal attacks.
nickleback demands others be held to standards he doesn’t hold himself to.
It’s the Right Winger’s First Rule: Rules Are For Other People.
It’s like senior Bush I complaining about ad hominem attacks and then calling people sick puppies.
Perhaps it’s just a total lack of self-awareness on the right but it sure seems like a consciously developed Orwellian double standard.
Fortunately, nickleback does more damage to the right wing by being a perfect illustration of the right wing’s duplicity, venomousness, illogical thinking, and thuggishness.
In the end, all he’s got is calling people names.
I keep trying qb, but you keep proving Einstein’s Theory of Relativity that while there is a limit for genius, stupidity knows no limits.
So you’ve all taken the time to insult me.
But is any one of you able to deny the fact that the HHS webpage does NOT “offer[] citizens the opportunity to tell the President whether they agree with his position,” as the Sibelius letter claims?
Is any one of you able to give an explanation for the webpage other than to lobby Congress?
What are the falsehoods, Old News? Do you have any facts or just name calling??? Put up or shut up.
qb, so corporates and wallstreeters lobbying is holy grail and people lobbying their frigging congress critters for themselves is not ? Typical rethug.
Know what, elections have consequences and you punk$ lost. So, put up or shut up. You sound stupider with every post proving again Einstein’s point.
Bernie posted this on the prior thread…
“Westen argues, and I think he’s right, that we have to become as capable at playing at this stuff as the other side even if we find it rather vulgar.
I find that to be a very, very interesting question for thinking progressives. Does the ends justify the means. How far do we go to fight fire with fire.
I’m certainly comfortable to this point because unlike Fox/Beck/Teabagger/Confederate bilgey’s ad hominem attacks the W.H. has stuck to simply factual stuff. Do we go as far as Fox and simply make stuff up and show out of date pics and video over a year old presented as if it was shot recently?
In other words how “vulgar” do we wish to become?
You just keep me laughing this morning, amk. I ask whether any of you can address the facts I cited, and you respond with a lame and irrelevant rhetorical question.
Sibelius’s entire defense is that the HHS site isn’t intended to lobby Congress. It DOESN’T MATTER whether anyone thinks public or “Wall Street” lobbying is good or bad. She said that isn’t their aim, and it obviously is.
So you lost YET ANOTHER factual argument and are left with your pathetic name calling and chest thumping. I put up and I shut you up.
Is this an example of the kind of vulgar, emotion-based messaging you are talking about — lies that appeal to the worst instincts, marketing messages based on falsehoods?
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_false_medicare_claim.html
How about this one? Were Obama’s dishonest attacks on McCain’s health insurance plan an example of this vulgar marketing-driven politics?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/02/AR2009060201491.html
So nickleback can dish it out but can’t take it?
Typical right winger: Insult people and then cry when someone throws your same insult back in your face.
Fox Republicans can be so tedious.
It’s not just Fox Republicans outright dishonesty, it’s also that’s it’s mixed in with a lot of falsehoods that they fanatically believe, combined with a mindless belligerence.
nickleback combines all three: Dishonesty, mixed with a lot of falsehoods he’s actually ignorant enough to believe, combined with toxic anger management issues.
After nickleback has repeatedly insulted everyone that doesn’t agree with him, he demands that his falsehoods be accepted as facts, and insists that facts are actually falsehoods.
It’s the Murdoch/Beck/Limbaugh right wing world view that is almost indistinguishable from the Taliban’s fanatic belligerence.
That was a nice rant, Old News. But it is nonresponsive.
Now can you address the point? What falsehoods did I state? Do you deny that Sibeliu’s letter is inaccurate and misleading? Isn’t the statement I quoted false?
You should know something about me, btw. I couldn’t care less how much you insult me or call me names. They don’t bother me at all. Your curses are like blessings to me.
rukidding said: “I find that to be a very, very interesting question for thinking progressives. Does the ends justify the means. How far do we go to fight fire with fire.”
There’s a key differentiation to be made here. Acknowledging how our brains actually process information and then formulating ‘messages’ which take this into account doesn’t mean we have to frighten or lie. Take, for example, the video that was produced by the Obama campaign of his life and background. I’m pretty sure it drew on the earlier version done by Clinton’s campaign but more importantly, it/they drew on emotional factors the encouraged identification with and empathy for very real aspects of the American story and American hopes. Contrast that sort of presentation with an unfortunately less effective presentation of dry and abstract facts such as Dems are prone to present (Gore is a prime example).
I highly recommend Westen’s The Political Brain and George Lakoff’s books for more on this.
We don’t have to dilute or compromise our integrity and our allegiance to truth and accuracy.
“We don’t have to dilute or compromise our integrity and our allegiance to truth and accuracy.”
Like you did on innumerable occasions like this?
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_false_medicare_claim.html
Hell, I’m tired of getting Cornyn’s e-mails asking for support.
Right winger nickleback started with insults, then made demands, then whined when his insults were turned on him, but continued making demands.
Classic right wing thug: Abusive and demands to be in charge.
Right wingers think it’s all about them. No. It’s about the more than 44 THOUSAND Americans who die because they lack health insurance. It’s about the more than 14 THOUSAND who lose their health insurance every day.
It’s about the lying Republican minority that are obstructing what the majority of this country want.
Republican Chuck Grassley spent the entire summer lying about health care. Nobody who was paying attention takes him seriously anymore.
Hopefully Iowans were paying attention: Republican Chuck Grassley is a liar.