Why A Jury Selection In D.C. Could Mean New Hope For ObamaCare Repeal (Former Obama HHS Sec Kathleen Sebelius and Medicare's Marilyn Tavenner Alert!)

dailycaller
Anders HagstromJustice Reporter
1:56 PM 08/23/2017

If the corruption trial of Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez ends in a conviction, Republican Gov. Chris Christie would be responsible for picking his successor, potentially heralding the end of Obamacare.

Republicans in the Senate were just one vote away from passing an Obamacare repeal last month, and if Menendez gets forced out of office on a conviction, Christie, a Republican and long-time Trump supporter, would almost certainly pick a Republican to replace him. Christie will leave office Jan. 16, however, so the jury will need to hand down a conviction before then if Senate Republicans hope to secure the potential 53-37 majority.

Menendez stands charged with using his office to further the business interests of long-time friend Dr. Salomon Melgen, who was convicted in April of stealing $105 million through Medicare fraud between 2008 and 2013. Records show the senator accepted several campaign donations from Melgen, including vacations to Paris and the Dominican Republic, ABC News reported.

Prosecutors allege that Menendez repeatedly met with then-Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and acting Medicare administrator Marilyn Tavenner to intercede on Melgen’s behalf in Medicare disputes.


Republicans are aware of their potential opportunity and are actively pushing Democratic senators to declare whether they’d support Menendez keeping his office if he’s convicted.


Dems like Chuck Schumer should be asked if they would support a convicted felon serving in their caucus. https://t.co/iych6GAxgd

— GOP (@GOP) August 17, 2017

The Democratic position won’t matter much, however, if Menendez is sentenced to time in federal prison — a likely scenario if he’s convicted. Most federal corruption cases, whether relating to charges of bribery, graft, or conspiracy, result in a minimum of four years in prison.

The Daily Caller News Foundation contacted the offices of nine members of Democratic Senate leadership, including Sens. Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren, but received no responses in time for publication.


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Tags: Bob Menendez, Chris Christie, Chuck Schumer, Obamacare

Thank You Mr Hagstrom and DC.


Gidee Yup!

Dems Jumping Ship: Almost Half of The Democrats Who Surrounded Obama As He Signed ObamaCare Into Law, Have Now Retired From Congress.

weaselzippers;

Almost Half of The Democrats Who Surrounded Obama As He Signed ObamaCare Into Law, Have Now Retired From Congress.

Via Daily Caller:

Seven of the Democratic lawmakers surrounding President Obama when he signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010 are either now out of Congress or on their way out.

As depicted in this Daily Caller graphic, seven smiling Democrats have gone down or out in the last four years.

Full list here…

Thank You DC, Zip, and the American People. 

Sebelius Tries To Blame GOP For Coming ObamaCare Failures

Investors Business Daily has;

Sebelius Tries To Blame GOP For Coming ObamaCare Failures
Posted 04/11/2013 07:00 PM ET

Health Care: As Democrats grow increasingly worried that ObamaCare will explode on the launch pad just as midterm elections get going, the Obama administration seeks to pin blame on Republicans. Good luck with that.

Earlier this week, Health and Human Services head Kathleen Sebelius admitted that she didn't realize how complicated getting ObamaCare off the ground would be.

Sebelius complained that "no one fully anticipated" the difficulties involved in implementing ObamaCare, or how confusing it would be with the public.

She wasn't talking about the massive and impossible task of imposing central planning on one-sixth of the nation's economy.

Instead, she was trying to find a way to blame Republicans for ObamaCare's failures when the inevitable problems start emerging.

Rather than say "let's get on board, let's make this work," recalcitrant Republicans have forced her to engage in "state-by-state political battles," Sebelius said at a Harvard School of Public Health forum. "The politics has been relentless."

So let's see if we get this. Democrats shoved an unpopular, expensive, ill-conceived and poorly written law down the country's throat with no Republican support, and without bothering to see whether states would want to take on the thankless and costly task of helping the feds implement it.

And now that many of these states are rebelling, it's the Republicans' fault?

Sebelius' fellow Democrat, West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, had a more accurate take on the problem the administration faces: the law is "probably the most complicated piece of legislation ever passed by the United States Congress" and "if it isn't done right the first time, it will just simply get worse."

Rockefeller, like a growing number of Democrats, realizes that ObamaCare is shaping up to be a political disaster for the party next November.

The influential Cook Political Report noted earlier this month that almost all of the Democratic insiders they talked to "voiced concern about the potential for the issue to hurt Democrats in 2014."

And just what could explain these concerns?

Maybe it's because even Sebelius now admits that ObamaCare will force insurance claims up 32%.

Or possibly it's because, despite endless assurances that the insurance exchanges would be ready on time, the administration had to delay for a year a key feature meant to give small business a choice of health plans.

Or because neither Sebelius nor the states have provided evidence they can get the rest of the exchanges ready by Oct. 1, when ObamaCare's open enrollment begins.

Or perhaps Democrats' fears stem from state insurance commissioners warning of a rate shock once ObamaCare's "community rating" rules and benefit mandates start. Or from rising evidence the law is hurting job growth as small businesses try to avoid its costs.

None of this, mind you, has anything to do with Republicans. And if the GOP were smart, it'd be focused on making sure that, come next November, the public knows that, too.

Thank You Investors Business Daily

Obama Admin Releases 700 Pages Of New Health Care Regulations

Weaselzippers has;

Obama Admin Releases 700 Pages Of New Health Care Regulations
Friday afternoon news dump.

Via Reg Watch:

The Obama administration on Friday released more than 700 pages of new regulations to implement portions of the Affordable Care Act.

The four rules, which are scheduled for publication in mid-March, finalize both major and minor parts of the healthcare reform law that Congress passed in 2010.

Three of the regulations are final and roll out the multistate healthcare exchanges and reforms to the insurance market, including provisions to encourage cost-sharing, stabilize health insurance premiums and prevent providers from denying coverage.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said the rules would “help to ensure that every American has access to high-quality, affordable health insurance.”

Thank You Zip and Reg Watch

As if we hadn't gotten Enough damage from the Last 2700 pages of this nonsense.

And in Budget news:

Every Job In America Will Be Lost Because Of Sequestration

Oh Well, it Is after all, Rep. Maxine Waters.

Run For Your Lives, The Sequester Takes Effect - Guy Benson

Incomes Drop Most In 20 Years

Student Loan Debt Has Tripled In Last 8 Years

How many Psychiatric Drug and Disability Pushers did we buy with This load?

President Obama's Golf Trip Could Have Saved 341 Furloughed Jobs

AND: (it certainly Took long enough)

Democratic Support For ObamaCare Falls 15 Points

Poll: Majority of Americans Think Federal Govt. Threatens Their Rights & Freedoms

Weaselzippers has;

Poll: Majority of Americans Think Federal Govt. Threatens Their Rights & Freedoms

Hope and Change?

Via Politico:

For the first time, a majority of Americans believe the federal government threatens their rights and freedoms, according to a poll released Thursday.
Fifty-three percent of Americans believe the government is a threat, and 43 percent do not, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Three-in-ten Americans believe government constitutes a major threat. In a poll conducted October 2003, only 45 percent saw government as a threat to their freedoms. Fifty-four percent do not.
Men are more likely than women to believe their rights are under attack, and Republicans (70 percent) are far more likely than Democrats (38 percent) to say so. Three-quarters of conservative Republicans say so, as do 55 percent of independents. And as President Barack Obama begins a legislative push for stricter gun control laws, 62 percent of those with a gun in the home believe their rights are threatened, compared to only 45 percent of non-gun owners.
And even Americans who don’t feel threatened by Washington distrust the government and are frustrated with it. Only 26 percent of Americans believe the government does the right thing most or all of the time, and 73 percent think it does the right thing rarely or not at all.
Distrust is highest among whites — 79 percent of them say government rarely does the right thing, compared to 59 percent of blacks and 54 percent of Hispanics. Distrust is also lowest among those 18-29. Thirty-five percent of them trust the government to do the right thing most or all of the time, 10 points higher than any other age group.
Keep reading…

And:

BREAKING: White House Announces Obama's Jobs Council Shutting Down

So much for Obama’s “laser focus” on jobs.

Thank You Zip, Politico, and AP


BUT: at least his supporters got their FREE CELL PHONES!

Victory For Karl Marx and Socialism! Obama Voters Celebrate In Front Of White House

We Won! Obama Won! Communist Party Supporters Jubilant

In 2011 Obama Regime Issued $216 Billion in New Regulations

And you wonder why the Proletariat gets depressed.

Weaselzippers has;

Obama Officials Issued A Staggering $216 Billion In New Regulations Last Year Alone

And there’s nothing better to jump start a floundering economy than a flood of government regulations.

Via The Hill:

The Obama administration issued $236 billion worth of new regulations last year, according to a report from a conservative think tank.
The analysis from the American Action Forum, led by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, found that the administration added $216 billion in rules and $21 billion in regulatory proposals in 2012. Complying with those rules will require an additional 87 million hours of paperwork, the report said.
The group put the total price tag from regulations during Obama’s first term at more than $518 billion.
American Action Forum credited the administration for erasing $2.5 billion in regulatory costs last year, but said that paled in comparison to $34 billion in regulatory compliance costs reported by top companies since 2009.

AND:

Federal Welfare Spending To Skyrocket 80% In Next Decade

Totally sustainable, nothing to worry about.

Via Weekly Standard:

“This chart displays projected federal spending on federal welfare programs over the next ten years, based on data from the Congressional Research Service and Congressional Budget Office,” the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee explains. “These figures do not count state contributions to federal welfare programs (primarily on low-income health assistance) which brought total welfare spending in FY2011 to more than $1 trillion – dwarfing any other budget item including Medicare and Social Security, and totaling enough to mail every household in poverty a check for 60k each year.”

Keep reading…

AND: War On Women: Obama White House Paid Women Staffers 13% LESS Than Men

The MSM would beat this to death if it was a Republican president.

Via Daily Caller:

While President Barack Obama handily won the women’s vote by 11 percentage points in November over Republican nominee Mitt Romney, his administration paid the women on his payroll less than his male employees last year.
A Daily Caller analysis of the administration’s “2012 Annual Report to Congress on White House Staff” shows that while women comprised about half of the 468 staffers — as the president touted during his press conference Monday – they also earned about 13 percent less, on average, than their male counterparts.
The median 2012 salary for female employees of the White House was $62,000; for men that number was $71,000.
Keep reading…

Thank You Zip.

AND: The Response to this Is?

'Mental Health' in San Francisco: Link Fest

http://psychroachesadverseevent.blogspot.com/

Publicly Funded Research Must Continue because the Uber Moochers researching our Nation wide Epidemic of Depression haven't got a Clue as to how to Cure it. 


San Francisco's DBT: COMMUNISM, SWALLOW IT!

PsychRights To VP Biden: Come In Biden, Come In Joe

Mad In America has;

PsychRights' Letter to the President's Task Force on Gun Violence

Jim Gottstein

January 11, 2013

I am flattered and pleased to have been asked by MadInAmerica to post here theletter PsychRights wrote Monday to Vice President Biden regarding the misguided, counterproductive and very dangerous focus on identifying and forcing “treatment” on people diagnosed with mental illness as any part of the solution to gun violence in the United States.

January 7, 2013

The Honorable Joseph Biden
Vice President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC  20501

Re: Gun Violence Task Force

Dear Mr. Vice President:

In the wake of the unimaginable tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, there has been an understandable assumption that increased use of mental health services and a mental registry is part of the solution.  Understandable, but wrong.

This reaction is wrong because of two basic facts: (1) there is no reliable way to predict who will commit such a terrible act, and (2) the pervasive use of psychiatric drugs, which is the mainstay of mental health treatment, increases rather than decreases extreme violence.

With respect to the former, there is a recent Washington Post article (attached)[1]that goes through violence research, and includes the following observations:

• “There is no instrument that is specifically useful or validated for identifying potential school shooters or mass murderers.”
• “The best-known attempt to measure violence in mental patients found that mental illness by itself didn’t predict an above-average risk of being violent.”
• “tudies have shown that psychiatrists’ accuracy in identifying patients who would become violent was slightly better than chance.”
• “[T]he presence of a mental disorder [is] only a small contributor to risk, outweighed by other factors such as age, previous violent acts, alcohol use, impulsivity, gang membership and lack of family support.”

In short, as logical as it might appear, trying to identify potential mass murderers in advance by focusing on people diagnosed with mental illness simply won’t work.

With respect to (2), the propensity of psychiatric drugs to cause violence, attached is the Statement on the Connection Between Psychotropic Drugs and Mass Murder recently issued by the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry (ISEPP), demonstrating the clear link between psychiatric drugs and violence.  As the ISEPP Statement points out:

• Christopher Pittman was on antidepressants when he killed his grandparents.
• Eric Harris, one of the gunmen in the Columbine school shooting, was taking Luvox and Dylan Klebold, his partner, had taken Zoloft and Paxil.
• Doug Williams, who killed five and wounded nine of his fellow Lockheed Martin employees, was on Zoloft and Celexa.
• Michael McDermott was on three antidepressants when he fired off 37 rounds and killed seven of his fellow employees in the Massachusetts Wakefield massacre.
• Kip Kinkel was on Prozac when he killed his parents and then killed 2 children and wounded 25 at a nearby school.
• In fourteen recent school shoots, the acts were committed by persons taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs, resulting in over 100 wounded and 58 killed.
• In other school shootings, information about the shooter’s prescription drug use and other medical history were kept from public records.

This last point is very important—the involvement of psychiatric drugs in many mass shootings is being withheld from the public.  There have been reports that Adam Lanza was on psychiatric drugs, but that has not been confirmed to my knowledge.  It is essential that the involvement of psychiatric drugs in these tragedies be investigated and reported to the public.

What is clear, is that the involvement of the mental health system and mental health professionals does not prevent these horrors and being diagnosed with a mental illness is not a reliable predictor of violence.  In this regard, if one were to analyze the small correlation between a diagnosis of mental illness and violence that the Washington Post story reports, one would find (a) that the violence causing properties of psychiatric drugs is not taken into account, (b) much of the violence by people diagnosed with mental illness was provoked by the traumatic actions of the mental health system, which is often physical violence itself (or being threatened with such action),[2] and (c) what is classified as violence often does not involve serious harm.

The bottom line is that while focusing on people diagnosed with mental illness might give one the feeling that something is being done to address the problem, the fact is that it will not.  Frankly, it would just be scapegoating.

Focusing on having more coercive mental health interventions and a mental health registry is doomed to failure. The National Empowerment Center, headed by Daniel Fisher, MD, has issued a very insightful statement of what will be truly helpful (attached).  I understand Dr. Fisher has been asked to contribute to the Task Force’s work and I hope the Task Force pays close attention to what he has to say.

Yours truly,

James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq.

President/CEO

cc:  Daniel Fisher, MD

---

[1] In the interest of full disclosure, I am quoted at the very end.

[2] There was at least one unconfirmed report that Adam Lanza was being threatened with involuntary commitment just before his rampage.

ISEPP calls for a Federal Investigation into the link between Psychotropic Drugs and Mass Murder

Thank You Mad In America and Mr Gottstein, and the very best of luck To You, Mr Gottstein.

You're going to need it.