Category Archives: ObamaCare

Mark Mardell Lies About Health Care

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Mark Mardell, the BBC’s US President editor, has published his first post of the new year, and it’s as awful as we’ve come to expect. Doesn’t anyone read this stuff for him before he published it? (H/T George R in the open thread)

A big year for Obama and the Democrats

First he says that making everyone purchase health insurance is the President’s greatest achievement.

The plan to make all Americans take out health insurance is Mr Obama’s main achievement in office, and it is the biggest change he has made to American society.

Actually, the President’s main achievement has been to divide the country and fan the flames of political and ideological hatred. But Mardell and the BBC have always blamed the Tea Party movement and anyone he can think of on the Right for that, so never mind.

He sets up his explanation with this bit of ideological and class war talking points:

At the end of last year I saw the Obamacare sign-up in action in two very different states, Mississippi and Kentucky.

They are both in the South and both of a conservative disposition. But in Mississippi the Republican governor will have nothing to do with the plan, whereas the Democratic governor in Kentucky has embraced its possibilities.

I hope I will get the chance this year to look at other examples but these trips have left me with the strong feeling the healthcare changes will play very differently in different states – and within social classes.

He went to Mississippi, of course, to hoe his usual race row. Helping poor black people is the legacy of ObamaCare, and anyone who objects to the plan is racist. He doesn’t say it out loud, but that’s been his theme since 2009: those who object to ObamaCare as wealth redistribution are really objecting to redistributing wealth to people not like them. He’s said that over and over again.

Then Mardell explains how ObamaCare is playing out in different States. The Democrats, he says, believe all will be mostly well once the website is fixed.

That may well be true in some places – those states which have chosen to embrace expanding Medicaid, a US healthcare programme for the poor, and run their own exchange websites.

Er, if the State is running its own exchange website, that has nothing to do with the ObamaCare national website being fixed. Hello? Ideology has clearly muddled his thinking here.

Note to Mardell and the BBC: Going on Medicaid IS NOT purchasing health insurance.

Like all intellectually honest people have been saying from the very beginning, the goal of ObamaCare is to pave the way towards Socialist, government-provided health care for all. I’ve only been saying it for more than three years. If a political junkie like Mardell can’t tell the difference between buying health insurance and being a ward of the State, he has no business being a journalist.

And then he blames evil Republicans for the reason why insurance premiums are much higher in the ObamaCare exchanges.

But in Republican states where they do neither (and so people have to rely on the glitchy federal website), it could end up being very expensive for individuals and firms, and have a very low take-up.

This is, of course, a total lie. Okay, a partial lie. Yes, expenses for the insurance companies will go up if they don’t get enough young people and middle class and wealthy people to pay into the system. That’s why some insurance companies are already preparing to line up for a bailout. Actually, a bailout was sneakily written into the damn law in the first place, and a bill has been introduced to stop it. They knew all along that this wouldn’t be sustainable, and wrote themselves some taxpayer cash handouts. Did the BBC ever tell you that?

However – and here’s where the lie comes in – the premiums are higher for people who are paying for it because the whole purpose is to get them to subsidize and cover costs of insurance companies being forced to cover everyone with pre-existing conditions who would otherwise be paying a lot more, as well as being forced to pay for birth control pills and maternity care for everyone, men included. Plus taxes are being stuck on top of it. In short, the premiums will in general be higher anyway, regardless of how many people sign up in a world where the website was launched without a hitch. In fact, premiums are already higher. Insurance companies didn’t start out with high prices and will lower them once more people sign up. They’re higher because that’s what it’s going to cost even if everybody signs up, and they will remain so. What he’s saying simply isn’t true.

Here’s a good explanation from Forbes (not Fox News, not Breitbart, not the Right-wing echo chamber), which was written 10 months before we found out that the website was screwed up. No blame on a glitchy website preventing it from working was possible. The actual premium figures still remain to be seen, but there’s no denying the underlying mess. Well, Mardell is denying it, but he’s wrong, and has to be dishonest in order to do it.

Even when people in the US are trying to defend against this charge, it’s framed as “Why the premiums are lower than expected”, which is clever way to say they’re higher but it’s not as bad as the doomsayers said. Not much of a defense. And this is from California, one of those Democrat States running its own exchange that Mardell claims would work out well. The reason the premiums aren’t as high as expected? Some of the biggest insurance companies are staying out. They know keeping costs down isn’t going to happen, and they’ll be screwed. There’s a whole other cluster@#$% waiting to happen there with limited provider networks and limited options for care, but that’s for another time. In any case, notice that even someone defending against the charge that ObamaCare is making premiums higher isn’t actually showing that they’re lower than they would have been if it didn’t happen.

The system is mathematically unsustainable, and was never intended to be otherwise. Think it’s just me? Think I’m simply echoing red meat falsehoods tossed to me by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh? Think again. Even Mardell’s fellow far-Left Progressives are admitting it.

How Obamacare Actually Paves the Way Toward Single Payer

Last week the liberal documentary-maker Michael Moore prompted indigestion across the progressive wonk community by pronouncing Obamacare “awful.” In a New York Times op-ed, he bemoaned the way the president’s law preserved the health insurance industry rather than replacing it with a Medicare-for-all style single-payer system. The good news, Moore conceded, is that the previously uninsured (and often previously uninsurable) can get finally get coverage. The bad news is that their coverage will often be lousy and pose an enormous financial burden. He ended by calling for activists to lean on state politicians in an effort to beef the law up.

********

And yet I’m still much more sympathetic to Obamacare than Moore. He thinks it’s awful. I consider it a deceptively sneaky way to get the health care system both of us really want.

Mark Mardell is a liar, for purely ideological purposes. He’s made it very clear in the past that he thinks government-provided health care is analogous to the government providing police and fire departments. At the same time he made it obvious that he sees no difference between the government requiring people to buy health insurance and requiring people to buy car insurance. His personal ideology colors his thinking and his reporting, in this case to the point of dishonesty and misleading his readers.

My opinion of ObamaCare is irrelevant here. I’m not demanding that Mardell reflect my opinion instead of the one that ObamaCare is correct. These are facts. It’s not ideology to say that going on Medicaid is not the same thing as buying insurance. It’s not ideology to point out the actual reasons why premiums are high. Mardell is not impartial: he is biased. That’s the whole point of his job as a titled BBC “editor”, and I think it’s wrong.

Life In These United States – No. 5

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It’s time for another one. This one lasts 16:15.  I try to keep them down to 15 minutes, but I don’t have the benefit of all those BBC editors and producers.

As always, it’s meant to be a rebuttal to BBC coverage.

Life In These United States – No. 5

(Audio hosted by EyeTube)

SOURCES:

Insurers Must Credit Obamacare When Isuing Rebate Checks

Health insurers to pay $1.3 billion in rebates: study

White House website with Presidents bios

Judge deals setback to state unions on dues withdrawals

BBC US Election section (click on the map for Wisconsin page)

Wisconsin: DCCC Involved In Gubernatorial Recall

Marquette Law School polls

Daily Kos Wisconsin Poll

Wisconsin State Assembly

Wisconsin GOP Loses Senate Majority, After Recall-Targeted GOPer Resigns

Legislators file to run in new districts
Others won’t seek re-election

Obama Crushes Romney in Ivy League Campaign Donations

Calif. watchdog sees budget gap topping $17 billion

A gold-plated burden

How California Unions Hijacked the Golden State

Has the Golden State gone bust?

State bond ratings (PDF file)

California Cities Face Massive Budget Cuts, Default, Bankruptcy

New California Law Will Restrict Cities’ Access To Bankruptcy Under Chapter 9

Untouchable Pensions May Be Tested in California

Losses of factory jobs in California blamed on regulation

California companies fleeing the Golden State

California slipping toward bankruptcy, again (info about Redevelopment Agency fiasco)

Explainer: The end of redevelopment agencies

The US President, the Supreme Court, and the BBC

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On Monday, the President made a pre-emptive attack on the Supreme Court because He’s afraid they’re going to vote to overturn ObamaCare on the grounds that part or all of it violates the Constitution. Needless to say, there’s been a huge outcry, and a lot of fuss in the press about it. I commented about it here yesterday to give everyone a heads up before the BBC came in with their spin.

Right on cue, realizing there’s a growing controversy, the BBC whipped up a quick article online laying out the White House talking points. Naturally, it contained the same bit of dishonesty – or, if I’m feeling generous, lack of understanding – as their previous reporting on the law:

The act’s requirement that all those eligible should have medical cover has been condemned as an assault on civil liberties by conservatives

Of course, in actual fact, the law requires people to purchase health care from companies.  That’s what the “Individual Mandate” is, which is the key turning point of the entire fiasco. The BBC’s wording here is grossly misleading as to what exactly people are complaining about. No surprise there. BBC correspondent Steve Kingstone said that the President’s attack is “a sign of just how high the stakes are”, but it’s really sign that He doesn’t have confidence in a law He never even read before it was passed. Continue reading →

BBC Opens With Dishonesty About ObamaCare

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ObamaCare, that most controversial law forced on the US by the former Democrat super-majority in Congress, and which was a main impetus for the meteoric rise of the Tea Party movement, is being challenged in front of the Supreme Court next week, and the BBC needs to tell you what to think about the domestic policy of a foreign country.

They open with a bit of dishonesty:

At stake is one of the most far-reaching US laws of the past several decades: President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare reform law, aimed at providing health insurance to the tens of millions of people who currently lack it and at curbing runaway growth in healthcare costs.

The bit in bold is false, as even the BBC’s own explanation tells you afterwards:

The keystone of the law is a requirement that Americans who lack health insurance from their employers or the government purchase it on the private market.

So it doesn’t actually provide anything, does it? Yet the BBC opened this with a bit of White House propaganda, claiming that providing health insurance is its intent. Why? Instead, it requires citizens by law to purchase a product, and fine them if they don’t. Come to think of it, that should sound familiar to you….

Don’t bother reading the rest of it, because there’s nothing about the law itself, but rather an explanation of the hearing process: how long will the arguments take, when does the Court decide, etc. Oh, and of course the President says He can force people to purchase a product if He sees fit because the Commerce Clause can, according to accepted interpretation, give the government broad powers to regulate commerce across state lines and tax people for the pleasure. Which is about regulating commerce, not forcing people to buy a specific product That’s all going to come out next week, and Justice Scalia will be the key to all of it, as the White House is cleverly gearing their defense along the lines of one of his past rulings on another issue. Don’t expect to get honest reporting on this from the BBC, though.

The BBC has form on misleading and cheerleading on this issue. You can read more about the BBC’s failed coverage of ObamaCare here, here, here, and here. (NB: Due to current Blogger/Google evil issues, comments on linked posts won’t appear for most people until the new site is up. Will amend at that time.)

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BBC Censorship: ObamaCare Fail Edition

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Remember when the BBC told you that ObamaCare was going to give health care coverage to 32 million people and save us all? Well – surprise! – it turns out that lots of people will actually lose their employer-provided coverage, and costs will go up, not down, so many will not be able to afford getting it on their own and will have to go on taxpayer-funded Medicaid. Which, by the way existed for decades before ObamaCare was a twinkle in Hillary Clinton’s eye (it was called HillaryCare when she tried it on when her husband was President), so the whole story the BBC told you about millions of people magically getting care all of sudden was a lie as well. In any event:

CBO: Health reform could cause people to lose workplace coverage

The above is from the JournoList-infested and Media Matters (which is funded by Soros and coordinates with the White House) lapdog, Politico, which we know the Beeboids read. Sure, Politico is trying to spin it so that their readers don’t worry about it breaking the Treasury and hurting taxpayers, but that’s kind of beside the point.

Another BBC daily read, the HuffingtonPost, spins that up front, and then admits ObamaCare will cover fewer people than promised. Unlike those who trust the BBC for news on US issues, readers of this blog will not be surprised that this will hurt small businesses and ordinary workers.

BBC: We don’t want you to know about it. Instead, here’s some news about George Clooney and Rosie O’Donnell. News about some idiot getting convicted for making his gay roommate feel bad enough to kill himself is far more important, and worthy of remaining on the main US & Canada news page for days on end.

Maybe they’ll get around to the issue when the Constitutionality of ObamaCare comes up before the Supreme Court in the next few weeks.

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More U.S. News The BBC Thinks You Don’t Need To Know

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The current top story on the BBC’s US & Canada News page is about the President meeting with the Dalai Lama. How many people really care? I realize that this will probably get pushed down the page within a couple of hours as new stories are posted, but why is this even worth reporting at all? Surely there are far more important issues to cover. It’s very revealing of the BBC’s newsgathering priorities that a non-functional meeting with someone who isn’t head of state and isn’t ever going to be one is more important than, say, the news that Standard & Poors just upgraded the state of Ohio’s credit rating because the Governor passed a budget that will mostly fix the state’s economic troubles. Oh, but that’s a Republican Governor, while the Democrat-led US is about to get spanked by S&P instead.

No, the Beeboids love the Dalai Lama, their favorite ex-feudal lord, and so anything about him is more important than mundane economic issues, especially when it makes Republicans look good.

What else is the BBC ignoring in order to make room for celebrity gossip, non-stories about LA road construction, and a non-story about a possible technical glitch in the statehood status of North Dakota (this last one is actually pathetic in that a real story worth reporting is mentioned as an aside near the end: the movement to break Southern California away from the destructive far-Left Northern half. But again, that would be a real story that makes Democrat economic policy look bad, and we simply cannot have that at the BBC.)?

Lots of stuff to cover this week. The BBC thinks you don’t need to know about the following:

Remember when the President signed that “landmark” ObamaCare into law, the one which the BBC championed for ages and lied to you about how it would provide free health care for all those uninsured? One of the President’s favorite anecdotes in His fight for it was about how His mother battled evil profit-driven insurance companies while on her cancer deathbed. The BBC included that anecdote in their report of Him signing the bill into law. Turns out that it’s a little white lie.

Book Challenges Obama on Mother’s Deathbed Fight

The White House on Wednesday declined to challenge an account in a new book that suggests that President Obama, in his campaign to overhaul American health care, mischaracterized a central anecdote about his mother’s deathbed dispute with her insurance company.

During his presidential campaign and subsequent battle over a health care law, Mr. Obama quieted crowds with the story of his mother’s fight with her insurer over whether her cancer was a pre-existing condition that disqualified her from coverage.

In offering the story as an argument for ending pre-existing condition exclusions by health insurers, the president left the clear impression that his mother’s fight was over health benefits for medical expenses.

But in “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” author Janny Scott quotes from correspondence from the president’s mother to assert that the 1995 dispute concerned a Cigna disability insurance policy and that her actual health insurer had apparently reimbursed most of her medical expenses without argument.

And the BBC will be silent.

While the BBC used to spend time searching for even a whiff of angry behavior from Tea Party groups and the Right, they always censor news of violence and violent rhetoric from the Left. Like in Wisconsin (remember Wisconsin?), where the Left is protesting against a non-Left State Supreme Court justice and has a big effigy of him being lynched at a lamppost. Nothing to see here as it’s not the Tea Party doing it, move along. There’s a whole story behind that about how one Justice attacked another in a “he said/she said” incident. The Left has behaved angrily and violently like they did when Gov. Walker was trying to pass a budget, but none of the intrepid platoon of Beeboids covering the US is interested in that kind of story.

Democrats in the US seem to be prejudiced against certain religious groups (just like the BBC), and are less likely to vote for a Mormon to be President. What a shock, eh? The BBC isn’t going to inform you about that kind of poll result because, well, you know….

Newly appointed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta – kicked upstairs from being CIA boss – just said that the reason the US went into Iraq was 9/11. Oops. BBC not interested. Gaffes are only worth reporting when George Bush or a Republican does it.

Tax-dodging GE boss Jeffrey Immelt saw 36,000 jobs cut at his company in the last two years, and even sent jobs overseas (well, to Mexico anyway), but now that he’s the President’s Jobs Czar he is scolding business owners to start hiring whether it hurts their business or not. Hypocrisy from The Obamessiah Administration? BBC not interested in telling you.

The BBC has done plenty of reporting on how the dictator of Syria is cracking down on his people and killing protesters, but they have not told you about how the US Ambassador spoke out – on Facebook, no less – and got praised for it – by Syrians.

When was the last time the BBC mentioned the name of one of The Obamessiah’s top campaign fundraisers, Tony Rezko? Not since last summer when his name came up in a news brief ex-Gov. Blagojevich’s criminal trial, I think. Rezko is in jail and Blagojevich has been convicted. Now Rezko’s partner’s trial reveals the possibility of illegal payments to The Obamessiah.

Daniel Frawley has been convicted on massive bank fraud charges (unrelated to the campaign money fraud of the other two guys), but his sentencing is being delayed because he’s apparently been secretly cooperating with prosecutors about something else: Blagojevich’s abuse of power, which landed the ex-Gov in jail.

Details about Frawley’s cooperation with the U.S. attorney’s office, the FBI and the Illinois attorney general’s office can be gleaned from a 65-page court deposition he gave seven months ago in a legal-malpractice lawsuit that he filed against his former longtime lawyer, George Weaver. In the lawsuit, Frawley accuses Weaver of having overbilled him and telling him to “withhold certain information from the government” when he was cooperating with authorities.

You may well ask, what information was that?

That sworn statement, given Dec. 1, 2010, is posted at suntimes.com/news/watchdogs. In it, Frawley talks about three meetings he’s had with law enforcement authorities since 2006. The deposition outlines how he secretly recorded Rezko, and it raises a new and unsubstantiated question about Rezko’s once-close relationship with Obama — an issue that dogged the then-U.S. senator during his presidential campaign four years ago.

A relationship which the BBC casually dismissed. Too bad they’re not so casual about Tory friendships, eh? But I digress.

Later in the deposition, Weaver’s lawyer, Daniel F. Konicek, asks Frawley about what specific information Weaver is supposed to have told Frawley to withhold from federal authorities.

“I’m assuming the information is about the payments made by Rezko to Obama, so we know we’re talking about the right conversation, right?” Konicek asks Frawley.

Frawley doesn’t answer. So Konicek presses him: “Am I correct it was about Obama being paid by Rezko?”

Frawley replies: “I’m not answering that question, based upon my attorney’s instructions.”

Yet another revelation possibly tying The Obamessiah to fraudulent activity in Chicago, and the BBC isn’t bothered. If Frawley is getting his sentence lightened because of this cooperation, then it’s worth paying it heed. BBC: ZZZZzzzzzzzz

On Friday, the President claimed that 80% of the public “support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts”. The problem is that He made it up. No polls back up this claim, and actually 50% of the public would prefer a deal with either only spending cuts, or mostly spending cuts and very little tax increase (that’s what “revenues” are when they’re at home). The 80% figure comes from a Soros/MoveOn.org poll of only Ohio, Montana, Missouri, and Minnesota, and is not meant to represent the majority opinion of the country. The Obamessiah lied again. BBC: Look over there: Republican intransigence!

An email has been “leaked” revealing the Obamessiah Administration’s real goal of Operation “Fast and Furious”/”Gunwalker”/”Gunrunner”: passing more restrictive gun control laws.

“Can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same FfL and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks Mark R. Chait Assistant Director Field Operations.”

Which is what I’ve been saying all along, and which the BBC has censored all along. Instead, when reality forced them to report on the heat the ATF has been getting over this scandal, they dutifully shifted blame away from Him. Since the BBC is ideologically set against private gun ownership of any kind, and must support Him at all costs, they’ve treated this story with the softest of kid gloves. When they haven’t buried the story completely, that is.

On Wednesday, the debate between the President and Republican House leaders got so heated that He walked out. The BBC reported that He told them, “Enough is enough,” but they censored out this part:

“Don’t call my bluff,” the president said. “I am not afraid to veto and I will take it to the American people.”

I guess that finely-tuned brain of His doesn’t know you’re not supposed to tell them you’re bluffing. Another Obamessiah gaffe hidden from you by the BBC. As the ABC report I’ve linked to shows, He’s willing to sink the entire country for His class war ideology, and the BBC is blaming only the Republicans’ ideology (and dishonestly portraying it as protecting the rich, full stop) instead.

That’s enough for the week, I suppose. Does anyone feel properly informed by the BBC about US issues? The solution to all this is simple: Shut down the BBC’s newsgathering operation in the US and replace them all with a news aggregator. You’ll be better informed about what’s going on over here.

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BBC Censorship: Blame The Republicans Only Edition

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While the BBC is whining about how the Murdoch Empire “cozied up to the Conservatives”, here’s some information showing how the BBC is the lapdog of another Government: that of the US. The other day, I posted about how the BBC isn’t telling you the whole story about the budget and debt negotiations between the President and the Republicans in Congress. I showed how the BBC was only giving you the White House side of the story, and leaving out information about what the President was actually doing. Here’s more.

The BBC included video of the President’s press conference warning about the dangers of not reaching a deal. The report itself makes the case that the President is doing everything He possibly can to reach a deal, offering up “sacred cows” that will anger His base, while the intransigent Republicans are merely obfuscating in order to protect the wealthiest people in the country.

What the BBC doesn’t want you to know is that the President in fact wants to raise taxes through the roof. They don’t want you to know, so they edited that bit out of His speech. Here’s the relevant bit the BBC censored:

He states very clearly that He will raise taxes on everyone after He is re-elected: “In 2013 and the out years”. Contrary to the BBC/White House angle, this is exactly what Rep. Boehner and the Republicans have been saying is the reason they backed out.

Now here’s video of the President doing a little more class war:

“We weren’t balancing the budget off of middle-class families and working-class families. And we weren’t letting hedge fund managers or authors of best-selling books off the hook. That is a reasonable proposition.”

This is class war talk, whether one agrees with the ideology or not. The BBC told us He was going to govern from the center, to bring us all together. They dismissed all those who claimed The Obamessiah was a far-Left ideologue, yet here He is showing His true class warrior stripes when the chips are down.

Of course, this isn’t the first time the BBC has edited one of the President’s speeches in order to create the impression they want you to have. They did it with His inauguration speech, too.

Then there’s the fact that in 2013 – again, after the next election, which means He won’t be affected either way – the true cost of ObamaCare kicks in. That’s now estimated at over $1 trillion and growing, maybe even up to $2 trillion, with no end in sight. Has the BBC ever told you about any of this? No, you have no idea. All you know from the BBC is the parable of how The Obamessiah brought free health care to the poorest and most vulnerable. In any case, He won’t budge on that, because, well, it’s basically His only accomplishment other than giving the order to invade a sovereign country and kill someone in cold blood without due process of law. The latter of which he’s done several times now, but only one made the headlines.

And that possible $2 trillion is just the government spending, never mind the expensive burden that will be dumped on small businesses – which employ more than half the people not working in the public sector, represent 99.7% of all private employers, and create more than half of US GDP (not counting government spending, obviously) – when their insurance premiums go up because of ObamaCare. It’s as destructive a policy as there is, something He forced through while knowing full well we had a massive debt crisis looming, and He won’t give an inch on it. Yet the BBC wants you to blame only the Republicans for being ideologically stubborn.

Regardless of which side of the issue one is on, it’s clear that the BBC is not reporting the whole story. They are censoring information on one side, and giving you only one perspective. The BBC is a White House propaganda organ and little else.

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The US Constitution Makes A Comeback

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On Thursday, when the new Congress is seated and begins work, there will be an historic moment, something that hasn’t happened since the founding of United States: the US Constitution will be read out in the House of Representatives. It’s a statement by the newly-elected and Tea Party-influenced Republican majority that they heard the voters and they’re realigning their priorities.

Naturally, the Left is shocked and outraged. Ezra Klein, founder of the notorious but thankfully defunct JournoList (source of the majority of viewpoints on US issues the BBC fed you for the better part of two years), has gone so far as to say that we shouldn’t pay so much attention to the Constitution as it was written over 100 years ago and thus is too “confusing” and so nobody can understand or relate to it anymore. The BBC correspondents assigned to the US will be aware of this, and some of them at least will be aware of its significance. Yet, they haven’t reported it so far. Possibly, they’re waiting until it happens so they can report on the reaction and portray the Republicans as hyper-partisans intent on forcing their ideology on Congress.

The primary reason the Republicans want to have a public reading of the Constitution can be found in this BBC report about ObamaCare:

US healthcare law: Republicans bid to overturn reform

I think we can guess the angle from which the BBC is going to approach this, no?

What remains to be seen is whether this is simply a symbolic flexing of muscles by the Republicans, or whether it sets the tone for two years of party-political acrimony, our correspondent says.

Excuse me? All of a sudden we’re going to have party-political acrimony now that Republicans want to do something? What do you call what’s been going on for the last two years? This is written from the Democrats’ point of view.

With power in Congress divided, Democrats and Republicans must work together if new laws are to be passed.

Naturally. Just like I’ve been saying for some time now, the BBC wants you to think that bi-partisanship is good: when it involves advancing The Obamessiah’s agenda. When it’s something someone else wants, suddenly the Beeboids hold their noses and cast aspersions.

And what do you know, the President Himself wants us all to work together.

On Tuesday Mr Obama appealed to Republican congressional leaders on to put partisan politics aside to rebuild the US economy.

You see, He wants to fix the economy, while the nasty Republicans are willing to destroy it for ideological purposes. Funny how so many in the business world think He’s the one destroying the economy due to ideology. Not that you’d ever hear that viewpoint allowed through over the BBC airwaves or online.

I feel a statement from the White House coming on….

Speaking on board Air Force One as he travelled back to Washington from a holiday in Hawaii, Mr Obama said: “You know, I think that there’s going to be politics. That’s what happens in Washington – that they [Republicans] are going to play to their base for a certain period of time.

“But I’m pretty confident that they’re going to recognise that our job is to govern and make sure that we are delivering jobs for the American people and that we’re creating a competitive economy for the 21st Century, not just for this generation but for the next one.”

This from the man who responded to the first Republican who objected to one of His ideas by saying, “I won.”

But the BBC doesn’t want you to know that. They’re intent on maintaining this phony impression in your minds that one side has bad intentions while the President is a force for good.

Any evidence of actual reasons the Republicans have given for wanting to repeal ObamaCare? No, all we get is the equivalent of “critics are critical”. All you need to know is that whoever objects is simply on the other side, and of course it’s only natural that they’d object. It’s a slick way of dismissing the opposing viewpoint altogether.

One amusing thing about this BBC article is that they are at last telling the truth about what ObamaCare actually is: a law (or series of laws) forcing citizens to purchase a particular product from government-approved vendors according to government-enforced rules. Okay, they weren’t quite that honest about it:

The US healthcare reform law was approved in March last year, making it compulsory for Americans to buy medical insurance and illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage to customers with pre-existing conditions.

You know, it’s funny, but I remember when the BBC was trying to create the impression that ObamaCare was going to provide health care for all those millions of uninsured for whom we were supposed to have sympathy, and not that it was merely a law to make it compulsory to buy it. But anytime the government tries to make any behavior compulsory, people are going to be understandably concerned (What, you mean it was actually about a policy and not just racism? -ed.). The BBC did quietly report about one challenge from the State of Virginia. Which brings me to the point of this post.

The United States is a Republic made of individual States. When the Founding Fathers created this country and wrote the Constitution, each of them viewed their State as their country. There’s an inherent idea of autonomy, and the rights of States and limits of the Federal Government are entrenched in the Constitution. ObamaCare and other Obamessiah and Pelosi/Reid/far-Left policies (such as allowing the EPA to cross over into another branch of government and control things normally left to the Legislative branch) can be considered un-Constitutional.

For quite some time there has been a growing argument about whether or not the Constitution is a “living document”, to be watered down or ignored on a whim whenever the wind of modern culture changes. Of course, those who advocate such a position suddenly get all protective when it’s nasty Republicans wanting to add an Amendment. In fact, that’s exactly what’s happening over the growing noise about a proposed “Federalist” Amendment to give States the power to declare a Federal law un-Constitutional by each of their legislatures voting on it. Giving power back to the States (or, more accurately, allowing the States to exercise the power they had from Day One but which has been leeched away) is a challenge to the supreme executive power, a challenge to the strong man leader so many on the Left wish we had. Perhaps if this comes to pass Matt Frei will once again pine for a bit of Chinese-style autocracy, and folks like Woody Allen will wish the President could be a supreme dictator, if only for a few years.

This is why the Republicans want to have the Constitution read out to start the new session of Congress. It’s much more than a challenge to ObamaCare. It’s a statement of priorities, of respect for the rule of law, and a stand against the Democrats (and a few old-guard Republican leadership) and their attempts to force their most extreme desires on the country against the wishes of the public. In other words, it’s a statement about what they think the Unites States is all about.

I await the BBC’s reporting on the matter, fully aware that this doesn’t help that particular rapport with the US they want to create for you.

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