Republicans Hold Town Halls Lying About Obamacare -- OFA Sets the Record Straight

Make no mistake: The other side is spending millions on TV and advertising designed explicitly to mislead Americans. When one of these ads got fact-checked by an independent organization, the group behind it didn't flinch. They just bought more air time.  OFA Email

Received the following email from OFA.  Since they get fact checked over and over again you can bet that their information can be counted on to be right.  They are countering the millions being spent by Koch Bros to put out untrue information on Obamacare along with the Heritage Foundation tour of former hard right Senator Jim DeMint who is holding TownHalls lying about Obamacare.  When the Koch Bros chose Jim DeMint to head Heritage they picked someone in their image willing to spend

millions of dollars on a campaign of lies -- this time on Obamacare.

Since Republicans made the Affordable Healthcare Act political, how can Heritage get involved since they are non-profit or is this more of the Republicans sponsored by the Koch Brothers don't have to follow rules?  Seems to be contagious in the Republican Party.

Heritage even sponsors polling now trying to convince everyone that the American people don't like Obamacare by going into 11 Congressional Districts and doing push polling.  MSNBC was dumb enough to run results of a poll out of a Heritage group that is from the Koch Bros who own Heritage. 

The MSM is missing the boat day in and day out as they report talking points instead of doing investigative journalism that a lot of us have been complaining for a long time.   That's what happens when big business buys up the media – non-bias gets tossed out the window and they become fronts for their owners and what they want reported in many cases.  Like the days of Watergate when the print media did the investigative journalism, today it is still print and now websites that will investigate before reporting the news.  Broadcast for the most part is pretty biased.

There are some journalists I have to wonder if they ever took a college class in Ethics like a lot of Fox News.  Now CNN is following along in the footsteps of Fox News. Makes you wonder when this sloppy journalism is going to end where journalists take sides and report lies and spin for facts.  Think by and large the younger journalists are much better and quicker to make sure they have more then one source.

The graph below in the OFA email is devastating to the right but since the hard right in Louisiana blames Obama equally with Bush for Hurricane Katrina, would say there is an intelligence gap with a lack of ability to reason on the hard right.  Not sure they could understand the graph and definitely could not comprehend what it says as they have to be told what to think.  I have seen it up close and personal which makes me shake my head how they can believe some of the things they are told. 

Sharon -- 

Guess how some members of Congress are spending their August vacation: 

They're touring the country, going state by state and district by district to convince people that Obamacare isn't working -- never mind the benefits that millions of families are already feeling. 

After trying and failing to repeal the law (40 times!), they're starting to get desperate. 

OFA's Truth  Team is here to set the record straight. 

Fight back against the cynical opponents of Obamacare by sharing some truth about how Obamacare is already helping folks all across the country -- here's a perfect graphic to get started:

 

They're trying to take health care awayfrom millions of Americans -- and they're doing it by fudging the truth. 

Make no mistake: The other side is spending millions on TV and advertising designed explicitly to mislead Americans. 

When one of these ads got fact-checked by an independent organization, the group behind it didn't flinch. They just bought more air time.

The next fight is already on the horizon:  Some of these representatives are the same folks pledging not to pass any budget as long as it continues to fund Obamacare.

They'd even go as far as to shut down the government if they don't get their way. That's right -- if we don't jettison a law that passed three years ago so millions of Americans could get affordable care, some members of Congress want to take their ball and go home.

We know the American people are smarter than this -- so it's our job to make sure that they have the facts.

One of the oddest things of this whole fight Republicans picked on Obamacare is that it is essentially the same healthcare program they introduced in the 90's for healthcare but now that the Democrats have passed Obamacare, they don't like it because it doesn't have a GOP name on it -- they had a chance to be part of making a difference but Republicans in Congress were afraid of their new Tea Party base going into 2010 so they refused to work together.

Speaker John Boehner may go down in history as the worst Speaker ever with the House being the worst House ever.  Republicans deserve the title of 'worst ever' when it comes to Congress.  They are systematically destroying the Republican Party as a viable party and they don't care which is even more astonishing.  Could it be this was the Libertarian Plan of the Koch Brothers all along to destroy the Republican Party so they could have their hard right Libertarian Party as a major player.  Most Americans don't like the hard right and their wanting a theocracy.  What happened to the Republican Party standing for our Republic?  Did they forget what men and women have fought for over the years to keep our freedoms which the Republican Party of today wants to take away from women and minorities.

Time to vote the hard right GOP out of office in November 2014.  A good start would be voting Democrats into Governorships in Virginia and New Jersey in November 2013.

Senator Rubio Splits with Best Friend Former Senator DeMint on Immigration

Heritage study ignores immigrants’ gains in wages and education after legalization, preferring to categorize all immigrants as “takers” who will be permanently dependent on the government. (Rubio)

Is Marco Rubio discovering that former Senator Jim DeMint is a little too far hard right for him?  That should have been obvious at the beginning before Rubio morphed into the hard right and alienated a whole group of people who had previously supported him.  Not sure he will be trusted again, but excuse me if I laugh at this report.

Now I wish I had bet that it wouldn't take DeMint a year at the Heritage Foundation before he turned out a report that would be denounced for lacking facts.  DeMint has been about speaking out with no facts to back up his side for years.  He is kind of like Ted Cruz but probably not as bad.  Cruz is a solo loose canon while DeMint was more along the lines of lining up others to support his views.  Then he would hold a press conference with those behind him that were supporting what he was doing.  Cruz goes all in with his lies all by himself.

Did Romney get the 'takers' comments from DeMint or was it vice versa?  Republicans pounced on 'takers' and are still using it today it seems with the Heritage Report from DeMint.  Everything about DeMint screams untrustworthy, spin not facts, and lack of ethics in the Senate which shocked a lot of us that Rubio went into his camp.  Made no sense except if he (Rubio) was pandering to the hard right in a run-up to running for President in 2016.

Rubio's started lose the facade he had built over the years when he had to redo his website because his story of his family coming to America on his website turned out not to be true.  He said his parents "came to America following Fidel Castro's takeover" of Cuba except his parents came to the United States in 1956 and Castro took over power in 1959.  That meant his parents were not only not exiles which he touted heavily in his 2010 Senate campaign, but the 'exile parents' made trips back to Cuba after Castro was in power.  OOPS!

Now DeMint has gone too far even for Rubio which cracks me up - didn't see that one coming:

Marco Rubio Denounces Heritage Immigration Study: ‘The Folks Described In That Report Are My Family’  

By Aviva Shen on May 7, 2013 at 2:14 pm

Senators Rubio and DeMint (Credit CNN)

On Tuesday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined the growing chorus of conservative criticism of the Heritage Foundation’s new anti-immigrant report, which claims the Senate’s immigration bill would cost the economy $6.3 trillion. Rubio denounced the report’s assumption that all immigrants will forever be poor and uneducated, pointing to how his own family flourished after entering the U.S.: 

“Their argument is based on a single premise, which I think is flawed,” Rubio told reporters. 

“That is these people are disproportionately poor because they have no education and they will be poor for the rest of their lives in the U.S. Quite frankly that’s not the immigration experience in the U.S. That’s certainly not my family’s experience in the U.S. The folks described in that report are my family. My mother and dad didn’t graduate high school and I would not say they were a burden on the United States…My parents were a lot better off 25 years after they emigrated here than they were when they first got here. And their children certainly have been. I still think we’re that country. And I still think we can be that country and even more in the future, so I guess I just have a lot more belief in the future of the country than some of the folks that helped prepare [the report].”

Indeed, the Heritage study ignores immigrants’ gains in wages and education after legalization, preferring to categorize all immigrants as “takers” who will be permanently dependent on the government. 

Rubio’s heated critique of the Heritage study highlights widening divides in the GOP over immigration. In the past, Rubio has called Heritage president and former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) his best friend, according to the New York Times. But now, DeMint has vowed to work against Rubio’s pet cause. Rubio has stated before that their disagreement over immigration “is never going to change how I feel about Jim DeMint, and hopefully doesn’t change how he feels about me.” Today, he pointedly added, “Anyone who opposes this bill but fails to offer a real and specific alternative is in favor of the status quo.”

Think Progress nailed the story on Rubio/DeMint on Immigration.  I almost fell off my chair laughing when Rubio stated that his disagreement with DeMint over immigration:

 “is never going to change how I feel about Jim DeMint, and hopefully doesn’t change how he feels about me.” (Rubio)

Does that mean Rubio is in lockstep with the hard right DeMint on everything but immigration?  Sounds like it to me.  This could be the hard right Presidential primary with Rubio, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz all trying to gain support of the hard right.  IMHO, you also cannot count out Rick Santorum and even Mitt Romney who is going farther to the right every day.

Must admit I was wrong -- thought Romney was pandering to the hard right and was actually that moderate he was as Governor of MA.  After his commencement address, you can put him in the hard right category because no moderate would ever give an address like his.  Massachusetts got scammed by Romney pretending to be a moderate IMHO.  Washington Post blog had me chuckling that Romney could be so far out of touch with young people:

People who wait until their 30s — or, gasp — their 40s to get hitched? They’re doing it wrong, the failed GOP presidential candidate said during a commencement speech Saturday at Southern Virginia University, where most of the student body is, like Romney, Mormon. 

His address has somehow managed to fly relatively under the radar, which surprises us, since these are words of wisdom not to be missed. 

“They’re going to miss so much of living, I’m afraid,” Romney said of the sad, single losers who opt to spend their 20s without a ring (he says, unsurprisingly, nothing of those who might want to get hitched but can’t.). 

Of the Bible, he tells the young folks: “When it says ‘marry,’ listen!” 

He then devoted much of his talk to the graduating class talking up the benefits of having kids (and scoffing at people who’d rather pass on the life-enriching experience of raising them).
He concludes with a bit of Biblically inspired advice. “Have a quiver full of kids if you can.” 

Is that like a binder full of women? We can’t imagine why this guy had trouble connecting with the youth vote.

What I take from Romney's speech is that women are supposed to be barefoot and pregnant while the husband brings home the paycheck.  He really is not facing reality of today.  I think it is great when a Mom can stay home but in most instances it is not practical as it takes two incomes for families.  To give this commencement speech in 2013 is simply amazing out of any politician.  I keep thinking the GOP is going back in time not forward.  Started using the word Neanderthal some time ago to describe some GOP of today.  I was joking but maybe it is not a joke with comments like Romney and others from hard right.

Pass the popcorn and sit back to watch the Republican Party fireworks as we get closer to 2014 and then 2016.  All you can do with these hard right candidates is shake your head and laugh at some of the most ridiculous statements you have ever heard.  After you quit laughing, get to work to get out to vote to send the hard right GOP packing up their offices and to the unemployment line.

Ken Buck for US Senator in Colorado

This race has been tightening in Colorado the same thing that happened in the Tom Coburn race in 2004 when we, the grassroots, showed the establishment that when we set our minds to it, we can win races against all odds. We sent Dr. Tom to the US Senate in 2004 and we are sending him back in November to continue his fight against pork, earmarks, Obamacare, wasteful spending, and the Democrat socialist agenda. We need Ken Buck elected from Colorado to join Dr. Tom in the Senate to help him continue his fight.

On June 20th, the Denver Post released their new polling on the Colorado Senate race:

Buck, the Weld County prosecutor buoyed by outside TV buys and Tea Party sentiment, leads former Lt. Gov. Norton 53 percent to 37 percent among likely Republican primary voters, according to poll results.

Ken Buck also now has the fundraising lead over his Republican opponent. With momentum switching to Buck from all across the State, now he needs that momentum transferred into votes on August 10th when Colorado voters go to the polls to select their nominees.

Listen to what Ken Buck has to say in this video from his Denver rally and ask yourself if he is not the type of candidate we need all across America to join Dr. Coburn and Senator DeMint in fighting for our freedoms and fiscal conservatism in DC.


"Ken Buck's passion and authenticity are resonating with voters across the state, and the tide has turned in his favor," according to Senator DeMint (R-SC) who attended this rally with Ken Buck in Denver and had these words to say about Ken Buck and what is happening in DC:


We agree 100% with Sen DeMint about some of the Republican leadership in DC starting with Trent Lott and Denny Hastert when Pres Bush was first elected. Hastert turned out to be a nice guy but not someone who would say NO to more spending. In 2004, we sent Dr. Coburn to the US Senate with one thought in mind -- cut spending including earmarks and pork. He joined Senator DeMint and Senator McCain along with some others like George Allen (R-VA) but leadership was pretty silent on their ideas to cut waste from Government.

Colorado Republicans have a chance on August 10th to send a clear message when they elect Ken Buck as their nominee that voters are fed up and want people in office who will listen to them. This prosecutor from Greeley, Colorado, is not someone you are going to be able to push around in DC, but he will continue to stand up for the citizens of Colorado not special interest groups.

All you need to do is to check the voting record of Bennett (D-CO) to realize with his '8' conservative voting record he is a lapdog for Reid/Obama. The one vote the presumed Democrat nominee Bennett, an Obama liberal, made that the American Conservative Union considered conservative was to add more money for 'Cash for Clunker' which we don't think was very conservative. Bennett was appointed by the Colorado Governor to replace Ken Salazar after he resigned to join the Obama Administration as Interior Secretary in early 2009. Salazar is turning out to be one of the worst Interior Secretaries we have had to date with his handling of the Gulf Oil crises where he seems to be wanting to tank the Gulf economy with his moratorium on oil drilling for six months. We would bet he is following Obama's orders on this, but he is now ignoring a Federal Judge ruling which was against the moratorium.

When Ken Buck faces Bennett in the general election, it will give voters a clear choice between candidates. On one side you have the Democrat Bennett who, by his own voting record, is a lapdog Senator for Obama and Reid. When they say "jump," Bennett asks "how high?" On the flip side is Ken Buck who when he goes to DC and raises his hand to take the oath to support the Constitution means just that. Buck will represent the people of Colorado and listen to what his constituents have to say. He will make his determination on how to vote on what is best for Colorado and the Nation not on what is best for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) or leadership.

We have opposed most of the choices of the NRSC over the years when they choose to get involved in open seat races in the primary and Colorado is no different. Florida is probably the best example when Sen Cornyn and his Committee chose to endorse Governor Charlie Crist against Marco Rubio. Then some Republican Senators maxed out their contribution to Crist. How did he pay them back? He became the NO PARTY candidate and stiffed them all on their contributions once he saw he could not beat Rubio in the primary. We would question their endorsement in Colorado as more of the same where they should have stayed out of the race. Oklahomans had experience with that in 2004 when the establishment endorsed Dr. Coburn's opponent.

It takes a lot to win a statewide race -- money for a campaign is vital but there is one intangible in running a grassroots campaign against an establishment candidate -- enthusiastic grassroots volunteers who will work every spare moment for a candidate they believe is the best candidate. All the establishment support in the world (Dr. Coburn's opponent had Pres Bush's support) cannot get out the voters like the grassroots can deliver.

Senator DeMint has some advice on how those of the grassroots around the Country can join forces with those in Colorado to help Ken Buck become the Republican nominee for Senate on August 10th:

Support Ken Buck's Senate Campaign
Time is running short. Most of the votes in the Colorado Republican primary will be cast by mail-in ballots. Those ballots will be mailed to voters on July 19. We must give Ken Buck the support he needs right now or it could be too late.

Here's what you can do:

1. Pray. Ken, his wife, Perry, his son, Cody, and his daughter, Kaitlin, are under a great deal of pressure. Having run in some bruising races myself, I can tell you that it's hardest on the family. Please pray that each of them will have strength and courage in the final weeks of this campaign. Ken Buck is a man of integrity and he's working hard to run a positive and honorable campaign. Please pray that he has wisdom to make sound decisions.

2. Make calls from home. Many of you have already made calls for other candidates. It can be intimidating if you have never done it before but it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Personal calls from real people are extremely powerful. They will raise Ken's name awareness and strengthen his image with targeted voters. You can make these calls using your phone and a computer, which allows Buck's campaign to keep track of the results. Email ken@buckforcolorado.com and ask for a link and password to make phone calls. Please make sure to include your name, address, and telephone number so they know where you live and how to contact you.

3. Contribute. I know money is tight and there are a lot of candidates who need support. But this race is one of the most important in the country. It gives conservatives a real chance to replace President Obama's hand-picked senator in Colorado with a true conservative. Each dollar you contribute will go directly to Ken Buck's campaign and will power his TV and radio ads down the stretch.

4. Spread the word. If you know anyone in Colorado, contact them and urge them to support Ken Buck in the Republican primary. And if you know people who share your love of country and the principles of freedom, tell them about the Senate Conservatives Fund. The more people we have on our team, the more resources we will have to elect true conservatives.

/s/ Jim DeMint