Obama’s Organizing for America Tells Outright Falsehood About Health “Reform”
Does solicitation of money under false pretenses constitute fundraising fraud?
by Bill Levinson
Barack Obama is already well known for raising money through illegal Internet gambling (”Dinner with Barack” lotteries, including one that announced a winner before the entry deadline), and it therefore comes as little surprise that Organizing for America is now soliciting money under fraudulent pretenses. We received an E-mail, which was signed by Mitch Stewart of Organizing for America, that requested money to counteract Sarah Palin and right-wing “lies” about Obama’s health care reform agenda. The E-mail included the following outright lie:
- On Tuesday, Palin went on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show where she outrageously — and falsely — suggested that Americans could “face jail time as punishment” if they don’t buy insurance.
Our own inspection of HR 3962, as opposed to reliance on statements by Rush Limbaugh and so on, shows that Palin told the absolute truth about jail time for refusal to buy health insurance or pay a special tax, which means that Organizing for America lied to prospective donors.
From HR 3962, as downloaded from House.gov (official U.S. Government Web site, thus precluding any chance of fabrication)
- ‘‘SEC. 59B. TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE
2 HEALTH CARE COVERAGE.
3 ‘‘(a) TAX IMPOSED.—In the case of any individual
4 who does not meet the requirements of subsection (d) at
5 any time during the taxable year, there is hereby imposed
6 a tax equal to 2.5 percent of the excess of—
7 ‘‘(1) the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross in8
come for the taxable year, over
9 ‘‘(2) the amount of gross income specified in
10 section 6012(a)(1) with respect to the taxpayer.
We are not attorneys and cannot give legal advice but the U.S. Code suggests very strongly that refusal to buy health insurance and refusal to pay this tax is in fact punishable by imprisonment, which means that Sarah Palin told the truth after which Mitch Stewart signed his name to a blatant falsehood. Barack Obama’s donors should realize that Organizing for America is asking for them to donate their hard-earned money under false pretenses.
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Pingback by Tweets that mention Israpundit » Blog Archive » Obama’s Organizing for America Tells Outright Falsehood About Health “Reform” -- Topsy.com — November 21, 2009 @ 9:26 pm
The entire bill is fraudulent.
It is ostensibly designed to achieve universal coverage, but does not come close to meeting that stated objective.
The actual motivation is to replace capitalism with European-style socialism.
Of course, with European-style socialism comes European-style poverty, but for liberal ideologues prosperity must be subordinated to fairness.
So must health.
The recent bureaucratic pronouncements about confiscating access to mammograms and pap smears are harbingers of a bleak future for American medicine.
Yet Democrats could not possibly care less.
They are going to sock it to the evil insurance companies, and if many innocent Americans die as a result…well, can’t make an omelette unless you break a few eggs.
The vote is projected to be 60-40, with every Democrat in support.
What do the following have in common: unicorns…moderate Palestinians…leprechauns…moderate Democrats…mermaids…
They are all mythological creatures.
Comment by ayn reagan — November 22, 2009 @ 1:02 am
So Barry wants us to pay taxes to fund medical care for sex offenders who are out of jail or prison?
Comment by Michael Ejercito — November 22, 2009 @ 12:56 pm
Without reviewing the 2,000 plus pages of the health care reform bill now before the Senate, I presume that the bill does not say that failure to pay the proposed tax will expose the transgressor to jail time. If so, Bill Levinson is surmising that American penal codes will be linked to the Health Care Reform bill in some way so that failure to pay the tax imposed could lead to jail time.
One does need an American attorney to advise in this regard, however I would note that there are many ways a government can enforce payment of the tax without imposing a jail sanction.
One point on this health care debate, at least from the American media coverage I have been watching, is that the primary stumbling block for Democrats to vote for the even debating the bill in the Senate revolves around the issue of whether abortions will be covered by the health care reforms. Even the public option issue appears to have taken a back seat.
I expect the Democrats against abortion and the public option issue will not keep these dissident Democrats from voting to allow the bill to move on to discussion and debate before the Senate, but will make their views clear during the debate session.
That said, I find it surprising that the media is zeroing in on the abortion and public option issue as if those are the only issues to be resolved for the Senate to pass the bill.
There are a myriad of other important issues and concerns with the health reform bill that need to be addressed, not the least of which is the certainty that the Health Care Reforms will add to the national debt to the tune of 870 billion dollars and the uncertainty that somehow, that cost will be covered and then some by the hoped for savings the Reforms will bring.
Returning for a moment to the public option issue, it has been modified to give states the right to opt out of the public option. The federal government however will be investing billions in administrative infrastructure for the public option. If most states were to opt out, you would wind up with a huge bureaucratic costly structure to administer the public option for those few states that might stick with the option.
There is great need for health care reform in the States. On that point, all Americans regardless of political stripe agree.
From my Canadian perspective however, the cobbling together of this massive health care reform bill has for the most part been politically and not fact and need driven.
Ordinarily, wide ranging and fundamental change to an existing health care system is a massive undertaking that takes much time to study, come up with proposals, to vet those proposals and to not even begin to set about reaching a final solution until all proposed reforms are thoroughly vetted, not just in the context of each suggested reform, but in the context of the impact of the entire proposal package and the impact of the individual reforms and the entire proposal on the rest of the economy.
Pres. Obama has invested much captial in getting health care reform passed into law and to that end has constantly been pushing the Democrats with majorities in both houses to rush both writing the proposals and passing them in order to have the final reform package on his desk to sign into law by the end of this year.
What should take at least a year and probably two or more of careful and cautious study to analyze the fundamental problems with health care and to determine the best solutions to fix those problems is not the care and caution being exercised.
Democrats are rushing the entire process to satisfy the President’s demands that he have a health care reform bill for signing into law by years end.
This whole rushed process is ill advised. I expect Democrats sense that if they do not accede to Pres. Obama’s wishes, there will be hell to pay for them in the congressional election next year and they will see their chances of having the White House for another term fading badly.
The net result of all this is that American interests are being trumped by political interests. If the politicians win, America likely will lose and lose badly.
Returning to the issue
Comment by Bill Narvey — November 22, 2009 @ 4:04 pm
Coercive compliance is mandatory, and incarceration will be the preferred method of coercion because it will be less expensive to pay fines than purchase government-mandated insurance. The American people will hate the real world consequences of Obamacare, so it will have to be imposed upon them. The Democrats are ready, willing, and eager to punish noncompliance as it pertains to socialized medicine.
Now, when it comes to complying with immigration laws…
Comment by ayn reagan — November 22, 2009 @ 7:19 pm
It’s interesting that women’s health care will be the first to be rationed. Obviously obama’s muslim background sees women as second class citizens or worse. This bill will be a catastrophe for American health care. We will go from having the best medical care in the world to third world status. I want this muslim communist bastard impeached and the equally marxist democrats in congress ousted.
Comment by Laura — November 22, 2009 @ 7:58 pm
Using surrogates like Acorn as front line foot soldiers, Obama and the democrats know that evry illegal is a poential democratic vote. The Republicans can never hope to compete with this scenario, unless they begin to match Mexican illegal and legal immigration with their own versions: Poles, Romanians , Hungarians, Czechs etc… The draining of E. European populations.
Never mind the 17% real unemployment and the coming devaluation and hyper inflation; votes and power are what matter and whether Democrats or Republicans gain political power in the future, it won’t matter a twit. Americas future is already preordained….The glorious imageries and art of the West is its effort to define itself; define and clarify because the West is uniquely split in its core: a hybrid culture born of Greco-Roman military and ideological imperialism, itself a compulsion to suppress and absorb other nations, especially that nation, Israel, whose integral and unified way of being is antithetical to the West’s drive to absorb, mix and con/fuse. But oil and water do not mix. A branch that attacks its roots is a branch that will wither and die; the audacious graft that is the West has been coming undone, spectacularly and aptly so since it is a culture of the spectacle for centuries, and the pace of its withering is quickening.
Comment by yamit82 — November 22, 2009 @ 8:21 pm
Right to education, right to loans, right to die, right to choose, right to this, right to that. . . . How about the most important right? . . . “Leave me alone!”
Comment by RandyTexas — November 23, 2009 @ 2:03 am