Free Republic

The Obamacare website is open for business. But the Charlton Memorial Hospital in Folkston, Georgia, is closed. Because Republicans in half the states have blocked the expansion of Medicaid, funds to public hospitals with large uninsured populations have been slashed. Desperate to try to blame everything and the weather on the Affordable Care Act, Republicans have tried to pin the cuts in subsidies to hospitals on the dynamics of the law alone. Purely for ideological reasons, Republicans are creating a health care crisis — in their own states.

White House press secretary Jay Carney says Republicans "forced" President Obama to deny the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. Later in his press briefing, Carney says Obama didn't turn down the pipeline. "In terms of Keystone, as you all know, the history here is pretty clear. And the fact is because Republicans decided to play political with Keystone, their action essentially forced the administration to deny the permit process because they insisted on a time frame in which it was impossible to completely approve the pipeline," Carney said when asked about the pipeline by ABC News' Jake Tapper. Later...

The fun begins at 4:30 of the clip. Carney’s playing a game here by stressing the weak distinction between canceling the pipeline project outright and “merely” postponing a decision on it until after the election so that environmentalists will keep donating to the Unicorn Prince. The State Department announced the postponement back in November — with the approval of Obama’s pals in the green lobby. Remember? “This is not a political decision,” [a State Department] said, adding that when it came to White House involvement, “there was no effort to influence our decision.”Once the State Department broached the idea of...