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Brief video (3:19) analysis of the Rose Garden fainting episode.

A follow-up to yesterday’s post. Turns out Reid wasn’t at the meeting where Sessions allegedly said this, of course, and neither were the two Democratic senators who relayed what he said to HuffPo. Go figure. Sessions was indeed one of the House Republicans who met with Obama on October 10, but both he (“We’re all working together now”) and the White House (which described the meeting as “good”) seemed pleased afterward with the result. If Sessions said what he’s accused of saying, it’s awfully strange that Team Hopenchange didn’t leak that themselves, after negotiations between O and the GOP fell...

The White House admitted Thursday that it was the source of a phony quote attributed to a top House Republican, who had allegedly told President Obama during a tense Oct. 10 meeting that 'I cannot even stand to look at you.' Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate Majority Whip, claimed in a Facebook post on Sunday that an unnamed GOP lawmaker had delivered the verbal slap in Obama's face, but everyone involved with the story now says it never happened. Eighteen Republicans from Congress attended that meeting with the president during a 16-day partial shutdown of the federal government, with the...

President Barack Obama went on a rhetorical offensive against House Republicans on the third day of the federal government shutdown, telling a crowd in Maryland Thursday that there's only one party at fault and one remedy. "There are enough Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives today that if the speaker of the House, John Boehner, simply let the bill get on the floor for an up or down vote, every congressman could vote their conscience, the shutdown would end today," Obama said in a speech in Rockville, Maryland. "The only thing that is keeping the government shut down,...

Just announced....

Obama: Obamacare Offers Health Insurance 'For Less Than Your Cell Phone Bill' Jeryl Bier September 23, 2013 8:01 AM President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle attended the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Phoenix Awards Dinner at the Washington Convention Center Saturday night. While extolling the benefits of Obamacare less than 10 days before the opening of the new health insurance marketplaces, the president said that "you can offer your family the security of health care ... for less than your cell phone bill." The president was referring to a tweeted claim made earlier this week by Health and Human Services...

Obama: No Allegations NSA Is Trying to 'Listen in On People's Email' Daniel Halper August 23, 2013 7:21 AM President Barack Obama defended the NSA surveillance program in an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo this morning. On the NSA surveillance program, Cuomo asked, "Are you confident that you know everything that's going on within that agency and that you can say to the American people, 'It's all done the right way'?" "Yes, but what I've also said is that it can only work if the American people trust what's going on. And what's been clear since the disclosures that were...

The average employer-provided family health insurance premiums have climbed $2,976 since 2009, according to an annual Kaiser Family Foundation survey released this week. They're up $3,671 compared with the year before President Obama took office. That's despite Obama's repeated promises that the health care reform law he championed would cut premiums by $2,500 in his first term. And while annual premium increases have moderated over the past two years, that's due to trends in the insurance market largely unrelated to ObamaCare, and trends the law could actually reverse.

The White House on Tuesday released a new report arguing a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants would add 2 million jobs to the economy and boost gross domestic product by $1.4. trillion over the next decade. The report, penned by Director of Domestic Policy Cecilia Muñoz and Director of the National Economic Council Gene Sperling, is the latest in a series of releases touting the economic benefits of comprehensive immigration reform as the White House pushes House Republicans to act on the issue. "We cannot afford a system that creates a group which can never...

Who knew that when President Obama promised, “If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period,” he was only referring to federal employees … and himself? A new survey of 2,500 federal employees and retirees found that 92.3 percent believe federal workers should keep their current health insurance and not be forced into ObamaCare. Only 2.9 percent say they should become part of the new health insurance exchanges. I suspect a similar percentage of private sector employees would also like to keep their coverage, but most won’t get that option. What...

On July 18, President Obama held an event at the White House to promote Obamacare. It was Calculated Deception writ large, which is Obama’s rhetorical style of taking advantage of what he shrewdly calculates the great majority of average Americans will not know, and what he is certain the so-called mainstream media will not tell them. That smacks of third world style, authoritarian propaganda. Obama falsely claimed, “In states like California, Oregon, Washington, new competition, new choices, market forces are pushing costs down.” I have already discussed in prior posts the misrepresentation regarding proposed premiums for 2014 on the California...

In a New York Times interview published Saturday, President Obama came out foursquare against the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming that it would not create jobs. “Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator,” Obama said. “There is no evidence that that’s true.” He then blamed Canada for not “doing more” to prevent carbon emissions from oil sands. Obama continued, “I meant what I said; I'm going to evaluate this based on whether or not this is going to significantly contribute to carbon in our atmosphere. And there is no doubt that Canada at the source in those...

Obama said that race may have played a strong role in the case had it been a 'white male teen', both the outcome and the aftermath of the killing might have been different. The US president Barack Obama has reportedly addressed the Trayvon Martin case publically for the first time after George Zimmerman was acquitted a week ago, and said that he could relate to the ‘pain’ felt by the black community and further questioned the ‘stand-your-ground’ laws. According to the Fox News, Trayvon Martin was a Florida teen who was shot dead in February 2012 while unarmed. Obama said...

Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting... The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive... If the issue isn’t resolved, and massive numbers of lawmakers and aides bolt, many on Capitol Hill fear it could lead to a brain drain just as Congress tackles a slew of...

"My job this morning is to be so persuasive...that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Barack," he told a crowd of about 300 Ivy Leaguers--and, by the looks of it, a handful of locals who managed to gain access to what was supposed to be a students-only event. For one thing, under an Obama presidency, Americans will be able to leave behind the era of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney...

In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year. Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS. The IRS's assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan. The examples point to...

Do recently announced insurance rates for California's health exchange prove that worries about rate shock for health premiums are overblown? Not really. If anything, they suggest that concerns about big premium increases remain legitimate. At the end of last year, California’s health insurance regulators wrote a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warning that state officials expected health insurance “rate shock as markets transition to [Obamacare’s] rating rules.” But last week, after insurers participating in California’s health insurance exchange announced rates for the first year, supporters of the health care law were quick to declare that there...

After I graduated college and before I landed my first real-deal job that included insurance benefits, I took out my own independent health insurance plan that covered all of the bases a young and healthy person like myself might need. It cost me about ninety dollars a month, and seeing as how I didn’t have any regular health care needs, it was pretty much just catastrophe insurance in case I happened to break my leg or get into a car accident or catch malaria or some other relatively unlikely scenario. I felt secure about the situation, knowing that I would...

Many people who buy their own health insurance could get surprises in the mail this fall: cancellation notices because their current policies aren't up to the basic standards of President Barack Obama's health care law. They, and some small businesses, will have to find replacement plans. Also, it doesn't seem to square with one of the president's best known promises about his health care overhaul: "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan."

In a classic case of "now you tell me," the Associated Press reports today that a whole swath of people who like their health insurance might be losing it. You see, ObamaCare requires all Americans get the equivalent of a Cadillac health plan. Millions of us don’t have Cadillac plans, which means that we are about to be in violation of government policy. State insurance regulators say many people who buy their own health insurance could get surprises this fall: cancellation notices because their policies aren't up to the basic standards of President Barack Obama's overhaul. These people, and some...