Dan Harris, weekend Good Morning America co-host claimed "George W. Bush played his fair share of golf during the Iraq war as well." 
This was after Jonathan Karl reported that President Obama hit the links within an hour of landing at Martha's Vineyard and just hours after making a statement about US attacks on ISIS forces. After Karl said that Woodrow Wilson, in office during WWI, had played more golf than any other president. 

In fact  W renounced golf in August, 2003, saying "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf . . . I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."  But defending Obama was apparently more important for Harris than the facts.

When higher courts decide an issue or when new facts / evidence comes to light it sometimes requires new filing or new reasoning.  Attorneys have lost their license for ignoring such situational changes.  Not so or boy Holder.  Once he gets an arguement fixed in his mind he keeps - losses, new facts, changes on the groud be damned.

Last week, the State of Oklahoma filed a motion to inform a federal judge of “newly-discovered facts” in the state’s challenge of Obamacare. These new facts were two audio tapes in December 2012 of Jonathan Gruber, the Obamacare Architect, stating that Obamacare subsidies are tied only to the existence of state exchanges and not a federal exchange. 

Oklahoma’s motion related primarily to these two video tapes and was filed shortly after the two tapes surfaced. On Wednesday, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) filed its opposition to the Oklahoma motion. Logically HHS should have taken into consideration all the new evidence that surfaced since the State filed its motion such that HHS didn’t undermine its own arguments. Specifically, HHS makes eight arguments in its opposition which are negated by the new facts that have been uncovered in the last 10 days.

1. Not all of Gruber’s statements were “Off-the-cuff” – The HHS opposition argues: “As Professor Gruber has clarified, the January 2012 statements on which the plaintiff relies were made ‘off-the-cuff,’ and they do not reflect his understanding of Congress’s intent.” 

However, as Breitbart News reported, three separate publications were uncovered whereby Gruber writes about subsidies and state based exchanges including an article for the New England Journal of Medicine in December 2009 titled “Getting the Facts Straight on Health Care Reform.” In the article, Gruber wrote, “The primary role of the government in this reform is as a financier of the tax credits that individuals will use to purchase health insurance from private companies through state-organized exchanges.”

2. Not all of Gruber’s statements were made “Two years after the fact” – The opposition argues that these statements were made “two years after the ACA was enacted as evidence of Congress’s intent. No credible method of statutory interpretation would permit such 'evidence' to override the defendants’ reasonable interpretation of the Act.” The two January 2012 videos did occur two years after Obamacare was enacted. 

However, as Breitbart News reported, two of the publications were published in 2009 at the heart of the Congressional debate.

3. Arguing Gruber disavowed these statements is hypocritical – HHS argues “Statutory interpretation does not turn on the parsing of extemporaneous statements made by a nonlegislator two years after the fact.” It continues stating “the plaintiff now proposes to submit off-the-cuff, disavowed statements” and that “HHS Professor Gruber has clearly stated, on multiple occasions, his understanding that Congress intended that federal premium tax credits would be available for participants in the federally-facilitated Exchanges.” 

However, the opposition cites as evidence of Gruber’s “actual” opinions several articles that were published significantly more than two years after the ACA was enacted. Doesn’t HHS realize it is contradicting its prior argument by using “after the fact” statements by Gruber to refute his contemporarily made statements?

4. Gruber was not just an economics professor – The HHS opposition describes Gruber throughout its filing as just an “economics professor” with no references to MIT. This is quite a contrast, as Breitbart News reported how the Obama Administration and senior Democrat Congressman described him. In one example, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid described Gruber not as just an “economics professor” but rather as “one of the most respected economists in the world”.

5. Gruber was not just a nonlegislator – The opposition argues, “The plaintiff’s proffered method of statutory interpretation, then, in which a court would tally statements made by non-legislators -- or even outside observers -- after the fact, would overwhelmingly lead to the conclusion that Congress intended for federal tax credits for the purchase of affordable health coverage to be available in every state.” 

The not-so-subtle attempt to discredit Gruber’s involvement – including comparing him to an “outside observer” – isn’t supported by the facts. Gruber is widely recognized as the “architect” of Obamacare. As reported in Breitbart News, Current Secretary of State and then-Senator John Kerry said: "Having spent years working to make health care work for Americans, Jonathan Gruber has now provided another service: walking everyone through the benefits of the Affordable Care Act reforms so consumers are armed with accessible information.” In addition, Gruber confirmed his role in a video clip on June 13, 2012, reported by Breitbart, when he said, “So I went down shortly after the election. I worked with the transition team to help put the numbers together for the administration. And then, essentially, most of 2009 I was really on loan from the administration to Congress, particularly the Senate Finance Committee, to help them put the numbers together on what became the finance committee bill, which really became Obamacare. Yeah, that's what I did.”

6. According to Gruber he helped draft the bill – HHS argues “Moreover, if the Court were inclined – again, contrary to all recognized principles of statutory construction – to consider the plaintiff’s proffered evidence, it should also consider post-enactment statements from individuals who participated in the drafting of the ACA.” 

However, as reported by Breitbart, Gruber said in a March 11, 2010 video clip, “I helped write the federal bill,” and, “I was a paid consultant to the Obama administration and helped develop the technical details of the bill.”

7. A Poison Pill or “Play-or-Pay” coercive pressure was discussed several times – The HHS Opposition argues, “Because the individual insurance markets depend on the availability of these subsidies, the plaintiff’s theory asks the Court to believe that Congress meant for the ACA to 'function as a poison pill to the insurance markets in the States that did not elect to create their own Exchanges.'” And “The plaintiff surmises that Congress had a different intent, namely, to coerce states into establishing their own Exchanges by threatening to withhold tax credits from the residents of those states that chose to permit the federal government to establish Exchanges on those states’ behalf.” 

However, the evidence proves the exact opposite. Not only does Gruber confirm in the videos and his own publications that subsides are only for state based exchanges, but also, as Breitbart News reported, a colleague and highly respected professor from Washington and Lee University, Timothy Jost, produced two reports prior to the Obamacare Congressional debate outlining this “Play-or-Pay” tactic.

8. Senator Max Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, an “actual legislator,” did discuss subsidies for state based exchanges – The opposition argues “Having found no statements from any actual legislators that would support its fanciful theory, the plaintiff now proposes to submit off-the-cuff, disavowed statements made by a nonlegislator two years after the ACA was enacted as evidence of Congress’s intent.” 

However, as Michael F. Cannon wrote in a spring 2013 publication titled "ObamaCare: The Plot Thickens":

During a Finance Committee markup of the language on September 23, 2009, Baucus admitted that his bill conditioned premium-assistance tax credits on states implementing an Exchange. Indeed, he admitted his bill had to offer tax credits only to states that established Exchanges and withhold them from states that did not. The power to regulate health insurance resides with the Senate’s HELP Committee; it lies outside the Finance Committee’s jurisdiction. Making each state’s establishment of an Exchange a precondition of residents receiving tax credits was the only way the Finance committee could have jurisdiction to direct states to establish Exchanges in the first place.

The Obama administration’s claim that Obamacare always intended to include subsidies for the Federal exchange is falling apart. The US is now on a path to Oblimination – the reversal of Obama’s failed policies.

motion_to_supplement_msj_record_file-stamped.pdf

from: HHS Arguments in Oklahoma Obamacare Case Ignore New Evidence

Video: This Teachers Union President Will ‘PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE’ If You Don’t Like Common Core. “Attendees at the convention said the hulking, bald and very angry union boss’s intimidating diatribe was frightening.” Just the person to entrust with our children’s future.

Ugly: MSNBC host wants ‘reducation’ for ‘climate deniers’

This one can be read two ways and neither is good: Many a Truth: Obama Says 'I Don't Worry About Israel's Survival'

SMART DIPLOMACY: June 2014: Obama declares world ‘less violent’ than ever.

August 2014: Asked if Kerry was traveling to help broker a political truce, @PressSec had to ask what country the question was about.

6 Times Obama Was Against Military Action in Iraq6 Times Obama Was Against Military Action in Iraq

FLASHBACK: Obama Says ‘We’re Leaving Behind A Sovereign, Stable And Self-Reliant Iraq.’

SO IS OBAMA’S NEW POLICY JUST FOR SHOW? Islamic militants advance despite 2 rounds of US airstrikes.

As someone — oh, wait, it was me! — said about Obama in Libya: “Waging war halfheartedly, on the cheap, and by committee is not a formula for success.”

Related: Obama: “Today, America Is Helping.”

Exhibit Number ??? for why SEC fans are among the dumbest on the planet here - NSFW

University of Minnesota requested that the Washington football team wear throwback uniforms for their November 2 game against the Vikings.

While they don’t specify which “throwback” they want worn, they want uniforms “without the team name or logo.” (Maybe the Lombardi-inspired “R” helmets? Problem is that nasty “one helmet” rule. I suppose they could just remove the decal from the current helmet.)

The University

has also asked that the game not have any Washington apparel or paraphernalia sold on the premise; that the word “Redskins” not be uttered by the game’s public address announcer, and that the team’s moniker not appear on the scoreboard or in the program guide and other game-related print or digital material…

It should be noted that this request did NOT come from the Vikings but from the University of Minnesota (as the Vikings will be playing their home games in U of M’s TCF Bank Stadium this fall). And while the Vikings themselves do not have to power to “force” Washington to do this, according to Katrice Albert, UM’s Vice President in the Office of Equity and Diversity,

“(The Vikings) said they’d make that request of the Washington team, but were not sure how it would be received,” she said. “The two Vikings officials said they are part of the NFL and don’t have the authority to force the hand to change the Washington name, but understand it’s offensive to some members of our community. The Vikings have a great working relationship with the tribal nations of Minnesota, and they’re very understanding of how this team name and logo impacts our community.”

I wanna see the contracts everybody signed because I'll wager the U is without a leg upon which to stand.

WHEN OBAMA SAID HIS ADMINISTRATION EMBRACED “THE SPIRIT OF STONEWALL,” I THOUGHT IT MEANT HE WAS GAY-FRIENDLY: Obama CMS head deleted Obamacare emails sought by Congress.

Key ObamaCare official likely deleted emails now sought in House probe.

MARK TAPSCOTT: Is it time to view the Obama administration as a criminal enterprise?

See a tree with 20 apples hanging on it and reasonable people conclude it’s an apple tree. So is it a criminal conspiracy when 20 government employees illegally destroy important official emails?

If that seems like an extreme question, consider the steadily accumulating evidence about the Obama administration’s modus operandi with potentially incriminating documents subpoenaed by Congress: A scandal erupts. Congressional hearings are held. Documents are requested and withheld. Subpoenas are issued. Contempt charges threatened. A few documents dribble out.

Then come the admissions that, oh by the way, emails required by multiple federal laws to be preserved have either been destroyed or “lost.”

What has the MOST impact on earth's temp/climate?  It's the SUN, stupid: Recent paper finds 1950-2009 Solar Grand Maximum was a ‘rare or even unique event’ in 3,000 years

and you may have seen this  About That Intriguing Solar Panel Map Floating Around Social Media…

 

In the first place, consider a different graphic: How big would the square have to be, to contain enough coal-fired power plants to provide electricity for the planet? Why, the square would be tiny—you couldn’t even see it. That’s because coal-fired electricity generation doesn’t take nearly as much surface area as solar. So did I just prove that we should embrace coal-fired generation, since it wouldn’t take up much space in the desert?

But so what? By the same token, we could run through some back-of-the-envelope calculations and “prove” that we could provide for the entire annual energy needs—not just electricity—of the planet with a single elephant…so long as it was made of antimatter. Now I suppose one might object that my antimatter elephant solution for energy is a bit impractical. Well, the same is true for filling Algeria with solar panels.

On the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Bowdoin politics professor Andrew Rudalevige explains very clearly how the White House’s primary line of defense—that Obama has issued fewer executive orders than most of his recent predecessors—is an exercise in misdirection. Executive orders, after all, are merely one type of presidential directive, whereas the controversy

is about executive actions more broadly. While Obama issued only 20 executive orders in 2013 (the lowest single-year total in more than a century), that same year he issued 41 presidential memoranda to the heads of departments and agencies, along with nine additional presidential “determinations” designed to serve as the basis for bureaucratic behavior.

And there are lots of other avenues for that. We could include regulatory action, signing statements, legal interpretations, and administrative orders technically issued by department heads but at the behest of the White House.  

Rudalevige then runs through “a few of the greatest hits [eight, actually] touted by those who feel Obama has abused his executive authority” and points out that none involved Obama’s use of a formal executive order. 

Jonathan Adler’s excellent earlier post on the same topic. As he sums it up:

[T]he real objections to the President’s use of executive authority are not to the frequency of EOs [executive orders], signing statements, or regulations, but to the substance of specific actions and decisions that have been made.…

[T]hose responding to claims of executive overreach should actually respond to allegations of executive overreach. Pointing to pretty charts about the number of EOs is not a serious or substantive response.

 

from What's an 'Economic Patriot' to Do About the Surge of Expats Renouncing U.S. Citizenship?

see also “BENITO-TASTIC:” A call for “corporate loyalty oaths.”