This is the first in what will be an ongoing feature. I’m going to be highlighting egregious examples of our political class lying to us and doing it with a straight face.
Just to be honest, I’m writing this because some days I need to write something and I’m just tired or not particularly inspired to caress my keyboard and finding a member of the political class who’s thinks they can get away with an outright lie is so easy I can produce content without much effort.
Today’s target…
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
Ms. Sebelius had a bad hair day this week. Got caught with her curlers down. Here’s how her week started, as reported by Reuters on Monday…
(Reuters) – The Obama administration is seeking the help of major U.S. sports organizations, including the National Football League, to persuade young and healthy Americans to sign up for medical insurance coverage later this year, officials said on Monday.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the federal government was in the midst of negotiations on advertising campaigns and potential partnerships as part of an outreach effort that will intensify over the summer and early fall.
“The NFL, for instance, in the conversations I’ve had, has been very actively and enthusiastically engaged because they see health promotion as one of the things that is good for them and good for the country,” Sebelius told reporters.
Let’s take a second and recall some general background on Sebelius’ history at strong arming the private sector over the coming disaster that is the implementation of ObamaCare.
The implementation of the President’s grand plan to take over one-sixth of the US economy, health care, and turn it into an efficient, cost effective, customer service oriented organization like the Post Office hasn’t been going well. They’re having huge technical problems coming up with the systems to enroll people and it seems that the folks who would most “benefit” from ObamaCare don’t have a clue about it.
Her first run at getting the program on track was to extort money from the health industry. Her spokesman insisted that she didn’t really try to extort money from anybody…
…HHS spokesman Jason Young claims that “Sebelius did not solicit for funds directly from industries that HHS regulates, such as insurance companies and hospitals, but rather asked them to contribute in whatever way they can.”
Heh. HHS regulates folks like insurance companies and hospitals. Guess who Madame Defarge was hustling for “contributions”? Yep.
Needless to say, that action brought cries of outrage from House Republicans. Needless to say, nothing will happen.
So, that brings us to this week’s flap. The good Madame is now chasing professional sports leagues to promote ObamaCare. She’s just trying to reach the unwashed uninsured masses that the Obama administration cares so much about.
(Off-topic note to masses: the President and his enablers are doing everything they can to replace low skilled, low wage American workers with 11 million illegal alien Mexican workers by giving their bosses a $3,000 incentive to fire them because the illegal alien Mexicans will be exempt from ObamaCare’s health insurance mandates.)
Note above, Sebelius says that the NFL “…has been very actively and enthusiastically engaged because they see health promotion as one of the things that is good for them and good for the country…”
OK. Well, it was OK until somebody asked the NFL.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy emailed the Washington Examiner‘s Philip Klein to say the NFL had no plans to help promote Obamacare:
We have responded to the letters we received from members of Congress to inform them we currently have no plans to engage in this area and have had no substantive contact with the administration about PPACA’s implementation.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello emailed the Washington Post the same statement.
Oops.
So, Madame Defarge Ms. Sebelius, here’s your sign!
