Right-Wing Media Feed False Panic Over Obamacare Premiums

JUSTIN BERRIER/Media Matters for America

Right-wing media outlets have seized on an anonymously sourced and highly speculative article in The Hill that dubiously proclaimed health care premiums are going to "skyrocket" under the Affordable Care Act.

In a March 19 post on The Hill's Healthwatch blog with the headline "O-care premiums to skyrocket," Elise Viebeck quoted anonymous health insurance industry officials to claim that "ObamaCare-related premiums will double in some parts of the country, countering claims recently made by the administration."

The article and its claim about rising premiums was hyped across the right-wing media. National Review Onlineclaimed "there's only so much massaging of the truth and flat-out lying that one can do before the headlines catch up with the deceit." Hot Air's Ed Morrissey cited The Hill, writing, "ObamaCare has bent the cost curve all right, but sharply upward -- and in 2015, expect them to not just bend but absolutely 'skyrocket.'" Fox Nationhighlighted the post under the headline "300%: Insurance Industry Predicts Skyrocketing ObamaCare Premiums":

Despite the certainty implied by the post's headline, the reality is far more complicated. While Viebeck chose to play up the claims made by her anonymous insurance industry sources, the article also cites health policy experts who pointed out that it's far too early to make predictions about "expected rate hikes":

Other health experts say predictions about premiums are premature.

David Cutler, who has been called an architect of Obama-Care, said, "Health premiums increase every year, so the odds are very good that they will increase next year as well.  None of that is news.  The question is whether it will be a lot or a little.  That depends in part on how big the insurers think the exchanges will be."

Jon Gruber, who also helped design the Affordable Care Act, said, "The bottom line is that we just don't know. Premiums were rising 7 to 10 percent a year before the law. So the question is whether we will see a continuation of that sort of single digit increase, as Sebelius said, or whether it will be larger."

In The New Republic, Jonathan Cohn pointed out that, "the real news here is more complicated and ambiguous." Because the health care market is not monolithic, premiums may rise for some people and fall for others, but the ACA includes provisions intended to alleviate both high premiums and market instability.

A big problem with the Obamacare debate is the tendency for everybody to think of implementation in extreme terms -- the law is working, or the law is not working. That's particularly true of the law's critics, who see in every negative development signs of catastrophic failure. The reality is that, particularly after one year, the law will be a mix of successes and setbacks, with lots of variation across the country. That muddle, combined with the huge uncertainty of what happens next, ought to give everybody pause before drawing hasty conclusions. It's safe to assume that won't happen here.

In the Washington Monthly, Ed Kilgore noted that the claims made by Viebeck's anonymous sources are contradicted by other industry executives:

If you actually read the accompanying article by Elise Viebeck, the rather alarming assertion is mostly a collection of blind quotes from "health industry officials." Yes, one former Cigna executive went on the record to say his "gut" tells him premiums could go up, which is of course very convincing. Otherwise the closest Viebeck gets to attribution is an "insurance official who hails from a populous swing state."

[...]

And the "premiums to skyrocket" claim directly contradicts a variety of on-the-record assessments by health insurance executives -- e.g., Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, Wellpoint president Joe Swedish, and Cigna CEO David Cordani -- that the Obamacare premium structure is working out relatively well. And the most reliable independent study, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, concluded that the much-feared "death spiral" of premiums that Viebeck seems to be predicting as a reality for much of the country is very unlikely to occur.

A healthcare reality check-up

How Michigan Lawmakers Bankrupted Their Own Cities

by JM Ashby/Bob Cesca /The Daily Banter

Cities in the state of Michigan, especially likes of Detroit and Flint, are typically held up as beacons of mismanagement or corruption, but they didn’t arrive at their current predicament on their own according to a new report from the Michigan Municipal League.

According to the Municipal League, cities in the state have been denied $6.2 billion in revenue sharing over the past decade which state lawmakers used to plug holes in the state budget. And, in some cases, the money that has been withheld would have made up for current shortfalls had it not been withheld.

via Michigan Live

Detroit, the state’s largest city, lost out on $732 million in revenue sharing between 2003 and 2013, according to the report. Twenty two other cities — from Grand Rapids to Wyandotte — saw the state divert at least $10 million in sales tax revenue that local leaders believe they should have been entitled to. [...]

“You can look at pretty much any Michigan community and see where they might be today if the statutory revenue sharing had been fully funded,” Samantha Harkins of the Municipal League said in a statement.

“For example, look at Flint, which is now under an emergency manager. Flint will have lost $54.9 million dollars by the end of 2014. The deficit in its 2012 financial statements is $19.2 million. Flint could eliminate the deficit and pay off all $30 million of bonded indebtedness and still have over $5 million in surplus. In Detroit, a city facing the largest municipal bankruptcy in history, the state took over $700 million to balance the state’s books.”

The Michigan Constitution apparently requires that a portion of sales tax be redistributed to cities based on a standard formula, but according to the Municipal League state lawmakers have not done so.

This may not come as a shock to locals in Michigan or the above mentioned cities, but as an outside I was certainly shocked when I read it.

The idea that this emergency manager business could have been avoided if state lawmakers weren’t effectively looting their own cities to make their own jobs easier in the state capital is gobsmacking.

How many special tax breaks have been funded by looting cities that are now under the rule of an emergency manager?

Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist Church, has died

By Scott Kaufman/Raw Story

Fred Phelps, the founder of Westboro Baptist Church — infamous for its “God Hates Fags” campaign — passed away last night.

His son, Timothy Phelps, confirmed his father’s passing to WIBW.

Phelps came to national prominence in the early 1990s when he and his followers began picketing outside of churches that failed to adhere to his strict “moral” standards, either by supporting pro-choice positions or LGBT rights.

His organization later started to conduct anti-LGBT protests at the funerals of American servicemen and women, who were dying because the United States was becoming more accepting of LGBT lifestyles.

“Our attitude toward what’s happening with the war is the Lord is punishing this evil nation for abandoning all moral imperatives that are worth a dime,” Phelps said.

Phelps was excommunicated from the church last August for reasons that have not been made public.

Paul Ryan Gets An Earful From Constituent Who Will Save Hundreds Under Obamacare

BY SCOTT KEYES/Think Progress
RACINE, Wisconsin — Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has been one of the primary architects of the GOP’s ongoing crusade to repeal and replace Obamacare. Most recently, the Budget Chairman has indicated that Republicans will attempt to pass individual reforms to roll back the health law’s provisions piece by piece.

But not all of Ryan’s constituents agree with his position. On Wednesday, the Republican congressman was confronted by one such voter at a town hall in southeast Wisconsin.

“ACA subsidies are a good thing,” Michael Martincic, 64, of Oak Creek told Ryan, criticizing his Party’s repeated attempts to get rid of the health reform law.

Martincic works as a roofer and is currently paying $700 for his health insurance through his union. However, upon browsing Healthcare.gov — “it was so easy to get on the site; the whole thing only took 15 minutes,” Martincic told ThinkProgress afterward — he found that he qualified for subsidies and could be paying as little as $200 for coverage.

Martincic also told Ryan about others who had been helped by Obamacare as well, including a friend with leukemia whose out-of-pocket expenses had been cut in half. At several points, the crowd clapped and cheered for him.

Nonetheless, Ryan defended his party’s repeal votes — 51 in total — noting that some of them only aimed to chip away at particular parts of Obamacare. “We didn’t have 51 votes to repeal it altogether 51 times,” Ryan said. “That’s sort of this urban legend…there are many pieces of this law that we went after.”

Watch it:

Ryan’s own plan to replace Obamacare, the Patients’ Choice Act, was unveiled back in 2009. Although that plan lacks some of the consumer protections in Obamacare, it also incorporates some of the same provisions that made it into the health law. Ryan admitted last year that Obamacare does include some ideas that Republicans “have always been talking about.” But that hasn’t stopped him from repeatedly introducing budget proposals to repeal the law.

Martincic said he and his wife are still deciding whether to go through with the insurance switch, but he’s grateful to have the option. When ThinkProgress asked him whether he thinks Ryan sees the people like himself, who could benefit from Obamacare, Martincic shook his head. “He misses it.”

TRANSCRIPT:

MARTINCIC: What Obama did was get this law passed. Whether it’s good, bad, or not, it got passed. It’s actually helping some people grow, helped this other guy [with] medication. The Republicans….By myself…I could actually…get some kind of subsidy, which would help me…

RYAN: With the ACA, one thing I want to say is we didn’t have 51 votes to repeal it altogether 51 times. I think that’s sort of like this urban legend that we said, ‘let’s repeal it.’ It’s like we did a repeal vote on the whole law. There are many pieces of this law that we’ve gone after—several of them that were made into law, so please know—I think even Democrats would acknowledge that there are a lot of problems with this law. And so we passed a lot of things changing this law—several of which were made into law—but I really do believe there’s a better way to do it than with this health care law.

My argument is that I think there are better ways at dealing with these extremely important and legitimate problems, like people with preexisting conditions—this is why I’m a big fan of risk pools. We had the [??] system in Wisconsin—it worked well, and then it had the federal government attached to it, so it was even more affordable for people with preexisting conditions. That was one of our proposals. So I do think that there are better ways of fixing this problem—affordable coverage for everybody, including people with preexisting conditions that’s a lot better than [this law]. It’s going to hurt our hospitals, it’s going to hurt Medicare, it’s going to make people buy things they don’t want to buy.

Parts Of The GOP’s Obamacare Alternative Just Rip Off Obamacare

BY IGOR VOLSKY/tHINK pROGRESS 

"I FULLY BACK THE rEPUBLICAN hEALTHcARE pLAN"
gRIM rEAPER

House Republicans are planning to unveil a unified alternative to the Affordable Care Act this spring, the Washington Post reported on Monday. Though details of the plan remain sketchy, the measure is “hardly intended as a full replacement of the federal health-care law” and will focus on filling gaps in the health care system.

According to the Post, lawmakers will endorse “ability to buy insurance across state lines, guaranteed renewability of policies and changes to medical-malpractice regulations.” Once Obama’s health care reform law is repealed, insurers will be able to discriminate against individuals with pre-existing conditions, though the GOP-backed proposal will offer sicker individuals coverage through “high-risk insurance pools” managed and subsidized by the states.” The alternative will also promote health savings accounts, allow small businesses “to purchase coverage together” and permit young people to stay on their parents’ health care plan until age 26.

If that last plank sounds a whole lot like the Affordable Care Act, that’s because it is. Of the seven provisions outlined by the Post, five — save health savings accounts and malpractice reform — are already included in the law in one way or another. The provisions may not be drafted exactly the GOP’s liking, but they accomplish very similar goals:

– Buying insurance across state lines. SEC. 1333 of the ACA creates “Health Care Choice Compacts,” which allows insurers to sell policies within the confines of state compacts, so long as the companies follow the consumer protection standards designed and agreed to by the states.

– Renewability. SEC. 2703 of the ACA states that “if a health insurance issuer offers health insurance coverage in the individual or group market, the issuer must renew or continue in force such coverage at the option of the plan sponsor or the individual, as applicable.”

– High-risk insurance pools. SEC. 1001 of the ACA created a temporary program that provided immediate access to insurance for individuals with pre-existing conditions. Ultimately, the initiative — which provided coverage only to sick people — proved unsustainable and ran out of money earlier than expected.

– Small business purchase coverage together. SEC. 1311 of the ACA“provides for the establishment of a Small Business Health Options Program (in this title referred to as a ‘‘SHOP Exchange’’) that is designed to assist qualified employers in the State who are small employers in facilitating the enrollment of their employees in qualified health plans offered in the small group market in the State.”

– Children on their parents’ plans. SEC. 2714 of the ACA states that “A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage that provides dependent coverage of children shall continue to make such coverage available for an adult child until the child turns 26 years of age.”

A GOP alternative is not a certainty, however. Republicans had promised to introduce a single party-backed alternative to the law since 2009 and have repeatedly reneged on that pledge. Some conservative lawmakers are still “wary of the push to have House Republicans sing as a unified chorus,” arguing that the party out of power does not have to offer a detailed governing agenda and could make gains in 2014 by criticizing the unpopular law. A detailed proposal could also open the party up to policy criticism. When Republicans last offered a leadership-supported plan in 2009 — which closely resembles the above mentioned principles — the Congressional Budget Office estimated that “the number of nonelderly people without health insurance would be reduced by about 3 million relative to current law, leaving about 52 million nonelderly residents uninsured.”

Lawmaker Accused Of Opposing Michigan’s Rape Insurance Law To Keep Abortion ‘Cheap For His Daughters’

BY TARA CULP-RESSLER/Think Progress

According to an anti-choice group in Michigan, one of the state’s lawmakers has staked out his position on reproductive rights purely because he wants to make sure that abortion remains “accessible and cheap for his daughters.”

The statement comes in response to a controversial new abortion restriction in Michigan thattook effect earlier this month. Women who buy health insurance in Obamacare’s private market are now barred from purchasing a plan that includes abortion coverage, even if they want to end a pregnancy that resulted from rape or incest. They’ll be required to purchase a separate rider if they want an abortion procedure to be covered, which has led reproductive rights supporters to decry the measure as a “rape insurance” law.

U.S. Rep. Gary Peters (D), who is currently running for a Senate seat, is one of the lawmakers who has repeatedly spoken out against the measure. “As the father of two daughters, I struggle with how to tell them that the state we love and where our family has been for generations is now unfairly discriminating against them and makes health care less affordable,” Peters said in a statement last week.

Right to Life of Michigan — the right-wing group that was instrumental in getting the new law approved last winter — has seized on that sentiment. In a new website highlighting Peters’ abortion policy positions, the group cites Peters’ recent comments to assert that the pro-choice lawmaker “wants to make sure abortion is accessible and cheap for his daughters.”

Thanks to the persistent stigma that remains attached to abortion care, the comments appear to imply something negative about the women who may need access to abortion, and attempt to link Peters with that implication.

The congressman has condemned the comments as “inflammatory partisan politics,” saying that using his daughters to make a point is a step too far. Peters is calling on his Republican opponent, Terri Lynn Land, to distance herself from Right to Life of Michigan. Land has been endorsed by the anti-choice group.

“I’m proud to be the dad of two amazing teenage daughters, and I’m also proud of my record fighting to protect critical access to women’s health care,” Peters said in a statement provided to ThinkProgress. “Women’s health care is a serious and significant point of contrast in the U.S. Senate race, and it is outrageous that Land’s allies would cheapen this debate and distort my support for women’s health care… To include my teenage daughters in their attack crosses the line.”

A Right to Life spokesperson told Michigan Live that Peters has brought up his daughters on several occasions while discussing reproductive rights, which makes the point relevant to the current race.

Michigan’s new insurance restriction has captured a lot of media attention, but it’s hardly the only state with this type of policy on the books. Cutting off access to insurance coverage for abortion is an very popular method of restricting reproductive rights, and Obamacare’s state-level exchanges have introduced a new avenue for abortion opponents to accomplish this goal. Just as Peters points out, this policy is about making abortion care too expensivefor many women to afford.

Since abortion is simply part of women’s reproductive health care, complicated laws thatsegregate it from the rest of the services covered by insurance are often too difficult to implement in practice. For instance, even though Michigan’s new law operates under the assumption that women can buy separate insurance riders for abortion, it’s not clear that these types of riders are even being offered on the individual market.

Random Friday video: Brian Williams Raps "Rapper's Delight

Koch Brothers Latest Obamacare Ad Is Their Most Dishonest And Deceptive One Yet

By: Justin Baragona/Politicusa

The Koch Brothers SuperPAC, Americans for Prosperity, is currently running an ad in Michigan targeting Democratic Senator Gary Peters, who is up for reelection in November. The commercial, titled ‘Julie’s Story: It’s Time To Listen’, states that a cancer patient named Julie Boonstra is being bankrupted by the Affordable Care Act. She discusses how her original plan was cancelled and now her out-of-pocket expenses are so high she finds them totally unaffordable.

Of course, after a few people dug in and investigated, it appears that, just like every other Koch Bros. funded Obamacare ad, the truth is a whole lot different than what was placed in the ad. Thanks to Benjy Sarlin at MSNBC, the Detroit News, Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post’s Fact Checker blog and the basic facts of the health care law, the real story is nowhere near the horror story depicted in the commercial.

When you see that ad, you’d think that Obamacare is killing Ms. Boonstra! It seems like she is dealing with a real-life horror movie where bureaucratic nonsense and an uncaring law has made her life expendable. Of course, pesky facts always get in the way of a good narrative. The truth is that Julie Boonstra did have her existing insurance policy cancelled because it didn’t meet the minimum standards of the ACA. Instead, she had to get a better policy at half the price. She was paying $1,100 a month in premiums under her old policy. She now pays $571 a month.

If she is paying less a month, how can she justify that Obamacare is bankrupting her? Well, she says it is because she now faces out of pocket expenses more often. She states that for a lot of her treatments, she is forced to do a 20% co-pay. However, under the law, there is a cap on how much she can be charged out of pocket. The cap is $6,350 a year. By her own admission, she is saving nearly that exact amount in premiums due to the ACA. So, even if she has to pay the maximum amount in out of pocket expenses a year under the new plan (doubtful), she isn’t paying anymore than she did under her old plan.

Basically, this is as dishonest as you can get with a political ad. Ms. Boonstra, at worst, is having to deal with smaller expenses on a more frequent basis, but is not spending anymore than she did previously. In fact, it is more than likely she’ll still end up spending less than before. On top of that, her old policy, that was twice as expensive, only got cancelled because it didn’t offer as extensive of coverage as it should have. She now has a better policy for half the price and she cannot be kicked off of it due to her condition.

Kessler gave the ad two Pinocchios. Personally, I think it is one of the biggest lies we’ve ever seen in politics, and that is saying something. It just goes to show how good this law really is when lobbyists and politicians have to stoop to telling outright lies in their attempts to discredit it.

Hannity's Financial Ties To Tea Party Worse Than You Think

 ERIC HANANOKI/Media Matters For America:

Fox News is allowing Sean Hannity to promote the Tea Party Patriots on its airwaves even though the group is financially connected to the conservative host.

Huffington Post's Michael Calderone reported today that Hannity, who also hosts a Premiere Radio Networks program, has been fundraising for Tea Party Patriots (TPP) in emails, and "has also promoted the group's efforts on his Fox News program."  

TVNewser reported that in response to Calderone's report, "Fox News tells us Hannity's involvement with the Tea Party group is for his radio show, and has nothing to do with his FNC show or role with the network."

But Fox's response that TPP has "nothing to do" with Fox is disingenuous and a dodge of ethical standards. A Media Matters review found that Hannity has repeatedly done promotional tie-ins for TPP on radio and then promoted or hosted the group on his Fox News program.

For instance, Hannity did radio promos for TPP on July 31 and August 12. He then hosted TPP president Jenny Beth Martin on his Fox program Hannity on August 20, and September 9. Martin was also part of a "special audience edition" of Hannity on August 16. Fox even allowed Hannity to promote TPP's website HannityForSanity.com on August 1.  

Calderone reported that "Hannity made a passing reference to the Tea Party Patriots on his Fox News show" on February 19 in which Hannity said "The Tea Party Patriots are partners on my radio show." Calderone added that "was the only time on Fox News that Hannity has described Tea Party Patriots as a 'partner' of his radio program," according to Nexis.

In addition to his TPP email this week, Hannity sent an email on behalf of TPP on September 6 urging readers to "sign the National Petition to Exempt America from Obamacare right now. It's the very best way to help get rid of this horrible law before it goes into effect on October 1st." Hannity sent a TPP fundraising email in mid-December, writing that "If you've heard my radio show at all in the past few months, then you've probably heard me talk about the great Americans at Tea Party Patriots ... So please, make your monthly commitment right away." 

Though it's not clear how much Hannity is receiving for his Tea Party Patriots promotions -- representatives for Martin, TPP, and Hannity didn't respond to comment requests from Calderone --  Hannity received big money for prior promotions for another conservative group.

Politico reported in 2011 that the Heritage Foundation paid $1.3 million to Hannity's program for "promotional tie-ins, as well as regular on-air plugs - praising or sometimes defending the groups, while urging listeners to donate - often woven seamlessly into programming in ways that do not seem like paid advertising."

Fox News previously forced Hannity to cancel a taping of a 2010 Fox News show at a Cincinnati Tea Party event because it charged admission and had "all proceeds" benefiting the organization. At the time Fox portrayed themselves to media as "furious" with Hannity.

Here are four recent examples of Hannity's radio promotional tie-ins:

Hannity Tea Party Patriots Promotion, 2/17/14. Hannity told his listeners to "take action" against the IRS and its alleged targeting of conservative groups by going to TPP's website PatriotsAnniversary.com.

Hannity Tea Party Patriots Promotion, 1/20/14. Hannity told listeners to show "leftists" that conservatives won't be intimidated by visiting TeaPartyPatriots.org and joining the group because "we need you."

Hannity Tea Party Patriots Promotion, 8/12/13. Hannity integrated a promotion for The Tea Party Patriots into his program while criticizing former IRS official Lois Lerner and the Obama administration. Hannity said he's supporting the Tea Party Patriots and urged listeners to go to HannityForSanity.com.

Hannity Tea Party Patriots Promotion, 7/31/13. Hannity claimed that the IRS is intimidating tea partiers and his "friends" at the Tea Party Patriots are creating TV ads but they need help to get them aired. Hannity then directed listeners to HannityForSanity.com to donate "whatever you can afford" so "we" can get those ads up.

‘We need to rewrite stand your ground’

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer presses Texas Gov. Perry on Ted Nugent’s ‘vile’ ‘disgusting’ comments

By Tom Boggioni/Raw Story

Appearing on

CNN’s The Situation Room, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was pressed repeatedly by host Wolf Blitzer to condemn the comments made by musician Ted Nugent calling President Obama a ‘subhuman mongrel’.

“These words that Nugent said, you have to admmit that they are vile,” Blitzer said. “To call the president of the United States a ‘subhuman mongrel, that’s pretty disgusting.”

“They’re pretty tough words,” Perry responded before Blitzer cut him off, telling him that it was okay to call Nugent’s words “disgusting.”

“We agree that that is not appropriate language to use of the United States president.” Perry replied.

Blitzer then asked Perry if it was appropriate for gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, whose campaign is employing Nugent, to continue to “embrace” him.

“I’m not going to get into this side of whether it’s appropriate or not,” Perry said “There are people who say things all the time. The idea that Ted Nugent has said something that’s outrageous shouldn’t surprise anybody.”

Blitzer responded by calling Nugent’s words “beyond the pale.”

Watch the video below:

All-white N.J. wrestling team says lynching photo of black dummy was meant ‘innocently

By Scott Kaufman/Raw Story

Eight members of a Phillipsburgh, New Jersey high school wrestling team were banned from the state tournament and suspended for three days each after a photograph of them “lynching” a black wrestling dummy wearing a rival school’s t-shirt.

The students, who are white, surrounded the black wrestling dummy dressed in a Paulsboro High School t-shirt. According to the 2010 census, 36.7 percent of residents of Paulsboro, New Jersey are African-American, compared to only 7.5 percent of Phillipsburgh.

Attorney Scott Wilhelm, speaking on behalf of the students, said that “[w]hen we spontaneously set the scene and posed for the photograph, our sole purpose was to promote school spirit and portray our wrestling team as victor over two of our archrivals — Paulsboro High School and Kittatinny High School, and not for any other purpose.”

Wilhelm insisted that the dummy was not meant to represent a person of any particular race: “The inanimate figure in the photograph is a wrestling dummy, which is owned by the Phillipsburg High School, and is used in our daily practices, and is used by most high school wrestling teams.”

“It is our understanding,” Wilhelm said, “that the dummies are manufactured in only dark leather. In outfitting the wrestling dummy, we did not give any thought to the physical appearance of the dummy as anything other than an unidentified, generic wrestler – clothed in a Paulsboro T-shirt over a Kittatinny [High School] singlet. Likewise, our dress was standard wrestling uniforms, and our poses were not premeditated, but rather, spontaneous gestures without any forethought.”

According to Wilhelm, the students’ minds were “clouded” by their recent success in a tournament, but now understand that others may have found their celebration offensive, “however innocently intended.”

One Paulsboro wrestler, Zach Richard, told a CBS 2 reporter that there was nothing “innocent” about it, saying “I think they knew what they was doing.”

The Executive Director of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA), Steven Timko, said that the photograph “violates the principles of good sportsmanship and is a flagrant violation of the NJSIAA Sportsmanship Rule.” It demonstrated a “fundamental disrespect” for opponents and used “violent imagery that has no place in high school sports.”

Watch a report on the incident from CBS 2 below.

Darrell Issa Ignores Congressional Report On Benghazi To Attack Hillary Clinton

BY HAYES BROWN/Think Progress

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight Committee and one of the leading voices in attacking the Obama administration over its response to the Benghazi attack,completely ignored a recent Congressional investigation’s conclusions in the name of attacking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Speaking at a fundraising dinner in Concord, NH on Monday night, Issa was asked about his committee’s efforts to get to the bottom of just what occurred the night of Sept. 11, 2012 when a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya came under attack. One persistent theoryamong conservatives has been that at some point during the night, a “stand down” order was given to the military, preventing them from rescuing the Americans under attack. “We need to have an answer of when the Secretary of Defense had assets that he could have begun spinning up,” Issa said at the fundraiser during a question and answer segment. “Why there was not one order given to turn on one Department of Defense asset?”

“I have my suspicions, which is Secretary Clinton told Leon [Panetta] to stand down, and we all heard about the stand down order for two military personnel,” Issa continued. “That order is undeniable.”

But there is one group of people that would deny Issa’s claims: his Republican colleagues in the House Armed Services Committee. Just last week, the committee’s majority released their report on the Pentagon’s actions during the night of the attack, which explicitly denied the existence of the order Issa claims happened. “There was no ‘stand down’ order issued to U.S. military personnel in Tripoli who sought to join the fight in Benghazi,” the report says within its first few pages.

It appears that Issa hasn’t read the rest of his compatriots’ report just yet either, judging by the rest of his remarks. “They were told not to get on – get off the airplane and kind of standby – and they’re going to characterize it wasn’t stand down,” Issa said, referring to the Obama administration. “But when we’re done with Benghazi, the real question is, was there a stand down order to Leon Panetta or did he just not do his job? Was there a stand down order from the President who said he told them to use their resources and they didn’t use them? Those questions have to be answered.”

Luckily for him, those questions already have been answered. “Given the military’s preparations on September 11, 2012, majority members have not yet discerned any response alternatives that could have likely changed the outcome of the Benghazi attack,” the report concludes.

When the Washington Post’s Fact Checker blog asked Oversight Committee spokesman Frederick Hill about the report, he responded that Issa was asking a “very straightforward question” in blaming Clinton. He also pointed out that the HASC report did not “draw a conclusion about whether the State Department sought to discourage, limit, or constrain a military response,” thus making whether or not Clinton ordered a stand down that never happened a legitimate line of inquiry.

Issa has been at the forefront of GOP attacks against the Obama administration over Benghazi, using his position to launch hearing after hearing over the situation, despite never producing the smoking gun he insists exists. Those repeated attacks over the past year and a half have yet to gain much traction among the American people. He’s also gotten in troublewith his Democrat counterparts for taking secret trips to Benghazi without informing them.

And highlighting Clinton’s role in the response is likely to become more frequent as the primary season for the 2016 presidential election approaches. Clinton is described as the presumptive front runner of the race, and is already the subject of polling about voter beliefs about Benghazi. In late December, in the face of a New York Times report on the attack, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) insinuated that a coordinated rollout of news stories was occurring to smooth the path for Clinton’s eventual nomination. (HT: Oliver Willis)

UPDATE

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, wrote to Issa on Friday, calling on him to apologize for his remarks:

“The definition of treason is the betrayal of allegiance owed to one’s country, and your statements seem to accuse former Secretary Clinton of this offense. You suggest that Secretary Clinton directed the Secretary of Defense of the United States to intentionally withhold military assistance that may have saved the lives of one of her own ambassadors and three other brave Americans serving their country. Your accusations are beyond the pale, and you should immediately retract them and issue a public apology.”