What They Said: Mark Begich and 26 Other Democrat Senators Who Promised You Could Keep Your Healthcare Plan

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Photo Credit: APPresident Obama has taken a lot of heat for promising that if Americans liked the health coverage that they had before Obamacare, they would be able to keep it under the new law. But the president wasn’t the only Democrat in Washington who made that false promise. Many, many other Democratic officeholders said the same thing.

In fact, the keep-your-coverage pledge was key to some Democrats’ decision to support the Affordable Care Act. For example, when the bill was being debated, New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said, “[A] requirement that I have for supporting a bill is that if you have health coverage that you like you should be able to keep that.” For many Democrats, the keep-your-coverage pledge was not a throwaway line; it was a fundamental part of their case for Obamacare.

How many Democrats made the promise? There’s no comprehensive list of all of them, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office has compiled a list of 27 Democratic senators who pledged that Americans could keep their coverage under Obamacare. The list includes the entire Democratic leadership in the Senate as well as Democrats facing tough re-election races in 2014, like Mary Landrieu, Mark Begich, and Kay Hagan. Here is that list, compiled by McConnell’s office:

SEN. HARRY REID (D-Nev.): “In fact, one of our core principles is that if you like the health care you have, you can keep it.” (Sen. Reid, Congressional Record, S.8642, 8/3/09)…

SEN. MARK BEGICH (D-Alaska): “If you got a doctor now, you got a medical professional you want, you get to keep that. If you have an insurance program or a health care policy you want of ideas, make sure you keep it. That you can keep who you want.” (Sen. Begich, Townhall Event, 7/27/09)

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Where’s the Outrage?! MSNBC Host Martin Bashir Encourages Defecation, Urination on Sarah Palin

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Photo Credit: MSNBCIn yet another outrageous example of the duplicity of the nation’s leftwing media, MSNBC commentator, Britain Martin Bashir, viciously attacked Sarah Palin during the close of his Friday show, calling her “America’s resident dunce” and then encouraging someone to commit horrific acts against her.

How any news organization could continue to employ someone who made such incredibly unjustified and outrageous statements about any person, let alone Mrs. Palin, is a testament to its moral bankruptcy.

Here’s the shameful exchange (the written transcript follows the video):

MARTIN BASHIR: It’s time now to clear the air. And we end this week in the way it began, with America’s resident dunce, Sarah Palin, scraping the barrel of her long deceased mind and using her all-time favorite analogy in an attempt to sound intelligent about the national debt.

SARAH PALIN: Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children and borrowing from China. When that note comes due … and this isn’t racist, so yeah, try it, try it anyway. This isn’t racist. But it’s going to be like slavery when that note is due.

BASHIR: It’ll be like slavery. Given her well-established reputation as a world class idiot, it’s hardly surprising that she should choose to mention slavery in a way that is abominable to anyone who knows anything about its barbaric history. So here’s an example.

One of the most comprehensive first person accounts of slavery comes from the personal diary of a man called Thomas Thistlewood, who kept copious notes for 39 years. Thistlewood was the son of a tenant farmer who arrived on the island of Jamaica in April 1750, and assumed the position of overseer at a major plantation. What is most shocking about Thistlewood’s diary is not simply the fact that he assumes the right to own and possess other human beings, but is the sheer cruelty and brutality of his regime.

In 1756, he records that, “A slave named Darby catched eating canes. Had him well-flogged and pickled. Then made Hector, another slave, s-h-i-t in his mouth.” This became known as Darby’s dose, a punishment invented by Thistlewood that spoke only of the slave owner’s savagery and inhumanity.

And he mentions a similar incident again in 1756, this time in relation to a man he refers to as “Punch.” “Flogged Punch well, and then washed and rubbed salt pickle, lime juice and bird pepper. Made Negro Joe piss in his eyes and mouth.” I could go on, but you get the point.

When Mrs. Palin invoked slavery, she doesn’t just prove her rank ignorance. She confirms that if anyone truly qualified for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood, then she would be the outstanding candidate.

Fifty-Three Alaskans Sign Up for ObamaCare During First Month

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Photo Credit: WND Alaska is one of 36 states that has relied on the federally run site to provide access to the marketplace, where individuals can browse for insurance to help meet requirements of the federal health care law. The site has been marred by glitches since its launch Oct. 1, and in the first month, less than 27,000 people in those states had selected plans, figures released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed. Another 79,000 individuals had signed up in states running their own exchanges.

“There is no doubt the level of interest is strong,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a release. She said enrollment is expected to grow “substantially” over the coming months. The open enrollment period ends March 31. That is also the cutoff date to enroll without risk of a penalty.

The federal health care law requires virtually all Americans to have insurance beginning next year. There are exemptions for financial hardships and religious objections, but those who ignore the mandate will face fines.

U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, said the figures released Wednesday show the health care law “is a sinking ship with too many holes to fill.”

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Senate Duo Announces Bill Protecting 1.56M Acres of Arctic Refuge

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Photo Credit: USFWS HeadquartersA bipartisan Senate duo introduced legislation on Wednesday that would section off 1.56 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) bill would protect the Arctic Refuge’s coastal plain, which is the last of the original refuge without the wilderness designation.

The legislation would also preserve minimum hunting and traditional uses.

“The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a national treasure that must be preserved for future generations to experience and enjoy,” Cantwell said in a statement.

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Begich and Other Red State Senate Democrats In ObamaCare Damage Control Mode

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Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty ImagesThree of the most vulnerable red-state Democrats are scrambling to neutralize the growing political threat that President Obama’s health care law is posing to their reelection campaigns.

This week, Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas have undertaken a series of unusually aggressive maneuvers designed to distance themselves from the health care law, whose botched rollout has raised concerns it will become a major liability for the 2014 midterm elections. The defensive steps are a smart political play from lawmakers already preparing in earnest for their reelection campaigns, but also amount to a tacit admission that Obamacare has already become a major headache.

Hagan is preparing to ask the inspector general of the Health and Human Services Department and the General Accounting Office for a full investigation into the health care law’s rollout, Politico first reported Monday. Begich, meanwhile, announced he personally enrolled in Alaska’s health care exchange the same morning, declining to take the federal government’s contribution to his plan. In a statement, he also called for a “full and transparent accounting of how the vendors contracted to build the site failed to launch it successfully,”

Pryor, considered the most vulnerable Senate Democrat next year, took the most aggressive action of the three. His campaign criticized a senior adviser working for Republican Rep. Tom Cotton for supporting a deal to implement Obamacare in Arkansas, according to The Hill. John Burris, who is a state lawmaker, voted earlier this year to effectively expand Medicaid in the state by helping poor citizens buy private insurance.

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Palin Says Christmas is Being Hijacked by ‘Angry Atheists’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreFormer Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says America’s celebration of Christmas is being hijacked by “angry atheists”bent on eroding the nation’s cherished religious freedoms.

“There is a war on Christmas, a war on religious freedom in America,” Palin, author of the new book “Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas,” told Newsmax TV.

“It’s imperative we protect the heart of Christmas — and Christmas is all about good tidings and great joy — because if that’s marginalized, our ability, our right to express our faith . . . leads to an erosion of much of America’s great foundation.”

Palin says Americans are being subjected to an intimidation campaign by “angry atheists armed with an attorney who would want to kick out God from the public square . . .

“An innocent Nativity scene with a plastic baby doll representing Jesus in a hay-filled manger — that that is going to offend somebody to the degree that they can intimidate a city!”

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Seventeen Year ‘Pause’ in Global Warming May Last 20 More Years; Arctic Sea Ice Recovering

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Photo Credit: Daily Mail The 17-year pause in global warming is likely to last into the 2030s and the Arctic sea ice has already started to recover, according to new research.

A paper in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Dynamics – by Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Dr Marcia Wyatt – amounts to a stunning challenge to climate science orthodoxy.

Not only does it explain the unexpected pause, it suggests that the scientific majority – whose views are represented by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – have underestimated the role of natural cycles and exaggerated that of greenhouse gases.

The research comes amid mounting evidence that the computer models on which the IPCC based the gloomy forecasts of a rapidly warming planet in its latest report, published in September, are diverging widely from reality.

The graph shown above, based on a version published by Dr Ed Hawkins of Reading University on his blog, Climate Lab Book, reveals that actual temperatures are now below the predictions made by almost all the 138 models on which the IPCC relies.

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Alaska’s Catholic Senators have Backed Bill Aimed to Enshrine LGBTQ Rights; Believed to Violate Religious Freedoms

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Photo Credit: catholicanchor.orgA bill that would make it a federal crime to “discriminate” against homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgender people — including forbidding men to use the women’s restroom or locker room – passed a key vote in the Senate Nov. 4.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) passed a test vote by 61-30, a critical margin that will allow the controversial bill to overcome any potential filibuster. Senate rules require 60 votes to cut off debate. The vote means the bill will almost certainly pass the full Senate without delay.

Photo Credit: catholicanchor.orgAlaska Sen. Mark Begich voted for the measure, while fellow Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski was absent for the test vote. However, Murkowski, who supports same-sex marriage, helped Democrats vote the bill out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee earlier this year.

Opponents, however, say the bill (S. 815) would deny traditional religious business owners the right to practice their religion. Its religious exemption is excessively narrow, according to a letter from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In an Oct. 31 letter to Congress, three leading U.S. bishop explained that they do not support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act because it “does not justly advance the dignity of all workers and authentic non-discrimination.”

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Mark Begich’s Lie Costs 5,360 Alaskans Their Insurance

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Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield, Alaska’s Largest Health Insurer, Is Cancelling More Than Half Of Its Individual Policies Due To ObamaCare. “The largest health insurer in Alaska has sent cancellation notices to more than half its individual members in the state because their existing policies do not meet requirements of the new federal health care law. Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield spokeswoman Melanie Coon said Friday that of its more than 9,000 individual members in Alaska, fewer than 3,800 were on “grandfathered” plans. Those are plans that were in existence before March 23, 2010, and have changed very little.” (Becky Bohrer, “Premera Sends Alaskans Health Policy Cancellation Notices, Will Offer New Plans,” Anchorage Daily News, 11/1/13)

5,360 Alaskans Will Lose Their Existing Plans. “Coon said discontinuation notices have gone to about 5,360 other members, who have been told they will be matched to new plans that are closest to what they had before in an effort to keep anyone from losing coverage.” (Becky Bohrer, “Premera Sends Alaskans Health Policy Cancellation Notices, Will Offer New Plans,” Anchorage Daily News, 11/1/13)

BEGICH PROMISED ALASKANS THEY “CAN KEEP” THEIR CURRENT PLANS; BUT REFUSED TO HONOR THAT PROMISE WHEN GIVEN THE CHANCE

On July 27, 2009, As Health Care Reform Was Being Debated, Begich Promised Constituents That “If You’ve Got A Doctor Now, You’ve Got A Medical Professional That You Want, You Get To Keep That.” BEGICH: “If you got a doctor now, you got a medical professional you want, you get to keep that. If you have an insurance program or a health care policy you want of ideas, make sure you keep it. That you can keep who you want. That we keep that patient-doctor relationship very strong.” (Sen. Mark Begich, Remarks At iTownHall, 7/27/09)

After Voting To Pass ObamaCare, Begich Claimed “Alaskans Who Have Health Insurance Now, And Are Happy With It, Can Keep It.” “Alaskans who have health insurance now, and are happy with it, can keep it. While the thousands of Alaskans who do not have health insurance, or have insurance they can’t really afford, will have access to an insurance exchange offering affordable health insurance choices. An estimated 52,000 Alaskans will quality for tax credits to help purchase affordable health coverage.” (Press Release, “Sen. Begich Statement On Passage Of Health Reform Bill,” Sen. Mark Begich, 12/24/09)

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Radiation from Japan Nuclear Plant Arrives on Alaska Coast

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Photo Credit: CBC News Scientists at the University of Alaska are concerned about radiation leaking from Japan’s damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, and the lack of a monitoring plan.

Some radiation has arrived in northern Alaska and along the west coast. That’s raised concern over contamination of fish and wildlife. More may be heading toward coastal communities like Haines and Skagway.

Douglas Dasher, a researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, says radiation levels in Alaskan waters could reach Cold War levels.

“The levels they are projecting in some of the models are in the ballpark of what they saw in the North Pacific in the 1960s,” he said.

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