http://hotair.com/archives/2014/02/27/reid-people-who-use-the-1st-amendment-to-criticize-our-policies-are-un-american-or-something/Reid: People who use the 1st Amendment to criticize our policies are “un-American,” or something
POSTED AT 10:01 AM ON FEBRUARY 27, 2014 BY ED MORRISSEY
Sometimes, just when you think you’ve seen the limit of demagoguery from Harry Reid, he finds a way to surprise you … unpleasantly. In 2012, Reid went the Full McCarthy, claiming to have inside knowledge that Mitt Romney had paid no taxes for the previous ten years and suggested that he might have committed felonies. Later, we discovered that — contra Reid — Romney had paid millions in taxes over that period, while Reid pretended he’d never smeared Romney in the first place. Yesterday, in an attempt to push back against a deluge of bad consequences from the law he shoved down the country’s throat, Reid declared that all “horror stories” about ObamaCare were “lies,” and that the people claiming to be hurt — like cancer patients — were just being dishonest hacks in the pay of Charles and David Koch.
The dust had barely settled on that demagoguery when Reid pulled out the Full McCarthy once again:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Wednesday that the conservative Koch brothers are “un-American.”
Responding to ads being run by a Koch-backed group against Obamacare, Reid said the ads go too far and that Charles and David Koch are trying to “buy” America.
“It’s too bad that they’re trying to buy America, and it’s time that the American people spoke out against this terrible dishonesty of these two brothers who are about as un-American as anyone I can imagine,” Reid said on the Senate floor.
Un-American? For what — opposing Harry Reid? L’etat, c’est le hack du Senate? The Koch brothers use their resources to participate in politics no more or less than the billionaire donors to Democrats do, and a lot more honestly than Big Labor does — who are still the biggest players in outside-group politics no matter what scare tactics Reid wants to use here. The First Amendment doesn’t form the core of American politics so that citizens are free to sing hosannas to pumped-up demagogues orating from the fiefdom of the Upper Chamber.
Remember when dissent was patriotic, and engagement on behalf of one’s principles of liberty was the ultimate expression of American citizenship? Good times, good times. There’s something un-American happening, Senator Reid, but it’s not coming from the Koch brothers.
If Reid wants to keep attacking cancer patients and others who have experienced the pain and disillusionment of his grand takeover of the health-care industry, he’ll have plenty to keep him busy, as I note in my column at The Fiscal Times. But if he expects everyone to believe his Frau Farbissina impression, he’s going to be in for some disillusion himself:
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Harry Reid’s dismissal of Boonstra’s pain was entirely justified. What about the pain of Catherine Blackwood, who also lost her insurance due to Obamacare and lost coverage for her cancer medication as a result?
Her previous insurance covered Sandostatin as a treatment for her terminal carcinoid. But despite being repeatedly assured during the problem-plagued enrollment process that her new Obamacare-approved plan would cover the drug, she found out this monthas she was going into surgery that her plan would not cover the drug. It costs $14,000 just since the beginning of the year, and now Blackwood will have to cover it all herself.
What about the pain of Katherine Cadman? She signed up for coverage through Covered California, expecting to have access to doctors listed for her plan on the exchange. Instead, out of 41 doctors supposedly in her network and in her area, only four were taking new Covered California patients – and only one of those was board-certified. Julia Turner made a similar discovery after selecting her Covered California plan. The only doctors who will see the San Francisco resident are clinics in the high-crime East Oakland area.
These are just the anecdotes from the last week. …
Harry Reid and the Democrats can keep ignoring that pain at their own electoral peril. It’s amazing how quickly they have gone from feeling our pain to causing it, and then trying to convince us that pain doesn’t actually hurt anyone. Not even Bill Clinton can sell that nonsense.
Finally, let’s let Reid have the last word, via Gabriel Malor. Shameless:
Alan Ota @Alankota
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Reid: "I had hoped this work period would b more bipartisan." #Senate #Democrat #veterans
8:35 AM - 27 Feb 2014
