Toast.

(Jennifer Rubin) — It is “sad,” says MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, that presidential candidate Mitt Romney is running away from his Massachusetts health care plan, a plan that Gruber says “gave birth to one of the greatest pieces of social legislation in our history,” namely President Obama’s 2010 health-care reform legislation. Aside from Romney, Gruber is the man most responsible for the Massachusetts plan. And given how important the debate is over the ‘Cares — RomneyCare and ObamaCare, as they’re often dubbed — I decided to go to the man who perhaps knows more than anyone about the development of both.

In a candid phone interview, Gruber explained how RomneyCare came about, where he thinks the critics have it wrong and whether potential “defenses” against his own plan by the Republican 2012 frontrunner hold up to scrutiny.

Gruber says that by the time he met Obama in 2006, the Massachusetts plan had already passed. He recalls that coming out of the Clinton years, “when the government had money to spend,” states could apply for grants from the Health and Human Services Department to study how the states could expand health care coverage. He was contacted by the Massachusetts department, which had received such a grant, and worked on different “models” for health care reform. When Romney later entered office and wanted to work on health care reform, the same department called Gruber in, because, of course, he had done much of the work already.

Gruber tells me, “What I can tell you is that there was an active debate on the individual mandate.” He explains, “On one hand, Romney felt people were free-riding” on the health care system — that is, remaining uninsured but burdening the government health care system when they became sick or injured. On the other hand, Gruber says, was the “freedom” argument about the mandate. He says, “What I’d like to think carried the day was that I pointed out that without the mandate you would spend the same money and cover fewer people.”

Gruber says in the one face-to-face meeting he had with Romney, it was clear Romney had made the “final call.” Gruber tells me: “He was the champion of the plan. He really was the consummate management consultant.” And, Gruber says, the plan that passed and is now operating is not fundamentally different from the individual mandate plan that Romney “championed.” Gruber says, “The framework is basically the same.” Moreover, Romney understood that the bill would be a framework, with the details to be filled in later (e.g., the definition of “affordable” health care). “He said so at the signing ceremony,” Gruber recollects. So the notion that the plan was hijacked by the Democratic-controlled legislature is simply not so, he asserts.

Keep reading…

HT: Brian

Via NRO’s Jim Geraghty:

Obama’s speech included these three sentences, and it is revealing that no one within the White House found them contradictory:

“I made it clear that Gaddafi had lost the confidence of his people and the legitimacy to lead, and I said that he needed to step down from power.”

“Broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.”

“We will deny the regime arms, cut off its supply of cash, assist the opposition, and work with other nations to hasten the day when Gaddafi leaves power.”

He must step down. We are working to drive him from power. But we are not pursuing regime change.

Present!

Grahmnesty never fails.

(Politico) — Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said it wasn’t a response to Republican Rep. Peter King’s hearings this month on post-9/11 Islamic radicalization and terrorism — but it sure felt like it.

Durbin’s hearing Tuesday on anti-Muslim bigotry — the first congressional hearing of its kind — was an opportunity for Democrats to present Muslim Americans in a different light: as a people facing growing discrimination and intolerance.

Durbin noted that King previously said there are too many mosques in the country. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a possible GOP presidential candidate, has said the country is “experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization.”

“Some have even questioned the premise of today’s hearing: that we should protect the civil rights of American Muslims,” Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said in his opening remarks. “Such inflammatory speech from prominent public figures creates a fertile climate for discrimination. So it’s not surprising that the Anti-Defamation League says we face an intensified level of anti-Muslim bigotry.’”

“Efforts to recruit and radicalize young Muslims must be dealt with,” said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s panel on the Constitution, and human and civil rights. “To the American Muslim community, I will stand with you, but you will have to help your country. . . . Get in this fight and protect your young people and your nation from radicalization.”

Graham later added: “There are two sides to this story, and I want to talk about both, not just one.”

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said he was “perplexed” by the focus of Tuesday’s hearing.

“The only way to stop terrorists is to recognize where they are coming from. Political correctness cannot stand in the way of identifying those who would do us harm,” Kyl said. “If we are concerned about the most egregious religious hate crimes, then I wonder why we are not talking about crimes against Jews and Christians.”

Keep reading…

Scott Walker now in living legend territory.

Madison — Gov. Scott Walker’s administration no longer is collecting dues on behalf of state unions and, as of Sunday, is charging employees more for their pensions and health care, even though nonpartisan legislative attorneys say the changes are not yet law.

Backing up the administration, the state Department of Justice argued that the new law — which eliminates most collective bargaining for public workers — is in effect and asked a judge to vacate a restraining order against the law. Meanwhile, a Dane County prosecutor asked a judge to declare that the law is not now in place.

Highlighting the different legal interpretations, some local governments are not implementing the new law for their employees. Officials with the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County said they are waiting for answers from courts before making any changes on benefits and union dues.

The dispute over the new law goes before a Dane County circuit judge on Tuesday, and higher courts are ultimately expected to rule on it.

State workers began paying more for benefits starting Sunday, Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch said Monday in a conference call with reporters. They also no longer are being billed for union dues, and those changes will show up on checks issued April 21, he said.

Employees working for the Legislature are also now being charged more for benefits, said an aide to Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).

That comes even though an attorney for the Legislature has concluded the law probably has not taken effect, as spelled out in a memo Monday to Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha).

The law requires most public workers to pay at least 12.6% of their health care premiums and half the cost of their pensions — 5.8% of pay for most state employees.

Above-the-Fold UPDATE (HT: the slob): Schumer scripted the whole story, talking points et al, with three other Dem senators, not knowing that reporters were already dialed into a conference call. POLITICO reported the scripted story line (below the fold). The truth is that the dumbass thought he was on a private line when in fact the Fourth Estate was online and taking notes on his exercise in duplicity.

(Washington Examiner) — Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Democratic Senate leadership, got on a conference call with reporters Tuesday morning without realizing the reporters were already listening in. Schumer thought he was on a private line with four Democratic senators who were to talk with reporters about the current budget stalemate.

Schumer instructed the group, made up of Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Tom Carper of Delaware, Ben Cardin of Maryland and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, to tell reporters that the GOP is refusing to negotiate.

He told the group to make sure they label the GOP spending cuts as “extreme.”

“I always use extreme, Schumer said. “That is what the caucus instructed me to use.”

Someone must have finally told Schumer that the media were listening and he stopped talking midsentence.

Here’s a bit more of what he said about House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, according to my notes.

“The main thrust is basically that we want to negotiate and we want to come up with a compromise but the Tea Party is pulling Boehner too far over to the right and so far over that there is no more fruitful negotiations,” Schumer said on the call. “The only way we can avoid a shutdown is for Boehner to come up with a reasonable compromise and not just listen to what the Tea Party wants.”

Schumer described Boehner as “in a box,” over the budget negotiations.

The four senators came on the call after Schumer abruptly went silent and followed Schumer’s script closely.

Coordinating the message is common in both parties, but it’s uncommon for reporters to actually hear them rehearsing.

(more…)

Jihad du jour.

BAGHDAD (KABC) — A government spokesman says that among those killed in an hours-long siege at a local Iraqi government headquarters were 15 hostages who were slain execution-style before their captors blew themselves up.

The death toll has risen to 34.

Gunmen stormed the building in the Iraqi city of Tikrit on Tuesday wearing military uniforms and suicide bomb belts. The attackers shot several hostages as Iraqi security forces closed in and engaged them in a gun battle.

Three local lawmakers are reportedly among the dead, and at least 65 people were wounded.

“We’ve lost contact with three provincial council members who were inside the building when the attack took place,” provincial governor Ahmed Abdullah said in a telephone interview from Amman, Jordan, where he was receiving updates on the assault via mobile phone.

He described a fierce shootout between at least eight gunmen, who have overtaken the council headquarters’ second floor, and Iraqi security forces who surrounded the building. He said the attackers were hurling grenades at Iraqi forces.

Security officials are blaming al-Qaeda in Iraq for the attack.

The previous “revenge” attacks killed two, destroyed several churches and burned Bibles.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) — An armed group of seven people attacked the Catholic Church of St. Thomas in the military district of Wah, about 45 km from Islamabad. The attack took place at 6.30 pm yesterday, while the security guard was absent. The extremists hurled stones, damaged the building and tried to set fire to it, but they did not shoot. Yesterday’s was the third attack against a church in Pakistan less than a week. The escalation of violence is a result of the mad act — repeatedly condemned by Christians in Pakistan and India — of pastor Wayne Sapp, who last March 20, in Florida burned a copy of the Koran under the supervision of the evangelical preacher Terry Jones.

The extremists were armed, but did not open fire. Unable to break down the door, they tried to set it on fire. The parish priest, Fr Yousaf, rushed to the scene of the attack and tried to reassure the small Christian community. “It’s a reaction — the priest told AsiaNews — to the desecration of the Koran in Florida, although the Catholic community has condemned the act. We pointed out clearly that we have no link with the Americans. At the time of the attack there were no guards, the police are present only on Sundays. ”

The caretaker of the church of St. Thomas confirmed that the attack occurred yesterday, at about 6.30 pm, taking advantage of the absence of the security guard. A group of six or seven armed men broke through a small door and started throwing stones at the windows, smashing the small lamps and tried to break the door. The caretaker called the priest and the police, he is currently still in shock and does not intend to make statements.

When these two finally kick the bucket they will be telling Satan how to run hell.

The professional race-baiters are trying soooo damn hard to stay relevant in the age of Obama.

Via Blaze

Another epic fail for Fearless Leader.

WILLIE GEIST: What’s the reaction there, though, not only from the rebels but if any from Colonel Gaddafi to what the president said last night about not wanting to wait to see images of mass graves and slaughter of civilians before he intervened? What are they saying there?

JIM MACEDA: Well, there hasn’t been any official comment, Willie, from Gaddafi or from the regime or from the compound, yet. I can tell you that the whole, the atmospherics here of the government officials and minders is very different. They had gone to ground for a number of days: very quiet, very tense. They’re looking much more themselves: much more bellicose, much more defiant in the past 24 hours. I would think, it’s an educated guess but I would say that Gaddafi, after hearing that speech, of course it wasn’t on Libyan TV but anyone with satellite television could have watched it, that the regime now is feeling a lot better. That they’re feeling that they dodged a bullet. If NATO’s taking over, they like that. They’ve got much better relations with NATO than with the United States in general. And they love the idea that the US position as stated by Obama is that they’re not looking for regime change. Soon as he heard that, I’m sure Gaddafi was quite excited. He thinks he can probably negotiate his way out of this as he has over the past 41 years in other situations.

And we’re considering arming these people?

(Fox News) — A U.S. NATO commander does not rule out an Al Qaeda presence in the Libya opposition against Muammar al-Qaddafi.

Adm. James Stavridis says that intelligence has shown “flickers” of potential Al Qaeda in opposition groups but that there is still no detailed picture of rebel groups.

“At this point, I don’t have detail sufficient to say there is a significant Al Qaeda presence,” Stavridis, who is NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and also the commander of U.S. European Command, said during Senate testimony Tuesday.

Via Weekly Standard:

Robert Kagan roundly praised President Obama for his speech last night on America’s intervention in Libya:

With his speech tonight, President Obama placed himself in a great tradition of American presidents who have understood America’s special role in the world. He thoroughly rejected the so-called realist approach, extolled American exceptionalism, spoke of universal values and insisted that American power should be used, when appropriate, on behalf of those values. I was particularly pleased to see him place Libya in the context of the Arab Spring. This is the part of the equation that the self-described realists have missed. While in isolation acting to defend the people of Libya against Moammar Gaddafi might not seem imperative, it is in the broader context of the revolutionary moment in the Middle East that U.S. actions take on greater significance. Tonight the president began to place the United States on the right side of the unfolding history in the region….

This was a Kennedy-esque speech.

Keep reading…

Golf clap. . .

(Fox News) — Sen. Dick Durbin prepared to convene a hearing Tuesday morning on the civil rights of Muslims, a move decried as nonsensical by the Republican congressman who held a high-profile hearing earlier in the month on Islamic radicalization.

“This just perpetuates the myth that somehow Muslims are the victim of September 11,” Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told Fox News.

But Durbin, D-Ill., said he called the hearing so that Congress could examine potential civil rights violations particular to Muslims, like Koran burnings and restrictions on mosque construction, as well as hate speech and other forms of discrimination.

Among the witnesses, Durbin plans to call Muslim Advocates President Farhana Khera and Thomas Perez, a top official in the Justice Department’s civil rights division.

Durbin announced the hearing shortly after King finished hosting a panel on the House Homeland Security Committee that examined domestic extremism. Amid claims that his hearing unfairly singled out Muslims, King at the time called on American Muslims to do more to speak out against radicals in their community and work with law enforcement.

While critics of King’s hearing questioned why he didn’t examine other domestic threats like the KKK, King likewise questioned why Durbin wouldn’t examine civil rights violations of other religious groups.

“The best they can do is come back with these hearings by Senator Durbin, which is somehow trying to create the illusion that there’s a violation of civil rights of Muslims in this country. It’s absolutely untrue, and to me it makes no sense,” King said.

She does know that would be breaking the arms embargo we imposed on Libya, right?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said on Tuesday that the Obama administration has not ruled out arming Libya’s rebels as an option for trying to end Muammar Gaddafi’s 41-year rule.

Speaking a day after President Barack Obama defended his Libya strategy in a televised address, Rice said Gaddafi has shown no sign of leaving power without continued pressure from Western powers that have imposed a no-fly zone over Libya and used air strikes to constrain his ground forces.

“Over the long term, as the president said, there are other things that are at our disposal that perhaps will assist in speeding Gaddafi’s exit,” she told CBS’s “The Early Show” as part of a series of TV interviews.

“It may not happen overnight,” she added.

She spoke as more than 40 countries and international organizations gathered in London to chart a post-Gaddafi future for Libya. Britain and Italy suggested he could be allowed to go into exile.

Rice said the United States would maintain financial and diplomatic pressure on the Libyan government until Gaddafi leaves and hinted that new steps could be in the offing, including the arming of Libyan rebels.

“We have not made that decision, but we’ve not certainly ruled that out,” she said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program.

They’ve always said crap like this, the main difference now being the Brotherhood is on the cusp of assuming power.

Buoyed by its new-found legal status under Egypt’s provisional military leadership, the Muslim Brotherhood wants the Supreme Council of the Egyptian armed forces to “break the siege which is suffocating the lives of the people of Gaza.”

The Brotherhood also is demanding that the “Arab peoples must take a decisive stand on this issue.”

In what appears to be a response to the Brotherhood’s appeal, Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Elaraby issued a warning to Israel against rushing into military operations in Gaza.

At the same time, he called on Palestinian groups not to give Israel any excuse to use violence, saying that Egypt condemned any violence against civilians.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s statement, which appeared on its “Ikhwanweb,” said that the revolutions sweeping the Middle East and North Africa reflect “the winds of change that have uprooted the Mubaraks and other U.S.-backed Arab regimes.”

The Brotherhood also is known as the Ikhwan in Arabic.

The statement went on to say that protesters will not be dissuaded from their “fundamental cause of Palestine and other Islamic and Christian sanctities,” explaining that it is time for the “Zionists to review their accounts, after the ouster of their dog, who saw him as the strategic ally and a treasure for Israel that promotes the latter’s policies, and supports their malicious scheme and strikes with its sword.”

Keep reading…

If I was Todd Palin I’d be looking to corner Maher in an alleyway and beat the pulp out of him.

(Daily Caller) — Despite being criticized and even rebuked by the National Organization for Women, HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher isn’t stopping with his slurs directed at female conservatives. And this time, he went after Sarah Palin once again.

According to a March 28 post by Arnold Wayne Jones on The Dallas Voice website, a publication that describes itself as the “premier media source for LGBT Texas,” Maher made a Sunday night appearance at the Winspear Opera House and leveled another attack at the former Alaska governor.

“It’s that fearlessness — he acknowledged that some people would probably be uncomfortable with some of his remarks about religion, not to mention calling Sarah Palin a “cunt” (“there’s just no other word for her”) — that makes Maher the most dangerous person in comedy,” Jones wrote. “He’s painfully well-informed, which means he takes no bullshit from anyone. President Barack Obama took it on the chin almost as much as Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. How dare the President say he would not settle for America being No. 2 — America is already out of the top 10 in most international lifestyle and human rights categories (health care, education, social mobility, women in high political positions). ‘I’d be thrilled if we were No. 2,’ he ranted, noting it’s nice to be behind Bosnia in life expectancy (where the chief cause of death is wolfman attacks, he joked).”

Keep reading…

Of course, because it only cost $600 million for the first week.

(CNN) — GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham was a guest on “Piers Morgan Tonight” and gave his reaction to Pres. Barack Obama’s Libya speech tonight. While some Republicans have criticized Pres. Obama’s Libya response, including Graham earlier in the conflict, he instead turned the tables and criticized those in his own party tonight.

“We made mistakes in Iraq, and to my fellow Republican friends, nobody complained about the cost of Iraq or Afghanistan on our watch,” he told Piers Morgan. “I’m really tired of hearing people talking about ‘it costs too much.’”

As for the rebels: “These people who are fighting Gadhafi, I don’t believe are taking to the streets and risking their lives to replace Gadhafi with al-Qaeda.”

Here’s the AP’s oh-so-subtle attempt at beatifying Chicago Jesus.

President Barack Obama speaks about Libya at the National Defense University in Washington, Monday, March 28, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

And not to be outdone, the AFP gives us this view.

US President Barack Obama speaks about US and NATO involvement in military action against Libya during a speech at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, March 28, 2011. (AFP PHOTO / Saul Loeb)