GOP Candidates Debate Fiction in Iowa

Appears all GOP candidates concur on one fact, the sun does in fact rise in the east, well, Michele Bachman abstains until morning and hopes it is not cloudy.......come on, grandpa is trying to be funny...



Hey, Bachman-Palin ticket could work...BP, just like the eco-friendly oil company...brilliant!





Michele...you need to switch places for the BP

thing to work...come on...







Capitol Hill Blue
By Calvin Woodward-Associated Press
August 12, 2011

Michele Bachman cast her opinion as a settled fact when she told the Republican presidential debate Thursday that a key element of President Barack Obama‘s health care law is unconstitutional. And Mitt Romney danced around an attempt to learn why he stayed largely mum on the epic debt limit standoff between Obama and Congress.

The first big GOP debate of the primary season brought viewers a flurry of claims and counterclaims, not all built on solid ground.

A look at some of those claims and how they compare with the facts:

BACHMANN: Spoke of “the unconstitutional individual mandate” several times, a reference to a requirement for people to carry health insurance, a central element of the 2010 federal health care law.

THE FACTS: Nothing is unconstitutional until courts declare it to be so. The constitutionality of the individual mandate has been challenged in lawsuits in a number of states, and federal judges have found in favor and against. The Supreme Court will probably have the final word. But for now, the individual mandate is ahead in the count. And the first ruling by a federal appeals court on the issue, by the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals in June, upheld the individual mandate.

TIM PAWLENTY: “To correct you, I have not questioned Congresswoman Bachmann’s headaches.”

THE FACTS: Pawlenty was hardly dismissive when news came out about Bachmann’s history of severe headaches, even if he did not go after her directly on the matter. “All of the candidates, I think, are going to have to be able to demonstrate they can do all of the job all of the time,” the former governor said when first asked about the migraines suffered by the congresswoman. “There’s no real time off in that job.”

There was no mistaking that Pawlenty was leaving open the question of whether Bachmann’s health history made her fit to serve as president. But he later tried to clarify his remark, saying he was not challenging her on that front and the flap was merely a “sideshow.” Bachmann says her symptoms are controlled with prescription medication and have not gotten in the way of her campaign or impaired her service in Congress.

The missed facts continue...

Tim Pawlenty says no to Obamacare...well, maybe just $263 million, then I really mean it!

Pawlenty Allows Millions in Federal Health Care Funds

to Flow Into Minnesota Despite His Anti-ObamaCare Order

Amanda Terkel
Huffington Post
9/14/10

Despite Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's (R) recent executive order intended to stop the implementation of federal health care reform in Minnesota, millions of dollars from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will still be flowing into the state, with the governor's blessing. The Huffington Post has learned that the state Department of Health is considering 10 federal grants worth more than $10 million in total and the governor's office is allowing all but two of those grants to go forward, highlighting the fact that Pawlenty is more than willing to take advantage of federal money when it fits his agenda.

Pawlenty has been a vocal critic of federal health care reform, and as spokesman Bruce Gordon explained to the Huffington Post, the governor is "striving to find ways to stop its implementation in Minnesota." But the executive order left the door open to allowing some money from federal health reform to flow into Minnesota, as long as it is required by law or authorized by Pawlenty:

All executive branch departments and agencies are directed that no application shall be submitted to the federal government in connection with requests for grant funding for programs and demonstration projects deriving from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("PPACA" or "the Act") (Pub.L. 111-148) unless otherwise required by law, or approved by the office of the Governor.

As HuffPost previously reported, Pawlenty is largely picking and choosing federal money based on his ideological preferences. While he is refusing to let the Department of Health apply for comprehensive sex education funds, he is allowing the agency to go forward on an abstinence-only education grant, even though it requires the state to spend its own money on a matching grant.

Minnesota state Rep. Erin Murphy (D) pointed to political motivations for Pawlenty's order, saying that in the past, he embraced some of the concepts -- like insurance exchanges -- that he is now rejecting. She said that although some Affordable Care Act money may still come in, the order will nevertheless affect the state. "We're exploring the opportunity of an exchange in Minnesota," she said. "The grants that we passed by would have provided for working groups -- the actuarial analysis how an exchange impacts our insurance market, and we have a lot of expertise around the table, but we don't have that expertise."

Dr. Lynn Blewett, a University of Minnesota health policy expert who is part of the health insurance exchange working group referenced by Murphy, said that, ironically, Pawlenty's order may have the effect of bringing more federal authority into Minnesota. Blocking the grant will not prevent the state from moving forward with exchanges, but rather, according to Blewett, force the working group to make decisions with the existing data it has. In the case that it won't be able to agree on a state exchange, Minnesota would default to a federal exchange. "It's interesting because it's exactly what he doesn't want to happen," said Blewett. "But by saying no, we're not going to do this, most of the stuff defaults to the federal government."

Pawlenty has been a sharp critic of the federal government's "reckless spending," but in addition to these selected funds from the Affordable Care Act, the governor has accepted $263 million in Medicaid funds, even though they were part of a federal spending package he previously bashed. The Huffington Post contacted Pawlenty's office but did not receive a response.