The Criminal Origins of Obamacare

We've all heard about the disgraceful under-the-table politics that were associated with ramming Obamacare through the US Senate.  The "Cornhusker Kickback" and "Louisiana Purchase" whereby Yea votes were purchased from the Senators of Nebraska and Louisiana are among the many noxious aspects of Obamacare.  Thanks to alert bloggers, we didn't even have to wait until it was passed to learn about these foul deeds.

We weren't totally surprised when the Massachusetts legislature changed the rules for filling Senate vacancies so they could appoint a Democrat who would vote "Yea" without having read the new law or even been involved in the debates.  This got Obamacare through the Senate even though the law it passed was quite different from the House version.  When the Taxachusetts voters elected a permanent Senator who was not only Republican, but had run on the express platform of ensuring that Obamacare wouldn't become law, we thought that the electorate had finally killed the monster.

Instead of taking the hint, however, the Democratic leadership used a parliamentary maneuver to amend the bill that had already passed the Senate and have the House pass it.  This gave President Obama something to sign.  It remains one of the most divisive, contentious acts of our government, surpassing even Roe v Wade in terms of heated popular rejection and legal challenges by state governments.

The Back Story

Obamacare passed the Senate only because the Democrats had a veto-proof majority at the time.  They were unable to persuade a single Republican to support it, but they didn't need to.  Just one fewer Democrat in the Senate would have spared our nation enormous conflict.  We've discussed the vote fraud that put Sen. Franken (D) in office where he provided that crucial 60th vote.

Sen. Franken wasn't the only questionable vote for Obamacare, however.  In October 2008, just before the election, Alaskan Republican Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted of improperly accepting gifts from oil companies.  He narrowly lost the election to Mark Begich (D) who also provided a crucial 60th vote for Obamacare.

It soon turned out that the Justice Department attorneys committed "willful and intentional misconduct" during the trial.  A few months later, Judge Emmet Sullivan, who had presided over the trial, overturned the conviction when he found out about the misconduct.  He said from the bench, "I have never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I have seen in this case."

Among other things, the prosecutors intentionally hid evidence proving Sen. Stevens' innocence and sat quietly in their seats while one of their witnesses gave damning testimony that they knew to be false.  Not even a sitting Senator can survive that sort of out-and-out government-sponsored fraud.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the special investigation Judge Sullivan ordered is complete.  The report has been delivered, but only a summary has been made public.

Judge Sullivan's special investigator, Washington lawyer Henry F. Schuelke III, found the prosecution was "permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence" that would have corroborated the longtime Republican senator's defense, according to the judge's synopsis.

The government has more resources than any individual citizen, no matter how wealthy or powerful.  For that reason, prosecutors are required to give the defense any evidence that might serve to show that the defendant was innocent.

What's more, this so-called "exculpatory evidence" must be turned over in a timely manner.  Instead of turning over the evidence, the government's lawyers deliberately concealed it and submitted evidence they knew to be false.

Shockingly, the special investigator didn't recommend prosecution:

Nevertheless, Mr. Schuelke didn't recommend a criminal contempt prosecution because he said the attorneys never disobeyed a "clear and unequivocal" order by the judge.

In other words, even though the judge had scolded the prosecution repeatedly, he never gave them an explicit order to turn over any evidence they might have had.  The investigator argued that the miscreants ought not to be prosecuted because the judge didn't give them an individual and personal command to actually follow the law they were sworn to uphold.

What hair-splitting!  Shouldn't judges assume that the lawyers who're appearing in their courts have at lest some passing familiarity with the rules of evidence and understand their obligation not to promote perjury?  Shouldn't this be even more true of lawyers employed by our federal government's Justice Department?   Maybe it's time we changed its name to something more appropriate - the Ministry of Love, say.

Obamacare owes its existence to political payoffs to reluctant Senators, vote rigging in Minnesota, and "willful and intentional misconduct" during the trial of a Republican senator.  Is it any wonder that the American people want no part of it?  Yet there it sits, diabolically churning forward.  2012 can't come too soon for us.