Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' refusal to testify on Obamacare before the House Budget Committee is "raising serious questions" about the administration's "commitment to transparency and accountability," committee chairman Paul Ryan says.What?!?
Well, we know that the House Budget Committee Chairman is not an idiot, so the question is, at the very least, rhetorical. The answer is buck nakie obvious: Kathleen Sebelius, the "national health chief," is one of Barack Obama's top lieutenants; he and his Regime are unrepentant royalists who look upon congressional Democrats as pawns and drones and congressional Republicans as either non-entities or insects to be roach-moteled, and anything but partial controllers of a co-equal branch of government to whom respect, at the very least, must be paid.
So of course, Cruella Devile won't testify. She'll stonewall just like Eric "The Red" Holder and every other Obama stooge has done for the past five years. And there we get to Paul Ryan's intent in asking the question - because this isn't the first time he's asked it:
Ryan said he plans to release several letters dating back to August 15 that show a pattern of Sebelius refusing to testify before his committee on the progress of implementing the healthcare reform law....
In the August 15 letter, he asked her to appear before his committee on September 11, but her staff said she was unavailable, reports Fox News.
A week later, on August 22, Ryan asked her for an organizational chart of Obamacare implementation efforts, offices involved, number of full-time employees working on it, and all relevant spending items.
He asked for the list by September 11, but it never came, according to Fox.
I'm more than a smidge puzzled, given the Regime's graven-in-stone SOP of contemptuous defiance of legitimate, legal, constitutionally-mandated congressional oversight of the Executive Branch, why Chairman Ryan feels compelled to establish a fresh baseline of the same imperious crap they've been pulling like a masturbation addict for the past five years. But fine, the raspberry baseline has been established. Time to forget the "letters of request" and "polite notes of inquiry" and cut right to the bellicose subpoenas - which the Regime will ignore as well, of course, but which will also turn up the heat, the publicity level, and provide the stage, now that the public context has been so well established, from which the kind of questions about the OCare disaster can be asked - loudly - that neither the White House nor congressional Donks want aired, and which the public will demand.
That, as an added bonus, can in turn pave the way for another ObamaCare battle that can actually make some progress towards rollback, retaking the Senate next year, and outright repeal in 2017 - or even sooner.
This, my friends, is what is meant by "strategy". In political war, you cannot advance without first generating momentum. And more often than not, momentum is initiated by the opposition's unforced errors. It is now up to Paul Ryan and his fellow Pachyderms to take that momentum and disabuse President Popeil of the comforting delusion that he gained anything from Shutdowngeddon but a prelude to his own presidency's functional termination.
UPDATE: Chairman Ryan, this is what being "Mr. Nice Guy" gets you:
The Director of the Office of Health reform at the Department of Health and Human Services, will brief House Democrats only Wednesday about the ObamaCare fiasco in a closed door session.In other words, it's a PR strategy session so everybody will be on the same page and the White House can control its Narrative. We can count on that message bearing a heavy emphasis on demanding that the GOP help them "fix" ObamaCare to ensure "health care for the American people" and warning Republicans against "rooting for the ACA's failure".
Or, in short, stampeding them....into Ted Cruz's waiting arms, if they know what's good for them.
Best get a leg up on those subpoenas, Paul. You're gonna need a blizzard of 'em.
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