Obama Now Selling Judgeships for Health Care Votes?

That appears to be the case according to The Weekly Standard.  

Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he's obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson's brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Congressmen Matheson has opposed Obamacare from the beginning.  He voted against it in Energy and Commerce Committee, he voted against it on the House floor.  But now, just days before it was announced that President Obama has appointed Congressmen Matheson’s brother to a life long judgeship, Matheson is “undecided” on how he will vote on the reconciled health care bill.

This isn’t the first time the Obama administration has been accused of felony ethics violations. 

Just last week we told you about accusations made by Democrat U.S. Representative Joe Sestak, who stated that the Obama White House offered him a “high-ranking” government appointment if he would drop out of his Senate primary race in Pennsylvania.

On another occasion, the Denver Post reported that Andrew Romanoff, another Democrat, was offered a high level appointment in the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) if he would drop out of his Colorado Senate primary bid.

Rep. Bachmann (R-MN) appears to be the first to call for a full investigation into the allegations:

A big question that has to be addressed right now… is what in the world is going on in the White House? Because today, the president offered a judgeship to the brother of a member of Congress. Tonight, the president has that same member of Congress at the White House pressuring him to change his vote on health care. We really need to have an independent investigation into this matter. Because we've seen the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, the union loophole and now the big question is, is the White House trading health care votes for judgeships? This is a pretty serious issue...

The White House and Rep. Matheson were quick to dismiss the charges as “absurd” and “patently ridiculous”.

We guess we’ll have to wait to find out what the truth is when Rep. Matheson casts his vote.  If he votes yes, based on his prior objections to the bill, one can only be left to infer that a deal had indeed been struck to trade a federal judgeship for a health care vote.

Prohibition Returns to Kansas

Late last week, Marvin Kleeb, former Johnson County Republican Party treasurer, crossed the aisle to join with other Kansas we-know-better-than-you Democrat and Republican politicans to pass a state-wide smoking ban.

REPUBLICANS VOTING YES: Pat Colloton, Leawood;  Barbara Bollier, Mission Hills; Jill Quigley and Ron Worley, both of Lenexa; Mike Kiegerl, Olathe; Sheryl Spalding and Marvin Kleeb, both of Overland Park; and Kay Wolf, Prairie Village.

REPUBLICANS VOTING NO : Anthony Brown, Eudora; Owen Donohoe, Shawnee; Lance Kinzer, Rob Olson, Scott Schwab and Arlen Siegfreid, all of Olathe; Ray Merrick, Stilwell; and Connie O’Brien, Tonganoxie. 

REPUBLICANS NOT VOTING: Kevin Yoder, Overland Park. 

DEMOCRATS VOTING YES: Lisa Benlon, Dolores Furtado and Gene Rardin, all of Overland Park; Cindy Neighbor, Shawnee; Mike Slattery, Mission; Milack Talia, Merriam; Melanie Meier, Leavenworth; Valdenia Winn, Louis Ruiz, Margaret Long, Broderick Henderson, Stan Frownfelter, Tom Burroughs, all of Kansas City; Marti Crow, Leavenworth.

DEMOCRATS VOTING NO: Mike Peterson, Kansas City.[1]

Many Kansas cities have already enacted ordinance banning the completely legal act of smoking under the guise that bans improve health standards.  Proponents of bans quickly jumped on on the news of a recent study by Dr. David Meyers of KU Medical Center which appeared to show a 17% reduction in heart attacks in cities with smoking bans in order to push for a state-wide ban.

However, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology soon issued a retraction after the mass publicization of the study.  It seems that the data was skewed because of of an incorrect value carelessly entered into a single field.  The result of correcting the data lowered the reported reduction in heart attack rates from 17% to 8%, a virtually identical rate of reduction to those cities with no smoking ban at all.  The retraction went unreported by those same mass media conglomerates that trumpeted the original findings.

Another study by the European Journal of Epidemiology found absolutely no link with heart attacks and smoking bans.

Meanwhile, a new study is being circulated among leftwing media outlets that says Kansas would stand to benefit, to the tune of $74.7 million a year, if they were to enact a tax increase on cigarettes.

So on one hand Kansas politicians are telling you that you are too dumb not to protect yourself by not smoking or going to place that cater to smokers and they therefore have to ban the use of cigarettes, but on the other hand they would like that extra money from a new tax increase on cigarettes so it appears they are okay with going ahead smoking as long as they don’t have to see it.

Everyone knows that once a tax is enacted it never goes away.  And the result of raising taxes on cigarettes will give the state government new source of revenue that they will quickly spend and be unwilling to do without.  While they are actively trying to eliminate the use of smoking through bans, the consequence of which will be to also eliminate the new source of income they’be become addicted to, which will ultimately result in increases of taxes to compensate.

If Kansas do-gooder politicians truly believed that smoking was that bad for your health and that only banning smoking would get you to quit, the only correct course of action would be an outright ban on tobacco sales in the state of Kansas.  But then if they did that, they would lose out on the tobacco tax gravy train they are trying to use to fill all the budget holes in the sinking ship they call the Kansas government.

Mrs. Dennis Moore for Congress?

Prime Buzz thinks Stephene Moore, a.k.a. Mrs. Dennis Moore, may soon announce her candidacy for Kansas 3rd congressional district.

Retiring Democratic Congressman Dennis Moore threw out two words Saturday that give his party renewed hope of holding onto the 3rd District seat.

"Stay tuned."

Moore uttered those words today in Topeka at the party's annual Washington Days gathering. They were directed at the potential prospects of his wife, Stephene, who is apparently considering a run to succeed her husband.

In the words of old G.W., “Bring it on!”

UPDATE: 4:33 PM cst - It would seem Stephene's impending run is becoming more and more of a reality. She has already taken down her Facebook profile in an effort to bury anything that her challengers might use against her.

We guess she is not quite ready to exit the ritzy Washington socialite scene...