Senator Lamar Alexander: HHS Chief Kathleen Sebelius Sold Arms To Iran To Fund Obamacare

Why is total mob capo of theDHSHHS Kathleen Sebelius shaking down companies to send arms to Iran so it can rape Nicaraguan nuns? This is an excellent question, one posed just this week by Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, previously known for being the boring guy who ran for president before Jon Huntsman whose most exciting personality quirk was wearing plaid. Here, let us let ThinkProgress parse it at ya.

In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) charged that Sebelius circumvented Congress’ refusal to provide funds for the administration’s health care law by raising those dollars from outside groups, just as “Col. North was accused of using money raised in an arms-for-hostages swap with Iran to fund and work with private organizations providing military support to rebel armies in Nicaragua.” [...]

“With Iran-Contra, Congress had also prohibited support for the rebels, while in the case of health-care funding, Congress has refused to provide the amounts that the administration has asked for,”Alexander wrote.“But the principle and the legal prohibitions are the same.”Republican chairmen and ranking Republicans on five congressional committees have asked the Government Accountability Office to look into the matter.

Well, we certainly don't see any difference there, do you? Certainly not that one was secretly selling arms to a hostile nation, to secretly fund an outfit that Congress had specifically prohibited funding because of all the nun-raping, and that the other was getting funds for something that was in fact legislated by Congress? Hahaha, just kidding, that would be a stupid contrast.

Does the Obama administration say this is all square and aboveboard? Well, what would you expect them to say? 

Obama administration officials insist that Sebelius was following authority laid out in the Public Health Service Act — which allows the secretary to “support by grant or contract (and to encourage others to support) private nonprofit entities working in health information and health promotion, preventive health services, and education in the appropriate use of health care” — but “has made no fundraising requests to entities regulated by HHS.” The New York Times reported on May 12 that Sebelius did solicit donations from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and H&R Block.

BURN HER.

Oh, is there anything that could turn this story from superfuckingdumb analogy that wilfully misunderstands the nature of the two cases and conflates them ridiculously, into "holy shitballs that is some brass ones lying"?

MAYBE!

In 1991, while serving as Secretary of Education for President George H. W. Bush, Alexander actively and enthusiastically sought private dollars to fund the administration’s education initiative, America 2000. Alexander crisscrossed the country to sell the program after Congress failed to approve Bush’s education funding request.

But it is totally different, Alexander argues, because it just is. 

[ WSJ, via ThinkProgress ]