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Gruber certainly got around, didn’t he? — 38 Comments

1. The Daily Mail is now reporting that Gruber has been paid more than $5.9 millionfor his expertise and services. Unfrigging believable. *sigh* Who am I kidding?

   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2835384/Obamacare-architect-Jonathan-Gruber-billed-federal-state-governments-5-9-million-advice-videos-surface-showing-undercutting-landmark-law.html

2. Some have suggested congressional hearings with mister know it all testifying under oath. That would make great political theater and keep the deceptive passage of ocare in the headlines. Coupled with the looming rate hikes and the first portion of the employer mandate kicking in come January; the republicans can take a hint from my new senator. 😉

3. Gruber is fast becoming the most hated man in America. Good thing he has all that money. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if MIT encourages him to retire, or go on extended sabbatical.

4. Romney thought Romneycare was his ticket to the White House. Think about that for a moment. His signature achievement was government run healthcare. Would any conservative really think that was an achievement? And did he really fight dems to get the best deal possible? Really? He seemed awfully happy on that stage. He thanked Gruber, so he wasn’t actually at odds with him. It wasn’t like this was something he was reluctant to sign. Spin it all you want neo, but you cannot polish crap.

5. There are three tags to pin on Gruber.
   1. Ivy League elitist. He’s an elitist academic grubbing money from the taxpayers that he believes are stupid.
   2. Anti-democracy ideologue. He’s a man who despises representative democracy believing, as so many progs do, that the citizens work for the government.
   3. Liar. He doesn’t mind lying to people if it will accomplish what he wants.

   That said, I’m happy that he loves shooting his mouth off.

6. So it seems that an economics degree from MIT includes a healthy course load of lying and deception.
   Why did the government need to hire a guy with a degree for this? It’s. Not like Washington has a shortage of people imminently qualified for that job.
   The only thing separating Mr Gruber from Mr Ponzi, Bernie Madoff, Enron, etc. , is he was hired by the government to rip off as many Americans as possible. I suppose if you’re just ripping off Americans for your own enrichment, it’s a crime. When you do it for the federal government, you’re a highly sought after contract employee.
   If I were a lawyer defending a client on charges of fraud and conspiracy, I would use Obamcare and Mr Gruber as part of my defense.

7. One other issue that seems to be swept under the rug in the comparison between Romneycare and Obamacare is that Romneycare worked because Ted Kennedy saw to it that the state received an infusion of cash from the federal government to make it work (was this Gruber’s admission or Romney’s? I forget).

   At any rate, the federal govt has nowhere to go for a cash infusion since it is at the top of the cash chain. Sure it could simply print more, but it was doing that with “quantative easing” already. The only other alternative would be to double-count cash; of course it tried to do that, too, and was immediately called on it.

8. “(3) Therefore Romney must have used Gruber in the same way: to lie about what was in Romneycare. Numbers 1 and 2 are correct, but number 3 does not necessarily follow, although of course it could be true.”

   Romney lied about RomneyCare fine without any help from Gruber:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgfr1yBmsQ4

9. Gruber has demonstrated his willingness–nay eagerness–to lie. But that doesn’t mean he always lies.

   Right. I believe he was completely truthful when he was bragging about his mendacious crafting of the Obamacare legislation.

10. Once again we see how grossly overrated raw intelligence is. As a professor at MIT, Gruber almost certainly has a very high IQ–yet look at how astonishingly stupid his behavior is: at a time when every cell phone is a potential video-recorder–and anything can be quickly uploaded to the internet and found by everyone–Professor Genius shoots his mouth off at multiple events, boasting about how he hoodwinked those stupid Americans with his cleverly deceptive legislation. Good thinking there, professor!

    But I’d bet this was almost inevitable. The esteemed professor was probably about to burst, not having revealed his uber-intelligence at having scammed the entire nation. After all, what good is being superior unless everyone knows and appreciates your magnificence?

11. As has been said for 6 years now, Biden is impeachment insurance.

12. May this be the first of many such revelations.

    President Crafted Obamacare Deception With Gruber At White House Meeting
    “President Obama personally crafted a major Obamacare deception with Jonathan Gruber at one of Gruber’s numerous White House meetings, according to a 2012 Gruber interview with PBS… the professor admitted that he worked together with the president in the Oval Office to conceal the political impact of their plan to get more tax revenue out of employer-sponsored health insurance plans by imposing a new “Cadillac tax” on companies.”
    http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/14/president-crafted-obamacare-deception-with-gruber-at-white-house-meeting/

13. Hmm, I haven’t seen all the videos but it is my understanding that Grubber impugned Mitt Romney’s intelligence, as well. I take that to be an indication that Romney did not roll over and submit.
    As for Romneycare, most of us know that what, Romney signed, is ….NOT what was implemented. 6 of his vetoes were OVERRIDEN by the legislature.
    From Avik Roy, National review: “Two of the critical differences between what Romney sought and what Democrats achieved involve the Massachusetts law’s twin mandates on individuals and employers to purchase health insurance. Romney vetoed the employer mandate in Massachusetts; Democrats in the legislature overrode his veto. Obamacare did not follow Romney’s model in this key regard: The Affordable Care Act includes an employer mandate.
    Romney sought to require everyone to buy …..CATASTROPHIC….. insurance in order to cover emergency care; however, the Patrick administration implemented the law so as to force everyone to buy costly, ……COMPREHENSIVE…. insurance. Obamacare, once again, did not follow Romney’s model: The Affordable Care Act requires people to buy comprehensive coverage.
    As I write in the piece, Romney erred in supporting an individual mandate. It’s a loaded gun that, in the hands of people with a different philosophy, will be used to force people to buy insurance that they don’t need, and to subsidize others who have been less responsible. Ironically, it is Deval Patrick’s departure from Romney’s approach to the mandate – forcing people to buy COMPREHENSIVE coverage far in excess of their needs – that may be Obamacare’s undoing in the Supreme Court.”April, 2012
    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/295876/obama-campaign-celebrates-romneycares-6th-birthday-avik-roy

14. Steve:

    We’ve duked this out a million times on this blog. Romney was governor of Massachusetts, and Massachusetts was bent on health care reform that was worse than Romneycare. He made it better than it otherwise would have been, and then the legislature and his successor as governor made it worse again.

    Gruber was a consultant, and there’s no indication he did anything untoward in connection with Romneycare, or that lies had anything to do with Romneycare. Gruber was the heap big expert in Massachusetts in the field at the time, and probably an obvious choice to consult. Obamacare came afterward. Or was Romney supposed to be able to foretell the future, as you no doubt are able to do?

15. Gary:

    But look how long he was able to get away with it. It’s only because one guy dug deep into the files on Gruber that the videos have been highlighted at this point. And even now I’d bet most people are unaware of them, because the MSM is keeping relatively quiet about it.

    So he probably thought there would be few if any consequences, and felt safe saying exactly what he was saying.

16. Here is a post from Legal Insurrection:
    LTMG:
    And the English lexicon grows: “He’s a gruber.” “CNN is grubering the news again.” “I was grubered by the IRS.” “I’m grubered again!” “Advertising job available — part-time gruber.” And gruber could become a less vulgar substitute for another expression, e.g. “mothergruber”.

17. I am still waiting for the media to acknowledge that the “stupid” voters that Gruber counted on are the liberals and Democrats who supported Obamacare. Implication: those who opposed Obamacare were the smart ones who were able to see through the flimflammery. I suspect that one big reason most of the MSM is not publicizing Gruber is that they realize this, and running his videos would be to admit it.

18. Neo:

    Slightly off topic, but do you recall, were the citizens in Mass thrown off their existing policies in order to increase the ranks of the uninsured and force them on to Mass Health? I have no recollection of anything like that happening. I also believe that Romney had the intent of making “group” rates available to consumers in the “individual market”, which would have been a great boon to them, if it hadn’t been gutted.

19. Gruberish; any claim by the current administration.
    More on Gruberish, although I see Mrs Whatsit was there first:: all the claims by the current administration:
    http://springeraz.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-fine-art-of-grubering.html?m=1
    Thursday, November 13, 2014
    The Fine Art Of Grubering
    Jonathan Gruber is referred to as the “architect” of Obamacare. His approach to selling the idea to Americans is summed up here in a quote by him:
    “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass….Americans are too stupid to understand…”
    If cynicism and moral bankruptcy were Olympic sports, Jonathan Gruber would have at least two golds locked up. If there was a Hall of Fame for a sport called “Contempt for American Citizens”, they would put a statue of him in front of it. In a country run by socialist wannabes who aspire to complete control, where the end always justifies the means and the concept of integrity is a joke, this guy has some stiff competition, but he’s way ahead on points.

    So now a new word has entered the national lexicon. If you buy a car that turns out to be a piece of junk, you’ve been “grubered”. A “gruberism” is a lie concocted by the left for the purpose of keeping voters in the dark, at least until the next election.

    Gruber verb \groo-burr\
    : To tell a lie deliberately with the intent of misleading.
    : To misinform people based on the belief that they are too stupid to understand the wisdom of your position.

    example: To conceal the truth about Obamacare it was necessary to gruber the entire nation.
    noun
    : A calculated mistruth intended to deceive listeners

    example: The explanation given in favor of Obamacare was one huge gruber from one end to the other.

    Gruberish noun \groo-burr-esh\
    : Any bewildering deluge of falsehoods designed to confound an audience based on the speaker’s awareness that the truth must be concealed by any means necessary.

    example: A preposterous mountain of gruberish was put forth intended to hide the fact that the entire nation had been grubered about Obamacare.

20. Exasperated:

    If the standard is “telling lies so that people will buy your product, and not realize the error until it’s too late” — well then, I think President Obama has been speaking Gruberish for some time. It may be his native language.

    (I don’t often have nice things to say about President Obama’s behavior and his character, but I’ll give him this — he knows when to keep his mouth shut, and he can do it. Gruber, as memorably described at powerlineblog.com, has a mouth as big as all outdoors.)

21. Unfortunately Gruber’s assertion:
    “stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was what was really, really critical for the the thing to pass…”
    is fundamentally true. There was plenty of debate and many credible people shouting at the top of their lungs that Obamacare was a sham. They voted for something that even it’s supporters publicly admitted they had not read, and could not talk about intelligently. They voted for Obama twice in spite of the mess our economy was in, unemployment at record highs, and scandals of incompetency, any one of which would have given an intelligent voter a reason to recognize things needed to change. Instead, they voted for more of the same and got it.
    I would not be surprised if these revelations have no Impact on the American voter in 2016. The democrats are actually looking forward to it, and keep pointing out that the electoral map will bring into play the stupid states, and the stupid people, who “just don’t turn out in mid-term elections.”
    Stupid being the other word for their base.

22. “But that doesn’t mean he always lies.”

    Perhaps not, but it’s certainly the way to bet. And if he’s speaking about health care, his statements should be bracketed until a second and third source proves him true.

23. Exasperated:

    It is serendipitous that the word “gruberish” sounds so much like “gibberish.” Nice.

24. Maybe the American people need to file a class action suit and sue the Obama administration for fraud.

    What private business would be able to get away with this level of consumer misrepresentation?

25. he probably thought there would be few if any consequences, and felt safe saying exactly what he was saying

    The watershed event for me was Nancy Pelosi saying “we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what’s in it” and yet not be hounded off the national stage, so I can see how folks like Gruber felt free to speak openly about their machinations.

26. Also: Grube noun \groobe\

    : a gullible or easily fooled person

    for the rubes taken in by Gruber.

27. Apparently, no one was more surprised to hear about Gruber and his shenanigans than Obama. Really. Even after the Frontline clip where Gruber specifically mentions discussions with Obama about the mandate being a political problem:

    “I just heard about this,” Obama said at a new conference, after wrapping up two days of meetings with world leaders here at the G-20 Summit. “The fact that some adviser who never worked on our staff expressed his opinion that I completely disagree with – it is no reflection on the actual process that was run.”

    http://preview.tinyurl.com/n4fbz6d

    I say call Gruber to testify if only to ask him how many times he visited the WH to consult on Obamacare, who was in each meeting, and the content of his discussions with Obama. And then compare his testimony to WH logs & Obama’s schedule.

28. “But that doesn’t mean he always lies.”
    Old legal axiom, false in one, false in all.
    Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus.

29. Neo wrote:

    But look how long he was able to get away with it. It’s only because one guy dug deep into the files on Gruber that the videos have been highlighted at this point.

    I know the story of how Rich Weinstein dug up the videos. It was some good internet sleuthing, but straightforward enough that any determined and internet-savvy person could have done it. IMHO, Gruber was very, very lucky that the videos did not turn up sooner. But they did, and now he’s got a sh*tstorm on his hands to deal with (and would have even if it took another year or two for them to become public).

    And even now I’d bet most people are unaware of them [the videos], because the MSM is keeping relatively quiet about it.

    If nothing else, this scandal is quite harmful to Gruber, right? Would you want this kind of dung-heap sitting on your reputation?

    Gruber played Russian roulette with his own reputation and lost. And without being Pollyanna-ish about this, these videos surely do not help the cause of Obamacare. Sounds like pretty dumb behavior to me.

    So he probably thought there would be few if any consequences, and felt safe saying exactly what he was saying.

    I considered this perspective before I wrote my comment–and stand by my judgment that he was stupidly reckless. Do you really think broadcasting this kind of gross cynicism (at least three times that we know of, maybe more) and then just hoping it never comes out is a smart strategy?

    No. Gruber is probably a very intelligent man who did something very stupid. Most likely a case of hubris trumping IQ.

30. Ray:

    That legal rule is irrelevant here.

    Here’s the legal rule:

    Like its federal counterpart, New Jersey Rule of Evidence 613 allows for a witness to be impeached through evidence of a prior inconsistent statement. One a witness has been so impeached, a judge might give the jury the following charge:

    “If you believe that any witness or party willfully or knowingly testified falsely to any material facts in the case, with intent to deceive you, you may give such weight to his or her testimony as you may deem it is entitled. You may believe some of it, or you may, in your discretion, disregard all of it.”

    It is a rule of evidence that only applies in the following circumstances (a) a trial, in which (b) a witness has testified, and (c) has contradicted him/herself in his/her testimony. Then, the judge can make the above statement to the jury, to the effect that the jury members have the discretion to believe all the testimony, some of the testimony, or none of the testimony.

    In this case, the subject matter is Obamacare. We only know that Gruber (and others designing the bill, or in the administration, or in the legislature, or on that side in general) lied or at least twisted the truth to sell Obamacare to the American public and get a good CBO scoring. But even according to the “false in one, false in all” rule (if this were some sort of trial), the jury member would have discretion to make the judgment as to whether to disregard all or even any of the witness’ other statements, or to believe them. But more importantly, in the case of Gruber (or actually, any other case), there is nothing in the rule that says it applies to any other situation in which the witness has been involved; just the matter of this particular trial.

    One certainly can believe liars tend to lie not just in one situation but in many. But the liar usually has to have a motive (unless he/she is a sociopathic pathological liar who llikes to lie just for fun, which doesn’t appear to be Gruber’s problem). In Gruber’s case, there was (as I have said) no equivalent motivation to lie about Romneycare. There was no one who needed convincing, and so few Republicans that they were essentially irrelevant, and the fact situation was different in many many other respects as well.

    A witness in a trial may be lying during that trial for a particular purpose, but that certainly doesn’t mean (either legally, or logically, or psychologically) that that person is lying in another situation that looks superficially similar but is in fact not similar at all, and where he/she has no motive to lie.

31. The faculty at MIT must all be professional liars. In order to determine the rate of inflation, the Federal Reserve uses the Billion Prices Project from…guess where…MIT. The Fed keeps telling the “Stupid American Public” that there is no inflation, even though it’s obvious to the most casual observer that there is. They’re Grubering us with these phony inflation numbers.

32. Gruber felt safe speaking (bragging really) about what he and other Obama officials had done. He spoke it seems exclusively at lefty media symposiums, academic meetings, and at Democratic controlled state and local hearings. He was surrounded by like minded people and felt completely safe in uttering such offensive, amoral, and unethical trash talk. He was advertising his pump and dump scam spreadsheet. Next it needs to be determined if his services were also sold to insurers or providers trying to get in on the federal “dollar” action. I suspect buyers thought buying his funny numbers model was access to the Obama circle and for all we know at this stage it was.

33. Exasperated:
    It is serendipitous that the word “gruberish” sounds so much like “gibberish.” Nice.

    Neo:
    Which I could take the credit but it is from the springeraz blog.
    However, like Mrs Whatsit, I did notice the similarity between rubes and Grubes, really quite handy.

34. Gary wrote:
    “No. Gruber is probably a very intelligent man who did something very stupid. ”

    A father of a kid I grew up with had a great term for these people: “Intellectual Idiots”. He was a WWII ace, pilot and then senior flight instructor for UAL. A no -nonsense sort of guy; RIP. After spending my 30 years in academia, I now understand he was spot on with that description.

35. Sheesh. old timers disease, I guess. The previous post should read
    Neo:
    … Wish… I could take the credit but it is from the springeraz blog…….

36. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/18/obamacare-whopping-cadillac-tax-under-fire/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29

    Only now Fox is writing up what I posted days ago: Cadillac plans are UNION plans.

    Very few corporate executives have Cadillac plans — which are oriented towards mass enrolments.

    There are just not that many highly paid executives in the nation — certainly not in comparison to union memberships.

    The only viable solution: Cadillac plans will disappear — taking the purported tax revenues with them.

37. Gruber is really a tax-man.

    That’s where he’s focused all of his econometric efforts.

    That’s the product he was selling.

38. Several days downstream, the MSM are focusing on the word “stupidity” as a way of drawing attention away from the demonstrable falsehoods Gruber says were used to sell Obamacare.
    Which is the bigger story here: Gruber’s actual comments, or the way the mainstream media have downplayed and spun them? Because of the damage being done to the country by similar coverage of a broad spectrum of issues, I say the latter.

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