ACORNing the navigators
by digby
One thing the Democrats have going for them with this Obamacare rollout controversy: the Republicans. They are inevitably so completely over-the-top with their criticism that they force at least half the country to defend the program even if they don't want to.
This, for instance, makes me want to hit someone:
Cornyn called on the Obama administration to shutter the navigator program altogether, citing Sebelius's testimony and a video by the conservative activist group known as Project Veritas, which is overseen by James O'Keefe, which purportedly shows a navigator encouraging one of their clients to lie on their insurance application.
O'Keefe, you might remember, was responsible for the deceptively edited video that led to the resignation of an Agriculture Department employee (and litigation against Andrew Breitbart, who published it) and other notorious gotcha videos.
"It is simply astounding that the administration is urging the American people to give their Social Security numbers and sensitive personal information to people who have not been properly vetted," Cornyn said on the Senate floor. “We need to also dismantle the navigators program before it unleashes a wave of fraud and corruption.”
Rubio has also gotten in on the action. He introduced legislation Nov. 7 that would, among other things, require background checks for navigators. In a Miami Herald op-ed last week, he further stoked fears of fraud and malfeasance on the part of navigators -- though he had no specific examples to give.
The exploitation of innocent Americans by felonious navigators was simply, in Rubio's words, inevitable.
"As time goes on, we will inevitably see more cases of people fraudulently posing as navigators, collecting personal information and then exploiting innocent victims," he wrote. "This is a recipe for people falling prey to fraud, identity theft or gross incompetence by those operating as Obamacare navigators."
I think the answer to this controversy is to arm all the navigators. Then the GOP would be forced to leave them alone.
The fact is that this is all about something very, very ugly. To right wingers, "felons" is a code word for African American. O'Keefe's hoaxes are always about African Americans. Much of the right wing antipathy toward "government workers" stems from the fact that the government employs many African Americans. This is what they do. In fact, it's so woven into right wing anti-government philosophy that I'm not sure that most of them are even consciously aware of it. (Cornyn and O'Keefe certainly are --- Rubio might just be too dumb.)
This is ACORN nonsense and I hope the Democrats have enough chutzpah to tell these Republicans to pound sand this time. Unfortunately, they never seem to learn this lesson.
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