I was somewhere on the Volga River listening via Skype™ to Reality Check Radio, guest hosted by Bill Bryan (aka Foggy), this past September 24. There were two notable things on the show. One was Foggy’s announcement that he was becoming certified to use the federal Health Insurance Marketplace and would be assisting folks in his state to sign up for insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). The second was some fairly derisive remarks about Sharon Rondeau, the editor of The Post & Email web site. Foggy and Dr. Ken Noisewater focused on how gullible she was in publishing an article created to see how crazy an article she would publish.
Now Rondeau strikes back in an article at The Post and Email, “Report: Look Who Is An Obamacare Navigator; Obama ID Fraud Defender,” The P&E is a pay subscription site, but this was reprinted at Obama Release Your Records).
A cursory review of the article suggests that it was intended to put Foggy in the worst possible light, but not to cross the line into actual defamation. It consists of selected facts connected with innuendo. The subject of the story is Foggy’s new job enrolling people for ObamaCare. The article focuses on Foggy’s “hammer and sickle” hat, some past health problems, his web site’s negative view of birthers in general, and how much information ABOUT YOU, the health care “navigators” can access. (I can’t vouch for the accuracy of any of her claims about the role of insurance “navigators.”) Foggy isn’t, however, a navigator, but a licensed insurance agent currently representing Blue Cross/Blue Shield. I hope Foggy signs up lots of folks and gets lots of commissions.
Rondeau mentions me in passing as evidence that “‘Obots’ cannot be trusted to tell the truth,” a false generalization of my article, “Punking the birthers: priceless.” Still, I hope the folks at ORYR will read that article because it makes birthers seem pretty silly.
I love [hate] remarks like this:
It is unknown how many Obots are working as navigators or behind the scenes for the Obama regime.
Is her ignorance supposed to be evidence of something? I can only speak for myself: the only government check I get is from Social Security. (All my adult life conservatives told me I would never see a dime of the money I paid into Social Security. 
)
In such a case, it is 100% acceptable to assume 99.99% of her claims are rubbish.
I mean, in a situation where even “mainstream” Republicans troll the people with deliberately false and/or misleading statements (such as “Obama ordered monuments closed to punish vets” when in fact law demands such closures), what chance is there that a 100% certified dingbat like Sharon makes *any* correct claims about Obama, the ACA, Democrats or liberals?
Doc: (All my adult life conservatives told me I would never see a dime of the money I paid into Social Security. Smile with tongue out)
EVERY generation in my life said they will never receive money paid into social security
it has never happened and never will – remove the cap and the problem is solved
in 2000, the cap was $76,200 – in 2013, it’s $113,700 – it was raised every year except for 2010 & 2011 when it remained at $106,800
Isn’t the Volga River in Russia ?
[Yes. Doc.]
And isn’t Russia a Communist State ?
[Not any more. Doc.]
So Russia is full of people who are Communists.
[Not really. Doc.]
I thought so.
So Mr. C. and his sidekick Foggy would be right at home.
[Have you really not been paying attention to world events for the past 20 years? Doc.]
“The second was some fairly derisive remarks about Sharon Rondeau, the editor of The Post & Email web site. Foggy and Dr. Ken Noisewater focused on how gullible she was in publishing an article created to see how crazy an article she would publish.”
What was that article?
Hey, in my work in the City of Newark, I’m at the center of the FEMA conspiracy anyway.
And the biggest things we were able to achieve in Hurricane Sandy were getting food to the Emergency Operations Center and my power back on in three days instead of three weeks.
I think we were talking about the article where she claims an Obama white house attorney is apart of Fogbow and guest hosts on Reality Check Radio.
(All my adult life conservatives told me I would never see a dime of the money I paid into Social Security. )
I’ve been hearing that since 1972.
All of them, Katie.
Isn’t Newark a stone throw away from
Demarest? Did you ever read any news articles about a Demarest cop named Mike Zullo back in the early 1980s ?
According to the annual statement of earnings they used to send me before I started collecting SS I first reported income and paid taxes in 1962 and, as I recall, that’s about the time I first heard Social Security was doomed and I’d never get a dime out of it.
The maximum taxable earnings that year were $4,800. If you’re interested in how that figure has changed over the years take a look at http://www.ssa.gov/planners/maxtax.htm
Removing the cap solves the program’s funding problems for the foreseeable future.
Not a one…I never even heard the name of Mike Zullo as a cop until I found out about the bizarre details of the birther movement. I wasn’t in Newark then, either…but in Hudson County.
Umm, the headline on that story by Rondeau is “Look Who’s Working As An ObamaCare Navigator”.
Would it shock anybody here to learn that I’m not a navigator?
Instead, I’m a licensed health insurance agent and a certified Marketplace agent, with a lot more training and education than a navigator. Maybe Rondeau doesn’t understand the difference. Maybe she doesn’t care, because it gave her the opportunity to say that navigators are not fingerprinted or given a background check (unlike licensed agents). Whatever the cause, it remains to this day that Rondeau and basic facts … Rondeau and the truth … are perfect strangers, unknown to one another.
Sadly, Doc, I don’t get paid by the federal government. After you get licensed, you have to be “appointed” to represent one or more insurance companies. I’m appointed to represent Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and I’m in the process of being appointed to represent Coventry, the only other carrier in the Marketplace this year. I’ll be paid commission by both of those.
My wife and I will be on the Tee Vee News on a local channel tomorrow night, spreading the word about ObamaCare with four other agents from the company under which we work.
But I know it galls the birthers no end. All this time I’ve been supporting President Obama, and now I’m selling ObamaCare and making some money off his signature legislation. Why, it’s almost like I don’t give a crap what the birthers say about me!
Rondeau has a special reason to dislike me, other than the lies Walt Fitzpatrick has told her. One time, long ago, I copied a passage from Hitler’s Mein Kampf and changed the word “Jew” to “Usurper” where it appeared in the text. At first she thanked me effusively for the flattery; it was only later that she found out she was endorsing a passage taken directly from der Fuehrer. It was shortly after that that she put up the paywall on the P&E. She’d been punk’d by Obots one too many times for her liking.
One guy – Falcon – on ORYR wrote today that he “reported” me to Jerome Corsi, who has wanted to “wring my neck” for some time now. But I say good luck on that, Falcon. Corsi gave up birtherism as a bad job more than a year ago.
I recall something about Obama being a shape-shifting reptile.
That’s what I thought originally, but then I listened to the RC radio show and it wasn’t clear. I’ll fix the article and I appreciate the clarifications.
Oh look I got my own tag now!
Wow! That’s probably one of the dumbest posts I’ve seen on any blog or website in a couple decades.
The 50’s called, they want their impotent stereotyped attack back, Mr. Wanna-Be Senator McCarthy.
Actually, yes. I did come an article from the early 1990s regarding the arrest or conviction of somebody. It the article, it mentioned the the said person was chased down some years ago by some police, including Zullo. If I recall, the article phrased it in a way that was clear that Zullo was a former officer by the 1990s.
I do not recall where I found the article and don’t really have time to go find it right now.
Birthers despise all things associated with Soviet Russia, except neo-communist news sites like Voice of Russia or Russia Today that publish anti-Obama propaganda.(1) And although Russia Today has been criticized for smacking of “of Soviet-style propaganda campaigns” and representing “another step of the state to control information”(2) birthers treat it as an objective and trust worthy.
(1) http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/fall/from-russia-with-love
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_%28TV_network%29#Objectivity.2C_bias_and_criticism
see also, http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RT
Wow Doc! You really wounded Falcon’s pride something fierce.
I haven’t seem him make such butt hurt posts, since before I was banned for life from posting there.
For those curious, I was there rubbing the election results in his face repeatedly, every time he made a new post. The admin didn’t like his star pupil being beaten over the head like that.
Article reposted at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2875848/replies?c=181
Police officer in 1984, private detective by 1992
Oh go over to amazon if you want to see some dumb posts by hermitian
“A cursory review of the article suggests that it was intended to put Foggy in the worst possible light, but not to cross the line into actual defamation.”
Rondeau apparently is not familiar with the tort of false light invasion of privacy. See Venturi v. Savitt, 191 Conn. 588, 591, 468 A.2d 933 (1983); Goodrich v. Waterbury Republican-American, Inc., 188 Conn. 107, 127-28 (1982); 3 Restatement (Second), Torts 652A- E. Under Connecticut law, this includes publicity that unreasonably places the other in a false light before the public.
Doctor Conspiracy wrote: (I can’t vouch for the accuracy of any of her claims about the role of insurance “navigators.”)
The Tea Party’s assigned talking points include a meme about the supposed danger of the navigators. Pretty much all of the Republican-led states have had some version of this fear mongering and faux hand-wringing.
My understanding is that the navigators will not have sensitive information.
From the Huffington Post:
The Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman responded to Scott’s comments, noting that HHS has run in-person assistance programs for years to help Americans enroll in Medicare and Medicaid.
“Contrary to Gov. Scott’s statements, consumers will never be asked to provide their personal health information to the marketplace, whether through a navigator or not,” said spokeswoman Joanne Peters. “There is no such database of American’s health information, and multiple independent fact checkers have debunked this claim.”
It goes on to say that:
The Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman responded to Scott’s comments, noting that HHS has run in-person assistance programs for years to help Americans enroll in Medicare and Medicaid.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/florida-obamacare_n_3787581.html
If you’d like to see the different versions of this manufactured fear, do a search for “aca navigator privacy” with no quotes. Pages of results from various Republican-lead states.
That said, the Obama administration could probably have done a better job publicizing what they’re done to preserve privacy.
I think the whole thing could have been implemented in a way that would have minimized many of the issues of the last week. Asking people to limit their applications in the first week if their names started with the letters A-F, for example, with other letters in later weeks for the first month.
Still, we have two friends who will now have affordable insurance. One family (2 parents who work, 2 children) are going from over $1,700.00 a month to just over $700.00. The other, a single older lady who is self-employed but makes very little, is going from $1,300.00, which she could not afford, and thus went without; to under $100.00.
So, mostly “yay”.
Your understanding is correct. However — and this may be the source of the false claims about the navigators — the system will have access to some other government information about you. For example, you’re required to state your annual income in order to qualify for a subsidy or cost reduction. The system is then supposed to connect to IRS computers to double check that the amount you state comports with the amount you put on your most recent tax return. Likewise, the system checks with the SSA to make sure the name you gave is associated with the SSN you used. I think there are other checks built into the system that reflects an integration of the databases the government maintains with information about you.
That’s kind of unprecedented, and is the kind of thing that would scare a conspiracy theorist.
It has always been clear from her posts that, beyond being blinded by her unreasoned hatred of Obama, Rondeau has a negative IQ. Perhaps the two go together.
One doesn’t have to be an “Obot” (by this, I mean someone who might wholeheartedly, unreservedly and unquestioningly support everything the president said or did) to realize that the birthers’ arguments are insane.
Corsi has even resumed calling Obama “President Obama” and talks about “respect for the office” (that was in a reply on Twitter when I told him his birther friends would not like him calling Obama “President” instead of “pResident” or “usurper” or whatnot).
I think he’s too busy planning for the period until 2015 when I suppose the first swiftboating attempts against Hillary will commence.
I didn’t find Rondeau’s article interesting enough to warrant more than a mention on my show last night. Her incessant and dishonest whinings about how the Obots and Foggy in particular had poor Walter Fitzpatrick arrested for nothing are boring.
Doc called me Comrade Fogovich a couple weeks ago. I’ve decided to stick with that here. I’ll still be boring ol’ Foggy over at Fogbow.
Can I be Commissar Lupin?
But aren’t we all Obot party apparatchik’s….?
Maybe I could be Miss Congeniality.
Mr. C doesn’t allow free speech on his blog.
Mr. C. blocked my post and instead posted my post with his comments as one of his own.
This is also a favorite tactic of NBS’s on his “Native and Natural Born Citizen Explored” blog who frequently blocked my posts but later posted them along with his comments as his own post.
But this fits right in with Obama’s lead at his press briefing yesterday when refused to allow the reporters from the biggest TV News networks to ask questions.
The first amendment is now history under the Obama presidency.
That’s exactly what all dictators do. They all begin their dictatorships with the total elimination of freedom of the press.
This is especially true of Russia where Putin is the resident dictator. Non-compliant news reporters have been murdered in Russia.
Of course Mr. C. and NBC will never see it coming because they can see no evil in today’s Russia.
And they don’t see any evil in the Obama administration.
Henry Blake should really keep up with the news. The Korean War, the Cold War, and the 1980 Winter Olympics Hockey Semi-final (and McCarthyism) are over.
I didn’t get to see this exchange…what did it consist of?
Well in the days, leading up to November 6th, Falcon posted increasingly vile statements to the tune of “When Obama is voted out of office, WE are gonna be out in full force, rounding up you libtards for the stockade, or worse!”, but much nastier. After the election I would repost his own tirades, followed by “You were saying?”. In response, would usually end up accusing me of being an alt account of Rikker’s, and then telling me to back to licking envelopes. I never understood the envelope licking reference. It was probably intended as some insult, but Falcon doesn’t seem to grasp that insults only work, when the person on the receiving end is offended.
Guess he didn’t like being hoisted by his own petard, and didn’t know how to insult you back.
Bear in mind, a lot of radicals spout a lot of jargon and buzzwords, which have great meaning to them, but no meaning to people who are not familiar with “the code.”
Ask Falcon to define some of his terms, like “libtard.” He probably can’t.
Hell he still thinks Russia is a communist country!
Still, birthers aren’t the sharpest hammer on the tree. Some of them even think the sun revolves around the Earth! I wish to God I was making that last part up, but I’m not!
I get that Reagan closed down most of our mental institutions, because the patients were being treated terribly, but I can’t help wonder if birthers would even be a thing, if such places were still open.
He may have been showing his age. In years past campaign workers spent their spare time stuffing and sealing envelopes for mass mailings.
And of course Falcon has no problem with campaign workers whose boss’s name sounds more…how shall I say, Anglo-Saxon friendly, which makes the insult make even LESS sense.
Hermitian is guaranteed to provide us with many more dumb postings. He can’t help it
Yes, I watch him on ORYR. Amazing stuff.
I tried to engage him and after two messages made it onto the board I never managed to emerge from moderation again.
Never mind….I’m thinking of FALCON on ORYR. I’ve tried to engage Hermitian here and got nowhere…..like everyone else.
Hard to keep the crazies straight sometimes.
Thanks for the link. Zullo was a cop a very longtime ago. I noticed a discussion about a man who was arrested impersonating a police officer and actually used Zullo’s name and a pretend badge. Why does that sound so familiar?
Or you could go the other way and ‘redneckify’ it. How about “Boss Legume”?
If you Google the name of the suspect in the story you will find a couple other follow-ups about the case with just the first paragraph of the story and they sound pretty strange. I can’t justify paying to get past their paywall just to find out more about Zullo.
Now I remember why Rondeau’s name keeps ringing a bell!
“Eastman! He came from the east, to do battle with THE AMAZING RANDO!”, Tom Servo – MST3K: The Movie
Thanks Carl.
Not “RONDEAU! She’s got what birthers crave!” ?
I wanna be “Das Inspektor” (proper German “der Inspektor”, but it sounds funnier that way).
Inspector Clouseau
Comrade Fogovich was on local Tee Vee last night answering questions from the public about ObamaCare.
http://thefogbow.com/public/img/foggyTeeVee.png
Took about 40 calls in two hours. In this shot, I made it look like I was really talking to somebody on the other end of the line. 😛
You’re the purdy Asian gal in the middle, right? 😉
Break it down, justlw!!
Number 1: We’ve got this guy, Zullo.
Number 2: He’s got a higher IQ than ANY MAN ALIVE
and Number 3: He’s going to fix EVERYTHING.
The First Amendment has nothing to do with who gets to post messages on private blogs.
It also has nothing to do with who the President recognizes in scrums with the press. There are members of the White House press corp who have NEVER been called on by the President.
Despite your fantasies about a looming dictatorship and reporters bodies piling up like stacks on cord wood on the White House lawn the First Amendment is alive an well in America.
Hermitian is not very familiar with logic, reason, let alone a clear understanding of the laws of our nation.
He has become a footnote in history at best…
So far the administration is doing quite reasonable. Of course, I can understand why some poorly informed people, out of unfounded fear, believe that there is much evil in the administration.
The poor souls.. We pity them and smile at them.
Typical RWNJ, you see evil where there is only difference.
Russia’s way of life is different than ours, therefore in your mind it is evil.
Obama’s administration is different than Bushes, therefore in your mind it is evil.
Same applies to faith, sexual orientation, cola of choice, Ford vs Chevy, etc.
Though the EPIC beating Gerald Ford gave Chevy Chase is the stuff of legends, and is primarily why Mr. Chase gave up acting for so many years. Never mess with an ex-President who was trained to use Nunchuks.
And an odorous one at that.
Really? Then why is Fox News still on the air?
No, the 1st Amendment is under attack from evangelicals:
Three times (in 1961, 1963, and 1965) in his early terms as a Congressman, Anderson introduced a constitutional amendment to attempt to “recognize the law and authority of Jesus Christ” over the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Anderson
Christian amendment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_amendment