Tag Archives: Rob Roper

Rob Roper’s Machiavellian fantasy

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Oh, the Robster spun a tale, he did.

In a brief commentary on the Ethan Allen Institute’s occasionally-good-for-a-laugh website, Roper laid out a cunning plan to land Scott Milne in the corner office.

"I have a cunning plan," whispers Baldrick.

“I have a cunning plan,” whispers Baldrick.

Fasten your seat belts, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

First postulate: Gov. Shumlin’s “single payer healthcare system has been a disaster for Democrats,” which is quite a trick considering his system doesn’t exist yet. What he means is that initial reaction to a possible financing plan has been, as expected, a mixed bag, and that the Democrats lost seats in the Legislature due, so says the Robster, to disillusionment with health care reform.

Which sets the stage, so says the Robster, for Republican momentum leading into 2016. Further GOP gains and maybe a Republican governor.

But, he says, the Dems have a way out: Elect Scott Milne as governor.

That way, they rid themselves of Shumlin and single payer, and have a handy scapegoat for the death of single payer and anything else that goes wrong in the next two years. And since Milne would enter office as a political neophyte who hasn’t made any plans for an administration or a budget, the Legislature could walk all over him.

Quite a temptation for the Speaker (who many think is eyeing a run for governor in 2016 anyway, and this would clear an easier path) and the Senate President Pro Tem as well as the committee chairs.

A Milne governorship, if he does not rise to the occasion, could kill Republican momentum.

Roper finds a shred of “evidence” in support of his fantasy in the fact that “Democrats have not come out in full-throated support for Shumiln in the upcoming legislative vote.”

Well, there’s a much simpler explanation for that: the Democrats know the legislative vote is going to be over and done with very quickly, and there’s no need for them to “campaign” against Milne, who is certain to lose.

I realize that the Robster has to provide regular content to justify his salary at the EAI, but this is… well, it’s the kind of stuff I’d expect to hear from Baldrick.

Of course the right wing is still Grubering

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Yesterday, I wrote about Neal Goswami’s journalistic self-sacrifice — reading 2,400 pages of government emails so we don’t have to. The emails in question were between the newly-notorious Jonathan Gruber and various Shumlin administration functionaries. And Goswami found a conspicuous absence of scandal. Indeed, the emails painted a picture of some very dedicated people working very hard to devise the best possible single-payer system.

Naturally, though, the lack of scandal hasn’t stopped the right wing from desperately fanning the Gruber flames. This is not at all surprising; in fact, it’s the right wing’s modus operandi. Talking Points Memo:

Gruber-mania has gripped the conservative mediasphere in a way that few stories have, becoming another brand-name controversy like Benghazi and the IRS. An academic who had been little known outside of Washington or Boston has been mentioned nearly 2,800 times in English-language news since news of the most recent video broke last month. Prior to that, across a career that spanned decades and after playing an important role in Massachusetts and national health care reform, he’d been named less than 1,000 times, according to a TPM LexisNexis search.

The lesser members of the mediasphere who operate in this lonely outpost are taking their cues from their big brothers, and trying to make mountains out of molehills.

Take Rob Roper, the Eddie Haskell of Vermont conservatism. He pulled out one brief excerpt from Goswami’s report, which I’d cited as a positive. Key quote from Gruber:

I am really excited to work with you all — I think we have the chance to really make history here.

In Roper’s imagination, this statement immediately disqualifies Gruber. He’s too enthusiastic, see?

So would Gruber mislead Vermont voters because he’d rather make history than not? With over $2 billion at stake, we have to assume the answer is yes.

One little evidence-free assumption, and we can dismiss the entirety of Gruber’s work. Plus any proposal Gov. Shumlin makes because, even if he fired Gruber today, all the work on single-payer has already been thoroughly Grubered.

This is exactly the same rationale used by the far right for ignoring climate science: the scientists have a stake in climate change, so their work can be dismissed.

Look, it’s only natural that an expert would have a lively engagement in her/his field of study. Aren’t you interested in what you do? I hope so. But the academic world — unlike the world of conservative faux-outrage — has ethical standards and principles. Academics have an interest in doing honest work, to ensure that their work has an impact. And, of course, academics who commit fraud see their careers end in shame.

But the Rob Ropers of the world know nothing of this, because their purpose is rousing the rabble. Adhering to the truth is a professional impediment. And fraud is a tried and true method of career advancement.

And that, by the way, is it: The only thing Roper could find in Goswami’s story to yammer about is Gruber’s enthusiasm for his work.

Meanwhile, serial failure Darcie “Hack” Johnston has been busily retweeting stuff from Breitbart.com, one of the sleazier outposts of the conservative mediasphere. For some reason, Breitbart has posted a series of stories about Gruber’s work in Vermont. Seems like small potatoes for a national website, but whatevs.

Johnston is so far out there, she seems to believe that Breitbart is a convincing source of news. In fact, the guy who’s writing its Vermont stories is a proud Tea Partier with no journalistic credentials outside the conservative mediasphere.

But again, I’m not surprised. This is SOP for Johnston: Accept (and broadcast) every conservative source, no matter how shameless, as the Gospel truth.

When, in fact, “truth” has nothing to do with it.

Vermont Republicans adopt the Fox News playbook

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I don’t know what the hell has happened to Vermont Republicans. With a couple of exceptions (Phil Scott, Kevin Mullin), they seem to have gone batshit crazy.

And crazy in a very particular way. They have taken up the chief weaponry of national Republicans and the Fox News crowd by distilling a complicated issue to a single word.

The issue is health care and the word, of course, is GRUBER!!!!!!

Republicans have not been deterred in the last by Gov. Shumlin’s renegotiation of Gruber’s contract, cutting off further payments to Gruber and thus saving the state $120,000 — some of which will go to independent checking of Gruber’s work.

But it doesn’t matter, at least not to Republicans. They’ve decided “Gruber” is an all-purpose cudgel to attack Shumlin, the Democrats, and the cause of health care reform. Their entire health care focus is on Gruber.

It was only a couple weeks ago that the VTGOP had a big post-election news conference to call for repeal of Vermont Health Connect. We don’t hear that anymore; it’s all Gruber, all the time.

It’s the first time I can remember that virtually every notable Republican and conservative activist seems to be singing from the same hymnal. Kurt Wright sounds just like Rob Roper, and Heidi Scheuermann’s doing her best Darcie Johnston.

This fact hit home for me while reading Rep. Wright’s opinion piece in the Sunday Freeploid. Wright asserts that Gruber’s work on single-payer “will undermine the entire process and debate going forward.” When there’s no evidence that Gruber has done anything more than provide top-flight economic modeling. No matter; as ACORN allegedly poisoned the electoral process and Lois Lerner allegedly proved an Obama conspiracy against the right, the mere presence of Gruber fundamentally undercuts everything about single-payer.

So I guess, by Wright’s logic, we have to throw out all the work that’s been done on single-payer over the last three years and start over? Or is he arguing that by axing Gruber now, when the work is virtually complete, the entire process will be purified as if by cleansing flame?

Wright’s words are identical in meaning to Rob Roper’s. Over at his Koch-funded nonprofit, the Ethan Allen Institute, he claims that Gruber’s entire body of work is useless and cannot be used at all. And Darcie “Hack” Johnston, Tweeting out her policy stances, pronounes Gruber’s work is “tainted” and…

Just watch him, Darcie.

Meanwhile, Sen. Joe Benning is clearly intoxicated by his sudden Fox News fame, referring on his Facebook page to Gruber as “the gift that keeps on giving.” Which sounds disconcertingly like naked political opportunism. He goes on to brag that “FOX wants me back!”

Of course they want you back, Joe: you fit right in with their agenda. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.

On another front, House Republicans have filed a public-records request for Gruber’s work for the state and for communications between Gruber and the Shumlin Administration, I’d applaud them for trying to learn the truth, but given all their public remarks, it seems more like a Darrell Issa-type fishing expedition. What they’re really hoping for is more Gruberisms.

And then there’s the proto-Republicans at Campaign for Vermont, still flogging their online petition calling for Gruber’s firing. Too bad that since Shumlin’s termination of payment, CFV’s petition has pretty much stalled out. As of this writing, it’s at 233 signatures, and it’s been in the low 200s for several days now.

This isn’t about the truth. It’s about using a handful of remarks by Jonathan Gruber to try to undermine the push for single-payer health care.

The weird thing about this is, we just went through an election that provided two object lessons (Phil Scott and Scott Milne) in how Republicans can win in Vermont: by presenting a moderate, inclusive image. Now they’re all foaming at the mouth as though the election never happened and “Angry Jack” Lindley is still running the joint.

They would be well advised to rein in their inflammatory rhetoric lest they alienate the very voters they just managed to attract.

Grubermania: Catch it!

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Well, Vermont conservatives finally have a live one: a get-your-blood-boiling, wave-the-bloody-shirt phony “issue” of the kind that rarely presents itself in our green and pleasant land. And boy howdy, are they ever jumping on the outrage train.

Critics of the Shumlin administration are demanding the dismissal of a state consultant whose remarks about the Affordable Care Act last week went viral on Twitter and was picked up by major news outlets…

The target, of course, is Jonathan Gruber, health care expert and creator of the best economic model for health care systems. And utterer of some completely charmless comments on a handful of occasions over the past few years.

Just think, in this age of digital media, how many Young Conservatives are being gainfully employed searching through endless hours of Gruber’s public appearances, trying to locate bits of marketable outrage. Gruber’s been a high-profile figure in health care reform for many years; because of the unique usefulness of his model, he’s been hired by the feds and a whole bunch of states. He’s given testimony, he’s given speeches, he’s been on countless panels.

But never mind the inherent unfairness of tearing a man’s reputation to shreds over a few words. We’ve got some rabble-rousing to do! And our junior-league rabble-rousers are in full force: Rob Roper, Darcie Johnston*, and oh wait — here’s a new entrant to the Pitchfork Brigade: the previously cool-headed, plausibly nonpartisan Campaign for Vermont!

*And again I say, why in hell is anybody listening to Darcie Johnston after the faceplant of the Dan Feliciano campaign added another chapter to her Little Book of Failure?

Between this and CFV moneybags Bruce Lisman’s recent mouth-foamer of an opinion piece (about which more in an upcoming post), it looks like CFV is finally shedding its chrysalis of nonpartisanship and emerging as the Butterfly of Fiscal Conservatism we all suspected was in there all along.

All this Grubermania has a purpose: to toss a can of nails in the Road to Single-Payer, as VTDigger’s Anne Galloway reports:

Gov. Peter Shumlin… is moving ahead with his signature single payer health care initiative. Gruber’s work is crucial to that effort.

“Crucial” because Shumlin has to show that single-payer won’t hurt the state’s economy. Gruber’s model is by far the best tool for the job.

No Gruber, no model. And Shumlin’s task gets a little bit harder.

Now let’s see what kind of cojones the Administration has. WIll they stand by their guy in the face of grossly exaggerated attacks? Or will they toss him off the dogsled in hopes of distracting the wolves?

Based on past experience, I hope Gruber is packin’ a Bowie knife. After all, one of the great saints of Vermont liberalism, Peter Welch, fell for a similar outrage over alleged malfeasance at ACORN. Welch, you may recall, played a small and ignominious role in ACORN’s termination. Sadly, I expect nothing better of Governor Shumlin.

Shorter Feliciano: Money is Bad, when it’s not mine

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One of the lesser pieces of flotsam to hit the beach after Governor Shumlin’s first campaign commercial went on the air was a written statement from Libertarian candidate Dan Feliciano. (I guess Scott Milne was too busy doing… something… to issue a stattement, so Feliciano seized the token-response space.)

And here it is, in all its hypocritical glory:

The reality is Governor Shumlin’s failed leadership is what is hurting Vermonters, but Peter Shumlin will reach into his million dollar war chest and run endless ads spinning a false narrative and trying to convince hard working Vermonters that his big Government programs are the solutions to their problems.

Oh, that’s rich. Dan Feliciano thinks that the Governor will use his big honkin’ bankroll to pull the wool over Vermonters’ eyes.

This, from a guy who believes that money is speech, and there should be no limits on campaign contributions. Stop it, Dan: you’re embarrassing yourself and undermining your own principles.

Your own narrative of the political process should lead you to congratulate the Governor for going out, working hard, and convincing people to give money to his campaign. It’s the American Dream, right?

Reminds me of a time a few years back when I was listening to professional Liberty Puppet Rob Roper flappin’ his gums on WDEV Radio. He was complaining about the imbalance in Vermont’s nonprofit community — that those on the left were far stronger and deeper-pocketed than those on the right. The Robster, at the time, was fronting his own struggling nonprofit, so you might say he had a conflict of interest. But I certainly never heard him complain about the vast Koch Brothers nonprofit network. Nor will he complain about the Kochs’ money underwriting his current gig at the Ethan Allen Institute.

But in the case of Vermont nonprofits, as with gubernatorial warchests, the shoe’s on the wrong foot for our doughty, independent Vermont conservatives. To put it another way, it’s not fair when liberals have the money.