AARP Working with Democrats to Discourage Obamacare Debate

The House Democrat leadership on Friday sent a memo to their membership asking them to hold town hall meetings on health care in their districts in August. Showing just how out of touch Democrat leaders are with not only their membership but their constituents, those Democrats holding town halls with Democrat talkers on health care are getting booed off of the stage.

The memo reveals the groups that will be working hard to push the Obamacare bill down the throats of the American People:

The Leadership is working in close coordination with the White House and outside groups (including but not limited to HCAN, Families USA, AFSCME, SEIU, AARP, etc.) to ensure complementary efforts during August. The President, Secretary Sebelius and other principals in the reform debate will be working throughout the month to hold events, promote the message in the press and move the reform effort forward.

The AARP supports the bill despite the fact that it runs contrary to the opinions as well as the long term health of many of its members. Check out these representative comments on the AARP site:

Question to ponder:If this new medical scheme is so wonderful, why can?t it stand the light of day or a little time to think about it? Why does the bill need to be passed in four weeks, even though it is not due to be implemented until 2013?

Senator Tom Coburn OK., suggested that senators and congress health care plans be the same "obama plan" as they are offering to the nation>> maybe they would read it then!!!! One senator (unidentified)said he would not have his dog on that plan!! All understood the ramifications of government deciding on health-care for the elderly! >>(me) What about the people that do not have family to fight for them when they are so ill they cannot think>> the government person would just let them die? 

I have seen several AARP spokespersons speaking in adoration and censent of the Democrats and Obama's health plan. Like them, our group of those "masses of stupid kind of Americans the elite say are uninformed or misinformed" have not been heard from nor even asked. How dare you say you speak for us without hearing from us about the particulars of a bill of goods no one has read or knows specifically about as they rush us all to bankruptcy. Prove you can fix what we have first

 What is going on? Is the AARP trying to pull the wool over its member's eyes? Well Maybe:

Mark Tapscott: Tripping up AARP's dance with Pelosi and the Democrats

Washington Wink-Winks were flying fast Monday when a memo surfaced from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi describing the Democrats' plan to "partner" with AARP, SEIU and others in an August recess PR blitz for Obamacare and against Republicans who oppose it.

Triple Ws are the lame excuses Washington elitists like Pelosi and AARP activists hide behind whenever they are caught red-handed. Then they deny what is obvious to everybody else while winking reassurance to their momentarily puzzled supporters that they don't really mean the denials.

Here's how it came down Monday. Connie Hair of Human Events reported on the Pelosi memo, including this key graph:

"The Leadership is working in close coordination with the White House and outside groups (including but not limited to HCAN, Families USA, AFSCME, SEIU, AARP, etc.) to ensure complementary efforts during August. The President, Secretary Sebelius and other principals in the reform debate will be working throughout the month to hold events, promote the message in the press and move the reform effort forward."

Nothing unusual there. Congressional leaders always launch PR blitzes at opponents during the August recess, right? Working with activist allies is part of the game: They ask the leaders' planted questions at constituent forums and town halls, help generate favorable home-town press from like-minded journalists, and issue "reports" full of glowing praise for favored lawmakers.

But Hair's story caught my eye because it flatly contradicted a Friday declaration in The Washington Examiner by AARP CEO Barry Rand that "AARP has not endorsed any of the bills currently being debated in the Congress."

The WWWs started coming thick and fast as soon as I asked AARP about the Pelosi memo. The 40 million-member group's vice president, Drew Nannis, immediately got on the phone with Pelosi's staff, and within a few minutes came back with the claim that the memo Hair published was just a "draft" composed by an "over-zealous staffer."

Nannis also said AARP would just be "answering our members questions" and - here's the clever clincher - "AARP is participating in AARP's campaign." He even kindly secured a copy of the "final" Pelosi memo, from which the offending paragraph magically disappeared.

It was all I could do not to ROFL at this display by multiple specimens of the rapidly proliferating breed constantly seen and heard going to and fro in the nation's capitol, the Boobus Liberal Extremis Elitum Politico (BLEEP).

Washington BLEEPs come with either brilliant blue or fading red markings, but all of them think gullible tax-paying Joe Six Packs believe them when they toss out lines like the "over-zealous staffer" bit to explain away a memo describing what everybody else in town with a pulse and brain waves already knows.

Of course AARP is helping Democrats confront hordes of outraged constituents. Many of those shouting the loudest are seniors who now see that they've been had by politicians and organizations they once trusted.

Remember, AARP has more than a billion dollars in assets and nearly a billion in annual revenues from membership dues, profits on insurance sales and endorsements, seminars, and other money-making ventures tirelessly aimed at every American age 50 or older. And it spends more lobbying than any other non-corporate Washington special interest.

Most seniors oppose Obamacare, yet the Washington AARP staff is a major employment center for Democratic activists, policy wonks, campaign contributors, and propagandists. The group's lavish Washington headquarters is a BLEEP hot house.

That's why I doubt that anybody reading this column can name one bill in Congress that AARP has supported in the past decade to freeze or cap any federal entitlement. To the contrary, more than 50 pages are needed on its official disclosure report to list all the issues on which AARP lobbies to keep government growing.

The AARP guys weren't the only BLEEPs rolling out the Triple Ws Monday. When I asked Brendan Daly, Pelosi's spokesman, why the "over-zealous staffer" included the graph mentioning AARP in the memo in the first place, his response was: "It shouldn't have been."

Shrewd BLEEPS know some questions from Joe Sixpack are best ignored, no matter how foolish it makes the Washington guy look.