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James O’Keefe exposes questionable Obamacare political “cross-pollination” in Texas

James O’Keefe exposes questionable Obamacare political “cross-pollination” in Texas

James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas is out with another investigative video exposing highly questionable “cross-pollination” between Enroll America and Texas Democratic political operatives.

Enroll America bills itself as:

a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to maximize the number of uninsured Americans who enroll in health coverage made available by the Affordable Care Act.

As such, Enroll America cannot get involved in any political activity.

Project Veritas, however, discovered that a Texas-based Enroll America official was willing to push the limits (to put it charitably) or even break the law (to put it not charitably) in order to help someone he thought was a Democratic operative.

Here’s the explanation from the Project Veritas website, Enroll America Director Conspires to Release Private Data (emphasis in original):

Do you know where your personal data is going?

After meeting with several Obamacare Navigators who openly encouraged our undercover reporters to lie about income status, health history and more, it became clear that personal data was also being “cross-pollinated.”

Enter Enroll America, a Sebelius-linked group dedicated to signing people up for Obamacare and Chris Tarango, Texas Enroll America Communications Director who Project Veritas caught on tape agreeing to help obtain a private list of potential Obamacare enrollee data for election/political purposes. Tarango goes so far to say he’ll “Do whatever it f****** takes.”

Here’s the video, the first 15 minutes of which are the edited video, the remainder the raw video:

Eliana Johnson at National Review has a more complete explanation:

Created and run by veterans of President Obama’s campaigns and the Obama White House, Enroll America is using the techniques refined on the 2008 and 2012 campaigns to identify neighborhoods with a high concentration of uninsured residents. In ten states, the organization’s employees and volunteers are going door to door to ensure that, in its own words, “Americans know how and where to sign up for coverage.”

The group first raised eyebrows in the spring when reports emerged that the secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, had urged companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Permanente, and Ascension Health to lend the organization a helping hand.

Enroll America is not enrolling people directly on the federal exchange. Rather, it is asking them to enter their personal information — basic contact info and insurance status — onto “commitment cards” that signify a pledge to learn more about their insurance options. That information is passed to Obamacare navigators and other application counselors who are enrolling people on the exchanges.

What else might Enroll America be doing with that information? “Their contact info and insurance status are added to our database, and may be shared with partners working on enrollment efforts in that consumer’s community,” an Enroll America spokesman tells National Review Online. “We do not share any data with any 501(c)(4) or other political organizations or candidates.”

But O’Keefe’s investigator, posing as the president of a phony 501(c)(4) political-action committee, caught Enroll America’s Texas communications director conspiring to share its trove of data in order to help him hire a field staff and mobilize voters for the Democratic candidate in an upcoming Texas state-house race. “We can mobilize them if we had that list,” O’Keefe’s investigator tells him.

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Comments

Our once-great country is in the grips of a lawless band. O’Keefe is doing great work for the rest of us.

    Browndog in reply to Rick. | November 20, 2013 at 9:41 pm

    “lawless band”

    Depends on your perspective.

    I have a feeling you, and I, are about to become “lawless”, as the “lawless” become the law makers.

      Yes, and the laws they make apply only at their discretion. At what point under these circumstances do those who believe in the law and the legal process step away from those concepts? We know it happened once, as written up in the Declaration of Independence.

        Browndog in reply to Rick. | November 20, 2013 at 11:20 pm

        That is the question. A question each man must answer himself, to himself, his children, and to his Maker.

If you think these folks are so ideologically driven just to win elections you’d better wake up.

JimMtnViewCaUSA | November 20, 2013 at 9:24 pm

Yes, great work O’Keefe and team.
Writer Michael Barone wrote something to the effect “government programs are the means by which the Dem Party funds itself with taxpayer dollars.”
One reason why WI Gov Walker is such a threat to them. It is a mystery to me why fighting this is not a top Repub priority.

God, does the Left hate O’Keefe. Boundless hatred. I imagine he’s enjoying it. As Breitbart did. The warrior spirit — we so need it these days.

    Another Voice in reply to raven. | November 20, 2013 at 11:26 pm

    The young man is the legacy of Andrew’s goal to put journalism into the care of citizens to counter MSM. He would be extremely proud from ACORN to this point in time.

James O’Keefe — American hero. Here’s his Project Veritas donate page link: https://www.projectveritas.com/donate/

Not surprising. We have a community-organizer-in-chief who surrounded himself with other community organizers, and they are now engaging in similar tactics (using taxpayer funds illegally for Obama’s political gain) that ACORN and Citizen Services, Inc. did for Obama during the ’08 campaign. In case anyone has forgotten… http://michellemalkin.com/2008/08/22/acorn-watch-pt-ii-obama-hid-800000-payment-to-acorn-through-citizen-services-inc/

Illinois might have been the land of Lincoln back then but now is the land of lies, corruption and thugs. The worst of this is the fact that they have found their way into DC and have done great damage to the Republic.

The only cure that I can see that would work is to kill the culture PERIOD…

    Doug Wright Old Grouchy in reply to GrumpyOne. | November 20, 2013 at 11:12 pm

    Illinois has been corrupt for a long time. Doing the late 1940s and early 1950s, Illinois had open lawless enterprises operating under the guise of anything they could use; VFWs, Legion Clubs, Political precincts, stores, civic organizations, what ever was available.

    During one massive blizzard in 1960, Illinois was snowed under, State highways were not plowed and the stated reason was that the DOT patronage jobs under the current governor were over on the January 1st; so why should those mooks get out in the high deep snow, blowing wind, cold weather, didn’t make sense to them. That’s just one minor example of how that state has worked for many years.

    Land of Lincoln might have been lost not too long after 1865!

      The objection that Illinois pols had to Capone was he didn’t give them a big enough cut of his action.

      The current gangs that run Chicago are not making that mistake.

        aerily in reply to Crawford. | November 21, 2013 at 10:32 pm

        There is a reason that Illinois has some of the strictest wiretapping laws in the nation.

        Nobody can do this kind of journalism here in Illinois as it is illegal to tape a conversation without the consent of both parties.

Democrat groups that had worked in Colorado have now moved into Texas in hopes of turning the Lone Star State blue.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/democrats-launch-plan-to-turn-texas-blue-86651.html

Maybe we should start using Rule 17…. Whatever it effing takes…

From what I understand the Senates immigration bill pays groups like La Raza to council illegals as they work through the amnesty paperwork including signing them up as new Democratic voters. I am sure that there will be kickbacks in the form of donations to democrats.

Furthermore the Obama admin is targeting the $700 million for ObamaCare education in locations were democratic politicians are in danger of losing their seats.