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Former Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Sunday used the news that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had scrutinized tea party groups to slam the agency's connection to President Barack Obama's heath care reform law.

Host Chris Wallace pointed out to Ryan on Fox News Sunday that the Treasury inspector general had suggested that a recent IRS scandal had been a "bureaucratic snafu" because tea party groups only represented 96 of the 298 groups that received special scrutiny about their tax-exempt status.

Ryan, however, insisted that the IRS had targeted conservative groups based on their political beliefs and "to suggest that this is some bureaucratic snafu, that's already been disproven."

"The other point I'd say is that as bad as this is, the person in charge of this bureaucratic snafu is now been put in charge of implementing Obamacare," he continued. "I mean, the IRS is now going to be granted huge amounts of unprecedented power over our health care in the implementation of Obamacare."

"And so this is just rotten to the core. This is arrogance. This is big government cronyism. And this is not what hard-working taxpayers deserve."

CBS News observed last week that there was no evidence that Sarah Hall Ingram, who headed the IRS office overseeing tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012, "sanctioned or was even aware of the targeting practices."

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Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on Thursday declared that efforts to repeal President Barack Obama's health care reform law were "now revived" after the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) admitted that it had inappropriately targeted conservative groups to determine if they had abused their tax-exempt status.

At a tea party rally in Washington D.C., the Minnesota Republican pointed to the scandal as evidence that the IRS should not be allowed to distribute subsidies for health care coverage through state exchanges and issue penalties for individuals who elect not get insurance.

"As someone who formerly worked for the IRS, I can tell you this is the largest ramp-up and expansion, both of employees but also on an area of jurisdiction on one of the largest new entitlement programs that the American people have seen in decades," she told the crowd. "That's why it's crucial that we ask these questions now, when our most personal, sensitive, intimate information -- our health care information -- will all be centralized in a national federal database."

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Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on Thursday insisted that it was her "duty as a believer in Christ" repeal President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law before "it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens."

In a speech on the House floor, the Minnesota Republican thanked Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) for continuing the fight to undo Obamacare.

"The American people, especially vulnerable women, vulnerable children, vulnerable senior citizens, now get to pay more and get less," Bachmann opined. "That's why we're here because we're saying let's repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens!"

"Let's not do that!" she exclaimed. "Let's love people, let's care about people. Let's repeal it now while we can."

Bachmann explained that she was fighting Obamacare because she was a "born again believer in Jesus Christ."

"And I believe, as part of my duty as a believer in Christ and what he has done for me, that we should do for the least of those who are in our midst," she said. "That's my personal belief and my personal conviction. And that's why I want our government to create the space so that we can help people, because I'll guarantee you one thing, Mr. Speaker, this doesn't help people."

Burgess thanked the former Republican presidential candidate for her remarks, adding that she had "a way of stating these things that none of the rest of us are capable of."

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Karoli already broke down this lie that Romney has been telling out on the campaign trail here at C&L. This Wednesday on MSNBC, Willard's number one neocon fan girl was out there doing some history revisionism for Romney as well -- Wash. Post's Jennifer Rubin Pushes Lie That Romney Health Care Plan Covers Pre-Existing Conditions:

Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin falsely claimed that Republican candidate Mitt Romney's health care plan always included a provision insuring that those with pre-existing conditions are not denied insurance coverage. In fact, this is the exact opposite of what the Romney campaign has said.

In a recent study, the Government Accountability Office found that "between 36 and 122 million adults reported medical conditions that could result in a health insurer restricting coverage."

This is why one of the major features of the Affordable Care Act is its requirement that insurance companies not deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. The ACA prohibits insurers in the private individual market from denying coverage, charging higher-than-average premiums, or restricting coverage to individuals based on the individual's health status.

During the first presidential debate, Romney claimed that his health care plan includes protections for pre-existing conditions. But as CNN reported following the debate, top Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom clarified that this protection only applied to people who already had health insurance, not those seeking health insurance for the first time. [...]

PolitiFact evaluated Romney's claim following the debate that his plan insured coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and found it "mostly false."

But on MSNBC's The Daily Rundown, Rubin stated that Romney's "plan always covered pre-existing issues." Read on...

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Love him or hate him, there's one thing I think everyone can agree on when it comes to former President Bill Clinton and that is the fact that the man knows how to give a speech and his long, but extremely informative speech tonight at the 2012 Democratic National Convention was no exception. I think Bill Clinton just gave the best explanation I've seen from anyone yet, taking apart all of the lies we've been hearing from Republicans about "Obamacare."

Clinton veered wildly off script this Wednesday evening and some of that was during the portion of his speech embedded above, where he said this: Bill Clinton Takes On Paul Ryan’s Medicare Lies: ‘It Takes Some Brass’:

Bill Clinton singlehandedly dismantled the Romney-Ryan campaign narrative that President Obama is trying to put an end to Medicare at the Democratic Convention Wednesday night, pointing out that it is in fact the Romney-Ryan proposal for Medicare that would permanently change the program to a depreciating voucher system. “It takes some brass,” Clinton said, “to attack a guy for doing what you did”:

First, Both Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan attacked the President for allegedly robbing medicare of $716 billion. But it is not true.[...]

So, President Obama and the Democrats did not weaken Medicare. They strengthened Medicare. When Congressman Ryan looked into that TV camera and attacked President Obama’s Medicare savings as “the biggest, coldest power play,” I did not know whether to laugh or cry. Key cuts that $716 billion is exactly to the dollar the same amount of medicare savings that he had in his own budget. It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.

That's gonna' leave a mark. I can't wait to see Reince and his "rapid response team" try to spin themselves into knots rebutting the Clinton tonight.

Clinton's full prepared remarks from the clip above below the fold.

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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Monday asserted that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was "uniquely unqualified" for the GOP nomination because of the similarities between health care laws in Massachusetts and President Barack Obama's health care reforms, including the repeatedly debunked claim that "death panels" would ration care to seniors.

Speaking at a ballroom across the street from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Santorum pointed to a report (PDF) from the the non-partisan organization Families USA that found at least 15 major similarities between Obama's Affordable Care Act and the reforms Romney enacted in Massachusetts.

"Both create government panels to dictate quality and cost containment," Santorum explained. "Some of you may be familiar with the Independent Payment Advisory Board -- which is a board separate from Congress, independent of Congress -- that President Obama created to control health care costs. How? By cutting reimbursements to doctors and hospitals under the Medicare program. Well, Gov. Romney has a similar program called the Council on Health Quality and Costs."

"Some people refer to these types of boards as death panels," he added. "Why? Because they ultimately decide to ration care to those procedures and people because they don't believe these procedures are effective in providing care, that the utilization isn't worth the costs."

"So, again, you have government making decisions and rationing and apportioning care based on research that shows what outcomes are dictated by the research that's out there."

In 2009, Politifact named "death panels," a term thought to have been first used by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), as their "Lie of the Year."

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I'm waiting to see how Mitt Romney walks any of this back once the general election begins if he ends up winning the Republican presidential nomination because I don't see how his statements tonight on Social Security and Medicare are going to help him with seniors later on, no matter how many times he reiterates that the cuts won't affect current recipients or those over fifty five years of age. During this Monday night's Republican debate Romney apparently thinks that seniors don't care what happens to their children or grandchildren.

Romney was asked what he would do in regards to Social Security and Medicare and he started things out with one of the Republican zombie lies out there, that President Obama cut $500 billion from Medicare. Mother Jones has more on why that's just not true here -- Return of the Big GOP Medicare Lie.

He also fully endorsed raising the eligibility ages for both Social Security and Medicare, endorsed Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare, means testing which turns the programs into welfare programs and block-granting Medicaid back to the states. He also seemed to completely contradict himself within the time frame of a few minutes with his follow up a little later in the debate when he said "we simply can't say we're going to go out and borrow more money to let people set up new accounts to take money away from Social Security and Medicare today." Just what does he think those "voluntary" accounts are going to do to future benefit recipients? It's bad enough the man flip flops on every issue, he couldn't even get his talking points straight within a sentence of each other.

Sadly the awful policies he was promoting here rather than raising taxes on the wealthy and raising the income cap on payroll taxes and curbing the cost of health insurance by moving to a single payer program are not anything that either interests or is supported by his fellow Republican primary contenders, or the hapless moderators asking the questions during the debate.

Transcript below the fold.

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Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said Monday that it would be "foolish" to normalize trade with Cuba because Hezbollah could soon have "missile sites" there.

"Why would you normalize trade with a country that sponsors terror?" the candidate asked a crowd of supporters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "There is reports that have come out that Cuba has been working with another terrorist organization called Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is looking at wanting to be part of missile sites in Iran and, of course, when you are 90 miles offshore from Florida, you don't want to entertain the prospect of hosting bases or sites where Hezbollah could have training camps or perhaps have missile sites or weapons sites in Cuba. "

Bachmann was most likely basing her fear on an unsubstantiated report from the Italian publican Corriere della Sera, which was picked up by numerous conservative websites earlier this month (see here, here, here and here.)

Even if that report were true, it makes absolutely no mention of "missile sites."

Bachmann then pivoted to explain that Republicans didn't need to worry about picking the most electable nominee because the country had already decided not to re-elect President Barack Obama.

"I'm just here to tell you, Barack Obama will be a one-term president," she said. "The country has already made up it's decision. I am convinced of it. The issue is who will be our nominee? Will it be someone who understands these issues so they will go and fight for them or will we have a compromise candidate?"

"Because we have candidates that have said that when it comes to Obamacare that their plan is to issue an executive order or to issue a waiver. I'm here to tell you, I get this bill. I fought it. I am the chief author against it. I was called Barack Obama's chief critic. That's my badge of honor, to be his chief critic. Because I understand what some of the other candidates do not... We can't settle, and 2012 is it. We will have socialized medicine for ever and ever and ever in this country unless we get it out in 2012."

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President Barack Obama attempted to reclaim the "ObamaCare" label from critics at a town hall event in Cannon Falls, Minnesota Monday.

"The prescription drug program that now is part of Medicare obviously has been very helpful but the costs had been going up and up and up," the president explained. "So part of the Affordable Care Act health care reform, also known as ObamaCare -- by the way, you know what? Let me tell you, I have no problem with folks saying ObamaCares. I do care."

"If the other side wants to be the folks who don't care, that's fine with me."

That's one way to get Republicans to stop using the term "ObamaCare" - it's Obama saying he likes it.

While our corporate media continues to repeat the beltway conventional wisdom talking points that the country is supposedly going broke and therefore the working class and poor must be asked to sacrifice or we're doomed, one state is actually doing the right thing with getting health care costs under control, Vermont. Of course this is being largely ignored by our corporate media as well.

Vermont Poised to Become 1st State to Enact Single-Payer Healthcare:

Today Vermont is set to make history by becoming the first state in the nation to offer universal, single-payer healthcare when Gov. Peter Shumlin signs its healthcare reform bill into law. The Vermont plan, called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, will attempt to stem rising medical care prices and provide universal coverage. We speak with Dr. Deb Richter, president of Vermont Health Care for All. She moved from Buffalo, New York, to Vermont in 1999 to advocate for a universal, single-payer healthcare system in the state. Gov. Shumlin calls her the “backbone” of the grassroots effort that helped persuade the Democratic-led state legislature to pass the bill this spring.

Full transcript at the link above.