Democrats Trying to Hide Health Care Chart

A quick trip around Hannity's America...

Avert Your Eyes!

Democrats are so excited about their universal health care bill they don't want you to know anything about it!

Now, you may remember this chart, which we showed you last week. It depicts the complex network of government offices and problems that will be created if the Democrats succeed in imposing their health care rationing scheme.

But according to The Hill newspaper, Democrats are trying to prevent Republicans from mailing this chart to their constituents, invoking a congressional rule that prevents lawmakers from using taxpayer funds to send "partisan, politicized or personalized newsletters."

Let me see, preventing politicians from communicating with their own constituents? That sounds just like the sort of transparency that Democrats promised to bring to Washington.

Fact vs. Fiction

Believe it or not, The New York Times has called our president out for some of the ridiculous claims that he made at Wednesday's prime-time news conference. For example, the president said this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: That's why the nation's largest organizations representing doctors and nurses have embraced our plan, which is why the AARP has endorsed our reform efforts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

But The Times points out that those claims are exaggerated, and that "a half-dozen state medical societies have sharply criticized provisions that would establish a new government-run health insurance plan."

Then President Obama went on to make this claim:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: It's not going to reduce Medicare benefits. What it's going to do is to change how those benefits are delivered so that they're more efficient.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

But The New York Times reports that is simply not the case, saying, "Hospitals say the cuts could indeed cut services in some rural areas."

You know those had to be some boldfaced lies in order for The New York Times to get involved. Or perhaps the editor was just sick that day.

Out to Lunch

It has been almost a year since Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11, and Lawrence McDonald, a former VP at Lehman, is telling all in a new book; and he's putting some blame on TurboTax cheat Tim Geithner, who at the time was the head of the Fed in New York.

McDonald says that at the most critical time before this collapse, Geithner was MIA. He writes the following: "With the most momentous failure in the history of U.S. finance about to happen, no one could track down Geithner. They buzzed, paged and rerouted. But Tim had gone to ground. It might have been just happenstance, but there was a melancholy feeling that it might equally well have been deliberate."

Well, we can all be sure about one thing: He wasn't filling out his tax return.

Presidential Pitches

Much was made of the president's wimpy first pitch a few weeks ago at the All-Star game in St. Louis, so we went back in our archive and took a look at past presidential pitches.

For example, above is George W. Bush throwing out the ceremonial pitch at game three of the 2001 World Series, bearing a startling resemblance to Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens.

Very nice form.

And then there's President Obama, throwing out the first pitch at the White Sox game in 2005, looking a whole lot like Lauren Conrad, the valley girl star of the MTV reality show "The Hills."

Congratulations, Mr. President. I'm sure you made teenage girls everywhere around the world very proud.

— Watch "Hannity" weekdays at 9 p.m. ET on FOX News Channel