The price of perpetual adolescence
By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst

. . which got me thinking about the much ballyhooed provision of the Obamacare bill that allows parents to include “children” up to age 26 in their family health insurance policies. This is said to be wildly popular among the Millennial Generation, those born after 1980.

I think it’s appalling, on several grounds . .

It insures uninsured Americans in their twenties. That’s appalling to you guys, we already know that.

. . people aged 26 are not “children,” . .

Fuck young adults with crappy jobs and slender incomes. Yeah, yeah, got that.

. . they for the most part don’t have substantial health care expenses (aside from pregnancies and births) and they should not be encouraged to remain dependent on parents for extended periods.

Huh? These people are the golden group, insurance-wise. Nobody is cheaper to cover — you yourself pointed that out, Barone. So why does it torture you that their parents now can elect to continue to cover them without interference? I know if I had a kid in graduate school, it would be a wise, humane and cheap thing to do.

In that spirit, let me suggest that the Obamacare bureaucrats, in order to hold down health care expenses, may have to set some terms and conditions for “children” aged 21 to 26 who remain on their parents’ health insurance policies.

Late night activities can result in increased rates of accidents and unplanned pregnancies, so they may be required to be home by 10:30 on weeknights and midnight on weekends.

OH HO! Aren’t you sneaky? And funny?

Extended periods of idleness and physical inactivity can promote obesity and attendant health care problems, so they may be required to do household chores including laundry, window washing, lawn mowing and cleaning out the garage.

No you’re not. But I think I see where you’re going. This is the sort of shit your asshole alcoholic Dad pulled on you, Michael. And, gee, don’t you miss him? Ah, caustic memories. Gosh, you had some nasty run-ins with him, but, all tolled, wasn’t he . . pretty much right about the world?

Substantial alcohol consumption and tobacco use, not to mention the use of controlled substances, can cause expensive health care problems, so they may be required to submit to laws on alcohol and tobacco use otherwise applicable only to those under age 21.

Naw, he was just another drunk. And didn’t you already state that twenty-somethings don’t have pressing health crises? Or is there some post-collegial lung cancer epidemic I missed? Maybe they’re huffing Snus because they miss being un-insured.

And given the concerns about brain damage from excessive cellphone use, they may be subject to limits on the number of minutes they can talk each day.

MICHAEL, YOU SHIT, GET OFF THE PHONE

FUCK YOU DAD *click*

*heavy feet coming up the stairs*

Prosecutors: Enraged by health reform, man threatens to kill Murray

By SCOTT SUNDE
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

A central Washington man was so enraged by the passage of federal health care reform that he threatened to kill U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, prosecutors charged Tuesday.

“I want to …. kill you,” court documents say Charles Alan Wilson of Selah said in one of his foul-mouthed calls to Murray’s office.

“Kill the …. senator! Hang the …. senator! I hope somebody puts a …. bullet between your …. eyes,” court documents say he said in another call.

Wilson, 64, was charged Tuesday morning with threatening a federal official. He was undone, in part, by an FBI agent who posed as being with a group that wanted to repeal health-care reform . .

“It only takes one piece of lead….Kill the ….. senator! Kill the …. senator! I’ll donate the lead,” court documents say he said in the first recorded and saved message . .

“Since you are going to put my life at risk, and some bureaucrat is going to determine my health care, your life is at risk, dear. Yes, your life is at risk,” court documents say Wilson said in one of the calls on March 23 . .

On April Fool’s Day, an undercover agent called Wilson, pretending to be a representative of Patients United Now, a group that wanted health-care reform repealed. Wilson agreed to have the call recorded . .

During the call with the FBI agent, Wilson said he hated health-care reform and that he called Murray and her fellow Washington Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell, every day.

He called them both “Pike Street whores,” which is a phrase that court documents say was used in the messages left at Murray’s office.

He allegedly told undercover FBI agents that he regularly carries a gun and that he has a concealed-weapons permit . .

ADD: FBI arrests Calif man for alleged Pelosi threats

By JASON DEAREN and DEVLIN BARRETT
The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 7, 2010; 7:09 PM

SAN FRANCISCO — A California man angry about health care reform allegedly made threatening and harassing phone calls to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, including at least one call in which he got through and spoke to her directly, law enforcement officials said . .

Several federal officials said [Gregory Lee] Giusti made dozens of calls to Pelosi’s homes in California and Washington, as well as to her husband’s business office. They said he recited her home address and said if she wanted to see it again, she would not support the health care overhaul bill that since has been enacted . .

Why do these people try so hard to make other people look foolish when they’ve already been shown to be fools? Why do they open their mouths when they know everybody is about to burst out laughing? Why does David Hasselhoff step outside of his house, why does Madonna do interviews?

Glenn Reynolds criticizes the recently passed healthcare reform. His angle is that the legislation is actually people, in the form of ‘regulators’ or ‘operators’, and he’s just gotta tell you they’re all morons:

He’s put on his critical thinking cap, and he’s gonna let you peek in on his genius tinkering by quoting President Bonzo? Granted, George W. Bush made him look like a likable C student, but they’re both frighteningly dumb. Ronnie:

– “Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.”

– “Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.”

– “Facts are stupid things.”

That’s not somebody worthy of quoting in a post that’s meant to shame your opposition for sheer stupidity.

Amazing.

– “Market mechanisms, like pricing, do a better job than planners because they incorporate what everyone knows indirectly through signals like price, without central planning.”

This guy’s got the chutzpah to quote a thinker and to lecture us all, and he’s a naked fool. Or, to insult him another way . .

– “Pricing does a better job because it incorporates what we learn through price.”

Brilliant! Given the price, stuff like pricing tells you a lot. I have to agree.

Almost none of the bill is in effect.

In other words — still Glenn’s –, when something is this big, no one should be allowed touch it. But moronic, arrogant liberals will try. And yet Glenn always wants to fuck with the government, or invade countries full of millions of innocent people.

Gee, you think Andrew Breitbart’s brain is a little overheated? Think his view of the Tea Party being equivalent to all of the United States is a stretch? Think that maybe he’s a little self-important, figuring that Obama had a grand design by deploying the Black Congressional Caucus to walk through a group of Tea Partiers? Think his assertion that Obama knew a gesture like that was capable of destroying both the movement and the nation a bit much?

Well, it’s such a huge threat. It might actually change a couple of Republican elections. We can’t have that, can we?

DAMN. Well, you finally caught on to it. I was hoping that no one ever figured that one out: yes, the walk-through was totally a ruse. The amazing thing is . . we’ve been doing it for years, walking in some proximity to the opposition. I’m walking next to a Republican right now, and, I swear-to-gawd, I’m about to burst out laughing — he has absolutely no idea.

Of course, in between slashing actresses, he’d send a message of approval of our politics. He’d say it was a terrifically nefarious strategy, literally.

And what would a metaphorical “evil strategy” be? Obviously, it’s some sort of non-strategy, the way a “bug” isn’t actually an insect. Or would a “strategy” strategy qualify? Why am I wasting time on Andrew Breitbart, ferchrissakes?

Here, feel free to read the angry ape-shit yourself . .

Monday, March 29, 2010

The Government Plantation Forever?
by Star Parker

Let’s do a quick thought experiment.

The price of apples keeps going up. The government decides that every American must buy apples. But some can’t afford them.

Government starts controlling how much apple farmers are paid, it mandates that every single American buys apples and subsidizes those under a certain income level so they can.

Will the price of apples go down, stay the same or go up? Or, in economists’ language, if you limit the supply of a commodity and increase demand, will the price of that commodity go up or down?

Did you say “up”? You get an A. But if you did say “up,” you surely are not a Democrat.

So ‘apples’ are insurance? Bah. Buying insurance is buying a risk, buying a bet. The more people buy it, the lower the price gets.

The more that track gamblers buy into an 8-to-1 filly, the lower the odds drop. It’s not an instant market agreement, it ain’t the barter system. It’s a one-on-corporation exchange where they’re playing a pool of contractual adversaries against your strategy in order to pay themselves off in the future. It’s all dependent on something neither of the parties currently possesses. Only the projection of reality is a current commodity.

Otherwise, you’d buy a policy for $100, and then they’d immediately run a whirring Star Trek ‘Bones’ scanner on you to know when you’re gonna die. “I just bought a thirty-year policy, and they gave me $101!” Bummer.

Actually, they’d run the scanner on you before they bought anything, and, if they really wanted to do business with you, you’d be in big trouble.

Didn’t know it, until just now. 27 years of playing ‘hangman’ everyday might affect your cognition, though, don’t you think? I have a hard time imagining that we’d be publishing op-eds from jillionaire hosts of dumbfuck game shows. Perhaps he sees himself as their George Clooney.

Not shockingly, Pat takes issue with people who think they’re smarter than he is.

Opposed to Obamacare? Then You Must Be a Racist
by Pat Sajak
03/29/2010

. . It turns out, according to [Frank Rich's] well-crafted analysis, that it’s not the bill that’s got people in an uproar; rather, what we’re facing is the death rattle of a dwindling cadre of white, racist, sexist, homophobic males terrified by the ascent of people of color, women and gays.

As the ever-tolerant Rich reasons: “The conjunction of a black President and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play.”

Pat does not understand the considerable difference between ‘intolerance’ and ‘analysis.’ If you write what you see, apparently you’re a bigot. He never makes a case why it isn’t possible that Rich is right, he’s just wrong. Such is a damning indictment from a TV star given the answers to all the puzzles.

So that’s it. It’s just a bunch of scared, white males who would yelp about anything this gang came up with. As Rich makes clear, this is merely a replay of the opposition to the Voting Rights Act of 1964. You get it?

Uh, nope. Rich was talking about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, not the Voting Rights Act of 1965. WHEEL . . OF . . MISFORTUNE.

Oh well. On the previous election trail, Pat also felt compelled to call out those stupid smarty pants:

Here Come the Dimwits…Again
by Pat Sajak
09/15/2008

You knew it was just a matter of time before the Democrats played their quadrennial election trump card by claiming they (and, by extension, their voters) are — well, you know — smarter than the other side. This has been going on at least since the brilliant Adlai Stevenson lost consecutive elections to the dull-witted Dwight Eisenhower back in the 50s.

Pat’s trump card, over and over, is “When you’re more popular, you’re actually smarter.” He’s been killing Alex Trebek with that one.

It’s funny how the bottom 50 percent seemed wise enough when the polls were pointing to an Obama victory in November. Now, with momentum favoring the McCain/Palin ticket, apparently half the electorate has begun taking another dose of “stupid pills.”

I watch enough political TV shows featuring talking heads yelling at each other to know there are scores of self-described “Democratic Strategists” out there. It seems to me at least one of them might devise a strategy that doesn’t depend on insulting half the population at the same time they’re asking for their votes because they care so much about them.

Only a real dimwit would fall for that one.

. . and then Obama won in a blowout? Either way you score it, by Sajak’s own ‘intolerance’, he’s crowning his own people as dimwits.

Have you noticed it? I have. But then I troll the big right-wing sites looking for talented comedians.

The passage of the healthcare bill has really ratcheted up the agitation and paranoia. The view of Obama as some foreign, sinister mastermind is absolutely exploding. It’d be much more fascinating as a forensic matter if it weren’t troubling, given America’s long history of violent nuts seeing blackness as an un-traditional and un-American force that tyrants and radicals use to destroy the nation. Lincoln, the Kennedys and King were targeted in part or wholly because of it.

In our case, the blackness now runs the joint. Obviously, the right-wingers are nowhere near coming to terms with it:

This is from a Christian website, incidentally, and that was barely a nibble. Where could the Obama Warlock Spawn of Satan’s Ass have possibly come from? We’re disentangling some serious fucking voodoo here, patriots:

They are completely confused, they don’t know what to do.

And here, Lloyd, who is millions of his fellow Americans, provides us with a stark photo of the assault:

And a second photo. That’s you front and center, having leapt out the President’s golden butt and stabbed a Blue Cross accountant:

Aren’t you satisfied with yourself? I’d say so.

Hey Lloyd, isn’t this all a bit racist?

WHOA — you ‘Trojan Horsed’ this post. Very sneaky.

Hardly enough children are being raped in the United States, so I’m glad that Democrats took a stand on this. If it’s time to, by chemical means, put some ‘boing’ in the molesters’ hammers, so be it.

It’s also time we distributed Army khaki ass chaps to pre-schoolers.

How these people manage to live with themselves is a mystery.

Chuck Grassley flip-flopped all over the place on the critical healthcare issues for most of 2009. But then the townhall screamers and racists made all the good headlines in late Summer. Being a spineless politician, he thought he saw a sure thing and threw his everything in with them.

Well, it’s now March 2010. Healthcare legislation passes, and, despite his fervent opposition and flat-out lying, what’s he saying today? That Americans can thank him for his ‘leadership.’

July: Why can’t I have decent healthcare, like you?

“You can. Go work for the federal government.”

August:

Asked about Sen. Chuck Grassley’s comment that end-of-life care could “pull the plug on grandma,” [Howard] Dean pointed out that the Iowa Republican had voted for a similar provision for Medicare only a few years ago.

“All the House did was essentially repeat the same thing that Senator Grassley voted for in 2003 in their bill,” Dean said. “Now, how you can morph that into ‘pulling the plug on grandma,’ I don’t know. I think it’s despicable. I think it’s awful, the lies that have come out on this bill that are just designed to frighten the daylights out of people.”

Time magazine:

And today:

Monday, March 22, 2010

Pelosi: “After We Pass This Bill, Being A Woman
Will No Longer Be A Pre-Existing Medical Condition”
Posted by: Greg Hengler at 2:38 PM

“What on earth is this woman talking about?”

This:

MAN, that takes me back.

Just this morning:

Obama Signs Executive Order Granting Nancy Pelosi Control Over Americans’ Medical Records

Merely minutes after signing historic and sweeping healthcare reform legislation today, President Obama surprised Republicans and thrilled his fellow Democrats by signing and issuing an Executive Order giving controversial House Speaker Nancy Pelosi access to every American’s medical records.

The order officially named the San Francisco Democrat the nation’s first Medical Records Review czar.

Pelosi wasted no time in declaring her intentions with her new position.

“I’ll be poking through every one of your personal records because . . uhh . . I care about you.”

[*knock knock*]

[door opens]

‘Hi, my name’s Tami. I’m going door to door signing up new voters for the Democratic Party. Are you already registered?’

‘Don’t waste your time, girlie. I am a life-long Republican, you’d sooner get kerosene from a turnip. Now you just run along . .’

“So how’s the diabetes, Bob?”

‘Wha –? Excuse me?’

“Your diabetes. Been monitoring your blood sugar, right? Keeping it in check I hope. Terrible, nasty disease.”

‘Wait — how the hell did you . .’

“Let’s just say I have smart friends. I understand, Bob, the dangle’s not showing the signs of life it once did. Doesn’t have the old hankering for Betty’s pork sandwiches like it once did, eh Bob? So sad, diabetes will do that.”

‘. . ooh noooo . .’

“You know what you need? You need some good ol’ insulin. Yep, insulin’s gonna take care of you, but good, Bob. Hey — you know who controls the supply of insulin, don’t’ ya Bob?”

‘. . alright, gimme the clipboard.’

“Terrific!”

‘Bastards.’

“Welcome to the Party! Now, where’s Betty?”