North Carolina State Senator Bob Rucho (guess) does not like Obamacare. Never having embedded tweets, I will just paste the text here.
Justice Robert’s pen & Obamacare has done more damage to the USA then the swords of the Nazis,Soviets & terrorists combined.
7:41 AM – 15 Dec 2013
Welp, that pretty much covers the twentieth century plus nine-eleven. You could throw in World War I, the Spanish flu, Vietnam, Chernobyl, Iran-Contra and he first wave of white rappers, except that even leaving that stuff out Rucho’s additive clause puts Obamacare well over the top.
This puts your next GOP nutter in an unhappy bind. As far as a primary challenger is concerned, anyone who falls short of this Rucho guy might as well have written the death panel clause himself. You want to avoid sounding derivative, yet Rucho claimed just about every bad thing in living memory. Slavery would work if the Pauls took even one day off from comparing every single government program to slavery, to the point that E.W. Jackson cannot even get a raised eyebrow for thundering on about it. I suppose you could multiply rather than add, though the average supporter might run out of fingers. Otherwise Obamacare is worse than what, the K-T asteroid? The bubonic plague? You guys should help the GOP out and offer some suggestions of your own.
Then again. If you look at it from the narrow perspective of the GOP as a party unmoored from any interest in the well being of average Americans, Obamacare might look a lot like an extinction-level asteroid plunging inexorably towards your dinosaur society. Especially if it works. I would understand then if they resist that cretaceous-tertiary analogy, finding it, as they say, a little on the nose.
Cervantes
Obamacare is worse than Republican malice and neglect?
Keith P
Obamacare is worse than pilonidal cysts and anal cancer combined. Maybe even worse than cancer of the taint.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Hoekstroika!
KG
Obamacare is the worst thing since the VA, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, combined!
Wait, what? Oh, see, what I meant was…
Villago Delenda Est
When confronted with stupidity of this magnitude and purity, there are only two alternatives: laugh your ass off, or drop the Empire State Building on the idiot.
Laughing your ass off is less work, and dropping the Empire State Building on him will require a lot of tedious environmental impact paperwork.
Cervantes
Inexplicably, Mao, Pol Pot, and the Castros have been left out.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cervantes:
Not to mention Poland!
jl
But what about the Spanish Inquisition?
You didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition! No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
But… OBMACARE!
Edit: Let them keep up this complete nonsense. Will make good attack ads in next few election cycles. I agree with the uncivil Krugman, by following this insane obsession, they are fools. Maybe good red meat for the base during primary season, but not for general elections.
Davis X. Machina
This dude is old school.
The problem is that all the fighting is now over mere money, and it’s sort of… tawdry.
I remember six months ago when all the Ohmigodobamacare spambots were all warning us all about the Republic dying one no-copay flu shot at a time. And now they’re nit-picking copays.
It’s a comedown, when the struggle used to be all about the loss of freedom, and the heavy-handed state coercion, and the intrusive government. Obamacare was the worst thing to happen to Freedom™ since, I don’t know, the revocation of the edict of Nantes, or Korematsu v. U.S or something. The end of America.
But now we find out it’s just all about the Benjamins. Or as the joke has it, now we’re just arguing about the price.
But hey. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Matthew 6:21
(Freedom™ is a registered trademark of the Republican National Committee. Used with permission. All rights reserved.)
jheartney
Must say it’s news to me that the Nazis, Soviets, and terrorists did their work with edged weapons. Perhaps Mr. Rucho is referring to some other variety of sword; but I thought it was Republicans whose SOP involved screwing everyone else.
Ruckus
The Greasy Old Poop party is pretty lucky that most of their members have real short memories. That way they don’t have to worry too much about actual history and can keep reminding their voters what to think about on a daily basis.
Senility and gross stupidity are wonderful things to an insane political party.
joeyess
Well you can forget this analogy…… after all, according to these people the world is only 6000 years old…
To insist that they abandon their principles in such a manner is simply ridiculous.
Mike in NC
Had not heard of this unhinged maggot before. Now I need to look up what part of this fucked up state he represents.
Big R
Obamacare is worse than having a BLAH President! After all, it is the Wah House….
Yatsuno
@Mike in NC: Probably somewhere in the western hinterlands. Can’t see that attitude coming from Asheville even with the gerrymander.
Sourmash
“Obamacare is the worst thing since the last thing the liberals shoved down our throats…”
Marc
@jheartney: So technically, the analogy is correct!
carolinadave
He represents Mathews. Wealthy white bread suburb of Charlotte.
NotMax
*sigh*
Roberts’ pen, not Robert’s pen. (And Chief Justice, as well.)
Well, if Mr. Rucho is determined to market himself an inept fool, at least he’s consistent.
The Other Chuck
Swords? So Mr Rucho, not only are you a histrionic nitwit and an unredeemable asshole who wants to see americans die just to spite liberals, you also fancy yourself a wordsmith when it turns out you’re really just not very fucking bright.
What. A. Surprise.
burnspbesq
@Mike in NC:
Southern suburbs of Charlotte. Matthews and surrounding communities.
carolinadave
P@NotMax:
Proper grammar only shows you are elitist. Or uppity. Or not with the young folks. Or something.
Citizen_X
But not jam bands. Obamacare’s teh worstest thing in history, but it’s still not as bad as that.
Anoniminous
I had an uncle die from “the swords of the Nazis.” I had an uncle with one leg from “the swords of the Nazis.” I had a father with burn scars all over his back and the upper part of his legs from “the swords of the Nazis.”
Fuck you, Mr. North Carolina State Senator Bob Rucho.
GregB
Here’s the flow chart.
Nazism–>Stalinism–>Fascism–>Communism–>Socialism–>Obamacare–>Michelle Obama’s buttocks forcing white people to eat cabbage–>The end of America.
pseudonymous in nc
Republican state legislator is idiot, film at 11. And yeah, white-flight Charlotte suburbia.
They’ll just need to up the units. Obamacare = 15.2 gigahitlers.
Omnes Omnibus
Swords?
NotMax
@GregB
It really is as if they bought out the inventory during a Blah Friday sale at the House of Lies.
(In reality, much worse, but a little levity helps.)
Citizen_X
And the conquistadors’ machine guns, and Sitting Bull’s EMP weapons, to boot.
Petorado
It’s not peak wingnut, but is this the hyperbpocalypse?
Chris
Obamacare is worse than the cancellation of Firefly.
Obamacare is worse than Ben Affleck playing Batman.
Obamacare is even worse than Greedo shooting first.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris:
Let’s not get overwrought.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Obamacare is worse than listening to the 10,000th rendition in a row of that evil “Christmas Shoes” song while being unable to find parking!
Ruckus
@GregB:
Somehow it seems like you left out 20 of the 27 levels of utter stupidity that is current day conservatives.
Yatsuno
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker: Something would have to die after that. Even if it was just a bottle of vodka.
Ruckus
@Yatsuno:
First to go would have to be whatever was making that awful, evil sound.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Yatsuno: Something besides the little boy’s mother in that stupid song? I’ve always hoped there was a secret verse where the narrator sees the boy’s very-much-alive mother and the piles of shoes they got from suckers who fell for his sob story.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker: @Yatsuno: I am unfamiliar with that song. I shan’t go looking for it and don’t bother to link it out of cruelty for I shan’t click on the the link. But is this the song that disproves the claims made in last night’s 80’s music thread that there is no objectively bad music, just differences in taste?
handsmile
@NotMax: , @The Other Chuck:
Whether he meant the Chief Justice or some other judge named Bob, clearly “Pens” preoccupy the imagination of Mr. Rucho.
In a follow-up tweet to defend his original declaration, he wrote, “Those that tweeted [to criticize Rucho], put your thinking caps back on: ‘The PEN is mightier than the SWORD.’ Edward Bulwar-Lytton,1839. But surely you knew that.”
Surely, the smug Mr. Rucho didn’t know that he had also misspelled Bulwer-Lytton. The fact that that author is now best known as the titular name for an annual fiction writing contest “to compose the opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels” is just one more bit to savor about Rucho’s overheated prose.
PENS and SWORDS. Any Freudians in the house want to take a stab at Mr. Rucho’s psyche?
NotMax
@Yatsuno
Two bottles (at least) for this … thing.
Churchlady320
I knew of a man years ago who just summed up everything he hated as ‘commienazi’. I don’t see why they can’t adopt that. It’s efficient and lets us all off the hook trying to figure it out.
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
To be fair, the cancellation itself was probably Obamacare’s fault.
Omnes Omnibus
@handsmile: Robert Jackson?
ETA: I bet Rucho has a really big car/SUV.
FlipYrWhig
@handsmile: the pen1s mightier than the sword.
mdblanche
@Davis X. Machina:
Clearly not Korematsu v. U.S. since that didn’t happen to white people, but the revocation of the edict of Nantes should work now that the papacy is back on conservatism’s enemies list.
jl
@NotMax: That is art of the highest order. What I fear, is that expanded mental health coverage due to the vile evil Obamacare will eliminate the kind of people who produce such wonderful music, or noise, or whatever it is.
How did you find such a thing, pray tell?
Anyway, back to the topic, Obamacare, worse than the sun blowing up and destroying the solar system. Fer sher.
FlipYrWhig
At some point, a fella just has to say, what the fuck are they talking about?
Omnes Omnibus
@FlipYrWhig: I call 1997.
Keith G
I feel like I have the plague. Don’t think there can be much that is worse.
For clarity’s sake, it’s not the plague, but something has moved into my respiratory tract to the point where I can no longer speak but instead am reduced to croaking a few word-like sounds.
pseudonymous in nc
Obamacare: worse than the standard American Christmas soundtrack of creepy songs written when boomers were kids.
jenn
I seriously don’t understand how anyone can listen to this and think anything other than “WTF” and “how soon can I get this person to a psych ward?”
Omnes Omnibus
@jenn: “Excuse me, stewardess, I speak wingnut.”
NotMax
@jl
Vee haff our vayz. (polishes monocle)
[Serious answer: just blind chance.]
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: [Serious answer: just blind chance.]
Zat ist a vay.
Elizabelle
What an asshat.
What’s wrong with his constituents? (I know, I know …)
Lurking Buffoon
Clearly, Obamacare is the worst thing since BENGHAAAAAZIgate, Selfiegate, Handshakegate, TakinUrGunzgate, Noinvasiongate, and the worst of them all, Blahprezgate. Also it’s totally way way worse than the Martian invasion of 3018 combine with not being able to find an open IHOP in the dead of night.
jenn
@Omnes Omnibus: :*)
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
I think I broke Yatsuno.
Mea culpa.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: He’s going in for surgery soon; they can fix what you broke while they are in there.
jl
@NotMax:
” Serious answer: just blind chance ”
It damn will better be just blind chance.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Of course it was blind chance. What kind of monster would search out that thing on purpose?
Suffern ACE
Worst thing since sliced bread. Seriously. Ever since we stopped with the slicing at home, we’ve become too accustomed to having others do things for us. This is not a nation of pioneers any longer.
Lurking Buffoon
@Omnes Omnibus: Pretty sure according to Rucho, Obama would.
The Dangerman
Idiot didn’t get the memo; today’s talking point is it’s income redistribution. It doesn’t take long in listening to their media to learn the talking point for the day.
Omnes Omnibus
@Lurking Buffoon: Well played with the on topic riff.
Petorado
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker: I stumbled onto this link that should give anyone pause who listened to 80’s music back in its day: this is how the performers have aged. I’m feeing pretty damn well-preserved in comparison.
Chris
@Lurking Buffoon:
Why is Obamacare not a Gate?
Suffern ACE
@The Dangerman: so is too much being redistributed now? Is this related to dependency? Is it bad for the rich or for the poor this time?
Lurking Buffoon
@Chris: It’s too terrible to be a gate. Naturally.
Omnes Omnibus
@Petorado: Marc Almond looks exactly the same. Weird. Some seem to have aged well given that the age range is 47- 65.
different-church-lady
What? No Oregon Treaty?
PurpleGirl
@Suffern ACE: It is always bad for the poor; it encourages their dependence on others instead of allowing them to die earlier.
Suffern ACE
@Lurking Buffoon: -care has replaced -gate as the scandal suffix of choice.
Bill E Pilgrim
My new name for this, when someone goes right past bringing up Hiter into citing the entire sweep of human history, is Doris Kearns Godwin’s law.
Chris
@Lurking Buffoon:
I keep wishing there’d be a political scandal involving outer space, just so the media could jump in and call it “Stargate…”
Yatsuno
@NotMax: I no broked. but this:
@Omnes Omnibus:
has me busier than a bishop breakdancing.
h/t Antony C. Who none of you will know. Except maybe Frankensteinbeck.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Suffern ACE: Caregate.
The utter scandal of caring about people who aren’t corporations.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno:
Fucking hipster.
Suffern ACE
@PurpleGirl: yes. But sometimes it’s bad for the rich, too. For example, most rich people would be generous and charitable if they weren’t forced to pay such high taxes. It’s preventing them from buying their redemption. It robs them of their immortal souls. It hardens their hearts.
Since its Christmas, it would be a good time to roll out that one.
The election is too far off to run with the “redistribution serves no purpose but to buy democratic voters.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: Given the season, I offer this:
– Marley’s Ghost
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: Indeed. Especially since he’s an Aussie. You don’t get more hipster than that.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
OK, now that is totally unhinged from reality
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: Even in Brooklyn?
Suffern ACE
@Omnes Omnibus: yes. Brooklyn is so 2003. Commercialism has taken root there.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
I was wondering when someone would pick up that gauntlet :D :D :D
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well we can’t let something so full of red-blooded American patriotism, Jesus and apple pie- like, ya know, guns- be associated with Hitler, Stalin and terrorism, can we? The Second Amendment doesn’t cover swords, ya know- they aren’t arms.
/wingnut
polyorchnid octopunch
@Suffern ACE: Yeah baby, I’m gonna slice the loaf. Oh yesh.
Omnes Omnibus
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Swords are fucking arms, god damn it. So are pikes and crossbows. Arrrggghhh!!!!!111eleven!!!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Omnes Omnibus:
The American Revolution started at the Boston Tea Party with the Shot Heard ’round the World, not the Whoosh Clang Heard ’round the World. Eat it, commie!
Omnes Omnibus
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Me have cousins of multiple removes who fought at Concord – including Major John Buttrick. Me no like stupid revisionism.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Unless your ancestor was Bobby Thompson- the man who fired that first shot- your opinion doesn’t matter, does it? Go back to England, King George!
Omnes Omnibus
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Hey, with the number of convicted witches in my background, I should probably be quiet – lest the religio-fascists nab me.
YellowJournalism
Obamacare is worse than stubbing my toe on my bed in the dark when I’m coming back from the bathroom.
(Hey, it really hurts.)
Omnes Omnibus
@YellowJournalism: My ex broke her toe that way and Obamacare did nothing to fix it.*
*The fact that Bush was POTUS when this happened is immaterial. Her toe really hurt.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Toegate!
Just like the website, a digital breakdown!
Issa will leap right on that.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: My ex would hurt Issa. Badly.
Ken
“If you look at it from the narrow perspective of the GOP as a party unmoored from
any interest in the well being of average Americansreality,”Fixed that for you. No charge, it’s covered by Obamacare.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: My wife broke her toe and Obamadidn’tCare.
raven
Wow, dead for three hours!
Central Planning
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker:
That is the worst fucking Christmas song EVER.
Baud
Liberal blogs turn on Obamacare. /Fox News
Baud
@raven:
I blame Obamacare.
Anne Laurie
@pseudonymous in nc: It saddens me that YouTube can’t show me even one example of the famous Pogo ballad “Good King Sauerkraut, look out!/On your feets uneven… “
Ben Cisco
I’m so sorry that this jackhole is from my state.
And saddened at the fact that as stupid as he is, there are those who are multitudes dumber – and they voted for him.
Cervantes
@Petorado: Are we sure that’s really DEVO?
Cervantes
@Chris: To get to the other side.
Barney
You have to consider the audience he’s aiming at. The K-T asteroid is clearly out, since it was more than 6,000 years ago and therefore Did Not Happen because Bible. More to his and his supporter’s taste would be “worse than our defeat in The War Of Northern Aggression”, or “worse than the illegal occupation of America by a bunch of guys who were unaccountably here before we arrived in our God-ordained ships”. Perhaps “worse than all the Amendments from the Thirteenth onwards”.
J.D. Rhoades
Problem is, laughing at and mocking these crazies just makes them more convinced they’re right.
J.D. Rhoades
Otherwise Obamacare is worse than what, the K-T asteroid? The bubonic plague? You guys should help the GOP out and offer some suggestions of your own.
Rape of Nanking. Defenestration of Prague. The Star Wars Christmas Special.
Patrick
Obamacare is not much different than Romneycare. Romneycare was established by Romney, the guy Republicans wanted as President in 2012.
Obamacare was an idea borrowed from the conservative Heritage Foundation. What does it say about Romney and the Heritage Foundation when they are worse than the swords of the Nazis,Soviets & terrorists combined?
Then again, these are the same idiots who are adamant that Santa Claus and Jesus are white.
WaterGIrl
@Chris: They should just call it ObamaGate and get it over with. After all, it’s the mere fact that Obama is president that is the true scandal.
flukebucket
“Bob has a dental specialty practice in Charlotte and is a past president of the Charlotte Dental Society” A fucking dentist.
Hillary Rettig
I know Omnis said it first, but
SWORDS?!?!?!?!
nastybrutishntall
@Citizen_X: Obamacare is worse than seeing a vacuum cleaner played live during a modal smooth-jazz medley for three days straight in some patchouli-blighted corner of Burlington. It’s that bad.
nastybrutishntall
@Citizen_X:
It’s eatin cars, It’s eatin bars!
Bill Arnold
@Anoniminous:
I have a father with Nazi steel fragments still encysted in his knee. However, they aren’t from a sword. Nazis, Soviets, and terrorists were/are not major users of swords. So technically Rucho is correct; perhaps he was joking. Good chance he’ll claim it.
uila
@Bill Arnold: Agreed. Americans have indeed suffered precious little sword damage. To paraphrase one of my favorite tumblrs: “A good tweet“.
Villago Delenda Est
@J.D. Rhoades:
OK, nothing is THAT bad.
J R in WV
@Chris:
Too many syllables ?
El Cid
Good thing, then, that when the Al Qa’ida Commie-NAZI’s come for us with their swords, we have so many fucking guns that they’ll all be gunned down quickly — and that‘s just from the accidental shootings.
Villago Delenda Est
@El Cid:
Ala Raiders of the Lost Ark?
El Cid
@Villago Delenda Est: If the sword-swinging guy in the marketplace was shot by a guy dropping his handgun in WalMart instead of a purposeful shot by Indiana Jones.
Matt McIrvin
@Patrick: Actually, Romneycare was largely the product of the Democratic-controlled Massachusetts legislature, and basically the only thing the Heritage proposal had in common with the ACA was a mandate.
But the point still stands, because the things about the ACA that Republicans bellyache about the most, because they’re widely-publicized sources of trouble (the exchange website, the mandate, the cancellation of existing plans) are also features of various Republican alternatives.
John 2.0
@flukebucket: Yep, he’s a dentist. And one day a year he provides services for underprivileged children. I know this because he’s referenced it several times on the floor of the NC Senate. So he KNOWS that medical insurance reform in unnecessary.
Joel
Obamacare is worse than Hitler, Stalin, and AIDS put together.
Flukebucket
@John 2.0: I also went to his page and made the mistake of looking at the pictures he has posted. Happy pictures with his heroes Mitt Romney, Donald Rumsfeld and others. Sickening as hell. And I am sure he makes it a point during Sunday school to remind his fellow classmates just how much of his precious time, talent and energy he just gives away to the po folks.
mclaren
The swords of Nazis, Soviets and terrorists will crush us with their iron fists unless we can make the sinister Obamacare octopus sing its swan song. That moslem Kenyan Manchurian candidate Obama has put his thumb on the scales, but fortunately those scales are falling from our eyes, and we’re on the path to become one nation, underground, with an underground railroad too. Some days you get the bear, and some days the Soviet bear gets you, and that’s just how the ball crumbles.
StringOnAStick
@Flukebucket: I’ve worked at free dental care events; the number of people needing it far outstrips the available resources, and people start lining up the night before because by 10 am, they end up telling the remaining people sorry, we’re full for the day. This guy doing 1 day a year is a drop in the bucket, and far less than what a dentist volunteering for one of these extremely efficiently organized events can cover. Nice window dressing on his part though.
Jado
Obamacare is has done more damage to Mordor than The Elves, The Council of Elrond, and those blasted Hobbits combined!!!
What do you mean that’s not an apt comparison? We’re TRYING to explain our vision of a new and prosperous Mordor under our Dark Lord, and these bleeding heart Men of Arnor are RUINING IT!!
We try and try to bring about the return of the Shadow, but it’s not easy with all of these traitors and fifth columnists sabotaging the system. The Nazgul can’t even chase down a lowly Hobbit without being drowned in a flood. It’s not like when I was a kid….