In a truly fantastic about-face, Ted Cruz, the man that spent 21-hours filibustering Obamacare funding, will be signing his family up for it. Now that his wife has gone on unpaid leave from her cushy job at Goldman Sachs to join her husband’s campaign, they will be without health care:
Cruz told the Des Moines Register that “members of Congress should not be exempt” from Obamacare — which was the rationale behind Grassley’s amendment — but reiterated his belief that the entire law should be repealed. He said that he believes the next president will get rid of health reform. “There are a fair number of Republicans in Washington and elsewhere who have quietly and privatively given up on that fight and I have not,” he said.
Gotta love that Cruz is not a hypocrite.
Team Blackness also discussed a California ballot initiative to legalize killing gay people, the maturity of Mo’Ne Davis, and the press conference of one of the University of Oklahoma SAE members that was caught leading a racist chant.
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tybee
he needs to pretend O-care has been repealed and do what he’d have to do if it really was.
lgerard
Hopefully he finds a plan with superior mental health coverage
beth
The way Mo’Ne Davis handled that whole thing was one of the classiest things I’ve ever seen. What an outstanding person she is.
Roger Moore
I think the true irony of his reading Green Eggs and Ham as part of his filibuster is about to become apparent. He’s about to discover that they’re pretty tasty when he finally gets around to eating them. Of course I expect that he will not be as willing as the narrator to admit this.
Punchy
Can we discuss the fact that Indiana now has a bill legalizing discrimination based on the completely subjective and seemingly-impossible-to-legally qualify “religious beliefs”?
As I’ve wondered before, doesn’t this allow for Sharia law? Can Muslims deny women services if they lack a headscarf? Can they deny them the ability to test drive cars?
I suspect businesses will go out of their way to advertise that they serve everyone, lest be lacking such window stickers and assumed to be bigoted (and boycotted).
Laertes
The word you’re looking for is “asshole,” not “hypocrite.”
Laertes
@Punchy:
It does, to precisely the same extent that in the Jim Crow south, the law permitted white voters to be subjected to perverse literacy tests.
The law, in its’ majestic equality, permits both powerful majorities and tiny powerless minorities to use their power to harass whomever they will.
Calouste
@Punchy: And of course what we will see happen then, is that TeaDerp goes to a store that has a “We serve everyone” sticker on the window, behaves like an asshole (iow, as they normally do), is refused service for behaving as an asshole, and then whines to the rwnm that they have been refused service because they are a “Christian”.
Mike in NC
If we had a functioning news media in this country, Cruz would have already suspended his campaign in order to spend more time with his family.
beth
@Laertes: I asked this yesterday but didn’t get an answer – I’ve seen comments that seem to indicate that this law applies not only to businesses but to individual workers as well, so that a waiter could refuse service to a same sex couple but not be fired for it if his boss disagrees. Does anyone know if this is true? I can’t find anything that specifically spells out what the law says.
Cervantes
@Roger Moore:
!
Belafon
Actually, the law does not require him to get on Obamacare. It says that the only way Congresscritters and other federal workers can get subsidies to pay for their health insurance is to go through an exchange. He could take CORBA or some other plan if he wanted, but he doesn’t get any money to help pay for his care.
Brachiator
@Punchy:
There is nothing wrong with this law. I do not understand why people fail to understand that Americans have a god given right to live in fear, and to express irrational hatred and bigotry against anyone they want, as long as their stupid bigotry is clearly seconded by Lord God Almighty. It’s in the Constitution, which was delivered to Moses by God Himself during the Exodus. Say amen.
Ben Cisco
Backpfeifengesicht!
Fred
Poor Ted had it forced down his throat by that black man in the White House.
I think Ted and his family should have the right to die in the street like dogs from totally curable dieases. That’s what Freedumb means!
Amir Khalid
@Punchy:
This may be Sharia as conceived in a benighted place like Saudi Arabia, but not in many other Muslim countries. I have never heard of a woman being refused service for not covering her head in Malaysia or Indonesia (for instance) or not being allowed to drive.
Calouste
@beth: Indiana is a right-to-get-fired state, so the boss can just fire them for something else. Like costing them money.
Betty Cracker
@Punchy: See above.
Benw
@Roger Moore: will he enroll in Obamacare with a goat? Will he sign up on the exchanges on a boat?
Tom
@Roger Moore: Personally, I think that he’s signing up just so he can complain about how awful it is.
As has been pointed out, he has many other options that don’t involve using the exchange.
Tom
@Calouste: Yes, exactly. Unfortunately, assholes are not a protected class under the law.
jonas
If Cruz were intellectually honest, he would pay out of pocket for a COBRA policy from his wife’s insurer, which would probably cost many tens of thousands of dollars, but guarantee that he wouldn’t be faced with the nightmare of receiving a government subsidy.
Matt McIrvin
@Ben Cisco: Ted Cruz has always been the guy I think of when I see that word.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@beth:
IIRC, there was a situation in Minnesota (?) where this kind of law was passed and Muslim cab drivers started refusing to transport passengers who were carrying alcohol. I can’t remember how it turned out, though.
This, by the way, is why various nutjobs are filing lawsuits to try and claim that Islam isn’t a “real” religion and shouldn’t get First Amendment protections. They get laughed out of court every time, but that’s the reason they persist.
Benw
@Punchy: I don’t understand the practical implementation of this law on several fronts. First, as you point out, how are the religious beliefs defined legally? If a self-proclaimed Christian business is sued for anti-Gay discrimination and appeals to this law for protection, do they have a burden to prove in court that Christianity is fundamentally anti-gay?
Secondly, how does legal discrimination work when the judged quality (gayness) is not external? Then does the law require legal proof that the business knows a person is gay before it is allowed to deny service? Will the Supreme Court have to issue a legal definition of Gaydar?
So many questions…
Steve
All this fuss over a law that has less than 2 percent of the population participating in it. Many of that 2 percent already had access to insurance. In the meantime, the employee group health coverage I provide for my employees was forcibly changed in ways unacceptable to me AND the people it covers.
Calouste
@Benw: I think it pretty much comes down to that people in Indiana (Indianans? Indiots?) can now discriminate against anyone they feel like, as long as they personally believe something. It doesn’t have to be an “official” religious belief.
muddy
@Benw: In the Hobby Lobby decision, they just had to say it was their strongly held opinion. It didn’t need to pass any test about whether their religion really taught that. They specifically ruled that it was what you believed that was controlling, not any sort of reality or proof.
Benw
@Calouste: Hoosiers. @muddy so if one “strongly believes ” that someone else is “like, probably super gay”, they can deny service. Nice.
muddy
@Benw: I think it’s more that they can say “My religion says that gay people are evil and must die cakeless!”
They don’t have to show that their religion actually says that, they just have to be stupid and crazy enough to think that it does.
muddy
@muddy: Or to lie about it adequately, come to think of it.
Fred
Hey, Cruz has changed his mind about taking Obamacare and is now looking into other options so he might not be sucking offa the Gubmint tit ’cause he’s got too much integrity. Unless he changes his mind again. Then he’s just as weasley as he looks.
It’s true. I read it on Wonkette so it must be true!
Ryan
Thank you Senator Grassley for making this moment possible for us to enjoy!!!