From a gentleman waiting to pick up his prescription meds, right after the SCOTUS announcement:
“Obamacare is government-run healthcare! It’s an abomination!”
To which he was asked “so how do you feel about the VA?”
To which he replied “I love it!”
I wish I was joking.
Open Thread
comrade scott's agenda of rage
The next question after his “I love it” answer should have been
“Don’t you think VA is government-run health care?”
Asshats all.
dmsilev
“Keep your dirty government hands off my VA/Medicare/Medicaid/Obamacare”
Heh.
seanindc
since it’s almost lunch time, I would love to have a nice big plate of wingnut freakout. Can we compile a list of the best feverswamps to troll while licking the anger tears off their sweet little cheeks?
The Moar You Know
Yeah, well, I expect no less from Americans, who are the most mule-stupid people you’ll ever encounter.
fasteddie9318
Well we have to have government-provided healthcare for veterans, who deserve only the best that society has to offer them, including obviously superior government-provided healthcare, which is in every conceivable way inferior to private healthcare, which itself is so inferior to government-provided healthcare as to make it unworthy of our veterans. The Republicans have been trying to explain this to you commies for a couple of years now; why can’t you understand?
bemused
Wingnuts don’t row with both oars in the water.
Violet
@seanindc: You may not want to visit Andrew Sullivan, but he’s got a good list going. Daily Kos has some as well.
scav
If that question was used as a test for dementia, the walls of the VA would be cracking.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
The next question after his “I love it” answer should have been
“Isn’t the VA government-run health care?”
To quote Robin Williams “ASSHOLES DOOOOO VEX MEEEEEEEE!!!!”
Just Some Fuckhead
This is why you shouldn’t care about the 50 million uninsured Americans. We’re just preventing Darwinism from running its natural course.
Violet
Soonergrunt: Did you make a comment about the VA being Governmnet-run healthcare? Or did you ask him why government-run VA healthcare was different?
Punchy
And even after you point out the problem with his statement/logic, he’ll go comfort himself with Fox News and continue to spew the same shit. Its as if they dont want to learn facts and shit.
Soonergrunt
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
@Violet: I desperately wanted to, but I’m working today. If I’d been here in my capacity as a patient (and not wearing my lanyard) I would have asked that very thing.
Davis X. Machina
@bemused: Which result in making giant circles and going nowhere.
Tractarian
BREAKING NEWZ
John Harwood of the liberal New York Times says:
It’s UNANIMOUS! Today’s developments are GREAT NEWS FOR MITT ROMNEY!1!1!1!
jeff
@The Moar You Know: Well that’s untrue. I understand the feeling, since most of the stupid people I meet are Americans. I just figured it had to do with me living in America though.
rlrr
@Tractarian:
It would have great news for Mitt Romney either way…
Yutsano
@Violet: The VA is totes different because of course it is and SHUT UP THAT’S WHY!!
Valdivia
@Tractarian:
I keep seeing this bs everywhere. It’s also rterrible news all around for Obama. WTF???
bemused
@Davis X. Machina:
Yes. The shoe fits.
Now the contempt vote making Republicans look like clowns is like whipped cream on pie.
dmsilev
Senator Rand Paul, demonstrating his keen grasp of the American political system:
Cluttered Mind
@rlrr: This is the United States. There is very little that could ever happen that would ever qualify as “bad news for Mitt Romney”, and my guess is that most people in the country would prefer to experience what Romney would consider bad news over what they would consider good news. It’s kind of a totally different standard.
WereBear
Once again, highly recommending Dr. Altemyer’s The Authoritarians as the definitive source on the wingnut mind. Now on Amazon! Use the site’s link right above the blogroll.
Essentially, the different parts of the wingnut’s brain are kept separate, to keep their inevitable, enormous, otherwise-crippling cognitive dissonance at bay. This lets them manage in controlled environments which tells them what to do; it’s probably why they love the groupthink so much.
However, it does have the side effect of their brain just not working very well; much the way my car’s tranny would jerk around when the gears are not set up to mesh, but only thrown into a box.
——————————-
Announcing the Way of Cats fund drive. It’s NOW.
Let’s keep the Way of Cats blog Blooming
Turns out being internationally famous does not mean riches. I don’t have enough ad, cat toy, or book revenue to cover bandwidth, security, and all the etceteras that come with my sudden popularity.
Increase cat understanding and acceptance. To empty those shelters!
Todd
My mother is going to whimper mightily. For nearly 50 years, they operated off of my dad’s gold plated teacher union negotiated healthcare, and are now on medicare. There were doctors any time they wanted. My grandmother is 95 and decrepit, but she too has had gold plated healthcare all along.
Last week, Mom was whining about “those people” using medical benefits without paying, and how everything would fall apart. When I advised that pretty much every proposed market-based reform would lock me out of medicare (I just turned 50), and that I’d be given coupons against grotesquely priced private insurance, she simply stated “no, it will be there for you.” She still trusts serious sounding white guys in nice suits to look after people. I simply advised her, again, of what my insurance costs are for a policy which pays for nothing, and then changed the subject.
Tractarian
@dmsilev:
Senator Rand Paul.
No legal scholar he.
BGinCHI
HUGE dollars out there in the post-CU world for media who gin up the horse race.
Both Sides Do It is a Cash Machine.
Somebody figure out how many miles of road we could pave with the money being spent on the 2012 election.
lamh35
So since the ruling didn’t go the way that majority of the village and GOP thought, now the meme is going to cling to the SCOTUS calling this a “tax” on the middle class and all the tweets and statements of the GOP are all including this line almost verbatim.
What I think is funny is that last night Romney was talking all tough he went so far as to say he bet it was gonna be a tough night in the WH. My bet, tonight is gonna be a tough night for Romney.
David Hunt
@rlrr:
Obama’s re-election will be great news for Mitt Romney. He won’t have to spend the rest of his life explaining how he really was a good president to the troops in his compound that are holding off the zombie apocalypse that he unleashed while he was in the Whitehouse.
KXB
I’ve started reading that too – that because the word “tax” was used next to the word “Obama”, that spells trouble. So a win at the Supreme *bleepin* Court is now a bad thing?
Tractarian
@dmsilev:
Or, if you prefer…
Shorter Rand: Marbury versus whooo?
Chris
@Todd:
“””She still trusts serious sounding white guys in nice suits to look after people. I simply advised her, again, of what my insurance costs are for a policy which pays for nothing, and then changed the subject.”””
Reading or watching virtually any conservative media means being stunned by the degree of contempt they have for the intelligence of their audience. Fortunately for them, that contempt is usually fully justified.
BGinCHI
@dmsilev: Greatest legal eye doctor mind available.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I like the quote from some Republican: The supreme court upheld Obama Care. That’s it. I’m moving to Canada!
Ding dong
@dmsilev: that stupidiferous statement is going to be thrown back at him when there’s a 5~4 decision that he agrees with. Theb acorn does not fall far from the tree.
NonyNony
@Valdivia:
Don’t you understand? This is GREAT NEWS FOR JOHN MCCAIN!!!
The media has to make this a horse race. Everything has to be good news for Romney because he’s such a terrible candidate overall that he can’t make good news for himself.
And to be fair to him – the GOP has tied both hands behind his back shackled his legs to a tree stump, so it’s hard for him to make good news. He could be out there touting how the ACA was “his idea first” and thumping that Obama was a “follower not a leader” and so on, but he can’t. The ACA should have been a huge victory for Mitt Romney and the Republican Party in general because the Democratic Party validated and accepted THEIR approach to health care reform. That should have been a major win for the Republicans – “the Democrats didn’t have ideas of their own, they had to use Republican ideas. We’re the Party of Ideas, just like we always said”. That’s a major PR win in a political campaign, and could give Mitt something to run on.
Instead he has to distance himself as far from his own accomplishments as possible. So of course the press is in the tank for him – if they weren’t they would have to find ways to fill the next 5 months of infotainment hours. And OJ is in jail, so they have to make do with keeping the presidential election as close as they can.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Tractarian:
Clearly Rand Paul is the product of our failing public school system. If he’d only had vouchers, he could have gone a school that taught, I dunno, civics.
Again I will quote the late, great Steve Gilliard:
Tractarian
Moar Breaking Newz from the Paper of Record:
Some old, fat, white, shoe-repair dude in New Hampshire who gets his health insurance through his wife’s job thinks we should have national health care reform but “illegal immigrants and union employees” should be excluded!
This is GNFMR! (Great News for Mitt Romney)
replicnt6
Here’s how it works. There were approximately three broad outcomes to the case: wholly upheld, partially struck down, entirely struck down. Here’s the mapping from outcome to political calculus:
a) Wholly upheld => Good news for Mitt
b) Partially struck down => Good news for Mitt
c) Wholly struck down => Good news for Mitt.
We have (a), so it’s good news for Mitt.
Any questions?
Citizen_X
@dmsilev:
Wow. Paul’s every bit as stupid as that poodle thing on his head.
Culture of Truth
Obama is speaking now
Soonergrunt
Just saw this on Twitter:
p.a.
I’ve never been so happy to be wrong. any threats against Robert’s yet? ya gotta watch these Federalist Society types- there could be something in the written decision that acts as a sleeper virus several years from now: because of the 17th paragraph and its footnotes, only those with forebears who were citizens in 1789 may…
I’m gonna open a new link and google ‘impeach roberts’, see if there is anything
lacp
@BGinCHI: I think you came perilously close to saying “UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH!!!”
gex
Let me guess whether any of these descriptors fit him: older, white, male, Christian, straight,…
I bet I’m 5 for 5.
Citizen_X
@NonyNony:
Yeah, BUT: The Repubs had Congress from 1994 on. Did they pass a health care bill based on the Heritage Foundation idea, which Clinton probably would have signed? No, they did not. They had Congress and the Presidency from 2000 to 2006; did they pass a health care bill, which Bush the Compassionate Conservative could have signed? No, they did not.
They had 12 years in which they could have made the slightest move towards reforming health care, and they did nothing. I’m tired of hearing how the ACA was “a Republican idea.” Yeah, maybe it started as a Republican idea. But it’s one they never took seriously.
bemused
@Todd:
I don’t suppose you would be able to prove to her she’s wrong. If I was covered and I will be (I’m that old, ha), I’m still very concerned about our kids not getting the same coverage. Of course, I’m a Dem and not a Foxbot. It’s pretty troubling when rightwing world has old folks so brainwashed, they won’t veer from the propaganda even to question how their kids are going to be affected.
gex
@jeff: Americans do distinguish themselves somewhat, for having more opportunities to become un-pig-ignorant than other parts of the world where laboring in factories prevents children from developing a love for learning.
Valdivia
@NonyNony:
:D
that is all.
Nutella
@Todd:
I had a similar conversation with a long-term federal employee who insisted that they get worse benefits than private sector employees do. I informed him of the pathetically bad actual benefits of my current, actual private sector job were and he refused to believe it.
Soonergrunt
@gex: Pretty much nailed it.
Ruckus
This may not be appropriate to some here but I liked it and it may(I of course have no idea) not apply to the person in question.
From a lady ex navel officer.
My Ears are Burning
Soonergrunt
@Nutella: I know for a fact that I get better benefits than my private sector counterparts.
And while it’s true that for most of the country, I don’t make as much money as them, here in OK, I’m at the top of of my field for wages. But that’s more a function of how little people make here, and also the very very low cost of living.
NonyNony
@Citizen_X:
Oh yeah – I know it’s bullshit. There were moderates in the GOP who would have signed on to the plan, and who used it as a counter to Clinton’s, but they were never going to push for it and their own regressive faction (which has gotten bigger in the last 20 years) would never have helped them with it. So to pass it they would have needed help from Democrats, which would have made it a joint victory and not something they could crow about.
I get all that. My point is that when it became apparent that they had lost the “no healthcare reform at all” stance that they’d been clawing into for 20 years, they had two choices. They could have accepted the political reality, worked with the Democrats to weaken the bill even more (the Democrats would have sold a testicle to get even minority Republican buy-in on the final bill – if anyone remembers how that all played out), and then campaigned on “it was our idea first the Democrats are empty-headed fools who acknowledge that Republican ideas are superior” rhetoric. Or they could have gone all-in opposing it.
They chose the latter, which has really hampered Mitt’s election strategy since he now has nothing to run on other than “Me businessman in suit – trust me!” That may be a good thing for some of the troglodytes in the GOP, but it wasn’t enough to get one of their own the nomination in their own party, and it would really help the GOP brand if they could be part of at least ONE popular idea, like most of the provisions of the PPACA turn out to be.
Soonergrunt
People moving to Canada because of Obamacare:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/people-moving-to-canada-because-of-obamacare
The stupid–it burns.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Sounds like the wingnuts here at Death Merchants Inc.; “I never asked the government for a cent, joined the military at 18 and then worked for a Defense contractor when I retired at 40.”
Yutsano
@Soonergrunt: I wonder how long it takes Canada to deport them. They’re already stocked up on teh crazy.
Ruckus
@Citizen_X:
Poodles are gonna be mad.
Jay in Oregon
@Citizen_X:
If only there were some body of people whose function was to determine whether a law violates the strictures of the Constitution. They would have to be the final arbiter (barring an actual amendment to the Constitution, passed by Congress and ratified by the states); in essence, such a body could put the law “on trial” and render a verdict as to its Constitutionality.
But what would we call it…?
Yutsano
@Jay in Oregon:
The voices in Rand’s head?
celticdragonchick
The idiots at Free Republic are discussing how to fire their liberal employees in retaliation for the ruling today.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2900420/posts?q=1&;page=51
Any ideas on how to get this to the Labor Dept or other officials?
JCT
@Valdivia: The fucking sun rising is bad news for Obama. Get with the program!
Haydnseek
@The Moar You Know: Even worse, they take enormous pride in it. Facts, logic, reason? That’s just fancy book learnin.’ All they need is Jeebus and blindness to extreme hypocrisy and there you have it. Oh, and huge steaming piles of anger, resentment and outright hatred. Can’t forget that.
andy
Boyraper reax to the ACA being upheld.
greenergood
@Todd: Geezo, Todd, that’s why I’m putting off the weekly phone call to Mom in NY till after the weekend. I live in the Scottish land of sochalist medcine, and will need to hold the phone at arm’s length if I phone her tonight.
Jay C
@NonyNony:
Well, leaving aside the fact that most Republicans these days (especially the ones in Congress) seem more willing to slit their own throats with rusty saws than to ever admit that ANY Democratic idea or program (even those originating with the GOP) is even worthy of discussion, they seem to have been left very much on the wrong side of the tracks re healthcare reform. Which, I gather most of them don’t think we need, in the least. As most folks with gold-plated Government care don’t.
I’ve read a few bits in the blogosphere that the GOP and the Romney campaign are hastily ginning up
more bullshit sloganeeringa new approach to still try to milk the issue for votes: i.e. “Repeal and Replace”. They haven’t, of course, gotten around to articulating the “Replace” part yet: I imagine they will announce it immediately after the election (like Nixon’s “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War….)Haydnseek
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Ah yes, Rand Paul. Apparently he’s some sort of eye doctor. I remember one of his semi-coherent rants about the evils of medicare, at which point one of his aids informed him that the majority of his patients were on medicare. He tried to repair the damage, but he had shit his pants so bad that it was literally stinking up the joint. He had no defense and he knew it. He’s so fucking stupid that he literally didn’t know where his income was coming from. Fuck him. Hard. With a rusting farm implement. Sideways.
Trakker
Whenever one reads an article about a natural disaster in the U.S. there is usually mention of the response teams who usually work in horrible conditions to mitigate the damage and help the victims.
For example the firefighters in Colorado are working in 100+ degree heat and weighed down with heavy equipment. I never miss a chance in the comments section to remind people that these are either government employees or contractors paid by the government. Then I mention that this is the government that the Republicans are trying to drown in a bathtub. It’s been pretty effective.
bemused
@celticdragonchick:
One said make sure to fire ALL liberals not just the ones in “protected classes”.
Who are the “protected classes”?
Haydnseek
@Citizen_X: Exactly. It was never meant to be implemented. It was merely fashioned as a club with which to beat her royal bitchness, Hillary Clinton, who had the audacity to actually create a viable healthcare plan.
Cain
You realize that with this being construed as a Obama victory, the wingnuts and their big dollar donors are going to go nuts.
The trick is to make them spend money right now as much as they can so they can be completely tapped out by november when they won’t have as much money to do ad buys.
Obama should lead them on to spend as much crap in the swing states as possible.
Jay C
@Jay C:
ETA: never mind “will” bullshit sloganeer: make that “already are” doing it: Willard already has his signs printed.
(I wonder if there is a “Obamacare Repealed!” gloat printed on the back, and they were just going to turn over whichever side was appropriate?)
Mino
Latest I’ve heard from over the transom–there’s a bill in Congress to make a clergyman’s refusal to marrys same-sex couples a hate crime and give him jail time for it.
And my sister was in tears about faceless government employees writing treatment protocols with total freedom from review.
These idiots are telling one another ghost stories to see who has the best ooga-booga chops.
pseudonymous in nc
@celticdragonchick:
I think we can treat all that with the same credibility as the self-description of wingnut trolls as rugged “business entrepreneurs” with six-figure salaries.
WereBear
Why am I not surprised, yet also stunned?
Jay in Oregon
@bemused:
You know, the niCLANGs, the queCLANGs, the JeCLANGs, the atheCLANGs…
bemused
@WereBear:
What worries me is how far all this wingnut rage is going to go.
Jay in Oregon
@pseudonymous in nc:
Reminds me of the witty folks who proposed stiffing waitstaff after Obama was elected and saying they were just “redistributing their wealth for them.”
Interrobang
@Mino: there’s a bill in Congress to make a clergyman’s refusal to marrys same-sex couples a hate crime and give him jail time for it.
You know, being as I’m feeling mean as a snake with athlete’s foot right now, I’d be totally down with that IRL, but I am one of these “strangle the last king with the entrails of the last priest” types.
I’m honestly glad this ruling went through. I have way too many American friends who are suffering because of lack of health insurance. Even with those of my friends who are on Medicare/Medicaid, I’m stunned at how limited their access to service is, and what they can’t get covered. Mostly the things I think ought to be a slam dunk are stupidly basic, cheap shit like tetanus boosters. FFS, USA, either start acting like a civilised country or STFU about what a great country you are.
It seems like that if bitching about the weather is the Great Canadian Pastime, then hypocrisy is actually the American national pastime. Fuck baseball.
bemused
@Jay in Oregon:
Sheesh, I need a handbook to translate wingnutspeak. That wasn’t immediately clear to me although it should have been. My first thought was that rightwingers think all liberals are protected over them.
John M. Burt
The VA is genuine government health care, with doctors and nurses drawing a government paycheck.
As opposed to Medicare, which is the public option.
And then there’s FEHB and TriCare.
We have multiple models to choose from within our own government, and yet….
Mike E
Rick Perlstein nailed it in Nixonland when describing the moment these entitlements were won, the recipients looked at themselves as deserving, and everyone else after them were riding their coat tails and somehow gaming the system, unworthy. Zero sum.
catclub
@celticdragonchick: “Any ideas on how to get this to the Labor Dept or other officials?”
Employment at will. Unless they in a protected class – ie.
sex, religion, skin color, age, national origin(?), you can fire for political leanings. At least my understanding in the private sector.
You can fire someone because you don’t like them.
You can’t fire them if the reason you don’t like them is they are black, female, lesbian, wiccan, Irish-descent, too old.
In the Fed sector, firing for political leanings would be complicated.
Older
@Yutsano: The voices in Rand’s poodle …
John M. Burt
@celticdragonchick: Already done:
To: [email protected]
Re: Public Threat of Discrimination For Political Opinion
We’ll see if the Inspector general is interested.
royalblue_tom
@Mino: As long as they’ve got real light bulbs (not led) in those torches under their chins.
opie jeanne
@Todd: I have had the exact same exchange with my dad. He’s 94, his healthcare is not only a gold-plated policy, it is paid for for the rest of his life by his employer. He also gets Medicare for some things and he loves that even though it’s a program proposed by Democrats. When Mom was dying he couldn’t say enough good about it, but he’d still be opposed to it if it were being proposed by Democrats today.
He can’t wrap his tiny mind around the fact that we have to pay for our health insurance and that now that we live just a couple of hours away from Portland, we’ve had to switch from Kaiser (which cost less) to Blue Shield/Blue Cross, and the deductibles are not only terrible, there is also a ceiling on what they’ll pay for in a given year.
Then there’s our son, who has even worse health insurance through his company and that he pays for, which covers nearly nothing. He had emergency surgery for a tiny fistula a couple of years ago and his policy paid for about a % of the cost. He ended up owing thousands.
Dad just can’t understand that deals like his disappeared with his generation.
PurpleGirl
@Soonergrunt: The stupid burns with the heat of a thousand suns. I read a bunch of those idiots… wait until they get to Canada and find out what the rules are.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha,the jokes on them.
PurpleGirl
For those may be interested here is the official Canadian web site for immigration and citizenship information:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/index.asp?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cic.gc.ca%2Fenglish%2Findex.asp