This is what we are up against:
“I don’t think that the government should be involved in health care or health insurance,” says Greg Collett, a 41-year-old software developer in Caldwell, Idaho, who would rather pay the fine for now — $95 the first year — than signup.
“I calculated it out and it is cheaper for me for the next four years to pay the fine rather than get coverage,” Collett said. “At some point where it would make financial sense to pay for insurance rather than pay fines, I will make the decision from a financial standpoint.”
***Collett counts himself among the 29 percent of people who said in an NBCNews/Kaiser poll they are angry about the health reform law. “The issue for me is that it is not the proper role of government,” he said.
Collett, who is married and has 10 children, says the kids are covered by Medicaid, the joint state-federal health insurance plan for people with low income and children who are not covered.
But it’s “absolutely not okay,” that they are, Collett says quickly. “There are a lot of people out there that’ll cry foul.”
Collett, whose children are home-schooled, likens taking Medicaid to sending children to public school. He also does not approve of government-funded public schools. “The government is taking your money. They are spending it on things they shouldn’t be,” he says. “Trying to get whatever you can back — I have nothing against that. You have to at some point try and get your tax dollars back.”
We live in the dumbest most selfish country in the world.
piratedan
and I’m sure that he loves America….not sure why, since he apparently hates the idea that Americans should help and nurture each other…..
Mudge
How can anyone argue against that? And homeschooling in this case will perpetuate the stupidity and selfishness.
Comrade Dread
The stupid… IT BURNS!!!!
Thanks, only 2pm and I need a drink.
trollhattan
Oh mercy, he’s sending TEN li’l Colletts into the world. Lord help us.
kdaug
Suspect the NBC poll had a margin of error around 2%
rikyrah
Let me guess…..White male
It’s ridiculous to be this old and delusional
Jeff Spender
I got into a brief “discussion” with a man who argued that Bible literalists cannot support the PPACA. Of course, he’s a Southern Baptist and, of course , all his the facts he used were bullshit propaganda.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
We live in a country with a media that lives for nutpicking.
Johannes
If stupidity is genetic, there’s a chance his kids will drown from looking up in the rain.
Suffern ACE
His wife, when asked for comment, was kind of open to the contraception coverage.
Hal
Is this another onion story? 10 fucking kids he obviously doesn’t make enough money to support to the point he had to rely on public support to provide for, but he hates big government. Gotcha.
Oh and 41 is too old not to have insurance and not get regular checkups. Sorry dude buy your in colonoscopy territory now.
David Koch
Get Government out of Medicare!
Baud
You outvote and isolate them.
zed
I say we mock them and their ilk until they are too ashamed to admit their ignorance in public.
Just One More Canuck
So 29% of the people are dumber than dirt?
cathyx
This can’t be real.
John Weiss
@Comrade Dread: I’m with you on the drink part. Geeze! The stupid does burn!
MattF
Well, he’s an idiot and his mind, such as it is, is made up. And there’s political implications: ‘Negotiation’ is not part of his behavioral repertoire. Particularly the subversive, liberal-effete notion that if you make a deal, you’ve actually made a commitment to keeping your end of the bargain. And so, we see now the infinite varieties of bad faith, where you agree to something, and then it turns out that you haven’t. Ask Mr. Boehner about that.
So the answer is, you can’t fight it. In the end, you just have to do the right thing.
PsiFighter37
29% eh? I feel like that’s within margin of the magic percentage.
Also, too – 10 kids? Someone needs to lend the man a rubber and show him how those things work, since he seems like the kind of asshole who would tell his wife not to take the pill.
reflectionephemeral
White populism used to involve government efforts to improve whites’ lives; no longer. The Southern Strategy-rooted fear that the gubmint is helping Them at the expense of Us began as a cynical tactic. Today, it explains about 99% of the thought process, rhetoric, and policy of the GOP– elite and rank-and-file alike.
ETA: As MattF points out, this mentality makes compromise– and, therefore, the system of governance under the Constitution– impossible. The point of politics, for these folks, is fighting against the Other. Policy results don’t matter. So, they don’t want to compromise ’cause the whole point is not compromising, and you can’t meet in the middle ’cause they don’t care about achieving any policy results, or even care about just blowing the place up.
Jeremy
Like I said the democrats should not cater to these bigots.Focus on the persuadables and rising demographic groups because people like this guy will never change.
cathyx
f it were real, then the reporter would have asked him if he was aware that Medicaid is government healthcare, but that wasn’t brought up in the article. This doesn’t smell right.
dmsilev
I was watching one of the votes on CSPAN, and they had viewers calling in. One of them was a woman who worked as a waitress who opposed the law because, and I quote, she “didn’t believe in getting sick”.
I guess at some point the proper response becomes “You may not believe in Darwinian selection, but Darwinian selection certainly believes in you.”
Tripod
@Jeff Spender:
I’ve seen web ads for “christian” health insurance, so apparently these idiots are getting it on both ends. Obamcare is evil! Overpay for our shitty product!
PsiFighter37
@Jeremy: You know what’d be real nice? Have jerkoffs like these voluntarily opt out of Medicaid, and then see what his reaction is to the medical bill when he has to take one of his offspring to the emergency room.
Let these fuckers live out their survivalist fantasies and see how long it takes for it to dawn on them that there is some relevant role for government in their lives.
Mary G
If he has ten kids on Medicaid, he cannot be paying any income taxes to “get back.” Hell and death, these people are idiots.
Tripod
@PsiFighter37:
Being Idaho and all, I’m not so sure it’s just one wife.
Pooh
@kdaug: this.
PsiFighter37
@dmsilev: Gosh, I’m glad that if I don’t believe in sickness, it won’t ever happen to me because it’s not real!
Or maybe I should just stop listening to Disturbed.
Either way, that’s pretty goddamn delusional. I thought taking biology was a required course in high school?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G: I’d bet the wifey is on medicaid too, pumpin’ out 10 little ones ain’t cheap. Also a large percentage of this country really have no idea how the income tax system works.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
damn, that’s is some quality cluelessness Mr Collett has going there.
But I will repeat myself – my conservative coworkers at that defense contractor I worked for couldn’t grasp that the military and their jobs were in turn are paid for by taxes.
Valdivia
so Seal Team Six and another group went and did their thing in Somalia and Libya.
ETA–I know, sorry for going OT
Ash Can
Those poor kids.
Violet
@PsiFighter37:
He’s the kind of asshole who would not allow her to take the pill because God wants them to have a bunch of kids. She would comply because he’s the “head of the household” and it’s her place to do what he says.
Baud
@Valdivia:
For free!
shelly
Similar thoughts. A hell of lot more can happen to you at 41 than at 26.
And I don’t get the reasoning. “It’s not okay’ for the kids to be on Medicaid, but they are? So he takes the government assistance but bitches about it so he can feel he’s not a moocher?
jon
There needs to be a push to end the ability of using bankruptcy to get rid of medical costs. Why should someone who chooses to eschew insurance get an option of that sort?
cathyx
Let’s ask Maggie Fox, the reporter, why she didn’t mention to Greg that Medicaid is government healthcare. But then again, maybe she did mention it and his answer was edited out of the story to make the guy look like a total lunatic. This can’t be the entire story the way it’s written. A reporter would go into more detail than this.
catclub
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: “We live in a country with a media that lives for nutpicking.”
And we here at Balloon Juice are doing likewise.
Chris
We really do.
Redshift
@cathyx:
As I read the rest of the quote, he’s aware that Medicaid is government coverage, because he likens it to public schools. Then he says he’s opposed to public schools, but for some reason never gets around why they’re still using Medicaid. It’s a lot easier to just not use Medicaid than to do homeschooling, right? All he has to do is either pay out of pocket or not take his kids to the doctor.
PsiFighter37
This is an apropos Photoshop, albeit kind of horrifying.
Brain bleach not included. You’re welcome.
pseudonymous in nc
As Groucho never said, “I like my cigar, but I take it out once in a while.”
On the one hand, this is nutpicking — in that irritating way where the lede isn’t so much buried as chucked in the sea — and on the other hand, American wingnut dumbasses are truly exceptional.
Violet
Iraq War. Military industrial complex. Oh, wait. That’s not what he meant?
Redshift
@cathyx: I am hard pressed to think of any way that question and answer could have made him look like less of a lunatic.
raven
@Valdivia: Good.
Keith P.
Well, if this guy had millions of votes to everyone else’s single vote, that opinion might mean something.
Valdivia
@Baud:
It amazes me actually how Obama makes these calls. With all that is going on–ballsy.
@raven: really amazing simultaneous operations.
PsiFighter37
@Violet: It’s okay to spend money on that stuff, because it’s used to blow up brown people.
@Violet: My fiancee found some weird shit about ‘head of household’ stuff online – it basically seemed like a Christian spanking fetish. I thought it was satire at first, but these people are fucking brainwashed on this kind of stuff. Good God, it was strange.
trollhattan
@Violet:
Much of Idaho is an extension of Utah, in case that helps ‘splainin’ them ten keyuds. I’m certain they are very popular, there.
fuckwit
@Chris: no we do not. there are a similar percentage of idiots in every country. the problem is that here we worship and elevate the idiots because FREE DUMB.
Chris
@reflectionephemeral:
Oh, hell yeah. More than that. Southern and Western populists were the original radicals, screaming for redistribution of wealth from the greedy oppressive 1%ers in their big Eastern cities who sucked their parts of the country dry. And they, along with urban “ethnic whites,” were the big winners of the New Deal, with such delightful things as rural electrification and interstate highways. As long as “redistribution” was about funneling Yankee money south and west, they couldn’t get enough of it. Heck, they still can’t get enough of it.
Tripod
Come on now. He could also be on marriage number three, and the sort of men’s rights asshole who rakes his exes over the coals for custody.
Chyron HR
@cathyx:
Welcome to America. What is the media like in your home country?
Pogonip
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: They’ll figure it out in a hurry now that the layoffs will be starting next week.
JenJen
Here’s some more stupid for you:
http://gawker.com/fox-news-falls-for-fake-story-claiming-obama-is-funding-1441573171
Wanna bet your favorite nutjob friends on Facebook will SWEAR this is true by tomorrow?
Chris
@fuckwit:
Who’s the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?
kc
Collett, who is married and has 10 children
Get ready for the Idiocracy.
dmsilev
@BillinGlendaleCA: Most likely just the kids. Idaho’s Health and Welfare department has a fairly straightforward chart giving income thresholds for eligibility. For a 12 (!) person household, children are covered at incomes less than $8600/month gross (about $100 K/year), but non-pregnant adults hit the threshold at about $900 a month.
I’d certainly be curious to know how much private unsubsidized insurance for 10 children and 2 adults would cost. I’m going to guess it’s a shit-ton more than $95/year.
scav
@dmsilev: So, “didn’t believe in getting sick”? Well, some believe in getting gay married. Let’s shut down the entire government and endanger the world economy so Everybody gets gay married! YeeHaw!
PsiFighter37
@kc: Well, I think he’s owed at least a reality TV show first, amirite?
trollhattan
@scav:
I think we can all agree that the Best Thing for everybody is if his balls fall off while uninsured.
Please proceed, Mr. Collett.
Citizen_X
How do you fight this kind of stupid? With a ballot.
And if they don’t accept that, you fight it with a rifle. Your choice, teatards. Either way, we got the numbers.
(And yes, that is more important than having more guns.)
Baud
I bet that guy likes to eat T-bone steak also.
dmsilev
@PsiFighter37:
You bastard. That will haunt my nightmares.
kc
You know, if the situation were just that this man just can’t afford health insurance and has to pay a fine, I’d be sympathetic. But when I read that he has ten kids all on Medicaid, but doesn’t think the government has any role in healthcare policy . . . well, fuck him.
TEN kids. All on Medicaid.
Imagine if he were, you know . . .
kc
@PsiFighter37:
Maybe a sperm race contest with Jim Bob Duggar.
I hope no one was about to eat dinner . . .
fuzz
@Valdivia:
NYT article says locals are saying that 12 of the men captured/killed were “going abroad on a mission” so it looks like this was done to stop an imminent attack.
PsiFighter37
@kc: I wish I hadn’t thought about the practicalities of such a contest. Can I make my brain un-think certain things?
Valdivia
@fuzz:
maybe US recruits? I think there was a real worry that they could replicate a Mall attack here.
Bob In Portland
My sister just unleashed a stomach’s worth of bile on Facebook about that tyrannical Obama. The most frustrating part is that they won’t accept responsibility for the shutdown. It’s so weird, so out of their mind bug-eyed crazy. There’s absolutely no hope for her.
I’m going down to visit my elderly mother in Florida and will see my sister when I’m there. I’ve already got a prescription of tranquilizers to get me through the three days. Oh god.
Scott
Who paid for all those births. I don’t care if they were home-birthed or hospital, there were a lot of expenses. I bet some hospital or the state was stuck with the bill. Betcha there is food stamps involved also.
Just Some Fuckhead
This is why I supported Death Panels.
Gex
So, he’ll pay for insurance only when he can get more back from it than what he puts into it. And he’s 1000% certain he will know ahead of time when that will be so he will be insured when a medical crisis occurs.
There are too many of us who are too dumb and selfish for self-governance to work.
Now excuse me while I continue my week-long non-stop weeping for the nation.
Tom Q
@pseudonymous in nc: That Snopes thing is interesting, because I saw Groucho speak at Northwestern in 1970, and HE told the cigar story as if it had actually happened (though he changed the wording a bit, to, as I recall, “You notice while we’re filming I have a cigar in my mouth once in a while. But I don’t leave it in there all the time”)
Maybe it’s one of those things he’d so often heard attributed to him that he’d just added it to his repertoire. (Though it’s odd he’d then deny it to Ebert only two years later)
kc
@PsiFighter37:
I’m going to sue myself for posting that.
gelfling545
@Just One More Canuck: Up from 27% last year. An alarming trend.
fuzz
@Valdivia:
Possibly I know the mall of America stepped up security because not only is it a giant mall but there are something like 250k Somalians living right there. No matter where they’re from it’s surprising we have such good intel coming from Somalia of all places, to be able to pull something like this off is actually kind of surprising (to an uninformed civilian like me at least). In a weird way the fact that there is a large Somali diaspora might help us, as opposed to the absolutely tiny numbers of Pakistani/Afghan Pashtuns and Yemeni tribal folk who have connections here or in Europe.
raven
@Valdivia: I’m not finding info on 2 ops?
aimai
@Redshift: He argues that he is “owed” the Medicaid coverage for ten kids because…he thinks he could possibly have paid more than that in taxes. He is lying to himself in order to feel ok about the fact that he is literally and not metaphorically on welfare because he is unable to support the ten children he has carelessly allowed himself to force out of his wife.
aimai
@Bob In Portland: I thought maybe you were bringing a trank gun for her.
Comrade Mary
I kept reading “Collett” as “Colbert”. Which reminded me: isn’t Stephen Colbert one of 10 children? (Just checked: nope, he’s the youngest of 11.)
I think his family was spared from being on Medicaid after after his father and two of his brothers died tragically young. But Colbert grew up to be a humane, responsible, empathetic person, so his Catholic parents obviously did a good job.
And Colbert, rather than bitching about Medicaid, champions it.
mainmati
@Just One More Canuck: That is, after all close to THAT number (27%) that has consistently defined the mouth breathing, knuckle-draggers in this country for quite a while now.
Valdivia
@fuzz:
Your point about having that intelligence is totally on point. Apparently they sent intelligence guys to Kenya immediately following the Mall attack but I am sure there is more to it than that.
@raven:
Front page NYT. Top story on Somalia, below in libya they got the mastermind of the AQ Embassy attacks of 96(?).
TriassicSands
How the hell am I supposed to disagree with that?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Imagine that the company you work for held a poll
PsiFighter37
@Comrade Mary: I do wonder if the result of Republican states screwing over their constituents will cause migrations to states with better-run healthcare exchanges?
If I had to guess, I’d say no – the people were stupid enough to vote the clowns in who are fucking them over; they’ll probably stay blissfully unaware of the benefits, listen to Sean Hannity and Rush say that people in blue states are desperately looking to move to avoid socialist creep, and think about how fucking good they have it that their healthcare system sucks.
But at least they’re free, right? Even if it’s freedom from intellect…
gbear
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
It’s kind of like watching Russian dashcam videos.
Tommy
I work for myself. I was like on healthcare.gov the second it opened. Epic fail on it working, but I kept going back.
I think from the little research I’ve done, I will save about a $100 a month. That is real money.
I paid cash for my house. I own my car. My largest monthly expense is health care. More than $300/month. It is painful to write that check each month. Looks like I will write a smaller check.
JPL
@Bob In Portland: I’d email back and say in the great words of Scott Brown..
bqhatevwr.
So it appears that some really bad folks were taken out today and it was because of the dead man Reagan or something…
Chris
@aimai:
Also, while you can always try pointing out that they could never afford that shit on their own… it’s also become a popular meme on the right that the only reason prices are so high is because of government meddling, government taxation, and government programs, which force the poor businessmen to raise prices just so that they can stay afloat. If only none of these things had happened, prices would’ve stayed affordable. Government is the problem, not the solution.
Juju
Holy cow!
raven
@Valdivia: cool
David Koch
@Valdivia: but, but, but …. NSA!!!!!!!
Cassidy
@fuzz: JSOC has it’s own intelligence capabilities and is not fully dependent on the intelligence apparatus.
This and the last post are interesting. It makes us feel superior. Hell, I fell superior every day and inline amongst them. We’re not going to change them. They will not change. Me. Collett is lying to himself as Aimai says, and like so many others, he has convinced himself he’s paying taxes and is owed something in return. Just yesterday I was behind a women in traffic with a “taxxed off” number sticker and a mid 90’s Buick. You could tell from the state of the car she wasn’t paying taxes, but these people are convinced the gov’t is taking their money. This is a belief passed down from generation to generation. They will not change.
Gex
@PsiFighter37: Whenever their lives get worse it is just more evidence that liberals are stealing from them and giving to the wrong people. There is the worst kind of feedback loop between these folks’ world view and their voting patterns.
RaflW
At this point, I think the National Weather Service should just shut down. The satelite feed should go dark. no temp readings. See how Delta airlines likes having to forecast their own damn weather and brief their pilots.
Watch the Weather Channel freak out when their meteorologists don’t have reams of scot-free data to turn into pretty maps.
Hell, FEMA should slap some plywood on their own front door and unplug the phone.
cathyx
@RaflW: And then let’s hope you have a flight scheduled after they shut it down.
JPL
@RaflW: Really the weather channel.. oh, no
Omnes Omnibus
@Cassidy: They think that because money is taken out of their checks every two weeks that they are paying taxes. The big direct deposit they get in April or so with $6K in EIC is just money they deserve – nothing to do with taxes. Because SHUT UP! That’s why.
Cassidy
@Cassidy: stupid phone…. Feel and live amongst them
David in N
Ten children. Idaho. Two wives and 45 firearms is my bet. If it’s one woman, poor thing is all I have to say.
Omnes Omnibus
Cole, you apparently haven’t traveled overseas all that much, have you?
David in NY
Moderation for an immoderate comment. And spelling my name wrong.
Mustang Bobby
Ten kids? Well, obviously his dick works. Too bad that’s the only head that thinks.
trollhattan
Just heard on the radio Hagel is ordering DOD civilian employees back to work. No idea what that means on the grand scheme of things, but I can’t imagine the Republicans squawking too loudly. Because guns.
RaflW
@shelly:
I wonder if child protective service would take the kids if the parents refuse to insure the kids and get them at least basic care? There have been cases of homeschooler parents being forced to give their kids life-saving medicine against the parents “religious wishes.”
Once you are 18 you can fuck yourself over by being an ignorant whack job, but we still sort of have rules about child endangerment.
Tommy
@RaflW: My local TV station, and not a liberal kind of place went off on this. The “weather” guy went on air yelling he needed the government to do is job. He said he tries hard to tell us the weather, and well that is done via the government.
becca
My 2yo granddaughter costs the kids 300 a month for TN Cover Kids (BC/BS).
No exchanges here in TN so far. Haslam is GOP, but he’s got to think hard about Nashville. The legislature is out to exterminate us here in Memphis.
cathyx
@Omnes Omnibus: What country is more selfish and dumber?
RaflW
@cathyx: Well of course I know it’s a bad idea. But these Republican asswipes have no f’ing clue what the government does.
Maintaing all essential services during a shutdown just continues to disappear the vital role of government.
Marc
And how many wives?
trollhattan
Colbert King is shrill
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/colbert-king-the-tea-party-resurrects-the-spirit-of-the-old-confederacy/2013/10/04/95b37f6e-2c7b-11e3-97a3-ff2758228523_story.html?hpid=z2
Preach it.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: The Russians aren’t exactly generous and enlightened. Nor are the Chinese. Romania is all kinds of fucked up. Then there is Pakistan. Oh, yeah, Saudi Arabia. I could keep going.
cvstoner
@trollhattan: Idiocracy. Truth is stranger than fiction.
IowaOldLady
You can’t argue with guys like this. He’s been acting out the stupid for a while now. The ACA is just the newest occasion. You have to move on and try to help more normal people figure out how to get insurance if they need it.
Tommy
@RaflW: They have no clue. My brother’s wife works at TRANSCOM. A civilian. That is the United States Transportation Command. Know what she does for living?. She makes sure our troops have supplies.I don’t understand but they seem to have money to keep her at work through next week. Then she will loose her job.
Omnes Omnibus
@IowaOldLady: I have been saying for a while that we can more or less ignore the tea party folks. They are unpersuadable and trying is like beating one’s head against a brick wall. It is the mushy middle that needs to be persuaded and those who lean left need to be encouraged to get out and vote.
opiejeanne
@PsiFighter37: Probably a “quiverfull” family.
TAPX486
Totally OT, but seems while the rest of the guberment has been sleeping the Seals have snatched a couple of terrorist leaders, one in Libya and the other in Somalia. What won’t that Muslim/socialists usurper order next!
WereBear
Or Mormon. In either case, the poor kids, and especially, the poor wife.
While I’m sure there are plenty of happy, religious, large families, the stories I read on “I escaped from fundamentalist religion” sites gives me doubts about most of them.
PsiFighter37
@TAPX486: Clearly it means he’s going to send a drone to your local Starbucks next, right? I mean, that’s what Rand Paul told me, and he’s always right about everything, always, forever.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Bob In Portland: So is my best friend from high school, posting tea party bullshit about brave WWII vets storming the beaches of Normandy, yet cannot go to the WWII memorial because of President Obama insists of paying for healthcare for millions of lower income Americans than some structure of stone.
waspuppet
Thus making the ACA about twice as popular as the Iraq invasion ever was. Yet somehow the general reaction to that anger was “Fk off Commie.”
Funny how that works.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: It is fashionable on political blogs to lament the state of the country using hyperbole. In this case both sides do do it
ruemara
I got this article from Randi Rhodes and it was a terrifyingly clear analysis of the modern conservative. http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/10126-how-a-brutal-strain-of-american-aristocrats-have-come-to-rule-america
Amazing how it fits this overbreeding moron’s world view.
Villago Delenda Est
1. Take the kids out of that home.
2. Castrate this shitstain so his defective stupid genes are not passed on anymore.
3. No anesthesia for the castration…this vile asshole needs to feel the pain of his stupidity.
BillinGlendaleCA
@PsiFighter37:
Villago Delenda Est
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m sorry. Fuck that. I meant gelded.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: I see it as a mirror image American Exceptionalism to the “America Fuck Yeah!” variety. Both are destructive. And inaccurate.
RSR
The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it.–John Adams
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed, I also don’t see how this constant negativity helps anything?
Gex
@Villago Delenda Est: Let’s just tell him that leaving the anesthesia out is a cost savings measure that will save him some tax dollars.
cathyx
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ll use healthcare as a statistic for generosity since this article is about that, and all the countries you mentioned except Pakistan have universal healthcare. That’s fairly generous. As far as dumbness, that’s more difficult to measure, I think, and as far as their enlightenment, I think that’s quite subjective.
Tommy
My parents are not so liberal. I note this cause things are changing. I had a family member, an openly gay women and her partner of 30+ years, moved in literally around the corner from my parents. I didn’t think this would work out so well. Funny thing, they are now my parents best friends.
gogol's wife
@Omnes Omnibus:
We have to start working on 2014 right away. I am so terrified of what might happen if they get the Senate too.
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: Yes we have to, this should be the last nail in their coffin.
Mike G
@cathyx:
There’s plenty of selfish and dumb people everywhere in the world, but in most countries they don’t have one of the two major political parties dedicated to them and controlled by them.
cckids
@PsiFighter37: Christ almighty. I know you warned us, but I went there anyway. Yikes.
fka AWS
@Omnes Omnibus:
Stupid, venal and selfish know no national boundaries.
schrodinger's cat
Serious thread needs kitteh, Caturday Kitteh is dealing with weighty matters too.
joel hanes
We live in the dumbest most selfish country in the world.
My cow-orkers who grew up in Bulgaria, Romania, Pakistan, and rural India tell me otherwise.
Chris
@Mr Stagger Lee:
You know, at the risk of being a complete dick to the veterans involved, your right to visit a fucking monument, even if you did fight in the war, is nowhere near the biggest concern the government shutdown is causing. It’s not even in the top fifty.
KTMailer
If you like the idea of taking full advantage of government programs while denying everyone else the opportunity, you can vote for Greg Collett for Idaho State Representative. For real. http://www.gregcollettforidaho.com/
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: Ah yes, the Russian constitution guarantees free healthcare to all citizens. The Soviet constitution guaranteed the right to vote too. How well are the Russians doing? Some might say not so well.
I don’t really see the point of hyperbolic rah-rah or “we suck” statements. Especially ones based on blatant nutpicking.
pseudonymous in nc
@Omnes Omnibus: The point here is that the US, for various reasons, has a large chunk of population that lives in ‘subsidized subsistance’, in which gubmint don’t do nuthin for them apart from all the shit that it actually does, but that doesn’t count because they pay (a comparatively small amount of) taxes and also too Cadillacs and T-bones.
Ash Can
@Valdivia:
Cue the usual suspects on the left saying that we shouldn’t have done that because it probably involved spying on people to get the information needed to find these guys. And cue the usual suspects on the right saying “That’s no big deal, and it didn’t really happen and Obama’s lying about it, and he’s taking all the credit away from Seal Team 6, and hey WTF I thought we we shut Seal Team 6 down, why are they still operating?”
dogwood
@trollhattan:
You are right. Southeastern Idaho is an extension of Utah. But this guy lives in Canyon County, right next to Ada county (Boise) and that’s a different area. Canyon County might be the craziest in Idaho. It’s population really grew when right wing Californians of the libertarian anti-government, no property tax crowd started showing up in droves. As that happened more and more of the Canyon crazies were drawn into the 1st district while more Boise liberal areas were sent to the second legislative district. Thus it’s almost impossible to elect a Dem in Idaho. But what is really ironic is that while the Idaho 1st elects all the kooks, it’s actually the most fertile ground for Dems. I’ve had a few Democratic reps but they just can’t hold their seats in off-year elections.
trollhattan
@schrodinger’s cat:
Sad that the coffin is proving infinitely large and the nails, too tiny to see.
Confess the midterms have me spooked, too. I hope some zombie edition OFA can help get out the vote in a cycle normally dominated by Hoverounds.
Omnes Omnibus
@pseudonymous in nc: That is a perfectly valid point. Saying we are the dumbest, most selfish country on earth based on nutpicking is not a valid point. I know it was hyperbolic, but it was, nevertheless, annoying.
trollhattan
@dogwood:
Crazier than the Panhandle? Yoikes.
Friends moved to Nampa for a few years during the semiconductor boom, but had to escape back to California after deciding they simply weren’t ever fitting in. Another buddy still lives in Pocatello, which is hilarious in too many ways to count.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I think our political media is corrupt and lazy and is a problem we need to overcome, how I don’t know.
cathyx
Meanwhile in Switzerland, they will vote on whether all adults in Switzerland should receive an unconditional income of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,800) per month from the state, with the aim of providing a financial safety net for the population.
Gary K
@Baud: But can we outbreed them?
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Initiating an Adopt-A-Mushy-Moderate program? Have every liberal make a point of talking to a mushy moderate every day and providing them with verifiable facts.
@cathyx: I am rather in favor of a program like that.
BGinCHI
I so wish I had not clicked over here and read that. Shit.
This guy is a bag of rocks and a sack with some eye holes cut out away from a pogrom.
Mr Stagger Lee
@dogwood: Strange that Idaho produced Frank Church, but not so when it also produced Helen Chenowyth. And I bet Randy Weaver is still held up as some martyr.
cathyx
@Omnes Omnibus: And I would vote them the most generous, enlightened nation.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: The legislation will fail. Also, the Swiss have some real issues with tolerance and diversity. For example.
No country is perfect.
John O
I feel the same way. The intensity is all on the Right. It’s a nightmare.
a4alice
sigh…… can we just have one of the states give up their statehood and designate it as a place where we can send all the stupid people? Then we’ll know where they all are. And we can ignore them
Suffern ACE
Well to be honest, if it weren’t for Medicaid, he would probably have six children and if it weren’t for federal government transfer payments, his neighbors would have long grown tired of him and run him out of town to preserve the food bank
Mike G
This would be the Randy Weaver that multiple wingnuts have mentioned to me as PROOF of Bill Clinton’s gun-grabbing Marxist perfidy.
Trouble is, the ATF took down Weaver in 1991. Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas at the time; it has yet to be convincingly explained to me how he was directing a federal law enforcement operation in Idaho. Perhaps by the same magic that Obama as a Senator from Illinois was responsible for the botched response to Hurricane Katrina.
Shorter wingnuts: “Bad Thing cause other Bad Thing.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike G: These people blame Obama for the 2008 economic collapse.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Mike G:
Considering they blamed 9/11 on Clinton and the Recession on Obama….
Sorry, this isn’t a kind of stupidity you can fight, I’m convinced of it. It’s the kind of stupidity you have to survive.
doug r
Well, he can get his libertarian paradise if he moves to Somalia.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike G:
It’s always fascinated me that somehow Bill Clinton was the actual President then, in 1991. Of course, we know that in his third term 9-11 happened because Hillary is a lesbian, and then Clinton launched the Invasion of Iraq to punish Saddam for framing Hillary for the murder of her lesbian lover, Vince Foster. Then, of course, in 2005, Barack Obama’s preterm started, and he trashed the economy in 2008 to set up his own election.
BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: Poky’s a college town, had a roommate in grad school who did his undergrad there.
cathyx
@Omnes Omnibus: you’re such a downer.
handsmile
@cathyx:
In the enormous category of FWIW, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s 2013 “Better Life Index,” ranked Switzerland fifth. Australia (for the third consecutive year) topped the list, followed by Sweden (my ideal nation), Canada, and Norway.
“Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/28/australia-best-place-live-work
http://www.businessinsider.com/top-countries-on-oecd-better-life-index-2013-5?op=1
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: You did that too well. Perhaps the abyss has begun to look into you.
Suffern ACE
@John O: if the Dems don’t solve that problem, they will collapse long before the Republicans give up power. I honestly don’t think Dem voters are that interested and there is a reason the Republicans can call them low information moochers. So far they’ve only felt backlash for that in one mid term election since 1994.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
Don’t forget he also bungled the 2005 Katrina response.
Felonius Monk
No we don’t. The country is neither dumb nor selfish. People such as Greg Collett are
dumbstupid and selfish.BTW, this guy is a software developer? I don’t want any of his software anywhere near my computer — it would probably make it run backwards.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
This is NOT what we are up against:
Who pays attention to this douche nozzle. ten kids that he feels no responsibility for?
gelfling545
@Tripod: Shouldn’t “Christian health care” be ….umm, free? Sort of like Jesus did it?
trollhattan
Speaking of Mormons, they’re having their biennial caffeine-free PepsiFest in SLC, and have decided you laydees need to keep stayin’ home and poppin’ out those fresh, new Mormons.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/05/5796573/mormon-church-todd-christofferson.html#storylink=cpy
Nothing more on a manned mission to Kolob–I don’t think they’ve perfected the space bicycle.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: No, I just don’t hold up any country as a paragon of virtue. We, in the US, can learn a lot from other countries and they can from us, but, for it to be remotely useful, we need to look at where we really stand and where they do.
Villago Delenda Est
@gelfling545:
These people are followers of Jeebus, son of Mammon. Jesus was certifiably a DFH.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: He forgot how Obama was responsible for Katrina in 2005. He gets a B+ tops.
@Villago Delenda Est: I sit corrected, you get an A.
? Martin
And this is why California has been flirting with requiring parents that home-school have a teaching certificate.
John O
@Suffern ACE:
It’s a problem, for sure.
But I also think it’s a function of semi-rationality. If the Dems had the House, and the GOP had the Senate and POTUS, it wouldn’t even occur to them (D’s) to hold the economy hostage over something that was litigated about as thoroughly as things get litigated, via SCOTUS decision AND national election. There would be a higher degree of acceptance of the concept, “We don’t have the votes.”
They’re playing two different games here.
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: So Katrina was Obama’s Katrina?
reflectionephemeral
@Chris: Yep, and securities laws started in Kansas. But a white populist like William Jennings Bryan emerging today is impossible. He wanted government policy that favored debtors over creditors. Today’s white populism is resentment of the government, when perceived to be helping out groups. Social Security, Medicaid, torture, occupations are fine, ’cause they’re helping Us and hurting Them.
Villago Delenda Est
@doug r:
It doubles as a theological paradise, as well, so there’s that. There is the minor detail of all those ni*CLANGS* living there, of course.
Mike G
@handsmile:
Lest anyone get too starry-eyed, I grew up in Australia and it also has it’s share of rednecks, low-information voters, insipid corporatized mass-media (perhaps even more so than the US), idiot mass-culture, authoritarian thug business moguls, right-wing bigots and other ills of Western society.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: His first Katrina.
trollhattan
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Yes, it is. Buddy in question got his PhD there, in gummint (but doesn’t work at the university, today). Evidently when defending his dissertation on the 14th Amendment they started grilling him on the holy 2nd. Good times.
Local Simplot plant unfortunately has a lot more influence on the town’s mentality than the college, although I’ve been to an actual lesbian coffeehouse.
Villago Delenda Est
@? Martin:
I knew that the home-schooling movement would eventually result in this. The absurd notion that these children must be “protected” from the society they will some day have to function independently in is at the heart of the christianist home school movement. Their faith is so fragile that the children must be indoctrinated in it continuously, and then, when those children discover there’s more to the world than they were told, all hell breaks loose.
Suffern ACE
@John O: yeah. Right now theirs is the game where they only have to win one election. We have to win every presidential election until they put fat tony underground and hope to god ruth doesn’t die if we lose.
Kyle
@Felonius Monk:
When installed it sets your system clock to the year 1675.
? Martin
Remember, the GOP wanted these guys to be home not getting paid:
No matter what they say in front of the microphones, that’s what they voted for.
Amir Khalid
@Mike G:
Wow, you could have been describing Malaysia. We have Asian versions of all them things too!
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: A function of the human condition. Some people are assholes and some assholes get power.
ETA: Some people ain’t too bright and they vote too.
Mike in NC
This putz has 10 kids, home-schools his brood, and lives in fucking Idaho (Ground Zero for imbeciles). Why isn’t he running for Congress?
Woodrowfan
@Omnes Omnibus: they are still burning witches in Africa, and raping women to “cure” them of teh gay. Fearful, superstitious reactionaries and ignorance are a human problem, not just an American one. Although I do wish the republicans would quite trying to make the US the Gold Medal winner in the ignorance Olympics.
Woodrowfan
@Mike G: Hell, Randy Weaver himself goes around blaming Clinton!!!!
Chris
@reflectionephemeral:
Yeah.
They resented the federal government in those days too, but mostly because they saw it (correctly) as an agent of “the creditors,” who were the true enemy. Somewhere along the line, resentment of the creditors stopped being a thing. Grumblings about New York based financial institutions still happen, but they don’t matter much; the red staters still ally with them in every electoral cycle. Because they resent the constituencies you just listed a lot more… and (partly because of that resentment) they absolutely refuse to see that most of the ways “big gub’mint” is hurting them today come down to it being (again) bought and paid for by their new best friends the creditors.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@KTMailer: Yeah, it would have been nice if the NBC reporter had bothered to mention that…
About:
Hmm….
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in NC
@Villago Delenda Est:
Surely you’ve run into deranged clowns who refuse to donate blood to the Red Cross lest their precious bodily fluids might end up going to one of “those people”? I know I have.
JPL
@? Martin: Why do you keep preaching false flags.
seehear
This idiot:
http://www.gregcollettforidaho.com/
handsmile
@Mike G:
And I expect the factors you cited must have played a large role in the recent election of the loathsome Tony Abbott as its Prime Minister.
No stars in my eyes about Australia; merely noting what OECD researchers had compiled and why.
Sileskelley
Wasn’t there a time in America where the Homeschooling, quiver full, government conspiracy theorist, technophobe, marginally literate folks were so few that they were largely ignored by the world outside of Appalachia?
raven
HOW BOUT THEM DAWGS!!!!!!!!!
Kyle
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Dig into the personal history of a “libertarian” and you’ll find a government paycheck. Every time.
Woodrowfan
@Mike in NC:
Really??!! GAH. I don’t, I mean, How? GAH!!!!!!!
JPL
@raven: Who did they play? oh right.. Last week was good though.
also,too.. we took out all these top terrorists… why is this not all over the news.. wtf
John O
Oh, and you don’t fight this kind of stupid. No way.
No cure, as we say.
Still betting on default. The two sides aren’t close, I don’t care what Boehner says.
Omnes Omnibus
@Woodrowfan: I know someone who won’t sign an organ donor card because she doesn’t want her bits to go to a fat person.
Woodrowfan
@Kyle:
Or a parent that depended on food stamps, or some other benefit program.
Violet
@Mike in NC:
One of my friends growing up, her stepdad was like that. Of course, that was awhile ago. We were aghast then.
opiejeanne
@WereBear: Yeah, I forgot about how Mormon Idaho is.
When we lived in SoCal there was a cluster of Mormon families in our neighborhood. We liked most of them and when two of the best* were summoned to move to Utah both wives told me it scared them spitless. It seems that Mormon leaders tended to be a lot more laid back than in Utah or Idaho, and they had horror stories they’d been told by friends and families. They dreaded being forced into the mold of Molly Mormon, and they were very annoyed that the elders might choose to view their pantry every week to make sure they’d done the requisite baking, etc.
*of course they took the best and left the worst family where it was. This family was so dysfunctional it wasn’t funny, and they were at war with almost everyone else in the neighborhood. Their two older sons sold booze to other kids in the bushes at the side of our front yard, they had two adopted children removed from their custody for abuse, and other similar stuff.
Violet
@Kyle:
Didn’t McPinkHimalayanSalt’s dad work for New York City in some capacity? Government paycheck.
Big R
@becca: Remember that Memphis is full of blah people, so it doesn’t count.
Any other Memphians care to weigh in; plan a Riverside meetup?
Jeremy
Why are some people so worried about the midterms ? right now the republican party is tanking in approval and congressional polls. Nothing suggests that 2014 will be a replay of 2010. Though a number of people on this blog bought the Beltway press BS about Romney beating Obama in 2012.
Kyle
@Mike in NC:
P.W. Botha, Vorster, and the rest of the Boer thugs whose ideas ceased progressing when their ancestors left Europe in the 17th century, are all rotting in the ground now. But the spirit of Apartheid lives on, unfortunately.
WereBear
@opiejeanne: Utah. Highest per capita antidepressant intake in the nation.
David Fud
@a4alice: We already have several of those. Washington DC, Puerto Rico, a number of territories in the Pacific, and, last but not least, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I am sure I am missing a few, but W already took advantage of that particular loophole.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jeremy: Some people have been expressing worry based on Nate Silver’s piece from July saying that based on what he had then it was looking like a toss up.
Gravenstone
Semi-related; wandered by an old site I used to frequent and there was a post up about the healthcare bill. A couple of the resident wingnuts and the local glibertarian were all in fine fettle about things.
Wingnut 1 introduced me to a new word that seems all the rage in the wingnutosphere (although I’ve never seen it elsewhere) – Barry-cades (cf. the closure of the WW II memorial et. al)
Wingnut 2 (former Wall Streeter) had a densely packed load of idiocy where he advocated that the exchanges be solely voluntary (which they are, if you can find insurance through other provenance, you don’t need them) and of course that people should be allowed to buy insurance across state lines.
And the glibertarian was of course ranting about government accruing power not actually granted it by the populace.
I was swiftly reminded why I left that particular pack of jackals after a blow up last year.
John O
As a true Chicagoan, I have to be and am interested to root for the ‘Cats against the hated Buckeyes, and when I say hated I mean unless they’re in a National Championship game against an SEC team. In that scenario I’m rooting for THE Ohio State University hard.
Felonius Monk
@Mike in NC:
It seems he did run for Idaho state office: http://www.gregcollettforidaho.com/
scav
@trollhattan: So the Momons come out with that about the little LayDees now? Guess they figure they’re not likely to get that Mormon President anytime soon. Or, (probably more likely) they’ve got the same Outreach program the G00pers do: slap em around until they tell you how much they love you.
Mike G
@WereBear:
Also the highest rate of financial fraud, and highest per-capita porn consumption. What a healthy society.
BillinGlendaleCA
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Oh, so he teaches Con Law; just like the President. Maybe someone should tell Greg, he’s just like Obama.
Viva BrisVegas
@Mike G:
And they all got their shit together and last month elected a Tea Party inspired far right Conservative government.
But at least the weather is nice.
dmsilev
@Violet: I have a vague memory that he was some sort of contractor (builder, perhaps) who made big bucks on government money.
gogol's wife
@Gravenstone:
Cue Maureen Dowd to use “barrycades” tomorrow. She loves to type the word “Barry.”
Shakti
You have ten children on Medicaid. And you’re a software developer who homeschools or has his wife homeschool his children.
And you think the government should stay out of health care.
Please, zip up your pants. Permanently. Along with your mouth.
LesGS
@Mike G: Wiki says the Ruby Ridge incident took place in August, 1992.
???
Omnes Omnibus
@LesGS: Still prior to Clinton taking office.
Elizabelle
@opiejeanne:
Desperate Sister Wives.
Mike G
@LesGS:
My mistake, the ATF’s court action against Weaver was 1991, the cabin siege was August 1992. But Bill Clinton was not President during either event.
fka AWS
@gogol’s wife:
She doesn’t type it, “Barry” is a macro on her keyboard.
Villago Delenda Est
@LesGS:
George H.W. Bush was President then, here in the real world.
Perhaps Carter was in charge then in wingtard land.
opiejeanne
@KTMailer: He seems to think that it’s somehow a conflict of interest for his opponent who was appointed to her deceased husband’s office to vote for issues her husband championed. What. A. Maroon.
And just look at that youthful face. If that guy’s 41 then he’s probably a Mormon.
Reformed Panty Sniffer
@Felonius Monk:
I love how the story never mentions his running for state representative, or his platform:
… I am well versed in the working of government and the proper role it should play. I ran against John McGee in District 10 two years ago because I saw a need to stand up for limited government and ethics in leadership. I have advocated for honesty, transparency, and fiscal responsibility in government throughout the past 15+ years as I have been involved with causes and organizations that champion freedom and liberty. I have had the opportunity to teach many people about advanced constitutional concepts, explain the challenges we face as a nation and state, break down complex problems, and demonstrate how the sole purpose of government should be to secure our individual, God-given rights. I have worked with others to provide solutions to the issues we face, and I bring to the legislature not only the ability to recognize counterfeit conservatism, but the knowledge to translate principle into policy.
Seems to me the reporter missed a perfect opportunity to put this guy’s rebellion in context. He’s a total asshat; Mormon too. Explains everything.
Mike G
@Reformed Panty Sniffer:
“Among them, my right to have the taxpayers of Idaho pay for the health care for my ten kids while I blather about the Marxism of Obamacare.”
LesGS
@Mike G: Thanks. I knew Bush I was presidenting, but I remembered 1992 because my second daughter was born that year, and was around the same age as the baby Vicki was holding when she was shot.
As that was some time and many beers ago, I thought I might be misremembering, so I checked Wiki.
Felonius Monk
@Reformed Panty Sniffer:
Seems this reporter (obviously not a journalist) did a piss poor job. Probably should be reassigned to covering the dog bite reports or something similar.
gene108
How incompetent a software developer do you have to be to be poor enough to qualify for Medicaid?
Software development, and the IT field in general, is one of the most lucrative professions in the country.
LesGS
@Villago Delenda Est: I wasn’t confused about the president, I was confused about the year. As it turns out, I wasn’t actually as confused as I thought.
mai naem
Collett’s just a big fat leech. He’s probably paying zero taxes because of all the kids. He probably gets a tax credit of some sort because of the home schooling a la Santorum. And then to top it off he’s got all the kids on Medicaid but he doesn’t like socialized medicine? Wahhhh? He’s got his head so far up his ass that it’s got to be coming of his mouth.
dmsilev
@gene108: Ten kids. I looked it up (see upthread) and assuming that his wife doesn’t work (with ten homeschooled kids, that’s a pretty reasonable assumption), he’d qualify for Medicaid if he earned less than about $100K per year gross. Especially for someone living off the beaten track, that’s entirely plausible even for a good programmer with in-demand skills.
Joel
What kind of software does this guy develop? Inquiring minds want to know.
Mike G
@gene108:
Having ten kids in this day and age is financially irresponsible unless you’re earning well into six figures.
Most IT jobs pay a middle-class wage but are not lucrative. The high-paying jobs tend to be in high-cost areas of the country.
Methinks Mr. Personal Responsibility relies heavily on charity from his extended family and/or church.
fuckwit
You win elections, John, that is how you fight that kind of stupid. Because that kind of stupid is the minority, and the minority does not rule in a Democracy.
The minority rules in an oligarchy, a plutocracy, a monarchy, or in the modern Teabagger-infested House, or in the filibuster-infested Senate, but not in a Democracy.
And you also ignore the completely irresponsible corporate media, who nutpicks these fucking idiots in order to give the impression that Applebee’s salad bars all over the country are packed full of these kinds of morons.
They are not.
Most people are decent people, they just want to live their lives. Tribal identities and fears cause their brains to turn off, and there is indeed a tiny elite of truly evil people around (fundamentalists, Koch brothers, K-street, Karl Rove, etc) who demagogue those fears and identities.
How you stop this is the same way that black people got civil rights, that gay people got to get married and serve in the military, that women got the vote, etc etc.
You educate, inform, inspire, include. You isolate the idiots– like the fucknut quoted above– from polite society via letting their idiocy stand as an embarassment to anyone associatd with them. You let the hardcore haters hate, and respond to them with dignity no matter what, letting their firehose and attack-dogs and shutdowns and rape-justifications show who they really are, in contrast to you… and watch decent people back away from them slowly and towards you.
You expose their hate to the light. You don’t show hate back towards them (I know, that’s the hardest part, auugh, they piss me off so goddamned much).
You invite and include the convincable people, the people you can reach, and leave the door open for them to join whenever they’ve had enough.
You build a movement. You run candidates, you fight elections and court cases and corporations, you lose and lose and lose, and eventually you start to win.
This is how you solve this. This is how you solve all political problems, really.
Oh yeah, and all this shit takes money and time too, so volunteer with your local DNC or OFA, and donate money as per Doug’s thread.
Julia Grey
Yeah, but in his family situation he’s likely to get a big subsidy! (I’m assuming the kids stay on Medicare.) Which means he actually might get a subsidy big enough that he could get his and his wife’s insurance for, say, $195 a month, which would be a hell of a lot cheaper than an emergency room visit when he breaks his leg.
(I like how he figures his only expense without insurance will be the fine. ONLY if you don’t get sick or have an accident, guy. If you do, you’ll spend a hell of a lot more than you would have with an Obamacare-subsidized policy.)
Kyle
@Joel:
From his politics, I’m guessing he programs textile looms operated by sweatshop child labor in Bangladesh.
pseudonymous in nc
@Mike G:
See: recent election, Tony Abbott, treatment of Julia Gillard, etc.
Stillwater
@Just Some Fuckhead: This is why I supported Death Panels.
Unfortunately, you got outplayed. Palin was one step ahead of ya.
Mandalay
@Mike in NC:
Actually he is running as a Republican for a state seat in Idaho. He is a Mormon, and he makes Ted Cruz and Ron Paul look like Marxists.
He wants to eliminate the Federal Reserve, state income tax in Idaho, property taxes in Idaho, government involvement in education, state universities. the Department of Commerce, unions, government welfare programs, the regulation of firearms and ammunition, membership in the UN, corporation tax, government retirement programs, etc…
And one more thing: “Elective abortion should be treated by law as murder”.
Whew.
mellowjohn
@pseudonymous in nc: wtf else is there to do in idaho?
El Cid
I’m sorry, but many of his brood will hate him for how stupid an asshole he is, even if they do love him as a father.
Elizabelle
Eight of Collett’s ten children are adopted.
Per Idaho Press-Tribune candidate questionnaire.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I thought MoDo was talking about Abe Frohman. The sausage king of Chicago.
PurpleGirl
@cathyx: It’s all too real. We didn’t get the whole story. Ten to one he’s a fundamentalist Mormon and has a few more wives who he can’t actually talk about. He’ll lump ten kids into one family but there may even be a few more there too. The kids get Medicaid because, well, the mother is poor, don’t you know. It’s standard practice out that way. For all that Mormons talk about how they help each other, it doesn’t seem to happen as regards health care.
MikeInSewickley
I got to the thread very late… thank God.
To find such absolute stupidity should be rare but, given what the last 30+ years of total ignorance of facts and a changing world has brought us to, I am no longer surprised other than when an amazing outlier pops up like this cumquat. I really can’t even approach any of the right-on-the-mark comments above.
Only that with each passing year, I grow more fearful for my children’s and this country’s future. Every vote against this kind of idiocy counts no matter what.
PurpleGirl
@Tripod: I know it’s not just one wife. Too many f***ing fundamentalist Mormons out that way. They know better than to mention the sister wives and their celestial marriages. Better to make it seem like wife #1 is a cow who keeps getting pregnant, year in and year out.
(If it sounds like I don’t like them and their tribe and hold them in complete contempt, I do. If they were taking that personal responsibility they always talk about, they’d be honest about their sister wives and the rugrats. And they’d pay for them themselves.)
opiejeanne
@WereBear: I haven’t checked in several years but they used to have the highest percentage of women deserting their families w/children.
PurpleGirl
@Tripod: Nope, not serially married but concurrently married. They are Sister Wives.
Southern Beale
@Tripod:
I wrote about one of those Christian “health co-ops” last week …
Southern Beale
@Redshift:
Because he’s not opposed to public schools in principle, just opposed to what his kids are taught there — you know, evolution and climate change, and maybe some inconvenient facts in history and social studies class that he doesn’t want to be confronted with.
Medicaid, on the other hand, doesn’t challenge any of his hard and fast beliefs about the world.
Typical.
Chris
@PurpleGirl:
I was never sure why people made such a big deal about Mormon craziness (as opposed to, well, any other religious group) until I got invited to a service this summer by a classmate… and immediately after the service, everyone was like “So you like what you’ve seen here, right?” “Well, sure, but…” “Great! I have an opening this evening if you want to get baptized!” “Uhhh… I have a test to cram for, dude, can I get back to you?” [NOT…] Like, damn, “pushy” doesn’t even begin to cover it. How do you convert anyone with snake oil that smells that strong?
Howard Beale IV
Collett’s Utopia exists in Somalia-why doesn’t he emigrate there?
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: Ever buy a used car?
4jkb4ia
Indirectly bolstering John’s point, we have a Bernie Miklasz update. Today he laid out that the Cardinals must either a) solve Liriano in PNC Park in the presence of a joyously howling madhouse (Bob Costas told neutral viewers that this they would have to see) or b) rely on Wacha and his all of 63 major league innings.
Directly bolstering John’s point, that guy is likely to be one of Labrador’s constituents. You can’t fix the kind of block of stupid that has put us into this conundrum. The danger is people like Ted Cruz who aren’t living in this century either but who are smart. If Louie Gohmert by himself goes on TV, most voters can understand this is not the brightest bulb in the box. But because smarter people have chosen to exploit this kind of stupid, voters can blame Congress as a whole because it hasn’t worked since 2010.
Bill Arnold
@Villago Delenda Est:
The causality-be-damned thinking continues. They are still trying to make Barack Obama a one term president.
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ha! No, actually. Public transportation + bicycle. If I had the money for even a used car… well, I’d spend it on something more important. Some day.
Mike in NC
I advised this Mormon crackpot via his website to have his pecker tied in a knot.
Chicagopat
@PsiFighter37: The thing that saddens me, with these healthcare fights, fights with gun nuts, creationists, etc., is that it is always their children that are the ones paying the price for the idiocy of the parent. The kids are the ones who will go unvaccinated, get rotting teeth, suffer from preventable and treatable illness, shoot themselves or their siblings with the gun daddy left out while typing a screed on the internet, the ones who won’t be able to get out of high school, much less into college, because they have a 15th century understanding of how the world works.
4jkb4ia
I looked it up for myself, and he is in fact in the Idaho 1st.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Pogonip: The layoff at my place last January left them unconvinced.
PurpleGirl
Okay, so some of my comments were hyperbolic. But it still stands that the man is living in another century, like the 14th or thereabouts. And it seems to be standard in Utah and Idaho that Mormon children end up on Medicaid.
PsiFighter37
@Elizabelle: Sounds like he’s a Michele Bachmann type, then.
Jon H
It gets better.
At least some of his kids are foster kids, and Idaho pays a few hundred bucks per month per foster child. (http://www.childrensrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/id.pdf)
Yet he won’t spend that on proper insurance.
He probably gets farm subsidies for his “Hobby Farm”, which also gets him a property tax break.
Nancy Irving
@aimai:
To give the guy a small (very small) break, if you look at his website you’ll see that several of the kids are adopted.
So he is “giving back” to a degree.
But still a fanatic in denial.
Steve in Sacto
@KTMailer: Well, you could’ve at some point but he got his ass kicked in the primary, losing 66% – 34%.
joel hanes
@Jeremy:
Why are some people so worried about the midterms ?
1. Turnout
2. Gerrymandering
3. Turnout
4. Vote suppression
5. Turnout
Ramalama
@cathyx: Doesn’t Marcus Bachmann and his beard Michelle now have Swiss nationality? I wonder if they will be partaking of this largess.
kathleen
@Mudge:
Absolutely agree with you…his poor, poor children. Wonder how his wife feels about 10 of them.
Matt
““I calculated it out and it is cheaper for me for the next four years to pay the fine rather than get coverage,
…
Collett, who is married and has 10 children, says the kids are covered by Medicaid,”
Hey look wingnuts, I found one of them WELFARE QUEENS y’all are always shouting about! Too bad he’s one of YOU…
lucky
@Suffern ACE: F’ing brilliant!