Stupid Congressional Tricks: ScotusCare Act To Force Supreme Court Justices Into ObamaCare

Posted by Mark NC on June 29, 2015 at 6:32 pm. 3 Comments :

Maybe it’s not fair, but candidates for president often suck up most of the air during the campaign season. This often results in embarrassing displays of ignorance or incompetence or just plain lunatic notions that are part and parcel of the wingnut agenda. A few weeks ago Jeb Bush provided an example by being unable to answer a question on whether or not he would have invaded Iraq knowing what we know today. And Donald Trump served up an example with his bitterly derogatory remarks about immigrants. Other examples abound from folks like Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Rick Perry, etc.

This state of affairs must be making members of Congress uncontrollably jealous. After all, most of the time they have a free reign of the idiotic terrain. Now one congressman has been driven to do something about it and has taken a bold step to restore the reputation for dumbfuckery that the Republican-run Congress has always treasured. GOP Rep. Brian Babin of Texas (where else?) introduced what he calls the ScotusCare Act of 2015. It’s purpose is to force the Justices of the Supreme Court and their staff to acquire health insurance policies available on an ObamaCare exchange.

Babin’s obvious intention is to inflict what he regards as punishment on the Court for doing their job, which in this case was to rule in favor of the availability of ObamaCare subsidies nationwide. Babin thinks that by making the Court live under ObamaCare it will teach them a lesson, and thus influence their behavior in the future. There are a couple of reasons this qualifies as being hysterically stupid.

First of all, it is a violation of the Constitution for Congress to use its law-making authority to retaliate against, coerce, or threaten another branch of government or its personnel.

Secondly, Babin’s intention to “force” people unto ObamaCare reveals his ignorance about what the Affordable Care Act actually does. The objective of the legislation is to make health insurance available to all Americans. That means that if you are not covered by your employer, or as part of a family policy, or by Medicare, or some other means, you can sign up for a policy on an exchange. However, the Supreme Court justices and their staff do have an employer who provides health insurance: the Federal government. So what Babin is proposing is to amend ObamaCare so that these specific Americans are treated differently and are denied the insurance that other federal employees get. Thus making the ObamaCare exchange their only option. That is brazenly punitive.

The absurdity of this is evident when considering what would prevent a similar bill from prohibiting people in some other profession, lawyers or plumbers, from getting insurance from their employers. It is an arbitrary burden that serves no purpose. The ObamaCare exchange is the solution for people who have no other access to health insurance. For them it is a valuable benefit that gives them the opportunity get insurance as part of pool that lowers their costs and assures effective, comprehensive coverage. But for people who have employers who provide insurance the exchange isn’t necessary.

The ScotusCare Act, therefore, is a poorly thought out, vindictive prank that is intended to hurt a perceived political adversary. And it isn’t the first time that Congress has sunk this low. In an even stupider display of irrational vengeance, Congress did the very same thing to themselves. And now members of Congress and their poor, innocent staff, are denied access to the health insurance that other federal employees get. All because some idiots wanted to lash out at something, oblivious to the harm it would cause or to whom.

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What this tells us above all is that Republicans are completely incapable of governing. They are proving once again that their hostility to government is an impenetrable obstacle to acting responsibly, or even maturely. And furthermore, their professed aversion to big government is a facade, otherwise they wouldn’t use the tools of government to arbitrarily punish people. These are the same people who voted more than fifty times to repeal ObamaCare. And even with those failures, and two decisions from the Supreme Court, they continue to insist that they will fight to make sure that millions of American lose their health insurance. What a brilliant campaign platform.

These Republican cretins seem to get a perverse pleasure from putting people’s lives, health, and financial well being in jeopardy. And yet, they still manage to con some dimwitted, tea-sotted people into voting for them. And that’s really stupid.

God Didn’t Destroy America For Slavery. But Married Gays On ObamaCare?

Posted by Mark NC on June 26, 2015 at 8:06 pm. 82 Comments :

The Supreme Court ruling that same-sex marriage must be recognized as legal in all fifty states has set off a right-wing, evangelical hysteria complete with warnings of civil war, natural disasters, and a general descent into the End Times. Anti-gay extremists have declared what amounts to a Teabagger Apocalypse.

Republican presidential candidates are vowing to ignore the Court’s ruling. They insist that it is unconstitutional, proving that they have no idea what “constitutional” means. They continue to press their religious argument that the United States should adhere to the principles of faith that they hold, rather than honoring America’s religious freedom. They are convinced that this decision will result in their arrest and incarceration, which the decision explicitly forbids.

Christianist activists go even further to assert that America has now gone past the point of no return. They say that God will smite our nation and its people for permitting the freedom to love one another in the way that nature made them. They believe that Christians will be subject to a horror worse than the Holocaust.

The question that none of them can answer is: Why is God so upset about marriage equality when he seems to have let other atrocities go by unpunished? If God were going to destroy America why didn’t he do it when we enslaved, brutalized, and murdered thousands of his children shipped over from Africa? Why didn’t he smite our young nation as it marched westward slaughtering the native inhabitants along the way? Why didn’t God get mad when we murdered hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians with nuclear bombs? Even from the Christianist perspective, how could God let America survive after legalizing abortion, which they believe is child murder? Apparently their God is tolerant of dead babies, but the thought of two consenting adults committing themselves to one another for life is deserving of total annihilation. (Or maybe God just has a more rational view with regard to when life begins).

In addition, God has also given immunity to Germany, which continues to thrive despite their abhorrent past; and Russia, the nation led by Stalin whose regime killed millions; and Mao’s China. And today he lets ISIS march through the Middle East leaving untold corpses and misery it its path. If God is judging us humans, and punishing us when we do wrong, what the hell is he waiting for?

The Christian extremists can’t answer that question. They can’t explain why God is itching to turn America to dust, but doesn’t seem to care much about Syria. They just continue to spew their foreboding messages of doom based on nothing but their imaginary fears and whatever they believe will fill the collection plate. That’s why they are now settling on marriage equality as history’s greatest abomination when there is no logic or reason to support such a claim.

In the conservative media there is a rush to idiocy, as Fox News wonders whether people will now be allowed to marry in groups, or to marry their pets, or to engage in pedophilia or incest. Glenn Beck is worried that this decision will result in him being thrown off of radio by Feds who he thinks can now regulate speech. Others vow to defy the law and, if necessary, resort to revolution.

Reminder: We’re talking about the legal status of a state of cohabitation, not killing babies, gassing Jews, or owning human beings. What kind of God do these people believe in who regards the definition of marriage as worthy of eternal damnation, but not those other atrocities? And what are they so worried about anyway? Isn’t Armageddon the final stage of man’s tribulations on Earth, after which the righteous rise to Heaven to sit at God’s side in paradise for eternity? Don’t they want that to happen, the sooner the better?

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Given the absurdity of their thought processes, you have to wonder why anyone is taking them seriously. They can’t justify their outrage. They can’t even make sense of their own beliefs. If there is a judgmental God who values intelligence and reason, then the human race may actually have something to worry about.

[Addendum:] Much of the discourse that has developed in comments is focused on the question of whether the Bible or Jesus condemns, or even mentions homosexuality. That’s an interesting question, but it is not the one posed in this article. Near the beginning of the article the question is asked: “Why is God so upset about marriage equality when he seems to have let other atrocities go by unpunished?” And none of those posting their interpretations of scripture regarding the Bible’s stance on being gay answers that. Even if we were to accept the position that being gay is a sin, it still doesn’t explain why God would destroy America and its 360 million residents because a law honoring religious freedom (which is a founding principle of the country) is upheld by the high court to protect a minority of the population, when far worse atrocities went unpunished. Clearly the ultra-pious among us are feverishly struggling to find an argument that makes them feel comfortable holding a position that is patently irrational, even if it’s an argument that has nothing to do with topic at hand.

Republicans Despondent Over ObamaCare Should Be Sending The Supreme Court Fruit Baskets

Posted by Mark NC on June 25, 2015 at 2:50 pm. 1 Comments :

Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court upholding the subsidies in the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) is being portrayed in the media as an historic victory for President Obama. And, to be sure, the ruling does affirm the constitutionality of the law and prevents the cancellation of more than six million health insurance policies nationwide.

However, from a political perspective, the big winners are the Republican Party. Chief Justice John Roberts really pulled their butts out of the fire with his decision finding that…

“In a democracy, the power to make the law rests with those chosen by the people. […] Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.”

For the rest of the day, and throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, you will hear the moaning and gnashing of teeth of disingenuous Republicans pretending to be disappointed by the ruling. In fact, they could not be happier. This ruling allows them to run on a platform of repealing what they claim is a disastrous law that curtails all freedoms and sets the course of the nation toward Armageddon.

Had the Court ruled against the subsidies, millions of Americans would have lost their health insurance, and the the remainder would have been subject to higher premiums as the pool of the insured became smaller and sicker. In that scenario, Republicans would have had to run the gauntlet of enraged voters who were suffering the consequences of the GOP’s greedy self-interest. Most of those voters would have been from red states and the south where the most recipients of subsidies from federal exchanges reside.

As a result of the this ruling, the GOP will still run on a “repeal and replace” campaign, but they won’t have to do it with their own constituents breathing down their necks in disgust. Instead they will lament the corrupt socialists on the Court and promise to deliver something better if they win the White House and Congress in 2016. Never mind that they have made that promise for more than six years but have never produced a viable replacement. To their credit/shame, they have voted more than fifty times to repeal ObamaCare.

On the other hand, Democrats won the legal and logical battle with this ruling. But they lost the opportunity to run against a Republican Party that had stolen the health insurance from millions of Americans. One of the great ironies of democracy is that it is harder to run on your accomplishments than it is to run on your opponents’ failures. So while millions of voters who were rescued from the heartlessness of the GOP by this ruling should be grateful to Democrats for passing the legislation, their gratitude will be harder to translate into votes than if the Court had struck down the bill and they could vote their disapproval of Republicans.

In the final analysis, it is far better that the Court upheld the subsidies because, politics aside, real people’s real lives hang in the balance. For whatever period of time that ObamaCare may have been obstructed by a negative ruling, Americans would have suffered both financially and medically. Indeed, people without access to health care would have become sicker and even died. And those who survived would have lost much of their financial security, including their homes and retirement savings. So if Democrats have to try harder to get their message across, then so be it.

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In light of that, every time you hear a Republican whining about the awful Supreme Court decision, remember these two things: 1) They are actually ecstatic that it takes them off the hook for all the outraged voters who would have lost their insurance had the decision gone the other way. And 2) Their feigned despair is actually an expression of disappointment that millions of people didn’t get shafted and forced to face poor health and bankruptcy, which is what they were ostensibly rooting for.

Breitbart’s Asinine Advice To Wreck ObamaCare: Don’t Buy Health Insurance

Posted by Mark NC on June 8, 2015 at 5:27 pm. 5 Comments :

There are times when one encounters political punditry that makes you genuinely question the mental health of the alleged pundit. One of those times is at hand with today’s article by Breitbart News editor John Nolte titled “Break ObamaCare’s Back: Do Not Purchase Health Insurance.”

BreitBrat Nolte is offering this blitheringly stupid advice to his dimwitted readers based on a series of falsehoods and a fetishistic aversion to the availability of effective, affordable health insurance. He begins his rant by revealing some personal reasons for putting his health – physical and financial – at severe risk.

Nolte: Running around uninsured for the first time in my adult life has not been easy. The tax penalty isn’t cheap (2.5% of your taxable income) and there is the constant uneasy fear of an expensive medical problem, a cancer or car accident, the kind that can bankrupt you.

“History has shown, though, that there is almost always a personal price to pay for social change through civil disobedience — a price I’m willing to pay to help break the back of ObamaCare, an immoral and illegitimate government program sold with serial-presidential (and media) lies and enacted into law using one-party procedural tricks.”

Nolte is portraying himself as the Gandhi of the anti-healthcare movement. He thinks he is taking a principled stand to save America from having to suffer the torment of access to doctors and medicine. But to him the the sword dangling over his head is worth the risk if it can contribute to forcing everyone in the country to face the same risk he is foolishly assuming voluntarily.

In his first attempt to provide a substantive reason to forego healthcare, Nolte praised pre-ObamnaCare policies that he ludicrously described as “these wonderful catastrophic policies.” Now there’s a turn of phrase that cries out “oxymoron.” Nolte has to be the only person who has ever had a catastrophic policy who thinks it was “wonderful.” The rest of the world regards them as a last resort and prays that they don’t get sick.

Even so, Nolte’s praise of these wonderful policies comes with the criticism that President Obama made them illegal. But then, in his very next sentence, he contradicts himself saying that “Actually, what ObamaCare did was make these catastrophic plans unaffordable.” He’s still wrong. Nolte’s evidence of this was his assertion that he would have to pay close to three times more were he to get a catastrophic plan through ObamaCare. However, he offers no proof of that claim and his numbers are utterly unbelievable. He says that he would have to pay a premium of $400.00 per month, but the average cost of a Bronze plan under ObamaCare is only $209.00.

Nolte goes on to claim that his out-of-pocket costs would increase because providers offer lower fees to people without insurance. However, they provide the same discounts to people with high-deductible insurance plans. Plus, many preventive services (annual exams, vaccinations, colonoscopies, mammograms, etc.) are paid in full with deductibles waived.

The real motivation for Nolte’s tirade is stated when he writes “I want to do my part to break the back of ObamaCare. I just can’t live with the idea of doing anything that will benefit Obama’s and the media’s serial lies.” Nolte is admitting that his agenda is political, and not based on his best medical interests. He is simply opposed to the “greedy takers enjoying these subsidies.” That tells you something about how he feels about low and middle-class Americans seeking access to health care.

Nolte closes by misrepresenting the public’s view of ObamaCare. He cites a recent poll by the Washington Post that shows 54% opposed and 39% in favor. But Nolte is leaving out a lot of pertinent information. For instance, the Post admits that their results “contrast with other recent polls finding softening opposition and support above record low levels.” What’s more, the Post survey also shows that a similar majority (55/38) say that the Supreme Court should not rule against the ObamaCare subsidies in the King v. Burwell case that is presently being decided. That includes 65% of Democrats, 57% of Independents, and even 34% of Republicans.

Another thing that ObamaCare opponents frequently use to misconstrue public opinion is the fact that many of those who say they oppose ObamaCare do so because they think it doesn’t go far enough. When the numbers for those who favor ObamaCare are combined with those who want it to be even more comprehensive (i.e. universal, single payer), they are a solid majority.

The right’s crusade to sabotage ObamaCare is nothing new. They have been trying to kill it since before it became law. That campaign has included brazenly lying about the law’s effects, including ancillary nonsense like threats of prison for those who don’t sign up. PolitiFact has ruled at least twelve times on “Pants on Fire” lies by ObamaCare opponents bent on scaring people away.

But what Nolte is doing is much worse. He is giving his personal advice to go without health insurance. That could lead some people to suffer terrible consequences should they become sick or injured and not have the ability to seek medical care. And even if they do get treatment, they could be find themselves in a financial morass that could leave them bankrupt or homeless. This is something that conservatives have tried before. Fox News even advocated what they falsely called alternatives to health insurance, but were mostly shams that failed entirely to cover people for real-world needs.

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These attempts to steer people away from health care are irresponsible and dangerous. And whether it is Fox News or John Nolte or any other partisan hack, they should be held accountable for the harm they cause. And there are real victims like this guy and this guy, and even this guy.

Uh Oh: Jeb Bush Proposes Federally Mandated ‘Death Panels’

Posted by Mark NC on April 17, 2015 at 8:52 pm. 7 Comments :

At a campaign stop in Manchester, New Hampshire, prospective GOP presidential candidate and successor to the Bush dynasty, Brother Jeb came forward to praise his own actions as Florida governor during a controversy that involved a woman in a persistent vegetative state. Terri Schiavo had suffered irreversible brain-damage and was being kept alive by machines against the wishes of her husband and, according to him, herself.

The torturous spectacle that Bush engineered included multiple court challenges and even signing a law giving him, personally, the right to decide Schiavo’s fate. Somehow that didn’t offend his Republican principles against Big Government. That law was later ruled to be unconstitutional, and after months of emotionally brutal wrangling in the courts and the media, Schiavo was mercifully allowed to die.

Today Bush still thinks he did the right thing and says that “I don’t think I would change anything.” However, he went on to express what he said was his one regret:

“In hindsight, the one thing that I would have loved to have seen was an advance directive where the family would have sorted this out […] I think if we’re going to mandate anything from government, it might be that if you’re going to take Medicare, you also sign up for an advance directive where you talk about this before you’re so disabled.”

Yikes! What Bush is talking about are the dreaded “Death Panels” that Sarah Palin made famous in her blitheringly stupid criticism of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare). Advance Directives are nothing more than voluntary statements that inform doctors and family members as to the wishes of a patient in the event that they are unable to speak for themselves. Palin turned this into a surreal debate over the wholly imaginary prospect of the government deciding who will live or die. For that she was awarded the PolitiFact “Lie of the Year” honors for 2009.

Having been subjected to devastating ridicule did nothing to temper Palin’s dumbfuckery. She continues to believe in the Death Panel myth that she was so instrumental in creating (although she has shifted her ire toward the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a group of health care professionals who insure best practices in medical care and fair pricing, which she now calls Death Panels). When Palin gets wind of Bush’s endorsement of Advanced Directives there is likely to be an earthquake in the Tea Party precincts that still admire her vacuous ramblings.

As for Bush, there is reason to be positive about his support for such a common sense initiative that gives people more control over their own lives. However, he may have taken it a step too far. The suggestion that Advanced Directives be mandatory seems like the sort of government intrusion that Republicans usually rail against. While a Living Will is advisable for most people, forcing them to prepare one when they may not be ready to make all of the profound decisions involved is way too strict a requirement.

What’s more, Bush is only proposing mandated Advance Directives for Medicare recipients. Why is he discriminating against just that sector of the population? Why not make it mandatory for anyone with a health insurance policy, whether public or private? As usual, the Republican solution to any problem is to put the burden on those who are already on society’s lower financial rungs. It’s why they advocate mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients, but not for doctors or lawyers or politicians, who hold people’s lives in their hands. It’s why states like Kansas are currently trying to dictate how food stamp recipients can spend their benefits, but there are never similar dictates on how wealthy recipients of government subsidies can spend their benefits.

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If you’re poor in America the government can tell you what to do and how to live. If your rich, anything goes, even if you still get benefits from the government, including tax breaks that contribute to your wealth. That’s the Republican philosophy. And then they will condemn anyone who proposes a policy that permits the government to control any part of a citizen’s life. Unless, of course, it has to with a woman’s control over own body, a patient’s desire for medicinal marijuana, or anyone who wishes to be free from mandated exposure to Christianity.

In short, the GOP Doctrine of Acceptable Hypocrisy requires that any regulation of the rich be condemned as an intolerable intrusion by Big Government. But similar regulations of the poor are necessary controls on irresponsible, and probably criminal, moochers.

RepubliCare: The GOP Alternative To ObamaCare Is A Corporatist Sham

Posted by Mark NC on February 6, 2015 at 12:48 pm. 16 Comments :

Republicans in Congress just held their 56th vote to repeal or cripple the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare). It is a pointless waste of time and taxpayer dollars that will never become law, but the wingnut obsession with this boondoggle never seems to let up.

Throughout the debate over ObamaCare, conservatives have tried to pretend that they are concerned about the welfare of the American people and that they intend to replace ObamaCare with their own version of reform. But more than four years have elapsed since ObamaCare was rolled out and there has not been a single bill introduced as an alternative.

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Now the Republicans with a newly fortified majority in Congress are promoting a plan that they say can replace ObamaCare. There are, however, two major problems with their initiative. 1) It isn’t actually a draft of legislation at all and will not be voted on. And 2) it illustrates their bias toward corporations and their animosity to the American people they profess to support. Here is a summary of their “plan:”

The GOP’s Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility and Empowerment – or CARE – Act

Calls for the outright repeal of President Obama’s signature health care law, and with that, the individual mandate to buy insurance or pay a fine.
Provides for targeted tax credits to individuals and families up to 300 percent above the poverty line to encourage people to buy plans in the market place.
Allows insurers to sell plans across state lines.
Caps the amount of monetary damages that can be awarded in medical malpractice litigation.
Calls for a specific ‘continuous coverage’ protection where individuals moving from one plan to another cannot be denied.

What this amounts to is just another ObamaCare repeal bill decorated with gifts to the insurance industry. There is no realistic way to make insurance coverage affordable without broadening the customer base via mandates. The GOP plan would shrink the base and result in premiums that would be out of reach for most people due to the dominance of high-risk patients in the system. The provision to cap damages in lawsuits has been on the corporate wish list for decades and does nothing to help patients. To the contrary, it would result in people who suffered actual harm not being compensated fairly.

Most disturbing is the hoax that the GOP is proposing as their version of a coverage guarantee to people with preexisting conditions. In the RepubliCare model you would already have to have insurance and then you could not be denied a continuance. Of course they never explain how you got the insurance to begin with. And if you were attempting to get insured for the first time, the companies could reject you without consequence. In other words, it is no protection at all.

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The GOP likes to complain that ObamaCare is a government-run healthcare program, despite the fact that the government has no role whatsoever in providing healthcare. It merely sets standards for insurance companies to make certain that everyone has access to coverage that is effective and affordable. Meanwhile Republicans claim to favor a more “patient-centered” approach, but then offer this fraud that was very likely written by insurance company lobbyists.

If these Republicans are successful, millions of Americans will lose their current insurance and suffer both medically and financially as a result. In its place will be a windfall for corporations that expands their profits at the expense of the American people, particularly those who are already sick. Nice work, RepubliCare.

Smacking The Smirk Off Of Tucker Carlson’s Face: Fox News Fails To Smear ObamaCare

Posted by Mark NC on February 2, 2015 at 12:01 pm. 3 Comments :

For some reason, Fox News has made an editorial decision to segregate their most idiotic hosts to the morning hours on the network on programs like Fox & Friends. It’s where you will find Steve Doocy, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Brian Kilmeade, Anna Kooiman, and today’s special, Tucker Carlson.

In a segment that was undoubtedly designed to malign the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare), Carlson invited a healthcare consumer on to frighten us all with his tale of an insurance catastrophe that resulted in – well, it resulted in no harm whatsoever, but never mind that. There is a horror story to tell.

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The segment (video below) began with ominous music accompanying a graphic with a foreboding theme: “Eyes On ObamaCare.” Cut to Carlson’s opening wherein he somberly warned that…

“Not only can you not keep your doctor, but you can’t keep your coverage either. Through a glitch in one of the official ObamaCare exchanges over 3,600 people in the state of Colorado saw their health insurances policies canceled without notice. Kafka comes to Colorado.”

Kafka , for those unfamiliar, was known for writing somewhat depressing novels with characters who were pummeled by heartless bureaucracies. You know, like the ones that make healthcare available to everyone. Yeah, what a nightmare it must be to be able to see a doctor when you need one. But what Carlson seemed to cavalierly skip over is the fact that the problem in the story he is introducing was caused by a glitch, not a government mandated assault on its citizens.

Carlson jumped into the interview by falsely asserting that his guest/victim, Steven Roussel, had suffered a rise in his insurance premium “thanks to ObamaCare.” Of course, there was no evidence that ObamaCare had anything to do with the higher premium which, in fact, are controlled by the private insurance companies, except for the limits that ObamaCare imposes on increases. Furthermore, Roussel himself never said that ObamaCare was responsible for the increase.

While browsing the exchange website and talking to a representative on the phone, Roussel’s policy was mistakenly canceled. As note above, this was not some Kafkaesque bureaucracy imposing it’s evil will on a defenseless peon. It was a computer error, a malfunction, a glitch, that was probably the work of Satan. So Carlson delved deeper into the mystery asking…

“Can you just give us a little background here? Were you happy or dissatisfied with your healthcare before Obamacare?”

Whereupon Roussel delivered a truly nightmarish response – if you’re Fox News:

“Well, I didn’t have any healthcare before the Affordable Healthcare Act went in. And it was because of that, that I was actually able to afford it.”

About this time there was an associate producer at Fox that was sweating and attempting to slither out a back door. Heads will surely roll for not having vetted this socialist subversive guest thoroughly before allowing him to get on the air and praise ObamaCare for creating an opportunity to get health insurance. But it gets even worse. When given a direct opportunity to disparage ObamaCare and its namesake, Roussel committed a Foxian blasphemy:

Carlson: How has this made you feel about the whole ObamaCare experiment?
Roussell: Well, experiments are either a success or fail, and this instance it’s a little bit of a fail. But it’s not necessarily the President’s fault. It’s more the CEO’s fault that knew about the glitch in the system and did nothing about it.

So there you have it. Blame was placed exactly where it belonged. The insurance company was responsible for the rate increase, and combined with the operators of the exchange, permitted a glitchy website to go online that inadvertently canceled some policies.

Carlson responded sarcastically saying that “Well, I betcha he’ll get right on it after this.” Which actually turned out to be true (Tucker got lucky). The exchange is contacting every affected consumer and assuring them that their policies will be reinstated retroactive to January 1, and they will have the opportunity to select any other plan should they decide to switch.

So in the end, this was nothing but a programming mishap that was quickly resolved without anyone suffering any negative repercussions. Which makes it an obvious target for Fox News to invent a controversy where none existed, and to frighten their viewers with false stories of a government gone wild. At some point Fox’s viewers are going to realize that the network was created by the pharmaceutical industry to sell more anti-depressants.

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Video via Raw Story

2015: Happy News Fears Day

Posted by Mark NC on January 1, 2015 at 12:05 pm. 1 Comments :

We made it. It’s 2015 and with the new year stretching out before us there is a sense of new hope. At least the hope that 2015 will be nothing like 2014.

If there is one word that summarizes the media take on life in America for 2014 it is FEAR! Nothing was spread thicker than the notion that we are all living on borrowed time as some looming threat hangs precariously over our heads. Here is a brief retrospective of some of the frightening scenarios that haunted us over the past year and that were feverishly promoted by right-wing media.

Lindsey Graham Is Afraid That We Will “All Get Killed Back Here At Home”

The Chairman of the Panic Caucus has got to be South Carolina’s GOP Senator Lindsey Graham who warned Fox News that “This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home.” Of course, Graham never specified how this national massacre would be carried out, nor what Obama should do about it. But never mind that. Just get back in your bunker and try to tune in Alex Jones on your ham radio.

Unhinged Fox News Reporter Warns Of Immigrant Children Trained By ISIL To Kill Us

On an episode of Fox News’s “Bulls and Bears,” host Brenda Buttner introduced a segment warning about “the ISIS border threat we may all regret if we don’t stop it now.” But Stealing the thunder of prominent members of the Psycho-Chicken Little Society was Fox regular Tracy Byrnes. Her hysterical assessment that ISIS is already here led to a pronouncement that terrorists will “infiltrate the minds of children and […] so many of these kids are trained to hate us and potentially kill us.” So if you know what’s good for you, you will start knocking off any unfamiliar children in your neighborhood before they get you.

Dick Cheney Warns of Gizmo-packing Terrorists plotting to blow up Fox News

Dick Cheney, (News Corpse’s Dick of the Year) has once again made news with his unrelentingly pessimistic vision for America. Emerging from his bunker in an undisclosed location in order to raise money for his new SuperPAC, Cheney joined the Curvy Couch Potatoes on Fox & Friends to warn Americans that “there will be another attack. And the next time, it’s likely to be far deadlier than the last one.” Fox’s Steve Doocy agreed with Cheney and elaborated saying that “in a couple of months one of them [terrorists] could be walking in front of our building with some sort of gizmo to wreak havoc.” So all along it is Fox News that has been the target of the terrorists.

A Ton of ObamaCare Navigators Are Criminals

Over at Fox Nation, they posted an item culled from the ultra-conservative National Review Online that alleged that people recruited to assist citizens with ObamaCare enrollments are a “fishy” and unsavory collection of outlaws. And except for the fact that the evidence they cite doesn’t corroborate their claim, it’s pretty scary narrative. The truth is that by portraying ObamaCare as a thinly-veiled assembly of hustlers just waiting to exploit innocent health insurance consumers, Fox is just continuing their “Fright Offensive” to scare people away from exploring the many benefits of the program and, thus, doom it to failure.

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Ebola Terror Threat? The Best Fox News Horror Story Since Boob Bombs

One of the most over-hyped pseudo-threats of the year was the one alleging that Ebola would decimate America. PolitiFact named the phony crisis their “Lie of the Year.” Expanding on that fallacy, Fox News is among the many media outlets who attempted to unduly frighten the American people by speculating that terrorists are going to embrace Ebola as a mechanism for their homicidal escapades. Of course, anyone with any knowledge of biology is aware that Ebola would be an awful candidate for weaponized bioterror. What’s more, immediately after the election on November 4th, the Ebola pandemic was miraculously cured.

Fox News Reports, As Fact, The Missing Libyan Planes Hoax

And closing on a more bizarre note, it should surprise no one that Fox News broadcast a story that is nothing more than a hoax perpetrated by wingnut bloggers and a coalition of disreputable pseudo-news sources. But Fox’s Jon Scott was not deterred by those facts as he introduced the segment saying…

“A potentially terrifying scenario is playing out as we approach September 11. Nearly a dozen airplanes are missing – flat out missing – from an airport in Tripoli, raising new fears of the possibility of another terror attack from the air.”

In reality every allegedly missing plane was accounted for and all credible sources repudiated the claims. For this completely made up story Fox News relied on the reporting of the Washington Free Beacon, an ultra-rightist conspiracy theory disseminator that is affiliated with Republican operatives and the Koch brothers. And even after the story was thoroughly debunked, Fox never issued a retraction.

One thing is abundantly clear from the editorial tenor of Fox and other media outlets: Fear was the main product of the media in 2014. There is an obvious effort to keep the American people in a constant state of the shivers. Either that or the media has simply determined that horror programming is the path to higher ratings. In any case they are behaving irresponsibly and have something in common with our foreign enemies. They are, by definition, terrorists:

Terrorism (ter-uh-riz-uh m): noun – The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. [See Fox News]

And HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody!

Laura Ingraham’s Tea Party Dementia: “We Don’t Really Protest”

Posted by Mark NC on December 5, 2014 at 9:49 am. 5 Comments :

Laura Ingraham is a Fox News contributor and frequent guest host for Bill O’Reilly. Her deep-seated, ultra-conservative views are embraced by right-wingers in media and politics. So it is not surprising that her commentaries are riddled with falsehoods and rife with animosity. For example, in response to the the Eric Garner tragedy, she recently made an asinine suggestion that President Obama be fitted with a body camera. Apparently she believes that the activities of all African-Americans should be monitored at all times.

However, Ingraham may have just exceeded her previous threshold for lunatic declarations when she told a listener to her radio program not to expect conservatives to hit the streets in protest of Obama’s reign of tyranny:

Ingraham: I don’t think our people go in the streets. You know why? Because our people are working and they have to support families. We don’t do that. We don’t protest. That’s just not in the DNA of conservatives. We don’t really protest.

First of all, let’s not ignore that Ingraham just insulted every American who ever participated in democracy by attending a protest. She regards everyone who marched with Martin Luther King as unemployed vagrants who abandoned their families. She believes that anyone who stood up to oppose unlawful wars, or the poisoning of our planet, or gross miscarriages of justice, or any number of other social ills, as lacking responsibility and values. She doesn’t understand that protests are an expression of American ideals and an exercise of freedom.

What’s worse is that Ingraham seems to have lost all touch with reality? Her assertion that conservatives don’t protest makes one wonder who it was hollering at all those town halls a few years ago. Who was it that showed up for the Fox News sponsored, anti-tax Tea Party rallies dressed in Revolutionary War era costumes and carrying confederate flags? Who was it hoisting those signs that demanded that government keep its hands off of Medicare during the ObamaCare protests? Oh yeah … it was conservatives. And not just random right-wingers either. It was Laura Ingraham herself.

Yes, that is Ms. Ingraham at a rally to oppose ObamaCare in Washington, D.C. Apparently she is giving a speech to a crowd of unemployed family-haters. Ironically, Ingraham and her audience are actually attempting to harm families by preventing them from getting affordable health insurance. They are demonstrating against a reform that allows parents to keep their children on their policies longer. They are pushing to permit insurance companies to decline coverage to anyone with a preexisting condition. That is not exactly an agenda that speaks to supporting families.

Ingraham needs to apologize to everyone who has made personal sacrifices in order to petition their government for redress of grievances (look it up Laura. It’s in the Constitution). She especially needs to address those on her own side who must be wondering what the hell she’s talking about. And she may want to see a medical professional herself to inquire as to her apparent amnesia. Lucky for her, it’s covered by ObamaCare.

Obsessive Gruber Syndrome: Fox News Suffers From Its Own Manic Spin Cycle

Posted by Mark NC on November 18, 2014 at 4:43 pm. NO Comments :

A week after some stale and unfortunate comments by M.I.T. professor Jonathan Gruber were revealed, the conservative media circus have drenched themselves in it. And leading the way, of course, is Fox News where there isn’t an hour that goes by without some new and highly hyperbolized reference to Gruber’s remarks.

An analysis by PolitiFact found that mentions of the Gruber affair occurred 779 times on Fox News since November 10th. That’s once every fifteen minutes, 24 hours a day, for eight straight days. It suggests an editorial obsession that exceeds anything they have exhibited for other current news events, including immigration, Ebola, and the battle against ISIL who just executed another American hostage. By comparison MSNBC mentioned Gruber only 79 times and CNN had 27 mentions. Of course, Fox News believes that the rest of the media are inappropriately ignoring the story, but the truth is that there is no news here other than a single person who is not a legislator or White House staffer saying things that no one else has corroborated.

Implicit in the incessant rash of criticism of Gruber, and by extension, the President, is the assertion that supporters of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) have lied about its contents. But if you’re interested in an assemblage of ObamaCare lies you need to look at the Republicans and their mouthpieces on Fox News.

Rarely mentioned is the fact that the substance of what Gruber said is not representative of anything but his own opinion. President Obama has dismissed him as a consultant and repudiated his insult to American voters. It has also been noted that ObamaCare is one of the most thoroughly debated pieces of legislation that has ever trudged through the Congress. So Gruber’s flippant references to a lack of transparency simply make no sense at all.

What’s more, it is pointless to reach back in time to a remark about ObamaCare when the bill has already been implemented and the results can be seen in action. There are more than ten million people who have insurance coverage now than did before the bill had passed. Those who have signed up are overwhelmingly satisfied with the coverage and the cost. And there haven’t been any disasters erupting from alleged secrets tucked into the bill.

The portion of Gruber’s remarks that has received the most attention is where he alluded to “the stupidity of the American people.” Right-wingers have never been shy about calling voters stupid in the past, particularly when discussing those who support Democrats. But in this case they are exploiting the gaffe in order to bash ObamaCare and the President. However, if you edit slightly Gruber’s wording you can arrive at an observation that is unarguably true. And that is that a certain segment of the American electorate is very noticeably stupid: Fox News viewers. They have been conned by the network’s relentless assault on ObamaCare. The current fixation on Gruber is simply a reaction to their inability to criticize the program on substance.

If, however, you are determined to look back to find something relevant to the current health care debate, you might want to check out Mitt Romney’s speech in April of 2006 when he signed the Massachusetts health care bill that was the model for ObamaCare. Romney took time to thank those he relied on to draft and implement his plan. And one of those people was Jonathan Gruber, about whom Romney said…

“I want to thank the many, many people in this room who were critical to crafting and coaxing the bold health care initiative that I’m about to sign. […] Jonathan Gruber at MIT devoted hours and hours to an essential econometric model.”

For an interesting Gruber reference you won’t see on Fox News, here is a clip from the Lawrence O’Donnell show on MSNBC in October of 2011 that identifies Gruber as a “Romney health care consultant.” It will be interesting to see if the Republicans who are hammering Obama for his association with Gruber will cast the same measure of scorn on Romney.

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[Addendum] Fox Nation is already beating on another video where Obama is quoted as saying “I have stolen ideas from [Gruber].” But in this case the video is from April of 2006, when Obama was a senator, and his remarks were about the launch of The Hamilton Project, an economic think tank from the centrist Brookings Institute. So it was before he was president and had nothing to do with health care. But Fox’s deceitful reporting never mentioned any of that.

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And HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody!

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