Month: October 2013
Even Its Chaplain Says Senate is Insane
Any objective observer would see a certain insanity in some of the things that have happened in this government shutdown.
— Senate Chaplain Barry Black, quoted by Politico.
Number of Americans with ‘High Deductible’ Health Plans on the Rise
15.5 million
Number of Americans with high-deductible health plans in 2013, Bloomberg reports. That’s up from 1 million in 2005. A “high deductible” is defined as $1,250 or more for individual coverage per year.
Five Minutes That Removes All Doubt About Who Is Wrecking the American Government
This ends just as it’s getting good, but it’s still the most important five minutes you’ll ever spend to understand what the Republicans are doing to end democracy as we know it, and to overthrow the system of government that America once represented.
John Oliver: 10% Approval But 90% Re-Election Rate? Yes.
John Oliver, of Daily Show fame, is also half of a funny, intelligent podcast called The Bugle. Comedian Andy Zaltzman, who lives in England, is the other half, and John recently explained our government shutdown to his countryman.
He particularly pointed out the depressing legacy of legislative redistricting, and how it’s left even the worst representatives invulnerable to losing office. Oliver:
It’s a pretty bold move for Congress to do something that pisses almost everyone off on this kind of scale for no kind of rational reason, but again, that’s hardly surprising. There is no incentive for them to be anything other than awful. Just look at the numbers.
Congress currently has a ten percent approval rating. Apparently that is lower than the approval rating for colonoscopies, which actually makes sense because the more you think about it, both Congress and colonoscopies deal with assholes, but the American public can at least acknowledge that colonoscopies serve a practical function.
Also, colonoscopies exist to make assholes better; Congress just seems to make them worse. And yet, Andy, and yet, even with this mere ten percent approval rating, members of Congress also have a ninety percent re-election rate. How is that fucking possible? Andy, they’re somehow batting 900 while striking out every time they’re at bat. That doesn’t obey the basic laws of mathematics.
Kentucky Proves Republicans Were Right About Obamacare
There’s no shortage of jokes about Kentucky.*
Q: What do a divorce in Kentucky, a tornado in Kansas, and a hurricane in Louisiana have in common?
A: Somebody’s fixin’ to lose the trailer.Q: What do you get when there are 32 Kentuckians in a room together?
A: A full set of teeth.We are a nation lost in tea party mission creep, as the Party of No struggles to figure out its evolving hostage demandTwo Kentucky guys were driving in the pickup, drinking a couple of long-neck Buds, when they came upon a police roadblock. The driver told his friend to peel off the label and stick it on his forehead, then stash the bottle under the seat, and he did the same. When it was their turn at the roadblock, the officer said, “Have you boys been drinking?” The driver replied, “No sir, we’re on the patch.”
So it came as small surprise that many in Kentucky who bombarded the state’s phone line and website to sign up for health coverage on Oct. 1 specified that they did not want Obamacare. Instead, they insisted, they wanted to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
[Kentuckians, please note: Emergency FOXectomies are not covered under Obamacare.]
Kentucky’s response proves Republicans were right on almost every point.
North Carolina Governor Pushed Austerity for the Middle Class, Now Plans $230K Upgrade to Governor’s Mansion Bathrooms
$230,000
Cost in taxpayer funds to renovate bathrooms in the residence of North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory at the state’s Governor’s Mansion in Raleigh, according to the Associated Press. Reacting to the news, North Carolina Democratic Party spokesman Ben Ray said, “This is an administration and a legislature that rejected health care for 500,000 North Carolinians [referring to the GOP-controlled state government’s refusal to expand Medicaid, mostly with federal funds, under the Affordable Care Act]. So to drop $230,000 on a bathroom renovation just shows that Pat McCrory’s priority is not North Carolina, but himself.”
America to Ted Cruz: Go Back to Canada
26%
Favorable rating of Sen. Ted Cruz, the Canadian-born senator from Texas, according to Gallup. The poll found that Cruz has succeeded in making a name for himself — 62% of Americans know who he is now, compared with 42% in June. But in his case, familiarity has bred contempt. His favorable rating has dropped 16 points, according to Gallup, “from a +6 net favorable (24% favorable, 18% unfavorable) in June to -10 (26% favorable, 36% unfavorable) today.”
Obamacare Is More Popular Than the Republican Party – By 14 Points
The Wall St. Journal/NBC poll released yesterday had nothing but bad news for Republicans. For starters, their 24 percent favorable rating is the lowest ever recorded in the poll.
Sure, it could be an outlier, except that just 24 hours earlier Gallup released a poll that also found Republicans with the lowest favorability it had ever recorded. The GOP’s 28 percent favorability was 3 percentage points lower the previous lowest point ever recorded by Gallup — the 31 percent approval Republicans received in 1999 after their bogus impeachment of Pres. Clinton.
