Someone Finally Figures It Out

I've been trying over the past few months to determine why members of America's Radicalized Right can't seem to come up with any real examples of ObamaCare casualties. Every time the GOP claims to have found someone who has been hurt by the Affordable Care Act, it turns out that the alleged "victim" was actually helped by health care reform.

A recent high-profile example of such chicanery was Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers' mentioning of poor "Bette in Spokane" during the Republican response to the President's State of the Union address.  Of course, Bette's tale of ACA woe turned out to be complete horseshit.
 
I figured, however, that the Extreme Right would -- with the help of Kock Brothers' money -- eventually find somebody who has been victimized by ObamaCare.  After all, when you pass into law such sweeping reforms, there are always some folks out there who will be hurt by them.

But a real victim of the ACA has not materialized despite the GOP's best efforts to find one, making me think that maybe there aren't any.  But there has to be at least one such person, right?

Well, here is Paul Krugman's explanation of why no actual ObamaCare casualties have shown up in GOP attack ads:

The most likely answer is that the true losers from Obamacare generally aren’t very sympathetic. For the most part, they’re either very affluent people affected by the special taxes that help finance reform, or at least moderately well-off young men in very good health who can no longer buy cheap, minimalist plans. Neither group would play well in tear-jerker ads.

In other words, it's not that there aren't any ObamaCare victims -- it's just that the Republicans don't like who the real victims are, so they have no choice but to make up imaginary ones and hope nobody notices.

Historic Quote of the Day

"The question remains:  How can you guys [i.e., Republicans] be so unhappy with Obama when I'm so unhappy with Obama?  You think you got coal in your stocking?  I wanted single-payer health care, a carbon emissions bill, gun control, and legalized pot.  If you get to carry around all this outrage over me getting that shit, shouldn't I have gotten it?"

- Bill Maher, from May 2012.

Some Debates I'd Like To See On Future Episodes of "Meet The Press" (Updated)

This morning on Meet The Press, Bill Nye The Science Guy debated Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn) on whether climate change is human caused.  I found this a worthy topic for debate, given that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent report states that there is only a mere 95% chance that humans are responsible for global warming.

Although I caught only the last few minutes of this "debate," it occurred to me that Meet The Press should host a lot more of these things.  Here are some suggestions for future topics:

• Stephen Hawking could debate Todd Akin on whether or not the Earth revolves around the sun (after all, 26% of Americans believe the Sun revolves around the Earth).


• Buzz Aldrin could debate Sarah Palin on whether or not the Moon is made of cheese.


• John Glenn could debate Ted Cruz's dad on whether or not the Earth is flat.

Those are just a few of the many controversial topics on which Meet The Press could hold debates in the future.  I'm also looking forward to a discussion on whether Jesus's preferred way to travel was to ride a brontosaurus or to fly around on the back of a pterodactyl.

UPDATE:  More on this here.

Greatest Correction Ever

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Drewniak referred to the Port Authority's executive director as a "piece of crap." While Drewniak did call him a "piece of excrement," it was David Wildstein who referred to the executive director as a "piece of crap."

- Newark Star Ledger.

Hilarious

I love Colbert's line that “people should be chained by the need for health insurance to jobs they hate [because] that’s what built this country!”  In fact, that might be the best argument I've ever heard in opposition to providing heath care coverage (I don't mean it's a good argument, just that it's the best argument in oppostion I've ever heard).

The Colbert Report
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Has America's Right Wing Finally Found Its Place In The Sun?

Regular readers of this blog know that I've struggled over the years to find a new country for members of the American Radicalized Right, who need to re-locate given their open hatred for the United States and its people.  The problem, of course, is that pretty much every industrialized country has universal health care, so they obviously couldn't move to one of those.  I usually just settled on Haiti as the default nation to which these extremists could re-locate.

But thanks to recent comments by two members of the American Taliban -- Larry Pratt and Selwyn Duke -- it now appears to me that Ghana might be just the place for members of the Radicalized Right to call their new home (h/t JB):

Conservative gun lobbyist Larry Pratt recommended during a recent radio broadcast that U.S. blacks could get a better “attitude” if they paid attention to “Africans from Africa” who he said were more “happy.”

On the Gun Owner’s News Hour show last month, American Thinker writer Selwyn Duke told Pratt, who is the executive director of Gun Owners of America, in a shocked tone that he had discovered that the best Catholic priests were from Africa.

“Africa! Intelligent Men with PhDs,” Duke noted. “And generally the African from Africa is a very pro-American person, a very happy person,” Pratt opined. “I know several. And they always just happy with a joke, pleasant smile on their face. And they clearly don’t identify with the surliness that’s all too frequently the attitude of their fellow African-Americans here.”

“And they’re very conservative politically,” he continued. “The country of Ghana, it’s still illegal to commit an abortion, it’s illegal to be a homosexual. Very conservative social laws and very free market oriented as well.”  Duke agreed and pointed out that the types of Africans that could afford to come to the U.S. were of “a better stripe.”

Let's tally this up: ultra-conservative Catholic priests, no legalized abortion, homosexuality outlawed, no pesky regulations on business.  Sounds like a right-wing paradise.

Larry and Selwyn (if that is his real name) should move there immediately.  The only drawback for the Radical Right is that Ghana is full of black people.  But, according to Pratt, they are happier, more intelligent, less surly black people, so that should be okay, right?