March 30, 2012

Best picture of Rick Perry to date

This is Governor Perry on a tour of a meat packing plant that makes, among other things, "lean finely textured beef" or "pink slime." The meat in the sandwich he is eating is 100 percent this controversial product.

March 29, 2012

Would the Supreme Court be ruling on healthcare reform if a Republican had signed it?

For the purposes of this discussion, pretend that John McCain had won the election (deity forbid) and that he signed a healthcare reform package containing an insurance mandate. (The Republican version of this legislation would be three paragraphs long: paragraph 1 would say every American has to buy health insurance, paragraph 2 would allow it to be sold across state lines, and paragraph 3 would say hospitals are no longer required to provide care to anyone who walks through the door regardless of ability to pay. Anything else would be dictating business practices to the private sector, which of course no Republican would ever do.)

I do not think the constitutionality of this bill would be in question, and I do not think the Right would be bitching about it. Rather, they would be bragging that the government finally made those deadbeats who refuse to buy health insurance take responsibility for their lives. Limbaugh would be happier than a pig in shit that those "Cadillac Driving Welfare Queens" could no longer just haul their sick kids to the emergency room when they got the sniffles and run up "your" health care costs. Bill O'Reilly would love that a Republican was able to do what the Democrats never had the guts to accomplish. And so on and so forth.

In reality, I think the ONLY reasons we see all this anti-HCR shit are because a Democrat signed it and it will cut into the health insurance mills' profit margins. (Think back: FreedomWorks, who started the tea party, is a healthcare industry lobbying shop.)

March 21, 2012

Idaho Senator Chuck Winder: Asshole of the Quarter

http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_7c17a428-72db-11e1-8c5f-0019bb2963f4.html

Our fine state legislature, having solved all Idaho's problems, has now turned its attention to the devastating problem of Pregnant Women Not Knowing What They Are Carrying Will Turn Into A Baby If Left In Long Enough. Yup, we're debating a pre-abortion ultrasound bill (which is so bad all but one of North Idaho's senators, all of whom are Republicans, voted against it) and during the debate, Chuck Winder, Asshole of the Quarter, did this:

A Republican Idaho lawmaker's suggestion on the Senate floor that a doctor should ask a woman who says she was raped if the pregnancy could have been "caused by normal relations in a marriage" brought a rebuke from another legislator who said it's insensitive and suggests women may lie to get an abortion.

March 20, 2012

The most pathetic part about the GOP primary in Puerto Rico

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_voting_rights_in_Puerto_Rico, Puerto Ricans can't vote in the presidential election.

So why did the Republicans waste time down there?

March 12, 2012

If abortion candidates have to be "told what's in there," churchgoers should too

In the spirit of the "forced ultrasound" bills currently making their way through state legislatures across America, some fine upstanding liberal needs to enter a bill requiring churches to report to each of their registered parishioners, on at least an annual basis, the following:

the current assessed value of all real property, motor vehicles and other taxable capital goods the church owns

at the current rate of taxation for the location the church is in, the amount of taxes the church is exempt from because of its status as a church

and the number of dollars the parishioner's property and motor vehicle taxes are higher because the church's tax exemption has to be made up for somehow.

March 5, 2012

My good deed for the day

One of the minor things I do is to go over to the local community college on days when they're printing a campus newspaper and proofread it for them. They are grateful for this.

Today, we did three stories on the not-Romneys' most recent local appearances. We have a story about Paul's visit to Spokane that is titled:

Ron Paul visits Spokane

We have a story about Newt Gingrich entitled:

Newt Gingrich focuses on gas prices during speech

And we have a story about Rick Santorum that was titled:

Santorum fills hall

I got them to change that and now it's "Rally fills to capacity."