No, it’s not over, your not-so-Highness, and we will not cease our dissent.
Oh, and for the record? The debate isn’t over on climate, either. Whenever someone tells me that the debate is over, it’s a pretty good sign that it’s wishful thinking, and that they’re losing it.
Why yesterday’s champagne-cork popping in the Rose Garden was meaningless propaganda.
[Update a few minutes later]
Want medical insurance? Get in line:
The first thing we thought of when we saw the pictures was the photos we’ve recently seen on Twitter of Venezuelans waiting in bread lines. Waiting in line to purchase necessities is a characteristic not of a prosperous free society but of command economies under repressive regimes. Closer to home, one doubts even the Transportation Security Administration would be so tone-deaf as to advertise long airport lines as an indication it’s doing a great job.
So what in the world could the White House have been thinking? Here’s a guess: They look at the ObamaCare lines and think not of communist subjects queuing up for bread or toilet paper, or Americans for driver’s licenses, but something more like the lines of consumers eager to be the first to get the new iPhone or the latest Harry Potter book. Affluent people often wait in line for things about which they have a particular enthusiasm–or for special experiences, like an amusement park ride, concert or meal at a favorite restaurant.
One obvious difference is that whereas the iPhone and Harry Potter queuers are eager to get the new thing first, the ObamaCare ones are presumably anxious not to miss the deadline (even if it’s not rigorously enforced). ObamaCare lines might have been impressive if they’d begun to form in the last days of September. At the end of open enrollment, the White House boast is akin to the IRS’s citing a “surge” in filing of tax returns two weeks from now as evidence that the income tax system is popular and well designed.
Command economies under repressive regimes seems to be the goal.
…are less healthy than meat eaters.
Not surprising — evolutionarily, we’re omnivores. Vegetarians have to rationalize that they’re eating healthier to justify their unwillingness to eat animals, but they’re not.
Well, I finally broke down and went to the web site last night, before midnight.
After all the horror stories I’d been hearing, I was shocked to get in immediately. It was surprisingly easy to navigate, just like Amazon or Kayak, just like the president promised. All the options were laid out clearly, and the prices were surprisingly affordable, even for the Gold Plan. I signed up, and I finally have the insurance I’ve been waiting for all these years, good in every state, and it allows me to keep all my doctors. It includes free fitted condoms, and I can finally get that hysterectomy I’ve been putting off all these years.
I was wrong, Mr. President, and you were right. I’m sorry I so foolishly listened to ignorant criticism of this wonderful new law these past four years, and so harshly and falsely criticized it myself. I don’t know what I can do to make amends, but I know that from here on out, I will be a Democrat right up until that day that the death panel makes what I’m sure will be the right decision for me. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you Mr. President.
[Update a few minutes later]
I’m a little shocked to hear that some people think I would make jokes about something as serious as health care.
Why does she still have a job?
Treacher explains.
The science is (finally) settled:
Since the 1970s almost everyone in this country has been subjected to a barrage of propaganda about saturated fat. It was bad for you; it would kill you. Never mind that much of the nonsaturated fat was in the form of trans fats, now demonstrated to be harmful. Never mind that many polyunsaturated fats are chemically extracted oils that may also, in the long run, be shown to be problematic.
Never mind, too, that the industry’s idea of “low fat” became the emblematic SnackWell’s and other highly processed “low-fat” carbs (a substitution that is probably the single most important factor in our overweight/obesity problem), as well as reduced fat and even fat-free dairy, on which it made billions of dollars. (How you could produce fat-free “sour cream” is something worth contemplating.)
But let’s not cry over the chicharrones or even nicely buttered toast we passed up. And let’s not think about the literally millions of people who are repelled by fat, not because it doesn’t taste good (any chef will tell you that “fat is flavor”) but because they have been brainwashed.
And this junk-science nutritional advice almost certainly contributed to my father’s death thirty-five years ago. I hope, at some point, that they stop putting all the “fat free” labels in the candy section.
Hobby Lobby is small potatoes compared to Halbig:
…the Obama administration fears that if consumers in 34 states experience the full cost of Obamacare, Congress will have no choice but to reopen the law. It has therefore offered numerous arguments in defense of its unauthorized spending and taxes – not because any of these arguments have merit, but because none of them do.
Nevertheless, a district court ruled against the Halbig plaintiffs based on a severely distorted view of Congress’ intent. The court wrote, “there is no evidence that either the House or the Senate considered making tax credits dependent upon whether a state participated in the Exchanges.”
On the contrary, the evidence is clear. The words of the statute themselves show that both chambers not only considered but approved that idea. The senators who enacted Obamacare routinely supported and enacted legislation conditioning health-insurance tax credits and other assistance on states establishing exchanges or taking other actions. The seven members of Congress most responsible for Obamacare – former Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee chairman Tom Harkin (D-Ia.), then-House Ways & Means Committee chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.), then-House Education & Workforce Committee chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and then-House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) – even admit in an amicus brief that conditioning subsidies on states establishing exchanges was part of the congressional debate. Finally, when House Democrats first read the Senate-passed bill – what we now call Obamacare – in 2010, they recognized that it conditions subsidies on states establishing exchanges, and complained that this feature would allow recalcitrant states to block those subsidies. In this instance at least, Congress knew what it was enacting.
This may be the part of the train wreck where it goes off the bridge into the gorge. And it will happen this summer, leading up to the election.
[Update early afternoon]
“What we have here is language that doesn’t seem malleable in any way, shape or form.”
I should note that when I wrote the first part of this post, I thought that the case was already before SCOTUS, but the arguments made this morning are apparently just before an appellate court. But it will probably go to SCOTUS as some point, regardless of that decision.
…seems to be pretty pointless.
It’s a myth.
I agree. The problem isn’t a shortage of workers in that field. But innumeracy and scientific illiteracy is a big problem in our society, particularly among the voters. And that includes the illiteracy of those who mindlessly accept a lot of bogus nutrition and climate “science.”
Even the New York Times is reporting on how we’ve been sold a dietary bill of goods for decades.
Now, if they could stop with the nonsense about counting calories, BMI, and eating whole grains.