A Republican congressman actually argued that Obamacare is as bad as the Fugitive Slave Act
This article originally appeared on
Alternet.
1. On Fox TV, it is assumed that the Nicaraguan meteorologist knows all about tacos.
It’s
fairly obvious by now that Fox News is a place where being offensive
and ignorant is not just permitted, but encouraged. For example: How
much fun is it to make fun of someone’s ethnic heritage inaccurately? So
much fun. In an exchange that is indistinguishable from schoolyard
bullying and outright nincompoop-ism, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on
Friday said he assumed that the network’s Latina meteorologist “grew up
on tacos,” because she is from a Spanish-speaking country, and of
course, they are all the same.
Being the multi-ethnic bastion that
it is, Fox & Friends featured a segment on making tacos to
celebrate National Taco Day. Kilmeade turned to Fox News Weather team
member Maria Molina, who was born in Nicaragua and grew up in South
Florida and asked, “So what are the tips we need to know? You grew up on
tacos, correct?”
“No, I did not grow up on tacos!” Molina snapped. “I’m Nicaraguan. It’s not a native food.”
Does she really think that these people are educable?
2. Poor Ted Cruz: first a Republican “lynch mob” is after him, and then Democrats hurt his feelings.
Some
Republicans are very mad at Ted Cruz, whose antics against Obamacare
spiraled into the impasse that became the government shutdown, which is
beginning to play very badly for the GOP. So on Wednesday, a group of
Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, railed
against Cruz at a private luncheon, according to the
New York Times.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
were there as well, and some of these senators became very angry with
Cruz’s intransigence, and lit into him. An unnamed senator described the
scene thusly to the
Times: “It just started a lynch mob.”
Lynch
mob is a term that is being tossed around rather cavalierly these days,
if you ask us. But then a lot of racially loaded terms are flying
during the Obama administration, and anyone who thinks that is an
accident is a fool. (See next item.)
Poor Ted Cruz was feeling
really picked on all week, and not just by his own party. Democrats, he
said at week’s end, are portraying him as the “root of all evil in the
world.” How could they, when really everyone knows that Obamacare, or
affordable healthcare, is the root of all evil in the world?
3. Rep. William O’Brien, R-N.H.: “Obamacare is as bad as Fugitive Slave Act.”
Obamacare,
in the conservative echo-sphere, is the worst thing ever to befall
mankind, and that is why it must at any cost be prevented, no matter how
futile, ridiculous or damaging these actions may be. Rep. William
O’Brien joined the anti-Obamacare hysteria this week with his racially
tinged analogy comparing Obamacare to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850,
which made it against the law not to return runaway slaves to their
owners. Hmmm, wonder why something slavery-related popped into his head
to describe the signature legislation of the first black president.
Here’s
how he justified his offensive comparison to the Manchester Union
Leader: “Just as the Fugitive Slave Act was an overreach by the federal
government, so too we understand that Obamacare is an assault on the
rights of individuals.”
Oh, so nothing racial about it at all.
4. Rep. Todd Rokita, R-Ind.: Obamacare is the worst law known to man, pretty lady.
Crazed
Republicans are really enjoying the attention they are getting what
with the shutdown, and how they are saving the world from the
abomination of Obamacare. Rep. Todd Nokita took full advantage of his
moments in the sun this week, first when he said: “We just want to help
the American people to get through one of the most insidious laws
created by man, that is Obamacare.”
Please save us, Republican heroes.
Still
enjoying the spotlight, Rokita mixed it up with CNN’s Carol Costello
later in the week, again defending the shutdown as a small price to pay
for saving America from the horror of affordable healthcare. Finally, he
gave up on trying to explain this all to Costello, saying, “Carol,
you’re beautiful, but you have to be honest as well.”
Mmmm, sexism. That’s hot.
5. Not to be outdone: Bill O’Reilly finally weighs in on Obamacare
It
did not seem possible, but Fox News host Bill O’Reilly took
fear-mongering to a new level on Thursday when he told viewers to think
of President Obama’s healthcare law as a “vicious motorcycle gang”
coming for their daughters.
Yeah, that’s right.
“It’s like
this,” O’Reilly said. “Your teenager comes to you, saying she wants to
attend a dance. You have some misgivings, but you say okay because she’s
so passionate about the issue. Then you learn a vicious motorcycle gang
may well show up at the dance, so you change your mind based upon best
available evidence. And you protect your daughter from possible danger.
Obamacare is like that.”
See?
6. Rafael Cruz (yep, Ted’s Dad): Obama’s on the side of the Muslims.
Ted
Cruz is not the only member of his family with political aspirations
and a talent for crazy talk. Speaking at a GOP rally in Adams County,
Colo., Ted’s dad, right-wing pastor Rafael Cruz said: “So Barack Obama
said: ‘If the winds shift, I will side with the Muslims.’ McCain
couldn’t say that, because it’s not politically correct. It is time to
stop being politically correct!”
What he really meant is it’s time
to stop being correct at all, or to have your words reflect any sort of
reality. That’s what time it is, America.
Then he made some more stuff up:
“55
million babies have been murdered by abortion since 1973. At the other
end, Obamacare, with denying care to the elderly, with care being
rationed, with care being postponed for 12 to 18 months, with care being
controlled by a group of bureaucrats, that on the basis of
cost/benefit, will decide whether you get a medical procedure or not,
they’re destroying our end of life. As a matter of fact, one of the
things in Obamacare is that the elderly, every five years you must have
end-of-life counseling. Translation: suicide counseling!”
Translation: Run, run ye Christians away from this terrible Muslim-imposed healthcare law.
7. Rick Joyner, Christian TV host: Time for God to impose martial law to save us from Obama’s tyranny.
There
is only one way out of this pickle, the one imposed by the tyrannical
Muslim-in-chief Obama. On his Monday Internet broadcast, Morning Star
TV’s Rick Joyner predicted that democracy was “doomed,” doomed I tell
you, unless the Lord imposed martial law.
Poor guy worked himself
into quite a lather. “We’re headed for serious tyranny, a terrible
tyranny right now. But guess what? The kingdom is coming, the Kingdom of
God is coming.” And some more stuff, blah blah blah. Then: “That’s why I
appeal to the Lord: Don’t let us be totally destroyed, please raise up
those who will save us. And as I’ve been telling friends for a long
time, no election is going to get the right person in there because the
system is so broken.”
Therefore, God must stage a coup. That’s what needs to happen right now.
8. Pat Robertson to elderly woman viewer: It’s your fault your husband’s health his suffering.
Always
willing to comfort his flock, Pat Robertson used his “700 Club” pulpit
recently to set a woman straight about priorities. Retired and living on
a small pension and Social Security pension, the woman was faced with
the difficult decision of whether to give money to her church or pay her
husband’s medical expenses.
This whole situation is all her
fault, Robertson told her. Her husband is sick precisely because her
contribution to the church has been inadequate, despite a lifetime of
tithing.
“Your husband has all these medical problems because the
‘devour’ has not been rebuked,” Robertson explained. “You need to rebuke
him. You give your tithes faithfully and God said, ‘I will rebuke the
devour,’ the person that is eating up your money and eating up your
health. So you want to be healthy? That’s a promise in the word.”
Comforting words.
9. Pennsylvania officials continue their rich history of offensive same-sex marriage analogies: This week, it’s pets and incest.
Back
in August, lawyers for the state of Pennsylvania arguing against a
clerk who was issuing same-sex marriage licenses suggested same-sex
couples were like 12-year-old children. Governor Tom Corbett, on whose
behalf the lawyers were arguing, tried to distance himself from those
remarks in the ensuing kerfuffle. This week, on Wednesday, a like-minded
county commissioner by the name of Tom Creighton who’s fighting tooth
and nail against giving benefits to same-sex couples said: “I don’t feel
the county should be looking for new ways to give away taxpayer money.
Next it could be giving money out to people’s pets or whatever.”
On
Friday, during an interview, Gov. Corbett opened his mouth and stuck
his foot deep inside it, saying that while his lawyers’ (for whom
taxpayers are paying $400 an hour) comparison of same-sex couples as
children was inept, “I think a much better analogy would have been
brother and sister, don’t you?” he said.
His interviewer declined to offer her assent, saying she’d leave the comments to “his team.”
By
afternoon, Corbett was backpedaling and offering his version of an
apology. It turns out he didn’t want to offend anyone, and if he did, he
was sorry. He just wanted to give examples of categories of people who
are ineligible for marriage.
Oh, okay. That makes it much better.
10. Hatefulness prize-winner of the week: Fox News’ Stuart Varney.
Fox
News has been having a rollicking good time with the government
shutdown. They think it’s the most wonderful thing. But it’s also the
Democrats’ fault. Go figure. The first day of the shutdown, Hannity and
friends marveled at how they were not feeling the effects of the
shutdown at all. What was the big deal, anyway? Fox Business’ Todd
Starnes chortled: “If you believe the Democrats, it’s time to go out and
buy the potted meat and Tang and get in your survival bunker.”
Ha ha ha ha. Aren’t people who barely have enough money to eat so funny? And so fun to make fun of?
Later
in the week, Varney was not in so good a mood. He was very, very angry,
and not chortling anymore. He was angry at the more than 800,000
furloughed federal employees for having the audacity to want their back
pay, so angry that he wants to “punish those people.”
“No, I don’t
think they should get their back pay, frankly,” he said. “I really
don’t. I’m sick and tired of a massive, bloated federal bureaucracy
living on our backs, and taking money out of us, a lot more money than
most of us earn in the private sector, then getting a furlough, and then
getting their money back at the end of it. Sorry, I’m not for that. I
want to punish these people. Sorry to say that, but that’s what I want
to do.”
Do you think he’s really sorry to say that?
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