This comes from Texas Freedom Network‘s daily “News Clips” email:
BOOM.
Here’s a bit more context, via National Journal: Continue reading
Truth Bomb in SCOTUS
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Tag Archives: Affordable Care Act
What I’m Reading, January 13, 2015
Dating advice from Fox News gets even more obnoxious, Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon, January 2, 2015
Fox News continues its march right past being conservative on gender issues and towards being overtly and grotesquely misogynist. As David Edwards at Raw Story reported, the show Fox & Friends did a New Year’s Day bit praising one of those sexist dating guides that promises women they’ll be able to “catch” a man while simultaneously and unintentionally arguing that men are wretched creatures that no woman should ever mess with. (To be clear, I disagree. There are plenty of men who don’t need a woman to debase herself by acting like an unpaid servant in order to “earn” love, but these kinds of dating guides always assume men are such weak monsters that this is the only way to get one to like you.) The book is called Single Man, Married Man and it purports to be a guide to how to mold yourself to be what men really want. And apparently what men really want is a doorma, though one who pretends that waiting on you hand and foot and never standing up for yourself is a form of “strength”.
Can We Please Stop Pretending Republicans Have Ever Had A Health Care Plan? Scott Lemieux, Lawyers, Guns, & Money, January 9, 2015 Continue reading
A Victory for Conservatives over the ACA May Have Ruined Originalism
Over at Concurring Opinions, Gerard Magliocca observes a possibly unintended consequence of the Halbig decision, as it pertains to the doctrine of originalism. “Originalism,” of course, being the legal theory popular among certain conservative jurists (e.g. Scalia) that holds that the “original intent” of the drafters of the Constitution should be the primary (or only) consideration when interpreting or applying said document.
Part of the criticism of originalism involves the difficulty/impossibility of applying the views of men who lived in an 18th-century agrarian society to the issues of the 21st century. Defenders of originalism say we can resolve these issues by looking at context, other writings of the Founding Fathers, and so on. Magliocca writes: Continue reading
What I’m Reading, August 13, 2014
The Rise of the Ironic Man-Hater, Amanda Hess, Slate, August 8, 2014
“Misandry”—literally, the hatred of men—is an accusation that’s been flung at feminists since the dawn of the women’s movement: By empowering women, critics argue, feminists are really oppressing men. Now, feminists are ironically embracing the man-hating label: The ironic misandrist sips from a mug marked “MALE TEARS,” frosts her cakes with the phrase “KILL ALL MEN,” and affixes “MISANDRY” heart pins to her lapel. Ironic misandry is “a reductio ad absurdum,” explains Jess Zimmerman, an editor at Medium and the proud owner of a “MALE TEARS” mug. (“I drink them to increase my strength,” she notes.) “It’s inhabiting the most exaggerated, implausible distortion of your position, in order to show that it’s ridiculous.”
On its most basic level, ironic misandry functions like a stuck-out tongue pointed at a playground bully: When men’s rights activists hurled insults at feminist writer Jessica Valenti on Twitter last month, she posted a picture of herself grinning in an “I BATHE IN MALE TEARS” T-shirt, and dedicated the message to the “misogynist whiners.” But ironic misandry is more than just a sarcastic retort to the haters; it’s an in-joke that like-minded feminists tell even when their critics aren’t looking, as a way to build solidarity within the group. “A lot of young feminists who I follow on Instagram and love this shit are teenagers,” Valenti says. (Search the tag #maletears and you’ll find dozens of young women—and a few young men—posed with a novelty mug.) “The feminism they grew up with was the feminism of snarky blog posts, and this is a natural extension of that.”
Logic and feeling, Ophelia Benson, Butterflies & Wheels, August 10, 2014 Continue reading
What I’m Reading, April 23, 2014
![David Jackmanson [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via Flickr](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/5065859501_6fc40e1e95_z.jpg "David Jackmanson [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via Flickr")
Apparently, We Need To Remind People That Pro-Choice Women Are Allowed To Have Babies, Samantha Lachman, Huffington Post, April 17, 2014
Chelsea Clinton is pregnant, and some anti-abortion activists responded to the news Thursday by showing they don’t understand what being “pro-choice” means: being able to choose to have a baby, or not.
White Supremacist’s Genocidal Paranoia: Inside the Mind of the White Man March Founder, Toby McCasker, AlterNet, April 19, 2014
Masked ethnic nationalism had been enjoying a nice stay as a dot-point in the “dark enlightenment” of the so-called neo-reactionary movement, but bigotry is never content to be itemized. Say hi to nuwe racism, and the composite ire-ony of using the Afrikaans for “new” here seems so complexly black and white as to transcend meta. Hyper-aware there is less and less room on earth for old hate, nuwe racists dress their prejudice in conspiracy and pseudoscience and call it “pride.” Pride is a much more appealing sin than wrath, and allows them to, heinously, plead victimhood just as they pursue a policy of victimization. It is like punching someone and getting angry at them for hurting your fist.
The Right-Wing Media Might Just Have Terrible Reading Comprehension
![By Kurykh (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/800px-ACA_health_insurance_exchanges_by_state.svg_-300x185.png "By Kurykh (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
A putative class action lawsuit in Nevada alleges negligence and other claims against the private contractor hired to create the state’s health insurance exchange. At least two plaintiffs found themselves without insurance coverage, despite paying premiums since last fall. Their attorney says around forty more people have contacted him with similar complaints, and as many as 10,500 could have been affected.
As the people involved in the suit have repeatedly made clear, the lawsuit is about the alleged negligence, etc., of a private contractor, not about the Affordable Care Act (“ACA,” also known as Obamacare). Has that stopped the right-wing media from calling this a lawsuit over Obamacare? Do you even need to ask that question? More on that later.
The state of Nevada hired Xerox to create the state’s health insurance exchange, Nevada Health Link, in accordance with the ACA. A glitch caused some people who signed up through the state exchange to not actually have insurance. The lead plaintiff signed up in November and made his first premium payment on November 21. When he needed triple-bypass surgery in January, however, the insurer Health Plan of Nevada (HPN) had no record of him. The exchange and Xerox had allegedly been sending his payments to Nevada Health CO-OP, a different insurer. Neither insurer had a record of coverage, so the man ended up incurring over $400,000 in medical bills for himself. (On the plus side, he wasn’t left to die.) Continue reading
Here’s a Clever Conspiracy Theory
It seems like we have enough issues to worry about in America, that we don’t need to contrive concerns that the supposed adoption of medical codes originally created by the World Health Organization is somehow a threat to American sovereignty. (WARNING: Don’t click that link if you don’t want a huge heaping helping of paranoia and dumb.)
This Is Why We Need Health Care Reform
That’s My State Senator!
From a letter sent by Texas State Senator Kirk Watson to U.S. Representatives Darrell Issa and Elijah Cummings on December 16, 2013 regarding a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing about healthcare navigators in Richardson, Texas:
We’re tired of the politics, Chairman Issa. We’re tired of folks who show up peddling cynicism to run up political points at the expense of our neighbors who need health insurance. We’re tired of people who invent a conflict between keeping Texans healthy AND protecting Texas consumers. I passed a bill during the legislative session that sought to do both of these things; more people should follow that example.
Stubbornly refusing to help folks who need health insurance is wrong. So is targeting honest folks who are helping Texans find health insurance. There’s plenty of common ground on this issue. As long as you’re here, I hope you’ll help us find it.
If you’re not going to do that, you should just go home.
Parsing Santorum
![By Lars Karlsson (Keqs) (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/800px-Keqs_young_european_hedgehog1-300x199.jpg "By Lars Karlsson (Keqs) (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons")
With all this idiocy, we need a bit of cute around here. Have some hedgehog.
Speaking at a Young Americans for Freedom event on Friday, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) offered an unusual assessment of what happens when “the government is going to be the principal provider of health care for the country.” “It’s actually a pretty clever system,” the former presidential candidate explained, “Take care of the people who can vote and people who can’t vote, get rid of them as quickly as possible by not giving them care so they can’t vote against you.” [Emphasis added.]
The prevailing interpretation is that he’s saying nationalized healthcare is a way for the party in power to effectively kill people who don’t vote for them.
Look at what he said, though—while grammatically awkward, his statement allows for healthcare for “the people who can vote.” It’s the “people who can’t vote” who wouldn’t be getting healthcare, which makes no sense if the point is to stop them from voting. The only way this makes sense is if the people who aren’t voting for the party in power have already been disenfranchised somehow. Perhaps Santorum said too much here…
Or perhaps I’m overthinking the whole thing, and Rick Santorum is a fool talking out of his ass. Apply Occam’s Razor here.
Photo credit: By Lars Karlsson (Keqs) (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons.