Since we are apparently in a YouTube kind of mood today, the highlight of the Republican debate yesterday:
One of my favorite all time movies is a flick many of you may have seen, Breaking Away, and every time I see this clip of Ron Paul yelling about lawyers reminds me of the scene in which Paul Dooley (a WV native) is yelling “REFUND?! REFUND!?”
1. Call the Frosts to verify the details about them.
2. Call the agency that handles S-CHIP in Baltimore to find out their situation.
3. Talk to anyone else that can independently verify the Frost’s situation (i.e. doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc.).
4. Publish the facts.
Option 2: Wingnutosphere Journalism
1. Show up at the Frost’s house unannounced and spy on them.
2. Guess as to what the Frost’s situation is based on their car, the value of their house and some Google searches.
3. Talk to neighbors and co-workers to get the inside dirt on the Frost’s (do they throw lavish parties?).
4. Publish their personal information along with your opinion of their situation and invite further scrutiny from the general public based on misinformation.
Pretty much.
And what does it say about the blogosphere that in the end, with all the vast resources of all the citizen journalists, it boiled down to crazy people peering at pictures of the Frost’s kitchen? And even at that absurd level, they were wrong about the Frost’s counters.
An aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, expressed relief that his office had not issued a press release criticizing the Frosts.
This has not gone unnoticed in some quarters. Captain Ed:
However, the response on the Right sometimes outstripped reason. Rather than just argue the facts, some in the comments section here and elsewhere went too far in speculating about finances and motives of the Frost family. Certainly, their argument was fair game, as well as their claim on federal assistance, which is after all public money. The S-CHIP debate doesn’t just focus on the Frosts, though (and we find out that the expansion argument wasn’t even relevant to them). We have plenty of reasons to oppose the S-CHIP expansion that have little to do with the Frosts, and we should be focusing on policy, not personal anecdotes.
Bloggers who helped circulate financial information about the family over the weekend backed off a bit Tuesday. “It’s the difference between Google and journalism,” said Rick Moran, who penned a piece for The American Thinker. “It’s been proven that the family was means-eligible.” His editor, Thomas Lifson, said, “It’s just more complicated than might have appeared in the first round of investigation.”
The saner elements in the 28% crowd are beginning to recognize how awful they have looked the past few days. Not so, at WINGNUT HQ, where Malkin is taking a cue from Major General Oliver Smith and shouts out “Retreat, hell! We’re just attacking in another direction!:”
Here’s the Baltimore Sun’s nutroots-approved follow-up piece on the Frost family, using a single, rotten comment by a stupid RedState commenter to tar all conservative bloggers as hatemongers. Interestingly, the Sun asked the Frost parents to verify their claimed income and the couple declined. Also, the Sun reported that all four of the children attend private schools, not just two. The paper is silent on when the family started receiving claimed tuition breaks and how much the family spent on private-school tuition each year prior to the accident–i.e., at a time when they chose not to buy private health insurance. The Frosts tell the Sun they put their children in the public arena to support S-CHIP.
Damn that single Red State commenter! Damn him to hell!
Of course, you could scroll up to where she approvingly links to Mark Steyn:
Mr Frost works “intermittently”. The unemployment rate in the Baltimore metropolitan area is four-percent. Perhaps he chooses to work “intermittently,” just as he chooses to send his children to private school, and chooses to live in a 3,000-square-foot home.
Or you could go here, where there was no hate in this sneering aside from Michelle:
Nevermind that things change with time, and that announcement was from 1992. For example, just a few years ago, I sometimes linked approvingly to Michelle. Now I think she is a gaping asshole and everything that is wrong with the Republican party. See? Things do change.
And you can scroll down to where Michelle asked, “Like why a “working family” in need of government-subsidized health care can afford to send two children to a $20,000-a-year-private school.”
Or to where she linked to Don Surber sneering- ““Interesting that public schools aren’t good enough for their kids but public health insurance is.””
And we could go on and on, through her links and through her comments, and we will see it is simply not the case of one Red State commenter. It is Michelle’s monster that she helped to create and helps perpetuate. You didn’t get smeared by the Baltimore Sun, petunia, you were called out.
At Michelle’s website, denial IS just a river in Egypt.
At any rate, Tom Waits put Michelle’s position into song and verse:
I’d sell your heart to the junkman baby
For a buck, for a buck
If you’re looking for someone to pull you out of that ditch
You’re out of luck, you’re out of luck
Ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
There’s a leak, there’s a leak in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves and lawyers
God’s away, God’s away
God’s away on business, business
God’s away, God’s away
God’s away on business, business
The wingnuts have spoken. Shut the fuck up until you have NOTHING, and then we will think about it. But don’t get your hopes up, because if we can find one commenter on our website who allegedly may have it worse than you, all bets are off. And get a real job, you lazy bastards.
Some would have you think that John evolved away from the Republican party because of loony, corrupt, incompetent nanny statism running from the top all the way down to Dan Riehl. Not so! To set the record straight, here is actual footage of me helping John see the light:
Rumors that Bradrocket and Editors softened John up before I arrived are silly enough not to merit a response.
One of the more maddening things about this whole Frost debate is the obvious irrational belief that a 260k house in the heart of Butcher Hill in Baltimore is somehow a big deal. Granted, here in WV, depending on the area you live, a 260k house is something that could be pretty nice, but in most urban areas, 260k is nothing. From the comments:
There are a lot of problems with the SCHIP bill. The bill ncludes provisions that manipulate this program to expand coverage to illegal immigrants and the upper class (that are already covered by private insurance). I’m not against giving the very poor some kind of assistance with health insurance. I don’t think Michelle is either. But people in 260G homes don’t need it. And it certainly better not go to illegal aliens.
Hell, go here and check it out for yourself what the real estate market will give you in WV for $260,000. Even here in WV, where real estate values are low, these are not mansions- they are middle class homes. They are the kind of home lived in by voters that Richard Nixon would have targeted with his famous “Checkers” speech:
Well in addition to the mortgage, the 20,000 dollar mortgage on the house in Washington, the 10,000 dollar one on the house in Whittier, I owe 4500 dollars to the Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C., with interest 4 and 1/2 percent. I owe 3500 dollars to my parents, and the interest on that loan, which I pay regularly, because it’s the part of the savings they made through the years they were working so hard—I pay regularly 4 percent interest. And then I have a 500 dollar loan, which I have on my life insurance.
Well, that’s about it. That’s what we have. And that’s what we owe. It isn’t very much. But Pat and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we’ve got is honestly ours. I should say this, that Pat doesn’t have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat, and I always tell her she’d look good in anything.
The disconnect is clear- some of these people see 260k, and they think this family is flush with assets, even when the house is mortgaged. It just isn’t the case, and you have to wonder whether the folks commenting flippantly about this have any real experience with housing markets.
The vice president’s proposals rely on targeted credits whose value diminishes dramatically as family income rises. This means the Gore tax reductions are intrinsically biased against states and regions with high living costs and high average incomes, whose residents already bear the brunt of the federal income-tax burden.
Millions of families in high-income states qualify as middle class by the standards of their own communities. But Gore’s ranks them as too “wealthy” to need—or deserve—a tax cut.
New York is a prime example.
The Empire State is a perennial net loser in the income-redistribution game and bears a disproportionately large share of the total federal income-tax burden. Factoring in steep tabs for state and local government, residents of New York are the most heavily taxed people in the country. If anyone needs relief, New Yorkers do.
They’d get it from George W. Bush.
My, how things change. A few years ago, when it came to tax cuts, the right was able to (correctly, in my opinion) discern that 80k combined income was decidedly middle-class. Now, we learn from the lunatics on the right, 45k annual income and a modest and mortgaged 260k house not only qualifies someone as rich, but means that they are worthy of our scorn and contempt, and don’t deserve any help in their time of need.
The chief “cutter” in the national body-parts scandal – in charge of removing the often-diseased tissue of 244 late Philadelphians – is trying to cooperate with authorities, but “they don’t believe him,” his attorney said last night.
About 2 p.m. yesterday, New York attorney George Vomvolakis said he and his client, Lee Cruceta, 34, of Monroe, N.Y., talked with Assistant District Attorney Bruce Sagel and detectives for two hours, before Cruceta was processed by police.
“We’re still talking to the prosecutor and trying to cooperate, but they don’t believe him,” said Vomvolakis. “I’ve had two other sessions like this in the past. I was hoping that would prevent an arrest.”
Vomvolakis described the conversations as “informational.”
Cruceta surrendered shortly after his ex-boss, Michael Mastromarino, 44, of Fort Lee, N.J., the reputed ringleader of the body-parts scandal and the owner of the now-closed Biomedical Tissue Services, in Fort Lee.
In 2004, Mastromarino arranged to buy tissue from three Philadelphia funeral-home operators who supplied the 244 corpses – without survivors’ consent – during an 18-month period, a grand jury found last Thursday. BTS paid the operators $245,995.
BTS then sold the tissue to five companies that processed it for hospitals, where surgeons unwittingly used it for implants.
Yesterday, Mastromarino appeared “resigned” to the charges, while Cruceta, described as BTS team leader of “cutters,” looked “shook up” when each showed up separately to face charges, according to the DA’s office.
I distinctly remember watching an episode of Bones in which this was the case. Not sure whether the show was based on this story or if it was just a coincidence.
On Monday, I did something that has everyone from King Kos on down to the dregs (a short traveling distance, to be sure) screaming “Stalker!” What did I do? I went up to Baltimore and interviewed a tenant at health-care poster parent Halsey Frost’s place of business and drove past the Frost home. That’s not “stalking.” That’s not “harassing.” It’s reporting.
This is stalking.
Why did I take the time to go to Baltimore? Because bloggers raised questions about the Frosts’ financial situation and made specific reference to these pieces of real estate. I did not “harass” the Frosts. I simply reported what the tenant told me and described what I saw after driving by their home. My basic reporting rebutted some impressions left by other bloggers on the right who haven’t been to these sites and assumed they were high-end luxury properties. They’re not. Moreover, I corrected the mistake that some of these bloggers made in overvaluing the house at $400,000-plus. It’s closer to $300,000.
The bottom line remains:
This family made choices. Choices have consequences. Taxpayers of lesser means should not be forced to subsidize them.
Bloggers who helped circulate financial information about the family over the weekend backed off a bit Tuesday. “It’s the difference between Google and journalism,” said Rick Moran, who penned a piece for The American Thinker. “It’s been proven that the family was means-eligible.” His editor, Thomas Lifson, said, “It’s just more complicated than might have appeared in the first round of investigation.”
Both said the Frosts became fair game by putting their family in the political arena. They questioned Democrats’ decision to use a 12-year-old as their spokesman. “It just smacked me as being unfair,” Moran said. “You cannot criticize the program without being accused of going after the boy.”
And finally, if you want to know how crazy, and how stupid, and how destructive this latest flare-up in Wingnuttia has been, think of it this way- THEY LOST AJ STRATA:
Much of what I have to say is based on information in my first, long post from yesterday. A lot also came from reading the blogs left and right yesterday. The Frost family is of very modest income for the area they live. They make $45K a year in an area where the medium income is about $86K a year. To qualify for S-CHIP in MD they cannot make over $61K. They are not rich by any standard. And liquidating all they own an becoming totally destitute would not cover the medical costs of two kids with serious injuries and a long road to recovery. The folks whining about their choices need to start from the facts and the fact is they needed to get help for their kids and help was available to them.
They are self sufficient entrepreneurs who try to give their kids the best. They supposedly paid their taxes, which in my mind gave them the right to access those government programs. They have 6 wonderful children and they have stayed together as a family. As one leftwing site noted yesterday they are really a poster family for the GOP. And that is what should have been leveraged instead of the low-brow attack mode some have lazily come to rely on for political discourse.
Heckuva job, nutters.
And remember the Malkin creed: CHOICES HAVE CONSEQUENCES.
The Frost’s chose not to sell their modest home to cover what would have been a fraction of their medical bills and become homeless, and therefore it is every patriot’s obligation to shit all over them every chance we get.
*** Update ***
The Frost elders, luxuriating on the front porch of their palatial mansion. (Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor / October 9, 2007)
Big profile on the enemy in The Baltimore Sun. And check out the size of that pumpkin- it had to cost at least 15 bucks. Someone get Malkin and Riehl on that shit- choices, you know.
Basically, she doesn’t approve of the choices that this family has made. Doesn’t approve of their jobs. Doesn’t approve of their home. Doesn’t approve of what the schools where they send their children. So she strongly, vehemently believes that the state of Maryland should have forced them to sell their home, burn through the profits and any savings they may have on medical bills, and then, once they were really poor, I guess we could talk about whether, as Michelle repeatedly states, “Taxpayers of lesser means should…be forced to subsidize them.” (Sorry, her statement is a more of a commandment, that taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize them.)
Via Cernig, I was fascinated to read an analysis by a reputable firm (Stratfor) concluding that the recent stand-down by Sadr’s militia in Iraq was in fact brokered by Iran. Iran obviously has no interest in seeing Shiite fratricide simmer in Iraq, and as American power wanes they have every incentive to actively manage the situation. Naturally a strategic alliance between Iran, Sistani and the various Shiite factions leaves the Iraqi Sunnis holding the short end of a very pointy stick. One could imagine that the preponderance of Saudi suicide bombers in Iraq has something to do with the Sunnis’ strategic weakness if the situation ever settles down.
Kurds won’t like the alliance either, but Turkey’s hot breath on their neck will likely put Kurdistan in a more unionist mindset that it might have felt otherwise.
So if Iran isn’t a crazy suicidal state committed to destroying Americans at every turn, what exactly is it? A fascinating book by ex-Iranian international relations expert Trita Parsi suggests that just maybe if you discount the expected turmoil that comes from overthrowing a government by assassination (CIA) and revolution (mullahs), Iran has generally acted like a rational state that pursues its strategic interests. Among the conclusions that Parsi has picked up from interviewing dozens of officials in Iran, Israel and America:
Iran’s and Israel’s interests more or less overlapped for most of recent history. Both countries feared Arab hegemony and supported the Kurds as a counterbalance to Iraq. For example, Israel intervened on Iran’s behalf while the revolutionaries still had American hostages.
Saddam Hussein was a problem for both Iran and Israel. Apparently (I don’t know how well supported this is) Iran tried to bomb Osirak before Israel succeeded. However, Saddam and the Shah eventually reached an accord to Israel’s detriment. Then the revolution reversed that arrangement again.
In recent years, with Iraq on the wane Israel and Iran perceived one another as their primary competitors for regional dominance. When Iran reached out to the US post-9/11 under moderate president Khatami, Israel sensed that US-Iran detente would diminish its own strategic importance and helped spike the discussions.
Invading Iraq presented a serious problem for Israel and it offered a golden opportunity for Iran. Iran would certainly ally with Iraq’s now dominant Shiites, leaving Israel with few counterbalancing options that don’t involve violence. Stuck with an impoverished chess position, Israel’s best option now involved convincing the US to attack first and hope for a more friendly Iran when the dust settles. Overhyping the threat from IEDs, nuclear programs, military aid etc. all fit this strategy.
In this context the astonishing violence of the Lebanon war more or less fits both sides of the equation – Iran wanted to preview what would happen if America/Israel attacked and Israel needed to prove that it could stamp out Hezbollah when the time came. Think of it as a semi-proxy war. Israel recognizes that it failed to accomplish its mission and probably would fail again. America performing the first strike, preferably a knockout blow, is clearly critical.
For inevitably hair-trigger readers, none of this means to argue that Israel is inherently good or evil or anything other than a country pursuing its interests in a region where disputes are rarely settled bloodlessly. Working with Iran doesn’t trip a moral scale any worse than us Americans trading spit with Saddam, a central American strongman or the Saudi royal family. However, it does suggest that we realigned the strategic balance of the middle east in unsubtle ways, that the new alignment will inexorably lead to large-scale violence whether we attack Iran today, pull out tomorrow or do nothing at all.
I just noticed Andrew Sullivan pointing to a rightwing enviro blog called Terra Rossa (“red earth.” cute.), calling it “encouraging.” Indeed it is. A major project in my enviro-focused bachelor’s degree focused on interest overlap between enviros like myself and similar groups on the right. Indeed, a startling number of groups like Ducks, Unlimited, the Blue Ribbon Coalition and the NRA want almost exactly the same thing that most environmentalists want. Only at that point did I start to appreciate that narrowminded, selfrighteous buffoonery within environmentalism crippled the movement almost as effectively as Exxon’s lavishly funded PR.
The enviro movement never recovered from the Rachel Carson-Ed Abbey schism that pitched coalition builders like Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy against purists at Greenpeace and Earth First!, but sometimes Muhammad gets off easy and the mountain comes to him. Accelerating global change has people worried more or less across the spectrum. As a result everyone up to and including evangelicals are losing patience with failure and stalling tactics within their own caucus. The Republican party badly needs to shed its well-deserved image as the major obstacle to environmental progress or it risks ghettoizing itself further than corruption, mismanagement and crypto-fascism have already done.
Obviously the party needs new ideas, but don’t waste your time looking on Terra Rossa. Tucker Eskew works in the White House communications office. Whit Ayres is a partner in a DC Republican public opinion firm. Amanda Phraner works for Adfero, a Republican online communications firm. Jim Coleman is a common enough name to stump Google and the blog doesn’t provide a bio, but you see where this is going. Not one of these guys has a history of environmental activism. They don’t have any identifiable ties to rightwing conservation groups like I mentioned above. They’re trained communications professionals. Their brief says write about the environment so they do it.
The blog is indeed good news as Sully says, but not in the way he means. The GOP remains as obstructionist as ever and, as always, most rightwing enviro sites will resemble Exxon-funded denial mills like TechCentralStation. However, dumping cash into astroturf like Terra Rossa indicates a vulnerable flank. They’re right to be worried.
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Oh, and Andrew? Keep calibrating that BS detector.
This is the politics of hate. Screaming, sobbing, inchoate, hate. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to drive to the home of a Republican small business owner to see if he “really” needed that tax cut. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to call his family and demand their personal information. It would never occur to me to interrogate his neighbors. It would never occur to me to his smear his children.
The shrieking, atavistic ritual of personal destruction the right roars into every few weeks is something different than politics. It is beyond politics. It was done to Scott Beauchamp, a soldier serving in Iraq. It was done to college students from the University of California, at Santa Cruz. Currently, it is being done to a child and his family. And think of those targets: College students, soldiers, children. It can be done to absolutely anyone.
This is not politics. This is, in symbolism and emotion, a violent group ritual. It is savages tearing at the body of a captured enemy. It is the group reminding itself that the Other is always disingenuous, always evil, always lying, always pitiful and pathetic and grotesque. It is a bonding experience—the collaborative nature of these hateful orgies proves that much—in which the enemy is exposed as base and vile and then ripped apart by the community. In that way, it sustains itself, each attack preemptively justifying the next vicious assault, justifying the whole hateful edifice on which their politics rest.
Is anyone actually watching the CNBC Republican debate? Considering there is nothing any of them could say that would get me to vote for them, I have little interest in the damned thing, but someone needs to watch them so we can make fun of Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo.
You know, it has barely been a month since the Malkin/Limbaugh/Wingnuttosphere freak-out over the MoveOn ad, but I think it is worth noting the clear message:
Questioning a political General is treason, bullying a 12 year old is patriotic.
*** Update ***
And let’s be clear about one thing- the filth that makes up the current Republican party- that is Glenn Reynold’s Republican party. The good professor, who always manages to pretend to be above the fray, has no problem with Malkin’s antics and no problem with Dan Riehl’s “investigation” into the grandparents.
Heckuva job, Glenn. And spare us the weak “I’m not a Republican” bullshit in 2008.
I was talking to Tim via AOL IM, and I decided it was probably worthwhile to bring this up for everyone. One of the things that is so surprising (for me, at least) about the whole Graeme Frost episode is that rather than make their case against this program with their vicious assault against this family, they Malkin/Freeper/Limbaugh brigade are doing just the opposite. Rather than expose this family as a bunch of frauds and lazy slackers and welfare queens, they are making the family’s case.
If you look through this family’s dossier, it appears they are doing everything Republicans say they should be doing- hell, their story is almost what you would consider a checklist for good, red-blooded American Republican voters: they own their own business, they pay their taxes, they are still in a committed relationship and are raising their kids, they eschewed public education and are doing what they have to do to get them into Private schools, they are part of the American dream of home ownership that Republicans have been pointing to in the past two administrations as proof of the health of the economy, and so on.
In short, they are a white, lower-middle-class, committed family, who is doing EVERYTHING the GOP Kultur Kops would have you believe people should be doing. They aren’t gay. They aren’t divorced. They didn’t abort their children. They aren’t drug addicts or welfare queens. They are property owners, entrepeneurs, taxpayers, and hard-working Americans. I bet nine times out of ten in past elections, if you handed this resume to a pollster, they would think you were discussing the prototypical Republican voter. Hell, the only thing missing from this equation is membership to a church and an irrational fear of Muslims and you HAVE the prototypical Bush voter.
They are, however, not without fault. They are unable to afford insurance through normal means (and now that they have pre-existing conditions, probably couldn’t get traditional insurance anyway), and managed to get several of their family members injured in a traumatic accident. And, it appears, those are the big blind spots for compassionate conservatism. That, and the real big sin- allowing themselves to advocate for a policy that the Decider was going to veto. Here it is, so you can see their grievous sin that requires they be destroyed:
“Hi, my name is Graeme Frost. I’m 12 years old and I live in Baltimore, Maryland. Most kids my age probably haven’t heard of CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program. But I know all about it, because if it weren’t for CHIP, I might not be here today.
“CHIP is a law the government made to help families like mine afford healthcare for their kids. Three years ago, my family was in a really bad car accident. My younger sister Gemma and I were both hurt. I was in a coma for a week and couldn’t eat or stand up or even talk at first. My sister was even worse. I was in the hospital for five-and-a-half months and I needed a big surgery. For a long time after that, I had to go to physical therapy after school to get stronger. But even though I was hurt badly, I was really lucky. My sister and I both were.
“My parents work really hard and always make sure my sister and I have everything we need, but the hospital bills were huge. We got the help we needed because we had health insurance for us through the CHIP program.
“But there are millions of kids out there who don’t have CHIP, and they wouldn’t get the care that my sister and I did if they got hurt. Their parents might have to sell their cars or their houses, or they might not be able to pay for hospital bills at all.
“Now I’m back to school. One of my vocal chords is paralyzed so I don’t talk the same way I used to. And I can’t walk or run as fast as I did. The doctors say I can’t play football any more, but I might still be able to be a coach. I’m just happy to be back with my friends.
“I don’t know why President Bush wants to stop kids who really need help from getting CHIP. All I know is I have some really good doctors. They took great care of me when I was sick, and I’m glad I could see them because of the Children’s Health Program.
“I just hope the President will listen to my story and help other kids to be as lucky as me. This is Graeme Frost, and this has been the Weekly Democratic Radio address. Thanks for listening.”
Pretty strong stuff. I can see why this rabid dog needs to be put down with the full force of the wingnutosphere. And it just goes downhill from there. We learn from our intrepid “reporters” on the right that $45,000 is now rich, which is news to me and everyone else who remember mocking Democrats when they tried to claim $100k combined income was considered rich. You righties do remember that, don’t you?
I think the property was valued at around $225,000. I dunno, I have no sympathy for them. Looks like they have more than enough money for luxuries they won’t sacrifice, yet they expect everyone else to sacrifice for them. My family had to sell our house because we couldn’t afford to keep it, have one used minivan and a clunker my husband uses to get back and forth to work, and until this past weekend we didn’t have a television because it was a luxury we couldn’t justify spending on. No private schools for my 3 kids- can’t even afford daycare. Yet we manage to afford health insurance, keep our rental home comfy, and have food on the table. I’m content with what I have and certainly don’t want anyone else paying for what I can afford, after cutting out the luxuries.
15 years ago, when my then-wife and I discovered we were going to have a child – I had a job with no health insurance.
I changed jobs – period. I was stupid and willing to go without insurance for myself – but with my child there was no way I was going to risk it.
These parents have the same opportunity.
They chose not to find jobs that offered health insurance – and they chose to spend their money elsewhere.
Then, when tragedy strikes, they’re held up as models of “what’s wrong with this country”.
Sorry – but they should be held up as models of “What’s wrong with many Americans”.
My bad- they don’t have any advice other than “SUCKS TO BE YOU” or “SELL YOUR HOUSE” or “GET ANOTHER JOB.” Because, as we all know, the hallmark of responsibility is making your children homeless so they can maybe get healthcare. Nobody even pointed to the numerous charities that we conservatives are supposed to expect to fill the gap so the government doesn’t have to pay for things. Instead, it was taunts, catcalls, contempt, and jealousy (because these folks are in SUCH an enviable situation).
I simply can not believe this is what the Republican party has become. I just can’t. It just makes me sick to think all those years of supporting this party, and this is what it has become. Even if you don’t like the S-Chip expansion, it is hard to deny what Republicans are- a bunch of bitter, nasty, petty, snarling, sneering, vicious thugs, peering through people’s windows so they can make fun of their misfortune.
I’m registering Independent tomorrow.
*** Update ***
They have even pissed off Joe Gandelman, which I didn’t think was possible. The harshest language I have ever seen him use is “drat,” or “shoot.”
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