Politics

The DC Morning – July 19, 2010

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Obama lied: The mandate actually is a taxJoe Biden’s paint chip problem resurfaces on national TVNewsweek: Charlie Crist quite good at orally pleasing votersTea Party purges a racist Baby killers: We were promised free abortionsHippie trinket seller turns on Dems

1.) The trillion dollar lie: Insurance mandate actually is a tax, say Obama lawyers — Pres. Obama swore up and down that the insurance mandate was not a tax. He had to swear as much, having campaigned on a promise of no new taxes for the middle class. “But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s ‘power to lay and collect taxes,'” reports the New York Times, meaning that Obama has pulled yet another Joe Wilson. “Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.” In case you’ve forgotten exactly what the fibber-in-chief said when he was peddling the mandate, here’s an exact quote: “For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase.”
Share: 2.) Joe Biden escapes Naval Observatory, sneaks on TV, misconstrues stimulus — Vice President Joe Biden blamed Republicans for the measley size of the stimulus yesterday during an appearance on This Week with Jake Tapper. “I think it would have been bigger. I think it would have been bigger,” Biden repeatedly said in reference to the $787 billion stimulus bill. Incidentally, Democratic Rep. Dave Obey begs to differ. According to an interview Obey gave the Fiscal Times last week, it was actually the barbers in the White House who gave the stimulus–of which $177 billion is still just sitting around somewhere, not creating jobs and not benefiting poors, but just sitting around–its first haircut. According to Obey, the Treasury wanted a package of $1.4 trillion and the OMB suggested $1.2 trillion. Rahm Emanuel read those numbers and crapped his pants, which brought the bill to around a trillion. That was when Senate Republicans pointed out that the bill is a huge Keynsian sham, and brought the cost to just a hair under $800 billion. So Biden is like, half right, maybe?
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3.) Newsweek gives Charlie Crist the Christ treatment — As Newsweek struggles to appear less irrelevant than its competitors (MAD Magazine, Highlights), it is taking bigger and bigger editorial risks, like comparing Gov. Charlie Crist to Jesus of Nazareth all because he got tired of being married to the Florida GOP and decided he’d rather swing both ways. The magazine has determined that Crist is one of the most popular governors in the country (yes, they actually printed this) because he governs “from the center.” Newsweek even found some Republican Crist supporters to talk about how great he is at orally pleasing the electorate. “All he has to figure out is what you want to hear, and as long as it doesn’t contradict something he said yesterday, you will probably hear it.”
Share: 4.) Tea Partiers boot Michael Richards impersonator — Someone must have slept through that whole saga of an edgy/crazy Michael Richards dropping the N-bomb at a comedy club a few years back. That someone would be Mark Williams, who has been kicked out of the Tea Party for really terrible writing and even worse ideas. According to The Daily Caller, “The conservative leader of the Tea Party Express has been expelled from the National Tea Party Federation after posting a blog entry that referenced ‘coloreds’ and took direct aim at the NAACP.” The NAACP, you see, accused the Tea Party movement of harboring racists. Williams attempted to disprove this thesis by imagining a letter that some black people might have sent to Pres. Abraham Lincoln if, well…there are not actually any circumstances under which Williams’ insane letter would have been written or sent by anyone other than Williams, because it says things like, “We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!” So, now that Williams has got the boot, can we stop calling the Tea Party racist?
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5.) Baby killers grumble about lack of free abortions — “Abortion foes in the U.S. have scored a victory and traditional allies of the Obama administration are grumbling about a decision to ban most abortion coverage in insurance pools for those unable to purchase health care on their own,” reports the AP. “Trying to head off more problems, the Health and Human Services Department announced last week the program will not cover abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger — exceptions traditionally allowed under U.S. federal law.” Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-choice America, said that the decision “is inexplicable and wrongheaded to us, and it puts women’s lives in jeopardy.” People who are dead-set on using murder as a means of contraception should wait to get preggers until they have enough money to afford one of them fancy baby-killing plans.
Share: 6.) Independents hate Democrats even more this week than they did last week — “Independents have been turning away from President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, frustrated with the economic downturn and administration initiatives, even in Pennsylvania where Obama won by double-digits two years ago,” reports the AP. This means that “Sestak, a two-term congressman, has his work cut out for him.” This point was further illustrated by a woman who sells trinkets on the street outside Sestak’s office. “All of my friends feel frustrated” with Democrats, the woman said. When the trinket-selling hippie people start to question your performance, that’s when you know you are in trouble.
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