Can the Affordable HealthCare Act be topped?

Toilet paper (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rumor has it that Democrats in the Senate are planning for when they take over the House in 2014.  Their next big follow-on to the Affordable Health Care Act is the top-secret Affordable Toilet Paper Act.  “Finally,” Harry Reid has been heard whispering, “finally, we have the ticket to the masses.  After all, everybody has to wipe their asses, but only the evil rich can afford the best, soft toilet paper.  We need to make the top brands, like Charmin, available to the masses.  America will be the envy of the liberal world!”  Although the details are sketchy, here is a basic outline that I have gleaned from sources deep withing the bowels of the Senate Democrat washrooms.

• If you like your toilet paper, you can keep your toilet paper.  Period.  That’s a direct promise from Obama and all of the Democrats. Unless, of course, you like one of those cheap crappy toilet paper brands or a brand that is made by a company that doesn’t support the progressive Democrat agenda.
• If you like to use more than one sheet, then you can.  Period.  Of course, using more than one sheet will be taxed and abuses will be carefully tracked and audited by the new IRS Department of Stuff That Hits the Fan.
• If you can’t afford decent toilet paper, there will be government subsidies.  For the really poor, off-duty armed Park Rangers will actually come and TP your yard every night, leaving a good supply of soft toilet paper for you do to your business.
• Of course, Obama himself will decide which toilet paper is most appropriate for use.  Using non-approved toilet paper will be taxed and punished by IRS audits and NSA surveillance of your restroom activities.
• The softer the toilet paper, the higher it will be taxed.  The evil rich will pay for the subsidies for the rest of us, so that we too can have soft toilet paper in every stall in America.
• Public stalls all over the country will be stocked with only the best toilet paper, of course armed Park Rangers with barricades will be placed at every entrance to guard the precious paper and to ensure that only those with the appropriate liberal beliefs and attitudes are allowed to enter.
• Republicans will be required by regulations to use Out Houses.  Conservatives, Libertarians, and Tea Party supporters will just have to hold it.
• Wet wipe  style toilet wipes will no longer be allowed, unless granted a waiver or exception by the new Department of Stuff that Happens.
• Waivers will be easy to get since they will, of course, be used by the Administration and Democrats for buying votes and such.  They will be directly handled by the new position in the White House of the Office of Stuff that You Accidentally Step In which will also take over the duties of the daily press briefings.

Well, that is all I could write on the roll of TP that I used to take notes.  I’ll get more information to you about these top-secret plans of the progressive Democrats as soon as I can.   In the meantime, can you pass a roll under the stall to me?   I’m all out.

Update: Don’t be confused by the secret plan the Fed has for Quantitative Easing which involves printing dollars on toilet paper rolls. That has nothing to do with the ATPA.

scary deeds indeed

Harry Reid (Photo credit: Cosmic Smudge)

I managed to get a telephone interview with the powerful leader of the Untied Statists Senate, Senator Scary Deed. What follows is a verbatim transcript of that interview conducted late last evening.

me: “Hello, Senator Deed. It is a real pleasure to be able to talk with you during this terrible crisis of the government shutdown.”

SD: “My pleasure. This is important. I want everyone out there to know who is to blame for their pain. It is all the fault of the evil rich Republicats who are under the control of those terrorist extremists, the Teepee Party.”

me: “I thought the Teepee Party just wanted to get back to the Constitution and to reduce the size of government and government debt by reducing spending, so that we stop borrowing from our future? Don’t they have legitimate concerns?”

SD: “Nobody believes in the Constitution anymore. That’s malarkey. It just a piece of old paper. Like most of the laws we pass, I’ve never read it myself. How important can it be?”

me: “Isn’t the Constitution the basis of our government.”

SD: “Heck no. The Government has outgrown the need for that. Remember all those founding fathers were extremists and got us into a war with England. These racist Teepee Party scum are made of the same cloth. Imagine holding this great government hostage and trying to get us to stop borrowing a Trillion dollars a year. That is so extreme. What do they expect people waiting for cancer treatment at the NIH to do if we don’t pay for that? So what if we have to borrow? Those evil rich Repubicats can afford it. We’ll just keep raising taxes on them. Why, they even want to defund the Big Birdy at the Public BS. That’s extreme.”

me: “I see. Speaking of the NIH. Didn’t the House pass a CR that would have restored funding so that people could get their treatments? Why won’t you and the mighty O support that while negotiations continue?”

SD: “See hear. We are not negotiating with those filthy extremists. This government doesn’t do that.”

me: “Isn’t this government open to negotiating with the leaders of Irate that are known sponsors of terrorism and seeking to gain nuclear weapons?”

SD: “Exactly. The Teepee Party is worse than the leaders of Irate. They actually want us to live within our means. Imagine, the greatest country in the world and they expect us to live withing our means? That’s intolerable. If we didn’t borrow all that money from the Chinese what would they do with their money? It could wreck the whole world economy. We have to keep spending. ‘Tax and spend’ that’s my motto.”

me: “Getting back to the NIH…”

SD: “That’s just a gimmick. We aren’t going to fall for their tricks like that. In the big scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter whether some dying child is refused treatment. This is about the collective. If some people have to feel pain in order to understand how evil the Republicat enemies of the might O are, then there will be pain. It is our job to make things as painful as possible, so that everyone really understands. And especially so that they vote accordingly.”

me: “That sounds a little harsh and very partisan”

SD: “You have to be hard. And everything is politics, boy. These folks have taken the government hostage. Imagine a small minority like that trying to get heard and get representation in the government? Who do they think they are? We won’t tolerate minorities interfering with the majority. Here, the majority rules and that law has already been passed. Once a law has been passed it can’t ever be revoked, you know. Unless, of course, the mighty O decides to ignore it.”

me: “Wasn’t prohibition revoked?”

SD: “Don’t try to confuse me with facts. You don’t understand how powerful I am. I am in control of the Senate and nothing gets done here unless I say it gets done. Period. Look, I didn’t allow a single budget to pass during the whole first term of the mighty O. If we wanted to open the government, I could just snap my fingers and do it in no time at all. The mighty O could have a bill on his desk to sign before he has to go golfing again tomorrow. That’s not the point.”

me: “Really? If you and the mighty O could end this so easily, then how is it that you blame the other side? Why not end the misery and then negotiate with the Republicats?”

SD: “Don’t be silly. It is all their fault. The shutdown isn’t important. What is important is that they are blamed for the shutdown. I shouldn’t have to negotiate just because they control the House. I won’t do that. The gall of them to ask me to do that. How childish of them. It gets my dander up. They either will agree to everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, that I want or else. I’ll keep this government shut down and we will make it so painful and they will be blamed. That is just the way it is. You have to understand politics and propaganda go hand in hand. It isn’t the truth that matters. If you say the lies over and over. That is all that matters. The people believe what I tell them.”

me: “I guess I hadn’t understood all of that.”

SD: “You can’t read these kinds of things in books and old outdated documents like the Constitution. You have to live them. Just like you have to pass these laws to see what’s in them and you have to tell people what to believe and what they want to hear. That’s the way government of the elite people works. For example, when we cut deals with big business and delay their participation in ODontCare program and we give waivers and breaks to big Unions and Congress, we just say the evil rich Republicats are owned by big business and that’s the end of that.”

me: “Funny that I didn’t learn all of this in school.”

SD: “Well you are victim, son. A victim of the evil rich Repubicats that have ruined our public school systems. If only they would just go away and let us tax and spend and grow the government. Then all our problems would be solved, by the government, of course. But the evil Repubicats keep wanting us to cut back the growth of government spending. That is just pure evil. If it wasn’t for the Repubicats, the government could solve everything. We could have a 1000$ per hour minimum wage. Free Government Health Care for all. Free Government Housing for all. Free Government lunch programs for all. This place would be a freaking utopia, if it wasn’t for the Repubicats and their evil rich supporters”

me: “Okay. I think I understand. You are calling the shots and the buck stops with the mighty O, but the Republicats that are only in charge of the House are to blame for everything.”

SD: “Now you’ve got it. It’s all about pointing the finger of blame and never accepting any responsibility when things go wrong. These days the buck just never stops and the Feddy just keeps printing more bucks. Get it?”

me: “I get it.”

SD: “It doesn’t matter who gets hurt. The more people that get hurt the better. The old, the young, the sick, the veterans, they all need to share the pain. I say close all the monuments, cover up the water falls and geysers, block off all of the buildings and the porta potties. We will have armed government guards and barricades all over this country before this is over. No one will be able to cross a street without running into a barricade and committing a felony. And, everything will be the blame of those evil Republicats. It just doesn’t get any better than that. I’m having a great time, I’ve really loving this.”

me: “Well, thank you for your time and that illuminating discussion.”

Senator Scary Deed can be reached in the Senate or on the golf course with the mighty O. Please direct any follow-up questions to his office, but remember that he is busy ensuring that this govenment shutdown is as painful as possible and making sure that despite his leadership role that he is blameless. So, he is a very busy man.

Related articles

• Harry Reid: “Why Would We Want To” Help One Child With Cancer By Only Funding NIH? (buzzfeed.com)
• THE SADISTIC STRATEGY OF OBAMA & REID: First the PG Version; Then the NR Version. (thelastgreatstand.com)
• Tell Harry Reid to Negotiate (thenewazura2014.wordpress.com)
• Obama and Democrats Denied GOP Request to Fund the NIH for Cancer-Stricken Kids (rushlimbaugh.com)

ad hominem ad nauseam

Logical Fallacies 1 (Photo credit: Mark Klotz)

I am so very tired of hearing President Obama, Harry Reid and others referring to the “Tea Party” as extreme or anarchists or hostage-taking terrorists. Pursuing these kinds of fallacious ad hominem attacks is unfair. Whether or not you agree with the Tea Party, they are not extremists. They believe in the United States Constitution, in smaller federal government, and fiscal responsibility. They want their representatives to take action to reduce the size of government and the national debt. In my opinion, none of that is extreme and I certainly have not heard anyone calling for anarchy or taking the government hostage.

Libertarians, of course, are used to this kind of ad hominem attacks from progressives. Libertarians are often accused of being an anarchist in many a straw man argument, simply because they believe in less government. Note, they do not believe in no goverment, thus there is no basis for this reasoning. Of course, on the other hand progressives do believe in big government and they want the government to have more control over every thing in our lives. They do not seem to care much for liberty and freedom or individualism. They believe in the collective and statism. So, if the Tea Party is made up of extreme anarchists, then the progressives like Harry Reid are extreme totalitarians.

I don’t imagine Harry would take kindly to being called a fascist or communist. So, please, let’s drop the fallacious and unhelpful ad hominem attacks. Instead, let’s get down to real discussions. Like, how exactly do the progressives intend to continue paying for social security, medicaid, medicare, obamacare, welfare, and all the other socialist entitlements when we are almost 17 trillion dollars in debt? They love to say “show us your plan”, so show us your plan! There simply aren’t enough rich people in existence to tax in order to pay for all of this. So, how do they ever plan to balance the budget and pay off this debt?

Because, if they can’t answer that, then perhaps they are just buying votes by promising to deliver all of these things that are unsustainable.  I wonder if they don’t worry about such things because they know they will be long gone and living high, when everything hits the fan and the economy falls apart? Don’t they worry about their children and grand children? I know they do because Senator Obama once said that Bush’s record deficits and increase of our national debt and was unpatriotic. Yet, somehow after being President for one term and adding even more debt than Bush, he no longer seems to worry about this. Is he planning for his daughters to live in another country after his last term, or something, after we go bankrupt?

What could possibly make progressives think they can get away with this? Well, for one thing, they have been getting away it for more than 50 years or so. Even now, many people can’t seem to comprehend how cities all over the country, like Detroit, are going bankrupt. They can’t seem to acknowledge that the money required to fund all of the promised city, state and federal workers pensions and health care benefits just doesn’t exist. At some point, as this situation continues to worsen, the argument that it is all Bush’s fault isn’t even going to fly with the most uninformed of us citizens.

Hey, I will be the first to agree that it would be nice for every one to have guaranteed health care, a guaranteed job, and a guaranteed retirement. Imagine guaranteed happiness. Yes, all that would be just great, if the government could do that. But, the sad fact is that no government can do that. There isn’t enough money in the world to do that. There never was and there never will be. It is enough, as our founding fathers wisely said, to guarantee the pursuit of happiness. Believe me, that is hard enough to do. Not many countries or governments in the entire history of mankind have truly achieved even that. And many in the Tea Party today fear that one of the very few successful countries, is in danger of losing everything because of those that want to do it all or promise to do it all. How sad is that?

just what is essential?

The Senate’s side of the Capitol Building in DC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was thinking about the government shutdown today (can you imagine that?) and specifically about how only “essential” government employees will continue to work. It occurred to me that as long as Harry Reid and the Senate continue to refuse to negotiate, that the Senate is now basically non-essential. Perhaps, they should all just be furloughed and go home to their states.

That would just leave the House and the Administration to come to an agreement. However, since the President also isn’t willing to even negotiate, perhaps the President is also no longer essential and should be furloughed too? We could just let him go back to playing golf (or whatever else he does when he is ignoring things like Benghazi) and then the House could finally pass some laws and get this country back on track.

Silly. I know, but it is a nice dream, isn’t it? If nothing else, getting rid of the Senate would finally put an end to Senators without any executive experience running for President. At least, with mainly Governors running we would know that they have some executive experience and aren’t totally incompetent. That is what I call essential.

just shoot me

Summer’s End. Lexington Green, 11 September 2002. Photo taken in Minute Man National Historical Park. Sculpture : “Minuteman” by sculptor Henry Hudson Kitson (1863-1947), dedicated April 19, 1900. Erected 1899 : SIRIS (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gun control.  It’s so emotional.  Luckily, Senator Harry Reid knows about guns.  His dad killed himself with a gun.  Okay, I get it.  Like that makes him some kind of expert?  A better question is does he know about the U.S. Constitution?  Does he know anything about self-defense?  Does he ever worry about government tyranny or does he only worry about that kind of thing when there is a Republican President?  Maybe Harry does know a lot about guns.  I don’t know much, myself.  For reasons that I will get into later, I don’t have any guns.  I don’t even like having big knives in the kitchen.

I suppose we could pass more futile laws that are ineffective, but does anyone ever ask the question, “if we pass this law would it have made any difference?”  I can’t imagine the pain of losing my children, or a loved one, in a senseless tragedy.  Whether that loss was due to a drunk teenage driver or a mad gun toting killer.  However, if we are going to have politicians plea that we have to do something, anything.  Shouldn’t we do something that makes a difference?

Forget guns.  That is not the problem.  People can kill each other with knives, bombs or their bare hands.  For goodness sakes, in the wrong hands a car is a lethal weapon.   Mental illness, however, is something real.  That is something that could make a difference. Unfortunately, thanks to the laws and a lack of public commitment, mental health care in this country is in shambles.   Is it because we are ashamed of the mentally ill?  Do we hold them responsible for their illness?  I don’t know, but I have a lot of first hand experience with this, Harry.

Wait until you try calling the police and they tell you that there is nothing that they can do unless, or until, your schizophrenic loved one is a danger to themself or to others.   Huh?  I have to wait until they come after me with a knife or gun before the police can do something?  That’s a problem.  Then, when the person is finally considered a danger, they take them off and after so many days they tell me to come get them.  Is the person any better?   No, they are the same as before.  There is no simple cure, but this is an epic fail. Can I do anything about it?  Not with today’s laws.

Why can’t the laws be changed to make it easier to force the mentally ill to be cared for?  They could be tracked, and perhaps be required to check in periodically to make sure they are taking their medicine.  Something, anything?  Perhaps the percentage of the mentally ill that will actually hurt themselves or others is small, but helping them could make a difference.   Or we could just continue to ignore the real issues and take away all the big, scary looking guns.  Yeah, that will make some of our politicians happy, but it won’t stop the tragedies.   So somebody please just shoot me, now.