Patterico's Pontifications

8/29/2013

Booker denied being gay in ’00, now says gay rumors are ‘wonderful’

Filed under: General — Charles C. Johnson @ 2:59 pm



[Guest post by Charles C. Johnson]

Although Mayor Cory Booker now refuses to say whether or not he’s gay and says gay rumors about him are “wonderful,” Booker told the New Jersey’s Star Ledger that he wasn’t gay in 2000.

“[Booker] keeps copies of fliers about him on his desk, street literature that denounces him as a carpetbagger and a liar. Broadsides that say the bachelor is gay,” wrote Bob Braun of the Star Ledger on February 2, 2000. “‘I’m not,’ he says.”

Is it too cynical to think that maybe the reason he didn’t want people to think he’s gay then is that he wanted to represent blacks in Newark?

The answer seems to be because Cory Booker has a bigoted view of blacks. Witness T. Bone, his fictitious drug dealer friend exposed over at National Review by Eliana Johnson.

Booker likely thought that a friendship with a street thug would play well in seedy Newark. He likely also thought that keeping his sexuality on the down low would play well, too.

Now that he doesn’t need the blacks he doesn’t have to worry and can play footsie around the closet.

But if he wants to be president, he has to play an Ed Koch by refusing to answer every question about himself except the one about his sexuality.

–Charles C. Johnson

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: I don’t care if a politician is gay.

Time will tell whether that is Booker’s only issue, though.

UPDATE x2 BY PATTERICO: Foo Bar points out in comments that Booker described himself as a “straight male” as recently as July 22. Without more, this seems like a non-issue to me.

National Journal: ObamaCare Will Make Premiums Higher As Employers Drop Coverage

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:34 am



I’ll be over here holding my breath waiting for Big Media to ask Obama about this:

Republicans have long blamed President Obama’s signature health care initiative for increasing insurance costs, dubbing it the “Unaffordable Care Act.”

Turns out, they might be right.

For the vast majority of Americans, premium prices will be higher in the individual exchange than what they’re currently paying for employer-sponsored benefits, according to a National Journal analysis of new coverage and cost data. Adding even more out-of-pocket expenses to consumers’ monthly insurance bills is a swell in deductibles under the Affordable Care Act.

Health law proponents have excused the rate hikes by saying the prices in the exchange won’t apply to the millions receiving coverage from their employers. But that’s only if employers continue to offer that coverage–something that’s looking increasingly uncertain. Already, UPS, for example, cited Obamacare as its reason for nixing spousal coverage. And while a Kaiser Family Foundation report found that 49 percent of the U.S. population now receives employer-sponsored coverage, more companies are debating whether they will continue to be in the business of providing such benefits at all.

If you like your doctor and your health plan, you can keep it.

We just forgot to mention you’ll have to pay a lot more for it.


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