Patterico's Pontifications

12/12/2013

Crap Budget Deal Passes House 332-94; Boehner Votes Yes

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 6:59 pm



There really isn’t much to say. I am working on not getting upset by things like this, but it’s hard because the country is headed for a terrible economic crash, and it’s tough to watch everybody careen towards the cliff without making the slightest effort even to brake. But once you realize we’re going over the side, no matter what, you can work on not worrying about things you can’t change.

Nah. I can say stuff like this but I am still horribly angry and upset.

Caption/Photoshop Contest, Plus: ObamaCare Gonna Give Yo’ Mama a Piece of Its Mind!

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 5:45 pm



Let’s start with the latter half of the title. This actual tweet, which I am not making up, appeared on the actual White House Twitter feed today:

Be proud. Be very proud.

And as if that were not sufficiently lacking in self-awareness, the very same official White House Twitter feed also featured this, a tweet which screams: PLEASE PHOTOSHOP ME!

Senator Ted Cruz said: OK. If you really want me to Photoshop you that badly, then I will Photoshop you:

I enjoyed Jay Caruso’s entry as well:

Commenters: what text would you put in the photo? And if you have Photoshopping skills, go ahead and provide your own Photoshopped version. Anything good, I will round up and put in a post.

Ted Cruz: ObamaCare Is a Disaster

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:53 am



He says so in an op-ed in USA Today:

President Obama promised that if this law was passed, you could keep your plan, you could keep your doctors, and your premiums would go down. Each of those promises has proved false.

Already, more than 4 million people have lost their insurance plans because of Obamacare. And millions more Americans’ health insurance is at risk. Some experts predict anywhere from 80 million to 129 million private health plans will be canceled or forcibly changed over the next year.

Millions of Americans are also discovering that Obamacare will not allow them to keep their doctors or be treated at cutting-edge medical facilities, as more and more doctors and hospitals opt out of Obamacare.

Watchdog.org found that 11 of the top 18 hospitals nationwide had only one or two Obamacare insurance carriers.

The president promised that the average family’s premiums would fall by $2,500; instead, they have risen by over $3,000 since 2008.

Meanwhile, the paper itself has a rosy editorial about how the law is still good, and we are starting to see success stories:

And yet, the latest enrollment numbers are a reminder that the health care law has the potential to help millions of people and is worth salvaging. As the HealthCare.gov website and state exchanges began to function better, more than four times as many people signed up in November as in October, the administration said Wednesday. Nearly 1.2 million people are getting insurance, either through private policies or Medicaid.

What nonsense. First, this 1.2 million number is coming mostly through Medicaid, which is the kind of crap insurance that ObamaCare was supposedly designed to “improve” — and which does nothing to improve people’s health. Only 365,000 are even claimed to have been signed up through private insurance — and of that 365,000, it looks like 15% or fewer have actually paid their premiums and are actually covered. Meanwhile, millions have lost their policies (never mind the millions and millions who will in the future), so even if the 1.2 million number were correct, people are currently worse off as a whole — AND, the mix of people signing up skews old and sick, which spells disaster for the sustainability of the program.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Cruz has the better of this argument. Will voters see it? Time will tell.

Pete Earley’s “New” Book: The Serial Killer Whisperer

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:29 am



I just saw on Amazon that one of my favorite writers, Pete Earley, has a new non-fiction book out. (Well, “new” to me: it actually came out in January 2012.) The book is called The Serial Killer Whisperer and I just ordered it. The book is about a teenager who suffered a traumatic brain injury, went into a coma, and emerged with a fascination for serial killers. He starts writing serial killers, who reveal to him crimes they committed for which they were never convicted.

I am a true crime guy, but I don’t go for the lurid true crime books. I prefer well-written accounts like The Executioner’s Song or Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter (or almost any of Bugliosi’s other books written before he ran off the rails and started accusing George W. Bush of murder).

I have touted Earley before. I mentioned his book The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison in this post. And in this post I described his book Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness as a book that changed my life — or at least my outlook on mental illness, and how it is treated by the criminal justice system.

I’m very excited about this book and heartily recommend all Earley’s books — I have read all the non-fiction ones. He writes about topics as varied as spies, Mormon cult leaders, the federal witness protection program, and Vegas casinos. Every book is a fascinating insight into a world you knew almost nothing about.

You can buy The Serial Killer Whisperer here. Or you browse Earley’s books at this link.

Anything you buy after browsing these links will help this site, or use the search box to the right. If you have an ad blocker, you will have to whitelist this site to see the box, or just access Amazon through one of the links above.


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