[guest post by Dana]

When the host of the Melissa Francis Money show on Fox Business worked at CNBC, she was reprimanded by her superiors for “disrespecting the office of the president.” And what did she do to warrant the rebuke? She pointed out the truth to viewers about Obamacare:

It’s shocking, but it actually doesn’t surprise me because when I was at CNBC, I pointed out to my viewers that the math of Obamacare simply didn’t work. Not the politics by the way. But just the basic math. And when I did that, I was silenced. I said on the air that you couldn’t add millions of people to the system and force insurance companies to cover their pre-existing conditions without raising the price on everyone else. I pointed out that it couldn’t possibly be true that if you like your plan, you can keep it.

A news journalist telling viewers the truth? Madness, just madness.

On a side note, six videos released so far, and yet a search of the Los Angeles Times website reveals they still have not reported on Grubergate.

–Dana

This gets the flaming skull from Ace, so you know it’s big. Jake Tapper:

In a 2011 conversation about the Affordable Care Act, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of the law more commonly known as Obamacare, talked about how the bill would get rid of all tax credits for employer-based health insurance through “mislabeling” what the tax is and who it would hit.

. . . .

“It turns out politically it’s really hard to get rid of,” Gruber said. “And the only way we could get rid of it was first by mislabeling it, calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people when we all know it’s a tax on people who hold those insurance plans.”

(The White House press secretary said at a press briefing in 2010: “I would disagree with your notion that it is a tax on an individual since the proposal is written as a tax on an insurance company that offers a plan.”)

It’s lovely to see how coordinated this deception was. Hey, has anyone asked Robert Gibbs about this? (He’s the unnamed White House Press Secretary repeating that deliberately deceptive line.)

The second way was have the tax kick in “late, starting in 2018. But by starting it late, we were able to tie the cap for Cadillac Tax to CPI, not medical inflation,” Gruber said. CPI is the consumer price index, which is lower than medical inflation.

Gruber explains that by drafting the bill this way, they were able to pass something that would initially only impact some employer plans though it would eventually hit almost every employer plan.

I have to say, I am against the tax credit for employer=sponsored plans — and Gruber is right to say that economists of all stripes oppose it because of the distortions in the marketplace. Nevertheless, the monstrosity he helped perpetrate is the mother of all distortions in the marketplace, so he doesn’t really get a lot of free market points here. (I award you no free market points . . . and may God have mercy on your soul.)

So this video is just more lies from this schlub — who, by the way, got a lot more money than that almost $400,000 he got from the Obama administration. Wait until you see how he cashed in from the Democrat-led states as well:

Individual states have lavished taxpayer cash on Mr. Gruber in return for cookie-cutter reports that describe the impact of Obamacare for each of the several states.

Minnesota, for example, used federal Obamacare grants to pay Mr. Gruber to attend one meeting, participate in a biweekly email list and print a copy of the report, all for $329,000. Wisconsin paid Mr. Gruber $400,000 for the same material, requested by the office of then-Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. When the report was presented, Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, didn’t want Mr. Gruber at the news conference. Vermont is paying him another $400,000. Such a deal!

West Virginia, Maine, Colorado and Oregon have partaken of Mr. Gruber’s services, too, guaranteeing him a tidy sum. The money bought lies and deception. That’s Mr. Gruber’s characterization, not ours. “If you had a law which made it explicit that healthy people are going to pay in and sick people get money,” said Mr. Gruber, “it would not have passed.”

What was that I heard about Congressional hearings?

[guest post by Dana]

This week Matt Taylor, a scientist with the Rosetta mission team, gave an update about the team’s amazing accomplishment:

The landing, first envisaged more than 20 years ago, marks the crowning moment of Rosetta’s decadelong cruise through the solar system to get up close and personal with a comet. During its 4 billion mile journey on a track to meet the comet, Rosetta bounced around the inner solar system like a cosmic billiard ball, circling the sun almost four times. … Philae appears to have settled on its three legs in the center of the target zone, a relatively flat elliptical landing area about 550 yards in diameter, away from deep crevices, large boulders and sharp peaks.

Unfortunately, as historically significant as this event was, Taylor found himself in the center of a massive feminine shit shirtstorm because of his sartorial selection:

Predictably, the mad tweets of outrage began and ironically, in doing so, the aggrieved women reinforced stereotypical feminine behavior by choosing to focus on fashion rather than science. Way to represent!

No no women are toooootally welcome in our community, just ask the dude in this shirt.

#ThatShirt is a problem, because it shows that Taylor thinks women are a punchline. It shows @esa doesn’t notice casual misogyny.

#ThatShirt is a problem because of what it says about society. “How do I look cool and fun? Oh, I’ll degrade women. That’ll do it.”

So, on what should have been one of the best days of his life, Taylor found his accomplishments being overshadowed by hysteria (originally defined as a neurotic condition peculiar to women and thought to be caused by a dysfunction of the uterus) and bowing to pressure, offered a teary-eyed apology:

I think most reasonable people would consider the shirt tacky as opposed to offensive. Frankly, having grown up with a scientist, I seriously question whether they even notice the sartorial choices of their colleagues. From an interview with Taylor:

Sandeep Mukare: It’s generally agreed that a tattooed man can’t achieve great thing but you are an exception & My Q is how did u do it?

Matt Taylor: The people i work with dont judge me by my looks but the work that i have done and can do. Simple.

Being judged by one’s accomplishments? Crazy talk.

On a personal level, what sort of person is Taylor? A conniving woman hater with bad fashion sense? Two women, Taylor’s sister and wife said this about him:

“He gets so involved in everything that sometimes common sense goes out the window – like losing the car in the car park, silly things.

“If you go out with him you end up going round and round looking for a car parking space…he doesn’t want to make decisions.”

His wife, whom he met in sixth-form and described as the most “beautiful and intelligent woman on the planet”, added: “He is terrible at following directions, and has lost cars in multistorey carparks many a time.”

MISOGYNIST!

And about that tacky shirt, just where did it come from? Well, it appears that a friend made it for him. A female friend. Elly Prizeman responds to the outrage:

I felt I needed to write some words for all the questions, comments and feedback being received about the shirt I made for him that has caused such a stir.

I would like to thank each and every person who has supported Matt in his amazing achievement and who has asked after and complimented my hobby as well as my Husband’s artwork on Dr. Taylor.

…

Dr. Matt Taylor is an amazing, kind, loving and sensitive person. I never expected him to wear my gift to him for such a big event and was surprised and deeply moved that he did. I made that shirt for his birthday last month as I make clothes just as a hobby and he asked if I would make him one. He is a close and very loved friend so made sure I did this for his birthday present.

I am so proud of Matt and his achievements and the fact he is an interesting and very brave person to do what he did with the very sweet gesture he made towards my gift and to wear his individuality with pride. It has certainly made history more exciting and bold.

I wonder if Ms. Prizeman has any leftover fabric for Keira Knightly’s breasts or Kim Kardashian’s entire body (NSFW)…

–Dana

Added: If you read Elly Prizeman’s blog linked in this post, she is inundated with people requesting the shirt. However, as a seamstress-by-night, she is unable to meet the demand. Isn’t it funny – the hysterical and outraged fems can thank a man for the birth of a woman’s cottage industry!

Further, as Prizeman cites the price of the fabric as being cost prohibitive, and if the hysterical and outraged really want to further the success of another woman, shouldn’t they start a crowd funding website to help her? #WomenSewInItForSeamstress!