Translated: Having redefined “good faith” arguments as harassing anyone who offers a different political opinion than me and “bad faith” arguments as substantive policy discussions I will lose because I couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel,* I decline to debate you. You’ll want to talk about terrible things you should be ashamed of to bring up in public, like the effectiveness of a certain policy at reaching certain goals, instead of important issues for polite company, like what the Frosts did with their kitchen decor and who do they think they are?!
More flailing for Dan Riehl:
Meanwhile, Ezra Klein has been going after Michelle Malkin. Frankly, if the Liberals actually felt their positions were sound, they wouldn’t use such pathetic tactics, or scream so loud when you start poking holes in their spin.
Offering a sober-minded debate on health care policy=pathetic tactic. Few things are lower in a democracy than having a substantive discussion of the issues in order to persuade voters to your side. Better get back to more honorable tactics, like spreading unsubstantiated gossip.
This commenter at Riehl’s is trotting out some awe-inspiring misogyny:
The labial mind in action. Place ever higher taxes on smoking to pay for programs for the poor and then forbid smoking in ever more locations until finally in and around the home.
That’s the plan—we use our seductive socialist folds to draw you in and then bite off your tax-penis. And your totally-not-compensating-for-something cancer stick.
*Thanks to a reader for introducing me to that lovely metaphor.
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But I’d just as soon share a stage, physical or virtual, with Respectable Liberal Blogger Ezra Klein as I would with Chris Matthews, Geraldo Rivera, or an overflowing vat of liquid radioactive waste.
Oh, she was perfectly willing to appear with Chris Matthews before he exposed what a liar she was.
“The labial mind”? The hell?
Malkin backed out of that quicker than a healthy college Republican backing out of a request to join the military to fight “the most important war of our lifetime”.
The Yellow Elephant should have been the new Republican logo, not the one of the elephant screwing 2008 while starry-eyed high on crystal meth…
I should have included the link in case anybody is unaware of Operation Yellow Elephant…
(I’m guessing not many here, but…)
Brave Ms. Malkin ran away
Brave Ms. Malkin ran away, away
When debate reared its ugly head,
Ms. Malkin turned her tail and fled,
Brave, brave, brave, brave Ms. Malkin
Good lord. I really had no idea what I’d see when I clicked on the link to her blog–this is actually only the third time in my life I’ve ever visited her blog, so though it’s clear to me that she ain’t popular around here, I personally had no preconceived notions of what she might have to say or how she might say it. S’truth, I’ve read conservative bloggers before with whom I may or may not agree but whose talking points, repertoire of knowledge and communication of said points and knowledge impressed me. In short, I was openminded. (Except for being a little weirded out by visit no. 2 to her blog the other day, where she was detailing herself stalking the Frost family. But even smart passionate and usually admirable people occassionally do freakin strange stuff so I was not going to let that stop me from being ready to be impressed on visit no. 3.)
Yeep. I’m STILL not totally 100% convinced she’s not a Respectable (sorry, couldn’t resist) adversary…I always have this urge to keep givin people chances to show me that they’re bright and diligent and etc…but she’s taken a few steps back in my potential estimation. Or more than a few. It isn’t even possible to twist that quote by H. Clinton into something negative, and the attempt just makes the attempter look pathetic…traveling down the page, I see the level of response to E. Klein’s debate invite—something like my 10-year-old would say. The 10-year-old is kind of obsessed with his own maturity levels and that of others…I remember going through that phase myself around that age…but isn’t she a little elderly to still be stuck there? Where are the brilliant well-researched rejoinders based upon actual data and events? Clearly my expectations are way too high. The best I’m getting out of this is a sneaking sense of relief that the opposition is so dippy. If there’s any merit-based justice in the world…of course, that’s a whole nother topic…but if there is, their POVs sure won’t be the ones who prevail.
Like I told the Sadly Noisians, Michelle Malkin is a self-loathing racist bitch with delusions of integrity. And Reihl - fuck; if the United States were really a meritocracy where money and fame were allocated strictly based on desert, Ol’ Dan would be guarding a footbridge somewhere remote, armed only with his list of three questions by which he determined who could pass.
You grew up in Texas and you never heard “couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel”?
It would have been fun watching Ezra eat Malkin’s lunch.
Annie beat me to it but still, “labial mind”? WTF?
I guess when you think and talk out your ass, this makes more sense.
Um…I know it’s been said, but…”labial mind?!!!” What. the. Fuck?????? There are no words. I’ve heard of Vagina Dentata before, but Vagina Brain is a new one.
Lisa KS,
You might want to look into Malkin’s defense of internment camps before granting her respectable adversary status–I’m not against searching out in dear hope for a reasonable conservative to have an even handed discussion with! Believe me, I’ve tried (and once or twice found someone with who this was possible).
I do agree with the crazy “labial mind” guy to this extent — I think it’s stupid to pay for sCHIP with a cigarette tax. The money should come out of the budget like any other necessary program, not be dependent on people continuing to poison themselves.
Of course, I’m sure his argument is that we need to leave small children dying in the street to act as examples for anyone who thinks they can escape working for a corporation, but that’s a whole other issue.
The Frosts are getting what they deserve. Here’s the biggest bad-faith argument among you liberals on this subject: the insistence that critics are attacking *Graeme*. No one’s attacking the kid, they’re attacking the choices *the parents* have made. And you know it.
It’s pretty funny that liberals are defending someone named “F. Halsey Frost.” Could it be anymore obvious that this was probably a white guy with rich parents, grandparents, etc., with a name like F. Halsey Frost and a wedding announcement in the Times? But here’s a guy without a lot of ambition — he wanted a nice easy woodworking gig. Trouble is, it doesn’t pay much. You know what responsible married couples do when they find they don’t earn much money? They don’t have four kids they know they can’t support (and “support” includes paying for health insurance), or they look for a better-paying job.
If the Frosts had just kept quiet about their SCHIP handout, no one would have investigated their background. Here’s a tip for the Frosts and the rest of you: when you find yourself mooching off of others, take the check and keep your mouth closed.
…take the check and keep your mouth closed.
Golly. Not even trying to conceal our agenda, are we?
Yeah. How dare the parents decide to hit a patch of black ice and lose control of their car? It was also really irresponsible of the parents to not use their psychic powers to realize that someday two of their children would need long-term medical assistance and not have them in the first place. And how dare they publish their wedding announcement in the New York Times, like it’s a newspaper or something.
Sheesh.
You know, this kind of politics from decades before is how Alexander the Great easily drowned out Demosthenes.
Oligarchal guided mob politics is horrific.
assmgmt: Yes! Because people who need help deserve to be stalked and harassed. Why else would they apply for assistance? They want to be stalked and harassed by shitheaded morons!
And oh my god, how could we have missed that even the guy’s name proves that he’s rich no matter how little money he makes. Hell with what his boss and his tax returns say, we know he’s totally rich and is just faking the whole being poor thing!
And yeah, cabinetmaking and woodworking are so fucking easy and effort-free! Anyone could do it. That’s why it’s so inexpensive to get custom woodworking done for the million-dollar mansions everyone in America has except for the lazy welfare cheats who deserve to be poor because they’re lazy!
What a fucking prick you are.
>>And how dare they publish their wedding announcement in the New York Times, like it’s a newspaper or something.
I’m guessing you’ve never read the Times engagement/wedding announcements. It’s not for just anyone — it’s for the well-heeled. It’s not like your local paper.
>>It was also really irresponsible of the parents to not use their psychic powers to realize that someday two of their children would need long-term medical assistance
It doesn’t take psychic powers to realize there’s a possibility that children will need medical care — long-term or otherwise. It’s what adults do — they anticipate life’s probabilities and plan accordingly. Hence, insurance.
And why am I so totally not surprised that assmgmgt also manages to throw in the misogynistic “keep your legs closed!” argument?
More creative trolls, please.
Others have said it better than me, but aren’t the Frosts the perfect poster children for the Right Wing? White folks, property owners, small business owners, more than two kids, etc etc etc? When folks like the Frosts, who “should” be the bread and butter of the right say that they need help to deal with health care, it scares the crap out of the conservatives.
Nothing worse than putting a human face — a 12-year-old face — on the policies that the right espouses. Rush and Malkin attack both these folks and MJ Fox for the same reason. How dare they show me the results of my crappy policies!
It’s pretty funny that liberals are defending someone named “F. Halsey Frost.” Could it be anymore obvious that this was probably a white guy with rich parents, grandparents, etc., with a name like F. Halsey Frost and a wedding announcement in the Times?
I’m always tickled — in roughly the same way that a feather to the back of the throat tickles — when a conservadroid yells at liberals for failing to behave in the way his leaders told him liberals behave.
The truly wonderful thing about ”labial mind” is that the adjective “labial”, even in English use, is most often used to refer to the lips of the mouth.
assetmgmt, I know it’s hard to believe, but many of us here do read the New York Times. We just understand what a painful exercise in straw-grasping it is to use a couple’s supposed High Standing In Society at one time in their life as your greatest argument for… well, for why they should’ve sold their house and lost everything they had if they had the gall to want to keep their children alive.
P.S. Wow, y’all, I had to read “labial mind” twice before I realized it wasn’t just a bad misspelling of “liberal.” My brain is boggling. You know, down there. It’s kind of pleasurable, actually.
Daniel, I just want to thank you again for your lovely killfile script. Three guesses as to where I just used it, and the first two don’t count.
Responsible adults can indeed “anticipate life’s probabilities and plan accordingly”. Pretty much every civilized country except the United States permits voting, responsible adults to “plan accordingly” by creating a single-payer government health insurance plan to cover life’s probabilities. When was the last time an American voter was even permitted that choice?Answer me this, whizkid: if the US government held a referendum in 2008 asking each voter if they wanted a Canadian-style single-payer system or the current private insurer system, who would win?
Before you answer, though, you might want to remember this: the people who point to the Canadian system and scream about its flaws don’t ask Canadians what they prefer, ever. Canadians have their system, and they have the American system right beside them for comparison purposes. The result? No Canadian party or government — even in ultraconservative Alberta, Canada’s Texas — dares to introduce substantial privatization into the health care system because it draws an immediate and even savage response from the electorate; having seen both systems they never, ever want to go back to an American system.
Really, fool, why do you think that the insurance and health industries in the USA spent countless hundreds of millions on buying Congress? To ensure that it never, ever even comes up for a political vote, let alone a national one. They know that they would lose. Conservatives and libertarians and market fetishists of all kinds are in fabour of choice, as long as you are only permitted to choose the things they want you to have.
Does anybody know what’s happening with the S-CHIP bill at this point? Is there a chance of overriding the veto? It would be sweet if all this vileness actually facilitated this.
What has happened to the quality of trolls around here?
My god, that “assetmgmt” crap is something I’d expect from a trollish Script Kiddie. It’s like they’re not even TRYING anymore…
re “too dumb to poor piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel.” I thought I was the only one who’d ever heard that expression. Unfortunately, I learned as my father’s description of democrats….maybe my my entire political life has just been in reaction?
But we have advanced since those days. We now have Malkin whose drivel I will not honor with discussion but who apparently could not get the piss out of her sandals either.
“No Canadian party or government — even in ultraconservative Alberta, Canada’s Texas — dares to introduce substantial privatization into the health care system because it draws an immediate and even savage response from the electorate; having seen both systems they never, ever want to go back to an American system.”
While I (and most sentient Americans) believe this to be the truth, my Wingnut-Koolaid-drinking dad tells me on a regular basis that the Canadian border is just CLOGGED with Canadians seeking to escape Canuckistan to get decent medical care in The States or even Mexico.
‘Course when asked to prove his assertion - zip. It’s just lies propagated by Faux/Rush/etc…
assetmgmt I know it might be hard to believe, but not every WASP is rich. Also, not every person with an initial at the beginning of his or her name is either a rich or a WASP. My son for example, is called by his middle name. He even has a hyphen in his last name! He has ancestors from colonial times. Oh dear, we must be rolling in dough. See, we liberals try not to judge people based on their names or backgrounds.
Yeah, how dare Frost do a job he’s good at and he enjoys–if he really loved his kids, he’d work 9-5 at a job he hated for forty years. Come to think of it, how dare he and his wife have kids in the first place? If they knew they’d be turned down for health insurance, they should have remained celibate–better yet, they shouldn’t have gotten married at all. Perhaps all the poor and struggling should kill themselves right now–because it really irritates poor Assmagnet to hear them talking about their lives, let alone “mooching” off the govt. instead of drowning it in a bathtub, the way all good Americans want to do.
The Malkin Rule: Keep your mouth shut about govt. benefits–or get slimed by the Shrieking Harpy Brigade.
MikeEss: everybody is jumping in to hack the the elephant, er the hefalump, er the humptheleft logo.
Lisa KS: I too avoided Malkin by reputation…but had one close reading of her brilliant solution for what she saw as the causes of the rampage at Virginia Tech a year ago…sickening to read. Now I just provide humor therapy to people traumatized by reading her bilge.
J Neo Marvin, the last I heard they were about 15 House votes short of an override, so the majority postponed the vote for two weeks hoping they can get some people to reverse their positions and support the bill. I’m not so convinced it’ll happen, but hey, maybe the constituents of the anti-SCHIP folks will go to their houses and start asking questions.
Fortunately, my surprisingly sane Republican congressman has supported the bill from the beginning, so (unfortunately) there’s not much I can do.
Moderately off-topic– Hey guys, Tanta over at Calculated Risk (calculatedrisk.blogspot.com), did a wonderfully long blog post about the nature of “subprime” lending, and how certain parties are tightly associating the term with memes like urban poor (and women) to avoid discussing the actual lending problems and general issues of housing affordability…
There isn’t a blog post link so I’ll just give the title…
HMDA Data on High Priced Loans
MikeEss:
Probably the best example of anecdotes not equaling evidence, or even being illustrative, let alone representative. Are there Canadians who go to the USA to get faster or more expensive medical treatment? Yup. The Canadian system isn’t perfect. For example, some more experimental or innovative treatments aren’t evaluated or cleared fast enough, for example. (Provincial plans are reluctant to fund them before a statistical basis for their effectiveness is built.) At a more general level, wait times can be very silly sometimes. (I recently received an appointment for next March for a specialist on a minor matter.) There are also problems with the declining numbers of GPs as compared to fancy specialists. (It should be noted, though, that the doctor supply problem is laregly the fault of the universities and the medical associations, not the governmetn. The former admitted and graduated far too few doctors, and we are paying for that now. The latter? The doctors have been exercising guild-like restrictions blocking the accreditation of thousands perfectly qualified foreign doctors; American conservative propaganda aside, the government has been pussyfooting around them; our doctor-supply situation would be vastly improved if the government removed those industry-created artificial barriers.)
But the system must be viewed as a whole. Every Canadian has access to decent medical care, period. They pay for it through their taxes, period. If you are injured in a car accident like the Frost children, you are looked after, period. And, again, one has to look at exercised choice. Canadians used to have an American style system, and turned away from it. They have the option at any time to go back to an American system. (Most of Canada’s Conservative Party would looooooooove to bring in an American system, for example.) But in Canada, messing with universal medicare is a kiss of political death. Stand on an “American style health care!” platform and your party would — no exaggeration — be utterly destroyed.
Canadians have had and continue to have the choice. They choose universal medicare, and by a huge margin; it isn’t even a contest. Canadian politicians don’t bother to ask Canadians if they want to switch systems, because they know the answer. American politicians and their healthcare and insurance paymasters know what the American public’s answer would be the same, too; that’s why they never permit the question to be asked.
“Labial mind?” *sputters* What? I think he means clitoral mind.
It’s pretty funny that liberals are defending someone named “F. Halsey Frost.” Could it be anymore obvious that this was probably a white guy with rich parents, grandparents, etc., with a name like F. Halsey Frost and a wedding announcement in the Times?
Don’t you think that actually makes a pretty powerful indictment of our current health care system, in that you can wind up being a white guy with rich parents with an initial for your first name and a wedding announcement in the Times and you still can’t afford private health insurance?
Or, you know, in the words of Michelle Malkin:
(Jeckyll/Hyde much, Michelle?)
It’s pretty funny that liberals are defending someone named “F. Halsey Frost.” Could it be anymore obvious that this was probably a white guy with rich parents, grandparents, etc., with a name like F. Halsey Frost and a wedding announcement in the Times?
Don’t you think that actually makes a pretty powerful indictment of our current health care system, in that you can wind up being a white guy with rich parents with an initial for your first name and a wedding announcement in the Times and you still can’t afford private health insurance?
Or, you know, in the words of Michelle Malkin:
(Jeckyll/Hyde much, Michelle?)
Hey ASSetmgmt, can I have your Sociel Security check?
Oh and your Medicare, too. You won’t be wanting those or anything, right? You know, like all the other Red Stater hypocrites who whine about “welfare queens” while they live off of their farming subsidies and SSI every month?
As a guilt ridden smoker, I have a really hard time understanding people who oppose this so readily, but don’t smoke. Really it is taxing the people who need it to most to provide themselves with health care (as low income people have higher smoking rates than that of middle and upper income people).
It is about the same as the argument here in Oregon
about not passing our cigarette tax for healtcare for children because “OMG It changes the State’s constitution” Paid for by Phillip Morris etc… of course. It just is so funny, because the state’s constitution has been changed alot. I also laugh, because the ads state something like “But what will be state constitutional amendments that tax fast food and soda?” Well, Oregonians would have to vote on that too.
couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel is some crisp, earthy Texas hill country describing.
It first passed into my vocabulary from a biography of LBJ, who used the phrase to describe the Organization of American States in relation to a revolution in the Dominican Republic.
He also brought a phrase into popular usage that far too many progressives today lack a grasp of. In the context of a potential ally in the Great Society programs who was not sufficiently true-blue enough for one of his advisors, he said: Well, Ah know, but Ah jest b’leeve that we’re all better off havin’ him inside the tent pissin’ out than outside pissin’ in.
So, on topic, what do you have to b’leeve in order to be outside the tent pissin’ in on SCHIP, a program that saves states and the feds money in the long run while allowing entrepreneurial Americans who don’t have capital to leap a major barrier to self-employment?
I think you have to believe that if G-d had intended my queer working-class ass to own a business, He’d have made me born a straight white male in a rich family. And I’m uppity and oughta be ashamed for taking charity when I could have just gotten a better job with all my education.
I reply to this only, What would you have paid for the knowledge I shared at the beginning of this comment? A lot fo employers agreed with you.
Conservatives harbor nothing but contempt for those who attempt to follow the design for living they promote. This was proven to me a few years ago, when I overheard a conservative radio talk show host based in the Pacific Northwest (may he remain nameless) scold a young conservative mother who had called him up seeking absolution because she’d accepted the government’s help during difficult times. She explained painstakingly that she’d never accepted any gov’t. help for herself, just for her kids, and only at junctures where she’d found it hard to provide her children with milk and food.
This woman was a stay-at-home mother, who, because she was a conservative, believed that she shouldn’t deprive her young children of her presence during their formative years. She had several kids, because, being a conservative, she believed that a woman should have more than one. But she ran a small business jointly with her husband. They were both conservatives, and they bought the Republican line that says that small businesspeople are the salt of the earth and the glory of the American polity, workers in God’s vineyard, yadda yadda. They hadn’t taken advantage of any of the government exceptions or programs for which they qualified; because they were both conservatives, they believed that would be Wrong. But they had taken advantage of the government programs for which their children qualified, justifying the seeming inconsistency by telling themselves that, after all, it was for the kids. Wasn’t the existence of the entire Family Values program based on doing what was right for the kids?
Well, the talk-show rightie was having none of it. Out came the stories about his Grandfather The Barrelmaker, who had spent years in poverty but who would sooner have died than have asked anybody for help no matter how strong the temptation. The idea was that this woman should emulate this immigrant carpenter, and hold herself aloof from anything that might ameliorate her situation, be the consequences what they might. Let her business go belly-up, let her kids come down with a half-a-dozen deficiency diseases apiece, never mind, she should suck it all up in the name of the free market and the Laffer Curve. (My Grandfather The Barrelmaker was never able to make it in this world, why should you?)
Never mind that this woman’s circumstances had turned out to be challenging partially because she’d done everything her rightie preceptors–people cup to the pattern of the talk-show host she called up–had told her to do.
And then, of course, the guy hung up. What else?
This exchange was measurelessly illuminating to me. It showed that people of the talk-show host’s caliber aren’t content to despise those who disagree with them. They also find it necessary to despise those who agree with them. A man who is willing to advise a young mother not to do everything she can to adequately nourish her offspring can only be motivated by contempt for her, for her family, and for her willingness to be influenced by him; no other explanation applies.
So I was left under no illusions as to how valuable the Authoritarian Followers actually are to the Authoritarian Leaders (or to those who fancy themselves as such). My one hope is that the woman who called the talk show underwent a change of state and realized for herself what kind of position she and those like her hold in the minds of the party propagandists–to say nothing of the party heads and the providers of the party swag. The fact that righties like to make use of aspiring lower-middle-class types doesn’t mean they have their interests at heart or even recognize that their interests are valid.
BTW, Vir Modestus, you have a great name.
Seeker6079 (straight male) and Sarah in Chicago (gay female) agree: a labial mind is a terrible thing to waste.
C’mon, Sheesh, we can tell from his handle that Assmagnet doesn’t draw SSI payments or farm subsidies.
He’s figured out the best way to rip off the government is by working as a fund manager and having his management fees taxed at 15% as capital gains, rather than at 38% as income.
He’s using a government loophole alright, but it’s just not the loophole you’re thinking of.
@ Mezosub:
You mean he’s gaming the system and living off of government “welfare” by ripping it off?
*gasp!* Say it ain’t so!
I guess anyone who lives their life ethically and doesn’t get ahead by lying, cheating or stepping on the backs of others is stupid enough to deserve dying in the street according to his type of people.
I agree with asset: white people should not have children. The only way for middle class white people to prevent medical emergencies for their children that might require government assistant that will cause right wingers to mock their children’s educational needs and to hang out their house to pester them is not to have children in the first place.
Asset is all about fiscal management—the government can save SO much money by mandatory sterilization of all sympathetic white middle class people whose children could garner sympathy, forcing conservatives to harass those children against their own will. If people didn’t have the children in the first place, then right wingers wouldn’t have to harass them. Simple.
And to replace the population loss from this plan, immigration should help. Surely asset is for that.
“That’s the plan—we use our seductive socialist folds to draw you in and then bite off your tax-penis. And your totally-not-compensating-for-something cancer stick.”
That is just so hot.
*Thanks to a reader for introducing me to that lovely metaphor.
See, I grew up hearing it as “couldn’t drive a boot up a mule’s ass with directions written on the heel,” which always struck me as odd. It always seemed to me that, based on my experiences with them, mules in general would make that little task difficult for even the most able-bodied, directions or no.
Still, I must chime in agreement with the idea that it’s hilarious to watch the wingnuts scream bloody murder about these middle-class white folks, I dunno, having a rough patch in life. Even the bulk of the GOP is against Malkin, Rhiel and the rest of the weinerheads.
They must feel like the last Vanilla Ice fans in existence.
“With a name like F. Halsey Frost?”
That’s a serious argument? hahahaha…excuse me while I chortle my way over to my social security card, which shows a Very Obvious German Name, not just the last name but the middle name as well. Wow. Then watch me amble over to the nearest mirror and stare at my blonde, blue-eyed, fair-skinned self. HMMM…I mean, with a name like THAT, COULD IT BE ANY MORE OBVIOUS THAT my parents were Nazis? Cause both the middle AND last names are very ethnically German and weren’t lots of Germans Nazis and aren’t German’s supposed to be blonde, blue-eyed and fair-skinned..?
LOL. Okay, no. My paternal grandfather wasn’t even white, much less German. But hey. Why bother finding that out? Way easier to make brilliant Holmesian deductions based upon my name and appearance, eh?
New Malkin blog–Stalking Points Memo?
Many people have noted Malkin’s comment about not being able to get health insurance, nettling her no end that these folks have not quoted the remainder of her post:
Fair enough, I suppose; may bloggers are indeed presenting only the first half, implying that even Malkin herself couldn’t get insurance. But a very big dog ain’t barking in the night-time: money. While eager to crunch numbers on the Frosts, and to mention hard numbers on COBRA, I note that Malkin did not provide key numbers in the above-noted reply.First, what she is paying for that coverage now? I have a sneaking suspicion if her MSA plan is not affordable for the vast majority of people; if a normal middle class family could afford it then she would have gladly set out those numbers.
Second, what proportion of her income does that plan cost? A plan that costs, say, $500 per month may be easily affordable for a woman with a syndicated newspaper column and regular appearances on Fox News, but not for a small businessman.
The third point has been better-made by others: that even if the Frosts had been insured the nature and extent of their childrens’ injuries would have bankrupted them.
Fourth, she herself notes that her current plan is a high-deductible one. People with savings and luiquidatable assets can have high deductibles. People like the Frosts — or you or me — can’t.
Lastly: Malkin is a paid-up member of the conservative chattering class, and a valuable ethnic and female one at that. If she needed funds to pay for medical care do you think that her fellow arch-conservatives would let her suffer openly and publicly and risk undermining their message, or, worse, having that ferocious attack columnist on them instead of liberals? Look at how much damage David Brock has done them; they are not foolish enough — or poor enough — to let that that happen again.
One separate point. Michelle Malkin seems to miss the irony in the fact that her current insurer arbitrarily called her “underweight”. Why is a healthy, fit and obviously very energetic woman arbitrarily miscategorized, costing her money? Because private insurers are in the business of arbitrarily miscategorizing people and denying them lower premiums or benefits properly due. That’s one of the many ways they make money. That, however, seems to escape Ms. Malkin.
Naive as it may be, I draw some home from this. Part of a successful conservative sales strategy is to have actual policies which benefit only tiny, wealthy minorities, but have marketing campaigns which emphasize attacks on other minorities. You basically convince middle-class white folks that a government that exploits them to benefit rich folks is, in fact, their bulwark against scary dark or poor people, the noble defender of the Folks Just Like You. My naive hope is that vast tracts of middle class, previously-GOP-voting white Americans will have their Click Moment, sit up and say, “holy shit, they hate us as much as they hate the people that I hate!” It would be a start.I wonder what happens when loss of income due to downsizing or family tragedy happens to members of the rightwing blogger mob. Do they suddenly gain insight that “hey it can happen to anyone” or do they expect to be purged from the ranks for not being perfect or not anticipating possible financial disaster.
Or worse would they follow these warped ideals: “Sure, my kids starved to death but I’m NO big government welfare moocher.”
Are there merit badges for this sort of thing? Proving your fascist..err..neo-conservative street cred ? A little skull with a dollar sign crossed through it.
Seems to be a kind of masochism to embrace this kind of philosophy and they get mad when others don’t.
You must suffer for the state and stop smiling you hippy.
Heh. Labial Mind. I’m checking the phrenology chart.
assetmgmt - speaking one’s opinion does not give people with opposing opinions the right to harrass the family’s home with phone calls nor stalk them from the family’s front lawn or business. That kind of behavior is not free speech, it’s harrassment. Which is illegal.
Is that simple enough for you?
I heard it growing up in northern Indiana in the late 70s and 80s, only it was “so dumb, he couldn’t poor water out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel.”
I wonder why Hoosiers say “water” and Texans say “piss.” I’m not sure whether it’s because Hoosiers are more polite, or merely less likely to piss in their boots.
“With a name like F. Halsey Frost?”
My name is completely Italian, both first and last names. And yet I’m actually only 1/4th Italian, and that’s being generous. On my mother’s (non-Italian) side, I’m descended from William Bradford, the first governor of Virginia, and could join the DAR since I have documented proof that one of my ancestors fought in the American Revolution.
So drawing any conclusions about me or my family background based on my name would make you look even more foolish than you already do.
Betsy:
I guess that’d be…
…wait for it…
…vagina mentata.
I wonder what happens when loss of income due to downsizing or family tragedy happens to members of the rightwing blogger mob.
That’s a good question, Procrastinating Revolutionary… among the Dan Riehl’s and Michelle Malkin’s, probably no insight will occur. Their entire worldview is based on doublethink and rationalization. Reduced economic circumstances are unlikely to change that, I think. But among their readers (the white suburbanites who make up the base of the modern conservative movment) it might be a different story.
The High Emperor of Bananas Foster:
:RIMSHOT!:
Nice one^___^
Isn’t “Labial Mynde” a character in “Day by Day” ?
Has the braintrust behind that comic strip tackled this issue yet ? I’d expect it to recycle the meme that it is the “the Dems fault” for for putting a child “in harms way” since their blog followers tend to be a bunch of rabid howling flying monkeys.
It takes a seriously cognitive dissonance to maintain that viewpoint.
I wonder if that kid will grow up and swing toward idealistic or cynical after this experience.
“Nice? Easy?” As opposed to living in your mom’s basement, typing asinine comments on “liberul” blogs with your Cheeto-stained fingers? Oh boy, that’s hard work, you betcha.
Cabinetmaking, and any other highly skilled craft, requires a skill set which, frankly, is above and beyond that of the average office worker. It requires strong math skills, analytical ability, creativity, an aptitude for machinery (a much rarer ability than you think), as well as the knowledge that you never know all there is about the craft. A good craftsperson is never satisfied with “good enough.”
So, AssManager, “go fuck yourself.” Yours is probably the only “tool” you can manage.
heehee - i’m going to remember that one (as well as ‘labial’ mind - what a dickhead! - pun absolutely intended
).
An Australian equivalent for those even slightly interested is “couldn’t organise a piss-up* in a brewery”
* piss-up meaning a raucous and alcohol fuelled party from the Oz slang of ‘piss’ for alcohol.
*Sigh* I cannot believe someone who is so anti-civil liberties and lacking in the use of consistent logic and civility in making her polemical points graduated from my alma mater. She’s living proof that every school has graduates it and the majority of alums would rather forget.
Wow, the stupidity is so strong it’s making my eyes water.
Am I supposed to not have kids because we couldn’t afford independant health insurance if my husband were to lose his job? After all, the last time he was laid up we were uncovered for two years. But, but, all these conservatives have been telling me I’m supposed to have more kids, to hold off the encroaching hordes of brown people! Or are we supposed to sell our house to get insurance in that case (we’ll ignore the fact that the last time we sold the house we made about enough for dinner for four at a nice restaurant)?
And the name thing - assetmgmt - my last name is a genuine FFV (First Family of Virginia). I’m the whitest person you’re ever going to see short of an albino, with a good sized Virginia city named for my ancestors. Means squat for my personal financial balance sheet - you see there were those generations of Kentucky sharecroppers in the middle there. In case you hadn’t noticed, the US doesn’t go in for royalty - aside from those who seem to think that this was some dreadful oversight rather than deliberate design.
And last, but definitely not least. Can I have a vagina mentata - please!!!! It would be so cool.
On Malkin:: Is this really her? Is she really this startlingly undignified?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt_YcQlYxyY&mode=related&search=
On “stupidity” aphorisms:
I like these: “That fool couldn’t find a Jew at a Bar Mitzvah” and “Him? He could lose an elephant in a telephone booth.”
Of course she is. If somebody has time on their hands, perhaps they could do a “Malkin Debate Cheer” in response. Or some Ren Fest actors could redo the “Brave Sir Robin” as “Brave Ms. Malkin”.
This whole Frost smear shows the punitive nature of the right wing. If you want an abortion, you can’t have one because you deserve nine months of pregnancy, an agonizing delivery, etc. for indulging in a night of pleasure (or being careless enough to be raped).
On the other hand, if your much loved child is injured in a car accident, you don’t deserve govt. help because you were careless enough not to have insurance, therefore you deserve to see your children die.
MikeEss~
Your dad sounds like a typical conservofascist shitheel. No offense - I mean, I’m sure you care for him and all - but I hope he’s well on his way to taking a dirt nap, so the rest of us can get on with running this country the way it should be run.
Hunter S, it’s a complicated situation. My dad, like most people, is not one-dimensional. He has a lot of very good qualities, along with some bad ones.
Given his age, upbringing, and life experiences, he’s come a long ways. There’s still a long ways to go, but we’re working on it.
I’m not perfect either (who among us really is?) - that’s one of the reasons I come here to learn…
personally, i’m shocked at all this rich-bashing by conservatives! surely people with wedding announcements in the new york times and fancy rich person names would NEVER cheat the system.
c’mon, don’t forget the mantra, conservatives: “rich people are successful, hard-working contributors who generate wealth for society; poor people are lazy slobs who would rather sit on their asses and collect welfare”
we can’t have the normals getting the idea that rich people are greedy, or would cheat the system any time just to further enrich themselves. we might lose our tax cuts for something as useless and frivolous as the welfare of our society.
and woe to the death of trickle down economics!
Hunter S, you’ll eventually be taking a dirt nap too, as will we all. That being said, I’d like to point out that it’s kind of an asshole maneuver to call someone’s father names and then state smugly that his death will be a good thing. MikeEss responded with a lot more courtesy than your comment deserved.
it’s called “war”. A war on our liberties, our progressive values, our children (and by that I mean society’s children, the next generation), a war on our very lives.
In every war there are casualties.
Yes, I suppose it was rather rude of me to refer to Mike’s dad the way I did. Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make a progressive omelet.
Oh, ffs. Come off it, Hunter. If you want to fight a war, you also have to have allies and people who will be willing fight on your side. If you go around making shitty comments about the parents of folks who are ostensibly on your side, you’re gonna find yourself fighting your “war” alone pretty fast.
Secondly, how does saying hurtful things about MikeEss’s dad help the progressive cause in any way? Just wondering.
Come off what? I said it was rude of me. You need to chill out.
Come off your self-justifying “it’s a war, maaaan” grasping at straws malarkey. And I need to chill out? Well, maybe. But you definitely need to grow up and learn when to say “Damn, MikeEss, I’m sorry I was such a rude, unfeeling little shit as to say that I hope your dad dies and that it would be a good thing for the country.”
I’m not holding my breath, but maybe you’ll surprise me.
To elaborate on how complicated my dad is, he worked in the medical field for years. But he had been an auto mechanic, a farm worker, worked as a teacher, and drove long-haul truck.
He’s become gay-friendly (though this has not been tested thoroughly), more-tolerant of other cultures (but still rants occasionally), and realizes the war in Iraq was a huge mistake. He knows (now) Bush is an idiot, but still thinks Gore would have been worse. He hates Hillary. He’s been to India, Saudi Arabia, China, and Britain.
The man was born when FDR was president. He remembers WWII directly (as a child in the States). He remembers when movies and radio were the only mass entertainment. His grandfather (my great-grandfather) was a real life cowboy from Texas. During my dad’s life, people went from early Fords like the Model T, Model A, and flat-head Ford V8 to landing men on the moon. From the Age of Steam to the Nuclear Age. From the slide rule to the personal computer and the Internet.
While he does feel the need to piss on Canada’s system (for what reason I’m not exactly sure), and Britain’s as well, he also recognizes that the US will eventually have universal healthcare. The only questions are how long it will take, and how (badly?) we will implement it.
People are complicated…
oh, please, by all means - hold your breath. Tool.
You know, I’m not your enemy - and I’m not Mike’s enemy either. But bigoted right wingers like his dad are the reason AmeriKKKa is in the sad shape we have to endure each and every frappin’ day.
I’m reminded of Alec Baldwin’s quote in the excellent David Mamet film (based on his play)…
“get mad, you sonsabitches!”
“But bigoted right wingers like his dad are the reason AmeriKKKa is in the sad shape we have to endure each and every frappin’ day.”
But that’s the problem. Those people also harbor a lot of the experience and strength of the place called America. The trick is to get the bad stuff to wither away while keeping the good things strong, vital, and intact…
Yeah, I thought so. Grow up, kiddie.
Shorter Hunter S: `Fuck your dad, fuck you for pointing out that I’m disgusting and rude, fuck you for not realizing that my not apologizing for the foregoing should mean that you crawl away as if I had apologized. `Whiiiine…. Why don’t you realize I’m your friend?’
Hunter, there is a world of difference between tough and being a dick. And there’s an even bigger world of difference between being appalling to your allies and targeting your enemies. Rumblelizard is spot on: MikeEss treated you with far more courtesy than you deserved.
Rumblelizard, go join a gay-bashing thread somewhere.
Mike, I apologize for what I said about your dad. Keep working on him, bringing him into the light.
Okay, Hunter S. Let me get this straight. You conceded that Rumblelizard was right, and gave a proper apology to MikeEss. Well done so far as it goes. But you preface it by slagging him as a gay basher. Why?
you call me a dick and then expect me to answer you? Who rattled your cage, seeker?
“Mike, I apologize for what I said about your dad. Keep working on him, bringing him into the light.”
Thanks.
I’m just trying to share as many thoughts and experiences as I have access to…
“then expect me to answer you?”
You wished the father of MikeEss dead then expected him to like you and think you on his side. I would say that I was the less deluded of the two of us.
By the way, “you … expect me to answer you?” because of an accurate slight is GOP-speak for “I haven’t got an answer and how dare you not respond with ineffective and undeserved courtesy in the face of my horrid conduct!”, so perhaps we can rightly characterize you as a rightie provocateur rather than the noble misunderstood progressive you profess to be.
As for the dick comment, the phrase “call a spade a spade” has been around for about 2200 years for a reason, dear.
And you still haven’t had the backbone to answer why you called Rumblelizard a gay-basher.
Hmmm…
MikeEss, Rumblelizard, I see where the three of us have erred. Look at the thread: almost all of the last twenty or so posts in this thread are not about Michelle Malkin or the attacks on a twelve year old. They are all now about “Hunter S” and our reactions to him. Folks, we have fallen victim to a Distraction Troll. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to leave him to starve under the bridge, now.
You’re right, seeker. I agree. No more troll kibble, and I apologize for starting that hare. It just pissed me off.
I think we know who the homophobic, misogynistic reich-wingers are here.
If you’re referring to me, Hunter, please elucidate as to how I am a homophobic misogynistic reich winger.
Gah. More troll kibble. Never mind.
Rumblelizard, I think that you were right to step in and call on the dead father crudity.
Ironically enough, I just posted on something else on Yglesias’ blog, using Russian and English peasants and proles as a metaphor for the GOP and Dem bases (respectively). I promptly received a sneering riposte starting off insulting my knowledge of “pre-reolutionary” Russia and demanding details of what I meant. Fine, I suppose; there’s always going to be some fussy tool demanding that even a metaphor be footnoted and defended as if it were a Ph.D thesis.
But the ironic-funny bit comes here: that poster signed in as “Malkin”. Fanboy? Or the real thing desperately focusing on something to avoid the fact that she doesn’t have the guts to take on Ezra in a debate? There’s something about a lot of conservatives which reminds one of the insult, “his artillery is impressive, but not at all mobile”.
I’d also like to state that while I am far from perfect, I do my dead-level best not to say things that could be construed as homophobic or misogynistic, because those two states of mind are antithetical to my beliefs and convictions. However, being imperfect, it is possible and even likely that I have made a statement somewhere, at some time, that could have been construed as such. If I did, it was not meant in that way, and I’d be glad to apologize to anyone whose feelings were hurt by my words and explain my actual intent.
And that is all the countenance I will give any suggestion that I am either a homophobe or a misogynist.
Rumblelizard, kindly do not apologize for something that you haven’t done, or even something that you may have done but your accuser doesn’t have the stones to specify, let alone back up. Please. You wanna feel bad based on baseless allegations from bad people, become Catholic and do it properly.
Back on topic, on something I missed . One of Ezra Klein’s posters noted that Malkin’s self-ballyhooed MSA is also a tax break subsidized by other taxpayers who don’t have one Needless to say, she doesn’t seem to have a problem with that. Not only does she not have a problem with that, she ignores it and demands to know “Question for grown-ups: Who deserves government-subsidized health insurance?”(!) She does, it seems, and the Frosts don’t, nor do you.
Of course, the question of “deserve” is a red herring. If this argument turned on, say, a lost tax cut for the Frosts instead of a government service the rightsphere would be lauding their virtues to the skies. The real question is “why aren’t all Americans entitled to health insurance just as they’re entitled to police and fire services? Why can the rest of the first world provide this and we won’t?”
Oh, and she gets bonus points. In that same post she angrily asserts, “[c]ontrary to the liars in the left-wing blogosphere, you will not find one negative, ad hominem word about the Frost children written by me..” in the same post where she excerpts an anonymous denunciation by a “neighbor” of the Frosts who describes them as
It’s really wacky-impressive, if you think about it.BTW, Rumblelizard, thanks for sticking up for my dad…
HA! Rumblelizard = product of Catholic grade school, high school, and *drumroll* Jesuit college. Lapsed now, but apparently still visible from a mile away.
You’re welcome, Mike Ess. I know how much I love and appreciate my own dad even though I don’t agree with him on everything.
I’ve been thinking about this, and my problem with attitudes like “This is WAR, so your dad should die!” and the sliming of Graeme Frost and suchlike behavior is what it ultimately means for our country, for all of us. If it actually gets to the point of war, where we’re actually killing each other based on political ideology (and believe me, I’ve heard that being discussed on both sides of the fence) it’s going to be necessary to kill our neighbors, our family members, the person you smile at and buy coffee from in the morning. It just seems extremely dangerous and horrendous and self-defeating to me to go down that path.
If you take out the “lovable” part, that sounds exactly like Shrub.