Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Republicans do not trust women.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

You are here: Home / How Do You Fight This Kind of Stupid?

How Do You Fight This Kind of Stupid?

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This is what we are up against:

“I don’t think that the government should be involved in health care or health insurance,” says Greg Collett, a 41-year-old software developer in Caldwell, Idaho, who would rather pay the fine for now — $95 the first year — than signup.

“I calculated it out and it is cheaper for me for the next four years to pay the fine rather than get coverage,” Collett said. “At some point where it would make financial sense to pay for insurance rather than pay fines, I will make the decision from a financial standpoint.”

***

Collett counts himself among the 29 percent of people who said in an NBCNews/Kaiser poll they are angry about the health reform law. “The issue for me is that it is not the proper role of government,” he said.

Collett, who is married and has 10 children, says the kids are covered by Medicaid, the joint state-federal health insurance plan for people with low income and children who are not covered.

But it’s “absolutely not okay,” that they are, Collett says quickly. “There are a lot of people out there that’ll cry foul.”

Collett, whose children are home-schooled, likens taking Medicaid to sending children to public school. He also does not approve of government-funded public schools. “The government is taking your money. They are spending it on things they shouldn’t be,” he says. “Trying to get whatever you can back — I have nothing against that. You have to at some point try and get your tax dollars back.”

We live in the dumbest most selfish country in the world.

Reader Interactions

286Comments

  1. 1.

    piratedan

    and I’m sure that he loves America….not sure why, since he apparently hates the idea that Americans should help and nurture each other…..

  2. 2.

    Mudge

    How can anyone argue against that? And homeschooling in this case will perpetuate the stupidity and selfishness.

  7. 7.

    Jeff Spender

    I got into a brief “discussion” with a man who argued that Bible literalists cannot support the PPACA. Of course, he’s a Southern Baptist and, of course , all his the facts he used were bullshit propaganda.

  9. 9.

    Johannes

    If stupidity is genetic, there’s a chance his kids will drown from looking up in the rain.

  11. 11.

    Hal

    Is this another onion story? 10 fucking kids he obviously doesn’t make enough money to support to the point he had to rely on public support to provide for, but he hates big government. Gotcha.

    Oh and 41 is too old not to have insurance and not get regular checkups. Sorry dude buy your in colonoscopy territory now.

  14. 14.

    zed

    I say we mock them and their ilk until they are too ashamed to admit their ignorance in public.

  18. 18.

    MattF

    Well, he’s an idiot and his mind, such as it is, is made up. And there’s political implications: ‘Negotiation’ is not part of his behavioral repertoire. Particularly the subversive, liberal-effete notion that if you make a deal, you’ve actually made a commitment to keeping your end of the bargain. And so, we see now the infinite varieties of bad faith, where you agree to something, and then it turns out that you haven’t. Ask Mr. Boehner about that.

    So the answer is, you can’t fight it. In the end, you just have to do the right thing.

  19. 19.

    PsiFighter37

    29% eh? I feel like that’s within margin of the magic percentage.

    Also, too – 10 kids? Someone needs to lend the man a rubber and show him how those things work, since he seems like the kind of asshole who would tell his wife not to take the pill.

  20. 20.

    reflectionephemeral

    White populism used to involve government efforts to improve whites’ lives; no longer. The Southern Strategy-rooted fear that the gubmint is helping Them at the expense of Us began as a cynical tactic. Today, it explains about 99% of the thought process, rhetoric, and policy of the GOP– elite and rank-and-file alike.

    ETA: As MattF points out, this mentality makes compromise– and, therefore, the system of governance under the Constitution– impossible. The point of politics, for these folks, is fighting against the Other. Policy results don’t matter. So, they don’t want to compromise ’cause the whole point is not compromising, and you can’t meet in the middle ’cause they don’t care about achieving any policy results, or even care about just blowing the place up.

  21. 21.

    Jeremy

    Like I said the democrats should not cater to these bigots.Focus on the persuadables and rising demographic groups because people like this guy will never change.

  22. 22.

    cathyx

    f it were real, then the reporter would have asked him if he was aware that Medicaid is government healthcare, but that wasn’t brought up in the article. This doesn’t smell right.

  23. 23.

    dmsilev

    I was watching one of the votes on CSPAN, and they had viewers calling in. One of them was a woman who worked as a waitress who opposed the law because, and I quote, she “didn’t believe in getting sick”.

    I guess at some point the proper response becomes “You may not believe in Darwinian selection, but Darwinian selection certainly believes in you.”

  24. 24.

    Tripod

    @Jeff Spender:

    I’ve seen web ads for “christian” health insurance, so apparently these idiots are getting it on both ends. Obamcare is evil! Overpay for our shitty product!

  25. 25.

    PsiFighter37

    @Jeremy: You know what’d be real nice? Have jerkoffs like these voluntarily opt out of Medicaid, and then see what his reaction is to the medical bill when he has to take one of his offspring to the emergency room.

    Let these fuckers live out their survivalist fantasies and see how long it takes for it to dawn on them that there is some relevant role for government in their lives.

  26. 26.

    Mary G

    If he has ten kids on Medicaid, he cannot be paying any income taxes to “get back.” Hell and death, these people are idiots.

  29. 29.

    PsiFighter37

    @dmsilev: Gosh, I’m glad that if I don’t believe in sickness, it won’t ever happen to me because it’s not real!

    Or maybe I should just stop listening to Disturbed.

    Either way, that’s pretty goddamn delusional. I thought taking biology was a required course in high school?

  30. 30.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mary G: I’d bet the wifey is on medicaid too, pumpin’ out 10 little ones ain’t cheap. Also a large percentage of this country really have no idea how the income tax system works.

  31. 31.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    damn, that’s is some quality cluelessness Mr Collett has going there.

    But I will repeat myself – my conservative coworkers at that defense contractor I worked for couldn’t grasp that the military and their jobs were in turn are paid for by taxes.

  34. 34.

    Violet

    @PsiFighter37:

    he seems like the kind of asshole who would tell his wife not to take the pill.

    He’s the kind of asshole who would not allow her to take the pill because God wants them to have a bunch of kids. She would comply because he’s the “head of the household” and it’s her place to do what he says.

  36. 36.

    shelly

    Oh and 41 is too old not to have insurance and not get regular checkups. Sorry dude buy your in colonoscopy territory now.

    Similar thoughts. A hell of lot more can happen to you at 41 than at 26.
    And I don’t get the reasoning. “It’s not okay’ for the kids to be on Medicaid, but they are? So he takes the government assistance but bitches about it so he can feel he’s not a moocher?

  37. 37.

    jon

    There needs to be a push to end the ability of using bankruptcy to get rid of medical costs. Why should someone who chooses to eschew insurance get an option of that sort?

  38. 38.

    cathyx

    Let’s ask Maggie Fox, the reporter, why she didn’t mention to Greg that Medicaid is government healthcare. But then again, maybe she did mention it and his answer was edited out of the story to make the guy look like a total lunatic. This can’t be the entire story the way it’s written. A reporter would go into more detail than this.

  41. 41.

    Redshift

    @cathyx:

    If it were real, then the reporter would have asked him if he was aware that Medicaid is government healthcare, but that wasn’t brought up in the article. This doesn’t smell right.

    As I read the rest of the quote, he’s aware that Medicaid is government coverage, because he likens it to public schools. Then he says he’s opposed to public schools, but for some reason never gets around why they’re still using Medicaid. It’s a lot easier to just not use Medicaid than to do homeschooling, right? All he has to do is either pay out of pocket or not take his kids to the doctor.

  43. 43.

    pseudonymous in nc

    As Groucho never said, “I like my cigar, but I take it out once in a while.”

    On the one hand, this is nutpicking — in that irritating way where the lede isn’t so much buried as chucked in the sea — and on the other hand, American wingnut dumbasses are truly exceptional.

  44. 44.

    Violet

    “The government is taking your money. They are spending it on things they shouldn’t be,” he says.

    Iraq War. Military industrial complex. Oh, wait. That’s not what he meant?

  47. 47.

    Keith P.

    “The government is taking your money. They are spending it on things they shouldn’t be,” he says

    Well, if this guy had millions of votes to everyone else’s single vote, that opinion might mean something.

  49. 49.

    PsiFighter37

    @Violet: It’s okay to spend money on that stuff, because it’s used to blow up brown people.

    @Violet: My fiancee found some weird shit about ‘head of household’ stuff online – it basically seemed like a Christian spanking fetish. I thought it was satire at first, but these people are fucking brainwashed on this kind of stuff. Good God, it was strange.

  50. 50.

    trollhattan

    @Violet:
    Much of Idaho is an extension of Utah, in case that helps ‘splainin’ them ten keyuds. I’m certain they are very popular, there.

  51. 51.

    fuckwit

    @Chris: no we do not. there are a similar percentage of idiots in every country. the problem is that here we worship and elevate the idiots because FREE DUMB.

  52. 52.

    Chris

    @reflectionephemeral:

    White populism used to involve government efforts to improve whites’ lives

    Oh, hell yeah. More than that. Southern and Western populists were the original radicals, screaming for redistribution of wealth from the greedy oppressive 1%ers in their big Eastern cities who sucked their parts of the country dry. And they, along with urban “ethnic whites,” were the big winners of the New Deal, with such delightful things as rural electrification and interstate highways. As long as “redistribution” was about funneling Yankee money south and west, they couldn’t get enough of it. Heck, they still can’t get enough of it.

  53. 53.

    Tripod

    Come on now. He could also be on marriage number three, and the sort of men’s rights asshole who rakes his exes over the coals for custody.

  54. 54.

    Chyron HR

    @cathyx:

    This can’t be the entire story the way it’s written. A reporter would go into more detail than this.

    Welcome to America. What is the media like in your home country?

  59. 59.

    dmsilev

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Most likely just the kids. Idaho’s Health and Welfare department has a fairly straightforward chart giving income thresholds for eligibility. For a 12 (!) person household, children are covered at incomes less than $8600/month gross (about $100 K/year), but non-pregnant adults hit the threshold at about $900 a month.

    I’d certainly be curious to know how much private unsubsidized insurance for 10 children and 2 adults would cost. I’m going to guess it’s a shit-ton more than $95/year.

  60. 60.

    scav

    @dmsilev: So, “didn’t believe in getting sick”? Well, some believe in getting gay married. Let’s shut down the entire government and endanger the world economy so Everybody gets gay married! YeeHaw!

  62. 62.

    trollhattan

    @scav:

    I think we can all agree that the Best Thing for everybody is if his balls fall off while uninsured.

    Please proceed, Mr. Collett.

  63. 63.

    Citizen_X

    How do you fight this kind of stupid? With a ballot.

    And if they don’t accept that, you fight it with a rifle. Your choice, teatards. Either way, we got the numbers.

    (And yes, that is more important than having more guns.)

  66. 66.

    kc

    You know, if the situation were just that this man just can’t afford health insurance and has to pay a fine, I’d be sympathetic. But when I read that he has ten kids all on Medicaid, but doesn’t think the government has any role in healthcare policy . . . well, fuck him.

    TEN kids. All on Medicaid.

    Imagine if he were, you know . . .

  68. 68.

    fuzz

    @Valdivia:

    NYT article says locals are saying that 12 of the men captured/killed were “going abroad on a mission” so it looks like this was done to stop an imminent attack.

  69. 69.

    PsiFighter37

    @kc: I wish I hadn’t thought about the practicalities of such a contest. Can I make my brain un-think certain things?

  71. 71.

    Bob In Portland

    My sister just unleashed a stomach’s worth of bile on Facebook about that tyrannical Obama. The most frustrating part is that they won’t accept responsibility for the shutdown. It’s so weird, so out of their mind bug-eyed crazy. There’s absolutely no hope for her.

    I’m going down to visit my elderly mother in Florida and will see my sister when I’m there. I’ve already got a prescription of tranquilizers to get me through the three days. Oh god.

  72. 72.

    Scott

    Who paid for all those births. I don’t care if they were home-birthed or hospital, there were a lot of expenses. I bet some hospital or the state was stuck with the bill. Betcha there is food stamps involved also.

  74. 74.

    Gex

    So, he’ll pay for insurance only when he can get more back from it than what he puts into it. And he’s 1000% certain he will know ahead of time when that will be so he will be insured when a medical crisis occurs.

    There are too many of us who are too dumb and selfish for self-governance to work.

    Now excuse me while I continue my week-long non-stop weeping for the nation.

  75. 75.

    Tom Q

    @pseudonymous in nc: That Snopes thing is interesting, because I saw Groucho speak at Northwestern in 1970, and HE told the cigar story as if it had actually happened (though he changed the wording a bit, to, as I recall, “You notice while we’re filming I have a cigar in my mouth once in a while. But I don’t leave it in there all the time”)

    Maybe it’s one of those things he’d so often heard attributed to him that he’d just added it to his repertoire. (Though it’s odd he’d then deny it to Ebert only two years later)

  78. 78.

    fuzz

    @Valdivia:

    Possibly I know the mall of America stepped up security because not only is it a giant mall but there are something like 250k Somalians living right there. No matter where they’re from it’s surprising we have such good intel coming from Somalia of all places, to be able to pull something like this off is actually kind of surprising (to an uninformed civilian like me at least). In a weird way the fact that there is a large Somali diaspora might help us, as opposed to the absolutely tiny numbers of Pakistani/Afghan Pashtuns and Yemeni tribal folk who have connections here or in Europe.

  80. 80.

    aimai

    @Redshift: He argues that he is “owed” the Medicaid coverage for ten kids because…he thinks he could possibly have paid more than that in taxes. He is lying to himself in order to feel ok about the fact that he is literally and not metaphorically on welfare because he is unable to support the ten children he has carelessly allowed himself to force out of his wife.

  82. 82.

    Comrade Mary

    I kept reading “Collett” as “Colbert”. Which reminded me: isn’t Stephen Colbert one of 10 children? (Just checked: nope, he’s the youngest of 11.)

    I think his family was spared from being on Medicaid after after his father and two of his brothers died tragically young. But Colbert grew up to be a humane, responsible, empathetic person, so his Catholic parents obviously did a good job.

    And Colbert, rather than bitching about Medicaid, champions it.

    House Republicans, on the other hand, have done their part. They have voted to repeal Obamacare 39 times. One more, and they get free health care for life. Just kidding, they get that now.

    And folks, I tell ya, here is Obama’s trap. The feds are picking up 100% of the cost of each state’s Medicaid expansion until 2017. But then, over the next four years, the percentage the fed pays plunges all the way down… to 90%. …

    Under Obamacare, 180,000 people from Tennessee would be added to his state’s Medicaid, or TennCare program. But Haslam has said no, explaining:

    GOV. BILL HASLAM, R-TN (3/13/2013): A lot of people say, “Hey, that’s an easy call. Just expand three years 100% and then walk away at that point in time.” I don’t think you can easily walk away.

    No. Do you know how heartbreaking it is to tell someone they’re no longer getting health care? It’s so much kinder to just tell them they’re never getting health care.

  84. 84.

    Valdivia

    @fuzz:

    Your point about having that intelligence is totally on point. Apparently they sent intelligence guys to Kenya immediately following the Mall attack but I am sure there is more to it than that.

    @raven:
    Front page NYT. Top story on Somalia, below in libya they got the mastermind of the AQ Embassy attacks of 96(?).

  85. 85.

    TriassicSands

    We live in the dumbest most selfish country in the world.

    How the hell am I supposed to disagree with that?

  87. 87.

    PsiFighter37

    @Comrade Mary: I do wonder if the result of Republican states screwing over their constituents will cause migrations to states with better-run healthcare exchanges?

    If I had to guess, I’d say no – the people were stupid enough to vote the clowns in who are fucking them over; they’ll probably stay blissfully unaware of the benefits, listen to Sean Hannity and Rush say that people in blue states are desperately looking to move to avoid socialist creep, and think about how fucking good they have it that their healthcare system sucks.

    But at least they’re free, right? Even if it’s freedom from intellect…

  89. 89.

    Tommy

    I work for myself. I was like on healthcare.gov the second it opened. Epic fail on it working, but I kept going back.

    I think from the little research I’ve done, I will save about a $100 a month. That is real money.

    I paid cash for my house. I own my car. My largest monthly expense is health care. More than $300/month. It is painful to write that check each month. Looks like I will write a smaller check.

  90. 90.

    JPL

    @Bob In Portland: I’d email back and say in the great words of Scott Brown..
    bqhatevwr.

    So it appears that some really bad folks were taken out today and it was because of the dead man Reagan or something…

  91. 91.

    Chris

    @aimai:

    He argues that he is “owed” the Medicaid coverage for ten kids because…he thinks he could possibly have paid more than that in taxes.

    Also, while you can always try pointing out that they could never afford that shit on their own… it’s also become a popular meme on the right that the only reason prices are so high is because of government meddling, government taxation, and government programs, which force the poor businessmen to raise prices just so that they can stay afloat. If only none of these things had happened, prices would’ve stayed affordable. Government is the problem, not the solution.

  95. 95.

    Cassidy

    @fuzz: JSOC has it’s own intelligence capabilities and is not fully dependent on the intelligence apparatus.

    This and the last post are interesting. It makes us feel superior. Hell, I fell superior every day and inline amongst them. We’re not going to change them. They will not change. Me. Collett is lying to himself as Aimai says, and like so many others, he has convinced himself he’s paying taxes and is owed something in return. Just yesterday I was behind a women in traffic with a “taxxed off” number sticker and a mid 90’s Buick. You could tell from the state of the car she wasn’t paying taxes, but these people are convinced the gov’t is taking their money. This is a belief passed down from generation to generation. They will not change.

  96. 96.

    Gex

    @PsiFighter37: Whenever their lives get worse it is just more evidence that liberals are stealing from them and giving to the wrong people. There is the worst kind of feedback loop between these folks’ world view and their voting patterns.

  97. 97.

    RaflW

    At this point, I think the National Weather Service should just shut down. The satelite feed should go dark. no temp readings. See how Delta airlines likes having to forecast their own damn weather and brief their pilots.
    Watch the Weather Channel freak out when their meteorologists don’t have reams of scot-free data to turn into pretty maps.
    Hell, FEMA should slap some plywood on their own front door and unplug the phone.

  100. 100.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Cassidy: They think that because money is taken out of their checks every two weeks that they are paying taxes. The big direct deposit they get in April or so with $6K in EIC is just money they deserve – nothing to do with taxes. Because SHUT UP! That’s why.

  102. 102.

    David in N

    Ten children. Idaho. Two wives and 45 firearms is my bet. If it’s one woman, poor thing is all I have to say.

  103. 103.

    Omnes Omnibus

    We live in the dumbest most selfish country in the world.

    Cole, you apparently haven’t traveled overseas all that much, have you?

  106. 106.

    trollhattan

    Just heard on the radio Hagel is ordering DOD civilian employees back to work. No idea what that means on the grand scheme of things, but I can’t imagine the Republicans squawking too loudly. Because guns.

  107. 107.

    RaflW

    @shelly:

    And I don’t get the reasoning. “It’s not okay’ for the kids to be on Medicaid, but they are?” So he takes the government assistance but bitches about it so he can feel he’s not a moocher?

    I wonder if child protective service would take the kids if the parents refuse to insure the kids and get them at least basic care? There have been cases of homeschooler parents being forced to give their kids life-saving medicine against the parents “religious wishes.”

    Once you are 18 you can fuck yourself over by being an ignorant whack job, but we still sort of have rules about child endangerment.

  108. 108.

    Tommy

    @RaflW: My local TV station, and not a liberal kind of place went off on this. The “weather” guy went on air yelling he needed the government to do is job. He said he tries hard to tell us the weather, and well that is done via the government.

  109. 109.

    becca

    My 2yo granddaughter costs the kids 300 a month for TN Cover Kids (BC/BS).

    No exchanges here in TN so far. Haslam is GOP, but he’s got to think hard about Nashville. The legislature is out to exterminate us here in Memphis.

  111. 111.

    RaflW

    @cathyx: Well of course I know it’s a bad idea. But these Republican asswipes have no f’ing clue what the government does.

    Maintaing all essential services during a shutdown just continues to disappear the vital role of government.

  113. 113.

    trollhattan

    Colbert King is shrill

    Today there is a New Confederacy, an insurgent political force that has captured the Republican Party and is taking up where the Old Confederacy left off in its efforts to bring down the federal government.

    No shelling of a Union fort, no bloody battlefield clashes, no Good Friday assassination of a hated president — none of that nauseating, horrendous stuff. But the behavior is, nonetheless, malicious and appalling.

    The New Confederacy, as churlish toward President Obama as the Old Confederacy was to Lincoln, has accomplished what its predecessor could not: It has shut down the federal government, and without even firing a weapon or taking 620,000 lives, as did the Old Confederacy’s instigated Civil War.

    Not stopping there, however, the New Confederacy aims to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States, setting off economic calamity at home and abroad — all in the name of “fiscal sanity.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/colbert-king-the-tea-party-resurrects-the-spirit-of-the-old-confederacy/2013/10/04/95b37f6e-2c7b-11e3-97a3-ff2758228523_story.html?hpid=z2

    Preach it.

  114. 114.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @cathyx: The Russians aren’t exactly generous and enlightened. Nor are the Chinese. Romania is all kinds of fucked up. Then there is Pakistan. Oh, yeah, Saudi Arabia. I could keep going.

  116. 116.

    IowaOldLady

    You can’t argue with guys like this. He’s been acting out the stupid for a while now. The ACA is just the newest occasion. You have to move on and try to help more normal people figure out how to get insurance if they need it.

  117. 117.

    Tommy

    @RaflW: They have no clue. My brother’s wife works at TRANSCOM. A civilian. That is the United States Transportation Command. Know what she does for living?. She makes sure our troops have supplies.I don’t understand but they seem to have money to keep her at work through next week. Then she will loose her job.

  118. 118.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @IowaOldLady: I have been saying for a while that we can more or less ignore the tea party folks. They are unpersuadable and trying is like beating one’s head against a brick wall. It is the mushy middle that needs to be persuaded and those who lean left need to be encouraged to get out and vote.

  120. 120.

    TAPX486

    Totally OT, but seems while the rest of the guberment has been sleeping the Seals have snatched a couple of terrorist leaders, one in Libya and the other in Somalia. What won’t that Muslim/socialists usurper order next!

  121. 121.

    WereBear

    @opiejeanne: Probably a “quiverfull” family.

    Or Mormon. In either case, the poor kids, and especially, the poor wife.

    While I’m sure there are plenty of happy, religious, large families, the stories I read on “I escaped from fundamentalist religion” sites gives me doubts about most of them.

  122. 122.

    PsiFighter37

    @TAPX486: Clearly it means he’s going to send a drone to your local Starbucks next, right? I mean, that’s what Rand Paul told me, and he’s always right about everything, always, forever.

  123. 123.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @Bob In Portland: So is my best friend from high school, posting tea party bullshit about brave WWII vets storming the beaches of Normandy, yet cannot go to the WWII memorial because of President Obama insists of paying for healthcare for millions of lower income Americans than some structure of stone.

  124. 124.

    waspuppet

    Collett counts himself among the 29 percent of people who said in an NBCNews/Kaiser poll they are angry about the health reform law.

    Thus making the ACA about twice as popular as the Iraq invasion ever was. Yet somehow the general reaction to that anger was “Fk off Commie.”

    Funny how that works.

  127. 127.

    Villago Delenda Est

    1. Take the kids out of that home.

    2. Castrate this shitstain so his defective stupid genes are not passed on anymore.

    3. No anesthesia for the castration…this vile asshole needs to feel the pain of his stupidity.

  131. 131.

    RSR

    The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it.–John Adams

  134. 134.

    cathyx

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’ll use healthcare as a statistic for generosity since this article is about that, and all the countries you mentioned except Pakistan have universal healthcare. That’s fairly generous. As far as dumbness, that’s more difficult to measure, I think, and as far as their enlightenment, I think that’s quite subjective.

  135. 135.

    Tommy

    My parents are not so liberal. I note this cause things are changing. I had a family member, an openly gay women and her partner of 30+ years, moved in literally around the corner from my parents. I didn’t think this would work out so well. Funny thing, they are now my parents best friends.

  138. 138.

    Mike G

    @cathyx:

    There’s plenty of selfish and dumb people everywhere in the world, but in most countries they don’t have one of the two major political parties dedicated to them and controlled by them.

  140. 140.

    fka AWS

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The Russians aren’t exactly generous and enlightened. Nor are the Chinese. Romania is all kinds of fucked up. Then there is Pakistan. Oh, yeah, Saudi Arabia. I could keep going.

    Stupid, venal and selfish know no national boundaries.

  142. 142.

    joel hanes

    We live in the dumbest most selfish country in the world.

    My cow-orkers who grew up in Bulgaria, Romania, Pakistan, and rural India tell me otherwise.

  143. 143.

    Chris

    @Mr Stagger Lee:

    You know, at the risk of being a complete dick to the veterans involved, your right to visit a fucking monument, even if you did fight in the war, is nowhere near the biggest concern the government shutdown is causing. It’s not even in the top fifty.

  145. 145.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @cathyx: Ah yes, the Russian constitution guarantees free healthcare to all citizens. The Soviet constitution guaranteed the right to vote too. How well are the Russians doing? Some might say not so well.

    I don’t really see the point of hyperbolic rah-rah or “we suck” statements. Especially ones based on blatant nutpicking.

  146. 146.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Omnes Omnibus: The point here is that the US, for various reasons, has a large chunk of population that lives in ‘subsidized subsistance’, in which gubmint don’t do nuthin for them apart from all the shit that it actually does, but that doesn’t count because they pay (a comparatively small amount of) taxes and also too Cadillacs and T-bones.

  147. 147.

    Ash Can

    @Valdivia:

    so Seal Team Six and another group went and did their thing in Somalia and Libya.

    Cue the usual suspects on the left saying that we shouldn’t have done that because it probably involved spying on people to get the information needed to find these guys. And cue the usual suspects on the right saying “That’s no big deal, and it didn’t really happen and Obama’s lying about it, and he’s taking all the credit away from Seal Team 6, and hey WTF I thought we we shut Seal Team 6 down, why are they still operating?”

  148. 148.

    dogwood

    @trollhattan:

    You are right. Southeastern Idaho is an extension of Utah. But this guy lives in Canyon County, right next to Ada county (Boise) and that’s a different area. Canyon County might be the craziest in Idaho. It’s population really grew when right wing Californians of the libertarian anti-government, no property tax crowd started showing up in droves. As that happened more and more of the Canyon crazies were drawn into the 1st district while more Boise liberal areas were sent to the second legislative district. Thus it’s almost impossible to elect a Dem in Idaho. But what is really ironic is that while the Idaho 1st elects all the kooks, it’s actually the most fertile ground for Dems. I’ve had a few Democratic reps but they just can’t hold their seats in off-year elections.

  149. 149.

    trollhattan

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Sad that the coffin is proving infinitely large and the nails, too tiny to see.

    Confess the midterms have me spooked, too. I hope some zombie edition OFA can help get out the vote in a cycle normally dominated by Hoverounds.

  150. 150.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @pseudonymous in nc: That is a perfectly valid point. Saying we are the dumbest, most selfish country on earth based on nutpicking is not a valid point. I know it was hyperbolic, but it was, nevertheless, annoying.

  151. 151.

    trollhattan

    @dogwood:

    Crazier than the Panhandle? Yoikes.

    Friends moved to Nampa for a few years during the semiconductor boom, but had to escape back to California after deciding they simply weren’t ever fitting in. Another buddy still lives in Pocatello, which is hilarious in too many ways to count.

  153. 153.

    cathyx

    Meanwhile in Switzerland, they will vote on whether all adults in Switzerland should receive an unconditional income of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,800) per month from the state, with the aim of providing a financial safety net for the population.

  155. 155.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @schrodinger’s cat: Initiating an Adopt-A-Mushy-Moderate program? Have every liberal make a point of talking to a mushy moderate every day and providing them with verifiable facts.

    @cathyx: I am rather in favor of a program like that.

  156. 156.

    BGinCHI

    I so wish I had not clicked over here and read that. Shit.

    This guy is a bag of rocks and a sack with some eye holes cut out away from a pogrom.

  157. 157.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @dogwood: Strange that Idaho produced Frank Church, but not so when it also produced Helen Chenowyth. And I bet Randy Weaver is still held up as some martyr.

  160. 160.

    John O

    Confess the midterms have me spooked, too. I hope some zombie edition OFA can help get out the vote in a cycle normally dominated by Hoverounds.

    I feel the same way. The intensity is all on the Right. It’s a nightmare.

  161. 161.

    a4alice

    sigh…… can we just have one of the states give up their statehood and designate it as a place where we can send all the stupid people? Then we’ll know where they all are. And we can ignore them

  162. 162.

    Suffern ACE

    Well to be honest, if it weren’t for Medicaid, he would probably have six children and if it weren’t for federal government transfer payments, his neighbors would have long grown tired of him and run him out of town to preserve the food bank

  163. 163.

    Mike G

    And I bet Randy Weaver is still held up as some martyr.

    This would be the Randy Weaver that multiple wingnuts have mentioned to me as PROOF of Bill Clinton’s gun-grabbing Marxist perfidy.

    Trouble is, the ATF took down Weaver in 1991. Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas at the time; it has yet to be convincingly explained to me how he was directing a federal law enforcement operation in Idaho. Perhaps by the same magic that Obama as a Senator from Illinois was responsible for the botched response to Hurricane Katrina.
    Shorter wingnuts: “Bad Thing cause other Bad Thing.”

  165. 165.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    @Mike G:

    Considering they blamed 9/11 on Clinton and the Recession on Obama….

    Sorry, this isn’t a kind of stupidity you can fight, I’m convinced of it. It’s the kind of stupidity you have to survive.

  167. 167.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Mike G:

    It’s always fascinated me that somehow Bill Clinton was the actual President then, in 1991. Of course, we know that in his third term 9-11 happened because Hillary is a lesbian, and then Clinton launched the Invasion of Iraq to punish Saddam for framing Hillary for the murder of her lesbian lover, Vince Foster. Then, of course, in 2005, Barack Obama’s preterm started, and he trashed the economy in 2008 to set up his own election.

  170. 170.

    handsmile

    @cathyx:

    In the enormous category of FWIW, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s 2013 “Better Life Index,” ranked Switzerland fifth. Australia (for the third consecutive year) topped the list, followed by Sweden (my ideal nation), Canada, and Norway.

    “Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale.”

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/28/australia-best-place-live-work

    http://www.businessinsider.com/top-countries-on-oecd-better-life-index-2013-5?op=1

  172. 172.

    Suffern ACE

    @John O: if the Dems don’t solve that problem, they will collapse long before the Republicans give up power. I honestly don’t think Dem voters are that interested and there is a reason the Republicans can call them low information moochers. So far they’ve only felt backlash for that in one mid term election since 1994.

  174. 174.

    Felonius Monk

    We live in the dumbest most selfish country in the world.

    No we don’t. The country is neither dumb nor selfish. People such as Greg Collett are dumb stupid and selfish.

    BTW, this guy is a software developer? I don’t want any of his software anywhere near my computer — it would probably make it run backwards.

  175. 175.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    This is NOT what we are up against:

    Who pays attention to this douche nozzle. ten kids that he feels no responsibility for?

  177. 177.

    trollhattan

    Speaking of Mormons, they’re having their biennial caffeine-free PepsiFest in SLC, and have decided you laydees need to keep stayin’ home and poppin’ out those fresh, new Mormons.

    The ongoing debate about the limited role of women within the Mormon faith came to the forefront Saturday afternoon during a speech from D. Todd Christofferson, a member of Quorum of the Twelve. He said having women at home remains an essential part of society, saying that the “moral force” of women that kept societies on the righteous track for generations.

    He criticized feminist thinkers who view “homemaking with outright contempt,” and he cautioned against blurring feminine and masculine differences.

    “In blurring feminine and masculine differences, we lose the distinct, complementary gifts of men and women that together produce a greater whole,” Christofferson said.

    He later implored women to dress modestly, and be good and virtuous. “We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith,” he said repeating what a former high-ranking woman in the church said.

    http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/05/5796573/mormon-church-todd-christofferson.html#storylink=cpy

    Nothing more on a manned mission to Kolob–I don’t think they’ve perfected the space bicycle.

  178. 178.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @cathyx: No, I just don’t hold up any country as a paragon of virtue. We, in the US, can learn a lot from other countries and they can from us, but, for it to be remotely useful, we need to look at where we really stand and where they do.

  181. 181.

    ? Martin

    Collett, whose children are home-schooled

    And this is why California has been flirting with requiring parents that home-school have a teaching certificate.

  182. 182.

    John O

    @Suffern ACE:

    It’s a problem, for sure.

    But I also think it’s a function of semi-rationality. If the Dems had the House, and the GOP had the Senate and POTUS, it wouldn’t even occur to them (D’s) to hold the economy hostage over something that was litigated about as thoroughly as things get litigated, via SCOTUS decision AND national election. There would be a higher degree of acceptance of the concept, “We don’t have the votes.”

    They’re playing two different games here.

  184. 184.

    reflectionephemeral

    @Chris: Yep, and securities laws started in Kansas. But a white populist like William Jennings Bryan emerging today is impossible. He wanted government policy that favored debtors over creditors. Today’s white populism is resentment of the government, when perceived to be helping out groups. Social Security, Medicaid, torture, occupations are fine, ’cause they’re helping Us and hurting Them.

  185. 185.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @doug r:

    It doubles as a theological paradise, as well, so there’s that. There is the minor detail of all those ni*CLANGS* living there, of course.

  186. 186.

    Mike G

    @handsmile:

    Australia (for the third consecutive year) topped the list

    Lest anyone get too starry-eyed, I grew up in Australia and it also has it’s share of rednecks, low-information voters, insipid corporatized mass-media (perhaps even more so than the US), idiot mass-culture, authoritarian thug business moguls, right-wing bigots and other ills of Western society.

  188. 188.

    trollhattan

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Yes, it is. Buddy in question got his PhD there, in gummint (but doesn’t work at the university, today). Evidently when defending his dissertation on the 14th Amendment they started grilling him on the holy 2nd. Good times.

    Local Simplot plant unfortunately has a lot more influence on the town’s mentality than the college, although I’ve been to an actual lesbian coffeehouse.

  189. 189.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @? Martin:

    I knew that the home-schooling movement would eventually result in this. The absurd notion that these children must be “protected” from the society they will some day have to function independently in is at the heart of the christianist home school movement. Their faith is so fragile that the children must be indoctrinated in it continuously, and then, when those children discover there’s more to the world than they were told, all hell breaks loose.

  190. 190.

    Suffern ACE

    @John O: yeah. Right now theirs is the game where they only have to win one election. We have to win every presidential election until they put fat tony underground and hope to god ruth doesn’t die if we lose.

  191. 191.

    Kyle

    @Felonius Monk:

    BTW, this guy is a software developer? I don’t want any of his software anywhere near my computer — it would probably make it run backwards.

    When installed it sets your system clock to the year 1675.

  192. 192.

    ? Martin

    Remember, the GOP wanted these guys to be home not getting paid:

    A key al Qaeda operative wanted for his role in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 has been captured in a U.S. special operations forces raid in Tripoli, Libya, U.S. officials tell CNN.
    Abu Anas al Libi was grabbed from the Libyan capital in what one of the officials described as a “capture” operation from the Libyan capital. The U.S. operation was conducted with the knowledge of the Libyan government, a U.S. official said.
    Al Libi — on whom the U.S. government had put out a $5 million reward — is alleged to have played a key role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of American embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Nairobi, Kenya.

    No matter what they say in front of the microphones, that’s what they voted for.

  194. 194.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Amir Khalid: A function of the human condition. Some people are assholes and some assholes get power.

    ETA: Some people ain’t too bright and they vote too.

  195. 195.

    Mike in NC

    This putz has 10 kids, home-schools his brood, and lives in fucking Idaho (Ground Zero for imbeciles). Why isn’t he running for Congress?

  196. 196.

    Woodrowfan

    @Omnes Omnibus: they are still burning witches in Africa, and raping women to “cure” them of teh gay. Fearful, superstitious reactionaries and ignorance are a human problem, not just an American one. Although I do wish the republicans would quite trying to make the US the Gold Medal winner in the ignorance Olympics.

  198. 198.

    Chris

    @reflectionephemeral:

    Yeah.

    They resented the federal government in those days too, but mostly because they saw it (correctly) as an agent of “the creditors,” who were the true enemy. Somewhere along the line, resentment of the creditors stopped being a thing. Grumblings about New York based financial institutions still happen, but they don’t matter much; the red staters still ally with them in every electoral cycle. Because they resent the constituencies you just listed a lot more… and (partly because of that resentment) they absolutely refuse to see that most of the ways “big gub’mint” is hurting them today come down to it being (again) bought and paid for by their new best friends the creditors.

  199. 199.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @KTMailer: Yeah, it would have been nice if the NBC reporter had bothered to mention that…

    About:

    My full name is Gregory Lee Collett. I was born on July 7, 1972 in Twin Falls, Idaho, the second oldest of eight children. While growing up my father worked for the Forest Service and so I lived in Montana, Washington, Utah, and Virginia, as well as several places in Idaho.

    […]

    I have had the opportunity to teach many people about advanced constitutional concepts, explain the challenges we face as a nation and state, break down complex problems, and demonstrate how the sole purpose of government should be to secure our individual, God-given rights.

    Hmm….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  200. 200.

    Mike in NC

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    The absurd notion that these children must be “protected” from the society they will some day have to function independently in is at the heart of the christianist home school movement.

    Surely you’ve run into deranged clowns who refuse to donate blood to the Red Cross lest their precious bodily fluids might end up going to one of “those people”? I know I have.

  203. 203.

    handsmile

    @Mike G:

    And I expect the factors you cited must have played a large role in the recent election of the loathsome Tony Abbott as its Prime Minister.

    No stars in my eyes about Australia; merely noting what OECD researchers had compiled and why.

  204. 204.

    Sileskelley

    Wasn’t there a time in America where the Homeschooling, quiver full, government conspiracy theorist, technophobe, marginally literate folks were so few that they were largely ignored by the world outside of Appalachia?

  207. 207.

    Woodrowfan

    @Mike in NC:

    Surely you’ve run into deranged clowns who refuse to donate blood to the Red Cross lest their precious bodily fluids might end up going to one of “those people”? I know I have.

    Really??!! GAH. I don’t, I mean, How? GAH!!!!!!!

  208. 208.

    JPL

    @raven: Who did they play? oh right.. Last week was good though.

    also,too.. we took out all these top terrorists… why is this not all over the news.. wtf

  209. 209.

    John O

    Oh, and you don’t fight this kind of stupid. No way.

    No cure, as we say.

    Still betting on default. The two sides aren’t close, I don’t care what Boehner says.

  211. 211.

    Woodrowfan

    @Kyle:

    Dig into the personal history of a “libertarian” and you’ll find a government paycheck. Every time.

    Or a parent that depended on food stamps, or some other benefit program.

  212. 212.

    Violet

    @Mike in NC:

    Surely you’ve run into deranged clowns who refuse to donate blood to the Red Cross lest their precious bodily fluids might end up going to one of “those people”? I know I have.

    One of my friends growing up, her stepdad was like that. Of course, that was awhile ago. We were aghast then.

  213. 213.

    opiejeanne

    @WereBear: Yeah, I forgot about how Mormon Idaho is.

    When we lived in SoCal there was a cluster of Mormon families in our neighborhood. We liked most of them and when two of the best* were summoned to move to Utah both wives told me it scared them spitless. It seems that Mormon leaders tended to be a lot more laid back than in Utah or Idaho, and they had horror stories they’d been told by friends and families. They dreaded being forced into the mold of Molly Mormon, and they were very annoyed that the elders might choose to view their pantry every week to make sure they’d done the requisite baking, etc.

    *of course they took the best and left the worst family where it was. This family was so dysfunctional it wasn’t funny, and they were at war with almost everyone else in the neighborhood. Their two older sons sold booze to other kids in the bushes at the side of our front yard, they had two adopted children removed from their custody for abuse, and other similar stuff.

  214. 214.

    Violet

    @Kyle:

    Dig into the personal history of a “libertarian” and you’ll find a government paycheck. Every time.

    Didn’t McPinkHimalayanSalt’s dad work for New York City in some capacity? Government paycheck.

  215. 215.

    Big R

    @becca: Remember that Memphis is full of blah people, so it doesn’t count.

    Any other Memphians care to weigh in; plan a Riverside meetup?

  216. 216.

    Jeremy

    Why are some people so worried about the midterms ? right now the republican party is tanking in approval and congressional polls. Nothing suggests that 2014 will be a replay of 2010. Though a number of people on this blog bought the Beltway press BS about Romney beating Obama in 2012.

  217. 217.

    Kyle

    @Mike in NC:

    Surely you’ve run into deranged clowns who refuse to donate blood to the Red Cross lest their precious bodily fluids might end up going to one of “those people”?

    P.W. Botha, Vorster, and the rest of the Boer thugs whose ideas ceased progressing when their ancestors left Europe in the 17th century, are all rotting in the ground now. But the spirit of Apartheid lives on, unfortunately.

  219. 219.

    David Fud

    @a4alice: We already have several of those. Washington DC, Puerto Rico, a number of territories in the Pacific, and, last but not least, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I am sure I am missing a few, but W already took advantage of that particular loophole.

  220. 220.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jeremy: Some people have been expressing worry based on Nate Silver’s piece from July saying that based on what he had then it was looking like a toss up.

  221. 221.

    Gravenstone

    Semi-related; wandered by an old site I used to frequent and there was a post up about the healthcare bill. A couple of the resident wingnuts and the local glibertarian were all in fine fettle about things.

    Wingnut 1 introduced me to a new word that seems all the rage in the wingnutosphere (although I’ve never seen it elsewhere) – Barry-cades (cf. the closure of the WW II memorial et. al)

    Wingnut 2 (former Wall Streeter) had a densely packed load of idiocy where he advocated that the exchanges be solely voluntary (which they are, if you can find insurance through other provenance, you don’t need them) and of course that people should be allowed to buy insurance across state lines.

    And the glibertarian was of course ranting about government accruing power not actually granted it by the populace.

    I was swiftly reminded why I left that particular pack of jackals after a blow up last year.

  222. 222.

    John O

    As a true Chicagoan, I have to be and am interested to root for the ‘Cats against the hated Buckeyes, and when I say hated I mean unless they’re in a National Championship game against an SEC team. In that scenario I’m rooting for THE Ohio State University hard.

  224. 224.

    scav

    @trollhattan: So the Momons come out with that about the little LayDees now? Guess they figure they’re not likely to get that Mormon President anytime soon. Or, (probably more likely) they’ve got the same Outreach program the G00pers do: slap em around until they tell you how much they love you.

  225. 225.

    Mike G

    @WereBear:

    Utah. Highest per capita antidepressant intake in the nation

    Also the highest rate of financial fraud, and highest per-capita porn consumption. What a healthy society.

  226. 226.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:

    I have had the opportunity to teach many people about advanced constitutional concepts

    Oh, so he teaches Con Law; just like the President. Maybe someone should tell Greg, he’s just like Obama.

  227. 227.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Mike G:

    I grew up in Australia and it also has it’s share of rednecks, low-information voters, insipid corporatized mass-media (perhaps even more so than the US), idiot mass-culture, authoritarian thug business moguls, right-wing bigots

    And they all got their shit together and last month elected a Tea Party inspired far right Conservative government.

    But at least the weather is nice.

  228. 228.

    dmsilev

    @Violet: I have a vague memory that he was some sort of contractor (builder, perhaps) who made big bucks on government money.

  230. 230.

    Shakti

    You have ten children on Medicaid. And you’re a software developer who homeschools or has his wife homeschool his children.

    And you think the government should stay out of health care.

    Please, zip up your pants. Permanently. Along with your mouth.

  234. 234.

    Mike G

    @LesGS:

    My mistake, the ATF’s court action against Weaver was 1991, the cabin siege was August 1992. But Bill Clinton was not President during either event.

  235. 235.

    fka AWS

    @gogol’s wife:

    Cue Maureen Dowd to use “barrycades” tomorrow. She loves to type the word “Barry.”

    She doesn’t type it, “Barry” is a macro on her keyboard.

  236. 236.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @LesGS:

    George H.W. Bush was President then, here in the real world.

    Perhaps Carter was in charge then in wingtard land.

  237. 237.

    opiejeanne

    @KTMailer: He seems to think that it’s somehow a conflict of interest for his opponent who was appointed to her deceased husband’s office to vote for issues her husband championed. What. A. Maroon.

    And just look at that youthful face. If that guy’s 41 then he’s probably a Mormon.

  238. 238.

    Reformed Panty Sniffer

    @Felonius Monk:

    I love how the story never mentions his running for state representative, or his platform:

    … I am well versed in the working of government and the proper role it should play. I ran against John McGee in District 10 two years ago because I saw a need to stand up for limited government and ethics in leadership. I have advocated for honesty, transparency, and fiscal responsibility in government throughout the past 15+ years as I have been involved with causes and organizations that champion freedom and liberty. I have had the opportunity to teach many people about advanced constitutional concepts, explain the challenges we face as a nation and state, break down complex problems, and demonstrate how the sole purpose of government should be to secure our individual, God-given rights. I have worked with others to provide solutions to the issues we face, and I bring to the legislature not only the ability to recognize counterfeit conservatism, but the knowledge to translate principle into policy.

    Seems to me the reporter missed a perfect opportunity to put this guy’s rebellion in context. He’s a total asshat; Mormon too. Explains everything.

  239. 239.

    Mike G

    @Reformed Panty Sniffer:

    “demonstrate how the sole purpose of government should be to secure our individual, God-given rights…”

    “Among them, my right to have the taxpayers of Idaho pay for the health care for my ten kids while I blather about the Marxism of Obamacare.”

  240. 240.

    LesGS

    @Mike G: Thanks. I knew Bush I was presidenting, but I remembered 1992 because my second daughter was born that year, and was around the same age as the baby Vicki was holding when she was shot.

    As that was some time and many beers ago, I thought I might be misremembering, so I checked Wiki.

  241. 241.

    Felonius Monk

    @Reformed Panty Sniffer:

    Seems to me the reporter missed a perfect opportunity to put this guy’s rebellion in context.

    Seems this reporter (obviously not a journalist) did a piss poor job. Probably should be reassigned to covering the dog bite reports or something similar.

  242. 242.

    gene108

    How incompetent a software developer do you have to be to be poor enough to qualify for Medicaid?

    Software development, and the IT field in general, is one of the most lucrative professions in the country.

  244. 244.

    mai naem

    Collett’s just a big fat leech. He’s probably paying zero taxes because of all the kids. He probably gets a tax credit of some sort because of the home schooling a la Santorum. And then to top it off he’s got all the kids on Medicaid but he doesn’t like socialized medicine? Wahhhh? He’s got his head so far up his ass that it’s got to be coming of his mouth.

  245. 245.

    dmsilev

    @gene108: Ten kids. I looked it up (see upthread) and assuming that his wife doesn’t work (with ten homeschooled kids, that’s a pretty reasonable assumption), he’d qualify for Medicaid if he earned less than about $100K per year gross. Especially for someone living off the beaten track, that’s entirely plausible even for a good programmer with in-demand skills.

  247. 247.

    Mike G

    @gene108:

    Having ten kids in this day and age is financially irresponsible unless you’re earning well into six figures.

    Most IT jobs pay a middle-class wage but are not lucrative. The high-paying jobs tend to be in high-cost areas of the country.

    Methinks Mr. Personal Responsibility relies heavily on charity from his extended family and/or church.

  248. 248.

    fuckwit

    You win elections, John, that is how you fight that kind of stupid. Because that kind of stupid is the minority, and the minority does not rule in a Democracy.

    The minority rules in an oligarchy, a plutocracy, a monarchy, or in the modern Teabagger-infested House, or in the filibuster-infested Senate, but not in a Democracy.

    And you also ignore the completely irresponsible corporate media, who nutpicks these fucking idiots in order to give the impression that Applebee’s salad bars all over the country are packed full of these kinds of morons.

    They are not.

    Most people are decent people, they just want to live their lives. Tribal identities and fears cause their brains to turn off, and there is indeed a tiny elite of truly evil people around (fundamentalists, Koch brothers, K-street, Karl Rove, etc) who demagogue those fears and identities.

    How you stop this is the same way that black people got civil rights, that gay people got to get married and serve in the military, that women got the vote, etc etc.

    You educate, inform, inspire, include. You isolate the idiots– like the fucknut quoted above– from polite society via letting their idiocy stand as an embarassment to anyone associatd with them. You let the hardcore haters hate, and respond to them with dignity no matter what, letting their firehose and attack-dogs and shutdowns and rape-justifications show who they really are, in contrast to you… and watch decent people back away from them slowly and towards you.

    You expose their hate to the light. You don’t show hate back towards them (I know, that’s the hardest part, auugh, they piss me off so goddamned much).

    You invite and include the convincable people, the people you can reach, and leave the door open for them to join whenever they’ve had enough.

    You build a movement. You run candidates, you fight elections and court cases and corporations, you lose and lose and lose, and eventually you start to win.

    This is how you solve this. This is how you solve all political problems, really.

    Oh yeah, and all this shit takes money and time too, so volunteer with your local DNC or OFA, and donate money as per Doug’s thread.

  249. 249.

    Julia Grey

    I’d certainly be curious to know how much private unsubsidized insurance for 10 children and 2 adults would cost. I’m going to guess it’s a shit-ton more than $95/year.

    Yeah, but in his family situation he’s likely to get a big subsidy! (I’m assuming the kids stay on Medicare.) Which means he actually might get a subsidy big enough that he could get his and his wife’s insurance for, say, $195 a month, which would be a hell of a lot cheaper than an emergency room visit when he breaks his leg.

    (I like how he figures his only expense without insurance will be the fine. ONLY if you don’t get sick or have an accident, guy. If you do, you’ll spend a hell of a lot more than you would have with an Obamacare-subsidized policy.)

  250. 250.

    Kyle

    @Joel:

    What kind of software does this guy develop? Inquiring minds want to know.

    From his politics, I’m guessing he programs textile looms operated by sweatshop child labor in Bangladesh.

  251. 251.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Mike G:

    I grew up in Australia and it also has it’s share of rednecks, low-information voters, insipid corporatized mass-media (perhaps even more so than the US), idiot mass-culture, authoritarian thug business moguls, right-wing bigots and other ills of Western society.

    See: recent election, Tony Abbott, treatment of Julia Gillard, etc.

  253. 253.

    Mandalay

    @Mike in NC:

    Why isn’t he running for Congress?

    Actually he is running as a Republican for a state seat in Idaho. He is a Mormon, and he makes Ted Cruz and Ron Paul look like Marxists.

    He wants to eliminate the Federal Reserve, state income tax in Idaho, property taxes in Idaho, government involvement in education, state universities. the Department of Commerce, unions, government welfare programs, the regulation of firearms and ammunition, membership in the UN, corporation tax, government retirement programs, etc…

    And one more thing: “Elective abortion should be treated by law as murder”.

    Whew.

  255. 255.

    El Cid

    I’m sorry, but many of his brood will hate him for how stupid an asshole he is, even if they do love him as a father.

  257. 257.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    I thought MoDo was talking about Abe Frohman. The sausage king of Chicago.

  258. 258.

    PurpleGirl

    @cathyx: It’s all too real. We didn’t get the whole story. Ten to one he’s a fundamentalist Mormon and has a few more wives who he can’t actually talk about. He’ll lump ten kids into one family but there may even be a few more there too. The kids get Medicaid because, well, the mother is poor, don’t you know. It’s standard practice out that way. For all that Mormons talk about how they help each other, it doesn’t seem to happen as regards health care.

  259. 259.

    MikeInSewickley

    I got to the thread very late… thank God.

    To find such absolute stupidity should be rare but, given what the last 30+ years of total ignorance of facts and a changing world has brought us to, I am no longer surprised other than when an amazing outlier pops up like this cumquat. I really can’t even approach any of the right-on-the-mark comments above.

    Only that with each passing year, I grow more fearful for my children’s and this country’s future. Every vote against this kind of idiocy counts no matter what.

  260. 260.

    PurpleGirl

    @Tripod: I know it’s not just one wife. Too many f***ing fundamentalist Mormons out that way. They know better than to mention the sister wives and their celestial marriages. Better to make it seem like wife #1 is a cow who keeps getting pregnant, year in and year out.

    (If it sounds like I don’t like them and their tribe and hold them in complete contempt, I do. If they were taking that personal responsibility they always talk about, they’d be honest about their sister wives and the rugrats. And they’d pay for them themselves.)

  261. 261.

    opiejeanne

    @WereBear: I haven’t checked in several years but they used to have the highest percentage of women deserting their families w/children.

  263. 263.

    Southern Beale

    @Tripod:

    I’ve seen web ads for “christian” health insurance, so apparently these idiots are getting it on both ends. Obamcare is evil! Overpay for our shitty product!

    I wrote about one of those Christian “health co-ops” last week …

  264. 264.

    Southern Beale

    @Redshift:

    Then he says he’s opposed to public schools, but for some reason never gets around why they’re still using Medicaid.

    Because he’s not opposed to public schools in principle, just opposed to what his kids are taught there — you know, evolution and climate change, and maybe some inconvenient facts in history and social studies class that he doesn’t want to be confronted with.

    Medicaid, on the other hand, doesn’t challenge any of his hard and fast beliefs about the world.

    Typical.

  265. 265.

    Chris

    @PurpleGirl:

    I was never sure why people made such a big deal about Mormon craziness (as opposed to, well, any other religious group) until I got invited to a service this summer by a classmate… and immediately after the service, everyone was like “So you like what you’ve seen here, right?” “Well, sure, but…” “Great! I have an opening this evening if you want to get baptized!” “Uhhh… I have a test to cram for, dude, can I get back to you?” [NOT…] Like, damn, “pushy” doesn’t even begin to cover it. How do you convert anyone with snake oil that smells that strong?

  268. 268.

    4jkb4ia

    Indirectly bolstering John’s point, we have a Bernie Miklasz update. Today he laid out that the Cardinals must either a) solve Liriano in PNC Park in the presence of a joyously howling madhouse (Bob Costas told neutral viewers that this they would have to see) or b) rely on Wacha and his all of 63 major league innings.

    Directly bolstering John’s point, that guy is likely to be one of Labrador’s constituents. You can’t fix the kind of block of stupid that has put us into this conundrum. The danger is people like Ted Cruz who aren’t living in this century either but who are smart. If Louie Gohmert by himself goes on TV, most voters can understand this is not the brightest bulb in the box. But because smarter people have chosen to exploit this kind of stupid, voters can blame Congress as a whole because it hasn’t worked since 2010.

  269. 269.

    Bill Arnold

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Then, of course, in 2005, Barack Obama’s preterm started, and he trashed the economy in 2008 to set up his own election.

    The causality-be-damned thinking continues. They are still trying to make Barack Obama a one term president.

  270. 270.

    Chris

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Ha! No, actually. Public transportation + bicycle. If I had the money for even a used car… well, I’d spend it on something more important. Some day.

  272. 272.

    Chicagopat

    @PsiFighter37: The thing that saddens me, with these healthcare fights, fights with gun nuts, creationists, etc., is that it is always their children that are the ones paying the price for the idiocy of the parent. The kids are the ones who will go unvaccinated, get rotting teeth, suffer from preventable and treatable illness, shoot themselves or their siblings with the gun daddy left out while typing a screed on the internet, the ones who won’t be able to get out of high school, much less into college, because they have a 15th century understanding of how the world works.

  275. 275.

    PurpleGirl

    Okay, so some of my comments were hyperbolic. But it still stands that the man is living in another century, like the 14th or thereabouts. And it seems to be standard in Utah and Idaho that Mormon children end up on Medicaid.

  278. 278.

    Nancy Irving

    @aimai:
    To give the guy a small (very small) break, if you look at his website you’ll see that several of the kids are adopted.

    So he is “giving back” to a degree.

    But still a fanatic in denial.

  280. 280.

    joel hanes

    @Jeremy:

    Why are some people so worried about the midterms ?

    1. Turnout

    2. Gerrymandering

    3. Turnout

    4. Vote suppression

    5. Turnout

  283. 283.

    Matt

    ““I calculated it out and it is cheaper for me for the next four years to pay the fine rather than get coverage,
    …
    Collett, who is married and has 10 children, says the kids are covered by Medicaid,”

    Hey look wingnuts, I found one of them WELFARE QUEENS y’all are always shouting about! Too bad he’s one of YOU…

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