Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The revolution will be supervised.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Infrastructure week. at last.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

You cannot shame the shameless.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Second rate reporter says what?

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / This Week In Blackness / Obamacare is Punishment for Slavery?

Obamacare is Punishment for Slavery?

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This post is in: 

After Congress passed the debt ceiling extension and reopened the government, the owner of Smokin’ Joe’s Ribhouse in Rogers, Arkansas, Johnny Howard, decided to make this public statement on the road sign outside of his restaurant:

Obamacare_Slavery

The sign was up for approximately 45 minutes, and after it was taken down, Howard apologized and said:

It’s the policy and I made the mistake of wording it in the wrong fashion. The policy. It’s not the person it’s the policy, … To me this health care plan is a job killer. I myself will have to eliminate at least one location if all the policies that were written originally go through.

Okay, so a policy to grant people access to affordable healthcare is somehow a punishment for slavery??!! 

I. Just. Can’t.

Also on today’s #TWiBRadio, #TeamBlackness discussed Republicans win . . . nothing, the House of Representatives Stenographer ain’t takin’ no more damn memos, and the punishment for slavery is . . . health insurance?

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And this morning on #amTWiB, The Morning Crew discussed burning history for money, a Florida school named after a KKK “Grand Wizard” might actually get a name change, and Japanese wine for kitty cats.

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And, in case you missed it, yesterday was my birthday and I may have had a couple of drinks to celebrate my transition out of the 25-34 demographic:

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(Cross-posted)

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  1. 1.

    Keith P.

    I myself will have to eliminate at least one location if all the policies that were written originally go through.

    One less rib joint in the world? That’s good for health care.

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Quite aside from the “punishment for slavery” stupidity, the idea that ACA is a “job killer” is true only for “businessmen” who obviously have no business being businessmen.

  5. 5.

    aimai

    @Keith P.: Interesting hedge he makes there–he must suspect that since “all the policies” that he’s heard about are, in fact, lies he won’t be closing any of this rib shacks. Maybe he thinks that Obamacare mandates that he give all his worker’s Ted Cruz’s gold plated Goldman sachs 40,000 dollar a year coverage?

  6. 6.

    Trollhattan

    So if we had slavery for, what, two-hundred years? and the biblical “eye-for-an-eye” rule is in force (being the fundy Souf and all), then we can all agree that two-hundred years of Obama is required, after which we can reevaluate the program?

    Good, our work here is done.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    It’s the policy and I made the mistake of wording it in the wrong fashion.

    So is he apologizing for criticizing Obamacare or slavery?

  9. 9.

    Culture of Truth

    I myself will have to eliminate at least one location if all the policies that were written originally go through.

    I don’t buy it; he could have put up a sign that said “Obamacare Kills Jobs” but he didn’t — instead he went with
    “punishment” and “slavery”, suggesting, as the old Phil Hartman sketch went, he wants to hate Obamacare, but needs a reason.

  10. 10.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Wouldn’t a Xian businessman see it as his duty to provide good health insurance, stewardship and all that? and as others have indicated, I’d bet a large amount of quatloos that this guy’s books don’t support his assertion.

  11. 11.

    scav

    Hey Johnny, show us how much you really hurt: close ’em all! This lukewarm devotion to the sacred cause won’t get you into TeaHeaven.

  12. 12.

    Chris

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Quite aside from the “punishment for slavery” stupidity, the idea that ACA is a “job killer” is true only for “businessmen” who obviously have no business being businessmen.

    I just wanted to see that again.

    Also,

    “In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By “business” I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”

  13. 13.

    Anonymous At Work

    Citation? I’d like to be able to link directly to source for my friends from NW Arkansas.

  14. 14.

    pseudonymous in nc

    I myself will have to eliminate at least one location if all the policies that were written originally go through.

    Yeah, because who would want food service workers to have access to healthcare?

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @Pooh:

    Got me. Aside from the employer mandate, which was delayed by a year and only applies (I think) to employers with more than 50 employees, I don’t know what policies have not yet been implemented that would affect this guy’s business.

  16. 16.

    shortstop

    White man looks at black president and is unable to form any thought, idea or analogy unrelated to president’s blackness.

  17. 17.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Chris: that’s sociocommie talk and would never be acceptable in American poli–oh.

    Yeah, if you can’t run your business and provide healthcare — especially with a more level playing field — then the problem is with your business.

  18. 18.

    Culture of Truth

    Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

  19. 19.

    scav

    @Baud: Obamacare, clearly, as he’s fighting for slave wages w/o bennies. “Hello, I’m Typhoid Mary and I’ll be serving you today and manning the kitchens as well. Would you like to see our cocktail list as I bartend, to make up my all-merkan three part-time jobs? Might I suggest the ribs, they’re very tender here. I can personally attest to that, mine are constantly being kicked.”

  20. 20.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    The “good Christian businessmen” are NOT “good Christians”. They’re Mammon worshipers.

    If they actually WERE “good Christians” they’d be doing exactly as you suggest.

  21. 21.

    Ksmiami

    @scav: for a minute I thought u wrote teavana – you know the high end mall store where they give samples and sell 500 tea kettles… Lol

  23. 23.

    Hal

    Reminds me of when I was a kid, and one of my white friends told me his parent were not voting for Jessie Jackson for President because he would, and I quote; “Give all the rights to black people.” We were little grade school kids then, but even at that tender age I just thought that was so fucking stupid.

  25. 25.

    Kay

    I had a conversation today with a woman who retired early and was covered under her former employer’s health plan until 2009 when the former employer was bought out and dropped the plan.

    She relates this as “I lost my health insurance in 2009, when Obama came in”

    So I say “what did Obama have to do with the company dropping retiree health insurance?” and she pauses and says “that’s not what I meant”.

    Nothing, in other words.

    It really does come close to the “I blame Obama” joke, how she has just magically connected these two events.

  29. 29.

    WereBear

    Lousy businessmen; the ones who don’t fix staff bathrooms, and cook up spoiled meat, and yell at the employees, and cut corners… yeah, they might choke at giving up another nickel of profit.

    Actual human beings… not so much.

  30. 30.

    Rusty

    Haha… I lived in Rogers for 6 months. Sister city to Bentonville, home and birthplace of Walmart. Can’t recall ever eating at Smokin’ Joes Rib House.

  31. 31.

    johnny aquitard

    From WebMD, regarding Mental Health and Delusional Disorder:

    Delusional disorder, previously called paranoid disorder, is a type of serious mental illness involving psychosis. Psychosis is the inability to tell what is real from what is imagined. The main feature of delusional disorder is the presence of delusions — unshakable beliefs in something untrue. People with delusional disorder experience non-bizarre delusions, which involve situations that could occur in real life, such as being followed, poisoned, deceived, conspired against, or loved from a distance. These delusions usually involve the misinterpretation of perceptions or experiences. In reality, however, the situations are either not true at all or highly exaggerated.

    Although delusions might be a symptom of more common disorders, such as schizophrenia, delusional disorder itself is rather rare. Delusional disorder most often occurs in middle to late life and is slightly more common in women than in men.

    I call bullshit. Delusional disorder is anything but rare; at least 27% of this nation is seriously mentally ill and is convinced Obama is trying to persecute them.

  32. 32.

    Patrick

    To me this health care plan is a job killer. I myself will have to eliminate at least one location if all the policies that were written originally go through.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If the ACA is bad for the economy, then so is Medicare. I’m guessing a fair number of this guy’s customers is on Medicare. Why is he not demanding that Medicare be defunded??? Heck, his hero Reagan claimed Medicare was socialism.

  34. 34.

    ryk

    The Cardinals post-season batting average is pretty dismal. I can’t see how anyone could fail to see Obama is causing that.

  35. 35.

    Culture of Truth

    @Kay: That’s crazy, but somewhat typical. My take is that it’s both racial, and not. They were enraged by conservative Dem JFK, but Nixon was ok, they said Clinton put crack pipes on teh xmas tree, he became ‘the first black President”; they trashed Gore, they will surely freak out if Hillary runs and wins.

  36. 36.

    shortstop

    @Arclite: They claim that the workers being cut from full time to part time are a result of employers’ not being able to pay for healthcare, which is required under the ACA if you have more than 50 full-time employees. However, there are a couple of problems with this theory. One, the number of people dropped to part-time status started after the economy crashed in late ’08, peaked in the months following that, and is actually on the decrease now. Two, we have no real evidence other than whines and threats that businesses are reducing workers’ hours, and several small and large companies have recently announced that they’re moving workers back to full time specifically because they can get better insurance rates thanks to Obamacare.

    @Patrick:

    I’m guessing a fair number of this guy’s customers is on Medicare.

    I’m guessing a fair number of this guy’s customers are on Coumadin or Plavix, covered by Medicare, which has a shrinking donut hole. Thanks, President Obama! (To turn the “blame Obama” joke on its head, the third baseman and I constantly yell this out when praising all the good stuff that has happened under this administration.)

    I might be a little bitter. I stopped eating meat four years ago and the only things I really miss are ribs and pulled-pork ‘cue.

  37. 37.

    PsiFighter37

    @Arclite: It forces them to reveal their assholishness and cut workers’ hours (or workers outright) so they fall under the minimum level that requires businesses to cover their employees’ healthcare.

    You know, because health care is only for the goddamn motherfuckin’ makers of this country, not the takers. And clearly the people at the bottom of the totem pole are a bunch of moneygrubbing takers.

    In other words – all about the Benjamins.

  39. 39.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Bob In Portland: He hasn’t figured out a way for me to lose weight without modifying my diet.

    Obama has thrown me under the bus and is worse than Bush and is dead to me.

  43. 43.

    Culture of Truth

    @Arclite: I believe it’s about the employer mandate; either laying off employees to get under 50, or laying off employees because you must give everyone health care which costs money which of course means you lay off others. But a miniscule % of businesses are (1) big enough to fall under the mandate yet (2) also don’t already provide health insurance.

  44. 44.

    gelfling545

    @Villago Delenda Est: My niece has a job with a small business whose owner is a very traditional Catholic (he’s 1 of 11 children & has 7 kids. Yeah.) He is, however very scrupulous about providing pretty reasonable health care to his employees and, if they have healthcare from another source, gives them the employer contribution as a stipend. Amazing, isn’t it how some can do this and make quite a good profit & others will have to close down because they just can’t manage it. Couldn’t be that the “closers” are poor businessmen, could it? Also amazing how differently people interpret the tenets of (essentially) the same religion.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    @Culture of Truth:

    You really do start to understand why it was so hard to pass a health care law.

    It’s not done without political risk, I must say. I laugh at Republican campaigns: “repeal and replace!”

    Oh, sure. Like the people who couldn’t get a bill authored by their own insane base thru ONE chamber can “replace”

    Health care laws have been NOT passing since Truman, but John Boehner and Ted Cruz will get ‘er done!

  47. 47.

    NotMax

    Happy birthday. You are now officially just damp behind the ears, young’un.

    As for the rib place, whatever they’re smoldering in the smoker obviously has detrimental effects.

  52. 52.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tweety just had two of (IMHO) the worst people in media (Sorkin and Cramer) on to discuss the shutdown’s impact on the economy. I muted most of it, but I think at the end Cramer was predicting and/or calling for a Dem House. Then Tweety said Wall St votes against its own economic interests, but Republicans don’t. Then Tip and the gipper tip and the gipper tip and the gipper tip and the gipper.

  53. 53.

    IowaOldLady

    If the guy has more than one restaurant location, he could very well have more than 50 employees, though I don’t know how many of them would work more than 30 hours. But his premise is that he can only run a business and make a profit if his workers don’t have health insurance. To me, that means there’s something wrong with his business model.

    It’s sort of like WalMart workers needing food stamps.

  56. 56.

    Anoniminous

    O/T with GOS Alert:

    Conservative Cook Report Moves 14 House Races Toward Dems:

    This afternoon, the Cook Political Report changed their ratings on 14 races in the favor of Democratic Candidates.

    The Cook Political Report writes: “Mostly as a result of the damage House Republicans sustained during the 16-day government shutdown, we are making changes to our ratings in 15 House seats, all but one in Democrats’ direction. Democrats still have a very uphill climb to a majority, and it’s doubtful they can sustain this month’s momentum for another year. But Republicans’ actions have energized Democratic fundraising and recruiting efforts and handed Democrats a potentially effective message.”

    And in good news for me, my Congressman Steve (Fucking Asshole) Pearce has slipped from Solid R to Likely R. That may not seem like much. In this neck of the desert it’s a major step in the right, meaning Left, direction.

  57. 57.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    You really do start to understand why it was so hard to pass a health care law.

    No kidding.

    When was the last time we made meaningful progress on health care before 2010? Medicare and Medicaid? So, 1965? That’s close to half a century ago.

    The plain fact is that health care is one of the last levers employers have to control their employees, and they weren’t going to let that go easily.

  58. 58.

    maya

    Now. If the guy really wants to make an effective slavery statement he should change the name of his rib-joints to Uncle Smokin’ Joe’s Cabin.

  60. 60.

    Felanius Kootea

    Brazilian oil workers are on strike. Thanks Obama!

    The Tealiban game of linking Obama to everything that happens is actually fun! That Obama sure is omnipotent and omnipresent. It’s like they kind of secretly worship him, you know?

  61. 61.

    WereBear

    Actually, it displays the guilt that lurks under their carapace; the descendants of slaves STILL want to put a hurt on him.

    I suspect they would have to meet him first, but then, yeah, asking for a beatdown.

  62. 62.

    shortstop

    @Culture of Truth: I can’t find a clip now, but I remember an SNL bit in which a serious, besuited Clinton, played by Phil Hartman, is holding forth in a 2000 debate. As he speaks, Dana Carvey as Poppy Bush is shown picturing Clinton in a Carlos Santana headband, fringed vest and sunglasses holding a bong. Wingnuts are always falling for online satire, so perhaps they thought this was a documentary and internalized it.

  63. 63.

    johnny aquitard

    @Cassidy: Maybe the root of a great deal of racism is due to delusional psychosis or something like it.

    Surely you have met racists who have an unshakeable belief in things regarding The Other that are not true, where they misinterpret their perceptions of Those People or their experiences with them with such a perverseness and dogged tenacity that you are left wondering how the hell that is mentally possible because these situations are so obviously not true at all or are highly exaggerated.

    Some people with racist beliefs can change those beliefs. And why some people seem unable to, or even be unable to acknowledge they have those beliefs, no matter what education and personal experience or a new insight they experience. Maybe some is due to learned prejudices, which can be unlearned or discarded, an maybe some is like a form of chronic mental illness.

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    Stopped clock, blind squirrel, and all that.

    Ross Douthat is not (by a long shot) anyone I care to read (and generally as shallow as the puddle left by a cat pissing on a flat rock), but this quote (h/t Maddowblog) is toothsome:

    “It was an irresponsible, dysfunctional and deeply pointless act, carried out by a party that on the evidence of the last few weeks shouldn’t be trusted with the management of a banana stand, let alone the House of Representatives.”

  65. 65.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    He’s got three locations. I guess it’s feasible he has more than 50 full time employees, having worked in a couple small restaurants like these appear to be, I’d be surprised.

  67. 67.

    Culture of Truth

    @Chris: But again, I wonder how real that was; in other words, would a Republican catholic have enraged them so? Doubtful.

  69. 69.

    Chris

    @Culture of Truth:

    Well, I suppose Joe McCarthy answers that.

    Still, I wonder whether his Catholicism would’ve become an issue if he’d actually gotten to the stage of running for president.

  70. 70.

    Culture of Truth

    @shortstop: I remember that one — it was from 1992, not 2000. It was notable because Carvey played both Perot and Bush, so one performance couldn’t be live. He totally ruled SNL back then. But all Hartman had to do was give that “look” heh heh heh

  71. 71.

    Arclite

    Got it. Thanks for all the replies to my question.

    I should have known it was A. something that made no sense, and B. a talking point.

  74. 74.

    Hal

    I would seriously love to see this guy break down how it is better for him to close a restaurant than to provide health insurance for his employees. Someone get him a huge billboard with the exact numbers punched in so that we can all see how much better of he would be with no third restaurant. BTW, why not close one now? The ACA is a done deal, Republicans have admitted they can’t do shit about until 2017, so what is he waiting for?

  75. 75.

    Mike E

    @Ksmiami: My teavana steeper rocks the house! I just ran out of my year’s supply of gunpowder green tea though :-(

    /1st world problems

  76. 76.

    Elie

    @Patrick:

    In fact, Medicare made physicians rich and accounted for the huge growth in specialty medicine from the 1960’s on. HA! we’d like to take folks out of long term care institutions and put them in the community or smaller community settings and yet its hard to get Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for anything but institutional care. Medicare and Medicaid have made these providers rich as Croesus! (not a good thing — not defending it — just stating reality)

    There is plenty of money and jobs in providing health care services to people. Its distributed incorrectly and that has to change and is being changed. It will be very painful especially to those who are the current winners in the system. Having health care services be more available and rationally paid for will make it cheaper for those companies that need to compete overseas, as they shed (and they all will – watch), covering their employees. This will make their goods and services cheaper and better able to compete internationally and nationally. Health care consultants will need to transition and there will be a lot fewer of those folks (I am one but feel ok about it). There will be great, interesting and meaningful jobs for folks who want to make our care better and improve things..

    None of this will happen overnight and all of it is going to be contentious and painful. That said, its too far gone to reverse. People like the guy with the sign are just upset about a lot of change and its just easier to map it over to an “approved” villain. His children wont be able to remember when not everyone had healthcare without worrying about going bankrupt… THAT is victory, my friends.

  77. 77.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @NotMax: When I Use a Word, It Means Just What I Choose It to mean, Neither More nor Less.

    or, if you prefer…

    I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me.

  78. 78.

    Ed in NJ

    When a business owner says that they will have to eliminate jobs due to Obamacare, it simply means that they can no longer rely on the government providing healthcare to their underpaid part-time employees, but must actually pay them a living wage and provide employer-subsidized health insurance. Or, barring that, pay a fine based on the number of full-time equivalents.

    So in order for this to impact him to the point of layoffs, he would have to be relying on more than the equivalent of 50 FTEs, meaning in all likelihood he’s paying up to a 100 employees in slave wages without benefits and/or keeping their hours below 30 hours a week.

  79. 79.

    NotMax

    @Mike E

    Still use a teaball (actually a slotted teaspoon with a hinged teaspoon-shaped lid, also slotted) bought 40-odd years ago for $1.98. Just have to stir it around in a mug of hot water for a bit.

  81. 81.

    muddy

    @IowaOldLady: He probably has more than 50 workers due to not wanting to give any of them full time schedules. You can keep them really desperate at about 28 hours/week.

  84. 84.

    Central Planning

    @shortstop:

    several small and large companies have recently announced that they’re moving workers back to full time specifically because they can get better insurance rates thanks to Obamacare.

    Cite please? I would love to show that to a cow orker who swears ACA will destroy us.

  85. 85.

    Short Bus Bully

    They live in fear of REPARATIONS today just like they lived in fear of SLAVE UPRISINGS during the antebellum years.

    At no time however did they, or do they now, feel remorse.

  87. 87.

    raven

    Good God:

    No peanuts, no problems.

    Northwestern’s game Saturday against Minnesota will be sans peanuts after the school announced the move on Tuesday. And no, it’s not because Minnesota is a big purveyor of peanuts and it’s a way to jab at the Gophers (gophers do not eat peanuts either). Instead, the move is for people with nut allergies.

    “Nut allergies affect a sizable segment of the population and those people have to be very conscious of it at all times, in environments outside their control,” Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald said in the announcement on the school’s website. “This special day will give many people that may never have attended a live sporting event the opportunity to experience Chicago’s Big Ten Team for the first time. Our entire football family is thrilled to be part of such a great initiative.”

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @Hal:

    I never understood the “I have to fire employees because the minimum wage went up” either.

    Did they have spare employees, just standing around? Any minimum wage place I ever worked had the fewest number of employees working a shift they could possibly get away with. The minimum wage goes up and they have fewer customers or less work? “Number of employees” is based solely on X wage? So if it was 3.50 they’d hire twice as many?

  92. 92.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Kay:

    I never understood the “I have to fire employees because the minimum wage went up” either.

    Aside from the fact that it is a lie, what’s to understand?

  97. 97.

    Jay S

    @Omnes Omnibus: There was a lot of obsession with the freepers about Mena and Clinton and drug running. I’m not sure how that morphed into crack use at the White House, but it became common knowledge among the true believers that Clinton’s staff was anti Christian, so putting crack pipes on the tree just made sense!

  98. 98.

    drkrick

    @Culture of Truth:

    I remember that one — it was from 1992, not 2000. It was notable because Carvey played both Perot and Bush, so one performance couldn’t be live.

    Was that the one where Perot offered to take no salary but work on a commission on any growth in the US economy over 3% (“a monkey could get 3% growth!”)?

  99. 99.

    Kay

    This job creator is in Arkansas, right?

    After just two weeks of enrollment, the Arkansas Department of Human Services announced today that 56,288 adults have informed DHS that they wish to enroll in the “private option” program; nearly all of them are now enrolled. That already puts DHS about a quarter of the way toward the total number of people projected to be in the program, which uses Medicaid funds via the federal Affordable Care Act to pay for private health insurance plans for low-income Arkansans on the Health Insurance Marketplace.

    Wow. Some people in Arkansas really were anxious to get some health care.

  100. 100.

    Kay

    Wouldn’t it be wild if Arkansas and Kentucky ended up the surprise-success Obamacare states?

    The Walton heirs will be livid. If the news reaches their walled compound.

  101. 101.

    aimai

    @Kay: That is very amazing–looking at the link it seems like the reason it worked so well and so fast is that they, in a sense, prequalified all the people who applied since they were all DHS approved already and just by sending in the paperwork they were approved and auto-assigned to an insurer appropriate to their needs if they didn’t select one fast enough.

    This is really going to be a game changer. When I think of the Restaurant owner in the original post I think this is going to become very,very, obvious quite shortly. First you are bitching and moaning with your other tea party friends about what you all “know” to be true about Obamacare and then one by one by one they shamefacedly admit that they signed up, or they know someone who signed up, for the insurance. It gets harder and harder to have an us vs them mentality when you don’t know for sure that hte person you are talking to isn’t on Obamacare.

  102. 102.

    Splitting Image

    @gelfling545:

    Also amazing how differently people interpret the tenets of (essentially) the same religion.

    No kidding. Tommy Douglas, the man who built Canada’s health care system, was a Bible-thumping Southern Baptist preacher. A real Bible-thumping Southern Baptist preacher.

    He also attended the University of Chicago at the same time as Milton Friedman. Go figure.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    @aimai:

    It’s funny, because we all said (here and elsewhere, Democrats and liberals) “the people who will really benefit from this are in red states” and while that is true, it would be great if it was OBVIOUS and undeniable.

    I’m wary, though, because of SCHIP. Democrats and liberals covered more than 7 million children with SCHIP. It went from the huge freakout on Right wing blogs (w/ the expansion) and two Bush vetoes to part of the scenery and no one ever mentioning it again. 7 million children seems like a huge deal to me.

  105. 105.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    That’s the problem with entitled motherfuckers. They think blue state funded welfare is their due, which is why they don’t even realize they’re getting it anymore. “Hasn’t it always been this way?” they’ll be wondering in less than a generation.

  107. 107.

    dmbeaster

    I bet wingnuts would have a hard time understanding the racism implicit in that sign. They are always whining about how unfairly they are being depicted, and then see nothing wrong with this.

    Hint: What links slavery and the ACA other than the color of the president’s skin? Why would a a winger see the ACA as something being perpetrated by black people?

  109. 109.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @Mnemosyne:

    “…reparations…”

    Man, it took 89 comments for the reference to surface? I shouted it out the second I saw the pic.

  110. 110.

    bubba

    I love their ribs. The place is about a half mile from my old house, that I still own and currently rent. When my sister and brother in law came to town and wanted some local food as opposed to the national chains I took them there.
    Sigh…….
    Thing about Rogers/Bentonville is that it is part of the economic driver of the state in the Northwest Corner. Home of Wal-Mart and Tysons. Make of that what you wish.

  111. 111.

    Another Holocene Human

    He’ll have to close a location when people boycott him for being an @$$hat.

    How does middle class people getting cheaper healthcare == lower sales, closed stores?

    Oh noes, providing healthcare to like 10-12 hourly FTs in the store? Shit, motherfucker, play the fine and shut the fuck up. That way you have a year to come up with the money. Because they delayed it a year anyway, bitch! But the lost goodwill with the community for your stupidass sign will linger, won’t it?

  113. 113.

    Paul in KY

    @Culture of Truth: I think the President actually said:

    Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of mandated healthcare for all may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that the Obama Administration continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

    As an aside, Pres. Lincoln was a wonderful writer. One of the best I’ve ever read.

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