Make up your own thighmaster jokes:
In a web feature titled “The Experts,” the Wall Street Journal ran a column today called “The Affordable Care Act Is a Socialist Ponzi Scheme.”
The author is Suzanne Somers…
Going all Lou this week with the titles if I can.
Mike E
There’s a vitamin supplement for that.
andy
Slow moving targets are very very slow.
replicnt6
Is there a problem with that?
shelly
More of the Screaming Meemies. To the Republican party, any government program is a Ponzi scheme. Social Security, Medicare! And now the ACA.
burnspbesq
I expect to see “Harry’s Circumcision” and “Good Evening Mr. Waldheim.”
“Halloween Parade is too easy this week.
Yatsuno
Oh Lawd. The possibilities. The massive mocking possibilities.
Jay in Oregon
Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t the exchanges set up by ACA allow people to buy private insurance?
So the complaint really is that health insurance in general takes money from healthy people and uses it to pay for sick people?
It’s called “risk pooling”, Ms. Somers. Try reading a book.
MattF
It was Rick Perry who called Social Security a Ponzi scheme– and then discovered that the Tea Partiers weren’t pleased to hear that particular claim. But… a Socialist Ponzi scheme… that’s a new one, I’ve got to admit.
Mike G
Waiting for a “Last Great American Whale” post the next time Chris Christie opens his piehole.
Baud
Is Suzanne Somers supposed to be an expert in health insurance economics or Ponzi schemes?
Mnemosyne
So someone who gets her health insurance from a union is supposed to be an expert on other people’s healthcare?
pacem appellant
The few commenters at Barro’s piece think that Barro is attacking Somers for being an actress. No, he is attacking her dumber-than-rocks arguments. She’s anti-fluoridation and anti-chemo, in addition to not knowing the definition of socialist and Ponzi scheme, much less what the two mean when put together.
Kyle
So the complaint really is that health insurance in general takes money from healthy people and uses it to pay for sick people?
I’m waiting for the teatards to declare car insurance a socialist ponzi scheme, since it also involves the compulsory purchase of insurance coverage from private corporations.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
Well, she is the hawker of the Thighmaster. You make the call.
Cacti
But is it an Islamic socialist ponzi scheme? Or worse yet, an Islamofascist ponzi scheme?
Jewish Steel
Three’s Company was about a phony triangle. It’s a short leap to pyramids from there.
PeakVT
The Affordable Care Act Is a Socialist Ponzi Scheme
If only. *sigh*
Talentless Hack
I got mine, screw you.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
It’s another of those things that make sense if you’re stuck mentally in the 80s. That includes quite a lot of conservatives and almost the entire Pundit Class.
PhoenixRising
Well, you’re missing some low hanging Leonard Cohen(IYKWIMAITYD)–she took me down to that place by the river.
Where I was living in my van because medical bankruptcy took my house.
…too soon?
RSA
Somers:
A brief search of the Web suggests that these quotes are entirely made-up.
Violet
From the link, Somers says:
Has she not heard of Facebook? Or Supermarket loyalty cards? Or credit card purchase tracking?
geg6
Seriously? You sure this wasn’t an Onion piece? Chrissy from Three’s Company is suddenly an expert in health care, insurance, finance and white collar crime? In the WSJ? Oh how the mighty have fallen!
scav
Oh those dim Hollywood stars and their well-known pro-socialism bias.
Right?
Frankensteinbeck
@RSA:
Wait, did she actually say that? Seriously? I didn’t bother to go read Somers’ piece because I don’t care what she thinks, but… is she actually THAT stupid?
Oh, and it kinda sorta is a socialist Ponzi scheme. It incentivizes more and more people to buy in as they see how their neighbors are doing great, and it runs because everybody buys in, and it might just (we can only hope) plant the seeds of socialism by showing the whole country that it’s actually awesome to have a government that helps people.
Baud
@Violet:
I was scanning the radio the other day, and I heard a guy complaining that you’d have to give the government your Social Security number.
hitchhiker
And you know that she’s half crazy.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@PhoenixRising: Not at all too soon! I encourage you to send your 57 options story to TPM – Josh is collecting real life examples. TPM is awfully annoying, but lots of people read it…
Baud
C’mon guys. Show some respect. That’s future GOP Vice-President nominee Suzanne Somers.
Hal
Wow I’m old. Suzanne Somers and no Three’s Company mention? Somers is trying her menopause vodoo here as well. She’ll no doubt have another book to sell on how to cure your diseases with her masterfully scientific advice.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@RSA: I’d have bet real money that Suzanne Somers couldn’t tell you where (or when) Churchill or Lenin lived, assuming she knows they are both dead.
Trollhattan
@RSA:
OTOH Somers successfully continues the long, long-running record of wingers not being able to define “socia1ism”
MattF
@Baud: I like that one. Is the theory that Social Security numbers are granted at birth by an Angelic Messinger?
EconWatcher
I keep thinking about Lou. “New York” was basically the soundtrack for my college years, much to the annoyance of my roommate and anyone on the dorm hall within two or three rooms. For a lonely liberal kid at an ultraconservative Southern school, Lou pretty much defined my political and musical worldview (although I never did take a walk on the wild side).
RIP, man.
feebog
What, Sarah Palin wasn’t available?
Baud
@MattF:
The theory is fear. Logic is optional.
dms
@Baud:
Ponzi schemes, at least.
gogol's wife
@Baud:
Hahahahahahaha
That’s an even better one than keep your government hands off my Medicare
Baud
But what does Joyce DeWitt think?
Baud
BTW, I actually saw an official healthcare.gov TV commercial today. I didn’t know they were doing that.
scav
How does one safely distinguish between Republican philosophical heavyweights and Hollywood Square contestants?
LanceThruster
Don’t goppers say that entertainers other than St. Ronnie, Sonny Bono, and Ahnold need to shut their collective pie-holes?
Keith P.
I want to get health insurance but was waiting until the star of “She’s the Sheriff” weighed in.
piratedan
@Baud: methinks she’s still got her health care covered by Mr. Roper
LanceThruster
@Baud:
I’d rather hear from Dawn Wells (Mary Ann of “Gilligan’s Island”).
A true voice of reason.
shortstop
Victoria Jackson and Suzanne Somers are not down with Mr. Barack Obama. I’m seeing a pattern. Lisa Kudrow, Goldie Hawn, Ana Farris, Heather Morris and Jessica Simpson to the courtesy phone, please. Judy Holliday and Jayne Mansfield, kindly check in from beyond the grave.
Baud
@LanceThruster:
Are we going to have a Ginger/Mary Ann flame war now?
LanceThruster
@Baud:
I’m ready. Last night I saw a Tosh.0 web redemption for the angry “ginger” kid and he had some good jokes re: Ginger/Mary Ann.
SFAW
Well, since we’re going all Lou-Reed-and-stuff:
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
.
And you know that she’s half crazy
But that’s why you want to be there, ’cause you can’t pull your eyes away from the trainwreck
And she feeds you tea and bullshit
That come all the way from Koch-ville
.
There are heroes wearing tricorns
There are mental children in the morning
They are leaning out for handouts
And they will lean that way forever, or until the Gummint takes it away
While Suzanne holds forth on ACA
And you want to put your eyes out
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can’t trust her
For she’s touched your perfect body with her sorry excuse for a “mind”
Humblest apologies for the lack of rhyming. And meter.
ETA: And, before all you music snobs jump all over me: yes, I know.
Amir Khalid
Suzanne Somers was a television actress, and now she writes books touting crackpot medical theories and diet tips. So of course a major newspaper — The Wall Street frickin’ Journal — sees her as a credible expert on health care provision. Sigh.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Do you ever speak to your Malaysian friends about us?
And are you kind or honest?
Chris
@Kyle:
Jesus dude, let’s not give them any ideas!
LanceThruster
@Amir Khalid:
Looks like Rupert really knocked that rag into shape (the WSJ I mean)!
Trollhattan
@Baud:
Pretty sure the search for a Ginger voter ceased sometime last decade.
scav
@Amir Khalid: They go with the credibility they can get, not the credibility they wish they had.
ETA The WSJ Page Three Girls leave something to be desired . . .
SFAW
@scav:
Trick question?
Like “jumbo shrimp,” or “sane Teabaggers,” or “Rand Paul with a hairdo that doesn’t look like a muskrat died on his head three years ago”?
Mike in NC
OK, so I logged onto Healthcare.gov today and was able to create an account without too much heartburn. No worse than filling out job applications for most companies. Then I hit the “Submit Application” button and was emailed a Health Insurance Marketplace PDF form letter telling me that more information was needed. Specifically, under “What should I do next?”, it told me that I needed to submit proof of my income for 2014.
WTF??? How does that work 14 months out? I figured it had to be a typo (a shameful lack of QA if that was true) and hit the “Live Chat” link to query somebody. The person on the other end wasn’t particularly helpful, to put it mildly. Since nobody is going to be filing 2013 federal tax returns for a few more months, I had to conclude the actual date was meant to be 2012, or the last year for which the IRS has records.
The documents have to be mailed to an HHS facility in London, Kentucky.
beth
I’m just sick of all the bitching about the ACA. There was just a story on the NBC Nightly News about a woman whose shitty ass policy is getting cancelled and she’s going to have to pay $100 a month more for her insurance now. Of course she’s upset and this proves that Obamacare is bad. Some guy was on some other news show last week bitching about how he now has maternity and pediatric care on his policy and he’s not going to use them. Obamacare sucks!! I’m not normally a nasty person but I’m truly getting to the point where I want to tell all these people tough shit, welcome to the world millions of other Americans (who you never cared about) live in. Now you want us to care about your problems? Fuck you. If you didn’t keep voting for these assholes in Congress, maybe we could tweak the ACA to fix these problems.
Baud
I support this fully:
Frankly, I have no idea why the originally kept open enrollment going past the date by which you had to buy insurance to avoid the penalty. This should have been the rule from the beginning.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
And you didn’t immediately drive your car into the nearest tree so you wouldn’t have to live in a world with people that fucking stupid anymore?
You’re a better man than I am. Not that I’m a man, anyway, but you know what I mean.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
All I tell them is that I’m renowned here for my really good English, my cat, and — since yesterday — my beard.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Probably for the best.
@Mnemosyne:
I might have, but I was scanning through stations, so it took a minute to register what he was saying.
scav
@SFAW: I assumed we were grading on a curve . . .
Yatsuno
@Mike in NC: It must be 2012. Nothing else makes sense here. Hell we couldn’t even tell income fir 2013 until mid-May.
Roger Moore
@scav:
The Hollywood Square contestants are better informed and more coherent.
gogol's wife
@Roger Moore:
Paul Lynde was brilliant!
Roger Moore
@LanceThruster:
Well, they did invite one to talk to a chair at last year’s Republican National Convention.
JasperL
@RSA:
Yeah, she made those quotes up from Lenin and Churchill, the WSJ editors ran the story anyway, and now they’ve corrected the article. The WSJ has standards, you know.
I love it when quotes like that make it to print – they are a nearly perfect wingnut identifier.
jon
If a spot opens on The View….
Frankensteinbeck
@Mike in NC:
So I take it that you have non-job income like me? I had to scan and upload a royalty check to show how much I make quarterly.
LanceThruster
@Roger Moore:
Didn’t they wish he’d shut his pie-hole afterward as it didn’t quite make their day?
MikeJ
@JasperL:
“Nobody ever verifies the source of quotes.”
Abraham Lincoln
Elizabelle
All I know about Suzanne Somers is that the Los Angeles Times has a story informing us she’s having lots of sex.
That’s all I can say, because you could not pay me to click the link.
feebog
@beth
Wonder if it is the same story that ran front page in the LA Times yesterday. The woman, who is a “self employed Lawyer”, had a policy that cost her $98 per month. She is going to have to buy a bronze plan under the exchange for $238 a month. She complained that it is “unaffordable”. I wrote a letter to the editor this morning pointing out that it had to be a pretty crappy policy for $98 per month. No where did it spell out the co-pays and deductibles in either plan. The topper is that she is four months pregnant, so for sure she is going to need a whole lot more medical care than she has in the past. I suggested a follow up article comparing what she pays out over the next year compared to what her out of pocket costs would have been with her current plan. I also pointed out that her gross joint family income of 88K means that she is paying .037% of her income for health care. How is that “unaffordable”? And I didn’t say it in the LttE, but if her combined income with her husband is only 88K a year either her husband is a slacker or she is a pretty shitty lawyer.
Hill Dweller
The Village has declared war on Obamacare.
piratedan
@Hill Dweller: wonder what odds Vegas has, still, my money is on the ACA, the last time the Village was right was…………
MikeJ
@Hill Dweller:
They declared war on it when FDR tried. They just never stopped.
Pongo
What does she care? As a self-educated, self-proclaimed ‘expert’ on ‘bioidentical medicines,’ she has no need for actual healthcare. I’ve always thought Suzanne Sommers was a dangerously vapid dunderhead. Should have assumed she was a rightwinger.
Hill Dweller
Next time someone tells you the media is liberal, punch them in the face. They’ve done everything possible to change the subject after the shutdown.
beth
@MikeJ: And we’re going to hear about it over and over. Anyone who suffers the slightest bit of inconvenience or cost due to Obamacare is going to have a guaranteed national audience. How about the people who go bankrupt from medical expenses? The ones who get kicked out of nursing homes because their Medicare ran out and then they die at home three days later because the one family member who could care for them can’t afford to do it 24 hours a day. Why aren’t we hearing about people saving money or finally being able to afford insurance? I’m not asking for nothing but feel good liberal spin on stuff but geez, can we just hear both sides?
gnomedad
See, liberals are the real sexists.
Amir Khalid
@Pongo:
I was briefly disappointed to learn that she wasn’t really acting when she played Chrissie Snow that way.
The Thin Black Duke
Maybe it’s harsh, but anybody stupid enough who refuses to buy medical insurance because of an idiotic editorial written by a has-been Hollywood bimbo deserves what they get.
Violet
Jonathan Chait has a column on this idiotic piece by Suzanne Somers. Here’s an excerpt of her piece in the WSJ:
Basically she’s saying all those horrible “others” are stealing from retirees. “Not fair.” Could she be any more selfish?
Edit: Link to Chait article: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/10/suzanne-somerss-strong-wsj-obamacare-critique.html?mid=twitter_dailyintelligencer
David Koch
Who?
SFAW
@David Koch:
First base!
shelly
No matter what happens, the RW’s are gonna double down on the “Obamacare is a train wreck, a disaster, the TITANIC!” They don’t give a shit about the law itself, trying to improve it or helping uninsured Americans. Right now they see the ACA as their ace in the deck as far as the 2014 elections. Keep hammering on how awful it is and they think it’ll help sway voters.
Violet
@The Thin Black Duke: So what does happen to people who refuse to buy health insurance and then have need of health care. Like, say, they get injured somehow or have a health issue. Who pays for that starting in 2014? If they show up to the ER uninsured, what happens?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MikeJ: Ceci Connelly, one of the self-proclaimed “bitches on the bus” who set out to trash Al Gore in 2000 is now on Hardball as the flack for a “health care research group”. Now speaking disdainfully of a “big federal bureaucracy”
RSA
@Frankensteinbeck:
I read the linked piece and then followed it to the WSJ blog. It’s amazing how carefully conservatives will parse some quotes (e.g., whatever the Bible has to say about rich people) and at other times they just attribute random shit to a famous historical figure.
Careful readers will notices that I’m directly quoting Abraham Lincoln in my last sentence.
shortstop
@Baud: That made me spew seltzer. Amir, thank you for not kissing and telling, as it were.
TaMara (BHF)
Wow, I was wondering if you were all taking potshots because she’s an entertainer and thus not allowed to have an intelligent opinion. Then I read the article. Fire away!
Mike E
@gogol’s wife: Withering, rapier wit. Hilarious.
shortstop
@Violet: We all continue to eat their costs like we always have. But this time we’re resentful, because people who don’t buy insurance to make a “point” are needlessly costing me money, as opposed to people who previously cost me money because they simply couldn’t afford health insurance in our ridiculous pre-Obamacare system. The latter group got nothing but sympathy from me.
I keep suggesting that we offer proud, “libertarian” non-insurance holders enough morphine to ease them comfortably out of life in the case of a major accident or terminal illness — and nothing else in the way of healthcare — but people seem to think that’s rather shabby of me.
handsmile
@ Mullah Doug J
Re Lou titles
There’s a track on his The Blue Mask (one of the very best of his post-VU albums) that you may want to keep in reserve until November 22.
WSJ…Suzanne Somers….ACA….it beggars snark. Even among the skilled practitioners of the BJ commentariat.
The Thin Black Duke
@Violet: I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear, but what I meant to say was that people who desperately need medical coverage aren’t going to listen to the dangerous nonsense Suzanne Somers is saying because they can’t afford to; it’s literally a life-or-death decision. It’s only the fools who are either rich and live in the golden bubble of privilege or are bigots blinded by their own prejudices that do.
hilts
“Going all Lou this week with the titles if I can”
A fitting tribute Doug.
“Is Suzanne Somers supposed to be?”
She’s the newest scholar in residence at the Heritage Foundation.
muricafukyea
Didn’t know Somers was a teabagger. Makes me sick to watch any movie with the small list of known teabagger actors. At least with Somers I won’t have that problem.
Guess she is trying to take a page from Victoria Jackson since that seems to be the only way these has beens can get attention.
Frankensteinbeck
Hey, does anyone remember that universal health insurance used to be noncontroversial? Conservatives mildly disapproved and liberals thought it was basically a good thing but unlikely. GOP politicians strongly didn’t want it for purely political reasons, but the base didn’t much care. They only became foaming-at-the-mouth hateful of the entire idea in the last few years. I wonder what changed?
Just Some Fuckhead
I decided to watch Hardball for the first time in over a year and it’s all about Healthcare.gov and Benghazi. I missed Underwater Universe on H2 for this bullshit. Chris Matthews can’t die soon enough. Fucker.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
No.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
I do. Back when Clinton tried it, only GOP politicians thought it absolutely had to die. The base were a little huffy, mostly about Hillary being too manly and taking too much control of the process, but they didn’t show any signs of really caring.
handsmile
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Re Ms. Somers’ Lenin quotation
I expect she always thought Paul was the cute Beatle anyways.
Ruckus
Just checked in on FB and a gentleman I know posted a report about how Obama knew that millions could not keep their policies. Of course they couldn’t, the policies they had didn’t met the requirements of the law and have to be replaced.
The level of stupid people in this country knows no bounds. I’d bet good money that very few if any policies written before now met the letter of the new law.
To tie into the OP, suzanne sommers really isn’t that stupid, not compared to the section of the country she identifies with. Compared to anyone capable of forming any rational thought, however small…. It really doesn’t amaze me to know that she wasn’t really acting in 3s Co.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I thought that was Moynihan?
Eric S.
@Mike in NC: I haven’t tried logging on yet. Do you need to submit proof of income for subsidies? I know I won’t qualify and am wondering if this will be required of everyone.
chopper, interrupted
“and most frightening of all, your most intimate and personal information is now up for grabs”, says woman who told the entire world that she injects hormones directly into her vagina every day.
chopper, interrupted
@feebog:
but charlie sheen was, and they still went with somers.
Ruckus
@chopper, interrupted:
It hasn’t helped.
shortstop
@Frankensteinbeck: Well, anecdotal only, but I grew up in a VERY Republican small town, and Mr. and Mrs. Average Conservative Voter there were all extremely anti-reform during the Clinton administration. Much wailing about unchecked socialism, government control of their bodies, etc. I kind of doubt this group of lay Republicans was all that unusual.
Gin & Tonic
I blinked, sorry, was that Harry Connick with the national anthem? Did he have a plane to catch or something? I know some (lots) of performers stretch it out beyond all reason, but that was an awfully fast tempo. Maybe efgoldman or one of the resident music pros can chime in.
hilts
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Chris Matthews is a malignant media carcinogen and Hardball is a super sized steaming pile of excrement.
Yatsuno
@chopper, interrupted: You go with the washed-up celebrity you have, not the washed-up celebrity you wish you had.
JPL
CBS this morning had a woman who pays $50.00 a month for junk insurance that she wants to keep. Mediate breaks down the coverage her $50.00 a month policy covers. link I had no idea that you could buy junk health insurance. I know about the burial life insurance scams so I’m not completely naive.
The only reason junk insurance is probably better than putting the money aside, is because insurance companies have enough clout to negotiate a lower cost.
Cervantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ceci Connelly, one of the self-proclaimed “bitches on the bus” who set out to trash Al Gore in 2000 is now on Hardball as the flack for a “health care research group”. Now speaking disdainfully of a “big federal bureaucracy”
She was awful in 2000. Sorry to hear she is still a going concern.
MattR
@Ruckus: I think that was the biggest messaging mistake from the Administration. I understand the need to reassure the public that the sky isn’t falling, but saying “if you like your health insurance, you get to keep your health insurance” when you know that is not going to be true for millions of people gives Republicans a huge opening to attack Obamacare.
sacrablue
Isn’t Somers medicare eligible?
Anya
Susan Somers is the weird looking lady who peddles the ‘immune system boosting’ scam. She’s just super bummed that her quackery is not covered under any insurance.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Have I ever shared my father’s words to the SSB about Paderewski? The version needs to go at a brisk clip….
Yatsuno
@efgoldman: The Star Spangled Banner is supposed to time out at 1’37”. Any longer than that and the singer is just showing off and it drives me batty. But it is originally a drinking song after all.
Bill E Pilgrim
Oh good lord.
Well, three’s company, four’s a corporation. If they had had one more resident they would have achieved the status of a person, which would be one rung up the evolutionary ladder from where she stands.
I actually don’t think having her write the editorials is any more galling than the other celebrity know-nothings they often feature, like George Will dribbling on about how climate change is all a hoax.
Eric
@SFAW: genius
Gin & Tonic
@Yatsuno: Well, he does sing it straight, without the annoying vocal flourishes everybody and his uncle throw in, so I’ll give him that. But comparing a couple of his renditions from YouTube at other events, this one still seemed a little quicker.
Mike E
@Just Some Fuckhead: That’s a poor allocation of free time on your part. That one’s on you.
Botsplainer
Dude from ThinkProgress twitted this.
JPL
@MattR: this.. The folks who have junk insurance are coming out of the woodwork.
SiubhanDuinne
@sacrablue:
She turned 67 a couple of weeks ago.
different-church-lady
We can haz wurld sereez thread?
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid: So of course a major newspaper — The Wall Street frickin’ Journal — sees her as a credible expert on health care provision. Sigh.
“Major newspaper”? There are two parts to the WSJ. The reporting part is excellent. The opinion/editorial part is, to put it mildly, idiotic.
Belafon
@MikeJ:
“I generally don’t trust quotes from the internet.” – Abraham Lincoln
Kay
@Cervantes:
She covered the health care law for the Washington Post. Now she’s a professional health care pundit.
She should be enormously grateful for the health care law.
You may purchase a copy of her book at the link. She’s also a “conference facilitator” if you have need of one of those.
SiubhanDuinne
@different-church-lady: Yes pleez.
Ruckus
@MattR:
They should have expanded on it. Your policy will change. For the better. Here’s how…..
That’s all that was needed to stop this. But then the only quarterbacking I’ve managed was early Mondays. I’m real good Monday mornings. They don’t even let me suit up on any other day.
Mike in NC
@Eric S.:
Yes, and you must notify the marketplace folks whenever there is a change of income (i.e., I start to get a military pension next summer).
Botsplainer
Holy shit, but this was funny.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/business-gop-establishment-tea-party-is-over
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s up top.
catpal
calling all Republican ACA Haters — I just tried to login to my crappy Employer-provided EXPENSIVE private insurer website and ERROR ERROR ERROR
Reason: Error reading from remote server
Can I get a Congressional Hearing for why I NOW pay so much for a crappy website.
Violet
I keep mentioning this, but the next time people start complaining about “Obamacare” and those people doing the complaining are on their company’s health insurance plan, turn to them and say, “You’re on Obamacare. See, it’s working for you.” Because employer-provided health insurance is just as much a part of “Obamacare” as purchasing it independently on the exchange, as Medicare, as any other kind that meets the requirements. Take the opportunity to remind people that “Obamacare” is more than just the website.
David Koch
This from a Default denier who’s career is built on nepotism.
Why did self described liberals kiss this red-baiter’s feet?
Belafon
This comment from the New Republic was awesome:
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay: Thanx!!
Ash Can
You know, I was entirely aware that the WSJ op-ed pages had gone to shit some time ago. I can always count on the WSJ op-ed writers to say stupid, obnoxious, and bass-ackwards shit — but they were always people who had at least a veneer of knowledge. They were politicians, bureaucrats, established political pundits, think-tankers. Assholes, to be sure, but ones who at least were in the business.
But now, the WSJ has Suzanne Somers writing an op-ed for them? Seriously? Suzanne Fucking Somers??
I feel genuinely sorry for anyone working for the WSJ who endeavors to take their job seriously.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
Personally, I’d like the people who claim they liked their crappy policies to tell us how many claims they filed in the past few years and how much they paid out of pocket for those claims.
Anyone who says, I never filed a claim, and I never will, is automatically laughed out of the room.
seefleur
@<a href="#commen
Wait – isn’t that The Donald? (Says the longtime lurker…)
Cervantes
@Ash Can: It’s not new. For example, they had Jude Wanniski writing about economics in the early 70s. The little twerp even coined the term “supply-side economics” — I’ll let you hazard a guess as to his professional training.
catpal
@Mike in NC: it took very little effort for me to find this answer to your whining.
“When you apply you’ll need to tell us your household income now (your estimate for 2013) and also estimate the amount for 2014, taking into account changes you expect.”
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
If it didn’t piss me off so much that people can’t see the forest for the shit in their eyes I probably could laugh at them.
Ash Can
@Cervantes: OK, I looked up Wanniski, and once again, an asshole to be sure, but one who at least was established in the political/economic business. The only knowledge or experience I can imagine Somers having going into writing this article are the Ponzi schemes and crackpot quackery she’s been responsible for herself.
handsmile
@SiubhanDuinne:
O/T (but wanted to catch you – in a non-baseball kind of way):
Happy to read that you enjoyed The Nose. Of Shostakovich’s two best-known operas, Lady Macbeth…is the one I prefer, but agree that this production by William Kentridge is absolutely spectacular (as well as both a critical and commercial success.)
Thrilled that you responded so powerfully and favorably to Kentridge. He is among the most widely-respected contemporary visual artists today. You might find of interest this Youtube clip of one of his animated drawings, “Felix in Exile”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF5cngcXqSs
(Unfortunately the sound quality is very poor and that is an important element when his works are presented in a gallery/museum.)
Also, here’s another clip with Kentridge explaining his drawing process:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_UphwAfjhk
Kentridge is represented in NYC by the Marian Goodman Gallery (mariangoodman.com) which has a large “Artist’s Page” of his work. Enjoy!
Ripley
It certainly sounds like her vagina is.
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
Well, I was too young to pay attention to politics at the time, but if you’re right about that, a simple explanation might be that the right wing reality bubble wasn’t nearly as complete back then as it is now (not much of a blogosphere, and Fox News didn’t even exist until the late nineties, did it?) So it might simply be the fact that they’re much more hooked onto the perpetual-outrage/alternate-reality machine, and therefore more radicalized now than they were then.
Cervantes
@Ash Can: OK, I looked up Wanniski, and once again, an asshole to be sure, but one who at least was established in the political/economic business. The only knowledge or experience I can imagine Somers having going into writing this article are the Ponzi schemes and crackpot quackery she’s been responsible for herself.
Well, I don’t mean to gainsay your outrage re Somers. She’s a Grade A nitwit, no doubt.
But re journalists Wanniski, Bartley, et al., what you have to realize is that they had absolutely no training in economics. When they wrote about “supply-side economics,” they made actual economists feel the way you (and Chait) feel about Somers today.
Rob in Buffalo
@Violet: I hate it when ramifications don’t add up.
SFAW
@seefleur:
I have often heard people refer to Trump’s “hair” in just such a manner. However, I have a difficult time equating a combover-from-Hell with something-that-looks-like-the-world’s-shittiest-toupee-but-isn’t-a-toupee-after-all.
But that’s just me. Others may choose to disagree.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: BTW the thing on Rand’s head is probably a ‘possum.
PhoenixRising
@SFAW: I haven’t even read the rest of the thread, but I just fell off my couch laughing.
Thank you, because I didn’t have my inner Cohen in gear this afternoon. I love you, in a totally platonic way.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I love Josh Barro!
SiubhanDuinne
@handsmile: Thank you so much for those links. His technique is amazing. I was especially taken with his insistence (in the second clip) that it’s a physical, visceral process as much as, or more than, purely mental. Don’t remember if I mentioned in my comments Saturday, but before the performance began there was a short conversation between Kentridge and Peter Gelb, who first started working with him on this project in 2006 IIRC. Gelb seems to have said, essentially, “You just do whatever you need to do, let me know if you need anything, I’ll get out of your way.” Very nice for a director to have that kind of autonomy and support from management.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I’ve seen both. Definitely ‘possum. Or some kind of depraved ‘possum-chinchilla hybrid.
Mike in NC
@catpal: Fuck you
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus: @efgoldman:
Possums ’round hyar don’t have the same coloring as that thing on top of Rand’s head. Unless they got a dye-job at the local salon.
But I appreciate your help, and will consider whether to revise my choice of animals. (Not to be confused with Rand’s choice of animals, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. But in case you don’t: think Dr. Samuel Gall.)
Jenny
I’m wait for Loni Anderson to tell me how to think
SFAW
@PhoenixRising:
Thanks, and I appreciate the kind comment(s), but it really wasn’t that good.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: For some reason, I thought he was grayer than he is.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
You know that they now make color TVs, right? Not just black-and-white? (Actually, based on your comments the other day, you’re probably not old enough to remember B&W TVs, you pup.)
But I think the gray is mostly what Rand induces in rational persons’ hair.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: I might have gotten the idea from a NYT drawing…
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Good one.
GregB
Come and knock on our door, take a step that is new……awwwww shut up ya moron.
Andy G.
In other news, this morning Joyce Dewitt appeared on Fox & Friends demanding hearings about Benghazi. (Oh, that was Lindsey Graham? I always get those two confused–sorry!)
Mike G
Tomorrow in the WSJ, maybe we’ll hear from Jimmie Walker from “Good Times” on urban redevelopment.
catpal
@Mike in NC: ok I’m tired of people complaining about ACA and healthcare.gov.
ACA is a good start to help many people so can’t we all just get along about this.
jefft452
@RSA: “A brief search of the Web suggests that these quotes are entirely made-up.”
“Most quotes you see on the internet are made up” – Geo Washington
JR
@Mike in NC:
Now, Mike, you had to know that a BJ commenter was gonna try it out and see if they could replicate the stupid you claimed to have run in to.
Imagine my surprise when a fairly professional web site asked really reasonable questions, instead of thr dumb things you crabbed about.
Better luck trolling somewhere else, some other time!
Also, too, fuck you, wingnut troll!
sm*t cl*de
The Great Gazoogle reminds me that four years ago, Somers was promoting a list of quacks and snake-oil charlatans from whom her readers should seek treatment if they had cancer, rather than conventional oncologists.
So that qualifies her as medical pundit for WSJ. I don’t know why she is now so determined to preserve the existing US health system, after trying so hard to drive people into the arms of Alt-Health.
johnny aquitard
I think she’s successfully trolled the WSJ. It’s a DougJ-worthy effort. The tell is the fake qoutes.
WWDJD?
johnny aquitard
@Frankensteinbeck: Just like abortion. Then they made it into a tribal identifier of their culture war. You’re watching the process now with universal health care.
nemesis
Sommers is 2013’s version of Victoria Jackson.
Sommers hits all the latest talking points:
-your personal info is at risk
-seniors will receive less care
-pitting olds vs youngs
And the speed with which the media of all stripes downshifted into criticism of Obamacare dovetails nicely with the averted gummit shutdown/default and the supposed Obama victory over gop radicals. It has been non-stop anti-ACA for over a week with zero facts or details. None.
kd bart
Next week, Joyce DeWitt on climate change.
pseudonymous in nc
@JPL:
This is America, of course you can. Junk insurance is not that far away from the Trudeau fucker with his “Secret ‘Cures’ That ‘They’ Won’t Tell You About’. Healthcare in the US has been a fertile ground for scammers, snake-oil salesmen, grifters and general fuckery for too long.
John Weiss
Who cares what a washed – up bimbo thinks? I do not.