Shit that Pissed me Off – 5/5
Republicans Pass Their New Health Care Bill
I mean, I’m not panicking yet. It is possible the more “moderate” Senate will pass a more “moderate” bill and when this whole thing gets to reconciliation, national health care won’t be as fucked as it will should the House bill become actual law.
Sitting in this seat with a pre-existing condition, I’m worried. I think forcing insurance companies to do away with the pre-existing condition clause was one of the most important parts of the Affordable Care Act.
The legislation looks like it will reduce taxes for wealthy Americans (how fortunate they must feel), increase premiums for people in their 50’s and 60’s, and replace reduced cost health care with tax credits.
Coming soon from Hasbro: the Tax Credits edition of Scabble (TM)
I like tax credits. I mean sort of. When you get a tax credit for your health insurance, though, it isn’t the same as paying that much less for your insurance. It means you end up paying a little bit less in taxes. But not the same amount.
So in the end, this bill does what a lot of other conservative bills have done – it reduces the tax burden on rich people and replaces is with a greater expense burden on everyone else.
Rich people with diabetes will still be able to afford their insulin. Middle class people with diabetes will be able to afford their insulin but might have to work an extra job when it is time to send their kids to college. Poor people with diabetes will complain about how they can’t afford their insulin and then be criticized for owning a television.
I mean seriously, why can’t they just sit in their shitty apartment and spend all their spare time thinking about why it’s their fault they are poor?
Trump Corner – A History Lesson by the President
This week, our distractor-in-chief gave an interview in which he asserted that Andrew Jackson, had he lived a little bit later, could have totally fixed the Civil War.
I guess that is true if by “fixed,” he meant “preserved slavery a little longer.”
Trump idolizes Jackson and I guess that makes sense because Jackson was also an asshole. As Chelsea Clinton pointed out earlier this week, Jackson was also a slaveholder. A search for comments by Jackson on slavery proved to take longer than five minutes so it was abandoned. Thanks Obama.
Jackson clearly didn’t have a problem with slavery, though, and although our President (SHIT) seems confused as to the causes of the Civil War, most historians are not.
Slavery. Slavery caused the civil war. I could go into the more complex social and economic reasons that slavery caused the civil war but that is what books are for. There are a lot of books about the war. A lot. I own a few of them.
None of them seem to think Andrew Jackson could have solved the civil war. Strangely enough, none of them are confused about why the war happened.
And look, I think it is really interesting that the Republicans call themselves the party of Lincoln even though there is no fucking way Lincoln would be a Republican right now. But have you ever noticed the Democrats don’t call themselves the part of Andrew Jackson? Why is that?
Oh right. Because Jackson was an asshole.
The article is actually nothing particularly new. I mean if you know anything about bias, you shouldn’t be surprised.
On the other hand, the nature of bias is such that you probably don’t know anything about bias because you are too busy being biased.
I think about bias more than I probably should. I look at political opinions I have and ask myself “am I being biased? Maybe this Republican Health Care solution isn’t as horrifically bad as it would seem.”
The truth is yes, I’m totally biased. We all are.
Perhaps I can break through your bias with this image you will assume is actually about me!
And also the health care bill is horrifically bad.
Liberals are biased to think we are always right. Conservatives are biased to think they are always right. Centrists are biased to think that anything that liberals or conservatives support must be wrong on some fundamental level. Donald Trump is biased to think that Andrew Jackson could have fixed everything.
We all sit around convinced we are right and unable to move beyond our own pre-disposition to be convinced we are right. Even when someone points it out to us.
And many of us will read this article and nod our heads and go “yeah – everyone else I know is so blinded by their own bias.”
Then we will keep drinking our Starbucks and reading Brietbart or watching MSNBC and thinking “thank goodness this isn’t biased so I don’t have to do any hard work.”
Police Shoot a Kid in a Car and Originally Claim The Car Was Heading Towards Them
It would appear the police are getting this one right. At least it appears that way now.
Originally, they claimed the car was moving “aggressively” towards the officer who fired several times, killing a fifteen year old passenger. Turns out it was moving away from the officer.
Which, in the world of “things that are a threat to the well being of a police officer,” is not much of a threat. Unless the car had enough gas to drive around the Earth in a straight line and the police officer was still standing there weeks later.
The officer who fired several rounds into the car is facing a criminal investigation, and that’s good. Because when you shoot a fifteen-year-old kid in the head and your life isn’t in danger, there should be a criminal investigation.
There should also be a criminal trial and the guy should go to jail. Because he killed a kid when he was not under threat of bodily harm.
But look, I’m concerned any time the initial report is wrong and clearly designed to protect the officer. The police chief claimed he “misspoke” when he initially reported the car was driving towards the officer but did he really? Or did he listen to the officer making a claim and rush to defend that officer before he knew what had actually happened?
The rush to defend the action is much the same as the rush to blame the kid who is dead. I mean, there must have been a reason he was there, right? If he’d stayed at home, he wouldn’t be dead right now.
I mean, if the chief had waited a little while and – you know – watched the video of the incident before he “misspoke,” he wouldn’t look like he was covering something up. He would look like he gave a shit about holding cops accountable for fatal mistakes. Instead, he just looked like he was willing to defend reckless behavior until evidence prevented him from defending it any further.
I’ll bet Andrew Jackson would have prevented that situation from even happening.
Comic Shop Being Closed Down for Condo Development
Living in the Twin Cities as I do, I can’t express how much I hate the amount of condo development in Uptown. It isn’t just that every one of those buildings looks the same. It is because it made parking that was already horrible even worse.
So yeah – I’m upset for selfish reasons.
I’m upset that the oldest comic shop in the cities is being forced to move because there is no way he’ll be able to afford the rent once the new development is finished. Which means that there will be room for a new high-end sandwich shop instead!
Our bread is better than Captain America!
Call me an enemy of the free market economy if you will (guilty) but at some point it’d be nice if people just said “hey – I like this comic shop and we should do what we can to keep it here because who really needs another T-Mobil store?” That ain’t the way the market works. Sorry, comic shop guy, you need to move on.
And soon, a new batch of hipsters can move into Uptown and they don’t read comics anyway. Too bad they won’t be able to find a place to park.
Unlike Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson can always find a place to park.
Grail Diary 