Last Call For Gruber Grubbing

A lot of sound and fury has been made about the "Gruber videos", clips of MIT health care policy wonk and ACA consultant Jonathan Gruber, saying some very unflattering and cynical things about the voting American public over the last couple of years..  The problem is most of what Gruber said is true, and most of the people angry at Gruber already hate Obamacare, President Obama, and Democrats in general.

So why are we seeing all these clips now?  Good question.

Who benefits from this poutrage?  Well, the people who fall into the following categories:

1) People who are not Mitt Romney.  Gruber worked for Mitt at one point as a consultant.  Oops.
2) People who want to see the ACA damaged in the short run (enrollment period started today), the medium run (lowered enrollment may make headlines if you believe this will affect it), and in the run run (Gruber's statement may end up grist for the SCOTUS case against ACA federal exchange subsidies).
3) People who dislike President Obama.

As for who specifically, well, all the 2016 GOP Clown Car candidates who aren't Mittens fit the bill.  But there's one more person who does.

Here's a hint:  It's a person who isn't Mitt, and would want to present themselves as a viable alternative to President Obama, with a viable alternative to Obamacare.

Here's another hint:  She's a Democrat.

Think on that a bit tonight.

Bipartisanship, Right?

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch remind us what the GOP hopes to accomplish in 2016 for America and voters, to focus on what's truly important for the country.

Getting revenge.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) came out swinging against Democrats Friday, telling a room of conservative lawyers that Republicans were ready to give the other party "a taste of their own medicine."

"Frankly, I intend to win with our candidate for the presidency in 2016, and we will give them a taste of their own medicine," said Hatch. "And we're going to win. We're going to win. These next two years are extremely important. Maybe the most important two years in our history."

Hatch delivered his remarks at the Federalist Society's annual conference in downtown Washington, D.C., Friday afternoon. He also said he is in favor of keeping current filibuster reforms in place, even though he protested when Democrats changed those rules last year. The new system requires just 51 votes to advance most nominees, instead of the 60 votes that were previously required. Democrats will not have 51 members in the new Senate. Republicans also have an incentive to keep the new rules in place in anticipation of success in 2016: If they win the presidency and maintain control of the Senate, they would have an easier time confirming their nominees.

"We should not return to the old rule. We should teach those blunderheads that they made a big mistake. And we have the votes to stop bad judges if we want to," he said.

Bipartisanship! Comity of the Senate!  The World's Greatest Deliberative Body! I tell ya, it's just shocking that anyone would believe Republicans really want to punish Democrats and the people who voted for them, because those people have to be put in their place, you know.

And that's exactly what the next two year will be about.  Putting the black president and his supporters in their place, and to teach us a lesson.  The supposed "will to govern" that Mitch McConnell and John Boehner were talking about has evaporated in less than two weeks.  Now it's about shutting down the government again.

Conservative House Republicans say they’re willing to shut down the government to prevent President Obama from carrying out what they see as unconstitutional actions on immigration. 

Tea Party lawmakers emboldened by the GOP’s big midterm gains say they will insist on attaching a policy rider to legislation keeping the government open that would block funding for agencies carrying out Obama’s promised executive actions limiting deportations.If the Democratic Senate or Obama rejects the rider, the government could shut down. A current measure funding the government expires on Dec. 12.

“I am insisting on that [rider] because the president is violating his executive privilege,” GOP Rep. Paul Gosar, who represents the border state of Arizona, said in an interview Friday.

Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) called the plan to block the executive action through the government-funding bill “a great idea.” Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), who defeated then-Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the June GOP primary in part by accusing his opponent of supporting “amnesty,” said he also backed the proposal.

Asked if a government shutdown would be worth halting Obama's immigration action, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) replied: “When you take an oath to uphold the Constitution, it is not appropriate to contemplate the political consequences. You should uphold the Constitution come what may.”

We know that when the Tea Party goes up against Boehner, Boehner folds every time.  So the House is talking shutdown, the Senate is talking revenge.

This is what you voted for, America.  Or didn't vote for when you stayed home.

A Discriminating Palate

And Sen. Rand Paul embarrasses Kentucky again by going on an epic rant against workplace discrimination laws, all but declaring that there is no discrimination that laws preventing discrimination doesn't create in the first place.  Paul showed up at a confirmation hearing of David Lopez and Charlotte Burrows to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and screamed at the nominees about why the commission even existed.

“Do you realize the downside of the unlimited nature of going after people with no complaint and what this is going to do to business? I mean, do you not understand what we’ve got to somehow balance that we want people to have jobs?” he asked Lopez. 

“How can you show up to work with a straight face?” he demanded. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t resign immediately and say, ‘This is abhorrent.’” 

“This is so against what everything America stands for,” he blustered, “that you would go after people where there’s been absolutely no complaint, run them through the wringer and use the threat of the bully nature of your office to punish business and as a consequence punish their workers. I don’t get it.” 

Paul went on to describe the agency’s investigative practices as “entrapment” and “a crime.”

If Rand Paul's argument sounds a lot like the same logic MRAs and Gamergate nimrods use against women and minorities, it's because the arguments are the same.  The presence of people trying to get equal treatment is "destroying" everything.

Lopez responded, “I disagree that what the committee is doing is entrapment.” 

He went on to explain, “Most individuals who get discriminated against in the hiring process do not know that they’ve been discriminated against because employers usually do not say that they’ve been discriminated against.” 

“We’re going after mythology then,” said Paul. 

“Realize that there’s a penalty” for this, he went on, saying that there are millions of unemployed people in this country who would be happy to take whatever jobs they could get.

To recap, because discrimination is often subtle, covert, and pervasive, instead of overt, it's "mythology".  I'm sure that'll make a whole lot of people feel better that workplace discrimination is all in your pretty little heads.

But we're supposed to take this idiot seriously as our next President.

Sure.