Month: August 2009

There really isn’t much difference, is there?

Shatner being serious about the Vic-20.

Shatner being Shatner about World of Warcraft.

You have to wonder if he ever wonders how it is that he ended up with a career where his success depends on how well he can imitate himself.  Not that I judge him for that: it’s a living, and at least he’s not selling anything illegal, immoral, or likely to explode.

I’m done with health care posts until Monday.

It’s a fascinating topic, and a very important one – but it can wait a day or two. I sincerely doubt that anything really essential’s going to take place on Sunday and I’m tired of having to concentrate on it. Because I don’t have to.

So: District 9. Anybody see that yet? I was going to, then not going to based on the first reviews, but the reviews are coming in and they seem to indicate that the first reviews were all written by people smoking crack. Opinions?

‘Public option’ on the table?

(Via Hot Air Headlines) I could be cruel about this, but if it turns out that the title here (“Party leaders prepare liberals to accept a health care reform deal“) is accurate then I see no particular reason to gloat over the fact that the quote-unquote ‘public option’ will be sacrificed for the sake of ‘conservative’ Democrat, Republican, and popular opinion.  We’re all one country and we’re all Americans, after all, so I’d just be glad that we’ll be able to move on from having health care hung up on this particular controversy.  That being said, once we remove the public option from consideration we will have to move on to discussing why on earth we’re talking about revising health care without first discussing the blatantly obvious need for tort reform.

This is not really negotiable, I’m sorry to say.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

‘Shared responsibility payment’ imposing the poor on health care.

At least, that’s the Senate version of the Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions committee bill on health care rationing: the House version has the elementary decency to call it a ‘tax.’

Legal Insurrection walks through the procedure: the short version is that both versions of the bill require that employers give the IRS information on who they’re insuring, during what periods, and… some-things-to-be-determined later. If that last clause doesn’t worry you, then why they want that information should:

The House bill provides for a tax on people who do not have acceptable coverage at “any time” during the tax year. House bill section 401 provides for a new section 59B (at pp. 167-168) of the Internal Revenue Code:

(a) TAX IMPOSED.—In the case of any individual who does not meet the requirements of subsection (d) at any time during the taxable year, there is hereby imposed a tax equal to 2.5 percent of the excess of—
(1) the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income for the taxable year, over
(2) the amount of gross income specified in section 6012(a)(1) with respect to the taxpayer.

The Senate version is similar, although the tax is called a “shared responsibility payment” not a tax.

Continue reading ‘Shared responsibility payment’ imposing the poor on health care.

Organizing for America up to the task… of running potlucks. #teaparty

Via RS Reader izoneguy comes this heartwarming story of lowered expectations in the health care rationing wars. Yesterday, it was a nascent national movement dedicated to bringing The Audacity Of Hope And Change That You Can Believe In to the huddle masses; today, they’re trying to get enough people together for a decent potluck. And how is it working out for them?

“We had 10 people. Not a huge number, but good,” said Ms. Adkins, 55, who has been an Obama volunteer since the first day she saw him during a stop here on March 11, 2007.

Not that there’s anything wrong with potlucks; in fact, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the Tea Party folks to start planning to have them after the town halls. Save some money on takeout that way.  Of course, given the number of people who show up to the town halls it’d probably make sense to split them up into multiple potlucks, but that’s a logistical issue. Continue reading Organizing for America up to the task… of running potlucks. #teaparty

Meet Jesse Kelly (R Cand, AZ-08).

Website for Jesse Kelly here: contribute here.

AZ-08 is a R+4 district: its current holder (Gabrielle Giffords) picked up the seat as part of the 2006 shellacking. In time-honored Blue Dog fashion, she’s handling the health care rationing controversy by hiding from it: Giffords abruptly canceled two Thursday meetings by ‘combining’ them into a RSVP-only whatever-it-was at a military base. Fairly typical behavior, in other words.

Enter Jesse Kelly: Marine, businessman, and more than happy to go to the canceled town hall and talk, same time, same place.  How did he do?  Judge for yourself: Continue reading Meet Jesse Kelly (R Cand, AZ-08).