Enter PajamaBoy

December 18th, 2013

If ObamaCare weren’t destroying the lives of millions, you could almost feel sorry for their colossal ineptitude at every aspect of ObamaCare.

Almost.

But the most recent of Obama’s risible “Sell ObamaCare to your relatives at holidays” gambits is far and away the most mockable:

And thus #PajamaBoy was born. There are topics that just cry out for my special brand of sensitivity, and PajamaBoy is one of those topics:

Eventually I started channeling #PajamaBoy himself:

Others, of course, were right there in the trenches of derisive mockery with me:

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Posted in Media Watch, ObamaCare | No Comments »

District Judge Strikes Down ObamaCare’s Contraceptive Mandate

December 17th, 2013

U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan struck down the ObamaCare contraceptive mandate. If you read the actual decision, it’s a smackdown of both the mandate itself and the Obama Administration’s position on same;

As for the self-certification requirement, the Court rejects the Government’s position that plaintiffs may be compelled to perform affirmative acts precluded by their religion if a court deems those acts merely “de minimis.” This argument – which essentially reduces to the claim that completing the self-certification places no burden on plaintiffs’ religion because “it’s just a form” – finds no support in the case law. As discussed, where a law places substantial pressure on a plaintiff to perform affirmative acts contrary to his religion, the Supreme Court has found a substantial burden without analyzing whether those acts are de minimis.”

Cogan ruled against some of the plantiff’s arguments on other technical issues, but on the central issues of the case he ruled “the Mandate burdens plaintiffs’ religion by coercing them into authorizing third parties to provide this coverage through the self-certification requirement, an act forbidden by plaintiffs’ religion.”

On his Facebook page, Ted Cruz hailed the ruling as a “Major victory for religious liberty.”

Gabriel Malor of Ace of Spades has analyzed the ruling in more detail.

Cogan’s ruling deals specifically with religious non-profits covered by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and as such does not directly affect the Hobby Lobby case the Supreme Court will be taking up (“none of these cases bear directly on the issue at hand”). However, his overall reasoning, if applied to that case, could very well lead to ruling that the contraceptive mandate is an unconstitutional burden on freedom of religious conscious as well.

Remember, the fervor with which Nancy Pelosi refused to remove the contraceptive mandate and taxpayer-funded abortion from ObamaCare, even when it cost most of Bart Stupak ostensibly “pro-life” Democrats their seats, indicated that liberals regarded those sections as one of act’s most important features. If Cogan’s ruling is upheld, this is not only a major victory for religious liberty, but also a huge blow to ongoing Democratic attempts to marginalize religion in American life.

Also remember that ObamaCare has no severability clause. If Judge Cogan’s ruling is upheld, there’s still a chance (though by no means a guarantee) that the rest of the act can be found unconstitutional as well.

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Instead Of Real Content

December 16th, 2013

Instead of real content, enjoy some of this:

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New York City Liberals Shocked To Find ObamaCare Screws Them As Well

December 14th, 2013

This New York Times piece linked by Instapundit is too good not to give its own post.

Many in New York’s professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama’s health care plan. But now, to their surprise, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it.

“Hey, wait a minute! ObamaCare was never supposed to screw me! It was only supposed to screw other people!”

It’s like that scene in Aliens where the backstabbing corporate weasel corporate weasel who betrayed the rest of the crew gets a face-full of xenomorph, but with ObamaCare as the alien and liberals playing Paul Reiser.

For years conservatives have issued unheeded warnings about how big government ruins peoples lives, but it took Democrats shoving ObamaCare down the country’s throat to make liberals feel the pain.

It is not lost on many of the professionals that they are exactly the sort of people — liberal, concerned with social justice — who supported the Obama health plan in the first place. Ms. Meinwald, the lawyer, said she was a lifelong Democrat who still supported better health care for all, but had she known what was in store for her, she would have voted for Mitt Romney.

And that’s why the Obama-friendly media lied about it for four years.

ObamaCare is a bad law for most Americans, a bad law for the country as a whole, and should be repealed.

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More Annals of Criminal SUPER-Geniuses

December 13th, 2013

Protip: If you are a convicted felon, try not to put up Instagram pictures of yourself holding two guns.

Especially if you have “$250,000 worth of stolen jewelry, electronics and and firearms” in your house.

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LinkSwarm for December 13, 2013

December 13th, 2013

A lot of ObamaCare, a little on guns, and a pinch of everything else, from Ace, Instapndit, and elsewhere:

  • Man with critically ill son gives up on ObamaCare after 50 tries to buy insurance.
  • Complain about your insurance being cancelled due to ObamaCare? That’s an audit. For you, your advocate, and your insurance salesman.
  • Finally, after furiously covering for Obama when it counted, Liberal media tool Politifact is forced to admit that “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it” is the lie of the year.
  • Oregon spent $300 million on its ObamaCare exchanges only to sign up a grand total of 44 people.
  • Here’s a chance to vote for the ObamaCare launch as top Fail of 2013.
  • After 2 hours of open heart surgery, Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft is losing his insurance thanks to ObamaCare.
  • ObamaCare is already pushing low-wage workers out of jobs.
  • Charles Krauthammer: The ObamaCare enrollment figures are bunk.

  • Kathleen Sebelius is really getting tired of answering questions on why she sucks.
  • Obama earns a 62% disapproval rating among independents: Quick! He better give a speech!
  • Every time you think the ATF has sunk as low as they possibly can, they dig further.
  • After months of propaganda from the Democratic Party’s media wing and millions of Nurse Bloomberg’s dollars spent, the American public is now now more opposed to gun control than when the year began.
  • How the EU and Obama are blowing it in Ukraine.
  • Time magazine thinks Pope Francis is important because of his “rejection of church dogma.” In other news, the people running Time magazine just aren’t very bright.
  • Georgia Tea Party opposes tax giveaways for sports franchise billionaires. As well they should.
  • Problem: UT regent Wallace Hall investigates corruption and inluence peddling at the university. Solution: Impeach him.
  • Ted Cruz makes it into a question on Jeopardy.
  • Update on Wiliamson County race filings. John Carter, Tony Dale and Larry Gonzalez are all running unopposed.
  • Reminder: Dogs are awesome.

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    Posted in Austin, ObamaCare, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »

    The Reviews Are In! Ryan-Murray Is Budget-Busting Garbage!

    December 12th, 2013

    Conservatives have taken a good, close look at the details of the Ryan-Murray budget agreement, and are unanimous in their judgment: It stinks!

  • “House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan has now accomplished the astonishing task of pushing House Republicans substantially to the left of the Senate GOP. His budget deal, announced Tuesday night, was achieved by shutting conservative Senate Republicans out of negotiations, by resorting to the old trick of spending now while claiming savings later, by ignoring a symbolically important budgetary red line, and by treating as Democratic “concessions” things to which even Democratic budgeteers already had agreed.”
  • “With liberal Senator Patty Murray, Congressman Ryan wants to raise spending today on the promise that Congress will restrain itself ten years from now (or whenever the benchmark will be). It’s a return to pre-sequestration Washington — spending increases today in exchange for promises of spending cuts later.”
  • “How can leadership credibly promise spending cuts later, after agreeing to a plan that rolls back the sequestration savings promised two debt increases ago?
  • Ted Cruz: “”The new budget deal moves in the wrong direction: it spends more, taxes more, and allows continued funding for Obamacare… this proposal undoes the sequester’s modest reforms and pushes us two steps back, deeper into debt.”
  • Sen. Mike Lee: “Rather than enacting reforms to make government more efficient, the budget deal makes more government more expensive. Sequestration is far from ideal, but at least it forced Congress get serious about excessive spending. This deal cuts into the modest gains taxpayers have won since 2011, by trading concrete spending reductions over the next two years for theoretical spending cuts a decade from now.”

    • Paul Ryan has given birth to a pile of garbage. The fact that it’s a relatively small pile of garbage is beside the point, since it will still stink up the place. Republican House and Senate members should haul it out to the curb.

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    Texas vs. California Roundup for December 11, 2013

    December 11th, 2013

    Time for another roundup of Texas, Red State Champion, versus Blue State California:

  • Texas is the tenth best run state in the union, while California is the worst.
  • The vast gap between California’s haves and Have Nots.
  • The federal court Detroit bankruptcy ruling has made CalPERS nervous. As well it should.
  • Ditto public employee unions. “Government agencies should have the right to reduce future accruals, just as private-sector employers can — and they shouldn’t have to wait until they’re insolvent to do so…In California, prospective benefits are sacrosanct because of a series of poorly reasoned legal rulings…The system must be fixed before more municipalities reach bankruptcy. For state and local governments to climb out of their deep holes of pension debt, they must first stop digging.”
  • A succinct statement of the problem “California local governments cannot thrive if escalating retirement costs crowd out money for public service.” Plus: “Bargaining effectively occurs between unions and those elected largely because of money from unions.”
  • Today’s California city teetering on the edge of bankruptcy: Fresno. (“Fresno? No one goes to Fresno anymore!”)
  • 18 LA County Sheriffs department deputies indicted for “beating jail inmates and visitors, trying to intimidate an FBI agent and other crimes.” (Hat tip: Dwight, who notes “They tried to intimidate an FBI agent? Does LACSD make it a practice to hire and promote deputies who are dumber than a bag of hair?”)
  • Speaking of police behaving badly, 28 Santa Monica cops took home more than $200,000 last year. For comparison, Austin’s chief of police earns $198,819 a year.
  • Even California isn’t wild about Obama anymore.
  • California lobbyist organizes a second junket to Cuba.
  • Charting the Texas oil bool.
  • Cognizant moves operations center from New Jersey to College Station.

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    Posted in Budget, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »

    2014 Texas Senate Race Field Set

    December 10th, 2013

    Finally, John Cornyn has a real challenger. Steve Stockman has Tea Party support, impeccable conservative credentials, experience in high profile races (he knocked off Democratic fossil Jack Brooks for a U.S. congressional seat in the Gingrich wave of 1994), and a Southeast Texas base that might (might) let him tap into Houston’s rich Republican fundraising base. But he has gotten into the race very, very late, against a well-funded opponent whose deviations into RINO-Land have been far less severe those of Arlen Specter, DIck Luger or David Dewhurst (and that role-call of names is probably slightly unfair to Dewhurst). Ted Cruz had about fifteen months to knock off Dewhurst, while Stockman has three to take down Cornyn. Further, while Cruz’s race against Dewhurst was one of the top Tea Party vs. RINO races nationwide, I get the impression the Stockman/Cornyn fight will take a distinct backseat to Matt Bevin’s attempt to take down Mitch McConnell, and possibly several other races.

    It’s certainly possible that Stockman can take out Cornyn, but it’s going to be very difficult, especially while still carrying out his congressional duties.

    For the sake of completeness, here’s a look at the other candidates.

    Republicans

  • Curt Cleaver: A retread longshot from the 2012 Senate Race.
  • Ken Cope: The Midlothian Enigma, about which The Google has precious little to say. This year’s Grady Yarbrough?
  • Chris Mapp: Boat dealership owner. Seems like a solid Tea Party Republican but the man desperately needs to learn how to use indenting and/or paragraph breaks.
  • Dwayne Stover: A bridge-builder. I don’t mean that metaphorically, I mean that his company actually builds bridges.
  • Read Reasor: Good: Former F-15 pilot. Bad: His platform (if you can call it such, being a Facebook post, since his website doesn’t currently work) is a strange mashup of WPA works program, workfare and local autarky. I would like to see his “let welfare recipients build their own home” idea run as a small pilot project somewhere, but his plan has more than a whiff of late-night college bull sessions to it.
  • Linda Vega: A Houston-area lawyer. She has a good resume…for someone running for a county judge position. U.S. Senate? Not so much.

    • Democrats:

  • David Alameel: Former dental chain owner, and worth a reported $50 million dollars. With that big money, he should be a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination, right? Not so fast. “This will be Alameel’s second run for office in as many cycles. Last cycle, he ran for Congress in the newly-drawn 33rd District and finished fourth out of 11 candidates in the Democratic primary. Alameel received 2,064 votes (10 percent)…[he] actually spent $4,485,086 million in the 2012 race, which comes out to $2,173 per vote.” That almost makes John Connally’s 1980 run for President look like a model of model of prudent campaign financing…
  • Michael Fjetland: Ran as a Republican in the primary against Tom Delay in 2006. Proclaims “I am the ‘Anti-Cruz'” in an all-capital letters font. (Pro-tip: When you use ALL CAPS more often than Time Cube Guy, you’re doing it wrong…)
  • HyeTae “Harry” Kim: Odessa physician. Sorry, that’s all I’ve got for you.
  • Lakesha Rogers: The LaRouche Candidate.
  • Maxey Scheer: El Paso attorney who’s also running as the anti-Cruz candidate, complete with towing a crashed-car prop behind her to protest Cornyn’s “Cruz Control.” (Get it? Get? Cruz control? It’s a concrete metaphor and a pun! Get it? Get it? Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more!) Given the Statesman‘s polite attention, I’m going to guess she’s the designated “Democratic faithful” candidate if Alameel’s wealth can’t get him across the finish line, though her gas costs may prove prohibitive. Also seems intensely race-conscious.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Bluehost’s Mandated PHP Upgrade Nukes Word Press’ Default Header

    December 10th, 2013

    Yet again.

    We’ll see if I can fix it later in the day. Maybe I can get a reader to do a new graphic for my header…

    Update: Defaulting back to the base header color because evidently Nothing Else Works with the version of PHP Bluehost has foisted on me, because it’s evidently too stupid to use standard HTML colors.

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