Separated At Birth

Steven Tyler looks like Nancy Pelosi. That is all.

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She Doesn't Know Anything

Is it the silly season already? I thought that wasn't until September. I must be wrong because Nancy Pelosi has been spouting out the ramblings of a crazy person. And when someone can do that when they're talking about Newt Gingrich (who isn't exactly someone I would put in the 'completely sane' category), well, that's certainly something.

According to the NY Daily News, Nancy Pelosi was asked by CNN about what she thought about the change that there might be a "President Gingrich". She responded with: "Let me just say this. That will never happen...He's not going to be President of the United States ... Let me just make my prediction and stand by it, it isn't going to happen." Now, while I agree with her feelings, I don't know that I think that it's a very good idea to go around saying it quite like that. There are too many dumbasses out there who go to vote. I'd hate to have any of them get wind of this and think, "Oh, yeah?! C'mon, Cletus. Let's go show her wrong!" (And by the way, there would be no particular reason for the dumbasses to think this. They're dumbasses. They don't need a reason.) But she didn't really stop there. No, she went on to jabber: "There is something I know. The Republicans, if they choose to nominate him, that's their prerogative. I don't even think that's going to happen." Wait. There is something that she knows?

What could she possibly know? (Other than it would appear, based on the photo below, that Dwight Schrute is quite possibly Newt's love child.) Does she know something that the rest of us don't? Really, those sentences didn't string together very well, so it's entirely possible that she didn't know what she was talking about either. (I wonder if that happens when you've had your face lifted just one too many times. Hmm...) But you can't just come out and says "There is something I know" and not back it up with...anything, lest you sound like a crazy(er) person. At the very least, make your subsequent sentences flow!

I can't imagine that she has some sort of 'secret weapon' that she's going to break out if Newt should get the nomination. And even if she did, why wouldn't she keep that sort of thing to herself? You don't want to be letting everyone in on your 'strategy', do you? Granted, if it is a 'strategy', it's probably the worst one I've ever heard of. (It's a good thing she isn't in charge of our SEAL operations. She'd tip everyone off before anything could get done. Can you picture it? "There is something I know. Osama bin Laden is about to hear a knock at his door." Yeah, that wouldn't be very effective.)

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While perusing the Innerwebs today, I ran across this over at something called Washington Scene - The Hill:

Oh, please. Are you freaking kidding me? A reception to honor your accomplishments? Is that necessary, you twit? First question, who is paying for this wing ding? It certainly had better not be taxpayers and if it is, I want to go. I'd feel a lot better about how my tax dollars were spent if I actually felt like I got to use the things that they were spent on once in a while. (And don't tell me that the roads I drive on are paid for by some sort of tax dollars. The roads I drive on are crap, at best.)

Seriously, how out of touch is she (and the rest of them)? They need to throw themselves a little wing-ding so that the entire self-congratulatory bunch of them can stand around and reinforce how great they think they are? That doesn't sound all that necessary to me. You know, y'all haven't exactly turned this country around all the way quite yet. What say you hold off on your narcissistic tea party until the unemployment rate is at least at a manageable level again, OK? Is that too much to ask? Apparently so. Sadly, apparently so.

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Now We Know What's In The Bill. Or Do We?

Here are four words I never thought I'd think, much less type: Nancy Pelosi was right.

On March 9, 2010, Speaker Pelosi (who I'm pretty sure is missing a human soul and warms her body by sunning herself on a rock) gave a little speech to the Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties and during said speech, she actually said what I thought might have been the most ridiculous thing to ever come out of her mouth. She said, in reference to the then-pending health care bill, "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it". Um, what now?

That's what she said. I swear. The text of the entire speech is over at her website. That particular little gem is about six paragraphs up from the bottom. But it turns out, she was right. How did I determine that? I came to that conclusion after reading an article by the extremely talented reporter William La Jeunesse of Fox News. The article outlined a provision of the bill, which is now law, called the Class Act, "...otherwise known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act" which "...is the federal government's first long-term care insurance program."

Now, why we didn't hear about this beforehand is beyond me. No, wait. No, it's not. We didn't hear about it because people out there in the media are simply not doing their jobs. It's not like this bill wasn't available for review beforehand. (Right? It was available, right?) Granted, the thing clocked in at over 2,000 pages long. Am I supposed to read all of those 2,000 pages? Technically, I think that I should want to. And don't get me wrong, I DO want to want to. I DON'T want to, though. But again, technically, I don't think that I should have to. (Don't get me started on how I don't think that ANYTHING should be 2,000 pages long, unless it's a document telling me how great I am, and even then that would be pushing it. My greatness can easily be summed up in a thousand pages or so.) It's not my JOB to read the damn thing. That's the job of the media. Their job is to report. They can't report unless they know what they're reporting on. The only way to know that is to do their damn job and read all 2,000 freaking pages. But no one did, otherwise we would have heard about this before now.

Ready for this? I hope you're either sitting down or sharpening your pitchfork tines. "...The program will allow workers to have an average of roughly $150 or $240 a month, based on age and salary, automatically deducted from their paycheck to save for long-term care." Wait. What now? How much? A month?!

Now, call me silly, but can't you get long term care from the insurance that you're already supposed to be mandated to be purchasing thanks to the passage of the health care bill? I'm thinking that something along those lines would make the most sense. Ohh. That's why they didn't do it that way. It would have made sense. Carry on.

Now, this is a policy where you are automatically opted into unless you opt out. That is the complete opposite of what I thought that things were supposed to be being done. I thought it was supposed to be that you were automatically opted out of something unless you wanted to opt in. Oh, right. That's for things that the federal government isn't trying to siphon money from you for. Got it.

According to William's article, here are some of the more pressing details that you need to know about:

The deduction will work on a sliding scale based on age. Younger workers will be charged less, older workers more. The Congressional Budget Office pegged the average monthly deduction at $146. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services put it higher, at $240. Wait. The CBO and the Medicare/Medicaid folks have figures that differ in cost of around a hundred bucks? Shocking, I know. Who am I going to believe? I'm going to go with the Medicare/Medicaid folks, as they are already ridiculously underpaid, thus the CBO's low estimate would seem to be wrong, all things considered. I'm also going to with with how that seems like an awful lot of money to be deducted monthly from folks. (And just remember, those figures are an "average". That means that some people will pay more than that and some people will pay less than that. My guess is that some people will pay much, much less.)

After a five-year vesting period, enrollees who need help bathing, eating or dressing will be eligible to take out benefits, estimated to be around $75 a day for in-home care. Only a five year vesting period? And then you're good? How do they figure that? By my calculations (and I'll go with the higher figure just to give them the benefit of the doubt), if you're paying in $240 a month, after five years, you'll have contributed $14,400. At benefits of $75 a day that you can tap if you need to after those five years, you'll have yourself a whopping 192 days of care. That's not a full year. That's barely over six months. Now, I don't know what your definition of "long term care" is, but mine is definitely more than six months. Six months isn't what I'd call "long term". Six months is "just gettin' started".

Here's the other frightening part of this: The money that is put into this fund (generously and likely erroneously estimated to be $109 billion in collected premiums by 2019 after being implemented as early as 2012) will not be in a "lockbox" sort of situation. No, it's going to be more of a general fund sort of situation. You know how Social Security money is supposed to be just for Social Security? You know how the Social Security funds have been tapped by everything else AND how it will give out more than it takes in next year? You know how that works? Sure you do. Now, do you expect that this thing will work any differently? Of course you don't. Thus, it's going to end up being what? A mitigated disaster, that is correct.

Of course "The statute says the program is designed to be self-sustaining, with an advisory board to assure the fund remains solvent. But opponents say the fine print already tells another story. Unless modifications are made, according to a CBO analysis of the bill, "the program will add to future federal budget deficits in a large and growing fashion." Sounds great. Good thing that this was passed into law so that we could find out that this was in it!

Since I enjoy math and numbers, let's look at a few more, shall we? If this thing starts in 2012, $109 billion in premiums by 2019 equals out to be $15.57 billion a year. If folks are paying $240 a month, that's 5,228,125 people needed to sustain that figure. If folks are paying $146 a year, that's 8,594,178 people needed to sustain that figure. That's a difference of 3,366,053 people. Um, that's kind of a lot. How do they figure this is going to work? AT ALL! And let's not forget, those are the figures to make it all work out without money being drawn out of the fund. Those are just the numbers for money being theoretically deposited into the fund.

But let's say you participate in this charade starting from the time you're 20. And let's say that you're paying the low, low rate of $146 a month. Fast forward forty five years. You're now sixty five and you're going to retire. You'll have amassed for yourself, after forty five years of paying premiums and at the flex-rate of $75 per day allotted to you for long term care, a whopping three years of long term care. Three. Forty five years, $146 a month for a total of $78,840. That gets you three years of in-home long term care. That doesn't seem like a lot to me. Wouldn't you be better off taking that $146 and investing it somewhere or even setting up a 401k type of dealio so that you can take care of your own expenses? Wouldn't that $146 amount to a hell of a lot more than the $78,840 after 45 years? I'm kind of thinking that it would.

This is ridiculous. And it's now law. Congratulations, Nancy Pelosi. Thanks for saddling the country with another obligation that it cannot afford. What in the hell happened to people taking care of themselves when they retire anyway? (Has she not noticed the high unemployment rate which is still besieging the country? Perhaps she has overlooked the still sagging economy? The perpetually high foreclosure rate? And she's thinking that folks in "times like these" are going to be OK with forking over another $200 a month? Not to be unjustifiably disrespectful to the soulless snake, but she's high.)

I don't say things like this very often, but please read William's article and pass it along to your friends. I guarantee that the majority of them, if not all of them, have never heard a single word about this. I guarantee that the majority of them have no idea that they've already been opted into a plan that is going to cost them a minimum of $146 a month unless they opt out. And again, the reason that people don't know this is because people in the media are not doing their job. Well, except for William. William rocks at his job. But everyone else just sucks. I can't wait to find out what else is in the bill now that it's passed into law. How exciting!

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Let Me Point Something Out

This whole ordeal with the Christmas Crotchfire Bomber is really starting to bug me. Aside from the fact that it seems as if no one is going to lose their job, the rhetoric that President Barry is throwing around is laughable. He says that he doesn't want any finger pointing, but yet that he wants people to be held accountable. I don't know how you're going to be able to hold someone accountable if you don't at least point a little bit in their direction. A point. A head nod. Maybe you shuffle one of your feet in their direction like you're Mr. Ed with some sort of nervous twitch or something. I don't know. But I do know that you're going to have to single out who or what it was that failed the system that was in place and you're not going to be able to do that without a little pointing of one form or another.

But President Barry is adamant that there will be no finger pointing. Um, yeah, good luck with that. First of all, from what I can tell, President Barry does plenty of finger pointing himself. Here's the President and his finger now! Oh! And what are they doing?! That's right! Pointing! Behold!

And look, here he is pointing again!

And again!

And again!

He's even got his wife doing it (sort of)!

Man, for someone who doesn't want there to be any finger pointing, he sure is coming off looking like the guy who invented it or something. And it's not just him. I didn't realize how much finger pointing there was in politics until I started looking around after hearing the "no finger pointing" rule that has apparently been implemented whenever there is a such a major screw up that there shouldn't be anything other than finger pointing. Let me just tell you this: There are a lot of fingers being pointed all over Washington, DC. As you saw above, President Barry? Quite a prolific finger pointer. His Vice President? Ol' What's His Name? Jim? John? Joe! (Dammit! I'm going to get that on the first try one of these days! Joe!) He points! Behold!

Nancy Pelosi, third in line for the Presidency of the United States if something extremely tragic happens (mostly tragic because something would have happened to the first two guys and not to her, as I see her as desirably expendable). A pointer!

What about Hillary Clinton? A pointer? I think so! Behold!

And if Hill's a pointer, what about Bill? I think he might be! Let's find out!

Oh. Unfortunate. Got anything else? Anything post the Lewinsky era?

Oh. Yeah, that does seem post that whole affair-while-in-office incident. Still not quite was I was looking for (but I'm guessing he sported that pose a lot). One more try.

All right! All right! That's enough. Look, he points, all right?! My point is he points! Bill Clinton points! For cryin' out loud....

We've got other folks that made it closer to the White House than Hillary did that are pointers. Old Man McCain. He points!

Well, he tries to point. The point is that he's trying! And his running mate, the former barely half term Governor of Alaska, Mrs. Sarah Palin. She points.

God bless Tina Fey. That Russia joke just never gets old, does it?

There's pointing (sort of) from President Barry's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Robert Gibbs, Press Secretary, a notorious pointer.

Barney Frank, that Senator from Massachusetts who looks and talks like a cartoon dog. (What kind of a dog? Probably a pointer, yes, that would be funny.)

Even ol' G.W. was known to point from time to time.

The point is (pun probably intended, but I'm not proud of it or anything) that for a guy (President Barry) who doesn't want to do any finger pointing, there sure is an awful lot of it going on. Maybe it's because they're all just pointing the fingers at themselves that he's not very fond of it. Whatever the reason, please get over it and please start firing people. And President Barry, if you need me to get in touch with a reasonable substitute for Mr. Ed that can lift a hoof in the general direction of who needs to be fired, let me know. Just point in my direction and I'll get right on that.

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President....Pelosi??

Doomed! That's what we are. Doomed! We are now at the mercy of TV network and cable executives to do the right thing in order to prevent every day life from turning into a potential reality show stunt. That isn't the sort of scenario I was prepared for. Invasion by those from a foreign land? Sure. The bullying pulpit of religious extremists? Absolutely. But how can one prepare to hope that someone who it notoriously known for doing the opposite of the right thing to do the right thing at a time when it's needed most? No one can prepare for that.

Here's the story: By now, you have inevitably heard of a one Michaele Salahi and a one Tareq Salahi. (You can pronounce those any way you'd like, I'm not going to stop you.) They are the couple who inexplicably were able to attend President Barry's State Dinner without an invite or without being on the guest list. That's right. They crashed the White House dinner party. Normally, I am in favor of various stunts which expose the incompetency of various organizations. But in a stunt that had the potential to make the phrase "President Nancy Pelosi" a reality, I'm not so impressed.

See, these two jokers didn't just crash the party. They shook hands with President Barry. They were right next to that other guy, what's his name? Right. Vice President Biden. They were right there with President Barry and Joey Veep. (I'm still working on a catchy nickname for Joe Biden. So far I've ruled out Veepy Joe, but bear with me. It could take a while.) Now, I don't know much about anthrax or any of those other biological weapons, but if they were using their sneaky powers for evil instead of asshattery, couldn't they have very easily anthraxed ol' President Barry and that Joe guy right there on the spot? I think they could have! And then where would we be? That's right! President Nancy Pelosi. God help us all. (You want to be scared even more than that? You know who is FOURTH in line for the Presidency? That's right. Robert Byrd! The barely conscious, semi-aware, 182-year old Robert Byrd! Good Lord...)

How these two ass clowns were able to make in into the party is inexplicable. It is completely without splick. Oh, and how did the world find out about it? Do you think that the Secret Service realized their own mistake on their own? No, of course not. The world found out about it because these two ass clowns posted the photos on freaking Facebook, for cryin' out loud! See, this Michaele Salahi, yeah, she is auditioning for the Bravo reality show The Real Housewives of DC. Shocking, I know. I guess that having "White House Gate Crasher" on your resume is a plus in that situation? I can't imagine.

Of course, initially the Secret Service denied that it was a problem and according to a one Ed Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service, "It's important to note that they went through all the security screenings - the magnetometer screening - just like all the other guests did...And, Obama and others under Secret Service protection had their usual security details with them at the dinner." Um, what now? Clearly they did not go through all of the security screenings, otherwise the one that showed that they weren't on the list would have prevented this! And it's good to know that President Barry and others had their security detail with them during this security breach and still had no idea what was going on. HOW does that help the situation to tell us that?! It doesn't seem to!

Since then, the Secret Service has retracted their audacity and admitted that they blew it. According to the huffy folks over there at The Huffington Post, "Director Mark Sullivan told the AP that his agency failed to verify whether the couple was invited to the party and expressed his deep concern and embarrassment. He went on to say that measures have been taken to ensure this will not happen again." There are also being criminal charges considered against the pair.

Now, I can't say that I support them being charged criminally. After all, they were allowed in. That's hardly trespassing. If you go to someone's house and they open the door and you say, "Can I come in?" and they say, "You betcha" (I'm apparently envisioning Sarah Palin's house in this example) are you trespassing? I don't think you are. The Secret Service might be annoyed with these folks, but they hardly have grounds for a case. And that's and opinion coming from someone who is not a lawyer, doesn't play one on TV and didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. I have watched a lot of Law and Order, however.

I am SO dying to know what they said to get in. I am also SO afraid it's going to be something like, "Yuh-HUH! We are SO invited to this, dude!"

But back to the doom. What do you think these assclowns are doing now? That's right, they're preparing to make the rounds on the talk show circuit. Oh, but they're not satisfied with just having their faces on TV for ten minutes. No, they want to be paid an amount of money that is rumored to be mid six figures. These guys want $500,000 at least to appear on talk shows. Are you kidding me?

Do you see the dilemma? These network execs are going to want this interview. People are going to be pissed off if they pay them that much for it. But I guarantee you, someone will. Some sleazy network out there is going to do it. And when they do, be prepared for the onslaught of gate crashers at every public event that every public official is attending. Real life will be turned into an episode of Jackass.

I can understand wanting the interview, but seriously, what do you think that you're going to learn from an interview that the public doesn't already know? I can't imagine anything. If currently they are considering criminal charges, I highly doubt that the lawyers that these folks have hired (and don't kid yourself; they have plenty of lawyers on this one) are going to allow them to speak about anything that anyone wants to know. If they haven't already explained what it was that they said to get into the Presidential wing-ding, I don't know that they're going to be talking about it on some national TV show. I can see them sitting there and talking about things that we already know, but I cannot fathom how they could have any new information to share with us that their lawyers would allow.

Any network that pays these sleazebags a dime for what they did is simply encouraging breaching national security for monetary profit. And seriously, do you really think that your little interview with these two is going to propel your ratings into the next stratosphere? I can't imagine that it would. I can't imagine that paying $500,000+ for an interview would net you a profit that would make it worth it. It's just economically impossible.

Anyone who says that this was just a "harmless prank" is a moron. It's only a "harmless prank" because nothing happened, you moron. The potential for disaster was HUGE. I mean HUGE. Must I say it again? President Nancy Pelosi. God help us....

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