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Oh, the Horror!

On March 23, Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) posted this image to her Facebook page asking for Obamacare horror stories, saying “Whether it’s turned your tax filing into a nightmare, you’re facing skyrocketing premiums, or your employer has reduced your work hours, I want to hear about it.”

Obamacare

What she got back in return was probably only horrible for her plans. I can’t even tell how many comments were left on her page, but from people telling how Obamacare had made their lives better, or even saved their lives. And castigating Rodgers (and the Republicans) for opposing the ACA and challenging them that if they don’t like the law, then to propose improvements to it.

Of course, that didn’t stop Rodgers from posting a video about how Americans are suffering from Obamacare. Suspiciously, she posted the video less than 24 hours after she asked for people’s stories. Also suspicious is that only one of her stories was from the state of Washington, and she was even vague about that.

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Late Night Political Humor

“In an interview with Playboy magazine, Dick Cheney criticized President Obama and said he’s quote, ‘the worst president of my lifetime, without question.’ Then Cheney said, ‘But enough talk. When do I take my clothes off?'” – Jimmy Fallon

“During an interview with Playboy — that’s right, Playboy — Dick Cheney said President Obama is the worst president in his lifetime. Meanwhile, subscribers to Playboy said Cheney was the worst centerfold in their lifetime.” – Conan O’Brien

“Dick Cheney said in a Playboy interview this week that Barack Obama is the worst president of his lifetime. Come on, you can’t tell me Obama is worse than Martin Van Buren.” – Seth Meyers

“Everyone’s busy filling out their March Madness brackets. Even Jeb Bush filled one out. And you can tell he’s running for president because his picks for the Final Four are Iowa, Iowa, Iowa, and Iowa.” – Jimmy Fallon

“President Obama filled out his March Madness bracket. You can tell Obama’s mind is elsewhere because his top two picks were Israel and Iran.” – Conan O’Brien

“President Obama recently sat down with ESPN and said the NCAA should reduce the shot clock for basketball games. Then he said, ‘And while we’re at it, is there any way they can reduce the ‘being president clock’?” – Jimmy Fallon

“President Obama has decided that he wants his presidential library to be in Chicago, not Hawaii. Today Hawaii’s governor said, ‘Great, who’s going to want to come to Hawaii now?'” – Conan O’Brien

“Mitt Romney, two-time Republican presidential candidate, is going to fight Evander Holyfield for charity. I hope they save some of that money for funeral expenses.” – David Letterman

“Everybody was upset that Vladimir Putin was missing. He was in Switzerland with his girlfriend. She had a baby in Switzerland because in Russia childbirth is not covered by Putin-care.” – David Letterman

“Arnold Schwarzenegger was stopped by police in Australia this week for riding a bike without a helmet. It’s especially dangerous for Schwarzenegger because if he got a concussion, how would you know?” – Seth Meyers

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Onward Religious Objections

On Thursday, Indiana governor Mike Pence signed the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” into law. This bill is also known as the “Religious Objections” act, because it allows business owners to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation, as long as they do it because of religious beliefs.

The bill was opposed by the (Republican) mayor of Indianapolis, by the chamber of commerce and other business groups, which is ironic, because this law is supposedly protecting the religious freedom of business people.

But what is really ironic is that “religious objections” laws turns illegal discrimination on its head. As a spokesman for the ACLU put it, “Somehow the person being discriminated against has become the business owner who is discriminating against someone.” In Indiana at least, it is now illegal to discriminate against me because I discriminate against other people.

Yeah, and “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength”.

I’m also getting very annoyed at laws that claim to be about religious freedom, but are really about Christianity, as this video satirically points out:

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The Latest News in Climate Denial

1984 is alive and well in Florida. And California is feeling the heat.

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Late Night Political Humor

“Hillary Clinton was actually inducted into the Irish American Hall of Fame yesterday. Hillary said she’s very proud of her Irish heritage, or her Italian heritage, or her Asian heritage. Whatever it takes to seal the deal with you guys. I’ve got to get into that Oval Office.” – Jimmy Fallon

“The prime minister of Ireland will be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day at the White House. So finally the Secret Service agents will have a drinking buddy.” – Conan O’Brien

“St. Patrick’s Day is the fourth biggest drinking day in America. It’s not the biggest. It’s right behind New Year’s Eve, Fourth of July, or any Secret Service party.” – David Letterman

“Mitt Romney announced he will fight former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield in a charity boxing match. You can tell that Romney is serious about it. Today, his butler gave him a piggyback ride up the steps of the Philadelphia art museum.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Mitt Romney has a fund-raiser. He’s going to get in the ring and fight Evander Holyfield. This is the dumbest thing Republicans have done since they wrote that open letter to Iran.” – David Letterman

It turns out they’re already trying a bunch of nicknames to try to hype up the match. First they considered ‘Vanilla in Manila.’ Next up, they tried ‘Lean and Mean versus L.L. Bean.’ Finally, ‘Mitt Romney Loses to Another Black Guy.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Texas Senator Ted Cruz said if elected president he would abolish the Department of Education. But not to worry. He promised to replace it with the less expensive Bureau of Book Learning.” – Conan O’Brien

“Remember evil Russian dictator Vladimir Putin? He vanished for 10 days. He had disappeared and there were a lot of rumors. One rumor was he had disappeared because he had himself executed.” – David Letterman

“It’s rumored that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son is cheating on his girlfriend Miley Cyrus. After hearing about it Arnold said, ‘That’s my boy’.” – Conan O’Brien

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In Summary

Tom Tomorrow
© Tom Tomorrow

Now that we have our first announced candidate, the presidential race (which somehow seems like it has been already going on for 53,000 years) is officially off and running!

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Naturally!

Yesterday, Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced he was running for the presidency, giving a speech that has already been fact-checked and unsurprisingly found to be lacking in truth.

Our favorite presidential election results predictor, FiveThirtyEight.com, says that “Cruz almost certainly has no shot at winning the nomination, according to every indicator that predicts success in presidential primaries”. He isn’t even very popular among Republicans. And if he gets past that hurdle, in matchups against Hillary Clinton, “Cruz has done the worst of any of the possible 2016 Republican nominees.”

Nevertheless, some people are comparing him to Barack Obama:

I’m obviously not the first person to compare these two ambitious, young, Ivy-educated freshmen senators who spent roughly 15 minutes in the U.S. Senate before deciding to run for president.

And like Obama, Cruz has already attracted his own birthers. Yesterday, Donald Trump told Fox News that he doubts that Cruz can legally run for president because he was born in Canada.

Unlike Obama, there is no doubt that Cruz was not born in the US, and he didn’t even give up his Canadian citizenship until last year, but he claims that he is eligible to be president because his mother was American (his father was Cuban). The constitution requires that the president be a “natural born citizen” but never defines what that means. Personally, I wouldn’t care if Cruz was born in Kenya. I’m more concerned about his allegiance to Goldman Sachs.

UPDATE: At least Cruz got some satirical support from The Onion:

Announcing his 2016 presidential bid before thousands of students at Liberty University, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) boldly declared Monday that the nation had done absolutely nothing to deserve a better candidate than himself. “I want you to take a good, hard look at me, America, because this is exactly what you’ve got coming,” said Cruz, adding that the country was kidding itself if it thought it was worthy of higher-quality leadership than exactly what he was prepared to offer. “Deep down, you know you’ve got no business supporting anyone else. I’m all you’re entitled to, so just give me your vote and watch what happens. You earned it.” Cruz went on to say that, in some ways, he might actually be a better candidate than the nation deserved.

The Onion fails to mention that attendance by Liberty University students was mandatory.

UPDATE 2: Cruz announces that he is going on Obamacare. Yes that’s right, the man who shut down the US government in a vain attempt to kill Obamacare. Previously, he got his health insurance through his wife, who works for Goldman Sachs, but she is going on leave for the duration of his campaign.

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Late Night Political Humor

“During his weekly address to the nation, President Obama discussed higher education and said, ‘The most important skill you can sell is your knowledge.’ Or as English majors working at Starbucks put it, ‘No it’s not’.” – Jimmy Fallon

“This weekend President Obama attended the annual Gridiron Club Dinner, and during his speech he joked that he is getting older and crankier. Which explains why he announced he no longer supports President Obama.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Russia’s Vladimir Putin appeared in public for the first time after a mysterious 10-day absence. Putin said it took him that long to recover from the finale of ‘The Bachelor’.” – Conan O’Brien

After a mysterious absence, Vladimir Putin appeared today in public for the first time in nearly two weeks. You know what that means — a boob job. And we’re going to find out quick because that guy doesn’t wear a shirt a lot.” – Seth Meyers

“Some people are still angry about the letter written by Republicans to Iran. It’s also not helping that they said, ‘Dear Iran or Iraq, we can never keep you two straight.” – Conan O’Brien

“Pope Francis said that one of the things he misses most about ordinary life is the ability to go out and eat pizza without being recognized. I wouldn’t worry. Nobody’s going to believe the guy who works at the pizza place when he says, ‘Hey, you know who came in today? The Pope.'” – Seth Meyers

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Real Civics Lesson?

It sounded like a good idea to take fourth graders to their state legislature to observe how democracy works.

In the spirit of learning by doing, students drafted a bill to learn the process of how a bill becomes law. They proposed House Bill 373, an act establishing the Red Tail Hawk as the New Hampshire State Raptor.

The proposed bill passed out of the Environment and Agriculture committee and came to the floor for a vote, which is when things turned … well, normal.

Legislator Warren Groen opposed the selection of the Red Tail Hawk because of the way it attacks its prey:

It grasps them with its talons then uses its razor sharp beak to basically tear it apart limb by limb, and I guess the shame about making this a state bird is it would serve as a much better mascot for Planned Parenthood.

Would it surprise anyone that Groen is a crusader against abortion and has assisted crisis pregnancy centers? (He’s also against marriage equality for gays.)

Another Republican opposed the bill:

Bottom line, if we keep bringing more of these bills, and bills, and bills forward that really I think we shouldn’t have in front of us, we’ll be picking a state hot dog next.

The lawmakers (aka children’s dream destroyers) voted down the bill 133 to 160, while the students watched from the gallery.

Some people objected to the comments from Groen, especially since there were children and their families watching. But Groen defended his comments: “Should we limit free speech? Or should we limit who goes in the gallery?”

Maybe there is another group whose killer instincts might make them better suited to using the Red Tail Hawk as their mascot.

[Hat tip to Slate.]

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Late Night Political Humor

“Scientists have discovered a black hole that is 12 billion times the size of our sun. It’s full of Hillary Clinton emails.” – David Letterman

“Some Secret Service guys crashed a car into the White House. And they had been drinking when it happened. Actually, they hit a barrier trying to get to the White House. It’s the same thing that is happening to Hillary.” – David Letterman

“There is controversy surrounding Obama’s appearance on the show. Monday we announced the president would be here. This morning I got a letter from 47 Republicans telling me not to sign any deals with him.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Today Mitt Romney is 68 years old. It’s kind of sad, a 68-year-old guy with no job, no future — wait a minute, that’s me.” – David Letterman

“I always liked Mitt Romney. He looks like the salesman who follows you around at Brooks Brothers.” – David Letterman

“They found a scrapbook with photos of Osama bin Laden from the ’90s, and they’re studying each and every photo very, very closely. My favorite shot of Osama bin Laden was right between the eyes. ” – David Letterman

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Is The Grass Greener?

Ted Rall
© Ted Rall

I don’t know if I can explain why this comic appealed to me so much. It made me laugh and think all at the same time. I like to think I can see both sides of most issues, not to agree with them, but just to see why they might think that way. But I can’t get my head around ISIS. This comic helped me see the light. We all have the ability to delude ourselves.

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Late Night Political Humor

“President Obama’s trying to work out a nuclear deal with Iran, and the Republicans are steamed. They got together and sent Iran a letter about the nuclear deal. They said if this doesn’t work, by God, they’re going to send Seth Rogen and James Franco.” – David Letterman

“Clearly the situational ethics of this country’s leadership is easy to catalog, but the real takeaway from this seems to be no matter how evil our president or our Congress believes Iran to be, they would each rather deal with the ayatollah than each other.” – Jon Stewart (on 47 Republican Senators sending a letter to Iran about a nuclear deal)

“The ayatollah in Iran says he believes that he got the letter, but he thinks he accidentally threw it out with his Crate & Barrel catalog.” – David Letterman”

“Today would have been the birthday of Osama bin Laden. It makes me remember when Seal Team 6 threw him a surprise party.” – David Letterman

“This is a very big week for us here. Tomorrow night on our show we get a visit from President Obama, which means that all of you here tonight just missed having to get a cavity search to get in here tonight.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Manny is with us now. Hey, if you come back tomorrow we won’t need the Secret Service to protect President Obama. You can do it with your fists alone.” – Jimmy Kimmel

There’s some kind of a thing where when [Clinton] was Secretary of State she was using her own e-mail instead of the State Department, and I thought finally, a Clinton scandal the entire family can enjoy.” – David Letterman

“So the Florida Department of Environmental Protection can’t use the term ‘climate change’?” That’s like telling Rudy Giuliani he can’t use the word ‘9-11.’ ” – Larry Wilmore on “The Nightly Show”

“Mayor de Blasio has legalized ferrets. Now you can legally own ferrets in New York City. I want to tell you something. If I want to see any more beady-eyed little weasels, I’ll just keep riding the subway.” – David Letterman

“Now in Utah if you get the death sentence, they have the firing squad. In Russia, they call that early retirement.” – David Letterman

“Because Utah is largely Mormon country, the firing squad’s a little different. You’re blindfolded but no cigarette.” – David Letterman

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Bibi King

Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu easily won the election in Israel, and he did it by appealing to the base fears of right-wing voters. Sound familiar?

We’ll let Jon Stewart give the review:

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Hold On!

Jack Ohman
© Jack Ohman

After spending years trying to get rid of him, the Republicans are so happy that Eric Holder is stepping down as Attorney General that they are refusing to confirm his replacement Loretta Lynch, which will give Holder another six months on the job. You would think that after holding him in contempt of Congress and repeatedly calling for his forced resignation that they would help him out the door.

And then it gets even more ironic. Rudi Giuliani — who recently questioned whether Obama loves America — has sent a letter to fellow Republicans, urging them to defer to Obama and confirm Lynch.

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Late Night Political Humor

“Yesterday was not only daylight saving time, but also International Women’s Day. What better way to address the issue of inequality for women than giving them a day that’s missing an hour.” – David Letterman

“Hillary Clinton could use one of these Apple Watches. She could hook it up to her secret email account. If you want to contact Hillary, she’s at hillary@pantsuit.com.” – David Letterman

“Yesterday, the Supreme Court spent over an hour listening to arguments on whether Obamacare is unconstitutional. Yeah, listening to arguments about Obamacare for an hour, or as most people call that, ‘Thanksgiving Dinner’.” – Jimmy Fallon

“There are reports that Russia is actually working with North Korea to encourage “collaboration and cooperation” between the two countries. Yeah, they believe that with Russia’s economic power and North Korea’s technology, they can be a real threat to 1987.” – Jimmy Fallon

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