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Our President: Kind of a Jag
Proving once again that there’s no instance of American misery he can’t compound, President Obama — probably trying to kill time while waiting for the Tandy on which he is currently coding healthcare.gov to boot up — hopped on Twitter today with a helpful tip on how to make your already-strained holiday gathering into an even redder hell:
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” lang=”en”><p>When your loved ones get together this holiday season, remember to talk to them about health insurance. <a href=”http://t.co/jGbLVLNAfK”>http://t.co/jGbLVLNAfK</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/search?q=%23GetTalking&src=hash”>#GetTalking</a></p>— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) <a href=”https://twitter.com/BarackObama/statuses/403249979747086336″>November 20, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>This sort of boxes in those young, hip Obama voters doesn’t it? I mean, you can either be a paragon of cool, detached sophistication or you can lobby your aunt about the importance of community rating over the cranberry sauce. You can’t really do both.
And by the way, if you try to pull this crap at my table, you better pray to whatever gender-neutral deity your side worships that all the utensils on the table are plastic. Otherwise, you’re going to be doing field research on the state of the American health care system in short order.
Thankfully, the Obama communciations team (which we can safely assume has been reduced to one chain-smoking guy with the disposition of John Malkovich after three nights of insomnia) has done the hard work for you, preparing talking points (click on the image below to enlarge) that won’t be at all awkward to print out and keep inconspicuously under your plate (h/t to Conor Friedersdorf for this):
I’m assuming it’s all part of the broader health care motif here to make the president’s holiday shock troops come off as human canker sores.
Since everyone’s been fixated on the Gettysburg Address parallels this week, why not close with a comparison of the Thanksgiving messages of two American presidents?
Abraham Lincoln:
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
Barack Obama:
Published in GeneralHassle Grandma until she submits just to shut you up.
And by the way, if you try to pull this crap at my table, you better pray to whatever gender-neutral deity your side worships that all the utensils on the table are plastic.
Calm down, Troy. Don’t you know? Government is the only thing we all belong to. ·4 hours ago
In one of the most frightening conversations I’ve ever engaged in, my little brother pulled that one on us all last weekend. He is a college coach and has long lamented how hard it is to build a team nowadays. He has long blamed technology – I have long blamed the fact that kids play club soccer and jump teams every season.
He is a horrifyingly low-informed voter. Voted for Obama, likes Obamacare, knows nothing about it or how it works.
Before the conversation completely left the rails (and the station, which then burned to the ground), he told us we needed to “get with the program” and “get on board” and that it’s attitudes like ours why he can’t build a team.
Of course, we are 50 + and his players are 18-22. But … whatever.
… contd
… contd
If he or my Obama-voting mother even intimate they have the sniffles on Thanksgiving there will be anarchy, and God save the stuffing.
George, seriously, this is the argument my brother was making to us. That the only way it would succeed is if everyone got on board. Therefore, its failure was our fault.
Of course, I mentioned that everybody HAD to get on board or be in violation of the law. I think he was saying we all needed to love it.
Granted, no need to take him seriously. He’s proving himself to be a first class idiot. But we need to take him seriously because he has LOTS of company.
I hope I get his name in the gift exchange; dude is getting a carton of Kool Aid.
I just wanted to say that’s one of the funniest things I’ve read on Ricochet.
It’s not healthcare , that sounds pretty good.
It’s Obamacare , the five headed dog from hell.
i did enjoy the comparisons between Lincoln and Obama on Gettysburg
Lincoln – Fourscore and seven years ago…..
Obama – …………………..
Lincoln – this nation, under God…
Obama – ………………….
Lincoln – of the people, by the people, for the people…
Obama – ………………….-
That is so unhip that you have to read this tweet in your best “Bill Cosby doing a white guy” voice.
It’s so surprisingly nerdy it’s funny, and it’s hard to explain to my six year-old daughter why I’m laughing this hard. It’s close to making me want to break my own rule against politics on Facebook (right on, Drew in Wisconsin), perhaps linking to the helpful “Planning your health care talking points,” or whatever the cool kids are calling that list.
If I just link to the list without comment, would the sarcasm be too obvious?
Oh, that talking points card is rich. “Totalitarian Sincere–the new line from Hallmark”….
It is crying out for someone to do a Youtube video parody of the scene where some overly-earnest young self-forgetting idealist tries to take up the administration’s talking points at their table.
What I tweeted back:
@BarackObama Trust me, Ace, I am talking to friends and family. About the utter mendacity of Obamacare and its ObamaMart. #GetTalking
Eric Hines
My mother said we weren’t allowed to discuss politics this year we we all get together.
We had our 2014 Benefits meeting at work the other day, so I will be talking to my family about health insurance.
“Hey kids! Remember how Mommy and I bought you all of those presents for Christmas last year? Well, this year we will be spending that money on increased health insurance premiums instead. Thanks Obamacare!”
These could easily be altered as “how to ask your girlfriend to marry you” talking points.
Or “how to tell the family you have body lice” talking points.
I tend to view health insurance decisions as kind of boring and analytical: if someone approached me in this manner to discuss it, I would think they were nuts (and I’d be right).
10 REM – Obamacare Fix
20 For X = 1 to 100
30 Print “You can keep your insurance if you like it.”
40 X = x – 1
50 Next x
First draft of an internet meme:
A guy and the girl he’s dating, late 20s, are sitting in one of their parents’ middle American homes awaiting Thanksgiving dinner. Football is on in the background, and they’re cuddling together in front of a Mac.
The girl suggests they try to get healthcare. They can’t log in to healthcare.gov. 404 fail. Huh.
They check their Facebook page: hey, look, guidance from the White House! They read out the “Planning your Health Care Talk” talking points. It’s so wise!
Cut to a series of quick sketches: they try to bring up the themes of the card at awkward moments–picking up the fixings for dinner, interrupting the football game, at church, passing the cranberry sauce leads to public policy discussion….
Sketch ends with a notification from a credit card company that their identity has been stolen by one of Obamacare’s navigators, and that their old health coverage has been dropped–to get a new plan, they can pay double the price.
Thanksgiving, the Obamacare way.
Grandma should just charge everyone at the Thanksgiving table under 30, let’s say $1200 for dinner. Cut out the government middleman.
I just wanted to say that’s one of the funniest things I’ve read on Ricochet. ·37 minutes ago
I second that. This is great, Troy.
I burst out laughing when I read the tweet. THAT’s one of the funniest things I’ve read on Ricochet.
I would have commented sooner on this thread, but I was busy “creating a plan for when, where and how I’ll talk to my family about health insurance.”
Seriously, this “Planing Your Health Care Talk” tip sheet is the most Orwellian, over-reaching bit of communication I’ve ever seen.
My thought as well. He doesn’t want Grandma signing up, she is expensive. He wants Grandma to pay the premiums for all the kids when they sign up.
The fundamental problem with the left: when they say “the personal is the political,” they mean it.
The fundamental problem with the right: you may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.
Oh, we’ll be talking about it.
One bright spot: when anything goes wrong, the cool elementary school kids are now saying, “Thanks, Obama.” (Kind of a shorthand for, “You clumsy idiot, you just ObamaCared! You’re worse than healthcare.gov”)
We are now in Alinsky #5 territory: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
The kids have gone from singing Dear Leader’s praises (mmm, mmm, mmm) to outright mockery.
I really wish I hadn’t clicked on that now. I want to travel back in time and detonate explosives on the set where this catastrophe was shot.
George, seriously, this is the argument my brother was making to us. That the only way it would succeed is if everyone got on board. Therefore, its failure was our fault.
Of course, I mentioned that everybody HAD to get on board or be in violation of the law. I think he was saying we all needed to love it.
Granted, no need to take him seriously. He’s proving himself to be a first class idiot. But we need to take him seriously because he has LOTS of company.
I hope I get his name in the gift exchange; dude is getting a carton of Kool Aid. ·1 hour ago
Get him a copy of the Gulag Archipelago instead. See how that whole “get on board or else” thing worked out for people. Buy him a Khmer Rouge bandanna he can sport proudly at mandatory health care signup rallies.
Wow.
And by the way, if you try to pull this crap at my table, you better pray to whatever gender-neutral deity your side worships that all the utensils on the table are plastic.
Calm down, Troy. Don’t you know? Government is the only thing we all belong to.
When you talk to loved ones this holiday season, remember to talk to them about donating to the Democratic Party.
When you talk to loved ones this holiday season, remember to talk to them about making sure they contribute their fair share.
When you talk to loved ones this holiday season, remember to talk to them about whether or not they’ve made enough money for one person.
When you talk to loved ones this holiday season, remember to talk to them about union membership which can exclude them from my primary legislative accomplishment that Democrats in Congress wrote for me and I’m going to continue to blame Republicans for.
When you talk to loved ones this holiday season, remember to talk to them about how I once called deficits unpatriotic, then went out and tripled them annually.
When you talk to loved ones this holiday season, remember to talk to them about Gitmo still being open.
When you talk to loved ones this holiday season, remember to tell them that I abandoned Democratic allies in eastern Europe and Israel for what I believed to be tactical and strategic gain, but wound up with my pants around my ankles.
Clint Eastwood was right. The President is an empty chair.
My sister has already declared Thanksgiving to be “politics-free” this year. Darn! I was going to ask her if her and my brother-in-law’s individual policy has been cancelled yet. They have both “retired” (though they are both under 65), and my brother-in-law has heart disease. They are in the prime population seeing much higher premiums (in Washington 290,000 individual policies have been cancelled and replaced with much more expensive ones). I will definitely be keeping my ears open, however.
Other benign topics suggested by the President for a fun, joy filled Thanksgiving: gun control, late term abortion, and amnesty for illegals. Just in case the conversation flags, you can always open the Zimmerman case up again. (It’s topical!!)
Check out the Onion article linked in Conor’s Atlantic piece:
Terrified Obama Trapped Inside Healthcare.gov Website
This will be a frequent topic of conversation among people getting together during the holidays – and I’m guessing the “defend Obamacare” position is going to be the least popular one. Everybody loves to gloat over an epic fail.
This coincides perfectly with Rob’s description of Obama as the college freshman coming home to enlighten his family with all the big “T” Truth he’s absorbed.