UPDATED: ‘Mixed-Race’ Santa Brings More Money Woes

Barack Obama, Economy, Healthcare, Taxation

As analysts have expected all along, the Obamacare wrecking ball will keep gathering momentum in 2014 and beyond. Reports Gerri Willis:

…the coverage of people under corporate plans will likely change late next year as companies get ready for more changes under Obamacare. Taxes on so-called Cadillac plans will likely result in higher costs for workers and less extensive coverage. We may see even more companies opt to put employees into part-time roles to get around Obamacare requirements.

As one of the tremendously stupid Americans who ushered in ZeroCare with his vote said, “I like ObamaCare. I voted for it—I just didn’t realize I’d be paying for it.”

Yes, the economics of a free lunch for me but not for thee …

As to the additional tax changes, in 2014 those will follow Zerocare as night follows day:

High earners and people with large portfolios will find their taxes rising dramatically next year. Experts say that high earners will find their taxes tipping 50 percent of their earnings in many parts of the country, not just the big cities on the coasts. If you earn more than $200,000 filing singly or $250,000 married, filing jointly, you’ll pay a new additional tax on earned income of 0.9 percent. If you earn above $400,000 as a single filer or $450,000 married filing jointly, you’ll find yourself subject to a new income tax bracket of 39.6 percent. A new Medicare tax on investment income of 3.8 percent will also sting investors.

Courtesy of Joseph Farah comes “the ugly truth about the mixed-race Santa”:

A controversy was ignited by Megyn Kelly at Fox News when she refuted a blogger who found the legend of Santa Claus offensive because he was a fat, old white man.

I’ve got a bulletin for Megyn Kelly at Fox: You are dead wrong.

Santa Claus is not white – nor is he a mythical figure, as you claimed in your clarification of your original comment.

He’s real, and he is of mixed race.

He does, however, currently live in a white house, at taxpayer’s expense. …

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UPDATE: This is an astounding shift toward a welfariat. Sixty two percent of Americans are said to be eligible for subsidies under ZeroCare.

UPDATE III: The New Wholesome In America (Duck Dynasty & Religiosity)

Christianity, libertarianism, Morality, Paleolibertarianism, Pop-Culture, Relatives, Religion, The Zeitgeist

So the off-putting stars of the reality show Duck Dynasty are the new wholesome in America? Apparently so. Anything these vulgar, immensely popular people say or do is deemed worthy of contemplating and commenting on.

I watched 10 torturous minutes of Duck Dynasty. The participants were unsharpened pencils all–dull, not particularly witty and rather crude.

For example, his abhorrence of homosexuality, the ostensibly devout and educated (because a college graduate) Phil Robertson phrased thus:

‘It seems like, to me, a vagina – as a man – would be more desirable than a man’s anus.
‘That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying?

Yeah. both profound and refined. Yet 12 million Americans watch hours packed with dumb Duck-Dynasty vignettes.

These personalities are associated with religiosity in America! This is what being devout looks like in the USA??

From what I could see in ten minutes—which was way too much—the phoniest, most contrived character of all is Si Robertson. This lewd old man is of course a … preacher too. Lovely.

As for the Ducksters’ occupation. I’ll leave you with this from Proverbs 12:10:

Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.

UPDATE I (12/24): FACEBOOK THREAD & LITE LIBERTARIANS AGAIN:

Of course I love capitalism. Once again, the reader makes the error of the “lite-libertarian” reductionism. If someone is a capitalist (good) and makes money off his fellow Americans’ uncouth stupidity (good) and voyeurism, lite libertarains think that one cannot criticize aspects of this production. Duck detritus should make money however they wish to, but do I have to like their product b/c they make money? You gotta be kidding. It’s crap.

UPDATE II: As for the claim, on Facebook, that Duck Detritus represents the best of America. I have nothing against this lot. They are, however, part of a debased culture. Duck Dynasty is the right-wing answer to Kim Kardashian—whose deformed figure, elephant man upside down—you can ogle here:

Southerners, to paraphrase H.L. Mencken, were drained of their best blood by the War of Northern Aggression. Although vestiges of good breeding, charm and civility remain in many a Southern man, the uncouth Duck hunters are not it.

UPDATE III: DUCK DYNASTY & RELIGIOSITY IN THE US. Steven LaTulippe writes:

I think you’re missing an important point, Ilana. They were selected for the show because they are how you describe them. Duck Dynasty was meant to be a redneck minstrel show. They were supposed to be objects of ridicule for cosmopolitan America. They are what blue state America imagines religiosity to be.

REPLY: Judging from my encounters with Christian America, with few exceptions, it is no longer doctrinaire or demanding. Christianity in the US is exactly what Duck Dynasty professES. This mishmash of pop-religion that is practiced in American churches is an extension of the therapeutic culture: big on feelings, mostly misdirected, light on Godly theology or knowledge of scriptures.

WASPocracy Replaced By An Idiocracy

America, Christianity, Education, Etiquette, History, The Zeitgeist

Now that America’s “unofficial but nonetheless genuine ruling class” has been destroyed, Joseph Epstein reminisces longingly about the lost and great benefits to society of this untitled aristocracy’s sense of noblesse oblige.

Epstein, however, wrongly suggests America’s “WASP establishment” has been replaced with a “meritocracy—presumably an aristocracy of sheer intelligence, men and women trained in the nation’s most prestigious schools.”

The WASPocracy was replaced by an Idiocracy.

The prevailing wisdom until now has been that the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) “stood for all that was uptight and generally repressive in American culture.” But those who could not wait for their demise are suddenly bewailing it:

… the WASP elite had dignity and an impressive sense of social responsibility. In a 1990 book called “The Way of the Wasp,” Richard Brookhiser held that the chief WASP qualities were “success depending on industry; use giving industry its task; civic-mindedness placing obligations on success, and antisensuality setting limits to the enjoyment of it; conscience watching over everything.”
Under WASP hegemony, corruption, scandal and incompetence in high places weren’t, as now, regular features of public life. Under WASP rule, stability, solidity, gravity and a certain weight and aura of seriousness suffused public life. As a ruling class, today’s new meritocracy has failed to provide the positive qualities that older generations of WASPs provided.

I like this. I’ve always said that IQ is in the math-intense fields of inquiry and study:

Apart from mathematics, which demands a high IQ, and science, which requires a distinct aptitude, the only thing that normal undergraduate schooling prepares a person for is… more schooling. Having been a good student, in other words, means nothing more than that one was good at school: One had the discipline to do as one was told, learned the skill of quick response to oral and written questions, figured out what professors wanted and gave it to them.


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UPDATED: The President’s Nose-Growth Problem

Barack Obama, Healthcare

The president’s proboscis grew a bit more today. Michelle Obama must be glad “Barack,” as she calls him, has a “Cadillac” health-care plan,” unlike his subjects, who are, shall we say, between plans. This allergy he suffers can develop into a serious condition. I’m talking about Obama’s allergy to truth.

In his December 20 news conference, President Obama said that “Since October 1st, more than 1 million Americans have selected new health insurance plans through the federal and state marketplaces, so all told, millions of Americans, despite the problems with the website, are now poised to be covered by quality affordable health insurance come New Year’s Day. …”

US media is so crappy, a correction is hard to come by, other than on FoxNews.com:

In claiming “millions” would be covered on Jan. 1, [Obama] was also likely factoring in the estimated 3.9 million people who the administration says have qualified for coverage under expanded Medicaid.
An estimated 4 million people, however, have seen their policies canceled. …

… In response to people losing their insurance plans due to ObamaCare’s new standards, the administration announced Thursday that those who lost their coverage could skirt the law’s individual mandate — and could opt to purchase bare-bones policies if they want. Those so-called “catastrophic” coverage plans were previously available only to people under 30, but the administration is now opening them up to people who got cancellation notices. …

…”The health law is like a Jenga game — the administration keeps yanking out pieces, and ultimately nothing can keep it from collapsing,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in response. As Republican lawmakers jeered at the news, insurance industry representatives warned that the latest decision could further disrupt the market. …

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UPDATE (12/21): HE CAN NO LONGER FAKE SUCCESS. “Mr. Obama is doing through executive fiat what Republicans shut down the government to get him to do.” Good article at the Wall Street Journal:

… the White House keeps treating the Affordable Care Act’s text as a mere suggestion subject to day-to-day revision. Its latest political retrofit is the most brazen: President Obama is partly suspending the individual mandate.
Individuals whose health plans were canceled will now automatically qualify for a “hardship exemption” from the mandate. If they can’t or don’t sign up for a new plan, they don’t have to pay the tax. They can also get a special category of ObamaCare insurance designed for people under age 30.
***

So merry Christmas. If ObamaCare’s benefit and income redistribution requirements made your old, cheaper, better health plan illegal, you now have the option of going without coverage without the government taking your money as punishment. You can also claim the tautological consolation of an ObamaCare hardship exemption due to ObamaCare itself. …

… What an incredible political turnabout. Mr. Obama and HHS used to insist that the new plans are better and less expensive after subsidies than the old “substandard” insurance. Now they’re conceding that at least some people should be free to choose less costly plans if they prefer—or no plan—and ObamaCare’s all-you-can-eat benefits rules aren’t necessary for quality health coverage after all.

… the exemptions … belong to [BHO’s] larger pattern of suspending the law on his own administrative whim. Earlier this month he ordered insurers to backdate policies to compensate for the federal exchange meltdown, and before that HHS declared that it would not enforce for a year the mandates responsible for policy cancellations. Mr. Obama’s team has also by fiat abandoned the small-business exchanges, delayed the employer mandate and scaled back income verification.

“The basic structure of that law is working, despite all the problems,” Mr. Obama added. His make-it-up-as-he-goes improvisation will continue, because the law is failing.

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