Republican Health Care

If they could have gotten it:

I recently had a daughter who had to stay home from school due to headlice. I tried to get some treatment for her at the doctor and contacted our insurance company to check up on availability. In response, I got:

Under the current law, children who are prone to contracting headlice (e.g. children who attend public school, children who attend daycare, or who attend non-protestant or Catholic houses of religious worship - Jewish children will be considered on a case-by-case basis) will be considered as patients with a pre-existing condition should headlice be... See More contracted. As such, it will not be covered by current policy.
While this may seem harsh, one must understand that it's the choice of the child or the parent to have place their children in harm's way. If parents were truly responsible, they would keep their children away from such potentially harmful environments. It does not make sense financially to infringe upon the freedoms of the insureds who take the care to see to it that their children are not placed in such an environment to share the burden of risks to which less responsible parents expose their children.

I also got a $20 "Consulting fee" charged to my account for the inquiry.

But, I understood that I accepted the risks by being a less responsible parent and I cheerily paid my insurance company for the time it took them to write and e-mail this letter.

She Has Nothing For Which She Should Apologize

Betty Brown was in the papers recently. She's a congresswoman from North Texas, and the Texas legislature, standard bearers for individual liberty that they are, are discussing voting rights. The legislature is considering requiring that citizens provide proof of identification at the polling station in order to vote. Some liberal crybabies are all up in arms about this, saying stupid things like Ramey Ko did - that people of Asian descent might have problems because their voters' cards might have their legal name (like Ho Won Sok), while their drivers' licenses or other identification would have their commonly used English name (like Wally).

Talk about a whiner. Betty Brown had a perfectly reasonable answer to this (according to this Chron.com article - Note - the article I linked to appears to no longer be available):

Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese - I understand it's a rather difficult language - do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here? ... Can't you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for idenfication purposes that's easier for Americans to deal with?

Of course the liberal pussyfooters in the legislature, who I'm sure WANT us all speaking Chinese, got all up in arms about this very reasonable request, demanding that Betty Brown apologize (source: Keyetv news in Austin).

I say Kudos to Ms Brown for sticking up for America! We all know that it's perfectly reasonable to ask voters to prove they are who they say they are at the polls, what with the rampant voter fraud that's been going on recently. Just look at all the statistics to back up this very real threat: wait, I can't find actual statistics showing proof of voter fraud running rampant in Texas, so you'll just have to trust me and Ms. Brown and the supporters of this legislation that it's a Very Real Threat on the grounds of conjecture and rhetoric.

I think this is a very easily solved problem. Since people have enough trouble coming up with one name, and these Asian-Americans have, in many cases, come up with two already, I think we should simplify ("streamline") the process. Rather than have these "Americans" come up with their own names, I propose we take names that are easily understandable. The surname "Brown" is indubitably understandable, as it's one of the most common surnames in America. I think she would be honored at the thought of lending her surname to these Asians with difficult-to pronounce names like "Park," "Lee," or "Kim." That solves half the problem. Now for first names. Obviously one would be hard pressed to find a name more easily understandable or clearly red-blooded American than "Bubba." I mean, he was Forrest Gump's best good friend, and Texas native Bubba Smith played for the Michigan State Spartans - you know, the state with Detroit - the city that made America great, and source of Texas' best selling Pickup! And really, Bubba Brown is very clearly going to be easy for people to pronounce. The catch is, that name would only work for half of the population. I think for the other half, we need to go with something just as American as Apple Pie - something straight out of an Archie Comic book - Veronica is too long - people would potentially get confused. No, I think the solution has to come from Veronica's nemesis - "Betty." I mean, what's more American than Betty White, or Peggy Hill's famous Apple Brown Betty? Come to think of it, it's like Peggy Hill's Brown Betty in Reverse - Betty Brown!

Wow, I just realized, that would be the same name as the person who made this very simple, reasonable request in the first place! What an homage - to take the name of the person who is so clearly concerned for protecting your ability to participate in our way of life! I'm sure Rep. Brown would be moved beyond words at such an honor. And deep down, you know you would be, too.

Weakening America

A Federal Judge today demonstrated once again that the Left hates America. Judge Ann Aiken, of Oregon, ruled 2 provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act unconstitutional. Apparently, she believes that the Fourth Amendment (Wait until you hear this) applies to American people. You see, Congress, knowing how important our security is, saw fit to, what's the best word here, "streamline" our Constitutional rights and liberties. President Bush needed this streamlined approach to freedom in order to protect us from Iraq, you see, and Congress did what it could to help him.

One of the things they did was make it possible for the Executive Branch to protect us by searching our properties, possessions, and conversations without securing a warrant, using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. As the Executive Branch said some years ago - if you've done nothing wrong, then what do you have to be concerned about?

Well, then the problem came. The problem was that one of those people who did something wrong got caught. And rather than admit he did something wrong, he decided to challenge The Decider's law. Who was this rapscallion, and what did he do, you might be asking yourself. Well, I'll answer. His name is Brandon Mayfield, and what he did was he was held as a material witness by the FBI because a fingerprint that was not his was found on the site of the Madrid train bombings from 2004. Brandon had the gall to be offended that the FBI recorded his phone calls, searched his house and law offices (really, Attorney-client privilege is not affected when they don't KNOW they're being listened in on), and put him under 24-hour surveillance.

Now, I hate to beat a dead horse, but come on. He had to know this was going to happen. He was a Muslim, and we're at war on Terror. If he didn't want to be detained, then he shouldn't have had fingers.

At any rate, he gets the case to the Activist judge, whose opinion cannot be relied upon, because she's a liberal. And we all know those activist judges. They read the Constitution and twist the words around to mean whatever they want it to mean. In this case, the judge read the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires warrants, and then she read the Supremacy Clause, which states that the Constitution and all laws and treaties passed pursuant to it shall be The Supreme Law of the Land, and then she read precedent which shows that First in Time applies to laws and treaties, but the Constitution trumps all. And then she made the stereotypical Activist Decision - that the Fourth Amendment trumps the USA PATRIOT Act. What a sad day for America.

But, Steve, how do you know she's an activist judge? Well, that's simple - she was appointed by President Clinton (the first one). Which means she's a Democrat appointee, which means she's a liberal, which means she's an activist judge. Very simple. And unfortunate. I'm sure the ACLU had something to do with the choice of venue.

Why, oh why do the activist judges hate America's God?

How could anyone view this as a First Amendment violation? There's a piece of state-owned land, the Mojave National Preserve. On this land, at various points in time, various people have put up crosses on this government-owned land. No problem yet, right? Then, some godless heathen makes the jackass decision to ask if he could put a Buddhist shrine up next to the cross. Who does this jerk think he is? This is one nation, under God, not one nation under some dead, fat asian guy. Of course the state says no. Well, naturally, someone decides to sue, claiming (get this) that by allowing the Christian cross but not allowing the Buddhist shrine, the state is showing favoritism of Christianity, thereby endorsing it over Buddhism and using, (you'll never believe this) such flimsy support as "the First Amendment" and "precedent" as their argument. And of course, because this is California, land of the activist, idiotic judges, this jerkoff wins. Unbelievable.

Well, Congress, always one to know where to intervene, then made a brilliant move and passed a law enabling the land to be donated ("traded") into private hands, so that the cross is not on Government property. You see, this means that the Government is not endorsing the True Religion, but a private individual at the Government's choice is endorsing it by placing a cross on HIS OWN PRIVATE LAND in the MIDDLE OF THE PRESERVE. Everyone's happy, right? Wrong. There's another lawsuit, this time alleging that the Government is trying to circumvent the injunction. And of course, the activist judges agree. Justice McKeown even went so far as to say so, "[t]he government's long-standing efforts to preserve and maintain the cross atop Sunrise Rock lead us to the undeniable conclusion that the government's purpose in this case is to evade the injunction and keep the cross in place. Carving out a tiny parcel of property in the midst of this vast Preserve - like a donut hole with the cross atop it - will do nothing to minimize the impermissible governmental endorsement."

And like that, with a swift stroke of a pen, these heathens (you know they are heathens because they didn't rule in favor of God) undid the will of the people, turning themselves into Constitutional interpreters and legislators undoing what the People want. We have to put a stop to this. We have to find a way to make sure the minority of this country is kept silent and subject to the tyranny of majority. This is the last straw, until the next one.