a shutdown, but with morons

and grifters and crackpots, too, oh my!

the third government shutdown of the Mad King’s reign is now a week old, and shows no sign of ending any time soon.

this spiffy new shutdown is dumbfuckier than the previous two, and here’s why: back in 2018 and 2019, there were still a few adults in the Republican party smart enough to eventually realize they were holding a losing hand, and that it was time to bring that shit to an end.

this time, the adults are all gone. the Republican party is morons all the way down — and they’re too fucking stupid to realize that once again, they’re holding a losing hand.

hey, want to see what happens when you take a fake-diet-pill-pushing grifter, put him in charge of Medicare and Medicaid, and then ask him to explain why insurance premiums are about to spike?

trigger warning: you might actually become stupider just from listening to the following clip. you’ve been warned.

“some of the reasons that premiums are going up is because if you take people who didn’t know they had insurance and therefore never put in any claims off the rolls, then you still have people in there who are charging enough to make up the difference. ’cause the total amount that you paid up hasn’t changed. but I do think there are criminal elements.”

what even is this incoherent nonsense? oh my god, Oz is so fucking far out of his depth. you might as well have asked a chimpanzee to explain Einstein’s theory of relativity, and gotten a more sensible answer.

and I guarantee that Dr. Chimp wouldn’t be trying to sell you scam diet supplements, either.

so, Oz wants us to believe that there are people who somehow, inexplicably didn’t even know that they had insurance. seriously? there are people who signed up for Obamacare and then somehow forgot they’re paying five hundred bucks a month for premiums? and magically dropping these imaginary people who weren’t actually using the system will somehow raise prices for others? oh, and also, crime?

how the fuck does any of that make sense?

from now on, everything out of this charlatan’s mouth, I’m going to call it the Shit-blizzard of Oz.

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now, let me explain this losing hand that Republicans are holding. this whole shutdown is over Affordable Care Act tax credits. yes, I know — I started drifting off to sleep while typing those words — but hear me out. the tax credits are a big part of keeping the Affordable Care Act, y’know, affordable.

these tax credits, however, have been shitcanned as per the legislation known as Donny’s Big Fucked-Up Give-Away To Billionaires™, and they’re going fuckity-bye at the end of this year.

Democrats were all ‘restore those credits, or we’ll allow the government to shut down,’ and Republicans were all ‘ha ha, Democrats, eat an entire bowl of fuck.’

so, here we are, in Day Seven of the Stupidest Shutdown Ever — a shutdown, but with morons.

Heather Cox Richardson, could you please explain to Dr. Oz exactly what’s at stake, once those credits expire?

Without the extension of the premium tax credit, the cost of many Americans’ healthcare premiums will skyrocket. As NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin pointed out on Saturday, about 24 million Americans who don’t have health insurance through their jobs or through Medicaid buy health insurance in the Affordable Care Act marketplace. According to the nonpartisan health research organization KFF, without the extension of the tax credits, premiums will go up an average of 114% for consumers. Spiking premiums will mean the healthiest people decide to go without health insurance, sending prices up for everyone else.

voters are already being notified by insurers that their premiums are about to go through the roof — and they are shitting bricks.

this is a losing issue for Republicans — and they’re too fucking dumb to realize it. over to you again, Heather Cox Richardson.

In a partisan twist, more than three in four people enrolled in ACA plans live in states Trump won in 2024. A KFF poll published October 3 shows that extending the premium tax credits is popular. Seventy-eight percent of Americans say they want Congress to extend the tax credits. That number includes 59% of Republicans and 57% of MAGA supporters.

oh wait, Oz hasn’t finished shitblizzarding.

“the folks that we’re trying to help both in Medicaid and in the exchanges are people, who with a little bit of help, they hope they can get healthy and be able to take care of their families and move on.”

move on from what, having health insurance?

oh great, Dr. Shitblizzard has completely bought into Bobby Brainworms’ crackpot notion that if you’re sick, it’s your own fault — and you’re a drain on society.

stop taking that Tylenol, and all your autisms will be cured — and then you can cancel your health insurance, because you’ll never need doctors again.

what a shock to learn that Whalehead McChainsaw and Dr. Gobble These Diet Pills are on the same page when it comes to pushing quack theories about medicine and health. these are the lunatics running our nation’s healthcare system. what could possibly go wrong?

you know who else thought the sick were a drain on society? of course you do.

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oh wait, Holy Mike Johnson has some dumbfuckery he wants to get off his chest, because apparently this whole conversation hasn’t been stupid enough.

“let me look right into the camera and tell you very clearly: Republicans are the ones concerned about healthcare. Republicans are the party working around the clock everyday to fix healthcare. this is not talking points for us: we’ve done it.”

with all due respect to the limpest dick in Congress, fuck you.

Holy Mike has a really weird definition of “working round the clock” — because the House is not in session this week.

last week, Holy Mike sent everyone home, and told them not to come back until October 14th. apparently, keeping Adelita Grijalva (newly-elected Democrat from Arizona) from being sworn in — in order to prevent the release of the Epstein Files — is more important than keeping the government running.

priorities, am I right?

the only thing you need to know about Holy Mike’s refusal to gavel the House back into session is that Donny’s name is on every page of the Epstein Files.

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now let’s discuss this utter pile of horseshit about how Republicans are working to ‘fix’ healthcare.

fact check: piss up a rope.

Republicans have been attempting over and over to repeal the ACA since it was signed into law fifteen years ago. of course they’re not trying to fix that shit — they’re trying to get rid of it.

all through his fucktastically inept first term, Donny kept telling us how he was going to have this amazing new heathcare plan, and it was going to be ready in two weeks. for four entire years, two weeks would come and go, with Donny having come up with bupkis. ‘two weeks’ became a national joke.

remember what Donny eventually said?

yeah, no. everyone with a functioning brain knows just how complicated it is to write comprehensive healthcare policy. only the preening fuckwit who imagines he knows more about everything than everybody thought he could fart out some amazing plan in only two weeks.

and now, Holy Mike is dragging out all those same fever-swamp fairy tales about how Republicans are going to fix healthcare — in two weeks.

go peddle that shit elsewhere. we’re not buying any of your lies today.

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now let’s check in with President Two Weeks and see if he has anything relevant to add to this healthcare discourse.

Newsmax’s Greg Kelly: “the NFL just chose the Bad Bunny Rabbit or whatever his name, this guy who hates ICE, he doesn’t like you. he accuses everything he doesn’t like of racism, do you think maybe we should just kind of entertain blowing off the NFL, like a boycott, something along those lines? this guy does not seem like a unifying entertainer, and a lot of folk don’t even know who he is.”

Donny: “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous, and while we’re at it I’d like them to change the kickoff rule.”

thanks for focusing on what’s important, you putrefying pantload. we’re all looking forward to your Make Kickoffs Great Again™ legislation, which I am sure you’ll have ready in two weeks.

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here’s your daily reminder that I can be found on Blue Sky at this link.

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this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.

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