The Funny Papers

David Horsey, Mike Smith, Nick Anderson, Adam Zyglis, Jack Ohman, Gary Varvel, RJ Matson, Phil Hands, Pat Bagley, Patrick Chappatte, Jim Morin

Sassy. Gay. Republican ... Hypocrite.

For some reason, about a year ago, 21-year-old Alex Newman Mesa decided to switch political parties; he even went so far as to create a new Twit-name for himself: Sassy Gay Republican.

And then he began sharing his thoughts, er, thought, on Twitter, mostly the one he had criticizing the Affordable Care Act mandate that everyone have health insurance:

 “I'm conservative because if democrats can force us all to pay for health insurance, what else will they force us to pay for?”

And because he’s such a rightwingnut, and gay, to boot, some of his posts have gone viral; but on September 12 he posted something that went viral in ways he didn’t expect.

Sassy Gay Republican Alex Newman posted that he was in a serious crash while working as a pizza-delivery driver and went to the hospital:

"The hospital they sent me to didn't take my insurance, so now I'm having second thoughts about not having free healthcare cause this is bad."

Oops. Wasn’t it just a few months earlier Alex blasted the idea of the ACA and now he’s lamenting it? And so what does a hypocrite do: he created a GoFundMe page and begged people to help him pay his bills.

But then a few days later, he Tweeted that Worker’s Compensation would cover his hospital visit but that his car insurance would not be covering the collision:

"Guys (please) pray for me during this rough time. Really didn't plan on insurance bailing on me. I'll see what God wants me to do."

Oh, the hypocrisy; a Republican, and an ACA opponent whining about his insurance coverage and asking for donations, and then asking for donations to buy himself a new car; oh, but he did.

And because he’s such a polarizing figure and hypocrite, Twitter came for Alex Newman accusing him of making up the accident, using old photos that weren't his, and being a fraud. 

Newman said he received death threats, including comments from people telling him to kill himself or saying they hope that he can "never walk again."

Now, that’s not nice but let’s look into this horrific crash ...

The Arizona Department of Public Safety [DPS] confirmed there was a crash involving three vehicles at Loop 202 and milepost 25 on September 12, but would not confirm who was involved. 

Newman says he was entering Loop 202 and was distracted by a nearby car on fire when he slammed into the vehicle in front of him at 65 mph. 

DPS reports that no one in the crash was taken to a hospital, and now Alex Newman says he decided to go to the hospital later that day after developing pain in his lower back. Newman has proof his car was towed, he has proof he was ticketed for speeding, and proof he got pain meds the night of the accident.

But still, it must have been a horrible accident because he was scarcely able to get out of his car and photographing the vehicle and then Tweet about it before going home:

And then, later that night, Tweeting about how he was lucky to be alive after an accident he very clearly walked away from:

And he now says that—because he has insurance through his parents—his Tweets about insurance were for his car, and that he’ll use the GoFundMe money to buy himself a new vehicle:

"I did just use the donation money to buy myself another car so I can get working again," he said.

Wait. The Tweets were about car insurance? Then do tell Alex, why the first Tweet awas about the hospital not taking your insurance ... unless you were trying to use your car insurance?

Newman raised about $3,000 online from 125 people, some of whom donated just so they could comment:

"We're just trying to point out the irony of your life choices, but we're still giving you money — money that you need because you don't understand how insurance works."—This man gave $5

Newman says he created the fundraiser to cover potential medical costs, though, since he is improving, he isn't expecting to need physical therapy:

"I feel like if I ask from the government, I feel like I’m stealing in a sense because when it comes to the government, people are being forced to pay into things they might not agree with or want to do.”

And so he used the internet to beg from strangers. Oh, and it’s not the first time Alex Newman used a money beg for help; he also created a GoFundMe page a few years back to help him go to rehab.

Alex Newman doesn’t believe in the ACA, especially when he can stay off Obamacare and use MamaAndPapacare or beg for coins from strangers.

AZ Central

No One—Other Than The McTurtle Staff—Has Seen The Senate Version of GOPDon’tCare

Senator Mike Lee of Utah is one of the Republicans creating the new Senate version of GOPDon’tCare that will replace Obamacare, but guess what? He hasn’t seen it; yup, he’s on the team but has yet to see the bill that is supposed to be released, maybe, tomorrow, and then voted on quickly before the Senate gets yet another vacation.

It appears that Mitch McTurtle McConnell is having his staff ... not Senators ... write the bill in secret because his granny panties are in a wad that the Democrats wrote Obamacare in secret.

Okay ... except; it wasn’t one Democrat writing that healthcare proposal, and the Democrats gave the Republicans more than a lunch hour to read it. Majority Leader McTurtle will release a "discussion draft" this week that will go to the Senate floor for a vote "likely next week."

But even Republican Mike Lee—again, a member of the team charged with writing the proposal—says a week or so to examine the bill isn’t enough time, and has criticized the way McTurtle’s secrecy.

"Even though we thought we were going to be in charge of writing a bill within this working group, it’s not being written by us. It’s apparently being written by a small handful of staffers for members of the Republican leadership in the Senate. So if you’re frustrated by the lack of transparency in this process, I share your frustration. I share it wholeheartedly.”

And Mike Lee isn’t the only one in the party annoyed by the “process” ...

“I’m very eager to see the language, I don’t think it gives enough time to thoroughly analyze the bill, but we’ll see when it comes out.”—Maine Senator Susan Collins

Utah Senator Orrin Hatch—the Senate Finance Chairman—says even he doesn’t know what’s in the bill.

And  Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a key moderate holdout, said McTurtle best not hope buy off her vote with an Alaska-specific solution:

"This is like a really big deal to get this right for the country. Let’s just say that they do something that’s so Alaska-specific just to quote, ‘get me.’ Then you have a nationwide system that doesn’t work. That then comes crashing down and Alaska’s not able to kind of keep it together on its own."

Even Kentucky Senator Rand Paul—who hates Obamacare because it’s called Obamacare—says the bill should have been debated "in the open" and that, by using a one-party approach, the bill is already set up to fail.

But, it was Arizona Senator John ‘Get Off’a My Lawn’ McCain, who, when asked if he’d seen the bill, gave the very best response:

"No, nor have I met any American that has. I’m sure the Russians have been able to hack in and gotten most of it."

For his part, McTurtle, is playing coy; when he was asked how the Senate measure would differ from the House version, he replied:

"I wouldn’t want to compare it to the House bill. It’ll be different, take a different approach."

See, even he doesn’t know; but he does know, or at least that that "everyone will have adequate time to take a look at it" even though, again, the measure is being negotiated in private and won’t go through any committee hearings.

How’s that for transparency?

Need more? Since Republicans control the Senate, 52-48, they would need 60 votes to keep Democrats from blocking the measure, but they plan to use an expedited procedure to pass this unseen bill with as few as 50 votes, plus a tie-breaker from Vice President Mike Pence.

This week the Democrats started putting up “procedural roadblocks” to slow down routine Senate business to keep this unseen bill from getting a vote.

But if GOPDon’tCare is put on the floor the Democrats will propose quite a few amendments to try to prevent it from passing in the hopes that Republicans, heading home for their latest recess, will have to face their constituents.

And it isn’t that the Democrats don’t want healthcare; nor do they wish to keep all of Obamacare. They would simply like to see the bill, and want We The People to know if the Senate version will screw as many people as the House version, and make as many millionaires richer.

The House measure would cut Medicaid by $834 billion over a decade, repeal $664 billion of Obamacare’s tax increases on the wealthy and the health-care industry, and end requirements that individuals get health insurance and that most employers provide it. It would replace Obamacare subsidies with tax credits based primarily on age, and let states get waivers from some of the Affordable Care Act’s consumer protections.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the House bill would take away healthcare from 23 million Americans.

And Mitch McTurtle wants to put forth a bill that no one has seen?

Bloomberg

The Funny Papers

Nick Anderson, Drew Sheneman, JD Crowe, Clay Bennett, RJ Matson, David Fitzsimmons, Trevor Irwin, David Horsey, Adam Zyglis, Mike Luckovich

Reason #1 The GOP Needs To Be Voted Out: Jason Chaffetz

So this week the GOP unveiled _____Care, their utter mess of a plan to replace Obamacare, or for those who still don’t get it, the Affordable Care Act [ACA], and the goose-steppers are out in force trying to shove it down our throats.

But one goose-stepper, one out-of-touch goose-stepper, actually stepped in it.

When Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz appeared on CNN to champion the bill he claimed it will benefit everyone if people use their money responsibly:

“We’re getting rid of the individual mandate. We’re getting rid of those things that people said that they don’t want. And you know what, Americans have choices. And they’ve got to make a choice. And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on, maybe they should invest in their own health care.”

You don’t think the GOP is out of touch? Chaffetz believes an iPhone is the same price as healthcare and so it would be an easy swap from one to the other. But Twitter disagreed ...

Even me:

Even more disturbing is that Chaffetz—who, let me remind you all, gets free healthcare paid for by We The People—says that the way the ACA subsidizes insurance makes people lazy and irresponsible, because they can buy luxuries and let the government pay for their essentials.

And to be clear, this is just the same kind of rhetoric employed by the GOP’s great leader, Ronald Reagan, that poor people, and especially poor minorities, are “welfare queens” who spend like crazy on so-called luxuries and then expect the government to give them more money.

But isn’t it funny that the real welfare queens seem to be those in public office, and in the GOP, who enjoy pensions for life and taxpayer-subsidized healthcare, and then will tell us we need to choose between a phone or a healthcare plan that will result in higher premiums, fewer protections, and millions of people getting kicked off their plans.

Ain’t that America ... in the eyes of the hyper-privileged, hyper-out-of-touch pricks like Jason Chaffetz?

And he’s not the only asshat; when Health and Human Service Secretary Tom Price was asked if Americans would have to choose between cell phones and health coverage under the proposed plan, he said Americans are already "having to sacrifice in order to purchase coverage."

Under Obamacare, more than 70% of enrollees found coverage for $75 or less in 2017, thanks to subsidies, but without that government assistance, the average cost of the cheapest plan available would be $311 a month.

Four times higher. And low-income enrollees would likely see their monthly premiums rise under the GOP plan because its tax credits are not tied to the cost of coverage and do not provide greater help to lower income Americans.

GOP; they are not the party of We The People.

Naturally, though, when the shiz hit the fan and people began calling for Jason Chaffetz to be voted from office—and let’s hope that happens soon—the little turd tried to walk back his statement, though he stood by his argument that Americans would need to better prioritize health care spending under the new plan:

"What we're trying to say -- and maybe I didn't say it as smoothly as I possibly could -- but people need to make a conscious choice and I believe in self-reliance. And they're going to have to make those decisions."

“Self reliance” says the man whose bills and healthcare are paid for by us ... until the good people of Utah wake up and vote him out of office.

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