You are still clinging on to the falsehoods that Michelle “the stalker” Malking helped spread.

And the obvious reply to that is: They could afford health insurance. They paid for it. It’s called the SCHIP.

Comment by Gregor Samsa — October 13, 2007 @ 4:45 am

Had you read my original post, you would know that I’m not “clinging” to anything. I responded to this comment:

The Right has not debated the merits of this family being eligible for the SCHIP program. All they have done is to distort the facts and stalk this family. The Republicans don’t know the meaning of the word debate.
Comment by bilbobaggins — October 12, 2007 @ 9:42 am

I pointed out that the debate was, IF the family’s home is worth $400,000, SHOULD they be eligible for SCHIP. I never suggested whether they should or should not. I simply pointed out that that was a point for debate. Govt programs often contain provisions using value of resources in determining eligibility. ;)

That is not how much the Frosts’ home is worth.

You are still clinging on to the falsehoods that Michelle “the stalker” Malking helped spread.

And the obvious reply to that is: They could afford health insurance. They paid for it. It’s called the SCHIP.

It takes a certain level of stupidity to take this as evidence of some sort of “injustice” being committed against those poor, poor top 1% earners, instead of what it is: The result of the ever increasing disparity in the level of income in the USA.

The top 1% paid 39.4% of all income taxes.

That means the top 1 percent paid about the same amount of federal individual income taxes as the bottom 95 percent.

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=15117

From Michelle’s site:

They’re good people. Terribly misguided, pathetically leftist buffoons, but still good people. It was a terrible accident and Bonnie is quite beat up with guilt over the events. Lots of neighbors pitched in to cook meals and help out… Bonnie works half time doing freelance editorial work and Halsey, an incredibly disorganized lovable goofball, just can’t seem to hold down a proper job or, when he’s tried, to run a proper company. He’s a millwork carpenter and does great work installing custom interior and exterior trimwork and cabinetry. He should be making great money but can’t get out of his way…

…Still, we make choices, right? They have three vehicles – a nice new volvo SUV, a Suburban, and his F250 Ford Pickup work truck, a nice house, and all four kids go to private school. Not sure where the money comes from, but they don’t make all that much. Should they be the poster child for S-CHIP? Heck no….

Politics of personal destruction takes another ugly turn

When irresponsible rumor mongers engage in ugly gossip, especially in politics, my first instinct is to ignore it. As a rule, there’s no reason to dignify obnoxious rumors with a response. Besides, by criticizing the smear, one necessarily helps disseminate the nonsense.

There is, however, another side to this. If the Swiftboat lies teach us anything, it’s that attacks need to be shot down, quickly and thoroughly. Just as importantly, those who spread the lies need to be held accountable for their recklessness. Pretending the bogus attacks don’t exist is almost counter-productive — the whispers continue, and reasonable people start to wonder what to believe.
[...]
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13202.html
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very curious that coulter knew the enquirer was going to “break” the story…

i’m divided as to why edwards felt a need to respond to an
unsubstantiated tabloid report… i’m glad he did, but some can twist
that around, as many have…

and i’m not sure that ANY publicity is good publicity…

it will be interesting to see how, IF, ThinkProgress will handle this…
…

Call McConnell’s office and ask for a statement about this despicable GOP smear of 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his family. Graeme was injured in an auto accident. He was in a coma for 5 1/2 months and he benefited from S-CHIP. When his family spoke out in support of S-CHIP, the rightwing smeared them. McConnell’s office has a direct role in this. Check out Krugman’s article.

Call McConnell in Louisville: 502-582-6304 or in DC: 1-800-828-0498

i dont think anyone is saying that. depends on whether the asset is liquid or not, and how much the asset is worth. just because a house has a FMV of 400 G, alone, doesnt tell me much. i live in texas too.. my house is about 130 FMV.. but.. that same house in NY or some parts of cali would easily be a 300-400 G house.. easily.. so i think your assumption that a 400 G FMV house is “expensive” or “excessive” no matter where you live in the country is wrong. i think my house is pretty modest, especially if i were a family of 6

Comment by upright left — October 12, 2007 @ 12:06 pm

So where do you live? Unless you live in Baltimore or a similar city with real estate values well above the national average, your point is meaningless.

Comment by missmolly — October 12, 2007 @ 12:15 pm

I live in Texas. I responded to this comment:
“show me how many perfectly healthy families sold thier house and moved into a crappier, cheaper one…”

My point was that there is quite a range between a $400,000 home and “cheap, crappy” home.

guess i’ll have to address you directly…
you have a selective reading problem… at the least…

from above:
The family’s home, in the modest Butchers Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, was bought for $55,000 in 1990 and is now worth about $260,000, according to public records.

ignorance is hardly forgivable in this day of instant information…
stoopidity is just a lazy sin…
.Comment by katy @ 11:48 am

STOP WITH THE LIES.
.

Comment by Chocolate Jesus — October 12, 2007 @ 12:14 pm

Once again, the question was, before the accident, should the family have continued living in a $400,000 home when they couldn’t afford health insurance. If you think there should be no limit on the amount of resources a family can own and still be eligible for SCHIP, that’s fine. Some govt programs have a resource limit for eligibility. I assume SCHIP must not. This is the comment to which I originally responded: “The Right has not debated the merits of this family being eligible for the SCHIP program.” One of the points being questioned was whether a family living in an expensive home should be eligible. If the family was covered for regular health care as opposed to only for the catastrophic injuries, it’s a valid point for discussion regarding eligibility.

Comment by RUCerious — October 12, 2007 @ 11:16 am

In the same interview, she also accused interracial couples of being together for the express purpose of challenging society, based on her observation of an old Seinfeld episode. She also describes her version of what heaven is like as the Republican National Convention. The fact that anybody gives her air time to spew this drivel is bewildering.

Comment by upright left — October 12, 2007 @ 12:06 pm

So where do you live? Unless you live in Baltimore or a similar city with real estate values well above the national average, your point is meaningless.

200,000 $ sick? i dunno? maybe… we’re both jerking ourselves here, i just think in this kids case, looks like they had catastrphophic stuff going on, it wasnt strep throat that screwed this kid up. how much blame do we put on people for their parents not allocating thier finite resources toward improbable events? i don’t know,.. i guess thats one for philosophy class..

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Ah ok. Sell your main tangible asset to wager on the POSSIBILITY your kid would get brain damage or some terrible sickness and need super duper double secret insurance. Not likely. Say this is “what id do if I was psychic” or whaterver, all you want.. hindsight is 20/20. show me how many perfectly healthy families sold thier house and moved into a crappier, cheaper one just so they’d have insurance in the off chance they got brain damage in the future. im guessing instances of people doing this are almost nil.

Comment by Chocolate Jesus — October 12, 2007 @ 11:52 am

Like I said, this doesn’t even get to catastrophic care. I’d sell my $400,000 home if I couldn’t afford health care because people get sick. I’m talking about strep, broken bones, asthma, allergies. Is it ok for me to live in a $400,000 home and expect you to pay higher taxes to pay for my child’s routine health care when I could buy a less expensive home and pay for it myself for quite a while. By the way, possibly by your standards, anything less than a $400,000 home is crappy. Most of the homes in my neighborhood are in the $250,000 area and are considered quite nice. ;)

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Anti-abortion groups criticized the research, saying that the scientists had jumped to conclusions from imperfect tallies, often estimates of abortion rates in countries where the procedure was illegal. “These numbers are not definitive and very susceptible to interpretation according to the agenda of the people who are organizing the data,” said Randall K. O’Bannon, director of education and research at the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund in Washington.

He said that the major reason women die in the developing world is that hospitals and health systems lack good doctors and medicines. “They have equated the word ‘safe’ with ‘legal’ and ‘unsafe’ with ‘illegal,’ which gives you the illusion that to deal with serious medical system problems you just make abortion legal,” he said.
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“…according to the agenda of the people who are organizing the data…”

Well. We all know how important that is

For instance, this link…

http://www.tennesseerighttolife.org/human_life_issues/human_life_issues_abortion_lies_and_myths.htm

recounts some of statistics used in the early days of RvW.

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Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, admits his group lied about the number of women who died from illegal abortions when testifying before the Supreme Court in 1972. “We spoke of 5,000 – 10,000 deaths a year…. I confess that I knew the figures were totally false … it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics?”

How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In N.A.R.A.L. we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always “5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year.” I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the “morality” of the revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics. The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason which had to be done was permissible. [3]

Second, Dr. Nathanson’s observation is borne out in the best official statistical studies available. According to the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics, there were a mere 39 women who died from illegal abortions in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade. [4] Dr. Andre Hellegers, the late Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Georgetown University Hospital, pointed out that there has been a steady decrease of abortion-related deaths since 1942. That year there were 1,231 deaths. Due to improved medical care and the use of penicillin, this number fell to 133 by 1968. [5] The year before the first state-legalized abortion, 1966, there were about 120 abortion-related deaths. [6]
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It’s not clear to me – in such cases opinions and believes become more important that fact, but it appears that a very small number has been used to justify a very large number.

Assuming:

40 M abortions in U.S. since RvW.

Approximately 120 abortion related deaths per year before RvW. So there’s the potentail of 4,100 abortion related deaths – estimated – had abortion remained illegal in the U.S. (Number of abortion related deaths probably remains “sketchy” even now.)

So the country “granted” the right to destroy 40 M to save 4,100. Of course, most of the 4,100 would have easily survived the birth of their child.

Anti-Semitism involves more than just believing a person’s religious views are wrong. By your definition almost every poster on this site is anti-Christian and a number of atheists here bristle at that suggestion.
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Oh, and by the way, Xianity is a farce.

Comment by RUCerious — October 12, 2007 @ 11:16 am

Xianity? Possibly. Fortunately I practice Chrisitanity, so I’m good, thanks. ;)