Health Care Vote Draws Near, DC’s Crazies Out In Full Force: Babies, Fatties, Death Threats, Paper

There’s much chatter about upcoming final votes on the Health Care bill we’re basically sick—ahem—of hearing about because when people talk about health care they apparently start to go slightly insane. As evidenced by this baby-assisted floor speech.

Representative John Shadegg, a Republican from Arizona, decided it would be for the best of the debate that a child be brought forth and tortured by being used as an exhibit by Rep. Shadegg, as he helped floor members understand something about the health care bill basically ensuring this kid would be broke or dead or addicted to smack or all of the above. Watch as the kid tries to do what I want to do, which is eat the microphone:

Yeah, kid, NOM, indeed. But old people like babies so whatever, nobody blinks at what kind of patent ridiculousness this is. But when the “Fat Pride Community” talks about getting healthy, nobody listens to them, even though they’re 2/3rds of our country. And what do they have to say? It’s not just about getting skinny. O RLY? And who is this talking for them? Professor Bacon, that’s who. Seriously:

“I get so angry when I feel people pushing a weight-loss agenda,” said Linda Bacon, a nutrition professor at City College of San Francisco and author of “Health at Every Size,” a book published last year whose title has become the rallying cry of the fat pride community. “What we’re doing in public health care policy is harmful. We give a direct and clear message that there’s something wrong with being fat.”

Oh, ho, ho! A conspiracy! The tasty-meat industry has infiltrated all walks, it seems! But they might be screwed, as the House has started debate on the current legislative package, which will eventually lead to a vote on something like a 2,000 page bill, the contents of which most Americans seem to think include a provision that says something along the lines of “YOU, SIR, OR MA’AM, ARE GOING TO DIE. WE ARE GOING TO KILL YOU, AND YOU ARE GOING TO ENJOY IT! AND ALSO PAY US TAXES TOO, THANKS!” So they’re getting together and freaking out, screaming mean things at a building where nobody can hear them inside.

“Kill the bill!” a few protesters yelled, egged on by a woman with a megaphone. “You’ll be starting a civil war, you fascist tyrant!” yelled Andrew Beacham, 27, of nearby Falls Church, Va. Mr. Beacham, his hair in a ponytail, said in an interview that he believed Mr. Obama was a fascist because-

I’m sorry, what?

Mr. Beacham, his hair in a ponytail,

Unless he’s fighting for provisions in the health care package to cover taxpayer-supported Bumble and Bumbles, I will stop processing information past that sentence. And he’s not, and I did.

Oh, whatever. If there’s anything nice that these Town Hall meetings have yielded, it’s that we’re no longer shocked and disturbed by the fucked up rhetoric plaguing our national debate. It’s hard to be disappointed once something becomes the standard, no? These guys are just being ridiculous, now. Like this one, who killed a bunch of trees just to prove a point that the bill is long and complicated.

….(The representative) took a foot-high copy of the House bill to the podium when he spoke. “This bill steals freedom, and those of us that believe in freedom have contempt for those who would steal our freedom and contempt for this bill,” he said in a shout, heaving the papers to the ground below the low stage.

What kind of asshole would do that? Let’s go back to the first part of that paragraph…

Representative John Shadegg, a Republican from Arizona..

Oh, you mean, the baby-puppeteer? Yeah. That one.

Forget obesity for a moment. There are thousands of pages in the legislation. Hopefully, there’s at least a milli or two in that thing set aside to look into the causes, effects, and ways to prevent important conversation-born at-large jackassery from infecting our country any further. The biggest health care crisis we’ve experienced in the history of our country is the one we’ve brought upon ourselves since we started talking about health care: that we, and our conversations about things that should matter, are getting patently stupider every time we have them.

Lil Wayne Still Faces Charges In Arizona After Guilty Plea In New York

Rapper was arrested in Arizona in January by DEA agents.
By Gil Kaufman

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Lil Wayne’s mugshot from his January 23, 2008 arrest in Arizona


Photo: AP Photo/ Yuma County Sheriff’s Office

Even with his guilty plea to gun charges in New York on Thursday — which brought an expected sentence of one year in prison — Lil Wayne’s legal troubles are not quite over.

The rapper (born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.), 27, still faces a number of drug and gun charges in Arizona, where he was arrested in January 2008 by DEA agents. Earlier this month, a trial date was set for that case, according to the Yuma Sun newspaper, which reported that attorneys agreed on March 30 as the start date.

The Arizona charges stem from a January 2008 arrest when Wayne’s tour bus was stopped by border patrol officers on Interstate 8 — which has a number of checkpoints due to its use by drug traffickers and illegal aliens. During a search of the bus, occupied by seven other passengers and a driver, the border patrol and police canines found drugs, over $22,000 in cash and three firearms. One of the guns, a .40-caliber pistol, was registered to Wayne in Florida, where he has a concealed carry permit, and the other two weapons were legally registered to members of Wayne’s camp.

The authorities also discovered nearly 4 ounces of marijuana, more than an ounce of cocaine, 41 grams of ecstasy and various drug paraphernalia. The DEA was called in to investigate and subsequently arrested Wayne and two other men. Several days later, Wayne was charged with one count each of felony possession of a narcotic drug for sale, possession of dangerous drugs, misconduct involving weapons and possession of drug paraphernalia; he has plead not guilty to all the charges.

Wayne’s Arizona-based attorney has not returned repeated calls for comment, and a spokesperson for the Yuma County District Attorney’s office declined to discuss the case. The Sun reported that before setting the March trial date, Yuma County Superior Court Judge Mark Wayne Reeves asked the attorneys how long they thought the trial would last.

While the prosecuting attorney predicted two weeks, Wayne’s counsel, James Tilson, said that due to Wayne’s notoriety and the expected intense media coverage of the case, it could take as long as three weeks. At the most recent court hearing on October 1, Tilson’s co-counsel, Natman Schaye, said the defense still had some witness interviews to conduct, including a Border Patrol agent who was handling the dog that alerted officials to the presence of the drugs.

Wayne’s lawyers have reportedly claimed that the dogs used in the bust were not properly trained, making the drugs seized in the raid inadmissible as evidence. The rapper is scheduled to be formally sentenced in the New York case in February and begin his expected eight-month prison bid a short time after that.

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‘ROUND THE WAY: ROBIN THICKE & PAULA PATTON EXPECTING FIRST CHILD / LIL WAYNE PLEADS GUILTY TO GUN CHARGES

Congratulations is in order for Robin Thicke, 32, and wife Paula Patton, 33, because they are reportedly expecting their first child together. The high school sweethearts who wed in 2005 – are pictured above at the 2009 Angel Ball in New York City on Tuesday (October 20).

The singer/songwriter was quick to sing Paula’s praises.

She could make a marriage work with a chair,” he says of Patton who is currently shooting the Queen Latifah comedy, Just Wright. “She’s an incredible woman, and she’s very beautiful, so I’m just lucky to be with her.”

In not so happy news, rapper Lil Wayne, 27, pleaded guilty in a Manhattan court room Thursday morning.

He is expected to get atleast a year for the two-year-old gun case and State Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon warned Lil Wayne that he wouldn’t be able later to withdraw the plea, as some people try to do.

“I’m not one of those people,” said the rapper, who sat in court in jeans and a hooded parka. He pulled up the hood and didn’t speak as he left the courthouse with members of his entourage, who piled into four black SUVs. He’s due back in court Dec. 15 before his sentencing date, which has yet to be set.

In related news, he is scheduled for trial in Arizona in March on felony drug possession and weapons charges stemming from a January 2008 arrest at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint. He has pleaded not guilty in that case.

Scoring Sunday’s Nuptials: Feminism’s Fallen to Talking Points, But Not White Dresses

Every week, Phyllis Nefler scores the NYT’s Weddings & Celebrations pages for the various Times-reading women and gay men who need their own special version of sabermetrics, and the straight men like me who deny reading them. These are Altarcations.

Alliterative apologies in advance, because this is going to be an abridged Altarcations.

I am vacationing in Arizona and did you know it’s like impossible to find a New York Times up in here? I had to drive around in my rented Chevy Malibu for like 45 minutes just so I could find a place that would sell me the Times for SIX DOLLARS. It wasn’t easy: everyone here reads (shivering) USA Today and the only place that sells the Times is Starbucks — the whole “latte-sipping, Times-reading liberal elites” thing makes SO much more sense to me now — and the first Starbucks I went to was all out, and after contemplating approaching a scary man and offering to pay him a couple of dollars just for the Styles section I decided that would be creepy and so had to go to ANOTHER Starbucks down the road. My only consolation was that on my drive back I got to think about this and giggle a lot:

Anyway, the point is that I am going to help you help me by giving you some cursory thoughts on this week’s Vows for you to expand upon in the comments as/if you see fit. Let’s begin.

Jessica Valenti got married. Your reaction to that sentence is a binary event: either you’re like who? (likely) or you’re throwing down your dogeared copy of “Sisterhood, Interrupted” in OUTRAGE and declaring whichever wave of feminism you are currently surfing to be DEAD.

Valenti, you see, is the controversial writer behind the website Feministing and several books with names like “Full Frontal Feminism” and “He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut”. (Weirdly, I know her best from the time she got into an epic battle with Ann Althouse over this picture:

No, I’m serious, this was an actual Internet feud. You can read about it here if you’re stuck inside in the New York rain and bored out of your mind.

And you can read about Valenti’s OTHER controversy — her marriage — over at our sister site, which has covered it much more ably than I can. (Sample comment: “Sometimes I call my sweetie’s weewee his Tool of Oppression.”) Jezebel is the Daria Morgendorffer to my Quinn, you know?

Valenti married Talking Points Memo’s Andrew Golis, <she wore light grey instead of white, and there was no bended-knee proposal, so don’t worry, she’s not a pawn of the patriarchy. Also, Golis claims to be a feminist but then says that he “has always detested ‘fishy fish’” and even vomits after eating ceviche so I mean, take from that what you will.

What else. The Times has taken a few week off from their cherished storyline of old people reuniting after years and years, but the old people are back and sprightlier than ever! Leslie Sutton-Smith and Mark Blackman dated way back in 1976 when they were members of the Columbia Marching Band and she was having trouble choosing between him and his twin brother and the funny/aww thing about this announcement was that she talks about first noticing her beloved (and his twin) because they both “had red hair and beards” which as you can see … is no longer the case.

Next we have Emily Schopick and Matthew Robinson, who have big toothy smiles and a lot of degrees and met when they stood next to one another at a food bank on “Mitzvah Day” packing donations for three hours and “managed to get some kibitzing and joking in, particularly about Spam.” Sez Mr. Robinson: “I kept pretending to put things in my pockets.” HA! Oh man, he’s going to make a hilarious dad someday.

Balancing out the Jewiness of that last couple are Lauren Worthington and Robert Morse: “The bridegroom is a descendant of five Mayflower passengers, including William Brewster and John Alden.” FIVE? Honestly, that’s just embarrassing and he should be ashamed.

(Speaking of embarrassing family lineage, this correction cracked me up: “Because of an editing error, a report las tSunday about the marriage of Caroline Driscoll and Bryan Barancik referred incorrectly to Jerome I. Barancik. He is the father of the bridegroom, not the groom’s maternal grandfather.” Haha, can “beloved cunt” be far behind?)

Also speaking of embarrassing family lineage:

“The bridegroom is a paternal great-great-great-grandson of Justus C. Strawbridge of Philadelphia, a founder of the Strawbridge and Clothier department store in Philadelphia.” Okay, now we’re really reaching.

Finally, I didn’t know that the plural of attorney general is “attorneys general” but now I do; this might be the most pretentiously-oddball proposal story I’ve ever read (spoiler alert: it involves expensive stationary); this might be the most boring how-their-relationship-evolved story with absolutely NO payoff that I’ve ever read (spoiler alert: “They made plans to meet the following Tuesday, a date Mr. Albano had to cancel because he became sick. ‘I thought it was because he wasn’t interested but then he called me the next night for dinner,’ she said.” GET ON WITH IT, GRANDMA!); and I’m sorry but this picture just cracks me up.

I’ll leave any scoring to you, although I’d think the real horserace is between them (check out his parents’ boards!) and them. You are all witty and attractive and I love you. Marry me? You don’t have to wear white.

James Arthur Ray “Sweatbox”” Ceremony Leaves Two Dead

He’s a regular contributor on Today and a frequent guest on Oprah and Larry King Live.  He was featured in the movie version of The Secret.

Thursday night, best-selling author James Arthur Ray was in Arizona, leading a ceremony in a sweatbox.  Now two of his “followers” are dead and another 19 are injured, one critically.

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