It Sure Is Hot Here in Oklahoma

I have a Weather Man Boyfriend (Rick Mitchell, chief meteorologist of KOCO in OKC), a Football Boyfriend (Brett Favre – he makes my heart palpitate every time he throws a pass), and a Gay Boyfriend (Tim Gunn of “Project Runway,” with his vast and unimpugnable vocabulary).

Occasionally, I have to break it off, like, when my favorite show is interrupted by anything less than an F-4 on my street, or when Brett throws an interception. Which is okay, because there’s always OU Sooners head football coach Bob Stoops standing on the sidelines, ready to gamble all on a fake punt. The heart is a fickle thing. Sigh. Men who know how to excite.

One man who really knows how to stimulate, however, is my Politician Boyfriend – Sen. Tom Coburn, an MD from OK. Go ahead, Google him – I’ll wait. See all the breathtaking headlines – “The Most Hated Man in Washington,” “Battling Dr. No,” and “Hi, I’m Senator Coburn, and I Don’t Want Your Vote.” The man just knows how to rile up LEGIONS with one hold or filibuster or parliamentary procedure. The good doctor sports a pair even Sarah Palin could admire.

Some of the juiciest paragraphs written about my Secret Crush:

“No other senator has paved a more solitary path, butting heads with nearly every member of his own party and most of the opposition. In fact, as the Republican majority has run aground on fiscal issues over the past few years—racking up unprecedented deficits and a soaring national debt while the Democrats mostly kept out of the way—Coburn has often seemed like an opposition party unto himself. In April, for example, he tackled nineteen highly questionable expenses that his colleagues had slipped into the budget at the last minute—money that no branch of government had requested, which would directly benefit Senate campaign supporters. In September, he teamed up with Barack Obama to expose federal waste by putting the national budget on a public Web site—a prospect so alarming to some senators that two of them tried to kill it anonymously. And in December, as his Republican colleagues began cleaning out their offices to make room for the new Democratic leadership, Coburn fired a parting shot: Using legislative procedures, he blocked the GOP from finishing its annual business and pushed many of the most important budgetary decisions for incoming Democrats to make in the New Year.” – 2007 article in GQ

“The debate over the ‘bridge to nowhere’ in Alaska was Coburn’s doing. Coburn told Reason magazine’s David Weigel that when Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens pitched a massive fit and repeatedly threatened to resign, Coburn wasn’t so much worried about the political fallout as about Stevens’ ‘blood pressure, and whether I would have to resuscitate him on the floor of the Senate.’ Fortunately, Stevens survived to pork barrel another day.” – 2008 article on Politico

“That's what Tom Coburn wants you to know. Not about the bridge; about the bigger thing. He wants you to know how it works in Washington, how the machine keeps itself running, and the favors get traded, and the deals get struck, and the bridges to nowhere are going up every day. He wants you to know that the United States Congress simply cannot stop itself—that both parties are in on the fix, backing each other and looking the other way, and that in the spirit of bipartisan waste, they manage to blow $500 billion more than they collect in taxes every single year. He wants you to see where that money is going: the 10,000 personal projects and earmarks that senators and congressmen are sneaking into the federal budget every year—like the Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative in Michigan. And the Sparta Teapot Museum in North Carolina. And the Appalachian Fruit Laboratory in West Virginia. All paid for with your tax dollars.

That's what Tom Coburn wants you to know. That the members of the United States Congress will spend your money just because they can. That they'll do it even when they can't. That every year, they borrow the extra $500 billion from China, raising their own credit limit each time they reach it and then raising it again the next year, for a total of $9 trillion in debt so far. That's right, nine trillion dollars, a figure so enormous that even if the fifty richest people on earth—including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Michael Dell, along with the richest men in Saudi Arabia and Russia and Hong Kong—got together and sold everything they owned, right down to the last buttons on their last embroidered shirts, and then they donated all their money to the U.S. national debt, they still couldn't afford to pay a single year of interest at 10 percent. That's how much $9 trillion is, and that's what Tom Coburn wants you to know: that in Washington, there isn't really a party in charge, or a principle, or a leader. What's in charge is the money. Because at the end of the day, when it comes down to a choice between borrowing $200 million from China to build a bridge to nowhere and taking a stand against government waste, four out of five politicians will blow it on the bridge.” – back to the 2007 GQ article

Oh, my.

So, what exactly is my man up to these days. Well, there’s the Waco thing. Apparently, 24 mammoths were buried in Waco 68,000 years ago and the fine people of that area want to make it a National Monument. Hey, I love history, especially the ancient kind, just ask anybody. So, what’s the problem.

The cost to designate a National Monument is 1 MILLION DOLLARS. The cost to maintain it is $400,000 each year after that. Is it worth borrowing from China to make happen? Nope. Thus a legislative hold in a Senate subcommittee two years ago, by my hero employing the “anonymous hold” tactic. (To hell with anonymity. Coburn was glad to take public credit. Cojones the size of Texas, my friends.)

Well, the time limit is almost up for the bill, and the people of Waco are afraid that their buffalo are going to get buried again, this time under legislative bulls***. Waaaaaaah, Waco. SMU poli-sci prof Cal Jillson said “Coburn has little positive agenda, in terms of bills he’s trying to get passed, and you don’t want that kind of guy as your enemy.” Yes, he’s got nothing to lose and no personal agenda. Isn’t he awesome? It’s sooooo...stately.

He’s also released a policy paper analyzing how illegal immigrants will fare under Obamacare, promo and link on the website for the National Center for Policy Analysis. The tidbit:

“Senator Tom Coburn's (R-Okla.) office recently issued a policy paper titled, "Bad Medicine," on the new federal health care law that's worth reading. Among the gems is a finding that immigrants in some ways get a better deal than U.S. citizens and legal residents under the new health reform law, says health economist Devon Herrick.
For example:
• If you are a legal resident alien you will be required to obtain the same government mandated health coverage that U.S. citizens must obtain.
• However, if you have been here for less than five years, and if your income falls below 133 percent of the federal poverty level, you will not be allowed to enroll in Medicaid -- as U.S. citizens will be required to do.
• Instead, you will be able to obtain highly subsidized insurance (paying a premium, say, of 10 cents on the dollar) in a health insurance exchange.
• If Medicaid insurance is lower-quality insurance, you will have access to better insurance than a U.S. citizen with the same income!
If you are an undocumented immigrant you will not be subject to the individual insurance mandate and you will not be fined if you fail to purchase health insurance, nor will you be allowed to enroll in Medicaid or buy insurance in the health insurance exchange, says Herrick.
However, hospital emergency rooms will not be able to deny you health care if you are in need. What makes this surprising is that the most common argument for an individual mandate is that the uninsured should have to contribute to their own health care instead of getting it for free in the emergency room. This is why U.S. citizens will be required to pay hefty fines if they do not obtain insurance. If you are here illegally, however, you get to escape that penalty, says Herrick."

Nothing like a crappy health care bill favoring illegals to get the racists going. Nice move, Barry. There’s just not enough hate in the world. And it was definitely worth borrowing from China to finance. Not.

And don’t think Dr. Coburn won’t put his own state under the microscope, as well. Coburn and McCain released a list Tuesday of the Top 100 Most Wasteful Stimulus Projects in the Country, and here’s a link to one in OK.

http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=12917360

Sidewalks to nowhere. Love that reader asking if they begin in front of the school because that’s where the kids are going with their public education. Population of the town is 274. I ask again, was it worth borrowing from China to pay for?

You’ve got to read the senators’ full report…did you know BP received over $300 MILLION in stimulus funds?

I know the rest of you are probably sooooo jealous because your man/ woman is just not as good as mine. And I do feel sorry for you. Actually…for all of us.