Just when you thought you’d heard EVERYTHING that ANYONE, ANYWHERE could POSSIBLY blame on Barack Obama, along comes… the bungled suspension of a major league baseball game because of rain. No, seriously. Well, it did happen in Chicago, so surely the prez must have been involved somehow or other, eh what?
On the night of Aug. 19, the Chicago Cubs were hosting the San Francisco Giants when a downpour interrupted the action in the middle of the fifth inning, and a grounds crew clumsily covered Wrigley Field with a tarp. Then everyone waited until after 1:00 a.m., when the game was finally called off because the field was too wet. Since the Cubs were leading 2-0 at that point, they were awarded the victory.
But the Giants protested (They wanted to play until 3:00 in the morning?) because they maintained the crew did not adequately protect the field. Officials ruled in their favor, and the game was resumed a couple of days later. The Giants still lost, them bums, but they claimed the consolation prize of the first successful protest of a major league game in 28 years. End of story, right?
Well no, this is where it really gets interesting. And weird. It turns out that the reason the grounds crew was so inept at covering the field was that they were drastically shorthanded. And the reason for that was that some of them were sent home early. And the reason for that was that the bosses didn’t want the lowly laborers working too many hours. And the reason for that reportedly was that they didn’t want to shell out a few more bucks as required by “Obamacare”.
Now there was no real damage because of any of this, except maybe the sore butts of the fans sitting in the bleachers so long — the Cubs even got to keep their mark in the win column. But for some people (notably those at the ever-entertaining National Review), it was another catastrophic failure of the Affordable Care Act — oops, that should be “Obamacare”, of course. Another failure right up there with… well, you know, death panels and stuff.
It’s a sign of the times for a couple of reasons. First, the craze involving blaming any and all problems on President Obama, somehow, anyhow. Second, the trend toward corporate directors being Scrooges and squeezing the underpaid workers at the bottom of the food chain — and then blaming their Scrooginess on President Obama. But there’s yet a third reason.
It turns out that the big cheeses for the Cubs were rather misinformed about the ACA. (What? Someone misinformed about “Obamacare”? Say it ain’t so, Rush.) The dreaded provision of the law requiring them to treat their workers like human beings isn’t even in effect this year. They could have had the full complement of tarp spreaders on hand without having to pay a penny in penalties. As Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research bluntly observes, “This is yet another example of the skills gap that is preventing managers from operating their businesses effectively.” In other words, maybe this is why the Cubs suck so much.
It’s another sign of the times. Few if any of the attacks leveled at “Obamacare” are totally accurate, and most have no basis in reality whatsoever. You’d think that if people were going to criticize a law, or anything else, they’d at least want to avoid making fools of themselves by learning a little bit about it first. Just a tad, a smidgen, a modicum, a crumb. But for the Cult of Obama Hatred, this would only spoil the fun.
So far, Republicans in Congress have not cited Tarp Gate as grounds for impeachment. But it’s surely just a matter of time.
The Propaganda Professor 
POP
Shame on you POP, you failed to mention the deliberate attempt made by Obama’s mother to smuggle him to Hawaii and cleverly leave a falsified birth certificate as proof that he was born in America! We have been told that this was done in order to allow him to be President, but the entire story is never told: Once he assumed office we now know that, he conspired to fulfill a campaign promise pledging that he would work to enable millions of more low income Americans to have access to affordable health care—fully knowing that someday the provisions of this law, would help San Francisco lose a game due to a faulty tarp deployment by the Cubs! How can we ever trust such a fiend! Especially when he is encouraging us to support the ACA—as if it were really in our own interests to do so? OUTRAGEOUS!
If I got into too much detail, I’d have to reveal how the lizard people from another planet are behind it all. And I don’t want to blow their cover, because I’ve heard that a friend of a friend of a friend says they’re really not so bad once you get used to the smell.
Nice of your friend of a friend of a friend, to be so open minded, the Lizard people are just plain ol’ folks too!
Hi POP,
I just checked out your Newshounds link. Did you recently add this or have I just been oblivious to its existence?
It impresses me as a great website with links to all kinds of other great websites.
It used to be that “Liar’s Clubs,” held competitions based on which competitor could tell the most outlandish lies with the most impressive creative flairs. Now we have no need to join such a club in order to see and hear outrageous and unabashed lies told by the best of them–it’s called Fox News. The only difference is that those who participated in the old “Liar’s Club” contests, knew very well that their tall tales were made up and completely fictitious in order to win a game. But Fox seems to believe that even more outrageous tall tales, must be told in order to sufficiently mislead public opinion—lest it actually hear the truth from more reputable sources. Unfortunately for all of us, these lies are no game, since they are used to alter public opinions in ways that are designed to change our political landscape.
I think I will frequently enjoy perusing this site in the future.
I just added the link a few days ago, a long with a couple of others. I hope to add a few more soon. Newshounds demonstrates that you can keep plenty busy just debunking Fox alone.