This guy is an actual senator!

Yeah, he's from Arkansas. Of course he is. He looks like one of the kids from Mud.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) suggested on Monday that population decline and drug abuse in poor areas could be the result of too many people on Social Security disability.

Speaking to the conservative Heritage Foundation on Monday, Cotton warned that communities with high a percentage of residents on Social Security disability had reached a tipping point that was linked to population decline. But he said that communities which used fewer benefits were enjoying a population increase.
“It’s hard to say what came first or caused the other, population decline or increased disability usage,” Cotton opined. “Or maybe economic stagnation caused both. Regardless, there seems to be at least at the county and regional level something like a disability tipping point.”

What the fuck is this guy even talking about?
Population decline?

You know, maybe he's right. Maybe people who are disabled are less eager to have kids? Maybe a lot of disabled people are thinking "Geez, how would I chase a toddler around in this wheelchair?" Or maybe, I don't know, maybe they're thinking "my disability payments are barely covering my living expenses and doctor bills, there's no way I can afford to have a baby."  So, maybe that's not a bad thing? People being responsible about family planning?

“When a county hits a certain level of disability usage, disability becomes a norm,” he continued. “It becomes an acceptable way of life and alternative source of income to a good paying full-time job as opposed to a last resort safety net program to deal with catastrophic injury and illness.”

Yeah. . . no. Not so much. Being on disability isn't something that goes in and out of style. People either are disabled or they aren't. And, yes, there are of course people who fake injury to scam the system. But it isn't like once one person does that faking it becomes contagious either. It's not like Heathers!

“At a certain point when disability keeps climbing and become endemic, employers will struggle to find employees or begin or continue to move out of the area,”

O my God. Has that ever happened? Has there ever been a community where so many people became disabled that companies couldn't find any non-disabled people to work for them anymore? Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?

“The population continues to fall and a downward spiral kicks in, driving once thriving communities into further decline.”
“Not only that, but once this spiral begins, communities could begin to suffer other social plagues as well, such as heroin or meth addiction and associated crime.”

Heroin? Meth? Is that really what you think happens? Disablility somehow becomes an epidemic, there are no able-bodied workers left, so companies abandon the city, so then. . . heroin?

 

If only I had kept working after I injured my back!

Cotton revealed that he planned to introduce legislation that would single out non-permanent disability recipients and set a timeline for them to return to work.
Disabled people who are not ready to return to work would be forced to reapply for disability benefits, Cotton said.

Fuck you!
You know, I was on temporary disability once, after an ugly skiing accident. And it took a bit longer than predicted for my fractured hip to heal up. If I had had to go through the headaches of re-applying for disability, I mean -  I guess I would have because what choice would I have had, but still. Fuck you, Cotton. I paid into Social Security, I'm still paying in and probably will be for years to come. If I need to use it, I will. There's nothing in the world wrong with that. It's not a fucking handout, I paid for it. And the entire time that I was on disability, I swear to you that zero of my friends, family and/or neighbors found themselves suddenly disabled. No one said "well, Hell, if the Perfessor can do it, I can too!"  And no one started doing heroin.

How to be an asshole

Look at this asshole:










So, first you make up a totally fake bit of bullshit to wind yourself up about. This particular sack of bullshit this asshole is trying to gin up phony outrage about is that Starbucks changed their winter coffee cups from this:



To this:



So, as you can plainly see, they must really hate Jesus.
Because the old cup had snowflakes and an elk pictured on it which is obviously a way of praising the Christ-child, and the new one is just red. You know,  red like communists are.

 

And you know who else is red?

 

So now you've got your ginned-up fake agrievement. Now you go take it out on a bunch of people who are just trying to do their jobs and pay their rent and have no control over what the company does to their cups. Try to embarrass these kids who have to shout out "Merry Christmas" in the first week of fucking November, when you'd really be jumping the gun by saying "Happy Thanksgiving."

Then, act like you've somehow outsmarted the entire anti-Christmas-industrial-complex. Be really smug about it. Like this is a real accomplishment. Just wallow in your own absurdly inflated sense of acheivement, having "tricked" some teenager making 10 bucks an hour into saying something that he doesn't find remotely objectionable and probably says all the time IN LATE DECEMBER WHEN IT'S FUCKING APPROPRIATE!

Lastly, "challenge" other like-minded simpletons to do the same. As if it were some sort of an act of bravery to give the coffee lady a fake name. Like it isn't just a stupid joke that people do all the time. Like Bart Simpson has done about a million times.

Except that your fake name isn't clever or funny and the Starbucks employee isn't fooled by it because it doesn't sound like a real name.

And that's how to be an asshole!