Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz sparked fury online Tuesday after saying Americans may have to choose between buying a new iPhone and health insurance – yet the criticism glossed over similar remarks made by then-President Barack Obama.

Problem is, the comments weren’t that similar. I explained in a few quick tweets why this is silly and can’t be compared. Check it out below and listen for yourself to what Obama said below that.

No, Rep. Jason Chaffetz Didn’t Say What Obama Said.

122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2017

The Orange Demon makes false claims again. It’s also a day ending in y.

And yet again, it seems like he got his information from cable news. He could’ve just looked the information up himself since it’s easily found. But yet again, he didn’t understand what they were saying and went left with it. But luckily virtually everyone said “nah.”

Wrong POTUS, @realDonaldTrump. Your intel agencies report shows Bush released 113 of the 122 re-engagers from Gitmo. https://t.co/AvYSHDspfl pic.twitter.com/YZOVOrJS3O

— Carol Rosenberg (@carolrosenberg) March 7, 2017

Trump has an issue with Obama, clearly. I think his issue is that he didn’t realize how hard it is to be president. And Obama is constantly thrown up in his face, the same guy whose very legitimacy he questioned for years. The same guy who he claimed was incompetent and lazy. Yet now he realizes that Obama is his better in every way. You can disagree with various policies of Obama and his administration but you can’t possibly think that he wasn’t leagues better than Trump.

You may also wonder “If Trump continues to lie, mislead, and get shit wrong over and over, why do you post about it?” Because we have to. At this point Trump is lying so much and so often that it’s easy to stop and give up. But that’s why there must be a continuous push to air out his bullshit. And air out we shall.

“Maybe rather than getting that new iPhone” Americans “should invest in their own healthcare” – Rep. Jason Chaffetz https://t.co/sxWaRohbEh pic.twitter.com/aEWYikdWiw

— CNN (@CNN) March 7, 2017

Just let that sink in.

iPhones can be purchased for as low as $99 depending on the deal you get. Health care can bankrupt families. This bullshit narrative fits the GOP’s argument about what they think poor people should be able to have. But this is magically ridiculous. If you’re going to screw millions of Americans, just own it. Don’t act like you’re being the adult giving a tough talk to your kids. You’re pushing to leave people in catastrophic circumstances and you don’t give a shit.

Just own it.

I know he’s literally a brain surgeon. Google tells me so. But sometimes when Carson, our brand-new secretary of Housing and Urban Development and President Trump’s inner negro circle says…well..words, I’m genuinely confused as to how he understands how neurons fire but he doesn’t understand how something as horrible as slavery works. Don’t believe me? Check out this snippet from his ridiculous speech to his brand-new employees in HUD where…I…I can’t even try to explain. I’ve left a lot of speaking up front (probably about 2 minutes) so that I won’t be accused of editing Dr. Carson’s words.

But…I…that’s not…who in the world thinks that slaves were just immigrants who wanted to live their dreams? You mean a dream of not being snatched up and sent to the bottom of a boat in horrendous conditions so that they could be beaten, sold, raped, murdered…I’m sorry. I forgot my point. Because when you stop to think about the horrors that my ancestors lived through, to think that anyone, especially a gatdamb Black man in America, would refer to them as immigrants is just…

I’m going to go have a drink.

A new study by economists Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington shows that white residents of towns that had larger enslaved populations in the antebellum south are more likely to vote Republican. The study demonstrated that while conservative views alone could not account for the mass defection from Democrat to Republican that occurred after the civil-rights movement, conservative views on race specifically were correlated.

A related study by psychologists at the University of California, Los Angeles, also reveals links to people’s prejudice, as it relates to the location in which they were raised:

Blackwell, one of the authors, agreed. “People in general tend to think of their views as their own, conclusions that they came to after thinking long and hard about the facts,” he said. “There’s sufficient evidence out there to show that’s not the way people have come to form beliefs about the world and about politics, in general.”

 

The new study does not provide direct evidence that those white Southerners are more likely to vote Republican because Republican politicians appeal to their racial anxieties. Rather, it suggests that racial biases along with political beliefs are transmitted from one generation to another as part of the overall culture of a particular place. (via The Washington Post)

And generations of Black people let out a deep and loud “Duh.”

President Trump is very upset.

I’d bet money he can’t define McCarthyism.

The guy who was bragging about grabbing women by the pussy is talking about a new low. You can’t make this up.

If only Trump could find a good lawyer. He’s only the billionaire president of the United States. Clearly his access is limited.

NIXON! WATERGATE! BAD! SICK! So what there’s no proof. What’s proof? WHO NEEDS THAT?

So far White House officials who have spoken about it (which we were told they wouldn’t) have implied that there’s some secret information that Trump has even though it has been mentioned across media that this particular tantrum comes in part from conservative media. So now most of the MSM is chasing this story and questioning politicians based on a presidential tantrum.

American exceptionalism?

After the Trump administration’s rollback of Obama era guidelines for protection of transgender students the Supreme Court, who had agreed in October to hear the case of Gavin Grimm, a transgender boy who had been stopped from using the boys bathroom by the school board in Gloucester County, Virginia, decided to not hear the case and send it back to the lower courts.

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would not hear a major case on transgender rights after all, acting after the Trump administration changed the federal government’s position on whether public schools must allow transgender youths to use bathrooms that match their gender identities.

In a one-sentence order, the Supreme Court vacated an appeal’s court decision in favor of a Virginia transgender boy, Gavin Grimm, and sent the case back for further consideration in light of the new guidance from the Trump administration.

That’s right. The Trump administration’s rollback of transgender protections completely changed the nature of the case. With the protections removed, the previous court rulings were called into question due to them being based partly on those protections. This seems to be the point of the rollback since the Trump administration specifically alerted the Supreme Court of the rollback. You can read the “Dear Colleague” letter that was sent to schools across the nation here.

When the rollback was announced protests broke out in front of the White House.

Trump signing new #MuslimBan. Photo Tweeted by Sean Spicer

President Donald J. Trump has signed another executive order to curtail Muslim immigration into the United States.

The Trump administration has signed a new executive order that temporarily bans people from six majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States.

The new executive order, effective next week, officially revokes and replaces the controversial order President Trump signed in late-January that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked last month. The new order has been crafted to attempt to withstand legal challenge, exempting permanent legal residents and applying only to future visa applicants, not those who already hold valid visas. (Via ABC News)

The new updated #MuslimBan (which is being referred to as #TravelBan) does a lot of what the initial ban did while clarifying that green card holders, dual nationals, current visa holders, diplomats and people who have already been granted asylum or refugee status, stripping language that targeted Syrian refugees and now freezes all refugee resettlement, allowing Iraq Nationals to dodge this order due to supposed negotiations between Iraq and the U.S.

But a few things jumped out at me.

I’m confused about this #TravelBan. I thought we were in so much danger that we need to pause…but what were they doing for the past month?

— Elon James White (@elonjames) March 6, 2017

The timelines in the new executive order and the original one that was halted by multiple judges and the U.S. Appeals court are the same. But there’s a 30+ day difference in when they were signed which to me begs the question: for the past month was the White House not working on the supposed threats to our nation that required it to push such an incredibly flawed and problematic executive order in the first place? The new EO specifically states anyone from the targeted six countries had received/applied for a visa or refugee status after Mr. Trump’s previous executive order was signed, they still can’t enter the country.

So if we were to take Mr. Trump’s words and reasoning at face value, wouldn’t the timelines that were initially outlined be shorter now? Remember, this is just “a pause.” Why stretch the pause out longer than need be especially when the Department of Homeland Security has found no evidence of extra threats posed by any of the countries listed in the #MuslimBan. What’s the logic behind this? With so much questioning on what the very idea of this travel ban means to what America claims to be, why not work through this as quickly as possible unless there are other things at play?

Updates to come.