The Obama administration has promised the site will be fixed by the end of November. But just in case it's not, no worries.
NATALIE MORALES (10/24/2013): The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing this morning about problems with the government's new health care website.
Congress... is on the case. Who better to fix this... than Congress? In fact, not just Congress, but the committee whose second-ranking Democrat entered Congress four years before the 1959 invention of microchips?
REP. JOHN DINGELL, D-MI (10/24/2013): I remind my colleagues that the last perfect law came off the top of Mount Sinai with Moses, written on stone tablet by the hand of God.
"And I was there." (audience laughter) "Nice guy, Moses, never made good on that milk and honey thing, but he's good people."
That's not fair. This committee, I'm sure, includes people with the proper expertise.
REP. PETE OLSON, R-TX (10/24/2013): Being a computer science major from Rice University, and a former Naval aviator....
Computer science major, former Naval aviator, that's what I'm talking about!
REP. PETE OLSON, R-TX (10/24/2013): ... who could not afford to have my computer drop offline as I'm rolling in my plane to drop a torpedo to stop Russian submarine from launching ballistic missile, nuclear missile, at our country.
(confused audience laughter)
I think that guy just used the plot from The Hunt for Red October to slag HealthCare.gov. Anyway, let's move on to someone else. Representative Joe Barton of Texas, well known for wanting America — this is true — to apologize to BP for getting our beaches on their oil, I guess. Barton had concerns beyond the website's efficacy.
REP. JOE BARTON, R-TX (10/24/2013): How in the world can this be HIPAA-compliant, when HIPAA is designed to protect the patient's privacy, and this explicitly says in order to continue, you have to accept this condition that you have no privacy?
Now, that is an interesting point. My guess is that it's HIPAA-compliant because the website doesn't ask you for actual health information. You know what? I wonder if there's another Congressperson, perhaps a Democrat, who's so sick of this shit and this guy, that he answers the question, but cannot hide his utter contempt for Joe Barton's willful ignorance.
10/24/2013:
REP. FRANK PALLONE, D-NJ: HIPAA only applies when there's health information being provided. That's not in play here today. No health information is required in the application process. And why is that? Because pre-existing conditions don't matter! So once again, here we have my Republican colleagues trying to scare everybody...
REP. JOE BARTON, R-TX: Will the gentleman yield?
REP. FRANK PALLONE, D-NJ: No, I will not yield to this monkey court or whatever this thing is!
REP. JOE BARTON, R-TX: This is not a monkey court!
REP. FRANK PALLONE, D-NJ: Whatever!
(wild audience laughter)
My favorite part of that clip, other than the rhythmic Tri-Delts just had enough of these cunt-punters head-rolling — "Whatever! If you can't handle the refreshments, Darlene, you can't be on the Refreshments Committee!"
I don't know if you heard it cuz you were laughing too hard, the off-camera Congressman's plaintive and insistent denial back at this guy that this is not a monkey court! It's just not.
Monkey Court, of course, was my 1990s MTV courtroom reality show.
By the way, I still don't know why I was the one who had to wear the diaper.
Anyway, monkey court notwithstanding, there was one issue that Republican Congressman McKinley of West Virginia wanted to get to the bottom of.
REP. DAVID McKINLEY, R-WV (10/24/2013): I haven't heard one of you apologize to the American public. ... Are apologies not in order? ... I've not heard the word, "I'm sorry". ... I don't understand why there's not an apology to the American public.
(wild audience laughter)
How!? How did you...?!? How did you do that??? What sort of wizardry is this? They're multiplying!
For their part, Democrats did not so much offer website difficulty reasons, as much as website difficulty rhymes.
10/24/2013:
REP. FRANK PALLONE, D-NJ: Let's the goal here be to fix it, not nix it.
REP. JAN SCHAKOWKSY, D-IL: Work together to fix it, and not nix it.
REP. PAUL TONKO, D-NY: We have to fix it, not nix it.
REP. JOHN SARBANES, D-MD: Fix it, don't nix it.
Fix it! Do not nix it!
Correct it. Do not reject it.
Debug it! Please do not unplug it.
Improve it! Don't remove it.
Repair it! Not forswear it.
(breaks out into song)
♫
We got to squeeze her, don't tease her!
Never leave her. For the website!
Try a little tenderness!
Oh yeah! You got to rub a gentle man!
All you gotta do, no, no, no!
You gotta try! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!!!!!!
A little tenderness!
(wild audience applause)
That was weird.
Of course, Republicans did offer one solution.
MARTIN BASHIR (10/23/2013): Republicans believe they may have found the answer to all of our technical problems, Mr. John McAfee. ... You may know Mr. McAfee as the founder of the company that bears his name and sells anti-viral software.
MATT LAUER (1/18/2013): John McAfee was wanted for questioning in connection to the murder of an American — Greg Faull — in the Central American country of Belize.
OK, we could try that.
Or....
(sings again)
♫
Try a little tenderness, baby!
Oh yeah!
We got to please her, tease her!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
We'll be right back!
of the extent of the NSA's spying on other world leaders.
Meanwhile, Stephen also briefly lamented how the woman on the front page of HealthCare.gov had been
.
.
from a Japanese company that lets you send your stuffed animal on a vacation around the world, which Stephen tried to copy.