A belated first post and a hearty welcome to my co-blogger, Raised By Wolverines

Editor's note: This post had been sitting in the draft files for months. Raised By Wolverines wrote it and submitted it for review. I thought I had told him to put it on the blog, but signals crossed and it sat there. So, while it is not the very first post by Raised by Wolverines, it was supposed to be, and here it is:

By Raised By Wolverines

So like Raised by Wolves, I am one of the few conservative temps in the legal industry in DC.   On my current project I think I am actually outnumbered 18 to 1.  So for the last four months, I have had to suffer and endure the normal liberal shopworn cliches and diatribes, mainly about how all conservatives are stupid southern rednecks, racists, homophobes, etc., and how liberals and Obama are just so much smarter.  I guess I could take this if there was some justification for it and if most of the temps were not complete blithering idiots.  But in fact, as Raised by Wolves has taught you, most temps are blithering idiots.  Worse, most liberal temps are fairly politically clueless and have little knowledge of current events, history, or even basic 8th grade geography.  Like most projects, this one did not let me down when it came to providing fodder demonstrating the cluelessness of many left-leaning temps.

On this project, like most, it is not only a temp's legal knowledge that is important but also just a general knowledge of basic economics, current events, business, and, yes, even geography.  One day a very liberal but pleasant temp came across the initials ONT and wanted to know what it stood for.   I responded that it stood for Ontario.   The next question - where is Ontario?  Now, this is someone who went to four years of college and three years at our supposedly best law school - the same law school Mr. 57 States went to.  Yet this temp had absolutely no idea where Ontario is.  Now, he/she could carry on endlessly about how our evil capitalist system supposedly exploits women and about the evils of the Christopher Columbus holiday.  But 8th grade geography - not a clue.  I wish I had been a bit quicker and told him/her Ontario is where Columbus landed.  I think the temp would have bought it.

One subject a lot of temps like to complain about is the cost of health insurance.  If you are a single temp or a married temp who cannot get on your spouse's health insurance plan, you are left to buy insurance in the individual  market, i.e., you are screwed and probably spending at least one month's pay - if not more - on health insurance for an entire year.  Since Obamacare was enacted, the individual market has seen steep increases in premiums because of a variety of new Obamacare rules and regulations that mandate certain benefits (think Sandra Fluke), bar insurers from excluding people with pre-existing conditions, and require community rating.  Most temps like me have seen their premiums increase by $100 or $200 per month since the passage of Obamacare.

Of course, a discussion of increasing health insurance costs in the last few years would never lead any Obamabot to re-examine Obamacare.  After all, why blame the man who has been in charge for the last four years and actually got everything he wanted on health care when you can blame a greedy insurer?  I would not expect liberal temps to ever question their Dear Leader.

What has been most comical and amusing, though, is the number of temps who complained they did not meet the current threshold that only allows you to deduct health care expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of your income.  Of course, not one of them knew that their hero's signature legislative accomplishment will make it even more difficult to deduct health care expenses by raising the threshold to 10 percent of income.  But this dumb conservative knew and took great glee in pointing it out to them, even if it did nothing to shake their devotion to Obama.

Besides the under 30 somethings, I cannot think of a group of people who regularly vote to screw themselves more than legal temps.  But as my favorite football coach would say, it is what is.  But if you ever want to know why America is screwed or why our legal education system is a joke, come join a temp project.

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading and thanks to RaisedbyWolves for providing me this opportunity and giving me a chance to gripe.