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Barack Obama is officially one of the most consequential presidents in American history
By Dylan Matthews, June 26, 2015
After Thursday's Supreme Court ruling, there's no longer any doubt: Barack Obama is one of the most consequential presidents in American history — and he will be a particularly towering figure in the history of American progressivism.
National health insurance has been the single defining goal of American progressivism for more than a century. There have been other struggles, of course: for equality for women, African-Americans, and LGBT people; for environmental protection; against militarism in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. But ever since its inclusion in Teddy Roosevelt's 1912 Bull Moose platform, a federally guaranteed right to health coverage has been the one economic and social policy demand that loomed over all others. It was the big gap between our welfare state and those of our peers in Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.
And for more than a century, efforts to achieve national health insurance failed. Roosevelt's third-party run came up short. His Progressive allies, despite support from the American Medical Association, failed to pass a bill in the 1910s. FDR declined to include health insurance in the Social Security Act, fearing it would sink the whole program, and the Wagner Act, his second attempt, ended in failure too. Harry Truman included a single-payer plan open to all Americans in his Fair Deal set of proposals, but it went nowhere. LBJ got Medicare and Medicaid done after JFK utterly failed, but both programs targeted limited groups.
Richard Nixon proposed a universal health-care plan remarkably similar to Obamacare that was killed when then–Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) walked away from a deal to pass it, in what Kennedy would later call his greatest regret as a senator. Jimmy Carter endorsed single-payer on the campaign trail, but despite having a Democratic supermajority in Congress did nothing to pass it. And the failure of Bill Clinton's health-care plan is the stuff of legend.
What Obamacare achieved
Then, on March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. It wasn't perfect by any means. It wasn't single-payer; it lacked a public option, or all-payer rate-setting. And it still left many uninsured. But it established, for the first time in history, that it was the responsibility of the United States government to provide health insurance to nearly all Americans, and it expanded Medicaid and offered hundreds of billions of dollars in insurance subsidies to fulfill that responsibility.
In an email, UC Berkeley's Paul Pierson likened the law to a "starter home" to be expanded later on, much as Social Security — which initially had no disability benefits, left out surviving dependents and widows, and excluded (largely black) agricultural and home workers — was.
Brian Steensland, a sociologist who studies American social policy at Indiana University in Indianapolis, agrees. "The main thing it does, I think, is establish the expectation in the public’s mind that access to basic health care is a right. It’s going to be hard to go back to a time when access to health insurance, and the subsidies to help pay for it, wasn’t near-universal."
To pay for it all, the Affordable Care Act cut back on Medicare spending and hiked up taxes on rich people's investment income and health plans. It effected a massive downward redistribution of income. It's one of the most startlingly progressive laws this country has ever enacted.
And it was passed with more opposition than the social insurance programs it followed. "FDR and LBJ had lots of fellow Democrats in Congress when they pushed for the New Deal and Great Society," College of William and Mary political scientist Chris Howard says. "Their opponents, in and out of government, were not nearly as ideological or hostile as the ones facing Obama. The fact that the ACA exists at all is pretty remarkable."
A lot of these facts are familiar to people who've been following Obamacare, but it's worth dwelling on them for a second. When you consider the law in the context of 100 years of progressive activism, and in the grand scheme of American history, it starts to look less like a moderate reform and more like an epochal achievement, on the order of FDR's passage of Social Security, or LBJ's Great Society programs. It is, to quote Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol, "a century-defining accomplishment in the last industrial democracy to resist using national government to ensure access to health coverage for most citizens." FDR failed, Truman failed, Nixon failed, Carter failed, Clinton failed — and Obama succeeded. He filled in the one big remaining gap in the American welfare state when all his forerunners couldn't.
It's not just Obamacare
And of course, the Affordable Care Act was hardly Obama's only accomplishment. He passed a stimulus bill that included major reforms to the nation's education system, big spending on clean energy, and significant expansions of anti-poverty programs. He shepherded through the Dodd-Frank Act, the first significant crackdown on Wall Street's power in a generation, which has been far more successful than commonly acknowledged.
He used executive action to enact bold regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions*, and to protect nearly 6 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. He ended the ban on gay and lesbian service in the military, made it easier for women and minorities to fight wage discrimination, cut out wasteful private sector involvement in student loans, and hiked the top income tax rate.
He reopened relations with Cuba after a failed half-century estrangement and has tentatively reached a historic deal to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon — and, much more importantly, to avoid a war with Iran. He reprofessionalized the Department of Justice and refashioned the National Labor Relations Board and the Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department into highly effective forces for workers' rights.
His presidency holds massive symbolic value as proof that the reign of white men over American government can be halted and America as a whole can be represented. And while he was too slow in announcing support for same-sex marriage, he appointed two of the justices behind the Supreme Court's historic decision legalizing it nationwide, and enlisted his Justice Department on the side of the plaintiffs.
There are obviously places Obama fell short. I think he didn't take monetary policy nearly seriously enough, that the drone war is a moral catastrophe, that he's fallen short on combating HIV/AIDS and other public health scourges abroad, that the 2009 surge in Afghanistan was a mistake, and that perpetrators of torture and other war crimes from the Bush administration should have been criminally prosecuted. But while Obama could have accomplished more, it could never be said that he accomplished little.
"When you add the ACA to the reforms in the stimulus package, Dodd-Frank, and his various climate initiatives," Pierson says, "I don't think there is any doubt: On domestic issues Obama is the most consequential and successful Democratic president since LBJ. It isn't close." And LBJ's presidency was so marred by the Vietnam War that he declined to seek a second term — there is no similar stain on Obama's record.
You can generally divide American presidents into two camps: the mildly good or bad but ultimately forgettable (Clinton, Carter, Taft, Harrison), and the hugely consequential for good or ill (FDR, Lincoln, Nixon, Andrew Johnson). Whether you love or hate his record, there's no question Obama is firmly in the latter camp.
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Saturday, June 27, 2015
"So what rights have gay marriage opponents lost? The answer, I think, is their future." Just don't blame the gays for your loss because it's all your fault!
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COMMENTS:
* You obviously don't have an understanding of our constitution. It's strange how many people believe a democracy means "majority" rules. Our country is not a true democracy and never has been. It is set up purposely to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
* One more step in the right direction. Every day more people see religious tomes of mythology for what they are. Mythology.
* Joseph Campbell's work does show that mythology has a place in the development of human's soul and experience. Mythology viewed as stories told and their impact on an individual's and/or cultures, can be quite positive to growth. Of course, in the hands and minds of those who wish to control others, they can be quite negative. "Thinking is difficult. That is why most people judge." - Carl Gustov Jung
* The death of religion can't come soon enough. The superstitious loons who believe in imaginary friends need go shut up and go away. They are nothing more than one group of people trying to control another. Once they are gone then people will truly discover God.
* Why do religious followers refuse to understand we are a nation based on civil law NOT Christian law? It matters not what your denomination is, the churches do not get to decide what will be the law of our land.
* This country wasn't founded by god, it was founded by man. Religious beliefs belong in church, not in Constitutional Law.
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Does Legal Gay Marriage Doom Evangelical Christianity?
By Clay Farris Naff, June 27, 2015
Hell hath no fury like the religious right scorned. The ink was yet wet on the Supreme Court's decision legalizing gay marriage when Southern Baptist minister and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee called for an uprising.
"I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch," he roared. "We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat."
Weirdly, Chief Justice John Roberts denigrated his own institution. "Five lawyers have closed the debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law," he sneered in dissent. ["A]s a judge, I find the majority's position indefensible as a matter of constitutional law."
Roberts must have been snoozing in con law class. This is precisely what the Supreme Court is supposed to do: Prevent a tyranny of the majority. That is its essential function.
The Founders changed the world by crafting a separation of powers in our government. Any ambiguity about the Supreme Court's role was cleared up in 1803 when the Court issued its decision in Marbury v. Madison. In that towering decision, Chief Justice Marshall ruled that laws in conflict with the Constitution are no laws, and that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what the Constitution says.
Roberts knows this, and Scalia, Huckabee and the whole howling pack of angry critics must know this, too. Why are they so furious about a decision that can have no direct effect on them? A court majority that blithely made "money talks" the law of the land in Citizens United really cannot complain about "judicial tyranny" when it finds itself in the minority.
Indeed, being in the minority, yet retaining fundamental rights, is exactly what this week's ruling is about. So what rights have gay marriage opponents lost? The answer, I think, is their future.
Opposition to gay marriage has only one refuge: Old Time Religion. To be sure, there are still plenty of people who take certain biblical passages to mean that homosexuality is wrong (conveniently overlooking other passages that say slavery is right). But their numbers are dwindling. American attitudes on gay marriage have swung about like the boom on a yacht caught in a gale of change.
What the religious right rightly fears is being blown away. They talk about the Roe v. Wade decision, but what haunts them is Loving v. Virginia. That 1967 Supreme Court ruling overturned laws banning interracial marriage. It came at a time when "We Shall Overcome," with its verse "black and white together," could be heard in the streets across the nation.
Today, racism persists, but only like a fatal disease awaiting eradication. It has lost all legitimacy. Even a billionaire NBA team owner can't get away with being a public racist.
Now, I am not making a content comparison of Old Time Religion with racism. I am saying that right-wing religion's exponents fear being stigmatized by this decision. Rick Scarborough of Vision America told NPR "What we have historically done is enforce moral standards," and after vowing to continue to discriminate in hiring regardless, he added wistfully, "Who wants to respond to a pollster and be called a bigot?"
Good question.
More than two-thirds of young Americans already accept gay marriage. As it proliferates, more will. To come out as anti-gay is already seriously not cool. Increasingly, in high schools and colleges, to be anti-gay will be like coming out as a Klansman.
Are young people going to want to join a church whose emblem is a huffing and puffing Mike Huckabee wielding the Bible to exclude millions from marriage? Not likely.
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COMMENTS:
* You obviously don't have an understanding of our constitution. It's strange how many people believe a democracy means "majority" rules. Our country is not a true democracy and never has been. It is set up purposely to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
* One more step in the right direction. Every day more people see religious tomes of mythology for what they are. Mythology.
* Joseph Campbell's work does show that mythology has a place in the development of human's soul and experience. Mythology viewed as stories told and their impact on an individual's and/or cultures, can be quite positive to growth. Of course, in the hands and minds of those who wish to control others, they can be quite negative. "Thinking is difficult. That is why most people judge." - Carl Gustov Jung
* The death of religion can't come soon enough. The superstitious loons who believe in imaginary friends need go shut up and go away. They are nothing more than one group of people trying to control another. Once they are gone then people will truly discover God.
* Why do religious followers refuse to understand we are a nation based on civil law NOT Christian law? It matters not what your denomination is, the churches do not get to decide what will be the law of our land.
* This country wasn't founded by god, it was founded by man. Religious beliefs belong in church, not in Constitutional Law.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Does Legal Gay Marriage Doom Evangelical Christianity?
By Clay Farris Naff, June 27, 2015
Hell hath no fury like the religious right scorned. The ink was yet wet on the Supreme Court's decision legalizing gay marriage when Southern Baptist minister and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee called for an uprising.
"I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch," he roared. "We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat."
Weirdly, Chief Justice John Roberts denigrated his own institution. "Five lawyers have closed the debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law," he sneered in dissent. ["A]s a judge, I find the majority's position indefensible as a matter of constitutional law."
Roberts must have been snoozing in con law class. This is precisely what the Supreme Court is supposed to do: Prevent a tyranny of the majority. That is its essential function.
The Founders changed the world by crafting a separation of powers in our government. Any ambiguity about the Supreme Court's role was cleared up in 1803 when the Court issued its decision in Marbury v. Madison. In that towering decision, Chief Justice Marshall ruled that laws in conflict with the Constitution are no laws, and that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what the Constitution says.
Roberts knows this, and Scalia, Huckabee and the whole howling pack of angry critics must know this, too. Why are they so furious about a decision that can have no direct effect on them? A court majority that blithely made "money talks" the law of the land in Citizens United really cannot complain about "judicial tyranny" when it finds itself in the minority.
Indeed, being in the minority, yet retaining fundamental rights, is exactly what this week's ruling is about. So what rights have gay marriage opponents lost? The answer, I think, is their future.
Opposition to gay marriage has only one refuge: Old Time Religion. To be sure, there are still plenty of people who take certain biblical passages to mean that homosexuality is wrong (conveniently overlooking other passages that say slavery is right). But their numbers are dwindling. American attitudes on gay marriage have swung about like the boom on a yacht caught in a gale of change.
What the religious right rightly fears is being blown away. They talk about the Roe v. Wade decision, but what haunts them is Loving v. Virginia. That 1967 Supreme Court ruling overturned laws banning interracial marriage. It came at a time when "We Shall Overcome," with its verse "black and white together," could be heard in the streets across the nation.
Today, racism persists, but only like a fatal disease awaiting eradication. It has lost all legitimacy. Even a billionaire NBA team owner can't get away with being a public racist.
Now, I am not making a content comparison of Old Time Religion with racism. I am saying that right-wing religion's exponents fear being stigmatized by this decision. Rick Scarborough of Vision America told NPR "What we have historically done is enforce moral standards," and after vowing to continue to discriminate in hiring regardless, he added wistfully, "Who wants to respond to a pollster and be called a bigot?"
Good question.
More than two-thirds of young Americans already accept gay marriage. As it proliferates, more will. To come out as anti-gay is already seriously not cool. Increasingly, in high schools and colleges, to be anti-gay will be like coming out as a Klansman.
Are young people going to want to join a church whose emblem is a huffing and puffing Mike Huckabee wielding the Bible to exclude millions from marriage? Not likely.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Friday, June 26, 2015
"... these wingnuts claimed that legalizing same-sex marriage did no injury to heterosexual couples ... But they were and are dead wrong." [tongue in cheek!]
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COMMENTS:
* The whole time I'm reading this, I'm thinking "This can't be serious." And then, I got to the end. Good show, old bean. Unfortunately, Poe's law is at work here, and all you have to do is go over to CNS and see that this "satire" is very much a reality for them.
* This is satire? I thought this was the script to the next Fox Noise rant.
* I am glad you posted that it is satire because you sure as hell wrote like those who oppose gay marriage legality...
* Holy shit, this had me hook line and sinker. It's especially tricky because some actually think this way.
* Why is it so hard for christians not to hate?
* The problem with this piece is that it's too close to what many actually believe for people to see right away it's satire. That's the scary part.
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The Supreme Court Has Just Destroyed Marriage
By James Heffernan, June 26, 2015
Today, June 26, 2015, a day that will live in infamy, the Supreme Court has just destroyed the great battleship of marriage. Sent a kamizake pilot right through its bridge. Blown it to smithereens.
A sacred institution that was founded by God Himself in the Garden of Eden and that has lasted for countless millennia, an institution that has persevered through fire and flood and earthquake and famine and tyranny and Nazism and Fascism and Communism and even terrorism, has just been wantonly wrecked. Like the ancient temples and icons of Syria and Iraq that have lately been smashed by the terrorists of ISIS, the institution of marriage now lies in ruins.
The Court has thus finished the wrecking job it began just over two years ago, when it recklessly overturned DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. Until that happened, my wife and I (one woman and one man) had been planning to mark our Golden Anniversary with a blowout party for 600 of our closest friends plus our two children and their families from Brooklyn and LA. But the Court's decision killed our plans. How could we celebrate our Golden Anniversary when the Supreme Court of these United States had just made a mockery of marriage itself?
This sort of question never dented the brains of those who argued that same-sex couples must be allowed to marry throughout the land. Instead, these wingnuts claimed that legalizing same-sex marriage did no injury to heterosexual couples, that it didn't hurt us in any way. But they were and are dead wrong. Two years ago, when the Court overturned DOMA, my wife and I suffered pain. Deep pain. Heartbreak. Besides cancelling our Golden Anniversary party, we had to put all future anniversary celebrations on hold until the Court ruled, finally, on whether traditional marriage could survive in any state of this land. But today brought the final blow to our hopes. From here on, we must live apart and mark each anniversary only by separately mourning the death of marriage itself. Not just our marriage, but all marriages.
An I over-reacting here? Not a bit. Let me explain.
You may wonder how a decision to legalize same-sex marriage throughout the land could kill any institution that has somehow withstood a divorce rate of nearly 50 percent. Now it's true that Christ emphatically forbade divorce -- "What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder" (Mark 10:9) - and that divorce can be very damaging to children as well as to the men and women who go through it. But miraculously enough, divorce does no harm at all to the institution of marriage, which is why it has long been allowed by all Christian sects including the Catholic church. (The Catholic church nominally forbids divorce but routinely allows "annulments" -- even of marriages that have lasted many years and produced several children.) So while only about half of all married couples stay together for life, as marriage vows traditionally require, the breakup of their unions does no harm at all to the stability of marriage itself. It's strictly a matter of numbers. While a divorce rate of 50 percent leaves the institution perfectly intact, a gay marriage rate of as little as 5 percent can destroy it, and now will destroy it. That's how insidious gay marriage is.
Equally insidious is the argument that gays deserve equality. Two years ago, Justice Anthony Kennedy struck down DOMA because, he wrote, it denied "the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment." But gays are no more equal to straights than righteously homophobic conservatives are to leftist nuts. For that reason, gay "marriage" will never equal traditional marriage.
Today's decision puts us on a bullet train to chaos. The next thing you know, dogs will be legally allowed to marry cats, mice to marry rats, and -- worst of all -- Democrats to marry Republicans. (Any theologian worth her salt will tell you that the so-called "marriage" of James Carville and Mary Matalin violates natural law as well as the laws of God.)
And please don't ask me to cheer for Jim Obergefell, who brought this case to the Supreme Court because in Ohio, where same sex has been illegal up to now, he wanted to be named as the surviving spouse on the death certificate of his late husband, John Arthur. I don't cheer for Jim Obergefell any more than I cheered for Edith Windsor, who brought the case against DOMA because she would otherwise have had to pay $363,053 in estate taxes on what she inherited from her same-sex spouse. I don't cheer--and didn't cheer--for Windsor because that figure is far less than my wife and I will now have to pay to reconstruct our house.
Since our marriage--like all marriages-- has just been destroyed, we can no longer live together. But since neither of us can bear to leave the house that we have shared for the past forty years, we will have to build a brick wall right down the middle of it. Just to get permission for this arrangement in our neighborhood will cost us -- in legal fees -- at least fifty grand. Then the house itself must be reconfigured. On her side of the new wall, my wife will need a new Jacuzzi, a new kitchen, and a new living room; on my side I'll need a new exercise room, a new dining room, and a new stairway. Since no builder we know has ever done this kind of job before, we've so far had only ballpark estimates starting at 1.3 million.
And guess how far we'd get if we took our case to the Supreme Court.
If you hadn't guessed by now, this post is satire.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* The whole time I'm reading this, I'm thinking "This can't be serious." And then, I got to the end. Good show, old bean. Unfortunately, Poe's law is at work here, and all you have to do is go over to CNS and see that this "satire" is very much a reality for them.
* This is satire? I thought this was the script to the next Fox Noise rant.
* I am glad you posted that it is satire because you sure as hell wrote like those who oppose gay marriage legality...
* Holy shit, this had me hook line and sinker. It's especially tricky because some actually think this way.
* Why is it so hard for christians not to hate?
* The problem with this piece is that it's too close to what many actually believe for people to see right away it's satire. That's the scary part.
...................................................................................................................................................................
The Supreme Court Has Just Destroyed Marriage
By James Heffernan, June 26, 2015
Today, June 26, 2015, a day that will live in infamy, the Supreme Court has just destroyed the great battleship of marriage. Sent a kamizake pilot right through its bridge. Blown it to smithereens.
A sacred institution that was founded by God Himself in the Garden of Eden and that has lasted for countless millennia, an institution that has persevered through fire and flood and earthquake and famine and tyranny and Nazism and Fascism and Communism and even terrorism, has just been wantonly wrecked. Like the ancient temples and icons of Syria and Iraq that have lately been smashed by the terrorists of ISIS, the institution of marriage now lies in ruins.
The Court has thus finished the wrecking job it began just over two years ago, when it recklessly overturned DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. Until that happened, my wife and I (one woman and one man) had been planning to mark our Golden Anniversary with a blowout party for 600 of our closest friends plus our two children and their families from Brooklyn and LA. But the Court's decision killed our plans. How could we celebrate our Golden Anniversary when the Supreme Court of these United States had just made a mockery of marriage itself?
This sort of question never dented the brains of those who argued that same-sex couples must be allowed to marry throughout the land. Instead, these wingnuts claimed that legalizing same-sex marriage did no injury to heterosexual couples, that it didn't hurt us in any way. But they were and are dead wrong. Two years ago, when the Court overturned DOMA, my wife and I suffered pain. Deep pain. Heartbreak. Besides cancelling our Golden Anniversary party, we had to put all future anniversary celebrations on hold until the Court ruled, finally, on whether traditional marriage could survive in any state of this land. But today brought the final blow to our hopes. From here on, we must live apart and mark each anniversary only by separately mourning the death of marriage itself. Not just our marriage, but all marriages.
An I over-reacting here? Not a bit. Let me explain.
You may wonder how a decision to legalize same-sex marriage throughout the land could kill any institution that has somehow withstood a divorce rate of nearly 50 percent. Now it's true that Christ emphatically forbade divorce -- "What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder" (Mark 10:9) - and that divorce can be very damaging to children as well as to the men and women who go through it. But miraculously enough, divorce does no harm at all to the institution of marriage, which is why it has long been allowed by all Christian sects including the Catholic church. (The Catholic church nominally forbids divorce but routinely allows "annulments" -- even of marriages that have lasted many years and produced several children.) So while only about half of all married couples stay together for life, as marriage vows traditionally require, the breakup of their unions does no harm at all to the stability of marriage itself. It's strictly a matter of numbers. While a divorce rate of 50 percent leaves the institution perfectly intact, a gay marriage rate of as little as 5 percent can destroy it, and now will destroy it. That's how insidious gay marriage is.
Equally insidious is the argument that gays deserve equality. Two years ago, Justice Anthony Kennedy struck down DOMA because, he wrote, it denied "the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment." But gays are no more equal to straights than righteously homophobic conservatives are to leftist nuts. For that reason, gay "marriage" will never equal traditional marriage.
Today's decision puts us on a bullet train to chaos. The next thing you know, dogs will be legally allowed to marry cats, mice to marry rats, and -- worst of all -- Democrats to marry Republicans. (Any theologian worth her salt will tell you that the so-called "marriage" of James Carville and Mary Matalin violates natural law as well as the laws of God.)
And please don't ask me to cheer for Jim Obergefell, who brought this case to the Supreme Court because in Ohio, where same sex has been illegal up to now, he wanted to be named as the surviving spouse on the death certificate of his late husband, John Arthur. I don't cheer for Jim Obergefell any more than I cheered for Edith Windsor, who brought the case against DOMA because she would otherwise have had to pay $363,053 in estate taxes on what she inherited from her same-sex spouse. I don't cheer--and didn't cheer--for Windsor because that figure is far less than my wife and I will now have to pay to reconstruct our house.
Since our marriage--like all marriages-- has just been destroyed, we can no longer live together. But since neither of us can bear to leave the house that we have shared for the past forty years, we will have to build a brick wall right down the middle of it. Just to get permission for this arrangement in our neighborhood will cost us -- in legal fees -- at least fifty grand. Then the house itself must be reconfigured. On her side of the new wall, my wife will need a new Jacuzzi, a new kitchen, and a new living room; on my side I'll need a new exercise room, a new dining room, and a new stairway. Since no builder we know has ever done this kind of job before, we've so far had only ballpark estimates starting at 1.3 million.
And guess how far we'd get if we took our case to the Supreme Court.
If you hadn't guessed by now, this post is satire.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Move toward the center?
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"... it’s long been obvious that liberals and conservatives are not mirror images of each other, and neither are the parties they are most closely associated with."
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COMMENTS:
* Bbbbut if they're not all the same, I might have to read and stuff and then I'll have to thinkand stuff and then people will try to get me to vote and stuff. Can't I just watch tee vee and yell and stuff?
* You listen to the candidates, their supporters, the conservatives base, and all you hear is people foaming at the mouth, ready for a rabies shot more than anything else. The "never conservative enough" has been debunked by the Kansas experiment. Conservatism, just like religion, is faith based only and fuels itself with division. No wonder the GOP only play that card...
* I thought the whole point of a two-party system was that neither party would go extreme, just center-left-or-right, or go the populist route.
* The Republicans are worse because they will go out of their way to make life tough for those who lose their employment because of TPP, whereas the Democrats will attempt to get them some safety net. I'd have thought most people have that figured out by now. Both parties are probusiness, because the entire structure of our society, government, etc. is business. But one party thinks winners need more rewards and losers need more punishment, and the other party thinks the opposite. And that's not a negligible difference.
* When you hate, when you hold others in contempt, when your "values" are the only values, when facts have no meaning, when rhetoric replaces policy, when you hate using government to help people, well, you have a way of turning off people. Becoming more extreme does not bring them back.
* When you've dug yourself in a hole, it's wise to stop digging but, that's not the way of the GOP.
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They’ll always move further right: Why every defeat only makes Republicans more extreme
As the 2016 election campaign heats up, one thing seems certain: media coverage will be dominated by a reflexive posture of “balance” between two extremes, which press critic Jay Rosen dubbed “The View from Nowhere” back in 2003. Implicit in this posture is the simplifying assumption that each side is a mirror image of the other, and thus that the parties on each side are mirror images as well. Not in all particulars, of course—that’s where the daily stuff of news comes from—but more generally, in terms of how they should be understood. Hence, any critical coverage of one side requires similar critical coverage of the other, regardless of how well the underlying substance holds up—Watergate vs. Whitewater, for example.
The media is hardly alone in this, as many policymakers, analysts and political scientists also tend toward this view as well. A few years ago, as a sort of exception that proves the rule, two quintessential Washington figures, Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann, openly broke with this view, citing disproportionate conservative extremism in their book “It’s Even Worse than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism” — which was relatively shunned compared to how warmly their work has usually been treated. Yet, it’s long been obvious that liberals and conservatives are not mirror images of each other, and neither are the parties they are most closely associated with.
In 1967, pioneering public opinion researchers Lloyd Free and Hadley Cantril published a landmark book, “The Political Beliefs of Americans: A Study of Public Opinion.” They found that roughly half the population was ideologically conservative, in the sense of preferring a smaller, more limited government, while two-thirds were operationally liberal, in the sense of wanting to spend more on specifically identified government programs. What’s more, almost one-quarter of Americans were both ideological conservatives and operational liberals.
Decades of polling since then has only confirmed and fleshed out this finding (see, for example, “Ideology in America” by Christopher Ellis and James A. Stimson), but its significance and relationship to other aspects of American politics seems to have gotten lost.
But political scientists Matt Grossmann of Michigan State University and David Hopkins of Boston College may be about to change that. Their paper “Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats: The Asymmetry of American Party Politics” was recently published in the journal Perspectives on Politics, and its clear-eyed view of how left and right differ from one another in American politics could go a long way toward clarifying—as opposed to oversimplifying—what’s going on in our politics, including (but hardly limited to) how the 2016 campaign unfolds.
To understand that picture and what it entails, as well as the evidence supporting it, Salon recently interviewed Grossmann. The transcript has been edited for clarity.
The folk belief in American politics—in the media, and the political classes more generally—is that the two parties are more or less mirror images of one another, with a related belief that objectivity and realism require that one treat them as such: whatever one says about one party, you have to say something similar about the other, or else you’re not being objective, not being realistic; deep down, you’re a partisan hack, or at least you’ve been influenced by them.
But in your paper “Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats”–as well as other writings–you not only argue that this view is objectively false, and there’s a fundamental asymmetry between the parties, but that there’s a long, if obscured, history of contrary voices and data to support them, which goes much deeper and goes back much longer that the relatively recent fracture highlighted by the Tea Party. You write that “Democrats and Republicans are motivated by dissimilar political goals and think about partisanship and party conflict in fundamentally different ways, which in turn stimulates distinct approaches to governing by leaders on each side.”
In simplest terms, what is the difference between the parties that you point to, and–broadly speaking–what’s the sort of evidence in support of drawing this distinction?
First of all, we agree with your characterization that we’re resuscitating a long-held view in both popular political debate and in older political science–and especially more historically oriented political science–that never saw the parties as mirror images, and would note that it’s not necessarily true everywhere in political science. In comparative politics, for example, people who study parties across the world don’t necessarily assume that the parties that in one country are organized similarly or are motivated by similar goals.
Yes, I was speaking in broad terms.
Yes, so we share that generalization. Our simplest way of putting it is that the Republican Party is based on an ideological movement, around conservatism, as a set of broad ideas and principles, and the Democratic Party is much more a coalition of social group that have specific concerns, and usually have particular policy goals that they want to try to achieve. So we think that that certainly plays out in how partisans—both in the public and among elites—see party competition, and it also plays out in campaigns, and in governing. Parties have incentives to reinforce the basis on which they have collected support among fellow partisans. Our connection to the old Free and Cantril and the more recent Stimson work is that the basis of each party matches their potential victory in public opinion. That is, Democrats are on better terms, not when they defend government in the abstract, or when they sort of acknowledge a broader project of remedying any quality, but when they focus on particular goals that can be solved with specific policy solutions, whereas Republicans are always on firmer ground—both among their own supporters and among the public as a whole—when they talk in broad principled terms about the size and scope of government, and respect for traditional values, and America’s unique role in the world.
[major snippage]
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Bbbbut if they're not all the same, I might have to read and stuff and then I'll have to thinkand stuff and then people will try to get me to vote and stuff. Can't I just watch tee vee and yell and stuff?
* You listen to the candidates, their supporters, the conservatives base, and all you hear is people foaming at the mouth, ready for a rabies shot more than anything else. The "never conservative enough" has been debunked by the Kansas experiment. Conservatism, just like religion, is faith based only and fuels itself with division. No wonder the GOP only play that card...
* I thought the whole point of a two-party system was that neither party would go extreme, just center-left-or-right, or go the populist route.
* The Republicans are worse because they will go out of their way to make life tough for those who lose their employment because of TPP, whereas the Democrats will attempt to get them some safety net. I'd have thought most people have that figured out by now. Both parties are probusiness, because the entire structure of our society, government, etc. is business. But one party thinks winners need more rewards and losers need more punishment, and the other party thinks the opposite. And that's not a negligible difference.
* When you hate, when you hold others in contempt, when your "values" are the only values, when facts have no meaning, when rhetoric replaces policy, when you hate using government to help people, well, you have a way of turning off people. Becoming more extreme does not bring them back.
* When you've dug yourself in a hole, it's wise to stop digging but, that's not the way of the GOP.
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They’ll always move further right: Why every defeat only makes Republicans more extreme
GOP somehow thinks they only lose because they're not conservative enough. That's a recipe for even more losing
By Paul Rosenberg, June 24, 2015As the 2016 election campaign heats up, one thing seems certain: media coverage will be dominated by a reflexive posture of “balance” between two extremes, which press critic Jay Rosen dubbed “The View from Nowhere” back in 2003. Implicit in this posture is the simplifying assumption that each side is a mirror image of the other, and thus that the parties on each side are mirror images as well. Not in all particulars, of course—that’s where the daily stuff of news comes from—but more generally, in terms of how they should be understood. Hence, any critical coverage of one side requires similar critical coverage of the other, regardless of how well the underlying substance holds up—Watergate vs. Whitewater, for example.
The media is hardly alone in this, as many policymakers, analysts and political scientists also tend toward this view as well. A few years ago, as a sort of exception that proves the rule, two quintessential Washington figures, Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann, openly broke with this view, citing disproportionate conservative extremism in their book “It’s Even Worse than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism” — which was relatively shunned compared to how warmly their work has usually been treated. Yet, it’s long been obvious that liberals and conservatives are not mirror images of each other, and neither are the parties they are most closely associated with.
In 1967, pioneering public opinion researchers Lloyd Free and Hadley Cantril published a landmark book, “The Political Beliefs of Americans: A Study of Public Opinion.” They found that roughly half the population was ideologically conservative, in the sense of preferring a smaller, more limited government, while two-thirds were operationally liberal, in the sense of wanting to spend more on specifically identified government programs. What’s more, almost one-quarter of Americans were both ideological conservatives and operational liberals.
Decades of polling since then has only confirmed and fleshed out this finding (see, for example, “Ideology in America” by Christopher Ellis and James A. Stimson), but its significance and relationship to other aspects of American politics seems to have gotten lost.
But political scientists Matt Grossmann of Michigan State University and David Hopkins of Boston College may be about to change that. Their paper “Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats: The Asymmetry of American Party Politics” was recently published in the journal Perspectives on Politics, and its clear-eyed view of how left and right differ from one another in American politics could go a long way toward clarifying—as opposed to oversimplifying—what’s going on in our politics, including (but hardly limited to) how the 2016 campaign unfolds.
To understand that picture and what it entails, as well as the evidence supporting it, Salon recently interviewed Grossmann. The transcript has been edited for clarity.
The folk belief in American politics—in the media, and the political classes more generally—is that the two parties are more or less mirror images of one another, with a related belief that objectivity and realism require that one treat them as such: whatever one says about one party, you have to say something similar about the other, or else you’re not being objective, not being realistic; deep down, you’re a partisan hack, or at least you’ve been influenced by them.
But in your paper “Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats”–as well as other writings–you not only argue that this view is objectively false, and there’s a fundamental asymmetry between the parties, but that there’s a long, if obscured, history of contrary voices and data to support them, which goes much deeper and goes back much longer that the relatively recent fracture highlighted by the Tea Party. You write that “Democrats and Republicans are motivated by dissimilar political goals and think about partisanship and party conflict in fundamentally different ways, which in turn stimulates distinct approaches to governing by leaders on each side.”
In simplest terms, what is the difference between the parties that you point to, and–broadly speaking–what’s the sort of evidence in support of drawing this distinction?
First of all, we agree with your characterization that we’re resuscitating a long-held view in both popular political debate and in older political science–and especially more historically oriented political science–that never saw the parties as mirror images, and would note that it’s not necessarily true everywhere in political science. In comparative politics, for example, people who study parties across the world don’t necessarily assume that the parties that in one country are organized similarly or are motivated by similar goals.
Yes, I was speaking in broad terms.
Yes, so we share that generalization. Our simplest way of putting it is that the Republican Party is based on an ideological movement, around conservatism, as a set of broad ideas and principles, and the Democratic Party is much more a coalition of social group that have specific concerns, and usually have particular policy goals that they want to try to achieve. So we think that that certainly plays out in how partisans—both in the public and among elites—see party competition, and it also plays out in campaigns, and in governing. Parties have incentives to reinforce the basis on which they have collected support among fellow partisans. Our connection to the old Free and Cantril and the more recent Stimson work is that the basis of each party matches their potential victory in public opinion. That is, Democrats are on better terms, not when they defend government in the abstract, or when they sort of acknowledge a broader project of remedying any quality, but when they focus on particular goals that can be solved with specific policy solutions, whereas Republicans are always on firmer ground—both among their own supporters and among the public as a whole—when they talk in broad principled terms about the size and scope of government, and respect for traditional values, and America’s unique role in the world.
[major snippage]
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Scalia and Thomas writing in absurd terms on marriage equality-- both of them are totally unhinged at the results!
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COMMENTS: Too many good ones on both of these articles to even begin to pick from them!
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Antonin Scalia Dissent In Marriage Equality Case Is Even More Unhinged Than You'd Think
By Ryan Grim and Arthur Delaney, June 26, 2015
Justice Antonin Scalia has really had it.
Scalia's dissent in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, which officially made marriage equality the law of the land, runs for eight pages, but amounts largely to a big, arms-crossed "harumph."
"I join THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s opinion in full. I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy," he begins.
"The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me," he offers. "It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast [Huh? Geez, "the Ruler"? BS!--Ed.], is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best."
"But the Court ends this debate, in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law," he opines. "Buried beneath the mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion is a candid and startling assertion: No matter what it was the People ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment protects those rights that the Judiciary, in its 'reasoned judgment,' thinks the Fourteenth Amendment ought to protect."
Scalia even offered what may be the first legal citation of a hippie.
"'The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality,'" he quoted from the majority opinion before adding, "Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie."
HuffPost went to look for the first hippie we could find, per Scalia's instructions. Neil Cousins, a 61-year-old man from Alexandria protesting nuclear weapons outside the White House, said he had come to this very park in the 1970s for pot smoke-ins, but added that there really haven't been hippies around since the Grateful Dead stopped touring. He was nonetheless willing to offer a judgment on Scalia's assertion that marriage abridges rather than expands intimacy. "I've known it to have both reactions," he ruled. "Scalia is a big knucklehead."
In Scalia's dissent, he also bemoaned the tone of the majority opinion.
"The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic," he writes. "If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: 'The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,' I would hide my head in a bag. [So, do it (and make it an airtight bag)!--Ed.] The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie."
"And to allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation," he writes. "But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch."
Each of the four opponents of the ruling wrote their own dissent but Scalia, opposing for every reason anybody could come up with, joined the three he didn't write.
Here are the most delightfully cranky lines from his Obamacare -- or, in his christening, SCOTUSCare -- dissent from Thursday.
...................................................................................................................................................................
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We Can't Even With The Irony Of Clarence Thomas's Marriage Equality Dissent
By Zeba Blay, June 26, 2015
Today is a beautiful day.
It's a day of progress and celebration for those who have fought for and supported marriage equality in the United States. The Supreme Court ruling signifies a brief, shining moment of solidarity and joy. I don't want to ruin this moment. But we need to talk about Clarence Thomas.
More specifically, we need to talk about Clarence Thomas's dissent. It's unsurprising that the notoriously conservative Justice Thomas voted against marriage equality -- his track record when it comes to this issue has been consistently closed-minded. But the arguments made in his same-sex marriage dissent have reached new, terrifying heights of absurdity (and this is a man who once argued that the NBA is proof that racial imbalances aren't always a bad thing). That absurdity needs to be acknowledged.
In one horrifyingly obtuse paragraph, Justice Thomas demonstrates his simplistic concept of oppression. He writes:
Clarence Thomas is married to a white woman -- something that would have been illegal today if it weren't for the Supreme Court's historic Loving v. Virginia ruling which deemed discrimination against interracial marriage as unconstitutional. It's dangerous to equate too heavily the black civil rights struggles with those of the LGBT community, but the irony here is still profound. Does Thomas see his marriage as a mere government benefit? If the law of the land stated that he and his wife couldn't be married, simply because he is black, would his dignity truly remain intact? Would he have no sense of injustice?
At the end of the day, Thomas's dignity argument is wholly irrelevant [As is Thomas himself, unfortunately--Ed.]. The dignity of slaves doesn't absolve the United States of its sins. The dignity of Japanese Americans held in internment camps didn't make the discrimination any less real. This idea that maintaining one's dignity makes oppression, marginalization, and the denial of basic human rights okay is beyond ridiculous.
If Clarence Thomas is against marriage equality, so be it: there's nothing he can do about it anyway. But the fact that a Supreme Court Justice could use this reasoning as justification for his decision? That's downright undignified.
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COMMENTS: Too many good ones on both of these articles to even begin to pick from them!
...................................................................................................................................................................
Antonin Scalia Dissent In Marriage Equality Case Is Even More Unhinged Than You'd Think
By Ryan Grim and Arthur Delaney, June 26, 2015
Justice Antonin Scalia has really had it.
Scalia's dissent in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, which officially made marriage equality the law of the land, runs for eight pages, but amounts largely to a big, arms-crossed "harumph."
"I join THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s opinion in full. I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy," he begins.
"The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me," he offers. "It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast [Huh? Geez, "the Ruler"? BS!--Ed.], is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best."
"But the Court ends this debate, in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law," he opines. "Buried beneath the mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion is a candid and startling assertion: No matter what it was the People ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment protects those rights that the Judiciary, in its 'reasoned judgment,' thinks the Fourteenth Amendment ought to protect."
Scalia even offered what may be the first legal citation of a hippie.
"'The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality,'" he quoted from the majority opinion before adding, "Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie."
HuffPost went to look for the first hippie we could find, per Scalia's instructions. Neil Cousins, a 61-year-old man from Alexandria protesting nuclear weapons outside the White House, said he had come to this very park in the 1970s for pot smoke-ins, but added that there really haven't been hippies around since the Grateful Dead stopped touring. He was nonetheless willing to offer a judgment on Scalia's assertion that marriage abridges rather than expands intimacy. "I've known it to have both reactions," he ruled. "Scalia is a big knucklehead."
In Scalia's dissent, he also bemoaned the tone of the majority opinion.
"The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic," he writes. "If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: 'The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,' I would hide my head in a bag. [So, do it (and make it an airtight bag)!--Ed.] The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie."
"And to allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation," he writes. "But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch."
Each of the four opponents of the ruling wrote their own dissent but Scalia, opposing for every reason anybody could come up with, joined the three he didn't write.
Here are the most delightfully cranky lines from his Obamacare -- or, in his christening, SCOTUSCare -- dissent from Thursday.
...................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................
We Can't Even With The Irony Of Clarence Thomas's Marriage Equality Dissent
By Zeba Blay, June 26, 2015
Today is a beautiful day.
It's a day of progress and celebration for those who have fought for and supported marriage equality in the United States. The Supreme Court ruling signifies a brief, shining moment of solidarity and joy. I don't want to ruin this moment. But we need to talk about Clarence Thomas.
More specifically, we need to talk about Clarence Thomas's dissent. It's unsurprising that the notoriously conservative Justice Thomas voted against marriage equality -- his track record when it comes to this issue has been consistently closed-minded. But the arguments made in his same-sex marriage dissent have reached new, terrifying heights of absurdity (and this is a man who once argued that the NBA is proof that racial imbalances aren't always a bad thing). That absurdity needs to be acknowledged.
In one horrifyingly obtuse paragraph, Justice Thomas demonstrates his simplistic concept of oppression. He writes:
"The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away."Human dignity cannot be taken away by the government? Really? Slaves, who were lawfully stripped of their culture and religion, taught that they were inferior to whites and not even fully human, forced into lives of servitude, abuse, rape, mental and emotional anguish, were not robbed of their basic human dignity? Really?
Clarence Thomas is married to a white woman -- something that would have been illegal today if it weren't for the Supreme Court's historic Loving v. Virginia ruling which deemed discrimination against interracial marriage as unconstitutional. It's dangerous to equate too heavily the black civil rights struggles with those of the LGBT community, but the irony here is still profound. Does Thomas see his marriage as a mere government benefit? If the law of the land stated that he and his wife couldn't be married, simply because he is black, would his dignity truly remain intact? Would he have no sense of injustice?
At the end of the day, Thomas's dignity argument is wholly irrelevant [As is Thomas himself, unfortunately--Ed.]. The dignity of slaves doesn't absolve the United States of its sins. The dignity of Japanese Americans held in internment camps didn't make the discrimination any less real. This idea that maintaining one's dignity makes oppression, marginalization, and the denial of basic human rights okay is beyond ridiculous.
If Clarence Thomas is against marriage equality, so be it: there's nothing he can do about it anyway. But the fact that a Supreme Court Justice could use this reasoning as justification for his decision? That's downright undignified.
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Thursday, June 25, 2015
"... Republicans should focus on improving health insurance ... 'Stop trying to kill this program and work to make it stronger.'"
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COMMENTS:
* They are helpless to do anything. Obama will veto any bill that threatens Obamacare. Republicans have no chance in HELL of winning the presidency in 2016. They was an epic defeat for Republicans and their corporate masters David and Charles Koch.
* here are the facts, you've been losing against Obama since before he took office. He's smarter than the best TEAhag you could prop up and a better strategic planner than any republican in office. Face it, you've been, out maneuvered and outclassed every step of the way. Like the Confederate states, you lost. Again.
* The GOP has no viable candidates. Bush is done before he begins. No one in their right mind wants to continue any Bush dynasty. To do so would be to ignore the past two decades of loser shrubs. It will be the democratic base and independents deciding the next president unless the GOP can pull a rabbit out of their ass and field an actual candidate. In fact, Obama's continuation of the little shrub's failed agenda only cements their victory.
* I disagree with Obama on just about everything except healthcare. If Republicans keep threatening to destroy the ACA I, any many other independents, will vote for Hillary - gagging as I submit my ballot.
* What do you expect from these Republicans, they still want to repeal Social Security and many of them are even still fighting for the Confederacy.
...................................................................................................................................................................
GOP pledges to fight 'tooth and nail' to repeal ObamaCare
By Jordain Carney, June 25, 2015
Senate Republicans quickly pledged Thursday to fight to repeal ObamaCare in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling upholding the law's federal subsidies.
The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that 6.4 million people can continue to receive subsidies that allow them to purchase healthcare plans, handing a victory to the Obama administration.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Republicans will "continue to fight tooth and nail to repeal" the Affordable Care Act.
“Today’s decision doesn’t change the fact that Obamacare has been a disaster for the millions of hardworking American families who have seen their health care costs skyrocket or lost their insurance entirely," the senior Republican senator added.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) quickly weighed in, saying that the decision "won't change ObamaCare's multitude of broken promises."
The Republican leader tried to pressure Democrats who supported the law, saying they face a choice to either "crow about Obamacare’s latest wobble toward the edge, or work with us to address the ongoing negative impact of a 2,000-page law that continues to make life miserable for too many of the same people it purported to help.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) added that Republicans will continue to move forward with their legislative alternatives, including the Patient CARE Act, which would repeal ObamaCare.
“Fortunately, Republicans have a plan to reverse this course by repealing and replacing Obamacare with reforms that put patients — not Washington — first," he said. "Moving forward, we will continue to seek input on our legislative proposal … and use every opportunity available to give both states and patients more freedom and flexibility."
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who has repeatedly come to the Senate floor to criticize the law and Democratic support for it, suggested Republicans would use every available avenue to change the law.
“We’ll take every action possible in Congress, in the courts and in statehouses across our country to stop this unworkable and unaffordable law from hurting more Americans," said Barrasso, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee. "We’ll continue to look for opportunities to deliver real reform that lowers costs, improves access and helps all Americans live healthier lives.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) added that the Supreme Court's decision "does not repeal the problems with Obamacare."
"The fight to repeal and replace Obamacare to give patients the power must continue," he said. “I remain committed to repealing and replacing Obamacare with conservative, free market solutions that give you the power.”
Democrats quickly doubled down on their support for the Affordable Care Act.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) suggested that it was time for Republicans to rethink their strategy.
"I say this respectfully to my Senate colleagues, and I mean that: Stop banging your heads against the wall on this legislation. It passed," he said. "Move on. Republicans should really, they should pause for a minute and look back. … I would hope Republicans would rethink what they've been up to."
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) added that he hopes "our Republicans colleagues will now give up their quest to repeal Obamacare and move on to more productive activities for the middle class.”
And Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) suggested that Republicans should focus on improving health insurance, saying "memo to the non-stop critics of the Affordable Care Act: Stop trying to kill this program and work to make it stronger."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* They are helpless to do anything. Obama will veto any bill that threatens Obamacare. Republicans have no chance in HELL of winning the presidency in 2016. They was an epic defeat for Republicans and their corporate masters David and Charles Koch.
* here are the facts, you've been losing against Obama since before he took office. He's smarter than the best TEAhag you could prop up and a better strategic planner than any republican in office. Face it, you've been, out maneuvered and outclassed every step of the way. Like the Confederate states, you lost. Again.
* The GOP has no viable candidates. Bush is done before he begins. No one in their right mind wants to continue any Bush dynasty. To do so would be to ignore the past two decades of loser shrubs. It will be the democratic base and independents deciding the next president unless the GOP can pull a rabbit out of their ass and field an actual candidate. In fact, Obama's continuation of the little shrub's failed agenda only cements their victory.
* I disagree with Obama on just about everything except healthcare. If Republicans keep threatening to destroy the ACA I, any many other independents, will vote for Hillary - gagging as I submit my ballot.
* What do you expect from these Republicans, they still want to repeal Social Security and many of them are even still fighting for the Confederacy.
...................................................................................................................................................................
GOP pledges to fight 'tooth and nail' to repeal ObamaCare
By Jordain Carney, June 25, 2015
Senate Republicans quickly pledged Thursday to fight to repeal ObamaCare in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling upholding the law's federal subsidies.
The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that 6.4 million people can continue to receive subsidies that allow them to purchase healthcare plans, handing a victory to the Obama administration.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Republicans will "continue to fight tooth and nail to repeal" the Affordable Care Act.
“Today’s decision doesn’t change the fact that Obamacare has been a disaster for the millions of hardworking American families who have seen their health care costs skyrocket or lost their insurance entirely," the senior Republican senator added.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) quickly weighed in, saying that the decision "won't change ObamaCare's multitude of broken promises."
The Republican leader tried to pressure Democrats who supported the law, saying they face a choice to either "crow about Obamacare’s latest wobble toward the edge, or work with us to address the ongoing negative impact of a 2,000-page law that continues to make life miserable for too many of the same people it purported to help.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) added that Republicans will continue to move forward with their legislative alternatives, including the Patient CARE Act, which would repeal ObamaCare.
“Fortunately, Republicans have a plan to reverse this course by repealing and replacing Obamacare with reforms that put patients — not Washington — first," he said. "Moving forward, we will continue to seek input on our legislative proposal … and use every opportunity available to give both states and patients more freedom and flexibility."
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who has repeatedly come to the Senate floor to criticize the law and Democratic support for it, suggested Republicans would use every available avenue to change the law.
“We’ll take every action possible in Congress, in the courts and in statehouses across our country to stop this unworkable and unaffordable law from hurting more Americans," said Barrasso, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee. "We’ll continue to look for opportunities to deliver real reform that lowers costs, improves access and helps all Americans live healthier lives.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) added that the Supreme Court's decision "does not repeal the problems with Obamacare."
"The fight to repeal and replace Obamacare to give patients the power must continue," he said. “I remain committed to repealing and replacing Obamacare with conservative, free market solutions that give you the power.”
Democrats quickly doubled down on their support for the Affordable Care Act.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) suggested that it was time for Republicans to rethink their strategy.
"I say this respectfully to my Senate colleagues, and I mean that: Stop banging your heads against the wall on this legislation. It passed," he said. "Move on. Republicans should really, they should pause for a minute and look back. … I would hope Republicans would rethink what they've been up to."
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) added that he hopes "our Republicans colleagues will now give up their quest to repeal Obamacare and move on to more productive activities for the middle class.”
And Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) suggested that Republicans should focus on improving health insurance, saying "memo to the non-stop critics of the Affordable Care Act: Stop trying to kill this program and work to make it stronger."
...................................................................................................................................................................
"'... I differ with him on this opinion,' Hatch said from the Senate floor. 'On the other hand, it is a very clever opinion ...'"
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COMMENTS:
* when you are named "judge" it's supposed to mean you make decisions on merit, not political alliance. Roberts has always done so.... I may be a democrat but, I appreciate a "judge" who could care less!
* Gimme a break. You just don't like the decision and, like a typical Republic party extremist, can't stand anything the president does. BTW - you agree that Cruz is INELIGIBLE to be president, right? We've seen his birth certificate. He's not a natural born citizen, correct?
* Words do matter. 4 words don't overturn 2300 pages of words saying the opposite. A typo. Loser idiots.
* I love it when republicans eat their own.
* I don't agree with Orrin Hatch on much, but he is an honorable man. All of the negative comments directed at him are nothing but sour grapes over the fact that the tea party and like-minded "patriots" weren't able to defeat him at the ballot box. It's that simple. Additionally, the vast majority of you railing against Roberts and the Court don't have a clue about statutory interpretation or case law. You're speaking out of ignorance - you might disagree with the Chief's interpretation of the law but you don't do yourself any favors when you misconstrue the entire concept of judicial review.
* In this back-handed compliment Oren Hatch showed that he too is a very clever fellow. There is nothing wrong with respecting the intelligence of an enemy, its often wiser to give them more respect than they deserve, than to give them less respect and be caught by surprise. This was an insult in which Hatch was saying that Roberts', (et al's) ruling was the result of bias, not a faithful interpretation of law and that to him, that bias came as no surprise.
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Hatch praises Roberts as ‘remarkable judge’
By Jordain Carney, June 25, 2015
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on Thursday praised Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as a “remarkable” and “tremendous” jurist who wrote a “clever” opinion upholding a key provision of ObamaCare.
"All I can say is that the chief justice is a remarkable judge. He's a tremendous human being. I have a tremendous confidence in him and I believe in him. I differ with him on this opinion," Hatch said from the Senate floor. "On the other hand, it is a very clever opinion, and I have to say only a clever judge could have written it as well."
Roberts authored the 6-3 decision handed down earlier Thursday that upheld federal healthcare insurance subsides under the Affordable Care Act. The ruling is a major victory for the Obama administration.
Hatch said that he suspected the court would uphold the law because "it's a big enough bill that a really clever judge could find some way of tying in and justifying the decision that they made today."
He added that he has "tremendous respect" for Roberts, who he believed "used his talents to uphold ObamaCare."
It's the second time Roberts has authored a Supreme Court ruling that upheld President Obama's Affordable Care Act. In 2012, he wrote the court's decision that upheld ObamaCare as constitutional.
Hatch said while he's "had colleagues bad-mouth the chief justice because of his vote in the original case, which was the deciding vote … I've never really found fault with that. I felt like was more interested in not having a 5-4 decision."
Despite his praise for Roberts, the Utah Republican disavowed the court's Thursday ruling, saying that justices "deduced to rule against common sense and the plain meaning of statutory language."
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COMMENTS:
* when you are named "judge" it's supposed to mean you make decisions on merit, not political alliance. Roberts has always done so.... I may be a democrat but, I appreciate a "judge" who could care less!
* Gimme a break. You just don't like the decision and, like a typical Republic party extremist, can't stand anything the president does. BTW - you agree that Cruz is INELIGIBLE to be president, right? We've seen his birth certificate. He's not a natural born citizen, correct?
* Words do matter. 4 words don't overturn 2300 pages of words saying the opposite. A typo. Loser idiots.
* I love it when republicans eat their own.
* I don't agree with Orrin Hatch on much, but he is an honorable man. All of the negative comments directed at him are nothing but sour grapes over the fact that the tea party and like-minded "patriots" weren't able to defeat him at the ballot box. It's that simple. Additionally, the vast majority of you railing against Roberts and the Court don't have a clue about statutory interpretation or case law. You're speaking out of ignorance - you might disagree with the Chief's interpretation of the law but you don't do yourself any favors when you misconstrue the entire concept of judicial review.
* In this back-handed compliment Oren Hatch showed that he too is a very clever fellow. There is nothing wrong with respecting the intelligence of an enemy, its often wiser to give them more respect than they deserve, than to give them less respect and be caught by surprise. This was an insult in which Hatch was saying that Roberts', (et al's) ruling was the result of bias, not a faithful interpretation of law and that to him, that bias came as no surprise.
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Hatch praises Roberts as ‘remarkable judge’
By Jordain Carney, June 25, 2015
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on Thursday praised Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as a “remarkable” and “tremendous” jurist who wrote a “clever” opinion upholding a key provision of ObamaCare.
"All I can say is that the chief justice is a remarkable judge. He's a tremendous human being. I have a tremendous confidence in him and I believe in him. I differ with him on this opinion," Hatch said from the Senate floor. "On the other hand, it is a very clever opinion, and I have to say only a clever judge could have written it as well."
Roberts authored the 6-3 decision handed down earlier Thursday that upheld federal healthcare insurance subsides under the Affordable Care Act. The ruling is a major victory for the Obama administration.
Hatch said that he suspected the court would uphold the law because "it's a big enough bill that a really clever judge could find some way of tying in and justifying the decision that they made today."
He added that he has "tremendous respect" for Roberts, who he believed "used his talents to uphold ObamaCare."
It's the second time Roberts has authored a Supreme Court ruling that upheld President Obama's Affordable Care Act. In 2012, he wrote the court's decision that upheld ObamaCare as constitutional.
Hatch said while he's "had colleagues bad-mouth the chief justice because of his vote in the original case, which was the deciding vote … I've never really found fault with that. I felt like was more interested in not having a 5-4 decision."
Despite his praise for Roberts, the Utah Republican disavowed the court's Thursday ruling, saying that justices "deduced to rule against common sense and the plain meaning of statutory language."
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"... Huckabee said the decision was 'an out-of-control act of judicial tyranny.'" As opposed to your "tyranny"?
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COMMENTS:
* I guess Mike decided to only read the portions he wanted to read. On the other hand, he probably ignored most of it since it didn't have any pictures or a place where he could color. The Supreme Court did no such thing. He is a prime example of why the Republican Party, is going to become the Whig party of the 21st century!!
* Of course it's not tyranny when the conservative court ruled corporations are people.
* Huckbees god has nothing to do with the ACA. Every civilized country has universal healthcare, except the US. The rich just don't want the poor to have access to healthcare. Disgusting Republicans.
* Religious nutters shouldn't be involved in politics
* that's what jesus would do mike.. make the poor suffer with no insurance.. phony preacher man...
* This decision is a GIFT to the GOP. Had all those people lost their coverage, they would be mad at the GOP. The GOP would then have to FIX Obamacare. Not repeal it, FIX it. And people would STILL be mad at them. Now they can continue to be "outraged" at the law, but won't have to do anything about it.
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Mike Huckabee: The Supreme Court just issued 'an out-of-control act of judicial tyranny'
By Colin Campbell, June 26, 2015
Video
Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee slammed the Supreme Court on Thursday after it delivered a huge victory for the White House by saving a crucial component of Obamacare in a 6-to-3 vote.
In a fierce statement, Huckabee said the decision was "an out-of-control act of judicial tyranny."
The US' highest court ruled that President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law could provide subsidies to millions of people who were insured through federal exchanges. The dissenting justices argued that the language of the Affordable Care Act indicated that only people insured through state-based exchanges should be eligible for the subsidies.
Huckabee clearly agreed with the dissent.
"Our Founding Fathers didn't create a 'do-over' provision in our Constitution that allows unelected, Supreme Court justices the power to circumvent Congress and rewrite bad laws," his statement continued. "The Supreme Court cannot legislate from the bench, ignore the Constitution, and pass a multitrillion-dollar 'fix' to Obamacare simply because Congress misread what the states would actually do."
He added: "The architects and authors of Obamacare were intentional in the way they wrote the law. The courts have no constitutional authority to rescue Congress from creating bad law."
Huckabee has long been critical of what he describes as the Supreme Court's overreaching its legal authority. When discussing the court potentially ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, for example, he has argued "the court cannot change what God has created."
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COMMENTS:
* I guess Mike decided to only read the portions he wanted to read. On the other hand, he probably ignored most of it since it didn't have any pictures or a place where he could color. The Supreme Court did no such thing. He is a prime example of why the Republican Party, is going to become the Whig party of the 21st century!!
* Of course it's not tyranny when the conservative court ruled corporations are people.
* Huckbees god has nothing to do with the ACA. Every civilized country has universal healthcare, except the US. The rich just don't want the poor to have access to healthcare. Disgusting Republicans.
* Religious nutters shouldn't be involved in politics
* that's what jesus would do mike.. make the poor suffer with no insurance.. phony preacher man...
* This decision is a GIFT to the GOP. Had all those people lost their coverage, they would be mad at the GOP. The GOP would then have to FIX Obamacare. Not repeal it, FIX it. And people would STILL be mad at them. Now they can continue to be "outraged" at the law, but won't have to do anything about it.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Mike Huckabee: The Supreme Court just issued 'an out-of-control act of judicial tyranny'
By Colin Campbell, June 26, 2015
Video
Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee slammed the Supreme Court on Thursday after it delivered a huge victory for the White House by saving a crucial component of Obamacare in a 6-to-3 vote.
In a fierce statement, Huckabee said the decision was "an out-of-control act of judicial tyranny."
The US' highest court ruled that President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law could provide subsidies to millions of people who were insured through federal exchanges. The dissenting justices argued that the language of the Affordable Care Act indicated that only people insured through state-based exchanges should be eligible for the subsidies.
Huckabee clearly agreed with the dissent.
"Our Founding Fathers didn't create a 'do-over' provision in our Constitution that allows unelected, Supreme Court justices the power to circumvent Congress and rewrite bad laws," his statement continued. "The Supreme Court cannot legislate from the bench, ignore the Constitution, and pass a multitrillion-dollar 'fix' to Obamacare simply because Congress misread what the states would actually do."
He added: "The architects and authors of Obamacare were intentional in the way they wrote the law. The courts have no constitutional authority to rescue Congress from creating bad law."
Huckabee has long been critical of what he describes as the Supreme Court's overreaching its legal authority. When discussing the court potentially ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, for example, he has argued "the court cannot change what God has created."
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Roberts "... used words from his dissenting colleagues ... from a separate Obamacare-related case three years ago." Bet they didn't think he would bring it up to them!
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COMMENTS:
* Sometimes even conservatives have to agree with logic.
* Up until today, I could not think of one good thing that George W. Bush did for our country. Now I realize that he picked a wise person for the highest court. Putting partisan ideals aside and following valid legal reasoning for the good of the country is what all people serving on our courts should be doing at all levels. We don;t have that is Wisconsin, where our elected judges are beholding to their political financiers, and it shows.
* Anyone that can apply basic common sense skills to look at this ruling knows that correct argument by Roberts. Folks that have been brainwashed or only want to see Obama fail have been blinded and therefore their opinions are null and void.
* Justice Roberts using Scalia, Thomas & Alito's own opinions against them as proof?... Brilliant!
* Not only are we seeing the racism and bigotry that's entwined in the Republican Party, but with this ruling we also see that their ideology is bankrupt. The GOP on the wrong side of history... again ie.. gay marriage, global warming, healthcare, social security, medicare, civil war etc.. Immigration will be next!.
* BAM! Conservative resentment costs this nation trillion$.
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John Roberts brilliantly trolled his dissenting colleagues on Obamacare
By Brett LoGiurato, June 25, 2015
Chief Justice John Roberts broke with his three conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court and voted to uphold a key provision of the Affordable Care Act on Thursday.
Roberts wrote the majority opinion, and in it he rejected the challengers' argument that Congress intended to use the provision of Obamacare in question as a weapon of coercion against states.
And in proving his point, he used words from his dissenting colleagues — one of whom took a shot at Roberts on Thursday — from a separate Obamacare-related case three years ago.
The key question in the case centered on whether the federal government had the ability to provide subsidies to help low-income Americans buy health insurance.
The challengers in the case argued the way the law was written does not allow for subsidized insurance in states where the federal government had set up insurance exchanges.
Instead, the challengers argued, insurance subsidies are allowed only in states that have set up their own exchanges. They pointed to a clause that they argued meant exchanges should be "established by the state." Thirty-four states currently rely on the federal marketplace.
In the opinion of the court, Roberts wrote that their challenge was plausible — but that their underlying theory was not. As evidence, he cited the dissent from Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and Samuel Alito in the 2012 case that upheld Obamacare's mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance or else pay a penalty.
Here's what Roberts wrote in Thursday's opinion (emphasis added):
"Had Congress meant to limit tax credits to State Exchanges, it likely would have done so in the definition of 'applicable taxpayer' or in some other prominent manner," Roberts wrote. "It would not have used such a winding path of connect-the-dots provisions about the amount of the credit."
He's basically telling his colleagues: I'm right, and your words prove it.
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COMMENTS:
* Sometimes even conservatives have to agree with logic.
* Up until today, I could not think of one good thing that George W. Bush did for our country. Now I realize that he picked a wise person for the highest court. Putting partisan ideals aside and following valid legal reasoning for the good of the country is what all people serving on our courts should be doing at all levels. We don;t have that is Wisconsin, where our elected judges are beholding to their political financiers, and it shows.
* Anyone that can apply basic common sense skills to look at this ruling knows that correct argument by Roberts. Folks that have been brainwashed or only want to see Obama fail have been blinded and therefore their opinions are null and void.
* Justice Roberts using Scalia, Thomas & Alito's own opinions against them as proof?... Brilliant!
* Not only are we seeing the racism and bigotry that's entwined in the Republican Party, but with this ruling we also see that their ideology is bankrupt. The GOP on the wrong side of history... again ie.. gay marriage, global warming, healthcare, social security, medicare, civil war etc.. Immigration will be next!.
* BAM! Conservative resentment costs this nation trillion$.
...................................................................................................................................................................
John Roberts brilliantly trolled his dissenting colleagues on Obamacare
By Brett LoGiurato, June 25, 2015
Chief Justice John Roberts broke with his three conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court and voted to uphold a key provision of the Affordable Care Act on Thursday.
Roberts wrote the majority opinion, and in it he rejected the challengers' argument that Congress intended to use the provision of Obamacare in question as a weapon of coercion against states.
And in proving his point, he used words from his dissenting colleagues — one of whom took a shot at Roberts on Thursday — from a separate Obamacare-related case three years ago.
The key question in the case centered on whether the federal government had the ability to provide subsidies to help low-income Americans buy health insurance.
The challengers in the case argued the way the law was written does not allow for subsidized insurance in states where the federal government had set up insurance exchanges.
Instead, the challengers argued, insurance subsidies are allowed only in states that have set up their own exchanges. They pointed to a clause that they argued meant exchanges should be "established by the state." Thirty-four states currently rely on the federal marketplace.
In the opinion of the court, Roberts wrote that their challenge was plausible — but that their underlying theory was not. As evidence, he cited the dissent from Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and Samuel Alito in the 2012 case that upheld Obamacare's mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance or else pay a penalty.
Here's what Roberts wrote in Thursday's opinion (emphasis added):
It is implausible that Congress meant the Act to operate in this manner. See National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U. S. ___, ___ (2012) (SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., dissenting) (slip op., at 60) (“Without the federal subsidies . . . the exchanges would not operate as Congress intended and may not operate at all.”). Congress made the guaranteed issue and community rating requirements applicable in every State in the Nation. But those requirements only work when combined with the coverage requirement and the tax credits. So it stands to reason that Congress meant for those provisions to apply in every State as well."Roberts' opinion suggested he viewed the wording of the law as ambiguous but thought the intent of Congress was clear. Congress, he wrote, always had the intention of subsidies being provided nationwide.
"Had Congress meant to limit tax credits to State Exchanges, it likely would have done so in the definition of 'applicable taxpayer' or in some other prominent manner," Roberts wrote. "It would not have used such a winding path of connect-the-dots provisions about the amount of the credit."
He's basically telling his colleagues: I'm right, and your words prove it.
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"... thank you for making a decision that put the welfare of Americans ... ahead of partisan politics."
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An Open Letter to the Supreme Court Justices on the Obamacare Ruling
An Open Letter to Justices John G. Roberts, Jr., Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Anthony M. Kennedy, and Sonia Sotomayor.
By Sen. Barbara Boxer, June 25, 2015
In my 32 years serving the people of California in Congress, I have never written to Supreme Court Justices. But your ruling in the King v. Burwell case was so momentous and so important for America's families, I felt compelled to write and share my gratitude for this decision.
The stakes in this case were enormous. If the plaintiffs had prevailed, nearly 6.4 million Americans in 34 states would have lost the tax credits they rely on to provide health insurance for themselves and their families, and faced an average $3,200 tax hike. Many would have been forced to go without health insurance.
Eliminating these tax credits would not only have undermined the entire Affordable Care Act, it would have put the health and lives of Americans at risk. As the American Hospital Association warned in its amicus brief, a ruling for the plaintiffs would have been "a disaster for millions of lower and middle-income Americans" and "the ranks of the uninsured [would] swell again, with all that portends in the way of untreated illness and overwhelming debt."
The reason we passed the Affordable Care Act was simple - so that every American could have the security of knowing their health care would be there when they needed it most. No one should ever have to go to sleep at night worried that their child won't get the treatments they need, or that an accident or illness will bankrupt their entire family.
Your opinion, which was eloquent in its simplicity, clearly recognized Congress' intent. As you wrote, "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them." I could not agree more.
When we passed this historic law back in 2010, we stated our intent clearly. We had exactly 60 members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate, and each of us knew precisely what the law would do - ensure that middle-class Americans, regardless of what state they lived in, would have access to the tax credits they needed to afford health care. If governors did not want to set up their own health insurance exchange, they could rely on the federal exchange and still offer their residents the full benefit of the law.
We knew these tax credits were essential to all the other reforms in the law - such as ending discrimination against those with preexisting conditions, ensuring women are not charged more for their coverage because they are women, and guaranteeing Americans access to life-saving preventive health services like annual exams and cancer screenings.
These tax credits have now made it possible for more than 9 million men, women, and children to have health care coverage - some for the first time ever. We know this coverage is saving lives.
Take David Tedrow of Durham, North Carolina. Without the benefit of these tax credits - which helped him afford health insurance - he never would have been able to get the liver transplant he needed to save his life. He wrote recently that these tax credits were "the difference between life and death."
I want to thank you for making a decision that put the welfare of Americans like David Tedrow ahead of partisan politics. I want to thank you for taking the time to recognize Congress' true intent. And I want to thank you for ensuring that millions of Americans will be able go to sleep tonight knowing their health insurance will be there when they need it.
Sincerely,
Barbara Boxer
United States Senator
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An Open Letter to the Supreme Court Justices on the Obamacare Ruling
An Open Letter to Justices John G. Roberts, Jr., Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Anthony M. Kennedy, and Sonia Sotomayor.
By Sen. Barbara Boxer, June 25, 2015
In my 32 years serving the people of California in Congress, I have never written to Supreme Court Justices. But your ruling in the King v. Burwell case was so momentous and so important for America's families, I felt compelled to write and share my gratitude for this decision.
The stakes in this case were enormous. If the plaintiffs had prevailed, nearly 6.4 million Americans in 34 states would have lost the tax credits they rely on to provide health insurance for themselves and their families, and faced an average $3,200 tax hike. Many would have been forced to go without health insurance.
Eliminating these tax credits would not only have undermined the entire Affordable Care Act, it would have put the health and lives of Americans at risk. As the American Hospital Association warned in its amicus brief, a ruling for the plaintiffs would have been "a disaster for millions of lower and middle-income Americans" and "the ranks of the uninsured [would] swell again, with all that portends in the way of untreated illness and overwhelming debt."
The reason we passed the Affordable Care Act was simple - so that every American could have the security of knowing their health care would be there when they needed it most. No one should ever have to go to sleep at night worried that their child won't get the treatments they need, or that an accident or illness will bankrupt their entire family.
Your opinion, which was eloquent in its simplicity, clearly recognized Congress' intent. As you wrote, "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them." I could not agree more.
When we passed this historic law back in 2010, we stated our intent clearly. We had exactly 60 members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate, and each of us knew precisely what the law would do - ensure that middle-class Americans, regardless of what state they lived in, would have access to the tax credits they needed to afford health care. If governors did not want to set up their own health insurance exchange, they could rely on the federal exchange and still offer their residents the full benefit of the law.
We knew these tax credits were essential to all the other reforms in the law - such as ending discrimination against those with preexisting conditions, ensuring women are not charged more for their coverage because they are women, and guaranteeing Americans access to life-saving preventive health services like annual exams and cancer screenings.
These tax credits have now made it possible for more than 9 million men, women, and children to have health care coverage - some for the first time ever. We know this coverage is saving lives.
Take David Tedrow of Durham, North Carolina. Without the benefit of these tax credits - which helped him afford health insurance - he never would have been able to get the liver transplant he needed to save his life. He wrote recently that these tax credits were "the difference between life and death."
I want to thank you for making a decision that put the welfare of Americans like David Tedrow ahead of partisan politics. I want to thank you for taking the time to recognize Congress' true intent. And I want to thank you for ensuring that millions of Americans will be able go to sleep tonight knowing their health insurance will be there when they need it.
Sincerely,
Barbara Boxer
United States Senator
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Wednesday, June 24, 2015
"Perhaps, for Jindal, at least, the biggest impact is that the man once called 'the next Ronald Reagan' is now polling below the category called 'none of the above.'" Isn't that just too bad, "Bobby"!
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COMMENTS:
* Jindal proved trickle down doesn't work...
* Bobby Jindal the next Reagan? Surely no one was ever dumb enough to believe that.
* He just doesn't have the bigoted "Kill 'em all- let Gawd sort 'em out!"- Charisma of Donald Dumpster. Bigotry is huge to those with an urge to drive the GOP clown car. "Baby you can drive my car! Bigotry is who we are!" - Apologies to the Fab Four. They Always had better hair than Dumpster, and bigotry was never one of their vices....
* Shocking there is yet another state in which right wing economic policies are completely failing.
* They got him mixed up. Jindal was supposed to be the next Bonzo. That is the chimp that Reagan played the supporting role for in the movie.
* Simple his infamously calling the GOP the "party of stupid". He was immediately exiled from the treehouse and the GOP xenophobic base remembered he was not one of them anyway and promptly forgot him. The base are not a forgiving group, unless it is a child molesting fellow Christian.
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Bobby Jindal was supposed to be the 'next Reagan.' What went wrong?
In 2008, Bobby Jindal was on fire. The Ivy League-educated Rhodes scholar known as a wonky pragmatist had just been elected the first Indian-American governor of Louisiana and was one of the GOP's rising stars, alternately dubbed "the next Ronald Reagan" and "the Republican's Obama."
"The question," Sen. John McCain’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, told The Washington Post then, "is not whether he’ll be president, but when he’ll be president."
Today, as Governor Jindal prepares to announce his candidacy for president, he has no where to go but up.
In a field of 12 declared GOP hopefuls, Jindal, with 0.8 percent support, is polling in 15th place – dead last, behind even undeclared candidates, according to RealClearPolitics.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey put Jindal’s support at zero percent.
At home in Louisiana, Jindal’s job-approval rating is at an all-time low of 31.8 percent, while his disapproval rating has soared to a record high of 64.7 percent.
Things are so grim for the GOP's one-time star that if the election were held today, red-state Louisianans would actually vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton rather than their own governor.
What happened?
Jindal appears to be a victim of his own political ambitions.
Some trace the start of Jindal's descent to his 2009 GOP response to President Obama's State of the Union address, a "Kenneth-the-Page-like" delivery that quickly made the new governor the object of ridicule.
With his sights set on higher offices, Jindal, a wunderkind known as a pragmatic policy wonk, set out to reassure party conservatives, taking increasingly hard-line conservative stances on social and fiscal issues.
"But each time, he moved further away from the wonky, pragmatic persona that had made him famous in the first place," reported The Washington Post.
"Soon the Ivy-league biology major was punting questions about evolution and climate change to shore up his standing with social conservatives," added Time.
Often, to the detriment of his own constituents.
When Louisiana faced a budget deficit, Jindal, who had signed anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist's pledge, refused to increase taxes or reduce tax deductions and credits.
As Yahoo! Politics reported, Jindal tried everything else he could think of, leading some to conclude that he was “sacking his own state,” as American Conservative columnist Rod Dreher wrote earlier this year, adding that Jindal wanted "to preserve his viability as a Republican presidential candidate – specifically, so he can say that he never raised taxes, but rather cut them."
Instead, The Associated Press reported earlier this year, “Jindal scraped together what he could from all sorts of funds: railroad crossing safety, artificial reef construction, housing programs and the blind. He pieced together money from one-time legal settlements and property sales, using it to pay for continuing programs.”
The ramifications: As Yahoo! Politics reported, the state’s Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly has been depleted by $800 million, development incentives are down $450 million, Louisiana’s rainy day fund has dropped from $730 million to $460 million, state funding for colleges and universities was slashed by almost $650 million, and some 30,000 government workers, "many of them teachers, university employees, and health-care providers," have lost their state jobs.
Perhaps, for Jindal, at least, the biggest impact is that the man once called "the next Ronald Reagan" is now polling below the category called "none of the above."
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COMMENTS:
* Jindal proved trickle down doesn't work...
* Bobby Jindal the next Reagan? Surely no one was ever dumb enough to believe that.
* He just doesn't have the bigoted "Kill 'em all- let Gawd sort 'em out!"- Charisma of Donald Dumpster. Bigotry is huge to those with an urge to drive the GOP clown car. "Baby you can drive my car! Bigotry is who we are!" - Apologies to the Fab Four. They Always had better hair than Dumpster, and bigotry was never one of their vices....
* Shocking there is yet another state in which right wing economic policies are completely failing.
* They got him mixed up. Jindal was supposed to be the next Bonzo. That is the chimp that Reagan played the supporting role for in the movie.
* Simple his infamously calling the GOP the "party of stupid". He was immediately exiled from the treehouse and the GOP xenophobic base remembered he was not one of them anyway and promptly forgot him. The base are not a forgiving group, unless it is a child molesting fellow Christian.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Bobby Jindal was supposed to be the 'next Reagan.' What went wrong?
Bobby Jindal's polling numbers are at rock bottom. But Wednesday evening, Jindal is expected to announce his 2016 presidential bid.
By Husna Haq, June 24, 2015In 2008, Bobby Jindal was on fire. The Ivy League-educated Rhodes scholar known as a wonky pragmatist had just been elected the first Indian-American governor of Louisiana and was one of the GOP's rising stars, alternately dubbed "the next Ronald Reagan" and "the Republican's Obama."
"The question," Sen. John McCain’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, told The Washington Post then, "is not whether he’ll be president, but when he’ll be president."
Today, as Governor Jindal prepares to announce his candidacy for president, he has no where to go but up.
In a field of 12 declared GOP hopefuls, Jindal, with 0.8 percent support, is polling in 15th place – dead last, behind even undeclared candidates, according to RealClearPolitics.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey put Jindal’s support at zero percent.
At home in Louisiana, Jindal’s job-approval rating is at an all-time low of 31.8 percent, while his disapproval rating has soared to a record high of 64.7 percent.
Things are so grim for the GOP's one-time star that if the election were held today, red-state Louisianans would actually vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton rather than their own governor.
What happened?
Jindal appears to be a victim of his own political ambitions.
Some trace the start of Jindal's descent to his 2009 GOP response to President Obama's State of the Union address, a "Kenneth-the-Page-like" delivery that quickly made the new governor the object of ridicule.
With his sights set on higher offices, Jindal, a wunderkind known as a pragmatic policy wonk, set out to reassure party conservatives, taking increasingly hard-line conservative stances on social and fiscal issues.
"But each time, he moved further away from the wonky, pragmatic persona that had made him famous in the first place," reported The Washington Post.
"Soon the Ivy-league biology major was punting questions about evolution and climate change to shore up his standing with social conservatives," added Time.
Often, to the detriment of his own constituents.
When Louisiana faced a budget deficit, Jindal, who had signed anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist's pledge, refused to increase taxes or reduce tax deductions and credits.
As Yahoo! Politics reported, Jindal tried everything else he could think of, leading some to conclude that he was “sacking his own state,” as American Conservative columnist Rod Dreher wrote earlier this year, adding that Jindal wanted "to preserve his viability as a Republican presidential candidate – specifically, so he can say that he never raised taxes, but rather cut them."
Instead, The Associated Press reported earlier this year, “Jindal scraped together what he could from all sorts of funds: railroad crossing safety, artificial reef construction, housing programs and the blind. He pieced together money from one-time legal settlements and property sales, using it to pay for continuing programs.”
The ramifications: As Yahoo! Politics reported, the state’s Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly has been depleted by $800 million, development incentives are down $450 million, Louisiana’s rainy day fund has dropped from $730 million to $460 million, state funding for colleges and universities was slashed by almost $650 million, and some 30,000 government workers, "many of them teachers, university employees, and health-care providers," have lost their state jobs.
Perhaps, for Jindal, at least, the biggest impact is that the man once called "the next Ronald Reagan" is now polling below the category called "none of the above."
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Solving for "a problem that doesn't exist -- in-person voter fraud ..."
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COMMENTS:
* Who does Voter ID disenfranchise? Anyone who is either too infirm, or too poor, to go and get one! EXACTLY the groups of people that the Voter ID Laws are INTENDED to disenfranchise! :-) A more honest question would have asked what the need was for a Voter ID, when Voter Fraud is not an issue in our Country :-) Indeed, why would a movement that purports to be "Fiscally Conservative" and "against Government Intrusion" be so FOR an unneeded Law that will cost us unnecessary MILLIONS of dollars AND allow the Government to intrude more fully into our lives? What an "odd" inconsistency, huh? :-) :-) :-)
* That is is the best political thing I have heard in a long time. Because it is so sensible, I doubt the Republicans will let it happen, but if they don't, their candidates will have to explain whay they tried to keep disenfranching certain voters.
* I've noticed the Koch bots responding to Anne's post are zeroing in on the photo id requirements. Not a word about closing or moving polling places, restricting early voting days, or gerrymandering.
* Are these id's free? This is more of an impact on the elderly than the younger people. Buck I would like to see your sources for rampant voter fraud. So by making voters having an id, they are placing a polling tax which is illegal. It was used in the past to keep the poor from voting. Since everything I have read points to voter fraud as a non-issue. The GOP in Florida did they best they could to deter voters in our last elections even though the Election supervisors of the state said voter fraud is not an issue. You miss the point, its not discrimination, its about voter suppression and violates the law. The GOP wants those that usually vote democrat from voting so they can turn this country into a one party system, which is on your way to communism or Fascism, take your pick.
COMMENTS:
* Who does Voter ID disenfranchise? Anyone who is either too infirm, or too poor, to go and get one! EXACTLY the groups of people that the Voter ID Laws are INTENDED to disenfranchise! :-) A more honest question would have asked what the need was for a Voter ID, when Voter Fraud is not an issue in our Country :-) Indeed, why would a movement that purports to be "Fiscally Conservative" and "against Government Intrusion" be so FOR an unneeded Law that will cost us unnecessary MILLIONS of dollars AND allow the Government to intrude more fully into our lives? What an "odd" inconsistency, huh? :-) :-) :-)
* That is is the best political thing I have heard in a long time. Because it is so sensible, I doubt the Republicans will let it happen, but if they don't, their candidates will have to explain whay they tried to keep disenfranching certain voters.
* I've noticed the Koch bots responding to Anne's post are zeroing in on the photo id requirements. Not a word about closing or moving polling places, restricting early voting days, or gerrymandering.
* Are these id's free? This is more of an impact on the elderly than the younger people. Buck I would like to see your sources for rampant voter fraud. So by making voters having an id, they are placing a polling tax which is illegal. It was used in the past to keep the poor from voting. Since everything I have read points to voter fraud as a non-issue. The GOP in Florida did they best they could to deter voters in our last elections even though the Election supervisors of the state said voter fraud is not an issue. You miss the point, its not discrimination, its about voter suppression and violates the law. The GOP wants those that usually vote democrat from voting so they can turn this country into a one party system, which is on your way to communism or Fascism, take your pick.
...................................................................................................................................................................Congress Moves to Restore Cuts Supreme Court Made to Voting Rights Act
By Gabrielle Levy, June 24, 2015
Nearly two years have passed since the Supreme Court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act, setting off a wave of new attempts to tighten access to voting that the law would have previously prevented.
Now, a group of Congressional leaders is making the attempt to not only replace the portion of the law struck down but improve upon it so that it applies to all states and more disenfranchised groups.
"If it was not clear in 2014, I think it is clear today that we have come a great distance in this country toward healing the divisions and problems among us, but we are not there yet," said Voting Rights Advancement Act co-sponsor Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., in a statement read during a press conference Wednesday by the bill's Senate sponsor, Pat Leahy, D-Vt.
The new bill would apply the federal pre-approval requirements for election rules to California, Texas, New York, North Carolina, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia. All states would need to seek federal approval before enacting new barriers to voting or voter registration, the number or location of polling places, or changing how districts are drawn or whether congressional seats are elected at-large.
It would also add language-based discrimination to the list of investigable actions, a reflection of the growing number of Asian-American voters, many of whom whose first language is not English.
"The Asian-American and Pacific Islander community is particularly vulnerable, as the fastest-growing racial group in the country, APIs are poised to serve as the margin of victory in upcoming elections," said Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. "We are easy prey to voter ID and other restrictive laws."
In addition to Chu, Leahy, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Lewis, whose lifelong contributions to the civil rights movement are unmatched in Congress, the bill's primary sponsors include chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Linda Sanchez, D-Calif.; Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., the first black woman elected to Congress in her state's history; and Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
Before the court's June 25, 2013 decision, states that had a history of using discrimination to prevent certain groups of people from voting were required to to seek pre-approval if they wished to make changes to voting times or poll locations, district boundaries, registration dates or identification requirements. The court ruled, 5-4, that the standards that determined which states and localities were subject to those restrictions were out of date and unfair, and thus unconstitutional.
The court's decision was immediately met with criticism from civil rights groups and some lawmakers as those states rushed to eliminate early voting and registration days, redrew congressional maps to cordon off minority voters and implemented voter identification laws that advocates say address a problem that doesn't exist -- in-person voter fraud -- and instead make it difficult for minority, the poor, students and the elderly to vote.
But the initial bipartisan attempt to replace the portions of the Voting Rights Act that were struck down by the court was met with resistance, largely from Republicans who maintained that a different portion of the original 1965 law, which permits the Justice Department to investigate alleged attempts to restrict voting, was adequate to prevent discrimination.
The new bill's sponsors acknowledged that by expanding on the 2014 legislation, they had pushed away some Republican supporters, including that bill's House sponsor, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.
Sewell, who grew up in Selma, Ala., says that while the sponsors hoped to be able to convince Republicans to reconsider, the success of legislation was more dependent on a public movement, much like the one that led Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act in the first place.
"I would be willing to compromise, that's how you do laws," she says. "Our hope is that this bill will galvanize the conscience of America: that's the only way we're going to get it passed."
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By Gabrielle Levy, June 24, 2015
Nearly two years have passed since the Supreme Court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act, setting off a wave of new attempts to tighten access to voting that the law would have previously prevented.
Now, a group of Congressional leaders is making the attempt to not only replace the portion of the law struck down but improve upon it so that it applies to all states and more disenfranchised groups.
"If it was not clear in 2014, I think it is clear today that we have come a great distance in this country toward healing the divisions and problems among us, but we are not there yet," said Voting Rights Advancement Act co-sponsor Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., in a statement read during a press conference Wednesday by the bill's Senate sponsor, Pat Leahy, D-Vt.
The new bill would apply the federal pre-approval requirements for election rules to California, Texas, New York, North Carolina, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia. All states would need to seek federal approval before enacting new barriers to voting or voter registration, the number or location of polling places, or changing how districts are drawn or whether congressional seats are elected at-large.
It would also add language-based discrimination to the list of investigable actions, a reflection of the growing number of Asian-American voters, many of whom whose first language is not English.
"The Asian-American and Pacific Islander community is particularly vulnerable, as the fastest-growing racial group in the country, APIs are poised to serve as the margin of victory in upcoming elections," said Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. "We are easy prey to voter ID and other restrictive laws."
In addition to Chu, Leahy, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Lewis, whose lifelong contributions to the civil rights movement are unmatched in Congress, the bill's primary sponsors include chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Linda Sanchez, D-Calif.; Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., the first black woman elected to Congress in her state's history; and Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
Before the court's June 25, 2013 decision, states that had a history of using discrimination to prevent certain groups of people from voting were required to to seek pre-approval if they wished to make changes to voting times or poll locations, district boundaries, registration dates or identification requirements. The court ruled, 5-4, that the standards that determined which states and localities were subject to those restrictions were out of date and unfair, and thus unconstitutional.
The court's decision was immediately met with criticism from civil rights groups and some lawmakers as those states rushed to eliminate early voting and registration days, redrew congressional maps to cordon off minority voters and implemented voter identification laws that advocates say address a problem that doesn't exist -- in-person voter fraud -- and instead make it difficult for minority, the poor, students and the elderly to vote.
But the initial bipartisan attempt to replace the portions of the Voting Rights Act that were struck down by the court was met with resistance, largely from Republicans who maintained that a different portion of the original 1965 law, which permits the Justice Department to investigate alleged attempts to restrict voting, was adequate to prevent discrimination.
The new bill's sponsors acknowledged that by expanding on the 2014 legislation, they had pushed away some Republican supporters, including that bill's House sponsor, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.
Sewell, who grew up in Selma, Ala., says that while the sponsors hoped to be able to convince Republicans to reconsider, the success of legislation was more dependent on a public movement, much like the one that led Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act in the first place.
"I would be willing to compromise, that's how you do laws," she says. "Our hope is that this bill will galvanize the conscience of America: that's the only way we're going to get it passed."
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Going to take your ball and go home, Sarah?
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Fox News stops paying Sarah Palin to go on television but she's invited to appear for free
By Margarita Noriega, June 24, 2015
Governor Sarah Palin needs no introduction. She has stayed in the media spotlight years after her failed run for the White House in 2008, including as a contributor on Fox News. Since that time, Palin resigned as Alaska's governor, compared waterboarding to baptism, got mixed up in a family brawl, and launched an eponymous digital television channel. She was also a contributor on Fox News until today.
We don't know the exact reason why, as Mike Allen wrote today, Palin was "dumped" by Fox News. Palin's contract is, however, over:
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Fox News stops paying Sarah Palin to go on television but she's invited to appear for free
By Margarita Noriega, June 24, 2015
Governor Sarah Palin needs no introduction. She has stayed in the media spotlight years after her failed run for the White House in 2008, including as a contributor on Fox News. Since that time, Palin resigned as Alaska's governor, compared waterboarding to baptism, got mixed up in a family brawl, and launched an eponymous digital television channel. She was also a contributor on Fox News until today.
We don't know the exact reason why, as Mike Allen wrote today, Palin was "dumped" by Fox News. Palin's contract is, however, over:
Palin, 51, is expected to make occasional guest appearances on Fox and Fox Business, and will appear on other networks and cables. She has a show on the Sportsman Channel, does a lot of speeches, and will announce a new publishing project soon."Does a lot of speeches" bring in enough income to support the Palins? Speaking fees for the would-be VP vary by location, according to her profile on the Washington Speakers Bureau website, which has a now-outdated reference to her contributor role at Fox News. Still, a years-old rumor has Palin's fee pegged to about $100,000. We're guessing the governor doesn't mind an outdated speaker profile in the meantime.
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