Another judge upheld the constitutionality the individual mandate portion of the HCR law, making the count 3-2 in favor of the mandate. So far, our nonpolitical judiciary has voted on party lines, which is yet more evidence that the Obama administration has not ushered in the bipartisan spirit of compromise that was a key campaign promise.
Speaking of HCR, all the right-wing blogs in my neck of the woods have been pimping the line that liberals who made fun of protesting teatards are being hypocritical when they support the Wisconsin protesters. That’s true if you forget that most teabagger protest was based on lies like death panels, while Walker really does want to bust unions, and that Walker never campaigned on ending collective bargaining, while Obama’s campaign made HCR a centerpiece.
Also, too: those who are pissed about Democrats leaving the state as a form of filibuster can start complaining in earnest when those lawmakers run away every single time there’s a bill up for vote.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay: Glad to hear it. Would it be appropriate for me (out of state) to send her a small contribution foards her next campaign, just as a way of saying “Thanks and please keep doing what you’re doing”?
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
I’m all in favor of filibuster reform in the US Senate because of the way it has been abused, but this thing in Wisconsin? All for it, because there’s some real pain involved on the part of the filibusterers. This is a filibuster, not a word in the Majority Leader’s ear.
StonyPillow
They’ve completely forgotten that for two years, using parliamentary rules to prevent votes was noble and patriotic. Their memory holes are commodious — they can jam as much as they need in there.
MikeJ
@SiubhanDuinne: Federal judges don’t run for election. Fear of them shaping decisions to get campaign contributions is the reason why.
Jim Pharo
While the process discussions are often fun, the main thing is that we’re right and they’re wrong. The difference is in what we’re fighting for. You know — values.
debbie
An unfair statement and something I would expect to hear from the right. It’s not like he could wave a magic wand and Make It So. Everyone needs to be a part of the solution.
Mike Kay (Peacemaker)
@debbie: he was joking, actually mocking the usual garbage printed in papers.
Xboxershorts
Governor Walker’s emergency budget repair bill includes much more than just union busting. There are a number of provisions that demonstrate a complete sell out to corporate, big monied interests. Not least of which is the enabling of the sale of state taxpayer owned power plants and energy resources with no review, no competitive bidding and no method to challenge it.
These corporate sell outs need to be shouted over and over from the mountain tops. I consider them even more egregious than his horrific union busting efforts.
Superluminar
@debbie, @Mike Kay
it’s definitely what some people would call “spoof”, as if anything, Obama has been bipartisan to a fault, pre-emptively selling out whereever possible, only later covering-up the preemption by actually doing stuff to make it look like he shares our values (see e.g. DOMA).
Keith G
Initially in 2009, Teabaggers tactics where designed to derail dicussion through intimidation and shouting down others who tried to explain opposing points of view.
Once more media-savy types got some control, the Teabaggers toned it down a bit.
The good folks in Madison have shown a lot less vitrial, even if they have more cause.
NonyNony
Just like they were being hypocritical when they mocked Iraq war protesters but supported Tea Party outings?
Jeebus that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I can’t think of anyone who mocked the Tea Partiers because they were out protesting – the ‘baggers were being mocked because WHAT they were protesting was stupid. Most of the mockery came from crap like “keep the government out of my medicare” and the vision of teabaggers chanting anti-government mantras and waving signs while rushing home to make sure they’d gotten their government disability/Social Security checks.
gene108
I see the lamestream media is keeping quiet the Democrat judges upholding of death panels and forced abortions. I’m not surprised the liberal MSM is keeping such a ruling quiet, in order to protect their Kenyan overlord.
I think rambling like a wing-nut can be therapeutic. It maybe a good way to practice anger management, since so much of it is emotionally fueled nonsense. Sort of like roll playing, but with a computer keyboard on a blog, instead of with different types of dice and miniatures.
patrick II
Not to be a English stylist maven, but isn’t the preferred use of “Also, too” at the end of a sentence, followed by a long silence?
rickstersherpa
I think mistermix was being “sarcastic” at the expense of the the Village Media, which of course is constantly blaming the President for not creating an “era of good feelings” by giving the Republicans everything they ask for and telling Democrats and Liberals to lump it.
Speaking of Village Media and their “memes” and “narratives,” one reason they have been rooting for Scott Walker (see Joe Klein) is of couse the have bought the simplistic idea that American schools are “bad” (a meme itself since when you look at statistics and break them out by race, class, and immigration status, one finds that middle and upper-middle class “white” kids score near the top on these international comparative tests, and that U.S. kids test scores have been improving the last 15 years), they can avoid the hard issues. In this, as in so much else, I find that Bob Somerby is more reliable than Joe Klein.
Regarding the Senate and its filibuster rules, I am actually glad that filibuster reform did not take place in the Senate as I am actually far more fearful of the roll back of the New Deal than I have hope seeing any progressive legislation pass for the next 10 years. Given the Republicans and Plutocratic advantage in the small states and the South, I definitely anticipate a Republican majority in the Senate even if the Democrats keep the Presidency the next 12 years and win back the House.
debbie
@ Mike Kay (Peacemaker):
OK, sorry. It’s just that that line of BS comes from both the right and the leftier-left. How’s a person supposed to tell the snark from the delusion?
rikryah
I’m glad for the runaway legislators. and I’m glad judges with sense are making these rulings.
Brick Oven Bill
Osama Bin Laden, Rush Limbaugh and Obama in a bar.
Rush Limbaugh leans into Obama and says “The US Government is Evil and can’t be trusted”
Obama shrugs
Osama Bin Laden leans into Rush Limbaugh and says “The US Government is Evil and can’t be trusted”
Rush Limbaugh turns to Obama and says “Can you believe the nerve of this guy?”
Obama shrugs.
RSA
Making fun of people who hold stupid political views isn’t hypocritical. Maybe cruel, in some cases.
Master of Karate and Friendship
Nobody could have foreseen. So that was a good thing to promise.
El Cid
So when we have 50 TeaTards riding on a hired bus showing up at a government office with teabags stapled to their heads with signs about soshullism and Obama ending the nation and whatnot and then they scream at a Congressperson about how health care will kill old people and makes the government in charge of the economy, it gets fucking headline network coverage.
And when we have 80,000 union workers and supporters and Democrats show up and occupy a state capital building in the tens of thousands over an actual real fucking issue that they didn’t imagine and the governor really is pushing and the words of the bill are available, it’s exactly the same thing.
El Cid
@RSA: Libruls made fun of idiots dressing up in colonial outfits screaming about soshullism ending the economy and giving lectures about how this is just how Hitler passed the enabling acts and a bunch of absolutely made up charges.
Same thing.
Marc
Right-wing blogs and Jon Stewart.
Maybe we should call them “redneck David Broders”?
Bob In Pacifica
I hate to say it, but the mandate part of the healthcare plan looks unconstitutional to me. Somebody direct me to the winning argument where the government can force a person to buy a private product or penalize you.
RSA
@El Cid:
This makes for a simple, unified view of the world: Everything’s the same thing, as long as it matches my prejudices.
Nylund
Teatard being the operative word. It wasn’t the act of protesting itself that liberals poked fun (liberals love themselves a protest!). It was the that people were protesting against gov’t health care and gov’t waste while riding around on scooters that Medicare paid for, the mis-spelled signs, the utter ignorance of the issues that they were protesting about, and the crazy notion that a peaceful protest ain’t really a peaceful protest unless you’re carrying a semi-automatic assault rifle.
SteveinSC
@Keith G:
Don’t forget a little “packing heat” to help drive home the intimidation.”
ChrisB
@gene108: Yes, that decision has received no media attention. It is not mentioned on the front page of the CBS News website, losing out to such stories as “Cow, pig found in house full of animals” and “NY Jets’ Ryan, GM shoot scene in crime drama.
The New York Times published its article on page A14.
folkbum
Exactly the topic of discussion presently at my Wisconsin-based blog …
walt
@Bob In Pacifica: If it can be demonstrated in the courts that the law is “…necessary and proper…” to execute the enumerated power than the answer is yes, it is constitutional. There was a clip from Ronald Reagan’s solicitor general on C-Span making the same argument weeks ago posted here.
Zach
So this will be on the front page of the Washington Post tomorrow and is undoubtedly gracing the headline spot at CNN.com at this moment, right?
joe from Lowell
@Bob In Pacifica:
It’s being done as part of a comprehensive heath care/insurance regulation system. Regulating the national market in health insurance is undoubtedly a regulation of interstate commerce. The intent in including an individual mandate (the relationship to the recission and pre-existing conditions coverage regulations) is clearly to make the regulatory system work.
Once it’s established that a regulatory effort is appropriate under the Commerce Clause, then the government gets to decide what it intends to do as part of that regulatory effort.
If Congress had passed an individual mandate on its own, say because Congress wanted to make people do it for their own good, there might be a constitutional argument. They’d have to justify it under a broad general welfare argument and defend it on the grounds of the well-being of people being compelled to act, and it might not hold up.
But “the mandate part of the healthcare plan” is clearly constitutional because it’s a part – an important, integral part – of a clear policy of regulating interstate commerce.
Sleeping Dog
Of course Obama is another Democrat who is unwilling to expend any effort or political capital to get judges seated. Which will lead to many vacancies for the Repug who is going to beat him in 2012.
Bend over and spread your cheeks, Lawrence will be used to shove a shiv up your poop chute.
pattonbt
Activist Judges!