A/C is shot at work this morning, SCOTUSblog is having problems (the live blog of the day’s opinions are here starting at 9ish EDT), and we’re still getting awesome analysis like this from CNN:
Despite the massive protests and attention paid to the issue, the American people don’t really understand what is contained in the law — a sign the White House has not done a good job of messaging.
Perhaps all the months of coverage of “grassroots” town halls with people screaming that “Obamacare = Socialism”, endlessly covered by networks like CNN, had something to do with the message being muddled. Then when White House officials go out to correct the narrative, they get shouted down by Village types who say “But clearly the people are against this, so why are you doing it?”
The whole Fast and Furious thing is rapidly devolving into “Both sides do it, Washington is broken” stupidity when Eric Holder dares to defend himself from Issa’s impeachment by proxy maneuver. I am but a humble observer.
I’m thinking today is not going to be a good day by the time the sun finally sets. I’ll update this with any SCOTUS decision news as our new overlords tell us plebes how we’re doing it wrong expecting the government Democrats anybody to actually do something about health care costs, should a decision come down this morning.
Overlooked in all the health care sturm und drang is the Arizona immigration case, which is pretty much just as important. If SCOTUS really wanted to blow a hole in the presidency, this would be the case to do it. After the last 12 years, I refuse to call this one a slam dunk either.
All this of course is a set up to completely prevent or if still necessary, de-legitimize a second term for President Obama as much as possible.
Mondays suck.
[UPDATE] No health care decision today, but most of Arizona’s immigration law has been invalidated (but not all of it). Sections 3, 5, and 6 of the law go bye-bye. Also, 5-4 decision that juveniles convicted of murder cannot be sentenced to life without parole. Apparently Justice Alito had to rail against that reading his dissent. [UPDATE 2] the “papers, please” part of the law stays, 8-0, as there’s no reason apparently to overturn it on Supremacy Clause reasons. However, the decision does say that the provision can still be challenged in the future on other grounds, like, say, counting as racial profiling. Hint, hint.
Jamie
we need both a better media and a better government
amk
american fourth estate hacks are fifth columnists. ows should have been about owm.
The Other Bob
I actually agree that the White House and Congress – especially those who lost their seats in 2010 – have done a poor job on messaging the ACA. They shoudl not run away from the good things in ACA.
That said, when the opposition spends a quarter of a Billion dollars screaming “death panels” and “socialized medicine” its pretty hard to it beat back.
ronathan richardson
This will come as a surprise to no one:
“Halperin Claims Any SCOTUS Ruling On Health Care Is Bad For Obama”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/dorsey/halperin-claims-any-scotus-ruling-on-health-care-i
Patricia Kayden
I’ll be sad for the millions who will be negatively impacted if the health care act is overturned. Thankfully, both my husband and I have health care through our jobs, but it’s horrible that so many Americans don’t have any, and will not have any in the foreseeable future if SCOTUS makes the wrong decision.
The irony is all those silly people who want the act overturned and DO NOT HAVE HEALTH CARE. I don’t understand their logic.
beltane
@amk: Yes, OWS should have been mostly focused on discrediting the corporate propaganda/public relations outfit know as the American media. We’ll never be able to shut the machine down, but we should be working to make people aware that all those perky faces the see on TV are pushing an agenda, and that its an agenda which is not in the best interests of most people.
JPL
Scalia’s broccoli argument still bothers me. Is the govmint mandating a particular doctor, procedure or medicine? Public schools mandate certain vaccinations before attending school but I didn’t think the health care law did this. What am I missing?
The immigration law is sick. Why not just paint gold stars on the cheeks of the brown people.
General Stuck
Wingnut Marsha Blackburn gives us the skinny on what would replace the ACA if struck down, on Chucky Todd. Market Forces Bitches. Send the uninsured back to the states to deal with.
Shorter wingnut – we will fuck that chicken for mo profit.
kay
I really think you’d have to buy time, run ads, to get any factual information out about anything, really, at this point.
Another way might be to go around media and send people information directly. People love those Social Security Benefit statements. Those were a great idea. Specific, personalized facts on projected Social Security benefits.
The internet is cheaper than mail, but the people who are most misinformed (and need the information the most) don’t have access to the internet, here, anyway.
RossInDetroit
One thing the media’s mostly getting right; the expectation that the Supremes’ decision on ACA was determined even before the arguments were made. Pretty much everyone thinks that this will be an ideological decision and the media’s not even pretending it will be decided on merits or precedent.
Linda Featheringill
I understand that SCOTUS announcements should happen around 10:00 EDT but that this announcement might be postponed until Thursday.
beltane
@JPL: Luckily the brown people have their own identifying brownness and don’t need the state to furnish them with gold stars. Such brownness automatically identifies them as enemies of the glorious Aryan Christian Free Capitalist Republic.
Culture of Truth
Two big things about the ruling. One is of course the future of ACA itself. The other is the meaning of the Commerce clause from now on. Both big.
Scott S.
I’m thinking they’ll give a thumbs-up for the Arizona law. The teabaggers on the Supreme Court are in full-on asshole mode now. It’s a stone guarantee that they’ll rule in favor of anything Republicans want and against anything Republicans hate.
I wouldn’t be too surprised to see them arbitrarily declare that Obama’s a Kenyan Muslim Antichrist Usurper, so Sarah Palin gets to be Preznit now.
Chris
@Culture of Truth:
And that just happens to be what the entire social safety net is based on, so… What happens to things like Social Security and Medicare if they do strike down this law based on the commerce clause? Do they become unconstitutional too?
Culture of Truth
The broccoli argument was really a liberty argument, a penumbra of vegetation, if you will.
Linda Featheringill
@beltane:
“the glorious Aryan Christian Free Capitalist Republic”
Great term! Of course, everything in that phrase is temporary with the possible exception of “free” but that depends on the definition of free.
Do those crazy white people understand how temporary their hegemony is? Maybe they do and that is why they’re defending it so rabidly.
beltane
Speaking of the media, The Vatican has hired a Fox News reporter to handle its media relations http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/24/pope-fox-news-reporter
Soon, we will have right-wingers all around the world believing that child-rape is not only acceptable, but that it should be mandatory.
The wingnut circle is complete.
300baud
CNN’s job is not to repeat “messaging”. It’s to make sure the voters are informed on important issues. It’s their fault, not the White House’s.
Ha! Just kidding. Their job is to say whatever it takes to get people to come and watch ads. You can tell because their execs measure and talk about ratings, rather than how informed their viewership is.
The Tragically Flip
@RossInDetroit:
Yeah, that’s surprising that there isn’t more right wing fauxrage over the biased media implying that St. Roberts and his merry knights don’t rule on each and ever case in a perfect vacuum of abstract legal thought after fasting in the desert for 40 days reciting the constitution verbatim from memory over and over.
That kind of worries me because it usually means that everyone goes past outrage over conservatives changing the rules straight to “this is the way it always was, and only silly airhead liberals ever pretended that supreme court rulings could be anything other than rank partisanship.”
Linda Featheringill
@Chris:
Oh, my.
beltane
@Linda Featheringill: We’re only a few short years away from the emergence of anti-redneck dogwhistling as a campaign tactic in certain parts of the country.
wenchacha
@Linda Featheringill: Hold off the announcement as long as possible, then the masses can really celebrate our FREEDOM! on July 4th.
Yes! The US is the best in the world at everything because everybody wants to live here and ditch their own country’s layabout-coddling nationalized health care for all.
Gobblessahmurka.
Scott S.
@Chris: Hell, will the Court just go ahead and declare Social Security and Medicare unconstitutional? They’ve shown no hesitation about making new law based on unrelated cases — should we be surprised if Roberts&Co just come right out and ban all federal programs?
Culture of Truth
@Chris: No, those programs fall under a legal exception because they are what we call in the law “popular”
ericblair
@Culture of Truth:
We need Davis X. Machina to translate “Can’t Make Me Neener Neener” into Latin.
4tehlulz
@Chris: It will take a while for those to go down; the GOP will be busy dismantling the Voting and Civil Rights Acts before turning on SS and Medicare.
The Tragically Flip
@300baud:
Early in the Obama presidency I expressed hope he and Congress would increase PBS/NPR’s funding for precisely that reason. Public media actually does a respectable job informing the public of stuff (even with their obvious flaws they’re far better than their corporate media peers, and PEW’s studies confirm this over and over). Fund PBS/NPR like the BBC, CBC or ABC (Aussie public broadcaster) are funded and I think the situation would improve substantially.
Baud
@Chris:
The Medicaid expansion part of ACA is also before the court, so we may not need to wait.
If the court pulls the trigger on the ACA (and the U.S.), it’ll be interesting to see how they write their decision to ensure that the GOP can still privatize Medicare and Social Security.
beltane
@The Tragically Flip: I don’t think it’s necessarily bad that we as a country have dispensed with the pretense that the USSC is some lofty-minded institution that decides cases based on an impartial interpretation of the Constitution. The first step in fighting back is to recognize that this “august” gang of corrupt hacks does not have the interests of the country at heart.
4tehlulz
Also, I’m hoping for the punt on the mandate.
Baud
@4tehlulz:
I used to think that (and actually think it’s the correct result), but once people actually get insurance through the ACA, it’ll be harder to strike down. If they want to do it, they have to do it now.
handsmile
As part of my morning penance, I watch CNN’s “Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien.” (Not a complete masochist, I flick between it and BBC GMT and al-Jazeera.)
Shortly after 7:30am, CNN presented a segment with its Supreme Court correspondent Jeff Toobin, dutifully standing in front of the court building. O’Brien asked him whether he continued to stand by his initial televised remarks following oral arguments on ACA that it was “a train wreck” for the Obama administration.
Toobin knit his brow and wryly replied, “Accountability is not what we’re about.”
Everyone laughed.
Linda Featheringill
Does anyone have any ideas about how to uncouple the SCOTUS from the power that they have?
maye
I love President Obama. But the fact that 80 percent of the country doesn’t understand the Affordable Care Act is solely the fault of the White House PR operation. It’s not enough to have a policy, you have to have a marketing plan. This president had no marketing plan for this legislation. And here we are, with Justice Scalia quoting Fox News during oral arguments. My biggest disappointment with Obama has been his inability to explain what he’s doing. He needs to replace his entire third-rate communications team. It is sad and disgraceful.
JPL
Kennedy has already shown his true colors so I expect him to side with those folks he feels more comfortable with.
Bush v Gore showed that he is not above politics.
amk
@Linda Featheringill: Frigging term limits/age limits ?
JPL
They might not announce today, but that imo, that is just theatrics.
If health care is turned over, wouldn’t that endanger EMTALA and Medicaid?
Scott S.
@Linda Featheringill: None that wouldn’t get me unfavorable attention from law enforcement agencies.
The Tragically Flip
@beltane: Agreed, it’s not necessarily bad, but given the past track record of the media narrative on such things, they’ll just say this is no different than it ever was, and we’ll get a raft of stories about Abe Fortas and LBJ or judicial activism on Miranda and Roe.
It’s important for the public to understand that something has changed. The court never of course perfected the liberal ideal of how it should work, but when Roberts starts willfully expanding cases beyond the actual complaint in order to strike down laws he hates but weren’t actually part of the case, something has gone very wrong.
I’d say the difference is they’re not even trying for the ideal anymore because it was never their ideal. In past they paid feality to it for political expediency, but they’re sensing they don’t even have to pretend anymore.
They think they can get away with it, and I’m quite afraid they’re right.
Chris
@4tehlulz:
There’s no reason they can’t do both. Let Congress try to impeach, intimidate or otherwise neutralize the DOJ while the state governments slowly reinstate Jim Crow, and meanwhile let the Supreme Court tackle Social Security and Medicare. Now that I think about it, the Supreme Court is the only institution that’s qualified to do so. These programs are wildly popular and therefore can only be taken down by someone with zero accountability to the public – that’s the Supreme Court.
@Baud:
Declare them illegal and future generations will have no choice but to invest their money in the private sector. That might not be as good as privatizing the programs, but it’s a pretty good consolation prize for the big money behind the GOP, methinks.
joes527
@The Tragically Flip: Great theory. The reality is that PBS brings David Brooks into America’s living rooms every week, looking o-so-reasonable while he just so happens to carry the Republican’s water. And NPR brings commentators like Erick Erickson into America’s cars during their drive home (probably causing multiple accidents as folks swerve off the road screaming profanities at their radios).
Oh yeah sure there are counter examples – Bill Moyers stands out.
But the idea that Public Radio/TV == good quality reporting is demonstrably false.
Baud
@maye:
I disagree with “solely.” The reason the GOP media machine is so effective is that they have built up many, many outlets outside of official governmental channels to spread their message. After ACA was passed, however, too much of the energy on our side of the aisle was spent debating whether it was good enough, and whether we should teach the Democrats a lesson. That part of it isn’t the White House’s fault.
TOP123
If the Court decides that Arizona can make immigration policy, does that mean that other states can select their own policy or approved immigrant populations, or throw their borders wide open? Could the Vermont Pirate Communist Party (James Wimberly’s excellent idea) hang up a sign saying Come On In? At that point, would everyone get to be a US citizen, or just be a citizen of VT? How would driver’s licences work?
E(forclairty&)TA: Or would this be another one of those special cases that only applies to this one emergency situation, and sets no sort of precedent at all?
ruemara
@maye: This a bullshit argument. I work in media. These fuckers do not cover what they don’t want to cover. Full on stop. The President has crisscrossed the country promoting the ACA, yet you never saw or heard him unless you were on the WH website or CNN. The WH can set the policy or push for an agenda, but it cannot MAKE the media cover things.
RossInDetroit
@300baud:
Agree 100% and this is the argument I make every time. Media businesses should be seen as businesses first and sources of information second.
beltane
@The Tragically Flip: This predates John Roberts. For a lot of people the idea of the Supreme Court being an honorable institution died the minute the Bush v. Gore decision came down. In most cases, such blatant corruption at the top leads to widespread cynicism and apathy among thinking people. The challenge of the Left should be to harness this disgust and turn it into anger and action.
bemused
Is CNN’s motto still “the most trusted name in news”? It’s incredibly ballsy for a msm “news” channel to conclude Americans still don’t know what is in ACA and blame it on White House messaging.
burnspbesq
SCOTUSBlog’s live-blog seems to be working fine on my iPad.
It’s certainly possible that the SB 1070 decision will come out today and healthcare won’t. There are nine cases awaiting decision.
waynski
@Culture of Truth: Yes, popular, and I think SSI, Medicare and Medicaid are considered part of the tax code, so I’m not sure they could go after them. But as others have pointed out, I wouldn’t put it past this court. I guess what bothers me most about the coverage is that the headline will be about the President winning or losing. What the story is supposed to be about in a just and functioning democracy is “Will the Supreme Court Throw Out Years of Precedent and Scads of Existing Law to Try and Get Mitt Romney Elected?” But, you know, the sheriff is nearing.
maye
@Baud: the right wing media machine is aggressive. The White House (and the Dems as a whole) needed to be both creative and aggressive. They were neither.
The Tragically Flip
@joes527:
First, I should point out that PBS/NPR aren’t really true public media. They’re donor-media. Non-profit, but most of their funding comes from sources other than government.
Even so they are markedly better at informing their viewers/listeners than for-profit media and would be much better still if they didn’t have to rely on hand outs from wealthy socially liberal but fiscally conservative donors (who love them some Brooks) to survive.
PBS/NPR have problems because they’re underfunded. It’s the old Maggie Thatcher theory of privatization:
1) Underfund public service X
2) Service X starts to suck
3) No one cares/complains when you outright privatize it or reduce it to irrelvancy.
Republicans pay no price for trying to zero out PBS/NPR’s trivial level of funding ($400M/year) and eventually they will succeed.
They understand public media is the enemy, that should be a clue that it is for us a useful ally, even with baggage like Brooks and Erickson.
Baud
@ruemara:
Agree 100%. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people complain “Why won’t Obama say X” right after I just heard him say X.
beltane
@ruemara: To pretend the media doesn’t have its own agenda is every bit as naive as pretending Anton Sclalia decided cases on an impartial basis. Just about anything you see on TV is a form of corporate psy-ops, and maybe it is time people realize this.
Culture of Truth
Here we go…….
TOP123
@Linda Featheringill: I am Very Much NAL, but: wasn’t it Marbury v. Madison that established the idea that the Supreme Court could overturn acts of Congress in the first place? And isn’t the Court’s power ever since, therefore, based on, gasp, precedent? If the current Court wishes to willfully ignore precedent, what, exactly, is their ground for continued authority?
maye
@ruemara: I worked in PR for 20 years. The media will cover whatever you make shiny enough.
handsmile
@beltane: (#17)
A noteworthy aspect of that Guardian story is that the Vatican’s new employee, Greg Burke, Rome correspondent for Fox News, is a member of the Church’s theologically reactionary fellowship, Opus Dei. The “leaks” scandal now roiling the Vatican is being investigated by a team headed by an Opus Dei cardinal as well.
My favorite paragraph from the article:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@TOP123: Short answer; since they were liberal (as in not REAL American) states the Supreme Court would order them to comply with Federal law.
maye
@Baud: did you ever see a single tv public service announcement explaining the ACA?
Culture of Truth
Court just struck Montana efforts to limit corporate campaign spending.
burnspbesq
Fuck!!! Montana campaign finance summarily reversed!
Culture of Truth
No life sentences for children
Baud
@maye: I don’t watch much TV.
burnspbesq
Life without possibility of parole for juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment.
burnspbesq
Both decisions announced so far were 5-4.
Culture of Truth
awaiting hot scalia on broccoli action
Odie Hugh Manatee
Fix’t that for our broken press.
beltane
@handsmile: Maybe Americans will now understand why the Catholic Church is so discredited in Western Europe and why it was targeted during the French Revolution. The RC Church has never met a reactionary government, no matter how brutal, that it didn’t support just as it never met a left-of-center government it didn’t work to undermine.
burnspbesq
No surprise in how the votes lined up in the Montana case.
beltane
@Culture of Truth: The rights of corporations to undermine the free-speech rights of Americans shall not be abridged.
Chris
@beltane:
Quoted for truth. The anticlericalism in the popular revolutions of the last few centuries doesn’t exactly come out of nowhere.
Culture of Truth
Scalia explaining why kids should be locked up for life
burnspbesq
Kagan wrote the majority opinion in the juvenile life without parole case. Alito wrote a dissent.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Culture of Truth:
Yeah, what does Montana know about corruption? Corruption is something this court has no problem with and neither should Montana nor the rest of the nation.
After all, how are they going to reshape this country into the nightmare they are being paid to create?
The Tragically Flip
@beltane:
I think you and I agree Bush v. Gore was the big shift, but the media consensus gave the court a giant mulligan for that. A one time “oopsie!” that wouldn’t of course be repeated, and won’t the whining liberals ever let bygones be bygones? And of course Bush won the 2004 election so that makes stealing 2000 retrospectively ok!
And if it really had turned out to be a one time deviation, it would be bad enough (1M dead Iraqis bad) but Roberts is proving it was no fluke, and has hit the accelerator. The Roberts court wouldn’t just rule for Bush in Bush v. Gore, they’d expand the case to rule that Bush won New York and California and climate change is a liberal conspiracy. The ruling would just say “because Shut up!”
burnspbesq
Chickenshits: a one-page per curiam decision in the Montana case. Per curiam, with four dissenters? Unfuckingheardof.
TOP123
@beltane: Very much on the side of the bad guys in the Spanish Civil War, as well…
Culture of Truth
Correction, that was Alito, not Scalia
burnspbesq
Alito is still reading from his dissent in the juvenile cases.
ruemara
@maye: So have I. And no they won’t.
burnspbesq
Arizona reversed in part and affirmed in part. This should be interesting.
Culture of Truth
Most of the Arizona law is preempted. Take that, Jan Brewer!
burnspbesq
Sections 3, 5, and 6 of SB 1070 are pre-empted. That’s the bulk of it. Lower courts should not have enjoined enforcement of Section 2(b), which requires cops to check the legal status of arrestees.
Baud
Arizona line-up:
burnspbesq
Apparently all they did with section 2(b) was dissolve the injunction and remand to the district court for a trial on the merits. If that’s correct, that part of the bill could still be found either pre-empted or unconstitutional.
This is a pretty good outcome.
Culture of Truth
“Papers please” still in force. Scalia announces he would have upheld the law entirely. Someone throws a shoe at him.
Alex S.
That CNN statement is crazy, what a bankrupt media outfit… CNN must think that their job consists of commenting on the White House’s ability to emulate a news organization. CNN doesn’t analyse policy anymore, it just wants to repeat whatever the government tells them. The focus is on process, not issues.
burnspbesq
Starting to look like the ACA opinion isn’t coming out today.
SiubhanDuinne
@ronathan richardson:
Fuck Chodd said something similar at the beginning of his show, along with the observation that June is proving to be even worse month than May for the President. He seemed genuinely puzzled and perplexed as to why Obama leads in the polls.
Ha ha ha Chucky.
Culture of Truth
@burnspbesq: Correct.
Schedule those free operations between now and Thursday (preferably in the morning, your surgeon can golf in the afternoon).
burnspbesq
Scalia now reading from his dissent in Arizona. Each of the dissenters wrote separately.
Scott S.
Why is Alito so hopped up about sticking kids in jail for the rest of their lives? I mean, I realize he’s just mean as spit, but what’s he so worked up about?
Culture of Truth
Sherrif Arpaio interrupted Scalia’s dissent trying to arrest Sonia Sotomayor.
maye
@ruemara: i’ll ask the question again: how many public service ads did you see in any media (print or broadcast) explaining the ACA? I could distill it to five bullet points in a matter of 12 minutes and get it in everyone’s face tomorrow. This White House did not even try. They allowed the right wing noise machine to own the messaging on this legislation.
burnspbesq
Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSBlog:
I’m betting that Arpaio won’t take the hint.
Baud
@Culture of Truth: LOL. We have a winner!
Culture of Truth
Reading from the bench Alito noting in the 18th C. it was common to beat children, “now we’ve gotten fucking soft”
Culture of Truth
In the event of a 4-4 vote, there will be five penalty kicks to the groin.
Lol
@maye:
HHS spent $48 million in 2010 promoting the ACA. Once again bringing up another episode of “the left complains Obama isn’t doing something while studiously ignoring that he’s already doing it”.
Culture of Truth
Candidate Scalia now ranting about Obama DREAM Act order – just like Oliver Wendell Holmes if he had been a cheap partisan dick
The Thin Black Duke
@Lol: Exactly.
Anybody who believes otherwise is a naive child.
burnspbesq
Scalia’s dissent in Arizona appears to take as its starting point the idea that we are still operating under the Articles of Confederation.
And according to Amy Howe at SCOTUSBlog, he is mouthing off about last week’s executive order suspending certain deportations. Sheesh.
Everything that didn’t come down today will come down Thursday.
maye
@Lol: how many ads did you personally see? I’d like to see an itemized list of how they spent 48 million.
beltane
@Scott S.: Maybe he is a pedophile and he finds the idea of children in prison to be erotically stimulating. Could you honestly put it past him?
PeakVT
@Linda Featheringill: Something like this might help:
Not likely to be approved, though.
Scott S.
@beltane: The question needs to be asked, frequently and loudly: Will Sam Alito recuse himself from cases involving child rape in the Catholic Church?
amk
@Culture of Truth: Lol. Stolen.
gwangung
@maye: SO, basically, if you didn’t see it, it didn’t count.
maye
@gwangung: did you see it?
burnspbesq
@Scott S.:
Why should he?
maye
@gwangung: if broadcast ads were created explaining the ACA, please provide me with a link so I can watch them.
OzoneR
@maye:
A marketing plan is useless if no one is buying your product.
OzoneR
@maye:
The fact you haven’t seen them makes me wonder A.) where you live and B.) if you even ever watch TV.
maye
@OzoneR: got a link?
ruemara
@maye: I saw 3 videos hosted on the White House’s website and Youtube. They rolled out a website that focused on the benefits and extolled the virtues. The President conducted multiple townhalls. Most of the presses time was spent covering idiots in with free health care in mobility scooters yapping about keeping the government out of their healthcare. You are conflating press releases with press coverage. Movie makers can spend millions on press junkets, kits, ad blurbs, special eds etc and still flop. In this case, no they did not spend millions, but the opposition had all the coverage. That does not make the failure of most americans to be informed, the White House’s fault.
OzoneR
@maye:
unless you suggest the White House buy their own cable news channel, national newspaper, and news website “The Obama Post” or some shit, then I’m not sure how you think they should be “creative and aggressive”
A lot of us were here mocking how the media cut away from speeches Obama gave on healthcare to cover other bullshit stories, or how they hijacked a HCR press conference to talk about Robert Louis Gates and the reporter who asked the question ADMITTED she was trying to steer the topic away from HCR.
Despite you’re beliefs to the contrary, Obama can’t MAKE the media report what he wants.
OzoneR
@maye: Does it matter, cause you’ll tell me what’s linked isn’t “creative” or “aggressive” enough.
catclub
Two NPR bits: a) reporting on healthcare, major reporter says that she had no idea how big and complicated it was, because she had not actually read it. aaarrrgh
But she had been reporting on it for three years.
but b) Georgia has made it possible to buy out of state insurance, and nobody is even bothering to offer it.
maye
@OzoneR: you can’t link me to ACA PSAs, can you?
Cacti
@Linda Featheringill:
There is nothing in the constitution that sets the number of SCOTUS Justices at 9. Expanding that number only requires an act of congress, as opposed to a constitutional amendment.
gene108
Visited my mom over the weekend. She’s thinking of not voting. She’s a reliable Democratic vote.
She feels Obama squandered his golden opportunity, when he was elected and isn’t happy about the state of things. She just can’t stand Romney.
She gets most of her news from CNN, local newspapers and Time Magazine.
I’m not sure what the White House can do to get a positive message out?
Maybe they need to hold better parties for the media and hang out at Sally Quinn’s social events more often.
Seems to be the deciding factor between positive and negative coverage from the media on anything.
Also, too Liberals bashing the PPACA for not being single-payer or single-payer-lite (public option) don’t help cut through the messaging problem to get to voters like my mother.
Argive
Justice Elena Kagan, Miller v. Alabama
Baud
@gene108:
It makes me sad to hear about real people (as opposed to people on the tubes) who talk like that. I hope you can convince her to ignore the chatter.
Cacti
@burnspbesq:
Fat Tony acting like a petulant political partisan?
How out of character for him. (har har)
Cacti
After today’s little stunt from candidate Scalia, anyone else think he might take a victory lap around the White House if PPACA is struck down?
ruemara
@maye: Ok, I say spoof.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/health/policy/24health.html?_r=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zKy3ORWoz8&feature=player_embedded
http://www.whitehouse.gov/video/The-Urgency-of-Reform-Laura-in-Green-Bay
There was the “Healthcare by the Numbers” campaign. I know it’s hard for PR execs to tolerate this, but just because you think you’re right, does not mean you’re right.
ruemara
halps! I are in moderations because maye wanted links!
OzoneR
@maye:
Sure I can.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/health-care/
Now you tell me that’s good enough OR never talk to me again. This isn’t my first time at the rodeo.
pseudonymous in nc
@burnspbesq:
Argument being that the law as written could theoretically be implemented in a non-Sheriff-Joe fashion, so couldn’t be thrown out on a facial challenge. Almost all of the Kobach-dictated legislatin’ got a good fucking kicking, even if Fat Tony thinks otherwise.
TenguPhule
Yes, but none of them are legal, though most of them would be fun.
Mnemosyne
@maye:
If only there was a Healthcare.gov YouTube channel that was easy to find using a simple search. What a missed opportunity!
Keith G
That is correct. The Whitehouse screwed several pooches in this regard. Collectively, most groups of humans are as dumb as bags of rocks. It takes an Augean Stables level of effort to keep such groups focused – especially USA types.
It coulda been done, but it wasn’t.
Keith G
@gene108:
For centuries, politicians have had to hustle votes by going to where the voters were. CNN and Time would love to have some exclusive face time with POTUS , FLOTUS, and or VPOTUS.
Go to where the voters are and tell them what is going on. It’s called “”Arguing for your policies”. It’s part of the job description.
maye
@ruemara: You can’t be serious. I’m not talking about selling the reasons we need healthcare reform. The man got elected on that platform. Where, in any medium, does he or anyone else explain the ACA – THE NEW LAW ITSELF. People do not understand the law that passed. They do not know when it takes effect. They know nothing about it. Epic White House communications fail.
Keith G
@Linda Featheringill:
You could move to Russia.
Look, just because we are suffering through a time when several members of the Court seem ideologically wacked out does not mean that we should throw the baby out with the bath water. We have to live through this and work like hell to lay the groundwork for better times.