This FOX News article on today’s decision (Individual mandate upheld: What does that mean for you and your health?) is one for the ages. It builds up the crazy slowly, but the author does her level best to make ordinary provisions sound like the slow death of freedom. For example:
Another change that will eventually go into effect is the government’s ability to seize your medical records. In order to make information more readily available for doctors during their appointments, the government hopes to create a national database of every person’s medical history.
A national medical database would be a concern if it gave insurance companies more chances to rifle through your deep history to find some excuse to deny your application or cut your support off after the fact. Those things are kind of evil, but the new law makes rescission and pre-existing condition denials illegal. What evil purpose might motivate the government to ‘seize’ your medical records is left as an exercise for the reader.
Then there’s the expert opinion. Three specialists that the article dug up mostly shrug and say that things will stay the same or else get better. As (redacted) told the android David, so the annoyed editor told his underperforming minion: “try harder.” Problem is, the journalistic arm at Fox only gets to make up so many outright lies per day, and the criticisms of Obamacare that gained any traction are based on taco dreams and wishful thinking. Thus they outsourced the business of making rubes believe false things to Elizabeth Vliet, a psychiatrist, wingnut and Herman Cain-iac whose quotes run through the piece like a flaming bobcat at a BBC panel discussion.
“You pay the penalty and if you don’t pay the fine, you risk jail,” Dr. Elizabeth Vliet, founder of HER Place: Health Enhancement Renewal for Women, Inc. in Tucson, Ariz., told FoxNews.com. “The penalty is going to be managed through the IRS. You have all of the same powers that the IRS currently has to attach your property for unpaid taxes. It’s truly draconian in what is being proposed and what has been passed in the law.”
Sadly, no. Congress in fact limited the ability of the IRS to punish ACA delinquents in any way, except to garnish their tax refund. And thus the ratchet turns another peg, and Fox readers know a bit less than they knew the day before.
Litlebritdifrnt
Listening to Limbaugh right now, he is furious. Can’t wait for Hannity at three, unless his head has already exploded.
Villago Delenda Est
The pain of the wingtards fills me with joy.
But I said that several threads ago.
So, does this count as a sack dance, or an endzone spike?
Culture of Truth
I feel like rushing outside and raising some wingnut’s taxes.
Chris
“””And thus the ratchet turns another peg, and Fox readers know a bit less than they knew the day before.”””
It’s no surprise at all to me what’s in that link. Like someone was saying here months ago, there are low-information voters, and then there are high-misinformation voters. Fox News viewers are overwhelmingly the latter.
ETA: what happened to that bar that lets you bold, blockquote, italicize and all that? If it’s a glitch with the website, no worries. I just want to know if it is or if it’s just me/my laptop.
David Koch
YES! WE! CAN!
YES! WE! CAN!
YES! WE! CAN!
YES! WE! CAN!
YES! WE! CAN!
YES! WE! CAN!
YES! WE! CAN!
YES! WE! CAN!
Anonymous At Work
“Taco dreams and wishful thinking”?? Explain “taco dreams”, please…
beltane
Fox News is officially part of Rupert Murdoch’s entertainment division so it’s hard to fault them for meeting the demand for fascist porn on the part of flabby old white men (Megyn Kelly even wore a vagina colored outfit while covering the SCOTUS decision).
It will be more interesting to see the reaction of people like David Brooks. I bet he’s limbering up right now for the feats of contortion he will perform on the News Hour tonight.
schrodinger's cat
That’s because they want to stay ignorant. Like my grandma used to say, you can’t wake up some one who is pretending to be asleep.
Triassic Sands
The only important question arising out of today’s Supreme Court decision is…
Will Antonin Scalia ever talk to John Roberts again?
I can’t even imagine how many Winger celebrations today’s decision caused to be canceled.
But based on reporting (laughter) like the Fox News trash you’ve described above, maybe the celebrations can be turned into wakes and all that alcohol won’t be left unconsumed.
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
And a huge percentage of this country gets its news solely from these crazy fuckers. It’s utterly disturbing that they can go their entire adult lives in an alternate factual reality. I swear, if Rush Limbaugh and Fox News wanted to re-enact Hutu Power, millions of people would rush out to purchase machetes.
David Koch
BWHWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHHAHA
The teabaggers are calling for Roberts’ impeachment.
HA!
The Dangerman
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I may turn on O’Reilly at 5p (local); Dude was sure – I mean, SURE – that the ruling would be to overturn. The No-Spin spin should be staggering.
eric
i am not 100% sure, but i think they just voted roberts off the island.
Chris
@Johnny Gentle (famous crooner):
“””It’s utterly disturbing that they can go their entire adult lives in an alternate factual reality.”””
That’s what made the Soviets crash and burn – decades and decades of economic reports and everything else being falsified again and again so many times that in the end no one could find their way back to the truth no matter how hard they tried.
Culture of Truth
This is ridiculously inaccurate. Muslims will be exempt.
Tim F.
@Anonymous At Work: The dreams that you get after eating too many tacos.
eric
@Culture of Truth: Here is how it works: you have to tell your doctor if you own a gun and how many, so that your overall health and life expectancy can be evaluated. then, because the government has access to all medical records, the government will know who owns guns and how many guns they own. q.e.d.
NonyNony
@Triassic Sands:
Actually that would be a good result for Roberts and the rest of us. The man is never going to be a liberal vote, but if the only people at work who speak with him are Kagan, Sotomayor and Ginsberg, the man might actually moderate his votes a bit.
I’ve heard lore that this sort of thing is not unheard of in Courts of the past (yet another way High School “politics” prepares you for life, I suppose).
ETA:
@David Koch:
Link please? I believe it, but I’d like to see it. Preferably somewhere that isn’t a total swamppit…
JPL
@David Koch: I have a lot of respect for your posts but you are wrong on this one..
YES WE DID
beltane
@eric: Roberts may have looked around at the other people on the island and then decided to get in a canoe and paddle away as fast as he could. No one with any vestige of sanity would want to remain on that particular island.
Valdivia
@David Koch:
four more years! :D
MikeJ
@David Koch:
I wholeheartedly support this. Let’s replace him with Bill Clinton.
El Cid
The purpose of the Fast and Furious program was to give taxpayer-subsidized guns to Mexican drug cartels so that they could enter the country with Eric Holder’s help and kill people who don’t pay their health insurance mandate.
I think he should be held in contempt for not turning over any papers which prove the aforesaid to be true.
David Koch
Screen Shot of FixXed news literally freaking out
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0g7O8Figroesb/610x.jpg
eric
I think it is clear that Obambi got to Roberts as evidenced that Roberts was going to write the majority opinion, but mysteriously changed his vote. that is why scalia is so mad, and being a man of honor and tradition, scalia wont talk out of school on the “getting to” roberts by the marxist-fascist obambi.
wow, this is easy and fun….
Valdivia
@Valdivia:
tomorrow I am wearing my ACA A Big Fucking Deal T-Shirt!
ericblair
@David Koch:
I hope the cuckoo bananas gooper House takes them seriously. That’s a door we’d like opened.
eric
@El Cid: yeah babee…see, we can all do this. I think what you are forgetting is that once the Nafta super highway is built we will be paying for mexicans to get canadian style health care.
MattR
I am finally getting a chance to surf and I need help with this Medicaid expansion ruling. If I understand correctly, they ruled that while Congress has the right to attach conditions to federal funds, the Medicaid legislation went too far because it threatened to take away existing funds if the states did not accept the new rules. Is that pretty much it? If that is the case, does that mean that Congress can never add new conditions to existing federal funds? Not that there are the votes for it, but could Congress get around that by killing Medicaid completely and creating a new program to take its place that includes the new rules?
jonas
Maybe there should have been a mechanism in the ACA (called the “Gone Galt Asshole Provision”) to allow people to opt out of the mandate and not carry insurance, but that would exempt any paramedic, doctor or hospital from liability for refusing to treat them — even in an emergency — if they couldn’t show proof of ability to pay up front. Oh, and any medical debts they incurred could not be discharged in bankruptcy.
No freeloading, bitches!
Litlebritdifrnt
Ha Ha Ha Hannity calling Roberts an “activist judge”
JPL
@Valdivia: I had mine on Monday hoping the ruling would come down then.
Chad
Scott Tenorman’s tears taste so good
redshirt
Time to get Dick Armey’s Battalions of Grassroot Scooter Soldiers mobilized!
Litlebritdifrnt
Hannity “they have just handed Obama a huge political loss”
I am dying here, this is so funny.
JPL
@MattR: The Federal Government is willing to pay up to 90 percent to expand the coverage for the poor. States can refuse the additional money but still keep the original contract. They just won’t get extra funds. Southern states will probably refuse extra money for spite and they happen to like lines out the door of their emergency rooms.
Also,too ..Nancy Pelosi wants the federal government to cover the cost of the additional enrollees 100 percent ..and then let the assholes refuse that.
Culture of Truth
It would depend. Taking highway $$$ for not lowering the drinking age was ok, but this was an economic gun to the head of the states.
Ash Can
@Litlebritdifrnt: Lulz — the same justice who thought Citizens United was fine and dandy. So fickle.
Soonergrunt
So it’s a day that ends in ‘y’ then. Got it.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@NonyNony:
Highly unlikely. He’s on the court because he’s a corporatist and will defend bidness rights till the end timeez. The ACA is another potential windfall for the insurance companies so he voted the way his previous votes on such issues indicated he would.
And as two articles have pointed out:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/28/1103937/-A-dark-cloud-on-this-sunny-day-Roberts-Court-embraces-Constitution-in-Exile?detail=hide
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/scocca/2012/06/roberts_health_care_opinion_commerce_clause_the_real_reason_the_chief_justice_upheld_obamacare_.html
This vote is all about laying the groundwork to start assaulting the New Deal jurisprudence.
As an aside, the next time I hear somebody say that Kennedy is some kind of liberal, I’m gonna strangle them. This vote again demonstrates that he’s every bit as conservative as somebody like Fat Tony. He simply likes being that “deciding” vote on things. Read Jonathan Turley’s “The Nine” for some insight into Kennedy. At least with Fat Tony and Uncle Clarence, you know where you stand. Kennedy is far more insidious.
beltane
@Litlebritdifrnt: Yes, I’m 100% sure that if the decision had gone the other way Hannity would be saying it was a huge political win for Obama.
EconWatcher
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Personally, I have doubts about whether Hannity believes much of what he says. He strikes me as a pure used car salesman, who figured out he could make a lot more money slinging wingnut bull$#it than he could selling old Buicks with altered odometers.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@EconWatcher:
That pretty much describes Glenn Beck.
Valdivia
@JPL:
I am so happy that I decided to order it. Even if I did after Oral Arguments and thought it would be a piece of history if it went down. Now it’s part of the happy dance and spiking the football at the gym :)
EconWatcher
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Now, see, I think Glenn Beck is genuinely insane, whereas Hannity is just a mercenary. But I will concede that reasonable minds can differ on these judgments.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Well, well, well. First time Americans for
PovertyProsperity has called since the primary. Sure didn’t take Renee Ellmers long to sign up as spokesmodel for an anti-ACA rally and phone bank.NonyNony
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
I don’t doubt that, but that rarely puts him at odds with the Democratic appointees on the bench (who aren’t going to go out of their way to strip business rights either).
Let’s face it – we’ve got two pro-business parties in this country. One who spouts pro-business rhetoric and is good for business when they hold office and one who spouts pro-business rhetoric and are Republicans. Neither groups’ appointees to the Court are really “anti-business”.
Yes I know that this means in certain cases – notably environmental rights and any time the rights of an individual conflict with the rights of a business – Roberts will be on Team Repeal The Enlightenment. But what I’m saying is that are going to be cases where the “pro-business” interpretation is also the right interpretation, but may be an interpretation that Scalia doesn’t like. Those are the cases where being snubbed by the other 4 might keep Roberts out of wingnutland as he gets older and starts to care less about why he was appointed to the court in the first place.
trollhattan
@EconWatcher:
The pre-interview video a couple months ago of Hannity and Willard chatting horses and other rich-people shit was a real tell.
I do think he’s dumb as a rock but that doesn’t mean he’s not mostly spitting out programmed
talkingyelling points when on air. What he is, is a rich media guy, you know, just like those liebrul Hollywood types he’s always attacking.Roger Moore
@MikeJ:
Brilliant plan. After Scalia’s and Thomas’s heart attacks, we’ll have space for two more appointments!
Redshift
Over at Maddowblog, they refer to the pattern of describing things they’re against in the scariest term possible as “Infoxification.” There are periodic contests to take a garden-variety news article and write an Infoxified headline for it, and some of them are pretty funny. The performances in this thread are better, though!
MattR
@JPL:
Right. This is the result of the ruling. But I don’t understand the logic behind it. Why exactly could Congress not force the states to expand their program or get zero Medicaid dollars from the federal government?
Barry
“Another change that will eventually go into effect is the government’s ability to seize your medical records.”
Already done. See ‘Patriot Act’.
NCSteve
@Chris: About that “this is why the USSR fell” thing? That’s a statement so beautiful in both its truth and its brevity, I’m stealing it.
@MattR: re the Medicaid ruling–they held that Congress could withhold new funding if they didn’t participate in the expansion, but not the old funding, basically salvaging the Medicaid expansion by making it voluntary rather than mandatory.
Longer term, the decision could be a problem. Doing precisely this, fore example–threatening to cut off highway funds–is how Congress got some of the loony west “Freedum! Wolverieeeeenes!” states to raise the drinking age to 21. However, given that Kagan and Breyer signed on to that part, I expect a lot of litigation in the future over whether a new condition is so totally rad that it’s “truly coercive” to make states do it if they want their money rather than a blanket rule that any new condition for continued funding an existing program is ipso facto impermissible as coercive. Certainly, they can’t be saying that once the feds turn the money spigot on, they can never turn it off.
Tonal Crow
@Barry:
But but but but but that’s to keep terrerists and lieberals from infiltratin’ owr precious precious oh my precious bodily flu-ids!
Triassic Sands
@NonyNony:
Yes, but imagine how mortified Roberts will be if the greatest legal mind in the history of legal minds (in his own mind at least) won’t talk to him.
Imagine how you’d feel in Socrates refused to talk to you. Why it would be like Martin Luther being snubbed by Jesus.
Seriously, it would be great if there were a serious personal split on the
conservativeradical side. But I doubt if Kennedy would hold a personal grudge against Roberts because of this decision. After all, Kennedy has filled that role a number of times. Alito? He’s a partisan hack, but would he ignore the Chief? I doubt it. Thomas? I don’t know, does he ever talk to anyone under any circumstances? (I guess he must talk to his clerks; unless he communicates with notes or grunts and scowls.)Scalia is the Bully. He’s the guy with the runaway ego; the guy who expects the others to follow his lead because of his radiant brilliance. I view Scalia as a petty, small-minded shit. If he would refuse to talk to me, I would consider it a reason to party.
Culture of Truth
@MattR: Because when Medicaid was established it created a binding contract betwen the states and the government, and Congress can’t use its spending power to make states act, that is, coerce them, in a way Congress could not without the spending power.
Redshift
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
I agree that being a pure corporatist explains why he voted to uphold the mandate, but I don’t think it explains the whole decision. Striking down the whole thing (including the premium-ratio restrictions) would have arguably been better for the insurance companies, and he had four justices who were willing to kill it all basically just because they didn’t like it.
So I think there’s something to the image and legacy argument. It may have limited his willingness to be a complete hack, and once that was out, to be corporatist, the mandate had to stay.
EconWatcher
By the way, you know who would make great drinking buddies? Sean Hannity and John Edwards.
I had the same visceral reaction to both of those guys the first time I saw each of them. For each, I thought: Isn’t it completely obvious to everyone that that this guy’s a fraud and an a$$#ole?
Sawgrass Stan
Fox News was on in my doctor’s office this afternoon, with one statement of Repub outrage after another crawling on the bottom. “Balance” was served by quoting Harry Reid, but that was it.
The best part was the commentary, with guest experts Michael Mukasey (sp?) and Guido Corleo… uh Alberto Gonzales. No Democrats or former Democrat AG’s but Megan Kelly defended the liberal viewpoint. Well, probably– the sound was turned down.
Fair Unbalanced.
rlrr
@ericblair:
And if successful, Obama gets to nominate the new Chief Justice. I don’t think the tea-baggers have thought this through…
Punchy
@David Koch: Link?
JGabriel
__
__
Buzzfeed:
Defending poor & helpless children is anti-Conservative. I knew that, I just didn’t know conservatives were so willing to admit it.
I keep wondering when the day will come that some Conservative/Republican pundit attacks someone for defending puppies from being kicked.
.
Steve in DC
@Triassic Sands:
Roberts actually did a TON of fucking damage to the left here though. It’s in the wording, he went directly after the commerce clause and rolled it back fairly well, that’s extremely dangerous. Keep in mind that Roberts and many of the other smart conservatives are all about playing the long game.
Is Alito going to be furious about losing the battle and ignore the devastating blow struck against the left via the commerce clause? Who the fuck knows.
Brachiator
@Chris:
Fixed.
elftx
In some respects this law seems to regulate the insurance companies..not unlike other regulations.
Just too bad they never declared themselves banks.
And comments even on Calculated Risk are surprising to me..all “goodbye 10th amendment”…”there goes more of our freedoms”…from people I thought had a clue.
beltane
@JGabriel:
This happened in Missouri already. The wingnuts opposed a anti-puppy mill law on the grounds that it was an attack on their freedom to mistreat animals.
Also, for your schadenfreude pleasure, here is a collection of quotes from today’s wingnut meltdown http://wonkette.com/476764/a-childrens-treasury-of-wingnut-obamacare-freakouts
Redshift
@MattR: I don’t understand it either. There was some wingnut “think” tank guy on NPR yesterday, explaining that yes, the federal government can have rules for what you do with the money they give states, if it’s such a big thing that the states effectively have “no choice,” and the feds are “blackmailing” them, then it shouldn’t be allowed. And he went on to talk about how Medicaid was so big that a state taking it over would cripple the state budget, so they really didn’t have any choice.
It was completely nonsensical. The entire argument rested on the idea that the states really have no choice but to provide an equivalent to Medicaid, so they have no choice but to take Medicaid money, but if they would have to implement Medicaid anyway, then by any sane logic the federal rules aren’t forcing them to implement it. And if they don’t have to implement it (i.e., if they can just opt out and be a conservative paradise where poor people just died in the streets), then the argument that they have no choice is obviously false.
Needless to say, the NPR host was not so impolite as to even notice that the emperor had no clothes.
Mike in NC
Again, Arizona. WTF is in the water?
chopper
@Steve in DC:
not really. despite the fact that the majority opinion on the commerce clause is dicta, it certainly is laying the groundwork for challenges against an overly-broad scope regarding the clause. OTOH, the majority arguments limiting the clause really do focus on the fact that the mandate, under the commerce clause, would be a regulation of a non-activity which apparently was a bridge too far.
this opinion doesn’t limit the commerce clause as much as everyone seems to think it does.
NonyNony
@rlrr:
Please. For them calling for “impeachment” of an official is like calling a law “unconstitutional”. It doesn’t mean that there’s any real reason for it, it just means “I don’t like it therefore it should be illegal.”
I’m sure they’re calling for his impeachment, but I doubt anyone has anything to actually charge him with – they just want to vent their anger.
EconWatcher
@elftx:
I haven’t spent a lot of time in the comments section of Calculated Risk, but the general tone there seemed to be set by greedy, glibertarian trader types. Now Bill McBride, the owner of the site, seems like a fine, courtly, public-spirited gentleman. But his commenters strike me as mostly rapacious rogues, who nevertheless do have some respect for facts and reality (unlike true wignnuts).
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Redshift:
That was pretty much Charlie Pierce’s take on it, ie., a Chief Justice can only “afford” one ‘Dred Scott’ decision per tenure as Chief Justice and that type of decision in this case was Citizens United. I fear Charlie underestimates the damage this court can do.
Anyway, in an interesting “what if”, I wonder how the vote would have gone had O’Connor still been on the Court. Would Roberts have still been swayed by the “tax reason”? Would Sandra Baby have sided with the “liberal” wing? I think it wouldn’t have been the close run thing.
Steve in DC
@JGabriel:
It’s just generic welfare rage. There is a certain wingnut view where welfare pays more than actually working would and thus lazy people sit on their ass and pump out kids to suck money from the government and raise their kids to do the same.
Now this does actually happen, but the reason it happens is because of conservative/neoliberal economic policies keep driving down the payment for labor intensive jobs to the point where you can’t actually support yourself off the minimum wage without government assistance and the utter destruction of low skilled jobs.
You’d get people off the government dole if you actually you know… paid people a living wage and reduced income inequality… but of course it’s always “damn it I have a graduate degree I should be rewarded for it, that janitor bastard had his chance we should pay him less so I can be paid more”.
We’re getting closer and closer to Victorian England where beating up on the poor was a national past time.
MattR
@Culture of Truth: Is that binding contract something unique to Medicaid?
I understand the argument against coercion, I just don’t understand how/where they draw the line. Why was it constitutional to cut highway funds for any state that did not raise the drinking age to 21 but unconstitutional to cut Medicaid funds to states who opposed the exapnsion? Is there a magic percentage where it converts from pressure to coercion?
Culture of Truth
Yes but the ACA expands Medicaid, and forces states to go along or risk losing ALL their funding.
Culture of Truth
@MattR: Here is your answer regarding magic %
“We have no need to fix a line either. It is enough for today that wherever that line may be, this statute is surely beyond it.”
flukebucket
Commenter over at TPM makes a good point
Obama is a gutsy fucker.
Steve in DC
@Culture of Truth:
Pretty sure they ruled that it doesn’t do that now. They can lose the new funding, but not the old funding.
MattR
@Culture of Truth: Thanks.
@J. Michael Neal:
Surely you jest. They would never do that.
J. Michael Neal
@MattR: I’d have to do more research than I intend to to actually know whether this is true, but one I can think of that it would be possible is if highway funds explicitly have to be renewed. Is it a continuing program, or is each transportation bill considered to be a new instance of providing highway funds? If it’s the latter, making acceptance contingent on accepting new rules might not invalidate the prior contract.
Or the justices could just be pulling things from their ass.
SatanicPanic
@flukebucket: I don’t want to jinx the guy, but the more I see of him the more impressive he looks. Best president of my lifetime by far.
Bulworth
Massive national medical database….jail for not having insurance….massive tax hikes on middle class….IRS….DERP….Somebody else will get coverage now….Medicare cuts…costs going up…DERP…
General Stuck
The sweet taste of wingnut tears
[quote]@sarahpalinusa Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor Obama lied to the American people. Again. He said it wasn’t a tax. Obama lies; freedom dies. [/quote]
James E. Powell
The volume and temperature of the right-wing responses tell me that they did not expect to lose this one. I wonder why they were so confident?
JPL
@MattR: Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Roberts is trying to limit social welfare so we have to hope that a conservative goes hunting with Cheney and also, too Obama wins.
JPL
@MattR: Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Roberts is trying to limit social welfare so we have to hope that a conservative goes hunting with Cheney and also, too Obama wins.
Brachiator
@NonyNony:
And, as always, Mitt Romney just can’t help but stumble over his own past fumbles. From a yahoo news story.
Can we pre-impeach Romney, just in case he somehow gets elected?
This story also notes that the angry, energized wingnut base are reaching into their wallets:
Organic campaign funds. Who knew?
SatanicPanic
@James E. Powell: FOX News!
Roger Moore
@James E. Powell:
Because they thought they had stacked the deck adequately. Also, too, they thought bragging about how badly this was going to hurt the Democrats would win them a few news cycles, while forgetting how much it would hurt them if their predictions of victory didn’t come through.
Chris
@James E. Powell:
“””The volume and temperature of the right-wing responses tell me that they did not expect to lose this one. I wonder why they were so confident?”””
For whatever reason, the buzz out of the media for the last few weeks has been that this was definitely the end of health care, so I’m sure that helped.
jurassicpork
The wingnut reactions today on the SCOTUS’s ACA ruling were so, well, fast and furious that it inspired me to write my first Assclowns of the Week in almost a year. Actually, there were so many candidates to choose from, it’s been renamed Assclowns of the Day #89: Keep Your Gubmint Hands off My High Pre’mums and Deductible! edition.
General Stuck
“As president, Mitt will nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts…”
— MittRomney.com, as found by Andrew Sullivan.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/06/28/extra_bonus_quote_of_the_day.html
ericblair
@James E. Powell:
Because they’ve constructed a large, highly efficient, impermeable echo chamber that amplifies and distributes any sort of half-assed brainfart in the wingerdome as long as it conforms to whatever passes for acceptable discourse that day. Some asshole made some shit up about knowing what SCOTUS was going to do, it conformed to winger prejudices, so was bounced around the gooposphere as received wisdom. Now they got their toy taken away and They Won’t. Stand. For. It.
Culture of Truth
@Steve in DC: Yes, as of today.
joes527
@NonyNony: Where are you going to hear the cries of the ‘baggers somewhere that isn’t a total swamppit?
flukebucket
@SatanicPanic:
Without a doubt. I agree. And Eisenhower was running things when I got here.
I just started rereading “Dreams From My Father” and it is such a wonderful book. So well written and so enlightening. I laughed out loud when I realized the Obama makes mention of his birth certificate in the first chapter.
It makes me sad that more people have not read the book. Anybody who reads that book and comes away with the idea that Obama was going govern any differently than he is governing is beyond me.
Arclite
Is it possible they will create a defacto rescission through high premiums? “OH, you have cancer I see. You’re monthly fee is $3000 / month”
Redshift
@Culture of Truth:
Well, from the way this guy was talking, he seemed to indicate that it was some kind of general wingnut principle, not just about this specific case.
But even so, I don’t see how that makes it make any more sense. If losing existing Medicaid funding was the unacceptable trigger, you could just as well argue that the feds can’t put any additional rules on Medicaid, because they would be “forcing” the states to accept them with the threat of losing their Medicaid funding.
The fact is, the states are never forced; they always have the choice of refusing the federal money and not implementing the programs it funds. It may be really bad for the state, or it may be politically impossible, but that’s not the same thing as having no choice at all.
I’ll have to look up some legal analysis, because I don’t see any way this makes any sense, but since it wasn’t a Scalia opinion, there must be some legal basis for it.
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
“””Best president of my lifetime by far.”””
I’ve got a short lifetime (1987 – present), but I’d have to agree. Not that there’s much competition, only from Clinton.
@flukebucket:
“””And Eisenhower was running things when I got here.”””
Going off of your lifetime, I think I’d probably give LBJ the medal – Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid is more than we’d gotten at any time since Roosevelt and more than we’ve had since. Of course, he had a different political system to work with, and it’s always hard to know exactly how much credit goes to the president.
But anyway, bottom line – Obama => good president. I agree.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in DC: No, really, he didn’t. As noted above, it was dicta. Also, it isn’t really a surprise to anyone that the Justices on the right have a less expansive view of the Commerce Clause than the others. Roberts talked about the fact that the CC gives very broad powers to Congress and did not challenge that authority. He cited Wickard and suggested that it was about as far as one could legitimately go. IOW, nice try at fearmongering.
EconWatcher
@Chris:
Unfortunately, 55,000 dead Americans and about a million dead Vietnamese hang over the legacy of Johnson. Obama will go down better in history than LBJ, despite LBJ’s enormous achievements in civil rights. [Yes, I realize that some of these deaths were under Nixon, but Johnson got us in good and deep, to the point where it would have been difficult for any president to extricate quickly.]
JGabriel
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Via Wonkette, this comment on Romney’s response to the SC PPACA decision from RedState is priceless:
Yes, imagine (JGabriel stares off into space as screen turns wavy and morphs into Rick Perry at a podium):
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EconWatcher
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, I’m amused by the efforts of some concern trolls to find a dark cloud here. This was as clear a win as could be imagined or hoped for.
Some musings in dicta about the limits of the Commerce Clause don’t matter. The only reason the commerce clause even came into play was because the bill’s drafters wanted to avoid the word “tax,” when they were obviously creating an obviously permissible tax (and a potential credit).
The resulting bill actually was kind of funky as an application of the commerce clause, and was distinguishable from most New Deal and Great Society legislation that rest on the commerce power rather than the taxing power. So I don’t see any big danger for existing legislation
katie5
My wing-nut friend went crazy today, hating on all branches of government and spinning apocalyptic outcomes.
Valdivia
@EconWatcher:
Exactly! can we just take the win and be happy?
Winners look like winners no matter what CNN says. This is not good news for Romney.
SatanicPanic
@flukebucket: That book was a great read. He comes off as really smart, really thoughtful. I’m still surprised at how well he’s done his job though. He’s really driving the agenda in a way that a guy like Clinton never did.
JGabriel
EconWatcher:
Yeah, I don’t really see how the so-called limits on the Commerce Clause have any precedential value going forward. I could be wrong, I’m not a lawyer, but it looks too damn narrow to be useful for future citing.
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piratedan
I’m guessing this is a real good time to re-purpose those America, Love it or leave it! bumper stickers
chopper
@flukebucket:
whereas mittens is a goatsey fucker.
stratplayer
@Omnes Omnibus: I concur, and I’m starting to get a bit annoyed with all the doomsayers determined to find defeat in this great victory. If Roberts really wanted to completely gut the Commerce Clause power and restore Lochner he’d have gone for the kill in this instance. He had the chance to destroy the Commerce Clause and get rid of the hated ACA in one fell swoop, and refused to take it. His ruling was conservative in the best sense of the word.
dr. bloor
@EconWatcher: Basically way too soon to make the call. Obama figures to have plenty of opportunities to screw up foreign policy and extend his record on individual liberties during a second term.
bemused
Media Matters has video of O’Reilly saying last March if he was wrong about ADA being overturned, he would apologize. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Villago Delenda Est
@bemused:
O’Reilly is a dishonorable cur. There’s no way he’d apologize for anything like that. There are too many examples in the past where his powers of clairvoyance have been found to be, um, UTTER FAIL.
Jay in Oregon
@bemused:
I wouldn’t trust BillO to apologize even if he’d made that statement last night.
Sideshow Bill
@Triassic Sands:
You’re assuming they drink. Jesus didn’t drink any of that wine he made!!
OzoneR
If Obama would use the bully pulpit, Fox News wouldn’t lie.