Lily is very concerned that her single payer health care (me, god damnit) is now socialism
The Republicans are demoralized, Roberts is now a dirty word in GOP circles, and they know there is no chance they will ever repeal what happened today. And while I know that, and I have still spent the whole day focusing on the radicalism of the four who ruled against ACA (with Roberts agreeing all the way up until the very end), the most important takeaway politically from what happened today is that the wingnuts lost. Not only did they lose, but they are crestfallen, demoralized, and there are bound to be recriminations and internal discord that can be used to our advantage politically. In one fell swoop, John Roberts ripped away all their socialism bullshit. The ACA is now the law of the land, it was upheld, and regardless of whether you wanted single payer or the mandate to buy private insurance, conservatives lost and will never repeal this.
They are now in disarray. Half of them feel betrayed by Roberts, the other half feel betrayed by life in general. The message for liberals should not be to move on from this victory, but to press the advantage. Obviously, Obama wants to move on and talk about jobs and the economy, but for those of us in the rank and file, this decision is an unlimited ammo dump. Keep pressing the advantage, keep talking about the benefits that consumers will experience under the law, keep mocking the “socialism” and “unconstitutional” claims, and keep moving forward. Remember, this is easy turf. A couple years ago Republicans were arguing that crushing a child’s testicles was constitutional. Now they want to argue that denying your child health care when he has leukemia is constitutional. Go in for the fucking kill, liberals.
For once in your god damned lives, put aside your fucking stupid beliefs about purity and how the public option was the bestest thing since sliced bread, accept the massive, game-changing victory you got today, and use it as a god damned bludgeon against the troglodytes whose health care plans are modeled after Ebeneezer Scrooge. For once, focus your bloodlust on Republicans instead of the DLC/Firebaggers/ANYONE WITHOUT AN (R) AFTER THEIR NAME. I’m begging you.
For once in your lives turn a win into a win, just like the Republicans were able to do when I was a wingnut (and half the time they were able to turn a loss into a win). Don’t argue amongst yourselves about what would have been better- smash the Republicans around the head and neck with the cudgel you have been given. We’re not debating which Democratic plan would have been better, we’re debating the reality of what we have now versus the 18th century version of what Republicans would replace it with.
Again, as a former wingnut and lifelong Republican until 2006 or 2007, I am fucking begging- treat a win like a win and use it to your advantage. The most depressing thing about becoming a Democrat after being a Republican for so many years is just watching Democrats shit the bed whenever they win. Press the fucking advantage.
Please?
John +6
jc
Good post John – stick it to ’em!
satanicpanic
John Cole drunk and fired up is like the incredible Hulk of bloggers. Fuck yeah! +3
gwangung
Am still puzzled. On two things.
A) How does this plan EVER prevent the public option from coming into existence.
B) Given the history of government health care in other countries, why would anyone EVER think the public option would be impossible?
Yutsano
What the wingnuts don’t realize is that the game is now over. With ACA upheld, Vermont can complete its single-payer plan. More states will follow, and the pressure will mount for a national scheme. We just sit back and watch the pieces fall into place.
Oh and LILYPUPPEH!!
ShadeTail
What makes me boggle is that it would be so damned easy. This isn’t rocket science, it’s just playground taunting taken up to the next level.
Why do so many people on my side of the political divide fail to understand that? Just keep pushing the politics-equivalent of jeering and name calling right down their throats. Make them choke on it and force them to get angry, and enjoy it when they do. And don’t apologize when the teacher’s pet tattle tale (i.e. the media) starts concern trolling you about it.
dead existentialist
Argle blragal. (Shit, I can’t even type nonsense.) +3 & 2 hits. W00T!
MoeLarryAndJesus
Just remember that Repiglicans bear the same relationship to humans that orcs bore to elves in “The Lord of the Rings” and proceed accordingly.
TooManyJens
Hear fucking hear.
Fuckers think that any policy that’s not conservative is automatically illegitimate and un-American. If they lose, it can only be because democracy itself has been betrayed. Fuck that bullshit. I’m done hearing it. Liberals are every bit as American as they are, and we won this one because their ideas SUCK.
cthulhu
I want some of what you are drinking…
jl
OK. I will never disagree with the plus 6 Cole.
But I suggested in earlier thread that BJers tell all their wingparty teanut friends that they are applying for death panel jobs.
Think that would be a good way to open up a thoughtful discussion?
jl
And Lily obviously asking Cole, in her doggy way, when they are leaving for
Canada, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Netherlands, Taiwan…. someplace anyplace to escape the coming horror and end of FREEDOM.Steve
The reason why liberals are not as good at this part of the game as conservatives is that liberals are less inclined, on the whole, to be bullies.
Steeplejack
COLE +6 SMASH!
LT
Well fuck my noodle pudding, who’s a lecturing bunny tonight?
I fucking hate everything about everything, but jesus – I’m so happy today I can hardly shit. It’s not hard to want a better fucking program – I live in Australia, so too fucking bad for you fuckers! – and still see the mountain of win in this. Sheesh.
You’re looking for trouble. John Cole. Troublelooker.
freelancer
@Steeplejack:
That’s his secret, he’s always angry.
JustAnotherBob
@gwangung:
The public option is always possible.
If the competition built into the ACA doesn’t cause rates to trim down then we can add some non-profit competition via a public option.
Ash Can
@Yutsano: “What the wingnuts don’t realize is that the game is now over.”
Actually, I think they do realize it. Which is why so many of them are completely round the bend at this point (and the ones who were already round the bend are now unable to pronounce their own names and count to three).
PS: Hey, Cole, has Tunch horked up the goddamned edit buttons yet?
LT
As proof to my fucked pudding – even the Firebagers are playing paddycake with the O.
http://firedoglake.com/2012/06/28/eleventy-dimensional-chess/
AA+ Bonds
Capitalists can all eat my shit
rollotomasi
Not only is it not impossible, it is inevitable. THe ACA decision today is a very solid win and it is a stepping stone to a more streamlined , cost-effective healthcare system.
In about 6 years the profit motives for health insurance will start to become an after thought. Consumer pressure will be a driver but also the HMOs themselves will start to either a) go out of business or b) merge with others to remain competetitve . HMOs will be competing with expansion of medicaid and the state healthexchanges. VT Senator Sanders has been trying to broaden the outreach of community health clinics. Finally I see medicare itself expanding to ages 50 + , then 45 + etc in 10-15 years.
HMOs are history .
GregB
My phone conversation with a wing nut ended up with him screaming fuck you and hanging up.
Not the actions of a winner.
My other wingnut co-worker who was certain that Obama could never win election is now ranting about how Romney is teed up to win.
Fucking losers.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Madonna lyrics now? You monster!
On another subject, here is another thing I like about the PPACA, and something that the haters and wingnuts can go fuck themselves over.
jl
@Yutsano:
Yes. In five years, no one will allow the thing to be repealed. The system will be incrementally improved, because people will demand it.
Now, for awhile, can turn attention to defending Social Security.
MikeJ
@GregB:
One of the things I like most about Obama is that he knows the secret you know: keeping your cool and having a smile while your enemies are going apeshit is infinitely satisfying.
LT
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Are we supposed to know what the fuck that blurry thing was?
danimal
Cole +6 is the blogging Babe Ruth, stumbling up to the plate, drunk and bleary-eyed and then knocking the snot out of the ball as it clears the fences.
Damn, I think we need to get this man a sixer every night.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@LT: Yes, you are. It’s a Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan card, which I got from the state of California, under the PPACA. You might not recognize “PCIP”, being in Australia and all.
jl
@LT:
And what the heck is up with Australia? They drink and smoke and eat damn near like USers do.
And health measures in Australia have zoomed. Lie expectancy, healthy years, reduction in loss of potential life to preventable disease. An awesome performance.
Using a Medicare for all program.
The US would be lucky if it could ever develop a program like that.
And the Aussies are so damned ornery (I have the pleasure of working with a couple of them). How did they do it?
The prophet Nostradumbass
More on PCIP, for the terminally clueless: Federal, California.
gwangung
@JustAnotherBob:
So.
Now, why are progressives supposed to be betrayed or depressed? Does Obamacare make it more possible or less possible?
Have yet to hear a straight answer over the last two years AND THAT PISSES ME OFF.
freelancer
@LT:
Wow. That was something to see. (The commenters still need their pony though.)
MikeJ
@The prophet Nostradumbass: It looks as if it says PCP with California in the middle of it. Frankly I’m against handing out PCP even with government backing. Perhaps especially with government backing.
LT
@The prophet Nostradumbass: You get a special card for that? I find that odd. Why not just insurance like everyone else?
dance around in your bones
I’m happy about the SC decision today.
Therefore I have ignored all coverage (except for here at BJ) and instead have fallen into a YouTube abyss that has taken me from Leonard Cohen to The Roches to The Waitresses to X…..I am feeling rather
goodfabuloso at the moment.DAIYB +3 (or 4)
eta: Saw all of them save Cohen in small clubs in SoCal back in the day….
The prophet Nostradumbass
@LT: It is insurance. Most health plans give you a card you can show when you go to the clinic or hospital. That’s why the word “Insurance” is in the name of it.
@MikeJ: Go fuck yourself.
Canuckistani Tom
You guys should watch some parliamentary TV (when its in session), just to see how it’s really done.
http://www.cpac.ca
AA+ Bonds
@gwangung:
Because in the back of their minds they always know they are cowards for pretending to like capitalism, until they admit that they don’t (or don’t).
It’s why a lot of people are depressed, because they feel they aren’t supposed to be betrayed.
It is violent abuse and exploitation, of their families, in their own homes.
LT
@jl: They’re drinker, less-smoker (from what I’ve seen) crazy, but socialist commies like their big sisters, the UK. They’re followers, too, which is rude – but true. (They even have a Tea Party imbecile in Tony Abbot as Oppo leader. Fuck me.)
RaflW
I need to get to bed, but I think a bit o’ money to the Obama tip jar will be happening in the morning. Glad DougJ put up another reminder earlier today. I’ll look for it in about 7 hours…
eponymous coward
You know what? Everybody loves the Big Dog’s political skills, but looky who actually pushed health care across the finish line. Oh, and knocked off Bin Laden. All during an economic crisis that made 1991-92 look like a Sunday School picnic.
Especially considering that the Big Dog fucked up his presidency bigtime by not keeping his dick in his pants, regardless of what happens in November… we’re looking at the best Democratic president since LBJ, and if he gets another term and ends up with a Democratic Congress, we’re doing pretty well.
And I think that Obama WILL play this one to win. Oh, and imagine if he gets to appoint Scalia’s replacement…
LT
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Yes, I get that, but those of us without Pre-Existings would not have that card, is all Im saying.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Canuckistani Tom: Watching the Irish parliament can be entertaining; they put it on C-SPAN sometimes, especially when they’re dealing with the Catholic child-abuse scandal.
David Koch
MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH
http://www.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/29/nytfrontpage/scan.jpg
I love the smell of headlines in the morning.
That smell! That ink on paper smell!
Smells like victory.
RaflW
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
I’m reading MikeJ as snark-pun. PCP a.k.a. Angel Dust.
G’night, kids, don’t you all make noise while we’re sleepin, alright?
2liberal
OT but VERY important. I just bought Serious Sam Second Encounter HD. When i login there are several options such as South America , Persia Midieval however those are all not active links. The only active link is Palenque Demo.
Did anyone else here buy this game? And if so please explain that interface to me.
danimal
@LT: Firebaggers echoing Sullivan is as sure a sign of the apocalypse as we will ever get.
Meep, meep, mofos!
ETA: Read the link. The mofos are the Wile E. Conservatives, super geniuses–not picking on firebaggers…tonight.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@LT: Before the PPACA, people who are not employed, and have pre-existing conditions, wouldn’t be able to get insurance of any kind, for any price. That is the improvement.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@RaflW: Oh, I knew that, I’m just kind of pissed off about the general stupidity about some of this stuff.
Ash Can
@The prophet Nostradumbass: “Go fuck yourself.”
Even on a happy night here, it only takes 35 comments for fisticuffs to break out, chairs to start smashing against walls, and tables to start crashing through the front windows. Damn, I love this blog.
David Koch
but, but, but Mark Halperin and Matt Yglesias tell me this is Great News for McCain!
MikeJ
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I’m not the one that took a picture with a potato.
jl
@LT:
And looks like Aussies are getting fat like US, from data I’ve seen.
And they are ‘drinker’, though slightly less smoker.
You ‘drink’ tonight? Celebrating like Cole?
LT
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Good god, man – I do know that. I just was not aware that allowing people with PECs to get insurance meant they were put in a different category – as implied by the card – I thought they were just able to get insurance.
But forget it. It’s a dumb question. I get what you’re saying, and Hell Fucking Yes to it.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@MikeJ: Fuck off.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@LT: No problem :-).
jl
@LT:
The US system is still a mess compared to, oh, I dunno, 22 or so other high and middle income industrialized countries.
Baby steps, baby steps. We are finally going in the right direction.
LT
@jl: Heh – it’s 4PM. One beer so far. And yes it’s like America, disappointingly so in a lot of ways. A bunch of unnecessarily fat fuckers eating complete shit at the mall. (I actually go to a mall somewhat regularly, as my wife works at one.)
The prophet Nostradumbass
@LT: I wasn’t allowed to edit my last comment to you, so I’ll add it here. As far as the clinic is concerned, they enter the numbers on the card, and it’s the same as any other insurance.
Citizen_X
@Ash Can:
It means we’re in a good mood!
LT
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Gotcha. (And I am now a happy follower of yours on the Twitter machine.)
David Koch
I hear ya.
radicalism, naked politicization, and pure hackery.
If the bill was passed by a republican president and congress not a single republican justice would have voted against it. Hell, they probably wouldn’t have even taken the case, the legal precedents were so clear and voluminous.
Bill
I was with you until you started taking a brickbat to liberals. On a day like this, with the far Right breaking out the double fainting couch, was that really necessary? Was it productive to engage in ad hominem attacks on people who want better health care reform?
Yutsano
@LT: As a dear Aussie friend of mine put, welcome to the 20th Century America.
Midnight Marauder
Do it for General Sherman.
Let’s finish the job and burn everything these Confederate pieces of trash care about to the fucking ground.
@Bill:
If there’s any group that needs a constant reminder to toughen the fuck up, it’s liberals.
They are some of the softest people alive. Even the slightest whiff of a possible defeat is enough to send them into full-fledged cowering mode.
And I say that as a lifelong liberal who is continually disgusted by the lack of fortitude of people who are supposed to be on my team.
LT
@Yutsano: Weird how right that is.
jl
Life expectancy
birth
men
Aussie: 80
US: 77
women
Aussie: 84
US: 81
65
men
Aussie: 22
US: 20
women
Aussie: 19
US: 18
Edit: Behold your future, USians, and shake with fear.
amk
quitcher bitching cole. At least for a day.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@LT: I am following you now as well.
SarahT
What John Cole said – Hell to the yeah ! (Ok, i am very white, ok ? Deal with it. Or dont. Whatev.)
amk
The 10 Most Hilariously Unhinged Right-Wing Reactions to the Obamacare Ruling
AA+ Bonds
What will liberals press the victory to? Will they rub it up against something? Obama 2012 = universal health care, is that the plan?
Chris Grrr™
@Midnight Marauder: Fookin’ A.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@AA+ Bonds: It should be, “This is a stepping stone to universal coverage”, with single payer the eventual goal.
AA+ Bonds
Will liberalism show its tits to get into the Marcy Playground concert? Would liberalism do it for Marcy Playground themselves?
Notmax
Decry opponents’ tactics and strategies.
Adopt opponents’ tactics and strategies.
Denounce opponents’ tactics and strategies.
Use opponents’ tactics and strategies.
Expose opponents’ tactics and strategies.
Embrace opponents’ tactics and strategies.
That’s more like the platform of the Whiplash Party.
Sorry, I don’t do polemical lockstep, and still place value on independent cogitation.
Elias
@Bill: Yes, Bill, yes. Our side just won a major victory. For once please ignore your penchant for squabbling with liberals and beat up the cons.
AA+ Bonds
Socialized medicine is the only sane goal.
Everything else is Stockholm syndrome.
cthulhu
@eponymous coward: He doesn’t always look it but Scalia’s 76 so he’s of the age that things could go south rather suddenly. Moreover, there’s plenty of indication in today’s ruling that we absolutely cannot afford anything but a Dem President for the lifespans of several members of SCOTUS.
But, I’m now slightly more inclined to expect a 6-3 ruling on either DOMA or Prop 8 (especially Prop 8 – hell they might not even take it).
AA+ Bonds
By the way, in 1999, the FBI estimated Stockholm syndrome in 27% of abductees.
Chris Andersen
I was talking with someone tonight who is an aide to a prominent Dem Senator. All he could do was go on and on about all the bad things in this decision (such as how it laid the foundation for reversing all sorts of New Deal legislation.)
I didn’t disagree with his assessment. But I asked him why it was so hard for a lot of Democrats to just celebrate a victory without almost immediately looking for the downside. He agreed with me, but continued to insist that it was important to consider the possibilities of what could happen in the future.
No matter how much I kept telling him to be “happy” about what happened today he was constitutionally incapable of not trying to find something negative to say about it.
AA+ Bonds
@eponymous coward:
This year certainly demonstrated what Obama and Clinton have in common: Obama helped pass three labor-opposed free trade agreements and labor-opposed securities deregulation.
David Koch
The Village has spent 7 years building up Roberts into some sort of blue-eyed burkean Solomon.
That he was the one to climb into the mother ship and plant the dynamite and pull the trigger is the stuff of Bruckheimer epics.
JustAnotherBob
@gwangung:
“Now, why are progressives supposed to be betrayed or depressed?”
I’ll be damned if I can figure out what a progressive is. I used to be one, but some alien creatures took over that label and have twisted into something that I don’t recognize.
Us old style progressives are joyous. Progress has been made.
We realize that almost never is perfection reached in a single step. Accept and improve.
“Does Obamacare make it more possible or less possible?”
Public option? Clearly more possible. Not necessarily more probable, but more possible.
Here’s the thing Congress will deal with down the road – COST.
At some point during the budget process folks are going to be looking at where our money is being spent. There will be a natural comparison between what private (Exchange) policies cost vs. Medicare. If the consensus is that private policies are putting a hurt on the budget then a private option will get a close look.
Without the ACA that look would not occur.
—
Do think about how competition brings down prices. Look at how cheap TVs, computers and all sorts of stuff has become.
Cheap and good quality.
With the ACA quality has been defined. No hiding stuff in the fine print, all that sort of crap. Policies have to be up to snuff.
Now the way insurance companies can make money is not by cutting customer health care. They must spend 75%/80%* of everything they take in on services. They must make money via volume.
That means that in order to attract and hold a lot of customers insurance companies will have to do two things:
1) Keep premiums competitive. Competition tends to drive prices down.
2) Keep customer satisfaction high. Unhappy customers walk.
With defined benefits the same for all policies and the sort of information technology we have these days we’ll tell each other which companies are treating their customers right.
Insurance companies are going to be working like hell to get treatment costs down while keeping customers well served.
TenguPhule
Step right up, step right up. One Cudgel per person, don’t push now son, step right up and be the first to whack a winger!
The prophet Nostradumbass
@TenguPhule: Your constant comments with violent fantasies are rather disturbing.
AA+ Bonds
I think you just read a blog that reads another blog that calls themselves that and that is what you are experiencing
gwangung
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
…but oddly satisfying.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’m thinking that this could be a good thing for Democrats. If the wingers shower Roberts with the same ‘love’ they shower anyone who isn’t one of them, Roberts just might sour on the current conservative ‘brand’. If that could influence his decisions in a way that favors progressive causes that come up before the court, he could become better liked on the left while poking the right in the eye for treating a Chief SC Justice like dirt.
I know, it’s a dream but it doesn’t hurt to do so. :)
Great post John. Once you get lubed up right and the mood has been set, you can really let a good one rip at the right time.
AA+ Bonds
I used to favor democracy. Then the Democrats showed up and MY ENTIRE BELIEF SYSTEM WAS THROWN INTO QUESTION. My Paul always within reach, I consulted and discovered that “classical democracy” involved a market-based system where industrious men were paid by the month’s end, that they might not withhold medicine from dying children. Eventually, the government demanded the right to enrich these men as well, if the impoverished masses could not; this was known as “reform” in the parlance of the day. Content, I donned my smoking jacket, and retired to the study with a liter of Diet Pepsi.
andy
The only thing to do is whip the Republicans bloody day after day. Every day somebody needs to be talking about those dirty pieces of shit- day after day after day until everybody is talking about how they are dirty pieces of shit.
Thirty years of their fucking framing ruining the country- it’s past time for a new frame. Once upon a time all this vile crap the GOP spouted was the province of the loud drunk at the end of the bar everybody avoided- it’s past time to return it to it’s proper place!
The prophet Nostradumbass
@gwangung: There’s a guy I used to see regularly on Bay Area local Usenet groups, who used to say, to many of the people he disagreed with, “You deserve to be killed”, or similar, and he meant it quite literally. Oh yeah, his name is “Tim May“. He is, or at least was, a fucking lunatic.
Alison
Not related to the post at all but oh well: hot damn, if you want to be amazed at what the human body is capable of, watch the Olympics gymnastics trials. Think they’ve just started, this is day 1 of the men’s trials (women’s starts…tomorrow? Saturday?) and jeezy creezy…just incredible. Gymnastics, men and women, is definitely my favorite part of the summer games.
TenguPhule
@The prophet Nostradumbass
You fail loony tunes forever.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@TenguPhule: Not really, no. Your history of repeatedly calling for violence against people speaks for itself.
TenguPhule
Republicans are not people.
Elizabelle
Never tire of Lily pictures.
At least she’s not screaming and unbent like the wingers.
Elizabelle
Grateful for a second chance.
So much lying and bad information about the ACA out there.
Great to have a chance to talk fairly about it during an election season when more people are listening.
No idea what the corporately-owned media will do (once they get over salivating over John Roberts’ “Modesty and Audacity”).
But we can do it, personally and working with campaigns.
slightly-peeved
@jl:
We all vote, and the union movement is still a big Bidening deal over here.
Amir Khalid
Wohin sind die Editknöpfe gegangen?
Jeffro
My IGMFU Libertarian brother responded to my “5-4!” text with, literally, “This is bad news for Obama”. Which he actually meant in a non-ironic, non-humorous way.
Bad news like this? Keep it coming!
hoodie
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Yes, reward good behavior. Don’t understate what Roberts did here. Even if you don’t like the way he justified it, it took some balls to do what he did. He now stands to be a pariah in his social group, even though he threw them a bone on the Commerce Clause and the Medicaid expansion. Yes, Citizens United was a shitty decision, but in one week he’s ruled the right way on two huge issues.
WereBear
Preach it, John!
The ONLY reason Wingnuts get away with rotten policy, sociopathic tendencies, and less than appealing personalities is that they are loonily determined to be The Stong One in the room; and yes, it degenerates into bullying, screaming, and frothing, because it is based on madness.
(Not an exaggeration. They are truly not right in the head.)
Now that the Republican Party consists only of Wingnuts, that’s what we’ve got to deal with.
But Liberals can be The Strong One; President Obama sets a great example. We have lofty goals, humanitarian incentives, and are genuinely likable.
We just have to get over this neurotic attachment to perfectionism.
JPL
Nice to know that yesterday’s ruling wasn’t a dream. It’s time to sell the program.
Valdivia
that picture of Lily is perfect. and a-fukcing-men.
I saw an article by Fineman warning dems not to spike the football on this win on healthcare. wanker. now I am going to read the thread see if we gave him a sad.
Earl
@WereBear:
As a recovering Liberal who used to have a “neurotic attachment to perfectionism,” I have to agree.
Lavocat
Yes indeedy. Nothing quite says FUCK YOU to a wingnut like the King Wingnut telling you YOU’RE WRONG!
Chris
@hoodie:
Not the first time a progressive cause comes about via a conservative icon changing his stripes. As I recall from Robert Caro, Lyndon Johnson was a Dixiecrat born and bred for a big chunk of his career before he finally came around on civil rights. And fellow Dixiecrats continued to believe that his civil rights overtures were just a political ploy to get the liberals off their backs for quite a while after they should have known better.
I imagine the shrieks of fury at LBJ from all over the South were very similar to what we’re seeing thrown at Roberts right now.
Valdivia
Another thing to all those idiots on the tv box saying this is bad news for Obama–when you win, and get the thrill of the win it puts a lot of good energy into your cause. Winners feel like winners and the Republicans for all their fire-breathing feel like losers. So like John said: Take the fucking win and use it to fuel the drive to win the election in November.
Donut
@TooManyJens:
I’d argue we won because we coopted their best idea in the mandate. They got tied up in knots over it and their prez nominee enacted it during his only term in elected office…the GOP has been fucked on this issue all along. Certainly the law was in jeopardy, but only because no one knew for sure if Roberts gave a shit about his legacy.
This is known as eating the other team’s lunch, nd drinking their milkshake.
Heh indeed, modesty and restraint. Balls and strikes, bitchez.
Aoh, and I think Obama’s reaction yesterday was pitch-perfect. He stood in front of the cameras and reminded the country why he pushed for the law. That is how you play offense. He owns this issue going forward. I am not worried about handwringing on this one.
Donut
@Valdivia:
Like I said, I think Obama getting on the TV right after the ruling and owning the issue was a great move in terms of setting the tone for additional be discussed through November. The president is going to play offense, it’s up to the rest of Democrats down to get to follow suit.
Valdivia
@Donut:
I agree. Obama is great with it, in spite of all the bellyaching from our own side. I hope us, the troops, and the rest of the Dem team follow his lead.
Baud
@Valdivia:
Agree. It’s what too many of us didn’t do in 2009-2010.
kindness
The way the decisions were written makes me think, along with others, that Roberts was originally voting against it. The losing opinion pretty much shows it was written as the winning opinion.
So when & why did Roberts switch? I suspect recently. What I really think is that Roberts saw Scalia go off the rails on the Arizona decision (bringing in Obama’s 2 week old Executive Order for amnesty) and Roberts wondered if he was going to be the Cheif Justice of the new Dred Scott court. I think he really did not want that. That is what I think made him switch.
Is Roberts liberals friend? No. He’ll screw us like a whore the next time and not think twice. But I think what this does show is that he is sensitive to his place in history. I think we can use that in the future.
Gus
You still don’t get how this works, do you John? It’s in the blood of Democrats and liberals to argue amongst themselves. They don’t do lockstep.
Chris
@Gus:
Infuriatingly but unavoidably true.
It’s easy to do lockstep when you’re a conservative. All you have to do is blame the disenfranchised and wax poetic about an imaginary past. Being a liberal means actually governing and actually solving problems, which intelligent people can disagree about how to do. It means trying to do right for everyone, which means juggling between different communities with different outlooks. It means standing up for unpopular people, like gays or Muslims or the poor, and being willing to alienate those who hate them. Leading liberals is always going to be like herding cats, it’s inevitable and it’s really not a bad thing.
None of which means I disagree with Cole. We won, they lost, and everyone, even the media, knows it. Time to celebrate.
salvage
>I was a wingnut
I’ve been reading BJ since your “rah rah let’s invade Iraq!” days and you were wrong about that and a few other things but you were never a wingnut.
MomSense
Hallelujah, John!!!
My kid gets this.
He sent me these two texts within a few nanoseconds yesterday after the ruling was announced.
“Fucking right!”
“Now let’s win Nov 6”
Yup, this is our time to win this thing!!!
MomSense
@gwangung
Of course we can add the public option and improve the PPACA over time–just like we improved Medicare and Social Security.
We have to fucking win first!
And I mean keep the White House, increase our numbers in the Senate and win back the House. I mean fucking win!!!
This is all we should think about until after the election!
stratplayer
I want this post to marry my daughter, sire my grandbabies, and take over the family business when I die.
Trinity
Fucking-A-THIS.
Is it too early for a cocktail? Dayum.
Tell it Cole.
Ordovician Bighorn Dolomite (formerly rarely seen poster Fe E)
Fucking A brotha, consider me signed up!
MomSense
@Alison
I used to work for an Eastern European gymnastics coach teaching ballet and choreographing routines for his gymnasts.
Best job ever. Every day I got to see those kids do amazing things and they were such funny, tough, smart girls and young women.
It was like Cirque do Soleil every day!
Unbelievable!!
Bulworth
This entire post, every single shrill word of it, is very, very shrill.
Barry
@jl: “And Lily obviously asking Cole, in her doggy way, when they are leaving for Canada, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Netherlands, Taiwan…. someplace anyplace to escape the coming horror and end of FREEDOM.”
Somalia?
Afghanistan?
elftx
@salvage:
I concur he was never a wing nut..I used to wonder how anyone that argued so persuasively in a logical way could not see the truth.
I found it fascinating and it was one of the reasons I kept returning to his blog in the early days.
But wingnut…nah not Cole…blinded by the dim bulb maybe.
Davis X. Machina
@Barry: can’t go to Switzerland — they have a federal purchase-mandate-and-support system.
Barry
@jl: “@LT:
And what the heck is up with Australia? They drink and smoke and eat damn near like USers do.
And health measures in Australia have zoomed. Lie expectancy, healthy years, reduction in loss of potential life to preventable disease. An awesome performance.”
First, walking long distances in the Outback helps keep the weight down. Second, daily doses of venom from the vast array of lethal spiders, snakes, jellyfish, birds and even the common house cat toughen their systems :)
wvng
I just sent this to my local paper (in Moorefield, WV):
To the Editor,
In his “Intercepted letter” on June 13, Bill Hill offered to debate me on politics and the Constitution. Let’s start with Bill’s comment saying: “Show me where he (Obama) or the Congress has any right to monkey around with health care?” On June 28, the Supreme Court said they did. But it is a strange question, like Tea Partiers saying “keep your government hands off my Medicare” … because Medicare is a federal government program. If you have decent health care in America, you should thank the government.
Here’s how people in America get health care/insurance:
1. The Veteran’s Administration provides health care for many honorably discharged veterans of our armed services. This is socialized health care, with government hospitals staffed with doctors and nurses employed by the federal government.
2. Medicare is the federal government’s “single payer” health insurance system for elder Americans, paid for primarily via mandatory federal taxes. Medicare does not own hospitals or employ the doctors who deliver care.
3. Medicaid is a means-tested health and medical services program for certain individuals and families with low incomes and few resources, including about 64% of all nursing home residents. Oversight and funding for this program is shared by the federal and state governments.
4. The government started employer-based health insurance during WWII. Employers that provide health insurance receive a federal subsidy in the form of a tax credit. To get that tax credit they have to follow a number of rules; basically, they can’t discriminate based on pre-existing medical conditions or restrict benefits to highly paid employees. These federal rules and the federal tax credits are why employment-based insurance more or less works.
5. Hospitals that receive Medicare payments must treat anyone who arrives at their emergency room doors, whether or not they can pay. The costs for this expensive unpaid treatment are spread throughout the health care system, with some estimates that $1000 of the average insured individual’s insurance payments go to cover the costs of these uninsured people.
The majority of Americans are covered by the above government-enabled and subsidized health insurance systems. That leaves forty to fifty million of your fellow American citizens either uninsured or underinsured with very expensive and/or very inadequate insurance purchased on the individual insurance market. Many of these people work hard every day, for both large and small companies or in their own small businesses. Many cannot get insurance at all if they have pre-existing conditions. Their insurance rates are very high because, as individuals, they cannot buy coverage as part of a group insurance “pool.”
That changes when the Affordable Care Act (that’s Obamacare) is fully implemented in 2014. Millions of your fellow Americans will purchase good coverage through their state’s new insurance exchange.
Obamacare extends the same government protections and opportunities that already enable good health insurance for people who work for companies that offer health insurance, to the more than 40 million Americans who are not so fortunate. More on that later.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@MikeJ:
You say that as though it were something unusual.
Heliopause
John,
Your post is incoherent. You plead for us to set aside policy preferences and “press the fucking advantage.” As I just said, that’s incoherent. One “presses the fucking advantage” in order to achieve preferred policies. Could you please tell us to what end we are “pressing the fucking advantage” if not to maximize policy preferences?
Are you advocating for a victory lap? Fine with me, but for how many news cycles? When do we get to talk about preferred policies again?
Patricia Kayden
Lily is too adorable to be worrying about abstract concepts like socialism.
“We’re not debating which Democratic plan would have been better, we’re debating the reality of what we have now versus the 18th century version of what Republicans would replace it with.”
The Repubs appear confused. T’Baggers are saying “repeal”, while Romneybot 2.0 is saying “repeal and replace”. Which one is it?
PWL
Well, you may be asking too much.
Liberals have always been good about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by breaking up into factions squabbling about who’s more “correct” and “ideallogically pure,” and refusing to work with those who don’t measure up to their particular standards.
Reminds me of the old W.C. Fields joke: “My father always said he would rather be correct than be the President. Which is why he skipped the White House and went to the House of Correction.” Yes, it seems sometimes liberals would rather be “correct” and lose, than win a substantial victory…
There are times when it would behoove liberals to act more like Republicans and “fall in line.” Like it or not, the Repubs have shown discipline and been very effective at attaining their goals, even if they are crazy…
Beth
I basically had an asshole wingnut ask me the same thing today. He was nasty and bullying, but his main point was,”stop your liberal whining, you won, act like it and go gloat.”
And I realized he was right. So I did.
Raven Overhill
Liberals better press their gains on the ACA, because the Medicaid and Commerce Clause parts of the decision are large losses.
Another such victory and we are undone.
Haydnseek
@AA+ Bonds: Marxism in a nutshell! Well played, sir.
SFAW
Do you mean “policy differences”? ‘Cause I think that’s what Cole’s asking (in part).
Or are you saying that not focusing on Obama’s (perceived) preferences is incoherent?
I think Cole is advocating a form of kicking the Rethugs when they’re down, primarily so that they don’t get up again, and so that Obama’s policy preferences will have less resistance from the (hopefully) whipped curs on the right. I don’t think he’s asking for a victory lap, just asking us/Dems/lefties to keep stompin’ on the Rethugs, by building from yesterday’s decision.
Paula
@LT:
Please. Read the comments and its the same as it ever was. “Welcome to the fascist state!” Because Barack Obama has done something very few Dems have, which is rack up victories over Republicans on almost every issue from foreign wars to health care.
Barack Obama had the temerity to want to win like the Republicans have been winning for so long. Win so that other people these FDL motherfuckers actually like might also win down the ticket and as the years go on, which became more likely now that so many more Americans will have health care over time. How dare he try to win first!
Leeds man
Press the fucking advantage.
Someone should edit the New Testament and replace John 3:16 with this.
Chad
woo! woo! *runs through brick wall*
JWL
Cole: That you believe “liberals” constitute the greatest impediment to a functional democrat party, I submit, is a holdover from your former life as a reactionary dick.
LT
@Paula: I was pointing to the article only, which was pretty damn conciliatory.
LT
@Barry: Funny. But I think something to remember is that about 140% of the population lives within walking distance of the ocean, and swimming and surfing and such are done by a really high percentage of the people hee. (Like, 110%!)
I really think it has something to do with it.
Moorcat
I would point out that there is little in the ACA to actually effect the cost of health care or limit the Insurance Agencies from screwing us blind. In fact, they are already doing it. If you Dems sit on your backsides and let your oppurtunity slide by, everyone will be hurting something fierce. This is your start. The Court validated the idea of national health care. Now make the ACA into something that DOESN’T resemble an Insurance Company payday. If you fail, it is only because you never tried. 80% of America wants to see American Health Care fixed.
Suzanne
@jl: OMG, I LOVE this!!! I live in wingnut country and have wingnut relatives. I can’t WAIT to tell them that!!!!
Suzanne
This post is absolutely brilliant. Thank you!!
Richard Bottoms
“Let’s go kick a little demon ass.”
~ Spike, BtVS
Phoenix Woman
@Chris: The thing is, the Commerce Clause and N&P musings of his aren’t legally binding — or as Justice Ginsburg herself said of them in the decision, “not outcome determinative”. They may not even be dicta, just Roberts spouting off.
So they didn’t even get that.
Here’s what they got: The dubious right for wingnut governors to beat their own citizens over the heads with hammers.
By refusing to expand Medicaid — and let’s see how long that stance lasts should the hospital lobby, which helped keep these same states in line to take Medicaid in the first place, truly get into gear — they are telling their residents “go ahead, move to Vermont or some other blue state that’s in danger of losing a congressional seat in the next couple of decennial censuses and give them more political clout”.
That much-touted Sunbelt/Red State migration? The housing market’s collapse put the brakes on that already. This would put it fully into reverse.
different-church-lady
@Steve:
Fixed. For you. That.
BarryNash
Clearly some of you celebrating so hard live in states where the medicaid aspect is a non-issue. It will be in Tennessee. There are forces in our state, among others, with Republican legislatures and governors, (plus in our case, a massive and powerful private health insurance and healthcare industry located in Nashville), who will fight and likely win the fight to say no to the increased Medicaid money just because they can. They will not pass up a chance to stick it to the poor–because they can. Same as dogs.
different-church-lady
Repaired that for you.
Quoted for ‘effen truth. If only people understood that they are actually getting protections in return for the mandate they would not be so resistant.
This is not the law exactly the way I would want it, but it is very much better than I would be without it. I did not know this until I had direct experience with the Mass. system. Why? Because Mass. did a horrible job of explaining it.
Bill Stewart
Sharpening my Knives.
different-church-lady
Meanwhile Cole hits the frontpage of the GOS, and makes the offerings of the regular contributors look like cheap tradeshow swag in comparison.
Jim in Chicago
I’m a little late to the party, but I just posted a diary on Kos on IMHO the perfect health care ad for Obama: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/30/1104732/-The-perfect-Obama-ad-on-health-care
(Please “recommend” if you like it.)
Yahzi
@LT: Same here – I emigrated 2 yrs ago. But I still have family in the USA and am so happy they might someday enjoy the benefits of civilization.
You are right on, John. Take the 1st down and keep playing!
donnadiva
The Medicaid aspect of the SCOTUS decision is a big problem for us in Red states. My state, Arizona, is one that sued against the ACA and now they’ve been given an out to reject having to put more people on Medicaid. These mouthbreathers turned down a federal unemployment extension in 2011 that would have cost the state nothing. They refused on the grounds that UI makes people lazy and unwilling to take any job that comes along (AZ has the lowest UI benefit in the nation) and that it would add to the federal budget deficit.
There is no point in relitigating the health care bill. The only thing that will save the health care access of millions of people in red and purplish states is to elect as many Dems as possible to state legislatures in the next TWO elections.
AxelFoley
Awesome rant, Cole. I needed a cigarette after that.
And I don’t even smoke.