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For the honor of Washington State, let me state for the record that our Attorney General Rob McKenna's joining in the Anti-Healthcare lawsuit is his personal idea, not that of the governor or of the majority of our congressional delegation, which voted for the bill.
Whether the federal Supreme Court will find any merit in that lawsuit is the simple fact that there is precedent for just about every proposition you can imagine. This is a result of having laws written in natural language, which is intrinsically wobbly, and a 200-year-old pile of precedent which to quote-mine.
Further complications come from the fact that this is one of the most activist Courts in our nation's history, one which overturns legislation and precedent at near-unprecedented rates. It may therefore be a waste of time to consider legal issues as to whether there is precedent for the individual mandate; IMO that is the least important consideration to this Court.
I don't like the individual mandate much, although it appears necessary to making the thing work. Had Congress chosen to impose a tax with 100% credit for insurance premiums, it's difficult to see any reasonable court challenge.
Here's one for the burgeoning police state:
'DeKalb brothers indicted on eavesdropping charges' http://www.daily-chronicle.com/articles/2010/03/22/91459218/index.xml
Police can record you, but you can be arrested on Class 4 felony charges if you try to record them.
I think Rodney King was glad that someone 'eavesdropped' on his beating by four cops in LA.
@harry, I think you're absolutely right, they will try to change to metric. No matter, as we close on the horizon, shoot for the moon, reach for the stars and travel to distant galaxies. ;-)
I think all Obama has to do to keep congress under the control of Democrats now is to start a strong debate on WallSt regulation. Even if they don't get it passed, they can still say, "Everyone said we wouldn't get health care passed, we did, and we'll get regulations passed too!"
Just start the debate, that's all that's needed. Of Course corporate America will react like a bee hive hit by a rock, money will flood the airwaves, but I'm quite certain, voters will (for the most part) see through that noise.
ACORN highlights the dishonesty of one plank in the Republican agenda. They maintain that government intervention in the public sector results in a decrease in voluntary public action or donations. If only the government would stay out of charity the community will rally to help those in need. ACORN was the embodiment of voluntary public action helping guide underpriviledged and uninformed citizens toward better circumstances. ACORN's mistep was to take on Republicans indirectly by registering voters that would most likely vote for Democrats.
"Nearly Naked Gardener Gets Noticed! Boulder Exposure Could Lead to Tighter Rules"
www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20000933-504083.htm
I only wish I had written the headline.
@Nels re:As I said yesterday and reiterate, we got an inch, lets keep working for the mile (and when we get close to that, we’ll adjust to the horizon)."
When we get close to that, they'll switch to metric! - harry ashburn
I still want the Public Option, and I want to see Medicare age dropped, automatically every year by at least one year (essentially everyone will get two years closer every year, at that rate). I think the government could absorb those enrollment numbers easily.
I doubt any of it will happen, but I also know it never will if its never asked for.
Also, in regard to another one of those gender-bender so-called studies that Thom mentioned yesterday (this time out of that bastion of intelligentsia, New Zealand), what women say and what they do are usually two different things—or at least they better hope they do. I saw some of the altered photos used for comparison between the “masculine” and “feminine” look. The men with the “feminine” features looked more like 14-year-old boys, just like all those 14-year-olds who are the love-objects of 34-year-old blond-haired school teachers we keeping reading about. Maybe a more useful comparison is men with money, or not.
As I said yesterday and reiterate, we got an inch, lets keep working for the mile (and when we get close to that, we'll adjust to the horizon).
The conservative notion of job choice and "employers competing for workers" only make sense in a climate with zero unemployment. If people don't even have one option for employment, how can that be called choice?
If I want to change my Health Insurance Company (if I have one) I need to find another job that will take me and offer me the Health Insurance Company I want.
Mr. Lott if you think that's reasonable or practical, I'm certain you need to get to a hospital right away so they can dislodge your head from your butt!
@Mark k. Yeah, poor ACORN, the embodiment of neighborhood empowerment. Many groups will continue under other names, but I'm sure their power is greatly diffused. Great examples of the bass-akwards thinking or memes the MSM (Main stream media) can engage. Another great example is the downfall of Dan Rather and the GWBush AWOL scandal. The allegations were true, and everything points to GW's motive was to avoid a drug test. The media preferred to assume it was a hoax. Im not defending Dan Rather as a journalist, but still he got screwed without justification over that.
"I'm the master of low expectations." -george w. bush
The problem with trying to make a distinction between mandatory car insurance and mandatory health insurance is that it also highlights their similarities. People who drive don’t “plan” on getting into an accident. Why should they pay auto insurance? But they do have accidents, usually from their own fault or someone else's. Why do people have to pay insurance? Because if someone is injured, maybe seriously and for life, there will be acute cost to all involved. Due to “unforeseen” circumstances, a person may face tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars in compensation payments, and the victim may face months, years or a lifetime of disability. In these circumstances someone has to pay, and someone has to receive (people who don’t drive should not assume they are immune from this dynamic; after all, they have to cross the streets that cars use, and every so often a pedestrian is injured or killed by drivers making right turns while looking left).
It’s the same thing with health care. Young people may think that they will never get sick, but that is because they don’t foresee it. They make choices that effect their health, like eating fatty food, boozing or walking when they should be running (or vice-versa). And when they do get sick, and if they can’t pay for it, somebody else does. Or if nobody pays, the health care provider doesn’t get compensated, and this hurts everyone’s ability to receive affordable health care.
The left needs to forcefully point out the incongruity in the Republicans’ opposition to a plan that actually attempts to cover actual costs. The current proposal at least makes an effort to insure that what is used is paid for. The right would rather have people who either can afford health insurance but won't pay for it , or those who can't afford it, wait until they get so sick that the clog emergency rooms and pay for little or none of it (or die before they get there)—and nobody else is, either. Bill McCollum, the state attorney general for Florida, exclaimed that the provision that mandates insurance to the immortals or forces states to cover more of health care cost amounts to "a tax or a penalty on just living, and that's unconstitutional. There's no provision in the Constitution of the United States giving Congress the power to do that." That didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but no, it’s a foul if you get sick and you don’t want to pay; even Bernie Sanders supported that concept when asked on Thom’s show a couple of months ago. The health care industry—as opposed to the health insurance industry—should be doing a little more as a purely financial matter in supporting the bill, as flawed as it is.
The schizophrenia of so-called “blue” states was on display yesterday when the Washington state attorney general, who is a Republican, decided to ignore the wishes of the Democratic governor and legislature, and the state’s voters, by joining the red states in filing a lawsuit against the health care bill. Meanwhile, those on the hardcore progressive side wouldn’t mind seeing this plan fail altogether in favor of a mythical "Plan B.” We would all prefer some sort of public option. The question is does it have enough support now, even in the House, where a limited public option passed by one vote in its original bill. I have to be pragmatic as well as a bit cynical about these things. After all, racism will never die in this country, despite Thom's downgrading of it; all I have to do is walk outside to know that.
President should have done a bait-and-switch and signed The Conyers version.
I heard an announcement on NBC declaring it was “restarting” a series called “The Fleecing of American” by “Big Government.” Funny how the corporate-owned television never digest the fact that their masters are the de facto “government” in this country. Meanwhile, ACORN announced it was closing its Illinois and national offices, due to lack of funding since the “fraud” committed not by ACORN people but by a fanatic named James O’Keefe. In this case, the so-called mainstream media can be blamed for taking part in an aggressive assault on the Voting Rights Act, deliberating giving a malicious and possibly criminal fringe-right frat boy element the airtime, “credibility” and power to engage in deliberate voter suppression. And even after the “Louisianagate” scandal that we’ve heard nothing about since the day that story broke, the New York Times repeatedly ran stories disparaging ACORN even though an investigation showed that the video tape made by O’Keefe was plainly doctored and over-dubbed. Not that this is anything new; after all, the mainstream networks refused to investigate or acknowledge the blatant minority voter suppression in Florida and Ohio.
Regarding constitutionality of the mandate,
If no one has pointed this out yet, there IS a precedent for the government forcing people to buy something. In the Supreme Court case Wickard v. Filburn, Filburn was a farmer who grew wheat in excess of what the Agricultural Adjustment Act permitted, and the government demanded that he stop. He challenged his right to grow his own wheat for his own personal home purposes and not for sale on the market. The government challenged that right precisely because if he was growing his own wheat, he was not buying wheat from others (essentially hoarding and not participating in the market.) So in essence, the government forced him to purchase wheat. The ruling extended the purview of the commerce clause so greatly that, according to Wikipedia:
"Wickard arguably marked the end to any limits on Congress's Commerce Clause powers. The Court's own decision, however, emphasizes the role of the democratic electoral process in confining the abuse of the Congressional power, stating that, "At the beginning Chief Justice Marshall described the Federal commerce power with a breadth never yet exceeded. He made emphatic the embracing and penetrating nature of this power by warning that effective restraints on its exercise must proceed from political rather than from judicial processes.""
I think the important part of this is the language Marshall used regarding only political, NOT judicial restraints, which I would *assume* would mean that the courts have essentially no way to strike down legislative powers assumed under the Commerce Clause.
I'm not saying it's not insurmountable, but a conservative lawyer friend of mine actually gave me this information and it was his belief that essentially no legal scholars consider this to be unconstitutional, and most judges and lawyers understand the Commerce Clause to be extremely broad and very powerful.
Maybe someone in the know can add to this thought! Here's the wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
On line 8 the word "tast" should be "test" as in test case
Question for Thom & listeners
How can a citizen, State govt or political party challenge the new law's provision that citizens buy insurance now if that part of the bill doesn't go into effect for several years? (2014)
I was under the impression a court could not act until a crime or wrongdoing had ocured or in the case of this new law, until that part of it goes into effect and affects a citizen
On what grounds can a tast case be brought for a part of this bill that won't go into effect for four years?
@Frank Feuerbacher -
Well, console yourself with this, from Katie Couric's 60 Minutes piece on Rahm last night -
No White House Chief of Staff has ever held that position for 4 full years.
I wish that we had demanded the head of Rahm Emanuel in exchange for Health Care. This would have both given us health care and would have flexed some liberal muscle and made Obama a little more progressive.
Getting ready for a long depression!
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/135909
@ ZeroG -
NO!
Ya buzz killer.
:)
(Holy Cow! Am I sarcastic today, or WHAT??!!)
JSOC Interests Snag Plan to Free Afghan Detainees
Sunday 21 March 2010
by: Gareth Porter | Inter Press Service
http://www.truthout.org/jsoc-interests-snag-plan-free-afghan-detainees57865
******************************
Now that the health care side show has abated, with questionable results, can we remember that torturers still walk amongst us? That we are still responsible for massive death abroad?
Just asking...
@ Nels
Sadly, I must confess I was just pulling the collective leg with my "Heard on the radio" - travel agent gag. My innocent ears could never endure the long term harm that would result from listening to an undiluted dose of the grand pooh-ba of double-ditto-talk.
Ed