All the more reason the repukes will be working overtime to steal the election with voter suppression, vote machine rigging, and any other underhanded trick they can devise. Democrats and Independents need to wake the hell up, realize the horror, and do something about it.
Otherwise, we’ll see a replay of 2000 and 2004. It will be the third term of Shrub and the makeup of the court will be a drag on this nation for decades.
Yep, it’s important. It wasn’t until Bush v Gore that I paid attention to SCOTUS with regard to presidential elections. It just didn’t register. I am often overwhelmed when I acknowledge the many things I don’t know, the many things I don’t see, the many things I don’t understand.
My grandson from Portalnd is in town, his brother who now lives in New York City arrives tomorrow. I am going to spend some time with my kids and grandkids! We’re going to laugh a lot. 🙂
Me too, fnord. The uneasy feeling that I don’t know what I don’t know.
There are things I know, and I know I know them. Like the sun rising in the east. Then there are things I don’t know, and I know I don’t know them. Like how to fly an airplane or trigonometry.
But then, the vast majority of the universe consists of things I don’t know, and I don’t even know that I don’t know them. That’s the space where real life takes place.
Yeah, I know. I need to get off the farm more often. I have waaaay too much time to think!
You know I have many favorite quotes because someone has always said it better than I could and before it ever even entered my head. Maya Angelou said: We did the best we knew how, and when we knew better, we did better.
I didn’t look it up so I’ll admit that might be a paraphrase by me, but close to her actual quote if so.
Everyone remember that being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition!
Now, we need to get busy working on the long-term plan of Medicare for all! I don’t expect it to be easy or quick. Maybe not in my lifetime but hope springs eternal.
Finally, a Kansas Democrat with some courage to tell the truth.
From Huffpo:
“Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican who in the past has rejected federal funds for an exchange, remains unwavering in his opposition to the health care law. Brownback, who as a U.S. senator voted against the legislation in 2010, has instead said that he expects Mitt Romney to be elected president and roll back the law.
“The Brownback Administration continues to oppose ObamaCare and will not take any action to implement it,” Sherriene Jones-Sontag, a Brownback spokeswoman, wrote in an email on Thursday. “This is now a political issue that will be resolved by the American people in the November elections.”
Kansas state Rep. Mike Slattery (D-Mission) attacked Brownback’s stance. “It’s ridiculous, the Brownback administration is showing that ideology is above following federal law,” Slattery said. “As a Kansan I’m furious. He is breaking federal law and that is politics at its utter worst. It is embarassing and utter nonsense. I say grow up. You are governor of one of the 50 states and you’re acting like a child.”
Why the individual mandate IS NOT the most massive tax ever in the history of history… (This must be screamed in a screeching voice to make it sound really really scary). 😉 Anyway, back to one of the many reasons this screamed screeching simply isn’t true. —
“The tax imposed by the individual mandate amounts to either $695 or 2.5 percent of household income for those who don’t have insurance and are not exempt based on income levels. By comparison, the payroll tax cut extension Republicans repeatedly blocked earlier this year would have added 3.1 percentage points to the tax and cost the average family $1,500 a year.”
It is becoming a concern to me, with the economy going badly and the numbers of unemployed and companies failing and downsizing. People will need a reason and it can be so unreasoning as to whom they blame. Fox News will not help since it is in their best interest to pander and to generate resentment towards President Obama.
Romney will be so served by this unreasoning fear and resentment though he is at the very least no more able to bring back a good economy. People when they are desperate lose common sense and reason and look for someone else to blame.
I don’t disagree with anything you said, except the ‘concern’ part. I know there are teapublicans, faux ‘news’ sheep, racists, single-issue voters (gawd, guns, gays), and a bunch of sore losers who were always going to vote for ANYONE BUT OBAMA. They still will, and some of them with greater intensity — maybe they’ll punch the touch screen harder. 🙂
Now, would you like to talk about women, minorities, the educated… ?
Well I could take a stab at it…. I don’t always understand them….when they say a person of color I wonder which color they are refering to since I have none seen anyone who was clear? Everyone is educated either through some school or life and it all depends on the subject as to whom is the smartest?
In the opening paragraphs of Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion, he clarifies that the law specifically does not involve a tax. If it did, Roberts clarifies, the Court would have had no choice but to reject the case for lack of jurisdiction as a tax case cannot be brought until someone is actually forced to pay the tax. This finding does not reduce the individual mandate to the status of a tax—it merely says that as the penalty for failing to purchase health insurance will fall to the Internal Revenue Service for collection was something Congress could provide for under it’s Constitutional authority.
Have you heard the Conspiracy theory that is being touted as GOP talking point #______? Chief Justice Roberts wrote the first 39 pages as a rejection of the constitutionality of the ACA but then the rest of that ruling is where Roberts ‘flipped’ to the side of Liberals and Roberts (now the most hated Conservative man in the world) ruled the incorrect way and made the ACA Constituito9nal.
Of course, a shock jock has another conspiracy – Roberts taks seizure mediations for peilepsy and this medicaiton is responsible fo he irrational thinking that went into Roberts’ vote to uphold the ACA.
Hey – Glenn Beck even has a new product item out for sale – for $30 you can buy a t-shirt with Chief Justice Roberts’ face with the word COWARD under it.
Is this really what America has sunk to for our politics?
And at the end of the day – I just listened to a firefighter who is risking his life to save the houses, businesses and peoples’ lives but yet he cannot get health insurance like some of the other firefighters.
Is this REALLY what America is about??
I also just heard Rush say that Speaker Boehner called him last Friday and told him that the House GOP focus is on repealing Obamacare – not repeal and replace – just repeal..
Again, I ask, is this the kind of America we want ?
The question is rediuant I am sure, my question is did it get this bad because of Fox News or simply with the start of that channel finally there was a place to be an idoit instead of a bar on Friday night?
I don’t think republicans should expect to win elections until they have an electable candidate with ideas, solutions and policies. Being the party of no, being against everything and having nothing to be for isn’t gaining votes.
Plus, it would help if they knocked off this Mean Girls Club stuff. Seriously, is there any Republican that has one working brain cell and a working heart?
LOL I am sure present comany is excluded…Through intense medical and drugs I have bith a working heart and a brain cell that seems to be firing a little better as the days pass. I am still the queen of England right?
It is so refreshing to read comments made by those who have read Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion. FWIW, the Anti-Injunction Act is why the penalty (which the first year is the greater of $95 or 1% of taxable income) is not a tax qua tax. For purposes of Constitutional analysis, it is. At this point, a reader may wonder whether CJ Roberts’ opinion cited Alice in Wonderland; it does not.
I’ll do my best. If the penalty is indeed a tax, as we commonly think of a tax, the Anti-Injunction Act (an obscure Federal law) would apply. The Anti-Injunction Act prohibits any action being brought on a tax until the tax has been paid by the plaintiff, which would be 2014. If the Act would have applied, SCOTUS could not review the case; no court could. However, the primary focus of the litigation was the power of Congress to enact the Individual Mandate under the Commerce Clause, which is reviewable.by a court. As we know, there were five members of SCOTUS who held Congress did not have this power. The Individual Mandate, which appears to be the necessary part of the ACA to work, would therefore fall.
The penalty, however, while not a tax as such is imposable by Congress under its taxing power expressly granted under Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution. Beginning with the License Tax Cases decided a few short years after the Civil War, SCOTUS has found that the power to tax also included taxing to regulate commerce; prohibitive taxation and tariffs as a form of protectionism, in addition to levying a tax or taxes for the sole purpose of raising revenue. The penalty was found to be a form of prohibitive taxation (think taxes on cigarettes to discourage smoking), which then permitted review of the constitutionality of the Individual Mandate by SCOTUS.
The reference to Alice in Wonderland was my attempt at a bit of humor. The reference should have been to Through the Looking Glass where Humpty Dumpty says to Alice “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
That bit is often found in the reported cases, and every law student has read these words many times. My only excuse for the mis-citation is the stroke; that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. 🙂
I omitted by inadvertence an important part. Roberts spent the time establishing the penalty as not a tax for purposes of the Anti-Injunction act in order to make the taxing power argument without opening the door for litigation based upon “it’s a tax”. This demonstrates the overall brilliance of his opinion. Not only did he find a way to uphold the Individual Mandate, he did it in such a manner that forestalls the opportunity to make the easy arguments against the Act in the future.
PrairiePopulistsAndProgressives.net 
All the more reason the repukes will be working overtime to steal the election with voter suppression, vote machine rigging, and any other underhanded trick they can devise. Democrats and Independents need to wake the hell up, realize the horror, and do something about it.
Otherwise, we’ll see a replay of 2000 and 2004. It will be the third term of Shrub and the makeup of the court will be a drag on this nation for decades.
Yep, it’s important. It wasn’t until Bush v Gore that I paid attention to SCOTUS with regard to presidential elections. It just didn’t register. I am often overwhelmed when I acknowledge the many things I don’t know, the many things I don’t see, the many things I don’t understand.
My grandson from Portalnd is in town, his brother who now lives in New York City arrives tomorrow. I am going to spend some time with my kids and grandkids! We’re going to laugh a lot. 🙂
I hope you have a great time with your family. It’s a good thing that you cherish those times. They will, too.
Have a great time!!!!
Me too, fnord. The uneasy feeling that I don’t know what I don’t know.
There are things I know, and I know I know them. Like the sun rising in the east. Then there are things I don’t know, and I know I don’t know them. Like how to fly an airplane or trigonometry.
But then, the vast majority of the universe consists of things I don’t know, and I don’t even know that I don’t know them. That’s the space where real life takes place.
Yeah, I know. I need to get off the farm more often. I have waaaay too much time to think!
You know I have many favorite quotes because someone has always said it better than I could and before it ever even entered my head. Maya Angelou said: We did the best we knew how, and when we knew better, we did better.
I didn’t look it up so I’ll admit that might be a paraphrase by me, but close to her actual quote if so.
Okay, I just had to look it up.
“We did the best we could with what we knew, when we knew better, we did better” — Maya Angelou.
Just to lighten things up a little, I saw this on DU and just had to laugh. They were, of course, referring to yesterday.
“Today was GREAT. The GOP was a fire hydrant and we were all puppies with bladder control issues.”
HA!
Everyone remember that being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition!
Now, we need to get busy working on the long-term plan of Medicare for all! I don’t expect it to be easy or quick. Maybe not in my lifetime but hope springs eternal.
Finally, a Kansas Democrat with some courage to tell the truth.
From Huffpo:
“Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican who in the past has rejected federal funds for an exchange, remains unwavering in his opposition to the health care law. Brownback, who as a U.S. senator voted against the legislation in 2010, has instead said that he expects Mitt Romney to be elected president and roll back the law.
“The Brownback Administration continues to oppose ObamaCare and will not take any action to implement it,” Sherriene Jones-Sontag, a Brownback spokeswoman, wrote in an email on Thursday. “This is now a political issue that will be resolved by the American people in the November elections.”
Kansas state Rep. Mike Slattery (D-Mission) attacked Brownback’s stance. “It’s ridiculous, the Brownback administration is showing that ideology is above following federal law,” Slattery said. “As a Kansan I’m furious. He is breaking federal law and that is politics at its utter worst. It is embarassing and utter nonsense. I say grow up. You are governor of one of the 50 states and you’re acting like a child.”
heheheh
I said this yesterday – and I’ll say it again – let Pastor Sam get his mega church to pay for all those people that are uninsured.
Let’s just tell everyone to go any of the mega-church owned hospitals and/or clinics in Kansas and just say – put my charges on Pastor Sam’s tab.
In fact – let’s call it that – Pastor Sam’s Club??
Why the individual mandate IS NOT the most massive tax ever in the history of history… (This must be screamed in a screeching voice to make it sound really really scary). 😉 Anyway, back to one of the many reasons this screamed screeching simply isn’t true. —
“The tax imposed by the individual mandate amounts to either $695 or 2.5 percent of household income for those who don’t have insurance and are not exempt based on income levels. By comparison, the payroll tax cut extension Republicans repeatedly blocked earlier this year would have added 3.1 percentage points to the tax and cost the average family $1,500 a year.”
Hey dude you will feel so much better if you try Preperation H!
It is becoming a concern to me, with the economy going badly and the numbers of unemployed and companies failing and downsizing. People will need a reason and it can be so unreasoning as to whom they blame. Fox News will not help since it is in their best interest to pander and to generate resentment towards President Obama.
Romney will be so served by this unreasoning fear and resentment though he is at the very least no more able to bring back a good economy. People when they are desperate lose common sense and reason and look for someone else to blame.
I don’t disagree with anything you said, except the ‘concern’ part. I know there are teapublicans, faux ‘news’ sheep, racists, single-issue voters (gawd, guns, gays), and a bunch of sore losers who were always going to vote for ANYONE BUT OBAMA. They still will, and some of them with greater intensity — maybe they’ll punch the touch screen harder. 🙂
Now, would you like to talk about women, minorities, the educated… ?
Well I could take a stab at it…. I don’t always understand them….when they say a person of color I wonder which color they are refering to since I have none seen anyone who was clear? Everyone is educated either through some school or life and it all depends on the subject as to whom is the smartest?
I agree with you again about the many ways we become educated.
Now – this is funny. Maybe some enterprising entrepeneur could set up shop with this phrase…..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/29/martin-omalley-health-care-mandate_n_1637581.html
In the opening paragraphs of Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion, he clarifies that the law specifically does not involve a tax. If it did, Roberts clarifies, the Court would have had no choice but to reject the case for lack of jurisdiction as a tax case cannot be brought until someone is actually forced to pay the tax. This finding does not reduce the individual mandate to the status of a tax—it merely says that as the penalty for failing to purchase health insurance will fall to the Internal Revenue Service for collection was something Congress could provide for under it’s Constitutional authority.
Have you heard the Conspiracy theory that is being touted as GOP talking point #______? Chief Justice Roberts wrote the first 39 pages as a rejection of the constitutionality of the ACA but then the rest of that ruling is where Roberts ‘flipped’ to the side of Liberals and Roberts (now the most hated Conservative man in the world) ruled the incorrect way and made the ACA Constituito9nal.
Of course, a shock jock has another conspiracy – Roberts taks seizure mediations for peilepsy and this medicaiton is responsible fo he irrational thinking that went into Roberts’ vote to uphold the ACA.
Hey – Glenn Beck even has a new product item out for sale – for $30 you can buy a t-shirt with Chief Justice Roberts’ face with the word COWARD under it.
Is this really what America has sunk to for our politics?
And at the end of the day – I just listened to a firefighter who is risking his life to save the houses, businesses and peoples’ lives but yet he cannot get health insurance like some of the other firefighters.
Is this REALLY what America is about??
I also just heard Rush say that Speaker Boehner called him last Friday and told him that the House GOP focus is on repealing Obamacare – not repeal and replace – just repeal..
Again, I ask, is this the kind of America we want ?
The question is rediuant I am sure, my question is did it get this bad because of Fox News or simply with the start of that channel finally there was a place to be an idoit instead of a bar on Friday night?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/29/glenn-beck-sells-t-shirts_n_1638229.html
I don’t think republicans should expect to win elections until they have an electable candidate with ideas, solutions and policies. Being the party of no, being against everything and having nothing to be for isn’t gaining votes.
Plus, it would help if they knocked off this Mean Girls Club stuff. Seriously, is there any Republican that has one working brain cell and a working heart?
Forgot to add the most important thing – an ounce of integrity.
LOL I am sure present comany is excluded…Through intense medical and drugs I have bith a working heart and a brain cell that seems to be firing a little better as the days pass. I am still the queen of England right?
It is so refreshing to read comments made by those who have read Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion. FWIW, the Anti-Injunction Act is why the penalty (which the first year is the greater of $95 or 1% of taxable income) is not a tax qua tax. For purposes of Constitutional analysis, it is. At this point, a reader may wonder whether CJ Roberts’ opinion cited Alice in Wonderland; it does not.
Okay, you’re going to have to speak down to me, try an 8th grade level. I don’t understand what you said. 😦
I’ll do my best. If the penalty is indeed a tax, as we commonly think of a tax, the Anti-Injunction Act (an obscure Federal law) would apply. The Anti-Injunction Act prohibits any action being brought on a tax until the tax has been paid by the plaintiff, which would be 2014. If the Act would have applied, SCOTUS could not review the case; no court could. However, the primary focus of the litigation was the power of Congress to enact the Individual Mandate under the Commerce Clause, which is reviewable.by a court. As we know, there were five members of SCOTUS who held Congress did not have this power. The Individual Mandate, which appears to be the necessary part of the ACA to work, would therefore fall.
The penalty, however, while not a tax as such is imposable by Congress under its taxing power expressly granted under Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution. Beginning with the License Tax Cases decided a few short years after the Civil War, SCOTUS has found that the power to tax also included taxing to regulate commerce; prohibitive taxation and tariffs as a form of protectionism, in addition to levying a tax or taxes for the sole purpose of raising revenue. The penalty was found to be a form of prohibitive taxation (think taxes on cigarettes to discourage smoking), which then permitted review of the constitutionality of the Individual Mandate by SCOTUS.
The reference to Alice in Wonderland was my attempt at a bit of humor. The reference should have been to Through the Looking Glass where Humpty Dumpty says to Alice “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
That bit is often found in the reported cases, and every law student has read these words many times. My only excuse for the mis-citation is the stroke; that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. 🙂
Hope this helps a bit.
Yes, and I thank you. I know it’s difficult for you to make it simple enough for me to understand and I always appreciate your efforts!
Harder still would be to get a right winger to understand, or at least to admit it and let go of their talking point.
I omitted by inadvertence an important part. Roberts spent the time establishing the penalty as not a tax for purposes of the Anti-Injunction act in order to make the taxing power argument without opening the door for litigation based upon “it’s a tax”. This demonstrates the overall brilliance of his opinion. Not only did he find a way to uphold the Individual Mandate, he did it in such a manner that forestalls the opportunity to make the easy arguments against the Act in the future.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/06/malware-targets-windows-macs/
OK, folks, I’m doing my geeky duty tonight. I want you all to consider how others might exploit this.